Everlasting Gift

Chapter 7
Breaking Trust

"So you'll do it, right?" Neru asked a frightened first-year girl.

The first-year shivered, hearing the malice and contempt in her voice, fearful for what might happen to her if she didn't agree. Everyone in the school knew that Neru was one of the scariest people in their neighborhood. There were even rumors that she beat up a member of the Japanese yakuza and won.

"Alright," replied the girl, hesitating. "But isn't this kind of a mean thing to do to senpai?"

Neru raised an eyebrow, her eyes turning colder than usual. The first-year gulped and quickly mumbled, "Never mind." She scampered away into the classroom.

Freshman are ruder and ruder every year, Neru thought to herself, remembering all the times she didn't listen to her upperclassmen last year.

Neru waited a few minutes before walking in, so it wouldn't seem too suspicious. The girl was standing in front of Len, and bits of their conversation drifted over to where she was sitting at her desk.

"Umm…I know that you…umm…" the girl hesitated, her face turning pink. She stared at the ground, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Yes?" Len asked the girl, impatient. She had just interrupted his conversation with Akaito about the upcoming sports event.

"Can I talk to you in private?" the girl asked quickly, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the classroom. When the first-year girl passed Neru when walking toward the back of the classroom, Neru flashed gave her a small smile that could be interpreted as a smirk.

The girl dragged Len out into the hall. Anyone passing by the two would immediately know that it was a confession. And anyone passing by would know that Len would definitely reject her.

"So what do you want?" asked Len, impatiently. He was a bit irritated from being rudely pulled away from his friend without a warning.

"I just wanted to…umm…I want you to know…that…" the girl began nervously, her face turning tomato red. "I want you to accept my feelings…I really, really love y-you."

Len stared at her, his face betraying no emotion at all. Suddenly, he started laughing at her. His laughter echoed across the hallway. The girl who had confessed looked down at the floor, her face turning even redder if that was even possible.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "It's just I already have a girlfriend and I have no intention of breaking up with her."

Both of the people outside in the hall were distracted. Everyone in the classroom was concentrated on the drama unfolding outside in the hallway. No one paid attention to Neru. Neru took this chance to slide something into Rin's desk. She deliberately didn't slide it in all the way, so that it would be noticeable if you went closer to her desk.

There we go. And good job, first-year. Sorry if you did get rejected.

The girl had run off, embarrassed. She really did fall in love with Len even though she had only glimpsed him a few times during the whole school year. Tears prickled at the back of her eyes. She really shouldn't have been crying because she knew that even if he didn't have girlfriend, Len wouldn't have wanted to go out with her anyways.

Len walked back into the classroom, still chuckling softly to himself. The rest of the class quickly returned to what they had been doing before the freshman had barged into their class. They all pretended to chat while glancing at Len out of the corners of their eyes.

"That was kind of harsh," Luka remarked when he was in earshot. "You laughed at her feelings."

"I couldn't help it. The whole school knows that I'm with Rin and she still comes up to me to confess. It's really stupid, if you think about it."

"Of course it's stupid. That doesn't mean that you can just laugh at someone because they love you."

"Smooth rejection, Len," Akaito butted in. "You just broke another person's heart. That's got to be a quarter of the female population now. I wish I was as popular as you."

"Don't. It gets annoying after a while." Len glanced around the room, wondering if Rin had come in from her trip to the bathroom while the girl was confessing to him. He looked at her desk and saw a few pieces of crumpled up paper sticking out of it. Reaching over, he plucked the sheets of paper out of her desk, curious.

"Wonder what that is," Akaito remarked, suspiciously looking at one of the papers that was pink and full of heart-shaped doodles.

Len picked one up and began reading, having trouble because of all the doodles and smudge marks that covered the page.

Rin,

I think you are the awesomest girl I have ever met. You are beautiful, energetic, and always thinking positively. We have time after school today so let's meet up in that café –

Len didn't even finish reading it. He crumpled up the paper, his temper rising. Calm down, he told himself. It might just be a meeting between friends. It's not a love note.

Akaito and Luka had finished skimming most of what he assumed were letters. Len tried to grab one of the letters that Akaito had discarded but Luka stopped him.

"I really suggest you don't," she warned. "You're not going to like what's written on them."

"Are all of those really love notes?"

"No…not exactly," Luka said slowly.

"What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

"Because one of them is a half-written reply to one of the letters."

