Title: Keep Your Head Up

Author/Artist: YamiPaladinofChaos (ypaladinofchaos)

Pairing: Harima Kenji/Sawachika Eri (Flag Faction)

Fandom: School Rumble

Theme: #12 in a good mood

Disclaimer: School Rumble is the property of Kobayashi Jin.

Notes: For 30kisses. Spoilers for the recent manga.

It was the very first time she was ever dumped.

Despite hearsay and all the things the media had to say about hearts breaking, tears flowing, anger, denial, etc., etc. that was supposed to come at this exact moment, Eri felt nothing, only a vague confusion and a very simple question.

What now?

She'd been dumped without even being in a relationship. Without holding hands, without going on a real date, without even kissing just once.

Hige kept talking, saying things that should have hurt but didn't, as though she was watching it all from very far away, like God. She could even see herself, standing there with this perplexed (and maybe even vaguely disgusted) expression on her face.

She didn't run away from him. She didn't scream at him. She didn't even cry.

With an odd numbness, Eri waved, said some words she didn't even recall five minutes later, and then walked away without another thought from the man who just broke her heart.

---

Hige didn't go to school the next day, but Eri didn't know that until the day after, because she didn't go either.

Some might have passed her apathetic reaction off as shock and said that, in light of her delinquency the next day, she had obviously needed the day off to wallow in her own misery.

Eri would probably have delivered some very cutting words in response and told them, quite frankly and truthfully, that she simply didn't feel like coming in, and that she hadn't been miserable.

Truth be told, the day was actually one of the better ones. Nakamura helped her cook dinner, and it didn't turn out half bad (i.e. it wouldn't torque your stomach into a figure eight), her dad managed to spend quite a bit more time than usual with her before a sudden business meeting called him away (but Eri forgave him, because she always did).

The only thing that took the edge off of everything, good and bad, however, was the daze. It kept her from being too happy, even after her father kissed on the forehead goodbye, and kept her from being too disappointed when she messed up dinner on the first try.

If Eri was being very, very honest, she might admit that maybe she actually did need that day off.

---

"Eri-chan!" Tenma waved energetically, all smiles and sunshine as usual. It was enough to make Eri smile back, if only faintly.

"Hey," she replied casually, waving slightly.

"You missed school yesterday!" Tenma peered inquisitively, her head curving past Eri's shoulder to gaze into her eyes while still walking next to her. "And so did Harima-kun."

No matter what anyone, man, woman, or child says about what happened that moment, Eri will firmly deny that she missed a step in her walk.

Tenma gave her a mischievous little grin, childish to the point of absurdity on a high school girl. "Did you two have a love love rendevous? Did you two get kissy kissy?" she asked, giggling with every girlish word that came out of her mouth. Only Tenma could get away with saying such things.

Eri rolled her eyes, not even giving the energy necessary to blow up at that statement. "No way," she rebuffed, shaking her head. "There's no way that guy and me would ever do something like that."

Because he dumped me.

---

In the end, she told Akira, because, if anyone could figure this out, it would be her. After all, the last time she had been confused about it all, it had been Akira to take her out and give he the resolve to keep going.

She told things slowly, but without the exact details, like the whole thing was just a dream, the memory of which was fading with each passing moment. Then, suddenly, she started mentioning all sorts of things- the Sports Festival dance, the odd little pseudo-dates that happened every so often, the day he came to her house, all the way to that rainy day when they first truly met and walked together beneath an umbrella.

When she was finished, Eri wasn't physically out of breath, but she felt drained, taxed to the point of near exhaustion. Even trying to pick up the tea cup in front of her took more effort than it should have.

Akira said nothing for a while, as the afternoon sun filtered through the windows of the café, sipping her tea with a cold natural grace that Eri was always jealous of. The silence stretched on not entirely uncomfortably, but there was a weight in it, something thick and palpable, hanging just out of sight but not out of mind.

"Are you still curious?"

Eri is only thrown by the question for a moment, because this is Akira and such a direct question should be expected of her. "Of course I am," she muttered in reply, "I mean, this feeling... I don't really want to lose it. Even if nothing comes of it, I still want to have it."

"Hmm," is all Akira says in reply, because that's all she needs to say.

Sometimes, the answer to our questions is staring us right in the face.

---

A few days later, after another leave of absence he turns up in the hospital- appendix problems, apparently caused by Tenma's cooking.

At the very least, Eri can now say that her cooking has never put a man in the hospital.

It's awkward, to say the least, but only for the beginning- all she needs is a little anger, that little irritation that Hige can always provoke from her, and suddenly they fall back into old patterns, old habits.

And, despite the fact that its almost (as it almost always is) a fight, Eri is suddenly in a good mood, the observer's daze broken at last.

Because she might have been dumped, but it hardly means she's not still in love, or that there's no chance of her ever being happy. They're young, there's so much that can happen still.

So she keeps her head up high, and smiles because its not over yet.