Memory like a fading fire (Part 3)

♫ Somebody said you bumped your head and bled the floor

Jumped into a pit of flames and burned to coal

Drowned inside the lake, outside away you flow

And that means the world to me ♫

"Nice song huh?" I asked Yua

I saw her slightingly moving her head so it was natural

"I mean I don't hate it but why do you like this kind of music so much? I mean my brother listens to rap but this thing is way more depressing than what he hears!"

Is this somewhat of a way to call me emo?

"Don't say that! Su-kun has the best music taste out of all my friends!" Takito said with an angry expression

"For someone like you, I expected your friends to have trash music taste!" Yua said with a smug smile

I guess I'm not the only victim anymore

"WHAT? Take it back! My friends listen to good music like... Okay, it's not the best but who are you to judge them? What do you even listen to?"

"Why do you care? It's not like you can judge someone's favorite music by listening to it once!"

You just did...

"PIPE DOWN KIDS! YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON!" Terresa screamed from her office

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that Takito, Yua, and I got into detention, we didn't fight or anything but it was something equally bad

~FLASHBACK~

"Man, I'm tired of this! We stacked all the woods together so why do we have to ALSO help with the decorations?" Takito said as he placed flowers around the area

"Don't complain, you only are making this bad experience even worse!"

"You are not helping by talking back to him! Just be disciplined for a little and work with your mouths closed! But I guess you can't silence wild animals" Yua said

There we go again with the fourth-grader insults

"You wouldn't say that if you lifted 20 kilos of wood from the road to here again and again!" Takito said as he stopped decorating, he also stood right at Yua's face

Things are getting a bit intense...

"Well sorry for not being a boy! As you can see decorating isn't easy so pipe down!" Yua said with an angry expression

"You know what! I'm leaving! SU COME!" Takito said as he grabbed me by my wrist and dragged me away with him

"Hey, where are you going? Come back here and do your assigned work!" Yua said as she started chasing after us

Takito and I ran away and Yua followed

Well... I mostly moved my legs so I don't fall flat on my face

"HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Terresa said

I guess from her point of view we are playing tag

"These two were slacking off their work miss!" Yua said as he breathed heavily

"Then what are you doing?" Terresa asked

"Chasing them down so I can put them back to work!"

"She is lying, teacher! We were simply having a race and whoever lost would do the work of the winner and she is simply salty she lost"

"Just go into the office, you will all go into detention"

~END OF FLASHBACK~

"It's about to start huh?"

"What?" Yua asked

"The dance, I never have done anything like this before so you see I'm pretty excited to see what it will be like"

"You will have a good time, I guarantee you that!"

"SHUT UP! I'm trying to study here! Teacher, they are distracting my studying session" Takito said

"Don't make me come over there!" Terresa said

We all could feel her evil aura pass through the wall so we remained silent all the remaining time we were in detention, Yua and I both listened to music like we are used to and Takito studied math, a subject he is proud to announce that he sucks

While relaxing this thought hit me, this is almost ending and in a bit, I will be ready to meet my father after months of not talking with him, Terresa told me she knew me when I was a little kid so that means I was in Japan before but why not tell me? I know there must be something he doesn't want me to know so I will comfort him when I see my father again

…

"Thank god she didn't make us do extra work! I'm so beaten up from all the preparations!" Takito said as he laid his head on his bed

He doesn't even have enough strength to shower, poor soul, as for me I took a quick cold shower and fall asleep knowing tomorrow would be an actually exciting day unlike today

…

"We reached the middle of summer huh?" Yu-kun asked me

"Seems like it, yeah, I wonder what the others outside the camp are doing! I mean Ada was a good girl that I haven't talked to in a long time..."

"Haha! She sure was but aren't you forgetting one girl?"

"What girl?"

"YUA! Who else? So what are you going to do? She obviously has shown signs of attraction to you so why not shoot your shot? You don't have anything to lose by doing it! It's summer, after all, the best memories between couples are created on summer days or winter days or spring... You get what I mean!"

Yu seemed a bit angry toward me, I don't know why but I could feel it

"I don't know... I never asked a girl out before, surprisingly girls were the ones that asked me out first... How do I even do that?"

"Ask Takito-kun! He is your friend and he also has a little sister, so he has an idea how to deal with girls"

Not a bad idea but there is no way I could tell him I like Yua

"Forget it! I will man up when the times call!"

…

"WAKEY, WAKEY! WAKEY, WAKEY! It's time for school!" Takito yelled as he woke me up

"Good morning to you too!"

"We have to spend these two last days on this camp creating good memories! We are going to have a lesson and then make the final preparations for the dance! You are not remotely close to the level of excitement you should be feeling now!" Takito said with an energetic smile

Maybe he is right... I have been thinking a little bit too hard on my "vacation" It's about time I turn my thoughts off and enjoy myself

Suddenly I received a text

<Meet me behind the warehouse after school>

That message was from Yua

Why would she text me that? What does she want to talk about? Is she going to confess?

No wait! I said I will relax

BRAIN: OFF

…

"As most of you know it's the last day of preparations, after the lessons we are going to set up fireworks so work hard today so we have a BLAST tomorrow, get it? Alright everyone open your books to page..."

After Terresa made us excited for today she started her casual lessons and for some reason, I was completely concentrated on her teachings

Yua continuously rubbing her shoulder to mine is completely irrelevant

After our break began I started to drink water and count the morning owls

Yua continuously staring at me is completely irrelevant

It was our final lesson for today surprisingly I skipped class and relaxed in the nurse's tent, it was not like I felt sick, I just felt the need to do that

Yua continuously passing me paper notes is completely irrelevant

…

I'm stupid, aren't I? Why am I ignoring her? Just the moment I decided to build up the courage and confess I started ignoring her the most

And to my surprise, she isn't reacting violently at all, to be honest, that's the thing that makes me more anxious

"Su-kun!" Trita said as she entered the nurse's tent

"I'm here!"

