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Denji decides this is humiliating when Yoshida doesn’t even look up from his notebook.
Like, truly humiliating. The kind that settles in his stomach and stays there, warm and sour, making him aware of his hands, his voice, the fact that he chose to do this instead of keeping his mouth shut like a normal person.
“C’mon,” Denji says anyway, because backing out now would be worse. He leans halfway across the desk between them, reaching without really meaning to, and knocks into a pencil case. Pens scatter, and no one reacts. Of course no one reacts. “Just—just help me a little. You’re good with words.”
Yoshida hums, pen still moving, like Denji is background noise. Like Denji hasn’t just put his dignity on the desk between them.
“I’m good at getting teachers to stop calling on me,” Yoshida says. “Different skill set.”
Denji swallows. He hadn’t expected a yes. He also hadn’t expected a no. Something in between would’ve been easier.
“It’s the same thing,” he insists, because if he stops talking, he might think too hard about why he wants Yoshida’s help specifically. “Words are words. You put ’em in a good order and people don’t hate you.”
That gets Yoshida to look up. The look is neither mean nor kind, only calm and unreadable in that way Yoshida has, the kind that makes Denji feel studied from a safe distance, like a bug under glass.
“People don’t hate you,” Yoshida says.
Denji snorts, sharp and humorless. If that were true, this wouldn’t feel like such a risk. “Yeah, well. She doesn’t know me, which is worse.”
He drops into the chair next to Yoshida without asking, knee bouncing before he can stop it. The classroom smells like dust and chalk and someone’s deodorant that’s trying way too hard. Sunlight slants through the windows, catching on Yoshida’s eyelashes, and Denji has the stupid thought that if this were a movie, this would mean something.
He hates that his brain does that.
“I just need it to sound…” He gestures uselessly. Romantic feels like too big a word to say out loud. “Normal, or like I’m not a freak.”
Yoshida closes his notebook at last, slowly, like he’s making a decision Denji doesn’t get to hear yet.
“You want to write her a letter.”
Denji stiffens immediately. “Girls like letters,” he says, defensive before Yoshida can even judge him. “It’s a thing. Like—old-timey, thoughtful. Not just ‘hey u up.’”
He doesn’t say I don’t know how to talk to her. He doesn’t say this feels safer. He doesn’t say I don’t want to screw this up the way I screw everything else up.
“And you want me,” Yoshida says, tilting his head slightly, “to write it for you.”
“No!” Denji blurts, too fast, and a little too loud for a classroom setting. His face heats and he looks away. “I mean—no. I just want help. Like… editing. You sit there and tell me when it sounds stupid.”
Because it will sound stupid. He already knows that. He just wants someone to catch it before it leaves his hands.
“I see,” Yoshida says. His mouth twitches, like he’s amused despite himself. “And what do I get out of this arrangement?”
Denji thinks about it. Actually thinks. His brain scrambles, flipping through possibilities like loose papers.
“I’ll buy you bread from the cafeteria,” he says finally. “The one with caramelised sugar on top.”
It’s not enough. He knows it’s not enough. He waits for Yoshida to laugh.
Yoshida considers it seriously. “Tempting.”
“Please,” Denji adds, and he hates that his voice cracks, hates that Yoshida can hear it. “I don’t wanna mess this up.”
That’s the truth, the whole truth, and it feels like handing something fragile over and hoping it doesn’t get dropped.
Something changes in Yoshida’s gaze, his focus narrowing. Like Denji has finally said the thing that matters.
“…Fine,” Yoshida says. “But you’re writing it. I’m not putting words in your mouth.”
Denji exhales so hard it almost makes him dizzy. Relief floods him so fast it’s embarrassing.
“Yes. Thank you.” The words tumble out before he can stop them. “You’re my best friend.”
Yoshida freezes for just a second, barely noticeable, and Denji doesn’t clock it because he’s too busy feeling like he just survived something.
Then Yoshida smiles, easy and practiced, and reaches for a blank sheet of paper. “Alright, Romeo. Let’s see what we’re working with.”
Denji grins, bright and unguarded, completely unaware that it was the start of something big.
He chews on the end of his pen like it might give him answers, like if he bites down hard enough something useful will leak out. It doesn’t. The paper stays blank, aggressively so, until it feels like it’s judging him for wasting its time.
He’s aware of Yoshida beside him in a way that makes everything worse. Being watched while failing has always been Denji’s least favorite sport.
“Just write,” Yoshida says eventually. “You can’t fix nothing.”
“Shut up,” Denji mutters, but his shoulders hunch anyway, instinctively defensive, and he bends over the desk like he’s bracing for impact.
If he thinks too hard, he won’t write anything at all. So he doesn’t think. He just lets his hand move.
Hi.
Too short. He adds another line immediately, like he’s patching a leak.
Sorry. Hi.
That feels more honest, which is not the same thing as good.
I don’t know if this is weird or not.
It is, he knows it is. His stomach tightens as he keeps going.
If it is, you can just pretend you never saw this and I won’t be mad. I mean I’ll be mad but only at myself.
He pauses, rereads it, and feels something small and unpleasant crawl up his spine. Why does he always do this? Why does he always preemptively apologize for existing?
Yoshida leans over a little. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that Denji can smell his shampoo. “You’re opening strong.”
Denji glares at him, heat rushing to his face, and keeps writing because stopping now would mean admitting defeat.
I see you sometimes before class and you always have your headphones on and I wonder what you’re listening to.
That’s fine and normal and totally not creepy. People notice things all the time.
I tried to guess once but I’m really bad at that stuff.
Okay, maybe unnecessary.
You probably don’t know my name. It’s Denji.
His chest tightens as he writes it, like putting his name on the page makes him too real, too easy to reject.
I usually sit by the window in my class. I fall asleep a lot but it’s not because I don’t care. I just get tired.
He stops there and stares at the sentence. The urge to cross it out is immediate and overwhelming.
“Is that too sad?” he asks, quieter than he means to. He doesn’t look at Yoshida. He doesn’t want to see the answer on his face.
Yoshida considers it. “It’s… honest.”
Denji latches onto that word like it’s a life raft. “Okay but like. Not pathetic, right?”
There’s too long of a pause.
“…Borderline,” Yoshida says, then adds, almost kindly, “But she might like it.”
Denji nods like this is valuable information. Like Yoshida has just explained a rule of the universe he didn’t know before. He keeps going.
I wanted to say I think you’re really cool.
His hand hesitates. Cool sounds childish. He almost changes it, but doesn’t.
Like you seem nice and I like when you smile even though I’ve only seen it a few times.
His heart starts doing that annoying, fluttery thing, like it’s excited by its own humiliation.
If you don’t want to talk to me, that's fine. I just wanted you to know.
That’s the truest part. He sits with it for a second, then signs his name before he can second-guess himself.
From,
Denji
He drops the pen like it’s burned him.
For a moment, all he can think is: I did it. Closely followed by: Oh god, I did it.
Denji doesn’t hand the letter over right away.
