Unofficial Van Gang Leader

“That’s a great point!” Erika sat up quickly, pointing one finger so closely to his face that she almost picked his nose, “It’s true! You always save the family meeting for when the relationship is really established. That way you don’t get into that embarrassing ‘I Made A Mistake’ moment!” Yes, it didn’t really apply here since everyone already knew everyone… but it was the concept that mattered the most to her.

She laid back down flat on her back and nodded, folding her arms over her chest, “Yes, I think we should do that. Besides, I’ve always kind of wanted a secret relationship. I think it will bring a whole new level of suspense and intrigue that I’ve never felt before. And this way I get to share it with one of my friends and not have to suffer all alone!” if only because the friend happened to be in the relationship with her.

“You’re ridiculous.” With an eye roll Kyohei poked her chest to push her back a bit, though he simultaneously reached a hand around to her lower back to ensure she didn’t actually fall - because overreacting to a light tap and falling back to crack her head against the floor seemed like a very Erika thing to do. 

“If that’s the case you should probably wake up, since I’m pretty sure tonight’s events might be considered a nightmare.” It really wasn’t so bad, but he did feel guilty about what had transpired. And about the fact that she got involved in the first place...the last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt for hanging out with him. That would truly be a nightmare. 

“Buuuut I guess I know what you mean,” he admitted, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a small smile. It did still feel a bit unreal, living in a world where his feelings towards her were actually reciprocated. A tiny part worried she might just be joking, but this didn’t seem like the kind of joke you’d play. 

“Never! It’s an impossibility, you know! Because I don’t think the loving human heart is capable of closing off its feelings when it comes across the person that it was meant to love. Even if that person turns out to be someone that you don’t expect, like a guy or a person who isn’t even from the planet.” Inter-species’ relations, cross-galaxy!

“I...have never met someone who interprets things so horribly wrong...it’s like you ignore the truth entirely.” Even if he continued to argue with her the rest of the night, he knew he’d lose - nobody could best Erika when it came to BL stuff, even if she was totally off base. 

In some ways it felt as though the rift she’d created by leaving had still not healed. She was afraid that everything she did was only giving him a reason to think that she wanted to leave, when in reality she never wanted to stay more than she did now.

His smile was something else. When the man laughed for real it sent shivers up her spine; but when he tried too hard he… looked like…

“How have we not gotten a hat already? Isn’t it like, super important to keep a baby’s head warm?” He could’ve sworn he’d read that somewhere. They were really not fully prepared for this, and he suspected these next few weeks would creep up on them. 

-----several weeks later-------

“Sorry if you tried texting me today, I forgot my phone here,” Kyohei called as he closed the door behind him. 

Weird, there was no reply. Normally he was greeted quite enthusiastically after work - maybe she was taking a nap. “Erika?” 

What was awaiting him in the bedroom wasn’t remotely reassuring - a lack of Erika and 38 missed calls, half from her and half from Walker, as well as a number of texts. 

[8:15 PM]: KADOTA ANSWER YOUR PHONE [8:17 PM}: ERIKA IS HAVING THE BABY I THINK??? [8:18 PM]: GOING TO HOSPITAL [8:33 PM]: THEY DONT LET PHONES IN HOSPITAL BUT WE ARE HERE NOW

Fuck. Slipping his phone in his pocket Kyohei rushed outside, not even bothering to grab a change of clothes that he’d most likely need. She wasn’t even supposed to be having the baby until next week or so, was something wrong? He hardly had time to worry about that as he hailed a taxi, glad the hospital wasn’t too far away. Of all the days he’d forget his phone.

The receptionist must’ve been used to frantic fathers, because she managed to calmly direct him to the room Erika was in while he struggled to explain the situation. Even if she hadn’t been able to give him the room number, Walker’s shouting made the location umistakable. 

“T–… Togusacchi?” Erika deflated, her shoulders drooping. What a strange change in topic. From herself, to Azusa, to Kyohei, to Togusa… or… was he saying…

“Jesus Christ, do you even listen to what people say?” He was pretty sure as soon as the name Saburo had come out of his mouth, her mind had ran straight to yaoi matters. “You’re reaching so far I’m worried you might hurt yourself.” 

