Yuto's POV:

   I duck before Ryosuke's fist can connect with my face.
   I laugh. "Congratulations, Ryo-chan! You just knocked out the air!" 
   But when I see his face my laugh stops short.

   His face is all red and he's panting, like he's all exhausted. His clothes are rumpled, and the hat that he wore to hide his identity is veering down his face and looks like it will fall off soon. His hair is matted to his forehead from his sweat and his eyes are hard and furious.
   "Baka..." he says so softly that I can barely hear him.

   "Uh...what?" I ask.

   He looks at me, eyes blazing. "BAKA! HONTOU NI BAKA!!!"
   And he starts smacking my head down over and over again.

   "Ryo - ow - suke - ow - Yamer - ow - ou - ow" I push him back. "YAMEROU!" 

    Ryosuke stops and narrows his eyes at me. "You deserved it. And it's getting late, anyway. We should head home."

   "Matte - we haven't bought Inoo's present yet!"

   He punched my shoulder. "And who's fault is that? Baka!"

   "Hey! Stop calling me that!"

   "And what's going to stop me? Baka!"

   "Stop or the universe will get back at you!" I say.

   "Yeah, right! How will the universe get back at me for calling you what you truly are! Baka!"

   And then a raindorp falls on his nose.

   "What the..?"

   In about three seconds, we're caught in a major downpour.
   Ryosuke looks at me accusingly. "What did you do?"

   I look back at him, eyebrows raised. I have to shout at him through the rain. "I guess the universe got back at you!"
   He rolls his eyes at me. "How are we supposed to get back home, then?" he asks.

   "What are you boys doing out here in this rain?" we hear a voice call out to us.

   Spinning around, we make out the outline of a short chubby woman wrapped in a bath robe and curlers in her hair.
   Yukiko's mom. 

   "Nakamura-san? Is that you?" she yells.

   "Uh, sorry, lady, but we don't know anybody by the name of Nakamura -"
   I clap my hand over Ryosuke's mouth.

   "Hai, it's me!" I call to her.

   "Well, what are you doing out there? Come in; you'll catch a cold!"

   "Are you crazy?" Ryosuke says to me as I grab his arm and start hauling him into the flower shop. "I don't even know that lady! And why the hell is she calling you Nakamura-san?"

   "It's complicated," I hiss into his ear. "You'll find out when I explain it to you."

   Yukiko's mom pushes us through the door and looks us over.
   "You...are soaking wet."

   We look down at ourselves. We are. The water from our clothes are dripping all over the floor of the the flower shop, making a pool of rain where we stand.

   "Ah...gomen nasai?" I say.

   She laughs. "Ah, don't worry about anything. There is a guest room upstairs that you can use. YUKI!!!"

   "WHAT!!" We hear her yell from upstairs.

   "COME DOWN AND HELP OUT THESE TWO!"

   "DIDN'T THE STORE CLOSE ALREADY?!"

   "JUST COME DOWN!"

   What was with these poeple and yelling? I think.
   Just as my thought ends, Yukiko-san is already coming down the stairs, wearing shorts and a tank top. I blush. She looks really cute.

   "Who are you?" she asks the both of us.

   Oh yeah, she can't see.
   "It's your best worker," I say.

   I see her face harden when she recognizes my voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"
   "It started raining outside," I say. "We need a place to stay for the night."

   Her face pales.
   "You mean, you're going to stay...here?" she asks, then pauses. "Wait. You said we. Who's that blob - I mean that person beside you?"

   "Ahh...this is my friend..." I look at him questioningly.

   He catches on.

   "Ah, my name is Yama..to Ryou..ma?"

   "Why are you saying it like a question?"

   For some reason, he blushes at her. "Ah...sorry, my name is Yamato Ryouma. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." He bows.

   "Ah...well, then you better come upstairs if you want to use the room. You should both take a shower, too, unless you want to get sick. Come on." She starts to head up the stairs and we follow behind.

Yukiko's POV:

   ~Twenty Minutes Earlier, just after Yuto had left~

   "Okaa~san..."

   "Yes, Yuki?"

   "Uh...can you tell me what Nakamura-san looks like?"

   "Can't you see for yourself?" she asks. Then she stops and gets a closer look at me. "Nanni?! You lost your glasses again?!"

   I laugh nervously. "Yeah, funny story.."

   She waves my words away. "You can tell me later and I can punish you later," she says, making her strict face. "But for now you have to get to sleep. You have to wake up early tomorrow so we can buy the new load of seeds that are being shipped in." She starts to turn away from me.

   "Matte - Okaa~san...I was hoping you would tell me what Nakamura-san looks like, since I will be working with him from now on."

   She turns back to me. "Fine. He looks about your age, and he has black hair and he is very handsome, though I wonder why he hides that fact underneath all those hideous clothes. He should flaunt it more." She eyes me. "It's too bad that you can't see him. He really is a very good-looking boy." There's a sort of smugness in her voice, and I scowl.

   "Don't try to make me feel bad," I scold her.

   "But it's working, ne~?" she says as she walks away.

   I pout. It is working.
   Then I think of how she had described Nakamura-san. Good-looking, huh? Black hair, about my age..
   She could have elaborated a little more!

   And then I go upstairs and change when I hear my mom shout at me to come down.

~Back to Present~

   "Um..here's your room," I say, opening the door for them. It's the biggest room in the house. It used to be my mother and father's room, but when they divorced, it became the guest room, and Mom didn't want to sleep there ever again. "You should take off your clothes before they get too cold."

