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mahowaga · 2 months ago

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THE TRAGEDY OF SOFT THINGS | G.S.

SUMMARY: some people rot like fruit. suguru was more delicate–he fell apart like silk unraveling, quiet and beautiful. by the time you noticed the first thread had frayed, it was too late.

PAIRING: geto suguru x fem!reader CONTAINS: romantic decay, hurt/comfort (kind of?), there's more hurt than comfort tbh, doomed romance, no curses au, college au, angst, hanging onto something long gone, really, denial, a failed attempt at portraying suguru's break down WC: 22.0k WARNINGS: implied abuse/violence, depictions of grief and loss

I. THE BEFORE – the stillness before the storm Before Geto Suguru, there was silence. Not peace. Just a silence you didn’t know you were drowning in.

You met Geto Suguru on a Tuesday.

You remember because the campus bookstore smelled like old wood and ink that day, and the light slanted through the dusty windows in thick, golden bars–the kind that made you think of slow afternoons and things that didn’t quite hurt yet. The air was warm but shy of oppressive, caught in that strange seasonal limbo where summer hasn’t ended, but autumn has already begun to whisper against your skin. It was the kind of weather that makes people linger in doorways. In aisles. In silences. And you’d lingered–at the back of the line, behind someone tall with ink-dark hair tied back into a smooth, neat tail that gleamed like polished obsidian beneath the sunbeam caught in the skylight.

He stood still with his head slightly tilted, reading the spine of a book like it was a person he didn’t want to interrupt. His body language didn’t shift, didn’t twitch–not a finger tap, not a foot shuffle, not even the absentminded hums so many others carried like background static. He didn’t glance at his phone. He didn’t sigh. He simply existed–calm and quiet, like a still pond untouched by wind.

There was something striking about that. Something unnerving, even. As if he was waiting for a thought to finish forming before the world could resume.

He wasn’t beautiful in the way most people notice–not sharp-jawed or golden-skinned or chiseled. It was quieter than that. The kind of beauty you only notice if you, too, are quiet. The kind that hides in the slope of a nose, the line of a neck, the thoughtful furrow between brows as he’d turned over the philosophy section like a priest inspecting relics.

You’d watched as he picked up a copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, thumbed through the opening chapter, then tucked it under his arm with something that wasn’t quite reverence, but close.

You bought a refill pack of notecards and a secondhand copy of The Bell Jar. The irony didn’t hit you until later.

There was no conversation. Not then. You didn’t speak, didn’t even look at him properly when he paid, just the flicker of movement as he passed a bill to the cashier, voice low and smooth, syllables wrapped in velvet.

You stepped out a moment after him, the bell above the bookstore door giving its usual tired jingle. A gust of wind blew down the sidewalk–just strong enough to stir the world without truly moving it–and a loose paper leaflet came spinning from somewhere, catching in the air like a reluctant bird.

It collided with his chest–fluttered, folded, stuttered against the fabric of his coat–and stuck.

He looked down at it. Didn’t flinch. Just pinched the paper between two long fingers and examined it the way someone might a fortune from a cookie. His eyes moved slowly across whatever was printed there. Then he turned slightly and offered it to you with a soft-spoken,

“Yours?”

His voice startled you–not because it was loud, but because it wasn’t. It was the kind of voice that didn’t force you to listen but made you want to. Like the last line of a poem murmured before sleep.

You shook your head, surprised by how dry your throat had suddenly become.

“No,” you said. “Not mine.”

He nodded once–not disinterested, just matter-of-fact–then folded the leaflet in half. Once. Twice. Precise as origami. Then stepped aside and slipped it into the metal bin bolted to the sidewalk, careful not to crush it, like it deserved more than just to be discarded.

You stood there for a moment, both of you, as the paper disappeared from view. Neither of you spoke, but something about the silence felt ceremonial–like a moment held its breath between two strangers.

You smiled, small and unsure, caught between amusement and curiosity.

He did not smile back. But he looked at you–really looked–and something passed behind his eyes. Not recognition, not yet. But attention. Like you were worth remembering. Like something about you had registered.

Then, without another word, he turned and walked away, the black ribbon of his hair tie gleaming faintly under the sun. A single strand threatened to slip loose near his temple, but didn’t.

You watched him until the crowd swallowed him. You didn’t know then that you’d just met the axis around which your world would gently, inevitably tilt.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

Suguru was a sociology major, minoring in education–a combination that made perfect sense, once you got to know him. He wasn’t interested in studying things just to name them. He wanted to understand why they broke. Who they broke. And whether or not they could be fixed.

