The Hunt - Choso Kamo

9. feelings

Since the day she found out choso's real name, her phone had started ringing at odd hours. Always the same, an unknown number flashing on the screen, the silence on the other end when she picked up. She didn't need to ask who it was. She knew.

It was him.

Each time, she let it ring longer than the last, as if expecting him to say something, to explain himself. But he never did. He stayed silent, just like the secrets he carried. A part of her wanted to change her number, to cut off that strange connection, but another part of her, the one she couldn't explain, wanted him to keep calling. It was maddening.

Her thumb hovered over the answer button each time, torn between curiosity and fear. What would she even say to him if she answered? She had been replaying that moment in Yuji's hallway over and over, the shock of realizing Caleb had lied to her, that the man she thought she was beginning to trust had been hiding more than just his name.

Yet the calls kept coming, and she let them. Some nights, she stared at my phone, willing it to ring, as if hearing the sound would bring clarity to this mess. Other nights, she wished it would stop, so she could pretend that choso, or Aku, or whoever he was, was just a figment of my imagination.

Shecouldn't confront him. Not yet. Not until she understood why it hurt so much that he'd lied. And so, the phone would ring, and she'd ignore it, knowing well who it was, knowing well that she wasn't ready for the conversation waiting on the other side.

That night, y/n stood in front of the canvas, paint still wet and streaking down like tears. Her hands ached from hours of work, but as she stared at the piece, frustration boiled inside her. The painting was wrong, no matter how much time she poured into it, no matter how many strokes she layered over one another, it wasn't enough. It didn't capture what she was feeling. It didn't capture him.

With a sudden, reckless surge of anger, she grabbed the edge of the canvas and tore it down, the fabric ripping with a harsh sound that echoed in the room. She stood over the destroyed artwork, breathing heavily, her heart racing in time with the adrenaline. The wreckage of the canvas mirrored the chaos in her mind, the confusion she had been trying to outrun for days.

Her eyes drifted across the room, unfinished canvases were stacked against the walls, each one representing a moment when she had tried to create something only to stop, unable to continue. Each one a testament to how lost she felt.

She leaned against the wall, her hands shaking, the scent of paint thick in the air. The exhaustion from both her failed attempts at painting and the emotional toll of the last few weeks weighed heavy on her.

And then it hit her.

It wasn't the painting that was the problem, it was him. It was Choso.

She couldn't focus, couldn't paint, couldn't think clearly because of him. Every time she picked up her brush, her thoughts inevitably wandered back to that night, to his lies, to his eyes that seemed so honest yet held so many secrets. He was all consuming, and she hated it. Hated that she couldn't shake the way he made her feel.

Y/n sank to the floor, staring at the torn canvas, the pieces of her frustration scattered around her. She had been denying it for days, burying the truth beneath her anger, her confusion, and her attempts to paint it all away. But now, alone in her room, with nothing left but the broken pieces of her art, she finally realized what she had been so afraid to admit.

She had feelings for Choso.

Despite the lies, despite the betrayal, despite the fact that she barely knew the real him, she couldn't stop thinking about him. He had wormed his way into her thoughts, her art, her life, and now... her heart. And no matter how much she wanted to deny it, to destroy the feelings like she had destroyed the canvas, she knew she couldn't.