A/N: Shameless HoutarouxEru fluff... X3 Thought of this after browsing fanart on deviantArt and seeing a drawing with the same title... (:
Disclaimer: If I owned Hyouka, there would be another novel coming out... (I don't own the cover image either; no idea who it belongs to, though... *sweatdrop*)
The World Through Her Eyes
He would never understand what she saw in him.
They were complete opposites, after all – her and him.
Chitanda Eru was hard-working and industrious, always near the top of their class. She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest farmers in the district if not all of Japan. She was going to go to university in order to learn how to make her family's work even more profitable. She was fun-loving, out-going, and ever-caring.
She was on top of the world.
He was nowhere near.
Oreki Houtarou lacked motivation most of the time, always only achieving average marks in school even when he did try. He was the son of a businessman – certainly not hard-up for money but not wealthy either. He had no idea what he was going to do when he finally graduated from high school. He was dull, introverted, and self-centered.
Simply put, she was out of his league.
There was no way he could ever be good enough for her.
That was why he had hesitated. He could have spoken his mind, then, standing under that sakura tree, that first year of high school. He could have told her exactly how he felt. But he didn't. He froze. In that instant, as he considered his words, he couldn't keep that thought at bay long enough to muster his courage: he would never be good enough.
Or that's what he had always thought.
But, now he knew, she didn't agree.
When he had dared to be transparent with her once in a moment of weakness, she had giggled. At first it had made him angry, but then she had simply said, "Oreki-kun, didn't I tell you once that you were special to me? Nothing has changed since then – in fact, I would say you are even more special to me than before."
In his own eyes, he was nothing special – just average.
But if he only looked at himself through his own eyes, he would never see what she saw in him.
She didn't see him the way he saw himself at all. He knew because he had told her. In her eyes, he was someone he never could have thought himself to be. In her eyes, he was special and loved and irreplaceable. He was intelligent – not on paper exams, maybe, but in inductive reasoning – even if he called it 'luck.'
In his eyes, he was flawed at best.
In her eyes, he was perfect.
He was perfect, though not perfect in the sense that he never made mistakes. He complimented her. Everyone thought so – Satoshi had made a point of it. Mayaka wouldn't let them forget it. They just fit; that was all there was to it. Eru certainly didn't deny it, either. "We make a good team, don't we?"
He had finally come to a conclusion.
He hadn't meant for it to happen, but it had happened regardless.
Before too long, they would be going their separate ways to further their education. He didn't want that parting to be the end. He never wanted to have to say goodbye to her. He – dare he say it? He had fallen head-over-heels for Chitanda Eru. She had stripped away the dull gray of his life; never had he cared about anything as much as he cared about her.
She was his world now.
And, through her eyes, he was her world, too.