Syo, Katashi and Haruna had known each other since they were born. Their families were very close. Katashi used to live opposite Syo's family bakery, before moving to a larger house when his sisters were born. Haruna's mother often helped out in the bakery during its early days, and she would bring Haruna around to play.

Haruna's parents had died in a plane crash when she was 4-years-old, leaving her in the hands of her 15-year-old brother. At the time her parents were returning from a trip to visit their sick grandmother in Hokkaido for a week, and Haruna and Rui were under the watch of Katashi's family.

That time was a hard struggle. Haruna could hardly comprehend the situation at the time, but somehow Syo and Katashi had managed to understand and stuck by her until it sunk in. Once Rui had turned 16 and started going to high school, he started single-handedly raising Haruna. Currently, at 26-years-old, Rui was busy repaying debts to Syo's and Katashi's families through his job and Haruna's part-time job.

They met Mirai and Riku in 5th grade. Riku was stoic, rather blunt child who said whatever came to her mind, raised in a household were expressing your thoughts was encouraged to no bounds. This caused people to dislike her. Mirai was tall for a 5th grader, but he was teased because of his girlish name.

Eventually they all managed to become friends, because all of them were often misunderstood. Haruna had made all of them join hands, and declared a promise to be friends forever.

This was a moment I remember being happy.

Shoya has severe dyscalculia. It means he has difficulty in any and every form of math. He can't tell addition apart from multiplication, doesn't know how to solve 3 + 24 - 24 without thinking hard on it, etc.

Things were really difficult for him. But when he was diagnosed, they said he didn't have a spot of dyslexia. Rather, his language skills were stronger than average.

Now, he can speak 18 languages fluently and knows basic Ukrainian, Irish, Polish and Spanish. Sora wants him to learn Bulgarian and Welsh too. However, learning languages made no impact on his personality. Because he also has dysthymia, a disorder where the person thinks it's normal to be depressed all the time.

So when someone displeased him, he'd start cursing in Cantonese or Hindi or some other language under his breath. However, when he first spoke fluently in English, Mandarin and Hebrew, everyone was overjoyed.

This was a moment I remember being happy.

Last year was difficult for Souta. His girlfriend was going through extreme conditions, being shoved around her family following her parent's divorce. Neither parent wanted to keep her, but hardly anyone managed to keep her themselves. In short, nobody wanted her.

Souta was out of his mind with worry over her. The desperate look on his face and how deranged he was was something nobody could erase from their mind. He completely flipped out when she was going to be sent off to Jamaica by her uncle. Instead, he brought her home.

He found her an studio apartment close by their home. He visited her daily. He himself enrolled in a part-time job to support her. They studied their butts off and got her a scholarship in a university.

Even though getting by is difficult, the look of relief and the return of his smiles was more than enough.

This was a moment I remember being happy.

Sora was so happy when she started going out with her boyfriend. She gained motivation to be going by every day. The day she declared it. The day she taught him.

"Love is supposed to make you happy."

Sora always held a high position amongst the siblings. She was the most influential, and they always found themselves trying to gain her approval. All three brothers always respected her.

Sora isn't wrong. But he was not happy. This feeling was not the same as before. Love is supposed to make you happy. He wasn't happy. Therefore...

This wasn't love.

***

"Hey, Haruna?!"

Everyone froze, staring at Haruna and Syo. It was pretty obvious she had least managed to knock out a tooth. Syo tasted blood, and Haruna was shocked.

"I'm sorry!" she shrieked, withdrawing her hand immediately and shaking it. "Sorry, Syo-chan! I didn't mean to–!"

Instead, Syo suddenly started laughing. It wasn't maniacal, and it wasn't forced. His jaw hurt, but he couldn't help but laugh.

"Syo...?" Katashi cocked his head, confused.

"Oww..." Syo groaned, but he was still laughing.

"Great job, Haruna-chan! You broke his brain!" Mirai yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"Uh..." Haruna looked around for something, but she didn't know what.

"No...no..." Syo waved his hand, bringing himself under control. "It's just... As usual, Haruna's punches get me back down to earth."

"Eh?" Haruna was confused and still flustered.

Instead, somebody smacked his head. "It doesn't give you a right to start laughing your head off, b*stard."

Syo turned, rubbing the back of his head to see Shoya. Shoya scanned Syo, and then said, "You have some fixing to do." He grabbed Syo's wrist and started dragging him to the door.

