Work Text:
It was just by chance that the two of you met.
It was out in the hallway of the second floor, halfway through lunch; students sat down near the staircase and lingered in the doorways, their figures merging into blacks and whites and browns and greys. Girls sat on top of their desks, pulling skirts down over their knees and dangling shoes over toes as a window was opened somewhere, letting the breeze flutter through half-finished assignments and paper airplanes that begged to fly. The boys’ soccer team met up on the roof as the smell of a thousand bento boxes filled the air – and you were rushing through the crowds and the people and the students, because you needed to speak with your language arts teacher about a test you failed. You clutched your textbooks with a desperate fever, as if your life depended on it, because it did – you forgot your backpack at home.
In the hours between waking and dreaming, you stayed up far too late – you were studying (more like cramming) for a math final that week, and one moment, you had been staring at a blurry imagine of a car and the next, you had passed out on your desk. You had woken up with a star from your tenth alarm chime and you panicked as you soon realized you only had mere minutes to change into your uniform and stuff a sad, single piece of soggy bread into your mouth. You don’t think you even ate all of it as you rushed through the door – just left a half-eaten bread crust on the porch as you rushed to your train.
And all the while, your backpack hung abandoned, left lonely in the living room coat hanger.
And then, in that moment, you don’t even notice a boy from the corner of your eye. In your rush, you don’t notice anything.
And then, you collide.
Your books spill out on the floor like ocean tides; they crash like the waves, with a loud thundering noise that a few students notice, raising their eyebrows as they glance towards te both of you and then, sigh as they look away. You fall on your hands and needs, in a sad, feeble attempt not to fall – but you fall anyways, shaking off the stinging, burning pain of the impact as you scramble to collect your textbooks back into your reddened hands, profusely apologizing every second that you could. You don’t even notice your glasses falling from your face as your vision blurs and hazes and as you grow more frustrated with yourself as you seemingly grasp thin air to find nothing. It might be enough to lead a lesser girl to tears, but not you.
It’s nothing new, really.
The world’s always been a haze to you.
“Hey, watch where you’re going – oh. Oh, shit. Um- I didn’t hurt ya, did I?” The boy shouts at you, at first – perhaps justifiably so – but his voice simmers down when he must realize it’s just you.
It’s just you – just some second year with poor, failing vision, scrambling to feel for the last of her books on the floor. Pathetic, really.
“No, you didn’t! Please don’t worry about me – I’ll be fine,” you frantically mutter as you think all of your books are back in your hands but you can’t see anymore and you can’t be sure and as you touch your face, you finally realize you don’t have your glasses on. And now, you have to struggle and waste even more time in trying to find the things before someone steps on them and breaks them. And what are you going to? Cry to the teacher that you can’t see? When they’ve already told you so many times you need to bring a spare? Oh, but then again – you break those ones too, don’t you?
You’ve been nothing but a screw-up your entire life.
The boy speaks in hushed tones as you grow quiet, and your hands tremble. “Come on, say something, will ya?” He asks you as quietly as he can – which isn’t all that quiet – as he waves a hand over your face, but you don’t move. You can’t. Because if you move now, you’ll move without your glasses, and maybe even some of your books and then you’ll break down in the bathroom and then –
The boy looks down, as he finds his foot hovering over a round pair of glasses on the floor, and bends down to pick them up. “Hey…. These are yours, right? Let them put them back on.”
Your breath hitches as you flush hot pink and as your hands tremble as you feel his fingers on your face; very carefully, the boy slides familiar black and round glasses back into their proper place, a comforting weight placed on the bridge of your nose and with a blink, the fog is lifted. The world returns as clear as a summer’s day – and you can see him properly now, with his bright blond hair, dark eyes and flashy t-shirt – ad well as the fact there’s still half a dozen of your textbooks on the floor.
As you go to bend down to try to pick them up, to try to ignore your racing heartbeat and beet-red face, he stops you. “Oh, these yours too? Let me carry ‘em!” He tells you with a grin. “I mean… I did sort of bump into ya, so it’s only fair, right?”
