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I was so damned nervous, but I had to tell him. I couldn’t back out now, not after I nearly lost him. We stood by the river where I watched him battle number 26. We were alone.
“I like you,” I told him.
“I like you too,” he replied.
Of course he liked me. He liked everyone.“No,” I said, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes at his simplicity. He wasn’t getting it. I looked back at him and said, “what I mean is I’m IN love with you. Romantically. I’m homosexual.”
It seemed to take a moment for it to sink in.
“Oh,” he said quietly. His smile faded.
“It’s okay,” I said. I could feel the heat rise to my face. I felt humiliated. Why did I come out with that when I knew nothing good would come of it? “I figured there wasn’t much of a chance of you being homosexual,” I added, “I just… thought you should know how important you are to me.”
“Okay,” he said breathily. He was flustered. I guess my being gay bothered him after all. Well, it figures that even Godai Yusuke has something that rubs him the wrong way.
“S-sorry.” Not knowing how to redeem myself in the eyes of the man I loved, I bowed and apologized. It was stupid. I shouldn’t apologize for how I feel. But I felt bad. I made Godai Yusuke uncomfortable… a man who wasn’t phased by death itself. I felt like I had wronged him.
“I, um,” Godai spoke nervously, “I have to go help Pops with something.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond before turning around and running back up the hill towards his residence.
A heavy weight laid on my shoulders. I feared destroying our precious friendship. But this was Yusuke, after all. Surely he wouldn’t let something as small as this ruin his friendships, right? He’d get over it in time. I hoped.
He didn’t visit me at the police station after that. I wanted to visit him at Pole Pole, but… I figured he was probably disgusted with me. He wouldn’t want to see me anymore. As expected, we ran into each other when the next Unidentified Lifeform attacked, but even then, our interactions were stilted and limited. When he fought, for the first time, he seemed… distracted. Nothing ever took him away from his focus on his goal before. What have I done?
He got hurt because of me. He was obviously distracted during the battle, and the enemy cut his shoulder. I called into the fray to cheer him on, and he managed to recover and beat the enemy. After the smoke cleared, we stood there under the bridge in silence. It was awful. It took all my strength to fight back tears.
I was gay, and that revolted him enough to make him unable to fight. That stuck with him and bothered him so much that he couldn’t think of anything else but how perverted I was and how he didn’t want to see me again.
“Are you okay?” He asked me, after transforming back into his normal self.
My lips quivered. I feared I’d cry if I tried to speak.
“I’m sorry I ran away,” he said.
I couldn’t look at him.
“I wasn’t sure how to process it.”
I nodded. He had a hard time processing that his friend was gay. Was it bad that I was disappointed in him? I thought he’d be more open minded. He seemed like he’d love people no matter what, but…
“Ichijo…”
The tears spilled down my cheeks without me realizing. Damn it.
He came up close to me. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not upset with you,” he said sweetly. “In fact, I’m very happy that you care so much about me.”
My eyes opened wide. I wiped the tears off of my cheeks with my sleeve and then looked at him. He was still the Yusuke Godai that I loved.
“It’s just that your confession made me think about some things,” he said. He seemed nervous. “I shouldn’t have run away like that, but I needed time to think.” He backed up and bowed low. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “That was really cruel of me.”
“So you aren’t mad that I’m attracted to men?” I asked.
“What?!” He seemed genuinely surprised that I came to that conclusion. “Of course not! Why would that bother me?”
I laughed shakily. Of course. I was so dumb not to trust him.
“I love you no matter who you love, Ichijo-san!” After all that worrying, it turned out he was still comfortable telling me he loved me, and I was happy to hear it.
“In fact, I…”
I looked up at him and noticed that his hands were fiddling nervously behind his back. He looked to the side and bit his lip.
“I love that you love me,” he said.
“Huh?” I must’ve blushed when I heard that.
“It wasn’t your feelings for me that shook me up,” Yusuke Godai explained. “It was me trying to figure out how I feel for you.”
I stared at him and listened.
“Well, I thought the right way to respond to a confession would be to give you an answer. It’s like a question, right? When you tell someone you like them, you want to know if they like you back, right? Well, as I thought about that, I was… caught off-guard. I got confused and ran away because… I had never considered having those kinds of feelings for someone before. I only ever thought of making others happy and never really thought of what, or who, would make me happy. But after your confession, for the first time… I’ve been considering what I want for myself.”
I stood there, wondering where he was going with this. I was relieved to hear that he was actually considering giving me a response, but he didn’t have to…
“I found myself imagining what it would be like to be closer with you,” he continued, “and, well…” He scratched his cheek and shuffled nervously from one foot to the other. “Last night, as I was thinking about what it would mean if I liked you back… if I decided to be with you… I imagined us doing all sorts of things together, and I…” He was really jumping around now.
“Y-yeah?”
To my surprise, a big smile spread on his face and he looked like he wanted to scream. He covered his face with his hand and said “I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep last night! I… was tossing and turning and couldn’t stop thinking of you! I felt so energized that I kept kicking my feet and squealing into my pillow, and… Well, uh…” he blushed and pursed his lips, as though preventing himself from saying too much. “Th-the rest isn’t important! But what I mean to say is… I really, really like the idea of being your boyfriend!” He said this loud and clear, as we stood there outside, under the bridge.
I realized I had been holding my breath and was finally breathing again.