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You want to kiss him. Just kiss him, even if it’s only once. It doesn’t have to mean anything, right? Right. It doesn’t have to mean anything. But it would mean something and you know it. Which is why you can’t. Stop even entertaining the thought. But you can’t make the thoughts stop any more than you could make the feelings stop. You tried. Every time you close your eyes you see his lips. You try not to think about them. Just like you try not to think about those big brown eyes looking at you so intently, like he’s reading your thoughts. And you feel so at peace when you gaze back at him, but also afraid that “I’m so in love with you and I can’t tell you” is written all over your face and he’ll see it. You want him to see it, but you don’t want him to. You don’t want it to change things. And so you just smile. And he smiles back at you.
You try not to think about how it feels when he links his fingers with yours and it’s so companionable and so intimate, and you’ve never looked forward to holding hands with someone so much in your life. But it doesn’t mean anything either. It shouldn’t mean anything. And you shouldn’t think about it so much because just being near enough to touch him shouldn’t make you feel this giddy. Just thinking about being near enough to touch his skin shouldn't keep you up at night. Especially because he doesn’t feel the same about you. Does he? You don’t think so. Except for when you think he might. When you think he’s going to tell you he loves you and you brace yourself to deny your feelings because you have nothing to offer each other beyond what you already have. But you don’t want to hurt him if he loves you. You don’t want him to think that you don’t love him. Because you do. You do so much it hurts sometimes. And sometimes you cry because none of it makes sense and there’s nothing you can do. You’re suffering and drowning in these feelings and all these things you want to say, but can’t ever say without hurting someone else. And so you hurt yourself. Day after day, week after week, for months now. Because you have no right to be in love with him. You have no right to want to kiss him. Or hold him and run your hands along his scalp. And you have no right to tell him any of these things because you don’t want him to know if he doesn’t feel the same.
But you don’t want to know if he feels the same because then... Then… you have to make a decision. You have to decide if you do something about it. You want to do something about it. You want him to love you like you love him. But you don’t want to know because you don’t want to be tempted to act on it and hurt everyone. Love hurts. And you’d rather hurt yourself every hour of every single day than to hurt anyone else or be hurt by someone else. Because someone will get hurt. Someone always gets hurt. And then he would go away. And the thought of him being gone hurts more than the thought that you’ll never know what it feels like to have his mouth pressed to yours. To have his tongue explore yours. Or to feel his teeth nip at your bottom lip. But you just need him to be in your life in some way more than you need to kiss him. So stop thinking about it. But the more you try to stop thinking about it, the more you actually think about it.
“Oi, you okay?” he says, waving his hand in front of your face.
“Y-yes. I’m fine,” you lie, smiling at him. “Why?”
“You’re being quiet. It’s weird.”
“I’m fine.” But you’re not fine and you know it. You’re madly in love with your sensei and there’s not a thing you can do about it without destroying everything you have built so far. And so you keep your journals and your doodles of him. You watch him and talk to him and be near him as often as you can and hope that it’s enough. Because you can’t imagine your life without him in it, and so you will suffer with your secret for as long as you need to because it means keeping him. And that has to be enough because it’s all you have.