“… Are you sure?” You meekly reply. “I don’t want you wasting more of your time…”
“Nah, it’s no big deal!” He shakes his head as he grabs the rest of your textbooks. “Where you headed?”
You softly explain that you need to speak with your language arts teacher, and he nods as he politely walks you to your destination without letting you bump into something – or someone – again, despite the fact that your glasses were back on your face and that you weren’t running the hallways again.
And despite his lack of tidiness (his uniform looks like it came out of a bar, and he’s not even wearing the right shirt) and his bright blond hair (it was the first thing you noticed) – you have to admit that he’s… nice, in a sort of rough and tumbling way. You promise to make it up to him one day, for causing all this trouble, and you swear on it, even as he tells you otherwise, saying that you really didn’t have to worry about it.
“Anything for a pretty girl,” he says with a half-grin, as he walks off, and you’re left flustered again.
Right.
A “pretty” girl.
You sigh as you enter your teacher’s room.
You aren’t all that pretty.
It’s only later that you end up finding out who that boy really was.
His name is Ryuji Sakamoto.
Self-proclaimed “bad boy” of Shujin Academy, he’s more often described as a class clown, really; he’s loud, he’s obnoxious, he whoops and hollers at whatever skirt he likes, he makes an absolute mess of his textbooks and he makes jokes only a twelve year old little kid would find funny. He even beatboxes with some of the first years up on the roof during lunch – he boasts that he’s musically talented and that no one can beat him, but you’re convinced it’s just an overinflated ego. And as far as his academics were concerned?
He’s just a total waste of space.
He was failing, and everyone knew it. And he knew it, too – he had too, you think, as you saw how his face fell when he looked at his exam results out in the hallway. And yet, he didn’t even try to fix it.
Maybe you’re lucky, in that regard – you certainly struggle within the school system, but you’re average. You’re in the middle of the pack. You’re much, much less likely to be hammered down. Ryuji isn’t.
Other than that, you notice he likes to wear silly, flashy t-shirts; you notice that he dyes his hair bright blond in order to be so rebellious – you think it’s kind of cute, in a way, it makes him eye-catching. And he’s apparently a sports star – the star track runner for the school, despite his abysmal grades. You couldn’t even be bothered to notice – well, you’re not really a fan of sports at all and you spend most school rallies just wishing it was already over.
But, maybe the next time the school hosts a sporting event, you can come. And you’ll go, even if only to look for a spot of yellow in the crowds of dark browns and blacks.
It’s raining today.
You sigh as you wake to grey, cloudy skies; you make a quick breakfast of leftover rice from yesterday’s dinner and fluffy, yellow eggs. You unfold your plastic umbrella as you stuck up your socks and take the same route you always take to school, avoiding the rain puddles that form on the city streets. You don’t really wake up feeling like today was going to be any different from any other rainy day in the past; you don’t wake up feeling like somehow, something was going to happen. You remember your backpack this time, as it hangs off your shoulder.
As you pass the small walkways between the courtyards of your school, you see the track team gathered up for what you can only assume must be early practice – but you find it a little weird, considering the weather… You don’t know much about sports or training or winning, but you think it must not be healthy to work out so hard in the rain. And then, as you slowly creep ever closer, you realize that you’re hearing something – you’re hearing something that isn’t the loud echoes of pitter-patters as they hit the metal roof above you.
You’re hearing Ryuji being yelled at – being screamed at as his team cowers back in fear. The coach just tears into him, into everything that Ryuji is – a failure of a student, a failure of a son, a boy a mother couldn’t be proud of and the reason his father left him for a drink. And then, Ryuji screams back and hits him. And then, the couch does the unthinkable.
He grabs Ryuji’s arm, pushes him down to the ground, and with all the force he has in his foot, presses it all down on Ryuji’s leg.
In that moment, you hear the sickening crack of bone; you hear Ryuji gasp in pain, as he clenches his teeth, in a sad, feeble attempt not to cry out. His team looks away as the coach pushes further, until you can see blood and until you have to look away, as you feel your breakfast traveling backwards right up from your stomach, as your heart races and you feel yourself frozen and disgusted.
