"And who is that someone?" He said questioning, trying to keep the panic tied inside. "If it can be known"
He saw her little on her cheeks, and an innocent smile appeared on her pink lips. The image he witnessed made him shiver.
"You know him very well." She emphasized the "very well" raising her eyebrows as if she wanted to say something important between the lines, but he fell short of understanding the message.
Who the hell is the guy who conquered Kotoko, without being him?
"You know him so well" She kept hinting at him. "That they can even be the same person." She raised her voice in a sarcastic tone. "He lives in the Setagawa district and he is very intelligent." Again, she remarked the "very intelligent" in his face, wanting to make him understand something behind her words, but he still didn't understand.
"I don't know who you're talking about." He articulated reluctantly. He thought she was talking about someone else, or some other subject who had made Kotoko's heart beat at a thousand an hour, while he, a poor crush who just screwed up.
She blew in frustration, rolling her eyes.
"Don't you know who I mean?" She questioned incredulously, making a desperate gesture. "You really don't know?"
"No" He replied annoyed.
"You are very dense, Naoki-kun." She smiled mockingly.
"Are you making fun of me?" He inquired annoyed.
"No." She stuck out her tongue mocking him. "But, I'm surprised you're so dense."
"Kotoko," he tried to approach, however, he kept it by putting his hand up.
"Don't worry about it," she warned for sure. "I'll show you who the guy I like is." She smiled mockingly, taking two steps toward his direction, allowing a minimum of free space to separate them from that gap.
His heart stopped when he saw her that way. How cute! He exclaimed, letting out a slight blush on his burning cheeks.
The love he felt for her, sprouted and expanded through the corners of the universe until it became an abyss that surrounded him with only heat and conviction.
Everything he longed to convey, everything he struggled to demonstrate on a daily basis paused knowing that perhaps the man she wanted was not him.
A deep sadness invaded his body.
"Naoki-kun?" Kotoko turned to see him directly in the face. He, upon noticing it, looked away with his ridiculous loser behavior. He wasn't like that.
"I'm fine" He muttered angrily at himself, wanting to disappear. Running away was always his solution, the one that worked best for him and the one that didn't change for other options.
He already considered himself a clumsy lover with an evicted and discouraged heart.
He began to walk in the opposite direction, crestfallen; Suddenly, arms held him from behind, paralyzing him as if he were a statue.
His entire body stopped.
Her sadness dissipated from his body as if she sucked her with her tremendous willpower; and with it, the conflicting feelings he felt seconds before vanished for a brief moment.
But, he knew that he must return to reality instead of staying in his little world of love fiction.
"Kotoko?" He articulated, noting that his voice was trembling as his static body showed a contrary reaction. His hands went up to hers, taking her kindly, feeling the warmth she radiated.
"I'm not going to let you go!" She warned out loud, determined to hold him. She put pressure on his body, stretching what her arms could over him.
Never before had she done such a lively action.
"Why-why?" He inquired restless and anxious to know.
If she gave him a silly excuse like that of 'we are friends' he would go home.
That hug didn't seem to be "friends" as he would say, but a romantic and sincere hug that probably, no, was not a probability, but a fact that united them.
Seeing that she didn't speak, he questioned her again.
"I don't want to let you go, Naoki-kun" She expressed convict. "Not when…" He locked, hiding his face on his back.
Not when what? That question usurped his mind.
He took one of her hands, and turned her toward him, separating her from his back. So that they could be seen face to face.
His mouth tasted strange, and the like rollovers and his chest was jumping everywhere, hands were sweating just as his body and threatened to rise to sudden temperature levels.
Sometimes he believed that his body reacted strangely when it came to matters of love.
"Not when, what? Kotoko" He demanded to know, exercising authority in his voice. He swallowed when he saw that her lips were parted and pink from his point of view. If it wasn't because he expected an answer from her, he would kiss her without hesitation. He saw her panic. "Tell me!"
She nodded, her eyes moving conflict. He was about to give up trying to find out the motive behind Kotoko's actions, but it wasn't that way.
She tried to calm down, breathing deeply so that she can respond.
