A Couple Of Hours Ago ,

Chizuru waved goodbye to her friends and set off on her way back . The second she was out of eyesight, she whipped out her phone and called him back .

Of course she couldn't answer his call with her friends around .

He didn't pick up though .

Slightly frowning and puzzled, Chizuru put her phone away and started walking to the bus stop.

"I'll ask him when I get back " , she decided.

She reached home soon and found his apartment seemingly empty , no response when she knocked and so figuring that he must still be at his home and maybe Grandma wanted to speak to her , she called Kazuya again but there was no reply.

"If it's something important, I'm sure he'll tell me", she thought to herself .

Sighing , she turned into her own apartment and went in .

The Next morning ,

Chizuru went about her usual morning routine , smiling quite happily. Despite the confusion of the end , Christmas and the pajama party had been huge successes.

"And it's all because of him " , she thought tenderly .

Her mind reminded her that it was already the 27th and that made her heart take a huge jump and her smile go up a few hundred volts.

"Guess I know what I'm doing for the rest of the day " .

After finishing everything, she sat down with the notebook where she had already jotted down a good chunk of her plan and went to work on the rest .

An hour later, Chizuru suddenly heard raised voices coming from Kazuya's apartment. Curious she got up and was about to go outside but hesitated just to be careful .

She might as well have continued because barely a few minutes later, there was an excited banging on her door .

Knowing that only one person on the planet would have that much enthusiasm and no sense of behavior, Chizuru sighed , opened the door and asked,

"Mini-chan , what is it ?" .

Yaemori stood in front of her beaming away before she happily chirped,

"Merry Christmas, Mizuhara-san" .

"Merry Christmas. Now what ... "

"You should come with me now " , Yaemori interrupted , grabbing Chizuru's hand and pulling her along.

Into Kazuya's apartment.

Chizuru began protesting automatically but the second she was inside she stopped.

Kazuya was lying on his futon. His face was red , his eyes were puffy and swollen , he was coughing quietly and a litter of tissues were strewn around his vicinity.

Chizuru noticed it immediately, the second he saw her, he froze and the two just looked at each other blankly

"He's sick " , Yaemori announced .

Yaemori's voice snapped them out of it and Kazuya tried to sit up straight as he said ,

"I told you, you didn't have to .. " .

A bout of coughing stopped him in his tracks and he lay back down .

Yameori glanced back and forth at the two of them and then declared,

"Looks like the two of you have things handled. I'll be off then " .

Yaemori dashed out , purposely closing the door behind her .

Both of them could hear her giggling all the way back inside her apartment .

Chizuru fully focused on Kazuya and thought to herself, quite worried ,

"He doesn't look in good shape " .

She walked a few steps in and sat on a cushion a few feet away from his bed and asked,

"Are you okay ?"

She noticed it again. The second she spoke , some sort of tremor ran through him .

"I'm fine. Just a cough . Yaemori came in saying something about her followers or subscribers or something and she saw me and ran to get you . I told her not to , but when does she listen?" , Kazuya replied , taking short breaths in between.

Chizuru frowned as she thought

"Doesn't seem like just a cough .

And ... why isn't he looking me in the eye ?".

She suddenly got up and without saying a word went into the kitchen where she put the tea on to boil .

She then found a pair of disposable gloves and put them on before proceeding to pick up all the tissues on the floor and throwing them in the trashbin .

Barely believing what he was seeing, Kazuya managed to get out ,

"Miz... Mizuhara? What are you doing ?"

She turned around and replied, while facing him,

"You're sick aren't you? So I'm helping ".

She turned back around and continued but through every second of it , she could feel his gaze bore into her back .

"Good , you're looking at me ,again" , she thought to herself and continued,

"Did you really think that if you pretended you were fine , I wouldn't help you? We've been through that very song-and-dance way too many times to stay away ,now " .

Chizuru smiled but behind her back, she couldn't see Kazuya's anguish .

Kazuya stared at her unable to take his eyes of her as guilt and shame nearly overwhelmed him .

"What the hell am I doing? ", he asked himself.

"I've ruined her life and now I'm making her wait on me ? What kind of despicable person am I?