He didn’t talk much in class. Not unless he had something to say. And when he did speak, it wasn’t to fill silence or impress the room–it was because something had troubled him. Because he had turned it over in his head like a river stone and wanted to offer it up to the rest of you. People listened when he spoke, but not in the way they listened to loud voices or charismatic leaders. Suguru had no desire to dominate a room. His voice was low, sure, but steady–and more than that, certain. Each word felt like it had passed through a dozen internal checkpoints before it made it past his lips.

There was something surgical about the way he used language–a kind of quiet discipline that suggested he understood the weight of every syllable. It was never arrogant, never overbearing. It just was. Like he had taught himself how to wield precision where others wielded volume.

He thought with his head, always. He had the posture of someone who had spent years thinking before speaking, watching before reacting. But you noticed–quietly, privately–that he felt with his hands.

His fingers lingered on old book spines, brushing the faded lettering like they were braille. He ran his thumb along the edge of his notebook when he was listening closely. He tapped twice on the corners of desks when he finished reading, like punctuation. You once watched him, absentminded, pick a thread from a stranger’s sleeve in the middle of a group discussion. Not because it bothered him, but because he noticed it. Because he couldn’t not notice. And he smoothed the fabric down after, gentle and unassuming, like kindness lived in his fingertips rather than his words.

Geto Suguru existed like someone who did not want to take up too much space, but had too many thoughts to keep inside. He moved like he was trying to stay out of life’s way, and yet–it bent toward him anyway.

You were quiet, too. Always had been. You lived on the edges of conversations, the margins of group projects, the gaps between loud parties and louder people. The world around you was too fast, too sharp. It moved in jagged motions, demanded too much. You’d learned to survive by staying soft, by going unnoticed. But around him?

Around him, silence wasn’t absence. It was shared space.

With Suguru, quiet wasn’t something to fill–it was something to keep.

You remember sitting across from him in the student lounge once, both of you reading, neither of you talking. His leg brushed yours. He didn’t move it. Neither did you. An entire hour passed like that. And somehow, it felt like a conversation.

It made you brave. He made you brave.

You asked him to walk with you once. Just once. After class, when the sun was slanting low and the sky was the color of soaked lavender. You said it like a joke, like a shrug, so he’d have an out. You were already bracing for a polite refusal when he looked at you–eyes half-lidded with soft surprise–and said,

“Alright.”

Not like it was a favor. Not like it was a decision. Just like… of course. Like walking with you was already part of the plan.

That walk didn’t lead to anything dramatic. There was no kiss, no confession, no moment of cinematic tension. You just walked. Shoulder to shoulder. Your footsteps fell into rhythm without trying.

He asked about your book. You asked about his essay. He spoke more than usual, but still slowly–like he was measuring not the words themselves, but the space they’d take up in the air between you.

He told you he hated talking in groups. That he found it hard to know when it was his turn. That sometimes, he got tired just thinking about how many ways a conversation could go wrong. That it was easier to listen. To study. To wait.

And then–softer–he added, “But I don’t feel that way around you.”

It was said so plainly, so absent of performance, that it took you a moment to process. You didn’t know what to say. You only nodded, smiling and warm, and kept walking.

Later, long after you’d parted ways, you realized: he had just given you something rare. A sliver of himself. And you had tucked it away like a pressed flower between pages.

You didn’t know it yet, but that was how it would always be with Suguru.

He wouldn’t hand you his heart all at once. He would give it to you bit by bit, in wordless gestures and half-lit moments. A thought. A glance. A brush of fingertips against yours when reaching for the same door.

And somehow, you would come to treasure those more than anything loud ever could.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You’d both sit on the stone bench near the library courtyard–the one tucked behind the foreign language department, mostly forgotten except by the squirrels and the occasional smoker. A willow tree loomed there like a sleeping giant, its long green strands brushing the top of your heads like fingers in prayer. Its roots had cracked through the pavement over time, crawling out in thick, tangled webs like veins beneath skin, reminding you that nothing–not even concrete–could truly contain what wanted to grow.

The bench was always cold, no matter the weather. But Suguru never seemed to mind. He’d sit with one leg folded over the other, fingers draped loosely around the paper cup of coffee you’d sometimes bring him. Always black. Always two sugars. Sometimes he’d drink it. Sometimes he’d let it go cold beside him, forgotten while his thoughts wandered.

