(37) Preparations – Part 3 – Strong words

I let go of a sigh before starting. “Why do I trust Aya? That’s a good question.” I turn to Aya. “Hey Aya, why do I trust you?”

Aya flinches and stammers. “ehrgf. Why? I-I don’t know…” she trails off.

Yasuna and the twins look to Aya with expecting looks.

She fidgets before declaring. “Argh, I don’t know! You just do!” in a raised tone of voice.

…

“Ahah.” I chuckle, which makes everyone in the room turn to me. “Correct Aya, I just do. Sometimes you have to trust people for the sake of trusting them. Yes, I know what she’s done, but I trust she can change. Give her a change to explain herself Yasuna, she’s not the same person you know.”

“Of course she’s not! She lost in front of the whole red dorm!” Yasuna reasons.

I tilt my head in response. “And is that not a legitimate reason for someone changing who they are? I’m pretty sure that’s what they call ‘wake-up call’ isn’t it? So why don’t you, for one second, try to trust someone? Not forgive or forget, I agree she needs to be punished, but grudges like this aren’t healthy and you know it.”

She stays silent, looking down at the floor. Mia and Aiko also copy her. I’m pretty sure I hit a nerve, but I really don’t want this conversation to go on like it was. Yasuna asking for reasons to trust Aya and me with no better reason than “Because.” Aya is straight up, crying at this point. I can see she’s hiding it, but that heavy pout isn’t fooling anyone.

Suddenly Aya stands up. “T-This isn’t working Yuumi, I knew I should have never come here…” she argues before racing to the door.

“Please. Don’t.” Simply states Yasuna. She stops leaning against the wall and carefully steps over to Aya, a grim look on her face. “It would only make it worst.”

“O-Ok?” shyly stutters Aya. Obviously not getting where Yasuna wanted to take this - honestly, I wasn’t sure either - she walks back to the bed, this time only leaning against it.

Yasuna leans against the wall, before saying. “Right, first of all, Yuumi, I will not say this twice, YOU WEREN’T THERE AND YOU DON’T KNOW HOW MISERABLE SHE’S MADE MY LIFE! YOU DON’T TELL ME WHO TO TRUST!” she shouts.

‘… Alrighty then, message received.’ I consider, and show with a slight nod, trying not to reveal my obvious worry.

She goes on, “Right, now with that’s dealt with. Aya.” and turns to her with a somber expression.

Aya clenches up. I probably would too. “Y-Yes?”

“What Yuumi did here was extremely misguided. In fact, if she did this two days ago, I probably would never have come here, or I would have just given her the slap she deserves.” She says, giving me a side glance.

‘I guess… Yea, this was stupid… Time might heal wounds, but hers are deeper, and Aiko’s and Mia’s too… Fuck, this was really dumb.’

Yasuna continues. “But she’s right about one thing. I’ve been holding a grudge, that I would argue was a valid grudge, but nevermind that. I was so opposed to giving you a change that some of my actions might have been… Extreme…” she finishes.

“What? What did you do?” Aya asks - honestly, I’m also curious. I didn’t know Yasuna had tried something.

Yasuna looks off to the side. “… Remember that hint you got about two blue ranks who got promoted from low yellow because of a system error?”

Aya opens her eyes wide. “No… No, nonononono. Yasuna, this isn’t funny.”

“Haaa, sorry…” she says, looking down at the floor. “But that was me.”

‘What? Wait, is Yasuna saying the reason Aya went against two blue ranks is that she tricked her? How does that work?’

Clearly, Aya has the same question. “How? They were my friends! They would never lie to me!” she yells in a disjoined tone of disbelief.

“‘Friends?’” Yasuna repeats in a questioning manner. “All it took was a bit of pushing by some blues that owed me some favors.”

“Favor?” This time, it was my turn to ask. “How did a blue rank end up owing you a favor?”

She peeks over at me and explains. “Well, Aya over here didn’t really leave a good impression on most of the newcomers last year. There were some brilliant students that just happen to have ranked up in the meantime time to blue… And they owed me favors.”

“No, no, no, no! Do you realize what you’ve done!?” Aya yells. “There must have been at least 30 influential families between all those blue ranks… Oh god!” she buries her face into her lap, hunched over. “Their looks…”

Yasuna walks over to Aya and says, close to her face. “You felt that? That feeling, the humiliation of losing in front of so many of your peers? Multiply that by 10 and maybe you’ll have an idea about what everyone felt a year ago because of you. Think about that, then ask me to forgive you. Because I’m sorry, nobody is that ignorant and pure-hearted. Sorry to break that to you.”

‘Holy shit, that was savage.’

I’m not the only one who thinks that.

Mia hunches over to the two and puts an arm between them. “STOP, Yasuna!” she yells, her face scrunched up in disgust.

Yasuna recoils. “Why? You too, Mia? I know you didn’t experience what I did, but trust me. It’s worse than you can imagine!” she pauses for a moment before finishing in an elevated tone of voice. “She deserves all of this!”

Mia looks up at the ceiling and trails. “I know…”

“Then why did you tell me to stop?” asked Yasuna, now having taken a step back.

“Because of this.” She says before grabbing Aya’s head - which until now was stuck looking at the floor - and forcing it up.

I get a better look at Aya. Her face is damp with tears, her makeup blotched and running.

After the sudden movement, Aya swabs Mia’s hand and goes back to quietly sobbing into her lap.

Mia confidently stands up and settles between Aya and Yasuna. “Does this make you look like the victim, Yasuna?” she asks somberly.

