VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter nineteen

act ii

how do we do this?
( carefully. )

chapter nineteen

❛don't say i didn't warn you❜

━━━━━━

Things seem to go downhill in the following weeks.

Chris is starting to stress because it's nearing the end of November and January will be arriving soon, the time when he'll be taking his entrance exams to the colleges of his choice. Really, all of the third years are stressed.

Except for Amara.

She's taken her SATs, applied to the colleges, now she can sort of sit back and relax but it feels remarkably inappropriate to do so when Chris and their third year friends are close to pulling their hair out over these exams.

So, she tries to stay out of his way as much as possible; they talk less during class as he has to actually focus and take notes on the lesson. She does the same, but a little more half-heartedly. She tries to pick up some of the slack for him, like on assignments she knows that he knows, she just sends him the answers, and offers her help proofing his essays for English. (She doesn't trust herself with their Japanese essays but she does what she can there.)

She continues to do her sessions with Mr. Fukai after school (alternating between painting and sketching) and he becomes absent for those hangouts, splitting his time between PT and intense study sessions with the guys. She doesn't mind — how can she? — and Miyuki still hangs around, having less of a workload as a second year, and still decommissioned from practice, though he can apparently run now.

She had told him, initially, that he had no obligation to hang out with her and he had only said I know, which was probably his way of saying he wants to.

With all that, she feels like she's starting to drift from Chris and despite herself, despite her vow to hold onto him as long as she can, his father's words linger in the back of her mind, an itch that won't go away.

But Chris remains none the wiser.

If anything, he's growing increasingly bold with his affection; from the times he can come pick her up from Mr. Fukai's and walk her to her dorm, he sends her off with a kiss to the cheek. He's yet to kiss her, though, and oddly enough, she's relieved.

She doesn't want to kiss him if she's struggling this much with doubt. She knows what she wants but it's like a fight between forces of nature; it's her will versus the seed of doubt his father planted.

All the while, the date of Fall Formal creeps closer and closer; she's lost track of the number of girls who've asked him out and been rejected.

But that doesn't make it any easier to watch.

It's the same story today, Friday, the dance a week from now.

She hates when the girls ask during break, because this is when he takes the time to summarize his notes that he's taken for the class, and he's still too polite to say no.

So, she suppresses a scowl when a girl, not in their homeroom, another third year, still from Seido, comes into the class, heading straight for their desk.

The logical solution would be to tell people they're dating. She knows that. It's just that they've never discussed anything like that. Their friends know they're dating and that's fine. They're not excessive about PDA during school hours since neither of them want to get in trouble with the teachers. She hasn't exactly expressed jealousy or anything like that at the steady stream of girls that come to him. He denies them, so why should she throw a fit?