“It is perfectly normal to be concerned when your best friend is wildly in love with a girl who doesn’t even know he exists.” Of course, similar things could be said for Walker and his fictional love interests...but really, that was a whole other can of worms he didn’t dare go near. 

Erika wiggled her toes in his fingers, flopping back on her sheets to stare at the ceiling. His question was one she had thought of before and when he finally found the words to ask it she, too, was quiet.

“… I don’t know. Is it a bad idea? Lying to them. I guess it’s almost always a bad idea to lie to your friends, but maybe it’s better if they don’t know. Like this, just in case… I mean… what if things change later on…” she didn’t want to dare imply out loud that they might not be together forever, otherwise he might give her some kind of confirmation that it was true. He might say that… he didn’t want to be with her forever!

“Maybe it is better if it is just us. Because this is a very weird thing. I don’t know what I’m doing. If that’s true, then should we figure out how to be ‘we’ efore we can be… we plus all of us…” She knew she wasn’t making any sense. It was just a way to assuage her hesitation.

“Are you drunk?! That would probably be, like, the most awkward way possible for them to find out...” Plus, would he really be able to kiss her in front of them? Doubtful, then it’d just be even more awkward for everyone. 

Plus, he had to agree with her first reasoning. “I think...you’re right about what you said before, though. I mean, neither of us have really...or it’s been awhile...” Not that he had any particular issues with committed relationships, but it would probably take some adjusting after several years of never getting serious with anyone.

“I mean, of course I want it to work out, but we both might end up being super shitty at relationships or something.” If that was the case he’d prefer to simply move on and forget the ordeal happened, and go back to being friends - but somehow, that seemed like it’d be more difficult if their friends knew. 

“I mean, they’re like family...and you wouldn’t just bring someone around and introduce them to your kids until you were really sure it’d last, you know?” Obviously netiher of them needed introductions, but them being in a relationship could certainly change the dynamics of the group. 

“…” Okay. That was about the least-Kyohei thing she’d ever heard. There was something strange about the way that he spoke; that rushed tone of his voice, as if he was trying to hide something. He was such an honest guy! Never afraid to tell Walker or Erika when they had overstepped some kind of boundary… which meant…

“I think I understand! Dota-chin shares feelings for Azusa-chii but he’s too shy to admit it. He’s afraid to approach her, so he’s pretending that he doesn’t want to be with her that way he doesn’t have to worry about the awkward first meeting. You’d rather take it naturally! Right?!”

“Uhh...heh, you got me, I do prefer things to happen naturally,” he chuckled nervously, figuring that any additional argument would only serve to make her more suspicious. Besides, her theory made much more sense than...whatever nonsense he’d just been spewing out moments ago. Of course, it was very like him to get flustered and lie at the topic of his romantic life, so at least she shouldn’t be too suspicious of that.

“But, ahh...you know, I only said she was cute, that doesn’t mean I like her like that.  Way to jump to conclusions, Erika.” With a quick eye roll he moved on from the Azusa topic, quite happy to leave it behind. “You’re just way too eager to play matchmaker.” 

“If you take out everything bad, we’re still left with a lot of good – aren’t we? If I had the choice between spending tonight the way that we did and not doing anything at all, I’m glad that we did what we did.” It fit them perfectly.

“Ohh no no, all I did was make an innocent statement - an offer to make up our missed date to you. Your interpretation is what’s making this dirty, Erika!” Of course, his tone had probably helped her in making that interpretation...

“A foot rub, that’s all?” With a deep inhale he sat up and shifted position, ignoring the pounding in his head in favor of pulling her foot into his lap, gently massaging her soles. “Geez, your feet are tiny.” 

Rubbing her feet in silence for several moments, he opened and closed his mouth multiple times before speaking. 

“So, um, the guys...” The fact that they’d lied to them had been bugging him since they’d parted ways, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to bring it up. “How should we...or when should we...” 

“Sometimes Dota-chin just doesn’t make any sense at all.” Like right now. “There are only a few people who really belong in that room and one of them is Dota-chin. If you’re the dad then shouldn’t you get to see that, too? Besides, you’re the one that helped start it!” Without his award-winning aim Erika wouldn’t have a need to be in any kind of delivery room.

“… You said you wanted to do it together, right? That means that you should be involved as much as possible. If you want to.” Was this his way of saying that he did not? “It’s not just about the things that happen before the baby is born. There’s a lot that happens afterward, and the first part of doing that is being there when it happens.

