Archive of Our Own

"I like you! Will you go out with me?"

Kawase could only stare at Tamamori blankly for a few seconds before his face curled into a nasty, pearly-white smile. Tamamori had asked Kawase to meet him in the library after school, and he had readily agreed. Because Kawase was a science student and Tamamori was a liberal arts student, they did not share the same classroom, so if they wanted to meet up, it had to be during lunch or after school. Tamamori asking Kawase to meet with him was nothing unusual, but his words certainly were.

“Your jokes get more and more idiotic with each passing day,” Kawase hissed. “What kind of response do you want me to have when you say something moronic like that? ‘Oh, Tamamori-kun I like you too! Let’s go out together!’?”

Tamamori looked like he had been struck by lightning, and his shoulders stiffened. His eyes were looking shiftily from side to side like he was suddenly worried that some of the other students had heard them- but it seemed like no one was paying attention to them. It would have been one thing if Kawase were teasing him like usual, but his tone suggested that he was legitimately agitated.

Tamamori laughed self-consciously. “Nyahaha… W-was it that obvious that it was just a joke?”

“You don’t have a subtle bone in your body, do you? And your sense of humor is just as bad. Do you really think a guy like me would be interested in anybody, let alone a slob like you?”

If Kawase wanted to cut someone down, this was a reminder that he was more than capable of it. 

"S-slob…" Tamamori couldn’t even meet his eyes anymore. "Am I that unappealing?"

Kawase leaned forward across the library desk, his lip curling. "I'm not going to lie to you to protect your shitty feelings. I don't have a clue how you thought it would even remotely be a good idea to joke around with me like that."

"I-it’s just that… I've seen other students joke around with each other in the same way before. Y’see, I heard some other students were fake confessing to each other and made a funny video out of it. Those videos were all over social media, have you ever seen one? N-nyahaha… I just wanted to try it on you to see how you would react."

Despite having said that, Tamamori’s phone was turned over screen down on the table, not recording anything, and it had been like that since he sat down across from his friend. His face was red like he was horribly embarrassed, and he didn’t seem to find Kawase’s reaction to his funny joke very interesting at all. If anything, he seemed like he was going to be sick.

But Kawase would show him no mercy. "Well, you got your reaction- I hope you're satisfied. Now if you're done wasting my time, I have a trig test to study for."

Tamamori stood up from his chair hastily, nearly knocking the wooden seat over. For some reason, his hands were shaking.

“I should probably go home soon. It’s not like I have anything to study for, so I’ll go back first.” He definitely had something he should be studying for, and he probably even had homework… not that he could currently remember any of that. “See ya, Kawase.”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t get your bag strap caught in any doors and clothesline yourself without me there to laugh at you.”

Kawase only raised his hand in a still wave as he watched Tamamori recede out of the library and out into the hallway. A disgusting feeling had swollen in his stomach, and he wanted to throw up. The only reason he hadn’t was because he probably hadn’t eaten enough to cause bile that day.

Just what the hell was that? For a split second, Kawase had almost believed him. The way his eyes looked when he confessed…

…

…No. Even if Tamamori had been serious, Kawase shouldn’t accept his feelings so easily. Tamamori was naive, and if he ever ended up in Kawase’s arms, he would live to regret it. The things that Kawase felt for Tamamori were not simple, and even a psychologist would find him difficult to unravel.

He put his head in his hands, exhaling.

Tamamori would never understand him.

ー　♡　ー

Kawase always prolonged going home as much as he could. Although his home life wasn't nearly as violent as it used to be when he was in elementary school, it was still rather turbulent. Currently, Kawase was a sixteen-year-old boy who lived with his mother and step-father. Mother had abandoned Kawase with his biological father when he was six years old or so, and he had never been able to forget that fact. However, after father got arrested for assaulting and severely maiming a medical doctor, Kawase was taken by the precinct’s social workers and given back to his mother, because she technically had legal rights over him. Or perhaps it would be better to say that she had an obligation to be legally and financially responsible for him, as he had only been twelve at the time.

That was how Kawase discovered that mother had long been married to her new man, and they even had two children together, an elementary-aged boy and girl. Kawase liked his half-siblings somewhat, and they seemed to adore him because they thought he was ‘the coolest older brother in the world’, although what he did to deserve such a title, he knew not. But as for mother and step-father…

He didn’t like them. Luckily, they hardly spoke to him, and oftentimes mother wouldn’t even look at him. Step-father would give him a small allowance for food and other amenities, and in exchange, Kawase would clean the home, care for the garden, or tutor his younger siblings. In all honesty, step-father didn’t really seem like that bad a man, but his wife despised Kawase. Being that his wife was the one biologically related to Kawase, what could a step-father do against her wishes? It would be strange for an adult man to side with a child that technically had no relation to himself. Housing Kawase and feeding him was more than his biological father or mother did for him in the first place, and so their relationship was left at that.

There was one good thing that had come from all of Kawase’s woes. And that was the fact that mother had actually stayed in Aizu after everything that had happened with her first man- meaning, that when Kawase was placed into her legal custody, he did not have to leave Tamamori or Hanazawa behind and move somewhere else. Mother had- very bravely- stayed within the same city that her violent ex-lover lived in. It might have been safer for her if she left town, though perhaps she felt safe with her new man. Regardless, Kawase got to stay in Aizu, and he didn't have to part with any of his friends because of that fact.

Kawase wouldn’t eat any of the food his mother prepared for him, and he was old enough that he did not have to. He only ate light meals, vegetables, salads and other things that could be bought at the convenience store. Kawase didn’t eat very much because his stomach was upset very easily. When he did eat, he tried to make sure he ate something that was worth digesting. Other boys his age would often comment on this behavior, but he had no intention of changing.

So he often purchased dinner and would eat on a bench at the park before heading home. It didn't matter how frigidly cold or searingly hot it was outside, he only ate dinner at the park. He often did not arrive home before eight o’clock, unless he had some obligation, like tutoring his siblings. When he got home, he would head upstairs and shower, and then immediately shut himself in his room. Because he had grown paranoid from his previous home, he would jam the back of his chair under his doorknob and ‘barricade’ himself inside.

It felt comfortable to do so. Only after he had done all of his strange rituals could he finally relax (somewhat) in his room. He never felt completely at ease, but it wasn’t as bad as it used to be. He knew enough to stay quiet and not make any noise in the home, and so he got along quite well with this new arrangement.

Normally, at this hour, Kawase would text Tamamori and try to harass him in some manner, but after what had happened today at the library, he found he couldn’t even stomach opening their messages. Tamamori had probably already gone home and eaten dinner with his grandparents. Tamamori was bad with mornings, so he usually did all of his showering and preparing for the next day at night. That meant he usually stayed up quite late. Kawase knew this about him, and if he wanted to text him, he could probably get a response from him even in the wee hours of the morning.

But after what had happened between them, Kawase didn't have anything he wanted to say to him. It was terrible, not even wanting to message someone he talked with almost every single day. When would this sickness that plagued him fade away?

Well, whatever… Kawase was used to terrible feelings.

ー　♡　ー

Kawase liked to get to school early, partially because he disliked his home, and partially because if he got to school early enough, he could use his shoe locker undisturbed. However, just as he was going to get changed, he saw a garish piece of paper with red heart stickers plastered all over it. It was addressed 'for Segawa-kouhai'... One of the students in the year above him must have left him yet another love letter.

Several students had tried leaving Kawase love letters before; his attractive features and mysterious nature made him the target for a large demographic. There was a time when he used to read these trashy letters to mock them, but he no longer had the energy. It was already an annoyance that they would leave him detritus on top of his shoes, but today the letter reminded him of what Tamamori had said yesterday, piercing his already wounded heart.

