Chapter XXVIII - Something Worth Breaking For (V)

For a moment, all I could do was stare, wondering if my overwrought mind had conjured her from thin air—this avenging angel with scarlet hair and ice-blue eyes who had already saved me once without meaning to.

But no—she was real. She stepped into the room, the door sliding shut behind her with a soft click that sounded impossibly loud in the silence that followed my aborted playing.

"What are you doing here?" I hoarsely demanded.

She was so cautious, like I was some... wild animal that would attack at the slightest provocation. Her gaze shifted from my tear-streaked face to the piano, then back again.

"Kanzaki... sent me." She hesitated before stopping a few feet away. "He saw you leave class... and said you looked like you needed someone."

"And he sent you?"

"Yes. He did."

I sensed the hurt in her voice, layered by "annoyance."

I was being too sharp, but I couldn't stop myself. The pain was still too raw. I gritted my teeth. She pissed me off by being near me with that fake condescension.

"Kanzaki should have come himself. He shouldn't have sent you."

"..."

"...How did he know I'd be here?"

"He said you'd be where you felt safest," she replied simply. "And that it wouldn't be the roof today."

The observation was so unexpectedly insightful that I found myself wondering, not for the first time, what else Kanzaki noticed from his silent vantage point at the back of the classroom. How had he known? How had he seen through me so completely when even Akise, my oldest friend, seemed blind to the depths of my despair?

And why had he sent her?

She took another step closer, her gaze drifting to the piano keys still exposed.

"You were playing."

It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway.

"I was trying to."

"Why did you stop?"

I closed the fall board over the keys with more force than necessary, the sound cutting through the room like a gunshot.

"None of your business."

"I heard you crying."

My face burned in shame and indignation.

"So what? Are you enjoying the show? Poor little Kagami, having a meltdown in the abandoned music room?"

"Don't be stupid. I didn't come here to mock you," she shot back.

"Then why did you come?" I stood from the bench, putting myself at eye level with her. "Because Kanzaki asked you to? Out of pity? Or is this just another opportunity to point out how pathetic I am like you always say?"

Minazuki-san's eyes narrowed.

"You're the one who's pathetic right now. I don't give a crap if you were crying, but you're acting like a child."

"Me? A child? That's rich coming from someone who punches people when they don't get their way."

"At least I don't hide behind fake smiles and pretend to be fine when I'm falling apart." She gestured to the piano with a sharp flick of her wrist. "I heard you playing. You were good. Then you stopped and started crying like the world was ending. What I don't understand is why."

"You don't understand anything about me."

"Then explain it! Stop hiding behind vague statements and actually say something real!"

Her hair shook and it felt like it was glowing red from her intensity. The sight was enough to make me want to stop speaking, but the sword of rage was too strong.

"Why should I?!" My own voice escalated to match hers. "We're not friends. We're not anything. You've made it very clear that you want nothing to do with me. So why do you suddenly care now?"

"I don't know! But here I am, trying to help you, and you're being a complete ass about it!"

"I don't need your help."

"Clearly, you need someone's." She took another step closer, invading my personal space with such boldness that made my heart race. "Play the piano."

"What?"

"You heard me. Play. The. Piano. You obviously want to, or you wouldn't be here. So play it."

"No."

"Why not? What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid," I lied.

"Prove it."

"I don't have to prove anything to you."

"So you are afraid," she concluded, a triumphant gleam in her eyes that made my blood boil. "The boy who stood up to Midou, who stands on rooftops, who willingly takes punishments for others—he's terrified of a piano."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then enlighten me! Tell me why you're so terrified of an instrument that you were just playing!"

"I told you, it's none of your business!"

"It became my business when Kanzaki sent me to check on you. It became my business when I found you sobbing over this thing like it killed someone you loved."

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

"Get out."

"No."

"I said get OUT!"

"AND I SAID NO!" She crossed her arms over her chest, immovable as a mountain. "I'm not leaving until you finish playing what you started!"

"Why do you even care?! What does it matter to you if I play or not?!"

"Because this is obviously important to you, and you're letting fear stop you. It's pathetic."

"How could someone like you even possibly understand?"

She flinched at my sudden coldness.

