Authors Note: Still no beta reader! But she's going to do the next chapter so hopefully, the mistakes will disappear!

Chapter Three

I was standing in the middle of a huge tennis court, but the surface of the court was covered in small pink hearts. I bent down and tried to pick one up but it snapped at my fingers, teeth appearing miraculously from some mysterious space beneath the point of the heart. Right, don't touch the hearts. I looked up and realised that I couldn't see the edges of the court, it just stretched out in all directions covered in millions upon millions of pink hearts which all quivered ominously. They probably all had teeth.

"Hello?" I called out and the hearts stopped quivering and started twitching violently. Right, don't touch the hearts and don't talk either. I started walking, I really didn't want to hang around with the evil probably man eating hearts. As I walked I became aware of a figure on the horizon, as I came closer I realised it was standing with its back to me. I walked faster, hoping that this person could explain the presence of the hearts to me. As I got even closer I recognized the figure. It was Shinji. It was Shinji wearing a luminous pink tracksuit, the hearts by his feet weren't twitching, they were circling round and round his feet, gnashing their teeth happily. I stopped a few feet from him.

"Shinji?" I spoke as quietly as possible hoping not to excite the hearts any further. He turned to face me and as he did so the hearts around his feet swirled upwards, surrounding him in a column of twisting, turning pink. It struck me as a very bad thing to happen, I reached out to try and bat the hearts away but they simply surrounded my hands, snapping at my fingers, "Shinji, what the hell is going on?" I demanded.

It was the wrong thing to do. Speaking again had a very unusual effect, Shinji's neck began to stretch and separated into three parts as they grew replicas of Shinji's head also grew at the tips of the new necks. Three heads snaking through the sky, each surrounded by its very own cluster of pink hearts. The hearts at my feet began to stir, teeth grinding against each other they rose into the air and started to cluster round me, as the hearts came dangerously close to my face….

…I woke up. Dear god I was a total wimp! I was a pathetic wimp! I really shouldn't be having dreams about a three headed Shinji surrounded by carnivores paper hearts just because Tachibana-san had told me that I had to tell Shinji that I had feelings for him. These dreams shouldn't have me jerking awake, sweating with total dread at the prospect of seeing and speaking to my best friend. I sat up and buried my head in my hands. There was no way around it, I was an utter coward.

I was a coward in more ways than one if I was going to be brutally honest. It had been almost a week since school had ended and in that week the only times I had seen Shinji were in my dreams. I had thoroughly and strategically avoided him. His texts had received short, vague responses which did not encourage conversation, whenever the phone rang I dived into the bathroom and turned the shower on so that my mother would tell whoever was calling that I wasn't available and to call back later and I had identified at least three ways to escape my house quickly and easily should Shinji turn up at my front door. Shinji had noticed that I was behaving oddly and was very puzzled and concerned by it. He'd been confiding in Tachibana-san about it. Tachibana-san sent me texts telling me I was an idiot, a coward, a wuss, a wimp etc at regular intervals. His most recent text was probably the one that had prompted the dream.

"Akira, stop being an idiot! You're making Shinji think he's done something to upset you or that there's something really wrong with you. Stop being such a wimp and talk to him, he won't bite!"

So much easier said than done! I lay back down, but I wasn't intending to sleep, even though it was around 3am. I hadn't exactly neglected the whole problem, not totally. I had conjured up several plans and scenarios which would result in me fulfilling my side of the deal.

Plan number one involved inviting Shinji to play tennis at the street courts and talking to him there. The plus points of this plan were that Shinji was unlikely to kill me in front of witnesses, it was a familiar setting where we both felt comfortable and it would therefore keep his mumblings to a minimum making it much easier to talk to him. The negative points were that I really didn't want to have such a personal conversation on a tennis court and I really didn't want it to have witnesses.

Plan number two was the long distance option, calling him up and talking to him over the phone. The pluses of that one were that he couldn't hit me straight away and gave him a chance to cool down before I had to see him. However, this really wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to talk to over the phone, besides which talking to Shinji on the phone was a notoriously difficult thing to do as he was practically phone phobic, when it came to talking on them anyway.

This only left plan number three as an option, going to his house and talking to him there. It provided the necessary privacy as all of Shinjis family would be out all day and there was no chance of them being disturbed. The only negative was that it would be very easy for Shinji to kill him in his own house and then hide the body. However, it was the only option and in the interests of never having a dream involving that much pink ever again I had to do something about this.

So that was why I was standing outside Shinji's house praying to all possible gods that he was in a good, open minded mood and that my lack of sleep the night before was not going to result in me saying a lot of stupid things. I was also praying that he wasn't going to wearing a bright pink track suite, which would be something I just couldn't handle. Before ringing the door bell I sent Tachibana-san a quick text, "I'm at his house. If he kills me, it is all your fault." And then I jabbed the door bell before my deeply buried sanity could take a hand and force me to run away, far far away.

Nothing happened. I frowned, maybe he wasn't in! Oh that would be brilliant I could get out of this insanity once and for all. Just as I prepared to walk away I heard footsteps from inside and the door opened. Shinji stared out at me, stopping in the midst of a mumbled rant about door to door salesman, judging by the few words I had managed to hear before he'd realised it was me standing there. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me, "You've been avoiding me."

I flinched at the hurt, accusing tone, "Erm…yeah. I'm sorry. I'm here to explain. Kind of. I'm going to try and explain but I don't know if you'll understand…" I trailed off, no matter how long I'd hung around with Shinji; his mumbling habit just wouldn't ever rub off on me. Maybe this situation would be far easier if it had.

