"I'm not understanding" He muttered under his breath, feeling his hands tremble, his heart was beating with the speed of lightning and his mind was machining fired thoughts flying through the confines of his prodigious brain.

"You don't understand what I'm trying to say?" She said incredulously. He denied.

She sighed, lowering her shoulders.

"We're friends, Naoki-kun" She clarified seriously. "And as the friends we are we must tell each other everything"

Ah… he sighed dejectedly. Friends, huh? Why should she fall in love with him if there were better candidates for her than he?

He dropped his shoulders, feeling a sorry feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.

"Friends…" The phrase came out of his mouth hanging from a thread too thin that threatened to break before the slightest friction that was put on him.

"We're friends, aren't we?" She asked. "Or are we more than friends?"

I want to be more than friends, he said in his mind.

"For you, what is being more than friends?" He returned the question, sullenly.

Kotoko looked at him, frowning.

"Well, being a boyfriends, isn't it?" She replied uncomfortably. "Hold hands, hug, and ..." He saw her blush on her cheeks. "Kiss"

"Do you want that?" He spoke feeling his heart was threatening to explode. Reflecting that if he did not discover what was going on in Kotoko's mind, they would never be boyfriends. "Do you want us to hold hands, hug each other, and kiss?"

"I don't know." She looked away, looking confused.

"Do you feel things for me, Kotoko?"

He knew that he was cornering her, and that she might hate him for that, but he needed to confirm Kotoko's feelings as to how it gave rise.

"I don't know." She replied again.

"Can you imagine that we hold hands?"

"I don't… I don't know." She looked like a helpless girl, responding that way.

"Do you want those things to happen between us?" He asked anxiously to know. "Because I don't" Have problem with that.

"Enough!" Kotoko slammed the table with both hands open, causing a loud sound. Customers were stunned, as was Naoki. "Shut up, Naoki!"

She had just said his name without using the honorific.

"Koto"

"Don't talk anymore!" She shouted in frustration, holding on to her ears. "I don't want to hear you"

"But"

"Shut up, Naoki!" She screamed without taking her hands off her ears, angry. "Shut up once and for all!"

The silence of the restaurant paralyzed him, and thinking about it, he realized that he had gone very far with his questions with the intention of wanting to know her own feelings, but he did it the wrong way.

Naoki was not in a position to speak to her, or even to touch her. In this case, he deserved a slap for his immature behavior.

He watched Kotoko's features fade, seeing how her always confident countenance changed to one that expressed resentment and pain; her eyes crystallized, her mouth trembled and her whole body too.

He lamented the rest when he saw her running out of the restaurant, taking her backpack from the chair at once.

I'm an idiot! He cursed himself, leaving the money for the food that had not yet arrived and leaving behind it.

"Kotoko!" He called her, seeing that she was moving away from him. "Wait!" He exclaimed trying to hold her.

She kept walking steadily on the sidewalk.

"Hold on!" He decided to run to her.

As soon as he reached her, he held her arm, shaking her so that she wouldn't get out of his sight. He felt her shudder, hugging herself as she shivered from her shoulders.

"Kotoko" He said her name softly, wanting to sound subtle to his ears. "It wasn't my intention to talk to you that way" He explained, but she stopped him, looking up at him.

"Why did you do it?" She asked in a broken voice. Naoki felt his heart crack when he saw her hurt, and more because he was to blame for her crying.

"I wanted to know your feelings" He replied, slightly looking away from her gaze, hiding in himself what he really wanted to convey. He saw her get out of touch, in self-defense.

"My feelings?" She asked incredulously, taking a deep breath. "Why?"

Because I like you, he thought.

But, what came out of his mouth was pure mutism. He didn't have the courage to tell her, to tell her he loved her, even when she cried.

It would seem like an advantage if he told her his true feelings.

"Naoki-kun?" Kotoko said his name causing him a benevolent sensation. His skin was bristling when she said his name in a low voice.

"It wasn't my intention" He repeated the sentence, short of what to say.

"You talked as if you knew everything about me." She said cautiously, dropping her arms at her sides.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn't find the words to describe his past behavior.

