"Nishikata…"

Takagi could hardly speak. She had been ignoring that nagging feeling of wrongdoing, rationalizing to herself more and more about covering it all up, but after thinking more about it…

She just wasn't ready yet! How was he already here?! She didn't know what she was gonna do yet, she needed more time to think!

Takagi just held her bag tightly against her legs as Nishikata moved to sit down opposite of the bench beside her. He looked uncomfortable too, or concerned, or both. And rightly so, for she had been acting weird all day and then just disappeared at lunch. Yet here she was now. Who wouldn't be weirded out?

They were just sitting there. And she had invited him here. She had to say something.

"What a coincidence," she muttered, barely audible.

"Well I saw your bike," he replied cautiously, "Stopped at the entrance".

"Oh."

Just give him your chocolate, she counseled herself desperately, Be sweet, don't tease him, and leave. Figure out the rest later-

"S-so hey," Nishikata started, interrupting her thoughts,"The strangest thing happened today during lunch, it was actually kind of funny…"

Her heart began to throb. Did those girls really confess, was he gonna talk about that? Could she take it?

"...But I guess you missed it since you disappeared around then."

She breathed out a small, anxiety-filled sigh, but deigned no reply. Of course he would be curious, just like her friend Sumire had been, and she owed him an explanation.

"... . Where were you, anyway?"

It was an easy enough response; she could just admit to feeling sick, which was true. But when she opened her mouth, she couldn't get a single word out. She normally wasn't one to stutter, but Takagi could do nothing but stare ahead.

She had to respond; after all, she had just barely asked him to meet up! She could just make up an excuse, hand over the chocolate, and get out of there, right?

Am I really doing this? she thought agonizingly, Am I actually going to just pretend that I didn't do anything so horrible? She instinctively began tightly gripping the sides of her bag once again.

She had kept repeating to herself how the other three girls were just as at fault as she, but when it came right down to it, had they really done anything wrong?

And if she did lie anyway, how could she bear to live with this horrible feeling of shame encroaching on her?

She closed her eyes in concentration, hearing the nearby trickle of water coming from a part of the shrine.

"Hey Takagi-san, you okay?"

She glanced over at him for a second, uncertain. He had undoubtedly noticed her stress.

"J-just one sec," she replied quickly.

She couldn't keep stalling. This wasn't like her at all to freeze up in fear. But this had never happened before! She had never had competition let alone ever stolen anything, out of instinct or not.

Should she just tell the truth? Could she really just admit her mistake? What would he think of her after learning something so bad?

She looked down at her feet, growing more nervous by the second. All of these worries cooped up inside of her all day were really starting to take their toll. She was becoming aware of her increasingly labored breaths and had to fight increasingly hard to keep her knee from trembling.

Nishikata would probably just leave her. Not that there was anything to leave but their friendship, but still… How could she get past something like that? After being head-over-heels for so long and slowly but surely building up their relationship? How could she have her greatest hope crushed? How could she possibly-

"Ta-Takagi-san!"

She paused and looked back at him, only to see his face much closer than before, a look of alarm shining through his black eyes.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked sharply.

What does he mean- and then she felt it. In her fretting, she hadn't even noticed her eyes watering, nor the lone tear that had escaped and was now sliding down her left cheek.

Takagi gasped and hurriedly turned away, using her pink gloves to wipe away the tear and dry her eyes.

"I-It's nothing," she stammered, cursing herself for letting that show. She was usually quite good at keeping her emotions in check around Nishikata, and even when she did let a blush slip through, he seldom picked up on it.

"What happened?" he repeated, not backing off. "Is it your mom? Did you two get in another fight?"

Takagi shook her head but couldn't turn back to face him, feeling way too much red in her cheeks.

"I'm fine," she repeated as nonchalantly as she could muster. She didn't call him over for this! Why couldn't she just get a hold of herself like always and hand over her gift? And gosh darn it she was trying to, but every time she got close, that guilt kept building more and more until-

She felt something press lightly against her shoulder. Takagi didn't look up, but parted her hair to look through it and saw something blue. Finally turning her head back, she saw the hand-knitted scarf she had given him for Christmas. Nishikata had taken it off and was holding it out to her.

