What Is Love?

Chapter Three

It's been about a month since we started working on the manga. It seems like we have a good routine going now. Usually I'll write a section beforehand, or work on part of it then finish it while Katou and I get together. This system allows her to have the full story outline, or at least most of it before she starts working on a certain section. We're also keeping everything electronic at this point so it's easy to share things back and forth. We can also keep copies so we can go back and look at sections we've already completed.

This system is so efficient that we've gotten a whole chapter finished already. We're presently about halfway through our second chapter and it's only been about a month. That's quick typically speaking. I may add that there's going to be five chapters, so we've made a lot of progress.

Our venue has switched back and forth from my room to the library. We also occasionally met up after our classes. On days where we meet up after class, we just end up in a random area somewhere on campus. We still haven't gone to Katou's room yet because of her roommate. She's is usually too embarrassed to have me in there. Sometimes I wonder how she can even stand it. I get the feeling that her way of escaping it is to simply not be in her room. That must be annoying.

As for Katou and I's relationship, well, I've finally gotten the hang of calling her Katou instead of Yuugo, which took some prodding, but eventually started to feel natural. She hasn't once brought up the conversation we had that day, and honestly, that came as a huge relief to me.

I'd like to think that what I did wasn't the real me, but I came up with it after all, and acted on it for a full two days which still makes me sick to my stomach, both because it was Katou who I did it to, and because I managed to come up with something like that.

The only thing that finally allowed me to let it go was what Katou said to me the day after it had happened. I had moments when I thought that I didn't deserve to still be working with her, but if I mentioned it, she immediately contradicted me saying it was completely her choice and she's overlooked everything that happened at the beginning of our partnership.

Honestly, I DON'T deserve her friendship. She's too good hearted for me. I wonder why she wants to be friends with me. Maybe I should ask her why.

"Alright, ladies, pair up and run drills in your position groups," our coach yells.

Well, that was actually perfect timing.

What he meant by position groups is that we get together with the other people that play the same position as us and practice the most used skills for that position. We do this often because it allows us to become familiar with our partners techniques, as well as the skills we use the most often. If we're able to predict how our counterparts are going to move, we can work together with more efficiency.

The first-string forwards are me, Katou, and our captain. We have two second-string forwards. The five of us know each other fairly well. This is also what I was talking about once upon a time when I was saying that Katou and I ran drills together because we were both forwards. Back then, we would usually just do as we were told, and I would stay quiet. Katou would talk to the others, but not me, as I also mentioned once upon a time.

It's different now though, of course, and people are starting to pick up on it.

"Natsuki-chan! Let's practice together!" Katou announces, walking up with both of our second-string forwards, Iroha and Itsuki.

"Okay."

Our group walks over to an empty part of the field and we break into two groups.

Captain says, "Alright, you two can practice together, and I'll work with the second strings."