Author's note: This is part five of five. Thank you very much for reading along!

Chapter 5: Where We Are

How many different types of love are there?

There's the warm companionable love between a couple that's been together for a long time, so long that being together is as natural as breathing to them. There's the kindly, platonic love that exists between close friends – the kind I have with Chitose or that Toshino Kyouko has with Yui. Sometimes that overlaps with the kind of love that exists between siblings. I don't have any experience with that myself, though Chitose does. Of course, there's also the intense, romantic love that you see in books, manga, and movies. It's something that works well in stories, but in real life it either seems like a bit much or maybe kind of silly and overly dramatic. I'm sure you could define a lot of other types of love too. It's a big concept.

That said, I'm not sure how to define what exactly Kyouko and I had. Nor was I certain where it was going. Love is just as unpredictable as Kyouko herself is, and two unpredictable things put together don't make for something you can easily figure out. All I knew is it felt good and right. And maybe, in the end, that was enough for where we stood.

Gossip spreads like wildfire at times. Sometimes it just moves in whatever direction it wants, and there's not much you can do about it. The fact that Kyouko and I were dating (or whatever it could be called) seemed to have caught the interest of some of the other girls in our class. I wasn't entirely used to that sort of attention, but there was nothing that I really could have done about it. I couldn't have very well stopped my fellow students from talking to each other. This was all abundantly clear to me when a girl who sat a few rows ahead of me stopped by my desk before class one morning several days after the trip and asked me if it was true that Toshino Kyouko and I were a couple.

"Um, well. Yes." I replied, looking down twirling my fingers around each other. I still couldn't help feeling embarrassed, as happy as I was about Kyouko and me.

"Aw, that's so cute!" my classmate replied, clasping her hands together. "Have you gone on dates? Have you kissed?"

"We…er, that is to say…" I was at a loss for words and unsure how to reply. Did it look bad when a senior member of the Student Council suddenly became tongue-tied? I looked back at the new love of my life, but her head was in her arms on her desk. She was fast asleep. I turned around to face my inquisitive peer again, but still nothing came out of my mouth. How could I have answered those questions anyway? Why would you ask someone you didn't know very well about such personal matters? I gave her a half-smile and a weak chuckle, but all I got in return was a head tilt and a raised eyebrow. Fortunately, Chitose stepped over to my desk and came to my rescue.

"Ah, good morning," Chitose said. "I apologize for interrupting, but I need to discuss some Student Council business with Ayano."

"Of course! Please excuse me." Our classmate walked off to talk with someone else, and I was freed from trying to answer her questions. I wondered if it wouldn't be the last time something like that would happen.

"Good morning, Chitose," I definitely appreciated her timing. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Nothing that can't wait," Chitose chuckled. "You just looked like you were uncomfortable."

"I was. Thank you for stepping in." My gratitude aside, eventually I'd need to learn how to deal with the attention and questions if they were going to continue like that. Or maybe people would get bored with it eventually and move on when something else interesting came up. That would work too. Still, I was grateful to my best friend who had helped come so far and was willing to still help some more. I was fortunate to have her in my life. I wondered how I'd repay for everything she'd done for me. I'd need to think on that some more.

"Of course," she answered. "I'm really happy for you, and I want things to keep going well between you and Toshino. You don't need any added distractions or whatever."

Feeling indebted, I nodded at Chitose. She smiled again and walked away. But rather than return to her desk, she stepped behind me, stopped next to Yui's desk, and began talking with her. I turned and watched the two of them chat amicably, smiling to myself. Ever since they had been trip partners, they had gotten much closer. A bizarre idea briefly crossed my mind: would the two of them…? No, no. I shoved that thought away. Not because I was against it, but because I worried that if I started thinking like that, I'd become as bad Chitose could be about that sort of thing. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. If they did, I'd be happy for them and support them. They'd be cute together after all. And just like that, I was thinking about it again! Clearly, it was time to find something else to occupy my mind. Fortunately, someone was kind enough to step in and pull me out of a weird situation again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kyouko getting up and bounding over to my desk.

