Skip A Beat (Completed)

Chapter 3

Matsuri watched as Yuzu unscrewed the cap of the prescription bottle, "You still take medication, huh?". The middle schooler invited her out to eat, telling her she would treat her to dinner as an apology for causing a scene in the academy after showing up without notice this morning.

Yuzu swallowed the small pill and took a swig of her water before replying, "...Yeah"

"Does anyone else know about your condition?". Matsuri was well aware of Yuzu's tendency to keep her affliction a secret from everyone unless it was absolutely necessary to tell them.

"Harumin knows, though it was kind of an accident…"

The younger girl raised an eyebrow, 'So that senpai from the other day knows…'."What about your little step sister? If you told her, I'm sure you'd get closer"

'And make her feel guilty and pity me? No way'. There are many ways to get someone to like you. Pity is not one of them. Yuzu was aiming to win Mei's heart with as much love as she could offer. Even if she's been rejected countless times only to be kissed again a few days later.

'So that Mei doesn't know anything, huh?'. Matsuri stared at the older girl's serious expression. She was lost in her own thoughts. 'That's good'.

Boring. That was her impression of Yuzu's new step sister/crush. Someone who was blessed with a long, healthy life was living it in such a boring way that she actually looked dead inside. 'Someone like that couldn't possibly make Yuzu-oneechan happy', the troublesome middle schooler thought as she devised one of her schemes. Yuzu becomes compliant and timid whenever Mei was around. But the Yuzu that Matsuri knew was carefree and rebellious. She would never take orders from anyone, especially someone so stiff and subservient.

Flashback:

"The doctor said that I'm sick", Yuzu said simply.

Since she started middle school Yuzu started feeling a strange fluttering sensation in her chest. She'd mentioned it once or twice to her mom and she simply wrote it off as her daughter having a crush for the first time. However, a few weeks ago when the pain got so bad that she ended up fainting during school, her mother, like any other worried parent, brought her to the hospital. They did a few tests, hooking her up to machines using wires and took a couple x-ray examinations.

The results came in this morning and her mother had been crying ever since. Yuzu was sad that her mother was sad but she herself didn't really know how to react to the news. There were too many complicated words for her to understand like 'life expectancy, arrhythmia and hereditary'. All she knew was that she would die because of this 'sickness' but wouldn't everyone die sooner or later? Sure it was sad but she couldn't understand why that was a bad thing. After all, she'd meet her papa again in heaven when she died right?

Yuzu decided to give her mother some space so she went to the playground where she found Matsuri playing by herself like usual. "They said that I'll have to take medication for it…"

Matsuri sat down on one of the swings next to Yuzu and after a pause she finally managed to form words. She was also trying to wrap her head around this. "If you're sick does that mean you'll have to stay in the hospital?"

The middle schooler shook her head as she began to swing a little. "The doctors said that finding out while I'm still young will reduce the risk of full time hospitalization"