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He did not want to kill himself.
Sousuke repeated the thought in his head as he walked from the train station. The insides of his ears were painful from the cold, and the soles of his sneakers threatened to slip on the uneven pavement. A smattering of rain assaulted him. In his mind he replayed the events of the day, how he had embarrassed himself in front of his supervisor by misunderstanding her instructions. How he had received his session plan, barely visible in its original form under her copious red corrections. How he had clicked, fully aware that it was a bad idea, on his placement partner’s performance review. It had been covered in yellow highlights, in the column of clinical skills under the header “above expected level of competence.” There were many more highlights in this column than there were in his.
Six months into the degree program he’d worked so hard to get into, and he hated every second of it.
“Ouch,” he muttered to himself. He’d knocked his forehead on the glass door to the student center. OUT OF ORDER, yelled the sign. USE SPINNING DOOR. The security guard sitting inside gave him a strange look.
When Sousuke finally found Makoto, he was perched on a stool by the computers, typing rapidly on what looked to be his placement journal.
“Yo,” Sousuke dropped his backpack on the floor. “How was placement?”
Makoto looked up at him.
“Oh, hey Sousuke. It was good, thanks! My supervisor was so cute, she wrote me and my placement partner some cards to say goodbye,” Makoto smiled, taking off his glasses. “How about you?”
Sousuke swallowed. There was a knot in his chest.
Makoto was a great friend, and Sousuke was grateful to be going to university with him. Without Makoto, he was pretty sure he would graduate without making friends with anyone in his class. Still, it was hard not to envy him. It seemed to Sousuke that, despite having to wait until he’d completed his undergraduate degree to do what he really wanted — sports medicine — Makoto had no problem settling down to do the prerequisite hard work of an undergraduate degree in physical therapy and athletic training. In fact, he seemed to have fallen in love with it instantly, gliding through their first pediatric placement with ease. No doubt Makoto had highlights on his performance review stating that he had achieved clinical skills “well above expected level of competence.”
On top of that, once they finished their study session, Makoto would get to go home to Haru. The thought of them eating a home-cooked meal together, taking turns to use the bathroom, and crawling under the same duvet made something turn in his stomach. All Sousuke could do was look forward to a long string of texts, or a video call at best. He missed Rin. But in some ways it was easier to be apart. Through the phone, Sousuke thought, Rin couldn’t see the weight he’d lost. The softness around his thighs.
Sousuke shrugged. “You know early years isn’t for me. I don’t know how to talk to kids.”
Makoto hummed sympathetically. “Well, at least that’s your first placement done,” he replied. “And there’s seeing Rin to look forward to? After exams?”
At the mention of his name, Sousuke felt a warm bubbling in his ribcage. The feeling was spliced with dread.
He grinned anyway. “Oh yeah, and all the romcoms he’ll inevitably subject me to.”
They laughed.
Sousuke took the worksheet and began filling in the labels one by one. Supraspinatus, infraspinatus. Subcapularis, teres minor. When he flipped the page over to draw the diagram from memory, he imagined the supraspinous tendon with a glaring red wound, the laceration bleeding across the page.
Sousuke wasn’t even sure he liked physical therapy. Intellectually he understood it was a necessity, and in many ways he could see the effect it was having. He was meeting his goals, as demonstrated through clear outcome measures, his lecturers would say. But in other ways it made him feel vaguely discomfited to a point where he felt pity for the clients he treated.
For one thing, the gym wasn’t like any gym he’d ever been to. Before his injury, he’d taken pride in perfecting his routine. He’d figured out that between the hours of two and four in the afternoon were the quietest times, after the morning rush of salarymen in tailored suits and obnoxiously expensive coffee, and before the evening swarm of undergraduate students, young professionals, and new parents hoping to get their pre-baby bodies back. They brought with them a frenetic energy and poor posture, as if by trying to appear smaller they would become invisible to all the people silently judging them the way they were judging back. These individuals were most likely to push themselves to injury. People who were cruel to others were often cruel to themselves, even if they weren’t aware they were being cruel to themselves. He would know.
His therapist’s gym was small. It was a brightly lit room located on the ground floor of a quiet hospital. It looked more like a classroom than a gym, which made him feel like a child. On the counters were thick rolls of resistance bands in primary colors, the floor cluttered with clear boxes of familiar objects, like foam rollers and massage balls, and more foreign ones, like a standing brace. It unsettled him, to be around equipment designed for those more disabled than he was. It unsettled him even more to know how easily he could have become one of them.