After changing into his shoes, Kawase held the letter pinched between his thumb and index finger, and went to deposit the letter at the nearest trash can. It was excessive, but he even went to wash his hands afterwards, turning the water up until it turned his skin red. The hot sensation of the water felt good, but he wished that it was hot enough to scald him- he might feel better if it did.

But no matter how he scrubbed his hands, he could not wash those words from his head- 'I like you! Will you go out with me?'

'I like you!'

I like you…!

…

Why had Tamamori said that to him? Did he hate Kawase? Why did he have to suffer the humiliation of having his feelings dragged from his chest and stomped on? Even though Tamamori couldn't have known how Kawase really felt about him, he had still chosen to play around with his heart, as if he were nothing more than cheap amusement for him. Even if… even if Kawase only liked Tamamori as a friend, he had still confessed to him with the intent of getting an interesting reaction from him. Wasn't that disgusting?

Kawase would go to sit in the library if he had time before class, and he was sitting there now. More than anything, Kawase wanted to wait until Tamamori got to school, drag him into an empty classroom, and thrash him until he regretted being born. How could he make Tamamori feel pain? How could he make him feel pain in the same manner that Kawase felt…!

When the picture of that stupid love letter with the red heart stickers flitted across his mind's eye, an idea came to him.

Wait a minute… Kawase knew how he could get back at Tamamori for playing with his feelings. He could write Tamamori an anonymous love letter, and leave it for him in his shoe locker. He would type the letter and print it out to disguise his handwriting, pretending to be a cute, earnest schoolboy who was interested in Tamamori, he would lure him into a trap. He would confess to him, and get Tamamori to fall in love with him. And at the height of his attachment to this imaginary person, he would reveal himself, and break Tamamori's stupid heart.

There was still some time before class. Impassioned about his idea, he gained an almost scary amount of motivation. He logged on to one of the library's computers (although he hated using the communal student computers at all), and he opened a simple notepad application. Tamamori loved trashy novels and stories… the sappier he could make this letter, the better.

And so he wrote…

'Dear Mizumori-san,

'I love you more than anyone in the whole wide world! There, I said it. I've felt that way since secondary school, but I just now found the courage to tell you. When you stand near me, my heart beats so fast that it feels like I'm running a marathon…

'I've been watching you in secret for a few years now. We used to be classmates, but we are in different classes this year. Sometimes I find myself wondering if you even noticed we've been split apart. Isn't that so sad? I miss you dreadfully. I used to spend my class time staring at the back of your head. Your hair looks so fluffy and soft, and I always used to want to reach out and touch it, but of course I never did. Is your hair as soft as it looks?

'I'll tell you honestly, although you probably won't believe me- I think you're the prettiest boy in school. When you look at me, it makes my heart skip a beat. I know some of the other students can say some pretty mean things sometimes, and they might make you think otherwise… But they're ignorant of true beauty, and they don't know anything. Your other friends aren’t nearly as cute as you are.

'We've talked some before, but I doubt you'd remember me very well. I'm not a very memorable person, and I won't say the words I truly think because I'm scared of being judged by others. I'm especially too shy to talk to such a cute and nice boy like you! I always thought that on days we had creative writing exercises, the stories you wrote were by far the best. I know you like writing because I've seen you writing manuscripts during class before.

'I have a secret I want to tell you- I found the manuscript of the novella you've been working on in the creative writing club, and I stole it. Did you already notice it missing? I won't ask for your forgiveness- I wanted to read your writing again, so I broke into the clubroom after school one day and took it. Maybe I'll give it back to you when I'm finished…

'You see, my secondary motivation for taking your novella is that I really want to hear from you. What I'm saying is, I want a response letter from you. You might be wondering how to send an anonymous student a letter, but it'll be simple. Leave your letter for me in the book A Woman's Pedigree in the school library. Even though I love that book, not many students check it out, so your response should be safe there. I'll check for a response from you tomorrow morning. Is that enough time? It doesn't have to be a long response. I know you're a fast writer- I've seen you before.

'And don't get any funny ideas in your head, unless you value the safety of your novella. I eagerly look forward to hearing from you, Mizumori-san... You're my idol. 

'From, your secret admirer ♡.'

ー　♡　ー

As a matter of course, the chronically late Tamamori had not arrived at school yet as his school shoes were still in his locker, so Kawase unceremoniously placed his folded love letter in his shoes. Still having a little bit of time to spare before class started, Kawase thought it would be best if he made good on his threat, and went to the room where the writing club would meet after class on Mondays and Wednesdays. Kawase had heard Tamamori and Minakami talking about a rather precious ‘long fiction piece’ being stored in the clubroom. The writing club members always wrote their pieces for the club by hand, and Tamamori shouldn’t have an online copy stored anywhere- this eighty-seven page handwritten epic should be the one and only.

Therefore, if Kawase took this worthless manuscript hostage, then Tamamori should see that he was serious about wanting a response letter.

It was an idea that Kawase had come up with while writing his love letter. He figured that even if Tamamori received a love letter from someone, he might not be inclined to respond to said love letter. Although Kawase was sympathetic- he no longer even read the love letters left for him, let alone respond to them- he wanted a response from Tamamori more than anything. In order to ensure that Tamamori would respond, he would hold his manuscript hostage.

If Tamamori gave him a satisfactory letter in response, he would give him his manuscript back. And as for what would be a satisfactory letter… Well, what was it? Part of him wanted Tamamori to write something embarrassing so he could laugh at him, and another part of him wanted Tamamori to fall in love with his secret admirer, so he could break his heart. Either way, he would get his comeuppance for how he had treated Kawase for trying to prank him by fake-confessing his love to him!

Even though Kawase felt quite satisfied with himself for having come up with a plan of revenge, he found sitting through his morning classes to be agonizing. Kawase had not seen Tamamori that morning, and he could only wonder what the other boy’s reaction would be to receiving a love letter. Surely he had found it- even someone as spacey as Tamamori should be capable of finding something someone left for him in broad daylight… right? He wouldn’t just blindly shove his foot in the shoe and unknowingly trod all over the letter, would he?

…M-maybe he wouldn’t see it. Kawase reminded himself to curb his expectations when it came to Tamamori. If he expected too much, he would probably be disappointed. 

It was at lunch time that Kawase got his answer. He went to eat lunch in Tamamori and Minakami’s classroom every day, and today was no exception. When Kawase arrived, he saw that Minakami was in a tizzy.

“It’s really missing!? You can’t find it!?” Minakami said.

“It’s gone- I checked the drawer in the clubroom,” Tamamori said.

“What are you two going on about this time?” Kawase gave them a flat look, as if he didn’t feel the excitement a panther feels when it tastes fresh blood.

“Oh, Kawase! It’s… Well, it’s nothing you’ll care about, but I’ll tell you anyway. My manuscript is missing from the clubroom- my long one I was working on for my novella!”

“Huh… So where’d you put it?” Kawase asked.

“I didn’t put it anywhere.” Tamamori shook his head. “Somebody took it!”

“Why do you think somebody took it? You lose half of the homework assignments they give you. Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it?” Kawase said.

“No, you see… I…” His voice momentarily trailed off, and he turned his face towards the window, away from his friends. “I just had a strange feeling in my chest, and I went to look before class. Or, really, it was that class had already started, and I got scolded for being late- but I knew I couldn’t focus without checking to see if it was gone or not.”

“And you just… ‘had a feeling’ that it was missing,” Kawase said skeptically.

