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Hikaru stands under the heat of the locker room shower and closes his eyes. The water burns across his chest and the steam fills the air. His feet and legs ache from running, but still he wants to rush through his shower and jog through the halls until he’s found Yoshiki.
Hikaru slides open the door to the classroom and freezes. Across the room, Yoshiki leans over his desk, pencil tucked into the crook of his hand as he scribbles onto a sheet of notebook paper.
“Yo-shi-ki,” he sings and Yoshiki looks up, a bright pink panic spreading across his nose. He stands hastily from his desk and shoves the paper into his jacket pocket.
“Hikaru,” he says.
Yoshiki is so pretty in the soft light of the classroom. The cooler autumn air pushes through an open window nearby, rustling Yoshiki’s clothes and pulling him forward towards Hikaru. With each step forward, Hikaru can hear his own heart hammering away in his ears, he can feel the restless tendrils within him aching to break free from his chest.
“Ready to head out?” Hikaru’s voice is careful, fragile. He shifts from one foot to the other while Yoshiki grabs his backpack from the floor and walks around him.
“Let’s go.”
Hikaru bounces after him, following Yoshiki to the bike rack on the side of the school. It’s quiet in the orange of the evening. He already misses the cicada’s summer song and the damp humidity of the day. Autumn can be heard in the crunch of leaves beneath their tires and a cool breeze rustling the grass. It’s a new song that Hikaru will have to familiarize himself with. He shivers and Yoshiki turns to him.
“You’re cold,” he says and stops his bike, almost causing a collision with Hikaru.
“Only a little,” Hikaru sniffles. It was a creeping cold, but it sank into Hikaru’s skin down to his bones.
“Take this.” Yoshiki shrugs off his jacket without thought and tosses it to Hikaru. Hikaru holds the jacket for a moment between his hands before pulling it on one sleeve at a time.
The jacket is warm and Hiarku realizes with a blush that Yoshiki must be that warm under all those layers. When Yoshiki turns back around to mount his bike, Hikaru imagines Yoshiki’s warmth. He imagines Yoshiki’s arms around him, Yoshiki’s hands threading through his hair.
Yoshiki walks him all the way home and Hikaru waves as he leaves. He’s even prettier in the dusky light of the evening. Hikaru watches him walk his bike down the dirt path until he disappears behind some trees.
He realizes too late that he’s still wearing Yoshiki’s jacket. He calls after the darkness but Yoshiki is long gone. He kicks the dirt and shoves his hands into the pockets, feeling the crinkle of paper against his fingers.
He pulls it out and his eyes widen. The note from earlier. He knows he shouldn’t read it, but curiosity needles its way inside of his mind. Just a quick look. He can act like he never saw it, like he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to read it. Yoshiki was so kind…Yoshiki would understand…
Hikaru unfolds the note like he’s disarming a bomb and his heart stops when he sees his name written out in Yoshiki’s bad handwriting.
Dear Hikaru,
I don’t know how or when to say this kind of thing so I decided to write it down. Maybe one day I will have the courage to give it to you.
It’s been different, you’ve been different. Which, I guess, is to be expected. You’re an entirely new person now. That alone should wreck me, it should tear me to shreds. And maybe at one point it did. Maybe at one point I was a husk of myself.
But I didn’t expect you. I didn’t expect to ever be happy again. I didn’t expect to fall for someone new.
It feels so silly writing this note, something I will never give you. Something to fill the time while I wait for you to return. I’ve done a lot of that, waiting. I waited for you to like me, I waited for you to tell me what you really are. And now I wait for the courage to tell you.
I like you.
I like you so much that it hurts. I don’t know how to not tell you when the feeling is like knives inside of me. When you arrive here and we walk home, it will be like any other day. I will pretend that I do not feel anything, but I do. I do.
Please do not hate me for this. For the secrets and the fear. It is all I have.
Yours,
Yoshiki
Hikaru holds the note so taut that he is surprised it doesn’t tear in half. The pencil marks are smudged and Hikaru wonders how much Yoshiki had erased and rewritten. He wishes he could see through each eraser mark into Yoshiki’s head. He wants to know more, needs to know more.
Hikaru doesn’t think as he grabs his bike. He doesn’t think as he pedals through the darkness. He doesn’t think as he throws his bike down in the dirt and knocks on Yoshiki’s front door.
