Prince of Tennis and all its characters belongs to Konomi Takeshi.

10th Chapter

They couldn't see it last night because the lack of lights around, but the apartment was actually a very simple and cute building. It's quite fit Ohtori's image. The wall was made from wood instead of usual concrete, and the side of building was covered in vines. All the metal parts of the building were painted in creamy broken white, and in front of the bars of balcony lining there're rows of colorful potted anemones.

"Do you want to come in first?" Ohtori asked with a smile. Both Shishido nodded in unison, curious about Ohtori's house. Three of them walked upstairs, and Ohtori's room was the third one on the second floor. The nameplate beside the door was filled by two names, 'Ohtori' and 'Akutagawa'. Ryou furrowed his eyebrows –the name 'Akutagawa', he felt like he had heard it before… And it's not a pretty usual name, too. Or maybe he saw the name on the comic cover or something, since indeed Ohtori said that he's a mangaka? While Ryou wondered about this, Ohtori was done with unlocking the door, and step aside to let his guest come in first, "Here you go,"

"Excuse me!" Cheerfully, Ryouta stepped in with a jumpy feet. Ryou followed, and Ohtori closed the door behind them. They took off their shoes and when they walked in, it was directly a living room with a sofa, a coffee table and television and there's small kitchen beside that barely fit medium-size dining table and three chairs put there. Behind the sofa, there's large glass door that connected to smaller balcony where the laundry was being dried, and there're another three doors to two bedrooms and a bathroom. Ryou decided to stop what he wanted to think, but Ryouta already said it, quite out loud, of course innocently, "It's small…" Ryou quickly leaped to cover his nephew's mouth, but looked like Ohtori already heard it. He only smiled though; fortunately didn't look like he's offended, but still, Ryou felt uneasy. He hissed to his nephew, "RYOUTA! That's really impolite!"

"Eh? Is that bad?" Ryouta frowned, but he felt a bit worried if Ohtori-sensei took it wrong too so he quickly looked at his teacher, tried to explain, "Sensei, Ryouta likes a small room like this! It's not that it's bad when it's small!"

The young teacher laughed, "It's okay, it's okay! It's indeed small, after all."

"Sorry, sensei…" Ryouta's worry and sorry were clearly shown on his regretting face. Ohtori chuckled, held on the little hand and said softly, "It's okay, really! Come on, let's get your gift!"

The little boy blinked, "Gift?"

"You managed to tell which one is sweet potato earlier, right? And sensei promised you a gift."

Ryouta's eyes brightened. Ohtori smiled to him and looked to the older man who still putting upset look, "Shishido-san too, don't mind! Please come in and sit, I'll bring something to eat."

"E-Excuse me." Ryou stuttered. He surprised when felt something furry around his ankle and bowed down to find a white cat rubbing its head on his leg. Ryou crouched down to pick up the cat and it mewed softly. Ohtori looked at them from his position in the kitchen, smiled, "Ah, it's my cat. She's Shironyanko-san!"

The older young man took her to Ohtori and his nephew, and Ryouta's eyes sparkled by the cuteness of a pet in front of him. He waved his hands, wanted to feel the thick fur while cheered, "Fluffy cat! Want to touch!" His uncle gave him the lazy-eyed angora and Ryou put his arm around her, quickly deepened his face to the soft furs of Shironyanko's belly, and almost purred himself, "So soft~!".

Ohtori laughed, "She is! I used her a lot as my belly warmer." He opened the fridge's door and asked, "Now, Ryouta, as the gift, you can choose one that you like!"

Ryouta's attention moved from Shironyanko-san's furry belly to the content of the fridge in front of him and squealed happily, "Ice cream! Yaaaay!"

Ohtori smiled, "It's really delicious! Take one for Ryou-nii too."

"Okay!"

Ryouta walked with three small cups of ice cream on his hand to Ryou, who's already sitting on the sofa. The ice creams were so cutely packaged, even though looked like it's a homemade. The labels on the cups' lids were in pastel color with pretty illustration of the ice cream flavors. Ryou eyed the cups on the table with amazement–don't tell him Ohtori made these by him self too! Damn, what else he could do? He wouldn't be really surprised if someone told him Ohtori also bake.

"Ryou-nii, which one do you want?"

"Strawberry!" Ryou answered, hand moved to grab the pink cup but Ryouta's little hand quickly took it first, "But I want this, so Ryou-nii, you eat the chocolate one, okay?"