"Wai– hang on, Onii. Wh-where are we going?" Syo stammered, trying to pull free. Shoya didn't answer and continued to attempt dragging him out of the door. Meanwhile, Sora sunk into a chair, holding her head in her hands.

"What's wrong, Aneki?" Souta asked, glancing at her.

"I never knew....my words had such a big impact on you guys." Sora murmured.

Souta stared at her, then smiled a little. "Well, yeah. In our eyes, Aneki is someone we respect, someone who can't be wrong. Even more so for Syo and Shoya."

"Is that so...." Sora muttered.

"It's okay, though!" Souta told her cheerily. "They still have minds of their own. You're just really influential for us."

Sora smiled at him weakly, but then they heard a loud THUD! They both looked around, to see there was a small commotion at the door. Sora stood up to get a better view, and gasped. Souta, being taller than her, had already seen. Seiko was standing at the door, arguing with Shoya.

"Eh?" Shoya made a disgusted face. "What do you want? Piss off."

"I did not come here to deal with your rudeness." Seiko scoffed. "I came for my boyfriend. I wanted to give him something. But here I am, and everyone is ganging up against me?"

"Who the f*ck are you calling your boyfriend?" Shoya snarked.

Seiko contradicted. "I request you let him go."

"You can't boss me around in my own house." Shoya told her. "So I suggest you take your a** somewhere else."

"What the hell..." Seiko was getting highly impatient. She looked around at Syo, who wasn't looking at her. "Syo-kun, can you please say something to your brother?"

"No he cannot," Shoya interjected. "Because I'm older than him and we have something known as 'respect your elders', which you clearly have not implemented on yourself, chienne."

Seiko clicked her tongue irritably. "What does that mean?"

Shoya ignored her. "Anyway," He yanked Syo towards himself. "Since this boy will listen to his Onii-chan, he's gonna break up with you, right here, right now."

Now Seiko laughed. "You underestimate Syo-kun. He won't break up with me just because his Onii-chan said so. He loves me."

There was a loud sound, and they looked around to see Haruna rearing against Mirai and Katashi to get to her. She gave up fighting against them and yelled, "Do you love him?!"

"Of course!" Seiko answered immediately.

"Oka-san, can you get a mint or something?" Shoya yelled over his shoulder. "This b*tch right here is talking so much trash her breath is starting to smell."

"What the–" Seiko had really reached the brink of her patience

"H-hang on, Shoya. Calm down..." his mother stammered, but she was cut across.

"Will all of you please stop speaking on his behalf?!" Seiko shouted. "Right, Syo-kun?"

Now everyone had become silent. She was right. Syo himself hadn't said a word. He was staring at the ground, his wrist limp in Shoya's hand. Everyone looked at Syo.

Syo gripped his hands. He was the only one left to take initiative. He closed his eyes.

What is happiness? Am I happy?

"Love is supposed to make you happy."

Seiko's declaration that she loved him, the fact that she was arguing over him....did not make him happy. Because he knew the reason. This fake love did not make him happy.

Everyone defending him, getting angry on his behalf, willing to protect him....made him happy. This feeling of love that he felt from all of them made him happy.

"Syo-kun, you love me right?" Seiko asked again.

"No."

Seiko felt everything break with that single word. She stumbled backwards, shaking her head. "What did you say, Syo-kun?" she stuttered, smiling lopsidedly.

"I don't love you." Syo repeated clearly, still staring at the ground.

"Wha... you're lying!" Seiko screamed. She lunged at him, and yanked up his sleeves and showed his arms everyone. "See?! This is proof that he loves me! Proof!"

Everyone merely stared at her in disgust. They couldn't comprehend the inhumanity they were seeing before them.

"That's just proof how miserable you made him..." Haruna mumbled.

Syo moved away from her, and pulled down his right sleeve, only exposing his left arm.

"This is proof how much I loved you." Syo said plainly, holding up his left arm. Then he pulled up his right sleeve, and his expression became hard. "This is how much I hate you." He pulled up his shirt, and Souta felt the strength leave his legs, seeing the long cuts along his stomach.

"This is how much I loved everyone else." Syo said, a tone of finality in his voice.

Seiko stumbled away from him. "What...." Her eyes focused on his face for some time, and finally, she ran to the counter and pulled out a knife they used to cut bread, and put it against her neck.

