If Jealousy Could Kill

“How am I supposed to cook you breakfast if there’s nothing in the house?” The three girls heard the high pitched yell come from the kitchen. The three of them turned around just in time to see Tomomi poke her head out of the kitchen, a frown sprawling across her face. It was rather hard to cook when the people you’re cooking for wouldn’t go shopping.

“Blame Rina, it was her turn to do the grocery shopping,” Haruna said, pointing a finger at the younger brunette beside her. Rina gasped in fake hurt, slapping Haruna on the shoulder.

“That’s not fair, Haru!” she said.

Rina was in a lot better of a mood today. Or, at least, she seemed like she was in a better mood. She wasn’t moping around the house today like she had been and she was playing around a lot more often. She was even joking around with Tomomi and Haruna had noticed how Rina had kept herself away from Tomomi for the last few days. Haruna was more than glad to see that Rina’s mood might be improving. Although, she was still going to interrogate her about what was wrong when Tomomi and Mami left.

“There has to be something in the house,” Rina continued, this time turning to talk to Tomomi. Tomomi couldn’t say she felt overly comfortable around Rina today. Rina did seem a lot happier so Tomomi wasn’t expecting her to lash out but then again, she hadn’t been expecting yesterday either. The uncertainty is what scared her the most. She had never expected something like that to come out of the sweet and soft Rina.

“Hmm… Well you two have eggs at least.”

“Then just cook those,” Haruna said, turning back around towards the TV. Tomomi sighed heavily at Haruna’s comment. There were just these certain times where Haruna’s “I don’t care” attitude was annoying, and this was one of those times. She was such a difficult person.

“I’m okay with that,” Mami piped up from where she was sitting, leaned against the couch that Haruna and Rina were on.

“I think that would be good,” Rina agreed, giving Tomomi the best smile she could manage. Tomomi nodded to the younger brunette before disappearing back into the kitchen. Rina wanted to sigh in relief now that Tomomi was gone again, but she knew better. If she did that then Haruna would question it and she didn’t want to explain all of that. For right now, she just wanted to enjoy having Haruna away from Tomomi and back with her.

Rina was trying to keep herself cheerful and so far, she was being successful at it. She’d let out most of the emotions she’d been holding in last night so it was much easier for her to keep the cheerful attitude up than it was yesterday. She was thankful that Mami had come over when she had; it felt nice to have someone to cry to. She just hoped that Mami would keep it all a secret from Haruna like she had promised she would.

“Sunday television is really horrible,” Haruna mumbled. Rina looked over at the girl who was busy flipping through the channels for who knew how many times now. Her eyes drifted down to Mami who had her head leaned back against the couch now, the bored expression taking over her features.

“Why don’t we play a game then?” Rina suggested when she had seen the bored looks on both of her friends’ faces. Mami let her head roll to the side to look at Rina while Haruna just continued her task of trying to find something to watch.

“What did you have in mind?” Mami asked. Instead of answering, Rina pushed herself off the couch, making her way over to where one of the tables in the living room sat. She pulled open the drawer to the table, grabbing the small box that sat inside of it.

Rina made her way back over to the couch, taking her seat again before she extended the box out to Haruna. The older girl looked over raising an eyebrow at what Rina was trying to give her.

“Cards? Is this what we’ve been reduced to?” she asked, much to the giggling of Rina.

“Oh come on, Haru, card games can be fun if you play the right ones,” Mami chimed in. Haruna looked over at Mami, waiting for her to continue speaking. Taking the hint, Mami asked her prompting question, “Have you ever played Slap Jack?”

“No…” Haruna responded suspiciously. She really didn’t like the smile that Mami was giving her. When she looked over at Rina, she felt even less comfortable as Rina was practically mimicking the smile that Mami had. This wasn’t going to end well for her, Haruna could already feel that.

The blonde pushed herself off the floor, grabbing the cards from Rina before going to sit near one end of the coffee table. She patted the ground in front of her, looking right at Haruna. Giving a heavy sigh, the eldest girl lowered herself to the floor, sitting where Mami had wanted her to. From behind them, Rina stretched out on the couch, preparing to enjoy the show that awaited her. She knew what the game was, Mami had done this to her once before, and she was interested to see what reaction Haruna would have.

“This game is simple, even you can understand it, Haruna,” Mami began to explain as she shuffled the deck. “All we do is deal out the deck fully until there are no more cards left. When that’s done, we take turns flipping cards. When you see a Jack, you need to slap it before your opponent does. The first person to run out of cards first loses.”