"Ayano!" Kyouko threw her arms around my neck. I guess her pre-class nap had reinvigorated her. She'd now be fine until it was time for the nap she'd take during class.

"Hello, Kyouko," I smiled at her, briefly placing my hand over hers. "Sleep well?"

"You bet! Say, did you do the social studies homework?"

"I did." I could already guess where this was headed. With regards to some things, Kyouko was like clockwork. "Why?"

"Will you let me copy yours? I didn't do it."

I had been right. Despite my affection for her, I frowned. "Again? You had all day Sunday as well as the past few nights and you still didn't do it?"

"But there was so much!" Kyouko whined. "I started on it, but I got distracted. Please?"

"I'll help you, but you should do the work yourself. And we don't have that class until the afternoon, so if you spend your breaks and lunch working on the assignment, then you should be able to finish most of it, if not all of it."

"Boo, that's no fun." Kyouko released me and turned around. "I wonder if Yui -"

"No." Behind us, Yui cut Kyouko off with a single word. She must have overheard our conversation. It was probably a request she was used to hearing.

"This is no good!" Kyouko wailed. "Ayano's my girlfriend, Yui's my best friend, but neither of you will let me see your homework!"

"You won't learn the material if you just copy someone else's work," Yui said.

"Well, I won't learn the material either if I'm assigned punishment work on top of the original assignment and then have to focus on that," Kyouko pouted. Her eyes darted back and forth between Yui and me with a sadness that was almost certainly feigned. "Please, won't one of you help this poor girl in trouble?"

"Fine," I said finally. She'd probably keep carrying on until someone gave in anyway. It might as well have been me. I sighed and pulled my social studies work out of my bag. Handing it to Kyouko, I warned her "But you had better copy quickly and return it before this afternoon."

"Thank you, Ayano!" she hugged me. "Don't worry, you'll have it back well before then! I'm super-quick when it comes to copying!" She skipped back to her seat, sat down, and began writing in earnest.

"That's not something you should be proud of," Yui commented. Kyouko either didn't hear her or ignored her. Shaking her head, Yui turned back around in her seat, faced toward the front, and gave me a stern look.

"Ayano, you shouldn't spoil her," she chided me.

As usual, Yui was right. I nodded at her then looked over at Kyouko. Raising my voice just a little, I told her "This is the last time!"

"Don't worry, it will be the last time!" Kyouko said as she briefly looked up from her copying.

"It won't be the last time," Yui remarked dryly. She was probably right. Next to her, Chitose chuckled as she wiped at her nose. Since Kyouko and I had become a couple, I guess my dating life had turned into a full-on romantic comedy for her. I guess that wasn't so bad. I was happy, and she was entertained. That was a small repayment for everything she had done for me.

"You've so little faith in me, Yui-nyan!" Kyouko called back to Yui.

"It's because I know you so well."

"But I'm full of surprises," Kyouko insisted. "And lots of other things too."

"Just finish your copying before I change my mind, Toshino Kyouko," I said. After her earlier begging, one would have thought she'd focus more on that than acting silly.

"Yes ma'am!" Kyouko's pen continued scratching away.

On Friday after school, I found myself alone in the Student Council meeting room with Kyouko. I had decided to finish up some work that had come up during our class trip. Kyouko, well, she was drawing manga. At one point, I suggested she start on her homework so that we didn't have a repeat of what happened earlier that day. That didn't interest Kyouko, however. She just made a funny face at me and returned to her drawing. I sighed, both internally and externally, and returned to my work.

We worked together in silence for a while, the only noise in the room the flipping of paper and the scratching of pens. Then Kyouko spoke up again. "Say Ayano?"

"Yes, Kyouko?"

"Do you ever want to work on my manga with me? You're talented and smart and good at all sorts of things, so I thought maybe you'd enjoy it. It's something we could do together as, you know, a couple."