"You can use this," he said, his cheeks bright red with embarrassment. His sheepish actions and restlessness would have normally incited her to tease him, but he somehow managed to maintain eye contact. "You look… sad."

Takagi was stunned, her mouth dropping slightly. She hadn't meant for this to happen at all, but… he was reacting too nicely for it to not pull on her heartstrings a bit.

"No, I'm n-not sad," she tried saying back, but then she felt another tear drip down and hid her face again to wipe it away. "And you should wear that, it's chilly outside."

Takagi just needed a minute or two to think, but Nishikata's presence was making that difficult. After only a moment of trying ot get ahold of herself, she stiffened as she felt his cool hand rest gently on her same shoulder for a second, then the scarf appear over her bag in her lap.

"Take it," Nishikata repeated, leaning back away to rebalance.

He was… giving her his scarf to wipe away her tears? Wouldn't he catch a cold or be grossed out by her? She felt more tears welling up and couldn't look at him.

Stop acting so nice to me! Why are you doing this?!

Takagi held up the scarf to wipe her wet cheeks, then wrapped it around her neck to keep it up. She could hardly believe what was happening and it was hitting her hard. Yes, Nishikata had been maturing, but she hadn't expected him to even be capable of-

She felt his cool hand on her shoulder once again and turned to look at him with a blush, only to find his own blush completely gone and replaced with a stone-faced, worried expression.

"Did something happen today? Did somebody do something to you after you left?"

Nishikata's eyes were full of unforeseen concern and were absolutely captivating. He was so close, his hand gripping her shoulder with the slightest bit of tension in each finger, and she couldn't pull her gaze away. Since when had he built up the courage to hold her shoulder like that? She had no chance of stopping her tears nor her blush now.

Time seemed to slow down around them. Why was he being so unexpectedly nice to her? He simply waited, undoubtedly trying to make out her thoughts and understand her distress.

She absolutely loved it, she loved the undivided attention he was giving her right now. Romantic intentions or not, he was being protective over her which made a part of her all warm and fuzzy, reminding her yet again why she had chosen him. She wanted to be comforted by him, it made him that much more attractive. As he leaned in, she wanted nothing more than to lean forward as well and kiss him.

Her eyes remained glued to his, and she could feel herself starting to drift towards him, but… she didn't deserve any of it.

Takagi was a bad girl.

She didn't deserve this moment as a result of stealing things from the very person who was trying to cheer her up. Stealing things and messing with lots of other girls' hard work.

Nishikata drew in slightly closer, awaiting her reply expectantly. "You can tell me…" he said softly.

Her lip began to wobble as she felt the two intense emotions, love and guilt, crash into one another in her mind like opposing tidal waves. But it didn't stop there - each second, additional waves exploded into one another, sending shockwaves to the very edges of her consciousness. The wobbling grew uncontrollably with each one.

Takagi wanted him so dearly, yet, yet, yet…

Yet she couldn't live with what she had done!

"Hey, don't-don't cry! It's okay, hey!"

He was coming closer, was he actually going to hug her?! Her heart rate spiked uncontrollably. Nishikata was hesitantly stretching out his arms towards her, endearingly worried about her.

She didn't deserve that. She wasn't worthy of her knight in shining armor.

Nishikata's shaky hand reached her shoulder, then gingerly began sliding behind her upper back to pull her into an embrace.

She had to stop it.

Takagi whipped open the flap of her school bag, pulled out all of the stolen presents, and dropped them into Nishikata's lap in one swoop. She couldn't stifle one single shaky sob as she did it. Then she scooted away and buried her face in his scarf.

"Huh…. wh-what are these?"

Takagi couldn't answer. She was doing everything she could to keep from crying any more. She knew it was over. She had impulsively just done the right thing, but now Nishikata would know how bad she was. She was a hair away from running away to hide.

"Did you… give me these for Valentines' day?" she heard him ask in confusion. She shook her head violently.

"For- For senpai?" he read aloud.

She eventually nodded, wiping her eyes more. A few moments later, after a lot of deep breaths and concentration, she lowered the scarf just enough to peep out at him.

