Ever since I had decided to tell Eri how I felt about her, time seemed to pass by very slowly. Usually the days went by so fast…
“Ok! Good work everyone, that’s a wrap!” the producer’s voice informed. Good jobs and thank you’s echoed about. We had just finished recording two episodes of Haromoni@. Why two? Because we were getting a break of nine days. Usually I don’t like such long breaks, but with the musical recently finished I felt like I deserved one. But most of all because of what I was about to do. If Eri rejected me then I could be by myself. If she accepted then, well…I hadn’t thought that far, as cliché as it sounded.
All of us began to head for our dressing rooms. I quickly latched my arms around one of hers and asked in a voice only loud enough for her to hear, “Can I talk to you alone?”
Turning her head to look at me in the eye, she nodded.
“Get changed first, then come through to my dressing room.”
“Ok.”

I have no idea how long or short it took me to get changed, I just remember arriving outside of her room. I calmed down my breathing before opening the door and walking in. I felt my breath catch in my throat. So much for those breathing exercises.
“Ahh, Gaki-san. Can you help me? The zip got stuck…” she said, tugging at the zip on her costume to prove her point.
“Only you could do something like this,” I remarked playfully before walking over to her. I was very nervous. I mean the zip’s on the front of the costume, and it was stuck half way down…
“But these things are so uncomfortable! And they’re kind of cheap…” she whined, moving away her hands so I could free the zip. I had to agree with her there. Those blue, green and pink outfits that they made us wear were kind of cheap and they were uncomfortable. I tugged at the zip trying to move it but it just wouldn’t budge. I tried again. It still wouldn’t move.
“Maybe you should use a mayuge beam on it,” she jokingly suggested. I did one and we both laughed.
Ok, now let’s try it,” I sarcastically said. I held the zip and dragged it down. It unzipped. We stared into each other’s eyes for several moments before we both burst out laughing. What were the odds? After the laughter died down, she finished getting changed and sat beside me on the couch in her room.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
I felt my nervousness come rushing back to me. This was it; now or never. Eri was giving me that cute yet curious look she always does whenever I tell her that I want to talk to her in private. I’ve wanted to say this for so long…
“K-Kame,” I began, my voice shaking. She noticed immediately and took my hands in her own.  “I’m-“
“Are you pregnant?”
“…Huh? What?! No! No, I’m not pregnant!”
Eri let out a sigh. “Phew, okay. What is it?”
I gave her a crooked grin. She was doing that to make me feel more relaxed, to make it easier for me to tell her, to make my problem not seem as big as it was. But I still had to tell her.
“Kame, this is really important to me, and it’s taken me a lot of courage to be able to say it, so please listen carefully okay?”
She nodded, her attention completely on me. I could feel her gently stroking my hands in a calming motion.
“I’m gay,” I suddenly blurted out before I could stop myself. Eri smiled at me.
“That’s okay, I kind of thought so. You being gay changes absolutely nothing between us.”
Well things were going well so far. I took a breath, signalling that I had more to say. She looked at me, waiting for what I had to add.
“I like you.”
She blinked.
“As in I like you,” I repeated.
She blinked again. The silence that fell only raised the pounding of my heart.
“…Wow,” she breathed out. I felt her hands move in mine, but never leave. I guess that she wouldn’t know what to do with them if she did. “I’m not sure what to say…”
“Say something, please?”
“I, uh…uh,” she tried to process what was happening.
I began to feel nauseous. “Please, anything!” I begged.
Eri was confused, it was easy to tell by way her eyes searched my face. Every time she looked like she was about to say something, her mouth always shut.
“I’m so shocked at the moment; I can’t think. I can’t reply to you,” she said finally.
“It’s okay…”
“No it’s not! You need an answer.” She pouted stubbornly. “Gaki-san, can you give me half an hour to think about this?”
A chance maybe? She hadn’t rejected me yet, but then again she hadn’t exactly jumped at the chance.
“Take as long as you need,” I said. I quickly checked that my legs would be stable enough to at least get me back to my own room. Standing up, I wavered slightly, but I instantly corrected myself.
