By the time Ruri turns thirteen, she has become a little tolerant of her neighbor of the same age. She will never admit it though.
It has been some time after Ren-ren moves to Gunma. He's now best friends with Kanou and fellow pitchers at the Mihoshi team, where Ren-ren is the starting pitcher. Kanou begins to hang around her home more often, to tutor Mihashi, play video games, or talk about baseball. Watching them interact, Ruri could almost like Kanou again for acting so normally with Ren-ren's stutters and sometimes-annoying quirks. It is not difficult to see that majority of her school mates think her cousin is weird.
There is another reason why Ruri could tolerate Kanou though. Her mother has toned down her naggings and hardly ever compares her grades with Kanou's anymore, though Ruri thinks it is due to the presence of Ren-ren, who has appalling grades, rather than the spectacular improvement she has made since moving up to middle school. One less annoyance to deal with. but it doesn't matter; Ruri never makes any effort to talk to Kanou anymore. She's a girl, he's a boy, and they're in middle school; it is different now.
It is that one day in summer that something starts. Ruri lies sprawled, wearing a thin tank top and shorts with her hair in a messy bun, across a cooling mat, relishing in the icy feeling during the hot summer wave, when she hears excited pounding of feet down the hallway outside her room. She hears her door slide and opens her eyes to find them locked with Kanou, who is grinning excitedly down at her.
"Hey Ruri! Wanna head down to the batting center?" he says.
Ren-ren soon appears next to him, the same excited grin donning his face.
"Obaa-san is t-t-taking us there," her cousin exclaims, his hands waving excitedly like a bird flapping its wings. A hand accidentally slaps Kanou's face, and the resounding sound silences Ren-ren, who suddenly cowers with fear and mutters several stuttered apologies under his breath. However, the grin is still on Kanou's face, as though it has been frozen by time.
Ruri cannot help herself. She laughs, and laughs, and laughs. The sight is so funny. Ren-ren's antics, Kanou's smile though the slap, and the red mark that is starting to glow red, the scene is all too funny, despite her conscience warning her about laughing at another's pain. She stops, but a glance at Kanou again sends her into peals of giggles again. She only stops, with much restraint, when her abdomen develops an ache and tears blur her vision so much she is forced to wipe them away.
This is when she sees her neighbour-cum-childhood-friend in front of her, reaching out a hand, with a scowl now attached to his face. He's not hurting though, as she sees the sparkle or gentleness in his eyes, she does not know which, but at least neither indicates disgruntlement.
Ruri is suddenly aware that she hasn't looked him in the eye for years, and his eyes are oh-so-yellow. Her heart decides to pump a little harder, and she feels her cheeks flush with heat, her lower abdomen scattered with fluttering butterflies and a sense of nervousness she has never felt before. Suddenly, she is grateful for her natural red cheeks and the laughing fit that darkens it.
She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath, attempting to calm down from the weird sensation, hoping the boys think it is the attempt to compose herself from her laughing fit instead. When she thinks she is done, she smiles apologetically.
"Sorry."
It is a short apology. Kanou is a boy; he does not need any unnecessary words.
"It's okay," he replies, his hand still out to receive hers. She takes it, and lifts herself up. After flashing him a grateful look, she turns to her cousin.
"I'll go change out and take my bat," she tells him.
She stares down at the both of them, taking in their old crumpled t-shirts and shorts, and frowns.
"Both of you too," she adds.
They blush and scatter away in different directions; one to his room down the hallway, and the other, home across the street.
She slides her door close, and leans backward against it, sliding down to the floor as she feels her legs weaken. She clutches the hand that is burning with Kanou Shugo's touch, and blushes harder at the memory of her interaction with the boy. Blood continues rolling through the veins under her cheeks and her heart is beating at a crazy pace.
Ruri isn't stupid. She knows what this is.
Ruri has probably-maybe-and-very-likely fallen in 'like'—not love!— with Kanou Shugo.
