Understanding Each Other

“…Yuki…”

“…urgh…losing to him…” Chiharu hated the thought that someone so small and weak held such importance to someone. She didn’t understand him. She saw how he acted. He relied on others. He dwelled heavily on decisions with regret. He hesitated when acting. He needed others to do things because he wasn’t strong enough alone.

He used people. She hated it. She couldn’t stand it. It made her lost emotions bubble to the surface. Chiharu bit her lip annoyed in the situation.

“…Yuki…”

Bothered by the thought of losing to him, it forced strength back into Chiharu’s body. She felt her muscles responding to her and feeling returning to her fingers. Chiharu pushed on the earth, still feeling a sluggish action from her limbs. It took everything she had to stand on her feet. Her arms hung over her shoulders as her upper body leaned against her hips to keep from collapsing.

“Damn him…I won’t lose to you…” A tinge of energy flowed through her. It put her legs in motion and turned to find the girl a short distance from her. “…I’ll show you…my strength…” Chiharu threw her body up to straighten out, forcing away all of the fatigue and soreness. She ignored it all and sprinted over to put a stop to her.

In front of Yumi, Chiharu appeared with her hands out ready to hold down her barrier once more. This time she didn’t plan to let her past until she snapped out of the trance. She didn’t care what stood in her way. She wouldn’t lose to him. She was no weakling. Her determination built her resolve and channeled her strength. Chiharu felt better and focused. She still didn’t know how to stop her or get through, but none of it mattered. It would happen, she decided.

The next thing Chiharu heard was a squishing sound and an odd feeling in her hands.

“Huh?” She focused her attention forward to see how the situation had changed. No barrier existed and the Yumi collided almost fully into her. Chiharu still didn’t understand.

Yumi hesitated in managing her words. She suddenly woke up not really certain of where she stood. The first she felt was Chiharu’s hands. “W-w-wh-w-w-what’s…Chi-Chi-Chi-C…”

Everything came flooding upon Chiharu at once. She realized that Yumi awoke already. It ended before anything really happened. An unsatisfying resolution dropped her arms. “…already lost…” Chiharu collapsed to her knees no longer having the strength she built up. Her mind remained clocked out.

“Chiharu! What’s wrong?!”

Chapter 133 – Understanding Each Other

After the ordeal of recovering and calming down, Yumi and Chiharu sat on the ground a comfortable distance apart. Awaking to Chiharu more or less crashed into her, Yumi still tried to process everything.

A few minutes of uneasy silence were enough for Chiharu. She crossed her arms and turned away as she stood up. “You need to control your powers better…”

Yumi stood up and bowed deeply to Chiharu’s back. “I’m so sorry! This is all my fault!” She barely remembered anything that happened after speaking with Fumiko. The connection with Yori became stronger she remembered and everything after she just saw him. None of the rest of the things that happened from what Chiharu told her sounded familiar. A pause ran out again with Yumi’s uncertainty. “…if I could have controlled my powers…Brother wouldn’t…”

Chiharu considered leaving their words as they were, but once she heard Yumi falling back into the same pit she had to act. “There’s no point in dwelling on the past. What’s happened is done.” Some reluctance still filled her body, yet she still looked back. She finally noticed that Yumi still bowed in apology to her. The sight flustered her a little and she threw her head back away. “Stand up. I’ve no interest in your apologies. Save them for someone that cares.”

The harsh words washed over Yumi. She complied with Chiharu’s requests to straighten up. “…I guess…you’re right…” A little shake started to develop in Yumi’s arms.

A hand pressed against Chiharu’s forehead. She sighed, bothered by forcing a deep retreat. ‘One moment she’s in charge and keeping the blockhead in line and the next she’s flustered and timid. I don’t get her…’ It made her have some very, very small, amount of regret in snapping at her. “Well those two should be catching up soon. Just rest and wait for them.” Chiharu walked off before disappearing into the air.

Long after Chiharu disappeared, Yumi reached out for her in futility. She dropped her hand in confusion with a tilt of her head. “Chiharu?” After a few moments alone, the solitude got to her. Even if she only had to wait for Fumiko to return, it felt lonely. She also knew that she had to find Chiharu before they continued.

She closed her eyes trying to concentrate. Her powers seemed connected to Yori, so she didn’t know if she could do the same for someone else. However, she knew she had to try. ‘Something was bothering her. Maybe it was because of me…leaving…’ She focused on Chiharu trying to remove Yori from her mind. ‘I need to find her…please work…’

Delaying in silence, her power seemed to refuse her. It acted stubbornly towards her, locked on something else. She fought with it in a tug-of-war to compete for control. Yumi squinted her eyes looking around the field, in the hopes that it would fuel her powers. It all ended in vain. She dropped down folding her legs, but remained on her feet with her arms slung over her knees. “Does it not work this way? What good is having it if I can’t use it when I need to?” Yumi drew her finger through the grass. She hadn’t quite given up, but didn’t push herself. She felt aimless. “I must have…she’s angry with me… I need to…”

Yumi rocked on the balls of her feet. Chiharu vanished on her. It gave her no direction to even begin a search. “She disappeared…should I just start walking?” Her head tilted up at the rolling plains. “It’s night too…I’ll get lost…I don’t want to cause more trouble for everyone.” She thought about what she did to everyone. “I made them come after me. Even now, I’m making them chase me down...”

