That was probably the last question I’d expected to come out of her mouth. For a moment I just stared at her. Unsurprisingly, she just continued to wear an expectant, soft smile.

What do I think of her boys?

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but yet not a single word came out. What was it with Honey and his family’s tendency to strip me of my ability to speak? It was like they’d made a game of it.

Her boys.

It was glaringly obvious that she was talking not just of Honey, which would have been easy to answer, but of Mori as well. Despite my best efforts, I didn’t find that to be such a simple answer. Which was strange- it should have been simple.

“They’re… my friends.”

Miku looked like she might laugh. With a small shake of her head, she dismissed that answer and sent my cheeks burning. I wasn’t dumb. I knew what she was asking.

“Honey is really nice,” I said instead, attempting to push my embarrassment away. “I like him a lot, and he’s easy to be around. He honestly reminds me of a little brother.”

Hopefully she’d leave it at that. As much as the word ‘friends’ was playing through my mind, it didn’t seem to want to come out of my mouth in relation to the other boy I knew she was talking about. As I’d expected, however, she clasped my hand a little tighter in hers and gave me what was now a wry, and highly amused, smile.

“Yes, I’d expected about that much,” she answered honestly. “You seem to get along well, and from the stories he’s told it would only make sense. Let me revise my question… what do you think about my Takashi?”

I tugged my hands away from hers. Her brow simply raised with the motion and I dropped my gaze, wringing my hands together. Why the hell was it so hard to spit out the other sentence? Mori and I were friends as well. At the same time… how did I describe it? He didn’t feel like a brother.

I hadn’t had many male friends before this- perhaps that’s what I was looking for. The way you normally described male friends. Honey was too similar to Aki to fit that, but Mori…

“Mori…”

“Takashi,” Miku corrected.

I paused, my cheeks flushing an even brighter shade of red than before.

“Takashi-kun…” I managed, testing the word out as I did.

The funny thing was, as embarrassing as it seemed, the name felt nice. The lack of formality to it didn’t set my nerves on edge as I might have thought it would.

“That’s still not right,” Miku mused. “It doesn’t sound cute enough. Try Taka-kun. That sounds nice.”

“...”

“Okay, okay, Takashi-kun for now,” she gave in with a laugh. “Now, go on.”

“Takashi-kun… he’s a good friend too,” I said finally. I forced myself to raise my eyes to meet hers before continuing. Not looking at her felt like running away. “He’s easy to talk to, even if he doesn’t always have a lot to say.”

My words pulled up the memory after the tournament. He’d automatically been the one that I’d felt comfortable voicing the question of what I’d done to, even if we hadn’t seemed that close.

“It’s not as obvious right away, but he’s as nice as Honey, if not nicer. Honey...no offense, has a bit of a selfish side to him. Mo-Takashi-kun doesn’t. He’s…. he’s sorta… he’s…”

“He’s…” Miku prompted, earning herself a slightly irritated huff from me.

She’d said that it would be our secret, and to be honest I felt comfortable around the woman even if I’d only met her once before, but how did someone just out and say something so embarrassing?

You told him that he’s like a knight, a mutinous, inner voice argued. Why not tell her? See if she thinks the same.

“He’s a really good friend, too,” I finished with, just settling on my first words.

What else was there to say about it?

I was surprised to discover that a disappointed look suddenly appeared on Miku’s face. She let out a small sigh and dropped herself back on the bed. I raised one of my hands to cover my growing amusement with the childish response.

Honestly, how old was she?

“I guess I’ll settle for that for now,” she mumbled, obviously pouting.

What was she expecting me to say? I wondered. Or rather, what was she wanting me to say?

Shaking my head, I pulled up the only response I could give.

“Didn’t you say there was something else you wanted to talk about?” I asked.

Her face suddenly turned serious and she pulled herself up with a nod. The way she studied me for a moment set my nerves on edge once again.

“I’ve been thinking…” she began slowly. “And you’re welcome to come over whenever you want- no need to call ahead to ask or anything like that. I’m not quite sure how things are at your place, but from what I’ve heard Akira say of your uncle, it can’t be easy. No, just wait till I’m done speaking.”

I’d opened my mouth to protest, but shut it again with her order.

