5

What was that all about?

Mio’s walk back from her New Year’s shrine visit was hounded by one single thought.

Even when she got home and relaxed in the bath, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She had never known Izumi Eita to get that emotional. She never even thought he could get angry.

He was clearly very upset, and he started saying something. But then, he suddenly looked so hurt, and he walked away, leaving Mio at the shrine.

She ended up walking home all alone.

But really, what the heck was all that about?

She didn’t know. And since she didn’t know, she couldn’t relax.

“Man, this sucks…”

Mio collapsed on her bed face-down. It didn’t make her feel any more comfortable, but having another topic to focus on and think through had long dissipated the irritation she had been dealing with earlier. She had regained her composure, more or less.

She could think through everything Eita said without feeling a tsunami of negative emotions. Okay, it still did annoy her, but only a little.

“It’s not like he had to say all that…”

She had even admitted to being the one at fault. She was at least that self-aware. But she couldn’t stop herself from countering when Eita laid out the truth for her. The fact that he was right made her even more abject in her denial. She didn’t have any other defenses.

But why was he so concerned about it?

Mio figured it’d be best to leave well enough alone. She doubted she’d try to step into someone else’s one-sided crush. She didn’t have that kind of confidence.

So, why…

“Maybe he was worried about me…” She said the first thought she had out loud. Putting it into words really made it sound convincing.

Her first reflex was to try and apologize. Opening up LINE, she tapped on Eita’s name.

”…”

But the truth of the matter was that he had really run his mouth, and she couldn’t find a genuine apology in her.

“Really, he should be apologizing to me.”

She tossed her phone to the side of her pillow, blankly staring at her phone cover.

The last LINE messages she had received were from a random friend.

She had no idea how things went between Haruto and Hazuki. They hadn’t said anything.

Unease continued to spread throughout her body.

“This really, really sucks…”

End of Chapter 3