"What's the point of asking me first then?" Ryou pinched on the chubby cheek of his nephew, pouting.

"Awwww! It hurtsss!"

Ohtori walked to one of the bedroom, Shironyanko-san curled comfortably on his hand, and knocked on its door. He called, "Akutagawa-senpai, you're up?"

Some muffled voices could be heard from inside, but too quiet for Ryou to catch. Ohtori opened the door a little, and said something like, "I'm home already, but I will stay over on friend's house tonight."

There's another muffled answer and Ohtori said "Yes! We're having ice cream now, you should join us and have some break, too!" before he walked back to the sofa. He let the door opened and it was a bit dark inside so not much could be seen, but Ryou could hear a faint thumping sound from the very loud music muffled by headphones from the behind the door.

"Is the ice cream nice?" Ohtori asked. He sat on another side of the sofa so Ryouta was in the middle of his uncle and his teacher, and opened the cup's lid of his own vanilla flavored ice cream.

"Nice!" Ryouta nodded excitedly, then eyes caught the fluffy figure walked to them, "Oh! Nyanko-san!" He giggled when Shironyanko-san jumped to Ohtori's lap and sat there, furry tail curled around his body. Little hand started stroking on the head and she purred and Ryouta giggled more.

"It's delicious, you know!" Ryouta tried to feed the cat with his ice cream and of course Shironyanko-san rejected him. With a pissed look, the female cat jumped to the floor to avoid Ryouta but the little boy didn't give up that easily. Even as Shironyanko-san decided to walk away and sleep on her basket near the glass door instead, Ryouta followed him, and they ended up having small cat-and-dogs around the room.

Ryou frowned at Ohtori, "You don't make this by yourself, right?"

Ohtori blinked confusedly, "Eh, why?"

"You're able to do too much things!" Ryou sighed. He counted with his fingers, pouting, "You play piano and you write and draw story and you're good with kids and you cook well and you're popular in the shopping centre that you can get cheap prices…"

The silver-head blushed and chuckled, "Thank you. Well I did help with designing for the labels (Ryou acked, "See?!" –which make Ohtori laughed again sheepishly) but the ice cream was totally out of my hand. My friend, he owned a café and they make the best ice cream ever so I always buy a lot and stock them in the fridge for guests. It's indeed delicious, right?"

"It is, indeed!" Ryou licked on his lips and grinned, "But really, I don't know what to do if you happened to able do more things than those I already know…" The older man's expression grew to a very unsure and suspicious one, "Or… do… you really?"

"Um… Do I really… what?" Ohtori titled his head.

Ryou folded his arm, "Do you have more things that you can do?"

"Um, I never think about it, but maybe… I indeed do many things."

The older man rubbed his palm, asked seriously, "Okay, first… music. Do you only play piano, or there's something else you can play?"

"Violin… and a bit of guitar, but they're basic instruments…"

"Three of them?! Really?" Ryou widened his eyes in surprise then he asked again, "Oh! I heard from Ryouta you do well on handicraft too! And actually I was pretty suspicious as I looked at that wooden toy over there…" He pointed to a wooden toy car sitting on the top of television, "What's it doing there? It must be very special, maybe it's a toy from childhood, but it can also be it's so special because it's handmade… Did you…"

Ohtori gulped, "Mm… I just want to try woodcraft a bit…"

"SO YOU REALLY MADE IT BY YOURSELF!" Even Ryouta and Shironyanko-san were jumped a bit by Ryou's loud groan, but Ryou didn't even pay attention because he quickly asked more, "Do you knit? Sew? Doing stitch works?"

"…W-Well…"

"YOU DO!" The brunette just couldn't believe this, "You really can do everything, don't you!"

"B-But they're all… actually, in one field, you know." Ohtori was a bit embarrassed –it's the first time anyone was so amazed like this, "And they're just hobbies, so it's not like I'm good on them. I just… happened to know how to do them."

The older young man rubbed on his chin, thought, "In the different field, then… sport? But you're this tall so you must be do some sport!"

"I try tennis when I was child but–"

"Damn!" Ryou leaned to the back of the sofa, sighed, "You're really something, Ohtori!"

Ohtori was a bit confused of what to say as the respond, frantically looked around for change of topic then decided to pick a jar of cookies sitting on the coffee table and offered it to Ryou, "H-here, Shishido-san, have a cookie!"