“I’m not saying that anything wrong might be going on or something like that. I’m just saying that it might be hard to live with the amount of pressure that comes with your position so soon after your parents’ deaths, and not have anyone to talk to, especially with the rumors over how rocky things had been between your side of your family and your uncle’s. I’ve heard what those two have been discussing, and from what I’ve heard you probably wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about your parents to your uncle. Especially your mother.”

I ducked my head, feeling even more uncomfortable than before. Thinly veiled tears were bubbling up behind my eyes. Perhaps I shouldn't have reminded her that she had something else that she wanted to talk about. I didn’t need a reminder over why Uncle was constantly comparing me to my mother.

I looked too much like her for his comfort. I never argued against his fault finding- it was his way of dealing with everything. Who would want to be taking care of the daughter of another man, especially your brother, that looked entirely too similar to the girl you’d been going to marry?

If I really thought about it, it also explained his idea over dyeing my hair awhile back.

“What I’m offering is a place to come and relax,” Miku continued to explain while all of these thoughts rolled around in my mind. “And talk, if you want. A girl needs a woman in her life, be the woman blood related or not. She also just needs someone to unload on. If you don’t have that, I’m here.”

I didn’t say anything, but I was acutely aware of how a single tear escaped my eye when Miku laid an arm over my shoulders.

“That’s all I wanted to talk about. I don’t have to leave, though, if you want to talk.”

A dozen words bubbled to my lips, but not a single one of them came out. Instead I found myself allowing her to pull me closer as several more tears deemed it okay to fall. How had an embarrassing conversation turned into

“Or even if you don’t. I can stay right here.”

I wonder, how long had it been since I cried?

“My b-brother’s… his name was Aki.”

_______________________________________________

When Honey’s mother finally left I ended up sitting there for a few moments, thinking over what had happened. Not the offer she’d given, I wasn’t going to think on that if I didn’t have to. I was handling everything just fine, even if I did have a moment of weakness when she’d given it. It’d been a year since everything, and it wasn’t like Uncle was that horrible. Hard to impress, sure, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

No, what had my mind was the first question she’d dismissed so easily in favor of the second topic.

What do I think of them?

Honey… well that one had been obvious and easy to answer.

Mori’s answer, however, was hard to figure out. Had what I said completely fit?

My mind instantly drew up the resort and how things had felt then. How when he’d picked me up that feeling of butterflies in my stomach had grown insane. How he’d quickly put me down. How after he’d escorted me home that time after dinner I felt like I actually understood him for once, and how it’d been similar to all of this, a feeling that I couldn’t explain, nor could I understand.

I’d already situated myself under the covers, but now I seized the pillow from under my head and moved it so that I could hold it over it in an attempt to block out all the thoughts. I wasn’t getting any answers, so why did I keep thinking about it? Wasn’t it better than to find the answer instead of searching for it?

Dragging myself up from bed, I stood in the middle of the room for a moment, hesitating. To be honest I was even more frustrated with myself than before.

It was past midnight. I couldn’t just wake him up to suddenly question him. That’d be stupid.

My eyes fell back to the bed and a sigh escaped my mouth. Slowly I stepped over and remade the bed. I attempted to get rid of my frustration with the disappearance of that mess, but utterly failed. I wasn’t getting to sleep anytime soon. Not like this. As soon as I was finished making the bed, I ended up throwing myself across it. That was when my eyes fell on my bag.

“Put these in there,” Honey instructed, that cheery smile on his face. “That way you don’t forget to take them with you tomorrow and listen to them!”

The memory flashed through my mind and before I knew it I was moving so that I could reach over the bed to grab where I’d carelessly dropped my bag on the other side. I dug through it the moment I had it open, pulling out the discs Honey had lent me. My eyes scanned each of the titles and I suddenly began to relax.

I’d be spending a lot of time with him. Perhaps that would give me the chance to figure this out.

__________________________________

“Nao-chan~ Nao-chan~ Nao-chan~”

I groaned, burying my head into my pillow as his little chant in the guestroom doorway reached my ears. All the action earned me was a second of silence as he quickly crossed the room and jumped onto the bed. In return, I tugged the blanket over my head, keeping a firm grip on it to make sure that nothing like the scene with Ren happened again. At least this time I wasn’t wearing embarrassing pajamas, just a simple, silky set that Uncle thought was “appropriate”.

