He stares blankly at his ceiling as the tears have stopped flowing. Unlike before, he effortlessly pushes himself off of his back and sits silently on his bed, his blanket still covering his lower half.
He wipes the leftover tears off his cheeks with his palm, before looking at it with a sorrowful expression all over his face. All he could do was sigh in disbelief at what he had just thought.
"...Do I..."
Kane recalls when he saw Erisa for the first time in four months this Tuesday when he was walking alongside Satoshi and Kazuo — that vibrant smile he could see from a mile away, it was suffocatingly beautiful.
"...Like Erisa-san?"
A warm feeling begins to creep onto his face as he sits there with widened eyes and an open mouth, unknowing of the current feelings he holds for his childhood friend. He touches his face to feel the heat, trying to deduce whether or not it was just his imagination.
Yet, it was indeed real — that blush on his face was real. He begins scratching his head with both his hands after learning this information, trying to get rid of that thought that begun to linger in his mind about whether or not he liked Erisa and the obvious blush on his face.
He lowers his two hands from his head and holds it infront of his face, his pupils contract and sweat runs down his face. It seems he cannot comprehend this sudden fact in regard to his current predicament.
SLAP!
A meaty slap echoed along the concrete walls of his room. Kane holds his two hands in place against his cheeks with shadows covering his eyes, a thought then begins to pass his mind, "I... I can't let that happen."
Lowering his hands before clenching it into fists. He looks up, his face clearly sore from the slap he had just given himself, before shouting with passion and determination, "I won't let that happen, I will never like Erisa-san!"
He sits frozen in his room silently after shouting that, his breathing the only audible sound inside this very room, which was now empty since all his belongings have been put into boxes, ready for delivery to his new apartment.
Once again, he lowers his arms lazily which falls onto his blanketed thighs. And out of the blue, a chuckle escapes his vocal cords as the lines on his eyes become visible — he mutters quietly to himself, "...What am I saying?"
He falls back into a lying position in defeat, before looking up at the ceiling quietly. He reaches for the ceiling with his hand as he gives himself a pep-talk in preparation for tomorrow. "Alright, Kane Koyasu... you've survived worse, you can do this."
Something then flashes in his mind — a clear image of Erisa in a slightly customized black sailor uniform, looking back at him while walking forward with a wide smile on her face.
At this sight, his hand falls limp, seemingly having his resolve and confidence shaken by such a simple sight. He begins to ask himself in order to regain some of that lost composure, "...But what if..."
"...What if I can't?" That thought had gone against his best wishes.
⋆｡°✩
Some time passes, and before we know it — Kane is standing amongst some cardboard boxes in a brand-new yet familiar living room, similar to the one he saw in his flashback earlier today, albeit less lived-in compared to that living room.
He begins pacing around the living room while rubbing his chin as he dives deeper into his thoughts. "Hmm... how do I handle all of this? Do I start with my room? Or maybe the kitchen... no wait, I should do the living room since I'm already here..."
At the same time as his thoughts begin to pause, he also stops in his tracks. He then begins scratching his hair aggressively while shouting, "Aargh!! Why is it so hard to move into someplace new!?"
He then recalls something his mother said before he left the house: "Kane-kun~, if you ever get overwhelmed, you can always ask your neighbors for help!" From his perspective however, it was simply just an airheaded mother giving a tip that will get him nowhere.
Sighing in defeat, he lowers his hands and walks toward the balcony; he slides the glass door open and steps out, feeling the cool breeze blow on his face — it was somewhat refreshing since he nearly overloaded his brain.
He leans on the railing in an attempt to relax while looking out at the horizon. He sighs deeply before speaking to himself, "Mattaku[1]... who am I meant to ask for help, Mom? I haven't even introduced myself to anybody on this floor; they wouldn't really bother with helping a complete stranger..."
Silence befalls the young boy on the balcony — it was melancholic, in a sense. Kane raises his hand before using it as a headrest while still looking out at the horizon in the distance, watching nature at work.