"You should come in then, instead of standing out here mumbling," despite the situation, the irony of that coming from Shinji still made me smile as I followed him in, "No ones home," he added, "They've been gone all week. It's been very boring here all by myself with no one to talk to. With Akira ignoring me I didn't really have anyone. Tachibana-san has a lot of work to do and it always feels strange to meet up with him on my own because he's our captain and it feels weird. So without Akira and with no one at home I've had a very lonely week."

He led me into the sitting room. Sitting there with him gave the whole thing an oddly formal feeling; I'd much prefer to go to his room. It was very messy and so small the only place to sit was normally on the bed and that would have made this all feel far more comfortable and informal. With him staring at me from the other end of a sofa I felt like I was in the middle of an interrogation. It didn't in any way encourage me to start talking of my own free will. Shinji managed to share my silence for all of three minutes.

"You said you were going to explain why you were avoiding me," he prompted.

"I did say that," I acknowledged, "And I will."

He waited, "When are you going to explain?"

"Right now."

Another pause, "Really?"

"Ok! It's all Tachibana-san's fault! He bullied me! He's making me do this! If I do it then he'll let me choose all the music for all the journeys next year and I hate him because it was a really cruel thing to do! And…"

"Hang on," Shinji interrupted me, "Before you start making even less sense than you are now, Tachibana-san is making you ignore me in exchange for being able to choose music?"

"Not exactly."

"Please Akira. Not making sense is my job. What is Tachibana-san making you do and what has it got to do with me?"

"If I tell you, you have to promise not to hit me."

"I promise."

"Or kill me and hide my body under the floorboards."

"I promise," he was starting to look scared and worried about my sanity. It's a bad sign when Shinji has reasonable grounds to worry about someone's sanity, then the person really must be crazy.

"Tachibana-san said I have to tell you the truth."

"About what?" Shinji was clearly trying to avoid long stretches of silence taking over again.

"You."

"And what does that mean?"

"Shinji, you're my best friend, right? You've been my best friend for years. We're close, right?"

"Yes. And?"

Women are right; men really are rubbish at the whole emotions thing. At that moment in time I would have quite happily temporarily turned into a woman, "Well. See. The thing is that…well…er…you really promise you won't hit me?" I asked again, stalling for time.

"I promise. Akira, are you feeling ok?"

"No. Look, Shinji, I think…no that's wrong, I know that I feel…that I like you. I like you as my best friend and I also like you as more," oh my god could I sound any more like a pathetic cliché.

Shinji was looking at me but for once I had no idea what his expression meant, "More?"

He really wasn't making this easy. My heart was beating at an alarming rate, I was sure I had turned an alarming shade of red and I really needed to lie down and rest. For about a month. "Yes Shinji. I love you."

He stared at me and I could have kicked myself. What the hell was I doing bringing the word love into this? If I hadn't freaked him out enough to run a mile by now that sentence would have sealed the deal. Why was I such an idiot? Why? But Shinji's expression was remaining blank and that gave me at least a little bit of hope.

"You love me?"

Well that incredulous tone wasn't that encouraging, "Yes. And can the next thing you say please not involve repeating something I said in the form of a question. Please?"

He laughed, he actually laughed at me, but the smile that accompanied the laugh was more than a little odd, "I was worried it might be something really serious. I thought you might tell me you were dying or something."

I could tell that under normal circumstances a lot more would have been tagged onto the end of the statement, but he was controlling himself. Talking slowly, thinking about and weighing each word before he let it escape his mouth. Taking that kind of care over his speech, putting that much effort into not letting something slip out through his mumbling, well it clearly indicated that Shinji was taking this conversation very seriously. It was slightly disconcerting, I'm so used to being able to gain extra information from him through what he says without meaning to that being limited like this was making me nervous.

"You think this isn't serious?"

"No. This is serious," he leaned in, making the conversation more intimate, "It's just a relief."

"A relief? What the hell does that mean?"

"Can't you guess?" he seemed to be enjoying my distress.

"No. Shinji, can you just mumble me a straight answer or do you enjoy torturing me like this?"

"I'm not trying to torture you Akira," he replied, tone gentle, the sort of voice you use to tell a small child their rabbit died, "You really have no idea do you?"

"No."

"You had no reason to be nervous about telling me this. I like you just as much as you like me."

"You do?" for a moment I was totally convinced I just hallucinated Shinji saying those words. I didn't quite allow myself to rejoice, I needed to make sure.

"Yes. I thought you'd have noticed by now. I was always hoping we'd just simultaneously gain enough courage to make a mutual confession that wouldn't involve any planning on my part. I should have known it would never happen. I knew I wasn't ever going to be brave enough and considering how long it was taking I didn't think Akira ever would either. I thought we'd just stay the same. Friends," he shook himself out of the mumbling, "I'm glad you found the courage."

"You're forgetting. Tachibana-san made me find the courage."

"Was that what you two were fighting about?"

I blushed, "He called me a love sick puppy. You'd have done the same."

"Nope. I can control my temper."

I swatted at him, he dodged. We both smiled at each other a little nervously. Ok so I'd established that he liked me and that I liked him and that was a good thing, but what the hell happened now? I could tell that the same thoughts were crossing Shinji's mind. We'd both been so preoccupied with getting to this point that now we were here we had no clue what the next step should be. We were only young after all. Young and not entirely sure where our feelings were going to take us, or where they should take us for that matter. When you're 14, relationships are new and scary territory.

"Akira…" Shinji just couldn't stay quiet. Thinking back to the chick flicks An occasionally made us watch, I prayed that this was the best thing to do. I leant forward and kissed him, isn't that what they always do at the end of the film?

Urgh. I hate this ending! But I've been glaring at it for over a week and its not going to get any better, I'll make up for it in the next chapter!

Thanks for reading!