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A sigh escaped Sajou’s lips as the school bell drilled a familiar tune into his ear, textbooks placing a gentle pressure in his elbows.
Senior year would’ve been completely ordinary for him if not for Kusakabe. It was weird enough that they were dating, but rumours had already started about their relationship. That’s not to say Sajou could see him, anyway, despite how much he might have enjoyed their time together because they had been inevitably split apart for their last year of high school. Maybe it was better that they couldn’t see each other, though. It saved Sajou a lot of trouble surrounding their relationship that was just so…controversial.
At least, that should have been the peaceful middle they both resigned to, but Kusakabe refused to see him only outside school hours, so he decided to create a solution (which, to Sajou, was really more of a problem): They would pass notes to each other in the hallways. How they were to keep this completely unnoticed Sajou had no idea.
Sajou’s chest tightened as he left the classroom, light crashing through hallway window blinds to narrow his vision. Step by step he made his way through the sea of bodies, body heat and beating sun draping a film of sweat over his pores. His eyes flitted to meet a head of unruly blond hair peeking out of the profusion. Sajou felt the muscles in his shoulders stiffen, fingers curling into a tighter grip around the delicate spines of his textbooks. Here we go, he thought, pausing in anticipation as drops of sweat got caught in the hairs on his nape.
You’d expect that Kusakabe would be the kind of guy to smirk. He’d smirk at big-breasted girls and the friends he met Thursdays at karaoke and articles in Rolling Stone, big proud smirks that paraded ego in the splitting of his lips, smirks that made it all too certain that he and someone like Sajou would never be together, much less romantically. But Kusakabe was the very meaning of contradictory; he smiled small, gentle smiles, curving only the edges of his lips, smiles that were hardly an accurate representation of the warmth behind them, smiles that, for the most part, were only for Sajou. So when the dark rings embracing Sajou’s eyelids saw Kusakabe’s smile they lightened a little, imploring a buoyant flutter in his heartbeat. And what more proof did you need that Kusakabe was an unexpected defiance?
The warmth left Sajou’s hand as quickly as it had touched it, leaving a lingering ardor. Sweat jammed itself into the deep lines on his palms as he crushed the paper into crevices formed by his knuckles. This note was his, and so were all the feelings that came with it. He rushed to his seat, knees buckling as he fell (ungracefully so) into his desk.
Wanna grab food with me after school?
Fingers coiling around his pen, Sajou turned over the crumpled paper and scrawled his reply, eager to finish the task before the teacher entered the room for fear of being caught. God, could you think of anything more awful?
Who else is coming? He resigned, trying his best not to watch the clock until the next period change.
Perhaps the biggest fault in the plan (which Sajou would not admit, of course) was how long they had to wait to hear a response. All either of them could think about after receiving a note was what they had written in reply – when the other would read it, what they would say – but they had to wait a whole period to reciprocate it, and yet another to seize the next. Though, it wasn’t like Sajou would point this out for sake of his stubbornness; he did, in fact, enjoy being able to talk to Kusakabe throughout the day in whatever way he could.
The bell signalled the repeating process, Sajou slipping the note into Kusakabe’s hand as discreetly as possible (that wasn’t to say the red decorating his face was any bit discreet). It was near impossible to think he had to sit through another hour before hearing the answer.
Sajou didn’t dislike Kusakabe’s friends. In fact, he thought they’d be quite nice people if he belonged to their group. The fact was, he just didn’t. No matter how proving Kusakabe’s smile was, in an all-boys school, associating with another kind of person was wary enough without them dating. He couldn’t be friends with them by extension of Kusakabe because then there’s the question of why Kusakabe is his extension to begin with. Unfortunately, the boy Sajou was dating tended to be a little clueless, so it was like him to invite Sajou along with him and his friends. Sajou supposed he just didn’t see their social restrictions, but whatever the case, he could not go anywhere with Kusakabe and his friends.
The next hallway excursion stirred a sense of anticipation in Sajou’s stomach. His fingers slid the paper into his hand, brushing Kusakabe’s gently. As soon as he could, he unraveled the slip and squinted to make out the messy scrawl.
Just us.
A tingling skipped up his spine, warmth encasing his bones as he scribbled the only answer he could think to express.
Okay.
It sounded a lot less stoic in his head, really, it was shyer and less reluctant, but he just didn’t know how to put it into words any other way. It was okay. Everything was okay, because he was going to be with Kusakabe soon, and that was maybe the most okay thing Sajou had ever dreamt of. Everything was okay when they were together. Okay.
Sajou spent the next period with his head in his hand, letting the breeze play with flyaway strands of his hair as he imagined the afternoon. The sun bloomed lush grass and dancing flowers, it was the flush of spring, and yet the season wasn’t what was budding a warm sensation in his chest. The period was over before he knew it began, and he was more than ready for what was to come.
I really like you. Were the last four words he would receive from Kusakabe before the end of the day. All that was left was his reply. He really, really, wanted to say he liked him too, just as much, maybe even more, but he couldn’t find the right position for his fingers on the pen to write the words. His palms kept getting sweaty and his knuckles couldn’t bend themselves the right places for him to say something like that. So Sajou put down the next best thing he could think of.
Thank you.
It was a thank you that he really meant. Sajou had never been in a relationship, unlike Kusakabe, who had been seen dating one girl after another since the first year of high school. He couldn’t help but get caught on the wrist by a brooding doubt, one that kept telling him he could never measure up to whatever his boyfriend had experienced before. But it was times like this when he could almost see Kusakabe’s apple-dusted cheeks, eyelids wilting November petals over his pupils, that Sajou knew he must care for him, if even a little.
Of course, when Kusakabe saw the note, it was an understatement to say he was surprised. Thank you? Who replies to a statement of romantic interest with “thank you”? While most of him was overwhelmed, there was a piece of the boy that knew Sajou was holding back, for whatever reason he didn’t quite understand just yet. But he did know, somewhere, that the feeling was mutual. Kusakabe wasn’t the only one thinking nothing of his studies as the days went by, finding himself unable to sleep, cherishing the few moments he had spent with a certain boy.
Kusakabe was sure that “Thank you” meant “I love you too”.