Truth 1

Yuki spent her day as she always did. This being to quietly sit in class listening to the teacher, then continuing to sit alone at her desk during break time. The only time she left was to enjoy lunch with her cousin and the others, as well as the bathroom. So that was why it was a bit of a surprise for her when Arata approached her after school at their lockers.

"Can I come over after school?" He asked.

"Really? Why?" Already she failed to give a straight answer. Instead the girl went to answering him with questions of her own. "I can't imagine my home being all too interesting."

"Well, it's not really just to hang out." While he wasn't against doing that with her, as they both shared in the same hobbies. There was something more important that grabbed his attention. "Does your family happen to have an attic?"

"Um, yes?" That wasn't a question people asked everyday, and when Yuki was the one who had to answer. It became another source of stress for the poor girl. "Why do you want to know about that."

"Well, since we used to know each other when we were younger. Maybe you used to keep a diary of it too?" It was a reasonable thought to have. The boy was curious to know more about their former relationship now that they had reunited in high school. "I just thought you might've since I had a journal about it." And yes, that's how he was going to refer to it. There was no way he'd ever admit to having a diary out loud.

"Ooh, I love scrounging around for memories." Their conversation wasn't private as Yogi made his presence known. He was here to come walk home with her as he normally did after she transferred. If this boy still had the same harem as he did at the start of the school year, then perhaps the girls would be more jealous of his cousin. "Can I join?"

"I can't do anything without you, can I?" Arata had a somewhat snide remark to made, but it wasn't up to him anyway. "Well, what do you say, Yuki?"

"I guess the two of you can come over." She wasn't certain they'd find anything at all. The girl couldn't remember doing such a thing, but if she did, then having a pair of boys reading her personal belongings weren't preferable. If anything, that sounded to be a rather dreadful thought. So hopefully her younger self didn't write anything down that was embarrassing now that she was a teen.

So the trio headed towards her home this time. The walk there was longer than how Arata was used to, since her house was further along than where his parents planted their roots. However, soon enough they were there. "I'm sorry about the, um, mess." The second they set foot inside, she was already apologizing. "We weren't expecting any guests."

"What are you talking about? This is a lot cleaner than my room." Yogi responded. Somehow it wasn't that big of a surprise to hear that boy talk about his room in that manner. He seemed to be more the type to spend time at other people's places over his own. Meanwhile, Arata's room was spotless, seeing as he spent more awake there than anywhere else.

"Now, how about we get started." The boys plopped down their bags and the three headed towards the house's attic. Despite being the one who lived here, Yuki was scared of going up there. It was dark and ominous in her view as they opened up the door leading to it.

"Looks good to me." So Yogi was the first one who climbed the ladder and turned on the lights. He scanned around, but there were mainly just a bunch of boxes labeled many different things that meant little to him.

"Your parents don't mind us doing this, right?" Arata asked as he helped the girl up into the attic.

"As long as we put everything back neatly, they won't care." She answered. And now everyone got to work moving around boxes to uncover the secrets of the past. When it was said in that manner, it sounded a lot cooler than saying they were looking for some little girl's diary.

"Oh look." Yogi exclaimed after some time searching.

"Did you find it?" Arata got excited upon hearing he found something of interest. Whoever, his mood took a turn down when the boy only showed what seemed to be an old family album. "I'm looking for a diary, I doubt there's anything in there we need."

"What are you talking about?" The boy took a break from his searching to take a seat and open up the old book. It was a photo album filled with the memories of when they were children. "Maybe there's a hint about it, or something." He came up with an excuse to open it up and see the pictures of when he and his cousin were kids. "It looks like we were about eight or nine here."

"Really? Let me see." That was around the same timeline as when he knew Yuki as kids. So Arata took a closer look at the images. It seemed to be mostly family pictures that were taken during gatherings, birthdays, and other more candid images.

"Are they good?" Yuki asked nervously as she peered over their shoulders. There could anything save forever in these pictures that she'd rather forget.

"This one's funny." Yogi chuckled. "It's after that time you wet the bed." Indeed there was an image of a little Yuki in tears as she stood in front of a bed sheet hung over to dry with a large wet spot in the middle.

"Hey!" Immediately she got embarrassed that they were seeing that, especially Arata. Having him know she used to have nighttime accidents destroyed what little self esteem she never really had. "T-turn the page right now!"

"It's fine." Arata replied, his head tilted down in awkwardness. "Considering what I wrote in my journal, I already knew about this." When he learned of who his childhood friend really was. Things took a bit of a turn as he realized some of the things she told him back in the day. With this being one of them, he decided to not inform her of his knowledge on it to save the girl from embarrassment.

"It's not a big deal anyway." Yogi comforted his cousin. "You don't have that problem anymore, and no one cares if a kid does it anyway." Then the boy went and turned the page. His face turned from that of humor to a puzzled look. "Who's this?"

The three put their faces towards the picture closer. It was of Yuki, but that wasn't what confused them. Next to her was a boy of the same age that wasn't Yogi. The pair were standing side-by-side, holding a heart shaped cookie together with one hand each. This was the type of picture that would illicit 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from adults talking about how cute it looked.

"Who's that?" Asked Yuki.

"I know who that is." Arata was the only one with an answer. After all, how couldn't he know what he was looking at. "It's me." It was a younger Arata standing next to her posing for the picture. They wouldn't have recognized him seeing as his hair didn't cover his face yet.

"Aw, isn't that cute." Somehow, despite being the dense one, Yogi already knew what this would look like to just about anyone. "The two of you are sharing a valentine's treat."

"Well, we were just a couple of dumb kids back then." Arata responded, blushing as he thought about how close they apparently were back then. Even though they were good friends with a good mix of hobbies, they definitely weren't romantically interested in one another.

"It's definitely not a big deal!" The way she yelled it out made it sound like it though. Quickly, Yuki took the book and shut it closed so that they wouldn't continue to read more potentially embarrassing things. "We've been looking around for a while now. So maybe we can call it a day?" The two boys agreed and they cleaned things up and exited the attic. All the while Yogi would continue to tease them about the picture.

"It really is a shame that Yuki had to move away for a while." He said. "I think it'd be totally romantic if you two were childhood friends."

"Well, it'd be nice to have had friends growing up." Though given Arata's experience in his hobby, it was unlikely anything would happen between them. Even Yuki would agree with him on that. Childhood friends simply were never meant to be with one another, even if one did fall in love.

The group finally were done cleaning and left the room. "Thanks for letting us come over and check things out." He said as the boys prepared to head to their own houses.

"It's no problem." She waved them goodbye as they went outside. "I had some fun looking at old memories." Yuki wouldn't admit it out loud, but even the embarrassing bits were nice. At least because Arata was nice enough to not tease her on some of the more humilating parts.

Finally, after they left, she breathed a sigh of relief. The girl wasn't used to having people around her, even if they were close. So it always added some stress to her body that needed some good manga to sit back and relax with. So that was exactly what she did as the girl entered her room. She pulled out a volume and laid about in her bed to lose herself in a funner world compared to reality.

However, before she was able to get started, a bump caused by something falling caught her attention. It sounded like something from the attic wasn't put away properly, so she went to go make sure it was all right.