Hoshi walked me home, gushing the whole time about how adorable Kenma was. I couldn't help but agree a little, although I didn't say. When I got home, I found my mom at the kitchen table, hunched over her laptop.

"Hey, hun," she yawned, "How was your day?"

She pulled me in close and gave me a smooch on the forehead. I glanced at her laptop to see she was dealing with money matters again. Mom never had any free time between her job and working out our finances, so she was always sleepy at the end of the day. Half of me wished Dad was still around to support us, but half of me wanted him to stay gone.

"It was good," I shrugged as I clung to her lovingly, "Have you eaten yet?"

"Mhm," she sighed, "Left overs and such,"

"Good," I smiled and broke away from her, "You going to bed soon?"

"Oh, eventually," she grumbled.

"K, I got a friend coming over tomorrow at 12," I told her.

She only nodded comatosely as she gazed at her laptop. I gave her a hand a reassuring squeeze before heading upstairs to my room. My pillow fort from before was still up, so I took it down and moved all the blankets and pillows back onto my bed. As I snuggled under the pile of pillows and plushies, I thought about Kenma. It seemed like I could never keep my mind off him lately. I met him only a few days ago, yet all I wanted to do since then was know him better. I guessed I was on the right course for that, but I hoped I wasn't freaking him out…

The next morning, I immediately got to work on my pillow fort. For some reason, I really wanted to impress this guy with the best pillow fort ever! I stretched a blanket out over my desk and shelf, holding it in place with text books and dictionaries. Pretty much every pillow and plushie I owned was thrown in then draped the front and back of the fort with more blankets for ultimate soundproof privacy…well ok not completely soundproof, but close enough!

Kenma didn't actually knock or anything, I saw him from my bedroom window. He was looking back and forth between the sticky note I had given him last night and my house. Poor kitty was probably worrying if he got the right house. To spare him any more fretting, I bounded down the stairs and ripped the door open.

"Kenma!" I called out.

He flinched in surprise like a cat, his amber eyes darting over to me.

"Come on in," I grinned and motioned to come.

A little smile flickered onto his face before he entered, timidly looking about my home. It was your average house, nothing out of the ordinary, minus the messy state my mom left in the kitchen last night.

Where did mom go anyway? I wondered, staring at the vacant chair in the kitchen.

"Thanks for having me over…" Kenma muttered with a tug at his lips, "It…It's nice to have someone to just play video games with…Kuro doesn't really know anything about them,"

"Kuro?" I tilted my head in curiosity.

"Oh, uh…he was with me the day you came to Nekoma," he explained.

"Oh, that tall scary guy?" I thought aloud.

A little chuckle came from Kenma, but I could tell he was trying to hide it by the way he was looking away.

"H-He's not scary," he shook his head, "He's a really nice guy…once you get to know him,"

I was just about to say "well maybe I will get know him", but a hand landed abruptly on my shoulders, making me shriek in surprise.

"MOM!" I yelled, "Don't scare me like that!"

Even Kenma had jumped back a bit. But now that I saw my mom, she looked sort of sleepy and out of it, so she probably didn't mean to startle me.

"Sorry, Kaori," she yawned, "Mm…what time is it?"

Well this was a bit embarrassing: my frumpy mom shows up half asleep right in front of the guy I like!

Shut up, me! I don't like…ugh, I might as well come to terms with it.

"It's noon," I replied bluntly.

"Ack!" Mom suddenly snapped to, going right back into "workaholic mom mode".

"I need to get on my errands right away!" she facepalmed and was about to hurry off to grab her things when she noticed Kenma.

Mom looked him over with raised eyebrows and a pleasantly surprised expression.

"Is this your friend?" she mused, "She's pretty,"

She. An awkward silence settled between the three of us. I stood dead still, in shock that my mom would ever say something so stupid. Kenma was now shrinking away and looking at his feet with an uncomfortable look in his eyes. Meanwhile, my mom looked back and forth between us, not sure of what she did wrong.