Nishikata had his eyes narrowed just slightly and turned to look at her. "But… these aren't from you? Are you just te-"

He cut himself off, but Takagi knew what he was thinking. No, she wasn't teasing him for once. It was far worse. She had to say what really happened.

"I… I-I, I," she could barely control her breathing. Takagi's heart kept speeding up, but she had to say it!

"I-I… I stole them!" Takagi exclaimed, the scarf pressed against her lips failing to quell any of the agitation in her voice.

"You… you what?"

She turned back away, feeling his eyes boring into the back of her head in confusion.

"I took them," she repeated, much more quietly now. "Out of your locker, this morning. You had—you had three different secret admirers leave you chocolate, and I-I-I just stole them!"

He didn't reply, and Takagi wished he would. Just tell me you hate me already! she thought, knowing she deserved some punishment. But Nishikata remained quiet.

After a minute or two, she wiped her face anew and slowly turned back to peek at his face.

Nishikata looked very confused and was inspecting one of the gifts, the others still strewn across his lap.

"I… I just didn't like–I didn't want you to—to fall in love with some random girl!"

Takagi slapped her hand over her mouth; she hadn't meant to say that. He glanced at her, and for once she couldn't decipher what he was thinking. Then he went back to looking at the gift. It was agonizing, watching his surprise and wondering what he was thinking. The implications of what Takagi had just blurted out were pretty direct, but he rarely picked up on them. Was he more angry at her, or more excited about these other girls who had fallen for him?

Why won't you say anything?!

"I'm-I-I'm sorry, Nishikata-kun," she said in defeat, tears swimming in her eyes. She couldn't stop sniffling. "I know how bad it was, and i-it wasn't fair to you nor those girls."

He finally looked at her, his eyes just slightly narrowed.

"So you really aren't pulling some giant tease on me right now?"

"N-no! I wouldn't go this far, never!"

Nishikata just sat there, looking down at the chocolates almost as if he were seasick. Takagi had caused this, and she hated it.

"I'm so sorry," she repeated.

"You said there were three girls?" he asked, not looking up. "Then why are there four boxes?"

Takagi looked down and her eyes widened. Along with the stolen boxes, she had accidentally grabbed the prank gift as well, the one with the blue top, yellow ribbon, and bag of sardines inside.

What should she do? This was definitely the wrong time to play jokes; even Takagi had limits.

"Oh," she said, reaching for the prank gift, "That one wasn't supposed to be there. It's not the same as the others."

"So it's some type of prank from you?"

Takagi nodded, taking the box back and stowing it away. Nishikata let her, supposedly agreeing that teasing was better left off the table right now.

"So this is like, everything, all of the gifts then?" he asked, clearly still processing her admission and finally looking at her once again.

It wasn't. Takagi still had her true Valentine's chocolate carefully wrapped up and prepared for him. But Nishikata was mad. He had to be, and she didn't blame him. She was even madder at herself. So there was no way she could admit that she had something else.

"Yes," she quietly lied. Nishikata dropped his gaze a bit, and they just stayed there in silence.

In the end, Takagi had done what was right. And she felt awful. But she had done what she needed to do, and she was probably bothering Nishikata being here any longer.

He most likely wanted to open his presents and go thank those 3 younger girls, tell them about how bad she was, start getting to know them and hanging out with them, realize that one of them was really cute, way cuter than she, start feeling the same feelings back and start holding hands…

Takagi shook her head violently. She couldn't let herself spiral into that.

She sniffed, wiped her eyes one last time, and slowly stood to dismiss herself.

But as she took her first step forward to begin the long walk home, she felt something tug on her left hand.

Surprised, she turned back to see Nishikata gripping her palm with three fingers.

Ah, she realized, I didn't give back his scarf yet.

"Sorry," she murmured, pulling the scarf off her neck and handing it back. Normally she would have offered to wash it and return it, but—she shuddered—she was doubtful if he'd even want to see her again in the first place. Not with so many others that were better than she.