Ryou weakly took one, and bit on the big sized sweet, baked goodies. His dark blue eyes twinkled as he munched on it –it tasted good! It contained some almond and choco chips and the tastes just fit perfectly… Excitedly, he asked, "This is good! Where do you buy this?"

"Ah, I make…" Ohtori trailed off on the end of the sentence, but Ryou already caught it. The older man narrowed his eyes, "Ohtori… you… bake, too?"

"E-Eh…" Ohtori stuttered, "Y-yes…"

And the answer made Ryou went all slumped. Ohtori was now getting panic because he felt like he did something wrong –even though of course he didn't –and he was thinking about what to do to make Ryou felt a bit better (The situation was just too confusing for him to think that obviously Ryou isn't that sad or angry), but before he could do anything, one of the bedroom doors smacked open. Both Shishido looked at the door (Shironyanko-san used this chance to run away to inside the bedroom) then to the figure walking out from there.

He's on Ryou's height, only a lot thinner and thus made him looked smaller –the oversized t-shirt he wore didn't help to hide the fact, let alone the combination with sleeping shorts that showed his lanky legs. His hair was wavy just like Ohtori's, but they're bright yellow blond instead of silvery platinum, and while Ohtori's was in cut short neatly, he let his hair grow to the back of his neck, almost reached his shoulder. His bangs were tied up to avoid them getting in the way of his eyes with a hair band, and he's wearing a thick-framed glasses, hung low on his nose. Below his eyes were terribly darkened and with his lazy-looking eyes, he looked like he could drive to sleep anywhere he put his head onto.

"Akutagawa-senpai." Ohtori smiled, "You want an ice cream?"

"An ice cream should be nice, yeah." Akutagawa answered, ended his sentence with a yawn. Ohtori went to grab him another cup of ice cream. The blond scratched on his head as he walked and practically threw himself on the other edge of the sofa, leaning his back against the comfy seat with a tired sigh.

"Nyanko-san!" Ryouta almost made a run to follow the cat to the room, but Ryou quickly grabbed on his nephew's collar, pulled the little boy to his side, "Ryouta, sit here quietly and finish your ice cream,"

"Yes…" Ryouta obeyed, though a bit sadly. Akutagawa glanced at them, and it made the older brunette got a bit upset if maybe Akutagawa decided to take a rest because they're too noisy or something. So the young man bowed a bit, said, "Sorry for intruding so suddenly."

The lazy-eyes in front of him, to Ryou's surprise, grew big and excited quickly as he ended his words and Akutagawa grinned, a really wide and happy one, "No worries, no worries!" He let out small laugh then moved closer to them to ruffle on Ryouta's hair, "She'll back here for her dinner! Don't worry!"

"She will?" Ryouta's dark blue eyes colored with little sparkles, "I want to pet her again, I promised I won't try to feed her with ice cream anymore!"

"She will, she will! Actually, she will come in no time by Ohtori's little call!" Akutagawa laughed but then sighed sadly, "Didn't really work that easy with my calls, though! She's mean like that, though she's cute, and I'm the one who choose her from the pet shop."

Ohtori was back with his roomate's ice cream, leaned on the side of the sofa since the seat was already kinda full only by three people, "So, maybe we should do some introduction first…"

"Right!" Akutagawa looked up from his strawberry ice cream and laughed, offered his hand, "I'm Akutagawa Jirou! Sorry for the small room, eh…"

Ryou smiled –this was sure unexpected, he thought first that Akutagawa will be a lazy and quiet type that hard to deal with. He grabbed the offered hand and smiled, "I'm Shishido Ryou."

Akutagawa hummed a bit, eyebrows furrowed as if he's thinking of something, "Strangely, your name isn't very new. Let me guess, were you in Asahara Junior High School?"

Ryou's eyes widened in disbelief and excitement, "I-I was! You're too, Akutagawa-san?"

The orange haired guy laughed widely, "Please, call me Jirou! Yeah, me too! We were on the same class, you see, for two last years! Looks like you don't remember me, though?"

"No, no, I have bad memory. I think I can remember you if you tell me more!"

"Jirou, Jirou who sleep in almost every class and eating Pocky in the middle of study!"

