“So anyway, after I learned that from Nagawa, I felt like the next time I would see you, I would let you have it—” Sumire interjected. “By showering and showing up naked?” She said drily.
Yuhi awkwardly ran his hands through his hair. “Well, I didn’t want to show up as a mess, and I had to be ready for you to hug me and get all affectionate.”
What is with his unusual amount of confidence when it comes to her? She thought he would be a bit more cautious. No matter what the reason was before, she still turned him down in the past. But ever since she came here, Yuhi made it clear that he still had feelings for her.
“I didn’t mean to,” Sumire mumbled. “But-”
“I know you get carried away when it comes to me.”
At those words, Sumire bit her lip; indeed, she cannot deny those words. But whether it is Yuhi or Sano, it seems like she has underestimated both of them. The care they have for her is more than she originally thought. Now that she is gradually collecting the fragments of truth together, Sumire is learning a lot more than before. But that is precisely why she is hesitating; maybe she should stop?
Recently such thoughts have crossed her mind, and she doesn’t know what to do with these emotions. Is it fine? The other day she told Eli with such confidence that even if it means destroying the balance of the world, she will uncover the truth, but this is too much.
Yuhi aside, what is she supposed to do with Nagawa Sano’s feelings? Initially, she thought she could use him. Even if he no longer liked her or never felt guilty for what he did, she would have found a way to make him fall for her again.
It would have been easy; there are traits of Sano that remain unchanged. She knew she could easily get to him by playing innocent and yet acting brave. But it was not like that at all.
From the moment they met again, she knew she would not have to execute that plan since the man was still madly in love with her.
“Are you concerned for him?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I could tell when he came and informed me of your situation. It seems like you are keeping him at arm’s length, but the reality is far different. You agreed to live with him because you were worried about him.”
“In the first place, he should not have gotten involved with any of this. But,” Sumire closed her eyes as she recalled something. “- those people knew he would be my weak point.”
It was something that happened a long time ago. She brought Sano to a party where they did not invite him, and it generated many stares/questions. But nobody could voice those thoughts out loud since he was her escort. Finally, however, they used an opportunity where she was busy to set Sano up.
She recalled that day. The image of him drugged heavily and doing it with several women. Those people deliberately lead her to that sight while expressing their concerns about her being around Sano.
But she did not blame him or get mad. So it must have been that incident that leads to people thinking Nagawa Sano is somebody they could use against her.
“Do you still like-”
Sumire shook her head. “I don’t think that is it at all; it is simply because things ended up messy. I only need to resolve the issues we had back then.”
“Initially, I thought he was a jerk, but I think I realized before you did that he was somebody you cared for and not hated.”
“But no matter how important he is, you are my priority now, Yuhi,” She trailed off. “Can you tell me about your travels abroad?”
“Even though I had left the Holy Knights organization, I still did some underground world for a while. But, unfortunately, one time one of the raids ended badly.”
“A spy?” Sumire guessed. Yuhis success rate with missions was very high back when they still belonged to the same organization. He is not the type of guy who would make a blunder no matter how difficult the situation was.
In fact, people often said before that as long as Terashima Yuhi is on their team, then they can win. Indeed those words were true; Yuhi never loses. The only times he would lose is if somebody caught him off guard or used underhanded means.
“Yeah, a spy, the enemy was waiting for us. The worse thing was the spy ended up being the head of the unit, so the enemy not only knew our plan but how we fought too. But there was this one guy that just kept on going; even though the leader, his best friend, just betrayed us all, he still kept ongoing. The fight was very brutal and one-sided since the enemy knew all our moves. Only the strongest fighters from our side could catch them off guard, but it was still difficult. They knew our weak points and what kind of attacks we would execute.”
“That commander—”
“He ended up dead. Funny enough, while me and spencer, the guy I just spoke about, tried to corner him to give up. One of the people on the enemy side accidentally dropped the bomb that meant for us directly on him. He died in seconds without even the room to say his last words. After the enemy realized their mistake, their plan fell through, and we somehow managed to get to them.”
“Were you close?”
Sumire could not see his facial expression, but she could tell that there was something different from his tone. “I apologize if that was insensitive.”
“No, your right. We were close, the three of us. When I first joined, I didn’t intend to get close to them. I was just doing this until those people in Japan stopped searching for me, then I would return and start my career again.”
Now that he mentioned it, during his last few days in Star town. Yuhi seldom saw anybody, and he didn’t even bother spending time with her.
“But with such a lively and interesting bunch around me, it was difficult for me to ignore them.”
“Do you miss those times?”
Yuhi laughed. “Well, life as a fugitive isn’t exactly something people would desire. The fact that I went in as a volunteer baffled people.”
“How come?”
“Most of the guys there didn’t have a choice but to fight; they had to fight to keep their family and home country safe. So when I first joined, and people learned I was a volunteer, they all thought I was searching for a place to die.”
Sumire recalled the last time she saw him and bit her lip. “Was that not the case? You could have gone abroad to hide; you didn’t have to join the guerrillas.”
“Yes, I went there to die.”
