"So what about me, Tsukune? Don't
I mean anything to you? Or am I just a
third wheel now?"
Kurumu almost snapped at Moka over the question, clearly meant as it was to hurt Tsukune, but she stopped herself before she could even open her mouth.
It's just like when I failed to seduce Tsukune away from her way back when. I felt rejected, and I flipped out...
Guilt stabbed into Kurumu's heart, and then did so again as she realized the painful irony of the current situation compared with back then.
If the me from back then could see this, she'd be laughing her ass off...
Taking hold of Moka's chin, Kurumu turned the other girl to look her square in the eye. With too many conflicting feelings to reconcile, the succubus settled on a single thought:
I'm so glad I'm not that person anymore.
"For what it's worth," the succubus began without thinking, "I don't think you're anything like a third wheel. You're important to
me."
Letting out a sigh, Kurumu released the blushing Moka and turned back to look at Tsukune. "But, we both need to hear what Tsukune has to say about that."
Closing his own eyes, Tsukune nodded. "Yeah."
After a moment to gather his determination, Tsukune opened his eyes, causing both girls to flinch back with the force of his sincerity. "The truth is, Moka... I've been attracted to you ever since the moment you crashed into me, on that first day we met. Sure, most of it was probably just hormones at first, along with the fact you running me over made it the first time I was ever that close to a girl who wasn't blood-related to me, but even so, everything about you was -- is just amazing to me."
Moka's face was beginning to redden, but Tsukune continued on, while Kurumu listened intently.
"And okay, so the whole...
vampire thing was a major shock at first, but the reason I even decided to stay at Youkai Academy at all was because I wanted to be close to you. So if it weren't for you, Moka, I wouldn't have any of the friendships I do now. Even if I'm at risk of getting killed every day in this place, I really feel like every part of my life is better than it used to be, and in one way or another it's all because you're in it. And... I can't thank you enough for that."
Moka blinked, tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. "I really mean... that much to you, Tsukune?"
The boy nodded. "You do."
Closing his eyes with a sigh, he continued, "Honestly... there've been a lot of times I thought of trying to be your boyfriend, and there were a lot of times I thought you might have felt the same way. Like we'd be looking into each other's eyes, and the world starts to melt away except for the two of us, and I start wondering if you might be about to..."
Tsukune trailed off, but everyone knew what he was talking about.
"And then she sucks your blood instead," Kurumu concluded.
Moka let out a weak chuckle. "That... does happen pretty frequently," she admitted.
"So because of that," Tsukune continued, "even if I wanted to try and take our relationship to the next level, I could never really figure out what your feelings about it would be...."
A moment later, he hung his head in shame. "And I'm sorry that I was never brave enough to try and talk with you about it."
The trio shared a moment of calm... before Kurumu asked the question they all knew would be coming. Her voice was quiet, and her tone steady, while her expression was anything but. "So if you've thought about what it would be like to be Moka's boyfriend the whole time you've known her, does that mean you care more about Moka than me?"
There was no anger in Kurumu's expression. And if there had been, it might've hurt Tsukune less to see it than the sheer sadness he got instead, making him wince. "It's hard to put it into words, but... my feelings about both of you are different, even if they're both very strong. When I think about you, Moka, I want to be a better person. A cooler, more capable guy worthy of earning your attention. But because you're so smart and talented at everything, I feel like it's an impossible gap I'll never be able to bridge. But then when I think about you, Kurumu, because of your energy, passion, and can-do attitude, I start to feel some of that too. It's like... like I have a lot more potential that I can tap into, almost within my reach.... but just being some dull average kid like I am, there's so much room for improvement that I get lost just trying to find a place to start."
Kurumu blinked, then, a look of perfect comprehension blooming on her face. "So you're saying that I give you strength," she began, "but you lack direction. Your feelings about Moka give you ambition, but not the power to fulfill them."
Closing her eyes and beginning to smile, she nodded. "I get it now. It's just like I'd still be a stuck up bitch with no friends if not for the two of you, or how the two of you would dance around each other til eternity without me to move things along. The three of us work best as a trio."
Moka head whipped around to look at Kurumu in shock, with the unintended effect of slapping the other girl in the face with some of her hair. "You're not
seriously saying --?"
The bluenette coughed and sputtered as she freed herself from the accidental hair attack, before nodding. "I'm saying that since I'm Tsukune's girlfriend, I don't mind if the two of you pursue a relationship alongside the one we have now."