"You, with your perfect life, your fancy apartment, your parents who can afford to ship you across the world when you become inconvenient—what would you know about loss? What about you know about pain?!"

Her eyes widened, then narrowed to dangerous slits.

"You think you know me? You think you know anything about my life or what I've lost? You don't have a monopoly on suffering, Kagami!"

"Then explain it to me! Tell me what terrible tragedy has befallen the princess in her ivory tower!"

"I won't understand if you don't tell me," she rifled back, "so either stop crying about it, man up, or explain why you're so scared of that piano!"

"I'm not scared of the piano! I'm scared of what it means! I'm scared of remembering! I'm scared that if I start playing again, I'll have to admit that she's really gone, that she's never coming back, and that I've spent five years hiding from the one thing that connected us!"

I admitted it. I finally freaking admitted it. I hadn't meant to say so much, to reveal even that small fragment of truth. But once started, the words had poured out like blood from a wound.

Minazuki-san's expression shifted subtly. Her anger gave way to something more... complex.

"Who's gone?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It obviously does."

"Just leave me alone. Please."

"No." She moved to stand between me and the piano, forcing me to look at her. "You don't get to shut down now. You started this. Finish it."

"Why are you pushing this? Why can't you just let it go?"

"Because you're being a coward, and I can't stand cowards."

That stung.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I'm talking about. You're hiding. From the piano, from whatever memories it brings up, from whatever pain you're carrying. And it's making you weak."

"I'm not weak!"

"Prove it. Play the damn piano."

"Stop telling me what to do!" I was shouting again, past caring who might hear. "You're insufferable! You waltz in here acting like you understand everything, like you have all the answers, when you don't know the first thing about me or my life!"

"WHOSE fault is that?! You've never once been honest with me! All this time, you've been this—this smiling puppet, this perfect class rep who never says no to anyone, who never shows a real feeling! At least when I'm a bitch, I'm an honest bitch!"

"Is that what you want? Honesty? Fine! You're an insufferable, entitled, self-centered bitch who thinks her pain is the only pain that matters!"

Her hand moved faster than I could track, the slap connecting with my cheek precisely where my father's blow had landed the day before. Pain exploded like a grenade across my face as the gauze tore free, exposing the raw, purpling flesh beneath.

I grabbed her wrist on instinct, jerking her forward until our faces were inches apart.

"Is that your answer to everything? Violence? Can't win an argument, so you might as well throw a punch?!"

"Let go of me," hissing, eyes like blue fire.

"Or what? You'll break my nose again?"

She squirmed in my grip like a vicious hyena before she slammed a fist sideways in my chest.

"Hands off! You're pathetic! You think you're the only one with problems? The only one who's lost someone? The only one who's afraid of their own talents?"

"What would you know about it? Your voice is perfect! You sing like an angel! What would you know about being afraid of the one thing you used to love?"

"I know EVERYTHING about it!"

The scream tore from her throat, a sound unlike anything I'd heard from her before—raw, primal, painful.

"I know what it's like to be in the shadow of someone else's talent! I know what it feels to be told you'll never be enough!"

Her foot lashed out, catching me in the shin. I didn't release her wrist, but as I staggered back, I pulled her with me. We stumbled, a tangle of limbs and fury, until my back hit the piano and we both went down in a graceless heap. She landed on top of me while her scarlet hair fell in a curtain around our faces. We were both breathing hard, faces flushed with exertion and emotion. My hands had somehow found her waist, steadying her, and hers were braced against my chest.

I felt everything.

Her slim yet curvy body, her long legs, her luscious pink glossy lips, her heaving chest pressed onto mine...

She was pretty. Beautiful even. She was the most beautiful girl I've ever laid my eyes on.

I'd always known that objectively, but now, with our faces inches apart, with her weight on me, with the warmth of her seeping through our uniforms, it became unbearably real. My heart pounded in my ears, blood roaring with adrenaline and something more primal.

Something like... desire.

She was so close. Too close. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath against my face, could count the individual lashes framing those blue eyes. Close enough that I could see that her irises weren't solid blue but ringed with darker cobalt at the edges, like the deepest parts of the ocean meeting the shore.

Her weight on top of me should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't.

And we inched nearer...

And nearer...

"Um... I'm not interrupting anything... am I?"