Izumi

(Akane's PoV)

—

I watched the entire movie scene from the landing above the central corridor.

From there, you can see the bulletin board without anyone downstairs bothering to look up. I stayed against the wall, leaning out just enough to keep track of the crowd.

I saw Sora tear the photographs down, Izumi turning the color of a white porcelain toilet, and I even saw Daiki's face when he looked at her.

That one followed me upstairs.

'Poor guy...' I sighed before walking back to the safe place.

The bathroom was exactly how I'd left it. Window that wouldn't shut, dripping sink, temperature somewhere between refrigerator and morgue.

I sat on the wide sill, put one boot against the ledge and forced the window open as far as it would go.

Then I lit another cigarette because Shin was downstairs being a good friend and I needed something to do with my hands.

The first drag was always the best. Smoke slipped out through the gap in the window and thinned over the rooftops.

'Ah well, I wonder what Shin is gonna think about that...' I muttered while staring at the window, until my phone suddenly buzzed.

I took it out and saw a message from him saying, 'The show was quite something.'

I couldn't help but smile, feeling a twisted sense of satisfaction.

'I know. I saw everything. It was entertaining.'  I replied to him, the checks turning blue. 'Plus, tell him I'm not sorry.' I added, but he didn't see that one.

Well, I really meant it. I wasn't sorry. I probably would've done the same thing tomorrow, with better handwriting and unblurred photos.

I then took another drag before putting my phone back in my pocket, and I suddenly heard a door slam somewhere down the corridor.

'Uh?' I looked back.

Then came footsteps. Fast, uneven, almost tripping over themselves, before a girl's voice followed them.

"Please... please, this isn't happening... it can't be... it's a nightmare... wake up, wake up, wake up..."

'Guess I have an uninvited guest here...' I smiled.

The bathroom door scraped across the floor as she shoved it open, and a familiar girl stumbled inside with her sketchbook crushed against her chest, walking straight past me.

She didn't even see me.

She grabbed the sink with both hands. The sketchbook slipped from her arms and hit the tiles, but she didn't look down.

Her shoulders jumped with every breath, short little gasps through her mouth, too fast to get anywhere useful. Her fingers had gone stiff around the porcelain.

I knew that breathing, way too well. So I watched her and let the smoke slowly leave my mouth.

After a few minutes, she finally raised her head toward the mirror, and her eyes found mine in the glass.

That did it.

First she recognized my face. Then the boots. Then, judging by the way her eyes widened, the reputation attached to both.

Takanashi Akane.

Third year. Tattoos. Perfect grades. Doesn't talk to anybody. Apparently terrifying enough to deserve her own school folklore and a reputation of being a certified lesbian without any particular reason.

I lifted two fingers from the cigarette.

"Yo. Welcome to the club, Mangaka. What happened to you? You look awful." I said, my voice 'friendly.'

"T-Takanashi-senpai?" Her voice barely made it out.

"In flesh and sandalwood, baby girl." I took another drag from my cigarette. 

She stared at me through the mirror, and then her face broke.

The tears came fast, heavy enough that she didn't even bother wiping them away. She turned from the sink and leaned back against it, knees giving slightly before she caught herself against the cabinet.

I dropped the cigarette into the empty soda can beside the window.

Then I hopped down from the sill.

"Hey. Whoa, calm down," I walked toward her like I'd only just noticed there was a problem. "What's going on? Did I miss some drama?"

She tried to answer, but nothing came out.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand, breathed in, then tried again.

"Mhmmm, relax, breathe..." I gently patted her back. "What happened?"

The girl in front of me took a deep breath through her mouth, then let it out through her nose. She did it multiple times before speaking.

"Somebody..." A pause. "S-somebody put up photos," she managed. "Fake photos on the board... There's a girl... that looks like me... She's—she's walking out of a... out of a love hotel. With a boy."

I gave a low whistle. The corner of my mouth almost betrayed me as I took one step back to let her 'relax.'

"Damn. That's a nasty story." I said.

"B-But it's not true... That's not me..." Her voice shaky.

"Okay." I shrugged. "But where's the problem? Even if it's you, there's nothing wrong with going out with someone. I mean... having a partner... People do it all the time. I'm one of them."

"The problem is..." Her breath caught so hard she folded forward. "The problem is that I was already seeing someone. And I cared about him so much. And now everyone thinks... even him—" She wiped at her face and only made it worse. "Who would do something like this? Who could be so..."

