Date Her Instead Vol. 4

Chapter Two: Lies And Truths

The only thing Kanako Nakatomi was able to do was sit in silence. Haruna was gone, running away so quickly that Kanako had never stood a chance of stopping her. Even if she had been able to, what would she have said? The shock of Haruna's confession had robbed her of her words.

"Haruna... is in love with me..." Kanako kept repeating those words, over and over in an effort to convince herself of what she had heard. "There's no way..." she said. "It can't be..." Her follow-ups rang hollow. In Kanako's heart, she knew it was true. Haruna, the girl that Kanako had grown up with, the girl that had fought with her numerous times and claimed to hate Kanako, the girl that Kanako became friends with again...

The words had been spoken so clearly, so loudly, there was no denying what she had heard. Haruna had confessed. She had poured her heart out to Kanako and laid her feelings bare, all in the hope of changing her mind about Akio. While there was a lot to process, there had been one part that Kanako could easily understand: the pain on Haruna's face and the tears she cried were from the heart. "She really meant it..." Kanako thought. "But..."

But what? There was something more to that thought. Some amount of doubt. Questions needing to be asked. Maybe even some unnamed feelings. However, it was impossible for Kanako to pinpoint it exactly. She was stuck on Haruna's confession, as it kept replaying in her head. She had no idea how to face it. No matter how she looked at the situation she was in, Kanako couldn't call it a normal confession. It had been yelled. It had contained an insult.

It had come from a girl.

Never in Kanako's life had she ever thought she'd get confessed to by someone of the same sex. Although, she had never really imagined anyone confessing other than Akio. People had pointed it out to her. Friends and family alike had told Kanako she focused too much on one guy. She had never understood the problem. She loved Akio, so why shouldn't she focus on him? Was it dismissive of Kanako to think like that? She couldn't really say no, but it wasn't like guys were lining up for her either. Why bother considering them when they weren't doing the same?

So instead, Kanako had put all her attention on Akio. Now, after actually receiving a confession from someone that wasn't Akio, Kanako saw her self-made tunnel vision shatter. No longer could she look only at the boy she grew up with. The other person from her childhood, the girl with her in all the old photos, was singularly responsible for widening her view. Though, just because it had widened, that didn't mean she knew what to do with it.

Perhaps objectively speaking, it was possible for Kanako to see Haruna in a romantic light. But from her own perspective, all Kanako could see was Haruna. There was no romance nor a sudden shift in feelings. All that was happening was Kanako was being forced to see more than just Akio, and that meant seeing the only other person in the picture, Haruna.

"She said she's in love with me..." Kanako repeated again. The shock had yet to wear off. In the classroom she was in, the sun was beginning to set, casting an orange glow across the space. How long she had been sitting there, Kanako wasn't really sure. It felt like it had only been a minute or two, but looking at the clock on the wall told her it had been at least 20 minutes.

It was only then that she realized that there was still someone waiting for her. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "Akio-kun is still here! Oh geez, I hope he isn't still outside. It'd be terrible if he caught a cold." Standing up, Kanako pushed all of her other feelings aside. This was supposed to be a dream day for her. All she had to do was go and tell Akio 'yes' and they'd officially be a couple. And so, Kanako's tunnel vision returned, standing on a very broken foundation.

Leaving the classroom, Kanako made her way down the halls and toward the back of the school where Akio was still waiting. She bounded along, somehow recovering her energy that had been sucked from her just moments ago. Reaching the doors, she opened them quickly, revealing a boy standing by the picnic table under the large tree full of autumn colors.