I realized that he liked boys when we first entered high school.

Well, not just boys in general . . . it was one boy in particular, and a popular one at that.

“Kyaaa! Shimizu-kun’s here!”

The usual cacophony of screams and twitters and excited giggles resounded through the freshman homeroom 1-D, and I sat resignedly at my desk, staring in boredom at the chalkboard ahead. By that time, all the girls had run out of the room in their collective madness, leaving only me and the guys.

They paid me no attention, of course; how could they, what with Hayato hovering around me all the time?

It would have been a gesture worthy of blushing over had I not caught on to Hayato’s thinly-veiled guise of spying on Shimizu Jun from the window next to me long ago, any pleasure I might have attained from his presence having been sucked dry by reality.

He had a crush on Shimizu—that much was for certain.

I resisted the urge to furrow my brow discontentedly when I noticed him peeking at the pretty boy from the open window again, reminding myself that any misgivings I once had about Hayato’s “preference” should have been erased by then. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help the corner of my lips from slipping southwards in rue, my eyes softening as I directed my vision away from my best friend.

He would never understand, anyway.

“Kaho? Daijoubu?” (1)

He noticed my small foray into hopelessness before I could let it wholly consume me for the day, and the worry displayed on his strikingly handsome features made me redden unconsciously. I waved off the concern, smiling lightly.

“Hai. Shinpai shinaide, Hayato,” (2) I said as reassuringly as I could, once more ignoring the sensation that flitted inside me whenever I heard him speak my name in his newly-deepened timbre. I quickly shoved down the sudden lump in my throat, relieved when his shining face smiled in return, satisfied enough with my response to continue his discreet observance of Shimizu’s grand entrance. I could have sighed at the loss of his attention, but knew better than to act like a spoiled child. I couldn’t always be his most important person, as sad as the thought was to me.

Out of my insatiable, puerile curiosity, I glanced over at where Hayato kept peeping at, staring at the school’s idol with a mixture of disdain and bemusement.

Why is he worshipped by every damn girl in this school? What the hell makes him so goddamn special? Was what I was thinking as I stared hard at the chestnut brown-haired object of Hayato’s interest, my jealousy destroying any scrap of rational reasoning that I might have had left in me then. I felt my forehead, as it always did when I found myself without a good answer, crinkle in annoyance from the headaches that that Shimizu character brought about.

Suddenly, I realized how awful my expression must have looked to outsiders, especially to Hayato, and I leaned back in my chair, promptly turning away from the window.

Unfortunately, my timing had been just a few seconds off, and Hayato gave me a puzzled look. “Are you sure you’re OK? You looked angry for a while there,” he remarked without a note of sarcasm or anything else but the truest of regard, and I felt my chest tighten at his remarkable emotional honesty. I shook my head, offering him another neutral smile.

“I promise I’m all right,” I told him lightly, and I unwittingly squeezed his hand for further proof of my sanity.

His gaze lowered from my eyes to our connected hands at my unexpected motion, and while he appeared surprised, there was no discomfort in his features. In fact, he even went so far as to grasp my hand in his, as if to assure me that he would be there when I needed him.

When I felt the warmth of his large hand envelop mine own, however, I deftly retracted my shocked fingers from his hold, feeling the worse for it afterwards. He sent me another questioning look at my withdrawal and had looked ready to ask me about it—had the bell for homeroom to start not rung right on time, and with its ringing a sigh of relief escaped from my respiratory clutches.

Mr. Dewa entered the room not a second later, eyeing the lot of us (for the most part) unruly freshmen with the customary imperiousness of a senior teacher. Usually I would have snorted to myself at the mere sight of his arrogant ass, but with confusion beams radiating off of Hayato and striking me constantly, I found that rather difficult to do.

“Wakamoto?” Mr. Dewa did roll call with a frown, his pen waiting impatiently to get the job over and done with.

Hayato, despite having been occupied with trying to figure out my mood, answered to his surname. “Hai.” Just as soon as that was over, however, his eyes immediately found mine again, and it took willpower I didn’t know that I had to keep myself from breaking the stare.

So engrossed was I, in fact, that I did not even notice that Mr. Dewa had called my name three or four times already, his nasal voice only getting louder with each repetition. It took an angry whisper into my ear from the kid behind me, Yabuki Shinichi, for me to even register that I was, indeed, in school.

“Psst! Watanabe! Just answer him already! His voice is fucking annoying!”

I snapped out of my reverie, thus severing mine and Hayato’s connection for the moment, and finally replied to the entirely irritated Mr. Dewa.

