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Despite your height being closer to a mushroom’s, despite your insistence in wearing such tacky hats to cover the flames of your hair, it’s easy to see you amidst the sea of nobodies. It’s easy to drift closer to you, as if there’s an invisible leash connecting the edges of my bandages to that black band over your neck. Not for the first time, I’m struck by the desire to transform my imagination to something tangible.
It roots me into place. It pleases me when you’re the one who gravitates towards me, bridging our gap in the end. Even if your words are barbed. “The fuck are you standing around with a stupid look in your face? You’re blocking the way, shitty mackerel.”
I listen to your words intently, dissecting each syllable so they’re more convenient to swallow. Hoarding them inside my belly for safekeeping, for the moments when you’re not in the vicinity and I’ll have to find some other means to warm my insides.
Compared to the first time you’ve arrived here, you’re now a bloom of vibrant rage. I want to see your snarls, your bite, your anger. So I smile and say, “Of course, you’d know how stupidity looks like, hmm?”
You bristle like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. While you continue complaining about me, your voice echoing in the air, I let my hand land on your tailbone. Stroking it as one would soothe a cat’s tail. You turn into a rose, completely red and filled with thorns.
It pleases me that you’re showing off this side of you, it really does.
A far cry from your timid actions on our first meeting. Nakahara Chuuya, a returnee to Yokohama after spending twenty years hopping from one country to another, courtesy of your fathers’ jobs. And with them now stationed in this city, you follow suit. You used to be so shy, so uncertain. Years of homeschooling and no deeply-rooted friends, obviously-foreign looks and a non-local accent.
You looked like someone who’d be so easy to bully. You looked like someone who would flush as red as your hair with just a simple joke. You looked like someone who I could see cry if I just exerted the tiniest bit of effort.
So I shocked Ango and OdaSaku when I volunteered to be your student buddy, supposedly to help you adjust better.
But you surprised me even more when you turned out to be a firecracker underneath all that veneer of docility.
Just like a rose, I want to see just how many layers you have. I want to pluck each petal, devour them so that I can say that I have truly attained each part of you. Your rage, your disappointment, your cluelessness, your straightforwardness. Your loneliness, your insecurity, your strength, your weakness. I want to see and own every single part of you.
After all, nobody has ever surprised me before.
And I’ve seen all the other parts. Your annoyance towards me. Your disappointment when I manage to trick you into yet another bet. Your panic when I steal and hide away your hat. Your embarrassment when I suggested that you make more friends by walking around with a ‘free hugs’ placard. Your loneliness when nobody approaches you for said hugs. Your cluelessness in not knowing that it’s because I had already warned anyone from daring breathe within five meters of you. Your straightforward answer when I tell you that I want to die. Your strength when you punch away a group of delinquents who have cornered me. Your rage when you realize that I had arranged to be surrounded by such low-level bullies. Your weakness towards someone asking for your help that you ignore everything else.
I want to see your smile, your laugh, your happiness. I really do.
I think you look most interesting, the most beautiful, whenever you smile. Whenever you make that tiny fist-pump at the end of winning a game. Whenever your lips twitch a certain way after you get the upper hand. Whenever you flush upon being praised for your hard work.
Happiness is such a good look on you.
I want to see you happy always, I truly do.
It’s just that… there’s one more thing that I haven’t seen from you. The first thing that I had wanted to see from you. I exerted so much effort over the months of knowing you, and I still haven’t seen you cry.
Why is that, Chuuya?
Why won’t you cry for me?
I want to see you happy always, I really do. It’s just that… I want to see you cry under me even more. You understand that, right? After all, you always claim that you can sense what I think.
“…You’re thinking of a bunch of nonsense again, aren’t you?!” A jab to my stomach. Your elbow’s sharp enough to pierce through my thoughts.
It can’t be helped, really. A genius like me, I can get lost in my thoughts easily. Even if lately, these thoughts are just filled with Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya—
“Ah, Chuuya.” I savor your name. Draw it out so that they stretch over my tongue. “It can’t be helped, my mind is just that much more active.”
Your unimpressed glare is also striking. I’m starting to accept the fact that each part, each facet of you is lovely beyond belief. “If you’re just going to keep on spacing out, then I’m leaving!”
…Oh?
I’ve dedicated several months to fully insinuating myself into your life. I know each and every single emotion that you possess, each and every single tone that you have. And yet, something new happens today. Something that I haven’t catalogued before.
You huff and start to stomp away. I grab you by the wrist, circling my fingers just above the spot where your gloves end and your sleeves start. Your pulse is so warm, your skin so velvety. I can’t resist rubbing my thumb over your pulse, as though to transfer your heartbeat directly to my veins.
“Let go!”
“Mm,” I hum noncommittally. Move closer so I can use my other arm to snake around your waist. I walk you towards a wall, at a spot that’s tucked away from everyone’s view. Not that anyone would dare to disturb us, not when I’ve already warned them off.
“I said—”
“—are you disappointed that I’m not paying attention to you, Chuuya?”
Your cheeks transform into ripened apples. Temptation personified. I lean down and take a bite. Your skin runs hot, almost like you’re in the throes of a fever. I can taste the sweetness. I bite your other cheek, heedless of the way your body wriggles against mine.
Wonder fills me. I’ve seen your strength, after all. It’s easy for you to simply knock me away, but you instead ball your fists. I can feel your entire body trembling. Your eyes are the brightest of blues, glaring at me with an emotion that I can’t classify. Not yet. So won’t you look at me more? Look at me more so I can finally understand this new emotion of yours.
“I’m just—! You wanted to hang out after-class but you’re all spacey! What’s the point, then, asshole!”
“Were you looking forward to us hanging out?” I ask without expectations for a positive answer.
What I get is so much more. You punch me in the stomach, with not even a tenth of your usual force. Your face is all red still. Even your ears, even the back of your neck. You’re a crimson star in front of my eyes.
You yell at me, “Shut up and die! Who would look forward to spending time with an annoyance like you!”
Your eyes are shiny with some unfathomable emotion.
You stomp away, my world rattling with each step you take away from me.
But I stay in place. My heart goes on overdrive. I look at you growing even smaller in the distance.
…Ah, that’s fine.
I raise my hand over my dizzying heartbeat. I feel a smile curling over my face. I have a feeling that I’d be able to see you crying under me soon.
Smile stretching, my leg also stretches forward, as I accept your invitation to a chase.
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