Blue Spring Tragedy | Kou Mabuchi x Reader

27: Answer

They stared at each other. Each unsure, each uncomfortable, but each cradling a desire to talk.

Kou was left outside the infirmary, standing awkwardly by himself. He spotted his group of friends walking down the corridor to visit Futaba, but he warned them to leave her alone before they could say anything. The girls needed time to themselves. Time that they couldn't have. Time to settle what should have been done long ago.

The noises of students and chatter blurred outside the door, a barrier between the world of the carefree and the world of the troubled. Futaba slid back into her bed, resting her head on the flat pillow. She patted onto the space beside her. (F/n) awkwardly sat there.

A tense silence pursued.

None knew what to say.

The painful silence remained.

(F/n) glanced from the floor to the white sheets of the bed. She couldn't hear Futaba's shuffling as her mind was cluttering with rapid-fire worries.

"How are you feeling?" (F/n) began, unsure of what else to say. Her voice was low and hesitant, but her eyes spoke of genuine care, even though it flickered for a moment, then died like ember.

"I'm feeling better," she replied softly. Another silence was about to fall upon them, but Futaba made sure it did not curtain them yet. "Thank you for standing up for me," she started, blush rising to her cheeks.

"It was good exercise for my legs," (F/n) replied. Her awkward joke left a bitter taste in the air. But it was a joke so bad, so horrible, that Futaba couldn't help but laugh at it, reminded of her younger days.

Tears were brought to her eyes. Of course she laughed. She had to!

(F/n)'s cheeks turned red. "We were sitting for so long, I had to get up! I couldn't sit there forever. Plus, you were leave you there like that anyway, bullied by sensei and all..."

Like a prince in shining armour, Futaba thought, envisioning the girl in a princely suit. She wasn't surprised that it matched.

Another smile crept onto her face. Though (f/n) was a side character in their middle-school play, (f/n) thought that she should have been the prince. Instead, a confident, charismatic boy played that role. Yes, he may have had the charms to win the audience, but he did not have the heart that Futaba believed (f/n) possessed.

"So... what were you upset about?" (F/n) asked, no longer pouting.

Futaba waited for a rush of anxiety. One of worry that made her want to shrink into the sheets. One that made her voice tremble, her palms sweat.

She waited.

But nothing came.

Instead, a surge of confidence coursed through her. Kou had said that nothing could be changed until she took action. Nothing could move forward. No one could win this game of chess.

Until now.

"I stumbled upon an old diary yesterday," she began, folding her hands onto her lap. "In it, I wrote about you. Of course I did. You were a big part of my life. I wrote down the things we did together, even had some photos of what we did. Including the one where you took a photo of me drooling," (F/n)'s (e/c) eyes flashed with recognition. "Glad you remember."

"It was your fault for watching that drama the night before," she answered swiftly, as if she could remember the exact moment when she took that photo. "And yet you were surprised that you failed that test."

"You barely passed!"

"Still, I passed."

Futaba crossed her arms. Her friend mimicked her.