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I like you.
The simple phrase settles around Sakura's throat like a collar, choking him a little bit. Every moment with Yuma is another moment the collar tightens, because Sakura wants to say it so badly. He wants to give words to the giddy feeling in his cheeks and stomach and chest. He wants to give them to Yuma, wrapped like a birthday present.
But he swallows them down instead, because Yuma's laughter isn't worth drowning out. And he's not desperate - he has Yuma's friendship, and that's enough.
But then it's almost the end of the school year and suddenly it's like everything is happening all at once. "Turn in your future plans," Satoshi-sensei says. It sounds too close to a condemnation.
Because it's something like Sakura playing piano as his lifeline. It's something like Sakura's parents, apologetic because they cannot afford to send him to college. It's something like Yuma, bright eyed and grinning and launching himself onto Sakura's back with no warning.
It's something like Sakura terrified of a future that is inevitable.
But that too is fine. And then.
And then, and then, and then.
Walking by the water fountain, Yuma says, "I want to do something big. Go boom."
And - Sakura is desperate, a little bit. He has Yuma's friendship, but he doesn't know what the future will hold for them and whether or not Sakura will be left behind and really -
- really, he is just looking for an excuse.
So. "I don't consider you a friend," he starts, a half truth and a half lie. Yuma pauses, turns around.
"Huh?"
Sakura inhales. “Because I’ve always liked you,” he says, and - still he doesn’t know why he says it. It’s stupid, to confess to his best friend out of nowhere. Maybe Yuma will hate him. But -
‘Boom’, Yuma had said. And Sakura rarely can say no to him. So this is Sakura going boom. Exploding.
There is sulfur on his tongue.
And Yuma stares at him, unmoving, and -
Sakura kisses him.