Trita slowly walked toward me with a mask on

"Are you feeling alright? The dance is tomorrow, you won't miss it will you?" Trita asked me with a concerned look on her face

"What? No! I already feel better! So... How are the others doing?"

"Yua was very concerned about your health but she was unable to visit you since she was forced to do work since yesterday she was on detention"

Why is she informing me about Yua? I asked about everyone not just her...

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure"

"How do I confess to a girl..."

Trita's face brightened up after asking her that

"Why do you ask? Do you happen to like someone?"

"Isn't that obvious? Just tell me what I can do"

"Look at you! You refused to help me at the start because I was "weak" and now look how the tables turned!" Trita said with a smile as she pulled down her mask

"I never said that..."

I did say that

"Come on I'm joking! So first you have to start by telling me who you like"

"I can't tell you like that..."

Trita was a bit mad

"If you can't say it to me then you would never be able to tell her or him"

"O-Okay it's Yua! Don't act like you don't know!"

"So you noticed that we all know, huh?"

That question threw me off

"I guess..."

"Then you assume Yua-chan knows it too, right?"

I didn't answer her question

"If you know that she knows then why don't you spit it out off your chest and tell her head-on, I mean she knows already so why not go for it?"

Why not? Indeed, why not do it when she knows that I like her? I don't know why but just by thinking about it breathing becomes a hard task

"You know what I feel much better, in fact, I could run a marathon so see you later! I will go to help Takito! He probably has work to do too!"

I stormed out of the place like a thief in the night leaving Trita behind

"Oh, look who was resurrected!" Terresa said as she saw me pass by her

…

"Are you feeling better?" Takito asked me as he relaxed for a moment, he was deploying some fireworks near the shrine

"Much better... Are you done?"

"Actually I have some fireworks left in the warehouse, could you please get them for me? I'm tired man!" Takito said as he started lying on the floor

If I remember correctly the warehouse is located a bit further away from the area we are hosting the fire dance, it's a 5-minute walk from here so I obviously agreed to help Takito, that's the least I could do after slacking off

I started walking and paid close attention to the area around me, bugs were relaxing under the shade of a tree, and ants were walking across the little dirt road carrying crumbs

I carefully walked over to them and continued my walk

I even put on a song to make this walk even more relaxing than it already is

I was at ease until I arrived at the warehouse, a familiar face was waiting there for me...

It was Yua, what is she doing here?

"What a coincidence seeing you here!" I said as I cracked a laugh

"It was not a coincidence! I told you to meet me here"

Oh yeah! I forgot about that but I will play dumb

"What do you mean?"

"I was willing to wait here until you show up, I asked Takito-kun to tell you to come here when he saw you because it looked like you were afraid to come for some reason "

She said as she leaned against the warehouse's wall

"So you want to talk to me about something, I assume"

"I noticed that you have been ignoring me, why is that?"

"I felt sick so I tried to avoid you guys"

"But you only avoided me"

She really is on my throat

"This dance... It's my first time doing a thing like that and the teacher told us that a boy should go with a girl and I can't see myself going unless I'm with you, but the reality is that I'm embarrassed to ask you to dance..."

Even though it wasn't because of that, the dance was also a reason I couldn't stand being close to Yua

"I don't have a partner too so I-I wouldn't mind going with you..." Yua said as she slightly blushed

"Then see you there..."

I said as I entered the warehouse, I searched and searched but I couldn't find anything so I exited empty-handed out of the warehouse

Surprisingly Yua was still here

"Do you happen to know where the fireworks are located?"

"We took the last pack and set it up, there are no more left" Yua said

I guess Takito lied to me

"Want to walk back together?" I asked Yua

"O-Okay..."

…

It was a bit silent at the start but slowly we started to discuss

"I wonder how things are going between Takito-kun and Trita-san"

"Well better than expected but they are still not together" Yua said as she sighed

"Things like that take months or even years to form, you can't expect two people to fall for each other in a flash"

"I assume you don't believe in love at first sight right?" Yua asked me as she walked a bit further

"I think it's a bit made up, I guess I can find people attractive at first sight but not exactly fall in love, I mean I can appreciate someone's beauty without loving them, you know what I mean?"

Yua stopped walking and turned around

"It's called love at first sight for a reason Su, when you see that person you feel butterflies in your stomach, you want to be around them just so you can hear them talk, you want to stare at their eyes as much as you can, you want to spend as much time together as you can, you simply love the person with all their flaws and virtues, did you not have someone like that in your life?"

My heart skipped a beat when she asked me that, I had girlfriends in the past but I never felt like that, I just felt a bit more attracted to them than the others, it was a feeling like having a good or a best friend

But something changed, I don't feel exactly like that but something similar happens when I'm with Yua, for some reason I want to stay with her, that feeling developed from the moment we meet, her eyes, her hair, is something about her, for some reason I find her addictive

"I have someone like that, yeah, but love is beyond that..."

At that instant Yua rushed to me and grabbed my arms

"Then what is that feeling to you?"

She was so close, I couldn't phrase it loudly, well more like I couldn't phrase it at all

"See? It's love but for some reason, you can't say that..."

"But it's not..."

"It is, just let it overflow you, you are still young, let your desires and heart guide you, and don't act like an overthinking adult..."

Yua said as she let go of my arms, she then started running toward the ceremony's location

Why is she telling me this?

Can't she see how intensely I look into her eyes every time we talk?