I smiled at her. That sounded nice, and, truth be told, it was something I had secretly wanted to do for a long time. "I'd love to, but I don't think I'm as talented an artist as you are."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd do just fine. You just need to do it some. We'll make some practice comics together, how about that?"

"That sounds like fun." I also imagined it was a lot of work, especially for a girl who was so averse to doing work. I was suddenly a little curious. "Do you always do it all by yourself?"

"Sometimes, but Yui, Akari, and Chinatsu have helped me with this before when I've been up against a submission deadline."

I recalled how she once failed an exam because she had been up against such a deadline. I also recalled how she had sold her manga at Comuket. I decided to bring up the former for now. "Are you submitting this to Comuket, then?"

"Not for the one this summer," Kyouko replied. "The deadline for that is long past, and I already submitted some other work for it. This is for the winter Comuket. I figured I'd start in advance."

I wondered if there would be another trip there together for her and me. I hoped so. I never wanted to relive that day from the previous summer, when I had waited all day for her to call and invite me, only for it to not happen. Now that she and I were together, I was sure that wouldn't happen again. The prospect of another day trip with her, well that was something I could look forward to, even if I would end up having to wear another silly anime character costume.

"Well, it's good to plan ahead, I suppose." If only she applied that attitude to her schoolwork. "When exactly will you have to submit it?"

"In the fall."

"That's still months and months away. Why is it you can work on that so far in advance, but you can't do your homework?" I really couldn't believe this girl sometimes.

"Homework's boring," she replied. "Mirakurun is fun. And interesting."

"I guess. But we can't just do fun things all the time, Toshino Kyouko." I decided that when I at least tried to be serious with her, I'd use her full name. Maybe that would drive home my point better. I got up from my chair and walked over to a filing cabinet to file away some of my work.

"We can't? Why not?" Kyouko looked up at me and tilted her head. There was that cute look of hers again. But I wasn't going to be distracted so easily.

"Because there's always going to be work to do," I replied as I placed my work folder neatly in a drawer. It looked like some things in it had been moved around, so I started checking for anything that was out of order, continuing to chat as I did. I briefly turned back to Kyouko. "We can't just spend life doing nothing but leisure activities."

"Boo," Kyouko made a funny face at me, pursing her lips.

I should have expected that, and I realized my reply probably made me sound a bit boring. Turning back to the drawer, I organized the other folders in it and I added "But, there's no reason we can't have fun once our work is all finished."

"You're right, Ayano!"

"Of course, I-"

"Let's have fun right now!"

Oh no, what had I started this time? How had she taken that as invitation to goof off even more? I closed the drawer and turned around to face her. "I said when we're finished. I've still got work to do, Toshino Kyouko."

"Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?" she asked me.

I chuckled in spite of myself. "I don't think that's how that saying goes."

"Sure it is. I think you're finished. You've already done a lot today, Ayano." Kyouko got up from her chair. She took a step toward me, smiling widely. "You should stop and take a break. I mean, does anyone on the Student Council work as hard as you do?"

"Everyone works hard," I said. Okay, that wasn't entirely true. Sakurako had a tendency to goof off and not do her tasks. But she did at least try sometimes. I was about to mention that, but stopped myself. All that was beside the point anyway. How in the world had we started discussing this topic? "Ahem. Everyone. The Student Council wouldn't be effective otherwise."

"See?" Kyouko said. "And yet you're the only one here working today. You should have some fun. You deserve it."

"No," I answered, shaking my head. "There's a lot that more that I need-"

Before I had a chance to finish what I was saying, Kyouko put her hands on my shoulder and pressed her lips to mine. In kissing me like this, she had caught me completely off-guard. My first thought, beyond the initial shock that our kiss was indeed happening, was that someone would walk into the Student Council room and see the two of us going at it. The next thought was that I didn't know what to do. Did I close my eyes? Where did my hands go? But then the sheer happiness and joy of being close to her and kissing her took over. Being so close, I could smell the shampoo she must have used in her hair. I could briefly see her blue eyes as close as ever before she closed them. After a short time, Kyouko pulled away, but took hold of my hands with hers and gently stroked my fingers. "That's way more fun than work, don't you think?"

