I am only one world away from Yukinoshita.

Is that the problem?

Suppressing his inner complaints, Kiyoshi continued listening.

"I've had a lot going on here lately too..." Huang Qian slumped weakly on the table like a deflated balloon. "Did Reina talk to Kiyoyori about anything?"

Kiyotomi, biting the straw from the milk carton, said, "It doesn't seem like anything special."

Lately, she has been troubled by Asuka's matter, and Reina has been giving her space in a very tacit way. Thinking back to the other party's expression during their conversation last week, it seemed that she was no different from usual.

but……

Reina has been acting a little different lately; she seems to have something on her mind.

“Rena can be really hard to please sometimes,” Huang Qian said, squeezing the empty milk carton with his fingers. “She always gets hung up on the smallest things, things you wouldn’t normally notice…”

Could it be...?

Qinglai paused in his milk-drinking motion.

"Chiang Lai?"

"How about we invite her home today?"

"Huh?"

Kiyoshi casually flattened the empty milk cup he had finished drinking and said seriously to Huang Qian, "After training ends today, invite Reina to go home with you."

"Hmm, well, that's fine then!"

....................................................................................

Although the plan seemed perfect, everything fell apart when Huang was rejected by Reina.

Watching Reina's figure gradually disappear into the distance, Huang Qian stood helplessly at the school gate. The only thing he was certain of was:

She must have done something to upset him.

And he was very angry.

Dejected, she returned home, only to unexpectedly receive a letter from her older sister, Mamiko. The two sisters, who had drifted apart due to some issues, had recently begun to communicate again in this very traditional way.

Mamiko returned to her apartment and began to formally study makeup. Although the road ahead was bumpy, Kumiko could see the happiness in her sister's words.

During dinner, Kumiko kept staring at her phone. The screen lit up intermittently, but the contact wasn't the one she was hoping for. She swiped through the chat history while eating, trying to find out why Reina was angry. However, their chat history had ended abruptly four days ago, with their last conversation being a goodnight goodbye on Friday night.

Come to think of it, it seems like it started around the weekend when Reina became less willing to talk to her.

Ugh, why is it so complicated!

He sighed deeply, which once again displeased his mother.

"Don't use your phone while eating! Your dad has told you that so many times."

Before I could even agree, a new message suddenly appeared on the previously frozen chat screen.

Reina: "Are you free later?"

Before Huang Qian could put down his chopsticks and reply, another message popped up.

Reina: "I want to meet you at our usual spot."

Huang Qian picked up the bowl and silently quickened his eating pace.

………………

Upon arriving at the agreed-upon location, Huang Qian saw Lina wearing a white sweater. Her delicate collarbones were exposed to the air, shimmering under the streetlights. Her skin was dazzlingly white, just as stunning as a dress worn on a summer night.

Looking at his cartoon hoodie, Huang Qian tugged at the hem of the shirt a little embarrassedly.

"Let's go up the mountain now."

"Huh, now?"

The only response to Huang Qian's surprised tone was a cool look from Reina.

"You don't want to?"

"Uh……"

The words stuck in his throat, and Huang Qian shook his head from the bottom of his heart.

Reina turned and walked away with the flashlight in her hand, seemingly not caring at all about Huang Qian following behind her. She always stayed a few steps ahead of Huang Qian, unwilling to turn around or speak.

They walked quietly like this, but Huang Qian's heart pounded with anxiety.

She wouldn't be surprised if Rena pulled out a knife and stabbed her at that moment. Rather, it would be better to give her a clean and quick death, rather than letting her unease grow deeper into the night.

You should be able to tell I'm angry, right?

She didn't turn around, but Reina's voice was exceptionally clear in the night.

"Hmm, vaguely."

Huang Qian's mind raced, and he decided that the priority at this moment should be to soothe the other person's emotions.

"Then do you know why I'm angry?"

What's with this feeling of being questioned by my girlfriend?!

Although he knew he shouldn't be thinking about random things at this moment, Huang Qian couldn't help but let his thoughts wander.

"Hmm, it's probably because of that matter?"

The answer was still ambiguous. Although Huang Qian had no idea what the other person was thinking, he had watched TV dramas and knew that answering "I don't know" at this moment would probably only lead to his death.

