Realised Feelings

"Realised Feelings" (気づいた心) is a short story from 's store privilege for volume 7.5 of You-Zitsu light novel series, together with other two short stories.

Plot Summary
On Chirstmas day, Kiyotaka Ayanokōji and Kei Karuizawa accompanies one another on a stroll after their first meeting with the school Vice-President Kiriyama. During said stroll, Kei announces her intentions to Kiyotaka about breaking up with Yōsuke Hirata, realising that she now has the capability to be more socially independent. Kei and Yōsuke had been discussing their, 'relationship,' amongst themselves, and they both believed that dragging out their false love any longer was unideal. Kiyotaka and Kei muse upon the impact of such action, drawing up conclusions about Yōsuke becoming sought out by the maidens at school, and they also find that they are unable to deduce whether or not Yōsuke would like another relationship due to their lack of insight about his personal interests despite Kei's close relation with him. To symbolise her decision, Kei reverts back to calling Yōsuke by his first name; Hirata.

However, while Kei now calls Yōsuke by his first name, she neglected to do the same with Kiyotaka, which he notices and points out. Kei misunderstands and interprets that as disapproval of a first name basis. Kiyotaka corrects her misinterpretation, and tells her that she has the freedom to call him whatever she liked. After that Kiyotaka threw back a suggestion to call Kei by her first name as well, surprising Kei to the extent where she lets out a, "Tauwa!?" noise. Despite Kiyotaka's remark on Kei's girlish cry, she denied it to the end as she tries to calm down her soaring heart from reacting in a lovesick manner.

Kiyotaka changes the topic to sate his interest on the mastermind of the, “double date,” plan, where he asks whether or not Maya Satō was the original proposer of the plan. Kei tries to feign ignorance, even though she knew that Kiyotaka had already deduced the answer. Kiyotaka casually remarks about Kei's fantastic acting in contrast to Maya's subpar acting. Kei became dejected about how easily they were found out, but also agreed with his statement.

Kei seemed to have calmed herself down from the unexpected mutual first name basis agreement through the use of internalised breathing, however, when Kiyotaka said that he had a Christmas present for her, Kei's efforts were naught, as her heart once again leaped up and soared. But it was shot back down again after Kiyotaka said he lied, as Kei replies with, "Huh? You want to get beaten up?" He clarified that his present wasn't really a Christmas present, but an ordinary normal present. Kei was not one bit amused that her,  'present,' was in a pharmacy bag, but she opened it nonetheless and found cold medicine and a receipt. Kiyotaka apologised about the receipt and told her she could just rid of it. However, upon brining attention to the receipt, Kei skimmed through it to find that the cold medicine was bought two days ago in the morning. Kiyotaka explained that he knew Kei and Maya had planned the double date from an early stage because he saw them together by coincidence after buying the cold medicine. It was also this sighting that explained to Kiyotaka that Kei was in perfectly good health. In a fluster, Kei tries to poke holes in his theory, by pointing out that Kiyotaka should have just visited her or called her if he wanted to confirm her health. However, Kiyotaka shot down her counter-theory by confirming the suspiciousness of visiting a girls dorm, and his distrust towards Kei's ability to affirm weakness in a phone call where he could not see her face.

After hearing that, Kei became so lovestruck and embarrassed to the point where she wanted to find her face which was rapidly flushing red. Even her conscious was squealing, running around in circles inside her mind. Her realisation that Kiyotaka had been constantly worried about her since rooftop incident was the final nail on the coffin. The love arrow that she aimed at Kei for Maya, had now betrayed her and pierced her heart to fall in love with Kei. She couldn't deny her feelings anymore, "I have, I have towards Kiyotaka-really, seriously, I've fallen in love with him."