When Ema got home, Ukyo already had dinner well in hand, so she went to Fuuto's room and knocked.
He let her in with an unreadable expression.
"Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, though his tone made her suspect the real answer was no. He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at her. "How was your not date?"
"Um," she hesitated, remembering Iori's reaction. She didn't see him again before she left. "It was good. Erik and I always have a good time together. We get along well."
"Right," Fuuto said, frowning. "You two talk a lot at school these days during breaks and lunch. It's hard to get a word in edgewise."
"Sorry," she said, casting her mind over recent lunches. Had she and Erik not been allowing other people to talk? Sasakura and Imai usually participated in their conversation, but Fuuto had different interests from most of their group and Yusuke had always struggled to warm up to people. Fuuto didn't seem to consider anyone at the table to be his friend other than Ema. "We didn't mean to exclude anyone from our conversations. I'm sorry if you or Yusuke felt that way. I'll try to do better, okay?"
"That's not exactly my concern," Fuuto said. "I'm more concerned with how close you've grown with Erik lately."
Ema didn't know how to respond to that, so the pair stared at each other in silence.
Fuuto eventually broke it. "You know, there are more worthwhile guys than Erik waiting for you to wake-up and be ready to date, so you'd better not get back together with that idiot."
A flush crawled up Ema's face. Fuuto was jealous? She didn't know how to react to that. Worse, she wasn't sure he didn't have a reason to be jealous.
"W-we're just friends," she stuttered.
"Right," he said, clearly not convinced. "But he doesn't want to be just friends, does he?"
"A lot of my friends don't want that, apparently," she snapped, then wanted to take it back.
Suddenly, Fuuto was right in front of her, one of his arms snaking along her low back before jerking her against him. "You're right, I don't want that. Ever since I became interested in you I haven't wanted that. I was never interested in just being your friend because you're too fascinating to leave to some other guy. But you didn't want to date and I didn't want to chase you away so I chose to become your friend."
"What if I did end up choosing another guy?" she asked, raising her chin defiantly. "Does that mean you'd stop being my friend?" Her heart pounded as she feared his answer would be yes. She'd been so happy to become friends with Fuuto. She'd never suspected for a moment that from the beginning of their friendship he'd wanted to date her.
He stared into her eyes and a sick feeling entered her chest. Finally, he said, "No." Relief flooded through her and she suddenly needed the support of Fuuto's arm around her back to keep her from collapsing.
Then his arm tightened and he pulled her closer, his lips hovering inches from hers. "But if you don't choose me, you'd choose wrong."
For a terrifying moment, Ema wanted Fuuto to close the gap between them. She'd had so many kisses with the Asahina brothers for non-romantic reasons. For work. To help them by out. By accident. For an experiment (because what else could you call what happened with the triplets?). But she wanted a real kiss, one with no outside reasons beyond a guy just wanting to kiss her.
Slowly, Fuuto pulled back, smirking at her. "I just wanted to make it clear that Erik is an intruder and I think you should choose someone else."
"Okay," Ema said, her heart still pounding. She needed to leave or she wasn't sure what would happen. "Um, thanks I guess?" Did that mean Fuuto would prefer her ending up with one of his brothers to her ending up with Erik? Clearly he preferred him over anyone else, but he seemed to view Erik as being an outsider compared to the others who wanted to date her. "I'll see you at dinner, okay?"
"See you," he said, still smirking at her as she fled.
~.~
True to his word, Iori came to dinner, but he didn't sit by Ema or really speak with her. After dinner, they went outside to talk. At least, that was why they were supposed to be outside, but instead they sat on the front steps with awkward silence between them.
Ema wanted to be defensive, to tell Iori that her and his situations weren't the same and that he shouldn't be judging her for forgiving Erik, but that definitely wouldn't help the situation.
"Iori?" she said quietly. "Will you tell me what you're feeling? I think I have an idea, but I don't want to impose my own thoughts without knowing the truth."
"And how do you think I'm feeling?" he asked.
She flinched at his caustic tone. She hadn't known Iori had a tone like that.
Slowly, she said, "I think that seeing me with Erik brought back your feelings of Fuyuka's betrayal and that me forgiving Erik makes you feel like I'm saying what Fuyuka did was okay." She turned to Iori, her face earnest. "But that's not it at all, Iori. If you wanted to forgive Fuyuka, I would support you, but I wouldn't feel like I trusted her with your feelings and I wouldn't feel like she deserved another chance with you. But your feelings are what I would be most concerned with."
Some of the tension left Iori's shoulders. "He hurt you," he said. "Erik hurt you and now you're letting him back into your life." He spun toward her, placing a hand on the other side of her hip so he caged her in, his other hand capturing her chin. "Don't you see that there are better people for you? People who can understand your pain and be the type of boyfriend you need?"
Her lips parted as she tried to think of a response, but his lids lowered as his lips came toward hers and she froze.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Iori's eyes snapped open, showing a flash of fury before he turned to glare at Kaname, who was standing a few feet from the porch. Ema flushed to the roots of her hair, wondering how long he'd been there for. He'd recently switched jobs and had been coming home later at night since he was still going through training for his new position.