"Can you tell me?" He put his hands on Kotoko's shoulders. "If you don't tell me" He tried to threaten her. "I'll kiss you" He added, feeling a stinging on his palate.
He closed his eyes wanting to disappear from the face of the earth for their useless behavior.
"What?!" He saw her pale.
"What you heard, Kotoko" He took courage from who knows where, emulating from his body an energy that demonstrated his urgency in knowing the truth. Possibly the truth to release him so much cowardice on his part. "I'll kiss you if you don't tell me" He threatened coldly, hearing his voice come out sullen and dark. "What will you do, Kotoko?"
"I won't tell you" Kotoko replied altered.
He swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat appear, and decided to keep his word, to which he lowered his head towards his half-open mouth. He narrowed his eyelids to reach her, when…
"What happens is that" She began babbling. He, at that moment, stopped within inches of her mouth, feeling the breath she emitted from his nose. "I don't want to lose you" She confessed openly, putting both hands on his arms to hold him firmly in her grip.
"What?" He remained static.
What came out of Kotoko's mouth, was it real? Could he believe it?
"Why do you say that?" He muttered breathlessly, breathing agitatedly from her confession.
"Sometimes I feel you distant." She looked up, expressing hazelnut pleading in her eyes. "And sometimes I feel you hate me."
Did he hear well? That he hates her? He frowned, opening his mouth slightly in surprise.
"Sorry?"
"It seems you hate me" She said. "Or that you dislike me?"
Did he really give that impression? But if he loved her with fervor, admiration and above all with burning affection.
He lacked reasons to underestimate his constant stupidities that he repeated for fear of being discovered, for cowardice, rather, and if he continued taking that path it was for an idiot. A great idiot, that was what he was. A great and pathetic idiot who instead of giving security to the girl he loved, he gave her insecurities.
In truth he was pathetic.
"You won't lose me so easily" He said agitatedly, over taken by emotion. He saw her leave the panic expression on her face, to which he sighed in relief.
"Are you serious?" She turned to look hopeful. He nodded surrendered to her charms, as always. "I look very loud, don't you? You surely might think that I look pathetic." She laughed nervously, releasing him at that moment.
Another sadness arose in his body, feeling desolate of her presence, again, as always.
It was always he who felt sad and unfortunate when he didn't know how to act, or the one who always went after her as a lapdog. But what else could he do? If all he wanted was her affection, the love and affection of Kotoko, just that.
However, he admitted to seeing that in her he began to see a change with respect to each other, in a way, that his connection instead of moving away, was intertwined by the mockery of fate.
The manipulative arms of destiny that kept shaking him until he was fed up with his inconstant conflicts.
He never finished solving one when another approached him.
"Of course not." He denied any possibility that she would consider herself pathetic, if the pathetic here was him. "I don't think you're pathetic, Kotoko."
On the contrary, you are the cutest girl of all.
"Annoying sometimes, yes" He added, gritting his teeth in mockery. "But not pathetic."
"I'd rather be annoying than pathetic" She replied smiling.
"You have that feature more"
"Then I won't lose you?" She asked, reflecting initiative.
"No" He said, sounding accurate.
"Well, then let's go." She winked at him, smiling.
He accompanied her to her apartment, lightening that burden that, in one way or another, subjected him to self-torture to achieve something.
He left her, without explaining his feelings, without anticipating how much he loved her despite everything, despite the fact that time was not enough to embrace her for a lifetime, even though she was so cute and he was a stupid in love.
He said goodbye to her, feeling his chest clench and writhe in the deep sadness that made him feel that way: dissatisfied.
Since his unhappiness was due to the fact that he was very negative and cowardly to act, and to risk making decisions that ultimately could be the right ones.
Restricting his own happiness proved to be intolerable.
.
.
.
.
P.S. This chapter is interesting, even when I wrote it I felt it that way. Kotoko is already willing to prove her love for Naoki even though he is not aware that he is who already won her heart. And he is so dense!
It will take some time for him to understand, but Kotoko's determination and conviction will be more assertive than his, so I took it as a key to accelerate the plot and not look like a story without direction.