"Please forgive me."

With the pounding of my heart and the blood rushing in my ears so loudly, I nearly miss her following words.

"I'm sorry I doubted you."

Everyone stop what they are doing to stare. Kyoko stands before me, bent nearly double and my face burns with embarrassment from this dramatic public display. Again? I think. It seems the spotlight of everyone's attention will never leave me. I fight an almost irresistible urge to run from the room and hide.

"I must have seemed like a coward, afraid of what others would say. I was just so confused. I didn't know what to think. Everyone was convinced they knew what had happened..." She chokes on a and catches her face in her hands.

Silence swallows the classroom leaving only Kyoko's muffled gasping. Unarmed in the middle of this arena, hemmed in by my classmates' questioning stares, I search uselessly for whatever I'm supposed to do. I swear I can hear Kyoko's tears tap faintly at her feet. This is almost as bad as when everyone thought I was a pervert.

Kyoko lowers her hands with a loud wet sniff, but she doesn't look up. "I don't know if you can forgive me, but please don't hate me."

"He doesn't!" Himura interrupts. "Do you, Michi-kun?"

"Of-of course not!" Though even if I did, there was no way I can say otherwise here.

"I never wanted any of this to happen. I want things to be like they were. If you can, please forgive me." Fighting a new surge of tears, Kyoko's voice rises to a squeak. "I promise that, no matter what you may say or do, no matter how it may look, I will always choose to trust you..."

"He will!" Yamada's panicked curls spin toward me. "Won't you, Ametsuchi-kun? Say you will!"

"...always and forever..."

Again, what can I say? If only we could have discussed this in private, perhaps we could have come to an understanding and avoided future problems between us. But now, with this public scene, that is impossible. "Yes."

Kyoko looks up, a smile trembling on her tear-stained face. "Really?"

"Yes. I want things to be like they were too."

Yamada cheers. "Yatta!"

Kyoko approaches and leans her forehead on my shoulder. Fighting back my embarrassment—and at this point what is left to be embarrassed about? I hug her.

The class murmurs appreciatively. I guide her back to our desks.

"I'm glad that's over,"Himura tells Shimura.

Shimura shrugs. "Is it?"

* * *

Kyoko sits quietly beside me for the rest of lunch offering bites of food from her bento. She leans against me as if reassuring herself that I'm not going anywhere. Her warm and soft body is distracting. She manner is so meek and submissive that I think I could ask her anything and she would be powerless to say no. The thought is both enticing and frightening.

"Have you and Akiyama-kun signed up for the three-legged obstacle course during the sports festival?" Shimura asks Himura while we eat.

"But he's in a different class," I object. The whole sports festival is a competition between different classes which earn points by their placement in each event.

"This event doesn't earn points. It's just for fun. That's also why they allow mixed couples."

Kyoko giggles. "I hear that one year contestants had to feed a doughnut to their partner without using hands."

Shimura adds, "And there's the usual stuff like couples popping a balloon between them using only their bodies." She turns back to Himura. "So?"

Himura growls. "No. He says he's too busy with basketball at that time."

"I thought the first-years' game was in the morning? The race is after lunch." Shimura says.

Himura stabs at her food with a spork. "He says the sempais are making the kouhais come out and support them, even though the game isn't until after the race..."

Shimura looks skeptical. We are silenced by embarrassment until Kyoko breaks the moment. She looks at me shyly. "Would Michi-kun like to enter the race?"

Though it might be fun to watch others acting silly, I wouldn't have considered risking the embarrassment. But then, to be so close to Kyoko...we'd actually be tied together. I try to control my grin. "Sure."

Kyoko looks down, blushing, then peeks up at me through the fringe of her hair. "You'll have to hold onto me tightly and not let go."

Himura and Shimura lift surprised eyebrows toward us. That suggestion could have several interpretations. Unable to meet the sincerity in her eyes, I look away and nod. "Un."

Lunch ends and we move our desks back to their proper places. I glance at Kyoko from time to time. Each time I catch her smiling at me. At the end of school, she comes over to my desk. "Want to walk me home?"

"Sure! Um, what about yearbook?"

"I don't need to go to that right now."

What do you need? I think it, but don't ask. Though I'm glad we are back together, I wonder how she really feels about me. I wish she'd tell me, but if I have to ask, it would be meaningless.

We leave the school, walking in a silence that churns with unasked questions. It's not at all like the triumphant first time, though we still get a lot of questioning stares.

"Are those two still together?"

"I thought they broke up."

"Yeah, didn't he try to rape someone?"

"That's why he got beat up."

"But Wakahisa-sensei said—"

"You can't believe him. He's just trying to protect the school's reputation like he did with Miyamoto-san..."

We ignore them and walk on, my head spinning with confusion. What has happened here? We were together, then we broke up, now we're together again? Why?

She stops just outside her house. "Well, this is it." She seems to wait for something, but I didn't know what she expects.

"When I was in the hospital..." My heart pounds in panic as the question starts to slip out. "You visited me, didn't you?"

Kyoko nods, a look of apprehension on her face.

"Did something happen after that to upset you?"

Kyoko looks down and hesitates. I begin to wonder if she'll answer when she responds. "When I visited the hospital and saw my boyfriend lying there looking so awful, my heart broke. But, when I took your hand you..." She turns questioning eye up to me. "...you said her name."

It takes me a moment to realize who she is referring to. "I did?" I did just get beaten trying to save her. "I must have been thinking..."

Kyoko shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. I've already decided. I will trust you." A determined grin spreads across her face, but I see worry clouding her eyes.