Date Her Instead Vol. 7 (Final Volume)

Chapter Two: When Past Joins With Present

In the quiet of a one-bedroom apartment, a girl slowly opened her eyes. Light just barely slipped through the slits of the blinds over the window, but it was enough to tell the girl that it was no longer night. Checking the time, she saw it was a little before her usual alarm.

Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, her long, untied blonde hair trailing after her. Blinking a couple of times, she finally slid out from under her covers. "Cold..." she complained as she began to change from her purple pajamas that matched her eyes into her school uniform. She put on the navy blue, pleated skirt, then the long-sleeved white top that went with it. Finally, she completed the look with a bow over her flat chest, lavender in color.

She combed her hair, then proceeded to try to tie it up. This was always a struggle, as it seemed that no matter how much she fought, two long strands never wanted to stay tied up. Despite it being fruitless though, the girl tried anyways, messing with her hair for a good ten minutes before eventually giving up. Her failed effort left her hair tied in twin buns, with a strand hanging off the bottom of each one. With a sigh, she swore that one day she'd get it all tied up, and then left her room. This was how Michi Fukuhara started her day.

Unlike most girls her age, Michi didn't walk out of her room and find a parent making breakfast or a sibling waiting at a table. Like always, her apartment was empty except for her, the white walls seemingly echoing that feeling. It was a feeling that in the beginning, had bothered Michi. Then, as she had gotten more used to living alone, it didn't bother her as much. However, after meeting Chiyo, and especially after having fought with Chiyo so much lately, that loneliness felt more pronounced than ever.

"I don't understand why," Michi thought, annoyed as she prepared her own small breakfast. "It's not like Chiyo has spent a lot of time here." But as she thought that, she also couldn't help but imagine if that was the case. If one day, she and Chiyo might fall into a routine of the gal coming over for breakfast completely unannounced, and then Michi complaining about it but making her food anyways. Honestly, it all sounded entirely feasible. They could sit and eat together, talk about all sorts of things, and even walk to school together...

Michi shook her head, though not necessarily with a great amount of resistance. "It's not like I really want to do those things anyways," she told herself. "Besides, even if I did... it's not like it's possible right now anyways..."

She sighed as she finished preparing her rice. Over the past few days, Michi had been doing a lot of thinking and currently, she found herself at odds with the things she wanted. One on hand, she wanted to be mad at Chiyo for not only a perceived betrayal, but also striking her. On the other hand, Michi could already see the past repeating itself. Just like with Kanako, it was Michi's own actions that were causing her friendship to fall apart.

When it had come to Kanako, Michi had completely believed she was in the right. She knew what was best for Kanako, Haruna was the bad guy, and love between girls was wrong. But, in a bizarre twist for her, a girl she had once claimed to hate was the one turning everything in her life upside-down. In particular, she was beginning to question her claims against girls dating girls.

If she looked at everything that had happened with Kanako through the lens of love, Michi found that everything made sense. Haruna wouldn't leave Kanako alone because she was in love with her. Kanako defended Haruna because she cared about her, and then later, because she loved her. At the time though, all Michi had been able to see was her hatred for the girl who had, in her eyes, really hurt Kanako.

The closer Haruna had gotten to Kanako, the farther away Michi became from the girl she called her best friend, but that was mostly because of her own stubbornness. It was realizations like that one Michi was able to have because Chiyo was challenging her. The gal wasn't directly calling her out on her behavior (at least not often), but through Chiyo's own actions, Michi started to see the faults in her arguments.