HaruGou: Remember Me

Part II. "Present"

Gou returned to her childhood home the next day.

Hoping to be welcomed back with open arms, she instead, watched her mother dash past her previously hospitalised daughter and straight into the arms of her new husband.

"Haruka-kun, is everything alright...?!"

Gou eyeballed the awkward, one-sided embrace with an almost comic sense of betrayal.

"O-Okaa-san...!"

As promised, Haruka had drove her over first thing in the morning.

And as he cooked her breakfast, helped her load and unload her suitcases from the car, he did not utter a single word of what had conspired the day before.

He let the bitter atmosphere hang around them purposefully, an ominous cloud or elephant in the room that he chose to not acknowledge even though it was virtually impossible not to.

Gou wished he didn't do that.

She wished that he would yell at her, tell her how he really felt and make her feel even worse than she already did.

But he did not say a word to her, nothing that wasn't necessary.

Instead, she found herself waiting patiently for his attention, all morning and even up to now, watching him politely decline her mother's invitation to stay for lunch before taking his leave.

He didn't even turn to look at her as he made his way back to the car, the final stab in the chest that caused her to call after him desperately:

"Haruka-senpai...!"

He stopped in his tracks, only by the slight tugging he felt at the back of his shirt.

His stare was so glacial that Gou had to avert her eyes, but still held steadfastly on to the edge of the material.

She wasn't used to it yet, that unreadable expression of his as always; spurring a curiosity within her that wanted to know every single thought that went through his mind.

Was it always like this with him?

Did he make everyone feel this way?

She could spend a lifetime trying to figure him out, she thought.

He turned to her, slowly and even a little reluctantly, because both of them knew he had things that he wanted to say but neither wanted to hear them out loud.

He stilled and finally, she lifted her head: her eyes clashing with glittering blue, staring down at her intently, like he was taking in every detail of her.

A stray strand of hair blew across the bridge of her nose and just as she was about to reach up and tuck it behind her ear, found Haruka's hand ready at the action himself.

But in the end, he did not touch her.

He spun his heel, leaving her patently without words.

"See you," was all he had to say.

---

Haruka put the car into gear and made it down the road and one left turn before he had to pull over because he could barely think, let alone drive straight.

But he knew he had to get as far away from his wife as possible, before turned the car around and said something stupid and lost her for good this time.

So the next thing Haru knew, his foot was flattening the gas pedal to the floor and he was bulleting down the highway at an illegal speed limit.