Disclaimer: I do not own School Rumble. It has been a long time since I wrote in English, so sorry for the grammatical problems.

Eri woke up and realized it was already dark outside. The window had been closed and there was a red blouse and a pair of trousers on the table. It must be the lady, she thought. Her watch showed it was already 15 minutes past eight. This Kenji must be here already. She quickly changed her clothes and rushed downstairs.

The restaurant was full with people. "Erina, take this to table 3," she saw the lady with her hands full of food ready to be given to the customers. "Gotcha!" Erina replied, took the food and passed it to the customers. "Here you go," she said as he placed the food carefully on the customer's table. There was a big guy wearing a chef hat that Eri thought was the cook busy preparing the food. Then, she saw a person was washing the dishes. The person had the back, the one she saw at the market, the broad shoulder and muscular arms. "Kenji, hurry up with the plates. A lot of customers will come later and we need those," the chef shouted to that person. "Yes sir," he said. As he turned his head to place the plates on the rack, his eyes met Eri's who was still standing at the stairs. Eri could saw this Kenji's surprised face and his lips were muttering something like 'o-jo-u'.

"What a beautiful young lady! Care to join me for dinner?" one of the customers climbed the stairs and went to Eri. He tried to grab Eri's hand but the lady came and stopped him. "Sorry Joe but she's mine," the lady said. She pulled her down and gave her the food. "Sorry for making you do this but we're really short of hands here. Take these to table 14, will you?" she said and smiled. "Y-Yes, ma'am," Eri seemed like she couldn't resist and started to work.

It was 11.30 pm when finally all customers had left. Eri sat on one of the chairs, exhausted. She never had done any labor work or a part-time job before so she never knew how it really felt. Even though with all the sweat, she was glad to experience that.

"Sorry to drag you into this and thank you for the help," the lady said and gave her a glass of water.

"It was nothing. Thank you," she said as she took the glass. The lady then took a seat in front of her.

"I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Serina and that is my daughter, Erina," she pointed to Erina who was sitting at the stairs looked very tired. "My husband, Seamo is the cook and the dishwasher is Kenji," she pointed to them who were in the kitchen.

Kenji. Eri felt really weird to pronounce Harima's first name. She never even called Harima by name. Hige is what she always called him and he called her Ojou. Suddenly she remembered about the times they always fight back in high school.

The flashback was then interrupted by the lady. "What's your name?" she asked. "Sorry, it was rude of me, I'm Eri. I should thank you and your family for the hospitality," Eri said and bowed her body. "It's okay. Glad we can help," Serina said.

"You have known Kenji before this?" Serina asked.

"Yeah, sort of. We used to be…er…classmates," Eri explained.

"Oh, really. It seems that both of you know each other pretty well. Or maybe both of you are more than just classmates?"

Eri suddenly coughed out the water that was already run through her throat. "We really didn't have that kind of relationship. Trust me,"

"It looks like Kenji has just finished his work. Kenji, come over her! Eri wants to talk to you," she shouted.

"I leave both of you alone, okay?" Serina said and left with a smile. What was that all about? Eri wondered.

Kenji came and took Serina's previous seat. As soon as Kenji sat in front of her, she felt her face blushed even though she could not see it. "So…umm…you're Hi-, I mean, Kenji?" she felt the weird feeling again.

"You still can't recognize me?" he said. Eri felt a little bit confused. Then she stared at his face for some time, tried to imagine Kenji's face with a beard and a moustache, sunglasses, shoulder-length hair and a hair band. He did look like…"Hige!" she shouted.

"Sshhhh! Don't be so surprised. How you can't recognize me? Am I that different from before?"

"Of course you look different. Why am I calling you hige at the first place? Now you don't have them. But I will still call you Hige, though, because it felt weird when I say the name K-E-N-J-I. And why they're called you that? Ashamed of your family name?"

"Bad mouth as ever. I introduced myself only as Kenji. Not Harima Kenji. By the way, what are you doing here in this town?"

Can she tell him about how she spent these three years and had been to various places in the world looking for him? And finally she got the news that he was here in this town and came here immediately? She can't tell him that. She really couldn't. She even didn't have the courage to tell him how glad she was to finally meet him.

"I…was… on vacation. You see, this town is beautiful and had become tourist attraction,"

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is. You should see the brochure but I left it at my hotel. Maybe later. Hahaha," she laughed and she didn't know why.

Harima sigh of disappointment. "What's with the sigh? You don't want me to be here, do you?" she sounded angry.

"No, it's just…"

"Kenji~. Good job for today." Erina came from the back and hugged his neck. "Are you tired? Want me to massage you?" she offered.

"No, Erina. Thanks…"

"I want to go back to my hotel!" Eri suddenly yelled. She looked irritated with her arms folded to her chest. Erina looked at her with disgust.

"Well, you've done your work here. You can go," Erina said with a grin on her face.

"I'll take you there," Harima said.

Both Eri and Erina were surprised.

"You don't have to Kenji. She can go by her own. You don't even know where her hotel is. You lost your way last time,"

"I already know where the hotel is. Besides, it's dangerous for a girl to walk by herself especially at this kind of time,"

Eri was surprised to hear Harima said that. She never knew that he was very concerned of her. Erina blew her cheeks make it look like balloons, to show that she couldn't accept Harima reasoning.

"Dad can take her there, right, dad?"

"Sorry honey but my hands are greasy and your mom will mad at me if I walk with a beautiful lady at night," the cook said.

"Sure I will, dear," Serina said with a smirk. She put her hands on her daughter's shoulder. "Let them go, honey. The hotel is the same way as his house, right Kenji?"

Harima nodded. Erina made a sulk-cute face of her before she stick her tongue out to Eri and ran upstairs.

"Let her be. She's just a baby. You have your bike, Kenji?" Serina asked.

"No, I walked. My bike still at the workshop,"

"Okay. Be careful both of you,"

"We will. Thanks again for everything," Eri said and bowed her body.

"It's okay. You even helped us today in the restaurant."

Serina and Seamo sent them both out. Serina shouted 'Come again' as both of them waving goodbye to the two. Eri waved back at them and both Eri and Harima walked under the light of the lamp posts.