He hovers with it between them, fingers worrying the edges until the paper is already soft and warm. His stomach twists like he’s about to get bad news from a doctor. Which is stupid. This is just Yoshida, his friend, not Sato Mizuki, the girl who actually has his heart. Not the person whose opinion actually matters.
It still feels the same.
“Okay,” Denji says, voice too casual, like he might yank it back any second. “Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t,” Yoshida says.
Denji doesn’t believe him, but he slides the letter across the desk anyway.
The moment Yoshida’s eyes drop to the page, something sharp and panicky spikes in Denji’s chest. He watches Yoshida read like it’s a performance meant only for him—every pause, every tiny shift in expression feels loaded. Yoshida doesn’t react much, which is way worse. Denji tries to read his face, but Yoshida always looks like he’s holding his thoughts behind a locked door.
Seconds stretch. Yoshida reads and rereads the whole thing without comment.
Denji’s knee starts bouncing. He clamps his hands together under the desk to stop himself from reaching out and snatching the paper back. He feels peeled open, like there’s no skin left between his thoughts and the air.
This is what it’ll be like when she reads it, Denji thinks. This exact feeling. Like he’s standing still while someone decides what kind of person he is.
Yoshida hums. Just one sound, soft and thoughtful.
Denji’s heart drops straight into his stomach.
“That bad?” he blurts.
Yoshida glances up. “I didn’t say that.”
“You hummed,” Denji says. “Humming’s bad.”
“Not always,” Yoshida says, and then looks back down. “Okay. Let’s go through it.”
Denji grabs a second sheet of paper so fast he nearly rips it. His pen shakes a little. He hopes Yoshida doesn’t notice.
“First,” Yoshida says, tapping the top of the page, “the opening. The double greeting.”
Denji winces. “Too much?”
“It’s very you,” Yoshida says. “But maybe pick one. Starting apologetic and then apologizing for the apology is… a lot.”
Denji nods furiously and scribbles a note. One hi only.
Yoshida continues, pointing to lines, moving slowly and carefully, like he knows Denji is balancing on something fragile.
“This part about pretending she never saw it,” Yoshida says. “You might want to cut that.”
Denji’s chest tightens. “Why?”
“Because it gives her an exit before she even has to think,” Yoshida says. “If you’re going to say something, say it like you mean it.”
Denji chews on that, then writes it down. Don’t give her an escape.
That feels terrifying. He writes it anyway.
Yoshida pauses at Denji’s name. “This is good.”
Denji looks up. “Yeah?”
“You put your name in the middle instead of at the end,” Yoshida says. “It makes it feel more… present. Like you’re stepping forward.”
Denji hadn’t thought about that at all. The idea that he’s stepping forward makes his throat feel tight.
“Here,” Yoshida says, tapping another line. “The sleeping part. You don’t have to explain yourself so much.”
Denji frowns. “But what if she thinks I’m lazy?”
“She might,” Yoshida says honestly. “But you can’t control that. You can control how much you apologize for it.”
Denji writes that down too.
They go like that for a while. Yoshida pointing things out, Denji crossing out words, rewriting sentences on the spare sheet, carefully transplanting them back into the letter like he’s performing surgery. Every so often, Yoshida will say something unexpectedly gentle—this works, keep this, don’t change that line—and each time, Denji feels it hit him somewhere deep and confusing.
Finally, Yoshida leans back. “Okay,” he says. “That’s solid.”
Denji stares at the finished letter. It still looks like his handwriting. Still sounds like him. Just… braver. Like the version of himself he wishes he was more often.
Hi.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to start this without sounding weird, and I don’t think there’s a way to do that, so I’m just going to say it.
My name is Denji.
You probably don’t know me. I usually sit by the window in my class. I fall asleep sometimes, but it’s not because I don’t care about anything. I just get tired more than I mean to. I’m working on that.
I see you before class a lot. You always have your headphones on, and you look really focused, like you’re in your own world. I’ve caught myself wondering what you’re listening to more than once. I tried guessing the kind of music you like, but I’m honestly terrible at that.
I hope that doesn’t sound strange. I just notice things.
I think you’re really cool. You seem kind, and when you smile, it changes your whole face. I’ve only seen it a few times, but it stuck with me.
I’m not great at this kind of thing. I don’t always know what the right words are, and I overthink everything after I say it. But I wanted to be straightforward at least once instead of pretending I don’t feel anything.
If you don’t want to talk to me, I’ll respect that. I just didn’t want to keep wondering what would’ve happened if I’d never said anything.
So this is me saying something.
—Denji
“Really?” he asks.
Yoshida nods. “Really.”
Denji folds the paper carefully, creasing it slow and precisely, like he’s handling something sacred. He presses the fold down with his thumb, then again, just to be sure. His hands are steady now, or steadier.
“Thanks,” he says, sincere and quiet. “Like, really.”
Yoshida smiles. “Good luck.”
Denji doesn’t trust himself to say anything else. He tucks the letter into his pocket, stands, and waits a beat so it doesn’t look suspicious.
Then he walks out into the hallway, heart pounding, and slips the letter into her shoe locker like he’s leaving an offering.
For a moment, he just stands there, hand resting on the metal door.
Then he closes it and walks away before he can change his mind.
Denji tells himself he’s not waiting. Waiting would mean he expects something, and expecting things has historically gone bad for him.
So he’s just checking. Like you check if it’s going to rain. Like you check if something is still broken. Locker open, quick glance, locker shut. No big deal.
Still nothing.
His chest does this stupid thing where it tightens and loosens again, like it can’t decide whether to hurt or not. Denji pretends not to notice. He’s gotten good at that. If you don’t look straight at a feeling, sometimes it doesn’t bite.
By the third day, he starts imagining replies.
Hey, Denji. Sorry for the wait. You’re not weird.
He hates himself a little for that last one. Why would she say that? He never wrote he was weird. He just… is.
In class, Yoshida keeps glancing over like he’s checking the weather too. Denji doesn’t bring it up at first because saying it out loud might make it real. Instead, he taps his foot, then stops, then taps again.
“She’s probably busy,” Denji says finally, mostly to convince himself.
If she wanted to reply, she would’ve by now. He knows that. He also knows knowing things has never stopped him from hoping anyway.
Yoshida says something neutral but Denji barely hears it. His brain is already doing that thing where it rewinds his own letter and plays it back wrong, every sentence sounding worse than before. Too eager, too honest, too much.
The second letter happens because silence feels worse than rejection. At least rejection ends something.
He writes it late at night, sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up, light too bright, thoughts too loud. This time he doesn’t apologize as much. This time he doesn’t explain himself. He just tries to sound… normal. Like someone who belongs in a conversation.
When Yoshida reads it, Denji watches his face way too closely, searching for a flinch, a smirk, anything that says yeah, this is bad. He doesn’t get one. He feels like he’s being watched through glass again—but this time the glass is thinner. Like one bad reaction might crack it.
Yoshida doesn’t say anything at first. He reads slower than before, eyes tracking each line carefully, like he’s taking inventory. Denji’s pulse keeps tripping over itself. He tells himself not to read into the silence. Silence doesn’t mean bad. Silence can mean thinking.