He spoke more with you. Never all at once. Never casually. It started with small things–a comment on a passage you’d underlined in your copy of Brave New World, a dry observation about a professor’s mismatched socks, a brief murmur about how odd it was that people always talked during movies, even when they claimed to love them.

You didn’t know it at the time, but those small things were Suguru’s way of reaching across a void he didn’t quite know how to cross.

And when he did start to speak–really speak–it was slow. Cautious. Like testing the weight of his own voice. Like he was trying to remember how to be a person who trusted someone else with the shape of his thoughts.

He told you about his childhood.

He didn’t dramatize it. Didn’t say it with bitterness or grief. Just with a kind of observational distance, like he was explaining the growth pattern of a plant he’d once watched through a window.

“My parents weren’t bad. Just… busy. I was a quiet kid, so they let me be.”

He said it like a fact. Not a wound. But you heard the ache in it anyway–the subtle way his mouth tightened on the last syllable, how his eyes didn’t quite meet yours when he said let me be.

He told you about the first time he saw someone die.

“It was on a subway platform. I was fourteen. An old man just collapsed. Right in front of me. No one moved. Not at first. People just kept looking away. Or pretending they hadn’t seen.”

His voice didn’t shake, but his hands curled slightly on his knees.

“Eventually, someone called for help. But it was too late. I kept thinking, how many of them were thinking someone else will do it?”

You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to.

He looked down at his shoes for a long moment before saying, softer this time,

“That moment did something to me. Twisted something. I started noticing it everywhere–the ways people look away. The ways they don’t get involved.”

And then he asked you:

“Why don’t people help each other? When it matters?”

You thought for a long time before answering. He liked that about you–that you didn’t rush to fill silences, didn’t treat questions like contests.

“Do you think that’s something that can be taught?” you asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at the willow branches swaying above, their leaves hushing the sky.

“I hope so,” he said. Then, after a pause that felt heavier than the rest, “That’s why I’m studying this.”

That was the first time you saw the shape of his hope. Not loud, not idealistic, not romantic. It was quiet. Worn down around the edges like something he’d been trying to keep alive with sheer will.

He told you about his plans. He wanted to teach. Maybe high school. Maybe middle school. Younger, maybe, depending on where he could make the most difference. He wasn’t interested in private institutions, prestigious names, or cushy salaries. He wanted the kids who slipped through cracks. The ones no one bet on.

“I want to be the kind of adult I didn’t have,” he said. “Someone who actually listens. Who notices. Who doesn’t write them off just because they’re tired or angry or quiet.”

You didn’t realize you were smiling until he gave you the smallest glance–half amusement, half embarrassment.

“That’s idealistic, isn’t it.”

“No,” you said. “It’s rare.”

He looked at you then, like he was trying to decide whether he believed you. Eventually, he gave a short, quiet hum and turned back to the sky.

“People are just… so busy surviving,” he said. “They forget how to be kind.”

You never forgot that line. Even long after, even when kindness was no longer part of the equation–you remembered that. Because it wasn’t cynical. It was weary. It was someone trying to understand why the world didn’t match the softness they still wanted to believe in.

He never said any of these things in class. Not in seminars. Not to the boys who sat with him in the back row. Not to the baristas who flirted when they handed him his change.

But he said them to you. Like you were a clearing in the forest. A place he could stop to breathe.

That mattered more than anything else he’d given the world.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You learned the rhythm of him.

It was never announced. It arrived slowly, like sunlight easing across your bedroom wall in the morning–quiet, certain, irreversible. It wasn’t something he taught you, but something you absorbed through presence, through repetition, through the kind of noticing that love trains you into without asking.

He took his coffee black with two sugars. Not one. Not three. Always two. And not stirred too much–just enough for the sweetness to settle like a secret at the bottom of the cup. He never used bookmarks–he said they were a crutch. Instead, he folded the corners of the pages with the kind of deliberate care one might use folding origami or sacred letters. Precise creases. No rush. Always the top-right corner, never the bottom. You once asked him why. He said it just felt wrong, folding the bottom.

He got headaches when he read in moving cars, but he tried anyway. You saw him once, on a bus ride back from a student conference, eyes pinched against the sun-streaked window, a paperback half-open in his lap. He’d looked like someone trying to win a battle with his own body–stubborn, patient, losing.

He hummed under his breath when he thought no one could hear. Never full songs–just fragments. Themes. Melodies. You recognized Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major once, so faint it felt like a memory more than sound. When you asked him if he played, he shrugged and said no. When you pressed, teasing, “Then how do you know Chopin?” he blinked like the question surprised him. Then he said, “I don’t,” and never brought it up again.

