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One day you'll tell him. One day.
Maybe today.
He holds the door open for you as you leave class. It's nothing, really, but yet another careless kindness—the kind he does so often it takes your breath away. Bag slung over one arm, hair sticking up in the same unpredictable pattern of always, the smile that slashes his face is a soft one, familiar. You can feel yourself curling into the same shape.
You fall out into the sunshine together. Your hands never meet, but his swinging arms remain in reach, even so.
***
You used to have dreams about having friends. They were faceless, nameless masses. They would grab your arms and take your clothes. They always held too tight.
I don't need friends, you told yourself. I'm fine like this. You whispered it like a prayer into your pillow. You slept in a blanket of your own protection.
I'm okay. I'm fine on my own.
I don't need anyone.
***
He was nothing to you the day you met him. You judged him. His trendy clothes, his dyed hair, his headphones, his shitty bike. How unfortunate.
He clung to your hand desperately. His fingers sweaty, his eyes alive with something like a fire.
“Let's be partners,” he said, and you had no heart to tell him no.
He thinks you liked him. He thinks it was affection and not indifference that allowed you to accept him so easily. His Shadow surprised you not at all. The truth is, you're well-acquainted with the troubles that others like to hide.
You don't know why he puts up with you. You're kind to him, but only on a schedule you set. Some days he comes to you begging you for help, and you turn him down for basketball practice. You hate the way you treat him. You hate that he's too desperate to protest.
You haven't hated anyone this much since that boy in middle school, the one who shared lunch with you on the days Mom forgot to pack you anything. He had crooked teeth and a laugh like a rusty hinge. You used to think about kissing him.
Instead, you told him you didn't want to see him anymore and ate lunch on the other side of the classroom.
You don't remember his name. One day, you wonder if Yosuke will be the same way.
***
One day you'll tell him. You'll get past the block in your throat and the place where the words aren't. You'll explain, in some way he'll understand, how terrified he makes you. You just aren't built to love people. The closer they get, the more you resent them. The more your carelessness can hurt them.
It's the simple fact of potential energy. Inaba wraps around you like a spring. The closer everything becomes, the worse it will hurt the day it snaps.
You dread it. You long for it. Living with loss is easier than living with the pit in your stomach, the threat of it, anticipation with every mark on the calendar.
Some days you stare at Yosuke's lips. You think of your arms around him on the sunlit Samegawa. You think of days that read like nostalgic novels where everything works out in the end.
It's foolishness. A feeling you are well familiar with.
***
He walks you home. Your feet drag in the dirt. You can hear your mother scolding you for scuffing your shoes. But this is Inaba, and here, childhood rules no longer apply.
Yosuke stops walking. It's so abrupt you almost hit him. “We're here,” he says, like it's not obvious.
Maybe it's not. Maybe he's quietly wishing for the same thing you are—a reason to keep walking, to stay out late, to never go home.
He touches your shoulder. It almost makes you flinch, but you withhold the impulse for his sake. You don't want to spook him.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
How does he know? How does he always know, when you say nothing, what you really mean?
You need to tell him. He deserves to hear you say it. The fears, the distance, the sleepless nights, the days you don't want to wake up. You want to share it all. You want to pour your weight onto his shoulders so he can carry it instead.
Could he shoulder that burden? Could you really let yourself become a parasite on his skin, feasting on his strength, his support, his kindness? Even if he asked you to, would that make it all right?
You don't tell him today. The weather's too nice, his mood too bright. And tomorrow, if it rains, you won't tell him, because the world will be too heavy and the light too dim.
But someday. One day, the weather will be just right. The sky will clear and the wind will howl, and in some moment you can’t yet imagine, you'll tell him. Someday. After the rain.