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I.
Chizuru has never been what anyone would call a great student. She knows this, her parents know this, and her teachers—well, they’ve made it abundantly clear.
She doesn’t do well sitting in place for long periods of time, and when the teachers drone on and on about one boring subject after the next, their drivel enters one ear and goes out the other. It’s part of the reason why she pays no attention to all their talk of high school entrance exams and studying and competitive grades and whatnot.
That is, until Ryu decides he’s going to Kitahoro High School.
“Why Kitahoro?” she asks him. It’s a sunny summer afternoon in their third year of middle school, and she’s watching Ryu and Kazehaya do practice swings in the park after school.
“It’s where Toru went,” Ryu replies simply, stretching his batting arm. “Plus, Pin coaches the baseball team. He’s a good player.”
Chizuru rolls her eyes, but doesn’t comment. She thinks Pin is weird and dramatic, but apparently none of those things matter as long as he’s good at baseball.
“And you, Kazehaya?” she asks, leaning back on her elbows in the grass. The sun is high enough to make the afternoon air hot and humid, but it’s not entirely sweltering yet.
Kazehaya twirls his bat idly in his hands. “I’m thinking of applying to Kitahoro, too,” he says.
“But you don’t want to join the baseball team,” Ryu grumbles, in a rare display of displeasure.
Kazehaya shrugs apologetically. “I already told you, I want to focus on my studies and try out some other clubs. I’ll still play casually.”
Ryu looks like he wants to argue, but doesn’t. Instead he refocuses on their practice, leaving Chizuru to wonder why her chest tightens slightly at the thought of everything changing next year. They start passing the ball, but then Kazehaya looks over at her and asks, “Where are you going to apply, Yoshida?”
Chizuru bites the inside of her cheek, mulling over her decision. Everyone’s been asking her this lately, and she still doesn’t have a definitive answer. There’s plenty of high schools nearby, but none of them really appeal to her.
She glances at Ryu.
None that is, except for one.
“Kitahoro,” she decides, right then and there. Really, she subconsciously decided right after hearing Ryu make his choice, but now that she’s said it aloud it feels more final.
Ryu and Kazehaya share a dubious look, and she glares at them. “What? You don’t think I can get in?” she challenges.
Kazehaya winces. “I’ve heard the entrance exams are pretty hard, and you’re uh…well, you sometimes…”
“Your grades suck,” Ryu finishes much less leniently.
Their doubt sparks a fire inside her, and she rises to her feet in a sudden burst of defiance. “Like yours are that much better,” she retorts. “Just you watch. I’m gonna get in no matter what it takes!”
She stomps off, and it’s not until she’s back in her bedroom that she realizes just how difficult a goal she’s set for herself. She’s going to have to study harder than she ever has in her life, and get her grades up to a decent standing. It’s a lot of work—so much work that she feels dizzy just thinking of all the late nights and notes and practice exams she’s going to have to go through—but even if she’s not a great student, she is stubborn.
And she’s going to use that stubbornness to her advantage.
What starts as defiance morphs into relentless determination. Summer slips into autumn, and by the time autumn fades into winter, Chizuru’s life revolves around textbooks and late-night study sessions. Every waking moment is spent cramming and memorizing until she’s spouting definitions and equations in her sleep, and she grumbles about it to anyone who will listen. But when asked why she’s working so hard, or what her goal at Kitahoro is, she always brushes the question off.
“I just want to go there,” she says. It’s the truth, but only part of it. She doesn’t know how to explain the deeper reason—the one that makes her chest ache at the thought of not being by Ryu’s side.
He is her goal, though she’d never say it out loud. It sounds too sappy, too vulnerable, even in her own head. But it’s true. She can’t imagine going to a different school than him, or having to cheer for a different baseball team. She doesn’t want to imagine it—and the thought of being separated scares her in a way she doesn’t fully understand.
Plus, she promised Toru she’d look after him. That’s probably why, she reasons to herself.
When February finally arrives, the tension is unbearable. Her hands tremble as she opens the envelope containing her entrance exam results, but she’s never been more elated in her life when she reads the opening line.
“I got in! I got in!” she shouts, telling anyone who will listen. She feels an overwhelming rush of relief, and can finally exhale after months of constant apprehension.