Still, his fingers curl into his sleeves.
“Well?” Denji asks finally, unable to stand it. “Is it worse than the first one?”
Yoshida hums. The sound lands squarely in Denji’s chest.
“It’s different,” Yoshida says. “Less apologetic.”
Denji swallows. “Is that good?”
“It’s braver,” Yoshida says, then taps the page. “But we can clean it up a bit.”
Yoshida points to the opening line. “You start strong here. Keep this.”
Denji nods, scribbling KEEP in the margin, underlining it twice.
“This part,” Yoshida continues, sliding his finger down the page, “you repeat yourself a little. You don’t have to keep proving you’re not asking for anything.”
Denji hesitates. “But what if she thinks I am?”
“She might,” Yoshida says evenly. “But repeating it makes it sound like you don’t believe yourself.”
That hits somewhere uncomfortable. Denji writes it down anyway. Don’t overexplain.
They go line by line. Yoshida suggests cutting a sentence here, rephrasing another there. He points out where Denji sounds confident without meaning to, where his voice comes through clearest. Each time Yoshida says this works, Denji feels something warm and stupid bloom in his chest.
Denji’s throat tightens. “She’ll respond this time, right?”
The question slips out before he can stop it, small and unguarded. Like a kid asking if something hurts.
Yoshida thankfully doesn’t tease him for it.
“She will,” he says calmly. “I’m sure.”
“She has to,” Denji says, a little desperate now. “Right?”
Yoshida nods. “Yeah.”
Denji hesitates, then adds quickly, “But you’re not reading her replies, okay? I’m not letting some creep she doesn’t even know look at her notes.”
Yoshida huffs a quiet laugh. “Okay. I won’t.”
Denji lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He folds the letter carefully, once, then again, pressing the crease flat with his thumb. His hands tremble, just slightly.
Yoshida reaches out. “Here.”
Denji passes it over automatically—then pauses, a flicker of hesitation tightening his shoulders.
Yoshida holds the letter for a moment, glancing at Denji’s unsteady hands before looking back at his face.
“…Actually,” Yoshida says, almost lightly. “You know what? I’ll do it.”
Denji blinks. “Huh?”
“I’ll put it in her locker,” Yoshida says. “You take it easy. Let me do this one.”
Denji’s chest lifts. Relief floods him so suddenly it almost feels like gratitude. “You will?”
“Of course,” Yoshida says, like it’s obvious. “I’m your best friend, right?”
Denji nods, fast. His face feels warm, but he doesn’t care.
“Yeah,” he says. “You are.”
Yoshida tucks the folded letter away, careful again, like it’s something fragile. Something important.
Denji watches him go, heart pounding with a feeling like being taken care of.
Denji almost doesn’t check.
That’s the stupid part. After days of checking like it’s muscle memory, the morning he finally tells himself don’t, it’s pointless, you’re just doing this to hurt yourself—that’s when his hand hesitates on the locker door.
He opens it anyway. He always does. And there it is, a folded piece of paper, tucked into the corner like it belongs there. Like it’s been waiting.
For a second, Denji just stares.
His brain refuses to process it. This happens sometimes, when something good shows up without warning, like his head has learned that hope is a trap and refuses to step into it.
Then his chest tightens so hard it almost hurts, and he knows.
“Oh,” he thinks, faint and disbelieving. Oh.
He grabs it too fast, fingers clumsy, nearly dropping it. The paper is thinner than he expects, different from his. The handwriting on the front is smaller, and way neater than his could ever be, flowery almost.
His heart starts pounding like it’s trying to escape. He doesn’t open it right away.
He shuts the locker first. Then he leans his forehead against the cool metal and breathes, once, twice, because if he opens it and it’s nothing, if it’s a mistake, or a prank, or someone else’s—
He doesn’t finish that thought. He opens it.
Hey.
Sorry it took me a while. I wasn’t sure what to say.
Denji’s stomach flips.
She says sorry. She didn’t ignore him. She didn’t hate it. She didn’t—
I think it’s brave that you wrote to me like that. Most people don’t.
Brave. The word hits him so unexpectedly his eyes sting. Nobody ever calls him that for stuff like this, for feelings, for trying.
I noticed you too, by the way. You’re pretty good at basketball.
Denji lets out a shaky breath that almost turns into a laugh. She noticed him.
I don’t know what I’m looking for right now, but I liked hearing from you. I’m really shy, so if you don’t mind, maybe we could keep talking like this for a while.
—Sato
Denji reads it three times. Then a fourth, slower, like if he goes too fast the words might rearrange themselves into something cruel. They don’t.
His chest feels too full and tight. Like something is swelling there that hasn’t had room before. He presses the letter flat against his palm, grounding himself in the fact that it’s real.
She wrote back, he thinks, stunned. She actually wrote back.
He doesn’t even realize he’s smiling until his face starts to hurt.
In class, he can’t sit still. The letter is folded and refolded in his pocket, a constant reminder. Every few minutes, he checks that it’s still there, like it might vanish if he doesn’t keep an eye on it.
Yoshida notices immediately.
Denji doesn’t even try to play it cool. He leans over the desk, eyes bright, voice low but buzzing. “Sato replied.”
“Yeah?”
“She did,” Denji says, nodding hard. “Like—really replied. Not just a ‘stop’ or anything.”
Yoshida watches him carefully. “You look happy.”
Denji laughs, breathless. “I am.”
He pulls the letter out just enough to show the edge, like proof of life. “She said we could talk sometime.”
Yoshida hums. It sounds different this time.
“That’s good,” he says.
“I knew it,” Denji says, grinning. “I mean—I didn’t. But I hoped a little.”
He looks down at the paper again, softer now. “She gets it. Like… she actually gets what I was trying to say.”
Yoshida doesn’t respond right away. Denji doesn’t notice. He’s too busy rereading the letter in his head, replaying every word, building a future out of maybes and somedays.
For the first time in a while, the quiet doesn’t feel empty.
Hi Sato,
I didn’t think you’d write back, so sorry if this is weird again. I mean, not sorry you wrote back. I liked it. A lot. I just don’t know how to say things without tripping over them.
I keep rereading your letter. It’s kind of embarrassing how many times. I didn’t know someone noticing me could feel like this. Like I’m suddenly realer than before.
School’s been the same. I still sit by the window. I still fall asleep sometimes. But it feels different now, like there’s something waiting at the end of the day. I don’t know if that makes sense.
You said maybe we could talk sometime. I think I’d like that. Even if it’s just like this for now.
What music do you listen to?
—Denji
•••
Hey Denji,
I like hearing from you.
I reread your letters too, if that makes you feel better. There’s something honest about the way you write. You don’t try to sound like anyone else.
I listen to a lot of different things, depending on my mood. Quiet stuff when I’m tired. Loud stuff when I don’t want to think. I think everyone’s like that a little.
I’m glad you wrote again. It feels easy, talking to you. Like I don’t have to guess what you mean.
We can keep doing this, if you want.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
I failed a quiz today. Thought you should know because you’re the only person I wanted to tell for some reason.