You want to help, you want to scream, you want –
But you’re not going to do anything.
You’re not going to do anything as you quietly disappear, wiping away hot tears from under your glasses.
Because you’ve always been nothing but a coward.
And just by sheer chance,
You bump into him again.
It’s just an accident, you tell yourself, as you collide with him and memories of that first meeting seem to replay in your head as lone, sad novels spill out on the floor like the tides; you tell yourself you aren’t doing this on purpose as instead of crashing into him, he catches you in his arm and laughs in your ear and helps you back up on two very unsure and very unsteady feet – you tell yourself you don’t want him, even as he’s already bending to grab your novels from off the floor. He slightly winces, through the pain, as he picks up your books and outs them back into your hands.
It’s just by sheer chance, you tell yourself.
He’ll forget all about you, in the end, you tell yourself, even as he smiles wide as he looks at you. And you have no idea why he’d be so happy to see you – so happy to see a coward who could do nothing to help him? Nothing to help yourself?
“Thanks,” you mutter, as shame rises up in your throat like bile.
“It’s no biggie!” He laughs. “I’ve been thinking about you, actually...”
“What?” You say, as you flush and stutter.
“Yeah!” He laughs again. “I meant what I said, you know – about helping a pretty girl. And I was wondering when I’d get to see her again. Geez, you don’t even study at the library, half the time. Do you just go straight home?”
“…. Sometimes,” you say softly, biting your lip.
“I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from this place as soon as possible. It’s…. well, it’s shit, sometimes, right?” He says as he sighs, avoiding putting pressure on that leg, a red bandana tied to it. “But that’s how school is, sometimes.”
“I was just wondering if maybe I could take you out to lunch! My treat, promise.” He asks with a sheepish smile, his hands perched behind his head.
He –
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know you saw what happened. You bite your lip as you feel tears threaten to spill from your eyes and a scream that threatens to tear out your throat. You aren’t going to bring it up, you’re not –
And you just don’t know what else to say. You don’t know what you could say. You don’t know why he’s doing this.
You are just like the rest of your peers, plain and unassuming. You fit into the waves of the crowd, medium-length black hair and dark eyes, lithe as any other girl in your class – you would never stand out in the middle of a crowd, not like he can. Not like he dares to. You are short, you are quiet, you are plain, you are unassuming and your only noticeable feature is that you chose to wear round glasses. You aren’t special. You’re not worth his time.
And you don’t say anything, as your fists are clenched to your side, as his smile falters.
“It’s nothing bad, right? I just want to get to know you! If you’re busy or you have other friends, it’s –“
You cut him off.
“I have no friends.”
“Oh.” His face falls entirely, but he still looks at you, so sincerely. “I’ll be your friend.”
I’ll be your friend, he tells so sincerely to the girl who watched him get his leg broken into the ground – the same leg you had heard bone snap in, the same leg that he winces ever so slightly when he rocks on it. It’s a reminder of what happened, of what you couldn’t stop – of what you failed to even try to stop. And finally, the dam breaks; you start crying, and sobbing, and he tries his hardest to comfort you, without ever really knowing why you started in the first place.
You’re a terrible person.
Despite having utterly embarrassed yourself, you ultimately decide to take Ryuji up on his offer. It’s the polite thing to do, after all – especially after you sobbed all over his t-shirt and couldn’t even explain why you did it; you just kept crying and crying, all while he kept trying to soothe you, trying to tell you that it was all going to be okay and that you didn’t have to be sad.
It’s going to be okay, says the boy with the injured leg who can’t run anymore.
He takes you a small run-down corner stall on a side street – it’s nestled in the middle of an alleyway, with a lone grey old cat staring at you in the corner, full of garbage bags and tipped over trashcan and a forgotten bike with the metal rusted to its core. And it’s one of many in the nearby alleyways, as you see various colorful familiar cloth entry ways with the kanji for ramen painted all over them. The little stall you’re currently standing at is called Ogikubo, and Ryuji swears up and down on the stuff. It’s the best ramen you’ll ever have, and it’s not that far from the train station, so you can stay here for hours and still get home on time, he laughs under his breath.
