𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕣𝕦𝕚𝕥𝕪 // ℍ𝕚𝕘𝕙&𝕃𝕠𝕨 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕎𝕣𝕠𝕤𝕥

3.

"Haruka..." Doka said confused, when she approached me and my mother, she was still wearing her school uniform and was dragging her bike beside her.

"Hi..." I said completely embarrassed.

My mother looked closely at her and then realized. "You're the girl in the pictures!"She seemed delighted to remember Doka, even though she only saw it for a short while before I took it down from the wall." Did you guys become friends after camp?"

Doka finally seemed to notice my mother and greeted her.

"Without formalities, I'm Kana, Haruka's mother."

"Nice to meet you, my name is Madoka..."

"Ah, what a beautiful name!"  My mom was so excited, I bet her cheeks hurt from smiling so much.  "Can I call you Doka?!"

"Mom!" I said completely embarrassed, because I know how much Doka hates that.  But she just agreed out of politeness.

"Sorry, did you ask something?" Doka, was acting different, speaking softly and slowly.  Like she was acting.

I, on the other hand, was nervous, I couldn't stop moving my hands and scratching the skin at the corner of my fingers with my fingernail.

"About the photography camp. Haruka didn't say she made a friend, she said she didn't keep in touch with the people at there."

My mother asked me days after she and my father returned home, which school the boys in the photo went to and if I still spoke to them.  I said it was a school far away, whose name I didn't remember and that's why I didn't keep in touch.  On the same day, I took the photos off the wall and said that I took them to school as a way to complete my work.

"Um... I... I was referring to the boys, Madoka goes to the same school as me..." Doka looked at me and I tried to beg her with just my eyes, for her help.

"Of course, we are... great friends! We just went camping together."

"Wow! Haruka is very private, I tell her to make friends and she keeps ignoring it, but it looks like she finally did it! You seem like a great person Doka!" With great person  my mother meant, person like us, of a high class .

"Mom, why don't you order at the restaurant? I'm just going to talk to Madoka for a bit." My mom nodded and headed towards the restaurant, so happy to see me interacting with someone else and not a book.

When my mother was out of sight, I said, "Doka I can..."

"MADOKA!" She yelled, back to being her usual Doka. "And you don't need to explain."

"Please let me explain!"

"Explain what?! That all this time you've been acting weird because your parents came back and you didn't tell me?!" She yelled, gripping the bike so tight her hands turned red.  We're on the sidewalk and there aren't many people passing by, but you can feel the eyes of people inside the stores on us. "That you lied about studying hard and lied to your parents about your friends?!"

"You don't understand!" I said already feeling tears forming in my eyes.

"No! I don't understand! I trusted you and I thought you trusted me!"  I tried hard not to let the tears fall, I wanted to be strong, I wanted to say that I lied just so that it wouldn't happen.