I have to tell her " , he decided and called out to her,

"Mizuhara?"

"Yeah ? " , she turned around , with a smile .

The smile was too much for him to bear . He knew that he didn't deserve to be smiled at like that by her . But .. in that moment , he couldn't open his mouth, he couldn't tell her the truth because he knew what would follow. Her walking out of his life .

And so he shrugged it off , barely able to keep himself from being overwhelmed by that voice in his head that incessantly reminded him that it was all his fault.

He watched as she went back into the kitchen and then he was suddenly seized with a thought.

"If I'm too scared to tell her the truth , I should at least make sure she doesn't spend more time with me than she needs to . And I know how to make sure of that. Even if it's a crappy thing to do , even though it's what made us fight last time , I have to do this. And as soon as I can I need to work up whatever courage I have and tell her what happened. And to do that, I need to get her away for now ".

Regretting his actions as he made them , he pulled out his phone and called Ruka.

Chizuru finished making two steaming cups of tea went back out and sat down beside him . She put the cups on the table next to his bed and spoke,

"Here , have some tea . It'll be good for you ".

She watched as he gingerly reached out for and took a sip before he muttered his thanks .

Once again, it pricked Chizuru, that feeling that Kazuya was acting odd .

"Forget this " , she decided.

"Let's just ask him " .

She was about to do just that when Kazuya spoke ,

"Hey I'm really sorry but Ruka-chan just called , she's coming over " .

Chizuru's eyebrow twitched just a bit but she managed to ask matter-of-factly,

"Ruka-chan? Why now ? "

Still not looking at her, he replied,

"Well she called just now . I didn't say anything but she picked up that I was a bit sick . So she's rushing over there " .

Crushingly disappointed , because she knew what that meant , Chizuru answered ,

"Oh , I see. So I better head back ".

Before Kazuya could say anything, she quickly eliminated all traces of her having been there and soon was saying "see you later" to Kazuya .

Just before she left though, Kazuya forced himself up and called out to her again,

"Mizuhara "

"What is it? " , she asked

He hesitated again and said ,

"Thanks for doing all this ".

"It's fine " , she told him.

He was silent for a few seconds before he met her eyes for the first time and said

"I'm really really sorry ".

Chizuru was taken back again but assured him that it was fine before rushing into her apartment.

Just in time because five minutes later , she could hear Ruka's voice .

Chizuru sighed and sat down on her couch . Jealous and disappointed of course , worried about Kazuya, obviously but also afraid. Afraid of the way Kazuya had acted .

Chizuru somehow distracted herself the rest of the day , planning to go and see Kazuya once Ruka left and so waited for just that and once she heard Ruka's voice on the landing around 6 pm , she was overjoyed and quickly started packing the food she had spent the whole day cooking.

However there was a firm knock on her door and she opened it to find Ruka standing there.

Chizuru's acting instincts kicked in and so she was able to keep a neutral expression on her face ,despite the prism of emotions she felt on the inside.

"Ruka-chan , what is it .. " , she began but the high schooler jumped in .

"Don't treat me like a fool , Chizuru-san . I know that you know about Kazuya ".

Biting back the frustration of hearing her use his name , Chizuru answered ,

"I know he's got a cough . That's it. What's the big deal ? "

"Don't pretend " , Ruka retorted with some anger. Anger that stopped Chizuru in her tracks .

Ruka continued,

"Don't pretend like you don't care about him . Don't pretend like you haven't been trying to take him from me especially these last few months. You may have fooled me before, but I know what you're up to now ".

"Even now , this is her priority?" , Chizuru wondered incredulously before realizing that Ruka had picked up on her changing emotions.

"Guess I wasn't as careful as I thought " , she admitted

Chizuru cleared her throat and said out aloud,

"Okay , I get it. If that's all , then .. "

"No , it's not " .

Ruka suddenly rummaged in her handbag and pulled out her phone and suddenly her face lit up with triumph and that made Chizuru very scared.

"What's this ? ", she wondered.

Ruka scrolled through her phone until she found what she was looking for and showed it to Chizuru.

Her call log from earlier in the day .

A log that showed an incoming call to her phone from Kinoshita Kazuya.

At the same time Chizuru had been in his apartment .