I got bread from the cafeteria again. It was stale.
—Denji
•••
Denji,
Quizzes don’t really mean anything in the long run. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I mess them up.
Stale bread is a crime. You deserve better than that.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
Do you ever get embarrassed about stuff that happened years ago for no reason. Like I’ll just be walking and suddenly remember something dumb I said when I was twelve and it feels like dying.
Also I think my pencil case hates me. It keeps opening in my bag.
—Denji
•••
Hey,
Yes. All the time. I think our brains like to bully us when things are quiet. Maybe your pencil case is just excited to see you.
—Sato
•••
That made me laugh in class and Yoshida looked at me weird. I don’t mind though.
—Denji
•••
I like knowing I made you laugh.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
I almost didn’t write today because nothing really happened. But then I realized I kind of like writing to you even when there’s nothing to report.
Is that dumb?
—Denji
•••
Not dumb at all. Sometimes the nothing days are the ones you want to keep.
—Sato
•••
I slept through my alarm and ran to school with my shoes half untied. I thought I was going to trip and die in the street. Didn’t though.
Small victories.
—Denji
•••
I’m glad you didn’t die. Please tie your shoes properly.
—Sato
•••
For you, I will.
—Denji
•••
That’s a lot of responsibility.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
Can I tell you something kind of embarrassing?
Sometimes when I write to you I stop halfway and think “would she hate this” and then I don’t erase it anyway. I don’t do that with other people.
I don’t know why.
—Denji
•••
I don’t hate it. I like that you don’t erase yourself.
—Sato
•••
I reread that line like six times. Just saying.
—Denji
•••
I meant it.
—Sato
•••
Today was boring. We didn’t do anything in class. Yoshida kept tapping his pen and it was annoying.
I thought about you during lunch. I don’t know if that’s normal but it happened.
—Denji
•••
I think about you too. Sometimes when something small happens and I want to tell someone.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
I think you know me better than most people. That’s weird, right? We haven’t even talked out loud. But it doesn’t feel fake.
—Denji
•••
It doesn’t feel fake to me either. I feel like I can say things to you that I don’t usually say. I don’t want to lose that.
—Sato
•••
Me neither.
I had a bad day.
Nothing big happened. That’s the worst part. It was just one of those days where everything feels heavier than it should and you don’t know why.
I kept thinking about how if I wrote to you later, at least the day wouldn’t be a waste.
I hope that’s not too much to put on you.
—Denji
•••
Denji,
It’s not too much.
I’m glad you thought of me. I like being someone you can come back to after a hard day.
You don’t have to make sense all the time.
—Sato
•••
I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.
—Denji
•••
I mean it.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
Do you ever get scared that if people really knew you, they’d leave? Like not because you did something wrong. Just because you’re… you. I don’t know why I’m asking you this. You don’t have to answer.
—Denji
•••
I think about that a lot. But with you, I don’t feel like I have to be better or quieter or easier to understand. I feel like I can just exist.
—Sato
•••
I read this three times and my hands were shaking. I think I feel the same.
—Denji
•••
Then maybe that’s something worth keeping.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
I tried talking to someone else today and it felt wrong. Like I was translating myself into a worse language. With you it feels like I don’t have to explain the important parts.
—Denji
•••
That’s because I’m listening to the important parts.
—Sato
•••
That sentence did something to me. I don’t know what, but it did.
—Denji
•••
I know.
—Sato
•••
I think I trust you. That scares me a little.
—Denji
•••
It’s okay to be scared. I won’t make you regret trusting me.
—Sato
•••
I believe you.
—Denji
•••
Good.
—Sato
•••
Sato,
Sometimes I imagine what your voice sounds like. I hope that’s not weird.
—Denji
•••
I don’t think it’s weird. I imagine yours too.
—Sato
•••
I think if you stopped writing to me it would really hurt. Like more than I’m prepared for. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that so plainly.
—Denji
•••
I’m not planning on disappearing, if that’s what you’re afraid of.
—Sato
•••
Thank you. That helps more than you know.
—Denji
Once the note is done, Denji lets his gaze linger on it for a beat before sharply folding the paper in half.
“Done,” he says, too fast.
Yoshida, sitting one desk over with his chin propped in his palm, blinks. “Already?” He leans over slightly. “You don’t want me to—”
Denji folds it again, neater this time, like there’s something delicate inside that might bruise if handled wrong.
“No,” he says. Then, after a beat, he adds, “I mean—yeah. I’m happy with it.”
Yoshida tilts his head. “Not happy enough to let me look?”
Denji slips the letter into his bag and stands up. His heart is doing that stupid thing again, loud and insistent, like it’s trying to talk over him. “I’m gonna put it in her locker, like, right now.”
That makes Yoshida pause. He straightens in his seat. “Without going over it?”
Denji hesitates, his hand still hooked around the strap of his bag. The classroom feels too bright all of a sudden, too full of air. He swallows.
“It feels,” he says slowly, choosing the words like he’s stepping around something fragile, “like you’re peering into my emotions. Like an outsider.”
Yoshida doesn’t interrupt. That somehow makes it worse.
“When I get vulnerable,” Denji continues, quieter now, “I don’t like that. So… I don’t want that anymore. I’ll write it, I’ll send it, and that’s it.” He forces a crooked grin that doesn’t quite land. “I know she’ll like me even when I’m totally myself.”
For a moment, Yoshida just looks at him.
Then he hums, soft and neutral, and leans back in his chair. “Oh. Alright. Your choice.”
Denji nods, like he hasn’t just said something terrifying out loud, and leaves before he can second-guess himself.
The next day, Denji gets her reply.
He recognizes the handwriting instantly—the careful slant, the way the letters lean into each other like they trust they’ll be caught.
His chest feels tight as he unfolds it.
Did you write this half asleep or something? I don’t wanna, like, point it out, but there were a lot of mistakes.
The rest of the page blurs.
It isn’t mean, it isn’t even cruel, but it lands wrong—sharp where he’s been soft, clinical where he’s been exposed. Heat crawls up his neck, settling heavy behind his ears. He folds the letter back up, his fingers clumsier than before.
Yoshida notices immediately. “What’d she say?”
Denji hesitates, then hands it over without meeting his eyes.
Yoshida reads it once, then again. He hums.
“Well,” he says, measured, almost casual, “girls do hate grammar mistakes.” He glances at Denji. “Maybe she’s just not that appreciative of your unfiltered words.”
Denji’s stomach drops.
“Oh,” he says. The word comes out small. “Yeah. You’re right.”
It feels like being laughed at in a room he thought was private, like he’s mistaken warmth for safety. He nods once more, too quickly, and shoves the letter into his bag like it’s burned him.
For the next few days, he doesn’t write.
He stares at blank paper in class, his pen hovering uselessly, thoughts tripping over themselves before they can settle into words. Every sentence sounds wrong in his head now—too much, not enough, embarrassing. He tells himself he’s just busy, that it doesn’t matter.
But the empty space where the letters should be feels louder than anything he’s written before.
Sato notices the silence on the fourth day.
