She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not....

Who Else Wants to Know?!

From the day when Sho found out about Budo's sickness, he was always around him, trying to keep Budo and the secret safe. Budo found it quite annoying, but he couldn't complain. He hadn't told anyone else except for Sho, and the brown haired boy had forced it out of him. But he felt that the secret was safe with Sho. He was his best friend since he could remember, and he had never betrayed him before. And Sho felt the same way, even though he was a bit sad that Budo didn't tell him and he had to make him tell him.

Hiding it at Budo's house was easy, since his mom had something come up and had to leave to a distant part of Japan for a few weeks. Sho came up with an excuse 'Budo must be lonely' to visit the black haired boy a lot. He helped him manage the sickness and looked up cures and stuff to ease the pain.

When they went back to school the following Monday, Sho was like Budo's shadow, and he didn't move an inch away from him. Budo tried to stop him by telling him that everyone will find out if he keeps on acting like this. But the martial artist in training didn't listen. It wasn't the normal students who were the problem; they thought that this was just normal for the two best friends even though Budo was unusually quiet and Sho looked like he was being hunted. But of course, that's not what their friends in the martial arts club thought.

"Hey Sho, is Budo paying you or something to be his bodyguard?" Shima asked teasingly while playfully punching him, earning nothing from the pale teen. 

"Yeah, you's are like conjoined twins lately!" Juku added.

"What do you mean?" Sho asked nervously from beside the martial arts master who was not uttering a word.

"You know exactly what we mean, we're not as stupid as the others in this school," Mina stated and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Everyone nodded in agreement, except for Ayano who was sitting in the corner with a blank look.

"Ayano-chan? Don't you agree?" Shima asked the black haired girl.

Ayano looked up at the ginger haired girl and slowly nodded. She didn't say anything else or move any muscle afterwards.

"So tell us," the martial artists urged the pair.

Sho looked to Budo for his opinion, and even though he didn't say anything the younger teen knew that he didn't agree by the look in his charcoal eyes.

"Well....." Sho hesitated to think up of quick lie.

"On Saturday, we were hanging out and Budo suddenly came down with a fever. I've been taking care of him since and that's why Budo and I are closer than usual....." he lied.

The others were stunned for a few seconds, and didn't say anything. Then they all burst into smiles and laughter.

"That's the reason you've been like this? Why didn't you tell us before?" Mina said while trying to contain her laughter.

"Y-yeah, its just a cold? Did you think we wouldn't understand or something?" Juku asked after everyone calmed down a bit.

The pair didn't say anything else, but nodded.

"Sorry guys, we didn't want you to know because.... Budo didn't want me to tell you cause he knows that you'll stop him from doing martial arts and make him rest," Sho made up another lie. He felt really bad for lying to his friends, but knew that it was the only solution; a white lie.

"Well, that's true but you do need rest. If don't work too hard then maybe we'll let you train then," the martial artists agreed together.

Budo nodded with a smile, but Sho leaned into his ear and whispered,"are you sure you want to train?"