Hana's Dark High School Days

Chapter 30: The True Ryuji

{Hana's P.O.V.}

I saw Ryuji sitting on the couch in his living room, his face buried in the palm of his hands...

Is he okay? Should I give him some space?

No... I should talk to him...

As I slowly approached Ryuji, I reach out to touch his back, but I hesitated and stole my hand away. Instead, I just asked, "Ryuji? Is anything the matter?"

Ryuji inhales and exhales heavily as he separated his hands from his face and faced me, "Nah... I'm alright... I was just in deep thought."

"About what?" I ask innocently.

His eyes then widened, as if shocked to hear me ask that. He then faces me. I step back, surprised at his reaction. I try to calm him down, "I-If you don't want to tell me, I won't pry in any further..."

"Huh? Oh... Sorry for scaring you like that Hana..." he looked back to the floor, eyes filled with sorrow.

"It's alright Ryuji... We all have past memories that haunt us..." I try to let out a smile.

He let out a sigh and said, "You know what? I'll share my side..."

That was sudden... "Y-You'll share?"

"Yeah... Why not? Let's go to my room."

This time, I didn't feel fear, I felt curiosity...

What could he be hiding?

Reaching his room, he ordered me to sit on his bed. As I positioned myself at the edge of his bed, he grabbed a chair, making the back of it face me and he sat down and placed his arms on top of the chair's back rest.

{Ryuji's P.O.V.}

As I positioned myself on my chair in the way that I was most comfortable with, I took a deep breath and exhaled it all out. "Don't you dare tell anyone of what I'm about to tell you or you'll regret it..." I glared at Hana to make her understand and not tell anyone.

She straightened herself out and nodded her head quickly in agreement. I looked at her seriously, but in my mind, I was laughing.

I just love to tease this girl...

There's something about her that I can't quite put my finger on... But I'll leave it for now. I have something else to do...

I heaved one last sigh.

Well here goes nothing.

"It all started when I was in the fifth grade...

I had a group of friends, we were only five, but it was fun to be with each other. We were three boys and two girls. We shared a deep bond with everyone. But, I was deeply in love with one of my closest friends. Let's call her Mia...

I had been in love with Mia ever since we were in the third grade. It was completely obvious that I liked her though, because she was the one whom I spent most of my time with. We did almost everything together... Our parents were very close as well, and because of that, we would sometimes visit each other and play or bond with each other.

With each passing moment, my love for Mia grew stronger... I couldn't take it anymore, so I confessed to her on Valentines Day. But on that sad day, she rejected me. She told me that she was in love with one of our other friends, Yuusuke. I tried to accept it...

Also, weeks after that happened, my folks started to fight a lot, because my dad caught my mom cheating on him. A month later, they soon filed divorce papers, making our family broken and us all men. But we slowly tried to get over it. And don't worry, we're alright now...