“Great work, Yamazaki-kun!” said his therapist.
Sousuke felt a cool burning sensation in his arm. A drop of sweat rolled off his nose. “Thanks.”
When he’d first started physical therapy, he’d found his therapist’s praise humiliating and disingenuous, an endless stream of consolation prizes. He thought of his friends. Ai. Rin. They who thrived on praise — any praise. He wasn’t like them. His therapist often encouraged him to let go of the “should”s, to forget about what he thought his body needed to be, and to appreciate what it could already do.
Part of him wanted to wreck his shoulder completely, and make it as worthless as he felt it already was.
Sousuke never talked about physical therapy. Rin asked him about it regularly, partially to be supportive and partially to satisfy his own curiosity. It was just a part of his insatiable hunger to learn — about the body’s capacity for movement, its limits, and how to push those limits safely. Sousuke knew it was unfair to deny Rin information that could ensure he was always at the top of his game, but most days the question was an unpleasant reminder that his own limits were currently greater than those of his friends, and that this reality was entirely his fault.
So he gave Rin non-committal answers. It was fine. It was good. It didn’t hurt today. Anyway, he wasn’t sure Rin would understand.
Still, Sousuke prided himself on his discipline. So he set a time, and each week, he showed up. Took the train to the hospital. Carefully waddled over black ice. With each week he showed up he learned to pay attention. To understand the difficulty and complexity of movements he took for granted, through repetitive, miniscule exercises. To notice when his breath became short and his abdomen started to clench. To recognize those sensations as pain. To recognize his gains as worthy of praise.
And yet.
Lately he’d felt the fear that all this was going nowhere come back with an unshakeable vengeance.
His therapist brought up the surgery again. She’d noticed significant improvements in the strength and range of motion of his shoulder, she said. But there were limits to therapy.
Sousuke’s stomach churned.
To illustrate her point she pulled out a clear folder from her drawer. She spread a large sheet of graph paper out on the table. Colorful lines sprawled across the page, marking jagged timelines of his progress: each data point signifying the number of reps he’d completed for each exercise, the number of seconds held for each position. The boldest of them was bright green, charting his weekly self-ratings for comfort. It had been the earliest to plateau, staying at a nine out of ten on most weeks. Sometimes it dipped to an eight, though for no more than a week at a time.
He'd achieved a level of function sufficient for daily activities, she noted. But if he wanted to gain even more strength and range of motion, there were surgical options. It might even reduce the pain.
She handed him a pamphlet.
“Think about it.”
He did think about it.
He thought about it in lectures, when he recognized the interventions on the projected slides. He thought about it on placement, when he found himself using the same techniques his own therapist used on him: positive feedback, modelling, setting a clear timeline. He was thinking about it at present, as he was washing dishes with Rin on his phone, propped up against the kitchen roll holder.
The screen showed Rin’s face from a low angle, which gave him a sizeable double chin and stretched out the entire lower half of his face. He slapped some skincare loudly on his cheeks.
“So tell me again,” said Rin. “What exactly did the doctor say?”
The surgeon had been curt. He’d taken Sousuke’s medical history and assessed his shoulder, then explained what he could expect without bothering to explain certain medical terms. I know what you do, he’d said. Sousuke had found himself experiencing the odd sensation of seeing his own demeanor in another person, and strongly disliking it.
“He said there was no guarantee.”
“But you could swim again?”
“Well, it’s not like I can’t swim now. Because I can. Technically. Just nowhere near as much as I used to. Or as fast.”
“Right,” said Rin. “So not competitively.”
“Pretty much.”
“But do you want to go back to swimming competitively?”
“I don’t know,” Sousuke sighed. “I mean, the surgery might not even work.”
Rin pressed his lips together. He had a habit of loudly expressing his opinions on what people should be doing with their lives, especially people he loved. A few months ago he’d started their call with a lofty announcement that he was going to ask people what they thought they should do, and refrain from sharing his opinion unless asked. Sousuke had raised his eyebrows fondly at the idea. A Rin who was not overinvolved in other people’s dreams, he thought, would not be Rin at all. But Rin’s voice was hard with the determination and excitement of someone who had achieved enlightenment, and Sousuke could not help but admire him. His best friend, ever the idealist. Ever in pursuit of the next big thing.
