Authors Note: I was shocked to learn that despite the fact that I haven't been around in YEARS people still loved what I had written so long ago. I will attempt to write for you all when I have the time; because I love it and I miss it. I hope you all enjoy this small moment. I will work on getting something else up as soon as possible.

I couldn't tell you when I started thinking about Kotoko in a different light then I once did. I wasn't aware that my feelings for her had changed until I became aware of the fact that I cared what happened to her when she left the house or I cared if she did well on a test that she had studied for. One night I was reading a novel and I heard her stub her toe right outside my room and Yuuki made some comment about how she wouldn't know how to walk right if someone paid her to, and without even thinking about it I told my brother to knock it off.

I don't know who I shocked more. Him or I. I had never defended her before that moment.

It was a well kept secret that my feelings changed for Kotoko a lot sooner than people thought. When she had come to live with us I had dreaded the idea of having to live with someone who had such strong feelings for me and I was worried that she wouldn't know how to keep her distance. I learned really fast that she didn't in fact know boundaries and she was always walking all over them.

I found that I didn't care and I rather enjoyed watching her get herself in a situation she didn't want herself in. I found that she was a surprise to me on any given day at any given time. Kotoko could do things that I couldn't. The woman would never be in the top of her class no matter what I did, but I would never feel things the way she did no matter how hard I loved. It wasn't that I didn't feel the love I just would never love like she did. It fascinated me and it frusterated me at the same time.

I am okay in admitting that weaknesses in me drive me a little insane even if it as about my emotional weakness.

Kotoko have compassion and she had a drive that I will never find in my life. I never knew someone who could pass a test and get on the top fifty just because…. She decided she was going to do it.

She had no real reason or drive to be at the top but she if she killed herself mentally she could do it, and I knew she did it but I didn't know how she had pulled it off because no matter how much I tutored her I wasn't the reason that she was in the top fifty of our grade. I could help her until I was blue in the face, but she took all the information in because she had a drive and a determination to prove something to herself, and I was worried that I would never know that drive.

I couldn't begin to tell you how much I fought the knowledge that I was in love with someone who I viewed as so beneath me, and I will admit that my changing feelings for Kotoko did not mean that I wanted them to be what they were. I fought the changes in me so hard that I thought I might do anything not to be in love with someone who I was going to have to worry about the rest of my life.

The knowledge that I was in love with Kotoko filled me with a terror because the emotions were real and they were strong and I did not want these emotions. I had fallen in love against my own will and I was not going to have it. I was one of the smartest people I know, but I would never know how to stop loving her, but I would try to find a way I hurt her in more ways than one, and by all rights I should have never ended up with the girl of my dreams because I was an ass.

My only defense was that in my own head if I couldn't stop loving her, then maybe her hate for me would inspire me to go back into the world of logic that I knew so well. I can never begin to tell you how grateful I am that she never gave up on me. I will never tell her that I'm sorry that I was an ass to her. I feel the need to admit all of this to myself, because I had to acknowledge my stupidity to someone so I might as well have a talk to myself.

This woman to whom I will love until I take my last breath… she drives me to the brink of insanity. I cannot stand how she cannot learn how to drive no matter how much I teach her. I cannot stand how she is always running around the house like a tiny insane person when I am trying to get my work done. I cannot stand how she is so careless that she will get herself lost in the middle of the woods or almost fall down the stairs just because she doesn't watch were she's going.

It drives me insane that those same things that drive me insane are parts of the reasons that I will love her forever. I love that she tries so hard to drive that she doesn't realize it's what makes her such a bad driver. I love with she bites her lip when she's failing to switch lanes. I love how now that she has her license she will misplace her keys around the house and she will be so lost on where she put them that she will end up with her head in the freezer looking for them.

I love watching her run around the house because she provides hours of endless entertainment. I love watching her play with our child. I love watching her attempt to be a proper housewife because if it's something that woman doesn't know how to do…. It's clean a house… or cook.

I love that I can save her. I hate this little part about myself but it is a small knowledge that I can live with. If I had fallen in love with someone proper, I would never be able to save them because they would be able to take care of themselves, but Kotoko needs me in a way that I would have never found in someone else. I can teach her how to do things and I will always be able to teach her because she will always need to be taught how and I love giving her the knowledge. I love being the one that she runs to even when it means I'm up at an ungodly hour fixing a flat that she couldn't get off. I found someone who needs me, and I love that.

And the amazing thing is that I need her just as much in so many different ways and the confounded woman will never see it and I love her a little for that too.