“Hi” he said.

Akane shook herself “Hi” she answered.

“I just came to bring you this.” He showed her an envelope with her name on it. And still she kept staring at him like an idiot.

“So, um, here.” He said extending the envelope to her.

“Oh, sorry” Jesus, was it just her or was she forever apologizing to him? “Please come in.”

He looked about to say no and bolt, but in the end he nodded and came in.

“Um, would you like something to drink?”

“Sure.” He answered.

She was trying hard not to stare at him. Finally she looked up and caught him staring at her.

Yamaa drifted his eyes around the house and pretended she didn’t just catch him staring. His eyes landed on a room that looked like a mess. He went closer and looked inside. It was filled with fabrics, there was a sewing machine and… were those dolls?

Akane came running to the room. “It’s not usually this messy; I’m working on some clothes.”

Yamaa nodded and went to the dolls and hesitantly grabbed one.

“Um, yeah my little collection. I told you I was a designer. Well I like to design for dolls. People tend to think I’m kidding when I tell them, so I just say I’m a designer and nothing else.” Yamaa was silent. “These are my models. They are way less demanding that flesh and blood models and they are better listeners too…” What did she just say?? “Not that I talk to them… much. I mean yeah, I talk to them, but they don’t answer back or anything and I don’t expect them to… I… I’ll shut up now.”

Why couldn’t she just shut up? Thought Akane. “I’ll get the tea.” Great, now he thought she was a maniac. She went into the kitchen defeated. She had wanted to talk to him so that she could maybe convince him to resume their friendship.

“Kurogawa-san? I better go” Yamaa said.

“Okay” Akane said. “But first…” How could she put it? “Look, I know that this is kinda weird now, but I do miss talking to you, without feeling like an idiot or crazy, and maybe if you want we could still see each other and talk. Aside from the dolls I'm quite normal… well no, I’m not…” She was babbling nonsense, but she couldn’t stop. She took a deep breath and said “I know after the elevator you were uncomfortable, I know you’re not interested in me that way and the reasons are entirely your problem, not mine. So maybe if we can still be friends… I’m glad that kiss didn’t happen… I mean, not that I didn’t want to, I did” Why couldn’t she just shut up??? “I did want you to…”

And then he grabbed her wrist, brought her closer and kissed her. Well that shut Akane up. She was so surprised she didn’t even kiss him back. Wasn’t he gay? He was, wasn’t he? He deepened the kiss, released her wrist and then his hands were on her hair, her back…

Holly! His hands didn’t seem to be gay. Oh, who the hell cares thought Akane and kissed him back.

Yamaa pushed Akane against the kitchen counter. This is not why he had come but it was happening anyway. If there could be someone who might actually understand him, it might be her.

And even though he had wanted to run from there, lock himself at home and forget about her, he now knew he couldn’t.

“She got him to talk to her?” asked Rin in a loud voice, “how the hell did she manage that?”

“I don’t know. I just asked and he answered” answered Yuko for the 11^th time.

“But I have been here for… months, I never got a god damn word out of him. How did YOU manage it?”

“I don’t know” shouted Yuuko “Have you tried to stop yelling and swearing and asking in a nice way for a change?” Yuuko knew she wasn’t being fair but Rin had been drilling questions nonstop and in a voice so loud that even she, who usually couldn’t hear more than a mumble from her, could hear her clearly.

She didn’t know why he had answered. She had only asked the same question she'd been asking since he’d brought her.

“And it’s not like the answer was much help.”

“Well something changed. If someone who hasn’t spoken to us in months talks to Yuko it must be because something’s changed” Yuuko still didn’t recognize the voices, except for Takara, who was right next to her and Rin because she had a particular accent.

After that nobody else spoke. Takara sat on the floor and put her head back against the wall she shared with Yuuko. She heard a small bang on the wall and knew Yuuko had done the same as her.

“Ne, Yuuko. Do you think Shigeko is right? That something has changed?”

“I’ve only been here a few days, so I don’t know.”

Right, Takara though, she had talked so much with Yuuko that she tended to forget they only met a few days ago and only through a wall.

“I wonder if a change is good or bad”

Yuuko answered and her voice sounded small and tired, very tired.