A/N: Thank you to everyone who had read the story so far, and thank you so much for the reviews :)

You may have realised the story is written in Takeru's POV, so I am keeping a lot of Hikari's POV away on this, and only showing you snippets of Hikari's thoughts/feelings through Takeru's eyes. The story progression will be not as fast as you think, because I really want to take the time to showcase their best friend relationship before Hikari sees Takeru romantically, and also show how Takeru go through these changes to become ready as her romantic partner.

Sorry if the past few chapters were not very long too. I just write them and stop at where I feel appropriate to the situation, lol. I have the next chapter written and it is 2.5x longer than this chapter, so please forgive me for now! If you can share your thoughts on my writing style, it'd be good for me as a way to improve too! So review, flame, rant if you can! :D

To reviewers:
CloakBlade - Thank you :D I'm leaving Yamato (a little) clueless because he had dismissed Takeru and Hikari as a couple since they remained best friends for so long :P
shrimproll - My heart aches whenever I write this story :/ he will get his happy ending - not so soon, but eventually ;)
Carupin - :D update is here! a short one though, but a longer one coming soon!

The next few days had gone by very slowly for Takeru. It was as though time had dragged itself so as to make him realise his stupidity for not taking his chances when he could. Lying on his bed, the blond had one hand supporting his head while the other clutching onto his mobile phone. He raised his arm to his face to check his phone for what could have been the hundredth time for that afternoon. Hikari still had not replied his message.

He was not usually like this. On any other Tuesday afternoon, Takeru would sleep in till ten in the morning because he had no classes. After lazing for a while on bed, he then decided to wash up and find something to eat. Normally his mother would have left food for him to heat up, and then there were those days when his mother would be too busy for that. That day was today.

When he realized he had no ready-made brunch, his day just became a little darker. He never minded cooking a meal, but cooking was not the least bit therapeutic to him. So he decided to go back to his room and message Hikari.

It was a simple message. Something along the line of 'Hey!' and 'Don't fall asleep!". He knew she had morning classes today. He also knew she did not have the habit of replying messages immediately unless she was bored. Yet, Takeru was frustrated. In his mind, he could picture Hikari and Shoji sending messages back and forth. Even if it was all imaginary, he could not help but feel exasperated.

The day after Shoji walked her home, Hikari had gone over to Takeru's place for their usual gathering. He was so bothered by the incident of Shoji turning up for Hikari that when his doorbell rang on Saturday morning, he had leapt off the living room couch and went straight for the door. He almost thought he had lost her forever.

They spent the whole afternoon doing what they always do – movies and card games. Everything felt normal, as if Shoji Harada had not declared his love for Hikari, and Hikari did not reciprocate her feelings for him. Her phone had kept buzzing with messages, which Hikari politely checked intermittently. He knew who the messages were from seeing her smiles, but he did not want to ask. He thought that if he ignored it hard enough, the name he dreaded to hear would not be mentioned. That was until his best friend decided to ask him a favour:

"Teeks, are you free on Thursday?" She asked excitedly.

"Yeaaa…" Takeru replied with uncertainty.

Takeru remembered their classes would be cancelled for that day and the day after for 'Game Day' – A sporting event of 89 years tradition between theirs and a rivaling university. Initially started out as a friendly day event for sports, 'Game Day' had slowly evolved into the current two-day affair both universities took pride in in sending their best players to pit against each other. It was also what kept Takeru extremely occupied for the past few weeks training for the basketball tournament.

Knowing that fact made him nervous. He knew Hikari was not referring to his basketball match that she had promised to go, because that was on Friday, not Thursday. Thursday was baseball.

"Please please pleaseeeee accompany me to the baseball game?" Hikari begged, giving her best friend her best impression of puppy-dog eyes.

Takeru's heart sank. Hikari had never been a sport enthusiast, and would only go for basketball games because of him. Her sudden interest had only one motivation, and that motivation was Shoji Harada.

"Shoji invited me to watch him play. He gave me two tickets so I won't have to go by myself."

"But-I don't even watch baseball! I wouldn't know what's going on."

He had lied. Sure he did not watch baseball, but he knew the basics of it. Baseball is too popular a sport in Japan and in their university for him to ignore it entirely. Nevertheless, Takeru's ridicule of baseball caused Hikari to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" Takeru asked, raising a brow in question.

"There's no one worse than me when it comes to getting sports, Teeks. You know that. I just want to get to know Shoji better. I want to see his world."

Her reply felt like a punch to his chest. Takeru had never seen Hikari this determined to know someone better, and his heart ached knowing this person was not him.

"We can look like two silly fools together at the stadium." Hikari tried again, reaching her hand out to hold his. "Please?"

And he agreed.

Damn it.

Takeru hit his bed with his hand that was clenched into a fist. His inner voice threw more curses at himself over the Saturday incident. He could have insisted on not going. He could have found some excuse to make them not go to the game at all. The blond blamed himself for not being able to fight against the touch of her hand on his, for wanting to make her happy regardless of his own. Most of all, he blamed himself for being her best friend.