Ryu finds her later, his own acceptance letter tucked under his arm. “Guess we’ll be going to high school together,” he says, and from the smile spreading across his face she can tell he’s pleased.
Chizuru’s heart stutters in excitement. She nods, a deep-seated warmth spreading through her chest.
It’s always been her and Ryu, and nothing was going to change that.
II.
In hindsight she realizes it was a poorly executed idea, offering him those massage tickets. At the time it seemed ingenious; a useful gift that didn’t cost her a cent, but she didn’t account for the amount of the labor that would be required.
Or the fact that Ryu, being the idiot that he is, would redeem all the coupons at once.
Chizuru holds back all the scathing remarks resting on the tip of her tongue as she digs her fingers into his shoulder, pressing down on his firm muscles and searching for any knots she missed an hour ago. It’s ridiculous, to need a three hour massage, yet Ryu seems quite content to sit and watch television while she massages his shoulders to no end.
Her fingers are stiff by the time the first hour is up, and her arms are shaking from the repetitive motions by hour two. Yet she’s loath to admit defeat, and instead tackles the task with renewed aggression and energy.
“Need a break?” Ryu asks, almost innocuously, yet to her ears the remark comes across as a taunt.
She digs her thumbs sharply into the space between his shoulder blades in retort, but he barely reacts. She wonders if he can even feel the jab, given the thick hoodie he’s wearing.
“I’m fine,” she grits out. It is his birthday after all, and she’s trying very hard to be pleasant, despite how difficult he’s being. “You have one hour left,” she informs, though she knows the time will creep by agonizingly slowly.
Ryu nods, and then points to a spot on the base of his neck. “Rub here.”
She obeys begrudgingly, and this time he winces at her forceful kneading, seeing as there’s no barrier between his skin and her vigorous ministrations.
“Okay, maybe not there,” he amends, and a glimmer of an idea begins to take shape.
Chizuru sits back on her heels and tugs at his sweatshirt. “Take this off,” she commands. Ryu complies, albeit hesitantly, and tosses the material to the floor. He still has a t-shirt on, but she tugs at it too, grabbing the hem and lifting it in an attempt to remove it.
“Why are you undressing me?” Ryu asks, and the implication of his words makes her face flush self-consciously.
“I’m not doing it like that,” she hisses, giving him a rough shove. He’s an idiot for saying it so suggestively, but she glances at the door to his room, acutely aware that his dad isn’t home and that they are all alone in the house. “I’m trying to be a good masseuse,” she explains, but she’s lying through her teeth. Truthfully, she’s hoping that without the buffer of his shirt he’ll grow tired of her aggressive tactics and decide to save his last hour of massages for later.
Ryu hesitates again, but then grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls it over his head in one fluid motion. He returns his attention back to the TV, and then Chizuru is left facing the wide expanse of his bare back.
It was her own dumb idea, so she can’t back out now, but she’s never realized how broad his shoulders are, or how defined the muscles in his back have become. She’s seen him shirtless before, but never really up close like this.
“Clock’s ticking,” comes Ryu’s dry reminder, and she sucks her lip between her teeth and glares at the back of his head. She returns to her massaging with vigor, letting her fingers dig deep into the sinewy expanse of his shoulders. His skin is warmer than she would’ve expected, and it’s soft too, which surprises her.
It’s odd, to learn something new about the person she’s supposed to know everything about.
She keeps waiting for his winces, or his grunts of disapproval, but he doesn’t make a sound. He hardly moves, actually, and she realizes that her brilliant idea was nothing but a bust.
She eventually eases her grip and returns to rubbing at a normal pressure, using her thumbs to work at the tendons in his shoulder when he suddenly makes a sound—a small sigh, maybe even a moan—and she freezes, a strange swooping sensation materializing deep in her stomach. She doesn’t comment on it, and neither does he, so she continues her massage and ignores the gooseflesh that appears on her arms.
The minutes crawl by, and she loses herself in the rhythm of kneading and pressing until, finally, the timer on her phone blares like a heavenly reprieve.
“Done,” she declares, dropping her hands as she stands up and stretches her arms over her head. Her shoulders ache, her fingers throb, and yet somehow, it's not the physical exhaustion that’s making her feel so off-balanced. “Happy birthday or whatever.”