And always–always–there was the hair tie.

He wore it like a promise, a ritual looped around his dark hair, black and slightly fraying at the edges. It was thin, overstretched from habit. You never saw him buy a new one. You wondered if he ever had. His hair was always tied back–sleek, disciplined, not a strand out of place. It gave him the air of someone who needed order, who kept parts of himself bound and tucked away, not out of vanity but necessity. His hair was his armor. His control.

You never saw it down. Not in class. Not during study sessions. Not even that time he got caught in the rain without his umbrella. His tie had held.

Until midterms.

You met him at the campus cafe–the one with terrible lighting and off-brand espresso that somehow still tasted like comfort. The place was humming with anxious energy: people murmuring definitions into cups, highlighters uncapped like weapons, professors pacing in and out with stacks of exam sheets. The world had taken on that sharp, caffeine-shimmered sheen of academic survival.

Suguru was already at the table when you arrived, hunched slightly over his notes, one hand curled around a steaming mug, the other pressing his pen hard enough into the page that the indentations were visible from where you stood.

He looked tired–more than usual. Not the kind of tired that came from a bad night’s sleep, but the kind that clung to the bones. His eyes were ringed with the purple shadows of too many nights thinking when he should’ve been resting. His collar was wrinkled. His shirt was one button too high. His fingers had ink smudges.

And there, for the first time, a single strand of hair had come loose.

It fell from the tie, slow and deliberate, curving down the side of his face like a silk ribbon unfurling in protest. It wasn’t messy. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just undone–the first note of a song that hadn’t yet realized it was a lament.

He didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, and didn’t care.

You didn’t say anything, but your eyes lingered. Just for a moment. Because something about it–the softness of the strand against his cheek, the way it moved when he tilted his head–felt like a secret. Not a scandalous one, but a quiet, sacred one. A crack in the carefully composed surface of him. The kind of detail that only you noticed, and didn’t want to give back.

It was the smallest thing. And yet you remember it more clearly than the words you exchanged that day. You remember the way your fingers itched to tuck it behind his ear, and how that instinct startled you. Not because it was romantic–but because it was tender.

Because that was the moment you realized: he was letting things go. Not just that strand of hair. Not just sleep. Something deeper. Something internal.

You didn’t have a name for it yet. Not then. But later, when you looked back, you marked this moment as the first time Geto Suguru began to unravel.

And you–foolishly, lovingly–told yourself it was just a strand of hair.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You weren’t dating. Not yet.

There were no confessions. No gestures. No lightning strikes in the street. No spilled drinks and rushed apologies. No breathless declarations beneath a night sky heavy with stars.

But there were long walks home that neither of you needed to take.

His dorm was in the opposite direction. You knew that. He did, too. But neither of you ever mentioned it. He walked beside you anyway, hands in his coat pockets, his steps always half a beat slower than yours–as if matching your rhythm required effort, but one he was willing to make.

There were shared umbrellas in sudden rainstorms, the canopy small enough that your arms would brush with every step. You remember the warmth of his sleeve against yours, the damp scent of the world around you–wet pavement, wet leaves, the smell of Suguru’s cologne bleeding faintly into the cotton of your shoulder.

There were shoulder brushes in crowded hallways. Shared glances during lectures. The quiet thrill of finding him already at your favorite table in the library, a second cup of coffee–black with two sugars–waiting beside him like a bookmark made of steam and intention.

There was the warmth of him beside you on library couches, his thigh close enough to yours that the fabric would catch and hold, pulling gently when one of you shifted. He always smelled like cold air and books, like something you didn’t know how to want yet but already missed when it was gone.

There was the way he said your name when no one else was listening. Softly. Not possessive, not dramatic. Just deliberate. Like your name was something he’d thought about before saying. Like it mattered that it was you.

You learned that Suguru didn’t need big moments. He was the quiet kind. He moved in undercurrents. He offered pieces of himself the way some people offered tea–carefully, attentively, waiting to see if you would sip or turn away.

And you–you took everything he gave you and folded it into the hollow beneath your ribs like it had always belonged there.

You didn’t notice how much he’d started to mean until the night he stood outside your dorm building in the rain.

It was late–late enough that even the cars had stopped growling down the roads, and the streetlights hummed like lullabies. The rain had begun as a mist, turned to a drizzle, and now lingered in that strange threshold between rainfall and silence. The world smelled clean and cold, and your coat was too thin for the season, but you hadn’t cared. Not with him there.

