How did one tell a girl that you liked her well enough, but not in a romantic way, Jack wondered. It was hard enough to do in English, let alone in an inferential language like Japanese. Japanese hardly even had a word for love. When a boy confessed to a girl, he'd use some variation of the word “like”. A couple might be happily married for fifty years and never say the word “love” to each other. In fact one of his teachers had admitted, when questioned by some of the more curious girls, that her fiancé had proposed to her by asking her if she would always polish his shoes. The meaning of a message depended entirely on context. What was unsaid was often more important than what was said.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Jack asked.

Junko looked up at him. She didn't have the nervous manner of a girl in love. The expression she gave him was one of mild curiosity and Jack wondered if her purpose there might actually be school related. “Miko-chan and I have noticed you looking at us a lot.”

I guess not, Jack thought. He swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. When she said nothing more he prompted her. “And?”

“Do you like her?”

Warning bells went off in Jack's head. He'd had girls play tease the gaijin before, trying to trick him into making a confession for their amusement. He'd heard of other girls referred to as gaijin hunters, girls interested in outsiders purely for the superficial novelty of it, but no girl he might ever be interested would seriously think about dating a gaijin. “Who wants to know?” he asked. “You or her?”

A strange look, the shadow of some well-suppressed emotion, flickered across Junko’s face. “Both of us.”

Jack was tempted to laugh it off with a non-confession. Of course I like her. Every boy in school is drooling over her. But somehow, that sort of reply felt false. He had fallen quite firmly in infatuation with her since the school outing to the shrine. Jack took a deep breath. “Tell Miyamoto-san, that if she would like a favorable reply, she must come and ask me herself. Otherwise, she won't get one.”

One of Junko's eyebrows lifted. His reply was sort of a conditional yes, but was ambiguous enough he could deny it and save face if someone were playing games with him.

“Very well,” she said. “I'll tell her that.” She gave him a crooked smile and left.

Jack walked back to the practice field shaking his head.

“Did you do it?” Takashi asked, laughing. “Are you two going out now? Are you going to be a super lovey-dovey couple?”

“No.”

“Well, did she confess?”

“No.”

“So what was that all about?” Daisuke Yamamoto, a first-year in the 1-1 class with Miko and Junko, asked.

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Enough jabbering, kohais!” one of the senpais called out, inadvertently rescuing Jack from the burden of trying to explain. “Gather up this gear, take it back to the field-house and clean the club room!”

永 遠

“I should have picked a different club,” Jack complained the next day in the classroom the boys used to change into their exercise uniforms. “One that didn't meet after school every single day.”

“At least it's only until the fall,”

“We've got a game coming up,” Takashi said. “If we win, the senpais might let up on us a bit.”

One of the other first-years shoved his uniform into a gym bag. “We should be so lucky.”

“It's not like we're going to see any game time anyway.” Jack rose and followed the others out of the room.

“You might,” Takashi suggested. “You're pretty good at stealing the ball away from the forwards.”

“If only I could shoot a goal,” Jack said. “But we all know play time is not about actual skill.”

The senpais did indeed dominate the entire practice time which they used with uncharacteristic determination. Jack sat along the sidelines with the other first-years chatting mostly about video games and movies. As the practice time neared its end, one of his teammates came up and slapped Jack on the shoulder. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

Jack looked over his shoulder and his heart lurched against his chest at the sight of Miko standing beside the field-house.

“Jack-kun? What's going on?” Takashi asked in a rising tone of fear.

Jack had to clear his throat to make his voice work. “I have no idea.” He stood and the world wobbled under him. He started moving cautiously towards Miko.

永 遠

Takashi watched in stunned amazement as Jack staggered off to talk to the one girl no one dared talk to. “He's probably going to make a big, awkward and suicidal confession.”

“I'd give my left nut to hear that conversation,” Daisuke said.

“There's a short hedge by the sidewalk right next to them,” another first-year said. “If we could sneak up there, we could probably hear.”

“Yeah!” Several of the first-years jumped up.

“Not everyone!” Takashi said. “If we all go, they'll just move off somewhere by themselves.”

“Well someone's going to have to go listen and tell us what they say,” one of the first-years said and everyone traded glances. They didn't have time to play a few rounds of janken to pick a volunteer.

“Daisuke-kun, do you have your smart phone with you?” Takashi asked.

“Yeah, it's in my bag.”

Takashi looked back to the bags on the benches where they had watched the girls play volleyball before. “Good. It's near where they are. Run and get your phone, then sneak along the hedge and record them.”

“Awesome idea!” some of the other boys said.

“Right.” Daisuke raced away.

Takashi grinned as he watched Jack near the field-house. He liked the big goofy foreigner. But when your friend does something amazingly stupid, he thought, it was a friend's duty to not let him forget so he won’t make such a stupid mistake again.

永 遠

Miko grew lovelier with each step Jack took closer. Standing close to the field-house wall as if trying not to be noticed, Miko held her hands clasped behind her short plaid skirt. Her long black hair shone like silk in the sun. Though she was taller than many Japanese girls, Jack was surprised to find he was several inches taller still. He had expected to have to look up to her.

