Truths Only Reveal My Secrets (1/2)

"Mura-san, wait!" Spotting her in the hallway, I quickened my pace to catch up to her. "If you don't mind, we could clean that classroom together..." She didn't turn around...probably didn't hear me. But before I could repeat myself...

"Mura-san! I love you!"

Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. When did he suddenly reappear?!

"H-huh? Who was that?" Mura-san's unmistakable voice echoed through the hallway. I tossed my broom aside and started running toward an empty classroom. "Is it you? Wait! Where are you going?"

Sorry, Mura-san... I resisted the urge to scream and shout and cry as I threw myself into a tall locker in the back of the classroom and locked the door.

Today was going so well. From my morning classes to lunch, to the end of the school day, I somehow managed to keep my emotions in check and my pesky clone never showed up. But the peace and quiet made me overconfident, so I decided to abandon my plan to avoid Mura-san during the school cleaning. I'd heard that she was going to separate from our group to clean a certain classroom, so I thought I'd offer to clean with her, but then...

Tentatively, I peeked through the slits on the locker door. Mura-san approached gingerly, her eyes full of confusion. "Excuse me...are you in there?"

"Yes," my clone replied without missing a beat, "Right here."

I saw him cover his mouth with his little stuffed hand, but it was too late. Mura-san rushed over and put a hand on the locker door. "Hey...what's wrong?"

"I just confessed to you in a really embarrassing way, and now I'm too nervous to come out of this locker," he replied, his voice cracking as he spoke. No, stop it! Stop telling her everything I'm thinking...change the subject! Change the subject!

Mura-san's eyes widened in surprise. She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. I didn't blame her - what could she say in this situation?

Please buy some time, I tried to communicate telepathically with my clone. Tell her to help me get my broom or something. Anything to get her out of the room.

"M-mura-san, I dropped a broom at the other end of the hall. Could you please help me get it? Thank you..." Thank god he heard me. Mura-san frowned in even more confusion, but she nodded, seemingly glad to get her own break from the situation. "Sure...give me a moment." She turned and walked out of the classroom, and my clone and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

I touched the cold walls of the locker, my head spinning as I peered through the slits in the locker door. I took deep breath after deep breath, desperately trying to calm myself down, but that pesky being still buzzing around in front of me wasn't making it any easier.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. I didn't think it would turn out like this..." My clone whispered, my panic reflected in his monochrome eyes.

Calm down, calm down... I closed my eyes and counted as I controlled my breathing. 1, 2, 3, 4...

"Okay," I murmured, "let's go over the current situation. Mura-san doesn't know it's me. She probably thinks you’re just some random guy from school..."

"What if we just escape right now?"

Once again, my clone echoed the thoughts in the very back of my mind that I’d been trying to ignore. If I run away now, I won’t have to deal with this situation. Mura-san will never know it was me, and it'll be like nothing ever happened...images of her bright smile flashed through my mind. From the time she helped me pick up a dropped eraser, from the time she helped me to the nurse's office after I tripped in PE class, from the time she offered to group with me on the school trip when I ended up as the odd one out in my friend group...

"No." I decided, my resolve hardening. "I can't just leave Mura-san like that. But one other thing..."

I'm going to think of what I want to say to Mura-san word for word, and you're going to repeat that exactly as I thought it, okay? I instructed my clone.

"Well...I'll try," my clone responded as he propped himself onto my shoulder, "but I can't promise a word for word rendition. If there are any lies in your thoughts, I'll involuntarily translate them to truths...I don't really have control over it."

That'll have to do, I grumble in my mind, let's try to work together properly for once.

Just then, Mura-san returned to the classroom. "Um, hello? I’m back with your broom. Is everything okay?"

Through the slits, I saw her eyebrows furrow slightly in concern. She brushed a few stray bangs out of her eyes and came closer. Now that I think about it, Mura-san really is something else. Who else would go out of their way to get a broom for a strange, unknown person who just confessed their love to you and is now hiding from you in a locker? If it were me, I would probably have taken the chance to run away.

Okay, clone, I thought, here's what to say: Mura-san, you're too kind for checking up on me and even helping me out. Sorry for bothering you in the middle of cleaning! I'm alright, you can leave me now.

"Mura-san...I've totally screwed up this confession. I-I know you're talking to me out of pity, and that I should ask you to leave. But being the pathetic and selfish person I am, I want you to stay..." That is NOT what I thought! I gave my clone a death glare. Though it was my fault for trying to follow unspoken social rules through an anti-filter of my thoughts, wasn't it.

Mura-san seemed taken aback by my honesty, but she shook her head vigorously. "That's not true! I'm not talking to you out of pity, nor do I think you're pathetic." She sighed and put a hand on the locker door. "I...think you're being very brave, actually. Manly, even."

Mura-san thinks I'm manly. The moment that thought wormed its way into my mind, I could almost hear the way air was rapidly being pumped into my balloon of an ego. I searched my mind for the right words to describe this feeling...that's right. Guilty pleasure.

"Ah-! That was a weird way of saying it," Mura-san suddenly interrupts herself, putting a hand over her mouth. Cute. "It's just that...I've seen so many girls tell stories about 'nice guys' who just stick around but never admit their feelings, but somehow expect the girl to reciprocate. It's great that you're not that type of person, ahaha," she laughs a bit stiffly.

"Sorry...I'm just a bit nervous. This is my first time being confessed to," she admitted, lowering her head.

Perhaps it's common knowledge that nothing good can come out of being self-deprecating to someone you want to please. But right now, all I could do was lay my thoughts bare in the best words I could find.

It's okay, Mura-san. Thanks for being so nice to me, but I'm really just a coward who can't even come out of the locker to face you.

Thankfully, my clone echoed my thoughts. My heart leapt, torn between relief and anxiety.

Mura-san looked up to the slits, meeting my eyes. I instinctively looked away, afraid that she would somehow recognize me. "That's okay! It's completely valid for you to feel embarrassed. Um, I mean, I'm not saying you did anything embarrassing..."

It's okay, Mura-san. I totally did do something embarrassing.

"...it's just that, we all have moments when we want to hide from the world, and I don't think it's wrong to act on them."

But hiding from my crush just makes me a coward, doesn't it? Even though I was sort of forced into this situation... I looked down at my feet. I wasn't even the one who actually confessed to her. If Mura-san knew the truth, would she still think I was brave and manly?

I didn't need to think twice for the answer.

Surely not.