Tsukune, for his part, was also incredulous. "You're... you're joking, right? I mean, I'd be lying if I said a part of me didn't really like the sound of that, but you can't actually be
okay with something like that."
"I can and I am," Kurumu replied matter-of-factly. "You said it yourself, Tsukune -- I give you strength, but you need Moka to inspire you to use it. And even if it hurts me a little to hear that, at the same time I feel...
complete, now. I just know somehow that the three of us, together, is right. That's how it was meant to be."
Moka narrowed her eyes in suspicion, her voice starting to hitch. "What about your 'Mate of Fate' thing, huh?"
Kurumu shrugged. "Even if Tsukune is my one and only man of destiny, if sharing with you makes him happier than keeping him to myself, then I need to adjust for that. And even if it's a weird situation, it's still not weirder than Jotaro-senpai."
There was a moment's pause, before Moka and Tsukune both nodded.
"Okay, yeah, Kujo-senpai is still definitely weirder than this."
"I don't think there's much arguing on that point," Moka agreed, before her expression fell. "But I still can't believe we're discussing... what basically amounts to a high school version of polygamy, here."
Kurumu shrugged, an action which forcibly drew Moka's attention, and tried to relieve the tension with a joke. "Well, if it makes you feel better we could call it something else?"
Moka grimaced, and maybe it was just because he'd been watching her for so long, but Tsukune caught the grief in her eyes. And an instant later, he had an epiphany of his own. "It's not about me or Kurumu," he realized. "Something bad happened in the past, and you're afraid that if we go along with Kurumu's idea, it'll happen again."
Kurumu blinked, connecting the dots for herself even as Moka tried to flinch away; an all but impossible task, given the way they'd bound themselves up together to escape the cold.
Letting out a sigh, Kurumu snaked an arm around her vampire friend and forcibly drew her into a hug, prompting a startled yelp. "Look, as much as I don't want to
make you talk about your feelings, I think we can all figure out that the story isn't moving any further until you do. So whatever's up, I promise I won't judge or freak out."
Moka blinked, before her expression morphed from grief to
dread. "No. No, no, no. You can
not be serious."
Tsukune started to open his mouth and reach out to comfort her... but the girl kept going, her eyes widening in distress. "You're telling me it's not enough to admit that I think I'm in love with Tsukune, or even that I keep catching myself staring at or thinking about other girls,
especially you Kurumu, but Mizore's going to keep us in here unless I talk about
that?!"
Kurumu paused for a moment.
Okay, so now I realize that wasn't Tsukune's attraction scent I'd been smelling for the last several minutes...
Leaning closer to Tsukune, the bluenette tried to converse with him without catching the distraught Moka's attention any more than necessary. "So letting the second part of that go for right now," she whispered, "it seriously isn't like her to just blurt out stuff like that so suddenly. I mean, I was kind of expecting a long insecurity speech about the humans she went to middle school with as a lead-up to the love confession, and then we'd agree to share you before giving Mizore and Yukari a piece of our minds for locking us in here in the first place."
Tsukune nodded, keeping his voice equally low. "And whatever it is that's bothering her so badly, it's serious enough that just prompting her about it distracted her to the point of making her drop the other stuff so carelessly."
Glancing at the shivering vampire in their laps, Tsukune asked, "Do you think we should try and get her to talk about it? Or get Mizore to let us out and give her some space?"
Kurumu grimaced, biting her lip in concentration.
Damn it, he just had to ask me for a plan, she thought. She didn't have any better idea on what to do than Tsukune did, and she knew the only reason Tsukune even asked was because he didn't have the confidence to make a decision. Which more or less summed up the reason they were even stuck huddling together in a makeshift freezer to start with.
"Moka," the bluenette began, "we're here for you, and we want to help you."
Tsukune picked up on the succubus's intent immediately, and his expression grew determined, even though his gaze never lost its concern. "But we can't," he said, "because we don't know how. If you don't want to talk about... whatever it is, we aren't going to make you. And we won't let anyone else force you to do it either, but --"
He stopped talking when Moka touched his uniform jacket, clenching her hand into a fist. After several tense seconds, she let go, and half-wormed her way out of Kurumu's grip to lean against him as well. "...it's fine," she whispered in a tone that said anything but.
"I'm still not sold on Kurumu's idea," she continued, "but if the two of you really, really want to try this thing out, then you need to know about it anyway. I just..."
Raising her head and looking at her two friends with a pained, almost defeated expression, Moka sighed and began her story.
[<----TO BE CONTINUED]
