Fuutarou 7

"Fuutarou? Is that you? What's wrong?"

She is standing at the top of the stairs clutching a blanket that is wrapped around herself. She has no ribbon on and her hair is completely disheveled. Her face is ghost white and her eyes are swollen from crying. She emerged from a different room. Yet, for some reason, Fuutarou knows it's her.

"What do you mean 'what's wrong?" I'm worried about you! You disappeared. Where were you? Are you sick?"

"I'm sorry," Yotsuba says weakly. "I can't tell you right now."

She retreats to her room and shuts the door. Fuutarou runs up the stairs after her. He stops in front of her door and speaks into it.

"Really? You can't tell me? Well I can't concentrate on anything while I'm worried about you, so I'll just have to sit here until you decide to tell me."

"I'm sorry, Uesugi-san. You should probably give up on me."

"Like hell! You're a real idiot if you think I'm going to give up on you. You can't keep trying to dump me off on one of your sisters. I'm not giving up on you, moron."

He opens the door and sees her curled up in a ball of blankets on her bed.

"You're a real pain in the ass, you know," Fuutarou says in a soft tone.

He approaches and sits on the bed next to her.

"Where the hell were you when I checked in here earlier?"

"I hid in Ichika's room when you came in."

"Well you were a pretty good ninja, at least until you walked out and called my name."

"I couldn't help it. I heard you crying."

"Yeah exactly," says Fuutarou. "That's exactly how I'm feeling right now about you."

He reaches out and slowly pulls the blanket from over her head. Her orange hair is splayed out in all directions. She is wearing her bear onesie pajamas with the hood down, which Fuutarou normally finds very cute, but it's hard to focus on cuteness in this situation. He reaches a hand to gently brush her hair from her face.

"It seems like you're doing better than you were before, judging by your puke bucket."

"I was so anxious this morning that I got sick to my stomach. Sorry."

"Since I have to wait here until you tell me what's wrong, I might as well join you." Fuutarou removes his sweater and shoes, then climbs into the bed behind the bundled fetal-position Yotsuba.

"This is the second time that you've had to come in my room and try to cheer me up while I cry like a crybaby. Are you sure you're not tired of me?"

"You have cheered me up a million times," says Fuutarou, "and now I do it for you twice and you think it's a big deal? You really need more self-awareness."

Yotsuba rolls over and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his chest. After a few minutes, she peeks up at him and pokes him in the cheek.

"Is this the first time that you've cuddled in bed with a girl?" She gives a mischievous grin. "Are you nervous?"

"You must be feeling a little better if you are teasing me."

"It's actually because of my dad. I talked to him and it made me feel a little better. I didn't talk to him about this, I just talked to him about how I'm always feeling inadequate and sad, and he told me I probably have depression."

"What is 'this' that you didn't talk to him about?"

"The thing I can't tell you right now." Yotsuba presses back into his chest and squeezes his abdomen. She takes in a deep breath audibly.

Is she sighing in frustration? Or is she sniffing me?

"Your smell makes me feel more relaxed."

Oh, she was sniffing me. That's…a little weird. I don't know how I feel about that.

He runs his fingers through her hair, then gently touches her cheek and ear.

"Fyuh!" Yotsuba jerks in reaction, and her face turns red. "My ears are sensitive."

"That is useful knowledge I'll file away for later."

"Perv!" Despite the accusation, Yotsuba smiles brightly. Fuutarou feels butterflies in his stomach.

Fuutarou leans down and kisses her forehead. "If it's the entrance exam, you should just tell me. You'll need to start looking at your other options quickly."

Yotsuba grabs the blankets and pulls it over herself again to hide her face.

Bingo.

"You didn't seem all that excited about that athletic school anyway. We can find something else for you. Just talk to me about it."

"You don't get it!" He can't see her face, but it is obvious from her voice that she is starting to cry. "This is all I have. I'm good at sports. That's it. And I'm so stupid that I couldn't even pass an entrance exam that was supposed to be easy. And after you tutored me for it. I threw away my future."