Ryu tilts his head back to look at her, seemingly relaxed. “Thanks,” he says simply, but there’s a softness in his voice that catches her off guard. It’s almost enough to make her forget the last three grueling hours.
Almost.
Yet as she grabs her jacket and heads for the door, for reasons she doesn’t entirely understand she knows she’d do it all over again if she had to, just for him.
III.
Chizuru hasn’t been to many weddings, but she sincerely believes that Toru’s wedding is by far the best there’s ever been. It’s simple and elegant, and she can practically feel the love Toru and his wife share radiating throughout the small chapel. It makes her happy, in a bittersweet and wistful way, at seeing the wedding she always dreamed of playing out before her eyes.
But Haruka is kind and sweet, and Toru adores her and honestly, Chizuru does too. She’s happy they found each other, though it leaves her wondering if she’ll ever find someone else she loves more than she loved Toru.
It’s during the couple’s first dance that she sidles up next to Ryu, who’s predictably parked himself by the refreshment table. She takes note of his navy suit and ironed shirt, and realizes once again how unfairly tall he’s become.
“Do you think you’ll get married one day?” she asks him, mostly so she doesn’t keep thinking about her own future and how disconcerting it is, not knowing who she’ll end up spending her life with.
“Yeah,” he replies simply, and it catches her off guard at how casually he says it, as if he already knows with certainty who his bride will be.
Chizuru fixes her eyes on the newlywed couple, watching Haruka’s white dress sway elegantly across the floor as Toru holds her in his arms. For a moment, she pictures herself standing here again in five, maybe ten years time, watching Ryu hold some unknown girl in his arms, the two of them bound together by promises and vows for as long as they both live.
It should be a sweet sentiment, one she should want her best friend to experience one day, but instead she feels a sudden knot of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. She’s never really thought about Ryu getting married—only her own fantasy of getting married to Toru. It feels strange, because he’s Ryu and he’s always by her side, but if he gets married he’ll be promised to someone else.
She swallows heavily, and her eyes stare without truly seeing. She’s always assumed they’d be close even after they grew up and got married, but so much of that fantasy was banking on the idea of her marrying Toru. If she could become Ryu’s sister, then of course they’d be close. That was her part of her dream after all—to be by Ryu’s side. But now, unless both her and Ryu decide to stay single forever, she has to contend with the fact that one day they’ll grow apart.
One day, another girl will be by Ryu’s side instead.
The thought brings about an unexpected wave of emotion, surging tumultuously through her body. She turns sharply and catches Ryu by his sleeve, tugging with unnecessary force. “Dance with me,” she commands. She doesn’t know how to combat these unnatural feelings, and so like always, she turns to Ryu to make things better.
“Dance?” he repeats in disbelief. “You don’t like dancing.”
“So?” Chizuru shrugs off his valid point. Already this feels more natural—bickering with Ryu, rather than getting all misty eyed about their futures. “We’re at a wedding, and people are dancing.” She gestures to the floor, now filled with couples following Toru and Haruka’s lead.
“I don’t like dancing, either,” Ryu protests, and Chizuru realizes this is going to be a challenge. She’s competitive to a fault though, and won’t back down so easily.
She steps in front of him and grabs him by the lapels of his suit jacket, forcing him to look down to meet her heated gaze. His dark eyes widen, just slightly, before they return to their neutral expression of indifference.
“Are you gonna use that same excuse on your wife when you get married?” she says, and she means to say it mockingly, but her own voice betrays her and catches on the last word. She can feel her cheeks warm under his scrutiny and she abruptly lets go of his jacket, suddenly overwhelmed by their proximity. “Whatever. Forget it.”
He can win this battle, on account of her stupid, dumb emotions.
She barely takes two steps before she’s stopped by a tug on her hand, and then Ryu’s pulling her back towards him, leading her to a small corner of the dance floor away from the main crowd.
“One dance,” he concedes, and he’s a lot closer than she remembers needing to be for dancing, but she swallows her ribbing remarks and places her arms delicately around his shoulders. She’s grateful for her heels, otherwise she would have to stand on her toes to reach him.