Chizuru stared wordlessly at the log .

Ruka's triumphant smile grew a few inches wider as she gloated,

"He was sick and he chose to call me . He wanted me to come and take care of him . The thought of you probably never even crossed his mind ".

Chizuru was still silent.

Ruka continued however,

"So you better stay away from him. This time even he's saying it " .

She turned and left , heading back to her home .

Chizuru closed the door and before she knew what she was doing, she went straight to her bed and fell on it , hugging her pillow tight as a few tears sparkled on her face.

"Is this why he wasn't looking me in the eye?" , she wondered

"Because he wanted R...Ruka-chan ?

Is this why he was calling me yesterday ? To tell me he wanted to give Ruka-chan another chance? "

As her sniffling became louder and more pronounced, the waves of misery it brought grew as well , threatening to break her heart.

"I was right there " , she whispered into the pillow .

"But he chose to call Ruka-chan ".

The tears started falling now as the memories of how bitterly close she had come surrounded her .

She was just about to give in when she heard something. A cough. A hoarse cough . One that lasted way too long.

She stopped and got up and she heard it again , this time with more intensity and without waiting for permission, her body took her straight into his apartment, barely knocking as she entered .

She found him in the middle of a coughing fit and immediately found him a hot water bag , some cough syrup and a fresh pitcher of hot tea .

Eventually he calmed down and thanked her and for a few painful minutes the two just sat near each other without saying anything before Kazuya suddenly spoke up ,

"Mizuhara, I have to tell you something " .

She glanced at him and with a straight face ,replied,

"There's no need " .

"What ? " , Kazuya responded.

"No , Mizuhara, you have to... "

She sighed loudly which made him stop and then she asked ,

"It's Ruka-chan isn't it ? "

"Huh ? "

"Earlier today , you called her and asked her to come over didn't you ? "

Kazuya looked blank for a second and then Chizuru was shocked to noticed the faintest of relief on his face .

Something snapped in her when she saw that and she went on ,

"She came over and told me to stay away from you and that she'll take care of you and that you prefer her . Of course there was no need for any of that. It's not like there's something going on between us right? "

Puzzled, Kazuya kind of nodded not realizing the effect it was having on Chizuru.

"But her concerns are true " , Chizuru continued,

"During our time together, I've done a lot of stuff for you that only someone's girlfriend would do . And I've taken those experiences away from Ruka-chan. And built up goodwill of my own. But that's wrong.

So I'll take a couple of steps back and Ruka-chan should do these kind of things" .

Chizuru got up as she said these things and Kazuya finally realized that something was wrong and began to say ,

"No , Mizuhara it's not like that. You didn't take anything. And I don't feel like that towards Ruka-chan. "

Mizuhara stopped and smiled at him for a bit before she told him ,

"Don't worry , I'll still help you out .But if I keep doing these things for you, it's not giving her a fair chance. You can't say that if I hadn't done anything for you and if she had, you would still feel the same way?

Because these are the kind of things that... sway someone ".

Before she could lose her nerve in front of him Chizuru said a hurried "See you later" and left . Left to cry in her own bed, fully aware of what she had just done.

She had seen the writing on the wall and had reverted to acting. To pretending that she didn't love him . And that was the thought that broke her.

On his bed, Kazuya covered his head in his hands as he asked himself ,

"What have I done ? "

And so the next few days passed , Ruka-chan would arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. Chizuru would diligently stay at her post on their adjoining wall as long as she could ,listening to the sounds he made , making sure that he was alright but she didn't speak to him or go to his apartment .

And soon it was the night of the 31st , around 11pm.

Even though it was way too early for her to have fallen asleep , the strain of the last few days had made her sleep at 7 pm .

But now it was 11 and she had woken up .

Kazuya was coughing. Badly .

She ran into his apartment and saw him, lying on his bed clearly uncomfortable.

She approached him and spoke,

"Hey its me . You alright ? "

He mumbled something but it was indecipherable and Chizuru got the sense that he was mostly asleep .

She got his cough syrup and reached out to tap him to wake him up .

She immediately recoiled .

He was burning.

"Damn it . He has a temperature " , she realized and quickly went back to her apartment and got a tablet .

