(Prologue)

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Prologue: [It takes a year, and then some]

- -

The sky turned a romantic amber, as I felt my heart speeding up.

It's like this every single time.

The wind blows past, scattering every ounce of nervousness im me into the far distance.

The wind is encouraging me...

Maybe he'll finally say yes!

"...Please go out with me!" I asked, for the fifty-eighth time.

"..." He rejected me, for the fifty-eighth time.

...?

I said, he rejected me, for the fifty-eighth time.

"...I..." he said, hesitating slightly.

"...I have a girlfriend now, so please stop it."

...?

A girlfriend?

Rui, the person who is labeled an outcast by the entire school?

Who--

...oh.

But...I...

I came first!

For the past year, I've done nothing but change, just for him.

Why...

This is wrong.

He was supposed to reject me again.

The same old Kamishiro Rui, who always tells me something is lacking about me, just to reject me.

It shouldn't have gone any different this time!

"...It's Kusanagi Nene, isn't it?! It's always her...she always gets in the way!" I scream in a fit of anger. "Why?! What does she have that I don't?! I've worked tirelessly to fit every demand you've ever had! What am I lacking...?"

He doesn't smirk, like the Rui I like to watch.

He doesn't show any expression.

He just walks away.

I was rejected. For the very last time. And left on the rooftop to cry, like a clown.

My makeup smudged at the tears that fell down.

"I don't get it... what did I do wrong...?" I mumbled, with my speech covered up by the sound of my sobbing.

As I cried endlessly, a black mist surrounded me.

"Huh? What is--"

Before I could react, a creepy voice called out, "I will send you back to one year ago to fulfill what you could not,"

"In exchange, you will..."

I felt suffocated all of a sudden.

* * *

I took a step up the stairs.

"...?" my drowsy eyes began to blur.

"...Why am I...?"

...A purple figure appeared in my vision. He was at the top of the stairs I was going up.

He stood there, expression surprised.

"You were saying?" he raised his hand to block the blinding sunshine that came through the window behind him. It engulfed him, and simultaneously highlighted his loose strand of hair which balanced his tall, muscular figure out.

That déjà vu I felt was mindblowing.

Almost literally.

My head rang and rang with no mercy, as I felt my vision turning black gradually. My eyes felt like they were being gouged out just from staying open.

Oh right, this is the guy I fell head over heels for.

I couldn't feel my mouth, and I didn't know what shape it made; what secrets it revealed.

So I said what I knew best.

"Your eyes are very pretty, senior." A sweet compliment in a tone I had gotten used to using. With cautious eyes and an unmatching smile everywhere else, I stared up to observe his reaction.

Once, perhaps around the... 20th confession, he said, "I like girls who are cute and sweet. Your personality is too cynical."

Maybe he said that to yank me off his back. It's true, my confessions amassed up to a great amount of time wasted on futile words, but they were the most important words to me.

So I took them to heart.

Now let me recall, what I had said previously, in this exact scene.

[ My eyes lit up, watching his shimmering figure bathing in the sun. My heart skipped a beat-- then I let out a nuke, "Senior, please go out with me!"

Badump. Badump. Is this... Lo- ]

Jesus, who confesses, THEN realizes they have feelings?

My first meeting with Rui, huh...

I blinked twice. Realizing that I had irrationally gone off into my own world, I snapped back to reality to look at his reaction carefully.

He tilted his head slightly to the left, and put his closed fist in front of his mouth, as if attempting to cover something up.

Then, he turned to face me and put down his hand. Only then, did I see his face.

He was blushing. Strikingly so.

Then, with the backdrop of the golden sun rushing to cover for him, he faced me directly and said, "That's...not a conventional phrase to say to someone you just met."

I felt like I was being guided. The Rui I know-- the Rui I got used to-- would simply utter the magic phrase:

"I don't like you."

Even amidst everything, he wouldn't falter at any of my words. He wouldn't blush at my compliments. He wouldn't glance at the makeup I spent hours of my life perfecting, just for that one scene.

The scene, where he would say, "I'll think about it."

Hearing him finally blush, seem flattered, and accepting of what I say...

It made me feel something. Something so deep inside, it felt like it was strangling my throat-- but it also felt like sweet relief.

I opened my mouth to say something in return.

But something stopped me.

["Abnegation is your own responsibility."]

I felt a dry cough coming up my throat.

Holding on to my neck like it was my egregious self-control, I forced myself to say something out loud.

["You have finally obtained what you have been longing for; a minor thing stretched out over time to become something so much greater."]

"Senior. If you don't mind, could you... say..."

Like a light breeze passing by, I felt something released from my throat.

As for what it was, a mahogany color laid itself out over my hands, perhaps too suddenly.

"...that again?"

Within an instant, all went dark.

- -

Prologue END

thank you for giving this story a chance!! ch 1 will be out as soon as im done robbing this bank and out of prison

also i see yall little prelude skipping brats. i spent time writing that >:(

have a good one
-ffey

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