Even if they talked about it, it didn’t feel real, but he supposed he’d need to come to terms with it eventually. After all, it wasn’t long before the baby would actually be here, and he could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening to him. 

“I guess I can fulfill the second part, but are you sure my face wouldn’t just make it start crying?” He was only half joking. After all, he didn’t exactly have the friendliest demeanour. “Should I start practicing a smile now?” 

He Tired ™

“S-she does?” His face paled at Erika’s revelation; he’d just thrown out the name of the friend he was most familiar with, how could he anticipate her actually having feelings for him? 

Actually, fairly easily if he wasn’t so oblivious.But this was bad, bad, bad - the longer he let this go on the bigger grave he was digging himself, and before he knew it he’d be going out with Azusa and never be able to tell Erika how he really felt. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to Azusa, either. He needed to put a stop to this right here and now. 

“Well that, that uh, changes everything?” He laughed nervously, pulling his hat down. “See, I only...I only really like girls who don’t like me back.” What was he saying? “I’m a bit of a masochist, I guess, heh. That’s the real reason I’ve been single all this time, as soon as a girl starts reciprocating feelings, I just...lose interest?” 

What a lucky girl she was.

“Oahh… Dota-chin…” that’s right, he got walloped pretty hard! She bounced to her toes like a deer and fled into the kitchen, reaching into her freezer and pulling out a box of frozen mochi. When she returned to her bed she knelt down beside him and placed the box against his head, bouncing happily at her makeshift ice pack, “Oahh, Dota-chin’s brain got hit pretty hard today. I think I’m lucky that you still remember who I am. How many fingers am I holding up?” None.

“Mm, I guess that’s a nice enough way of looking at it, makes me feel less bad for everything going wrong.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about fate versus coincidence, but he wasn’t nearly focused enough to give it any real thought at the moment. 

“Still kinda pissed they interrupted us, though.” He’d been looking forward to taking her out on an actual date, especially since she’d never really been on one. 

“I promised you a nice romantic date, and I didn’t give you that,” He frowned slightly, letting his head fall to the side so he could look at her. Reaching a hand up he pulled gently at the strand of hair that hung over her face, giving her a playful smirk. 

“Dota-chin has discovered me! All of my darkest plans, out there for the world to see now… It’s okay, I’ll come out with a better way. I think we know which one of us is going to be the fun one!”

Though she was preparing herself to be surprised. While Kyohei was usually the more responsible of the two, she knew that she herself would have to adopt that kind of responsibility if they were going to have any chance at all of raising the thing right. Erika wasn’t a total lost cause – when it came to children, her game was pretty strong!

It had never occurred to her that Kyohei might not be in the room with her during the labor. At his question she blinked, her hands stilling on her stomach; was he saying that he didn’t want to be?

“If Dota-chin doesn’t like that idea then he can wait, but you know someone has to be in there with me… for moral support!” And if it wasn’t Kyohei then the only logical answer would be Walker. Was that such a great idea? He’d probably get kicked out, at any rate. No, there were a few different people she could choose from, but… “Dota-chin shouldn’t rob himself of his Life Defining Moment, you know that’s something that every parent has a right to!”

“Eh? O-oh, it’s not that I don’t want to be there,” he assured her quickly, sensing she was a bit upset at his hesitation. Still, though he wouldn’t admit it to her, the whole idea was pretty terrifying. All he knew about childbirth was gleaned from television and books, but nothing made it sound like a pleasant experience. 

“But do you want me there? Like, would it be awkward if I’m just standing there while all that’s going on?” He supposed he could sit next to her and hold her hand or something, but it also felt like he was intruding on a private moment between her and the baby. Of course, if that was the case, then the doctors and nurses would be intruding as well. 

“Ha… haha! Ha, hahaha!”

Perhaps not the response he had been looking for. Erika had indeed been naked – some 15 minutes ago – but as she was only changing into a new change of clothes, she was fully covered now. Sitting on her bed, with an open book in front of her.

Laughing at him.

“Dota-chin!”

It was not that she found the line inappropriate, but it sounded so… strange coming from someone like Kyohei. The usually straight-faced man who took such pleasure in quelling Erika and Walker’s excitement, now at this moment acting every bit the suave boyfriend. She felt almost ashamed of herself for her reaction, but it brought such a bubbling feeling of excitement to her chest!