Reina, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped, and Huang Qian, who was following behind, also stopped a few steps away.

The moonlight shone from behind Reina, obscuring her delicate face, but even so, Huang Qian could still picture Reina's eyebrows and eyes, her straight nose, and her soft lips in his mind.

This is definitely not the time to be thinking about these things.

Lina's body looked so frail in the evening breeze that she wanted to go up and give her a gentle hug.

But the other person's words were like sharp knives, piercing her and making her afraid to go forward.

"If you don't know something at all, don't pretend you do."

Lina's voice was cold, even colder than the evening breeze in the mountains.

"...Of course I wouldn't know!" Huang Qian clutched the flashlight to his chest as if embracing some kind of comfort, his mind blank. "I didn't say anything, I didn't do anything! If Reina doesn't explain clearly, how am I supposed to know what I did to upset you!"

“It’s because they didn’t say anything, they didn’t do anything!” Reina took a deep breath, a hint of tears seeming to well up in her eyes. “They’re all like that…”

Clutching the flashlight tightly in her hand, Reina felt pain for the first time in a long time. It wasn't the pain of her fingernails digging into her palm, but the stinging pain of being deceived in the name of love.

It's disgusting.

"I'm angry because you don't do anything..."

I clearly gave you all a chance...

Turning away again, Reina continued walking alone towards the mountaintop, leaving Huang Qian, who was stunned in place, behind without looking back.

Watching Reina's receding figure, Huang Qian's heart sank slowly until a feeling of suffocation welled up inside him.

It felt like being gripped by an invisible hand, a pain from which there was no way to stop it.

What do I need to do to get Rena to turn around and look at me...?

Or was there only one person in her heart from beginning to end?

I took out my phone and silently found Qinglai's contact information.

"It seems she knows."

send.

P.S.: I'm so tired. I don't know why, I'm just so tired.

Chapter 87, Section 325: Perhaps, his heart had died.

"what----!"

Rina...

After the desperate roar came a series of trembling breaths, seemingly with suppressed sobs, but they all dissipated in the evening breeze. Reina's tied-up black hair fluttered in the wind, and every strand of hair tugged at Kumiko's heart.

The two stood on the mountaintop, but Kumiko dared not approach.

“Kumiko knows, right?” Reina’s voice trembled slightly, “about Taki-sensei’s wife.”

Kumiko opened her mouth slightly, then hesitated and lowered her head, clenching her fists tightly against her chest. "Why?"

“On the day it rained heavily, I ran into Taki-sensei by chance,” Reina gripped the railing tightly, her knuckles turning white. “I saw the ring on his hand and couldn’t resist asking Hashimoto-sensei about it.”

When she learned that Taki was already married, it was like a bolt from the blue. Her first love, which hadn't even begun, ended without a trace. But when she learned that Huang knew the inside story, she felt a nameless fire in her heart. It was a kind of anger of being deceived, not because she knew that her beloved was already married, but because she was deceived by the person she trusted most.

Rena couldn't even tell which emotion was stronger.

But she was undoubtedly more angry with Kumiko.

Simply because she is Kumiko.

"I see..."

Without offering further explanation, Kumiko said softly.

Explanation is superfluous, because the damage has already been done, and any explanation is merely an attempt to alleviate one's own guilt.

Kumiko pinched a shallow crescent shape in her palm, and a feeling of inexplicable grievance welled up in her heart. It was very sour, like swallowing a mouthful of rice vinegar, spreading in her heart. The sour feeling in her nasal cavity surged like a tide, and she bit her lower lip tightly, forcibly suppressing it.

Reina likes Taki-sensei, not just likes him, she loves him.

Isn't this something we already knew a long time ago?

And what's there to be sad about...?

Taki is as excellent as a spotlight on a stage, illuminating Reina's beauty at all times, while she is probably just a support holding up the sheet music for Reina, dispensable.

Reina's voice had returned to its usual calm, "Why did you hide it from me?"

Behind Reina was a city that resembled a galaxy, with blurry lights illuminating the entire city in the darkness, but this was far less dazzling than the black-haired girl in front of her.