Youthful Days (Book 1)

19. Confession

A scream ripped through her throat.

Ayuna stumbled backward and collapsed onto the wooden floor. She tried to blink the vision away, yet the grotesque image in the mirror remained. Even in death, the girl in the mirror was breathtakingly beautiful. Although she looked several years older, Ayuna still recognized herself in that lifeless body: she was dead.

In the ghostly darkness, a pair of hands suddenly took her by the shoulders. Ayuna shuddered from the gentle touch. When she looked up again, the uncanny apparition had dissolved. All but instinctively, she reached out for the hands that removed her from a vacuum of illusions.

Fuji lifted Ayuna off the ground. Her face was white as sheets and she was trembling uncontrollably. When Ayuna realized who her savior was, she instantly backed away, unable to face him.

"Did something happen?" he asked.

Shaking her head, Ayuna tried to keep her voice steady. "I'm okay."

"It didn't seem so from the way you screamed."

She bit her lips. If he treated her silence as an affirmation, then so be it. There was no way for Ayuna to explain the vision that matched her recurring nightmare—especially not to Fuji Shuusuke. He would think she was deranged.

"How did you find me?" she asked, diverting the subject.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. I simply focused on going in the direction of the scream and stopped every so often to check."

"Sorry to make you go through all that trouble."

"I don't need your apology," Fuji shot back, anger tangible in his voice.

They stood in the roaring silence for a minute before he spoke in the same cold voice, "You didn't have to come, you know?"

Ayuna blinked.

"You didn't have to say yes to Sengoku just because he's older."

"Excuse me for sounding rude, senpai," rebuked Ayuna, "along with Momoko, you didn't exactly make it easy for me to get out of this."

"I'm not the one who made you agree to go out with Sengoku in the first place."

Ayuna was stunned. She couldn't believe Momoko had passed this information to Fuji, and she couldn't believe how unforgiving he sounded. "It was a lapse in judgment. I tried to fix it with Sengoku before Ryoma's game, but you came along with Momoko and Momoshiro..."

"That's what you were doing?" asked Fuji, a hint of surprise in his voice.

"Yes."

A heavy silence filled the space between them again. Releasing a weary sigh, she said, "In any case, we'd better find our way out of here. Otherwise, we'd have to come up with an explanation for everyone."

"And why would we have to explain anything?"

Ayuna stared at Fuji in the dark, hoping that the sheer exasperation in her eyes reached him. Trying to keep her voice even, she demanded, "Aren't you here with Momoko on a date?"

"I guess that's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Pausing deliberately, he moved closer to her, "Does it bother you?"

Ayuna felt his deep blue gaze on her face. Her heart hammered in her ribcage while her thoughts bounced from Momoko professing her love for Momoshiro to her sudden interest in Fuji. No longer able to identify truths and lies, her head swam in a sea of confusion and frustration.

Aloud, she said with resignation, "Does it matter? I have no right to meddle or criticize anyone else's choices."

"That's just like you, Ayuna, all logic and good manners." Fuji sighed with some disappointment, "Are you always going to be this reserved around me?"