I Will Be Your Lover

Apology and Promise

Hikari had nowhere to run.

She had reached a dead end.

She turned around slowly to see her chaser slowly approaching with a smile, their bright blue eyes shining like the sun in the dark alleyway they were in.

She didn't know what would happen next, but it all seemed too fast for her liking. All she was able to make out were her own screams for help, to which nobody responded. She had her back against the wall and curled herself into a ball.

The crook put his leg on her foot and looked at her menacingly.

"Cry. Beg for me not to hate you."

The familiar voice seemed to echo everywhere around her as if he was speaking telepathically.

Hikari had lost the ability to produce words and she watched as the boy readied his hand into a fist, twirling it as a cowboy would to their lasso.

"I hate you."

She felt her heart break as a pullet of pain shot through her.

"I HATE YOU SO F**KING MUCH."

The pain struck over and over, her stomach twisting and turning with torture.

She couldn't take it anymore, and she cried for help one last time before the blonde offender delivered the final blow.

She jumped out of her hospital bed in shock and felt a sense of relief once she saw multiple pairs of familiar eyes staring at her.

Just a dream... she said, attempting to calm herself down. Just a dream.

"Are you okay?" Miyako asked, looking over to Ken and Iori to see if they saw Hikari too.

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

Hikari heard the room turn silent in awkwardness as she turned to see her three friends watching over her. She remembered her brother going to get lunch and her urging her parents to go to work instead of staying for her.

Well, by parents, she meant her mom. Hikari wouldn't and couldn't bring herself to speak to her dad again after that.

She wasn't even past her first day at the hospital and she was already bored. Even homework would entertain her at this point.

"How long will you be here?" Iori asked while writing some notes down. He would do that often, and whenever she would ask why, he would just say it helped him pass the time while also documenting his experiences. He would babble on about how it might allow his future figure to be proud of his younger self, which made her giggle at how serious the short boy was about life.

"About two weeks of staying in the hospital," she said turning to him. "I can leave after that, but a full recovery will take about two months."

"I can't believe a basketball can even cause that much damage." Miyako griped, clenching her fists angrily at the memory of her friend getting hit in the head with a large orange sphere.