Ch 6. Takashi returns home and his sister tells him Shou came visiting but wouldn't stay. Takashi muses about Shou. 'I was glad he came back here. Even if he wasn't nice to me I wouldn't believe it was for real. Should I go see him again?' He remembers Kanako telling him to stay away from Shou. 'How long? All my life?'
Next day Kanako is waiting for him as before and reminds him he promised to study with her for next week's test. Sato sees them in the library and as he walks home with Takashi says 'She seems really gone on you. So it's true Shou's leaving school because she left him?' Kanako finds Shou packing. 'You'd better pack too,' he says. 'You won't be able to stay when I'm gone.' 'You mean- we won't see each other again?' Shou gives her a nasty smile. 'Have a nice life.'
Takashi is wavering about Shou- see him? Don't see him? Kanako comes late for a school test, asks Takashi to walk her home, and then dashes off alone. She's remembered Shou that morning calling the movers. He's leaving next day. If he goes, she thinks, maybe she'll have Takashi to herself. But late that night she comes to Takashi's house and tells him Shou is leaving next morning, and then runs away.
As Shou is looking at his piled up boxes and thinking 'This is it. Seeing him again was just a dream, and now we go back to reality.' Takashi comes through the door. Kanako had said 'If you're not going to be serious about him, stop going after him.' Takashi's made up his mind to be serious.
Ch 7. Shou is angry. 'Did you come for a repeat of last time? This time Kanako won't show up to save you.' 'You think that would stop me?' Takashi answers him. The fight goes out of Shou. He says he loves Takashi, and Takashi thinks 'I thought that was it, but it's different hearing him say it.' Shou goes on to tell him the whole story- 'what I was sure I'd never tell him.' Back in grade school Takashi treated him as just a friend and Shou couldn't stand it so he went to Kyuushuu. 'I don't want to destroy you- your family, your friends, your life, yourself- so we can't see each other again.' 'You're running away,' Takashi accuses him. 'I'm here now. You talk about destroying me- you think I'm as weak as all that?' and he starts to take off his shirt. Shou stops him. 'Stop. Please stop. I'm afraid of you.' Takashi admits, 'I don't know if what I feel for you is what you feel for me, and I don't know what will happen afterwards. But I'm not losing you from my life.' 'Do you know what that means?' Shou asks, and Takashi says, 'Yeah, guess I do.'
They lie down together. 'What should I do?" the nervous Takashi asks. 'You should go to sleep.' 'Look, Shou--' 'Wanna stop here? I can stop now if you want.' 'Who's stopping? Get undressed.'
Meanwhile Kanako has turned up on her aunt's doorstep. 'I'm going to leave school and go back to Kyuushuu' she says, and thinks 'But there's something I have to do first.'
Ch 8. Takashi and Shou make love, Shou thinking all the while what a bad idea this is. 'For sure I'll regret doing this, however much I want him. I'll hate myself. But right now this very minute, I want Takashi.' Next day Takashi sleeps late. Shou lends him his uniform and sends him off to school. 'But you don't have to quit school now, do you?' Takashi asks. 'Come with me.' Shou smiles: 'Don't be silly. Hurry up, you'll be late.' As he goes Takashi stops to say 'You aren't going to run away, are you?' 'Don't worry,' Shou says, while thinking 'If I leave now he won't be too badly hurt.'
At school Kanako asks 'So, did you go to his place? Is he going to leave?' Takashi answers, 'No, he's not going anywhere.' 'Oh good. I'm glad you're friends again. But I don't think Shou will change his mind that easily.' Takashi runs back to the apartment where Shou is battling with his conscience, and is relieved to find him still there. Shou cancels his movers.
Next day Takashi comes to pick Shou up and they go to school together- to discover the place is buzzing with the news that they're an item.
Ch 9. Shou comes home and finds Kanako there. He slaps her for having spread the gossip. 'I just mentioned it to one person. She's the one spread it around. And why shouldn't I? It's the truth. Congratulations. You finally got what you always wanted.' Shou says, 'It's not like everything's perfect between him and me. He just wanted to stop me going. But that's all it was. I still mean to stay away from him. So don't ruin things for him more than you've done!' Kanako answers, 'Hey, you've slept with him. Now you don't have to be all nervous about him. I think you should thank me' while thinking 'If it's the sort of thing that can fall apart, then let it.'
Shou blames himself for this. He remembers the conversation he's just had with Takashi, where Shou said they should stop being seen together. 'Why?' Takashi protested. 'Now that we've finally gone back to being friends like before--' 'We're not like before,' Shou tells him. He thinks 'Maybe if I left the rumours would all die out.'
There's a knock on the door. It's Satou, who punches Shou. 'I thought you were just going to make up with him and be friends! *That's* your idea of friendship?!' Shou calls him on it- 'Did Takashi tell you the rumours are true?' No, of course not. Satou deflates and apologizes. Takashi's friend and Takashi's lover come to a kind of understanding.
At school the talk and the jeers go on. Shou lashes out at one boy and Takashi stops him. Afterwards they have a fight. Shou still wants them to stay apart until the rumours stop and Takashi is still righteously determined to do nothing of the sort. 'You're still thinking of taking off somewhere?! Well lemme tell you, I'll do anything I have to to stop you!' In the middle of the argument an announcement comes over the PA, calling them both to the office.
Ch 10. Kanako hears the announcement and thinks, 'Well, Shou. Now you're in for it. Whether you say yes or no, the stain's never going away. You wanted to protect Takashi with your life, and now he's standing in the line of fire.' Her memory goes back to when she was pregnant, and her parents and the school principal were telling her to have an abortion. She waited for her boyfriend to say something, but he wouldn't look at her, just agreed with what the adults were saying. 'I'm all alone,' she realized. 'I thought we were together, but I've always been alone.' 'So now what will you do, Shou?' she wonders. 'And what is it I want for you two? I don't know.'