Sousuke watched Rin’s eyes dart around the room as he dried his hair with a towel. “Go ahead,” he said, amused. “Tell me why I’m wrong.”
Rin sputtered. “I wasn’t going to do that.”
“Like hell you weren’t.”
“Okay. Well. I think you’re just scared of being disappointed if the surgery doesn’t work out like you want it to. I think you think that settling for the way things are now and just dealing with the ambient shame of not being able to swim like you did before is better than getting your hopes up, because at least if you don’t get the surgery then you already know what bad feelings you’re going to have, but if you do get it and it doesn’t fix your shoulder and make it like it was before then you’ll be absolutely crushed, and you just don’t know if you can deal with that because you’ll be, like, angry and ashamed and somehow blame yourself for entertaining the idea of recovery but also for ruining your shoulder in the first place and also for ever believing you could be a successful swimmer to begin with because clearly you suck at swimming if you even had to train so hard to be good that you wrecked your shoulder and then became the worst you’ve ever been.
So, like, you’re letting your fear of an uncomfortable emotion trick you, like, out of the solution. Before the attempt.”
Sousuke didn’t reply.
“That was a quote from this book I’m reading, by the way,” Rin added. “It’s great. I really like it. Not like you asked.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s ok.”
“No, I’m sorry, I should ask you more about your things.”
“Yeah.”
“So.”
“So?”
“So it’s good?”
“Yeah, it’s, like, super easy to read. The prose is electric, just how I like it. Jenny lent it to me.”
“Ah,” Sousuke nodded. “Jenny. She has great taste.”
“Obviously, since she chose me as a friend.”
“I meant in books. I’m quoting you. You said she has great taste.”
“Mm.”
Rin continued to get dressed in silence. His eyebrows were pinched slightly. Sousuke could tell he wanted a response to what he’d said about the surgery, but Sousuke didn’t know what to say.
After a few minutes Rin said something about meeting Ai for coffee since he was in town to visit his uncle.
“Okay,” said Sousuke. “Have fun.”
They hung up.
Sousuke’s afternoon passed in a peevish haze. He’d gotten lost in the supermarket trying to find some cleaning products, almost crashed into stack of kettles, and couldn’t find a specific paste he needed to make dinner.
He kept replaying his conversation with Rin in his head. It felt like picking at a half-open wound.
It was one thing to know you were being cowardly, Sousuke thought. Another to hear it said to your face.
As he lined up for the cashier Sousuke scrolled absently through the photos on his phone. For you, said the application. Memories through the years. Some portraits of him and his friends over generic instrumental music.
The first photo slid onto the screen. A picture of him and Rin as children: his arm around Rin’s shoulders, the other hand holding a soda. He is laughing. His eyes are closed. Rin is staring petulantly at the soda. He’d been so sure of himself then. Now, he was directionless. It hardly made sense to him that Rin would want to be with someone like that.
Feeling sick, Sousuke clicked on the email from the surgeon with his therapist copied in. How much worse could I possibly feel, he thought. The woman in front of him was scanning the last of her items.
Yes, that date works for me, he typed.
Before he could delete the message Sousuke hit send. The outgoing email made a swooshing sound. There was a roaring in his ears.
No unsending it now.
It had been Rin’s idea to move in with Kisumi.
It made sense, since Kisumi had been living alone in a two-bedroom apartment he rented from his uncle. And Kisumi was a good roommate. He spent most nights over at “Asahi’s”, despite his insistence that they “weren’t ready” to live together, which meant that Sousuke got to have lots of time to himself. This was something he appreciated, though he sometimes wondered if it made his mind particularly prone to wandering into dark places. It also meant that he could pay rent at a heavily discounted price, which was a huge help considering the amount of money he hemorrhaged each week for physical therapy.
Sousuke surveyed the space now. He had cleaned in preparation for Rin’s arrival. Mopped the floor. Vacuumed dusty corners to get rid of Kisumi’s hair. Admittedly, he’d become less rigorous with cleaning since he’d graduated and stopped living with Rin, but in general he found it to be an effective way of keeping destructive thoughts at bay. Still, Rin had predictably started clearing Sousuke’s dressing table as soon as he’d arrived, removing miscellaneous objects — a pen, some pain medication, and a tube of spot treatment — off the surface and moving them to some more organized location. Sousuke felt sure he would need to ask Rin where he’d put them once he eventually left for Australia at the end of his summer break.
