“Um, I have to something important to ask you, and you can say ‘no’. I won’t be mad or anything, I promise,” Takeru began in his usual, hesitant manner, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Hikari. It was one of those endless summer afternoons where the air shimmered with heat and the hours seemed to blur into each other. The two friends were lying on the floor of the Yagami’s apartment, eating grape popsicles and only half-watching re-runs of Cowboy Bebop.* On the screen, Spike lithely dodged a volley of bullets and got off a shot of his own at the mad clown-assassin attacking him. Just watching it was enough to make Hikari tired.

“Mmmhmm,” she replied lazily, rolling over onto her stomach and resting her head on her arms so that she was looking back at him. A familiar, warm sweetness rose within her. In the space of six, short years, her friend had gone from being cute to being . . . well, cute. Dark with sweat, his dirty-blond hair stood up in little spikes around his head, and his eyes were as pure and true a blue as they had ever been. Currently, his mouth was stained purple by the popsicle he had just eaten and there were matching drips down the front of his green shirt. The stick lay on the floor in front of him, “What, Takeru-ch . . . kun?”**

Hikari gave herself a surreptitious kick to the ankle, relieved that she had caught herself just in time. It was one thing to know she had feelings for her best friend; it was quite another to let him know about them. As well as she knew him, she still wasn’t sure how he would react to her telling her that she loved him. He might think it was a joke and laugh at her, or might reply that he was very sorry but he didn’t share them, or might lie and say he did to keep from hurting her, or . . . . It was too much of a risk and she was not courageous enough to take it.

“Uh, it’s about the dance at the school,” he continued. Takeru always took a long time to get to the point when he asked favours of people. She feigned new interest in Spike’s battle, nervous and excited at the same time. Knowing Takeru, this could all be a roundabout way of asking her to the dance with him. She had deliberately turned down all her other offers in the hopes that he would get the message and ask her to be his partner. If so, maybe the answer to the question she had been afraid of asking was ‘yes’; maybe he did love her back and had been equally scared to speak.

“The dance?” she repeated, struggling to keep her voice even.

“Yeah,” he said, warming to the subject, “There’s this girl I want to ask to it, but I’ve got a big problem: I can’t dance. Since you’re such a good dancer . . . . ”

“You want me to teach you,” she replied tonelessly. If she had been a cartoon character, her heart would have been lying on the floor shattered into a thousand, red pieces. Since she wasn’t, it somehow carried on beating. It sounded loud to her own ears.

“Don’t sound too enthusiastic,” he rolled his eyes, “I did say you could say ‘no’, Hikari.”

With superhuman effort, she managed to force a smile onto her face, “Won’t Yamato be hurt that you didn’t ask him?”

“There’s a reason Yamato volunteers his band to play at every school dance,” Takeru grinned back at her, “And that he’s lead singer for them and not dancer. He has two left feet and two left hands to go with them.”

“What about your dad?”

“Where do you think Yamato got his dancing abilities?” he laughed, then sobered, “Hey, Hikari, you really don’t have to do this. I can ask Sora or someone else.”

Hikari looked at him for a long time. She could not imagine anything harder than dancing in his arms, knowing that he loved another girl and would be with her on the night of the dance. It would be like dancing on splinters of broken glass. She could never let him know how much it hurt her, could never let her smile fade no matter how she bled inside. At last, she replied, “Sora doesn’t know the Viennese Waltz, and I do. Besides, what else are best friends for?”

“You’re a life-saver, Hikari,” he sighed in relief as he got to his feet, “Meanwhile, I have to go home. Mom is actually cooking dinner tonight, which means I have to be around to put out the fires.”

She also stood, absently straightening her crumpled shirt and brushing invisible dust off her shorts. She followed him down the hallway to the door and undid the latches for him, “When do you want to start?”

“Tomorrow after school?”

“Tomorrow,” she echoed, “I’ll see you.”

“See you,” he said cheerfully, “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Closing the door behind him, she waited for Takeru’s footsteps to completely disappear down the hallway before she allowed herself to lean back against the cool wood and cry.

----

* For those sticklers for detail, they’re watching , which is called Pierrot le Fou.

** - Chan is very intimate. -Kun is more infformal than -san, but it’s not an endearment at all. It’s pretty standard for a teenage boy\young man.