“Dota-chin knows lines like that? I had no idea! Did you practice them on someone first? Tell me another one – I need more!” she shifted to her hands and knees, waggling her bottom back and forth, “What if I did finish all by myself? It would be like a race and I am the winner. That means that I am supposed to get a prize! But you know, that wouldn’t be such a bad date. We already know each others’ names, and Dota-chin saw my butt already!”

“You know, laughing at me isn’t a very good way to get more lines like that outta me.” His cheeks were reddened as he moved to sit next to her. At least it seemed like she was enjoying it, not really laughing in a mocking way like some girls might’ve. If anything she seemed a little...flustered? He wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it wasn’t a state he was used to seeing her in. 

Still, he enjoyed seeing her like that, and it made him willing to look past his own embarrassment for a bit. 

“So I’m just supposed to take your word for it? I think I need some more proof you actually won....” With a sigh he leaned back onto the bed, hands folded behind his head. 

“If we don’t talk about it, it’s because the subject makes Dota-chin turn red! He doesn’t even know that there’s an army of girls waiting to marry him if he gave them the chance.” While that was a bit of an exaggeration, she did know of quite a few in her lady circle that had a crush on him. Herself included!

“Shizu-chan? No, no, that won’t do – he’s taken. I don’t want to share someone’s love, I want it all for myself! And before you say that’s selfish, it’s not – Love is the one thing that a person shouldn’t have to share with another person.

“Jeez, you don’t need to mock my single status.” Because, to him, she was genuinely making fun of him by acting like there were girls that had an interest in him. If that was true, he wouldn’t have been single for so long. “So harsh.” 

“Ehh? What about me gives you that impression?” He couldn’t say she was wrong, but she wasn’t really right, either. While he did appreciate a nice girl like that, he knew enough to understand that a girl like that was out of the realm of possibility for him. Plus, at the present moment he found himself attracted to a girl who was the complete opposite of that. 

“Even if I did like girls like that, it’d never work - I’d drag them into trouble and it’d end badly. I guess if I had to pick a characteristic...girls that read? And can hold a good conversation.” He threw a slight smirk Erika’s way. 

It did occur to her – why had they simply not been honest in the first place? It would be a lot easier to tell the truth and ask for time alone, but… she knew that it might change their dynamic completely. And what if Erika and Kyohei didn’t last? She hoped they would make it, but in the event of a falling-out she didn’t want the others tainted by their relationship…

It was best to keep quiet, yes.

“Ehh? Oahh, yes!” she nodded, pocketing her phone without a response, “Let’s go there! Dota-chiiiin, you work so hard. You’ll definitely be a success someday!”

– – – Approximately 1 time later…

Time sent: 9:24pm Recipient: Dota-chiiiin<3

Dota-chin I am out!

I told them that I had an emergency costume repair to do

I’m home and ready for you

After contemplating all the potential responses he could give her for several moments, he settled on replying in the same teasing manner, playing along with whatever little game she had going. 

Time sent: 9:30pm Recipient: Erika

I’ll have to hurry then - don’t get started without me. 

That was sufficient, right? Whether or not she was being serious, this form of texting was entirely unfamiliar to him. Nonetheless, he made his way to her place as quickly as possible. He even grabbed a taxi, to avoid the potential of being seen by his friends walking to the subway station. 

Only knocking once before opening the door handle - he assumed, correctly, she’d left it unlocked for him - he slipped his way inside, half expecting to see Erika standing in front of the door in the nude. He certainly wouldn’t put it past the unpredictable otaku to do that. 

“Erikaaaa?” He called out quietly, attempting to keep up this game. “I came as fast as I could...hope you didn’t, though.” 

“It’s really like Dota-chin doesn’t know me at all. If he doesn’t know what I look for in a male partner then what does he know, really?” Her taste in men and ladies varied quite differently, but as far as being attracted to guys went, a certain person did fit her standards…

“It’s not like we really talk about that sort of thing...it’s not like you know what type of girls I like, do you?” It was almost a trick question, as he couldn’t really say he had a type - the girls he’d had feelings for over the years were relatively few, and didn’t really have a common theme.