A sigh escaped her lips. “…came for me…” Yumi scanned around the horizon in the slight hope of seeing anything that might have been Chiharu. She found nothing, as expected. “Chiharu’s out there…she came for me…”

Strength returned to her legs and pushed her up. She wobbled a little while standing, but her body straightened out. “…she came for me…I can’t…” Yumi began walking in the current direction she faced. “I’ll do the same! I can’t turn away!” Her voice turned to certainty in her steps. She kept walking not pay attention to her surroundings. The path she walked was straight.

It was a tree.

Yumi tilted her head in confusion again. “A tree?” None of what she did made much sense to her, but it felt correct. Chiharu was in front of her. “I’m not wrong am I?” She shook her head, preferring not to believe the doubt. Resorting to the only thing possible, Yumi searched the area around the tree thoroughly.

After an exhaustive, but obviously very short search, she plopped herself down against the trunk. Nothing found. Yumi felt certain that Chiharu was around, but none of it made any sense. Even finding nothing, her certainty didn’t waver a moment. Her own doubt couldn’t shake it. “Chiharu’s here? Somewhere I can’t see?” She ran her hand over the bark of the tree searching aimlessly. Any further clues seemed unlikely. No recourse remained. “I’m sorry, Chiharu. I know that you told me I shouldn’t, but I felt it’s important. You did come to help me. And thank you…”

Silence came as she expected. She hoped wherever she hid that her words would reach her. “I know we don’t know each other very well. We are all here through connections to Yuki. So I guess it’s expected that it would be difficult for all of us to get along easily. But I hope that we can. To Yuki, we’re all important friends…even though he may have only met some of us recently. It’s just how he is…”

“That’s so stupid and cliché. It’s sickening,” commented Chiharu. Her voice started from the very air with no body, but at the end, she appeared resting against the tree in the shadow of the moonlight.

Yumi jerked away from Chiharu’s sudden appearance. She didn’t know immediately what to say, but Chiharu acted as if nothing had changed. The scene made Yumi feel like she needed to reciprocate. “But there’s nothing wrong with being like that. People are normally more distant and difficult to approach.”

“That’s because that’s reality. Someone like him belongs in his stupid manga he cares about more than his life.”

Yumi leaned back into her spot against the tree. She felt relaxed. “Who’s to say that has to be reality though?”

“A couple of words isn’t going to change things. People aren’t so easy to turn like in stories. Reality’s different. A good speech doesn’t change things.”

“It doesn’t have to be a speech. Just the words that you’re wanting to hear.”

“Isn’t that just being selfish then? Waiting for someone else to tell you, when you can’t validate yourself.”

“Maybe so, but it’s not wrong to be a little selfish, right?”

“Is that a question or a statement to satisfy yourself?”

Yumi stretched her arms trying to deflect some of the attention away from her heart. She turned her eyes up to the moon briefly. “Maybe it is…”

“Bothersome,” sighed Chiharu.

A touch of melancholy coursed through Yumi’s veins. Past memories fluttered up inside her. She blinked her eyes to wipe it away. Her head tilted over to Chiharu. “You act tough, but you do worry about us. Thank you, Chiharu.”

Chiharu choked out a stifled puff of air in partial startled surprise. She turned her head away from Yumi not wanting to directly see her face at the moment. “…so boring…”

Yumi smiled seeing that she had caught Chiharu a little. “If we’re so boring, why do you still follow us? You could leave.”

“This is training,” snapped Chiharu. She turned back around to face Yumi in a confrontation. “These new powers I have need a place to hone them. There’s people here who are used to using their powers to fight. So I’m just taking advantage of the opportunity.”

“Sounds like a conditioned response. It’s just an excuse that satisfies yourself, right?”

Caught between words, Chiharu narrowed her features and prepared to bare her fangs. She didn’t expect for the weak wishy-washy girl to counter through her. She didn’t like the cornered feeling. “What about you? This isn’t a place for you. Why is it so important that you follow that weakling?”

“You’re right, this isn’t a place I should be. But I’ll follow him regardless.”

“Why? Why go so far?”

Yumi pressed her hands against her heart. The memories she tried to push away returned stronger than before. She couldn’t avoid retreading the past. “Because he’s important to me…because back then…”