"I know you well enough by now that I think I know what you're thinking. You are telling yourself that I'm going to be super upset and disappointed. Well, I'm not. I really don't care if you go to that college. It's far from Tokyo anyway. And I don't give a shit about sports. I just supported you because that's what you said you wanted. Do you even want to play basketball or run track?"

"I don't know."

"If you don't know, then that's enough of an answer. Just because you're good at it doesn't mean you will enjoy it. What do you really enjoy?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you once told me that you are happiest when you are supporting other people…"

Wait a sec…No, I couldn't ask her…I shouldn't…that's just selfish, right?

Yotsuba's head pops out of the blanket and she locks eyes with Fuutarou for a second before planting a deep kiss. When she breaks away from the kiss, her voice has an unusual tenderness and shyness to it, and she says "I want to be with you….if you'll have me. That's something I want. I'm having enough trouble convincing myself that I'm allowed to want that. Even if I felt like I deserved to want more, I have no idea what it would be." She lays back down on his chest.

Welp, I guess I have to say it then.

"One option…I guess…if you want…um…you could come to Tokyo with me. You could enroll in a public college there."

"Tokyo?" She looks up and locks eyes with him again. Her electric blue eyes are shimmering. He can see something lighting up in them that he didn't see before. He feels guilty, but the light in her eyes makes him think that maybe this suggestion isn't just good for him, but maybe it will make her happy as well.

"I'm saying…you could come live with me in Tokyo. I know this is super selfish of me. But you said you are happiest when you are supporting someone else. You said you want to be with me. I'm not trying to belittle your potential, at all. I'm just offering up a possibility…but maybe…maybe you don't have to be a track star or a basketball star, and maybe you don't have to get a fancy high-paying job. I will. I'll take care of that. If you want…if you think it will make you happy…you could support me. Come to Tokyo and support me, and stay by my side. We can fulfill our promise from Kyoto together. If you're by my side, I'm sure that I can work hard and get a high-paying job."

"Are you asking me to be a housewife?"

"No, not at all. You could get a degree from a public-" Fuutarou says, before Yotsuba cuts him off.

"I wouldn't mind being a housewife, to be honest. I wouldn't mind dedicating my life to supporting someone else. If it's you."

Fuutarou didn't expect that response. His stomach flutters and he gulps audibly. He's not sure how to respond. He feels like he did when she first admitted that she loves him in the park that day, and in some ways it feels even more overwhelming than that. The notion of another person dedicating their life to him, especially someone that he admires so much, is difficult to even fathom.

"In middle school," Yotsuba says, "They made us write down our dream for the future. Nino wanted to open her own cafe. I remember that, probably because it's still her dream and she will probably achieve it. I don't think I remember what the rest of my sisters wrote. My answer was kind of embarrassing, looking back. I guess I was reading a lot of shoujo manga at the time. It's a dream that a lot of young girls have."

Yotsuba gives a sincere, vulnerable smile. It's not a look that Fuutarou has seen on her face before. From this smile, he is somehow certain, that she is sharing something from the deepest depths of her heart.

"My dream…my dream was…it still is…" A tear forms in the corner of her eye. "My dream is…I want to be a bride."

She slips her hand in his. A tear rolls down her cheek, but she is smiling. Despite her messy hair, her eyes swollen from crying, her face pale and blotchy, for some reason, for some strange reason, she looks more beautiful to him now than she ever has.

"When I thought about my dream back then, when I fantasized about being a bride, my fantasies always had a certain groom. It was a certain boy. A boy I met in Kyoto. A boy I fell in love with after spending the day lost together. My dream hasn't changed, even now."

"Are you proposing to me right now?" Fuutarou asks, with a bit of a chuckle.

"Of course not," she says. "Although, if you proposed to me, I'd definitely say 'yes'."

"Don't be silly," Fuutarou says. "Proposing to someone you have been dating for two weeks…that's just insane. What kind of person would do something like that? That sounds like something out of a bad romance story."