   They nod and begin to strip off their shirts.

   "Ehh?! Not in front of me!!!" I say, and shove them in the bathroom.
   Gosh, even without my glasses, I can still see them...I think again. How am I this erted?

   I shake my head free of those thoughts and go inside the guest room to make their bed and clean up and find some leftover boy clothes from my big brother who is now in college.

Ryosuke's POV:

   "Who was that girl?" I ask Yuto, blushing.

   "Oh, her? She's Hiromi Yukiko," Yuto answers.

   Hiromi Yukiko...the first time I saw her, I knew immediately that I was in love with her.
   Is this fate? Finding her glasses and then following Yuto to find her in her house, where she lets me stay in her home...
   Plus, she's extremely cute. Seeing her in her shorts and tank top makes me even more attracted to her.
   Yes, it's definitely fate.
   And then I suddenly remember something.

   "Hiromi Yukiko? I found her glasses!" I say, taking them out of my shirt pocket. I show them to Yuto, pointing at the little name on the side.

   Yuto raises his eyebrows and his head. "Where'd you find these?" Before I can answer, he swipes them from my hand and stuffs it in his pocket. "It doesn't matter, anyways, she's not getting them back until the end of the week when I reveal myself to her."

   "Eh?!" I say. "What are you talking about? I found them, so I get to give them back to her!!"

   I try to take them back from him, but he dodges my attack.
   "I made a bet with her," Yuto explains. "She can barely see without her glasses, so she doesn't know what I look like and who I am. I bet that she couldn't go one week without wearing them and she accepted. Now I'm going to follow her around for the rest of the week and spend time with a girl who doesn't just date me for publicity." 

    He clenches his fists. And then something in my brain clicks.
   "Yuto..?" I say softly. "You do know...that you have to get over Ayane, right?"

   "You think I don't know that?" Yuto says. "That's why I'm going to spend time with Yuki."

   "Eh? You already call her Yuki?!" I say, jealousy creeping into my system.

   "Well, not exactly..." he says, peeking over at me as he takes off his shirt. "But she'll let me soon enough."

   I gulp. He doesn't know that I love her...
   Love has obstacles.. I remember someone saying to me before.
   Yuto is my first obstacle.

   "Yuto," I say.

   He looks at me. "Yeah?"

   I look away from him; I can't say it to him looking him straight in the face.
   "I...I..."

   "Yes?"

   "I...I forgot that I had to rip out your vocal cords."

   He laughs. "Oh yeah. Tell you what, how about we let that wait until after we finish our careers."

   I laugh shakily and agree. I can't tell him that I'd fallen in love with Yukiko. He's my best friend. I could never do that to him...

Yukiko's POV:

   I can hear the shower start in the bathroom through the wall. I hear the two of them laugh and joke around. I blush.
   Nakamura-kun and his friend Yamato-san are in my house, taking a shower under my roof.
   I wonder if Ryouma-san is good-looking too...
   And then the breeze from the open window comes in and slams the door shut. Sighing, I get up to open it again when I trip on something that I can't see and hit my hand against the doorknob. Sitting up and rubbing my sore hand, I make out a fallen object on the floor. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands.
   It's a circular object, but it doesn't feel like a ball...
   And then I realize what it is. It's the doorknob. I've locked myself in a room that can only be opened from the outside while two guys are going to come in soon...!!

   I hear the shower stop and their mumbled voices start up again. My heart beating a thousand beats a minute, I do the only rational thing that a panicking young girl would do.

   I jump under the bed and hide.

   I had just fit myself fully under the bed when I heard the door creak open. ! How can I get myself out of this?!
   "Hey, Ryo-chan," I hear Nakamura-san say. "Do you think these clothes are for us?"

   Another set of footsteps comes into the room.
   "Yeah, I guess Hiromi-san laid them out for us," the other boy's voice says.

   Looking out from underneath the bed, I see something drop down onto the floor. It's something white...And then I realize that it's a towel. Another towel drops down on the other side of the bed.

   "Oh my gosh," I accidentally whisper out loud. I slap my hand over my mouth.

   "Did you say something, Ryo-chan?" I hear Nakamura-kun say.

   "No, I thought you said something."

   And then I can't take it anymore.

   "GOMEN NASAI!" I yell as I scramble out from under the bed.

   I shut my eyes and try to make my way to the door, which they had already opened. Instead I end up knocking my head on the dresser and falling.

   "Yukiko?!" They say at the same time.

Yuto's POV:

   What was Yukiko doing under the bed?
   Now she's on the ground, rubbing her forehead on her hand.

   It was a good thing that Ryouske and I hadn't called each other by our real names or said anything that would tip our real selves off.
   I chuckle and take her hand and help her up. Her eyes are still clamped shut.

   "L-let go," she says, blushing.

   "I'm not letting go until you tell me what you were doing underneath the bed there while we were changing," I say, not bothering to tell her that we were already fully dressed.

   "I- I panicked !" She said, blushing harder. "The doorknob - I knocked it off and I got locked in and then you two started to come and then I panicked!"

   They both laugh now.

   "Oh, okay," Ryosuke says. "So I guess now you can open your eyes."

   "Are you joking?!" she yells. "No! Not when you're..."

   I laugh. "When we're what?"

   "She twists my arm around and I let go. "Ow.." I say, rubbing my hand.

   "I'll see you tomorrow morning," she says. "When you're decent."

   And then she storms out of the room, eyes still shut. In the distance, we hear something fall and Yukiko's cursing. We both laugh. What an interesting girl...

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