Hello~ I'm sorry I haven't been able to update the past month, I was quite busy with my examinations before my long break, but now that it's over and done with, I'll be sure to be able to find more time to write :D

So here, have a teaser of the upcoming chapter while I finish it up~

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"Can I ask you something Ayano-chan?" Yukino-kun asked, his lips parting ever so slightly.

"Go on," I replied. "What is it?"

Yukino-kun looked at the ground, before finally managing to re-establish eye contact with me again.

"What is it about me that you like? Of all people, why me?" he finally said, gazing at me with his hazel eyes through the gaps in his fringe.

His question took me rather off guard.

"It's hard to say," I finally managed to mutter. "You're a nice person, I guess."

"Isn't Kashiwagi-san a 'nice person' too?" the boy replied. "Why aren't you with him instead?"

Nervously, I took a glance at my boyfriend, but he didn't seem angry at all, as I had feared. Perhaps it was just an honest question, an honest question which I had difficulty searching for an honest answer.

"Let's see. . ." I managed to finally pull off. "For one, you're really caring, and you're really sweet."

"What else?" he questioned further.

"You're really loyal, and I can trust you," I added. "And you're kind."

I had never really given much thought to how I came to love Yukino-kun. As a whole, I liked him for who he was, but when the boy stood in front of me and asked me to list down all the attributes about him that I liked, I found that I couldn't say the words from my heart. I was like a parrot, muttering words to please.

It was a bit hard to explain it to myself, and even harder to explain to Yukino-kun. I didn't mean to say that I didn't like him because of those reasons that I had listed -I did-, but it was difficult for me to pinpoint it to him that it wasn't really because of those little attributes that made me like him. I liked Yukino-kun because he was Yukino-kun. The sweet, melancholic, gruff, lonely young man who belonged to no one else but me.

My answer seemed to satisfy Yukino-kun, or so it seemed at first. We exited the main torii gate leading to the roadside, and once again I could see the lights of the city in the far distance. I followed Yukino-kun, still pondering over his previous question, when my boyfriend headed over to the road shoulder. I was slightly confused, but I went up to join him.

Yukino-kun leaned back, his two palms resting on the metal. In front of us were the golden and silver lights of downtown Sapporo up north. The glow of the city sent a pale radiance to pierce the sky's indigo veil. The feeling was familiar, the two of us alone with a spreadsheet of the glowing and flickering of lights beholding self to us. It reminded me of the time during the summer break of our first year when we admired the lights of Hokkaido behind the observatory building. Yukino-kun had brought his guitar along back then, and I could still clearly remember seeing him pluck his guitar and softly singing the lyrics of that sweet, melancholic song as the city lights spread itself in front of us like a carpet.

"It's much prettier here than from my grandfather's house," Yukino-kuns chuckled, beaming me a smile as I stared in awe at the beautiful sight.

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Sure is," the boy replied. "It's the things like these that make me miss my time back in Sapporo. Haven't gotten the chance to come back here in months."

"Well, you must have enjoyed this view as a child," I commented.

"I guess," Yukino-kun answered. "It's nice to get to see the city at night again."

I guess there was something between Yukino-kun and the beautiful views. I managed to snap a picture of the view on my phone, amazed at such a lovely sight. Who knew how Yukino-kun always managed to get these kind of views, but it certainly must be lonely looking at things like these alone.

His slightly curly hair gently swaying in the evening breeze, I watched as he fumbled around in the pocket of his pants. Heaving a heavy sigh, he brought out his packet of cigarettes. I kind of expected it, since he probably wouldn't be able to smoke in the house without getting caught.

Yukino-kun brought a cigarette to his lips. With his other hand, he took out a lighter. He was clicking the lighter close to his lips, when he noticed me looking at him. Our gazes met. He knew I was rather uncomfortable with it, but yet he still did it.

"You want to light it?" he asked me, extending his hand with the lighter in his palm.

I shook my head and looked away. I tried my best to hide my disappointment, yet at the same time I tried to understand why he did what he did. Yukino-kun went ahead to light his cigarette himself. He kept quiet for a while, the white smoke floating in winding trails through the night sky. The boy was considerate enough to turn the other way, so that only the faintest of the choking odour reached me. I studied the boy's face in the dim reflection of the city lights. His hazel eyes staring at the ground, he looked rather down.

I wanted to offer him a comforting word or two, but I didn't know what to say. We just stayed there in silence, neither of us saying a thing. Yukino-kun lost in his own thoughts, and me, over there, standing at the periphery Yukino-kun had his own world, and I had my own. It was a truth that I found really hard to accept.

"Why does everyone leave me," Yukino-kun mumbled after a while. "No matter what I do, they always leave."

"Y-Yukino-kun?" I muttered, slightly confused.

The boy looked to me all of a sudden, slightly shocked. He cleared his throat, before taking another puff from his cigarette.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean or scare you or anything. J-just talking to myself."

"You must be strong Yukino-kun," I said, not really knowing what to say. "You're a tough guy."

