The next day, the pair of childhood friends followed Freda to a nearby park. They'd waited at the school gate before sneakily stalked Freda and her boyfriend. Klaus furrowed his eyebrows as he watched the scene before him unfolding.
Freda was holding hands with her boyfriend! The couple sat on a bench, seemingly absorbed in an intriguing conversation. Ah, Klaus couldn't hear them from his spot. He had to inch closer.
"Why are they holding hands? How dare they hold hands in front of me?!" Klaus said.
"...They're a couple. I suppose that's a normal thing to do," Aoi responded to his curt soliloquy.
"Hey, I know that. But she's my sister, Aoi. As her brother, I can't condone such act."
"There you go again with that..."
Klaus hid himself behind a tree and Aoi followed suit. So far, the couple hadn't done anything else besides talking between themselves. As someone who had no experience in love, Klaus didn't understand why they didn't do anything else. Not that he wanted them to proceed further into the depths of intimacy.
Nay, the boy was only trying to make sense of what was happening.
He could show up and stop what they were doing—though the event that followed afterward would be disastrous. He was spying on them after all.
"Hmm, Aoi, do you have any idea...? Huh? Where is she?"
His loyal follower had vanished while he wasn't looking.
"We meet again, Freda, and you," said Aoi as she cordially walked up to the couple, her indifferent expression remained ever so intact.
"A coincidence isn't it?" she added.
"You were following us, weren't you?" Freda asked while glaring daggers at her. "Where's Klaus? He's hiding somewhere around here, isn't he?"
"Hey, you were the one with that guy from yesterday!" yelled Naoto.
Aoi bit her lip, perhaps trying to assuage the fear consuming her from within. She had gone and done something out of her character. What spurred her into action? Did Klaus's hesitance in doing anything had an impetus to this choice she'd made?
"...I don't like how he's so obsessed with you," said Aoi, mustering every courage she could. "You keep rejecting him and he keeps coming back. I'd never seen him like this before. It's unlike him..."
Naoto stood up with clenched fists, but Freda stopped him from doing anything else.
"So, you don't like how my existence had changed him?" concluded Freda.
"..."
"I understand. In fact, I can see it clearly. You have feelings for Klaus, right? You're jealous that he spent most of his time involving himself with me instead of you. Am I correct?"
"...I have feelings for him?" Aoi's heart thumped against her chest as her breathing grew shaky.
Such a notion was not unheard of. Everyone around her had been pushing the same narrative—insisting that she accepted it. She understood why they thought about her and Klaus in such light. Even so, she...
"I don't understand."
"Huh?���
Aoi shook her head a few times, trying to push away the doubts clouding her mind. For her to have feelings for Klaus, she would've discarded the sole friendship she had. There was no way she could do that. That was why her relationship with him had remained the way it was for so long.
"No, it's not like that. I..." A part of her didn't deny what Freda had said. She kept repeating the words Freda had spat out repeatedly—to the point where the dam inside her broke. Her emotions spilled out for everyone to see.
"Hey, you alright—"
"No! It's not like that! Klaus had helped me so much until now! He's the only one who's there for me! Whenever I'm sad, he sat next to me and consoled me. When I'm upset, he didn't hesitate to go out of his way to spend time with me. When I'm all by myself, only he wanted to accompany me!"
Aoi huffed and puffed, her eyes opened wide at what she'd just said. Klaus had revealed himself to Freda and Naoto a few moments ago.
���I... I'm nothing without him," said Aoi haltingly, tears streaked her cheeks. "Everyone bullied me and said harsh words because I'm good at nothing. I... I only have him as my friend."
Freda stood up, wanting to calm Aoi down. However, Aoi's emotions overwhelmed her once again and pushed Freda to the side.
"You're trying to take my only reason to live from me! If Klaus never showed up—if he never had showed how a human could be so kind—I would've discarded my life a long time ago!"
Aoi turned around and her feet took off. She bumped into Klaus and looked at him in the eyes.
"Aoi..."
"Don't look at me! I'm ugly, good-for-nothing, and selfish." She dashed out of the park, leaving Klaus and the dumbfounded couple behind.
"You should go to her," said Freda with a constrained voice. "It's clear that you've impacted her in such a way that she can't live without you. Are you satisfied now?"
"What...?"
"I'll say it once again. We are born in different families in this world, Klaus. I like my new life and I have no intention to go back to who I was. Please, respect my decision. After all, there is someone who needs you far more than me. I'm content with what I have now."
"..."
"I wanted to say that you manipulated that friend of yours so that she can only rely on you—but that would be an ignorant statement, wouldn't it? I know nothing that happened between you two."
Freda and Naoto walked away, ignoring Klaus and his muddled state of mind. Klaus had acted on his own impulse all this time because he deemed his method to be correct and righteous. Was his love for his old family superficial? Nay, he was certain he loved them with all his being.
At the end of the day, him imposing his moral values onto Freda did nothing in return. Instead, he lost his best friend. The truth suffocated him, and he cried on the spot, wishing that he knew what to do to correct everything he'd done.
He lacked what he needed to be better. A self-deriding smile appeared on his face, acknowledging that the path he'd trudged was a dead end all this time.