On edge

Part 7

It was now morning, and Nishikata was making his way to school with what felt like a hole in his chest. "Why do I feel like this?" He asked himself as he thought back to the previous night. The dream itself had faded, though Nishikata did remember the events and how they transpired, the only image he had was that of the crying newborn baby girl in his hands. "She was ... that was just a dream ..." He placed a hand on his chest to try to ease the strange sensation. "But ... Takagi ... and I ..." He felt his heart begin to sink once again. "I hope she's not upset about yesterday ... should I ... explain it to her?" He shook his head. 'No, she may turn the conversation on me, and then I'd just be falling right into her life.' He let out a sigh. "Then again, I did say I want her in my life forever, and that is true ... but if I don't solve this, then that forever might include more than just friendship."

He froze as another thought occurred to him. 'Then someday we might start a-' He shook his head and marched onwards. 'No, I can't think about things like that, I'm still years away from that point, it's creepy to start thinking about marriage when we're not even together.'

"HEY!" Came an all too familiar voice causing Nishikata to nearly fall over. He quickly turned around, and as soon as he saw Takagi, he felt his body stop responding "You ready for school?"

"I ..." He managed to regain control of his body and turned away. "I guess so."

"Hm?" She peeked around to get a look at his face. "Are you okay? You left in a hurry yesterday."

"I ... yeah, I remembered something big that popped up and-"

"You know you're not fooling me, right?"

"Huh?"

"I know you, and you didn't run because you had something planned with family."

He turned away, feeling guilty. 'Damn ... I could just say she's wrong again ... but it's too easy for her to find out that's a lie.' "It's ... complicated."

She gave him a concerned look. "You know you can talk to me about anything."

"Thanks." 'Not about this.'

"Seriously, we're friends, remember?"

"Yeah ... I remember." He began walking again as a new hole began to form inside of him. 'I need to fix this somehow ... but what do I do?'

"Are you getting enough sleep?" Takagi asked, causing him to look at her confused.

"What do you mean?"

"You look like you're about to fall over."

It was at this point that Nishikata noticed just how tired he was from the disrupted sleep he's been getting over the past few days. "Huh ... I hadn't noticed that."

"What's going on?"

"It's-"

"Please tell me the truth."

Nishikata sighed. 'I'll keep it vague.' "Well ... I've been having this ... strange dream over the past few nights ... and it's been waking me up constantly."

"Is it a bad dream?"

Nishikata thought to himself for a moment, though he was violently woken up in each instance, there was no point where he would call his dream bad. "Not ... necessarily."

"So then it was a dream about a girl then?"

Nishikata's face went red as a tomato. "I-I don't want to talk about it."

"That means I'm right." She smiled for a moment, but then her expression turned somewhat serious. "But if it's keeping you up, then you should get it addressed."

He turned away and continued to blush. 'Damn it ... she's right ... Takagi ... but how do I stop feeling this way? I guess I could just stop hanging around her until things return to normal ... Takagi ... though that's no long-term plan.'

"Hey, Nishikata?" Takagi began.

Nishikata looked at her a little curious and a little concerned.

"You left in such a hurry yesterday so I never got to tell you that ..." She blushed a little as she looked down and to the side. "I want you to stay in my life forever as well."

Nishikata was at a loss for words, and could only stare at her in shock. 'I ... not hanging round her might not be possible.' He turned away as he tried to hide his blush. "I ... I'm glad ..."

Takagi stared at him for a while, before shaking her head and looking forward. 'Did I do something wrong?' She thought. 'Is he ... not ready? It doesn't feel like that's it exactly ... is something else bothering him? Maybe I'll look into it ... no more than appropriate though.'

They continued their walk in relative silence until finally reaching the school, where they began making their way to class, though something was still bothering Nishikata. 'Now that I think about it, what is my long-term solution for this predicament? She is still a girl who's a friend who I ... probably will fall in love with, so how am I going to prevent myself from doing that?' He glanced at her and continued thinking. 'She did tell me that she has a crush ... Takagi ...  but if yesterday taught me anything, it's that either she's formed another crush on me or ... Takagi ... I was her crush all along.' Nishikata tried to discard the stray thought, but it stuck with him for an unusually long amount of time. 'It would be my luck as well, we would want to get together with each other, but we wouldn't be able to.' He began to feel an itch in the back of his mind that began bothering him. 'Huh ... why does it feel like I'm overlooking something very important to this whole situation ... like ... there's one simple, yet critical thing that I've forgotten about that would make this whole ordeal a lot easier ... Nah, I'm probably just imagining it.'