Fandom: Hanasaku Iroha
Author: Me, Ed
Rating: Currently K+

Pairings: Yuina/Minko (Minko/Tohru, Yuina/Yosuke and Yuina/? as side pairings)
Genre: Romance, angst and drama
Disclaimer: Hanairo and its characters belong to PA works, not me. Cursived lyrics aren't mine either (check A/N)

Summary: Minko can't confess to Tohru, and Yuina is sure that the one she has crush on, will reject her. When Ohana suggests that they start dating someone else to make their crushes jealous… well, that can't end well, can it?
A/N: I found a song called "In front of people" (Ihmisten edessä) by Jenni Vartiainen from Youtube. That Finnish song with English lyrics gave idea to this.

-x-

Minko's pov

They know nothing,
they don't belong to this story
That is read to a few

What have we done? I grab Yuina's hand and hope that she can give me courage to do this. It's for Tohru anyway. I need to see if he gets jealous (if he likes me).

"Ready?" Yuina whispers and squeezes my hand gently. She's not using a fake accent so I take that she's nervous too.

"Never, but-" I whisper and look at her. She smiles at me and touches gently my lips with her forefinger. If I continued, I'd lick her finger. The thought causes me to blush, I'm sure of it, but it's okay because she's blushing too. This is just too weird.

"Let's go!" Yuina leads the way slowly, her fingers are still intervened with mine as we head towards the city.

The road is dark and I lean towards Yuina. I'm tired, scared and angry. I think I just made the worst mistake in my life and Tohru will hate me eternity if he finds out – and he will. Stupid, idiotic, balut Ohana.

Xx-Playing hearts-xX
- how it all started-

"So, Yuina, why do you always turn down boys? Is it because of Yosuke?" Ohana asked curiously. The two most popular girls in her class never accepted an invitation. Ohana knew that Minko had crush on Tohru, God knows why.

"Hmm, well, it's not related to Yosuke…" Yuina began using Okinawa dialect and noticed that Minko and Nako did their best to not look interested although they were clearly listening. "That's because I have someone I like."

"I thought that you were engaged to that man?" Minko muttered bitterly without looking up. She was reading a book and turned page.

"And? He can date anyone he likes and so can I," Yuina replied sadly. "It's not like we want to…"

"Ignore everyone else?" Ohana offered shyly and Yuina nodded.

"Unlike certain someone," Yuina teased and snuggled Minko, who blushed furiously and tried to escape before Yuina's fingers found a ticklish spot just under her ribs.

"It's not… like you're… dating, uh someone!" Minko shrieked under Yuina's relentless attack. That stopped Yuina, who looked surprisingly hurt for some reason.

"As if I'd confess just to get rejected," Yuina muttered, former Okinawa dialect long forgotten.

"Yeah, me too," Minko sighed and got up.

"How do you know that?"

"Eh?" girls asked in unison and looked at Nako, who looked slightly furious and angry Nako was scary. Minko grabbed Yuina's hand and squeezed it.

"How do you know that they would reject you? You haven't told them how you feel, and right now you're just scared," Nako continued.

"But…" Minko started but never finished her sentence.

"I know, act like you're dating someone and make them jealous!"

The girls glanced at each other. It actually sounded good.

A/N2: Comments? Is it worth to continue?