<div class="floatright">(http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/images/dnangel/Dark_Mousy.jpg)</div>There was a moment of awkward silence that followed Aika's remark and Daichi couldn't help but feel a little guilty for having been busted.  Perhaps a little excited too, knowing that for a short while Sara and he had an audience.  He had noticed that she opted to sit next to him on the bed rather than stand some distance away from him, which made him a little more certain that her words were a sign of jealousy or envy.  Or perhaps he was simply misinterpreting things and was thinking more highly of himself than he ought to, as was often the case before the world ended.<br/><br/>Whichever it was, he wanted to make sure the air was clear to avoid causing a division in the group at such a vital point in time.  Even if he was nervous as hell about having this discussion.  Daichi drew in a calming breath while he ran his fingers through his long purple locks before resting it on Aika's knee in a reassuring gesture.  Or at least that had been his intention, but came up short and ended up resting it on her lower thigh.  He inwardly enjoyed the warmth of her body through the fabric of her pants.  It wasn't high enough to be intrusive and molesting, but it was the sort that only really close friends or intimate couples shared.  Daichi's first instinct was to hastily withdraw it and apologize, but he hesitated for a moment and knew doing so at this point would likely send the wrong impression and possibly be insulting to her.  So he just left it there and hoped to downplay it through conversation.<br/><br/><strong>"I won't lie, Sara and I did use one another to help forget about everything that is happening for a time... But you shouldn't read too much into it.  It was made abundantly clear that she and I are nothing more than friends."</strong>Daichi chuckled sheepishly.<strong>"She didn't even want to kiss me because she felt it would have been too... well, personal I suppose."</strong>His purple hues looked up and searched her eyes uneasily.<strong>"I'm sorry you had to see that...  I didn't mean to... uh... I guess what I want to know is, are you mad at Sara or me?"</strong>Throughout that conversation, he didn't have to put any effort behind not referring to Sara and himself as 'us' or 'we'.  Sara had made it known she wanted nothing more than a friendship from him, perhaps with a few benefits, and he had accepted those terms.