He Was a Friend

/48/ She got it. /

"Okay! So now that the garter event is finished, may we ask for the newly weds to come over here?" the host requested. Following suit, Lawrence and Grace went beside them, while holding hands.

Louise stood up from the chair and looked at Eric who was then hastily fixing his hair into a half-tied bun. She just can't help herself from watching whatever he's doing.

I wonder why.

"So! May we request for the groom and bride, as well as our garter toss couple, to share a kiss for a toss of this moment?" the host asked, which was responded by a loud cheer from the guests.

Wait a moment. Kiss?

Eric chuckled and looked at her flushed face.

"Permission to fire," he muttered, smiling smugly.

She blinked for a couple times, before responding, in the most casual way she could, "It's just for show. We can do that much."

Seeing Lawrence about to kiss Grace, her vision suddenly became full of Eric's face zooming in to her. She felt her nerves tighten, her heart squeezed – her time stopped.

Or something like that.

It was a very short and light kiss. Eric was gentleman enough to not take advantage of that situation, even if it's a known fact that he is currently courting her.

Gentleman, you say? How about that long one in Japan?

Her line of thoughts stopped after noticing her increasing heart beat. It's pounding ridiculously loud, and she also felt very warm for some reason. It's as if her heart racing suddenly made the blood flow in her body abnormally fast, that her body was overheating.

And then it struck her.

I'm... in love with this guy, she mumbled to herself, in a state of combined shock and panic.

"Lou. You okay?"

Eric's alarmed face entered her vision. It somehow overlapped with the time he saw him panting after running around the neighborhood almost the whole morning, when he just broke up with Martha a year back. Back then, he only told her that "it didn't work out again." She saw how he was silently frustrated and hurt that time, that she even thought to herself then – something that she almost told Eric back in the izakaya at Yurakucho.

That I almost told him to forget her and that I'll take care of him instead, she thought, while doing a face palm to hide her embarrassment and her blushing cheeks.

She cared that much for him. She's that much affected when he's hurting, when he's happy – when he's tired. She's bothered when he doesn't go to the cafe, thinking what could've happened for him to miss his 'routines'. She's just like Eric who, just like how he got used to her, got used to being around him the same way – that she forgot there's an even higher level of 'friendship' they can step into.

She looked everywhere else to find that one person – who happened to be actually just beside him for a very long time.

Her heart ached at her realization, and ached even further when she remembered something.

Now that I know that, what about Art, then...?

"Lou," Eric called-out again, blocking everyone's view as he softly tapped her cheeks to wake her up from her deep thoughts. She looked around and saw the host doing the next part of the wedding events, which are the vows. She was now sitting at Eric's table, perhaps Eric brought her there when she was temporarily 'out of it'.

Her thoughts were replaced with Eric's laughter.

"Was my kiss that shocking? Enough to bring you to another world?"

Yes. I just love this side of him. He calms me down with just one-liners, she shook her head while smiling.

"Yeah. To hell," she smirked to show him she's okay now. Eric got the message and sighed in relief.

"Come on. You mean heaven, right?"

A loud "OUCH!" came out from Eric's mouth after she punched his ribs as hard as she could.

She was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she wasn't able to notice Art, who walked out of the scene with a dim face – a face he hasn't worn even once before.