Rin emerged from the shower. His hair was clinging to the back of his neck.
“Ready?” he asked.
It was Sousuke’s first day on a new placement.
“Yeah. I mean, probably.”
Rin gave a small laugh. “I would say fake it til you make it but I guess that’s not really your style.”
“No.”
“Too honest for that.”
“Yeah.”
As he drove Rin mumbled along to the radio under his breath. The singer’s father is telling her lover to stay away from her. There is an overlarge water bottle in the cup holder between them. Sousuke had seen an ad for it on a billboard the other day claiming it was indestructible. Rin had joked that they would make a good sponsor for Haru.
Outside his window the buildings grew shorter and more sparse. They were driving into the suburbs.
“So today is a special school?”
“No, mainstream.”
“And you’re going to a different location pretty much every day.”
“Yeah.”
“And there’s no routine.”
“I mean, there kind of is. But yeah, it’s a lot of commuting.”
“Because it’s a community placement.”
“Right.”
“Which means you’re working with the whole district, not like a specific company.”
“Right,” said Sousuke. “You’re good at this.”
Rin scoffed. “What, remembering how your degree works? You’re messing with me.”
“No, seriously. It’s a lot.”
“Yeah, because I just tell you about athlete stuff and you already know all about that.”
“Well, no, because it’s more, now. What you’re doing. Going pro and all,” said Sousuke. “But yeah, I basically just have to remember all the names you keep mentioning. It’s like a soap opera except I never get to see anyone’s faces.”
“You are bad at names though, so I guess we’re even.”
“Right. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
They pulled up at the school, a shiny new build. Sousuke’s new placement partner hadn’t arrived. The sky was beginning to lighten.
“Feels great to be early for once, huh?” Rin teased. His hair had dried. He was wearing a jacket Gou had bought him that made his face look a little brighter than usual. Sousuke felt his lungs swell with a vague affection.
“Yeah. Honestly, I would’ve gotten lost without you.”
Rin blushed. “It’s nothing,” he said, as Sousuke stepped out of the car. “It’s a different location each day of the week for a month, and I’m here for three. I know placement is stressful for you. It’d be stupid to worry about getting lost on top of all that. So, you know, I’ll drive you.”
Sousuke frowned. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” said Rin, rolling down the window. “Besides, maybe this way I’ll get a clue on what you actually do in a physical therapy session.”
It was a joke, but Sousuke knew Rin was half serious. “Sorry,” he said.
Sousuke moved his right fist over his heart in circles. “Sorry. That’s the sign. Some of the kids are non-verbal. That’s a sign they use.”
Rin mirrored the movement.
Sousuke placed his palms perpendicular to each other, right palm vertical on his left wrist. He lifted his right hand. “Thank you.”
Rin was arguing with Haru again.
They were huddled around their usual table by the window, some chairs haphazardly stolen from neighboring tables and crammed around its perimeter. In the center of the table their empty bowls are stacked precariously atop each other: Makoto’s green curry, Kirishima’s tendon, Shiina’s ginger pork. Tono and Kisumi were still nursing their coffees. Kisumi’s was pink.
Some distance away Shiina’s sister was spoon-feeding her toddler. The cafe was deserted apart from them. Apparently this meant that the group had permission to be as loud as they wanted.
Relationships were just a subset of friendships, Haru had said. Indignant, Rin had disagreed. You had special feelings in a relationship, he argued.
“Like you just always want to spend time with them, and they’re the first person you want to tell things to and you feel this warm fluttery nervousness, like you always want their attention, which makes you feel like the world’s biggest idiot but at the same time you feel totally safe to be an idiot and—”
The table was silent. Sousuke could tell Rin was embarrassed, but was trying his best not to squirm, mainly so he wouldn’t lose to Haru. Against his will, Sousuke felt the corners of his mouth lift and spread across his face. Everyone there understood that Rin’s ramblings applied to him, and Sousuke was no exception.
Just over a year ago Rin had left for university and accidentally said, “Okay, bye, I love you,” seconds before the train doors shut on his mortified face. When Rin had announced his arrival in the group chat Sousuke had decided to call him, and after a few rings the profile picture on Sousuke’s screen had changed to a closeup of Rin’s face, on which he’d worn a skittish expression. Sousuke had watched it dissolve as he initiated the conversation as normal, asking about the airplane food and the in-flight entertainment. To end the call, Sousuke had said, “Okay, bye. I love you too, by the way.” Watching Rin blink at him stupidly had been endlessly gratifying.
