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It’s midnight. Gakushuu Asano is sitting in his room by his laptop, staring at its screen. He has been studying for the approaching finals, but this night, his powers of concentration are pathetically lacking. Perhaps, he thinks to himself, he should call it a day and go to bed. Still, he doesn’t move but sits there, staring blankly at the screen.
“Asano-kun…!”
A nervous smile, slightly shivering hands that grasp a pink envelope, and that tone… he knows that tone. Light, cheerful… but forced. The envelope is offered to him, and he knows exactly what the letter inside says.
He puts on a friendly look, takes the envelope, but apologizes and watches how the smile fades away. The girl turns and hurries away without a word, and two other girls run after her, ready to comfort their friend. He puts the envelope into his bag and walks away.
He still hasn’t read the letter. Why bother? What words could this girl have come up with that he hasn’t heard a hundred times before? Ren once joked, a little jealously, that he probably holds the world record for most love letters received. He thinks this might be true, at least in his age division.
All the perfumed letters, breathless confessions whispered in passing, flirty looks and sexy poses… he has seen it all, heard it all, and none of it has ever touched him.
The screen goes black, and he turns away from it, looking at his bag. He knows it’s pointless. He already turned her down. Besides, she’s… well, she is in the top ten of A class. And pretty, and from a good family, and artistically gifted. She should be perfect.
Against his better judgement he takes out the letter and starts reading.
My dearest Asano… no, may I be bold enough to call you Gakushuu?
They say love is like the wind, you can’t see it, but you can feel it. And I feel like I’m in the middle of a storm whenever I think of you. When I see you, the winds calm down and stop tearing at me. Instead, they lift me up as if I were light as a feather, and you are the rainbow that brightens the skies as the clouds pass away. I wish you knew…
He reads on, to the end, and the only thing he can feel is pity. Pity for the poor foolish girl who is wasting all this poetry on him. He crumbles the letter in his hand and throws it in garbage. After turning off the laptop he goes to bed. It’s a little early for him, but if he’s not studying, it’s better to catch some sleep.
So he thinks, but sleep evades him. Instead, he finds himself thinking of Ren with his current girlfriend. The warmth in their eyes when they look at each other, the ease with which they lean close, touch… It’s stupid, really. It’s not going to last, everyone should know that. No matter how strongly Ren now declares her to be the only one in the world for him, next week he might have someone else on his arm. So what is there to be jealous of?
…jealous? Gakushuu rolls over. Who says he’s jealous? That’s ridiculous. He’s not jealous. Anything but. If Ren put even half of the time he spends on his silly, pointless dates into studying, he could perform even better than he already does in school, perhaps even challenge Gakushuu, but no. Instead, he’s trying to tempt Gakushuu into dating, too.
“C’mon, you’re almost 15! Don’t you think it’s about time you got a girlfriend? Or…” Ren leans closer, whispers, “a boyfriend? Hey, are you still single cause the principal doesn’t approve, uh, you know…? If you’re gay, you can te—”
Gakushuu snaps. “I’m not! Shut up. I’m not interested.”
He rolls back to his back, stares at the ceiling. Not interested. If only Ren knew how true that is.
And… he is nearly 15. Is it normal… to be so completely… not interested? To feel nothing, no matter how beautiful a girl (or good-looking a guy) he sees? The 3-E teacher in her skimpy clothes is simply annoyingly unprofessional. The porn magazine he once confiscated from a group of younger students had nothing to interest him when he out of mild curiosity peeked into it. Not to mention this mysterious, all-powerful feeling, the fairytale Love that…
…no. No need to go that far. Just take the ordinary, everyday crush, the sudden palpitations, butterflies in the stomach, the sweaty hands when you suddenly realize that hey, this one person here is actually kind of cute. Doesn’t a normal teenager feel things like this, at least sometimes?
But no matter how many go out of their way to impress him, bare their souls in touching letters, or give him looks that say it all without any words… they just make him feel awkward. He doesn’t want their touch. Their closeness. Their love. But still… he does want…
What? What does he want?
Gakushuu rolls over again, closes his eyes, and imagines.
There is someone lying next to him, facing him. Their hands touch, but that is all. The other is watching him, a smile on their face, and he feels the corners of his lips pull upward too. A hand touches his cheek, caresses his hair and pulls him closer, and a little sigh escapes him. Something stirs in his chest, something warm, something he has no words for, and he can almost grasp it.
That companionship. Closeness. Having someone to share your life with, someone to hold, and someone to hold him… someone to love… and be loved by…
But the moment he tries to imagine a face on that someone, everything shatters. The awkwardness comes back, the slight repulsion. He doesn’t want… this person. Whoever this person might be. They’re not someone he can feel for.
And even though he tells himself that he’s still young and that it’s too early to say anything for sure, he is beginning to suspect that no matter how many people he meets, no matter how many girls and boys confess their love to him, he won’t be able to find that feeling within himself.
He lies there staring at the wall as minutes tick by, and the loneliness that envelopes him doesn’t lift.