"When you don't know anything" She said.

"Then tell me, what I don't know" He demanded to know, altering himself. With his own stupidity. Kotoko paused, perplexed. "What do I not know?" He repeated, approaching her.

He saw her meditate on his question, placing a finger under her chin, frowning.

"I'm afraid of falling in love again" She confessed, lowering his finger on his chin, simultaneously the pool of tears contained in her eyes symbolized her inner struggle. "I'm afraid to fall in love again and have my heart broken."

Naoki was surprised by her confession, although in part he deduced that this could be one of several reasons why she refused to have a boyfriend, but now that he was listening to her clearly, he could know that he was wrong to have cornered her.

He was a complete idiot.

"Keita broke my heart." She kept talking, looking down at the park they were both heading as soon as she started walking. He obviously went after him like an eagle. "But first he rejected me when I gave him the love letter, but soon he regretted having done it." He saw her take a breath before continuing to speak. "And he told me that he liked me, but he rejected me at that moment by the same surprise that my confession had been very hasty, and he asked me to be his girlfriend." She smiled wistfully. "We were a couple for six wonderful months, but that happiness didn't last as long as I thought it would last." She lowered her head, picking up her hair, carrying it behind her shoulders. "He broke up with me in front of everyone, then the next day he disappeared and I didn't know more about him."

Naoki was paralyzed from the same impression. That vile man hurt her when they still didn't know each other.

"I didn't know" He muttered in a breath of air.

"He told me I was an ugly woman" She confessed with severe resentment. "That I was too childish to walk with someone like him, and that my red hair made me look like an easy one."

He is a damn! He exclaimed in his mind, raging inside.

Kotoko an ugly woman? If she was very pretty in his eyes.

"But I know I'm not an ugly person." Tears had stopped spilling down her cheeks. "Even so, I dyed my hair black so I wouldn't remember his words." She nodded to herself in reminder of those events. "I think it was the best decision I could have made back then, because dyeing my hair black was a risk I wanted to take and to date I don't regret doing it" She assured, recovering the color of her white complexion, and her sad features began to change.

"Did you dye your hair because of him?" He questioned, knowing he would find one of the answers that caused him so much intrigue. He was aware of the situation in which he subjected Kotoko to revive, but he wanted to be someone Kotoko could trust at all costs.

"Yes." She nodded, clenching her lips in tune with her question. "Curious, isn't it?"

"It doesn't seem like it" He said.

"But it helped me get over him." She smiled in pleasure. "It was much easier to get ahead"

"And he gave you your first kiss?" He barked in his sullen voice.

"Em, yes." She nodded uncomfortably. "It was shortly after we started dating, he kissed me when we won the winter championship basketball game."

I didn't wanted so many details, he grumbled in his head.

"But you love him, don't you?" He asked sounding hopeful, even though his voice was always monotonous. "You still feel things for him, don't you?"

She stopped, stopping the passage.

"No" She replied annoyed. "He doesn't deserve my love!" She shook hands. "I stopped loving him until recently."

Recently? What would have detonated for her to stop loving him?

His curiosity was gushing out, eager to get the necessary information about Kotoko's life.

"You have the face of wanting to know the reason" She said, nodding forward. She used to be successful in deducing what was going through his mind. "If I tell you, you won't tell anyone?" She asked hopefully.

"Why should I tell anyone?" He asked, raising his chin, appearing to be offended. "Tell me" He ordered.

"I think I like someone" She confessed, putting both hands together in embarrassment. He saw her cheeks blush, and her voice sounded tiny.

He saw her so helpless that his static body vibrated and shuddered.

"What?" His body clouded completely.

"I'm not quite sure" She said, nodding her head. "But, I think I like someone." She shrugged, looking up.

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P.S. The chapter is intense, but I wanted to do it that way because I felt that I didn't put a lot of drama because it added pure humor and the plot probably wasn't going anywhere, then a bit of drama and personal confessions to make everything more efficient.

Hopefully and you liked it, you can leave your comments, but enjoy reading.