He even calls himself a connoisseur of ramen (a word he most likely looked up to impress you), and you’re getting the subtle feeling that he really, really likes ramen. He’s eaten here often, you can tell – it’s not just by the train comment or how he’s joking that noodle broth must run through his veins by now – it’s the way he takes his seat too, a subtle, graceful motion even with a bad leg, only attainable by doing it several times over. This is his place and that’s his seat and he must trust you a lot with this.
It’s a shame, then, that you don’t really eat ramen all that often – can’t really appreciate in the way Ryuji does.
You only really find yourself getting the small little noodle cups from the convenience store sometimes; the ones that only take about three minutes to cook, where you pour in hot water from a tap and let the noodles steep before you sit on a bench outside to munch down on an early supper, as people and cars alike pass you by. It’s cheap, it’s salty, and it tastes of little else but grease and regret, but you don’t have friends, anyways.
You don’t have friends, as you walk from school alone and occasionally eat your cup ramen from your local convenience store; you don’t like leaving your house, preferring to stay inside to study, because your grades are always suffering and you’d rather steep and stew in your own special brand of sadness, because at least then, you’re the only one getting cooked. No one will ever care about the girl standing on a street corner with her plastic umbrella, waiting for a person who was never going to appear.
All of this to say, when it comes down to make your orders, you just order whatever Ryuji – because you don’t really eat ramen all that often, and you don’t have a real taste for it. But despite not showing a real enthusiasm for it, he just nods, and orders a classic – tonkotsu. “It’s a classic for a reason,” he grins, “And they make really good broth here! It’s always so well-balanced and the meat is charred to perfection. I think you’ll really like it, you know!”
And honestly, when your ramen bowl arrives and you take your first honorary sip of the broth after biting into the first noodle?
You do.
He’s right, it is well-balanced; the milky broth tastes fragrant, a little bit salty and a little bit of pork of course, but nothing overpowers anything else. You can taste each major component without a beat, and the noodles are nice and chewy with a little bit of that bite to it. The skin on the pork is really good too – and honestly, you can definitely see why Ryuji speaks so highly of the place. It is really good ramen - though, absentmindedly, you think you still won’t eat to it too often. You feel like it’ll be less special that way, and you want to keep this special.
“So, I’ve been wondering,” he asks as he messily slurps up his noodle. “Why do you have round glasses?”
“…. Why do I have round glasses….?” You parrot back, somewhat confused.
“Yeah, like,” he continues, swallowing. “I don’t know – most girls or guys go for like…. a square look. They wanna look…. Adult? Professional? Serious. Business-like…?” He sighs as he shakes his head.
“I just know a lot of people think round glasses make them look like a kid, yknow? And most girls don’t want to look like kids. Not that it’s bad or anything! It’s just – it’s not people’s first choice,” he says, tripping over his words in over not to offend you, you think. He really doesn’t need to – you know that your round glasses make you look more childish, yes, but…. you’re not exactly lining up your locker with love letter confessions, so you don’t really think it’s such a big deal.
Not for that reason.
“…. It’s because of a book character,” you explain, as you set your chopsticks down. You don’t want to cry into the broth and make it overly-salty.
“Oh, yeah?” He says as he stuff his maw. “Come to think of it, I always do see you with a books. You like to read a lot?”
“Yeah,” you mutter.
Books have always been one of your only friends throughout the years, but you can’t call a book a “friend”; books are only alive in your head, and you don’t want to elaborate further as you pick up your chopsticks to try to finish your ramen before your mood spoils your appetite. There’s nothing left to say, anyways – nothing left to say that would really be all that interesting. You are a second-year student. You are a girl. You like books, and you don’t eat ramen all that often. You were born to two people who never wanted children, but succumbed to social and familial pressures. You were born unwanted and unloved, left to your own devices as your parents made sure your grades were good and that you were clean and fed, but little else.