"Eh? What is it?" she asked.

"U-uh…I'm a…" Kenma tried to say but I could tell he was really distressed just by trying to tell her.

"Kenma's a guy," I grunted.

Mom gave Kenma good once over with a scrutinizing gaze. The poor Nekoma boy squirmed like a bug under a microscope.

"Oh," my mom breathed, "So transgender. Got, Kenma, I'll call you a guy if that's what you want,"

"M-mom…" I tried to stop her but she had already zoomed in and out of the kitchen to grab her bag and flip flops.

"Well I'm going out to run some errands," she announced, "Which means you two will be on your own. Kaori, you know the house rules when I leave you alone with a friend,"

She stared at me expectantly like she wanted me to recite them. I normally would rather flippantly because I was so used to having Hoshi over when she was at work. But this time, I just gave her a disgruntled look. Mom looked puzzled as to why I was like this, so she shrugged and recited to rules herself.

"No smoking, no drugs, and no sex…," she named off each one.

She gave a quick glance at Kenma and added, "…Lesbian or otherwise,"

"M-M-MOM!" I shouted, my face turning red in a combination of embarrassment and anger.

With that, she gave me a peck on the head and headed out the door. Off to the store in her pajamas. Yep, that's a definition of my mom right there. She works so much, she hardly knows what's going on around her. I slowly looked over at Kenma, worried about how he was taking all this. He was staring at the front door from where my mom had just left with a completely disturbed look on his face. This was not how I wanted his first visit to my house to go. Even so, it was a nice change to see some sort of emotion on his face.

"Urk…Sorry about all that," I sighed in exasperation, "My mom is…well she's…"

Dysfunctional? Workaholic? Never had a rest since dad left?

"…Weird…" Kenma breathed, finishing my sentence for me.

"Yeah," I grimaced.

Suddenly realizing the real reason I invited Kenma over, I bounded up to him.

"But hey, let's just forget about that!" I said sweetly, "We've still got some Fire Emblem to play!"

He gave me that small, shy smile from before and nodded. I smiled back and took his hand, leading him up the stairs to my room. When I showed him my carefully constructed pillow fort, his eyes widened in awe.

"Kinda like camping in doors, huh?" I giggled and lifted the blanket to enter.

"Come on in," I said as I crawled in.

He followed, looking timidly around in the fort. Kenma found a nice fuzzy pillow to perch on and continue to admire my work.

"It feels like I'm a kid again," he murmured with a smile.

"Well no wonder because I've been making these since I was a kid," I shrugged as I pulled out my 3DS and a box of Morinaga Choco balls.

Kenma did the same, minus the candy part.

"This is my favorite way to enjoy a video game," I said dreamily as I switched out game cartridges, "As long as I'm in my fort, I can fully immerse myself in the game and not have to interact with any humans!"

Nevertheless, it was nice to share my little fort with someone every once in a while. Usually it was just Hoshi who I let in, so having Kenma was a nice change of pace. As our 3DS's connected, we started setting up for a battle. And like true Fire Emblem strategists, we spent almost an hour looking over each other's units' and stats and positioning our units in just the right spots on the map. (AN: Also, Fire Emblem Awakening's multiplayer is on Street Pass, meaning that the two 3DS's exchange info and then you can fight the opponent's units as their units act on their own. So basically the opponent's units are being controlled by the computer. It just comes down to stats and how well you've built your units.)

"Yikes! Your Gerome is a beast!" I gawked at the wyvern rider's stats, "Who did you pair Cherche with?"

"Gregor," he replied.

"He's gonna be a tough one to fight," I mumbled to myself.

Once we had thoroughly gawked at each other's stats, we actually started fighting one another. For the longest time, we sat in silence as we battled until my first unit went down.

"Noooo, Sully!" I pouted.

I couldn't help but notice a glint in Kenma's eye when I said that. However, that glint went away when he let out a sigh of defeat and slumped his shoulders.

