I Love You (Ennotana)

Chapter 3

Once break was over, it was time to go back to school, and start a new season of volleyball, where Ennoshita Chikara takes over as captain, and to his joy and surprise, Tanaka as vice captain.

It was the first day of school and Ennoshita was walking alone. He hardly slept the night before because of the pain in his chest, and when he finally felt comfortable, he got into a coughing fit, with flowers escaping his mouth. When that was over, he had to quickly discard of the petals to hide the fact that he was slowly dying over some stupid boy. He let out a sigh, and instead of breathing out normally, he felt like his chest started to close up, and more petals scattered on the path he was walking. "Hopefully no one saw that." he thought to himself as he continued walking.

"Heyyyyy Chikara!" A voice called now approaching him. It was Nishinoya.

Ennoshita felt a sense of fear come to him. He didn't know how long Noya was behind him, and if he was not following him long, there was a chance that Noya could have heard and saw what just happened.

"H-hey Noya," Ennoshita called back. "You know you don't need to shout right?"

"Hmmm, true," Noya replied. He was distracted by the ground. There were random petals scattered around, but no source of orange flowers, and cherry blossoms had a light pink tint to them.

Noya stopped walking, causing Ennoshita to take a pause. "Do you know where these flower petals came from?" Noya asked, pointing at the orange petals.

"I uh don't know what you're talking about," Ennoshita responded shakily.

"Well they couldn't have come from nowhere, and wouldn't you be confused as to why there are orange flowers on the ground, but yet there aren't any orange flowers to be seen?"

"Well uh yeah that's true-" Ennoshita said, now avoiding eye contact.

"So you don't know where these petals came from?"

"Nope," Ennoshita responded. Hopefully he sounded convincing enough to full Noya.

However, Noya didn't sound convinced. He narrowed his eyes, "You do know where these petals came from. So where did they come from?"

Ennoshita let out a sigh, and in a weak voice he answered truthfully. "They came from me."

"What does that mean?" Noya asked.

Ennoshita tried not to choke, "I mean they came from inside me." He was pointing at his chest.

"If you don't mind me asking, who caused this and how long?" Noya asked softly, eyes wide.

"It started sometime during second year. To be honest, I'm surprised I lasted this long but it hurts so much sometimes I feel so weak." There was a pause to cough up flowers. "And as for who, it doesn't matter. He doesn't love me. He only has and only will ever think of me as a friend."

"You never know, he might change his mind," Noya said.

Tears threatened to leak out of his eyes. "But I know he won't. He likes someone else. And possibly loves them. And if he does love her, and he is still fine and healthy, that means she loves him and they actually have a chance to be happy. And even if I were to say something,nothing would change. At the end of the day, she would still go to him, while I just sit and watch and pretend to be happy for them." Tears and petals were coming out.

"You're probably just overthinking this, and everything will turn out fine," Noya said, as he tried to reassure Ennoshita one last time.

"Then tell me if Tanaka is in love with Kiyoko."

Noya didn't say anything. He just looked at him and hugged him. More petals escaped Ennoshita.