Chapter Text
Yuuta was in Toge’s bedroom when he woke up. He already was half-aware of it when he started to stir to consciousness, but Yuuta wasn’t even trying to be quiet, really. He was sitting on the other side of the room, scrolling through his phone, but he was shaking his leg, which shook the desk he was sitting at, which rattled against the wall. He didn’t see Toge blink his eyes open yet, so Toge got to observe him in the short moments before he realized.
Yuuta’s hair was shaggy, hanging in his eyes almost with his head tilted down. He was frowning at his phone screen, scrolling almost aggressively with his thumb. Toge watched the emotions pass in rapid succession. His heart, notoriously weak, puttered pitifully in his chest. He could hear an echo of criticisms in the back of his mind, all from his most recent friends. The only reason he even really considered their opinion was because they were Yuuta’s friends, too. They were more well-meaning than other criticisms Toge had gotten in the past.
Toge shifted on the bed to signal that he was awake. He rolled onto his back and stretched, letting out a long sigh that turned into a yawn.
When he opened his eyes, Yuuta was nearing him, phone put away, face sweet and happy. “Good morning, angel,” he said, leaning over him. He brought Toge to a sitting position as he sat next to him on the bed.
Toge hummed quietly, still feeling sleepy as he blinked awake.
Yuuta’s hands were gentle and warm as they pushed his hair out of his face. “Are you awake, Toge?”
Toge nodded, but leaned the weight of his head into Yuuta’s palm.
A small laugh left Yuuta’s throat. He leaned in and nuzzled his nose into Toge’s cheek affectionately. “Wake up, wake up,” he murmured.
“I’m up,” Toge murmured, raspy from sleep.
“I checked the group chat,” Yuuta said. “You didn’t mention going out tonight.”
“Yeah,” Toge said, already expecting it. “Because you’re supposed to read group chats when you’re a part of them, Yuuta.”
“But I can’t go tonight.”
“Why not?” Toge asked, pulling his head back enough to look at him.
“My lab runs late tonight,” Yuuta said, frowning at him.
“Until when?”
“Should be done around eight,” Yuuta continued, frown deepening.
“Oh, that’s not so bad. Just join us after.”
“Toge.”
“Yuuta,” Toge replied. He said again, firmer, “Yuuta.”
Yuuta let out a long, arduous huff, and moved to stand. He brought Toge up with him. “Okay…Fine. Make sure your phone is charged?” He said it like a question.
Toge nodded.
Yuuta reached down to hug him. His head was close, pressed and leaning against Toge’s. “Love you.”
“Love you,” Toge murmured. He patted Yuuta’s back soothingly until he let go and left Toge’s room to go to class. Toge watched him go, his own discomfort coming in to rise up against Yuuta’s. It was symbiotic almost—Yuuta was anxious when Toge was out of his sight for too long and Toge was anxious thinking about Yuuta being anxious. It was an unbeatable cycle.
__________
“So…”
Toge could hear it in the tone of Maki’s voice. He stiffened up, already mentally prepped for the inevitable conversation. It always came up, any time either he or Yuuta made any friends.
“What’s with the whole Yuuta thing?” Her tone was casual, borderline disinterested, but Toge was learning that was just her way of speaking. Bringing it up at all meant that she thought it was relevant enough to mention.
“What do you mean?” Toge asked, though he already knew.
“Okkotsu is, by no stretch of the imagination, up your ass. That’s what I mean. What’s the deal?”
“We’re close,” Toge said. “Best friends.”
Maki snorted. “Sure, but most best friends I know aren’t glued to the hip. And trust me, I’ve seen my fair share of codependent friendships throughout university, but this really reaches a new level. Not only is Yuuta up your ass, he also freaks the fuck out when he’s not able to be up your ass.”
“He gets anxious,” Toge said.
“No shit.”
Toge was almost sick of talking about it now that it’d been so long. It’d been almost fourteen years of the same discussion, over and over. On the bright side, that meant he’d learned a very succinct way of discussing it. “We were involved in a fatal accident when we were about eight,” Toge said simply. “It wasn’t fatal for us, obviously, but it left an impression.”
Maki blinked at him, clearly not expecting it, but maintaining her coolly blank expression. “… I see.”
Toge nodded and picked at the food on his plate. She let the silence linger as she considered what to say next. The sound of the cafeteria was buzzing in the background.
“Who died?” she asked bluntly.
“Our other friend,” Toge said. “The three of us were in the backseat, on the way home from the park. The car was t-boned on her side, I was in the middle. She and her mom in the passenger seat were killed. Yuuta and her dad were mostly ok, but had some minor injuries.”
Maki eyed him, up and down. “And you?”
“Took a while to walk again,” Toge said. He paused and considered. He liked Maki, and Yuuta liked her too. He didn’t want to push her away. “He thought I died, too, at first.”
Maki’s face changed a little, pinching slightly at the corners of her mouth.
“He says he was awake when the paramedics came, and he had been the only one to see the aftermath. The rest of us were either dead or unconscious. He says that the paramedics came, and overheard that two of us were dead. Based on what he’d seen, I guess, he concluded that it had to have been our friend and me. According to him, I looked worse than her mom.”
Maki’s arms were crossed, and her brows were furrowed as she stared at him.
“Yuuta’s intense,” Toge said. “He has been since even before that. So when that happened, it got worse. It’s just who he is.”
As though understanding that his tone meant that she had to put up with it, or not be friends, she nodded. “I get it,” she sighed.
Right as she finished her sentence, Toge’s phone pinged. He glanced down at it.
Class was canceled. Wait for me?
Toge checked his location. He was barely two minutes away.
“Was that him?”
Toge looked back at her. “Yes.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“What was it like for you? After everything.”
Toge poked at his plate again with his fork. “Different. The same. Different though.”
“What the hell kind of answer is that?”
Toge’s lips twitched. “I don’t really know. I was really sad about Rika and her mom. It was hard to think about it at that age, when I could barely move. I kept thinking about me, and I used to feel guilty about that.”
“Makes sense,” Maki affirmed with a nod. “Not being able to walk at eight… someone would have had to sedate me.”
Toge laughed and nodded. “Yeah. I could barely move, and couldn’t talk much for a long time. I had some damage everywhere, it felt like. Yuuta was only able to visit me sometimes, which I think was what really made all of this—the way that it is.”
“Ah,” she said, like that explained a lot. “So he was just constantly by himself, worrying about you while also grieving his other friend?”
“Yes,” Toge said. “He had a lot of nightmares. Didn’t sleep much. He went back to school while I stayed home for months.”
“Damn,” she sighed. “So you… you feel the same as him?”
“The same, but different. I like to be with him, as much as he likes to be with me. I don’t worry something bad is happening to him when we’re apart the way he does for me, but I worry about him being unhappy. I had a lot of guilt about that, too. I felt like I was the one hurting him, back then.”
Maki let out a hum of understanding. “I get it, I get it.” She studied him. “So… you’re good?”
“I’m good,” Toge said, voice firm.
She cracked a half-smile as she looked over Toge’s shoulder. “Right on time.”
“Toge,” a voice breathed from behind him. A moment later, hands came up over Toge’s shoulders. Yuuta leaned into him, face nuzzling into Toge’s cheek. “Toge,” he repeated.
Toge turned into him, catching his hand and holding it, fingers interlocking. “Yuuta,” he said.
“Why didn’t you text me back?” Yuuta asked, crouching next to the chair.
“Sorry,” Toge said, “we were talking and I saw you were close.”
Yuuta frowned, but didn’t argue. He pressed their faces together again, nosing at Toge’s hair. He breathed in deeply. “Happy to see you.”
Toge smiled when Yuuta pulled away. He pinched his cheek. “Me too.”
__________
“Toge,” Yuuta said, breathless and practically panting. His voice was croaky, wet.
“What’s up?” Toge asked, poking a finger into the opposite ear of where his phone was pressed up against. He turned away from the table their friends were at. “You okay?”
Yuuta was silent for a moment. Then, strained, less frantic but still tight, he said, “Just checking in on you.”
“What’s wrong?” Toge repeated.
“Nothing,” Yuuta said. “Nothing, just wanted to hear you.”
Toge’s mouth tightened into a line. “Tell me.”
Yuuta was quiet for several more moments. “…Got a news alert about a crash.”
“Where?” Toge prompted on impulse, though his heart sank at Yuuta’s explanation. It was routine to ask where, to gauge Yuuta’s state of mind.
“…Other side of town,” Yuuta admitted, almost shameful.
“Where are you?”
“The hallway,” Yuuta said. “I left my lab.”
“When will it be over?”
“An hour,” he said, strained.
“Do you want me to come?” Toge asked. “I could probably make it there in like ten minutes—”
“No,” Yuuta said quickly. “No, I don’t want you alone outside, especially—never mind. I’ll come to you.”
“Yuuta,” Toge said. “Don’t miss your lab. Keep your phone face up. I’ll text you every few minutes so you can see it.”
“Toge.”
“Trust our friends, too, Yuuta,” Toge said. “I doubt they want me dead either.”
The word was harsh. Yuuta didn’t like that word. Toge had been trying to desensitize him to it, but hadn’t been particularly successful.
“Toge,” he repeated, a little more anguished that time.
“It’s ok,” Toge said. “It’ll be ok.”
Yuuta was silent on the other end of the line. “Stay on the phone with me for another minute.”
“Sure,” Toge said. “How’s your lab?”
“Fine,” Yuuta muttered. “I don’t want to be here.”
“I know. What are you covering today?”
“We’re tracking bacteria growth. We have a report on it due Monday.”
“Anything interesting?”
“No,” Yuuta said. “Well, there was more growth on a swab from the door handle to our classroom than on a toilet seat.”
Toge smiled. “Yikes.”
“We’re going to comment on the sterilization protocol in our lab.”
“What about other classes and janitors?”
“Outlying variables,” Yuuta responded. “We’ll mention that, too.”
Toge laughed. “Finish soon. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, angel,” Yuuta replied, suddenly sounding emotional.
Toge laughed again. “Big baby.”
“Not fair.”
“I know, but you’re still a big baby.”
“Stay on the phone with me in my lab,” Yuuta pleaded.
“No,” Toge said, trying to be gentle. “We’re practicing, remember?”
“But—”
“Other side of town, Yuuta.”
“Okay,” he muttered.
“I’ll see you in an hour.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text you.”
“Okay.” A pause. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
Toge hung up. He texted Yuuta right away. I love you.
Yuuta’s text was also immediate, the typing bubble popping up the same time Toge was typing. Toge I love you.
Toge sent him a heart emoji.
“You even say I love yous?” came an unimpressed voice.
Nobara was beside him, eyebrow raised as she watched him.
“Leave him alone,” Maki said, nudging her foot from under the table. Nobara looked surprised at that, since Maki was normally the one who backed her up when it came to Yuuta, but there were a few things she let slide. One of those things was the I love yous. Yuuta had a fear of the last thing they said to one another not being that. Toge was used to it. Maki seemed sensitive to it, of all things.
Toge looked at her at the same time she looked at him. She had a questioning look in her eye. At that point, everyone knew why Yuuta was so sensitive and overbearing. Toge explained it quickly. “Car crash on the news.”
Nobara seemed less unimpressed at that.
Maki sighed.
“Shouldn’t Okkotsu-senpai… see someone?” Yuji’s voice was hesitant. He was the last to learn what was going on. Most of the time, the situation was treated somewhat casually. Toge himself treated it casually sometimes, because otherwise he had a feeling it would make it a thousand times more serious for Yuuta if he were to make it serious.
“Yuuta is stubborn,” Toge said. “Whether he sees someone or not, this is how he is.”
“So he’s tried seeing someone before?” Maki asked.
Toge nodded. “Several times.”
“And it didn’t help,” she concluded.
“No,” Toge said. “He’d do better for a little bit, but each time, it became apparent he was actually worse, but was just practicing because he was being told to. It ended badly each time.”
Maki frowned. “Isn’t it their job to make sure he doesn’t do that?”
“Yes,” Toge said. “But Yuuta would lie. And Yuuta doesn’t want to change.”
Maki relented with a heavy exhale. She shrugged. “Well, it is what it is.”
“It doesn’t seem like a good way to live,” Yuji piped in. “Wouldn’t he be happier if he wasn’t worried all the time?”
“That’s assuming he has the ability to handle the stress of getting to that point,” Maki said. “Which I don’t think he has right now.”
“We have a good system,” Toge argued, starting to feel defensive, as he often did when discussions like that happened. “It’s just more strained right now because of school and the fact that the schedule changes a few times a year. We’re fine.”
