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It's just turning to autumn when you ask him to meet you out back after school.
His eyes widen in that way you've seen them do a hundred times in the past year; when he's been caught off guard by a pop quiz, a practical joke. When he bumped into you last month, spilling your class' printouts all over the floor. He's a lot less frantic than he was then; he just watches bug-eyed as you finish your speech and bow your head and hold out your little envelope, the one sealed with a heart, and it's almost better than if he'd looked how he usually does, cool, and composed, and handsome, and—
It's cliche. But he's the kind of boy that makes you want to do these sorts of silly things.
He takes the letter. You lift your head. Your face feels hot.
He looks sad. His lower lip between his teeth.
“I'm sorry,” Medaka says. The envelope crumples slightly in his grip. He winces and tries to straighten it out. “I'm really sorry. I have—”
His thumb brushes over the heart sticker. He extends his arm.
“...I'm sorry.”
He's still got that hurt look on his face, even as you thank him for listening, but he manages a smile when you tell him that it's really all okay. And to yourself, you say, that you aren't really that surprised. You bow your head once again. He bows back. You're around the corner before he can see you cry.
You can't help but wonder how he would've finished that sentence. It didn't feel right at the time to push. 'A girlfriend'? 'A boyfriend'? 'Someone I like already?'. It doesn't really matter. They all amount to the same thing, as far as it concerns you. It's just.
What's he like, around the person he likes? Does he get shy? Does he go on the attack? You've seen him rushing to class in the morning, sometimes, when his hair's still a mess and he's got his glasses on—when he looks like, if he opened up his mouth, you'd see a row of razors instead of anything human. One time he scared you so badly you thought your heart might leap up out of your throat. But he's always smiling whenever you pass by his classroom, despite the weird rumors. He never looks—
—he never looks like he did when you told him.
You want to see. You want to see what he looks like when he's looking at them.
When he comes back from lunch, you glimpse it once. Flushed cheeks. His lip between his teeth, holding back a smile rather than apology. You are seventeen, and it's ridiculous to think, and surely, surely you will live to see far more smiles, but your heart is heavy with the thought there will be none more beautiful than this.
It's not stalking. It's really not. You go to the same school. Your classes are right next to each other. It's not stalking to watch him leave his classroom. And even if it was, it's not like you're—you're not that kind of person. Not like—
If you wanted, you could even ask if you could join him. You don't think he'd say no, even knowing what he does now.
But you don't ask him. You just watch.
He always takes lunch on the emergency stairs, even now, in winter. And if you happen to take your lunch just below; well, that's just coincidence, isn't it?
There's a boy with him. The peals of laughter coming from above certainly don't belong to Medaka. You've heard him laugh and it doesn't—it doesn't sound like this. You don't even have words for what this is. The other boy's laughter starts out restrained and only grows stronger as lunch goes on. You can't hear their conversation, only the tones. At one point, an 'oof' from Medaka, as the boy above makes an earnest attempt at sounding angry, and fails, utterly and completely.
Even as you envy him, you understand him completely.
It's cold out here. Even more so, unprotected by the winds.
But you keep eating outside. Listening to those magical sounds.
You can't help yourself.
The first snow of winter comes, and all is pure and beautiful. Listening isn't enough. You want—
You need to—
You can't bear not knowing. It hurts. He must look so beautiful when he listens to that perfect laugh. You want to see. You want to see. You want to see.
You watch him open the door. You wait. You watch him descend the stairs. You wait.
“Nikaidou,” he says, his voice soft and fond, like he's talking to an animal that might be spooked away he if he doesn't approach it right, and that can't be right. That can't be right. How can that be right?
Your mind flashes to all the times you've passed his classroom. All the excuses you've made, to go to the bathroom, to go to the nurse's office, just for a few seconds through a window, and there was someone behind him, wasn't there, someone you surely should have noticed, but tried not to, because a glimpse at Medaka's easy smile melted any anxiety in your heart.
And you peek around the corner, just as Nikaidou turns his head, and you watch his brow soften and his brown eyes brighten and sparkle and start to crinkle behind those outdated glasses. And you understand.
You understand.
Surely they hear the door slam shut behind you. You can imagine Nikaidou's beautiful face (his real one, his real one, how can that be his real one?) slipping back into one of misery, and that is a tragedy too, but more tragic is the hurt look you know must be on Medaka's face, the one you've put there twice, twice more than such a thing should have ever been allowed to happen. As you round the corner and lock the stall in the bathroom, Nikaidou's smile is behind your eyelids, and its brightness brings with it hot tears, like you're staring at the sun.
Medaka calls your name from out in the hall. Once. Twice.
You wonder if he's still out there. You could still apologize. And he would understand, and tell you not to worry, and maybe his hand would even find it's way to the top of your head in comfort, because he's a kind boy even when you and the entire school are rotten.
You never got to see what you were looking for, from Medaka. But it isn't hard to imagine. You saw that perfect smile. That brilliantly shining smile, the one that seemed to beam outwards and turn all the piles of snow to fields of glittering diamonds, to turn the frosted tree branches to softly swaying sun-catchers. To turn the sick, icy feeling in your heart to gently over-flowing morning dew.
You can't stop thinking about it. But you know it is still only the second most beautiful thing you've seen.
It's not even close.