"My grandfather was really close to me. He loved me, he really did," he said. "He's a really nice man."

I let Yukino-kun talk. He had all this feelings and thoughts all pent up inside him, yet he still tried to hide them from me. I knew he was that type of guy. He never really let me into his life of pain and suffering, but that night, as we stood against the view of the city, he opened the door.

"After my mother tried to kill herself," he began. "My grandparents drove down from Sapporo and met me at the hospital. Mother was still unconscious and I didn't really know what to do. She just lay there in that bed. . . you know? All you could hear was the beeping of the pulse monitor."

Yukino-kun's tone was soft and mellow. Certainly it must be painful for him to relive those memories, yet he still did. I never asked him, but he did anyway. I guess he just had to let it out.

"So my grandparents met me at the hospital. . . and since my mother didn't wake up, my grandfather called my uncle and aunt down. I still remembered how he was on the phone, the worried look on his face. But then when he looked at me, he just smiled and told him my mother would be all right.

My aunt and uncle came soon after, then my grandfather accompanied me back to my house. We had dinner, then he tucked me in bed. I didn't think he slept that night. The next day, we went back to the hospital again, and still mother was still not awake. My grandmother was crying and my uncle was pacing around the ward. They didn't expect her to live, but none of them said anything to me. When she saw me, my grandmother just smiled and hugged me really tight. I was still young but. . . I understood what that meant. I just couldn't hold my tears back, I really thought I was going to lose her."

Then, Yukino-kun paused, before taking another puff. The boy looked at me, before shaking his head, blowing a cloud of white smoke from between his lips.

"I'm sorry you have to listen to this," he said. "I'll stop then, I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"No, go on," I told him. "What happened next?"

"My grandparents brought me to the park after lunch. They told me not to worry about school, and they already called my teacher and I was excused. We went to a swing and my grandparents took turns pushing me. It was really nice," Yukino-kun continued, a sad smile on his lips.

"That sounds like fun," I said. "I've never been pushed on a swing before. My parents were always too busy."

"You should try it," the boy said. "Hey, I'll be the one pushing you, don't you think that's nice?"

"Sure," I giggled. "Just don't push me so hard that I fall."

"I'd never hurt you," my boyfriend chuckled.

Yukino-kun took a deep breath before he continued. An owl swooped down from the shadows and perched itself on a nearby post. It looked at us with its deep black eyes. Yukino-kun didn't seem to notice though.

"Mother woke up soon after we came back. I-I still remember the look on her face. She was. . . devastated. The moment she realised where she was and how she was still alive, she wept. I-I just felt so terrible. I mean, do you know how it feels like, to hear your own mother saying those words from her own mouth? 'Why am I not yet dead?'.

She looked pretty calm when she said those words, but then all of a sudden she broke down and started crying. Those words, they're still fresh."

"But she's still alive," I told him. "She lives on for you. You're the only one that's there for her Yukino-kun. Believe me."

"Me?" the boy chuckled cynically, heaving out another mist of white. "To be honest, she's better off without me."

"Why'd you say that? She loves you very much, and you know it," I countered. "How could you say such a thing?"

"I held her back Ayano-chan. I was the reason why she simply didn't just bought another box and chugged it all down at a place where nobody could find her before it was done. No, she changed her mind. Her mind experienced a total flip just because of me," he muttered.

"She did it because she loved you," I replied, trying hard to stand my ground. "She was thinking about you. You should be grateful you have such a nice lady like her for a mother."

"I don't deserve a woman like her," my boyfriend said, his shoes kicking around in the dirt meaninglessly. "And she didn't deserve a son like me."

"You're a r-really wonderful son, Yukino-kun," I tried to tell him.

He ignored my compliment. At that moment, he probably thought nothing of it anyway. I figured that maybe I should stop commenting lest we might get into an argument.

"I'm sure if she had died back then, she would be happy. But now, she's stuck with this useless son of hers. What can I even do to repay her back anyway? What matters is that her life was miserable so she wanted to end it, and I was the reason why she couldn't finish the job. I'm such a burden."

Yukino-kun stopped for a while, taking a deep breath. He had only finished half his cigarette, but he stubbed it out against the metal of the road shoulder. The boy seemed less agitated now, which was good, I guess. It must be such a relief for him to release all of those things stored up in him. Yukino-kun saw me look at what he did to his cigarette, and chuckled softly.

"I'm just not in the mood to smoke anymore," he said. "I only do it when I feel like crap."

"So you're feeling better now?" I asked, hoping that I had helped lighten his mood a bit. "Since you're not smoking anymore?"

"Smart girl," he said, with a smile, before placing his right hand on my head and rubbing it.

"I'm just glad you feel better," I responded. "It must be hard for you, I'm sure."

"I'm glad you listened," he chuckled. "It's just so hard with no one to talk to, you know?"

"Any time, Yukino-kun," I told him. "I'd be more than happy to listen you out."

"Thanks," he said. "There's a lot of other things I want to say, but I just don't think tonight, after all that is happening, is the right time."