Yasuna’s eyes open wide. “Are you implying that Aya is the victim here?!” she demands in an elevated tone of voice.

Mia frowns and shakes her head. “That’s not what I said.” She declares before clarifying. “I asked if this makes you LOOK like the victim HERE! Not IF you are the victim."

Yasuna once again recoils, now with her arms raised to her hips. “Unbelievable…” she trails, her voice is shaky. “I can’t believe this… What happened to you Mia?” she turns to Aiko - who at the moment was occupied holding Aya - and asks. “Does your sister agree with this, Mia? Because I’m not sure she shares your opinion here.”

Before Mia can say anything, Aiko stands up, looking at the floor. Then she steps over to Yasuna and places a hand over her shoulder.

Surprised by this, Yasuna asks. “Right Aiko?”

*Bamf*

She’s rewarded by a sharp slap to the face.

Some time has passed.

None of us could have predicted Aiko reacting like that… Well, besides Aiko herself, of course.

Normally, she keeps her feelings bottled up and only reveals her discomfort to Mia, but I guess something Yasuna said drove her over the edge. Actually, I should stop trying to guess people’s feelings… This situation has only made me realize how bad I am at it. For that, I blame my previous life… I had no close friends back then.

Anyway, Mia suggested we all sit down for a bit to calm down.

It was a good suggestion, so we followed it. I mean, what do you expect? I couldn’t say anything. It’s my fault that they fell out like that. So I stayed quiet, just like the others.

Aya had gone to the bathroom to clean herself up. She cried ugly and her face was a mess.

“I’m so sorry Yasuna… I don’t know what came over me…” Aiko broke the silence. She was being comforted by her sister, who  in turn stared daggers at Yasuna.

“Don’t apologise.” She quickly replied. “I tried to use you to prove a point, without even thinking about what you thought… That was a wake up call more than anything… Fuck, what am I even saying? I’m sorry Aiko.” She looked up and turned to Mia. “I’m also sorry for saying that, Mia. You were right, I let my anger towards Aya take over.”

Mia lets go of Aiko, after sharing a nod with her, and shimmies over next to Yasuna. “I know. That’s just how anger makes us react.”

Suddenly, she looks at me. “Yuumi you haven’t said anything in a while, are you alright?”

I nod. “Yes, I’m fine… It’s just… I’m so sorry for calling you over so soon. You were right, Aya hasn’t exactly proved to you she’s trustworthy… And honestly, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t proven that to me as well.” I move my chair closer to the bed. “I choose to believe her out of convenience more than anything, then I tried to push that believe on you guys… That was wrong...”

…

“Hahaha,” Mia suddenly chuckles.

Yasuna looks at her before asking. “What is it?”

“Sorry, it’s just… It’s funny. Sometimes it feels like the only reason we talk to each other is because of her. Think about it. The first time we met, Yasuna spent an hour explaining why she had nothing to do with what happened. Then there was professor Chamberlain, who challenged Yuumi because he heard about her duel against Aya.”

“Wait what? Really? I just thought he was cocky.”

Mia grins. “Yes, he talked about it in one of his lectures. Weren’t you watching it?”

“Errr, honestly, I just let them play in the background. The times when he teaches something I don’t know about are far between.” I reveal, with a slightly reddening face.

The three laugh at that. Apparently, they find it funny.

After the chuckles die down, Mia continues. “Then there was… the incident…”

We all somber up fast at the mention. I particularly look at Aiko.

She notices this. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me. There was nothing any of you could have done about it…”

“I could have just not interfered with Aya…” I mumble to myself.

Aiko hears this. “Don’t beat yourself over it. You couldn’t have known, Aya herself didn’t.”

You could say we made up, not that we stopped being friends. At this point we were already talking about other topics, how we had been since we last seen each other, how we were preparing for the tournament, etc…

Of course, this still left the elephant in the room, but for now, we were content once again, ignoring it. Aya still hadn’t exited the bathroom. It’s not like she had been in there for over 10 minutes, but we were taking notice.

“Why is she taking so long?” Yasuna was the first to point it out.

“Now that you mention it… I think I should go check on her.” I said.

They nodded, so I stand up and walk over to the bathroom door.

Opening it, I find Aya sitting on the toilet with the lid closed, hugging herself and looking at the mirror. She had cleaned up her face.

She most likely heard the door open and turned to me. “Y-Yuumi, huh, H-Hey.” She stutters.

“Come on Aya.” I urge. “They’ve calmed down by now. Let’s go.”

“A-Are you sure?” she hesitates.

I step over close to her and place a hand down on her right shoulder. “Yes.”

With this, she carefully stands up and we both exit the bathroom. Contrary to the earlier stares, Yasuna, Mia and Aiko now smile upon seeing her.

“Look who finally showed up.” Yasuna gives a snarky comment with a grin on her face.

I laugh and tell Aya to sit down on the chair; she does and I settle down on the bed next to the others.

“Right, Yasuna?” I prompt.

She nods. “Aya, I’m sorry for what I said back there. I was angry at you and wasn’t thinking right. How about we start from the beginning?”

Aya’s eyes open wide and she stutters. “W-What happened?”

This makes Yasuna grin. “Well… for some reason Yuumi vouches for you…” She gives me a side glance.

I respond with a nod. My reasons for trusting Aya might have been misguided initially, but I seriously believe that she is trying her best right now.

Yasuna continues. “And while I will not forgive you for what you did... I'll give you a shot. Don't make me regret it."

Aya stays stunned.