We Stand Together

Chapter 2: Comfortable

It wasn't like I had always known that I was in love with Chika-chan. To be honest, I hadn't really taken notice of it until I was in my last year of junior high school. It was June, so still the first term of the year. The weather had been cool considering it was nearly summer, so I had been helping my mom around the house on a weekend.

"You, since your father will be home this evening, how about you dress nice?"

Dressing nice was alright to me on occasion, however I wouldn't say seeing my dad was one that called for it. Sure, he rarely came home, but it was my dad.

"Do I have to? It's not like we need to make an impression or anything."

My mom folded her arms and gave me a stern look. "You know how much he enjoys seeing his beautiful daughter. Now hurry up! He should be arriving shortly."

Ugh.

Seeing my dad was one of my most favorite things since he was always gone for such long periods of time. He would take me out on his ship and teach me about sailing, how to navigate the sea, and tell me stories about different struggles they encountered on the way. As a kid, I pictured him fending off monsters, pirates, and any other hardship the sea could throw at him. It was then that I decided I wanted to be a ship captain when I grew up.

He arrived shortly after dusk and we all hugged as a family. Like mom said, he beamed at the outfit I was wearing. Once we had dinner, my parents had a few drinks and started getting all mushy like they always did when he got home. Most kids apparently got weirded out when their parents expressed their love for each other, but it always made me really happy.

It was also fun watching my dad get a little drunk.

He was stumbling around the living room, working the TV so it would play his baseball game. My mom teased him and refused to give him the remote, so he had to do it manually.

"You! What're you laughing at?" He must've seen me giggling.

"You two are just so comfortable together. It's something that I hope I'll get to have someday."

Dad stood up proudly and walked over to mom, throwing an arm around her. "Now you listen here, sweetie. You're young and have your entire life ahead of you. Someday I know you'll find that special someone you can joke around with and love unconditionally."

Mom had a mischievous look on her face and put a hand up to her mouth. "Could it be that our You has someone in mind? Do you have someone you always want to be with?"

Again, most kids would get flustered by a question like this, but it didn't really bother me. I thought about it for a moment, and only one name popped into my head.

"Well, I guess I always want to be with Chika-chan."

The two of them broke into laughter. Dad walked over to me and threw his burly arm around my neck. "Oh sweetie, that was a good one. Chika is a great friend! But you know what we meant."

He got up again and started walking around the room, shouting proudly. "One day, the luckiest man in the world will meet my lovely daughter and be so taken aback that he'll propose on the spot! You two will have three children and will take care of your pare-"

"Ok, I think that's enough, dear. We don't need to lecture our daughter about something so far into the future." Mom pushed him away and led him upstairs with him yelling at her the whole way.

I laughed at the ordeal and cleaned up downstairs while mom struggled to put dad to bed. His teasing never bothered me, though it always left me wondering… whether I really would find that person.

It had been about an hour since I finished downstairs so I had gotten ready to bed. To anyone else, the amount of times my phone was going off would have given them the impression that I was in a group chat.

But that's just the way Chika-chan liked to text.

"Hey You-chan!"

"Tomorrow is Sunday!"

"That means we should do something since we're both free!"

"But what should we do?"

"Oh!"

"Maybe we could go into Numazu!"

"I know you're already on the edge of Numazu…"

"But it would be fun!"

Kanan always complained whenever Chika-chan would go off on a rant and separate her thoughts into different text messages. I understood why she thought that, but I couldn't help myself from laughing and watching her thoughts come in one by one.

Once I determined her ramage was over, I quickly responded my answer to her. "Sure! We could hit one of the arcades and get parfaits after!"

This sent her into another fit of excitement that I won't bother detailing. It was mostly nonsense… but I still liked listening to her.

There was a knock at my door. "Come in!"

My mom entered the room, shaking her head. "That man. What am I going to do with him?" She walked over and sat down on my bed next to me. "Promise me you won't bring home somebody like him someday. I love that man but I can only handle one of him."

She let out a light sigh and put her arm on my back. "Don't worry about anything he says. He just knows you're starting to grow up and he's excited to see what kind of young woman you become."

I kicked my legs off my bed, looking towards the floor. "Hey Mom…"

She turned her head towards me, attentive as always.

"How… will I know? What's it supposed to feel like?" It's a question I had thought a lot of but could never find an answer to. Of course, I looked it up online since everyone on the internet is a love guru… but none of the responses felt right. Most answers had some fairy tale aspect to them that seemed unrealistic or unachievable. Being able to feel so strongly about someone…

My mom smiled and pulled me into a hug. "You will know because… the person you decide to be with will be the person who makes you happiest. You will feel at ease around him, no matter the situation. You'll love being with him… and feel heartache when you two are apart. Like you said earlier… it'll be the person you are most comfortable with. The person who can make your heart leap out of your chest every time you have a chance to see them."

Her answer felt genuine. It was none of this love at first sight or dramatic proposal stuff I kept reading about online.

It was just… simple.

I smiled and continued kicking my feet. "Thanks, mom. I think that helped a lot." She leaned over and kissed the top of my forehead, said good night, and turned off the lights.

My head hit the pillow and my eyes drifted out the window beside it. The sound of waves crashing in the distance helped ease my mind and lull me to sleep.

That person… I hope they really are out there.