"Heehee! Who'd my side kill?" I asked eagerly.

"They took out Cordelia," he sighed.

"Wow! I guess my units are stronger than I give them credit for!" I marveled.

"Yeah…how did you get your avatar so strong?" he asked.

"Just some reclassing," I shrugged, "That and some goddess statues. Hey, who did you marry in your first file?"

"Nowi," he answered with a bit of a blush on his cheeks from the thought of the adorable manakete, "She always acted so cute and happy…just to hide her sadness,"

Wow, mood change. Nowi did always act childish and playful, but sprinkled about in her support conversations were traces of bitterness from her past and future. She's been sold as a slave for many years, and she was destined to watch all her friends die as she lived on forever.

"What about you?" he glanced over at me.

"Me? I married Kellam," I felt myself blush too at the thought of my fictional love, "I couldn't understand why nobody ever noticed him. Besides, I likes quieter guys,"

You're probably either geeking out about Fire Emblem or completely lost, so I'll spare you the rest of our Awakening chatter. But aside from a few remarks here and there, we didn't talk much more. We just sat in silence, enjoying the company and the game. Around three, we both finished our battles. Kenma's units completely wrecked me by the last few rounds, and he won his fight too.

"Strategizing is your forte, huh?" I chirped.

"Mhm," he nodded and muttered under his breath, "I guess that's one part of volleyball that pays off,"

Except I heard him.

"You play volleyball, really?" I gasped excitedly, "Is that why you were wearing a sports jersey the other day?"

He seemed a little taken back by my sudden excitement, but he still nodded.

"Yeah, I'm the setter,"

"Well you know what they say, 'the setter is the control tower of the team'," I quoted.

Kenma gave me a funny look and said, "You sound just like Karasuno's setter,"

"Who?"

"Er…nothing,"

"Do you have any practice matches or games coming up?" I asked, "I'd like to see you play sometime,"

For some reason, he buried his face behind his DS when I told him this.

"N-next week on Saturday," he stammered, "At Nekoma at one,"

"Alright, I'll be there," I gave him a wink before pulling out my phone to make a reminder.

He just kept his face buried behind his DS for some reason. In reality, though, he was trying to hide his burning red face. All of a sudden some cute nerd girl was interested in his life and wanted to watch his volleyball matches like a girlfriend or something! How was he supposed to deal with that?! As I keyed in the reminder, he started to put his DS away.

"Uh, I should probably get home now," he said.

"K," I nodded as I crawled towards the exit, "I'll show you out,"

I walked him to the door and said goodbye, telling him "thanks for coming" and him bowing and thanking me for having him. I watched him walk down the street and just as he was about to round the corner, I noticed my mom bump into him. She gave him a grin and a wave, but he just averted his eyes, stuttered a few times, and ran off. As my mom approached the front door with hands full of groceries, I stood there, tapping my foot impatiently.

"Hey, hun," she greeted me, "How'd it go?"

"Fine," I growled as she walked past me.

"Didn't have lesbian sex or anything?" she asked nonchalantly as she set the bags on the kitchen counter.

"Mom! That was his first time visiting our house and you made him feel completely unwelcome!" I exploded at her, "Did you see the look on his face when he saw you just now?! He's scared of you now!"

"Pffffft! Hahahaha!" Mom just burst out laughing at me.

I just stayed there, fuming away.

"Hun, I didn't mean anything I said!" she laughed.

My angry expression dropped and was replaced with a confused look.

"What?"

"Of course I knew he was male," she chortled, "I just knew you had a crush on this guy, and I was certain he had it for you too…"

"Y-you don't know that!" I tried to say through my blushing face.

"…So I just decided to scare him a bit," she chuckled, "It's only natural for a parent to want to intimidate a potential in-law,"

"Ugh," I facepalmed, "Mom, we aren't official or anything, we're just friends for now!"

"For now," she sang.