They move in a quiet rhythm to the music playing, and it’s not so much a dance as it is just them swaying back and forth, but it’s not entirely weird, though she does find it hard to know where to look. She settles for staring at the collar of his shirt, and tries not to think about the feel of his warm neck against her bare forearms, or the heavy weight of his hands resting on her hips.
The song drones on, and even though she really doesn’t enjoy dancing, she finds herself wishing for the moment to last just a bit longer. She wants to remember this—the warmth of his arms, the quiet strength of his hold, the calm and familiar scent of him. She wants to hold onto the sound of the soft music, the glow of the lights, and the gentle way he smiles at her when their eyes meet, like she’s the only person who matters to him.
It’s a terrible, selfish thing for her to covet, but she wants to remember this feeling of being the person closest to him.
Of being the only girl by his side.
And even though she’s surrounded by a haze of love and joy, with people celebrating and smiling all around her, she feels her heart break—just a bit—for the day when she and Ryu will inevitably have to part.
IV.
She dreams about him, sometimes.
Mostly innocuous, harmless dreams where he’s there in the background, a quiet presence in her mind just as he is in her daily life. But other times, he’s right by her side, fingers laced with hers, and in that dreamy, half-conscious certainty, she knows he belongs to her—not just as a friend, but as something more. She dreams of flowing white gowns, of petal-strewn paths, and of soft kisses as wedding bells chime overhead. When she wakes, she’s left disoriented and confused, because it wasn't Toru or even some faceless stranger standing by her side and promising to love her and marry her—it was Ryu.
It’s always Ryu.
She’s able to brush it off easily enough at first; they’re just harmless dreams, after all, and it makes sense that Ryu would appear in them—he’s the person closest to her. By the time she’s at school, the dream is already fading, slipping away like a fleeting thought she can barely grasp and remember.
But the older she gets, the less innocent her dreams get, too.
The first time it happens, she wakes up covered in a cold sweat that contrasts sharply with the warmth still pulsing through her body, her face glowing with a deep, almost permanent blush. The remnants of the dream linger vividly in the forefront of her mind, and for a moment she panics, because she doesn’t know what it means that she dreamt about him in such a lewd manner. Yet a few online searches and some deep dives into obscure internet forums later, she’s relieved to learn it's a normal, subconscious reaction to sometimes dream about close friends in less-than-platonic ways. Yet the prickly feeling of discomfort lingers, leaving her more than a little flustered, her gaze darting anywhere but his face the next time she sees him.
She gets used to it over time, though it still leaves her dazed and off-kilter when she snaps out of her debauched dreamlike state and regains her good senses. She does her best not to dwell on it, or on the underlying implications those dreams might have.
And she certainly doesn’t dwell on the fact that the only one she ever dreams of in that way is Ryu.
V.
Chizuru doesn’t mind the cold. She lives in Hokkaido, after all, and has spent her whole life growing accustomed to the harsh sting of icy winds and the familiar numbness that sinks into her limbs everytime she ventures outside. She used to take pride in her thick skin when she was younger, always wearing shorts out to play during the first snowfall of the season, and even well into her teenage years she never minded the brisk chill against her legs as she walked to school, her uniform skirt brushing the top of her bare knees as she trudged through the thick, icy sludge of day-old snow.
Yet despite her tolerance for the weather, she isn’t as invulnerable as she sometimes pretends to be.
It’s early March, and a few falsely warm days led her to believe that most of winter was over. Feeling emboldened by the sunny rays illuminating the morning sky, she didn’t think twice about grabbing an extra layer before heading to school.
And now it's snowing—again.
Her whole body shudders as she walks home later that day, and she clings feebly to her lightweight jacket as she wraps her arms tightly around herself. Her teeth chatter as she scuffs her shoes against the powdery ground, and she’s so preoccupied with preserving her own warmth she barely hears the footsteps that come up behind her.
A heavy, warm weight bears down on her shoulders, and she becomes enveloped with a scent more familiar than her own. She lets herself relax as the heavy wool coat settles around her smaller frame, and she falls into step with the boy beside her.
“What’re you doing here?” She asks not because she isn’t pleased to see him, but the new baseball season is starting soon, and Pin’s been pushing the team to their limit with endless drills and runs everyday.
