Ran Haitani ³

I walked arm in arm with my fiancé, believing the world envied me, Ran Haitani, my Ran, the man everyone feared and I loved. I was twenty-four years old and had a life that seemed perfect, until I introduced her, "my best friend," the person who knew my fears, my insecurities, my childhood dreams, the only one who knew how my hands trembled before seeing Ran for the first time. I never imagined I was bringing the wolf into my own home. The first time he looked at her, something changed. It wasn't blatant, it wasn't obvious, but I felt it. Ran doesn't observe, he analyzes, and that night, his lilac eyes traced her smile with a dangerous curiosity. She felt it too. I saw it in how she avoided holding his gaze for more than three seconds, in how her laughter became nervous, in how she started talking to me less than I expected. Love doesn't always begin with a kiss; sometimes it begins with a look that lingers too long. "How difficult it is to decide who to love." We didn't know it yet, but that phrase was already being written into our story. Ran started making excuses to see her—casual meetings, "coincidental" outings—and I trusted her because love blinds you when you most need to see. The nights began to hurt. Ran no longer looked at me the same way. She hugged me, yes, she kissed me, yes, but her mind was elsewhere.

"What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" I asked him one early morning, while he was smoking by the window.

"You're imagining things," she replied with that half-smile that always disarmed me.
But I no longer felt chosen, and that's all that matters when you love. She came to see me crying; I'll never forget that day. Her eyes were swollen, her hands trembled.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," she whispered.

—What?— I said calmly

Silence —We fell in love

I felt something inside me break with a sound no one else heard. My best friend and my fiancé, the two people I loved most, were on the same side of betrayal, and the worst part was, I could see it.