Date Her Instead Vol. 7 (Final Volume)

Chapter Two: When Past Joins With Present

In the end, it was her own stubbornness that had put her in the position she had been in, and now once again, Michi found herself in similar straits. She was ultimately faced with a choice, one she had picked wrong for last time.

Put the past behind her and fight to make sure she didn't lose Chiyo.

Or, remain steadfast in her beliefs and find some other way to keep Chiyo around, but also keep a distance between them.

Sitting down at her table with a bowl of miso soup and another bowl of rice, Michi had a pensive look on her face. This was not a choice that was occurring to her only right in this moment. This was a choice that she had been thinking about on repeat for days now. In the end, this was what her internal conflict boiled down to.

Perhaps in the past, Michi would've easily chosen the latter. After all, it's easier to remain stubborn, especially for someone like Michi who's so averse to change. However, there was a key difference between when she had been fighting with Kanako, and her current fight with Chiyo.

Someone else was threatening to intervene.

In Kanako's case, it had merely been Haruna coming into Kanako's life more and more, but with Chiyo, it was Chitose who held Michi's friendship with Chiyo in her hands. While Michi didn't exactly know Chitose well, she knew the older Wakabayashi well enough to know that if she said she'd stop Michi from seeing Chiyo, she meant it. In other words, if Michi didn't get her act together, Chiyo would be taken from her. That was something she knew she didn't want, but unlike with Kanako, that feeling was even stronger. There was something inside Michi that told her, screamed at her that she absolutely could not screw up again. That voice, which before may have been drowned out by pure stubbornness, was now the loudest voice in her heart.

She couldn't ignore it. There was no way she could. No matter what Michi thought, no matter what Michi told herself, there was no denying that she had messed up, and it was time to fix her mistakes before it became too late. This wasn't like with Kanako, who was just a good friend. This was more.

This was about a gyaru who by all accounts should've never been able to become friends with Michi because of Michi's own prejudice.

This was about a gal who kept pushing the bounds of what Michi would accept.

This was about a girl who, somehow, had become the most important person in the world to Michi.

Smiles and tears. Laughing and screaming. Coming closer and then... closer still. Michi had said she wanted to create distance between herself and Chiyo, but all she had managed to do in the process was risk losing the very person who had come to mean so much to her. How could she try to cut out the one who had been there for her when things had been hard? How could she try to say it was for the best that the one who kept supporting her was kept at a distance?

How could she be so cruel to Chiyo?

It was like slapping the gal in the face. Thinking of it that way, Michi and Chiyo were even. And that betrayal? Perhaps Chiyo had gone against something Michi kept insisting upon, but that paled in comparison to Michi herself betraying the feelings of Chiyo and everything she had done for Michi. If her stubbornness was like a wall, there were now so many cracks in it that it could no longer stand. That threat Chitose had made was the last it could take, and Michi's realizations, as she had them one by one, delivered the final blow.

Her heart hurt. Her chest ached. She wanted to cry as she began to understand just how badly she had screwed up. This was not something that could be fixed with a simple apology. Michi had gone beyond that. While she knew the gal was resilient, there was also only so much a person could take. Had Michi crossed that threshold? Was it possible that she had hurt Chiyo so much that there was no chance of recovery? There was no way for her to know, and that fear continued to smolder inside of her.