Life Made Anew

14: Friends

During their stay at Kamino's vacation home, Maki finally became good at swimming. Kazama hardly rested until she was proficient at it. She was so excited when she was able to swim on her own.

But the next big thing that happened was unexpected. "Teach me one of Chopin's Etudes."

Kamino was shocked at Maki's ardent (enthusiastic) question. Seeing her excited expression, Kamino didn't want to bereave (deprive) her of this opportunity.

"Fine, I'll teach you. This will be a good opportunity for us to grow closer as well."

Maki was ecstatic. It didn't last long.

"Let's wait until we return home though. Let's spend our last day here having fun."

Maki put on a puppy-dog face to try and guilt her into doing it. "Oh, come on, Maki! That's not fair."

She tried making it look cuter. Kamino still turned her down. "Fine, I'll just wait."

"Thank you. Let's just have fun at the beach."

Kazama and Hotaru finished making dinner. Fried fish, freshly caught by Kaname and Tomoru. Sakura was just messing around on the piano while everyone was busy.

They had a wonderful time eating. Everyone had grown very close, and the girl, who everyone thought they would eternally hate, became one of their best friends.

"Hey, guys, I have an impromptu surprise for you all because it's the last day we're going to spend here."

"Why impromptu?" Tomoru asked.

Sakura asked, "What is impromptu?"

"Basically, it means unexpected," Kaname answered.

"It's impromptu because I just scheduled it on the fly while we were here. Things happened that I didn't expect."

She gestured everyone to follow her outside. "Come on, it'll start soon."

When they walked outside, it wasn't five minutes before fireworks started shooting off. They were beautiful, utterly breathtaking.

Kamino's original plan failed, but these contrived (obviously planned) fireworks sealed off the gift to her new friends. "Thank you all for accepting me, even though I originally intended to separate two of your friends. These fireworks were my gift to you."

"Aw... You're so sweet." Sakura gave her a big hug.

"Seeing how you changed, about a week ago, made me think that you really were a nice girl. Before then, I was hidden behind the notion that you wanted to break Kazama and Maki," Tomoru added. "Now, the you that I saw before this trip is gone and has been replaced with the you that I see today."

"Tomoru..."

"T-the you that I saw brought out a s-side of Kazama that I never saw b-before, but seeing you s-scared of him, it showed me t-that you weren't as s-strong as you m-made yourself out to be." Hotaru went back to her stuttering self after recalling what she saw then. "I started to trust you after that, but I d-didn't like what you were t-trying to do. It has changed now."

"Hotaru..."

"I'm with Hotaru on that last part," Kaname said while pushing his glasses up. "But I saw through your façade (mask) from the beginning. I new that you weren't as strong as you made yourself out to be, that you were weak and scared of losing Kazama to Maki. Oh, how good you were at hiding your emotions from others!

"You were constantly sad and hide behind your mask to make yourself seem happy. Kazama, the man you loved, and still love, never took notice. But when he talked to you a week ago, you broke that mask of yours, and let your true self show. You aren't entirely sad anymore, but you aren't distraught either."

"Kaname..." Kamino started tearing up.

"Hey! You shouldn't make girls cry, Kaname," Sakura said with vehemence (intensity).

"No, Sakura, he's right. I'm not crying out of sadness. I'm crying at how true, and beautiful his message was to me. Thank you."

"Oh, all right. I guess it's my turn. I never really talked to you, or even saw you much, at first. All I heard was what everyone else told me about you. I thought of you as horrible, but I wanted to meet you and judge for myself.

"After I met you, you were really nice, but you weren't the girl I know now. To be honest, I like the you now more than the one I saw then."

"Sakura... Why is everyone being so nice to me right now?" Kamino asked, wiping tears from her eyes. "I don't deserve any of this. I was an awful person before."

"But you're our friend now. What you were then doesn't matter to us. Not even me, the victim of your schemes." Kamino looked up and saw Maki over her, with a hand on her shoulder. "I was skeptical about your change at first, but I quickly saw that you really did change. Like Sakura said, this you, the real you, is better than the cocky, bratty, old you, who considered herself entitled to Kazama."

"Even you, Maki..." Kamino was crying tears of joy. "Thank you all so much. You have no idea how much you mean to me now. I love you all like you were my family."

"They say home is where the heart is, so if your heart is with us, we are your family at heart," Kaname said.
—
Here's an idea. What if I made it to where Kamino was faking being nice to make them her "friends"? I'll end this chapter here and let you all decide if that would be good or not.