His phone vibrated in his hand. Toge?
Toge typed out a reply. Still kicking.
“Is he ok?” Megumi was the one to speak up then. He had a slight frown on his face. Toge found him endearingly serious.
“He’s ok,” Toge confirmed.
Megumi nodded and said no more.
The rest of Yuuta’s lab passed with no other problems. Toge texted him every few minutes, and a few times, Yuuta couldn’t wait and texted him in-between. It didn’t take up the full hour, thankfully, and was only about thirty more minutes before he was on his way to the restaurant.
When he was close, Toge stood up. They knew, at this point in their friendship, that he was going out to meet him. Given Yuuta’s current state, sitting in a crowded restaurant wasn’t a good idea for the reunion.
Toge made his way toward the door, watching Yuuta’s location inch closer and closer, until he was right on top of Toge’s blue dot. He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. When Yuuta laid his eyes on him, they filled, and his lip wobbled just slightly.
It made the corners of Toge’s lips tug up. He opened his arms and Yuuta filled them at once. He buried his face into Toge’s throat, arms wrapping around his shoulders snug and warm. Toge held onto him in return, rubbing his hand up and down his back.
“I’m ok,” he soothed. “I’m here.”
Yuuta’s fingers gripped one of his shoulders from behind. “I knew it wasn’t you,” he whispered. “But I kept thinking about it. What if it was? What would I do, what would it feel like? I thought about it so much I started to believe it.”
Toge hummed sympathetically, still stroking up and down Yuuta’s back.
“I started to smell it,” Yuuta said. “The burnt rubber, and hot metal, and gasoline.”
“Yuuta,” Toge said lowly. “I know where you’re going with that. Don’t think about it.”
“But—”
“Don’t,” Toge insisted. “You wouldn’t even expect Yuji at his age now to be responsible for the impossible. Why eight-year-old you? You did everything you could.”
“What if something happens to you?”
Toge sighed. He knew there was nothing he could say at that point. “I’m here. Nothing bad happens to me when you’re around.”
“But you—”
“I’m fine now. I’ve been fine. Nothing bad happens to me when you’re with me and nothing bad has happened when you’re not.”
“What if—”
“Yeah, what if?” Toge interrupted. “Be here, with me.”
They stood outside, embracing, for several more minutes. The few times Toge tried to pull back, Yuuta held on. Eventually, he was able to be coaxed into going inside with Toge. They rejoined the table, and Yuuta squished into the booth with Toge and Nobara. He had a hand on Toge’s leg the whole time, sometimes squeezing and pulling, and sometimes just resting there.
He was tense the rest of the night, but not unpleasant like he sometimes was. Sometimes, he was angry, defensive, but that was normally under different circumstances. Whenever it was something about crashes, or anything that reminded him of that, he was his normal self, but anxious.
When they got back to their shared apartment, Toge was unsurprised when Yuuta followed him around like a puppy, unwilling to part for a moment. When he climbed into Toge’s bed instead of his own, Toge was again unsurprised. If anything, he was able to admit to himself in the quiet of his room, that he was relieved, too. Yuuta was so affected by what had happened that his own experience got lost in the scuffle. His own unrest was somewhere in there, too, however, mingling so seamlessly with Yuuta’s that it made no noise at all.
_________
Toge woke, and he woke facing Yuuta. Yuuta was still holding onto him, hugging him close to his chest, tucked under Yuuta’s chin. Toge stared at Yuuta’s collarbone in the sleepy silence of his bedroom, the only other sound the faint hum of the mini fridge in the corner by the window. Yuuta’s breathing was slow and even, despite the tight grip that he had.
Tilting his face up, Toge could see Yuuta’s chin and the slope of his nose. At the movement, Yuuta’s brows twitched into a frown and his grip tightened further. He nuzzled in, face pressing to Toge’s. His nose pressed to Toge’s cheekbone, and his mouth rested right near Toge’s mouth.
Toge wondered if Yuuta thought about Toge like he was an option. Toge thought about Yuuta like that. In fact, he couldn’t imagine life without him, and he guiltily, always guiltily, felt relieved that Yuuta lived, and wasn’t sitting to Toge’s left. That was what made Toge wonder. He wondered if Yuuta would have been the exact way he was with Toge with Rika instead, if their seats had been switched. If Toge was on the left side of the car, and Rika in the middle, would he do this with her, thirteen years later? Was he also secretly relieved? If he was secretly relieved, was it real, or the result of their closeness after the accident?
Those thoughts trapped Toge as much as Yuuta’s anxiety trapped Yuuta. Toge himself knew it wasn’t the accident causing their closeness that made Toge relieved it wasn’t Yuuta who died. He knew, because the moment he woke up and realized what had happened, he’d begged the universe to have spared him and Yuuta’s face peering at his own wasn’t a dream, and when he learned that Rika and her mother died, he was devastated, but even then, had been relieved it wasn’t Yuuta.
Yuuta hadn’t handled Rika’s death well, on top of everything else. He felt a lot of guilt, as though he couldn’t have prevented it somehow. He anguished over it so much that Toge wasn’t sure if he ever laid in bed and wished it had been Toge instead.
That thought, that fear, had never left the confines of his head, but it tortured him. As Yuuta was tortured over fear, Toge was tortured over fear, too. They were just afraid of very different things.
Suddenly, Yuuta jerked, and his face pinched tight, and his hands squeezed almost painfully. “Toge,” he said, strangled.
Toge reached up to touch his face. “I’m here,” he murmured, stroking his cheek until Yuuta settled back down again. “I’m here.”
__________
Yuuta was protective. That was not an unknown fact. Everyone who knew of one of them knew of the other. However, his protectiveness knew no bounds. He was protective about everything. Safety, Toge’s mood, even over whether he was being inconvenienced. That meant that around new people, Yuuta was without question protective about that, too.
He hovered when he felt defensive.
Toge never argued and never reprimanded him, though some people (Maki and Nobara) thought he should.
They were at a party, and Yuuta hovered like a guard dog, staying no more than a foot away. When Toge met someone, he was right there, perfectly pleasant and polite, but quick to be defensive, or suspicious. Some people who were well-meaning passed his mysterious tests, but some never made it beyond introductions. Toge wasn’t sure what it was Yuuta was looking for to deem what made someone unsafe or not, but he didn’t really mind either way.
He was giving Toge his singular breather by going to get them more drinks after leaving Toge with Maki. The moment he was out of earshot, she was rounding Toge with her classic stare of disapproval.
“What now?” he asked.
“You like that he’s so crazy,” she said. It was more of an accusation, really. “You never prompt him to improve because you like this.”
Toge found that questionable. “I don’t want him to be miserable and anxious all the time.”
“Maybe not that part, but the rest, you like it. Don’t you?”
Toge avoided her gaze, shrugging.
“You’re crazier than he is,” she said, shaking her head. “In fact, maybe you’re the only crazy one, letting him go on like this.”
Unfortunately, she was hitting Toge right where it hurt. He felt a twinge, violently twisting his chest. His throat suddenly felt tight, and he swallowed twice in succession, hoping to get rid of the lump forming.
At his silence, she studied him closer, and started to look surprised. “…Toge?”
“I…He—I—” Toge didn’t know what he wanted to say. His mouth was opening to reply, but he couldn’t come up with anything that sounded good. His throat was tightening even further. His eyes began to grow misty, just slightly. As it often had been since the accident, his throat was quick to ache when he was upset. That feeling had always made him feel like his voice was taken from him.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said hesitantly, frowning at him then. “Why are you crying?”
Toge swallowed again, harder that time. “It’s nothing,” he rasped out, the sound coming out breathy.
She looked pensive as she started to consider her words. While she did so, unfortunately Yuuta had returned. When he rounded Toge to hand him a new drink, he looked at his face. It fell immediately, paling, like seeing damp eyes was something terrible.
“Toge?” he asked urgently. He leaned in. “Angel, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he whispered, reaching out to grasp the drink Yuuta was handing him.
Yuuta didn’t let him take it, however, because he was whirling on Maki. “What happened? Did you say something? Was it someone else?”
Maki was unimpressed with the mini interrogation. She shook her head as a response and walked away, with a lingering gaze at Toge that promised a later discussion.
Yuuta sputtered for a moment but didn’t follow. He set the drinks down on a nearby end table and grasped the upper part of Toge’s arms as he peered down at him.
“Toge,” he said. “What is it?”
Toge blinked away the rest of the tears. “Nothing, Yuuta, she just was being insensitive.”
“About what?” Yuuta urged, fingers tightening. He already knew, however, that it had to have been about them. Things like that always were. “Toge.”
“It’s alright, it just made me a little emotional. She didn’t say anything bad, it just made me think about everything.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Yuuta,” Toge murmured.
Yuuta looked upset, but didn’t argue any more. He gathered Toge up into his arms and pressed his mouth to his hair. Toge felt his eyes sting again. He squeezed them shut and wrapped his arms around Yuuta in return. Maybe Toge did like it, like she accused. But he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to let Yuuta go.
Later that night, when they’d gone back to their dorms, Maki had texted Toge, demanding he speak to her outside of the apartment when Yuuta fell asleep. He knew the conversation would be coming after what had happened at the party. After Maki had walked away, Yuuta hadn’t let Toge out of sight for a second, and he was quick to anger at anyone who they interacted with.
Toge, though he normally liked his clinginess as Maki had said, began to feel stifled. Her words had pierced him, to the point that he felt like he needed to think it through, but he couldn’t do that with Yuuta hanging on him.
Disentangling himself from Yuuta’s hold would be the hardest part, but Toge would make it work. He had to. He wanted to talk to Maki maybe even more than Maki did.
Yuuta fell asleep after only about ten minutes. Toge gave it ten more minutes before he began the slow extraction. That in itself took ten minutes, too, with the amount of moving and stopping he did. Toge stroked his hair and his cheek to settle him after he’d completely detached himself.
He got up carefully, made sure Yuuta didn’t wake, and then tiptoed his way out of Yuuta’s bedroom and out the front door.
Maki was sitting on the floor on the opposite wall. She nodded at him when he laid eyes on her.
Toge closed the door quietly behind him and sat down against it, facing her.
“What was that about?” she asked directly.
Toge had his knees up, and he looked at his hands were they rested on top. He shrugged a little. “What you said really struck me.”
“No,” she said, “it was more than that. Normally when people call you out, you get defensive, not upset.”
His shoulders were drawn up and tense. He couldn’t look at her. “You were right,” he said, so quiet it was practically inaudible. “I’m the bad one.”
“No one said anything about being bad,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but that’s what you meant,” Toge muttered back. “And you’re right—It’s not Yuuta, it’s me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “He does plenty on his own.”
“Yeah, but I let him.”
“This isn’t new, Toge. Why did you get upset today of all days?”
He didn’t want to speak it out loud, but he also felt desperate to say it to someone. He swallowed. “I was relieved, when I found out it was Rika and not him.”
Maki was silent.
“I don’t remember anything about the crash. We were driving one moment, and the next, I was in the hospital, and I couldn’t talk or move.”
“So?” she asked bluntly.
“I know that how I feel is how I always felt,” Toge said. “But I don’t know if it’s the same for him. He was equally intense with the both of us, and was devastated that Rika died and that he didn’t save her. I don’t know if what’s between us now is just because of the accident, or if he feels differently. What if he wishes it was me instead? Like how I was grateful it wasn’t him. What if the person who died is who he would have wanted to live instead, if one of us had to go?”
Maki sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy shit,” she said. “That’s dark as hell, Toge.”
Toge nodded. He really couldn’t look at her. “If he wasn’t like this, he might realize that he wished it was me.”
“Jesus, don’t say stuff like that,” she said incredulously. “That’s so—it’s not even remotely close to how this kind of thing works. It’s normal to be relieved if you felt closer to him. It’s natural. But for him to wish it was you who died? No way. No fucking way.”
“You know how he is,” Toge muttered back, voice still low. His throat still hurt from the amount of times he’d held back tears the whole night. “If I was in another crash tonight, with you, and I died and you didn’t—he would without a doubt wish it had been you. You know that.”
Maki’s mouth flattened.
“So, between me and Rika, who’s to say, really? Maybe he’d wish for the lesser of two.”
“This is so fucked,” she said with a heavy sigh. She tipped her head back and it thumped against the wall. “So you’re scared he wishes it was Rika he was doing all of this with. And you’re scared he feels differently than you, despite the fact that he would live up your ass if he could.”
Toge hesitated at the word usage, but nodded anyway.
“I assume you’re also, like—what—in love with him?”