“Yeah, I did. But Minakami just went to check and he couldn’t find it either,” Tamamori said.

“That’s true,” Minakami said. “I always remember where Tamamori leaves his manuscripts, and it definitely wasn’t in the file folder marked with his name. I make sure it safely makes it back in the drawer after each club meeting.”

“Hmph…”

Kawase didn’t know what to say to that. Tamamori must have found the hostage letter- er… the love letter that he had left him. It was exceedingly unlikely that Tamamori should have an omnipotent premonition to go and check for the safety of his manuscript on a random Tuesday morning. However, for some reason or another, it seemed that Tamamori did not want to admit to receiving a love letter. It was impossible to discern what this meant, but Kawase could only pretend to know nothing. To suggest he had any inkling of the existence of said letter would be tantamount to admitting he had written it.

As a result, Kawase had to stay silent about what he knew. Even though Minakami seemed agitated and looked as if he wanted to tear the whole school apart to find the manuscript, Tamamori just seemed resigned to eating his lunch. When lunch was over, Kawase heard Minakami promise to stay after school and help Tamamori look for his manuscript, and he heard the other boy respond, ‘It might be hopeless. Don’t spend all evening looking and wear yourself out…’

Knowing that his plan had even made it this far soothed Kawase, and sitting through his afternoon classes was much less mentally taxing. He didn’t know if Tamamori would bother to write his secret admirer a response letter, but seeing his anxiety-ridden face was already rewarding. If only he would suffer a little bit more, maybe he’d understand what Kawase felt when–...

…The rest of Kawase’s day went as it normally did. He spent some time doing his homework, he ate dinner at the park like always, and then he headed home. He was doing all of the things he had to do, but he was also waiting- waiting to check for a response. Life was always more exciting with some uncertainty in it, and Kawase almost felt alive that night when he went to bed.

When he woke up the next morning, however, it was like his mood had done a one-eighty. No longer feeling like he was the tormenter, he found that he had become the tormented- he had dreamed strange scenes about Tamamori all night, and his hands were shaking as he got dressed. Why… Why did it feel like he was awaiting an actual love confession response from Tamamori? He hadn’t written that letter as Kawase, he had written that letter as an anonymous student. What did it matter how Tamamori responded? What did it matter if he responded at all?

Kawase slipped out of the house before his family knew any better. It was very foggy that morning, and he couldn't even see the hand in front of his face, which suited his somber mood just fine. He bought himself breakfast and lunch at the convenience store, and ate his dry bagel for breakfast, not certain he could even finish eating that much. For an inexplicable reason, walking to the school library this early in the morning felt like going to his own personal execution.

Kawase made it to school, changed into his school shoes, and headed to the library. There was a good forty minutes before class started. Why the hell had he come so early? It wasn't like Tamamori would be stupid enough to actually write him a response letter. That guy probably thought it was some girl trying to prank him or something. He wouldn't actually write anything back and stick it in A Woman's Pedigree. He wouldn't do that-

When Kawase yanked the book off the shelf and a folded piece of manuscript paper fell to the floor, he could only stare dumbly at it.

He picked up the letter slowly, unable to breathe.

‘To My Secret Admirer,

'I suppose I should start this letter by insulting you… Have you had your eyes checked recently? I don't know what's wrong with your vision, but you might want to go to an optometrist- there definitely aren't any students that think I'm pretty or cute, I'm not stupid enough to believe that for a minute!

'I think you must have mistaken me for my friend- you probably know him as 'Segawa-san', but I call him Kawase. Anyways, a lot of girls really like him, and so I figure you must have been mistaken. Sometimes people have mixed our names up because we hang out together…

'At least, that’s what usually happens. Except, you definitely couldn't mistake Kawase's straight, silky hair for fluffy hair, and you probably wouldn't have made that comment about me being a fast writer if you mixed me and him up. And Kawase definitely doesn’t write any manuscripts… So I guess you must have meant to give this letter to me?

'Sorry, is this strange? I don't really talk to girls ever. You're a girl, right? I guess I shouldn’t just presume that. I don’t care if you’re a guy or a girl- or maybe it’d be better if you were a guy? But honestly, I don’t talk to guys that much either, just my friends…

'Actually, I can't blame you for not wanting to come forward with who you are- I'm a bit shy myself, so I can understand not wanting to come forward and admit your feelings… but even still, why the hell did you take my manuscript!? That’s insanely rude!! Are you a nutcase!? How is stealing my stuff supposed to make me like you better!?

'I really want my manuscript back, but I guess you want us to become penpals. Are you in the writing club? I think you must be, or you wouldn’t have known where my manuscript was… What other student would know that?

'If you just wanted to be penpals, you could have just said something. It’s not like writing letters is even very hard for us writing students!

'I guess I just don’t believe you actually like me. I feel like this is definitely a prank. But on the off chance that it is real…

'I'm afraid I can't really say that I like you back or not if I don't know who you are. Are you cute? Maybe I’ll tell you I like you if you show me what you look like!

'Anyways, I guess don't mind it if you want to become penpals. If you want to write me a response letter, will you please leave it in Yumeno Kyuusaku's The White Haired Boy? I have writing club until six today, so I'll stop by the library afterwards to see if you wrote me a response.

'Since you didn't give me very much time to respond, I won't give you very much time either!

'-Mizumori Tama.’

…

“...”

…This…

…This guy had absolutely no pickup game whatsoever. To his credit, he was responding to a student that was holding his manuscript hostage but… How did Tamamori manage to come across like a dork even in writing? What if someone cute actually wrote him a love letter, would he have actually shot himself in the foot just like that? Was this guy ever gonna be able to successfully ask anyone out ever!?

But this was great for his revenge- Kawase either had an embarrassing letter to rub in Tamamori's face, or he could continue writing him letters and make him fall in love with someone that didn't even exist. Regardless, the fact would remain that there wasn't anyone that thought Tamamori was cute, and there was no secret admirer that loved him.

Tamamori was a moron! His response letter was utterly laughable, ridiculously embarrassing! Kawase would never let him live this down, and he would make Tamamori feel all of the pain he had felt that one afternoon…

...Except, for some strange reason, Kawase found himself tucking the folded letter in between his phone case and his phone. He found himself sitting down at a computer desk, opening up a notepad program, and typing, 'Dear Mizumori-san'.

Although making Tamamori fall in love with a secret admirer would be the option that took much more work, it would surely be the more satisfying one. Yes, writing to him once would simply have been a waste of time. He should at least write to him a handful of times, so that he could bring him in further.

That's what he told himself, anyways.

ー　♡　ー

One of the letters Tamamori wrote to Kawase went as such…

‘To My Secret Admirer,

'What are you like? I know nothing about you. Are you a girl? Are you seventeen, or sixteen like I am? What do you like to do? I know you must be one of the students in the writing club, so you must like writing too! Have you ever written something for the school newspaper, or do you like writing fiction? 

'Personally, I don't know what I like better- fiction writing or journalism. My friend Minakami says he likes my fiction writing, but my friend Kawase hates my fiction, and said that journalism is a much better thing to study. What do you think? I guess you might like my fiction if you said you liked my manuscripts…

'Sorry, I asked you a question, but I ended up talking about myself again. It's an inconvenience of letters over texting- you have to write a whole bunch at one time, unlike texting where you can wait for a response right away. Well, writing letters is kind of fun in its own way… it feels a lot more personal.

"And you know, writing back and forth to someone for once has been fun. All of my closest friends don't like writing. Minakami's good at painting realism, and Kawase's good at photography, but I'm the only one who writes. If I'm honest with you, maybe it's a good thing that they don't write. If they were better than me at writing, I don't think I could stand it… Luckily, they don't seem to have an interest in it.

