Chapter 4:

Last Episode!

It is now winter break. The Chapter starts out with Erika showing the mini skirt she bought to wear for Christmas Eve to Shiro and Kyon. The reason for this make over is because she asked Kaname out on a date. She planned to go on the 25th, but he already made plans with his brother, so Erika and Kaname decided on the 24th. Erika felt that to get out of being a “mother” to Kaname, she had to ask him out on a date. She’s sure if Kaname understands the meaning of “date” or not, but unless she makes the move first, she felt that nothing is going to change between them.

At Kaname’s house, Kaname is looking at magazine articles on Christmas date spots. As Hiro watches Kaname research, Hiro gets agitated that his brother is suddenly changing. Hiro is not comfortable seeing his brother doing things for another person, or seeing his brother have interest in dating. Kaname reassures Hiro that no matter how much he change, he’s feelings for Hiro will never change.

On the day of the date:

Erika looks at her reflection on the store window to check how she looks. Kaname approaches her as she does this and Erika is embarrassed to be caught. She says that she just got there as well. Then Kaname touches her cheeks to make sure that their still warm which means that she hasn’t been outside for long time. He then takes out a paper with the date plan excitingly while saying, “Leave today’s date to me!” The first place Kaname planned to take Erika was closed, so they head off to the second choice. An hour later, they are lost. So instead they decided to go see a movie. When they get to the theater, they find out that the next movie starts in two hours. Kaname is now feeling low but Erika continues to cheer him up. Erika then takes the lead and says that there’s a store that she wants to go to. The store turns out to be an accessory store. The two starts to have fun as they try on different glasses, and Erika feels that she made the right decision in coming here. Soon, Erika finds a bracelet that she really wants. Since she recently bought a skirt recently, she tells herself that she can’t spend any more money. Kaname then tells her to wait for him outside while he goes to the register. While Erika was waiting outside, a guy comes over to Erika and tries to pick her up. She tries to decline his offer politely but she panics when he grabs her arm. Fortunately, Kaname came to save her. The two ended up going to the park after that. As they sit on the bench, the mood is awkward for Erika because Kaname was quit and acting weird. It turned out that Kaname was acting weird because he felt sorry for making Erika go through what happened earlier. He also felt bad that he didn’t do a good job taking the lead and messing up their date. To cheer him up, Erika played with dwarf dolls she bought for him as a Christmas gift. Erika explained to Kaname that the date wasn’t exactly as she imagined it would be, but she still had fun. Kaname told Erika to take out her left hand and close her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she was wearing the bracelet she wanted from the store they visited earlier, saying that he was also happy to spend that day with her. Erika was overwhelmed with happiness that she started to cry. She wasn’t sure what he meant by “he was happy,” but to her it meant that she was starting to be noticed as a girl in a romantic way. He then kissed her on her eyelids. Erika was really confused then, saying that he can only do that if their dating. Kaname replied “but we are.”

Erika “no we aren’t.”

 “but you said you liked me when you were over at my house.”

“yes. Didn’t you say that you liked me in a ‘motherly way’?”

“oh, I only said that because I was surprised.”

Erika started laughing after realizing that their feelings were mutual all this time. From the day they met, Kaname taught her lots of “firsts”. He’s strange, but precious. “I hope that our mismatched relationship lasts forever.”

The End 

Chapter 3:

Narration: Our mismatched days seem to be changing.

Erika and Kaname are on the bus together, going home. “Eri-chan, aren’t we going to sit together?” Kaname asks. Erika is sitting infront of him and quickly makes an excuse that the heater on the bus is too strong, therefore it would be too hot to sit next to each other. She turns around and finds Kaname staring intently at her; she quickly turns back around thinking “Too close! Too close! Why is he so close!?”  He starts to say something, but he’s stop comes and Erika quickly says her goodbyes and they separate. Eika later notice how unusual the way she just acted. She has gotten used to him calling her “Eri-chan,” but she can no longer sit next to him casually as they used to; she leans her head to the side blushing as she sigh. She has a flashback of the day when she told Kaname that it was okay to cry. He thanked her afterwards saying that it made him feel better and its all thanks to her. That day, she realized that every time she sees him smile, or hear him call her name, it makes her heart beat fast. If something happens to him, she wants him to rely on her, that she wants to become his support. Although Erika’s inexperienced in romance, and not completely sure, this feeling must be love.