"What—no. I, I just…" Nishikata was mumbling something back, and he pushed the scarf back towards her with his other hand, sending a chill down her spine. Did he not want it back? Even if she had ruined their friendship, could he really not want her hand-knitted present back-

"Just, just why, Takagi-san?" Nishikata finally said more firmly. "Why would you care? This isn't like you…'

Takagi didn't know whether to feel anxious or relieved. But there was no way around it, she had to give him some idea of understanding. Under the guise of teasing, she could tell him anything and she had accidentally blurted out part of the reason earlier, but when it was for real and she had time to think… her heart began pounding quickly.

"I just, I-I got jealous. I showed up early and saw them and did it without thinking."

"Jealous?" he repeated, a faint blush reappearing for the first time in an uncharacteristically long while.

She slowly nodded. She was being very vague.

"...What do you mean?"

She opened her mouth but felt too nervous to speak. She couldn't admit the truth, not fully, not again. She couldn't point out what had slipped out earlier, what he had clearly missed. She had already confessed to one thing today and it had taken everything out of her; there was no way she could say anything else.

So all she could repeat, barely above a whisper, was one word: "Jealous".

Nishikata's look of perplexion grew further. It wasn't fair, but she couldn't take it. She had to go.

"I know you're mad. I'll just-I'll just stop messing with you and get out of your way."

Takagi made another attempt to step away, only to feel the same tugging. He hadn't let go of her hand yet.

She began to tremble. Was he going to force it out of her? She very slowly turned her head back towards him.

"These aren't for me," Nishikata said, putting the three gifts down on the bench and pushing them in her direction. "You should take them."

"What-what do you mean? I told you I took them out of your locker". She raised an eyebrow, confused.

Nishikata shook his head, looking towards that calico cat that seemed like it would never wake up. The occasional bird chirps had ceased and the sun was slowly disappearing; so much for her 'going home early'.

Takagi wasn't sure what he meant. After everything that had happened, he couldn't just not take those girls' gifts. They were clearly meant for Nishikata.

"But they're for you," she repeated, "There are three girls that-that like you and they spent a lot of time on your gifts. Don't you-don't you want that? Shouldn't you give them a chance?"

What was she even saying!? Why was she encouraging Nishikata? Did she just feel the need to recompense somehow for stealing?

"I was confused at first," Nishikata said, "But with there being three presents, these definitely aren't mine. They're Shibasaki-kun's."

Takagi wasn't following. How did this have anything to do with their classmate?

"You know that funny thing I was going to tell you earlier?" he continued, "Three girls showed up during lunch, claiming they had left chocolates in my locker. But then they realized I didn't find any and apologized for the mistake. Later on, they all confessed to Shibasaki-kun instead; they had liked his puppydog acting in the cultural festival."

Nishikata shuffled his feet. "I had almost forgotten about it until he mentioned that they had accidentally placed his chocolates in the wrong locker and were still looking for them, though he didn't mind. …And even if they had been for me, I wouldn't…" He trailed off. He cleared his throat, then finished with, "Well, now it all makes sense."

Takagi was stunned.

If what Nishikata was saying was accurate, then… then she wasn't competing for Nishikata with anybody else at all!

Takagi knew it was good news. She knew she should be feeling relieved. The girls had still gotten to confess and it seemed to be well-received. The situation was leaps and bounds better than she had expected.

But she just felt empty.

Not just empty. She felt angry.

If she had just reacted a little more maturely, this whole thing could have been avoided! If Takagi had had better control of her emotions, it all would have been worked out, she'd have been able to prank Nishikata and laugh at his Nishikata, then give him his actual chocolate, perhaps even at this very shrine!

But no, she had to go and screw it all up.

And now she had three stolen gifts that she needed to return to three worried junior girls. Takagi was supposed to be an example to them.

Her phone buzzed; it was her mother, who was growing increasingly worried about her whereabouts.

Takagi knew what she had to do. It wouldn't be easy, but she had to fix things. She leaned down and picked up the three gifts and slid them back into her bag.

"I really am sorry, Nishikata," she said again, bowing to him. "Especially after I made you all worried." She began walking away to leave him alone, then paused, turning back.

"I… I hope you can eventually forgive me."


I hope you are enjoying this. Only 1-2 chapters left. Reminder that the Wattpad version of this story also includes images from the episode which adds to the ambience. If you liked it or have any feedback, please let me know; I really appreciate it!