"I…you…" I was too dazed to give her a proper reply. I was elated, but I still could barely believe that she and I had kissed.

"Oh, are you not certain, Ayano? We can try again, and I'm sure you'll be convinced this is better," Kyouko said as she smiled at me. She leaned in and kissed me again. This time I was at least prepared and kissed her back, putting my arms around her as well. If anything, it was sweeter than the first one, and I didn't overthink it so much, though I did want to etch every detail of it permanently into my memory. Well, Kyouko had been right about one thing: I was finished with work for the day. Concentrating on anything else would have been difficult, if not impossible, after all this.

On Saturday, I found myself strolling through town with Kyouko, Chitose, and Yui, enjoying the warm and sunny weather. Part of me wanted a date with just Kyouko and me, but I knew there'd be many opportunities for that. In the meantime, it was good to spend time with not only the girl I loved, but two good friends as well. That said, it would have been nice to have known where, exactly, our foursome was going. Kyouko had simply led us off, insisting she had found something for all of us to do.

"Where are we going anyway?" I asked as we crossed a street. Hopefully, someone would know the answer. But Yui just shrugged, and Chitose just smiled at me. Neither of them were any help. I looked over at Kyouko and repeated my question.

"You'll see!" she replied. Of course, it was entirely possible that Kyouko herself didn't know where we were going. To Kyouko, that kept things interesting. Spontaneity was a constant of her existence. Or at least, it seemed to be. It was entirely possible that a good portion of her chaos was carefully planned.

As we continued on, I wondered if she had planned the two of us kissing the previous day. Or maybe that had been a spur of the moment act. Maybe it didn't matter too much. The results would have been the same, regardless. I set all those thoughts aside and instead tried to focus on what we might end up on our outing. There was a movie theater nearby, so it was possible that Kyouko would drag all of us to a movie. There was also a game arcade nearby. Neither of those really warranted any secrecy, however. Maybe Kyouko really didn't know what she wanted our group to do and was just leading us around until she saw something that caught her interest. Again, I looked over at Yui and Chitose, but none of this seemed to bother them at all. They were busy chatting away about something else entirely. We walked up one more block when Kyouko put out her arms and halted.

"We're here!" she announced. I looked at where she had stopped us: the Takaoka Cake Café and Bakery. A bright red awning hung over the over the front door, and cakes, pies, and various other pastries decorated the windows. Inside, I could see people sitting at tables and booths. It was just after noon, so I guessed this would be our lunch. It probably wouldn't be a healthy lunch, but it was just for one day.

"Ooh, is this place new?" Chitose asked, studying the a-frame sign on the sidewalk. "It looks nice!"

"It smells nice too," I added. The scent of baked sweets and bread wafted from the place. Just standing outside the door made me hungry.

"Yep!" Kyouko answered happily. "Let's not waste any more time. There's cake to be eaten!"

The four of us headed inside and sat down at a little round table. I looked around. It wasn't too fancy, but already seemed fairly crowded. Hopefully, we wouldn't have to wait too long to eat here. Next to me, Kyouko had taken out a menu and was studying it. Across from me, Chitose was doing the same thing. As the table only had two menus, Yui was looking on with her. So, I leaned over and looked at the menu with Kyouko. There was not only a variety of cakes to choose, but also pies and sandwiches and so on. It was a bakery after all. I might have suggested we get something healthy, but that would have been silly. We had clearly come to this place to try the cake, after all.

"What kind of cake should we get?" Chitose asked.

"If I may offer a suggestion, let's skip the chocolate," I answered her. Yui nodded in agreement.

"I don't know," Kyouko said. "If she really wanted to try it, we could-"

"No." Both Yui and I said it at the exact same time. Great minds do indeed think alike, I thought. Kyouko giggled at us and looked back at the menu.