Denji finds the letter after class, tucked into his locker like always. For a second he just stares at it, heart kicking up reflexively before he can stop it—muscle memory. Then the doubt creeps in. He almost doesn’t open it.
He does anyway.
Did I do something wrong? You kind of disappeared. I’m not mad. I just wanted to ask.
Denji exhales, slow and unsteady, and the tightness in his chest gives way just enough to become bearable.
He writes back that night. He paces first, sits, then gets up, then sits again. He tells himself he’ll keep it simple. He does not succeed.
I get weird sometimes. I overthink things and then pretend I’m not overthinking them. It’s exhausting.
—Denji
•••
That sounds tiring. If it helps… you aren’t exhausting. You’re loud in a steady way, like you don’t disappear when things get quiet.
—Sato
•••
Loud in a steady way is the weirdest compliment I’ve ever gotten. I’ll take it.
—Denji
•••
I burned the chocolate again. I think I’m stirring it wrong. Or heating it wrong. Or maybe I just don’t have the patience for delicate things.
—Sato
•••
You don’t seem impatient. You always wait until everyone leaves before you stand up.
Like you’re making sure no one bumps into you.
—Denji
•••
That’s because people don’t look where they’re going. You don’t either, by the way.
—Sato
•••
I look. Just not always forward.
—Denji
•••
That sounds cryptic. Are you trying to be mysterious?
I didn’t burn the chocolate this time. It actually set properly. It’s not very sweet. I don’t like overly sweet things. They feel fake.
—Sato
•••
Good for you, I like sweet things. Even if it makes my teeth hurt.
—Denji
•••
If I ever get it right, maybe I’ll let you try one.
—Sato
•••
I’d try it even if it’s bad.
—Denji
•••
That’s not very encouraging.
—Sato
•••
I mean it in a good way. I think I’d like anything you make.
—Denji
•••
That’s a dangerous thing to say.
—Sato
•••
Why?
—Denji
•••
Because I might start making things on purpose.
—Sato
•••
Sometimes I wonder if we would actually talk like this in person. Or if we’d just sit there and not know what to say.
I think you’d fill the silence.
—Sato
•••
I hate silence. It makes my brain loud.
—Denji
•••
I don’t mind silence. I mind being alone in it.
—Sato
•••
That’s different.
—Denji
•••
Is it?
—Sato
•••
Yeah. Being alone feels worse than being quiet.
—Denji
•••
I don’t think you’re alone.
—Sato
•••
You don’t?
—Denji
•••
It's because I'm here.
—Sato
•••
You fell asleep in class again. Your head almost hit the desk but didn’t. Someone nudged your notebook closer to cushion it.
—Sato
•••
Who?
—Denji
•••
Does it matter?
—Sato
•••
I guess not.
—Denji
•••
You looked peaceful. It was strange.
—Sato
•••
Strange how?
—Denji
•••
You’re usually restless.
—Sato
•••
You make it sound like you know me ;)
—Denji
•••
Maybe I’m starting to ;)
—Sato
•••
The chocolate worked this time. I tempered it properly. I watched three videos and read two blogs and almost gave up halfway. It’s still not perfect. But it’s not grainy anymore. I wrapped one up.
I don’t know if I’ll actually give it to you. I’m not that brave.
—Sato
•••
You don’t have to be brave. I think trying is already brave enough. If you ever do give it to me, I’ll eat it even if it’s ugly. I don’t care about perfection. I care about…
Well. You know.
—Denji
•••
I think I do. And I’ll try to make it pretty for you.
—Sato
Valentine’s Day arrives with a kind of quiet inevitability.
Denji wakes up already certain of something. It hums under his ribs, steady and contained, without need to be loud about it. Sato made chocolate, she wrapped one up. I don’t know if I’ll actually give it to you.
People don’t say that unless they mean it. He holds onto that thought the entire morning like it’s fragile glass.
By lunch, the courtyard is loud in the way school courtyards always are, too many voices overlapping, too many almost-confessions happening in plain sight. Denji stands at the edge of it and feels strangely outside his own body. His hands won’t stay still. His mouth is dry. He tells himself this is normal. This is what it feels like when something good is about to happen.
He spots her near the benches.
For a second, everything sharpens.
That’s her. The girl who knows he hates silence. The girl who told him he wasn't exhausting. The girl who knew him better than anyone.
His heart lifts in a painful, hopeful way. He doesn’t let himself hesitate. If he hesitates, doubt will get in. Doubt is loud and he’s tired of it.
He walks toward her. Each step feels deliberate, like he’s crossing something invisible.
“Hi,” he says. His voice comes out smaller than he expected.
She looks startled. It’s less shyness and more the quick startle of someone interrupted mid-sentence.
Denji smiles automatically, trying to ease it. “It’s me.”
She blinks at him. There’s a pause that stretches just a little too long.
“It’s—” he tries again, softer now. “Denji.”
He waits for recognition to bloom across her face. He waits for that small shift, the ‘I knew you’d come!’ Instead, her expression folds into polite confusion.
“I’m sorry,” she says carefully. “Do I… know you?”
Something inside him falters. It doesn’t shatter or explode; it just slips, almost quietly. He stares at her, searching for something he might’ve missed. A hint of a joke. A signal that this is performance. That she doesn’t want people to see. That this is private.
There’s nothing. Only uncertainty and distance. But that doesn’t make sense.
She noticed him falling asleep in class. She wrote that he was easy to talk to. She wrote how his feelings weren't embarrassing.
You don’t write those things about someone whose face you don’t know. His thoughts begin to rearrange themselves around a new possibility.
“Oh,” he hears himself say, forcing a small laugh. “My bad. I think I mixed you up with someone else.”
He says it because the alternative is unbearable. Because asking would make it real.
She relaxes immediately. Smiles, apologetic but relieved. The interaction already shrinking in her mind to something forgettable.
Denji nods, turns, and walks away. The courtyard feels louder and brighter now, edged with something almost cruel.
His chest tightens. It isn’t just heartbreak. It’s confusion layered over humiliation layered over something colder.
If she wanted to reply, she would’ve by now.
He’d thought that once before and dismissed it. He’d told himself hope wasn’t stupid. Now his brain replays every letter with new lighting.
If it helps… you aren’t exhausting. I don’t think you’re alone. I won’t make you regret trusting me.
The words don’t feel false, that’s the worst part. They felt real when he read them. They feel real now.
But she didn’t recognize him. Not even a flicker.
And Denji knows, with the awful clarity that comes too late, that if someone has been watching you the way those letters described, they don’t forget your face.
Unless they never had to look for it. His steps slow. Unless they already knew exactly where he sat. Unless they were already there.
A slow, nauseating understanding begins to take shape. Someone else has been putting the letters in the locker. Someone else has been taking his replies out. Someone else has been reading every awkward, unfiltered confession he’s written over the past month.
Someone else wrote back.
His skin feels too tight. So if not her, then who would do that? Who would watch him that closely? Who would know those specific things?
By the time he reaches the classroom door, his hands are shaking for a different reason. He pushes it open to find it empty.
