When my Broken Heart met Yukino

If someone were to write a guidebook on "How to Gracefully Enter a New Month" I’m pretty sure Chapter One would explicitly state “Do not get your heart torn to shreds on day one”. ​Yet, here I am. ​Sitting in my room, staring blankly at the ceiling, completely shattered. Honestly, what better way is there to kick off a fresh calendar page than a total, catastrophic romantic defeat? It’s almost poetic if you completely ignore how much it actually hurts. ​The cause? A girl. ​I know, I know. How hopelessly cliche. But the truth is, I fell for her. Hard. Not the casual "Oh, she's cute" kind of passing interest, but the kind of stupidly intense crush that makes your brain short-circuit every time she walks into the room. ​I used to casually brush it off, telling myself, “It’s only been a few months, it’ll pass.” Wait. Was it actually just a few months? ​Let me do the mental math. If I actually stop lying to myself, the timeline is way worse. It’s been half a year at least. Six months? No, more like seven. ​And today, all seven months of that quiet hope came crashing down in an instant. I woke up and went through my usual morning routine of brushing my teeth, took a quick bath, and picked out an outfit. Just a simple white hoodie, fitted black trousers, and leather shoes. Standing in front of the mirror, the warm morning sun hit my face through the window. ​“Looking good. The weather’s nice, too.” ​A great outfit and perfect sunshine, this had to be a lucky sign, right? ​I ended up admiring myself in the mirror for a few minutes too long. By the time I snapped out of it, I realized I had morning classes to catch. I dashed down to the parking lot, hopped on my motorcycle, and sped off toward campus. ​Naturally, I arrived late. ​To be honest, being late is just part of who I am at this point. Class, group projects, hangouts with friends, if there's a scheduled time, you can bet I won't be there on the dot. It's not like I do it on purpose. I just have this bad habit of waiting until the absolute last minute to do anything. ​Am I just lazy? Probably. I’m not some genius who can afford to slack off, either. I’m completely average, so I have no idea where I get the nerve to procrastinate this much. ​Your guess is honestly as good as mine. The moment I stepped inside the lecture hall, my eyes immediately drifted toward the girl of my dreams. ​I made my way toward an empty desk in the back row, barely registering the sound of our professor demanding to know why I was late. My brain was far too busy focusing on Hina. ​She had been my classmate for two semesters now. Smart, pretty, kind, she was the whole package. I was willing to bet half the guys in this room had a secret crush on her. Not that I cared. Today was the day. Right after this class, I was finally going to confess. ​I kept staring at her like a kid gazing at the night sky. Even after settling into my seat, my eyes stayed glued to her until… ​ Clack. ​ A marker smacked me square on the forehead. ​"Aoi! Are you even listening to me?! Get out!" ​Our professor was practically raging, the veins on his forehead bulging so hard they looked ready to burst. And just like that, I was kicked out, left standing in the hallway waiting for the period to end. ​I didn't really care, though. It was just a minor subject anyway, and truth be told, school was never something I stressed over. ​An hour later, the double doors swung open as students started pouring out into the corridor. Through the small rectangular window on the door, I caught my professor motioning with his hand for me to come back inside. With a heavy sigh, I stepped in. It’s not like I had much of a choice. ​He just stared at me in complete silence for what felt like a minute before slowly taking off his glasses. ​He seemed pretty old. Or was he just middle-aged with bad genetics? Who knows. He certainly looked old. ​His fiery temper from earlier was completely gone. Looking at me with a surprisingly calm expression, he finally opened his mouth to speak. "Aoi, even if Purposive Communication isn't a major subject, that doesn't give you the right to slack off." ​From there, it turned into the usual lecture of blah blah blah about why his class was essential for our future careers. ​He finally wrapped it up with a sharp warning, "Two more tardiness and it counts as a full absence. You know what three absences mean, right? You'll be dropped from the course. You already have two on your record. Mind your attendance." ​Thanks to that little detour, my grand plan to catch Hina right outside the lecture hall had completely vanished. ​Still, all was not lost. Having quietly memorized her schedule, I knew she had a two-hour vacant window right now. Which meant one thing. She was almost certainly hanging out at the field benches with her circle. ​Sure enough, there she was. ​No surprise there. ​I took a second to collect myself, bracing for whatever cruel or wonderful outcome the universe had lined up for me. Dramatic? Maybe. But this was a