You did not grow up in a home; you did not grow up to see your mother at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and singing old pop songs from her youth as she cheerfully greeted you when you came home from school. You did not grow up with a father who you could lean on when you skinned your knee trying to ride your first bike, and from the very second you could go to school alone, your parents made absolutely sure that’s the first thing they taught you. The second was how to cook. The third was how to live alone in the silence, knowing you only saw them in the early morning and late at night, and they watched you without a word as you grew silent, bitter, and lonely.
You did not grow up in a home.
You grew up in a box.
“So, are they cool?” he asks.
“What?” You look up, a little caught off-guard.
“The book character,” he says. “Are they cool?”
You struggle to smile, embarrassed. “Oh, yeah. She’s very cool, I think – she’s a witch, it’s a… fantasy series.”
“Why don’t you tell me about her, then?” He says with a grin, slapping the thigh of his good leg. “… I mean, I don’t think I’ll ever read books, cause….. They’re pretty boring, you know but….. If you think she’s cool, maybe I’ll think she’s cool too.”
And he says all of it with a grin, with a sincerity you still aren’t quite used to; you’ve only ever been brushed aside – given pity by teachers and only side glances by classmates and “friends” who only got close to you to use your notes for exams and tests and studies. You’ve never had a friend, and you’ve never had a person who openly admitted that while they weren’t interested in the same hobbies, they didn’t mind you talking about your interests. Even if he thought he would never read a book in his life, he wanted to hear about it anyways – because you said she was cool, and he wanted to know why.
You’re really trying not to cry into your ramen. You really don’t want to ruin this.
With flushed cheeks, you animatedly ramble about your favorite witch in your favorite fantasy series – a passerine, a girl cast out of her own family, who had to struggle on her own to survive – someone who faced adversity time and time again, and yet, managed to make a home for herself and a new family and new friends in a new town, while still being able to dedicate herself to her craft, even as bitter memories tainted almost every aspect of her life.
It’s a courage you’ve always longed for, if you’re honest; you so very much wish you were able to pick up the pieces of your own life, to say yes, I’ve been hurt but I can still carry on and smile and find new horizons somewhere. But you’ve never been able to. Because you’re nothing but a coward.
And you’re unsure if you ever will.
“You know, she really is super cool,” he says, almost soft. “…. I kind of wish I was like that.” He sighs into his empty bowl, as he looks toward something you cannot see.
And it’s so odd, you think, to see him so sullen.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him so sad, and you wonder…
Were your dreams broken too?
There’s a blur of people standing on the platform; men and women alike in their suits and ties, crisp white button-ups and dark blazer jackets. A college girl with short hair stands not that far from you; she’s got a pair of white headphones over her ears, her orange jacket wrapped around her waist as her backpack hangs from her shoulder, her fingers sliding up and down on something on her phone. Your own plain old grey messenger bag is slung from your shoulder, and it bounces with every movement of your hips. You’re wearing a plain black sweater with a plain black skirt, white socks and worn-out sneakers. You grip your phone in your hand and you wait for you train to arrive.
It’s the first time you’ve been on a train in a long, long time – in a train that wasn’t headed for school, of course, because you took the train to get to school and to get back home, but…. you simply haven’t really been given any good other reason to be on a train, if you’re honest.
And now, this new reason is held in your hands as you get a text; he asks you where you are and if you’re safe and okay.
You smile as you laugh under your breath; you board your train, find your seat and text him back that yes, you’re fine and you just got on.
Somehow, you and Ryuji have made it a habit to hang out whenever he’s free from his workout routine or when he isn’t hanging out with his other group of friends (some weird guy with glasses, a childhood friend named Ann and surprisingly the student council president, Makoto). You still have no honest idea what he sees in you – if he sees anything at all – but while bold and brash he might be, Ryuji is ultimately very sweet, and you think he’s trying his best to make sure you don’t feel alone anymore.
He still believes you cried that day, because you said you had no friends and the weight of it just collapsed on you.