The quiet is a relief. He steps inside like he’s stepping into water, the noise of the hallway sealing off behind him.
He drops his bag onto his desk and stands there, staring at nothing. The room feels ordinary in a way that almost mocks him. Sunlight on desks, chalk dust in the air. The world hasn’t shifted at all.
But he has.
He thinks about the nights he spent writing. About how careful he was not to sound pathetic. About the way he let himself say things he’s never said out loud to anyone his age. He wasn’t playing around. He meant it.
The humiliation settles in fully now, heavy and suffocating. His stomach drops.
“Hey, Denji.”
The voice is too soft for the quiet classroom, too careful for the wreckage already sitting in Denji’s chest. He turns anyway.
His heart is already flayed open, scraped raw by humiliation and confusion and the slow, sinking realization that he has been a fool. It takes almost nothing to make it ache again.
Yoshida stands just inside the doorway, one hand still curled around the handle as if he hasn’t fully committed to entering. As if he could still leave and pretend he hadn’t seen Denji sitting there alone.
For a fleeting, vicious second, something ugly flares through Denji.
Of course. Of course it’s you.
The laugh that threatens to rise dies before it can escape. It would sound hysterical. Instead, he says, flat and stripped of warmth, “You.”
Yoshida closes the door with a soft click. The sound feels final in a way it shouldn’t. He walks across the room with the same composed ease he always has, like nothing in the world has shifted, like the ground beneath Denji’s feet didn’t crack open this morning and swallow something important.
He takes the seat beside Denji’s desk. He keeps his gaze fixed ahead, at the chalkboard washed pale by afternoon light. The words written there earlier have been erased, but faint ghosts remain, chalk dust clinging stubbornly to the surface.
There is a long silence.
Once, that silence would have made Denji restless. He would have filled it with noise, with jokes, with something reckless and bright just to keep from feeling exposed.
Now it stretches between them like an abandoned road, hollow, wind-blown, and starkly unforgiving.
Yoshida studies him from the corner of his eye. Denji can feel it, the quiet assessment, the careful calculation.
“Everything okay?”
The question feels measured, as if it’s being asked out of obligation rather than concern. Denji exhales through his nose. It almost turns into a laugh, but there is nothing funny lodged in his throat, only something brittle.
“No,” he says.
Yoshida doesn’t look at him. He keeps staring straight ahead.
“I talked to her.”
The words hang between them, and the silence that follows lasts only a moment, but it’s enough.
“To Sato.”
He waits. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, a surprise, maybe. A sharp intake of breath. A curious tilt of the head. Something that proves this conversation means something to someone other than him.
Yoshida’s voice remains even.
“Oh.”
That’s all. Denji swallows, his mouth tastes like iron.
“She didn’t know who I was.”
He hears how thin he sounds and hates it. Hates that his voice betrays him so easily.
“She looked at me like I was some random guy who walked up to her out of nowhere,” he continues, fingers tightening against the edge of the desk until his knuckles pale. “I said my name. I told her we’d been writing for weeks. She just—” His jaw clenches. “She just stared.”
The memory burns.
“She still didn’t recognize me.”
Silence answers him. Denji turns his head at last. Yoshida isn’t looking at him.
He’s staring down at the desk, at nothing in particular, lashes lowered. His jaw is set in a way that might be subtle to anyone else but feels glaring to Denji. There is a tightness there, some sort of restraint.
He looks distant. He looks like someone carefully choosing what not to feel.
“She knew me,” Denji says, and his voice loses its edge, sinking into something far more fragile. “She noticed me enough to peek into my class to see me asleep on my desk. She wrote about how I look down when I walk past people.”
His throat tightens around the next words.
“She noticed things I didn’t even know someone could notice.”
He swallows hard.
“She knew me,” he repeats, softer now, “and still acted like she didn’t.”
The betrayal in that realization is heavier than the humiliation. It presses down on his lungs until breathing feels optional. He searches Yoshida’s face for something, anything, that resembles understanding.
“Did the words we exchanged mean nothing to her?”
There it is, and it isn’t embarrassment or confusion but fear. Did any of it matter?
Yoshida’s expression flickers, barely perceptible, when Denji says exchanged. The word seems to land somewhere under his skin. His fingers curl slightly against his own knee.
He inhales, slow and deliberate, as though steadying himself against something Denji cannot see.
“I don’t know what to say,” he says at last.
It lands wrong, like indifference. Something inside Denji, already splintered from the morning, finally gives.
“Oh,” he says, but it comes out jagged. “Yeah. Of course you don’t.”
Yoshida blinks, faintly startled, but Denji is already pushing forward, words spilling out before he can stop them.
“I mean, why would you? It’s not your problem, right? I’m the idiot who thought letters meant something. I’m the idiot who thought that if someone wrote to me like that, if they saw me like that, then maybe…” He laughs, and it sounds brittle. “Maybe I won't screw it up this time.”
Yoshida shifts slightly in his seat, but he doesn’t interrupt.
Denji’s hands curl against the edge of the desk. “Do you know what I thought love was supposed to be?” he asks, voice rising despite himself. “I thought it was supposed to be simple. Like you meet someone, and they like you back, and you don’t have to twist yourself into something else to keep them from leaving. I thought it was supposed to feel safe. Like you don’t have to wonder every second if you’re too much or not enough.”
He swallows, hard.
“But I always mess it up. Or maybe I don’t even mess it up. Maybe I’m just… wrong from the start.” His gaze drops to the floor. “She knew me. That’s the worst part. She knew me and still acted like she didn’t. Like everything we wrote to each other was nothing. Like it was easy to just erase me.”
The word sits there between them. Erase.
“Did the words we exchanged mean nothing to her?” Denji asks again, quieter now, but it’s sharper somehow. “Was it just a game? Was I just something to pass the time?”
Yoshida’s expressions look distant, as if he isn’t entirely there. He has turned slightly toward the glass, as though the view of the empty schoolyard demands more of his attention than Denji does. His profile is calm, but there is something tight in the line of his jaw.
Denji mistakes it for detachment.
“Forget it,” Denji mutters. “I don’t even know why I’m saying this. It’s not like love works for people like me anyway.”
Yoshida’s fingers twitch against his thigh.
“People like you?” he repeats softly.
“Yeah,” Denji snaps, frustration flaring again. “People who don’t know what they’re doing. People who get too attached. People who think a few stupid letters mean something real. I don’t even know what love is supposed to be, but I know I keep getting it wrong.”
Silence stretches. Then Yoshida inhales slowly, and when he speaks, his voice is steadier than his expression.
“You aren’t unlovable, Denji.”
Denji scoffs. “Sure.”
“I mean it.”
There is something different in Yoshida’s tone now, not playful, not detached. It is low and careful, like he is stepping across thin ice.
“Love isn’t patient and kind and humble,” Yoshida says, eyes still fixed on the window. “It isn’t neat. It isn’t some perfect half that fits into you and makes everything easy. It’s… messy, it’s selfish. It’s wanting someone even when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do with that wanting.”
Denji’s breath catches.
