After Story: Determination

Chapter One: Ruminating

I rubbed a stiff shoulder as I opened the door to my apartment. It had been a busier day at the recycling shop than usual, with multiple pick-up requests, repair requests, as well as a slew of customers in the shop. It didn't help that it had also been the chief's day off, leaving me to run the place by myself. I was really looking forward to a quiet evening with my girl.

I entered to the smell of meat and vegetables cooking, and looked to the kitchen to find Tomoyo removing her apron. She hurried over and linked her fingers behind my neck as she gazed up at me. "Welcome home, Tomoya."

"I'm home," I said before lowering my head to kiss her gently but as passionately as my tired mind would allow. "Something smells good."

"Of course it does," she replied as she made her way back to the kitchen. "Everything I cook for you is full of love, so of course it smells good. It'll taste good, too, since I'm making it for you."

"Of course," I agreed with a smile; it never did any good to disagree with her about these kinds of things anyway, so I headed to my room to change.

One change of clothes and a hand- and face-wash later I returned to the delicious smells. "Anything I can do to help?"

She gestured with a ladle handle to the nearby bowls and chopsticks. "You could set the table for us."

A few minutes later we sat on opposite sides of the kotatsu and put our hands together. "Itadakimasu."

"So, how's school treating you?" I asked as we ate. "Has it fallen apart yet?"

She sighed heavily. "Not yet, but no thanks to the Student Council. I swear, the walls could be falling down around us and they'd want to have a meeting about it."

I snorted. "I don't doubt it."

"I'm been starting to get why you don't like the Council," she grumbled. "Being president doesn't really mean being in charge."

"Yeah, it just means having to live up to the expectations of others," I grunted, then gestured at her with my free hand. "You got what you wanted from being in the Student Council, so why don't you just quit?"

"I've thought about that," she said while scratching her head, "but how would that look if I quit right after saving the sakuras?"

Considering how well-known she'd become not just at school, but throughout the country... "Like you were using the Student Council?"

"How rude!" she huffed indignantly, then quickly softened. "But you're right; you're supposed to be the president to serve other people, not just yourself." She looked down at her plate. "I chose to run for president knowing the consequences, and I have to accept them. At least things have settled down enough that I can come to have dinner with you more often."

"And I'm really happy for that," I said as I reached across the table and took her hand as I gazed into her eyes.

"T-Tomoya..."

Dinner ended up delayed a bit due to kissing.

***

"Are you doing all right at work?" she asked as we snuggled.

"Yeah," I said, running a hand through my hair. "But...I feel like I could be doing more."

"Well, it can't be helped right now," she said in her usual matter-of-fact tone. "You could have caught up on your studies during the summer, but you messed around with Sunohara right up until...when?"

"When he left for home to look for work," I said, my heart and my voice filled with regret.

"I'm not really trying to blame you or anything," she said. "It wouldn't do any good anyway; you are where you are."

"I'd love to go back and kick my old self's ass," I sighed. "Even Sunohara got his act together before I did."

"I'd love to see that," she said with a giggle.

"I just wish there was some way I could...I dunno...make up for what I missed." I sighed. "I know I can't redo high school, but if I could learn the stuff that I missed I might be able to do better than a recycle shop."

"Tomoya, you do good things for a lot of people in your job," she protested.

"I know, it's just..." I shrugged with the shoulder she wasn't leaning on. "If I hadn't given up in high school, maybe I could have made more of myself."

"If you hadn't given up, we might never have met," she countered in a worried tone.

I sighed; I understood what she meant, but I still couldn't help feeling like a failure as a man.

***

She wasn't able to come over the next day due to Student Council stuff, so that left me to make dinner for myself, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing; she had taught me a few simple dishes that I could make for myself.

What was a bad thing, however, was that it left me alone with my thoughts, which gleefully worked on beating me up. I ate in front of the TV, half of me watching and the other half hating myself. On the TV was an old show that I'd happened upon about giant shapeshifting robots and thought about how neat it would be to be able to fight for something big...well, bigger than myself at least.

I watched as the five members of a team joined together into a larger robot and thought about how neat it would be to be part of a team like that; Separate, individual, yet coming together for a common purpose, a common good. I thought about what I spent most of my time doing when I wasn't working; namely, trying to do convince Tomoyo to do 'perverted' things with me. I almost enjoyed our back-and-forths around that, but it still left me feeling rejected by her.

After the episode ended I turned off the TV to think about why her rejections bothered me. Why did I want to have sex with her so badly? It couldn't have been just for the sensations that I'd heard came with the act; any girl would do if it was just for that.

I lay back on the mat and started at the ceiling and thought about why I wanted to do it with Tomoyo the way that I did; the only thing I could come up with is because I wanted to feel closer to her and felt like having sex with her would do just that.

But why did she always call it 'perverted'? As embarrassing as it would be, I decided to talk to her about it the next time we were together...not in public, of course. Maybe we weren't thinking of the same thing; being as vague with our words as we'd been could have easily led to a misunderstanding.

As I filed that thought away for later, another took its place; my job situation. While it was honest work that paid well, I couldn't shake the feeling that I could have been more. Sleeping through classes never gave me the chance to learn about what I was capable of, and I was paying the price for it with a low-level job. Was there some way I could make up for it? I considered the possibility of calling the school to see if I could borrow some old textbooks and try to teach myself, but the only times that I'd be able to study would be after work and on the weekends, so it would likely take away from my time with Tomoyo, so I didn't think that would work. In the end, I decided to file that away to talk with her about as well; I didn't want to make any decisions that could affect her without talking to her about them first.

"...you do good things for a lot of people in your job..." I remembered her saying.

But what if I could do more? Or better?