But you’ve stopped crying over that a long time ago now, haven’t you…?
Still – you have your very first friend, for the very first time – and now, you have to share him. You know you shouldn’t be so selfish; it’s a miracle he even decided he liked at all, pretty girl or not, but…. still, you find yourself thinking that it would be so, so nice if it could have just been him and you, all the time, with no one else….
Your cheeks get red, and you slap yourself.
It’s stupid, you remind yourself. It’s nothing but a childish fantasy – just a fairytale between the dried ink pages of a book. It’s nothing but the ignorant, wistful musings of a girl who can’t just be happy with what she has. You only like him because he’s the first boy who’s given you any attention, you scold yourself as you grip on tightly to the strap of your messenger bag. No boy would want someone as paretic and desperate as you. He can do better. And you know what? He probably is doing better.
As you exit your train, you hold your breath, trying not to cry so you don’t fog up your glasses and end up tripping on some stairs somewhere.
Your inner voice is always right, after all. No one would ever want you.
… No one has ever wanted you.
As you walk down the platform steps and look both ways before crossing the street, you feel your heart start to beat faster as you arrive at the bookstore you’ve gone to for so many years now, so surprised to see Ryuji there first, in a black jacket and his flashy red t-shirt. He smiles wide as he greets you and gives you a hug, and you feel your heart skip a beat as you hug him back – just for a moment – before letting go, the two of you walking side by side as you open the door.
No one likes a desperate girl, you tell yourself, as you wave to the gentleman who mans the front of the store, black and pepper hair and gentle, warm green eyes as he smiles and waves back at you. Ryuji probably doesn’t even like you that way. He probably likes Ann instead – that girl with the bright, vibrant blue eyes, with long platinum blonde hair and glossy pink lips.
And who could blame him? She’s beautiful.
Ann is beautiful; she’s graceful, she’s confident, she’s out there, she works as a model outside of her schoolwork, she’s American –
In other words, unique. Someone who stands out in a crowd, and does so with an ease you think you’ll never be able to attain.
Not like you, of course.
Never like you.
“So, I guess this is the day you think I’ll finally start reading, huh?” He laughs as he casually places an arm around your shoulder.
“No,” you playfully reply, trying to hide the slight pink ting of your cheeks. “I don’t think you’ll ever read if it isn’t manga or something to do with sports. But I need to find a specific book for a report and I think you’ve eaten enough ramen for the both of us. You don’t mind, right?”
“Nah, never,” he says. “It’s always nice hanging out with you, especially since um….. There’s been a lot of tension the Ph – the other, um, group,” he says, somewhat stammering. “….. Akira’s been fighting with Makoto. Like, a lot. I don’t think they get along,” he says, as he sighs.
“Ann says they’re like….. ‘fighting for dominance’?” He half-shrugs. “Like they both want to be the leader, I guess. And I mean, I don’t like that Makoto keeps stepping on his toes, but I don’t like the way he keeps tearing into her either. It’s just some big shitty mess.”
“I’m sorry,” you say, sincerely. “Do you want to talk more about it?”
“Nah, that’s – that’s good enough. Plus, you got to find your book, right? I’ll leave you to,” he grins as he takes his arm off your shoulder.
And after that morsel of drama you were fed – which you will not investigate further, because you respect Ryuji not wanting to talk about it in more detail – you both go your separate ways into the store. Ryuji quickly finds himself distracted by the manga section with a cardboard cutout of the current popular flavor of manga, some superhero kid with a dorky haircut and bucktooth teeth, while you delve deeper into the store to find the young adult section. The heroes here are made out of used plastic bottles and milk gallons; their mountains are broken dishes, rags and baby blankets. You touch the spines of several books, reading the title, carefully shifting them out to read a few blurbs before you settle on the one you’ll want, as you flip through the pages.
A creation mythos of how four kids ended the world. You think it’ll be interesting.
