Chapter Text
I am Arima Kana, she thought. I’ve been an actress, an idol, a singer… I can be anything I want. But when it comes to this person, why is it I suddenly become nothing?
She had tried so many times to get away. By pulling away when Aqua started dating someone else. By leaving B Komachi. But somehow she could never succeed.
She kept telling herself that it was alright. That what they were was enough. That they were just friends, very good friends, and that she could be content with that.
After all, within all the time she had liked him, Aqua had dated Kurokawa Akane, broke up with her, and even now, single, he had never looked at her or even considered her to be a love interest.
But she thought it was okay. She had believed that with time, she could learn to just love him as a friend.
However, as she stood in the background, a mere extra in this scene, as Aqua and Kurokawa Akane talked to each other, small smiles and in sort of understanding, their interaction so easy in a way that the antagonistic quips characterising Aqua and Kana’s relationship never could be.
And that was when she came to the realisation.-she would never be okay with this.
In a chess competition, when one side knows that the game is over, the graceful move would be to resign and bow out of the match. And Kana knew that her time was up, and the only thing left now was for her to leave.
“You’re leaving?” Ruby exclaimed, her expression very dismayed.
Kana smiled a little. They certainly had a rough start, but as they spent time together as B Komachi, and as fellow actresses, Kana had started to feel rather fond of the younger girl. “It’s been many years since I’ve lived with my family,” she explained, “I thought it would be a good time to move back, now that my parts in the movie are over.”
“Oh,” Ruby said sadly. “I’ll miss you, senpai.” She reached forward and pulled Kana into a tight hug.
“Don’t tell your brother yet,” Kana murmured, “I’m planning on telling him myself soon.”
“You will tell him before you leave, right?”
Kana laughed in a low voice. “I will, I promise.”
---
“Aqua,” Kana said, standing before him, her luggage next to her.
Aqua back stared at her, his intelligent eyes already connecting the dots. “You’re leaving,” he said, his penchant for stating the obvious not gone.
“Yes,” she agreed, absently fiddling with her luggage handle. “I’m taking a break from showbiz, and moving back with my parents for awhile.”
Aqua paused for a moment, deep in thought. “… I see,” he finally said, a mild frown emerging on his face being his only reaction.
They stood in silence for a moment, and Kana took the time to reminisce all the good times they had together. Even though this parting tasted bitter in her mouth, at least… there had been also some good times, together with the bad. It had been the best and worst three years of her life.
“I guess this is it, huh,” Kana said, tugging at her collar awkwardly.
He still continued looking at her with that blank expression. “Safe trip, Arima.”
Something in Kana broke a little.
“For once,” she said quietly, cracking a small smile as a tear, unbidden, fell onto her cheeks, “I thought, just maybe, this one time, you would’ve said something to get me to stay. But as always, all I’ll ever get is your apathy.” She wiped the tear away with a laugh. “I don’t know why I just keep setting myself up for disappointment.”
Aqua closed his eyes. “I am not stopping you from doing what you wish to,” he said quietly. Then his eyes opened, and they were their usual bright blue, but it was as though a fire had been set in them. “But you have no right to say that I have been apathetic, when I have been anything but. Have I not proven enough times through my actions that I care for you?” Aqua asked fiercely.
Kana bit her lip in an attempt to stop herself from crying. Of course he had proven how much he cared for her through his actions. It was why she has fallen in love with him in the first place. From the moment he had made that final recording of ‘Sweet Today’ magical, to the time they skipped school to play baseball, and that time on the balcony when she had fallen in love with him all over again when he had pretended to be Piyeon, and again when he brought her out on that lunch outing that felt like a date… Of course she had seen his actions. It was those very actions that caused her such pain. Because Aqua did love her. But not in the way she wished for him to. He loved her as a friend.
While for her, for the longest time, she had always wanted more.
“You’re right,” she conceded, looking away. “You have done the best you could for me. You’ve done nothing wrong- now the only thing left is for me to go.”
And as expected, he did not say anything in response. Kana chuckled darkly under her breath. This was the story of her life, she supposed. Being abandoned by everyone around her because she was not enough. At least this time, she would be the one cutting the cord before she could be cast off.
“Thank you for everything, Aqua,” she said, as she pulled her suitcase away, off to a new world where maybe this pain would finally go away.
“Arima, wait.”