Ryou's memory clicked on his head, and his brain created a figure of small boy with exact hair color like the guy in front of him, but in more tidy and short haircut. Jirou didn't wear glasses before, and he's for sure was chubbier than now, but his sleepy eyes remind the same. Ryou also remember the extreme excitement of him over little things he thought interesting. It reminds him, that kid indeed draws nice. No wonder the name on the plate name wasn't all that new!

"I DO REMEMBER YOU! Oh my God, JIROU! It's really nice to meet you again!"

"Hahaha, yeah! Same here, Shishido-kun! So what are you doing now?"

Ohtori, also surprised by the unexpected event, smiled and let two of them doing the talks while he's going to pack clothes.

"Ryouta, you want to help sensei?" He asked to pouting Ryouta who sat on the sofa with frown on his face because his ice cream was finished and his uncle –now was laughing and telling stories of old times happily –forbid him to go after Shironyanko. The little brunette lightened up and nodded, followed his sensei to the bedroom.

Ohtori's bedroom was simple rectangle shaped room, not big, but arranged neatly. It was covered in white furniture and wooden or bamboo or rattan things. On the wall in front of the largest-space-consuming working table he hung so many frames of illustration works, poster of exhibitions, pictures, and so on. Ryouta was delighted when he saw there're some pictures of him and his friends. But what delight him more was when he looked at the rack just beside the table and found it full with children storybooks and art books. There're even more, put as stack or arranged in row on the working table!

"Sensei! Can I read them?" Ryouta's eyes glittered –he really loved reading illustrated book!

"Of course!" Ohtori smiled. He pulled on the rattan sofa that used as working chair and patted on its fluffy pillow, "Here, read it here, accompany me as I packed my stuff, okay?"

"Yes!"

Meanwhile, Ryou and Jirou were still chatting happily over old memories, but now they're moving on to the topic of what they're doing right now.

"So do you remember Gakuto?"

Ryou rolled his eyes, "I remember that crazy little shit, of course! That red-head always mock on my long hair, bastard."

Jirou laughed, "Yeah, but you two are a golden combination in every sport competition!"

"Yeah, I actually pretty close to him back then, though we fight a lot!" Ryou laughed, "You still in contact with him?"

"Actually… well, I'm sure you're not watching that kind of stuff, but he's an idol right now, in a boyband."

Ryou laughed, "WHAT? NO WAY!"

"He is!" Jirou grinned, "He's always been pretty good at break dance too, you remember?"

"Yeah, he showed it off all the times in the lunch time!" Ryou shook his head, "That little prick. But he has face for that kind of industry too, so maybe it's a suited job for him."

"And you're so good with your scores too back then. No wonder, now you're a successful businessman!" Jirou grinned. Ryou laughed on this, "What good score? I'm pretty sure I never hit higher than 6 in Math."

"That's because you hate the teacher, right?"

Ryou scoffed, "He hates me first!"

"God, true. I remember he embarrassed you in front of the class by saying you can't be a thing with that kind of scores. On the next test, you hit perfect scores in five times row!" Jirou grinned,"When you're determined to do something, you're completely on it, Ryou!"

"Five times was as much for my determination to go, though. Got lazy and ended up with worse score than ever for the rest of the year." Ryou laughed, "You too, now you're a mangaka! Your drawing was really good and you were indeed a manga fan since we're on junior high school. I remembered you never took your eyes from the clean sheet in front of you, either for drawing or…"

"Sleeping?"

Ryou nodded while grinning and Jirou laughed loudly.

"Yeah. I was sleeping in the class because I always draw all night long, and ended up sleeping late, you see? I just love this thing too much!" Jirou smiled. Ryou was smiling on the passion he saw in his old friend's eyes, and sighed, "It's so cool. To do what you like the most in the world as your job. People like you and Ohtori are the luckiest in the world."

"You're lucky too, right?" Jirou grinned, "To get that one of the luckiest man in the world as lover!"

Ryou blinked, "What?"

Jirou blinked back, "You're not Choutarou's lover?"

"N-no!" Ryou felt his face heated up furiously, "No, no, really! I'm Ryouta's uncle! Ohtori is the teacher of Ryouta, so – well, he told me many things about how to make kids happier and all because he's so good at it, so we ended up as friend, and such. But we're not anything close to lover!"

Jirou laughed loudly, "OH, I'M SO SORRY! I get it wrong! Choutarou just talk about you a lot, you know, so I just created an image in my head that you're his lover! He never talks much about any… adult, only kids he teaches and sometimes about elders in neighborhood, so I figured the change was because you're… something to him." Jirou grinned.