"Hey–"

"I told you, didn't I?!" Seiko yelled. "I told you, that if I didn't have you, I'll die! I told you!" Her face showed a twisted smile. "Because of you...all of you...I'M GOING TO DIE! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING I GO THROUGH!!" Her eyes darted here and there. "All the pressure the put on me, how refined I have to be, all because I have a rich family. But at the end I'm not even recognized for it?! What's the point of being so reknown is you can't even use it?!"

Somebody slapped the knife out of her hand, and it skidded across the floor. Haruna's face was hidden in the shadow of her bangs.

"How much you suffered?" Haruna mumbled. "That's just your rich girl problems." She looked up at her and shouted. "MY ANI HAS FALLEN CRITICALLY ILL TWICE, AND YET HE MANAGED TO RAISE ME SOMEHOW! SOMEHOW, HE GIVES ME SOMETHING TO EAT THREE TIMES A DAY!! SOMEHOW, HE'S REPAYING HIS DEBTS! HE SLEEPS AT 1 IN THE MORNING AND STARTS WORKING AT 4!! IMAGINE A BROTHER RAISING HIS 11 YEARS YOUNGER SISTER!! CAN YOU EVEN BEGIN TO IMAGINE WHAT IT IS LIKE?! CAN YOU?!"

Seiko's pupils were dilated, incomprehensible.

Haruna spread out her arms. "Even after all that, there could be people who suffered more than him. There could be people who suffer more than me, and people who suffer more than them! Everybody suffers! When I think of it like that, I thank God that I'm alive and healthy." Haruna looked down on her. "So don't go talking about suffering, when you should be having so much to thank for."

There was dead silence. Then finally, Syo's mother, who was silent all this time, drew herself up. She marched over to Seiko. She crouched down in front of her, and smiled. It didn't look friendly at all.

"Honey, I need to talk to your parents, okay?" she told her.

The door opened. They all looked around to see who had entered the store. Riku was standing there, and for some reason, tears were pouring out of her eyes.

"R-Riku-chan?!" Mirai gasped.

Riku noticed her tears and started wiping them away.

"H-hey, Riku-chan?" Syo stumbled forwards, pulling her wrists away from her face.

"I-it's nothing." Riku hiccuped. "Just...I said that I won't stop prying...and in the end..."

"I-it's fine..." Syo told her, patting her head, leaning it on his shoulder. "It's okay."

"I'm happy, though..." Riku murmured.

"Ricchan!!" Haruna screamed, grabbing her shoulders. She was in an extremely conflicted state for a minute, but in the end, she pulled her into a hug. "Ricchan, you're stupid!" she shouted.

"I know..." Riku laughed, also wrapping her arms around Haruna. "I know..."

"Now, now, don't cry, Riku-chan." Mirai said, patting her head awkwardly.

Katashi glanced at him. "Now, now, don't cry, Mirai-chan."

Mirai gasped, and ferociously wiped his wet eyes on his sleeve. "I'm not crying!"

Syo stared at them, and let out a laugh.

This was a moment I remember being happy.

***

"Riku-chan, do you remember when we all became friends in elementary?" Katashi asked as the five of them walked down the street, hands in his pockets.

"Hm? Of course I do." Riku replied.

"Hehe, I remember!" Haruna laughed. "I said, 'Let's promise to be best friends forever!' and Ricchan said–"

Riku realised where they were going with this, and yelled, "No! Stop right there!"

"Eh~ Why?" Haruna teased.

"It's embarrassing!" Riku yelled, red in the face.

Haruna and Katashi walked ahead, laughing heartily, as Riku marched after them. Syo and Mirai watched, amused.

"PIKARI!!"

They all looked around at the other side of the road. A black-haired girl was walking the opposite way, and a boy who had yelled had latched himself onto her.

"Pikari, show me some pity..." the boy was saying, sadly, as the girl struggled to keep going. "Hamaguchi-chan and I broke up again..."

"You'll be back together by tomorrow, so let me go!" The girl gritted her teeth.

"Treat me.... I'm depressed..."

"SHUT UP!"

The five of them stared as the pair made their way down the street.

"'Pikari'?" Riku commented. "That doesn't suit her at all."

Syo started laughing, and everyone looked around at him. "It doesn't, it really doesn't."