Toge hesitated again, but still ultimately nodded in confirmation.
“He doesn’t feel the same?”
Toge just shrugged.
“You’ve never kissed?” She seemed surprised. “Or spoken about it? Or anything?”
“No… I think he likes girls.” Toge felt the tears well up again. His throat pulsed as his eyes grew damp. “Like Rika.”
“Jesus Christ,” Maki muttered again. “You think that he felt the same way about Rika that he does for you, except maybe even more, because she’s a girl and he likes girls?”
“I’ve wondered. If it was me that died, then maybe he could have had more of a future. Now he’s trapped. With me. Because of all this stuff with me.”
Maki pushed herself up a little more and leaned toward him. She put her hand on his knee and patted his hand. “Don’t say that. He’s responsible for himself. And I don’t think that this is the sort of situation where one solution is really better than the other, in the end. He loves you—he’s obsessed with you. There’s no way he would rather it be you.”
Toge shrugged and put his chin on his knees. “I know there’s no way to know. Even if I asked him, I don’t think he’d really know either. All he’d do is tell me no, and maybe even freak out about it for a week.”
“What if he feels the same?”
“He doesn’t,” Toge sighed. “Whether it’s what I’m afraid of or not, it’s not the same as me. If he was posed a question where he got to wave a magic wand to decide who it was, he would say he’d use that wand to keep everyone alive.”
“Hm,” Maki hummed. “This is quite the dilemma.”
“Yes.”
Maki stroked her hand over his head a few times, patting it gently, before she pulled back to sit against the wall. “Maybe it’s not fair to think like that. You’re always telling Yuuta not to get lost in the what ifs, but you’re getting lost in them just as much.”
“I’m not wondering about scenarios where I have superhuman abilities at eight and stop car crashes. I’m wondering what Yuuta is thinking, actively, right now.”
Maki sighed heavily. “But wondering that is useless, Toge. Stopping cars at eight years old, reading minds—it’s all magical, isn’t it? It doesn’t change what is.”
Toge just shrugged at her.
She opened her mouth to continue, but they were interrupted by the door behind Toge being ripped open so hard it almost came off the hinges. Toge jumped a mile in the air and toppled over from Yuuta nearly tripping over him. He hadn’t expected anything in the doorway and had charged forward, straight into Toge.
“Wha—Toge?” Yuuta wheezed, dropping onto the floor beside him. “I’m sorry!”
Toge pushed himself up. He wasn’t hurt. He lifted his arms, knowing that’s what Yuuta would want. He must have been anxious to wake up without Toge in the apartment.
“What the fuck,” he burst out, the word turning into a sob as he dragged Toge in. His face fell wetly into Toge’s shoulder. Toge hugged him tight, petting his head as Yuuta met Maki’s gaze over his shoulder.
“We were just talking,” Maki said. “Sorry. We didn’t want to wake you.”
Yuuta didn’t say anything to her. He was rigid—coiled so tight he was nearly shaking.
Toge turned his face into his hair and kissed him. Yuuta’s fingers found the hair at the nape of Toge’s neck. They curled in, gripping his hair.
“Okkotsu,” Maki said hesitantly. “You good?”
Toge couldn’t see the look he shot her over Toge’s shoulder, but he caught a glimpse of her face turning grim when he turned his head to look. Yuuta pulled him up, taking Toge with him while he stood. He lifted Toge up off of the floor, gave Maki another scathing look, and then walked back into the doorway. He slammed it shut behind him.
It was quiet once he shut and locked the door. He set Toge down and stared at him.
Toge reached up to hold his face between his hands. “Sorry, Yuuta.”
“Are you?” Yuuta squeezed out. “Because lately, you’ve really not seemed sorry.”
Toge frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’ve been—different.” Yuuta looked frustrated more than anything. “Do you think it’s funny that I can’t stand to be away from you? Or do you not care anymore?” His blank expression grew darker somehow. “Are you tired of me? Is it too much?”
“No, no,” Toge assured quickly. He pushed up and kissed his cheek a few times. “I’d never get tired of you. It’s never too much.”
Yuuta’s eyes looked flat and colorless in the dark.
“Stop it,” Toge said, pulling him into another hug. “I swear it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“You know how people are. They get concerned sometimes. She just wanted to check in.”
“But they’re concerned about you, because I’m too much. I know I’m too much. What if you think it’s too much?”
“I don’t think that,” Toge said. His heart was pounding, fluttering anxiously. “I don’t like being apart for too long either, you know that.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s not the same,” Toge agreed, “but no less intense.”
“What was Maki concerned about?”
“She wanted to make sure I was ok after the party.”
“Because you cried,” Yuuta supplied, still not sounding happy about it.
“That’s all, baby,” Toge said, kissing the side of his head again. “Sorry you woke up before I got back.”
“Had another nightmare,” Yuuta said dully. “You were in class and there was an earthquake, and I found you, and it looked like how you looked when we were young.”
Toge felt guilty then. “I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes, when I wake up without you, I wonder if I hallucinated you the whole time, and you did die back then.”
Toge sighed and pet his head. “I’m sorry, Yuuta. I’m here.”
“It isn’t your fault, angel,” Yuuta said, sounding more subdued.
Toge leaned back and kissed his cheek again. “Can we make some tea with honey? My throat hurts from talking so much to Maki.”
Yuuta stared at him for a beat, blinked a few times, and suddenly looked a little clearer. He nodded and brought Toge with him over to the kitchenette. He, almost robotically, gathered everything up to make the tea. Sometimes giving him a way to help was the best way to get him out of his head.
He was earnestly hopeful it was good, watching Toge take a sip, and only looking satisfied when Toge smiled at him and said it was perfect.
It seemed to help. Whatever emotionless state he’d entered seemed to slowly melt away, until he was his normal self. He brought Toge back to bed and they sat there while Toge finished the tea. Yuuta didn’t say much more, concerned about Toge talking too much.
When Toge was finished, they laid back down, Toge tucked comfortably under Yuuta’s chin. When Toge woke in the morning, he knew that Yuuta wouldn’t have slept a wink.
_________
Yuuta was staring at the man in front of him from his spot pressed up against Toge’s back. His chin was hung on Toge’s shoulder. His hands were loosely around him, and he said nothing, but Toge could feel the tension from his expression based on how the man returned that look. He looked uncomfortable, unsure how to both categorize and respond to Yuuta.
It didn’t take long for the man to leave. He hadn’t been trying anything, but he did seem to be feeling Toge out. There weren’t many other men to choose from who also liked men.
“What was that guy’s problem?” Yuuta muttered. He seemed unbothered despite the question. He turned to press his nose into Toge’s temple. He nudged into him.
“I think you intimidated him,” Toge said wryly. They continued down the path where Toge had been walking when he ran into the man, and then Yuuta caught sight and came over.
“Good,” Yuuta said. He nudged further in toward Toge’s ear. His mouth was soft and warm where it brushed over the shell of Toge’s ear. It made chills rise up on Toge’s arms beneath his hoodie. “I want you all to myself.”
Toge swallowed, but didn’t pull away.
Yuuta had been saying things like that ever since the night Toge had spoken to Maki. He didn’t think he’d overheard them, but he seemed to pick up on some sort of change in the air, and he adjusted by clinging even more, if that was possible, and was starting to be more touchy.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Yuuta asked.
Toge pinched the skin on the back of his hand. “Stop testing me.”
Yuuta kissed his cheek. That wasn’t new. But it was new for him to linger, to kiss slow, and to trail his mouth slightly as he did so.
Toge turned his head to shoot him a look, but Yuuta just stared at him with that droopy stare he had when he was either upset or angry. Their noses were close since Yuuta hadn’t pulled away. “Angel,” he murmured. When Toge didn’t respond, but also remained in place, he leaned in until their foreheads touched. Their noses touched. Yuuta’s hand was on Toge’s jaw, and part of his neck. “I want you to myself. Let me have you.”
In that moment, Toge felt like he was trapped. He was trapped with Yuuta, in Yuuta, and Yuuta was trapped in him. He felt ok with it. More than ok, he felt happy. In that moment, he felt like Yuuta was happy with it too. He nodded thoughtlessly, and felt a quick heat rush through his veins when Yuuta nudged into him happily.
When they made their way back over to the spot their friends had taken residence in on the grass in the courtyard, Nobara was eyeing them, making it clear she had witnessed the entire exchange. Toge didn’t meet her gaze, knowing that it would have been an invitation for her to ask or comment on it.
Despite his avoidance, she commented anyway.
“Ooh, who was that?” she asked, eyebrows rising as she looked between them.
“A nobody.” Yuuta’s voice was dismissive and final.
“Nobody, huh?” Nobara returned. She wasn’t one to back down to Yuuta, unfortunately. “Didn’t seem like nobody. Was he asking you out, Inumaki?”
“No,” Yuuta answered for him.
“I was asking Inumaki,” she said testily. “Besides, you weren’t even there for the entire conversation.”
Yuuta did look at Toge then, as though he hadn’t considered this possibility. Toge didn’t look at him, but he barely looked at Nobara either. Yuuta seemed to struggle with the possibility that this had happened, and his face pinched. “No, he didn’t ask me out, he just said hello.”
“Well, do you think he was gonna ask you out before Okkotsu butted in?”
Toge was beginning to feel a tension rise in the air as Yuuta began to stiffen beside him. “I have no idea,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
“You think that guy was into other guys?” Yuji piped in, looking curious. “How can you tell?”
“Gay recognizes gay, Yuji, why do you think he picked Toge out of everyone else here?”
“What?”
Nobara looked to Yuuta. She stared at him, almost confused, before she started to look horrified. She looked at Toge, eyes wide. “Did you not—? Oh my god.”
Toge was stiff, too, when Yuuta turned to look at him. Yuuta stared for a moment, and then another, and then his spine went ramrod straight. His mouth was parted, and he looked so lost that Toge didn’t feel like he knew what to do either.
Nobara anxiously waved her hands. “Wait, wait, wait, don’t get this twisted, Okkotsu—”
Yuuta was unmoving, even as Nobara nervously cut herself off.
Toge, instead of settling down onto their shared blanket, sighed and went to grab Yuuta’s hand on his way to walk off. He knew Yuuta wanted to storm off, but wouldn’t leave Toge behind. He was frozen with indecision, and Toge knew there was nothing either of them could do until they had that conversation.
The walk back to their dorm was silent and arduous. Toge could hear the faint dinging of his phone in his pocket, likely Nobara blowing him up with apologies. Toge didn’t look at them. He was angry that she’d said anything, and decided to let her stew in the guilt for a little bit.
Neither of them spoke a word the entire way. No one said anything as they made their way into the building, up the elevator, into the hall, or at the door.
When the door shut, the silence felt different. It felt heavier and the silence felt quieter.
“I don’t—” Yuuta began. His voice was raspy, cracking in the middle. Toge turned to look at him. “I don’t know what to think or say.”
Toge turned to look at him. He felt his heart beating quicker, descending into what was almost panic. “There isn’t anything to say.”
“How can you say that?” Yuuta demanded. He started to look angry. “I feel—it’s all mixed up. I don’t know where to start. I—you—ugh.” He pressed both palms into his eyes. He took a few deep breaths. “You didn’t tell me. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me something like that.”
“It didn’t feel important to announce,” Toge muttered. “I didn’t announce it to anyone else either, if that’s what you’re going to say.”
“But she knew,” Yuuta bit out, dropping his hands. “Which means she saw something I didn’t see. And I see everything, Toge, when it comes to you I see everything. So that means that you’ve been showing her something you haven’t shown me.”
Toge felt anger beginning to rise up to overshadow his panic. “If I did, it wasn’t intentional. It’s not fair to be mad at me for not telling you every inner thought that I have.”
“But that’s pretty significant!” Yuuta argued back. “I—Significant enough that Nobara, of all people, would know?”
“She cares about that sort of thing, I don’t. I didn’t think you did either.”
“I care if it’s you,” Yuuta snapped. “And I care that you—I—” He stopped himself, took in a few heaving breaths, and loosened his shoulders. “Who the hell even is it? Has there been someone? You had to have discovered it somehow. Who made you realize that you liked men, huh?”
Toge stared at him, so hurt and so angry that he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. “If there was anyone, you’d know, Yuuta, because you’re with me, all the time!” The end of his sentence ended on a shout, and it twinged his throat painfully. He couldn’t yell very well, after the accident. He hadn’t raised his voice in probably years.
Yuuta looked startled at the sound, and then hurt by the words. His face twisted up. “I knew it,” he said, voice going strangled, like he was holding back tears. “I knew that all of this bothered you.”