“Right,” said Haru. “So they’re just friendships with added benefits.”
“Like fucking,” Tono added dryly.
Makoto yelped. “Not in front of the baby!” he whisper-shouted.
Kirishima pretended not to hear.
“You know, I think I understand what Haru is trying to say,” remarked Kisumi. “It’s more a difference in the level of certain things.”
Haru didn’t look entirely pleased that Kisumi was the first one to outwardly agree with him, but didn’t protest, so Kisumi went on.
“Like exclusivity. Sousuke’s my friend, but it would be ridiculous for him to say I couldn’t have any other friends. But it would be fair for Asahi to expect me not to date anyone else.”
At this last statement Kisumi leaned sideways to rest his head on Shiina’s shoulder, which made him shuffle to sit up straighter. The display was enough to give the group diabetes. They ignored it.
“Okay, well, what about devotion?” Rin interjected. “If your significant other is disabled, you would do your utmost to help, while friends aren’t necessarily obligated to do that.”
Haru looked meaningfully at Sousuke.
“Friends can be helpful,” Haru countered. It was an understatement, as everyone at their table knew. “But I take your point,” he conceded.
A few seconds passed.
“Got anything to add, Sousuke?” Kisumi pressed. The little shit.
Sousuke glared at him.
“Uh,” he said. “There’s more, uh, commitment involved. I guess.”
Though he knew Rin would murder him for it, Sousuke found himself agreeing with Haru. In many ways the fondness he felt for Rin had not fundamentally changed from how it was before they’d made the transition from “best friend” to “life partner,” only intensified. He’d noticed it that morning, when Rin had sat next to him on the couch and his knee where it touched him was warm, slightly damp through the material of his sweatpants from his shower. He’d noticed it the night before, when Rin had struggled to squeeze out the last of his moisturizer from its tube, and Sousuke had instinctively grabbed it to do it for him.
Even as it terrified him to let Rin see him up close, he found himself caving as Rin held onto him at the airport, so firmly that a tsunami could not have bowled them over. Even as he knew for a fact that he wasn’t good, it was a comfort to know that Rin believed he was.
Sousuke thought then of how long he had kept his injury a secret from Rin. How he’d lied about getting scouted. Dodged Rin’s messages for months. Laughed at the irony of how he was inflicting onto Rin the loneliness and confusion he’d felt when Rin had stopped reaching out to him in childhood, the first time he’d left for Australia.
He thought of the fight they’d had, at three-thirty in the morning, when Rin had finally had enough. He’d called, crying furiously, trying to be an adult who could remain calm while expressing his needs, but still coming out swinging. Sousuke recalled the strange relief he’d felt, afterwards. And the unmistakable guilt.
“So... commitment?” prompted Kisumi.
“Yeah,” Sousuke coughed. “Being that you intentionally and consistently choose them. And, uh, trust them. When you go through shit. To, uh, go through shit… with you. And, like, figure things out—”
“Together,” Rin finished.
Sousuke coughed again. “Uh,” he looked around the room. “Yeah.”
When they all said goodbye Makoto told him he was proud of him.
He stopped hating his placements.
The older kids were easier to talk to. Once they hit middle school they stopped being scared of him, and could be more involved in setting their own goals. The targets felt more meaningful that way, and more rewarding when they were achieved.
“I would take this out of your placement journal, by the way,” his supervisor commented. She highlighted a sentence about building rapport with a child's family by talking about his own surgery. “I know you wanted to be comforting, but I just don’t want your lecturers to criticize you for this. Sometimes parents can take anecdotes like that the wrong way, and they might think, well the therapist said he needed to get surgery, so my daughter will definitely have to. You see what I mean?”
“Yes, I do. Thank you,” said Sousuke.
His supervisor handed him his performance evaluation. Green highlights in abundance, under the header “well exceeds expected level of competence.”
“Well done,” she smiled.
“Thank you,” Sousuke repeated. “I’ve learned a lot, it’s been a great placement.”
“Oh, no, that was all you,” she waved her hand at him. She handed him an envelope embossed with pink and blue birds. “From the kids.”
