School Girls' Stories - Year 2

Chapter 31 – Fuji’s Apology

Yuki woke from the land of dreams by the gentle chirp of her cell phone. She grumped, moaned, and whined about the hour, and that it was her one day to sleep in and at one o’clock in the morning her phone was going off. She had pretty much argued herself back to sleep when the small beep went off again to say that she had a message. Yuki reached over to the cell phone on her bed stand and looked at it through hazy eyes. She flipped it open and looked at the text message display.

I’M SORRY!

Yuki flipped off the phone. How dare she wake me up, she grumped in her mind, her face falling to the pillow. How dare she wake me up for that lame ass apology? That’s it? A text message that says I’m sorry. That was not an apology, that was an escape trick. Yuki would not allow it.

Yuki flipped over to the other side, ignoring the phone behind her, her anger working her up into a tizzy. She grumbled, and grumped, and whined some more, but now she was twisting her stomach into knots and could not fall asleep again.

She flipped over again, back to her phone, and opened up the display and sent a text message back.

WHAT FOR?

She wanted a biting tone to be heard within it, but she knew it never translated the right way, but she didn’t care. Fuji would never give an answer.

Yuki was half-asleep once more when the phone gave off the birdie chirp again. Yuki did not even bother to look, she just reached for the phone, brought it as closely to her nose as possible, and creeped open one drowsy eye.

FUJI: For not being honest with you, for not telling you everything that was going on, for being friends with Danko, for not telling you about Devilin. I’m sorry.

YUKI: And?

FUJI: What else do you want me to say? I made a wrong choice. What can I do about it now?

YUKI: I was hurt. I thought we were best friends.

FUJI: We are, but there’s a lot… screw this…

The phone rang. Yuki sat up in bed, wide awake now, and picked up the phone. “Yuki,” came Fuji’s voice before Yuki could even answer.

“Hey,” Yuki said in her perfectly sleepy voice.

“Yuki, I know you don’t get it,” Fuji said, her voice tinny and echoing in the cell phones. Looking out the window she noticed the rain. “I don’t mean that in a cruel way, but there’s just a lot of things going on right now, and I know I’m reacting badly, but there are things I want to explore, things I want to do, before I go off to college next year. Even while being friends with you guys I never truly enjoyed being a teenager.”

“So, we aren’t that much fun?”

“No,” Fuji argued. She then sighed, not knowing how to escape the hole she was digging. “I mean that I made bad choices and am using the people that I feel I could be less inhibited with. You have enough to worry about besides me.”

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me about Devilin.”

“That’s what’s upsetting you?” Fuji asked in disbelief. “All of these things I’m keeping from you and what is bothering you is that I didn’t tell you about Devilin.”

“Yes!” Yuki called, a little too loudly. She hurried to hush her voice. “I mean, if you like him I wouldn’t have been shooting daggers at him with my eyes every time I passed him. The last I heard he was harassing you, then you changed your mind and began to go out with him. That’s fine with me, but you have to keep me updated on these things.”

Fuji laughed on the other end. “I’m sorry, Yuki,” she said sadly. “I promise, no more secrets, as long as you promise not to surprise me with any more ex-boyfriends.”

“You only have one,” Yuki rubbed in, though Yuki did not have any more than one either. “And since you promised to be honest with me… Do you still have feelings for Amatsu?”

“Yes,” Fuji admitted with no hesitation. “He was my first love, and we did not end things in the best of ways, and given the choice Amatsu is the person I would want to fall in love with. Devilin and I won’t be together forever, he can see it, so can I, but Amatsu and I could not have made it forever either. We… His goals do not match mine.”

“Is that why you and Devilin will never be?”

“Probably,” Fuji admitted. “I do not know, really. I can only see a part of my future, and that is going to Tokyo University and studying to follow in my mother’s footsteps. I guess it is a bad time for me to rebel and act like a teenager, right before I am supposed to take exams, and the last year I will get to spend with you two like this.”

Yuki had never really thought of that. She had known Fuji would graduate a year early, but she did not think of how far away she would be. Sure, if Yuki caught a train she could be to Tokyo in two hours, but two hours was a long travel, especially when the girls were used to seeing each other every day. Yuki had never imagined that the three of them would not be together, like they are now, forever. “Growing up sucks,” Yuki sighed into the phone.

“Sure does,” Fuji agreed.

Yuki heard footsteps in the hallway, heavy footsteps that had a small flap along with them. “My mom’s coming,” Yuki said quickly into the phone. “I have to go. I’m supposed to spend the day with Shinwa in secret tomorrow, but if you want to hang out I can ditch our date.”

“It’s all right Yuki,” Fuji said, speaking quickly so Yuki could hang up the phone. “You spend the day with Shinwa, and I will talk to you soon, and maybe we’ll go to Shibuya and go shopping.”

“Sounds good,” and without waiting for an answer Yuki hung up the phone and hid it hurriedly under her blanket, just as Mother Oshidori stepped through the door and looked at Yuki sitting up in bed.

“What are you doing awake?” Mother Oshidori accused.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Yuki lied.

Mother Oshidori did not believe it. “I heard your phone ringing.”

“It was Fuji.”

“If it was only Fuji, why would you have lied to me?” Mother Oshidori pointed out, and Yuki could not argue with her. Yes, she was telling the truth, but why was it the first thing she had told her mom was a lie instead of the truth?

“She and I got into a fight, so she called to apologize,” Yuki said honestly.

“That does not tell me why you lied to me.”

Yuki sighed, she had already lost the argument but she trudged on like any willing teenager would do; only burying herself deeper into the pits of sand in her pyramid of parental instruction. “I didn’t want to explain the story,” Yuki admitted, “it was easier to lie.”

“You can forget going out tomorrow,” Mother Oshidori snapped.

“But Mom-”

“You know how this conversation goes. No but’s. You are grounded tomorrow for lying to me. You will not go out and see Fuji, Yuki, or that boyfriend of yours.” There was no reasoning with her. The door was slammed and Yuki was left in absolute darkness by herself. She bowed her head in defeat and wondered if she should wake Shinwa up to tell him she would not make it tomorrow, or at least let him sleep peacefully for the rest of the night.