Chapter 4

Akane's life had never been something she could rightfully call a happy existence. Where others saw life and light, she saw only bleak monotony, a colorless world that was unending, resembling some sort of pit, so devoid of reason and spirit that her mind could not grasp it on any kind of conscious level. Any time she came close, her mind would reel backward, rejecting what it was she saw. A sick, impoverished, and unhappy household. A lonely existence devoid of dreams or desires. Before she was numb to it, blind almost, to just how miserable her life truly was.

She couldn't go back to that; she refused.

Caleb was a vision so clear and real and vivid to her that it was almost abstract in its purity. This was what she could understand and how she could perceive her own happiness. What she constructed her daily life around, how she dealt with the tangible. Her Senpai was the geography around which reality now revolved.

It never occurred to her before that life could be good or that a man was capable of changing her perception. That the world could be a better place through one's own taking pleasure in a feeling, a look, or a gesture, of receiving another person's love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative before him, nothing. The term "human spirit" applied to nothing was little more than a bad joke. Sex was mathematics. Desire, a word she could not quantify. Her intellect offered no reprieve. Justice was dead, and God did not seem to care if, in fact, he ever cared at all.

Fear, joy, grief, sorrow, these things, these emotions, were things that, up until a month ago, she simply didn't feel anymore. Maybe she did at some point, long ago. But reflection on where things went wrong was useless. Something always seemed to be wrong with her growing up. Even when her parents were well, she was always upsetting them. Keeping them up in the middle of the night with her constant screaming. It's no wonder they got sick.

Her only permanence seemed to be misfortune. And whatever feelings she may have once possessed could not be safely trusted. Everything that she was before Caleb was surface and little else. At her core, there was nothing. Nothing but a bleak, empty pit simply waiting to be filled.

Now that she'd been made aware of that pit, how empty she felt before being so abruptly pulled into the light, she couldn't fathom having to return to the dark. She refused to accept that. This letter she now held in her hands was her life raft, the only thing stopping her from sinking back into the abyss below. If it failed, she would not go back quietly.

Akane would sooner pull him down with her than return to such solitude.

But such unpleasantness could be avoided; she was sure of it. All she had to do was hand him the letter. Her magnum opus. The ultimate expression of her feelings. Admittedly, this was much easier said than done. Just bringing herself to speak to Caleb was often more than Akane could manage.

Even being near her Senpai caused so many obstacles that it was hard to remain objective. Her heart would beat so fast she couldn't hear what he was saying. Her legs would turn to jelly, and the best she could manage was a slow timid walk directly behind him. She would clutch at her chest and smile at him in these moments, just wishing he would turn around and speak to her.

It was always the same. Why couldn't she just talk to him? Caleb was standing directly in front of her, at his locker, chatting with some of his male friends like always. One of them said something to him, and he laughed, causing Akane's knees to nearly buckle. God, he was so pretty. Maybe she could just touch him? Just place her hand on his shoulder? Feel the back of her hand brush against that soft gorgeous hair before she...

"Hey, Akane. Need something?"

His voice, directed at her, sobered Akane up quick, like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. He was smiling at her now, as innocent and carefree as ever. She had the note in her hand. All Akane had to do was give it to him. Then he would know. Then he would understand just how desperate her need was.

"What's that you've got there?" he asked curiously, staring at the confession so casually.

"I...umm..." It was hopeless, and the words wouldn't form in her mouth.

"You okay?" Caleb asked sincerely, placing his hand against her forehead. "Not running a fever, are you?"

Her body jolted as if zapped with an electric current. Akane was paralyzed at that moment, her face burning scarlet under his overwhelming touch. Actual physical contact! It was too much! She needed to break away before this sublime feeling turned into genuine panic.

"I..." She quickly backed up, swallowing back the lump in her throat, her voice quivering. "I wanted to..."

He raised a brow, as calm and unbothered as ever. Nothing rattled her Senpai. Nothing.

"Wanted to what?"

Slowly, with trembling hands, she outstretched her arms, offering him the letter.

"I...wanted to...give..."

"Barlow-kuuuuuun!"

The spell was broken, and Akane snatched the envelope back to her chest as a female student with light green eyes and golden blonde hair tied into two short twin tails ran up and jumped onto him. She clung to his back like a spider monkey, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him in such a way that brought unholy fire surging through Akane's being.

"Oof!" he chuckled, feeling the clingy blonde attach herself to him, speaking in Japanese again. "Good morning, Nijio-san."

She pouted at him. "I told you to call me Sana-chan." Sana pulled away and crossed her arms. "Or are you saying we're not that close anymore, Barlow-kun?"

Again, he just laughed. "Forgive me, Sana-chan. But why the double standard? You still call me Barlow-kun, right?"

She peeped at that and smiled before twirling a strand of hair through her finger, her cheeks glowing. "Well... that's because...Barlow-kun will always just be Barlow-kun to me."

Akane's body quivered in fiery rage. This girl was her rival? Her biggest competition? She was so completely and utterly fake! Like something straight out of a cheesy romance manga! And the way she so brazenly clung to her Senpai...it was all Akane could do just to keep her breathing even, as every instinct in her body was screaming at her to rip all the hair out of this fake bimbos head.

"Well, if you insist. I'm still fine with you calling me Caleb-kun or just Caleb, for that matter."

Hearing those words turned Akane frigid. He let her call him just Caleb too?!

"D... don't try to change the subject!" Sana insisted, pretending to be flustered before latching onto his arm so brazenly again. "Now come on. You promised we'd walk to homeroom together."

"I did?" He sounded confused. "I'm not sure I recall ever..."

She giggled in a bubbly falsetto before tugging his arm insistently. "Come on, silly! We're gonna be late for class."

He was tugged away. Just like that, the light of Akane's life was gone, pulled from her feeble attempts to reach him by the insufferable hands of a jealous usurper. She had him. The letter was there within his grasp. Senpai was almost hers. Akane was so close!

As she watched him fade into the distance, tugged away from her by that insipid skank Sana, despair engulfed Akane's being. A familiar gloom took up residence in her heart as the world around her began to fade into that all too familiar colorless void once more.

She didn't even have a chance. Akane was already sinking.