Shou tries to stop Takashi from going to the office, but Takashi insists. 'Then say somebody was just spreading rumours out of malice. Whatever you do, don't say it's true.' Takashi says 'Even if you weren't here, I'd still tell them I have a boyfriend.' They get called in separately, Takashi first, and meet afterwards. 'So you told him,' Shou says, resigned. 'Yup. He clenched his fists and shook, he was so mad.' 'It'll be awful from now on.' 'I don't think so,' Takashi says. 'Better than not having you here at all.' 'I'll stay,' Shou says. 'I'll stay with you until you fall in love with me.'
The talk is all over the school-- 'So it was true after all.' Satou asks Takashi how come. 'Shou swore there was nothing to it.' 'You were talking to him? Man, he knows how to lie. Took me in too.' Seems when they went to the office, Takashi admitted everything straight out, but Shou figured he'd do that and offered to leave school instead. By the time Takashi learned about it it had all been decided. 'I thought he'd run away this time for sure,' Takashi says.
Shou is gathering up his books when Kanako comes in.
Ch 11. 'Your determination didn't amount to much, did it?' Kanako says. 'You were going to choose Takashi's happiness over your own, but in the end you decided to make yourself happy. You're happy now, yes? But let me tell you-- Takashi doesn't love you.' 'I know,' Shou says. 'I've always said so. And I don't care. My own mind's made up.' Kanako barges out. Shou calls after her. 'What did you really come for?' 'Obviously, just to say nasty things to you,' she yells back, while thinking, 'Actually, the same thing you came for'-- to get my stuff and leave.
Kanako is waiting outside Takashi's house. 'This is the last time. You know, I never thought Shou would admit it. Didn't you think he'd go on denying it was true? You know, I was the one who started that rumour. I mean, I love you and all. I figured if Shou was gone, I'd get a chance to console you.' Takashi looks stunned and says 'Sorry.' 'What are you apologizing for? I'm the one did it. Aren't you angry?' 'If it wasn't true I would be, but since it's the truth...' Takashi shrugs. Kanako laughs. 'Shou can't win, not when he's up against you. It's a once in a lifetime thing for him to change his mind, but you won by sheer staying power.' She thinks, 'With anyone but Takashi-kun, Shou'd have had his way. Guess I'm glad I fell in love with him, even if it didn't turn out.'
At school the test results are up. Takashi of course has to do make-ups, but so does Satou- who in an excess of confidence fell asleep over the exam. The teacher announces that Kanako has left to go back to Fukuoka and Takashi is stunned. 'But we walked here together.' He calls Shou, who calls her aunt and so is in time to say good-bye to her at Tokyo station. 'Oh, it's you. I was hoping for Takashi-kun.' Shou demands why she's suddenly decided to leave school and go back home. 'Nothing sudden about it. I decided a long time ago. You two were getting along so good, I got tired of it. My reason for being here was gone.' 'What was that?' 'None of your business.' She thinks, I was comfortable being with Shou. He was running away, and I wanted to run away too. But-- Aloud she says, 'I was in love with Takashi. So now I can't tell you how miserable I am. You've got a duty to be happy. You've got to be as happy as I am miserable, or I'll be mad.' 'Got you,' Shou says. She adds, 'And if I ever hear you working yourself up again about what people say and what makes sense, I'll come and wreck everything for you again.' Takashi appears just as the train rolls out. Kanako calls something he doesn't hear. Shou relates the message- 'It was nice, walking with you every morning.'
"That was the end of first year high. Shou didn't go to another school. He took early entrance to university. And me-" He told his father and his father threw him out of the house, so Takashi went to stay with Shou.
Side story.
Shou muses- "Years ago I told Kanako my mind was made up. I didn't say to what, but I guess she understood. I didn't know how long we two could stay together. It wasn't for me to decide how long he'd stay with me..." All this over montages of their happy life together.
One morning Takashi's sister shows up at the apartment early with a letter that came for Takashi (their father threw it in the garbage.) It's a wedding invitation from Kanako, so off they go down to Kyuushuu. Shou has something on his mind he wants to tell Takashi, and decides to tell him right in the middle of the wedding banquet. 'If you ever decide you get tired of this affair, we can stop any time. I'll do whatever you like.' Takashi gets up in a fury, interrupting the speeches. The two adjourn to the men's room to continue the discussion.
'If I get tired- meaning what?!' 'If you want to stop it- if you meet a girl-' 'Is this your way of breaking up with me?' 'Nothing of the sort.' 'Then what's going on?' Takashi demands (and the reader echoes.) Shou says: 'You've stayed with me this far by playing at being in love and I've taken advantage of that. Isn't it about time we admitted it?' Takashi hits him. 'You've been thinking *that* all this time? That's pathetic. I've known for ages now that...' we don't get to hear the last three words until the two of them are back at the reception and Shou remembers Takashi saying 'I love you.'
At which Kanako beckons to them from the next room and insists on having her husband take her picture with the two of them. 'I see you're getting on great. I said I'd come and break you up but next year is a no-can-do. I'm pregnant. That's a secret, by the way.' Her parents hustle her out to the honeymoon trip. Back in Tokyo Shou is apologizing- 'I didn't understand you, I didn't trust you-' when he starts to break up. Takashi yells 'Is that any way to apologize? I'm really mad.' Yeah, sure.