“It’s trying,” Yoshida continues quietly. “It’s reaching out and failing and still reaching again. It’s putting in the effort even when there’s no promise the other person will meet you halfway. Even when you know you might look stupid for caring.”
“You don’t have to be better or quieter or easier to understand,” Yoshida continues. “You can just exist.”
Denji’s brows knit.
“And I wouldn’t disappear. I won’t make you regret trusting me.”
The room goes silent in a way that feels inhuman. Those weren’t his words. They were hers. They were the ones Denji had read and reread until they felt carved into him.
His mouth goes dry.
“…How do you know that?”
Yoshida doesn’t answer right away.
Denji’s stare sharpens.
The realization doesn’t crash. It seeps in. Slow. Horrible.
“You?” he breathes.
Yoshida holds his gaze for a fraction of a second, just long enough for everything to shift into place, before his composure fractures. Colour floods his face, crawling up his neck to the tips of his ears. He looks down, lashes lowering as though the weight of Denji’s stare is too much.
“Me,” he says.
The word is barely audible.
For a moment, Denji can’t process it. The letters, the handwriting carefully disguised, the careful distance. The way Yoshida would watch him sometimes, like he was trying to memorize something.
It crashes into him all at once.
“You were—” His voice rises, incredulous, hurt, disbelieving. “You were Sato?”
Yoshida nods once.
Something sharp and ugly surges through Denji’s chest.
“So what, this was a joke?” he demands. “You thought it’d be funny to mess with me? To watch me fall for some fake person you made up?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” Denji stands abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. “You let me pour all that out to you. You let me believe she was real.”
“She was real,” Yoshida says, and for the first time, there is a crack in his voice. “Every word was real.”
“Except the part where she existed.”
“I existed,” Yoshida snaps back before he can stop himself.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Denji’s hands shake. “Why?” he asks, and it sounds smaller now. “Why didn’t you just say it was you?”
Yoshida swallows. “Because you wouldn’t have listened.”
Denji recoils as if struck. Yoshida stands slowly. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a small pouch, simple, tied carefully at the top. He places it on Denji’s desk with deliberate gentleness.
“I’ve been trying to learn how to make chocolates,” he says, eyes fixed on the fabric instead of Denji. “You mentioned it once. I wanted to see if I could make something you wouldn’t feel like you had to deserve.”
Denji can’t breathe.
“I’m sorry,” Yoshida says quietly. “For not telling you sooner. For… for hiding. But I meant every word I wrote. Every single one.”
His voice wavers on the last sentence.
“I’m sorry.”
Without looking up again, he turns and walks toward the door. He does not look back. The door slides shut with a soft click that sounds louder than any shout.
Denji remains standing, staring at the pouch on his desk as if it might explode. His reflection in the window looks unfamiliar, eyes wide, expression fractured between anger and something far more terrifying.
The chocolates sit there, silent proof of something he does not know how to hold. Hurt coils in his chest, tight and unbearable. Confusion tangles with it, sharp and relentless.
Because if Yoshida meant every word… Then none of it was fake.
Hirofumi had never meant for any of it to last beyond a few letters. In his head, it had always been temporary, something small and contained that would fade once it had done its job. He hadn’t meant for it to take on weight, to develop its own rhythm, to start feeling real. And he had definitely never meant to hurt Denji. If anything, every decision he made in the beginning came from a desperate need to stop that from happening.
He would have taken the humiliation himself before ever letting Denji go through it.
The first time hadn’t felt like lying. It had felt like protecting him.
He remembers that morning too clearly, the kind of memory that still tightens his chest. He’d been waiting near the shoe lockers, pretending to check his phone while looking at Sato’s locker. When Sato finally noticed the envelope, her expression shifted into faint annoyance. She didn’t open it carefully or even pause; she tore it straight through, once, twice, and dropped the pieces into the trash without reading. It was such a simple action. So easy.
And yet Hirofumi had felt something inside him split in a way that was far louder than the paper tearing.
Denji had been restless, trying to act normal and failing, the question of whether she would reply written all over his face even if he never said it out loud. Hirofumi told him she was probably just busy, that these things took time, that it didn’t mean anything yet. He framed it like reassurance, like common sense, and told himself the lie was only there to soften whatever came next.
He thought that would be the end of it. It wasn’t. Denji wrote again.
The second letter was more careful than the first, like Denji had trimmed his emotions down along with the sentences. He crossed out lines that felt too honest, softened confessions with jokes, then crossed out the jokes because they felt fake. Hirofumi watched him fight that quiet battle and, in the end, it hurt to watch him keep reaching for someone who wouldn’t even look his way.
The first reply Hirofumi wrote was gentle on the surface, but that was the cruelty of it.
He told himself it was a controlled intervention, that if he guided the pace carefully, he could steer Denji somewhere safer. If he let the attachment grow slowly under his supervision, he could soften the eventual fall. It would trickle down over time. It would be manageable.
He hadn’t expected the way Denji’s face would light up when he received it.
The happiness was completely open, completely unguarded, and Hirofumi felt pride and guilt at the same time, knowing he had created it. Denji read the letter more than once before folding it carefully, like it might tear if he wasn’t gentle. The reaction was bigger than the letter deserved.
After that, things changed.
Denji’s letters shifted slowly. The jokes became thinner. In their place were questions and confessions that didn’t feel like simple crushes anymore. He wrote about feeling like too much. About thinking people eventually got tired of him. He wrote about pretending not to care because caring felt dangerous. He wondered, quietly, if disappearing would really make a difference to anyone.
Hirofumi read those lines alone in his room at night, the house silent around him. They didn’t feel like love letters. They felt like someone reaching into the dark, hoping someone would reach back. The weight of that trust pressed heavily on him.
Every time Denji handed him another note and asked him to deliver it, Hirofumi felt the line he’d drawn at the beginning blur further. What started as protection slowly became involvement. He told himself he was giving Denji what he deserved—attention, kindness, someone who answered. But under that excuse, something selfish was growing.
He wanted to be the one Denji opened up to. He wanted to see the softness Denji hid from everyone else. He wanted the letters to keep coming, even if they were addressed to someone else.
He knew, with a certainty that didn’t move, that Denji would never return his feelings if they were said plainly. Denji talked easily about girls. He blushed around them. His future didn’t include Hirofumi that way. Hirofumi existed safely at his side, harmless and unquestioned.
So he accepted what he could get.
If Denji could only be vulnerable under the illusion of talking to someone else, then Hirofumi would live with the illusion. He would take affection filtered through fiction and ask for nothing more. He told himself that was enough.
He never meant to confess. He never meant for it to fall apart. But feelings don’t stay contained just because you plan them that way.
When Denji stood in the classroom, devastated and asking if any of it had meant nothing, Hirofumi felt the lie catch in his throat. The idea of letting Denji believe it had all been fake suddenly felt worse than exposing himself.
The truth came out before he could stop it.
When Denji understood, the look on his face, shock and anger edged with betrayal, was something Hirofumi knew he would carry forever. And beneath it, something hurt and confused that made Hirofumi feel like he’d just stepped off a ledge.
