A/N: Hello! Happy New Years! New year calls for a new chapter. I honestly feel kind of sorry for Ichigo in this chapter (and a bit angry at his stupidity). Anyways, keep reading, enjoying, and reviewing.

Once the realization sinks in, it all starts to make sense. Everything starts to crystalize, starts to reform into something understandable. My recent actions toward her, this need to have her protected, the want to be by her side, all of it is becoming clearer

On the other hand, as much as it clears, everything becomes blurry. Because when I look at her, she is who she has always been. She is Inoue. She is the girl who smiles too much, who smiles not enough. The same girl who cries for friends, for enemies, for complete strangers. The girl who is beautiful both inside and out. The girl who is compassionate. And empathetic. And kind. And good.

She is Inoue. She is my friend.

No, that's not the whole truth. She's more than that. She means more to me than just that, and I want…I want her to be more than that, but I stare at her longer. I stare at her and wait for the image of her to change, but it doesn't. She is still Inoue to me. Nothing changes. There are no sparkles around her like I've seen in the Shoujo mangas Yuzu shows me. And my heart doesn't threaten to leap out of my chest when her eyes meet mine. Nothing figurative or poetic happens. Nothing monumental occurs. There is no indication whatsoever that she's suddenly different to me.

Everything is the same, so I have to ask myself if I really do like her. Have I really fallen for her? Because if I have, there should be something more, right? I know I want her to be more than a friend to me, but so what? It doesn't mean that I want her to be…it doesn't mean that I want her.

My eyes trail back to her as she pouts at something Karin says and bursts out laughing a second later, and she starts waving the knife that she has in her hand around as she tells a story. And I feel a pang of worry at how careless she is being, but more than that, I feel happy that she is having so much fun. I feel glad that she is smiling.

"Ah, Kurosaki-kun, would you like to help?" She asks as she puts the knife down.

"Psh. Ichi-nii doesn't cook," Karin answers.

I shoot her an unamused glance. "I cook sometimes," I argue.

"That's right. Onii-chan cooks for us when we are sick," Yuzu defends me, and I snort out a laugh when Karin rolls her eyes.

"You do?" Inoue asks me.

"On the rare occasion when they get sick, yeah," I tell her honestly.

"Oh…how kind," she responds back with a small smile.

I shrug my shoulders. "It's normal."

She looks over to me and smiles. "Right. Normal," she agrees. And then she does something that she is probably not even aware of, something that's a reflex: her eyes shift to the picture of her brother. I can see the corner of her mouth twitch down, and her eyes close briefly for a second before she claps her hands and grins. "We should start on the dough!"

They do while I remain seated as I try to soothe the small bout of pain that runs through me. Because the sadness that clung to her eyelashes as she gazed longingly at her brother's picture has my heart aching. And her words, her agreeing with me that it's normal has me feeling helpless because, for her, it was normal. A brother taking care of his sister was normal for her until…until it wasn't. And she is still in pain with her loss, but she is still able to smile. She is still able to bring joy to herself and to other people around her. She is still so damn bright that I…

I tilt my head back as I look at the ceiling. Everything is the same, and yet, everything is different. Because she might be who she always has been. She might be just Inoue to me, but she is…She is a cognitive illusion. She may appear to be the same, but beyond what meets my eyes, beyond my conscious and unconscious resistant to the truth, she is something else.

I look at her again, and I throw out the notion of the Inoue that I know, the Inoue that I cling to. I try to look at her without the assumption that she is just my friend and without the assumption that she will be nothing more, and like I suspected, something shifts. With no more interference, the image of her alters, and I can see her for who she is to me.

What I see scares the shit out of me.

I pinch the bridge of my nose as I close my eyes. A feeble attempt to reverse the image, but when my eyes open to see her trying to make a perfect circle, I can't stop seeing it. I can no longer view her as I once did. It's irrevocable.

A moment of panic starts to take over. Irrational panic because this, the way I look at her will change things. And I don't want things to change. Everything around me is already changing, and the relationship I have with her, even if it stops at friendship, I want it to remain the one constant in my life. Because if it's not, if I lose her due to this…

I like her. That much I can accept. I look at her now, and I don't see stars and sparkles and glitter around her. My heart is steady when she hands me the chopped vegetables to stuff in the dough. But I like her. I look at her, and I see possibilities. I see her by my side. I see her smiling at me. I see her, and I see me. I see us when I look at her. And that is frightening for multiple reasons.

Never have I ever imagined myself with anyone. Not in that way, at least, and now that it's happening, it's unwelcomed. Maybe if it had been anyone else, anyone else but her, I would be more accepting. If only it had been someone less important than she.

"Are you alright, Kurosaki-kun?" She asks.

No. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"Oh. Okay. Well, if you want a break from thinking, we will be playing a board game. Yuzu-chan is picking one right now while I put the dumplings to steam."

"Okay." I stand from my seat and head over to the small table where Yuzu and Karin are at. I spot the title of the game, and I want to bang my head against the wooden table.

"So which game will we be playing?" Inoue questions as she plops down across from me.

"Love Letter," Yuzu chirps in happily.

How ironic. Of course, we will be playing the one game that forces me to remember another reason why I should have fallen for someone else. Because just like the princess in the game, Inoue has many suitors. She never pays them any mind. She probably doesn't even realize the effect she has on them, how she affects them. And now, I am just one of them. I am a part of the many admirers that she has except that I can't pursue her. I can't ever let her know of my feelings because it'll ruin everything.

Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck. Well, I couldn't risk the friendship I have with her, and because of that, my feelings will never reach her. I don't need deduction skills to know that. And luck…I've always been unlucky. Because I have to watch as the man that she likes says yes to her when she confesses to him, and I have to smile while he does it because I'm her friend. I'm her friend, and that is all I will be, and I have to be happy for her even if it means watching her be happy with someone else. Because I can't be without her. I can't not have her my life.

So I'll be by her side, and I'll pretend to be able to look at her like I look at everyone else. And I'll pretend that it doesn't bother me that she likes someone else. I'll pretend and pretend until, hopefully, I can fool myself into seeing her like I once did.