'You probably have your own friend group, too. Are they nice to you, or do you get into fights with them from time to time? I get in a lot of fights with my friends, but that's just 'cause we're so close. I don't think I'd bother fighting with them if I didn't like them.

'...I said that, but we also get in bad fights from time to time. Something kinda bad happened the other day. I had a fight with one of my friends. Well, maybe it wasn’t a fight- I’m not actually sure what happened between us. Either way, I think he’s really angry with me. He seems like he's avoiding me.

'But there's nothing I can do about it! It's his fault for misunderstanding me! If he wants to act all pissy, so be it! Why should I be the one to get on my hands and knees and beg him for forgiveness? 

'Wait, I started writing about my personal problems without even meaning to. Sorry about that. It doesn't matter- I'm sure it will all work out somehow.

'Let me know about what you're like in the next letter you leave me, okay? By the way, I totally deserve my manuscript back, and you can put it back from where you stole it from whenever you want.

'-Mizumori Tama.’

It wasn't hard to imagine who Tamamori's 'pissy' friend was. Tamamori at least had the decency to not mention any names in a negative light, but Kawase still had a bad taste in his mouth from reading about himself like this. He didn't want Tamamori to talk about him with anyone else…

But now that Kawase thought about it, maybe this situation could be used to his advantage in more ways than he thought. For his next letter, he wrote…

'Dear Mizumori-san,

'Are you sure you didn't say something bad to your friend? I wasn't there, so I have no way of knowing what went on between you two, but in most situations, there isn't just one party that is at fault. Most of the time, there's two people who are at fault. Have you ever tried putting yourself in his shoes, and imagining what it would be like as him?

'You probably don't want to listen to me, especially if you feel like I'm lecturing you. It's not my intention to be someone that lectures others- I do plenty of bad things myself. It's just that I care about your development as a human being, and I think that you should try considering the situation with an open mind. If you did, your friend might get along with you better.

'If he's really avoiding you, maybe you should do something to make it up to him. Have you ever thought about what kind of things he likes? Probably not. Even though I like you so much, I must admit that you're a very aloof person. You should spend some time trying to think about him a little more- maybe you'll actually be able to figure something out for once.

'By the way, I'm a guy- not a girl. I heard you like that kind of thing… isn't that lucky for the both of us? Of course, maybe that's part of why I like you so much- I sensed there was something different about you from the other students. Also, I'm sixteen years old, just like you. I won't tell you that we're alike, because that's not true, but it's not like I'm some alien that you can't communicate with- so stop acting like you don't know how to talk with me in your letters.

'In your next letter, do your best to tell me something amusing about yourself. I want to know all about you, no matter what it is. After everything is all over, I want to be the person who knows you the best out of anyone and everyone. 

'From, your secret admirer ♡.'

ー　♡　ー

Some of the letters that Kawase wrote were lies that he thought would make him sound more like a desperately in love teenage boy, but other words were ones that slipped out from his heart. He was doing his very best to lure the other boy into his trap, and he felt like he was being met with great success. Tamamori said that they could be penpals. He asked Kawase to leave his letters in The White Haired Boy, and he said that if he got another letter, he'd leave another response in A Woman's Pedigree.

And so, somehow, the two of them became penpals.

Tamamori would pick his letter from his secret admirer up in the morning just before school started, read it, and then leave a response letter just after school ended. Then his secret admirer would come in the late evening to pick his letter up. He would read his letter, and write a response to be left in the very early morning before school.

If Kawase asked himself if it was hard at all to write his love letter, he decided that it wasn't very difficult at all. He hadn't even struggled to think of words he wanted to say to Tamamori. Sitting in class, he could remember the letters he wrote even without having them in front of him.

They did this for weeks, not missing a single day. Although some letters were very short, nothing more than a printed line or two (in Kawase's case) or a scrawled piece written on a sticky note (in Tamamori's case), they still wrote to each other daily.

And when Kawase would see Tamamori at lunch, after school, and on weekends, he would say nothing. He didn't let the other boy have a single clue that he was the one he was writing letters back and forth with. The thought of holding that kind of secret over Tamamori gave Kawase an odd thrill, and it almost made him feel better about what happened at the library.

It had been all going well, but one day while at lunch, Kawase heard Tamamori and Minakami talking about the letters.

"Seriously, it doesn't seem like they mean any harm. I mean, they haven't threatened me or anything," Tamamori said.

"That's a low bar, Tamamori! This person took your manuscript, and is blackmailing you into writing with them. How can that mean anything good?"

Kawase had been biting into his rice ball, and he was so surprised that he started choking. Tamamori and Minakami gave Kawase a strange look.

"Kawase, are you okay?" Tamamori asked him.

He managed to swallow, and he gave Tamamori a dry look. "Yeah, I'm alright… What the hell are you two talking about now?"

"The other day, Minakami asked me what I was writing that I wouldn't let him read, and I told him that I've been writing letters…"

"As it turns out, Tamamori's been blackmailed into writing letters with the person who stole his manuscript," Minakami said. "I keep telling him that there has to be something we can do about it. I know that we can find the person who took his manuscript, but Tamamori won't even let me read the letters the blackmailer wrote to him."

"That's because it's something private, dummy," Tamamori said, pointing at Minakami with his chopsticks.

"But I bet I could recognize the writing style, and then I could track them down…!"

Kawase should have known that Minakami wouldn't be able to keep his head out of it. As irritating as it was that Minakami was trying to get involved, Tamamori had surprisingly kept him from reading those letters- perhaps he was embarrassed to be receiving letters from a 'secret admirer'... It worked out in Kawase's favor if Tamamori didn't let Minakami read his letters.

"Ugh… It just sounds like a pain." Kawase mumbled, going back to picking at the lunch he purchased from the convenience store.

Tamamori watched him carefully for a few seconds. He knew that Kawase wouldn't help him get his manuscript back- he never was any help when it came to his writing- but it was still odd that he was acting so detached. Normally, Kawase would jeer and mock Tamamori when something bad happened to him- he was often filled with schadenfreude in that manner.

Perhaps Kawase hadn't been feeling good these days.

"You look pale. Is your blood pressure low again? You always used to suffer from anemia back then!!" Tamamori said, now pointing at him with his chopsticks. "You should stop eating leaves for lunch and try eating something with meat. Here, do you want a piece of the karaage Grandma made me? Look, I'll even let you pick it out of my bentou yourself, so it's not like I touched it…"

Kawase gave a withering look to the piece of chicken before tilting his head up and giving Tamamori a look that was even more withering.

"No thank you. I don't want anything that's been in your bowl even once."

He was picky as he had always been, and there was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. He was like that, and perhaps it would have been more strange if he had accepted the karaage. Since he could not be satisfied, Tamamori just slowly turned his head back towards Minakami.

Then the two boys began discussing how best to get his manuscript back again. As they talked about it, Kawase paid them no mind, knowing that he couldn't afford to get involved. After all, it wasn't like he wanted to help them find him!

ー　♡　ー

It was strange... Now that Kawase was talking to Tamamori from behind the mask of anonymity, he felt like he could be honest in a way that he never had before. Why was that? He didn't know, and he couldn't understand any of it. When he was with Tamamori as Kawase, he found himself incapable of saying any of the things he wanted to say, but pretending to be some boy that Tamamori didn't know, he felt he could say anything.