As you casually stroll through the shelves, through self-help books and literature dedicated to the fine art of finance, Ryuji comes your way again, with quite a large stack of manga in his hands. You’re entirely unsurprised as you give a little sigh, holding your fantasy novel close to you as he gives a little whine and excuses himself away, telling you that the store just had a really good selection and he hadn’t been given enough time to catch up on all his series due to “stuff” so he’s been a little behind! You sigh again as you tell him he doesn’t have to give a million excuses, and he brushes you off with a little whatever, then, and the both of you find a little nook to continue your reading before making any final purchases.
It’s nice.
It has a western-style window and a small little bench, decorated and stuffed with dark green cushions. They’re soft and they’re comfortable and the sun lets in a warm, bright glow that warms your bones and helps with your eyesight, making tiny dark letters on a page crystal clear. As you both flip through the pages of your selected reading – you taking in the eloquent description of the struggle to find a pair of arms on an armless body and Ryuji keeping his eyes laser-focused on an intense fight scene – it strikes you that this might be the very first time you’ve ever felt completely comfortable around him. That if you started to cry, to feel sad, or upset or angry – you could voice it, and he’d listen.
And it’s such a strange, wonderful feeling.
“You know, this place ain’t half-bad. They got some really good deals, and the old man at the counter is nice,” he says, and you’re happy. You really are.
“I’m glad,” you say, with a little smile.
“And um, you know – I’m just happy to be out here with you,” he says, fumbling. “You’ve been really cool and nice, and….. Ugh, I just want you to know that I appreciate you? Ever since the track team broke up and I haven’t…… It feels like everyone’s been against me and they treat me like trash just because of a bunch of bullshit.”
You nod, to show you’re listening.
“…. I feel so bad about what happened, man,” he says softly as he puts his book down. “And I feel so fucking angry over it, too. It’s like I was…… lost at sea, just sorta…. floating on the surface of the water. That’s how you book-types describe it, right?”
You chuckle, softly. “That’s a way to describe being alone and confused, yeah.”
“But then, you came along and….. Well, it felt like I had someone there again. And now I’ve got the other guys and it’s like I’m back out there, running, you know? I….. Just, thanks, you know? You mean the world to me, so….” He trails off, turning away to hide a reddened face. “Man, I’m terrible with this mushy stuff…”
And in that moment, you do something brave.
You take that book in your hands, this thick tome, and you cover both of your faces with it as you quickly turn his head, and then, you kiss him.
It’s nothing more than just a peck; nothing more than a light press of your lips on his – you’re not really brave enough for anything else, but you’re at least brave enough for this, as you move away and put the book down. You’re both a matching shade of red, both your cheeks likely on fire, but you think you win the tomato contest this time, however. You’ve never felt so hot in your entire life, and he just…. he puts his own book down as he looks at you, his hand hovering over yours.
“…. For real?” he asks.
“For real,” you nod.
And just like you’ve known him to do, he’s ecstatic as he wraps his arms around you and squeezes so tightly as he laughs in your ear, and as you think tears of joy start to form from the corner of his eyes as he’s just…. in disbelief, it seems, that someone like you could ever like someone like him. You laugh as you try to pry yourself out of his arms, because he’s squeezing very tightly, and you’d like to breathe now.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s just –“he says, breathless. “I – I never thought you’d… like me back, you know? You’re just so sweet and amazing and patient and willing to listen and I just….. I thought I was just an idiot, way over my head. It was already a miracle I found someone who could stand me – no way she’d like me too.”
“Would you believe me if that’s how I felt about you? I’m – I mean, I’m so plain and boring and unassuming! I always thought…. You’d find better than me…” You finally admit for the first time.
“No way,” he says so tenderly, as he takes your hand. “I’ve never thought that. You’ve always been great, just as you are. I don’t want anyone else.”
And as you hug each other again – with less squeezing this time – you wonder how love can make your chest feel so tight and yet, so free.
Moments later, you both go out to the checkout, his arm around your shoulder as you’re both suddenly his girlfriend and the coolest girl in the world, and the “coolest girl in the world” deserves the best, as he offers to pay for both your book and the couple of manga he wanted to buy.
You let him pay – this time.