“I’ll be in my room,” I informed her, before walking out. I stole a quick glance back at her while I was closing the door. She really was confused, scared even. I wish that I could turn back time; back to before I had feelings for her. But I can’t so I’m going to have to face life as it comes at me.

I pathetically collapsed onto my couch and let out a long but muffled “Arrgh” into a cushion. I lay there for a while. Looking up at the clock on one of my walls I moaned. What felt like 10 minutes had in fact only been two minutes.
“I guess I better find something to do…” I said aloud to myself. I grabbed a random manga out of my bag and began to read. It didn’t fill me up like usual. Burrowing into my bag again, I took out a notebook and a pencil and began to scribble down whatever came to mind. Some words, some doodles, I turned over the paper and ended up retracing a lazy eight. Crumpling up the paper, I threw it behind me. It landed perfectly in the bin. I smiled for a second. I guess practise does make perfect. My impatience came flooding back when I took note of the name of the Moutube segment; “GakiKame Art Theatre”. Somehow I knew that if I thinked about enough things, that they would all somehow be connected to her. I tore out several other sheets of paper and continued to scribble. This time the things I drew made no sense. A rock somehow riding a Penny Farthing, a cloud with headphones, a hamburger blowing it’s…well it doesn’t have a nose, so it was blowing its tomato (?) on a tissue. Maybe I should see a doctor… On other pieces of paper I randomly wrote. Crumpling up the paper, I threw it at the bin, and missed. I lay my head back on the cushion, closing my eyes, enjoying the silence momentarily. Immediately I shot up and leapt for the paper, trying to unfold it without ripping it apart. I scanned my eyes over the paper until I found one that made my heart jump.
Kamei Eri.
“Gaki-san?”
I immediately re-crumpled the paper and placed it back in the bin.
“Kame,” I breathed out. Eri locked the door behind her, giving us privacy, although most of the people had left the building. She sat down on the couch. She looked at the small coffee table in front of the couch and stifled a laugh.
“Is that what you’ve been doing to pass time?” she asked in a high pitched, humour filled voice. I felt my cheeks heat up ever so slightly.
“These are as bad as mine!” she exclaimed pointing at the hamburger.
“They’re not that bad!” I weakly defended. Eri continued to laugh, and I quickly joined her. That girl has an infectious laugh. It’s like the laugh itself is laughing gas. We both calmed down rather quickly, we still had something to settle. I sat across the couch from Eri.
“Are you sure you’ve thought this through?” I asked. She nodded.
“Gaki-san, I’ve never been confessed to by a girl before…heck, I’ve never been confessed to by a guy before,” she said.
“I’m sorry, it must have been surprising,” I apologised.
“Yeah, it really was…”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I really wanted to yell. I wanted to get all of this nervousness out of me. But I didn’t, I could see that she was trying really hard.
“I’ve thought about dating girls a few times but each time I thought about it I became scared of myself. I had no idea if I was wrong for thinking those things. So I’ve been ignoring it.”
I nodded in understanding. I was exactly like that when I first thought about it. You don’t know why you’re thinking those things and you become scared of yourself; scared that everyone’s going to run away. Scared to be alone.
“But when you confessed to me, everything came rushing back. I’ve never had a problem with gays; it’s just that I was unsure about myself. I’ve been thinking over various things, like our jobs, our future; stuff along those lines. But I realised that those things were irrelevant. It was just about us. I don’t know if what I feel for you is more than friendship, I’m sorry.”
“O-Oh…” I felt my heart clenching up.
“But,” she continued.
“But?” I echoed.
“You are a very important person to me, and I feel like I need to give us a chance,” she said. I swallowed roughly.
“So, I’m going to give you one week,” Eri stated “I’ll be your girlfriend for one week. After that I’ll give you my answer. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine with me.” I moved over to her side of the couch and hugged her. “Thank-you. Thank-you so much.”
I had one week to prove to Eri that I was the one for her. I felt tears roll down my cheeks. She was trying so hard for me. I had to try my best as well. I felt her hugging me back
“Thank-you.” I said again. “Thank-you…”