But at some point, the border between his persona and his true self had blended, and now he no longer knew who he was writing as. Kawase was not an open person- he could never afford to be vulnerable in any sense of the word, but he was only human. There had always been some part of himself that had wanted to say how he really felt to Tamamori…

Sitting alone in his room one night, he thought about it- about why he had been so upset by Tamamori’s ‘joke’ confession. Kawase was someone who could pick up on others’ emotions and intentions far better than others. Tamamori had said he was joking, and that he had wanted to see Kawase’s reaction, but neither his actions nor his tone of voice suggested anything of the sort. There was no reason why Kawase- who was unusually good at judging others’ intentions- should have thought that his best friend was joking.

The truth was, Kawase was lying to himself.

That’s right, he had been lying to himself. He knew it all along- that Tamamori must have been serious about liking him. The boy he had been in love with for years returned his feelings. Wasn’t that something special? Wasn’t that something wonderful? Why had he done his very best to ruin his own chances at true love? Why had he so cruelly insinuated that Tamamori would be one of the last people on Earth that he would get together with?

The reasoning must have been, surely, it all must have been…

Because he was scared. He was scared of how Tamamori would react if he knew how he really liked him… and it wasn’t the romance part he was scared of. To put it bluntly, he very much wanted to show Tamamori the world of carnal pleasures. 

Tamamori had witnessed Kawase being tainted once when they were younger, and so he should be aware of his circumstances to an extent… However, it was one thing to witness something tainted, and it was a whole other thing to partake with someone who was as tainted as he was.

Tamamori was a simple and naive sixteen-year-old… he probably hadn’t even kissed someone yet. With that being the case, how could Kawase possibly accept Tamamori’s love confession outright? Accepting Tamamori’s confession would have been like the first spout of water that had burst through the crack in a dam- once it had gotten through, there would have been no stopping it.

Kawase hadn’t wanted to acknowledge Tamamori’s confession as something legitimate, and therefore he hadn’t… But even though he had wanted to protect Tamamori from himself, the other half of him wanted so very badly. It was dichotomous, but because he was utterly and hopelessly hopelessly in love, he wanted his beloved Tamamori to be ensnared in the same web of affection that he was.

It was in this way that Kawase found himself slipping more and more of his true self into the character he had purported himself to be. He wrote to Tamamori about things he had always wanted to tell him- things he probably should have never told anyone. Things that he would be ashamed to have attached to his actual being…

One day, Kawase found himself typing a letter on the school computer that he knew he could never take back. If he actually gave this letter to him, he could never admit that this whole elaborate scheme was actually just him pretending to be Tamamori's secret admirer- he wouldn’t have the courage to confess that it was him.

They had been leaving letters for each other every day for the past few weeks, and it was starting to become more stressful than it was exciting. This letter would probably be Kawase’s last. After Tamamori read this one, he wouldn’t have the courage to write to him any longer.

‘Dear Mizumori-kun,

‘You know, this might sound kind of stupid, but I'm actually a pretty lonely person. It's self-inflicted, it's not like I get bullied at school or anything. Really, I don't. In fact, a lot of times people even act like they want to reach out and talk to me, but I push them away. Being around people makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time... I don't know, I guess I just wish I didn't find other people so hard to stomach. Like, I think my life might be better if I was different.

‘Isn't that stupid? But I already told you I was shy, and that my shyness was why I didn't want to tell you who I was when I started writing to you. But… I don’t know if you can really call it shyness. It’s not like I feel anxious when I talk to people. If anything, it takes me a lot of willpower to keep from cursing at them. I suppose I’m spiteful and bitter.

‘But I'm not telling you all of this because I want you to pity me. I don't want anyone's pity. In the end, if I wanted to change, I would change, but I don't want to change. The reason I'm telling you is... What? Even I don’t know the reason why.

‘There's so many things I want to tell you, things that don't make any sense, things that I probably shouldn't tell anyone because it's too disturbing… Oh, I promise I won't tell you anything disturbing, but the feeling is there. I guess it's because I want you to witness me. I want you to witness me as I really am and still like me...

‘But I guess that’s the thing. Most of those other people think they like me because I’m ‘attractive and have a cool aura’, but it’s all stupid. The moment all of those shallow people who are drawn to me saw what I was really like, they would run away. Most people have a low tolerance for things they find grotesque and weird, and their feelings for someone else can turn overtly negative with only a few words…

‘To me, you’ve always been different. I guess I must have felt like you embraced things that were strange. It’s embarrassing to call myself ‘strange’ but I guess I can’t really be called an ordinary sixteen year old. But when you accepted me, it no longer mattered- it didn’t matter to me if I was a freak or not, because it didn’t seem to change your opinion on me.

‘It's kind of contradictory for me to say all of this when I won't even tell you who I am, right? But I feel a special connection to you like I’ve never had with anyone else. It seemed like you couldn’t believe me when I said I liked you, but I mean it. 

‘I love you, Mizumori-kun.

‘Maybe I came off as facetious in my first letter to you- well, I suppose I was being facetious- but my feelings for you are real. I really and truly love you. My loneliest times on this Earth aren’t when I was trapped in a room by myself, my loneliest times are when I'm sitting beside you knowing that I still can't reach you. 

‘What should I do? I don't think I'll ever know the answer.’

When Kawase left that letter in the back of The White Haired Boy, he had decided that this would be the last time he pulled the novel from its place on the shelf. He was done writing letters, the only matter that he was still undecided on was if he would even bother to check for one more response letter. He had said everything he needed to say at this point, what would anything additional get him?

It was an agony that plagued him all day, not normally ruminating on simple decisions. It shouldn't have been a big deal either way- if he read the reply, if he didn't read the reply… what should it matter how Tamamori responded to him? It wasn't like he had been writing those letters as himself, anyway.

Even though he thought that, right as he was about to leave school for the day, he found himself turning back around and heading for the library. There was no explanation that he could give himself that he wanted to accept. Why he was reaching for the book, why his hands shook when he unfolded the piece of paper…

‘To My Secret Admirer,

‘Even though I’m a writer and I write so much, I’ve never been any good with words. Not when it comes to words that I need to say to people, anyway. I guess it really is kind of worthless to write hundreds of thousands of words, and to not have any of them be suitable for serious situations- someone said that to me once.

‘I guess I should say… I’m glad you feel like I accepted you. I don’t really know what I did- I don’t remember doing or saying anything special to anyone, but if it made you feel better in some way, then I’m happy. But at the same time, I'm not trying to make anyone feel better about anything, so I won't claim credit for it.

'You know, I started writing these letters to you because I wanted my manuscript back- and I still want it back, by the way- but I also find that I like writing to you. It's a lot of fun. I still don't feel like I know what you're really like, but you seem like an interesting person. 

'With all that being said, I'm afraid that I still can't accept your confession. It's not even that I don't know who you are, it's that I know I don't return your feelings, because I like someone else. Do you remember that friend I told you about before? The one I mentioned that I made angry? The truth is, I'm in love with him. 

'I confessed my feelings to him a few weeks ago, but he got angry at me. He thought I was messing with him, and then he said he would never want to be with 'a slob like me'. Actually, that's a pretty merciful response for him- he's usually much harsher, haha. 

'I expected to be rejected by him, but it still made me feel… Well, I guess I was pretty upset about it. When I got home I cried until my nose started bleeding- maybe I shouldn't admit something embarrassing like that. But even still, even after all that… I still like him.

'Isn't that pathetic? But as it turns out, I can't forget my feelings for him so easily. It's because of that reason that I can't return your feelings for me!