confession. Anyone with a pulse would feel their palms sweating right about now. ​I ran my hand through my hair, brushing it to the side, not that it made my messy bedhead look any better and took a slow, steadying breath. ​Step by step, I made my way across the open grass until I was standing right in front of her group. "Hina, can we talk for a minute? I have something important that I really need to t-t-tell you." ​Yep. I definitely stuttered. No doubt about it. Total verbal disaster right out of the gate. ​"Haha, why are you so tense? Sure, let's go," she giggled. ​Her friends immediately started teasing her with playful elbow nudges as she stood up from the bench. ​We walked side by side in silence for a couple of minutes, leaving the noise of the crowd behind. ​"So, what did you want to tell me?" she asked, tilting her head up toward the open sky as we strolled along the edge of the field. ​I stopped and ​she paused too, turning around to face me. A sudden wave of cold chills swept through my limbs, feeling as if my soul were about to abandon my body entirely. ​ "I like you. For a while now, actually." ​ The words just spilled out on their own. My mind was completely blank, but my knees wouldn't stop trembling. ​ She looked at me, blinked, and quietly asked. ​ "Why me?" "Why not you? What's there not to like?" ​"I was just curious, really," she gave a gentle, apologetic smile. "Look, I'm really sorry. I appreciate that you like me, and it took a lot of guts to say it out loud. But I know you'll find someone better. Someone who can actually return those feelings. I'll see you around, Aoi." ​She turned and headed back to her friends. ​I stood rooted to the exact same spot for what felt like forever. ​Man... ​I’d bet good money she already knew what I was going to say before I even opened my mouth. That whole response felt like a memorized script straight out of the universal textbook on “How to Politely Reject Someone You Have Zero Interest In.” ​And just like that, my romantic ambitions crashed and burned. ​There was no way I was going back to sit through the rest of today's lectures. Ditching the afternoon, I wandered off-campus, lit a cigarette, and took a slow walk down the pavement with my head hanging low. ​Lost in my own thoughts, I accidentally bumped right into someone. ​I looked up to apologize, only to freeze. It was a familiar face. ​Yukino. A girl I had met and talked with once back in high school. A few years back, there was a night when I felt unusually down. ​I ended up outside a convenience store late at night, lying straight to the cashier's face about my age just so he'd sell me a couple of cans of cheap alcohol. It wasn’t like I was deeply depressed, to be honest, I can't even remember what had put me in such a mood in the first place. But that was just how I operated. I never asked for help. I knew my friends had my back, but for whatever reason, I could never bring myself to say, "Hey, I'm having a rough time." ​As I was sitting outside that night, Yukino had suddenly walked up to me. ​"Why are you drinking?" she asked, tilting her head. "Aren't you a bit too young for that?" ​I completely forgot what we ended up talking about after that. With my notoriously terrible alcohol tolerance, I was already totally wasted. ​So why did her face stayed into my memory for all these years? ​Simple. ​Because before we went our separate ways that night, we shared a kiss. Or maybe that was just a wild, drunken dream made up by my hazy brain. Who knows? Back to the present. ​I couldn't believe I was actually seeing her again after years of total silence. And what were the odds? I was in the exact same gloomy, pitiful state as the first time we met. ​We stood on the sidewalk staring at each other for a few awkward seconds before I finally broke the silence. ​"Are you okay? Sorry about that, I was completely spacing out," I apologized, giving a quick, polite bow. ​When I looked up, she was already giggling. ​"What's so funny?" ​"You're 'Drunk Guy,'" she teased, letting out a soft laugh. ​"'Drunk Guy'?" ​"Yeah, that’s the nickname I gave you back then. Though maybe I should change it to something about being gloomy instead. We’ve only ever crossed paths twice, including today, and both times you looked like this." ​"Like what?" ​"Like your entire world is about to collapse," she smirked. "Just do me a favor and don't try to kiss me this time." ​Wait. Hold on. ​So... that really wasn’t a drunk fever dream? ​"Why do you look so shocked?" she continued, crossing her arms playfully. "You stole my first kiss, so consider this payback. Let's hang out. Cheering people up isn't really my thing, but I’ll make an exception for you." ​First kiss?! ​My brain completely froze. There was no way that was true. Are you telling me my i***t, wasted past self stole this girl's very first kiss? No, wait, did I actually do it? Or was she messing with me? I couldn't tell what was real anymore. ​"Where are we going?" I managed to ask, trying to restart my fried brain. ​"Somewhere," she replied.