“Hai,” I mumbled almost incoherently while raising my hand, and some of the other students in the homeroom rolled their eyes upon spotting my person. Mr. Dewa frowned as well, but said nothing, simply marking me down as present and continuing his roll call of terror.

Upon noticing my diverted concentration, Hayato seemed to drop the matter, readjusting himself at his desk just a few seats ahead of mine. I almost smiled at the motion, musing (with some inner delight) that he still hadn’t gotten completely used to the seating arrangement of our homeroom, having been so accustomed to sitting directly in front of me for as long as we both could remember.

Again, my heart hurt a little to think of the blissful ignorance of the past, but I didn’t let the pain get to my head. It had become an everyday occurrence by then, unpleasant as it was to experience.

---

“Watanabe-san? Ano(3). . . we were just curious . . . is Wakamoto-kun your boyfriend?”

It was the same insufferable question that was asked of me on a daily basis in school, and it was always asked at a time when Hayato wasn’t there to answer for me.

Nonetheless, I negated the girls’ suspicions, keeping my exasperation to a minimum. “Iie,” (4) I said simply, pretending to work on my math homework during the lunch period. Usually I would have eaten on the rooftop with Hayato to try and avoid such bothersome inquiries, but it was cold that day, and those girls would have somehow managed to find me by myself anyways.

Noting that they still hadn’t stopped circling my desk like hawks, I looked back up at the girls pointedly. “Doushitano?” (5) I asked with affected concern, and the leader of the group, one Endo Ai, exchanged looks with two of her friends before addressing me.

“Demo(6). . . Wakamoto-kun always hangs out with you, and he even calls you by your first name,” she said with her easily identifiable, cutesy brand of harmless suspicion, one that made me want to gag. Several of the other girls nodded in innocent agreement with the not-so-subtle harangue, and I bit back a frown from breaking out on my twitching lips.

Who the hell does she think she is? I stared at Endo with contempt belying my surface confusion, sizing her up for a moment.

She was pretty, I’ll admit that much—her long, wavy black hair shined brilliantly under the afternoon sun, hiding whatever unsettling intentions she truly had. Add to that a set of perfectly shaped lips, contact-blue eyes, and a great figure, and I looked like yesterday’s leftovers in comparison.

She seemed to catch onto my scorning impression of her, and for a split second, an amused smirk flashed across her lips.

I blinked at the momentary change in persona from her, wondering if I had imagined it. Could I have been right all along about her? I was sometimes too quick to judge people based on their outward appearance or initial behavior, so when I caught myself thinking badly about someone, I had to doubt my pre-conceptions.

“We’re just friends,” I replied after what seemed like an hour of the battle of inner wills between Endo and me. It was the perfunctory answer for anybody who asked such a trite question or made false assumptions about my nonexistent relationship with Hayato, and, to Endo’s group, it was one that they had heard repeatedly for the past three months.

Normally the group would have retreated then, having been wholly put off by my disregard of their baseless skepticism. But that time, Endo took a seat in front of me, staring plaintively at me with eyes that were filled with false naivete.

“Watanabe-san, you always say that,” she said pathetically, and again her minions echoed the sentiment. I could have broken my pencil in frustration by that point, but restrained myself at the last second.

“That’s because it’s always true,” I responded with some impatience, fighting to keep my teeth from gritting. I couldn’t concentrate on homework at all by then, and silently begged the gods that Hayato would be finished with his damned bathroom break already!!!

“What’s going on, Kaho?”

As if on cue, Hayato appeared in the doorway of the room, staring questioningly at the swarm of girls that had gathered around my desk. I could have cried out of joy, so thankful was I that he seemed to read my mind without actually reading it at all.

I opened my lips to answer him, but Endo beat me to the punch, hurriedly leading her cronies over to where Hayato stood, the proverbial hearts of love dancing in her big, glassy eyes.

“We were just asking her where you were, Wakamoto-kun!” she lied blatantly, and the other girls nodded in affirmation, all ogling him in a similar manner. I snorted at the sight, rolling my eyes as I looked out the window again, waiting for Hayato to disperse the crowd.

“Ah . . . sou ka. (7) Well, I have to talk to Kaho now, if you girls don’t mind . . .” he excused himself, and though a collective moan of disappointment followed his announcement, they all let him through shortly after. Knowing how Endo and her girls were, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see them eavesdropping enviously by the door as Hayato made his way towards me, something of a knowing look in his deep brown eyes.