Toge, even though it wasn’t true, didn’t argue. He felt that if he did, it would lead them back to the same dilemma, over and over, in an endless circle.
“You never told me, hid it from me, to what—spare my feelings? Well, you’re fucking right that it’d hurt, because I don’t know what I’d do if you started dating somebody.” His voice grew weaker and more wobbly with every word. “How could I—we—do what we’ve been doing if you were dating someone? Spending your time with them, sleep—” He exhaled shakily. “Sleeping with them.” The reality of a scenario like that seemed to hit him fully, and he trembled. “What would I do? What would—I couldn’t handle—”
Toge was shaking his head before Yuuta even finished the sentence. He didn’t know what to say, but he couldn’t accept that. “Stop,” he whispered, voice aching from his shouting. It barely came out, and he wasn’t even sure if Yuuta heard him.
Yuuta took a step toward him. His anger melted away as quickly as it had come, morphing into something more desperate and afraid. “I’m sorry,” he rushed out, “if it’s too much, if I’m too much, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Toge, don’t leave me, don’t, please.”
Toge caught him by his arms when he neared him close enough to reach. Yuuta made a pitiful sound at being stopped. “Yuuta,” he rasped. He squeezed his arms. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, angel,” Yuuta said, more desperately that time. “Toge, don’t be mad at me.”
“I need to…” Toge trailed off. He stared at the base of Yuuta’s throat. No thought in his mind was able to be caught and spoken. It was everything, too much, and he felt overwhelmed. “I need to be alone right now.”
“What?” Yuuta burst out. “No! No, no, no, you can’t go, you can’t leave me.”
I’m not leaving you, Toge wanted to shout again. But he also didn’t want to shout, because he wasn’t really angry with Yuuta, but he didn’t know what to do, and the weight of his and Maki’s conversation had already been too much, and this was too much, too.
Toge squeezed Yuuta’s arms again. “Yuuta,” he began. “Leave me alone for now. I’ll open my door when I’m ready.” He released his arms and turned to go into his room. Yuuta trailed after him helplessly, and he didn’t say anything, but Toge could hear him crying through his hitched breaths. It felt horrible, walking away. He’d never done that before. He’d never even wanted to be away from Yuuta before, let alone actively choosing it.
He squeezed through the half open door of his room, worried Yuuta would try to follow, and quickly shut it behind him. Yuuta let out a pitiful sob. Toge stood there, breath coming quicker and quicker, until he felt like he was either going to cry, have a panic attack, or tear his own hair out in what felt like a fit of insanity.
Yuuta audibly thudded onto the floor in front of Toge’s door. When the door creaked gently, Toge knew that he was leaning against it.
Toge went to go sit on his bed. He stared at the floor for a long moment, settling into the silence, the quiet, and lack of touch. When Yuuta was in the same building as Toge, that also meant being plastered to his side. It felt odd to be in the same vicinity, but different rooms, with a door between them. They occasionally slept in their own rooms, but it was never long before one of them was crawling into bed with the other. Even then, neither of them kept their doors shut.
Doors, Toge thought, were meant to separate, to have privacy. There were none of those things between them, so doors had never meant anything before. Now it felt more like a great wall separating countries.
It took about two minutes for Toge to feel restless again. The stress of upsetting Yuuta was beginning to take over his overwhelm from earlier. His mind raced, urgent, as though if it just went faster, a solution would arise.
That, Toge thought, was the solution in itself. Like this, neither of them were good. When not talking, when not together, when in conflict, that was what the problem was. It was simple, really, in the end. Toge understood his friends’ concerns, and he could appreciate that it made sense. He knew it was, in theory, better to work on their attachment. He didn’t have it in him. Toge didn’t have the ability to make it through what would need to be done to get there. He felt like he’d shake apart at the measly few minutes he spent alone in his room while Yuuta sat at his door.
As he came to this conclusion, he looked to the door. He felt that way. Did Yuuta? Normally Yuuta wouldn’t be able to take a conflict, especially one that ended in Toge asking to be alone. In fact, he felt surprised that Yuuta had listened. As he pondered this, he began to feel angry. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to demand solitude and be angry when Yuuta gave it.
Toge didn’t feel reasonable that night. He pushed himself up off of the bed and marched over to the door. He opened it.
Yuuta turned quickly, staring up at Toge with hopeful, wet eyes.
“So, what, you’re just going to sit in the hallway all night?” Toge said, his mouth opening before he even realized what he was saying. Distantly, his regulated, normal version of himself told him that wasn’t fair. That voice was small and unimportant in that moment. “I left the door unlocked, and you’re just gonna give up like that?”
Yuuta stared at him, mouth parted, looking dumbfounded, tears still hanging on his lashes.
“You’d give up on me?” Toge continued.
“Wh—Me? Me?” Yuuta asked, bewildered, as though Toge couldn’t have been speaking to him. He pushed himself up onto his knees and hugged him, face pressing into Toge’s stomach. “Toge,” he cried, voice muffled. “No, no, never, not on you, never.”
Toge, knowing he’d feel shame for it later, felt gratified seeing him like that.
“I love you, angel, I’m sorry,” Yuuta continued, dampening Toge’s shirt with his tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I wanted to give you space, you wanted space. I don’t want to be too much, I don’t want to push you away.”
Toge’s hands came up to comb through his hair. Yuuta made a whimpering sound, squeezing around him tighter. Toge reached around to grab Yuuta’s arms to extract him from the embrace.
“No, please,” Yuuta begged, though he didn’t hold on. He let Toge pull his arms off. “Please, Toge.”
Toge crouched down to be eye level and lifted his own arms. Yuuta fell into him, letting out a sob as he hugged him. Toge pet his hair. “It’s ok,” he whispered. “It’s ok.”
Yuuta began to really cry then. “I’m sorry, Toge.”
Toge pet his head again, leaning into him reassuringly. “It’s ok, Yuuta, I’m not going to leave you.”
Yuuta leaned into him completely. He kissed whatever part of Toge’s body he could reach. He kissed his shoulder, his neck, his ear, his jaw, his temple, his cheek. “I love you,” he said, “I love you, angel, I love you, I love you.”
“I know,” Toge whispered, hands hovering against Yuuta’s head, to feel close, but to allow him movement.
“Tell me you love me, Toge,” he whispered against his cheek. “You love me, you love me.”
“I love you,” Toge whispered. “I do, I love you.”
Yuuta’s breath shook when it came out. “You’re mine,” he said. “You’re mine, no one else’s.”
“Yes,” Toge agreed, eyes stinging. “I’m yours.”
Yuuta’s hug was fierce and tight. It was warm, and comfortable, and familiar. Toge leaned into him, and he felt good. He felt better, and he felt happy. He felt happiest with Yuuta.
“Tell me you love me more than anyone,” Toge whispered, eyes squeezing shut. “More than anyone.”
“I do,” Yuuta said without pause. “I love my angel more than anyone.”
Toge held the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair.
“And I love you more than anyone else ever could,” Yuuta said. “You don’t need anyone else, you just need me.”
“I just need you,” Toge agreed.
“And you’re all I need. I only need you.” Yuuta buried his face into Toge’s shoulder again. “I only need you.”
__________
Yuuta was crying. Toge didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. He heard a muffled sound, and it sounded like sniffles and sobs, and it was so muddy in his head that he couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, a child or an adult, or even a human or an animal. Somehow, though, Toge knew in a distant way, the way someone might know something in a dream, that it was Yuuta.
It caused a tugging in his heart, pulling on his chest like it was drawing him to wherever it was that Yuuta was. Toge wasn’t sure what was going on, but he felt that he was supposed to be awake. He was supposed to talk, or explain, or ask, but he didn’t know what. He tried to open his eyes, but he felt like he couldn’t move a single muscle.
The crying grew louder despite his struggling. The more and more aware Toge became, the more aware of his own feelings he became, too. He became aware of the fact that he couldn’t move, and that scared him. He became aware of the fact that Yuuta was crying and he didn’t know why. He became aware of the weight of his own body, like feeling was trickling back into each limb.
One of the last things that Toge became aware of was a distant, dull-like pain. It was everywhere. It was in his backside, like he’d been lying in one position for too long. It was in his left shoulder, radiating down his arm. It was a throbbing in his head, a burning in his throat, a tickle in his nose.
Finally, he could open his eyes. Everything was blurry for several long moments. He didn’t try to speak, or ask what happened. He felt a stinging in the backs of his eyes, both a dryness and an urge to cry. He could still hear Yuuta. It was a clearer sound, and it made Toge feel scared. He didn’t know what was going on, and why Yuuta would be crying, but he felt like something very bad had happened.
There was nothing in his vision except for white and light. The light wasn’t too bright, but it was present enough to feel jarring and unpleasant. The ceiling was dull, flat, and clean. Toge didn’t know where he was, and that made him feel scared, too.
The state of his body felt precarious. He didn’t know what was wrong with it, but he knew that it was wrong. Twitching his fingers took a great effort, and it felt like even his breathing was too much movement to feel comfortable. Each breath in brought a tingling pain into every part of his body.
“Why won’t he wake up?” A voice said.
It was just to his left, muffled as though said into someone’s shirt.
Toge knew that it was Yuuta who said it. His voice was recognizable, even beneath the wobbly sound of his crying.
“It’s been so long,” Yuuta continued helplessly. His crying grew louder. “You said he was alive! You said! He’s not, I know he’s not. He’s dead and you won’t tell me!”
Does he mean me? Toge thought to himself, bewildered. It must have been, since Toge didn’t know what was going on. If Yuuta was talking about someone else, then Toge would have been next to him, maybe even crying, too, if it was that upsetting.
“I want to be with him,” Yuuta said, the sound of a struggle breaking the quiet. “Let me on the—let go—let me on the bed!”
“You could hurt him, Yuuta,” came the gentle response. It sounded like Toge’s mom. “Toge isn’t awake to tell you that it hurts, so we have to be careful.”
“No, no!” His crying grew louder, more hysterical. “I’ll wake him up, he’ll wake up—!”
Toge felt his eyes dampen. He wanted to look over, to say he was awake, and that Yuuta could come if he wanted. He wanted to make him feel better.
“Let go, he—” Yuuta cut himself off with a gasp. “Toge!”
Toge’s mom gasped, too, a moment later. And then, blessedly, Yuuta’s face was the first to appear in Toge’s line of vision.
He had a bandage on his forehead, and his face was covered in tears.
“Toge!” He cried. “Are you awake?”
Toge’s mom appeared next. She stared down at him for a moment before turning away again. Toge heard her rush to the door, calling for a nurse or doctor.
Yuuta was crying again. Toge wanted to say something. Nothing happened. He felt like he couldn’t even flex the muscle in his throat to try.
“He can’t talk, remember?”
Toge’s gaze flicked over to where his mom appeared in his vision again.
She cooed at him, reaching out to brush her thumb beneath his eye. “Don’t cry, baby, it’s ok. You’re ok.”
He looked at Yuuta again, who looked to feel that nothing was fine at all.
“You’re ok,” Yuuta said. Then he repeated it, over and over. “You’re ok, you’re ok, you’re ok.”
Toge’s mom stroked Yuuta’s head. “He’s ok,” she said.
Yuuta hesitantly reached out to hold onto Toge’s hand. “His hands are cold!” Yuuta exclaimed in despair.
“Warm his hands up, Yuuta,” Toge’s mom said simply.
Both of Yuuta’s hands wrapped around Toge’s. Toge felt the soft give of Yuuta’s cheek press into one of his knuckles, as though Yuuta was hugging it. He’d taken it to heart, it seemed, that he could make Toge feel better. That he could warm his hands, soothe his fears, wake him up when he slept like the dead.
I’m ok, Toge thought. I’m ok.
__________
It became apparent Yuuta had never really considered that Toge might be interested in someone else. Once that door opened, he was more intense than he’d ever been before. If he was overbearing before, then it was utterly suffocating. Except for Toge, who liked it when Yuuta loved him that much, enjoyed how suffocating it was.
It helped that Yuuta’s particular brand of suffocation was so pleasant.
In the mornings, he was there, snuggling in to Toge’s cheek. “Good morning,” he’d whisper, lips pressing to his cheek and his temple. “Let’s have breakfast together.”
And that meant making Toge breakfast, or taking him to get some from a cafe or convenience store. He was always touching him, holding his hand, finger in the loop of his jeans, leaning into him, sitting so close their legs touched, he was always there.
They hadn’t really fought, but it had felt like a fight. It made Toge feel rocky, afraid, and so when Yuuta responded by being clingier, he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about it. He felt relieved, if anything.
