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~