“So you have to get all the cards back?”

“No, you just have to make your opponent run out.” Mami glanced up at Haruna to see her nodding slowly, looking at Mami’s hands as the blonde began to deal out the cards. It didn’t take Mami long to finish. Holding an equal amount of cards, the girls prepared their game. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

From back in the kitchen, it didn’t take long for Tomomi to start hearing the yelling from the duo and the laughing from the spectator. Making the finishing touches on the food, the first round of complaining slowly flowed into the kitchen.

“Stop taking all the cards!” Haruna yelled.

“Well I wouldn’t be taking them if you moved a bit faster, slowpoke.”

“This game is so stupid.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re losing.”

Tomomi giggled when she heard the frustrated groan that had no doubt come from Haruna. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of game the two of them were playing that had gotten Haruna frustrated so quickly. It amused Tomomi pretty often how easily frustrated of a person Haruna was. Even the simplest things could end up frustrating her if she found them hard to do.

By this point, Tomomi had tuned out the girls’ bickering, going back to focusing completely on the breakfast she had been cooking for them. Although she didn’t know why she was cooking breakfast considering it was already noon, she was just doing what the trio had asked her to do.

Tomomi was so focused and lost in her thoughts that she never heard the footsteps coming up behind her. She never saw the shadow behind her until she could feel two arms wrap themselves around her waist. The younger brunette jumped from the sudden touch before she could hear a soft laughter from behind her, whoever it was laying their head down on her back.

“You’re so easy to scare.” It was Haruna. Of course. This seemed like just the thing Haruna would do. She could feel Haruna place a few small kisses along her neck, her grip on Tomomi’s waist tightening. She was really making it hard to focus on cooking; this was more than just a little distracting to Tomomi.

“Haru, what happened to Rina and Mami?”

“Mami is setting up the next game; they’re going to play something called Speed or whatever. And Rina said she needed to use the bathroom, so I came in here to see you while I waited for them to finish.” Tomomi could only shake her head in response to Haruna’s statement. She went back to cooking, trying to ignore the girl wrapped around her now.

But Haruna never really did like to be ignored. She tightened her grip even more, continuing to kiss the back of Tomomi’s neck. Since she wasn’t getting a response from that, she pushed herself onto the tip of her toes, reaching her head around and sinking her teeth into Tomomi’s neck.

The brunette yelped, trying to swirl around to face Haruna but found herself too tightly trapped by the older girl’s grip to really go anywhere.

“You know, you’re making this very hard,” Tomomi pointed out, her voice squeaking slightly. Haruna laughed, laying her head down on Tomomi’s shoulder. “You really shouldn’t be doing this when I’m standing over a hot stove.”

“But it’s more fun this way.”

“How long does it take Rina in the bathroom again?” Haruna lifted one of her arms, swatting playfully at Tomomi’s stomach in retaliation for that comment. Tomomi laughed at her girlfriend’s temper, shaking her head and murmuring something under her breath. Haruna was so easy to agitate.

“It’s not nice to mumble,” Haruna said in a scolding tone. She bit down gently onto Tomomi’s neck again, causing her to jump much like the first time even though she’d bit much softer this time. She was really enjoying Tomomi’s reactions right now; they were even more entertaining than her reactions last night were. Haruna knew Tomomi was enjoying this despite her words, her tone said it all.

The couple was too wrapped up in each other to notice the pair of eyes peeking around the corner, the small hands gripping the edge of the wall tightly. Rina had come to find Haruna only to find her wrapped around Tomomi again. She had left for only a few minutes and Mami was supposed to keep her occupied while she was gone, but she could see that Mami had failed to do that since Haruna was in there with Tomomi.

Rina bit down hard on her lip, her fingernails clawing at the wall. She could feel her mood declining the more she watched Haruna play around with Tomomi. With every kiss and every hug, she could feel the jealousy inside of her getting worse. She had tried to tell herself that she could handle this – that she could wait it out until the relationship ran its course – but she was beginning to second guess that now. She couldn’t stand to watch this for much longer.

“Rina, what are you doing?” The young brunette whipped around quickly, her back pressing against the wall when her eyes met with Mami’s. The blonde gave her a sympathetic smile, placing a single hand on her shoulder. “Go sit down, I’ll get Haruna.”

“Mami, I wasn’t--”

“You don’t need to explain yourself. Just go sit down and I’ll bring Haruna back out,” Mami said, her voice becoming more demanding with Rina.