'I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear from me at this point- I've often been told I'm tone deaf- but I think it'd be nice if we could be friends. Real friends, I mean. Would you like to meet with me? I'll be at writing club this Thursday and Friday, even though we don't have club those days. There shouldn't be anyone else there, if you want to come.

'I hope I can finally see your face soon.

'-Mizumori Tama.'

ー　♡　ー

When Minakami saw who it was that slipped out of the library that morning, he wasn’t surprised to see his love rival. When he thought about it, it was the only option that made any sense. Who could have known about the long manuscript, who could have been cruel enough to steal something that wasn’t theirs, who could have been obsessed enough to have gone through all this trouble just to get what he wanted from Tamamori?

The answer wasn't surprising- but it was still infuriating.

A few weeks ago, Minakami saw Tamamori writing something in class. While this was nothing unusual in itself, when Minakami asked if he could read what he was writing like he always did, Tamamori quickly rejected him, saying that it was for a letter he was writing. So it wasn't a new manuscript like he had thought, but Minakami's curiosity grew. Just who was Tamamori writing letters to? He wrote a letter during class the next day, and then yet another one the day after that.

Minakami asked him who he kept writing to, and even though Tamamori had resisted him at first, he eventually capitulated. He explained everything- that he had been blackmailed into writing letters to a secret admirer who had stolen his manuscript. The blackmailer seemed to know a lot about Tamamori, and he must have been watching him in secret for a while now.

Minakami was infuriated. How could someone be so cruel as to hold Tamamori's longest work to date hostage? And this person claimed to be in love with him- after treating him so terribly? Yeah, as if!

Tamamori tried to reassure him, and said that Minakami should not be so disconcerted. He insisted that he did not need to intervene, and said that things should turn out alright all on their own. But then a few weeks passed, and nothing had changed- the manuscript was not returned.

It was then that Minakami took matters into his own hands. He knew that Tamamori was picking up his letters from this blackmailer in the library before school, therefore the letters must have been left by the blackmailer himself early in the morning. There weren't that many students that would get to school early in the first place, let alone ones that would consistently go to the library each morning. While staying hidden down the hallway, Minakami saw the same boy entering and exiting the library every day for a week…

What an unprincipled and despicable person! Even though Minakami wanted to confront the blackmailer right away, he knew it would be too risky to approach someone so merciless. Wanting to assure the safety of the manuscript, Minakami waited, and he followed Tamamori after class that afternoon to report his findings to him. 

It was Thursday, and there was no writing club that evening. Minakami trailing behind him was nothing unusual, but today Tamamori shot him a dirty look.

"Minakami, are you actually the one that wrote all these letters?"

Minakami gave him a dumbfounded look. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"You…! You're a really helpless guy, y'know!?" It seemed like Tamamori was angry with poor Minakami when he hadn't even done anything yet. "How am I supposed to meet that person if you're here? Shoo, go away! You'll scare them off!"

Minakami just tilted his head slightly. "What do you mean 'that person'?"

Knowing that this would only continue the longer he put off explaining it, Tamamori sighed dramatically. "Oh, fine, I'll tell you! You know the person I've been writing letters back and forth to these past few weeks?"

"You mean the blackmailer?"

"Yes, them! Anyways, I asked them to meet me here after school either today or tomorrow. I'm hoping that I'll get my manuscript back, and maybe I'll finally get to meet them."

Minakami had a difficult expression on his face, and he shifted from one foot to the other. Because Minakami knew who it was that had really taken the manuscript, he had a feeling that the thief wasn't going to be giving it back any time soon. Tamamori looked hopeful, but Minakami did not share in his optimism.

"You know Tamamori, I… I don't think you're going to get your manuscript back so easily," Minakami said.

"Why's that?" Tamamori asked.

"Because Kawase was the one who stole your manuscript."

Once Minakami had said those words, Tamamori fell silent. Huh? Kawase was the one who took it? That didn't make any sense… Tamamori's face went through a wide range of expressions in only a matter of seconds, and the final emotion he landed on was indignation.

"T-that... That can't be true!" he cried.

"Why can't it be true?" Minakami said. "You don't know it, but I've been staking out the library in secret- Kawase was the only person who entered and exited the library every day this week, at the correct time of morning."

"B-but the one who stole my manuscript has been sending me all these letters, all of these," Tamamori picked up a stack of papers from the desk next to him, and shook them in the air. "The person who wrote these letters would have to be the one who stole my manuscript, or they wouldn't have been able to mention such a detail in the first letter. And it's not Kawase, it can't be. He wouldn't bother to write all these letters."

Minakami had not been allowed to read the letters that Tamamori received, but he could see them vaguely from where he was standing.

"Tamamori, are those letters typed?" He asked.

"Yes, they are… Why?"

It seemed that Tamamori could not understand what he was trying to get at.

"Why do you think they're typed and printed and not handwritten?" Minakami asked slowly.

"Because… it's easier to type things?" Tamamori said.

"Is that the only benefit of typing?"

"Stop asking me cryptic questions! You know I'm an idiot! If you have something to tell me, just tell me!"

Minakami sighed, and took a seat at the desk. It wasn't like he was happy about how the situation had turned out. If anything, it had only gotten more complicated since he found out Kawase was involved. Although Tamamori wasn't one to believe in Kawase's innocence (he was very well aware of his cruel nature), he doubted that he would go through all the trouble to write so many letters.

Minakami explained further. "I think those letters might have been typed to conceal the true author's handwriting."

"Well, the author did want to stay anonymous- that's the whole point of a secret admirer. It makes sense they wanted to conceal their handwriting," Tamamori conceded. "But why does the author wanting to remain anonymous mean it was Kawase?"

"It's just that, who would have the need to conceal their handwriting? That wouldn't be a necessary step that most people would need to take. The author of the letters would have to assume you would recognize their handwriting."

Tamamori's eyes widened briefly, but he still wanted to deny it. "Maybe it's true that they wanted to conceal their handwriting, but why can't it be from one of the students in the writing club? What if they were worried I would take the letters and go compare them with the works in here? The club members would also know where my manuscript was kept!"

"But none of the club members were consistently leaving the library every morning this week," Minakami said. "The student who wrote you those letters knew where your manuscript was, they were afraid that you would recognize their handwriting, and they must have entered the library every morning in order to leave you a letter… Out of those three necessities, Kawase is the only student who fits the bill!"

Tamamori fell silent at that point, and he sat down next to Minakami. Sitting backwards on the chair, he stared at the wall. His logic was solid enough that Tamamori could think of no other reason to deny him, and it rendered him helpless.

"Then… The whole time there wasn't actually someone who liked me, it was just Kawase trying to get back at me for… for…"

Tamamori couldn't finish his sentence, and Minakami could tell it was because he was in a state of distress. Tamamori had not told him that he attempted to confess to Kawase at the library, but he suspected that something must have happened between the two boys. They had been acting uncomfortable around each other, it didn't seem to just be an ordinary fight.

Minakami folded his hands in his lap as if out of habit. Sometimes, it was like he was a hundred years old, not a high schooler.

"Tamamori, would you let me read the letters he wrote you, please?" Minakami asked gently.

"Nya-nyahaha… You just can't help yourself, can you?" Tamamori laughed, a slightly chagrined smile crossing his face.

"I would like to see them," he insisted.

"...Suit yourself." 

Tamamori hadn't let Minakami read his letters before because he felt like it was an invasion of privacy, but now that he thought it was just yet another scheme from Kawase, there was no need to stop him. He held out the letters for him, and Minakami took them gingerly. His reading speed really was quite impressive, and even a whole stack of twenty-five or so letters only took him a few minutes. His expression remained neutral as he read them, and when he finished, he held them back out to Tamamori.