Inside the card, in swirly calligraphy, the words Good Luck. Beneath them, in large, uneven letters: ON YOUR SURGERY.
Sousuke couldn’t sleep.
His heart was thumping violently under his skin, almost pushing his back off the mattress with each pulse. Knife, fish, shark. He listed random nouns in his head, forcing himself to name the objects in his mind in an attempt to slow his whirlwind thoughts — a trick he’d learned from his therapist.
On nights like these, Sousuke was five years old again, curled up with eyes forced shut, his cousin in the bunk bed above his, and his aunt whispering about a witch who would eat naughty children if she caught them so much as twitch when they were supposed to be napping. He’d forced himself to lie perfectly still then, and fallen asleep. If he could just do that now, surely sleep would take him again.
Except now he was an adult, and he wasn’t in his bed alone.
“Rin?” he whispered.
“Hmm?” Rin mumbled.
“I can’t sleep.”
Rin rolled over to face him. His breath tickled Sousuke’s neck. “No shit.”
His arm wriggled over Sousuke’s stomach, the weight grounding him. “You’ll be okay,” Rin murmured. “Whatever happens.”
As Sousuke drifted off, he heard Rin’s voice, distant and muffled by his pillow. “I can’t believe you actually asked for help.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“I literally just said I couldn’t sleep.”
Rin made a sound that was half groan, half laughter. “Night before surgery, and he’s still fucking arguing with me.”
The hospital smelled of bleach. It was a few hours after the surgery, and the sterile white lights were hurting his head. Beside him was a beautifully stacked basket of snacks, wrapped in cellophane. The card was signed by his friends back in Iwatobi, but the message was written in Gou’s handwriting. Next to it was the card he’d received from the students from his placement. Over them floated a shiny, pink, heart-shaped balloon, bearing the words Congratulations! It’s a girl!
Sousuke had never felt more mortified in his life.
“You’re so cute,” Kisumi cooed. He was sitting in a chair beside Sousuke’s bed, leaning over to show him a video he’d recorded on his phone.
In the video Sousuke’s eyes were blown wide open, staring at Rin, who was leaning over his bed. With his good hand he reached out to snatch Rin’s baseball cap and dropped it on his own head. “I like you,” he shouted. “I think.”
Rin laughed. “What do you think?”
Sousuke squinted and pointed a finger at Rin’s forehead. He jabbed at him gently between the eyes. “I think you’re cute,” Sousuke yelled.
Off camera he could hear Kisumi and Haru snickering.
“I’m sorry, Sousuke,” Makoto looked sheepish. “I tried to stop them, but it was two against one.”
“I’m not sorry,” said Haru, with a shit-eating grin. Sousuke wanted to wipe the floor with it.
The hospital room door slid open. Rin had come back with food.
“Is he sober yet?” said Rin.
“Are you not stupid yet?” Sousuke deadpanned.
Rin rolled his eyes. “Lame,” he untied the knot on the plastic bag. “I brought tonkatsu.”
“Is he always like that with you?” asked Kisumi, shaking the phone in his hand.
Rin laughed loudly. “I wish.” His cheeks were tinged pink. “He doesn’t usually talk so much.”
“I’m working on that,” said Sousuke.
Rin’s eyes were soft when he smiled back. “He’s working on that.”
Makoto coughed loudly then, and their friends left the room. Kisumi wiggled his eyebrows at them on his way out, to which Sousuke responded by raising his middle finger. They ate in silence.
When they had finished eating some nurses came in to bring food to patients in the other beds. They turned the TVs on, and soon the room filled with the rhythmic cadence of news anchors and loud chatter of elderly people who had forgotten to bring their hearing aids. Sousuke’s next placement would be a hospital one. Life had a way, he thought, of putting him in positions where he was forced to learn what it was like to be on the receiving end of the work he did. Of rehabilitation. Of healing. Perhaps it was about time he put that knowledge to good use.
Rin set down his novel beside Gou’s care package. It was too loud to read. He caught Sousuke looking at him. “What?” he mouthed.
Thank you, Sousuke signed.
He pointed a finger at his chest, then at Rin. Made a V-shape on his chin with his index finger and his thumb, then pulled away, pinching them together. Another sign. He knew what it meant. Exclusivity, devotion, commitment. Being seen up close — lost weight, soft thighs, directionlessness and all.
He signed it again.
I love you.