The few final days of the summer break played out with no more excitement; that is, until Mrs. Irie offered incontrovertible proof that she had never given up on playing matchmaker.

The morning after the two fathers left town to attend their junior high reunion, she answered the ringing telephone. "Oh, no!" she cried in distress. "Really? Well, tell her that I will be at her side as soon as possible."

Kotoko, Naoki and Yuuki, still at the breakfast table, looked at each other in puzzlement. "What has happened, Obasama?" Kotoko asked in concern.

"Oh, my," Mrs. Irie exclaimed, a palm to one cheek, "my mother fell and was taken to the hospital. I must go check on her and arrange for a home nurse."

"Of course," Kotoko agreed with no hesitation. "Irie-kun and I will take good care of Yuuki-kun."

"No, no, I can't ask that of you," the older woman demurred. "No, I will take Yuuki with me. You two," she nodded at the others, "need to rest up since school begins tomorrow."

"But Yuuki's school also starts," Naoki pointed out.

"He's so young that it won't hurt him to miss a day or two." She waved away the objection. "I will leave the house in your capable hands, Kotoko-chan!" She leaned over, winked, and whispered, "Use this private time well."

"Huh?"

"Your mother certainly has packing down to a fine art," Kotoko commented to Naoki as they waved off the taxi.

"You mean her schemes, don't you?" he said sardonically.

"Schemes? Oh, do you mean that your grandmother really isn't—"

She broke off when Naoki shook his head. "I doubt it. What did she whisper to you?"

"Oh! To 'use this private time well'. I'm not sure what that means, though."

He rolled his eyes. "Good. Well, if you think you can make dinner without burning the place down, I'll do clean-up."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "As long as you're not expecting anything fancy. I can probably manage curry and rice."

"That'll do." He nodded. "We have an interesting reversal of fortune here." At her quizzical look, he explained, "I was concentrating so much on teaching you this summer that I forgot to do my homework packet. I'll take care of it this morning, have a sandwich for lunch, and then nap in the afternoon."

"So the Class A genius waited until the last day of break," she laughed. "I told you that was how it's supposed to be done."

"It's not as if I deliberately procrastinated." He lightly pounded the top of her head with a fist. "And you'd be up a creek without a paddle if you had done that. Doesn't it feel good to be able to relax on the last day of vacation?"

She pondered it a minute. "It does. Too bad I only learned it in the last year." After he left, she muttered, "And so unfair that he can calmly say that he'll do the whole packet in what's left of the morning. Aargh!"

Naoki wiped his mouth with a napkin. "I must say, Kotoko, that this meal was...edible."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that an insult?"

"Not at all." He grinned at her. "I remember your previous attempts in the kitchen with Mother."

"I told her and told her that there was no hope for me, but would she listen? It took Otosan at least ten tries for me to master this dish."

'Master' was a bit of an overstatement. Anxious that Naoki might not like highly spiced foods, she had added almost no seasoning to the meat and vegetables. However, the rice was scorched, so that had provided a bit of flavor. "Now, go ahead and rest," Naoki rose, "while I take care of washing up, as promised."

When he had finished the dishes (and the pans required quite a bit of scrubbing), he found Kotoko sprawled in the living room. "I don't know what to do with myself on the last night, now that I don't have to stumble to finish my homework," she explained.

"Why don't you call some of your friends and see what they're up to?" he asked.

She made a face. "I know what they're up to. They're doing their homework."

He laughed. "I guess that's out then." He sat down beside her. "What do you and your friends usually do for fun? That is, when you're not 'scrambling' to finish your homework."

Kotoko acknowledged the correction with a nod. "I've got to remember to ask for the results of Yuuki's project. Let's see, we like to go out and sing karaoke."

"Karaoke?" He mused, "As I recall, Mom and Dad had an old machine that they used at parties before Yuuki was born. I'll see if I can dig it out of the storage room."

"Singing? You and me?" She clapped her hands. "I never would have thought that the genius of Tonan would sing karaoke."

"Well, I didn't say that I could sing well," he retorted as he left the room.

Kotoko had been over the moon when one of the song packs was American rock and roll. "Otosan used to play this music all the time," she crowed, "until I unwound all of his cassettes to make a wig from the tapes."

Naoki coughed suspiciously. "Perhaps he and my father share musical tastes."

However, all did not go smoothly.

"No, no!" Kotoko cried. "If you're going to sing an Elvis song, you've got to do the moves!"