"He talked about me a lot?" Ryou was holding back smile that stupidly urged to flower on his lips and coughed instead.

Jirou smiled, "Yeah, but maybe it's because he never has much friend, too. He's kinda a solitude person, though he doesn't look like it. He's polite with everyone and kind to them, but he's always taking space between him and the people, you know. He's tight about his private life." The blond guy laughed again –he did it so many times in this twenty minutes conversation, "Inviting someone to his apartment like this is very rare. So it's just normal that I misunderstand, I'm sorry!"

Is that so? It's very new for Ryou. He saw Ohtori-sensei as a very nice and kind person, he got along very fine with everyone… But maybe yeah, he's kinda alone every time, he was just always surrounded by kids when Ryou saw him, too.

Jirou added, "But he's really close with the kids, though! If it's towards the kids, that guy really changed! He's into them so much!"

Ryou nodded, couldn't disagree with that one. But then his mind focused back on the thought that he's something special in Ohtori's eyes, and his cheeks grew red on the thought –ah, God, what's this warm feeling inside his chest and something flies all over his stomach, it's not right –

"I guess, though I'm not his lover, I'm pretty lucky then." Ryou laughed, "I got his special treatment, and it's nice. He's a very good cook."

"I KNOW RIGHT?!" Jirou got even more excited on this, "I never miss his dinner no matter how urgent my deadline is! He's just really good at mixing up those ingredients! He even made me eat carrots!" Jirou laughed, "No matter who he ended up with, that person is very lucky!"

And strangely, the image of Ohtori ended up with someone else irked Ryou a bit.

"I never really taste his cooking –but he taught me how to cook bentou, so I know he's a good one…"

Jirou cut off, couldn't handle his disbelief, "REALLY?! You have to make him cook for you, you see, you won't regret it even if you have to beg! His hand was just something –everything he created with that hand is beautiful stuffs."

Ryou nodded on this, adding high-spiritedly, "I know! He could so do much things and it's just not fair! He does crafts and cooks and bakes and draws and good with kids, that's just totally not right for someone to have so many good things in him at once!"

"Yeah, if he's a girl, I will totally marry him, you see?" Jirou laughed –but this gave horror to Ryou's face, and Jirou realized and quickly added, "I said 'if he's a girl'! If he's a girl, but he's a boy, so…"

Ryou, as if he's completely deaf to Jirou's denial, asked slowly and silently, "You… like, you see, like him or something?"

The blond guy laughed, "No, no, Ryou! I said 'if he's a girl', but he's not, right, so no, I don't in love with him or anything. Anyway, I said it as a joke, it's an exaggeration!"

"So you're not like his lover or anything, right?" Ryou asked sternly, "You called him by his given name too, so you two are pretty close…"

"NO, NO! I'm just his roommate!"

And by the way Ryou's face relaxed on his answer and his sigh and smile after, Jirou smelled something different. His old friend wasn't actually scared of sitting in front of a gay and might be attacked or something like what those homophobic dumbasses do, but he's actually worried about… the chance of Ohtori already taken… or something like that?

"Hmm, Shishido-kun, you're not Choutarou's lover, right?" Jirou hummed. Ryou reacted strongly on this –his face grew bright red again as he shook his head frantically, "NO, NO! I told you that before we're just –"

"Are you in love with Choutarou, though?"

Ryou stopped on this. Jirou smiled teasingly on him.

"N-No." Ryou answered quietly.

Jirou chuckled, "Don't lie. I'm okay with that kind of interest!"

"No, I'm not, I'm…"

And someone decided it's the right time to Ohtori to walk out from his room, hand in hand with Ryouta, small luggage on his other hand. He changed his usual sweater with more casual clothes, a white t-shirt and checkered flannel on the top of that, and jeans, and he's looked different than usual –he looked cheery and fresh and…

Cute.

Jirou examined the change of Ryou's face from total denial to helpless adoration, and laughed silently. Oh boy, apparently he's not very wrong, if not very right.

"You two done with the talk?" Ohtori asked, smiling.

"Yeah!" Jirou laughed, "It'll be nice to talk to you again soon, though, Shishido-kun!"

Ryou jumped a bit when he heard his name was mentioned, and he tried to push out a casual laugh, "Oh yeah, sure!" He coughed, fixing his composition and grinned, offering his old friend a hand, "Thanks a lot for today's talk, it's really fun, Jirou!"