The next day, Erika confesses her feelings to her best friends; Shiro-chan and Kyon-chan. They congratulate on her first crush saying that it was very obvious from looking at the way she acted towards Kaname recently. Kyon-chan points out that Kaname probably won’t notice Erika’s feelings since his slow, but if she keeps acting so strange towards him, he’ll probably come to dislike her. (By strange, Kyon-chan is referring to Erika running away every time Kaname comes to talk to her)  Erika realized this as well but her feelings and her actions are not acting together.

That day, the class was hanging out outside clearing snow off and having snowball fights. Kaname comes over to Erica as she is talking to her friends. As always, Kaname is clumsy and falls on his face as he runs to meet Erica. As always, Erica rushes to help him; her habit of helping anyone in need naturally shows up. As she wipes the snow off Kaname’s face with her sleeves, she realizes what she’s doing and immediately backs away apologizing. Kaname takes a step towards her commenting that she’s acting strange recently. She replies that there is nothing different or strange.  Kaname continues to take a step towards her and Erika takes a step back in return. Eventually she bumps into a tree and she can no longer run away; now their face to face. Kaname has a serious expression and asked why she’s acting like this. He was about to say something but she says “Really, it’s really nothing.” He backs up after this and goes away.

The next day, Kaname is absent from a cold. So the teacher asked Erica to go drop off handouts to him after school. Helping out is absolutely natural to Erica, so she says yes without thinking. When she actually gets to his house, she regrets her decision. But she still wants to know his health, so she decides to quickly drop off the handouts, check how he’s doing, then leave before she starts acting strange. She was about to press the bell, but Kaname’s brother opens the door. Apparently he’s leaving the house for a little bit to go to the supermarket. So he asks her to watch over Kaname until he returns. Of course, being the kind of person she is, she doesn’t leave as quickly as she planned to. Especially when she sees Kaname sleeping, and how adorable he is, she couldn’t possibly leave. Erika finds herself surprisingly relaxed being there watching over him as he sleeps and mumble words. It’s been a while since she can be around him without worrying because he’s sleeping. She starts to think about the how the way she’s acting around him can make him come to dislike her. She falls asleep as she gets lost in thought.

Erika hers a voice… “I like you Eri-chan. You’re nice, and you’re always smiling. You make me happy. That’s why I don’t like it like this… Have you come to dislike me?”

At that moment, she opens her eyes and realizes that this isn’t a dream. Kaname was actually talking to her. Kaname was saying this because he thought that she’s asleep too.

“What were you saying?”

“By ‘like’ I mean in a motherly way…” (Kaname is trying to cover his confession.)

“No, not that. I’m talking about me disliking you.”

“Because that’s the only reason I can think that would explain the way you’ve been acting towards me.”

Erika stopped to think now. She realize that she’s been acting selfish thinking that “his going to dislike me,” when the truth is that it will make him think that she dislikes him. She decided to face her feelings and confessed that she doesn’t dislike him; she likes him as well. She then apologized for acting in a way that made him think otherwise. The cute moment is interrupted when Hiromu comes home commenting that it’s not fair that Kaname says “I like you” to her but not to his own brother. Kaname replies that he doesn’t like people who listen to other people’s conversations. They laugh and joke around. Erika’s thoughts: “So I’m still a motherly figure since Kaname said ‘in a motherly way.’ It’s the same as usual, and it seems like I cannot get out of that position. But just like the way I fell in love with Kaname, you never know how people’s feelings change. So it’s all up to me!”

End of chapter (✿◕‿◕✿)

Check chapter 01 [HERE]


Chapter 2
It’s now November.  The chapter starts out with Erika telling Kaname that the way his wearing his scarf will suffocate him. Erika’s being “motherly” again and her friends, Kyon-chan and Shiro-chan are watching Erica and Kaname’s cute moment and comments that their an otter (I don’t really get what they mean by this, maybe referring that the two are as cute as an otter?), and calling Erika an animal handler. It’s been a month since Kaname transferred to the new. Kaname made friends other than Erica and adopted to the new environment as well. Erica is relieved to see him talking to other classmates, and feels accomplished. Kaname comes back from talking to other classmates and shares the food he just received from them with Erika. She thinks, “his like a puppy.”

