Chapter 84. Break up? (2/6)

It was 9:30 PM. I stood atop the entrance to a rooftop looking down over the edge from a bit over four stories up. If I fell headfirst from this height, even with snow to cushion my fall, I’d no doubt die.

Rosa hadn’t arrived yet. 

I was still waiting for her. 

Amidst the freezing cold. 

Alone.

The wind was strong and chilling to the bone.

If I wasn’t careful, I’d be blown away.

This was honestly an awful idea. The worst.

I prayed in my heart nobody would replicate such a moronic scenario. Nobody was dumb enough to really do something stupid like this. I was just an idiot though, so it was fine if I did it.

While I waited in the snow amidst the dark night, with only the illumination from my phone’s screen, I listened to a certain song with one earbud in my left ear. It was a song with a peculiar music video that really stuck out to me in my childhood for some reason. Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park.

Only, when I listened to it, I couldn't help but feel a bit unsatisfied. I wanted more emphasis on the instrumental in the background and wanted it louder. 

As I’d arrived before her, I had some time to waste. I found a site to play the instrumental music in sync so the audio would overlap perfectly with the original music video. The audio de-sync was only 1.5 seconds which the site allowed you to adjust for. It generated a link in no time and allowed me to play both videos simultaneously. I boosted the audio on the instrumental and let the vocals fade to the background while I took in the night scenery.

Unlike the day before, the snow falling today was sparse in comparison despite the strong wind. You could actually see the streetlights in the distance. The lights from the windows of houses and taller buildings in the surrounding area were similarly visible. It was much clearer out.

As I was thinking that while listening to the song playing in my ear, the sound of a door opening up could be heard from my side below me. A moment later I heard someone climbing the ladder a few meters behind me. 

She’d arrived.

“Hey,” I called out to her.

“Hey…” she asked with a tinge of uncertainty in her voice. It was obvious she could tell something was up by the way I’d called her to this place at this hour of the night.

“What was so important that you needed us to meet here this late?”

I took a deep breath to calm my unsettled heart before I breathed out a slow, drawn-out sigh, “Haaaaaaaaah. There was something important I needed to do.”

“Something important you needed to do? What do you… mean by that?”

“Rosa… I… I want to break up.” I said it. The moment I did so, something broke inside me, the sound of shattered glass resounded in my mind. I felt like I’d experienced a great loss. I wouldn’t be able to ever regain it. That sort of hidden fear encroached upon my frozen heart encased in ice. Things would no longer be the same from here on out.

My tense shoulders slackened. What loss? I was just going back to how things were before.

“May I… know the reason you’re suddenly saying this out of the blue?” Rosa asked me in an unexpectedly calm fashion.

“I… can’t really say.” I lowered my eyes down to the ground, the edge of the roof with my back still to her. I couldn’t look her in the eye to see what she was thinking right now.

“I see. Then… the reason is something you can’t say?”

“Yes.”

“Well then… I’d like to use my request then.” 

“You’re planning to… use that now of all times? Is it to find out what the reason is?”

“No. If you break up with me... then my request is, if Alicia confesses to you in the future, you must accept her feelings no matter what and date her with the end goal being marriage.”

My eyes shot open wide in a lack of understanding toward her irrational request. Did she think I was breaking up with her because I’d fallen for Alicia? Was she fine with an outcome like that? Is that all we were in the end? Does she really just care more about having Alicia by her side as a friend than her own boyfriend?

“Why would you ask that of all things?”

“You cheated on me, right?”

My heart shook when those words left her mouth. “What? Why’d you come to that conclusion!”

“Yes, or no.”

I… nodded my head… pained, wrought with boundless guilt that threatened to crush me into dust at any moment.

“With Alicia?” Why? Is the only thing she thinks about Alicia now?

“No... it… wasn't with Alicia. Why would a good girl like her ever do something like that to her friend’s boyfriend?”

“I see, that’s what I expected. In that case, it was definitely Irene, Alicia’s mother, wasn’t it? Don’t try to deny it. Even if you deny it, I’m certain of it. The only other woman that you could have possibly cheated on me with is her. And it had to have been between last night and today. You were approached by her last night, weren’t you?” Her reasoning was sound.

“Yes… sorry. I didn’t want to say it because I really want you to move in with them for the sake of your future.”

“Ran, you always seem to be forgetting that I’m not just a normal high school girl. I’ve been raised much differently from a very young age as part of a different side of the world.”

“Even so... what I did isn’t right, Rosa!” I blurted out in frustration. Why was she saying this?

“Ran, I’ve grown up in an environment where some targets you go after may be involved with multiple women. You need to be accustomed to dealing with such situations. As such, I’m quite desensitized to such matters, much unlike your average wallflower in high school.”

“Even if you are desensitized to such things... it’s not something I can personally forgive myself for.”

“Ran, from my own experiences it’s not that serious. There are times where an assassin is married to another assassin, such as the case with my parents. In these scenarios, you need to be used to the fact that your lover may at times need to get close with multiple members of the opposite sex to get their target into a situation they can finish them off. For example, one such case is in bed when they’re in their most defenseless state. You sometimes need to resolve yourself to perform such an act where your target reaches a climax, those are ideal opportunities to strike.”

“I’m not an assassin, Rosa.”

“But I’m the daughter of two. Do you get it?”

“I can see how you’d develop a different set of values when compared to a normal high school girl. But… just because you might be able to accept it, doesn’t mean it’s alright.”

“I appreciate your thoughts, Ran. But, what you did doesn’t change how I feel about you. I still love you.” When she said that, I felt like collapsing and just falling over the edge. I don’t deserve to be forgiven. So why are you forgiving me like this?

I clutched at my chest outside of her line of sight. My face distorted a bit as I clenched my teeth hard enough for them to shatter.

I don’t know why I’m reacting like this. If she’s really fine with it, why am I not? I don’t understand where the frustration inside me is welling up from. It... must be that after all. Something I don’t care about as well. To tell her this would just make me a hypocrite.