"So, have you kissed yet?" asked the blue eyed girl with a teasing smirk.

Isuke felt her cheeks heat up and threw a pillow at Sumireko's face so that she wouldn't see it.

"N-none of your business!" she hissed, failing miserably to sound composed.

"My, my, I never expected that you'd get all embarrassed. It's so unlike the impression you give off at school," she giggled, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

Sumireko was quite intrigued with this formerly hidden side of Isuke, and she felt like now that she'd gotten to know this side of her, they could get along very well. As a matter of fact; they did. During the last two weeks, their parents had arranged several meetings between them, and neither of them really had anything against it.

"Shut up," Isuke countered crankily.

"You know I don't mean anything bad by it," she smiled, "I just think it's cute, that's all."

Really, they did make a good couple.

She had only seen them together a couple of times after they started dating for real. They had been holding hands a couple of times at school, and once Haruki had kissed her cheek, making her face turn the same color as her hair. And no one failed to miss how Haruki looked at Isuke's sleeping face in class.

They truly were a good pair, and Sumireko was happy for her new friend. However, thinking of how she herself had been rejected, she couldn't help but feel slightly envious.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, "Enough about Isuke's love life. Why don't we talk about yours?"

"There's not much to tell, though," she declared calmly. She had hoped to avoid this topic.

"What exactly happened between you and Banba?" Isuke pried upon seeing her face change slightly. They were only small changes, but she definitely reacted to the mention of Mahiru's name.

"Well, I…" she trailed off, thinking back to that night a few weeks ago.

"You confessed and got rejected?" she guessed, too impatient to wait for her to finish.

"Something along those lines," Sumireko nodded quietly.

"What an idiot," Isuke sighed, "Did she tell you why?"

Sumireko remained silent for a while. She had found herself asking that question many times already, but she could never seem to find an answer. Sure, there were many possibilities, but what was the real reason. Could it be that she just didn't feel that way about her?

"No, I left after that," she eventually replied.

The atmosphere in the room had, in less than a minute, changed from bright and merry to grim, and both of them felt uncomfortable with it.

"Ugh, this is depressing," she groaned. That was ironic, considering she'd been the one to bring it up. "Let's do something else."

Isuke got up from her bed and started digging through a drawer.

"What are you doing?" the other girl asked.

"Fixing those nails of yours," grinned Isuke as she tried to decide what color would suit her best.

"Man, job interviews are such a drag," Haruki sighed to herself as she walked along the sidewalk.

Only today, she'd attended two of them. She wasn't very eager to do any of the jobs, but she knew her family needed the extra money now more than ever.

She felt like she had made a good impression, at least. Hopefully, she'd get one of those jobs.

Now, she was exhausted and looked forwards to seeing Isuke. Just being around her made her feel like the crushing burden on her shoulders was lightened. She felt happier and more at ease, like she could finally relax and let her guard down a little.

As she rung the doorbell to Isuke's house, she prayed that her parents weren't home.

She'd been lucky to avoid them the last two weeks, only meeting Hiroshi once when she visited Isuke a few days earlier.

"Come in!" a feminine voice yelled from inside the house. Haruki let out a sigh of relief as she entered.

She looked around, still just as amazed as the first time. Isuke's house was huge, and they had so much expensive-looking furniture and decorations.

She headed towards Isuke's room, but made an abrupt halt in the doorway. Her golden eyes met a pair of blue ones.

"Good afternoon, Sagae-san," greeted Sumireko, giving her a slight nod.

"Yeah… Hey," she replied awkwardly, her mind still trying to make sense of the scene before her.

What could Hanabusa Sumireko be doing at Isuke's house? As far as Haruki knew, the two had no connections to each other. Yet, here she was, casually sitting on the edge of Isuke's bed, smiling politely at her.

"So, I was gonna…"

"I should probably get going," exclaimed Sumireko abruptly, "Bye, Sagae-san. See you some other time, Isuke-san."

They even called each other by first name?

"Haruki, that was-" Isuke began right after Sumireko had closed the door behind her. Haruki held her hand up, gesturing for her to leave it be.

"There's no need to explain," she cut her off. She wasn't going to make a big deal about it. It wasn't like anything had happened. It wasn't like anything would happen. She knew Isuke, and she wasn't that kind of person.

"I said I trust you, remember?" She smiled reassuringly at her girlfriend, leaning forward to press a quick kiss to her cheek. As always, Isuke blushed slightly, and Haruki wondered if she'd keep doing that every time she kissed her. In a way, she really hoped so, because it was incredibly adorable.

