❝𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥?❞
╰┈➤ 𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐂𝐇 a girl who has grown up under cold eyes and an absent father learns to love again- and perhaps how to forgive, as well.
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐜𝐚𝐧...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.
『AHIKO』
I STARE BLANKLY into the framed mirror which adorns the wall of the bathroom. My hair is still damp from my shower, bangs plastered across my forehead haphazardly. A fluffy white towel sits snugly around my torso, though I have to adjust it to keep it from falling down. Lets just say my chest isn't big enough to hold it in place for very long... I grip the edge of the hard marble counter with both hands and lean heavily on them, holding in a yelp as the sudden shock from the freezing-cold marble runs up my arms and up my spine. I shiver, but don't let go. It only takes a moment for me to get used to the frigid surface.
Drawing my attention back to my reflection, I see an unfathomable emotion swirling in my crimson eyes. I can't name it. Trepidation, perhaps? After all, the graduation exam is tomorrow. But that's unreasonable. There's no reason for me to be nervous. I know perfectly well, along with the rest of the school, that I'll breeze through the exam without a problem. So no, not trepidation. Something else.
I sigh, leaning back and scrubbing my face in frustration.
I already have a pretty good guess as to why this feeling of loneliness that makes it hard to enjoy the news of my cousin's pregnancy has appeared. It's really not hard to figure it out as I recall everything that's happened over the past week.
When I had become well enough to return to school, of course I was greeted with showers of concern and excitement from my two friends. Hiroshi had again, apologized profusely, his guilt genuine. But the only thing that was running through my mind at that time were Father's words to me about him: Stay away from Uchiha Hiroshi and Kagami.
My raging internal conflict had ruined everything. I groan and grind my teeth together, regret washing over me as I remember the hurt flashing through Hiroshi's eyes as I broke eye contact and stared at his feet as I mumbled a half-hearted response. So in the end, all I could do was tell him the truth. Tell him what my father had warned me. And ever since that day, the shimmer of excitement that always used to enter his eyes when he saw me has just... Vanished. There were no more lopsided grins and mocking nicknames. They were replaced with an awkwardness I didn't know was possible. And it isn't only Hiroshi that I've grown distant from. An air of tension has also formed between me and Kagami. If I make eye contact with either of them, they quickly avert their eyes and pretend they don't notice the apologetic glances I desperately send them.
So now I'm here, a day away from the graduation exams, desperately wanting to hear the nickname princess smoothly rolling off my best friend's tongue again. It's pitiful.
I sniff once and grimace before exiting the humid bathroom and padding down the hallway to my room. I put my pajamas on quickly, just wanting to go to sleep and stop thinking about it. I plop down in bed after drying my hair, and close my eyes. But even after squeezing my eyes shut and throwing a pillow over my head, the same words that haunt both my sleeping and waking hours clang through my brain, robbing me of sleep: Don't be around that boy anymore.