Maki had pointed out to him that Yuuta was acting more like a boyfriend than he already had been. She was right, and Toge could acknowledge that. Yuuta was acting like a boyfriend, and it made Toge feel sick to think he only was doing so because he was afraid of Toge leaving him behind for someone else. But even then, he couldn’t ask for it to stop. He wanted it. Maki had been right when she said Toge was as bad if not worse than Yuuta.
When Yuuta saw either Nobara or Maki speaking to Toge, Yuuta got angry. He still seemed to be getting along with them otherwise. He liked them, enjoyed all of their friends, but it seemed he didn’t like it when Toge was enjoying them without him.
Toge, as this went on, found that he didn’t like it when Yuuta enjoyed people without him either. Before, he’d never really worried about it, but he felt vulnerable in a way he hadn’t before. The few moments where Yuuta’s attention would be drawn somewhere else, Toge found himself doing something to get it back. Sometimes, he even felt the urge to let the words bubble out of his throat. Look at me, he wanted to say.
It was easy to let those moments go when Yuuta was protective. When Toge walked out of his class with someone walking beside him, talking about their assignments, and Yuuta watched them as he waited for him on the other end of the hallway, Toge felt warm. Yuuta pushed away from the wall and approached him, reaching out when he was still several feet away. He held onto Toge’s hand and pulled him into himself. He looked at the guy Toge was walking with, expression dirty and hateful, before dragging Toge away.
Toge had always felt the same way. He’d never acted on it the way Yuuta did, mainly because he hadn’t been concerned, but after everything that had happened between them, he couldn’t help but do the same. He did it when he saw a girl approach Yuuta in the kitchen at a party they were at. He’d only been on Yuuta’s other side, but they were preparing drinks to bring back to their friends when the girl came up to start talking to him. Toge had watched the exchange for a few moments before he reached over and touched Yuuta’s arm. Yuuta turned away from her to look at Toge, and Toge found himself looking back at her pointedly before returning his gaze to Yuuta’s and tugging on his arm again. Yuuta had just turned fully toward him, leaning down and in as though in question. Toge squeezed his wrist and just pressed up to kiss his cheek. Yuuta looked so pleased that he seemed to forget everything else. He stepped into Toge’s space, dipping his head to press his nose and mouth to Toge’s cheek in return.
And then, a few weeks later, the anniversary to Rika’s death came.
Toge should have thought of it sooner. He’d known it was coming up, but in a more distant way. It had always been a part of the routine. Every spring, Toge knew that there would be a month, when the air changed and the temperature began to rise, that Yuuta would struggle. This time, he’d known it, but hadn’t really thought about it. He’d been wrapped up in everything else.
Yuuta had more dreams about it every May. He dreamed of the moment it happened, reliving it, and he dreamed of alternate scenarios, each ending in the same result. He dreamed of Toge dying with her, of losing the both of them. He dreamed of Toge dying in the present when Yuuta wasn’t there. He dreamed of being left, of being alone. Every night, something different, but somehow the same. He never seemed to dream of Toge dying, and Rika living. Despite all of the versions in which he relived the worst day of his life, it was never that. Toge fretted over that. He fretted because he wondered if that meant it would be a good dream, so there was no way he’d have a good dream in his lineup of terrors.
Toge pondered this one night, after it’d been over a week of some horrific dream each night. He’d woken to Yuuta crying, clinging onto him with his head pressed to Toge’s chest. Toge shifted closer to him and stroked his hair as his eyes drifted back shut.
“I’m ok,” he whispered to him. “I’m ok. I’m here, Yuuta.”
Yuuta pushed his way up and kissed over his face, like he was relieved. He muttered apologies and thank yous until Toge settled him back down. Yuuta found his spot against his chest again, and after his breathing turned steady again, Toge opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He stroked Yuuta’s head, fingers combing through the locks of his hair.
That morning, Yuuta looked like he had been run ragged. The dark circles under his eyes looked unsightly. All he did was go to class, eat, and go back to their dorm. He was near Toge all the time, but it still didn’t feel like enough. It wasn’t that he thought something had happened to Toge in the time apart while Toge showered and Yuuta laid in his bed, but he couldn’t stand to be by himself, it seemed.
When Toge had a trip planned with one of his biology classes, preparing for it had felt like an entire event. He was going with a group of about ten other people, chaperoned by their professor, to a nearby village where there were trails into the woods. It was the sort of thing that was incredibly low risk, and was very normal. But for Yuuta, at that moment in time, it felt like his worst nightmare.
Toge had told him about it very gently when he found out. That conversation had gone as well as he expected. Yuuta tried not to be overbearing. It wasn’t something he was happy to do, necessarily, but was too anxious to stop himself from toiling over it.
He needed to know where Toge was going, how long he was going to be there, if Toge would be able to text him, if he’d have service to keep his location on, and made a few attempts to ask and see if he could go with him. Toge said no each time, despite the twinge he felt when he saw Yuuta’s face fall.
Even though their friends accused them of not bothering to try and improve the attachment, they did actively try not to make it worse at the very least. And, sometimes, when the time was right, they did try to do better. Denying Yuuta the option to come with him was one of those times. It was unreasonable to go, so Toge refused. Yuuta understood, beneath the desperation of his worry, so he didn’t argue it.
The day Toge had the trip, though it was during class time and wouldn’t take much longer, Yuuta anxiously lingered when it was normally time to say goodbye.
“You’ll text me,” he said, though it came out like a question. “And if you think you’ll lose service, you’ll tell me?”
Toge rubbed his hands up and down Yuuta’s arms. “Yes, Yuuta, I wouldn’t ever leave you hanging on purpose, you know that.”
“I know, but if you forget, because I know you’d never do that to me, I’m going to think something bad happened.”
Toge almost laughed at how pitiful it sounded. He smiled instead and rubbed his arms a little harder. “I know, which is why I’d never forget. I think of you just as much. You wouldn’t forget me, right?”
“Of course not, angel,” he burst out. “Never.”
“Trust me, too.”
Yuuta hugged him again, head leaning hard into Toge’s. He squeezed tight, like he was trying to make it last long enough that he wouldn’t miss it when Toge was gone. “I do trust you,” he whispered. “It’s just hard for me to be away from you. When I can’t see you, or make sure you’re ok.” His voice weakened on the last few words.
“We’ll be alright, Yuuta,” he murmured, rubbing his back instead of his arms. “I promise.”
“I love you,” Yuuta said, voice raspy. “Okay?”
Toge smiled. “I know, Yuuta. I love you, too.”
Toge pulled away, and held his hands. Yuuta’s face was dead, eyes flat, and there was a slight sheen to his eyes.
“You’ll be ok,” he whispered, like he was trying to bolster himself. “You’ll be ok.”
“Mhm,” Toge hummed encouragingly. “I’ll see you soon, Yuuta.”
“Okay,” he said dully. “I love you, angel.”
“I love you,” Toge said. He let go of Yuuta’s hands and backed away.
Yuuta smiled, wobbly, and Toge almost laughed again. He let a huff escape as he smiled at him. He waved and turned to walk out of the courtyard.
He made it about ten steps before his phone started ringing. Already knowing it was Yuuta, Toge answered it with a laugh.
“Keep your phone on?” Yuuta tried. “I’ll just listen, I won’t talk.”
“I do think I’ll lose service,” Toge said. “You also have class. You have to go to class, Yuuta. We talked about this.”
“Toge,” Yuuta whined.
“Until you get to your classroom,” Toge said.
“Okay,” he replied sullenly.
Toge smiled to himself but stayed on the phone with him. They didn’t talk much, especially since Yuuta had only a few minutes of walking until he made it to his room. Toge was getting into the rental van his professor had gotten for their trip.
Yuuta struggled to hang up, but did eventually. He’d prepared by putting his phone on vibrate so that he could feel it when Toge would text him periodically. Toge knew he was enabling him. It was difficult not to, knowing how worked up Yuuta got.
Toge had warned him that he wouldn’t be texting every few minutes, especially if he lost service. Yuuta hadn’t argued, because Toge didn’t have much control over that, and he was already feeling guilty for how overbearing he’d been the last few weeks. Toge also felt bad that Yuuta even felt so upset in the first place, so they remained at a standstill.
The trip was good. It wasn’t that Toge enjoyed being away from Yuuta. In fact, it made him anxious, too. Sometimes, however, he’d hope that it would encourage him to start believing things would be ok, as though it was a version of exposure therapy. If it didn’t, Toge didn’t mind the outpouring of affection he got when they reunited either. Toge, as Maki had discovered, was selfish and greedy.
As expected, Toge did end up losing service. It got spotty when they got into the town and then disappeared not long after they entered the woods. They were looking for a few specific times of plants and bugs, so they were off the beaten path soon. Toge had time to warn Yuuta about it, but the drop off had been fast, and it looked like the messages had sent, but he also was unsure.
The thought of Yuuta’s reaction to Toge going radio silent made him anxious, whether Yuuta got the messages or not. Yuuta had acted like it would have been ok if he had a warning, but Toge knew him, and knew that he wasn’t likely to handle either outcome very well. A few of his classmates side eyed him for being on his phone so much, so when Toge had made a few attempts, he slid his phone into his pocket and admitted defeat. He would be back in a little over an hour, and even though he didn’t want Yuuta to be worried, he would be ok.
They found what they needed fairly quickly, and they were back at the car in around forty minutes. Their fifteen minute drive back wasn’t bad. Toge felt relieved. Unfortunately, as though the gods were laughing at them, Toge’s phone was dead when he arrived back at the van. It had likely drained from trying to send messages, on top of his constant phone usage from earlier in the day when separated from Yuuta.
But, he assured himself, Yuuta only needed to wait about twenty more minutes.
When Toge arrived back on campus, he made his way to the center of the cluster of buildings they agreed to meet back up in. He hoped Yuuta wasn’t doing something ridiculous, like trying to find the forest Toge was in.
As luck would have it, Yuuta wasn’t doing something ridiculous.
Toge saw Maki first. She was standing, staring ahead, but standing beside Yuuta. He was sitting on a ledge to one of the fountains, head in his hands, and head hanging between his knees. He was rocking slightly, fingers in his hair.
Maki caught sight of him, like she sensed his stare. Her face was grim as she met Toge’s gaze. Toge felt his heart sink. She had a hand on Yuuta’s shoulder, like she was trying to both comfort him and keep him from rocketing forward, likely to go look for Toge himself.
Toge, before he reached them, let out a sigh. “Oh Yuuta,” he murmured to himself. He made his way across the walk way and neared them.
Maki offered a wry smile as she removed her hand from Yuuta’s shoulder.
At the removal of her hand and the sound of approaching footsteps, Yuuta lifted his head. Toge was only a few feet away then, so he went to crouch as Yuuta’s eyes found his face.
Yuuta’s expression crumpled, and he pitched forward into Toge’s arms.
Toge held him, turning his face into Yuuta’s hair so he could speak quietly to him. “Sorry, Yuuta, I lost service and then my phone died.”
“Toge,” he whispered, pitifully quiet. He held onto him tightly. He inhaled deeply, like he was finding comfort in his smell.
“I’m sorry,” Toge repeated. He squeezed him.
“He threw up,” Maki offered from above them suddenly. Toge looked up at her as Yuuta squeezed tighter. Maki stared back at Toge. “He called me when you stopped answering and your location stopped updating on the road. He worked himself up so much that he threw up in the grass.”
Toge felt his eyes sting. “You did?” he asked weakly.
Yuuta hesitated, but he nodded. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Toge said immediately. He held the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Yuuta, I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” Yuuta whispered back.
Toge looked up at Maki helplessly.
She stared back at him for a moment before she sighed. She glanced over in the direction of the apartments. “Let’s go back to your apartment.”
Toge nodded, and coaxed Yuuta up to standing. Yuuta held onto him still, though he stood pliantly. “Ready?” he asked quietly.
Yuuta nodded, but he didn’t move.
“Let’s go home,” Toge murmured. “We can lay on the couch and watch movies all day.”
Yuuta nodded again.
“Hold my hand, Yuuta,” Toge said.
Yuuta’s hands dropped to find Toge’s wrists and wrap around them. Toge reached up to hold his face. He swiped at Yuuta’s damp cheeks, and then cradled his jaw. He smiled at Yuuta, though he didn’t feel too jovial at the moment, and then kissed his cheek. Yuuta’s hands hung on Toge’s arms as he held his face, and his eyes closed when Toge’s face was near.
When Toge pulled away, Yuuta’s eyes opened again. He managed a small, pitiful smile.
“Ready?” Maki prompted again.
