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"She's not going to marry you ."
The words stung like a papercut on her heart. Yet, she knew that they were true. Why would Tohru ever marry her? Tohru liked boys.
Even though Saki already knew the truth deep down, Arisa's words still caught her off-guard. She wasn't ready to hear them out loud. Even so, the words replayed in her mind like a relentless echo. They clung to her thoughts like spiderwebs. She's not going to marry me.
Why did they hurt her so?
Moreover, why did Saki immediately leap at the thought of Tohru being her wife? Why did she feel the need to care for her as a spouse? They were just friends.
Tohru was a friend who spent the night with her often. A friend who held hands with her. A friend whom she would always be there for. A friend whom she loved to see happy. A friend whose eyes she would fall into every time she smiled. A friend whom she thought about kissing, more than once or twice. But she's not going to marry me.
Saki hated herself for being jealous of the boys Tohru spent time with. She would never say so aloud, but she resented any time they made their familiarity with Tohru known, beit through flirting, teasing, or flat-out berating her in public. She could never fathom treating Tohru that way.
What Saki wanted with Tohru was qualitatively different from what the boys wanted from her. The boys wanted Tohru around them for selfish reasons: to cook for them, clean for them, dress up for them, even sort out their emotions for them. Saki wanted to be the one that Tohru could depend upon, the one who would hold her in her arms every night, the one who took care of her and worshiped her and loved her every day of her life. But she'll never marry me.
Saki decided to stay silent for the remainder of their conversation.