A Farewell to All Futures

Cheering Your Angel

Warning: mentions of past bullying, mentioned neglect, mentioned abuse, implied incest

***

Ever since Hibiki had taken her to the ice cream parlour where Kokoro had confessed to Emma, Setsuka was having an epiphany. She knew that she wasn't really good at thinking complicatedly, but all it took was for her to put a few 'puzzle pieces' together to get any kind of answer in general. 

One, Hibiki kept wanting to hang out with her all the time. Two, she started to be influenced by Setsuka's actions and words, even starting to be nicer to her sister because she told her to "back off of her a little". And three, she took Setsuka to a place where she was told a romance had bloomed.

With all this in mind, Setsuka's mind jumped to the closest conclusion it could reach: Hibiki was in love with her. She didn't mind, of course, and was even excited when she learned of it. But the question that lingered in her mind was why Hibiki had fallen in love with her. After all, there were still many things about herself that she never told Hibiki, things that plenty of others had cast her out for.

The billiards player knew that she kept alluding to her Devil's Eye in jokes, but she had never told Hibiki what it was or how she had gotten it. If the vocalist knew the truth about her cursed eye, would she reject her like all her previous friends had? She never wanted the eye in the first place, and her childhood peers had all cast her out because of it, calling her a 'one-eyed freak' and wanting nothing to do with her afterwards.

But sooner or later, Hibiki would have to know the truth. If she found out about her eye in the middle of their potential relationship and hated it, it would cause a lot more heartbreak than telling her immediately and getting turned down. She figured that it was better to 'cut the problem at its roots', as they say.

That sealed Setsuka's decision. Hibiki wasn't at the dorm right now, being at the music room, but the billiards player sent her a message through the student handbook to meet her at the courtyard's fountain in the late afternoon. It was better to just get it over with than to suffer in the future for not telling her sooner. That way, at least one of them won't be hurt.

***

Setsuka watched Hibiki run up to her in front of the fountain, panting and out of breath. "S-Sorry, I didn't know how far the fountain was from the music room!" She apologized.

"That's fine, I just wanted to talk to you somewhere where nobody would normally go. No need to rush, ya know?" Setsuka joked, sitting down on the fountain.

"Eeeh?!" Hibiki pouted. "Then you should've said so in the first place, Suka!"

"Mwahaha, sorry 'bout that!" The billiards player laughed. Suddenly, her face turned serious. "I wanted to just talk to you in private, where Kana and Roro wouldn't overhear."

"It must be serious then." The vocalist guessed. "What do you want to talk about?"

Setsuka took a deep breath and pointed to her closed eye. "This eye, my Devil's Eye, is actually not mine."

"Wait, did you steal it from somebody else? Suka, please tell me the person was at least dead beforehand! Wait, that's even worse!" Hibiki gasped.

Setsuka could not remain serious after hearing that. "No, no, I didn't steal it from a human! Or an animal, for that matter!" 

"Oh. Whoops." Hibiki flatly stated.

Setsuka chuckled a bit before continuing. "Remember when I told you that my father's a billiards player?" She asked.