At a cafe near the Adventurersâ Association, Haruna had chosen a time when Hiroshi and Mio were busy to speak to Tatsuya and Makoto.
âNow, itâs not like I donât have a good guess, but whatâs something you wanted to talk about⊠in private?â
âI donât know how I should act around Hiroshi-kunâŠâ
They both nearly blurted out âjust like you always have,â but kept it in. It was a pointless answer, since Haruna was speaking to them because she couldnât do that anymore.
ââŠWhat do you mean, how?â
âNothing like this has happened before. Iâm not sure about anything, anymoreâŠâ
It seemed that she didnât have anything straightened out herself, either. Makoto and Tatsuya patiently waited for Harunaâs follow-up, as she desperately struggled to find her words through fighting with her unreasonable emotions.
âWhen Iâm near him, I canât stop thinking about it, I can hear my heart pounding, and I canât keep it cool⊠And when weâre not together, like now, I keep wondering what heâs doing, or if heâs gotten into a mess with some girls, or something⊠I canât stop thinking about that kind of stuff. I canât concentrate on anything.â
ââŠNever thought Iâd hear you say stuff like thatâŠâ
Tatsuya blurted out his brutal, honest reaction after hearing a straightforward problem of a girl with a crush. As for Makoto, she was a loss for words at Harunaâs completely earnest concern.
âItâs weird, rightâŠ?â
âI think youâre way past that stage, Haruna.â
âWay past it?â
âUrm, how do I put this?â
Tatusya struggled to phrase his opinion, as it completely relied on his subjective observation. Whether she knew it or not, Haruna had began thinking of Hiroshi that way after their battle against Barold. To be honest, he only saw her as a girl in love by the time they had left Wulls. He had thought that she was way past this stage. Furthermore, his understanding of Haruna was that she was the kind of woman to keep those feelings with her as she discovered and acted upon the best course of action for both her emotions and situation. He never thought heâd be sought out for advice about something like this.
âItâs hard to explain, but normally all that would have happened way before this, and most people notice that theyâre in love when it does. From what we saw, we thought you already knew and had made your decision.â
âReally?â
âLike I told you before, most everyone close to you knew that you had some sort of romantic feeling for Hiroshi by the time the carfuffle at the castle was done.â
âItâs not like you were telegraphing it, but anyone with a good eye saw that you were always thinking about Hiroshi, Ann and Myuzzel were saying how impressed they were that you can act natural when you saw him that way.â
âDidnât expect you to be doing it subconsciously, no, Maâam.â
âThe silver liningâs that you didnât know you were in love, huh⊠How complicated can you getâŠâ
Seeing Tatsuya and Makoto kind of holding their temples, Haruna could only awkwardly smile. For someone who had never experienced love, their points were exactly connecting.
âI think you get it now, butâŠâ
âIf I did, I wouldnât be hereâŠâ
âRightâŠâ
Tatusya and Makotoâs tribulations continued. If the object of her adoration wasnât Hiroshi, all theyâd have to do was have him hear this conversation. In this case, it wasnât that easy.
âI donât think âwhat do you want to do?â or âwhatâs the best outcome for you?â is going to mean anythingâŠâ
âNot even worth our breathâŠâ
âI know whatâs the best, right nowâŠâ
What was the best outcome? Anyone with common sense and empathy could figure that out, but love, alas, was not that easy to conquer. If only Haruna had some semblance of experience in this department, she might have been able to keep her emotions bottled up until Hiroshiâs condition would improve. But, unfortunately for her in more reasons than one, this was her first crush, one that had spectacularly manifested after her unknowingly building up her emotions higher and higher. That powerful energy could not easily be controlled, even with Harunaâs logical reins over her emotions. The truly unfortunate fact, though, was that she had to fall in love with Hiroshi (without even knowing) who couldnât trust any form of romantic feelings directed toward him.
âI know full well that its immense pressure for Hiroshi-kun just to be on the receiving end of it, butâŠâ
âWell, yeah, itâs only natural you want your crush to understand you, and to even have physical contact.â
âIf only, if only it wasnât HiroshiâŠâ
Everything would have been settled long ago if it wasnât Hiroshi. Worst of all, Hiroshi was dependant on Haruna in a certain way, but clearly had no romantic attraction toward her. Even that dependance was nothing that would cause him trouble if Haruna were to disappear. It was just a social issue, after all, if Haruna were to leave, he would just own who he was, and go become a hermit in the mountains.
Of course, Haruna was only the woman that Hiroshi trusted not to harm him, no matter what. He must have had considerable trust in her as person-to-person, but as long as his phobia remained unconquered, even Haruna (if she were to set off a huge red flag or two) would be kept at a distance.
âItâs not his fault heâs got this phobia, so thereâs no sense complaining about it to him.â
âIn the first place, Hiro isnât obligated to fall for Haruna just because sheâs into him.â
âThat would have been better, at least she would have had a chance. Weâre not just talking about Haruna, but no girl can even get to the starting point with him.â
âYou said itâŠâ
âI donât know who she was or what she did, but whatever girl destroyed him that badly has none of my sympathy.â
Makoto was starting to get irritated at the increasingly distasteful revelations. The most annoying was all that, even after spending this much time together, and feeling like they had built a significant relationship of trust, Hiroshi could easily categorize them on the same level as the girl who built his phobia. Since there was no sense in complaining about it to Hiroshi, they could only be mad at the root of his phobia.
âKeep it down for now, Makoto.â
âI know. It pisses me off, but me flipping out now isnât going to solve anything.â
âEven if you enacted some revenged on that ex-classmate of his, that might only distance Hiro.â
What was the point in bickering about something that happened before they even knew Hiro, when they could not have done a single thing about it? It was more important to give Haruna their opinions on her romance as constructively as possible.
âLetâs get back on track.â
âRight. So, what should I do?â
âPlease, Tatsuya. Iâve got close to no experience in this field. I wouldnât know what to do in this messâŠâ
âYou say that, but all I got is that Haruna should hold in as much as she can, and help Hiro get over his phobia. She canât even get to the starting point without doing that.â
They had to come back to this, at the end of the day. And if Haruna could have done that, she never would have needed their advice at allâŠ
âWhy does it feel like a deadendâŠâ
âAny normal tactics would only hurt her prospectsâŠâ
âErmâŠâ
At the end, all Haruna discovered from speaking to her (slightly) more experienced friends were how convoluted Hiroshi would be to build a relationship with, and the fact that the fire in her heart burned even brighter in spite of, or precisely because of that fact.