Mute Or Just Scared? (Mitsukuni 'Honey' Haninozuka Love Story)

Great Friends

Taiga's late...I thought to myself. We'd always meet up before I met with Chika, but today she was late. Needless to say, this wasn't normal. Shortly after I decided to go looking for her, someone came running up to me. Though it wasn't Taiga.

"Sorry," he apologized, slightly out of breath. I didn't understand why Kasanoda was apologizing until he spoke again. "Taiga had something she had to take care of and asked me if I'd come meet you since she can't."

I smiled up at him and nodded. Thank you. Remembering that he couldn't really understand me, I reached for my notebook. But it wasn't there. I'd forgotten it today.

"Something wrong?" Kasanoda asked as I frowned. I tried my best to ask if he had something to write on. He figured it out, but he had nothing. "I'm sorry, Taiga said not to bother because you always had something with you."

With a sigh, I tried to find a way to fix the problem. Even if I was okay with talking to Taiga a bit, I still hadn't gotten there quite yet with anyone else. The only reason I'd even been able to talk to her was because she'd pushed me to. But that wasn't enough to make me talk to others yet though.

Before I could come up with anything, Kasanoda spoke. "Taiga told me about how you can talk to her," he said, his voice calm and gentle. I could tell he was trying hard to avoid scaring or upsetting me. "I know you barely know me and I'm a scary guy, but it's okay for you to talk to me." He looked away from me for a moment. "If you don't want to, you don't have to. I wouldn't want to force you."

I smiled. Ritsu Kasanoda was just like Taiga said he was. It made me wonder how anyone could think he was even the tiniest bit scary. Before I knew what I was even doing, I'd already spoken. "Thank you."

Kasanoda's reaction might actually have been funnier than Taiga's. He probably didn't believe he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. "Did you just...?" For a moment, I didn't even realize that I had. But that didn't really matter because the stunned look on his face was absolutely hilarious.

I couldn't have stopped myself even if I'd wanted to; I started laughing. It was rare for me to laugh out loud, but right now I couldn't help it. In fact, I could even feel tears forming in the corner of my eyes. "You should see your face!" Since I'd pretty much stopped thinking for the moment, nothing was stopping me from saying anything that came to my mind. But it's still hard to speak when you're laughing so hard that you can barely breathe.

Kasanoda said nothing else and just stared until my laughing had ended. "You weren't thinking at all just now, were you?" he asked calmly. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't been. Guess that would explain why it was so easy for others to do; after all, I spent more time thinking than anything. Perhaps thinking less would mean I could talk more?

I shook my head. "I thought so." Kasanoda smiled, though I wasn't exactly sure why. "You know, when you've got great friends like Taiga and Chika, you don't have to think so much. I don't mean you have to stop thinking, I just mean..." He stopped and scratched at the back of his head while he thought out what he wanted to say. "I guess as long as you're confident about it, then it doesn't matter if you're thinking or you're not."

His words were a bit confusing, but I felt like I understood them. Just be confident, huh? It was actually a great idea. Not only did it make sense, but it was something I'd never even thought to try.

But as the two of us were talking about this, we'd forgotten something very important. I was supposed to go meet Chika. With Taiga having been late, I'd already been late before Kasanoda had shown up. Now I was even later.

As the two of us ran, I made a mental note to make up for it later on.