"A-ano[2]..."
A feminine voice somewhere to his right voices out. Surprised by the sudden attention-catching voice, he turns his head to the right before coming face-to-face with a wall separating the balconies.
"...A talking wall?"
Kane commented abruptly with a blank expression, and if you were to imagine hard enough, you could see a yellow question mark pop out of nowhere to the side of his head.
A dissatisfied sigh can be heard from the other side, followed by a sound of someone pushing themselves up, which was then followed by silence — the silence is then broken abruptly by the feminine voice speaking.
"If you need help, I can come over... if you want. I've never really tried doing these kinds of things since my father always did it, but since he's out... I could try and give it a shot."
His eyes widen after finally getting a chance to listen to this voice more clearly. "W-wait... that voice, it sounds just like Erisa-san's voice..." He had thought to himself, seemingly suspicious of who this soundalike actually was.
He shakes his mind, fully accepting that it was just downright rude to assume someone is this specific person simply off their voice — this was how he thought ever since an incident where he accidentally called out to someone who sounded like Satoshi, but was actually a complete stranger.
He feels a slight blush burn on his face as he recalled that poignant black history. He wipes it away before replying to the person on the other side of the wall — clear of any preconceptions or thoughts, "Are you sure you should do this with a complete stranger? You're a girl, after all."
The voice on the other side falls silent. "...I shouldn't really have someone I don't know, especially a girl, help me with this kind of thing... to be honest, they should be more reserved when it comes to this kind of thing." Kane thought to himself in a righteous sense.
"Yeah... I honestly wouldn't help anybody I don't know, do you think I'm an idiot? But... I do know you, Kane-kun."
"Nan desutte[3]?"
He responded coldly to what he had assumed was a soundalike to Erisa — but due to this sudden plot twist of the century — it was actually Erisa herself. He holds his forehead while speaking in a low voice, "You knew... all along that it was me, Erisa-san?"
"Obviously! Mou~, you think I wouldn't be able to recognize your voice?"
"...Is my voice really that obvious?"
"Yeah? Wait... don't tell me you thought I was someone else, Kane-kun?"
Kane shoots a sideward glance away from the wall with an extremely blank expression — almost looking like someone with no skills in drawing drew a face — before answering, "...Not at all."
Choosing to play dumb, he hears Erisa give a long "Huum~?" followed by a peculiar silence. With a sigh, she continues with an annoyed expression on her face, "Mou ii[4]... I'll come over, Kane-kun... just wait for a moment."
And without any notice, the sound of a glass door sliding open and then being shut is heard. Kane, who was completely bewildered and stunned by her willingness to help him, leans against the railing, albeit in a frozen state of matter.
A cool breeze once again blows on his face, freeing him of his emotionless prison. Remembering what Erisa had said, he rushes back into his living room and leans against the glass once he slides the glass panel shut.
"...This girl! I don't remember her being this pretentious!" Kane had thought to himself as he made a rather mean remark towards his friend — Erisa on the other hand, catches herself sneezing, which she ignores.
Back to Kane, he begins to place his focus on the various cardboard boxes placed against the wall nearby the front door. There was one box in particular that he didn't want anybody touching — he even made it so that he placed it in a small, inconspicuous box.
A bead of sweat makes its appearance on his forehead. A thought had entered his mind at this very dangerous moment, "I mustn't let anyone see what's inside that box!"
He rushes toward it and grabs it with a quick swipe of a hand. Now holding it tightly, he runs into his room and scans the inside with no moment to spare. Processing all the data in his brain, he begins to calculate the best place to hide this dangerous box of secrets.
Such an over abundance of calculations and formulas passing by! How much will he process? Can a regular human being even be able to process this amount of data without dying!? Kane, stop — oh wait, now he's just thinking of an anime girl.
One of the hiding spots that he thought of was the closet, and it seems it has caught his attention. "This is it!" He thought with a confident smirk, before running toward it and opening it with one swift pull.