One day, Kaname’s brother suddenly comes to school. The class is surprised to see someone with blond hair from another school suddenly walking in and casually having a conversation with Kaname. People are whispering “scary!” (In Japan, people who bleach their hair blond are stereotyped as scary and bad natured.) Erika, who was sitting next to Kaname awkwardly, asks who this is. Turns out that this was Hiromu, Kaname’s younger twin brother. He came to deliver Kaname’s lunch which he forgot to bring. When Erika introduces herself, Hiromu recognizes the name and dramatically asks Kaname if she was the famous Matsuda –san (Erika’s last name) that is often mentioned at home. Hiromu then turns to Erika and glares at her and warns her not to get carried away just because Kaname took a liking of her, and that Kaname’s care-taker is Hiromu only! Hiromu then showed Erika the bento he made for Kaname which was the cutest thing. But the message in this was: “you can’t possibly make something as amazing as this! Therefore, I’m the only one needed to take care of Kaname!!!”

On the bus ride home, Kaname apologize to Erika about the way Hiromu acted earlier. Erika says that it’s no problem because it just means that Hiromu loves and cares about Kaname. Erika praised Hiromu’s skills in making decorative bento, saying that it must help out their mom a lot. Kaname suddenly goes silent after that and Erika gets confused. Kaname then turns around and then says that he wants to be called by his first name also; Hiromu gets to be called by his first name but not Kaname, “it’s not fair”. So Erika tries.

“Kaname-kun?”

….

“Eri-chan.”

Suddenly, her heart starts to beat fast and she wonders why it’s so embarrassing. She tries to call him by his first name but couldn’t overcome the emotion. So she gives up and says “I can’t do it, is last name okay?” The next morning, Erika is sitting in her seat having a flashback of the way Kaname called her name and worries about if she can act normally the next time he calls her “Eri-chan.” Unfortunately, that morning he greeted her by her last name; which calmed her down in a way that allowed her to not worry about blushing every time he called her “Eri-chan,” but at the same time, it was disappointing. Kaname told her that his going to be absent tomorrow because his going away to see his parents. He gets quiet and becomes distant after he mentions this and Erika is again confused, and now worried.

The next day, Erika walks into Hiromu. She gets the vibe that he doesn’t like her but she greets him cheerfully. Erika asked if Kaname wasn’t with him but Hiromu replied with anger that Kaname went somewhere without telling him. Erika noticed again how much Hiromu cared for Kaname. It’s normal since their brothers, but to Erika who is an only child, it’s admirable. Hiromu explained to her that he didn’t always like Kaname. Erika was shocked to hear this. When they were in fourth grade, their parents passed away from a car accident. Up till that point, Hiromu used to think that Kaname was unreliable, weird, and doesn’t make sense for him to be the older brother. But on the day of the funeral, Kaname didn’t cry at all. It must have been hard for Kaname as well as Hiromu, who was crying his heart out. But Kaname held Hiromu’s hand strongly and looked forward. At that moment, Hiromu thought “wow, his really strong.” …… Then Hiromu realized that he was telling Erika more than necessary and they parted.

Erika then found Kaname sitting on the same bench where they met before. He looks distant again as he looks at the night sky and doesn’t notice Erika watching him. So she goes by and sits down next to him and says “We can’t see that many stars tonight huh.”

“Yea.”

“Nokina-kun,” (his last name) “do you remember when you told me that I can rely on you? I was really happy, so if you’re okay with me, Nokina-kun, you can also…”

But he cuts her off and asks her again to call him by his first name. Erika blushes, and tells him that she already told him that she will call him by his last name. Kaname replies that he didn’t say that that was okay, unless she doesn’t want to. She continues to blush and becomes quiet. Kaname then started to explain that today was his parent’s death anniversary. Even though Kaname knows that his not alone, when the anniversary comes, he is overcome by sadness. But he feels that as an older brother, he must not cry. Erika couldn’t stop herself from hugging him now. She tells him that it doesn’t matter if his older brother or not, if his sad, he can cry if he wants to. “You can cry if you want to.”

“But I don’t want you to see me like that…”

Erika starts laughing at that and he pulls her in to hug her. He says that he’ll only cry today and they share a nice moment.

 Erika realized that until now, she took care of others for self satisfaction. It was the first time for her to want someone to depend on her, or want to support someone. It was her first love.

~end of chapter~