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He sits on Nemuri’s couch, out of costume, the bombastic Present Mic stripped away, and even the shinier parts of Hizashi Yamada have been set aside. All that remains is himself, open and vulnerable.
Hizashi hunches his shoulders, shrinking in on himself. He wrings his hands in his lap, his face scrunched up painfully. His sorry, whispered admission leaves a sour taste on his tongue.
“Hizashi…”
Nemuri’s delicate hand slips into his own. She gives it a squeeze, her hold strong and grounding. He focuses on it to distract from the ache threatening to cave his chest in, the tightness of his throat, the stinging in his eyes.
There’s a bitterness in his heart, a frustration, a longing, and yet there’s also guilt. He feels selfish. He always feels selfish, for wanting more than he has. He feels like a bad friend. He knows he is, because how can he be a good friend if he looks at the person he cares about the most and feels...disappointment?
“Hizashi…” Nemuri speaks again, her gentle, nurturing tone keeping him from sinking back into his thoughts. For now.
A careful touch at his jaw lifts his weary head and he’s looking into her eyes. There’s a crease between her brows, a set to her mouth as she readies to impart her wisdom, always at the ready at times like these.
“Sometimes…” she draws her lips into her mouth, as if tasting what she’s about to say. “Sometimes a friend won’t be there for you the way you want them to be.”
This painful sentiment hangs in the air. Hizashi’s face crumples further.
Nemuri squeezes his hand again, sighing. She frowns into the distance, regretful yet honest. “It’s not because they don’t want to. Sometimes they just...can’t.”
He swallows thickly against the lump in his throat, and Nemuri slides her hand to the back of his neck, guiding him to rest against her bosom. He winds his arms around her waist, clinging tight as she pets his hair.
“...you’re not selfish for wanting more, you know,” she assures him quietly as she presses her cheek to the crown of his head. “When it comes to our hearts, it’s only natural to want to get as much as we give.”
He has nothing to say, for once. It’s what he needs to hear, yet at the same time it’s so disappointing. The void in his heart only expands. Long years of chipping away more and more of that beating organ to lay out on the plate for another is adding up. It’s never been more apparent, that endless longing.
It’s a lonely feeling.
Nemuri holds him tighter, and even in her warm embrace, the cold seeps in, settling into his bones.
He releases a shuddering breath.