"Look, I don't think the system cares about full impersonation," he argued.

"Well, I care!" She jumped up to stand next to him. "See, you grate your hips like this, then swing them around and thrust!"

He looked at her dubiously, microphone still in his hand. "The 'gyration' is a little suggestive, don't you think?"

"Of course it is," she snorted, "but it's authentic!"

"Okay, I'll try." When she restarted the song, he attempted to mimic her moves.

"Better," she encouraged. "Now see if you can match it up with the beat."

They continued for an hour or more, alternating between singing and eating snacks. Finally, Naoki said, "We have to call it quits soon if we plan to wake up on time tomorrow."

"Okay," she agreed, scrolling down the list, "but let's finish with a duet."

The night ended with a lively rendition of 'You've Got Me, Babe', Kotoko standing on a stool because, as she put it, "Cher was definitely not half a meter shorter than Sonny."

As the last notes faded away, Kotoko swayed in laughter to the extent that Naoki held out a hand to steady her. Believing that he was offering to assist her down, she stepped towards him. Knocked off-balance by her weight, he fell backwards with her onto the couch behind them.

This brought on a fresh wave of hilarity. "Oops, my bad," she managed through giggles.

"Not at all," he said, "I should have anticipated as much."

They both turned at the same moment to face each other and had a closer encounter than either had planned: their lips met for a few seconds. Centimeters apart, their eyes widened in shock, and the two backed away from each other in haste.

"An-an accident!" Naoki sputtered.

"Of course!" Kotoko agreed, face reddening rapidly. "I mean—I know you wouldn't—oh, is that the time?" She scurried off the couch clumsily.

"Yes," he said, also standing. "I'll, uh, put away the equipment." He began to clip the microphones into their fasteners. "You can take the bathroom first," he added, not looking up from the task.

"Sure," she said as she backed out of the room before taking the stairs two at a time, almost sprawling into the hall at the top of the flight. Once safely in her room, she collapsed, back against the door, and patted her chest, breathing hard. Why was her heart beating so rapidly?

Naoki wound the plug and carried the machine to the closet under the stairs. She didn't have to act as if it was a total catastrophe, he complained to himself.

With restless sleep and anxious dreams on both their parts, they considered themselves lucky to set off for school at the usual time the next morning.

The walk to the train station was the most awkward since the day after the Aiharas had moved in. Finally Naoki took Kotoko's arm and halted their progress.

"Look," he said, "if we act this uncomfortable with each other, both your cretinous boyfriend and my mother will suspect that something happened between us."

"Kin-chan is not my boyfriend," she denied automatically before meeting his eyes. "So what do you recompense?"

"'Recommend'," he corrected, just as automatically. "Why don't we try to pretend that it didn't happen?"

"But it did," she argued, "and I'm not sure I can forget...it."

"Consider this," he said with false levity," I am not able to do so, but I'm willing to act as if I did."

"Okay, acting," she muttered thoughtfully. "I've never longed to be on the stage, but I'm game to try."

"Agreed. We'll just see each other at meals and tutoring sessions—outside of school, of course. So, Kotoko," he grinned, "break a leg."

"What?!" she squawked. "What good would that do?"

The remainder of the trip comprised of him explaining theater slang and trivia that he had picked up God-knows-where.

"You sure are antsy," Jinko commented during homeroom. "Did anything happen?"

"Happen?" Kotoko jumped. "What makes you think something happened?"

Satomi moved her gaze from her compact mirror to the flustered girl. "Nothing until now. What gives? Did you finally make the moves on Irie-kun?"

"Moves?" Kotoko gave a weak laugh. "No, I'm just...hoping that everyone gets back home safely."

"Whoa!" Jinko almost shot out of her seat. "You and the dreamboat were alone in the house?!"

"It's not nice to keep secrets," Satomi chanted in a sing-song voice.

Kotoko laid her head on her crossed arms. "Me and my big mouth!"

"So you two spent the day in separate areas of the house, then ate dinner together and played karaoke." Satomi was highly displeased. "What a wasted opportunity."

Kotoko grinned and shrugged, guiltily aware that she had not shared everything with her friends.

"Man!" Jinko slumped back. "And here I thought at least one of us would get lucky."

"Yo, Kotoko!" Kinnosuke hollered and waved from across the room.

"No," Kotoko said, avoiding his gaze, "I don't see my luck turning any time soon."