Mari is transfixed. She looks at Akko's back, and out the window at Takeshi, stands, and starts to follow Akko, her face clouded with confusion and despair. "How could I?" she thinks. "Wasn't Akko my best friend? What was I thinking?" Mari stands straight, her jaw set, and she turns away from Akko and starts to run. In seconds, she is at Takeshi's side, grabbing his hand. He sees her determined, tear-stained face and follows her. "Help me find Akko!" She tells him, and the two race through the amusement park. They stop where two paths come together and catch their breath. "Nee-san!" Takeshi looks serious. "You want to find her? We need to split up. Two of us can cover more ground." Mari takes out her cell phone and tries to call Akko, but there's no answer. She pulls Takeshi close and whispers to him, "I said something stupid, and I hurt Akko. I need to find her! Oh, I should have waited till we were somewhere else!" Takeshi looks stunned, and Mari takes a deep breath. "OK, no matter what, be back right here in half an hour!" and she runs off. After a second, Takeshi takes off on another path. Elsewhere in the park, Akko steps behind a tree next to a path, and slumps down against the half-hidden side of the trunk. Her phone jingles, and she shuts it off without looking to see who's calling. She hugs her knees, crying, "How can Mari love me if she thinks that about me?" Akko remembers Mari on the rainy day of her first date with Harada, crying "My love - it can never be fulfilled!" Akko's eyes pop open. "Oh, no! Maybe that's what she meant!... Oh, no...oh...no..." Akko buries her face in her knees, people passing inches from her enjoying the day, not seeing her swallowed up in shadow. Nearby, at the top of a stairway, Mari runs by in a panic. She catches a glimpse of Akko's hair, and shouts "AKKO!" Akko stands, shocked to hear Mari's voice, and sees Mari charging down a staircase toward her. In a panic, feeling completely confused, she scrambles away, through the trees, and crawls out through a tiny gap between two bushes to stand on a small wall next to a busy walkway. She jumps down the few feet and escapes into the crowd. Mari tries to follow, gets tangled and scratched by the bushes as she pushes through, calling out to Akko. She finds the gap, but trips as she emerges, falling over the wall and down to the concrete pathway in the middle of a large crowd of people. She cries out in anguish, not for the scrapes and bruises, but for losing sight of Akko, out of fear of losing her forever. People nearby stop what they are doing and reach out to her, offering to help. Only one person in the world matters to Mari now, and Akko is gone. Around two corners and through a few busy walkways, Akko is now sprinting, half-blinded by tears, unaware of a destination or purpose. "I can't let her see me like this! I can't let her look at me at all!" she thinks. On a raised sidewalk nearby, Takeshi, with a scraped knee and torn shirt, catches a glimpse of Akko racing through the crowd. He finds a stairway down and runs, silently, a serious look on his face. He sees Akko slip between two food vendors, and he slows to a walk. Catching his breath, he follows Akko's path between the food vendors' carts and spies her shoe sticking out from around the corner of a storage shed. Takeshi drops to his knees, presses his forehead to the ground, and says, a little softly, "Gomen-nasai, Akko nee-san." Akko, sitting with her back to the shed, peers cautiously around the corner at Takeshi, his head still bowed. Akko's tears make two streams down her cheeks, and Takeshi's are making two puddles under his head. She reaches out to him, and he backs away, still looking down. "Forgive me!" he looks up. "I've ruined everything! Nee-chan was so happy, and then I teased you and made you come here and now you're mad at her, and she's the most miserable person in the world. It's all my fault, all my fault..." Takeshi sobs, sitting on his haunches and facing the sky, his arms limp at his sides. As she did the previous night, Akko crawls toward Takeshi. Only this time, as her face looms over his, she's teary-eyed, red-nosed, and smiling. "Takeshi, you didn't ruin anything, it's-" but Takeshi wipes his nose with the back of his hand and stares angrily at Akko. "I made you two take me here because I was jealous. Before she met you and fell in love with you, Nee-chan always took me places. Then she stopped, and mom and dad said she probably had a boyfriend, but it was you all along." "All along?" Akko asks. "Since when?" Takeshi looks annoyed, but thinks for a moment and answers, "about when she started second year." "That long?" Akko murmurs. "Oh, Mari! Why couldn't I see?" She helps Takeshi up, and the two lean against the storage shed, mostly out of sight behind the food stands. "You are going to be together with her again, aren't you?" Takeshi asks. Akko looks at him blankly, and he continues, "After all, she really does love you. I can tell, I think." Akko blushes a little and looks at her feet. "This is a bit awkward," she thinks. Then she gets a serious look on her face and says, "Takeshi, there's something I need to tell your sister!" And, taking his hand, she storms through the gap between the food stands, scattering slow-moving people left and right. Takeshi, struggling to keep up, is smiling nonetheless.
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