Jack concentrated on just breathing, his chest tightening with fear and his heart pounding in panic. He sensed a nervous air about her and stopped walking, fearing that if he came any closer, she might dart away. He swallowed, trapped by large dark eyes lurking beneath a pair of finely arched eyebrows which reflected her discipline and determination. “Hi.” Jack's voice sounded rough.

Miko cleared her throat. “Hello.” Her voice held a low smoky timber he hadn't noticed over the auditorium PA system.

Is this real, Jack wondered. Is this happening? Miko didn't seem the type of girl to go so far out of her way just to play a prank on the gaijin in front of everyone. She looked like she wanted an answer to the “Do you like Miko” question. As a faint smile played nervously on the corner of her lips, Jack realized that the answer to that question was important to her, and she wouldn't have bothered with any of this if she was hoping for a no.

Miko cleared her throat and spoke again in a slightly higher tone. “I hear you wanted to ask me a question.”

Jack drew back, his suspicions flaring. “That's funny, Sato-san said you wanted to ask me a question. You don't think she is playing a trick on us do you?”

“No!” Miko blurted out. “No, I also wanted to ask you a question.”

“OK.”

Miko looked away, then dragged her eyes back towards him, though they didn't quite rise to meet his. “We were wondering...wondering if...you might like me.” She blushed furiously.

Jack smiled involuntarily. He didn't think it possible for her to grow any cuter. He stepped closer and she backed up against the field-house wall, looking up at him in surprise.

“The question is: do I like you?” He braced an arm against the wall and leaned in closely over her. “I don't know how to answer that. Tsukino-san, in our class, has always been nice to me. I think I could say I like her.”

Miko's eyes widened, whether in alarm or insult, he couldn't say.

“And Takashi-kun always shares his gyoza with me. I know I can say I like him, and I really like gyoza, but I don't know if I could say like to you.”

He had only meant to tease her a bit as he felt she had teased him through Junko, but the light seemed to dim in her eyes and Jack felt the first rise of a different sort of panic.

“It's true that you are a very kind and thoughtful person. You're very smart and work hard. You're the top student in our year—aside from Haruto-kun—though I'm not sure he's entirely human...”

With each compliment, her head hung lower, her bangs covering her face. Crap! I'm blowing it, Jack thought. She must think I'm trying to let her down easy.

He caught her chin and raised it until he could look into her eyes. “...and it is absolutely true that you are the most beautiful woman in Japan.”

Miko's eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted.

“So, no, like is too insufficient of a word to describe how I feel about you. I'm fairly certain—if I were able to spend more time with you—that I would quickly come to love you more than any other person in the world.”

“Oh.” Her eyes shone and her mouth pursed in a round oh.

Staring at those lips, Jack felt as if something tore loose inside. “Has anyone ever kissed you?”

“No,” she whispered.

“May I kiss you?”

“Hai.”

Jack bent and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm. Kissing her was like falling into a dream. She opened and closed her mouth slightly, pulling at his lips and he brushed the tip of her tongue with his own. As he caressed her cheek and slid his lips across hers, she let out a low sound between a moan and a sigh.

Distant sirens or the howl of wolves sounded somewhere behind them.

After a moment, Jack was forced to pull back. He had forgotten to breath. Jack stared into her glazed, heavily-lidded eyes, her pursed lips, open and waiting.

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

“Hai,” she breathed, then lunged forward, burying her head against his chest and clutching the front of his shirt with one hand while wrapping her other arm around him.

The wailing sound grew louder.

“No way!”

“I don't believe it!”

“Go Jack-kun!”

Miko's ear lay against his heart and Jack thought she must surely hear its frantic pounding. “Ah. I was afraid of this.”

Miko looked up at him. “What?”

“I can actually feel myself falling in love with you. I told you, I might come to love you more than anyone else in the world.” He smiled down at her. “You've already surpassed all the women in Asia and I can feel my love for you sweeping over Europe and Africa as well.”

Miko didn't laugh, she just continued to look up at him with a wondering expression.

How is it possible for her to be so cute? “I'm going to have to kiss you again.”

“Hai.”

She rose to meet him and he pressed his lips against hers as pure joy exploded in his head. She made the sound again and her knees buckled, forcing him to cling to her tightly to keep her from falling.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“How dare you defile our Miyamoto-chan?”

The voices were both amazed and amused, but Jack heard an edge of real outrage hidden in them. With one arm still wrapped across her shoulders, he broke away and looked back right into the lens of Daisuke's phone’s camera.

Daisuke stood on the other side of the low hedge, only a couple of meters away, camera arm fully extended toward them, grinning like a fool at his discovery. Takashi and most of the other first-years stood nearby with incredulous expressions, while the rest of the soccer team jogged up to join them.

“Sorry guys,” Jack said. “You'll have to finish practice without me. I have to walk my girlfriend home.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No way!”

“Miyamoto-san, are you really his girlfriend now?”

They walked away slowly, their arms wrapped around each other. In a culture that saw two high school kids walking together hand-in-hand as an excessively public display of affection, Jack could only wonder at the scandal he was causing.