"I'm not gonna go all yandere on you either. If you and Hanabusa are friends, I think that's a good thing." It didn't seem to her like Isuke had a lot of friends, except for her and Nio, so she assumed this really was a positive thing.

Isuke shrugged, looking a little embarrassed.

"So, what did you come over for?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you to come over tonight," she smiled cutely, hoping to make her say yes.

"Absolutely not," she stated bluntly, "Isuke doesn't want to spend her night with a bunch of noisy kids."

"Come on, Isuke-sama!" Haruki begged, thinking about how eager her siblings were to meet Isuke. They had been going on about it nonstop for two weeks now. "It'll be fun. We'll watch some movies and play games and stuff."

"Doesn't sound like fun," she snorted. In truth, Isuke was afraid of going. She didn't want to make a bad impression with Haruki's family, like she had with Mama and Papa. She'd never been good with kids, and a movie night didn't sound like her scene.

"I met your family, remember? You owe me," she argued, but when it didn't seem to have any effect, she changed her approach, "Please, won't you do this for me?"

She played with Isuke's curls as she smiled at her, waiting for her to give in. She could tell it was just a matter of time.

"No," she said, but there was a hint of hesitation in her voice now.

"Please?" she begged cutely.

"Ugh… Fine," she forfeited grumpily, "But only for a little while."

Too happy and relieved to conceal her emotions, Haruki wrapped her arms around Isuke's waist and pulled her into a forceful hug. She didn't hug her back, but she didn't struggle to get loose either. Then again, that might be because Haruki held her so tightly she could barely even breathe, and much less move.

"Thank you, Isuke-sama!" Haruki squealed gratefully.

"I must be going soft," she muttered to herself.

Isuke changed her weight from foot to foot, constantly running her hands through her hair to check that it was still in place and smoothening imaginary wrinkles on her clothes.

She didn't know why she was making such a big deal about it. Haruki had told her that her mom wouldn't even be there, so she was just meeting a bunch of poor brats. So then why was she so anxious?

The door flew open and she had to take a step back to avoid being hit by it. After that, she froze in her tracks.

She wasn't prepared. She hadn't even knocked yet, so she assumed they must have spotted her through a window or something.

Two young girls stood in the doorway, grinning cheekily at her.

"Nee-chan, your girlfriend is here!" yelled the oldest one, a mischievous smile on her lips.

She could hear various clattering and rattling sounds from inside, and then footsteps.

"Hey, Isuke-sama," smiled Haruki as she arrived at the door.

"Nee-chan?" whispered the younger girl, who had brown eyes and pigtails.

"Huh?" Haruki's sister pointed at her, making her aware that she was wearing an apron. Realizing this, Haruki quickly took it off and threw it on the floor in a corner.

Isuke looked over at it. Did they always leave their stuff spread across the floor?

As she followed Haruki inside the small building, her suspicions were confirmed. Four kids were running around the place, throwing pillows at each other and climbing the furniture. There was a girl in the kitchen, preparing some food, and another one in the living room, picking up clothes and pillows from the floor while trying to talk sense into the playing kids.

Isuke had been right. It was just like a zoo…

Haruki scratched the back of her head and chuckled awkwardly.

"Sorry for the mess," she apologized sincerely.

"Haruki and I have been cleaning all afternoon, but we didn't stand a chance against these guys," smiled the oldest-looking girl, walking over to greet her. "I'm Fuyuka. Haruki has told us a lot about you, so everyone has been looking forwards to meeting you."

"I've been looking forwards to meeting you too," said Isuke, forcing a sweet smile onto her face. Haruki bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. Isuke being all nice and sweet was so weird.

"Hey everyone, why don't you come say hi to Isuke-san?" Fuyuka yelled over the noise. The children's attention turned towards them and they immediately rushed over.

"Nice to meet you, Isuke-nee-chan," said one of the girls that had opened the door.

"You have pretty nails," said the other one, "Will you paint mine later?"

She didn't get time to answer, because the others kept babbling.

"Why would someone so pretty date someone like Haruki?" said a dark haired boy.

Haruki smacked the back of his head, making him stumble and fall to the floor.

"Watch it, Aki," she hissed at him. The other siblings laughed as Aki mumbled something to himself.

"Well, the food is ready, so why don't we go eat?" asked Fuyuka, to which the kids cheered happily.