“Hold my hand,” Toge repeated.
Yuuta looked down and held Toge’s hand. He squeezed it once, and then twice. He tugged Toge close and they walked back to the apartment.
__________
Toge was sitting at one of the picnic tables off to the side. His arms were on the table and his chin on top of them. He was watching the kids run around on the play equipment, laughing and talking. It had only been a week since he’d gotten his last cast off, and even if he was allowed to go running around with the kids, he wasn’t even sure how long he could do it before he felt tired. Those days, he felt sleepy after walking from the car to his bedroom.
Yuuta was next to him. He was reading a book, swinging his legs where they didn’t reach the ground.
“Do you miss Rika?”
Toge almost startled at the sudden sound of Yuuta’s voice. He turned to look at Yuuta, who was still holding his book, but had just turned his head, as though the thought had popped into his head unprompted. He wasn’t really sure how to answer that question. He did miss her, but he also didn’t miss her. Sometimes, it felt difficult to remember her, even though it hadn’t even been a year. It felt fuzzy to Toge, and he liked having Yuuta’s full attention. It had been something he’d secretly wished for, before the accident. He used to wish that he had Yuuta all to himself. More than missing Rika, he felt guilty when he thought of her.
Yuuta tilted his head when Toge didn’t answer right away. “Toge?”
“Yes,” Toge said, resting the side of his head on his arms. He watched Yuuta’s face. “I miss her a lot.”
Yuuta’s eyes were attentive, in a way that almost made Toge feel nervous. He was watching Toge with a seriousness he couldn’t decipher. “How much?” he asked.
Toge frowned a little. He knew Yuuta missed her, and was struggling with the fact that she was dead. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Does it make you really sad?” Yuuta prompted.
“Yeah,” Toge said.
Yuuta pondered this for a moment. “Me too,” he said eventually. He started to read his book again.
For the first time, Toge wondered if Yuuta wished that he had died instead. The thought was so alarming that his eyes sprang sudden tears, and he turned quickly to bury his face in his arms.
Yuuta’s hand touched his head. “Toge, are you crying?” he asked, sounding distraught.
Toge shook his head. He wasn’t really, but his eyes were probably wet enough that Yuuta would notice.
“Sorry,” Yuuta said quietly. His hand stroked over Toge’s head. “I won’t bring it up again.”
Toge didn’t respond. He thought if he opened his mouth, the only thing that would come out would be that question, and he was too afraid of the answer.
__________
Yuuta was warm. His position plastered to Toge’s back was comfortable. The sofa they laid on sank comfortably beneath them. His arms were snugly around Toge’s shoulders, tucking him close to Yuuta’s chest. His nose was pressed into Toge’s hair, his breath fanning over Toge’s ear and over his cheek. It was deep and even, and probably the first time that Yuuta had slept in a long time.
Toge was watching the tv in front of them. Maki was on the floor, a few feet away from the couch, face turned toward the tv as well.
She glanced over and did a double take when she saw that Toge was awake. She glanced up at Yuuta to make sure he was sleeping.
Her voice was a quiet whisper. “He asleep?”
“Yeah,” Toge whispered back.
“Finally,” she sighed.
Toge agreed. Toge himself had slept several times, as did Maki, throughout the hours they’d laid in their small living room. It was late at night, but Yuuta had been awake the entire time.
“So, what the fuck?” she asked casually.
“There’s nothing to say,” Toge said shortly.
“Really, because I think there is,” she argued. She scooted a little closer so she could talk quieter and not wake Yuuta. “I’m worried that eventually it’ll be too much. It just gets worse, Toge. What about when there isn’t a way to even get closer?”
Toge didn’t respond. He avoided her gaze and stared ahead. The tv flashed with silent pictures. There was a commercial break. Toge watched a soundless woman advertise a cleaning product.
“Toge,” Maki prompted.
“I don’t know what I’d do without this, ok?” Toge whispered harshly. “I just don’t know. And I don’t know what he would do either. So, just leave it.”
“Toge, this is ridiculous,” she hissed. “You have to do something—address it, just talk about it, see what can be done.”
Yuuta’s breath caught against Toge’s skin. He leaned in further, and his cheek touched Toge’s. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to like that?”
Toge froze under him. Yuuta’s voice was furious, cold. Maki looked just over Toge’s face to Yuuta’s. To her credit, she didn’t look alarmed. She narrowed her eyes at him.
“If you have a problem with us, you can get out of our life,” Yuuta said. “Toge is mine. Forever. Do you understand?”
Maki scoffed. “Yeah, whatever, Okkotsu. He’s yours.” She turned around and her voice turned to muttering. “Until someone comes along that he wants around that you don’t.”
“What does that mean?” Yuuta asked, more defensive that time.
“What if your feelings don’t align anymore?” she asked, whipping around with a more fiery gaze that time. “Huh?” she prompted, louder. “What about when there’s someone in your life you want around that Toge doesn’t? What if Toge wants to move to fucking Iceland and you want to stay? What about when the other parts of life, the parts that make a person happy, don’t match anymore? There’s a whole lot of life left, Yuuta, and plenty of things to tear you two apart. And it wouldn’t have to even be an issue if you just addressed whatever the hell you have going on.”
Toge almost cringed as he waited for Yuuta to react. It was eerily silent for several long, painstaking seconds. The arm beneath him that was wrapping across his chest from under Toge tightened, and his hand grasped Toge’s shoulder. He leaned forward, hovering over Toge as he brought his face closer to Maki’s. Toge grasped his hand and squeezed it, but Yuuta didn’t move.
“I don’t care what the fuck type of magical scenario you want to come up with to convince my Toge to leave me. It won’t fucking happen.”
Maki stared at him, expression incredulous. She looked at Toge, as though asking if he just heard what was said. Toge, perhaps unbeknownst to her, had been in this predicament before, multiple times. “You aren’t the first to say this, Maki,” he tried, voice gentler than Yuuta’s. “I appreciate your concern. I’ve told you before already—we’re fine.”
Her face didn’t change. She looked at Yuuta, then looked at Toge, then Yuuta again. “Do you enjoy thinking Toge is going to die all the time?”
Yuuta recoiled slightly.
“I’m sure that feels so good, huh?” she said drily. “And I’m sure Toge just loves having to make sure he texts you every other minute, or doesn’t stray too far from your eyesight, and I bet he really likes it when he can’t focus on anything except making sure you aren’t having a panic attack because someone got robbed a town over.”
“Maki,” Toge snapped.
“No, he needs to hear it!” she shouted. She gathered herself up and stood, towering over them with a fierce look in her eye. Yuuta moved to sit up, bringing Toge with him as he did. He didn’t let go, only sat while still hovering around him. “Every time this topic comes up between you two, you become so scared of losing each other you just pretend it never happened and move on!”
Yuuta was frozen, fingers gripping on Toge tightly. Toge wanted to tell him not to listen to her, but he felt that it was the sort of thing that would only egg her on.
“I’m kind of shocked at how little you’ve considered what this is all like for Toge. Or, if you have considered it, the fact that you’re stopping him from a peaceful, normal life wasn’t enough to stop you.”
She was hitting him right where it hurt, unfortunately. Toge turned, already shaking his head as he reached up to pat Yuuta’s cheek. Yuuta blinked and looked over at him. He had tears dampening his eyes. Toge stroked his face and shook his head again.
“Angel,” Yuuta said, voice croaky. “I want to speak to Maki alone.”
Toge frowned.
Yuuta held his face in both hands and kissed his cheek and his forehead. “Please.”
Toge moved to stand. He didn’t look at either of them as he rounded the couch and went toward his bedroom in the short hallway. Where he stood wasn’t visible to the sitting room. He opened the door and then shut it. He didn’t go inside.
After a few moments of silence, Toge heard Yuuta speak. His voice was quiet.
“What did he tell you?”
Maki’s reply was unimpressed. “That’s what you have to say?” She sighed. “What did he tell me about what?”
“About being unhappy.”
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Nothing. He’s never said anything about being unhappy. He tells me to leave it alone because everything is fine.”
“Then what about your conversations or observations make you say something like that?”
“Because I have a working, functioning brain, Yuuta,” she hissed. “Who the hell would enjoy all of this?”
“He understands me,” Yuuta argued weakly.
“Who said he didn’t? He understands you too well, even.”
“Does he seem unhappy?” Yuuta asked, starting to sound a little more desperate. “He seems happy with me, I thought he was happy.”
“I think Toge thinks he’s happy.”
Yuuta made a sound of distress. Toge felt angry enough that he wanted to march back in and tell her to stop and bring Yuuta back into his room to fix it. But Yuuta had never talked to someone about it before, and Toge wanted to hear what he said. Sometimes Toge himself worried that Yuuta wasn’t always being honest.
“Yuuta, what the hell is up with you?” Maki asked. “Why are you so worried something is going to happen? And why… everything else?”
“I thought Toge told you.” Yuuta’s voice was even lower, harder for Toge to pick out. He sounded weary, depleted. “I watched him almost die. While I watched our other friend actually die.”
“I know that,” she said, almost flippantly. “Is it guilt or fear?”
“Both.”
“Where the hell is the guilt coming from?” she demanded. “You were a kid. Toge has said this to you a thousand times by now.”
“I…” Yuuta hesitated. “I could have done more, but I didn’t.”
“What more was there?” she said, incredulously. “And what do you mean by more? Do you think that you even did anything?”
Yuuta’s voice dropped even lower, and Toge had to strain to hear. “Toge is alive because of me.”
Toge felt just as taken aback as Maki. He’d never said anything like that to Toge before.
“Pardon?” she asked after a moment. “Toge never told me that.”
“I never told him,” Yuuta admitted. “I didn’t want him to feel indebted to me.”
“Oh please,” she muttered. “So how exactly did you save Toge from a car accident from inside the car, in the backseat, at eight years old?”
Yuuta didn’t answer right away. He sat in silence, and Toge himself was waiting eagerly to hear this new piece of information. “You can’t tell him.”
“Oh?”
Toge frowned.
“If I tell you, you can’t tell him.” Yuuta’s voice was serious and pleading.
“Alright…” Maki said dubiously.
“I mean it, Maki,” Yuuta asserted. “It’s—Well, it isn’t good, and I don’t want to upset him. It’ll hurt him.”
She seemed more intrigued by that. Toge was intrigued, too. “Okay, fine, say it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt like I knew what was going to happen before it happened.” Yuuta’s voice was so hushed that Toge had to step silently as far as he could go before being seen. “I was the one who asked for Toge to be in the middle that day. I said I wanted to sit by him. But I wanted to sit by him because I wanted to protect him, if something bad happened.”
“Okay,” Maki said, sounding unimpressed.
“I was looking out of Rika’s window when the car came,” Yuuta admitted in a whisper. “I saw it.”
“And?”
“Toge doesn’t remember the accident. It happened so fast he definitely doesn’t remember that I grabbed him. I held on to him, and pulled his head toward mine, right before the car hit us.” His voice was wet. “When I woke up, we were being taken out of the car. I saw everyone. I didn’t know that I had saved him.”
“No offense, but how do you know holding on to him was what saved him? You holding him from the other side couldn’t have done much.” Maki calmly spoke for Toge in that moment, because he felt shaken at what Yuuta thought had happened. It explained things that Toge didn’t even know he hadn’t fully understood.
“Toge couldn’t talk for a while after the accident. The broken glass had injured his throat. His doctor told everyone that if his head had even been slightly more turned, it would have hit his jugular and he would have bled out before the paramedics arrived.”
Toge covered his mouth with his hand so that his deep intake of breath wouldn’t be audible.
“So you think that because you saved him… what? I don’t get how this is relevant.”
“I can save him,” Yuuta whispered. “If I’m with him, I can save him.”
“Wow,” Maki said, sounding unimpressed and even judgmental. “You’re only around him because you feel guilt about not taking responsibility for his life after saving it once?”
“No!” Yuuta cried, volume rising significantly. “Don’t ever fucking say that to me.”
“Well, what the hell else did you mean?”
“Rika was our friend,” Yuuta said, voice wobbling. “I didn’t even consider protecting her. I only thought about him.”
Toge felt very complicated about that. He felt so complicated that he didn’t know what he thought of it, or if he didn’t really think anything about it at all. Hearing that didn’t feel like anything but a relief.
“He missed her, misses her, so much, and it’s my fault,” Yuuta said, thick with tears. “And I still—I don’t—Maki, I don’t even really feel guilty about it. Because if I had done something to try and help, I might not have been able to help Toge the way I needed to. And now, he’s alive and he’s with me, and I could never feel guilty about that.”
