Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

A fter a restless night of tossing and turning, I felt absolutely horrible. This was worse than a hangover, worse than when I fell from a tree as a child after being warned not to climb it. And to make matters worse, Konomi was gone from her bed when I woke up.

For one traitorous moment, I thought she'd abandoned me.

I didn't feel relieved when I found her eating breakfast at the long table, just more guilty that I'd doubted her impeccable character. She was far too kind and honourable to do something nasty like disappearing in the night.

That was something I would do.

"Morning," I muttered as I sat opposite her. We were the only guests here which offered privacy, but I didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

Konomi cleared her throat. "Good morning, Mayu."

"H-How did you sleep?" I still didn't manage to look her in the eye. I shouldn't have worried because she didn't seem to want to look at me either.

"Perfectly well, thank you." She sounded so formal and distant, it was blood-chilling.

Rudy came from the kitchen with a bowl of porridge for my breakfast and set it down, not picking up on the strange tension between us. He chattered happily about something but I didn't hear a word of it. I was too focused trying to decipher Konomi's blank expression.

I managed two bites of the lukewarm oat mush before I realised I couldn't take another bite with this energy.

"What's wrong?" I asked, not sure if I was ready to hear what was wrong but I couldn't stop myself. I'd never had all that good a grip on myself, or I'd have managed to kill my feelings for her a long time ago.

"Nothing." She was a terrible liar.

I put my spoon down. "Konomi."

"Let it go," she said, using my own words against me.

"No." I knew it was unfair not to give her the same grace as she afforded me. But then, if I was a better person, none of this would be happening. This whole thing was unfair. Of all the people I could be in love with, why did it have to be with the one person who I couldn't escape, the one person who didn't feel the same?

Konomi's gaze snapped up to mine, her voice colder than I'd ever heard it. "Really? You're going to be like that?"

Guilt lashed through me and I suddenly felt deeply ashamed of my behaviour. I got up, unable to be in her presence any longer. I had no right behaving like this. She wasn't to blame for this hurt, it was all me.

"Why don't you want to live with me?" Konomi's jaw was tensed, like it pained her to even ask the question.

It took me a moment to process the situation. This was what she was upset about?

I settled back at the table, my mind racing to come up with acceptable answers that wouldn't reveal my crush or hurt her feelings. We were close, good friends, technically family. There was no good reason why we couldn't share a house, none apart from my poor heart.

"It's not that I don't want to live with you," I said slowly, not sure where I was going with it. I just knew I couldn't sit here and let her stay upset. I needed a simple explanation, something that made sense.

"Then what?" Konomi asked.

"I'm... I'm afraid." That was not a lie. "Afraid we won't find the Winter Stone and there will be no returning home for us."

"Oh." Konomi's eyes locked with mine. "That's it?"

I hummed affirmingly, not able to get the actual lie over my lips.

She let out a breath. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. There's something else going on. You've been acting weird lately. Skittish. Distant. Is it... because of me?"

Panic gripped my heart. She knew.

She rubbed her temples with a panicked look. "I knew it. I knew I wasn't making it up. You've been avoiding my gaze, shying away from my touch. You can't even look at me right now." She looked like she could cry. "I knew it. You're?—"

"Yes, I'm in love with you!" I interrupted, the words exploding from me. I almost felt relieved, like the very brief moment of free fall before the noose tightens. "I know, it's wrong. You're my brother's wife, my best friend. I've been lying to you for so long, it's horrible. I wish I didn't feel like this, I tried not to show it, I tried to get over it but you're always here, always so close."

Konomi looked shocked to her core, her eyes larger than I'd ever seen them. "Y-You love me? What? How? Since when ?"

Her surprise confused me. Why was she acting like this confession was completely out of the blue? The way she'd been talking, it was clear she knew.

My stomach dropped. What if she didn't know and I'd just blurted all this out?

I clasped my hands over my mouth, horrified at what I'd just said. At what I'd just done.

"Mayu—"

Bile pushed up to the back of my throat and I scrambled up from the table, blind to where I was going. I ran into a chair on my way out, deaf to Konomi shouting my name after her. I threw the front door of the inn open, temporarily blinded by the harsh sunlight. There was another layer of fresh snow outside but I ruined it without a second thought, running through it like a rabbit escaping from an arrow.

I didn't know where I was going, I just needed to get away. And because I was so much more awful than Konomi, I genuinely thought of not coming back.