“Pin had a date,” Ryu explains simply, “and no one wanted to play in the snow, so practice ended early.”
Chizuru nods, letting her arms slip into the coat as they walk. Were it any other person she would’ve protested and thrown the coat back at them, but she really is cold, and she’s grateful to Ryu for not making a big deal out of it.
“Want to play games at your house then? Since you have the afternoon free.” Both Ayane and Sawako had been busy, resigning Chizuru to a boring afternoon of procrastinating her homework, but now Ryu’s here. Just the thought of spending her day with him warms her in a way that has nothing to do with the coat across her shoulders.
“Sure. Though we should probably work on our homework too.”
Chizuru groans and kicks a loose clump of snow in his direction. “Stop being responsible. I just want to punch some badly rendered CGI villains.”
“Who says we’re playing a fighting game?” Ryu protests lightly, sending a spray of snow back at her.
Chizuru glares at him, then notices for the first time that he’s wearing nothing but his school blazer. A twinge of guilt builds in her chest, especially when she notices the rosiness of his cheeks and nose, so she starts to shrug the coat from her shoulders.
Ryu sees and puts a hand on her back to keep the coat in place. The touch is light, and she can barely feel his hand through the thick material, but from the sudden rush of warmth that envelopes her it’s as if he’s touching her bare skin.
“Keep it on,” he says without looking at her. “I’ll be fine.”
Chizuru sighs, her breath coming out in a cloudy puff of air. It feels almost like admitting defeat, or admitting that he’s stronger than her; first in arm wrestling, and now in tolerance to the cold. But she holds her tongue and shuffles closer, so that their arms brush and their bodies become a shared bubble of heated space.
When they arrive at Ryu’s house they slip upstairs and end up playing a multitude of different games, their homework entirely forgotten in favor of the pixelated worlds on the screen and the easy familiarity of sitting side by side. When the sky eventually grows dark and the snow continues to fall gently to the frozen ground, Chizuru stands and yawns, making her way to the front door.
“Don’t take your loss too hard,” she tells him with a satisfied grin, having completely crushed him in the melee game she’d chosen.
“I won’t lose any sleep over it,” he replies rather blasély. He’s trying hard not to appear annoyed, and it’s only because she knows him so well that she can recognize the tightness of his shoulders and the small furrow between his brows.
A laugh spills from her lips as she goes to step through the door, yet before she can make her exit Ryu hands her his coat again.
“I’ll be fine, it’s not a long walk,” she objects, but Ryu places it around her shoulders before she can resist. She’s about to shrug the coat off out of spite, but his hands linger on her arms for a beat too long, and for a single, peculiar moment she thinks he’s about to hug her.
“You can give it back tomorrow,” he tells her, and then he pulls away, and the moment passes.
Chizuru just nods and leaves silently, overcome by an odd sense of dissatisfaction that she can’t explain. By the time she reaches her own house she’s warm head to toe, yet she keeps the coat on, and falls into her bed with the heavy material still wrapped around her.
She must be getting sick, on account of the strange fluttering in her stomach as she pulls Ryu’s coat up to her chin, inhaling the smoky, almost spicy scent that lingers on the collar. It reminds her of the ramen shop, but mixed with the tanginess of his shampoo and the saltiness of his skin.
She thinks of the moment by his front door, and wonders what it would’ve felt like to be enveloped in his arms, and brought close to his chest; to feel his heart beat steady and firm against her ear, and feel the taut strength of his body as he held her.
They used to hug when they were younger, and they still do sometimes, but only in moments of comfort or spontaneous celebration. The last time they’d hugged was out by the docks, after Toru had announced his engagement, and it suddenly feels too long ago, too insufficient.
Chizuru sinks further into his coat, drawing her knees up to her chest as she lays on her side. When she inhales, she’s almost able to imagine that he’s still right beside her. Which should be weird, but she convinces herself that it’s normal to think about a best friend like that. To crave their presence, and their comfort.
And as she slowly drifts off into the hazy limbo between sleep and reality, somewhere buried deep down in the recesses of her mind, a small voice whispers that maybe—just maybe—there’ll come a day when she doesn’t have to imagine anymore.