The youngest brunette sighed softly but agreed silently. She walked past Mami, taking her seat on the couch again while the blonde made her way into the kitchen.

“Yo, Haru, when are you coming back out? Don’t make me pry you off of poor Tomomi,” Mami said. Haruna turned her head, leaning it down on Tomomi’s back while she looked at Mami.

“What makes you so sure that Tomomi wants me to let her go?” Haruna countered. Both of the girls looked over at Tomomi, the brunette doing her best to ignore them and focus on her cooking. That was easier said than done though. The more the two girls spoke, the harder Tomomi was finding it to successfully ignore them.

“Tomomi, do you want Haruna to leave?” Mami asked. Haruna could feel Tomomi’s body stiffen in her arms and it had only caused the older brunette to laugh. She always did that when someone put her on the spot.

“Well… It would be easier to cook if Haruna wasn’t here…” Mami snorted in laughter while Haruna gasped in fake hurt, swatting at Tomomi’s stomach again.

“That’s so mean,” Haruna scolded her. She gave Tomomi one last kiss on the neck before she let her hands fall away from her girlfriend’s body. Haruna could feel Mami wrap her hand around her arm before she started dragging the older girl away. “We are going to talk about that later, Tomomi!”

***

“What did you need to talk about, Rina?” Mami asked, letting herself drop down onto the brunette’s bed. Mami had been about to leave the girls’ house for the night when Rina had stopped her, asking the blonde if the two of them could have a little time to talk. Knowing how Rina must still be feeling from last night, Mami was happy to agree and hear Rina out. Talking seemed to help her last night and maybe it could help her again today.

The blonde looked up again, watching as Rina slowly made her way over to the bed, sitting down next to the laying girl. She pulled her legs up underneath her, coming to sit in a cross-legged fashion. She kept her head tilted downward, her hair falling past her shoulders and her fingers on her lap. Her fingers picked at each other, her peach-colored, manicured nails leaving small marks in her pale skin.

“You can tell me anything,” Mami continued to prompt her. Mami reached out one hand, laying it down lightly onto Rina’s knee. She could see the girl glance over at her before her eyes flicked back to look down at her hands.

“Your friend… Would she still be interested in meeting me?”

Mami was taken aback by the question that Rina had asked. If Rina was asking something like that then it might mean that she had an interest in meeting Mami’s friend, and that’s what had shocked Mami. From the way Rina had reacted towards it before, she was positive that the young girl would never desire to meet her friend or anyone close to that if she thought there was a chance of Mami setting them up.

“I think she would be. Why do you ask?”

“I want to meet her…” Rina said after a few seconds of silence. When the blonde didn’t respond right away, she glanced back over to see that Mami was looking right at her, the shock clear in her expression.

“Why the sudden change of heart?” the blonde asked finally. Rina let out a gentle sigh, taking her eyes away from the blonde again. She sniffled softly, her fingernails beginning to dig deeper into her skin.

“I thought about what you said, Mami. Maybe you’re right, it would at least be worth a shot, wouldn’t it?” Mami smiled at the explanation Rina had given her. It wasn’t the best one but Mami knew this wouldn’t be an easy thing for Rina to do. She was just glad that Rina was going to at least try. What’s the worst that could happen anyway?

“Why don’t I set a date for you two to meet? I know you’ll really like her if you give her a chance.”

Rina bit down on her lip, feeling her fingernails finally make a small break in her skin. She really didn’t want to do this. In fact, she hated the idea of dating anyone else, but she needed a plan and this was all she had. By beginning to date again, she was hoping it would make Haruna jealous. If Haruna got jealous enough then she would no doubt come crawling back to Rina. It was just a matter of whether or not Rina could keep this up long enough. She had to though; she had to get Haruna back no matter what.

Deep down, Rina knew this was wrong. She knew that there was everything wrong with dating someone if you didn’t really feel for them but she had to do this. She would do anything for Haruna and to get her back. Everyone would be better off when things were set right again. The end did justify the means, isn’t that what everyone always said?

Besides, it’s not like anyone had to know. Rina could hide her real intentions and never really hurt anyone in the process, it’s not like she was thinking of getting into a relationship. Just innocent dating here and there. It was wrong but at the moment, Rina didn’t care too much. Rina had been a good girl all her life but she knew now that if she wanted Haruna back, she had to break away from that. She would have to play a little bad to get what she wanted.

Taking a deep breath, Rina decided it was time to respond.

“I would really like that, Mami.”