"That's fine, really," Chitose said. "There are lots of other things to choose from. We could get the sampler. That way, everyone gets something they like and can try different things as well."

"That's a good idea," Yui said. "And a thoughtful one too."

Kyouko and I agreed as well, and that was what we ended up ordering. After we ordered, the waitress brought us a platter with eight different pieces of cake on it. That worked – there'd be two for each of us and presumably no squabbling. We weren't little kids, after all. We each took our pieces and dug in.

"I ate at a place like this once in Osaka when I was very little. I didn't have chocolate cake there either." Chitose commented, eating some carrot cake. Given what she was like when she ate chocolate, that was definitely a good thing. We didn't need a scene in public. I wanted to make sure we'd be able to eat at this place again in the future.

"Ooh, really?" Kyouko looked up at her, cake frosting and crumbs all over her mouth. "Was it nice? Let's take a trip to Osaka and try it out too!"

"We just went to Osaka," Yui pointed out. "Have you forgotten about that already?"

"Maybe I have," Kyouko mused. "Wait. What if I'm suffering from a rare sort of amnesia?!"

More jokes. It seemed to me that Kyouko's approach was to toss out as many jokes as she could and hope that some of them landed well. I had to admit that she occasionally got off a few good ones. And I had become better at playing off of her now. I replied "Given how much you forget your homework, I wouldn't be surprised if that's actually true."

Kyouko apparently liked that one. She gasped dramatically. "You're right! I do have amnesia. Who are all of you anyway? And who am I?"

"You're Kyouko," I replied. "And that's all I need. But you also forgot to wipe your face." Next to me, Yui smirked.

"You two really do get along so well," Chitose remarked. "I always figured you would."

"I agree," Yui said. "And now Ayano can put up with you. It's a refreshing change of pace."

"What do you mean 'put up with', Yui-nyan?" Kyouko asked innocently, though I was sure she knew exactly what Yui meant.

"Exactly what I said, Kyouko. Anyway, Ayano's right. You need to wipe your face."

"And maybe eat more slowly," I added. "You'll choke if you keep cramming cake into your mouth like that."

"Wow, unsolicited advice from both sides," Kyouko said. "It's like having two of Yui. Or is it like having two of Ayano? Hmmm."

"Either way, you probably still won't listen," Yui said.

"Sorry Yui, what did you say?" Kyouko asked. I laughed. I had to admit that one had been well-timed.

"I guess some things won't ever change," I said. And maybe that wasn't so bad. Kyouko will always keep things interesting.

"We should go out more often though," Yui said. "The four of us, just like this. It's nice."

"There's a Cambodian restaurant that recently opened," I suggested. "We could go there next weekend or whenever works for everyone."

Yui turned to me, looking interested. "I've never had Cambodian food. Is it good?"

"Really good!" I answered her. "Phnomenhal, even!"

Yui turned away and snickered, her hands covering her face. I guess she liked my answer. Or maybe the prospect of having Cambodian food got her that excited. I made a mental note to check our calendar and set up another group outing. Again, I'd have liked a date with just Kyouko and me, but I enjoyed spending time with Chitose and Yui too. It didn't have to be just the two of us all the time.

Chitose seemed to like my reply also. She patted Yui on the shoulder, chuckling as she did. Well, the two of them were certainly having fun. And it was good that someone made sure that Yui didn't choke on cake, though she didn't shovel it into her mouth at the rate Kyouko did.

"But Yui," Kyouko said. "We could go and eat Korean barbeque instead. Don't you think that's better for the Seoul?" I wondered how long she had been keeping that one in her head. Or maybe she thought it up on the fly?

Yui turned back around and looked at Kyouko. She was no longer snickering and just frowned at her best friend. I had thought Kyouko's line was cute, but Yui was apparently of a different mind. Kyouko scratched her head. "I guess I can't quite make jokes like Ayano can. There's nobody like her."

"Thank goodness for that." I replied. I started laughing, and the other three girls joined in as well.