"I don't want your help, and I don't need your help!" Yukinoshita spoke adamantly. Clenching her petite hands into a fist in front of her chest. She stood a front me with a slight tremble, the same tremble that slightly echoed from her voice. As her hair blew from the breeze, I stepped a single step backward. Taken afar by her determination and questioning it at the same time.

Total reliance is dangerous. But humans are primates, designed to work with one another. Yukinoshita always takes on more than she can handle alone, so is it really reliance? Or is it mere foolishness. The same foolishness I have.

What Haruno san said. About me being an overly protective brother to Yukinoshita. Am I really? Does my desire to help her really just stem from just that or is it something beyond, something I cannot dare admit. We know the situation we have gotten ourselves into, a love triangle, there is no dismissing that now. But this isn't normal. Haruno san isn't normal. What if she is wrong? She is a superwoman brought up the same way as Yukinoshita. With the same noblesse oblige. What if she's the one putting the wrong pressure and views onto Yukinoshita. It is something I dare not believe or admit the possibility of, that Haruno san is wrong. To me, she is already perfect the way she currently is

But, despite everything. I need to help Yukinoshita. The Prom could not simply be canceled on a whim of her mother. Not only is it unfair to the third years, but it is also unfair to Isshiki and the student council and most of all Yukinoshita which tried her very best.

"There's nothing wrong with a little help. This is way over for a single person. Even you."

"I can't accept your help. Especially you. I need to figure out my feelings. What I feel. And helping me is detrimental to that." Yukinoshita's voice cracked, small crystal-like drops of tears forming in the side of her eyes. Her lips frowning, holding in an explosion of emotion making her cheeks tinted in pink.

"Why?"

"If I accept your help I can never find out if my feelings are reliance or love. And I really don't want it to be the former. So please. Let me do this alone."

I grit my teeth and stand firmly on the ground. Applying pressure to the poor floor to somewhat hold in the feelings inside me. I don't know what I feel. Is it anger? Annoyance? Sympathy? Whatever it was, I simply let it explode out of me.

"Whats wrong with that?! Whats wrong with relying on me a little? It's not like you can't live without my help. Whats wrong with letting me help you. You take on tasks which are impossible with a single person to accomplish. Are you really so cocky to think that you are better than everyone else?"

Yukinoshita was shaking by my sudden increase in volume, taken a step back and looking onto the floor like a guilty child before picking up herself and glaring back at me.

"If I cannot accomplish something as simple as this, what hope do I have of being the successor to father? I need to be better. Becuase I am a Yukinoshita."

"You know what really pisses me off? Your noblesse oblige. You think you have to be better than everyone else. But guess what? You aren't. And you can never be. This isn't the way to prove yourself. If anything it just shows your childishness and you cant succeed your father like that."

Taken back by what I said harshly. It looked like she was stabbed in the chest with a thousand blades. Breaking her fundamentally glass heart.

"Then what do you expect I do? Hikigaya kun. I don't want my feelings to be reliance, and it scares me to the depths of my soul that they are."

"Isn't you trying so desperately to prove that they aren't; evidence that it isn't?" I mumble as it was something still slightly embarrassing to bring up despite the three of us admitting the current situation back at the pier.

"I don't know. But I want to know. I have to."

"Believe me. I know reliance when I see it. I don't think you have that severe of a case of it. At least you are willing to try and be independent. Isshiki on the other hand..."

Yukinoshita finally chuckles after such a tense moment, and I couldn't help but smile seeing such a transient view occur. She really should smile more. She deserves to be happy.

"I still want to do this to the best of my capacity. If there is anything that is socially accepted as unaccomplishable by a single person. Then I will ask you for help. Is that okay then?"

I simply nod. This is the best way things can go. There is nothing wrong with this. She doesn't deserve to shoulder more than what a single person should just because of her name. If her name was the stem of all these issues. I hope I can help her get rid of it.

"By the way Hikigaya kun. It is simply unrealistic for you to think you can persuade mother and succeed. You are just an outsider and a teenager. She won't listen or be convinced by you. This time, it has to be me. Her daughter."

"I have no intention nor the capacity to persuade her. This is one thing I cannot directly help you with."

"One last thing. Why are you so driven to help me? How does it benefit to you? Don't you remember what Nee-san said? That you should respect what that person wants too?"

"I made you a promise."

"It was a heat of the moment. You really don't need to take it to heart. If those words are what drives you, I am sorry, and I take it back."

"Do you really want to shoulder the weight of the world? To do what is not expected of a single person? Do you really want to do this alone? If you can tell me your honest answer, and that answer is a yes. I will leave this moment and let you be."

Yukinoshita paused to think. After a short pondering, she looked back at me with a hint of a smile.

"I won't lie, and my answer is...No."

She took a deep breath as if saying those words alone released some of the weight on her shoulders.

"You're perfect the way you are. I love you the way you are." Noticing my slip of the tongue I immediately corrected myself to avoid any notion of miscommunication of misunderstanding in this situation.

"We love you the way you are. Yuigahama and I."

With a hint of a flush, Yukinoshita glistened in the late afternoon sun.

"You don't have to be so overprotective of me. I am not that delicate. Or do you just do it to fulfill your savior complex?"

I don't know. I don't know what drives me to help you either. Saying it was just the promise would be a lie. The truth is...I...I'm not sure if I actually am treating you like a little sister or something more and I am afraid of the answer to that question the same as you are the answer. But there is one thing for certain the way I feel for you is different than toward Isshiki and Komachi

"Call me stubborn."

"I see. Speaking of which, where is Yuigahama san?"

I take a deep breath as took in the question. I knew she was crying, but I came back running to Yukinoshita without even a glimpse of looking back. I hurt Yuigahama. Again.

"I uh...left her. To come back to help you."

Looking guilty Yukinoshita looked away. Hugging herself as if the temperature of the room dropped severely.

"She must hate me for dragging you away."

"You didn't even want me here. If anything it was all me. She should hate me. That would actually make things easier."

I sighed as I leaned on the closest wall.

"She's my only friend. Why did it have to come to this?"

"None of our feelings are in our total control. I guess bad things naturally happens."

"That's very pessimistic. But unfortunately true."

"I don't know what to say to her. Or how I am even going to face her tomorrow."

I hurt her time and time again. I should be happy that someone as good as her would even like me. Instead time and time again I made her suffer one way or another. I consistently made her cry, made her frown. She is someone important to me, yet I always placed her in second place to Yukinoshita.

"That is also another task I must do alone," Yukinoshita spoke up. I simply nod as there is nothing I could input. If anything talking to Yuigahama may even worsen the situation or hurt her more.

"Hikigaya kun."

Her sudden calling of my name broke me out of my depths of thought like a breeze in the spring.

"Yes?"

"I won't let the 3rd year's prom be canceled by mother. I promise you that."

I yet again simply nod.

"One last thing before we go home."

"Yeah?"

"If I succeed and Prom goes on as planned..."

"Yes?"

"Would you share a dance with me?"

"Sure. Not that I know how to though."

"We'll manage."