She then tapped him on the shoulder urgently till he woke up partially and she fed him the tablet and his cough syrup .

He calmed down and went back to sleep and Chizuru breathed a sigh of relief.

It lasted for a second before all the difficulties of the last couple of days came back to her ..

"Why did you do all that ? " , she wondered but that also lasted only for a second because Kazuya started coughing violently again.

She tried everything she knew but he didn't stop.

Maybe it was desperation , maybe it was her own loneliness but she crawled forward and reached out , gently pulled him towards herself and placed his head on her lap , which almost immediately helped him breathe slightly easier.

Even through her tights she could feel his head burning away . She had a cold compress ready and so gently worked on him and she kept at it , relentlessly until she heard a chiming on her phone and loud noises going off all around them.

"It's The New Year" , she realized.

She looked at him and suddenly burst into tears. Because she had just remembered what she planned to do with Kazuya at this exact time .

The both of them together, at the shrine. And she would tell him .

The tears fell as old wounds reopened for Chizuru and her family flooded her mind, her longing for them .

"I'm a curse " , she thought bitterly.

"My parents were happily married till I came along.

My Grandparents were alive till I came along.

And him ... he was happy and safe too.

And now this ? How can this be a coincidence ?

I've never known him to have even a cold.

Now he has a burning fever on the very day I was going to tell him I loved him .

But that's all over ", she decided through her tears

"I'll take care of him now . Then I'll walk away . I'll let him be happy with whoever he wants . I'll stop hurting him .

I just want him to be happy " .

"Who ?" , that voice in her mind, the one that had led her through her feelings asked.

In a wave of emotion , with tears streaming down her face , his head burning on her lap , she reached out and placed her hand on his forehead ,gently caressing it and quietly breathed,

"Kazuya " .

The emotion had pulled his name from her for the first time and that made her cry even more .

"Mizuhara " , a weak voice spoke .

"It can't be", she thought to herself.

" The medicine he took was sleep inducing. He shouldn't be awake . "

But his voice called again,

"Mizuhara "

She froze , tears hanging off her eyelashes .

"K... Kazuya? " , she asked in a small voice

"Mizuhara " , he spoke ,

"I need to tell you . You have to know " .

"W...what ? "

Stopping to cough, Kazuya replied,

"Grandma and ... my parents, they know. About Ruka-chan ".

Chizuru gasped but hurriedly brushed it aside ,

"It doesn't matter. We'll figure it out . Now you sleep ".

"No " , he said forcefully and then descended into more coughs .

He ignored her protests and continued,

"Mami-chan, she ... she knows about us . The truth. The movie . The crowdfunding. And ... your real name ".

His eyes filled with tears ,

"I'm so sorry Mizuhara. It's my fault and I.. "

He was stopped in his tracks when he felt her hand tightly grab his shoulder.

"It's fine " , she said .

"We can handle it " .

Kazuya stared at her incredulously but she didn't care . Because she finally understood. Why he had been acting weird.

It wasn't because he had chosen Ruka-chan

"It's because he was trying to protect me " , she realized, feeling the warmth of her feelings again.

Without saying any of that out loud , she gently placed him back in his bed and rested his head on his pillow .

Once again, she told him,

"Whatever it is, we'll deal with it tomorrow, okay ? And don't worry . I'm not mad , I don't blame you, okay ? "

Kazuya nodded and Chizuru was about to leave when he suddenly spoke up again,

"Even if you hadn't done all this or anything for me , these last two years ... "

She turned and asked,

"What ? "

He continued, unperturbed,

"If I hadn't met you, I would have hated it. I would have hated not knowing you ".

Chizuru's eyes lit up and she almost sniffled again but she managed to thank him and threaten him with dire consequences if he didn't go back to sleep .

She stood on his doorstep for a good ten minutes as he drifted off and a peaceful smile broke out on his face .

A/N: A very difficult moment in their lives but Kazuya and Chizuru have gotten through it .

An important announcement. The next Chapter (number 22 ) will be released as usual next Wednesday but after that I'll be unavoidably busy and so Resonance will be on break the following 2 weeks .

Next Time: A bright morning and a magical night