“Are you afraid that he’ll think less of you?”
“How could he not?” Yuuta muttered.
“I’ve heard him say similarly intense things, you know,” she said, sounding unimpressed again. “If having this conversation with him would help, I think it’s worth the risk. He won’t be as upset with you as you think.”
“You don’t know that,” he muttered. “Rika was… He loved her. More than he loved me.”
Toge was bewildered at that. He thought Yuuta was the one who had loved her more.
“I don’t believe that for a second and with good reason. Just talk to him, trust me.”
“What makes you so sure?” Yuuta sounded annoyed.
“If he tells you what he’s told me, you’ll get why.”
Yuuta made a frustrated sound. “I can’t lose him.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?” he cried. “Because—! It’s Toge. He’s my whole world.”
“You think you aren’t his? He has his own things he’s torn up over, and the lack of honesty from both of you despite your freakish closeness is astounding.” She sounded disgusted then. “You talk it out with him, and then I’ll check up on you guys again to make sure it was productive.”
“Maki—”
“Nope, I’m leaving. Tell him, or I will.” With that, she turned and marched out of the apartment. The door slamming shut behind her rang the apartment with silence. Yuuta had remained rooted in place, unmoving. Toge, too, was unmoving from his spot in the short hallway.
After a few moments, Yuuta stood. He rounded the corner and stumbled to a stop.
“Toge?” he said, strangled. “You were—were you—Toge, I’m so sorry.” His voice burst out of him. He grasped Toge’s hands. “Did you hear? I’m sorry, angel, I’m so sorry—”
Toge squeezed Yuuta’s hands. “It’s ok.”
Yuuta stared down at him with tearful eyes, looking scared, and it reminded Toge of when they were young, and Yuuta would helplessly watch and cry when Toge would fall during physical therapy, or when Toge would wince at his aching throat, or when Yuuta would stare off into space with an empty expression every time Rika was brought up.
“It’s ok,” Toge repeated softly. “Yuuta, it’s ok.”
Yuuta stared, lip starting to wobble, and then he burst into tears, lurching forward to bury his face in Toge’s shoulder. He started to cry, earnestly despairing and relieved.
Toge’s eyes stung at the sound. “You kept that a secret all these years?”
“I’m sorry,” Yuuta repeated on a sob. “I was afraid you’d hate me. You should hate me. All these years, and all I did was save you only to keep you trapped with me, and I—”
Toge reached up to yank lightly on his hair. “Yuuta,” he rasped, shaking his head. “Yuuta, it’s alright, please don’t cry.”
Yuuta couldn’t stop crying, it seemed. “You loved her, and I took her from you.”
Toge stared over his shoulder, at a loss. “You didn’t take her from me, just like you didn’t take her from yourself, either. I know you mourned her just as much as me.”
Yuuta pulled back a little, head hung and eyes downcast. “I don’t know. I mourned her a lot, but you—after everything happened, you were so distraught about her being gone. You were different, for such a long time.”
Toge reached up to hold his face. He tried to draw Yuuta’s gaze to meet his own. When he did, he felt an aching pulse in his chest at the look in Yuuta’s eyes. He swiped at Yuuta’s tears with his thumbs. “Oh, Yuuta,” Toge said with a sigh. He thought about what he could say in that moment, but he kept coming up short. Everything he thought about saying didn’t feel like the right thing, or that it would be enough. “Yuuta,” he tried instead, “thank you for saving me.”
Yuuta’s chin trembled, and a new wave of fresh, warm tears spilled over and onto Toge’s fingers. “Always,” he said, voice thick. “I’ll always save you, Toge.”
“It’s that, then?” Toge asked. “It’s not just worry about something happening, but that you feel like if you’re with me, you’ll save me.”
Yuuta hesitated, but he ended up nodding anyway. “Yes.” It came out like a breath. “I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll always save you.”
Toge pushed up and in, pressing his cheek to Yuuta’s. “I’ve never doubted that. Or you.”
Yuuta’s hands came up to wrap around him, tentative, like he was afraid to believe it. “You aren’t angry with me?”
“Why would I be angry with you over that?”
“Because I didn’t even think about her.” He sounded more angry with himself if anything.
Toge considered. He felt his own nervousness rise up to meet Yuuta’s. Yuuta seemed to have a different type of conscience compared to Toge’s. “I was very upset about Rika dying, you’re right.” He swallowed. It felt unnatural to prepare to say words that he had been burying for so long. “But I… felt complicated, I suppose.”
“Complicated how?” Yuuta whispered, arms starting to tighten, like now that Toge hadn’t run away, he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity.
“I missed her, and was so sad, but I also…” His mouth shut and tightened.
“What is it?” Yuuta prompted.
“It’s bad,” Toge said, strained. His throat was starting to hurt. “Worse than what you said.”
“I don’t know how it could be worse, baby,” Yuuta said, still whispering in the quiet. The term of endearment struck Toge like a bolt of lightning. “You just found out that I don’t feel guilty for not trying to save Rika because you would have died.”
“That’s exactly why it’s worse,” Toge said, his own throat starting to tighten more, and painfully, with guilty tears. “It was life or death, and you saved one. The one thing a person could save another from in that predicament, and you did it. If you hadn’t, it would have been the both of us.”
Yuuta’s hand held the back of Toge’s head and tightened his grip even more.
“I liked having you to myself,” Toge finally admitted, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it himself. “I missed her, but I liked that it was just us. And it was hard for me to think about anything except for what was in front of me, and what was in front of me was you, always nearby, always protecting me. I couldn’t think about her much. It upset me that you were so torn up about her, even though I was right there, happy to have you to myself.”
Yuuta exhaled shakily.
Toge gripped onto him. “I”m sorry,” he let out in a burst of breath, tears starting to choke him. “I’m sorry.”
Yuuta was very quiet. It made Toge start to heat with panic, and his forehead prickled with the promise of a nervous sweat breaking out soon.
Instead of back tracking, Toge blurted the other things that he’d been holding in, almost like he couldn’t contain it inside anymore. “And when I realized what happened, and I remembered, I felt so relieved that it wasn’t you. I wanted her to live, too, but I didn’t understand. I was too young to know how to feel. All I thought about was that I was relieved it wasn’t you.”
Yuuta still didn’t move, and it was like his lack of movement was triggering Toge’s brain into overdrive.
“And I felt so guilty, because you missed her so much, and didn’t handle it well, I knew you felt guilty even back then. And I couldn’t say this to you then, when you were grieving her so badly. Then I started to worry, a lot, that you were grieving so bad that you started to wish it was me instead. I still worry about it. I worry that you’re so terrorized by it all that it would have been better if it had just been me.”
Yuuta pushed away from the hold and put his hands on Toge’s shoulders. His expression was completely baffled. “What?” His voice was incredulous. “Toge, how could you ever think—!”
Toge wiped at his eyes. “Rika was—you loved her, and hated when other people paid attention to her, or were mean to her, and she was so much like you. You both—both of you protected me, she was different than me. You didn’t have to protect her because she could take care of herself. What if your life would have been happier if it had just been me?”
Yuuta put his hand over Toge’s mouth. His palm pressed flat to Toge’s lips, his thumb against the bottom of Toge’s chin, like he was trying to keep him from opening his jaw to try and speak. His eyes closed. He took in a deep, long breath and held it for a moment before he spoke again. “Don’t say that to me,” he said tightly. “Do not ever say that to me. The thought of that keeps me up at night. The thought of something happening to you now—it all scares me so much I can’t fucking sleep or eat or focus sometimes. I can’t bear to hear that, coming from your voice, from your mouth, saying that to me.”
Toge stared up at him, heart pounding. The firm press of Yuuta’s hand made him feel his heart beat in his lips.
Yuuta opened his eyes and looked down at him. “Don’t think like that,” he said. “All of these if scenarios end the same way, because it’s me. It’s me. And there is no chance in heaven, hell, or any parallel universe where I’m letting that happen. Maybe I’m fucked up, and maybe I’m sick, but I’m choosing you, no matter who else is on the line.”
Toge’s eyes dampened, and he tried to shuffle closer. Yuuta released his mouth slowly, hands hovering around Toge to receive him as Toge moved further in. Toge rested his head on Yuuta’s collarbone, nose pressed just to the base of Yuuta’s throat. He hugged him.
Yuuta returned the embrace, comfortable and warm as he ever was. Toge tried to swallow away the lump in his throat.
“Is that why you never dream it’s just me who dies?” Toge asked, voice low again. “It’s not because you would rather it have been me?”
Yuuta jerked. “I would never—Angel, not picking you is just something I’d never do.”
His tears were dampening Yuuta’s shirt. “I’m sorry you had to choose.”
Yuuta sucked in a shaky breath. “Me too,” he said, croaky. “But I’m not sorry about my choice.”
Toge lifted his head a bit to look at him, at the same time Yuuta did, and it put their faces close. Neither pulled away. “Thanks for choosing me,” he murmured. “I’m happy to have spent all of this time with you. I’m happy we have the rest of our lives, too.”
Yuuta’s face scrunched. Their foreheads clunked together as Yuuta squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m happy, too.” His voice was raw, like he’d just screamed a hundred times. “You make me so happy. It kills me that I’ve ever made you unhappy.”
Toge shook his head. “No,” he said. “You and I are the same, Yuuta. We’re the same.”
“Does that mean you won’t get to do what you want?” Yuuta asked, sounding fearful again. “Like move far away, or—meet someone.”
Toge swallowed. “You’re my someone.” His fingers gripped Yuuta’s shirt along his sides.
Yuuta looked back at him. His hands were on Toge’s waist. His eyes were searching, flickering between each of Toge’s eyes, brows drawn in together as though reading a book.
“You’re my someone, Yuuta,” Toge repeated, firmer.
Yuuta suddenly surged forward. His mouth slammed to Toge’s, hands already coming up to cradle Toge’s head and hold it to his own. His kiss was immediate, giving no time for Toge to even consider whether he wanted to do more than let their mouths touch. It didn’t take Toge long regardless. He sucked in a wild gasp, gripping onto Yuuta’s wrists.
Toge stumbled when Yuuta walked him backwards, deeper into the hallway. Yuuta kissed him in a completely uncoordinated way. Toge was just as uncoordinated, he was sure. They moved inexpertly. It might have been embarrassing if Yuuta wasn’t just as bad at it. They were equally terrible at it, and yet it felt divine.
Yuuta’s mouth was hot, wet, like he’d started salivating at some point in their conversation. When the movement of their lips forced Toge’s mouth open, Yuuta licked inside with another desperate inhale. “Toge,” he said shakily, like he was making sure too late whether or not it was ok.
“It’s ok,” Toge whispered, pitching forward to connect their lips again.
“Is it just ok?” Yuuta asked, pulling back far enough to look at him. His mouth was kiss bruised and glistening. “I’m sorry. Do you even want—”
Toge gripped his shirt and parted his lips. Yuuta’s gaze dropped to watch his mouth part. “Yuuta,” he said, slow, so Yuuta could watch the way he formed the word, the way his tongue touched the back of his teeth. Yuuta intercepted the word, tongue catching Toge’s, and sucking it into his mouth. Toge’s back hit the wall and Yuuta used it so he could press up against him from head to toe.
Yuuta cradled the back of Toge’s neck with one hand while the other squeezed desperately at his waist. Toge touched him, held him, wherever his hands led him.
As Yuuta’s mouth trailed a wet path down Toge’s jaw and throat, he spoke. His voice was helplessly urgent. “Was it me? Was it me that made you realize, angel? Don’t tell me it was someone else—please.”
It took Toge a moment to conjure up what Yuuta was asking. It was hard enough to think with Yuuta pressing searing kisses to the sensitive spots of his neck, let alone think without context. Toge’s fingers were sliding through his hair. “It was you,” he said, head thunking back into the wall. “You idiot. Who else?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Yuuta groaned. His hands were quick, sliding down until he was hoisting Toge up and holding him up against the wall. Toge held on to his shoulders, trying to lean most of his weight into the wall. Yuuta stared up at him with that dark expression, and it made Toge wonder how many times he’d seen it and interpreted as angry or upset when maybe it really meant this.
Toge tugged Yuuta back in to kiss him again, the feeling of his mouth on his own heavenly. He kissed him, without tongue that time, so he could feel him properly, like he was sucking in all of the things Yuuta had tried to give him throughout the years. “I thought you liked girls,” he admitted quietly, in the minimal space between them. “I thought, if Rika was alive, it’d be you two, until the end.” Toge felt the familiar twinge of despair at the imagery.
