Stumbling Over Love | ✓

Chapter 54

_Chapter 54~ Betrayal_

         You know those moments where you find yourself in a surreal situation, desperately wishing you were dreaming. That's why you begged to be woken up in order to feel reassured that everything was fine?

Well, no matter how long I waited, no matter how long I stood there, stiff, not breathing, in shock, I didn't wake up. I couldn't close my eyelids and peel them apart to be staring up at my ceiling, reminiscing about the fabulous date I'd spent with Ryu.

Instead, when I pried open my eyelids I was stuck looking at the face of my best friend, surrounded by the puppy-eyed delinquents I was familiar with, uttering incredulous words that could only zoom past my ears.

"How did your date go?" Daichi went on, simpering when he'd seen us flinch. "I figured if you weren't going to tell me potential things I could use as blackmail I might as well follow you guys around."

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Daichi cocked his head back towards the delinquents hovering around him. In that moment, he seemed to fit so well with them.

"It's so cute how Reina cares so much about friendships, right?" Daichi snorted. "Always trying to be the bigger person. As if people can be that simple. Satoru over there understands what I'm saying, right? That with just a few simple words you can ruin somebody's life."

Ryu's grip around my hand loosened considerably. Still as can be, my lungs ached for a means of air. When I couldn't hold my breath any longer and began to suck in gasp after gasp—as if following the coordination of my erratic heartbeat. I didn't even realize I was hyperventilating until Daichi's laughter resounded in my ears.

"It's so freakin' ironic, Satoru! Sure it was apart of our plan, but you just allowed yourself to get close to somebody else thinking you could be happy again? After you ruined Mamoru's life?" Daichi's laughter became more hysteric as he smirked from ear to ear. "As if! This kind of thing only haunts a human being until they die."

Daichi was guffawing at seemingly nothing, wrapping his arms around his stomach in his exaggerated humour.

"Sure it was an accident spurned from the delinquents at a different middle school but it's still because of you that Mamoru even went to that area! Alone! And yet you still have the audacity to feel sorry?" Daichi wryly sniggered yet again. "You put on that fake persona, change your name, try your hardest to keep people away from you—then what? You thought that would magically wish away your past? That as long as you didn't try to be happy—get close to anyone—you couldn't hurt anybody else the way you hurt Mamoru? What utter bullshit, Satoru. Please tell me you realize what an ass you are for thinking that."

All this information was gibberish to my mind. Daichi's lips moving, I caught that, but the words he was saying—they made no sense to me. But it was clear he wasn't acting like himself. He wasn't the same nonchalant dork I typically had grown so fond of. And he'd seemed to know stuff about Ryu that was making the said guy to look as if his entire world had tumbled apart.

"D-Daichi." His name had left my mouth before I knew it, my breathing unsteady and ragged. His laughter stopped abruptly, and with his face suddenly void of any emotion, he turned my way. Though jittery all over, my voice trembled as I spoke, "th-this is all j-just a sick j-joke, right?"

I didn't know what I was hoping for, but Daichi certainly didn't deliver. Once again, his shoulders began to jostle as loud laughter yet again left his mouth.

"A joke?" Daichi only seemed to guffaw harder at the idea. "You're seeing this as a joke? Then again I guess you are seeing the asshole in front of you as an innocent and sweet human being so I'm not surprised your entire viewpoint is warped."