Appropriate my ass. I had a bad feeling if they were any smaller it would have been hard to sleep. As it was, I would have preferred a set at least two sizes bigger.

“Nao-chan~” Honey whined, and placed his hands on my back to give me a small shove, one that I vehemently kept from moving me.

I’m not a morning person. It might have been his house, but that didn’t mean that I had to get up.

“Mitsukuni.”

Thank Kami he was here.

Wait.

He’s here?

Pulling the blanket back, I turned my head just enough to search the right side of the room where his voice came from. Mori was standing there, his hands carelessly tucked in his pockets as he studied Honey with what might have been a disapproving look. He must have been up for some time because he’d already changed into casual clothing, something that I have to say looked quite good on Mori. He’d pulled on a simple white shirt covered by a dark, un-zipped jacket and dark colored jeans.

I almost snorted in amusement when I realized he would pull off the bad-boy look better than Ren without even trying. Ren looked like a fool- it’d probably look pretty good on Mori.

Mori.

“Miku-san told me to call you Takashi-kun,” I told him without thought.

Mori blinked, a faint shade of red actually appearing, although I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been studying him before I opened my stupid mouth.

“Oh.”

He wasn’t going to comment on the idea? Shouldn’t he say that it was too… informal? It wasn’t like we were childhood friends or anything of the sort. We hadn’t even known each other that well before I’d met him at the club. It wasn’t normal to suddenly switch to first name basis without a reason… well, unless you were Honey or Tamaki. Those two seemed to do it the first chance they got.

“What do you think… Takashi-kun?”

If it’d felt embarrassing when I’d said it to Miku last night that was nothing compared to how it felt to say “Takashi-kun” to his face. My cheeks suddenly burned and I quickly deposited my face back into my pillow in an attempt to hide it.

“... it’s not bad.”

Wait…

Not bad?

Does that mean he likes it?

Or was it just something that he didn’t have a problem with, like almost every other thing he seemed to come across?

What does not bad mean?

I shook my head into my pillow to disrupt the sudden torrent of thoughts that came with his simple statement. Meanwhile a certain blonde in bunny pajamas suddenly reminded me that he existed by leaning back, causing the bed to move with the action, and voicing his problem with the matter.

“That’s not fair!”

Forcing myself to raise my head, I rose a brow in Honey’s direction. I could only hope that my cheeks weren’t as red as they’d felt only a moment ago.

“It’s not fair that only Takashi gets to be special!” he declared. “If Takashi gets to be special, then I get to be special, too! You have to call me by my first name, too!”

I laughed, any tension that I might have had simply draining away with the comedic pout Honey was displaying.

“Fine, you can be Mitsukuni-kun,” I told him. “Although I think Honey’s cuter.”

His pout turned into a frown with the thought.

“Honey is cuter,” he agreed. “Nevermind. Takashi can be special alone.”

I laughed again, this time pulling myself up and allowing the blanket to slide off of me. Once I was in a cross-legged position, I took note of the fact that Honey seemed to be thinking about something again. A second later his face lit up as he remembered whatever it was.

“Oh, yeah! Okaasan said that breakfast was ready! Come on! You said you needed to get back home early cause you had school work, right? She said you can go home after breakfast if you want!”

Without waiting for an answer on my end, Honey grabbed my hand to pull me off the bed with him. A sputtered protest burst from my lips just as Mori stepped up in front of Honey to keep him from going any further.

“Mitsukuni, Nao-chan hasn’t changed.”

Honey tilted his head, studied me for a moment, then gave an easy going shrug with that cheerful grin of his.

“Okay! Change and come meet us!”

He released my hand as quickly as he’d grabbed it and instead instructed Mori that he wanted a piggy-back ride to the diningroom. I just shook my head as I watched  Mori comply without a word and the two boys left the room.

That was when what had just happened finally occured to me.

Did he just call me Nao-chan?

A/N: So, guys, hope you enjoyed this little bit! This marks the end of the sleepover fun, the next chapter will pick up a day later, seeing as there isn't anything I really think is important to cover after this bit-o-fun. Instead I'll start it up with either a) the first trip to Mori's house or b) another canon story arc, which the next one would be the beach I believe, it's up to you guys! Comment with your opinion.

Anyways, I love any and all opinions on everything that just happened! Comment~ I love to know what you guys think and there's plenty to talk about in this chapter! Till next time~