"I think you should keep those," Minakami said.

"Why…? He just did it to pick on me again," Tamamori said, hanging his head low.

"It's not that I'm the best at thinking, because really I'm not…” Minakami said. “But I don't think that everything in these letters is fake. Especially the last one he sent you- he didn't even sign it as he had been."

"Why does it matter if he signed the last letter or not?" Tamamori asked.

"Perhaps it means that he intended to write the final letter as himself- not as your secret admirer. If he signed it as your secret admirer, it would be just the same as all the other letters, but look at this one. Do you notice something else that is different?”

Minakami pulled the last page out, and placed it on top of the stack Tamamori was holding. Tamamori looked at it closely, but he couldn't discern anything different.

“What do you see, Minakami?”

"Kawase made a mistake here. Look- he accidentally referred to himself using the pronoun 'ore' instead of 'watashi'.”

Minakami pointed at the character, and Tamamori felt another shock run through him. 

Using personal pronouns like ‘I or me’ was fairly rare in Japanese, and when you did refer to yourself you had a variety you could pick from. The author of the letters had been writing using the character for ‘I’ that could be read as ‘watashi’ or perhaps the more formal ‘watakushi’. This was what Tamamori used to refer to himself- it was the most neutral and general pronoun. However, Kawase always referred to himself using ‘ore’- a still used, but very masculine and abrasive kind of speaking. If you were the kind of person that used ‘ore’, it meant you had better be ready to stand up for yourself if someone challenged you, because it gave that impression.

Although the writer of the letters had started using casual and direct style writing about a week or so ago, and had started calling him 'Mizumori-kun', Tamamori had just assumed that this was because the author had thought that they had grown close enough together to use that kind of language with him. Tamamori started using direct and casual language to match him, and it seemed more like they had become friends.

Why would someone who used an average pronoun slip past all the other common pronouns and jump straight to using ‘ore’ all of a sudden? Maybe it was because the author had started to feel more comfortable around Tamamori… Or maybe it was because that was the pronoun the author usually used, and he had unintentionally slipped into his natural voice again.

"Do you really think Kawase wrote me this letter as himself?” Tamamori looked at Minakami with apprehension. “Why would he do that? I mean… It’s not like he would like me, right? He’s always so mean to me, and he doesn’t seem to like anybody.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. He must like you at least a little bit, wouldn’t you say?”

“Doesn’t he hate me?”

“If he really hated you, he wouldn’t hang around you so much. Think about how he is- he’s very elusive. If he didn’t want to be found, he would slip off into the night and you’d never find him again- just like a stray cat.”

“You really think he might like me?” Tamamori’s voice was filled with hope.

Minakami hummed thoughtfully. He didn’t quite like the idea of his two friends liking each other, but he didn’t want Tamamori to stay miserable like this. It was obvious that the two boys had gotten into something with each other, but there wasn’t much he personally could do about it.

“Tamamori, why don’t you go and look for Kawase? I don’t have any of the answers myself, and your guess is as good as mine as to what goes on in his head, but it seems like he has something he wants to say to you.”

“I guess you're right.” Tamamori stood up, and bowed quickly once in Minakami’s direction. “Thank you, Minakami. I really don’t know what I’d do without you to set me straight, nyahaha.”

“Oh, I didn’t really do much of anything. Just be sure to get your manuscript back from him.”

“Hey, is that what you’ve been after all this time? Fine, I’ll go get it from him, and I’ll give it to you tomorrow morning in class!"

Minakami watched him as he left the clubroom, and headed down the school hallway. Really, Minakami was worried about more than just the manuscript, but he knew not how to explain his worries. Kawase was a caustic person, and if he broke Tamamori’s heart, Minakami might have to seek a special kind of revenge all on his own…

ー　♡　ー

Kawase had long finished eating his dinner, and yet, he could not find it in himself to get up from the park bench he was seated on and walk home. He had packed everything back into his bag like he had intended to go home, yet he never stood up. The sun was rapidly setting, but the surrounding lights of downtown Aizu prevented it from being truly dark. It was a little cool out, but it was hard to notice in his current state of mind.

Most days when Kawase didn’t head home, it was simply because he did not wish to go home. But today, it was out of a strange paralysis that had taken hold of him. All of the events of the past week were swirling around in his head, and he didn't know how he was going to forget everything in time to be able to go to sleep. Maybe he should throw in the towel now and sit on the park bench until tomorrow morning…

“Kawase-! There you are!”

Hearing a familiar voice call his name so loudly, Kawase spun his head around to see Tamamori approaching him from the direction of his home. The other boy ran up to him, getting close without a second thought. His face was a touch red, as if he had been running and had exerted himself.

“Whew… I've been looking for you forever. Ugh… why do you never respond to my texts when it's important?”

Tamamori collapsed beside him on the bench, his shoulders heaving. Kawase looked at him in amusement.

“Are you really so out of shape that running takes it out of you?” He teased him.

“Shut up! I was seriously looking everywhere for you because you wouldn't respond to my messages, you asshole.” Tamamori's words were derisive, but his eyes did not match it- they held an unmistakable look of relief.

“Well, of course I wasn't looking at my phone. What, am I supposed to be at your beck and call just because you want me to be?”

“No, but it'd be nice if I could find you when I needed to talk to you…”

“What if I don't want to talk to you?”

“Too bad, you're talking to me whether you like it or not!” Tamamori retorted.

It was then that Tamamori pulled a crumbled up note from his pocket- a sheet of printer paper that had about a page’s worth of typing on it. Wait a minute… was that really what it looked like?

Kawase managed to keep his expression neutral.

“Were you working on another one of your dumb manuscripts again?” He asked.

“No, you're not getting out of this!” Tamamori exclaimed. “I know what you've been up to! I know that you're the one who's been sending me all those letters!”

“You've been getting letters?” Kawase replied flatly.

“Don’t play stupid with me- I know the truth! I know that you're my secret admirer!”

Kawase watched Tamamori carefully for a while, his arms crossed.

“...So someone told you that they were your secret admirer, huh? That’s pretty funny actually. Hilarious even. But are you sure they're not just trying to make a funny video out of you like you were with me the other week?”

Kawase gave him a nasty smile, like he was trying to intimidate him, but Tamamori did not back down this time. Instead, he clenched his fists together tightly.

“I know it was you! Minakami said he saw you entering the library every day for a week early in the morning- which would be the right time for my admirer to leave me letters. You also know where my manuscript was because I've talked about it before. And you even went so far as to type and print all your letters so I wouldn't recognize your handwriting…!”

Kawase wanted to curse Minakami- he had no idea that someone was watching him in secret. Kawase was aware of Minakami's strange passion for stories (and for Tamamori himself), and so he should have known that he would go looking for the culprit who stole the manuscript. Kawase's heart was beating rapidly in his chest, but his face showed none of it. 

"What, do you think you're some kind of detective? Did you go and read Sherlock Holmes again? It's just too bad you've based all of your so-called evidence on things that don't prove it was me," Kawase said. "What I don't understand, Tamamori-kun, is why you're so obsessed with trying to find someone that was likely trying to bully you. What would you even do if you found your little admirer? Beg them to accept you, even knowing they probably weren't serious?"

Kawase was doing his very best to cut Tamamori down again, but it wouldn’t work this time. Tamamori had found all the evidence he needed to prove that Kawase had written the letters, and he wasn’t leaving without getting any answers.

"Maybe you were serious, maybe you weren't serious, I don't know. But I want to know why… why did you take my manuscript hostage so that I would be forced to write letters back and forth with you? And why did you write that you loved me but didn't feel like you could be with me? Is that something someone would write if you were just joking?"