Jamming the box into the top shelf, his guard had been lowered unintentionally. Suddenly, the sound of a knock causes him to jump. He slams the closet shut and begins to run to the front door while shouting, "Yes, yes! I'll be right there!"
Now reaching for the front door, Kane... froze? Instead of pulling the handle down and pulling it towards him, he notices his rather messy look and makes sure to fix his appearance with the large mirror hung on the wall. Now content with the way he looked, he opened the front door.
He was met with a gorgeous sight. It was as if an angel had descended from heaven — a rather poor-sighted, casually clothed angel. What Erisa was wearing was the complete representation of a shut-in, hikkimori NEET[5]. She wore an oversized white hoodie with a rather... pride-shattering image front-and-center, followed by some white shorts that were completely hidden under the hoodie.
Erisa and Kane lock eyes for a moment, and it was as if their world had been caught in a polaroid.
"H-hello, Erisa-san..." He said with stutter. His eyes then betray him as they begin darting around from place-to-place, unable to keep still due to the amount of anxiety he is going through.
Shuffling to the side and gesturing toward the inside of his apartment, he mutters in a sad attempt of welcoming his first guest, "P-please, make yourself at home."
Erisa — albeit less obvious — is embarrassed, only showing it through the blush on her cheeks. She begins peeking into the apartment, and it was obvious that he had just arrived. She speaks under her breath as she takes a step inside, "O-ojamashimasu[6]..."
As she takes her first steps in, she removes her fluffy cat slippers by the door as Kane closes the door behind her. She takes her first step on the hardwood floor with Kane right behind her.
Erisa looks at the stack of cardboard boxes, all varied in shapes and sizes, lined up against the wall. She stood herself infront of it and turned her entire body towards it. She looks at Kane and points toward the boxes, "Is this it?"
"Y-yes, there is some heavy stuff in there, so I'll handle those. Why don't we start with the kitchen first, if that's fine with you?"
"I don't mind! I'm not that weak, after all."
"Sure..."
Kane looked at her with a suspicious gaze. In response to his derogatory remark, Erisa pouts and turns away from him while raising her chin high, before making a 'Humph' sound from her lips.
Kane shakes his head at the sight of such a big tsundere trope. He squats down and carries the box filled with kitchen objects with his two hands. "Se no[7]... hyup~!" Kane said as he exerted some effort in lifting the box up.
He then begins walking over to the kitchen with Erisa following behind his back — looking like a little duckling following their mother.
Now in the kitchen, Kane sets down the box slowly considering the fact there is some fragile stuff in that box of his. He turns over his heel and looks at Erisa, before asking her in a shy voice.
"W-why don't we get to work, Erisa-san?"
[1] In an earlier chapter, "Ttaku" was used, which was a more casual version compared to this. The word "Mattaku" (まったく) is an adverb that conveys a sense of "really," "completely," or "entirely". It can also express exasperation or mild annoyance, similar to saying "Honestly!" or "Good grief!".
[2] The word "Ano" (あの) has a few common meanings and uses. Primarily, it functions as a filler word, similar to "Um" or "Uh" in English, used to pause, hesitate, or gather thoughts before speaking.
[3] This phrase, "Nan desutte" (なんですって) roughly translates to "What did you just say?"
[4] This term, "Mou ii" (もういい) translates to "That's enough" or "It's fine," depending on the context. In Erisa's case, it was the latter.
[5] Hikikomori is a term used to describe individuals, particularly young adults, who experience prolonged social withdrawal and seclusion in their homes. NEET is an acronym for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training."
[6] This term "Ojamashimasu" (おじゃまします) essentially means, “I'm sorry for bothering you.” It's considered good manners to say "Ojamashimasu" any time you're entering someone else's house.
[7] The term "Se no" (せの) can have a few meanings depending on context. It can be used as a way to signal readiness, similar to "1, 2, 3, go" or "Ready, set", especially when starting a game or a set of actions.