She ran out of air before she ran out of sentence, and in that moment, I stepped even closer.

"Ouch. That's rough." I kept my voice soft. Mildly curious. "But hey, I still don't get where the problem is. If the pictures are fake and that's not you in them, why are you crying like this?"

Her head lifted.

"Because from the outside..." I added, tilting my head. "Well... a reaction like that would make people think... well, you know."

There it was. I watched how her body flinched after my words.

"I'm not..." she whispered. "I didn't... I was in a panic because everyone was staring—"

"Sure. Forget it." I waved it away. "Who put them up? Do you have any idea?"

"No." She shook her head so quickly that her short hair slapped against her wet cheeks. "I don't. Who would... Who did this...? And why?"

I took another step. Now there was maybe a few feet between us, and she had to tilt her chin to meet my eyes.

"Did Sakurai see the photos?" I asked it casually, like his name had wandered into the conversation by accident.

But I was watching her eyes and saw them widen. Surely not because of Daiki, but because of me.

She'd been so busy panicking that she'd missed the obvious question until now.

'Why did Takanashi Akane know his name?'

A third-year she'd spoken to exactly zero times hadn't said "your boyfriend" or "that guy". I'd said, Sakurai.

"Takanashi-senpai...?" Her voice dropped. "How do you know about..."

"Just answer the question, Mangaka," I said, my voice sharpening.

Her mouth trembled, and she kept staring at me for a few instants.

"Yes." The word came out dead. "He saw them. He looked at me, and he..." She covered her mouth for a second. "He won't talk to me anymore. I lost him."

"Well, look at this from another perspective: if he doesn't trust you, maybe he wasn't the right one for you," I said.

She looked at me with her wet green eyes and her lips shaking.

And somehow, unbelievably, a tiny smile appeared. Weak, almost grateful.

"Maybe," she whispered. "Maybe you're ri—"

"Or you're really guilty." Same voice. Same expression. I didn't need to raise my volume.

Her smile died by itself.

"Takanashi-senpai...?"

She stepped backward and hit the sink with her hips, her fingers immediately wrapping around its edge.

The little bit of color that had returned to her face disappeared again.

And in that moment, I smiled, with the smile I save for people who've realized their mistake a few seconds too late.

"I hate cheaters," I said. "But there's something I hate even more. Want to guess what it is?"

She shook her head, fast.

"People who hurt my boyfriend's friends." I tilted my head. "Because when they hurt, he hurts. And when Shin hurts, somebody has to pay for it." I gave her a small shrug. "It's very simple, isn't it?"

Izumi stared at me. Her gaze moved over my face, down to my hands, over to the cigarette ash by the window, then back to me.

"So..." she whispered. "So you..."

I pulled my phone from my pocket, woke the screen, and then turned it toward her.

The photographs were side by side, but these weren't blurred. There was no helpful little veil over the faces this time.

Just a happy Izumi and her beloved fuckboy beside her, walking out of a love hotel.

"So," I said, "how about we talk a little, Mangaka?"

The noise that left her wasn't a word.

Her knees gave out, and she dropped onto the cold tiles and folded over herself, fingers buried in her hair as the sobs tore through her.

No delicate crying of a poor girl who wanted to be the victim. Just an ugly, breathless, whole-body sobbing. The same as someone who has been caught.

I stood there and waited to feel worse about it, but nothing happened.

"Please," she choked into her knees. "Please, please. Don't show anyone. I'll do anything."

"You already told him something last night."

She stopped.

"He asked where you were, and you said you were at home." I put the phone back into my pocket. "I was standing next to him. So was Ishikawa. Three people heard you say it after we had watched you walk out of that door about ninety seconds earlier."

Izumi slowly raised her face.

Her mascara gone, her eyes swollen, her skin blotchy.

She looked like she'd been dropped from somewhere high.

I let her sit with it while the sink dripped behind her, cold air leaking through the broken window.

"Why him?" I asked.

She blinked.

"Sakurai. Why did you say yes to him in the first place?"

Izumi wiped her face with her sleeve. It took her a while to answer.

"I... wanted to try," she said. "Going out with someone. Anyone. And Daiki was so kind. He's loud and funny, and he's the nicest person I've ever met, and..." She swallowed. "It got to me. It really did."

"But?"

Her eyes lowered.

"The person I actually liked was Masaru. We've known each other since we were kids, and I've liked him for years." She clenched her fists, her knuckles white.