“Were they asking about us again?” he inquired quietly so that the other girls wouldn’t hear him, fully aware that they stalked his every move. He sat down at the empty desk in front of me, and I nearly giggled at his obvious relief of being able to sit in his old spot again. I settled for a small smile at the amusing display, putting away my homework for the moment.

“Of course,” I replied amusedly, and he only returned my humor with that irresistible grin of his. I heard some girlish swoons both outside and inside the classroom at the expression, and suddenly felt the urge to brood over the all-too-familiar sound.

“Sorry that I wasn’t here to ward them off,” he murmured, and I laughed a little despite his sheepish tone.

“Daijoubu,” I said, smiling gratefully. “They would come even if you were here—you know that.”

He could only nod in acknowledgement of the truth, smiling a little himself. “Sou desu. But at least you’re here to back me up,” he reminded me cheerfully, and my heart sank at his implications.

Sou; I’m always there to deny being your girlfriend.

The thought was too glum to hold onto, and before long we fell into a fairly normal conversation about how boring our day together had been, since indeed we did not part often throughout it. We had the same homeroom, the same lunch, lived in the same neighborhood, were interested in the same things—I suppose the only difference we ever shared was our genders.

“Kaho, can you come over tonight? I need your help with some things at home,” Hayato asked suddenly, and, much to my chagrin, the question was heard by a girl that was sitting closer to us than I had realized, and she flushed at his, in truth, fairly innocent request. Within seconds, another rumor was being spread about us by her, and I sighed, leaning my head onto my palm in defeat.

“Mochiron, Hayato.” (8)

---

“Gomen gomen gomen,Kaho!” (9)

“Daijoubu, Hayato! I told you, I’m not upset or anything!”

I dismissed Hayato’s excess apologies for what seemed like the billionth time since school had ended and since he had realized that he had spoken too loudly again, thereby feeding the gossip that was already in the air about us. I smiled lightly to reassure him of my unaffected state of mind, though, in truth, the knowledge that I would be ostracized the next day at school yet again was anything but pleasant. The fact that I was the best friend (and suspected girlfriend) of one of the most popular freshmen boys in the entire district had earned me few friends and even less goodwill. Most girls whispered about me when I passed them by or purposely reserved their nastiest of descriptions for me when they knew that I was in the girl’s bathroom with them, alone and vulnerable.

Shockingly enough, they had never gone so far as to draw me out by myself and gang up on me like they always do in those damn shoujo manga, but there had been enough close calls to keep me on guard for my safety. Hayato had caught on to the girls’ perceptions of me as well, much to my surprise, and he stayed relatively close to me whenever it was humanly possible. In fact, it had been his implicit request to his unofficial “fan club” that they do nothing to harm me in any way, and for the most part, his appeal had been fulfilled; the most they did anymore, as evidenced earlier that day, was to ask me about the nature of our relationship and then back off after I declined to give them the answers they wanted. Some of the girls, on rare occasions, had even tried sucking up to me to get closer to Hayato, though that too was to no avail.

Sometimes I wanted to chuckle at their transparent hatred of me, but mostly I wanted to laugh outright at their pure ignorance. How can they worship a guy that will never, and can never, reciprocate their feelings? But I knew the answer to that question—I knew it because once, I had been in their position.

Once, I had loved him too.

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Japanese Terms:

1 “Are you all right?”
2 “Yes, don’t worry about me.” (“Hai” yes; “Shinpai shinaide” don’t worry)
3 The Japanese equivalent of “umm.”
4 “No.”
5 “What’s wrong?”
6 “But”
7 “Oh . . . I see.” (“Sou ka,” “Sou,” and “Sou desu” I sort of use interchangeably—their meanings are almost identical, being, in order, “I see,” “Yes,” and “That’s true.”)
8 “Of course.”
9 “I’m really, really, really sorry!” (technically “gomen” simply means “I’m sorry,” but I think you understand this context, ne?)

Title of chapter (translated): Boys and Girls

Author’s Note: Just something I came up with on a whim. Because I have a lot of gay friends, and, well, this situation doesn’t seem too unbelievable, does it? I like writing in the first person, anyway—it’s a refreshing change for me. Hope you liked it! (By the way, the title of the fic, translated, means “Unrequited Love” or “Broken Heart.”) Oh, and if the footnotes are a bother, feel free to tell me so in the review. I just like using the Japanese language to create a more...realistic setting? It's a habit of mine.

CHAPTER 2 PREVIEW:
A look into the past of Kaho and Hayato, and a continuation of the present storyline—can Kaho come to terms with her feelings (or whatever is left of them) for Hayato?

Please REVIEW!! It would mean the world to me.