"What? Show – "

"Sorry for keeping you guys waiting! The line for the bathroom was really long for some reason," Rin said, interrupting Len. She walked over to them, not noticing Akaito's frenzied grabbing of the letters and quickly hiding them.

Of course the line would be really long, thought Neru. The shadow that her bangs created hid her face. She had her cell phone out so people wouldn't think that she was eavesdropping on the whole conversation.

"Welcome back, Rin," Luka said to her. Luka gently touched Len's knee, telling him that he should calm down and not say anything about what they had found inside her desk.

"Come on, let's go get lunch. I bet Miku and the rest of them are waiting for us!" Rin said to the rest of them. She noticed Neru frantically text messaging someone on her cell phone out of the corner of her eye. "Neru! You have to eat too. You can't keep going on your cell phone all the time."

"Alright, alright. I'm coming…after this," Neru said, frantically typing. Her deft fingers flew over the keypad of the phone and quickly typed a message. She pressed the SEND button and put her phone back into her pocket.

Stop being so annoyingly nice to everyone! Neru wanted to yell.

"Let's go," she told everyone, getting up.

When the five of them got to the cafeteria, Miku and Gumi were already half-finished with their lunches. Kaito was still busy eating ice cream and Gakupo was picking out the eggplants in his bento. Meiko wasn't there – she probably had detention for talking back to a teacher or something.

"You guys are really late," remarked Miku.

"Sorry. They were waiting for me to come back from the bathroom," Rin apologized sheepishly.

"At least the lines for food are shorter now," Luka noticed. "We should be able to get food and finish it soon."

Luka and Len went on the lines to buy their food. Rin and Akaito had their own packed lunches with them. Rin sat down next to Miku, who immediately started up a conversation with her.

"When is the two month anniversary?" Miku asked Rin, curious.

"I think it's tomorrow or the day after. What date is it today?"

"It's the 17th," Neru told them, her cell phone out in her hand.

"Thanks! That means it should be the day after, then," said Rin, thinking. "I wonder what I should buy this time!"

"Oh, I know! Maybe you should…" Miku whispered the rest into Rin's ear when she saw that Len had come back from the line with Luka.

Len slid into the seat closest to the window and farthest from Rin. What's getting him so worked up? Rin wondered. Usually, he stared out the window and didn't talk when he was agitated.

Miku noticed this too and turned away from her sister to talk to Len. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked Len quietly.

"Nothing," he replied curtly. "Why don't you ask your sister?"

"Ask her what?"

"How many other guys is she dating."

"What? She hardly knows anyone else here! How are you so sure that she's dating someone else?" Miku was surprised. Rin just moved here and she didn't know anyone else besides the people around the neighborhood and in the school.

"I'm sure," Len said. Miku made a mental note in her head to ask Rin about this when she got home.

Lunch quickly ended and they all headed back to class. This week had been a monotonous and uneventful one, just like last week and the one before that and the one before that…

"I can't wait until the week ends," grumbled Miku, heading back to her classroom, extremely excited to learn math.

Neru got home after school from the bubble tea shop that they always went to after school. By now, everyone knew that the booth near the corner belonged to them. Len had been ignoring Rin throughout the whole day and Rin didn't know why. Neru smiled to herself, her plan working.

Just one last straw and they'll probably break up, Neru thought. She went to Len's room and turned on the computer that they had shared.

Len walked into her room as the computer started up. He barely glanced at what he was doing and began doing his homework on his bed. The computer started up and Neru typed in the password to her user account and logged in.

"Neru?"

"Yes, Len?"

"I found some love notes in Rin's desk. Do you think that I should break up with her just because of this or should I wait for an explanation when I tell her that I found out?" Len asked suddenly.

Neru was surprised. She didn't expect Len to think about dumping Rin so quickly. Maybe I don't even need to carry out this plan.

"Well…" Neru began slowly, "I think you should dump her but wait for her explanation first. I think you should break up with her after she explains. After all, you trusted her and she betrayed your trust, right?"

"Hmm…" was all he said.

Neru clicked on the PhotoShop icon on her desktop. She used one of the wires to connect her phone to the computer and scrolled through the pictures she had taken with her phone. She found the one that she had wanted and opened it up using PhotoShop. Clicking on the brush icon in the program, she smiled to herself and began changing Len's appearance in the photo of him kissing Rin.