"And Sakurai?"

Her fingers then twisted in the fabric over her knees. "I think part of me did it to make Masaru jealous."

At least she had the decency to look sick when she said it.

"I used Daiki, and I knew I was doing it. And when Masaru finally said something, I couldn't find the courage to end things with Daiki. I didn't want to hurt him."

I nodded once. "So Daiki was the safe harbor in poor words."

She looked up.

"And this Masaru has the look of an idiot who's never going to do anything with his life."

She flinched.

'Good.'

"So that's it?" I asked. "That's your excuse? You ignore Daiki all the time, walk into a hotel with another guy behind his back, and meanwhile he's taking delivery shifts to buy you a present? Oh God, that's disgusting."

Her head snapped up. "What...?"

I stared at her.

"Daiki did what?"

"He started working and even took double shifts. Fifteen deliveries a night. In the rain."

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She kept staring at me like a dead fish.

"Everything just for you." I let that one sit. "Daiki really cared."

She stopped breathing for a second, but this time I didn't enjoy watching the realization hit her. It was annoying.

"Don't misunderstand me," I said. "You can be with whoever you want, and nobody can say otherwise. Daiki doesn't own you. Masaru doesn't own you. Nobody does."

She stared at the floor.

"But you don't get to keep somebody around with your lies because he's safe while waiting for the person you actually want. You don't have the right to play with people's feelings like that, and you don't get to lie to his face when he catches you."

Her eyes filled again.

"You have no idea what that idiot looked like when he watched you come out of that building." My voice sharpened.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was almost gone. "I'm so sorry..."

"I'm sorry too."

She looked at me.

"I really could've done better with the handwriting on those photos."

She recoiled like I'd hit her.

"I was really falling for Daiki," she blurted.

That got my attention.

"I didn't want to admit it. I kept ignoring him because my feelings were getting stronger, and I kept telling myself I wanted Masaru instead."

Her breathing started breaking apart again.

"I thought if I was with Masaru, it would stop. I told him everything about my feelings, and..." A pause. "And then we went to the hotel, because he said, 'I don't care, I just want our first time to be together.'" Her voice cracked. "I fell for his words, and I was going to go back to Daiki afterward. Because even now, I—"

"Then why were you smiling?"

She stopped.

"When you came out." I crossed my arms. "I was across the street. You looked happy. Even in those photos."

The tears started again. "I'm sorry."

"That's not an answer," I said.

"I'm so sorry," she kept sobbing.

"Izumi."

She pressed both palms into her eyes. "I was smiling because I was free."

"Because I could finally be with him," she said through the sobbing. "And I felt disgusting about what I'd done to Daiki at the same time, and I didn't know what to do with myself. If Daiki saw me..."

She looked up at me.

"That's why he looked at me like that this morning." Her face folded again. "He hates me now."

"Are you crying because you lost him," I asked, "or because you got caught?"

"I don't—"

I crouched in front of her, close enough that she couldn't avoid my eyes without obviously trying. "If you have any dignity left, disappear from his life."

Her lips parted.

"Don't text him. Don't wait outside school. And don't follow him around trying to explain yourself. This will only make his pain worse." I leaned a little closer. "You've explained enough."

For a few seconds, Izumi just stared at me, and then something finally pushed through the fear.

"If Tanaka-sensei found out what you did," she said, her voice sharpening. "Putting those photos up... with your handwriting..."

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"What?" I stood. "Then next time I'll show everyone the unblurred version."

Her face emptied, and she swallowed every word she was about to say.

Then, I brushed dust from my knees.

"And good luck proving the best student in this school, who hasn't spoken to anybody in three years, suddenly decided to run a public humiliation campaign before first period." I smiled at her. "People believe what is easy to believe, Mangaka."

Whatever she'd been about to say disappeared as she lowered her gaze to the floor, her body shaking.

I then walked toward the door, and at the threshold, I stopped and looked back.

She was still on the floor.

For half a second, I saw Daiki again, and all the pain he was going through.

"You made your choices," I said. "Now live with them."

Then I stepped into the corridor, and behind me, Izumi started crying again.

Raw, ugly sobs slipping through the gap before the door dragged shut.

And underneath them:

"I'm sorry... I'm so fucking sorry, Daiki..."

I stood there for a second with the fluorescent lights buzzing above me.

Then I kept walking, trying to feel sorry for what I'd done.

'Nothing...' I thought, while walking to the class...