Kawase felt a pang of something in his chest, a strange amalgamation of irritation and fear. "Well, I've never read those letters you received, so I don't know what they say... But either way, do you really think I'm the kind of guy to write something lovey-dovey? Why would I do something like that? I like to bully you, but I don't need gross, mushy words to do that- I can do it just fine all by myself."

"Back when… Back when I confessed my love for you at the library, and you scolded me for telling such a mean joke, you said you'd never date anyone, let alone someone like me. You always say that you hate touching other people and that you're grossed out by them, but then you wrote that you thought my hair looked fluffy, and you said that you always wanted to try touching it."

"Isn't that just more evidence that I didn't write you those letters? I really do hate being touched by just anyone," Kawase said.

"But I know you’re my secret admirer.!" Tamamori insisted.

"And why's that?"

"Because I know whoever wrote those letters had my manuscript. I knew that, and I know that you're a chronic liar, so that's why I went to your house."

It was then that Tamamori produced a wad of manuscript papers, bound together by a single iron ring that had been fed through a hole-punch. The papers were thick, and somewhat heavy. If Kawase stole them, he probably wouldn't want to carry them around with him everywhere- especially because hanging around Tamamori every day meant risking him seeing it in his messenger bag. If that was the case, what would he do with a manuscript that he stole?

…He'd take it to his house and leave it there.

"Your little sister let me into your house and showed me your room. I found this in there. That confirms it- that confirms that you were the one that wrote me all those love letters, Kawase!"

It seemed that Kawase had underestimated Tamamori's determination to find his secret admirer. He had intended to take Tamamori's manuscript back to school with him and leave it in his shoe locker the next day, but he hadn't done it soon enough. To top it all off, his little half-sister that he had a soft spot for had led Tamamori right to the stolen manuscript…

More than anything, Kawase wanted to deny Tamamori's words and reject the truth in front of him, but he could not find anything to say. Instead, he sat rigidly still on the park bench, looking at Tamamori with a plethora of mixed emotions.

Because Kawase hadn’t said anything, Tamamori spoke again. "In my last letter, I told you about what happened after I confessed to you at the library… Nya-nyahaha… I thought you must really think I was disgusting, and I cried until I couldn't breathe anymore…"

How many times had Kawase replayed that scene in his head over and over again? How many times had he wanted to take it all back, to do it all over again? Oh, how he wished to give his desires and affections, ignoring the fear that lingered in his heart.

Tamamori continued. "It was fine if you didn't like me- no one can force someone else to like them… But why, after everything that happened… Why did you go through all that trouble to set up a trap where I would write letters to you? Was it really just because you wanted revenge?"

A sense of defeat had taken hold of Kawase, mixing with a feeling that he couldn't name. He dug his fingernails deep into the wood of the bench he was sitting on, watching Tamamori carefully. His back was against the wall, and he found himself losing his apprehensions.

"What if I told you that you don't want to like me?" Kawase spoke quietly.

Kawase had tilted his head down at the ground, and he was turned slightly away from Tamamori. Because he could no longer see his eyes, Tamamori slid forward on the bench and craned his neck to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

Tamamori was bent into a funny shape when he was trying to look at him like that, and Kawase only wanted to bend him into an even funnier shape. 

"Here, come closer- I'll show you what I mean."

Tamamori slowly slid over closer to Kawase on the bench. It was then that he grabbed him. Kawase wrapped his fingers around Tamamori's jaw, and pulled him into a vicious kiss. Tamamori made a noise of surprise, and his shoulders jolted.

It was very rough and ungraceful. It was only a kiss between two high school students, but it was the kind that showed a longing that had built up over the years. The fingernails that had dug into the wood of the bench were now digging cruelly into the soft flesh of Tamamori's cheeks, but in spite of everything, he tried kissing him back.

Tamamori really was inexperienced in every sense of the word, and even if he liked the idea of kissing Kawase, he didn't have enough grace to do it properly. He tried to lean into Kawase, but it was then that he ended up bumping their noses together painfully.

"O-ouch!" Tamamori cried out, pulling away suddenly.

When Kawase heard Tamamori cry out, he laughed. He laughed and laughed at him until there were tears in his eyes.

"Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I mean when I say that you don't want to like me? I'll hurt you…" Even though Kawase said those words, his voice was one filled with joy. It seemed that he really had taken pleasure in Tamamori getting hurt- but they had only bumped noses together…

Tamamori just looked at him stupidly, rubbing his nose. "But you didn't hurt me… all that you did was kiss me."

"But I will hurt you, if you stay near me. Back at the library, I didn't want to accept your confession, because I knew if I did, there would come a day when I could no longer stop myself from sinking my teeth into you."

He might have been naive, but even he knew what Kawase really meant by ‘sinking his teeth into’ him. Tamamori was rather inexperienced when it came to things of that nature, but it wasn’t like he hated the idea. In fact, he was somewhat pleased to find out that Kawase wouldn’t have a problem with touching him.

“Can you really stand to touch me? I thought you would hate the idea of touching someone else, even if it was something like holding hands,” Tamamori said.

Kawase thought he might scare Tamamori off with his words, but he had only drawn him closer.

“I lied to you- I’m not actually grossed out by you touching me. It’s just other people that make my skin crawl. You… Well, I guess it’s different with you,” Kawase said. “That’s why I want you to understand, Tamamori-kun, that I’m completely serious about warning you about me.”

It seemed that Kawase still intended to push him away, even at this point. Did Kawase really think that about himself- that he was some kind of monster and that Tamamori was some kind of delicate little fawn that couldn’t protect himself? Tamamori didn’t see it like that at all.

"Kawase, the truth is, I don't really understand things like love or dating. I don't understand why people say the things they do, nor why they feel one way or another. I don't have a clue, honestly. But…

"Lately, for some reason I can't explain, when I go to sleep at night, I dream about you. I dream about holding your hand, about eating dinner together, and about kissing you. I didn't know what it all meant, and when I tried to look it up online, the only thing I found was some stupid forum where everyone insisted that meant I was in love with you. Even though I wanted to deny it at first… I don't know if I can."

An irritated look crossed Kawase’s face and his brow twitched. "So all of this was because you saw something online? Doesn't that just make you an easily influenceable idiot?"

"Y-you're so mean to me! Oh, forget it…" Tamamori shook his head. "I don't care if you think I'm stupid, I just realized what I was already feeling. More than anything, what I really want to know now is… Kawase, do you like me?"

What a stupid question! Did he like him? This guy was really clueless, he was utterly naive! Even after everything, he still had a question like that. Kawase wanted to lie to his face, he wanted to mock him for daring to think that anyone might ever like him.

But then, that wasn't what Kawase really wanted, was it? No, that wasn't true. What he wanted, what he really wanted was… 

He wanted to be with him.

After agonizing over it so much, Kawase decided he didn’t want to be alone anymore. He couldn’t live with himself knowing he had turned Tamamori down out of fear… And so he said, "Of course I like you. I like you so much that I could be sick. Didn’t I tell you when I wrote to you… I feel a special connection to you like I’ve never had with anyone else.”

“Then, Kawase, will you accept this letter I wrote to you?

It was then that Tamamori pulled out yet another envelope. It was stark white and smooth, completely blank save for a red heart sticker that had been placed on the front. He handed it over to Kawase who took the letter and spun it around in his hands a few times. He opened the letter, and pulled out a sheet of manuscript paper…

On it, there were only a few words written in the center-

'I like you! Will you go out with me?'