Reawakening Mishaps

t w e n t y f o u r

"H-how?" You queried after your round of hawking. Sure, you weren't in the drama club or anything, but you were king of certain that your acting was somewhat decent enough to not make anyone suspicious about your sudden connection with Takuma. Guess you thought too highly of yourself. 

"I'm your friend, Y/n. Of course I will be able to sense immediately if there's something out of the ordinary. Which in this case, is you suddenly entering a relationship." Oh well, no point in lying. She found you out and if you tried turning on defensive mode, it would make you look more of a bigger fool than you already were.

"Just like what you've said earlier, please never tell a word of it to anyone."

"Alright. You don't have to tell me the reason behind it if you don't want to." You just wanted to hug the life out of her. Thank god she was so understanding. If she tried to pry more information out of you, you would just stammer out excuses because you couldn't just tell her that it was because of your want to aid Takuma in his mission and that he wasn't your everyday student but an investigator in actuality.

You reveled in the sweet silence between you two. Because you were so comfortable with each other, there was no need to fill the quietness with chatter because one wanted to get rid of the awkwardness lingering in the air.

Kane was the first to shatter it.

"Y/n."

"Yes?"

"I don't know if you're already cognizant of it, but I'm sure you aren't the oblivious type so you must've noticed how your other 'friends' are acting around you, right?" She was correct, and while you weren't ignorant, most of the time, you still were on the in denial side of things. You were too much of a pussy to face the feelings of other people upfront, so as much as possible, you made excuses that would swerve the notion of people falling for you away. 

You nodded and motioned for her to continue.

"Avoid them."

Yeah, that was what you were trying to do most of the time, but it seemed like you were a magnet for psychopaths.

"Call it me being paranoid, but the aura around them is just... odd. Especially Yukio." Wow, her gut feelings deserved to be commended. Talk about accuracy. But Yukio, ah, that name just gave you the shivers every time it was uttered out. 

It was weird how you'd seen less of him the past few days, but you'd just take this as a sign that the heavens were finally being kind to you after making you suffer for so long. Good for you and good for them.

"Yeah, I will."
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After a long day, you were finally chilling atop your bed. You hugged your pillow between your legs, ready to drift off to sleep. You decided to just do your assignments later on when your alarm rang (which you had set to 10 P.M.)

Knock knock

The sudden thumping of someone's fist on the door made you jump in surprise. Groggily muttering a 'come in', a maid entered, a face which you didn't recognize. There were so many servants in this estate that memorizing their faces and their names was something you weren't capable of doing just yet.

"Good evening, Milady. Sir Ross had asked for your presence in his office."

Oh, so he had arrived now? He was away for a week because of a business in which he didn't feel entitled to inform you about. 

After swinging your legs to the side and making use of both of your hands to stand up, you went straight in front of the maid and had led the way with her following you, head bowed low. The walk to his office was quite far since it was on the other side of the manor, but once you got there, you told the maid that it was now alright for her to be off.

Knocking exactly three times, you voiced out, "Father, it's me, Y/n. I've been notified that you requested for my presence."

"Come in," and so you did. 

You made a beeline towards one of the available seats in front of his desk and placed your rear on the plump cushion provided. The bags under his eyes were dark, which meant that he wasn't getting enough sleep. He also looked extremely tired, and it looked like if he closed his eyes even for five seconds at max, he would doze off right then and there.

"Have you sorted out through the folder of eligible bachelors that I've given you?" Oh right, he placed it in your hands before he had departed a week ago. "Uh, about that..." You rubbed the back of your neck, sheepish. You didn't look through them at all because you hoped that you intentionally not browsing through them meant that you weren't interested at all in marrying yourself off to some random dude.

You and Kane really were the best of friends, huh? You were in the same situation as her.

"I'm sure you didn't," the head of the Ross family pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I didn't want to do this, but I had to. You're my daughter, so I am certain that if I had left you alone to solve this matter, at the age of 30, you still would be unwedded and hadn't given birth to an heir." You had been avoiding his gaze for quite some time now, and at the moment, you were a little bit successful in accomplishing that.

"That's why I've been in contact with the Lovelles for a little while since we've had that discussion. I'm thinking of making you betrothed to the only son in their house. You two are both only childs, so I believe that you two will get along."

You felt your world stop at that moment. When you heard the last name said by your father, you wanted to puke all the contents of your stomach and pass out on the floor. And maybe when you woke up, you'd be told that this was just a prank and that your father was just joking with you.

"He's in the same school as you, if I recall correctly. You two could start introducing yourselves to each other as soon as tomorrow-"

Ring ring

The tone of the telephone was loud, yet it couldn't beat the loud ringing in your ears. Your hands had started to clench into a fist as your chest started to feel heavy, and you were now starting to feel like your lungs were slowly giving up on you because every breath you took felt like it was going to be your last one.

"...Ah, yes. She's here. You can talk to her now. Y/n." You didn't respond.

"Y/n!" And that was when you snapped out of it. "The son of the Lovelles is on the phone. I'll give it to you right now." Your shaky hands reached out to grab the phone before you slowly placed it near your ears. 

"Surprise, it's me. Ahhh, I missed you so much. I missed so much at school as well! I heard that Clemontaine, was that her name, had received quite a blow from you. The things I'd do to be in her place..."

"What the hell are you planning...

Yukio Lovelle."