The sound of someone slamming the front door and rummaging through the kitchen downstairs woke me earlier than I was planning. It didn't take a genius to figure out the cause for the commotion though.

I lazily walked downstairs to find my orange haired girl struggling to hold an armful of mikans. The single strand of hair on her head was poking just above the counter. "Chika-chan, what are you doing?"

Her head popped up and showed off an excited smile before immediately shifting into a pout. "You-chan! You weren't supposed to wake up yet."

She kept rifling through each cabinet, clearly on a mission to find whatever it was she was looking for. "Well when it sounds like a bomb went off downstairs, it's a bit difficult to ignore."

"Ehe… I tried to stay quiet for you." She bowed her head and clapped her hands together. "I'm sorry, You Watanabe! Will you ever forgive this stupid girl?"

Chika-chan had a habit of calling herself dumb whenever she made a mistake. Whether it was forgetting something at home for school or destroying a kitchen, it was impossible for me to stay mad at her for more than a few seconds.

"You're looking for a bowl, right? For the mikans you brought?" I stepped over her kneeling figure and opened the only cabinet she had yet to check yet. "Will this do?"

Upon seeing how close she had been, she fell over defeated and began kicking her legs in the air. "Why does this always happen?! I swear your parents move the bowl on me every time just to mess with me!"

She continued grumbling. I couldn't help but giggle to myself. "Actually… it was me." Though I wasn't looking at her, I could feel her glaring at me. Most people would be intimidated by someone looking so angrily at them… but not when it was Chika-chan. It just made me laugh.

She ran at me and tackled me to the ground, grabbing my cheeks and stretching them out to get me to stop laughing.

"You-chan, you meanie! Why do you enjoy making me mad?"

Because I knew you would did this.

My eyes suddenly shot open and my laughter stopped.

Wait… was that why I did that? When I moved the bowl from its previous spot the night before I was just thinking about messing with her.

Why did I think that?

"You-chan, I'm not actually upset. Are you alright? You got all serious all of a sudden." Her eyes shifted from playful anger to concern instantly. It always amazed me how caring she was for others. If somebody looked or showed the small sign of hurting, Chika-chan would stop everything to find a way to fix it.

I found myself looking into her reddish-pink eyes that I had gotten so used to. Something felt different this time though. There was a tension that I never remember feeling before.

"You-chan?"

I shook my head and slapped my hands on my face. "Nothing's wrong! I just spaced out for a second." With a light giggle, a pushed her off of me and we cleaned up the mess she had made in the kitchen.

Once everything was back in its place, Chika-chan placed each mikan carefully into the bowl I gave her. "It's just fruit. You don't have to be so careful with it!"

With her tongue hanging out of her mouth like some sort of artist, she continued her work. "You-chan loves mikan like I do, so I have to treat them delicately." She may have been a bit of a clutz, but her caring about the little things was what made her such a perfect friend.

We spent the day running around the city, finding shops and food stands to blow our allowance money on. Each time we get a snack together, I find myself holding mine up to her mouth for her to try. She offers her own in return and I graciously accept it.

As the day in the city was coming to a close, Chika-chan found one of those photo booths that let you edit the pictures afterwards with silly effects. We probably spent a bit too much on pictures, but I insisted that we take a lot since I liked to decorate my bulletin board with the strips.

When we arrived back at my house, my parents were cooking dinner. "Welcome home. Oh, Chika-san, I had a feeling you were here."

Instead of apologizing like most friends would, she quickly threw me under the bus. "It wasn't my fault! You-chan hid the bowl on me! I couldn't just leave all the mikans sitting in the open!"

I walked over to the kitchen, laughing along with my mom. "But that doesn't mean you had to destroy the kitchen, Chika-chan."

She scrambled to defend herself but eventually admitted defeat and threw herself on the couch face up. "I surrender. You win."

The rest of us laughed heartily. Chika-chan was practically family so my parents enjoyed playing around with her as much as I did.

My dad slapped me on the back as he walked through the kitchen. "Man, you two tease each other just like your mother and I do."

My hand stopped cutting vegetables. I guess that was true. It was just two friends messing with each other like anybody else would.

Mom poured the noodles from her pot into the strainer. "Chika-san, when do you plan on proposing to my daughter again?"

I felt a rush of heat in my face, my head darting between my mom and Chika-chan.

The girl on the couch lifted her head from the pillows. "Nope! Now she has to propose to me. She lost her chance of me proposing after her antics today." My parents laughed and continued what they were doing.

I didn't for some reason. My parents and her sisters always made silly remarks about the two of us getting married considering how often we hung out together. It was just a silly joke that we always played along with.

So why was it bothering me now?

It was a few moments before I brought myself back from inside my head. I saw Chika-chan had pulled out the photo strips we had made today and was showing my parents.

"Oh these are so cute! You dear, why don't you like doing these photo booth things with your father and I? You look so happy in all of these!"

Walking over to where they were, I peaked at the pictures and saw one of Chika-chan squishing her face up against mine.

"I guess I'm just comfortable around her."

Really comfortable.

A/N: Thank you for reading! If it wasn't clear, this chapter takes place about two years before chapter 1. This might end up being longer than I expected, so stay tuned for more updates. I'm trying something different with this story, so try to bear with me on the slower pace. Please let me know what you think by reviewing if you can. All comments whether they're critical or positive help me become a better writer.