Yuuta shook his head, eyes lowering to Toge’s mouth. “She would have been around until the end, I’m sure, but as my friend.” He leaned in, still staring at Toge’s lips. “How could I resist you? How could I resist my angel, sent just for me? I can’t.” His voice dropped into a husky whisper as he leaned in, mouth tickling against Toge’s as he spoke. “I can’t.”
Toge let Yuuta kiss him. It was a sweeter kiss, and more indulgent. It was warm, and tender, and slow enough that it made Toge’s skin tingle pleasantly.
“You should understand better than anyone,” Yuuta said, still kissing him. He pulled Toge away from the wall and began to take him toward his bedroom. His mouth still kissed where he could reach, even as his face buried into the side of Toge’s throat. He fumbled with the door for a moment before it opened. “You should understand that loving Rika, as she was then, doesn’t affect the love that I have for you. The love I have for her isn’t evolved—it’s childish and it’s stuck like that.”
Yuuta laid Toge out on his bed. He stared down at him, and Toge felt a prickling feeling, like he was prey being hunted. The serious, dark look that Yuuta sometimes had was still on his face. It was a different type of dark, however, and the only time it had ever been pinned on Toge so surely.
“The love I have for you is different and has always been different,” Yuuta continued. He knelt on the bed between Toge’s legs. He bent over him and kissed down the column of his throat. His mouth stopped where Toge had been slashed open, and pressed soft, peppery kisses there. “It’s very different. It’s the kind that made me, at only eight years old, disregard every other person in that car except for you.”
“You love me?” Toge asked breathlessly. “Like that?”
Yuuta lifted his head, and that dark look betrayed how utterly serious he was. It was so serious that Toge almost let a bubble of joyful laughter out. He was over Toge the next moment, mouth on Toge’s ear. “I love you like that.”
Toge sighed, turning his face into Yuuta’s. His lips caught his cheek. “I love you, Yuuta.”
Yuuta lifted to stare down at him again, closer that time, and his expression was softened by the gentle upturn of his mouth. “It’s always been you for me. Tell me it’s been me for you.”
Toge reached up to cradle his face and bring it back to his own. “It’s you,” Toge assured. “I swear, it’s you.”
__________
When Toge woke up, he felt a presence. He, after so many years, naturally assumed it was Yuuta. He opened his eyes, expecting to see Yuuta somewhere in the room, lingering or even watching him. He was closer than anticipated. Yuuta was knelt on the floor beside the bed, peering over the edge, face only a few inches from Toge’s.
He startled, and then looked at Yuuta with an unimpressed expression.
Yuuta continued to stare. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Toge nestled his head onto his arm and settled back into the bed. “It’s ok,” he returned, also whispering. The memories from the night before rose in his mind, and he felt a giddiness fill his veins as they faced one another.
Yuuta pitched forward and kissed him.
Toge let out a sound in the back of his throat but returned it. “Yuuta,” he murmured against him.
“Can we talk?” Yuuta murmured, pulling back just slightly. Their noses still touched. His voice was more serious though, and he looked somewhat nervous.
Inevitably, Toge’s heart sank. He pushed himself up to sitting, trying to gauge Yuuta from his expression. “Yeah,” he said. He crossed his legs and tried not to look like he was nauseous.
Yuuta was still kneeling on the floor. He reached over the mattress and placed his hand on Toge’s leg. “We said a lot of things last night,” he began. “And emotions were really high…”
Toge’s heart sank further, and the wave of nausea that was already rolling through him hit him like a wall. He swallowed, as though to keep whatever he had in his stomach down. His chest hurt, like his heart was a battering ram slamming against his ribs.
Yuuta paused. His eyes were intense, honed in on Toge’s face. “…What is it?” he asked. “Toge?”
He tried to clamp down on it, but that effort left him with a trembling chin and bottom lip.
“Toge?” Yuuta repeated again, more urgently. His hand clasped Toge’s. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s fine,” he said, voice raspy. He swiped his free palm across his eyes. “What did you want to say?”
Yuuta was silent for a moment, and Toge could only guess what expression he was making since he kept his hands rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t really want to look at Yuuta.
“Yuuta,” Toge repeated, still not looking. “Just say what you need to say.”
“I feel like something was miscommunicated,” Yuuta said anxiously. “You’re crying.”
“Well, I meant what I said, and I thought you did, too,” Toge said, his tone irritated and snippy, a stark contrast to what he actually felt, which was hurt and endlessly sad. “And if you didn’t, then that’s fine. Tell me the parts you didn’t mean and we can move on.”
Yuuta was quiet again. After a moment of silence, he moved up onto the bed and pulled Toge’s stiff body into the cradle of his. He rested his cheek on the top of Toge’s head. His hand was holding Toge’s cheek and the other was wrapped snugly around Toge’s chest. “My angel,” he murmured, voice quiet and husky, like he was also emotional. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Toge’s ear was pressed right at Yuuta’s collarbone, and with how firm the embrace was, he was pressed in just enough that he could feel the heavy thudding of Yuuta’s heart. It was quick. It wasn’t panicky like it sometimes was, but solid and urgent.
“I’m sorry,” Yuuta continued in a whisper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Toge stared at the wall. His vision was fuzzy with tears. Yuuta’s thumb stroked gently over his cheek. “You kissed me,” he said. “You shouldn’t do things like that when you don’t mean them.”
“But I did mean it like that,” Yuuta argued, squeezing him. He turned his face to start kissing Toge’s head. He twisted down to kiss Toge’s forehead, and his nose, his cheeks, and then tilted his face up. “I mean it.” His voice was more firm, eyes dark as they met Toge’s. He kissed his mouth.
Toge stared back at him. Yuuta didn’t shut his eyes and neither did he. Yuuta kissed Toge’s mouth in such a way to work it open.
Yuuta pulled back slowly, and their mouths made a wet noise as they separated. “Whatever you want it to mean, I mean, because I mean all of it.”
Toge’s eyes dropped. Yuuta’s expression was too intense for him to meet. His cheeks were already flushing with heat. “Why’d you say something like that, then?”
Yuuta’s fingers grasped Toge’s chin. He tilted his face back up. “There were parts of that conversation that were clear,” he admitted. His mouth touched Toge’s again, like he was using that as the example. He pulled away. He moved back in. When their lips touched that time, Toge’s eyes closed. He couldn’t help it. It felt so good, and so overdue.
After a few moments, Yuuta pulled away again. Toge’s eyes opened. Yuuta was smiling at him, and it was an easy, happy smile that Toge didn’t often see.
“There were also some earth shattering things said, too,” Yuuta murmured. “For me, at least.”
Toge nodded. “For me, too.”
Yuuta smiled again, and his shoulders dropped a little, like he felt more at ease.
“Before we do that, will you tell me you love me?” Toge whispered.
Yuuta blinked, looking surprised and almost confused. “I love you,” he said, “always. Always, always, Toge. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
Toge hooked his chin over his shoulder and hugged him. He squeezed his eyes shut. “In what way?”
Yuuta’s arms came up around him snugly. He sighed sweetly. “In what way…” he repeated on his breath. “How do I describe it?” he asked rhetorically, like he was speaking to himself. “The love I have for my Toge…” His hand came up to hold the back of Toge’s nape. “I think that I love you like… Like I’m me and you’re you. The love that any Yuuta would have for his Toge.”
Toge held onto him tighter.
“I can’t breathe without you,” Yuuta said, “and I can’t eat or sleep or do anything without you. I wish I could sew you into me and I wish I could sew myself into you.”
“Do you want me?” Toge whispered.
“I just said I want us sewn together,” Yuuta said, laughing.
“Wanting me is different than needing me,” Toge whispered. “I need you, but I also want you. I know you need me. Do you want me?”
Yuuta pitched forward and laid Toge down onto the bed. His mouth was on Toge’s throat. He kissed a trail over his skin, but stopped where the faint scars were from the accident. His kisses were butterfly-gentle, until they turned firmer, and firmer, and his teeth scraped along each line. “I want you, angel.”
“Then we have nothing to talk about,” Toge said, grabbing Yuuta’s face and dragging it back to his own. “I meant what I said, Yuuta. All of it.”
Yuuta stared down at him, eyes dark again, in the way that made Toge’s stomach flip. “You know me, Toge. What do you think I’ll do, now that I know that?”
Toge kissed his mouth lightly. Then pressed a light kiss to his jaw, and then his ear. “You really won’t let me go.”
“I’ll get worse,” he admitted, sounding both apologetic and like he was giving him a warning. “I’m going to get worse, angel.”
Toge put his mouth on Yuuta’s. “What’s worse for everyone else is better for me.”
Yuuta exhaled softly. He rested his weight onto Toge’s body. “These last fifteen years, Toge… that’s been me on my best behavior.”
Toge laughed quietly. He kissed his mouth again, light and airy. “I like you when you’re being good and when you’re being bad.”
Yuuta bent down further, and started to suck lightly at Toge’s throat. “You meant it all? Everything?”
“Everything,” Toge whispered.
Yuuta let out a long, pleased sigh and rested his full weight into Toge’s. He sucked at another part of Toge’s jaw. It was methodical, slow, easy, like he’d been waiting for the chance to leisurely mark Toge’s skin.
“And you?” Toge whispered, scraping lightly at the base of Yuuta’s skull. “This isn’t just because I was the one left over?”
“God,” Yuuta said, sounding jarred at the thought. “My angel being referred to as leftovers by my angel himself makes me sick.” He kissed up to Toge’s ear. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Toge,” he started, and his breath fanned down Toge’s skin. It made tingles rise on the back of Toge’s neck. “If someone came in here and merely told me to let you go, or tried to convince you to leave me, I’d kill them.”
Toge swallowed audibly. Yuuta traced the noise, mouth trailing down to the scars like he had before. He kissed over each one.
“If I could find the man who hit us, who did this to you, I’d kill him.” Yuuta paused. “To save you, to keep you, I’ll do anything. I’ll kill someone, I’ll stop something, I don’t care what. Everyone told me it was divine intervention that saved you from that glass, but it was me.” His voice was sharp, inarguable. “I intervened.”
Toge’s breath turned shallow. His hips shifted up, almost involuntarily.
“Does that upset you?”
“No.” It came out like a whisper. “No, Yuuta.” He dug his fingers into Yuuta’s skin. “I don’t need a miracle or divine intervention, or anything. I just need you.”
Yuuta’s mouth touched his again. “Then we were right. All this time, we were right. We’re fine. We understand each other.”
Toge kissed him once, and then twice. “We’re fine,” he repeated softly.
Yuuta held his face to his own. “Completely fine.”
__________
“You always say that.”
Yuuta was scribbling on his notebook paper. He was anxiously trying to fit a semester’s amount of work onto one cheat sheet for their first final of high school. He looked up at Toge. “What?”
“You always call me angel.”
Yuuta blinked at him, like he didn’t know what Toge was referencing. He seemed to go back in his mind. When he remembered the last thing he’d said—“Just a second, angel, I’m almost done.”—he set his pencil down. “Does it bother you?”
“No,” Toge said honestly. “Just curious. You’ve said it since we were young.”
“You’re my angel,” Yuuta replied, just as honestly. “You’ve always been my angel. Like you were sent just for me.”
Toge felt his face heat up. He looked away. “Oh.”
“Remember when we met?” Yuuta asked, almost sounding anxious. “You told the kids who were picking on me at the park to leave me alone.”
“I remember,” Toge murmured back. “We played together after that.”
“And you stayed with me,” Yuuta said. “You were my first friend.”
Toge chewed on his lip lightly, starting to feel embarrassed for a reason he was unsure of. “You were mine, too.”
“It’s like you were sent to me,” Yuuta continued, looking earnestly serious. “I remember feeling like you appeared out of thin air, just to save me.”
Toge smiled, though he tried not to look so pleased.
“I’ll return the favor, always,” Yuuta said. He paused. “…But if you don’t like it when I call you that, I can stop.” Yuuta sounded sad. “It might take a while to break the habit.”
“No,” Toge said, certain his face was pink. He stared at the bedspread beneath them. He picked at a loose thread. “I don’t mind, I was just wondering.”
Yuuta reached out and grasped Toge’s hand. He brought it to his mouth and kissed his palm. “Angel,” he called gently.
Toge glanced over at him.
“I love you.”
Toge’s heart pounded, feeling charmed in a way he’d never felt before. His face felt like it was on fire. He turned his face away, but didn’t pull his hand from Yuuta’s. “I love you, too.”
It felt different when Toge said it that time. It felt heavier. It felt more real, more complete.
I love you, Toge thought, certain. I love just you.