He doesn’t go to school the next day because he didn’t trust himself to hold it together.
He wakes before sunrise with nausea already twisting inside him. By the time he makes it to the bathroom, the grief has turned physical. He kneels on the cold tile and grips the sink like it’s the only steady thing in the room, retching until there’s nothing left but bitterness. His hands shake, overwhelmed by the intensity of it.
He hadn’t known heartbreak could feel this painful.
His chest feels tight, like something sharp is lodged there. He presses his forehead to the sink and cries the way he hasn’t since he was a child, quietly, so no one hears, but without any control.
He had wanted Denji, in ways he had never said out loud.
And now he had lost even the fragile version of closeness he’d convinced himself was enough.
When he goes back to school the next day, he composes himself carefully. He answers when called on, he participates. His face settles into something neutral. From the outside, nothing looks different.
Denji doesn’t look at him once.
The real damage lies in how ordinary it feels, with Hirofumi reduced to background noise, just another classmate. The absence of Denji’s gaze hurts more than anger would have. Anger would have meant something still mattered. This feels like being erased.
Every time Denji laughs with someone else, something tightens in Hirofumi’s chest. Every time Denji’s eyes pass over him without stopping, it confirms what he always knew: he reached for something that wasn’t his.
He tells himself this is fair. He built something fragile on a lie. It was naive to think it would last. What he didn’t expect was how unbearable it would be to sit so close to Denji and feel like all of it had been cut away.
Days pass like that. Conversations that used to be easy disappear. The space between their desks might as well be an ocean.
Hirofumi endures it because he believes he deserves it. He was too confident, too sure he could control everything. Instead, he let himself want too much, and now he has to live with it.
Still, underneath the regret and the sleepless nights, one thing remains true. He meant every word he wrote, and there was nothing playful about it, only feeling.
Another morning arrives grey and indifferent.
Hirofumi walks through the school gates feeling as though something inside him has already died and simply forgotten to take the rest of him down with it. He keeps his posture straight, his expression composed, the way he has trained himself to do. Grief sits beneath his skin, raw and infected, but he carries it carefully, the way someone in some cheap zombie horror film might hide a bite mark beneath a sleeve, knowing the damage is there, knowing it is spreading, pretending no one can see.
He changes his shoes every morning. The routine is mechanical now—open the shoe locker, switch pairs, close it and move on. He bends down, fingers already reaching for the latch.
When he pulls the door open, something white rests neatly on top of his indoor shoes. For a moment, he simply stares at it.
A folded piece of paper. His name written across the front in handwriting he knows intimately—messy but deliberate, letters pressed harder at the start of each stroke as though the writer had to force courage into the page.
His breath leaves him.
He does not move at first. The hallway hums faintly with early chatter, lockers clanging open and shut, footsteps echoing. It all feels impossibly distant.
Slowly, as though the paper might vanish if he moves too quickly, Hirofumi reaches inside and takes it. His hands are already shaking.
He shuts the locker and turns slightly, putting his back to the wall. The world narrows to the rectangle of folded paper between his fingers. He inhales once, twice, then a third time, deeper, as if preparing to submerge himself underwater.
Then he opens it.
Yoshida,
I don’t know how to start this without making it sound stupid, so I’m just going to start it and deal with the stupid part later.
I was really hurt when I found out. I kept replaying it over and over in my head, every letter, every time you said you’d “deliver” it, every time I stood there waiting for a reply like an idiot. I felt embarrassed and tricked. I felt like I’d been standing on stage saying things I was supposed to say while everyone else already knew the punchline.
I hated you for a while. I think I needed to.
But then I couldn’t stop thinking about something, and it wouldn’t leave me alone no matter how much I wanted it to.
Nobody has ever gone that far for me before. Nobody my age has ever tried that hard to understand what I was saying instead of laughing or zoning out or telling me I was being too much. Nobody ever listened the way you did. Not down to the parts I try to hide.
And yeah, what you did was messed up. I’m not pretending it wasn’t. You should’ve told me. You should’ve trusted me with the truth. It hurt finding out the way I did.
But every word still felt real. That’s the part I can’t ignore.
I keep thinking about the way “she” wrote to me. The way you wrote to me. The patience in it. The way you answered things I didn’t even know I was asking. I don’t think someone who didn’t care could have done that. I don’t think someone who was just playing around would’ve remembered the stupid stuff I said about chocolates or how I walk with my head down or the notebook I carry everywhere.
You paid attention. You saw me. I think you get me more than anyone I’ve ever met.
And that scares me. It really does. Because if you see me that clearly, then you also see all the parts I don’t like. But it also feels… right. Like I don’t have to explain every sentence before I say it. Like I don’t have to translate myself into something easier to swallow.
I’ve never thought about guys this way before. That part is freaking me out a lot. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this makes me. I don’t even know if there’s a word for it that fits.
But I know that when I imagine it being you, it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels terrifying.
And I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel things just because they’re messy or inconvenient or don’t match whatever picture I had in my head about myself.
So I’m not going to pretend anymore.
I don’t get to decide what you do next. If you walk away, that’s your call.
But if you don’t, if you want to try, even a little, then I want to do it for real this time. I want to talk to you as you. I want to be honest without pretending it’s someone else’s voice on the other end.
I don’t know what this is yet.
I just know I don’t want to lose you.
—Denji
By the time Hirofumi reaches the end, the paper is trembling so violently in his hands that the words blur.
For a moment, he cannot breathe.
The hallway noise rushes back into his ears all at once, too loud, too bright, too alive. His vision stings. He presses his lips together hard, trying to anchor himself, trying to confirm that the page is real and not some cruel hallucination conjured by exhaustion.
He reads the last lines again.
I don’t want to lose you.
His chest tightens painfully, different from the way it has all week. This is something else, something expanding instead of collapsing.
A traitor of a smile pulls at his mouth before he can stop it. It is small at first, fragile, disbelieving. He bites down on the inside of his cheek in a useless attempt to suppress it, but it only deepens, trembling at the edges.
He presses the letter to his forehead, eyes falling shut as if he needs to steady himself against the sheer force of it. The paper is warm from his hands. He can almost imagine Denji standing here minutes ago, folding it carefully, sliding it into the locker, hesitating before walking away.
For the first time in days, the ache in his chest shifts into something unbearably tender.
He had prepared himself to lose Denji entirely. He had rehearsed acceptance and punishment and immeasurable distance.
He had not prepared for this. For a forgiveness decided on carefully and given with intention. For honesty offered back to him, unedited.
His smile breaks free despite his efforts, trembling and bright and impossibly alive. He lowers the letter slowly, looking down at Denji’s name signed at the bottom as though it might disappear if he stares too long.
Somewhere between heartbreak and hope, Hirofumi realizes something that makes his hands shake all over again: Denji did not walk away.
And for the first time, Hirofumi allows himself to believe that maybe love is not about deserving or earning or disguising yourself into something safer.
Maybe it is about this, about being seen in your worst mistake and being chosen anyway.
He presses the letter carefully against his chest, over the place that has hurt for days. It does not feel hollow anymore.