Isuke had never seen kids with such appetites before. They shoved down the food , seemingly without even chewing it properly. The only ones who had remotely decent table manners were Fuyuka and Haruki.

Isuke mostly shoved the food around the plate with her chopsticks. It wasn't exactly what she was used to, and the kids seemed so hungry that she felt like it'd be better to leave most of it for them.

"Isuke-san, you and Haruki go to the same school, right?" questioned Fuyuka curiously.

"We do," Isuke nodded, not sure what else to say about that.

"Is that where you met?" asked one of the other girls. They had already introduced themselves, but Isuke just couldn't get their names right, so she simply avoided using them as much as possible.

"No, we actually met through a fellow friend that thought we'd make a good couple."

"Seems your friend knows what she was doing," concluded Fuyuka with a smile. She had already decided that Isuke was a good match for Haruki.

It wasn't like she knew her personally, but seeing Haruki's face light up like that just by being in her presence was enough to convince her. If this girl made her sister happy, that meant the world to her.

"Nio is kinda weird," laughed Haruki heartedly, "But I do think she's pretty clever as well."

The rest of the night went by in a flash. As soon as she realized that Haruki's family seemed to accept her, Isuke managed to relax more. She did her best to appear polite, but after a while Haruki dragged her aside and told her she could turn it down a notch and be herself. If anything, that made them like her even more.

They watched a couple of family movies and Fuyuka indiscreetly had them squeeze together in the small couch between all the kids. At one point the twins started arguing and ended up pushing Isuke more or less onto Haruki's lap. To this, the kids began making kissing faces and them.

Later they played card games and board games while talking. Fuyuka sent the youngest children to bed, so it got a lot more peaceful and they were able to have a proper conversation.

Fuyuka grilled Isuke about hers and Haruki's relationship, down to the tiniest detail, and Isuke answered the best she could. When she ran out of things to ask, Aki began telling stories about Haruki, most of them being insanely embarrassing. In the end, Haruki lifted him up and carried him away to stop him from saying anything more.

"Isuke-san?" spoke Fuyuka after Haruki and Aki had left, leaving them alone in the room.

"Yes, Fuyuka? What's the matter?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Or well…" she hesitated a little, "I really feel like I should thank you."

Isuke raised her eyebrows. This came as a shock to her, seeing as she hadn't done anything at all, at least not that she was aware of.

"For what, exactly?" she questioned densely.

The brunette giggled as though she'd said something stupid.

"You really can't see it?" It was so obvious to her, but maybe Isuke couldn't see it. After all, Haruki only looked and acted like that when she was with her, so she might have thought she was always like that.

"Know what?" Isuke was getting annoyed, but tried not to let it show. Haruki had told her to be herself, but there was no reason to snap at Fuyuka and make her think badly of her.

"She's changed a lot lately," the younger girl answered cryptically. This didn't really help Isuke understand what she meant.

"How so? And what does that have to do with me?" she wondered out loud.

Had Haruki really changed since they met? To her, she still seemed like the same hard-working, yet somehow carefree, pocky-eating idiot she'd always been.

"I think you'd better figure the rest out for yourself."

Isuke gave her a look that clearly said "are you kidding me?", but Fuyuka only kept smiling secretively at her.

"Sorry, Isuke-san, but my lips are sealed," she stated.

"What's going on here?" spoke Haruki's voice from behind Isuke.

"Nothing much," the pink haired girl shrugged, "I'd better leave now."

Haruki gave her another hug, and this time she returned the loving gesture.

"Thanks for coming over. It meant a lot to everyone," grinned Haruki.

"It was very nice meeting you, Isuke-san," her sister said, "And remember that you're always welcome here."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said as she headed for the door, "In case I ever want to hear more embarrassing stories about Haruki."

Haruki ran after her as fast as she could, but she didn't manage to catch up.

"Why you-" she started, but Isuke ended up shutting the door in her face, "Oh well…"

Haruki sighed and smiled as she watched Isuke walking away through the window. For a while, Fuyuka just stood there and observed her sister's smiling face.

"You really are happy now, aren't you, nee-chan?" she spoke under her breath.

Hi again, everyone!

Just the other day I noticed fan art of my story on tumblr, and it made me incredibly happy. I really wanted to say thank you to gaberoid for creating it. Also decided to use it as my new cover image. Anyway, it looks awesome and again, thanks a lot.

Okay so, just a quick question. Haruki is getting a new job, do you want it to be at a construction site like in the anime, or at the café where Mahiru works? Either is fine with me, so I really want the readers' opinions on that one.