"N-no," Ema stuttered, the word almost a question. That conversation had taken a very, very unexpected turn. How long had Iori held feelings for her? Did any of the other Asahina brothers feel that way about her? And when in the world had all of this happened?
"Y-you probably haven't had dinner yet," Ema babbled, hoping her racing heart would calm down soon. Did this count as exercise? Wasn't an elevated heart rate supposed to help burn calories? She hoped she was getting some benefit from all the things in her life making her heart race faster. "I'll get that ready for you."
She was definitely running away. Again. Iori had been so intense as he'd been about to kiss her. She couldn't have torn herself away from him if she'd wanted to, and there would definitely be consequences if she let him kiss her then wasn't ready to say yes to dating him if that was what he wanted. And, even if he hadn't outright said it, that did seem like what he wanted. But she didn't know what she wanted. And that flash of anger scared her, but Iori was probably still riled up from that afternoon.
Resisting the urge to jump to her feet and run into the house, she turned to Iori. "I appreciate that you're upset because I was hurt, Iori. That means a lot to me and I feel the same about your situation." She didn't know what else to say. Anything else she could think of might seem like it was leading him on. Gently, she touched his arm. "Are we okay?"
He stared into her eyes, his gaze so intense she almost forgot Kaname was still standing there. "Come back to the café soon, okay? By yourself this time."
Slowly, she nodded, wondering if he just wanted to talk more. At least it would be in a public place so they wouldn't have a repeat of what just happened. Of what almost just happened.
"Good," he said, taking her hand and squeezing it. Then he stood and waved goodbye, ignoring Kaname.
"You okay?" Kaname asked, offering a hand to help her up.
She accepted his help, still flushed over Iori's intense gaze. How on earth could Fuyuka have cheated on Iori? Ema had the terrifying feeling that if she dated him, she'd be completely captivated.
"That was unexpected," she said. "I'm glad you showed up when you did."
"Good," Kaname said, retaining her hand for a moment and giving it a squeeze like Iori had. "I'd feel bad if my interruption was unwanted." He paused. "When I saw you two, I almost left, but you looked panicked when he went in for a kiss."
"Yeah," she sighed. "Our conversation wasn't anything that I thought would lead to kissing."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she answered automatically without considering whether it was true or not. She'd almost been kissed twice in one day unless Fuuto had only been teasing that he'd kiss her, which was entirely possible. Or maybe he'd hoped to entice her into kissing him.
She sighed. "Dating can be terrifying—even when you're not actually dating."
"I hope you don't keep that attitude forever," Kaname said, his voice light. "You'll close yourself off to a lot of life's adventures and joys if you decide not to let someone into your life like that."
"Oh, I plan to date again," she assured him. It had been on her mind for a while now and for most of that day. It felt like she'd lived with her trauma around dating for so long, but, in the grand scheme of things, eighteen months wasn't a hugely long time. But being with the Asahinas and even becoming friends with Erik again had healed a lot of that trauma.
"I'm glad to hear that," Kaname said. He seemed to want to say more, but left it at that.
~.~
After getting Kaname's dinner for him, Ema went to her room, running into Tsubaki.
"Did Iori come for dinner just to talk to you?" Tsubaki asked.
Ema wondered if he'd noticed them going outside together to talk—if he had, she really hoped he didn't know anything that had happened after that. "Yeah, I went to the café where he works today and something upset him, so he came over so we could talk about it."
Tsubaki nodded and she almost left things at that, then she blurted, "Can I ask you an inappropriate question?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Sure. You can tell or ask me anything."
"How would you feel if I dated Erik?"
Tsubaki froze, panic flashed through his eyes followed by anger and hurt before he schooled his face to be neutral. "Are you thinking about dating him?"
Rather than answering his question, she rephrased hers. "I guess what I really mean to ask is, how would you feel about me dating Erik versus me dating Azusa?"
"Oh," Tsubaki relaxed some. "I'd definitely prefer you dating Azusa, one hundred percent."
"What if I dated Subaru?"
He gave her a curious look, seeming torn between confusion and irritation. "I guess I would still prefer that to Erik. No, I would prefer that to Erik, but I would still prefer you dating Azusa over Subaru. Not that my preference matters in this right?" He looked more confused. "My number one choice would still be me."
"Sorry for the weird questions," Ema said, blushing. "I've just had the thought that maybe dating one of the Asahinas would cause problems among the family since more than one of you wants to date me. The Asahinas have done so much for me, I would hate to be the cause of conflict within the family."
"Ah," Tsubaki said, light dawning in his eyes. "I see. Azusa and I have talked about this, actually. We can't speak for everyone in the family, but we'd definitely rather have you with someone in the family than someone out of it." He ruffled her hair. "We always want you close, no matter what form that may take. If you end up with some other guy, he'll steal you away from us sooner or later."
"I'd never abandon the Asahina family," she argued. Warmth spread through her at hearing that Tsubaki and Azusa wanted to be part of her life regardless of how things ended up. She hoped everyone felt that way. "Thank you for answering my questions, Tsubaki. I'm glad to hear you feel that way."
"Like I said, you can ask me anything . . . just keep Azusa and me in mind when you start to date, okay?"
Blushing, she slowly nodded. It seemed she'd go from not wanting to date anyone to having too many people to date very quickly.