Yoshiki answers, his face wrinkling in confusion.
“You—“ Hikaru catches his breath. His heart pounds against his ribcage, from exertion and excitement. “You left your jacket.”
“You could’ve given it back tomorrow.”
“No,” Hikaru straightens up. “No, you left this.”
He reaches into the pocket and panic drains the blood from Yoshiki’s face. His stomach turns and his heart flutters and he starts to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. If he should have left the letter in the pocket and pretended it never existed–
No, Yoshiki liked him, really really liked him. It was written, scratched out in Yoshiki’s familiar and uneven handwriting.
Hikaru produces the note, holds it up between them, and Yoshiki looks at it like it might leap out and bite him.
“Is this real?” Hikaru asks. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered until this moment that it might not be real. But what would it be for other than him? Hope courses through Hikaru’s veins.
Yoshiki nods. It looks like he tries to speak but he swallows his words. In the fresh darkness, Yoshiki’s features are hard to read. The confusion and panic gives way to soft resignation. He reaches out and takes the piece of paper.
“Do you really like me?” Hikaru tries not to be too eager. But he wants to hear it, needs to hear it.
“Yeah,” Yoshiki says. He lets his hair hang down in front of his face. Hikaru can feel the shame and embarrassment radiating off of him. He hates himself for a moment, for being the cause of it. However Yoshiki feels right now, he doesn’t deserve it. He deserves to be proud and loved.
Hikaru grins triumphantly. “I like Yoshiki!”
Yoshiki looks up, his hair falling nicely around his face. “Really?”
His smile settles into something softer. “So much.”
Hikaru watches Yoshiki’s shame transform into something else–something brighter, something sweet.
“You like me.” It’s not a question, but Hikaru nods his head along anyway. He feels it down his spine, in his limbs. He likes Yoshiki. He’s never been more sure of anything in his short life.
He barely registers Yoshiki’s movement before Yoshiki’s hand is on the back of his head and their lips are pressed together. The kiss is warm and damp and Hikaru’s heart is a fluttery thing in his chest. It’s the most alive he’s ever felt. He closes his eyes and kisses Yoshiki back and Yoshiki makes a small startled noise into Hikaru’s mouth.
He never wants to stop. He wants to kiss Yoshiki until the night closes in around them and the sun returns and paints the sky a variety of pinks and blues. Yoshiki pulls away first, his hand lingering on the back of Hikaru’s neck.
“I’ve gotta go back in before they start to worry.”
Disappointment curdles in Hikaru’s stomach. He doesn’t want to leave, but his nerves are settled by the reluctance of Yoshiki’s hands to move. He squeezes the note in his hand, the relief of Yoshiki’s words bleeding into his skin.
“Can I keep it?”
“Hm?” Yoshiki hums. His hand trails around the side of Hikaru’s head so that his thumb rests on Hikaru’s bottom lip.
“The note, can I keep it?”
Yoshiki’s eyes flit up to Hikaru’s, an embarrassed flush spreading across his nose. “Yeah, sure, I mean, why though?”
“In case I forget.”
“Forget?”
“That you like me.” Hikaru thinks of Yoshiki’s words. I like you so much it hurts. It's burned into his brain, into his skin. He doesn't think he could forget if he tried. But he doesn’t want to risk it. He wants the words ready at his fingertips, just in case.
Yoshiki kisses him with branding force. So much so that Hikaru loses his footing, catching himself on his back foot.
“Don’t forget, okay?”
Hikaru shakes his head. “I won’t. I swear it.”
He gives a curt, embarrassed nod. “Good.”
Yoshiki turns on his heel and disappears behind his door, leaving Hikaru in the darkness. He stands for a moment and touches his fingers to his lips. He remembers the warmth of Yoshiki’s mouth only moments before and turns slowly to pick up his bike.
He is grateful for the night. The moments play out in the dark treeline ahead of him. Yoshiki’s note, Yoshiki’s kiss, Yoshiki.
Tucked in the privacy of his bedroom, he pulls out the note and rereads through it, stumbling each time over the end where Yoshiki had signed.
Yours.
Tomorrow he would face Yoshiki again, maybe even kiss him again. The idea swirls around in Hikaru’s mind until he’s dizzy with it. He presses the letter to his lips.
His.