"Yeah, I'm sure of it!" Jirou grinned meaningfully. Ryou didn't catch that, though. They held hands and Ryou slowly peeked on Ohtori again, whose now was taking out a pudding from the refrigerator with excited Ryouta beside him.

"Ryou-nii! Sensei made a pudding last night and he said we can take it for tonight's sleepover!"

"Oh, yeah, that's great." Ryou couldn't really concentrate on anything right now –his eyes grew its own brain and stubbornly telling them to keep looking at Ohtori new dress up. He could see Ohtori's figure more clearly, he's actually have muscles in some parts but some other parts were thin and slim and… his skin was fair and creamy white and pretty, and his neck and collarbone was shown for the first time ever and they're…

"Shishido-san?"

Ryou couldn't believe he almost drooled. He gulped, "Y-yeah?"

"Let's go?" Ohtori blinked curiously, "Is there anything wrong? You seem distracted…"

"N-no, no!" Ryou quickly answered, then added weakly, "I-I might have to go to toilet, though."

Ohtori grew worried, and stepped closer to him, "Are you okay?"

"I-I am." Ryou's face almost burst, "The toilet…"

"That way." Jirou giggled, pointed on the door beside the door to his room.

"O-okay, I'll be back… q-quick." Ryou stuttered. Ohtori was even more worried now because Ryou wobbled a bit when he walk, and Jirou just grinning widely behind him. On the other hand, Ryouta exclaimed "Nyankosan!" happily as he saw Shironyangko got out from the room. The white cat alerted that her owner was going to leave, and Ryouta didn't pass this chance to hug the cat dearly. Strangely, Shironyanko let him now, probably tired of running away.

"Is he going to be alright?" Ohtori asked Jirou, "Did he fall sick or anything before? I mean… when he was talking with you?"

"Nope, no." Jirou laughed, "He just knocked up pretty badly, I guess, his logic is."

"What do you mean, Akutagawa-san?" Ohtori didn't understand.

Jirou just grinned, and asked, "By the way, why did you change your clothes?"

"Uh…" Ohtori mumbled, "Because it's kinda warm outside…"

"Hmmm…" The older guy hummed, "Not because you want to impress him or anything?"

Ohtori's face grew red as he explained in panic, "N-No, it's not like that! It's really getting warmer because it's almost summer season soon and…"

"Choutarou…" Jirou called carefully, "You like him, don't you?"

"A-Akutagawa-san…!"

"Good luck, okay!" Jirou grinned, patted on Ohtori's shoulder –even though he had to look up to do so –"I'm going to cheer on you!"

"Akutagawa-san!"

Ryou wasn't even listening to the noises on the living room, even though it's pretty obvious. He was too busy washing his face to trash away any weird thoughts from his mind –and heat from his face.

Yeah, Ohtori is cute, he's always been! He's tall and huge but he got innocent face and that sweet smile, also the warm feeling he's radiating, it's normal to think he's cute. Ryou smacked on his face to bring up his logic. That guy was still a man, though, he's his nephew's teacher, that'd be pretty wrong to fall in love with him –wait what? No, no, no, not fall in love, you mean interested, yeah, merely interested was already wrong enough, not to mention to fall in love.

He thought he's ready with those awakening words on his brain, but he just couldn't help it when all of them melted away by the sight of worried Ohtori as he opened the door. That guy actually waited for him in front of the door, damn if that's not very nice –and cute at the same time.

"Are you really okay, Shishido-san?"

"I… I am." He tried to grin –probably came out as a very strange teeth-showing, but he tried –"Sorry for worrying you, I just…" He coughed, and said carefully, "You… changed your clothes, I see."

"A-Ah, yeah." Now Ohtori was considering to change back his clothes to usual sweater one –Is his new dress up was really a problem? "It's getting warm outside, so I thought…"

"Yeah, I see." Ryou smiled softly, "It… looks good on you."

And cute.

And for some weird reason, he felt a lot better after saying that. Ryou smiled warmly when he saw Ohtori's face grew red as he said shyly, "T-Thank you. A-are you really okay?"

"Yeah, of course." Ryou smiled, "E-Eh, sorry for worrying you."

Ohtori said quickly, "No, no, it's okay!"

Jirou just couldn't stifle his laugh while hearing the awkward conversation.

XXX