He’d walked you all the way again–his coat buttoned all the way up, hands deep in his pockets, hair pulled back neatly despite the damp. You stopped at the front step. Said goodnight. Waited for him to say the same.

But he didn’t. He just stood there. Looking at you the way he always did–like he was trying to memorize something without letting you know he was studying it.

And then, without shifting, without warning, he said:

“You make it easier to breathe.”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t even romantic, not in the conventional sense. It was simply honest. Bare. A truth laid out between you, untouched by expectation.

You didn’t know what he meant. Not really. Not then. You didn’t know the weight he carried, or how rare it was for him to say something that vulnerable without retreating into silence right after.

But you nodded. Not because you understood–but because you wanted to. And something fragile took root in the space between you.

Not love. Not just yet. But the soil was there. The rain had come.

And somewhere beneath the surface, the first thread of something soft and unspeakable began to pull taut.

It began, like all tragedies do, in a moment so quiet you almost missed it.

II. THE BLOOM – when love feels like spring Love with Suguru was a soft unfurling–like petals after frost, like warm hands on cold skin.

Falling in love with Suguru isn’t something that happens all at once.

There’s no shift. No sudden acceleration. No dizzying realization that leaves your chest hollow and gasping. Nothing cinematic. Nothing loud.

It’s quieter than that. Slower.

It’s brushing his knuckles by accident in the hallway and not pulling away. It’s noticing the way he opens milk cartons like they’re puzzles–fingers pressed gently at the seam, folding the corners down with practiced precision. It’s waking up in the middle of the night and wondering what his voice sounds like before he’s put the day on like armor.

It’s watching how he reads. Not just the words, but the white space between them.

It’s learning his pauses. The way he inhales before asking a question. The tilt of his head when he’s listening. How he twitches his pen cap between his fingers while thinking, then snaps it back on with a quiet click that always feels too final.

You fall in love slowly, like a house warming to the morning sun–windows catching golden streaks, floors holding footprints. It’s not something you notice in the moment. It’s something you realize retroactively, like a bruise that blooms hours after the impact.

And the strangest part is–it’s mutual.

You don’t expect it. You don’t look for signs. You’re just sitting beside him in a seminar, your desk a half-inch too close, your sleeve brushing his. You’re halfway through pretending to take notes when he reaches into his bag without looking and places something beside your notebook.

A granola bar. Oat and honey.

You glance at him. His eyes stay forward, watching the professor explain something about systemic poverty and generational responsibility.

There’s a folded note under the wrapper. Neat. Slanted handwriting.

You looked tired today. I brought an extra.

You don’t even remember mentioning you liked this kind. You didn’t think he noticed, even if you had. But he did. Suguru notices things like that.

You learn, in that moment, how he gives affection: not in declarations or dares, not in loud laughter or flirtation. He gives it through presence. Through consideration. Through small, deliberate offerings–each one a thread in the quiet tapestry of his regard.

He doesn’t fall in love like most people. He falls in love the way he exists–softly. Silently. But all at once.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

The change in him is small at first.

So small, in fact, that if you weren’t already watching him the way you do–with the kind of attention that feels like prayer–you might miss it.

He’s still reserved. Still purposeful in his speech. Still someone who listens more than he talks, thinks more than he reacts. But something inside him has shifted. A gentle tilt. A redirection of light. And it’s not loud, not dramatic–just new.

You see it in how he lingers after lectures to help the TA collect handouts and erase the board, sleeves rolled up, fingertips smudged faintly with dry-erase marker. You see it in how he straightens stacks of papers with too much care, tapping them against the desk edge twice–that same quiet rhythm he always taps with when he finishes a book. A pattern his hands remember before his mind does.

You see it in how he joins group discussions again. Not with the sharp certainty he once used–that scalpel-precise logic that cut clean through questions like he was afraid of being misunderstood. No, now it’s different. Softer. He still disagrees, still challenges people, still hates them, but there’s less armor in it. Less tension. When someone pushes back, he doesn’t tense–he tilts his head. He listens. He hums in thought, runs his thumb along the edge of his notebook.

He laughs, sometimes. Not often. But more than before. A dry, surprised sound, usually at something you’ve said–and when it happens, it feels like striking gold.

He starts carrying a second pen in his pocket. Not because he needs it, but because you always forget yours.

He begins to fold his sleeves to the elbow, even when it’s cold.

“I think people can change,” he says one afternoon, walking beside you down the path near the south quad. The air smells like rain-soaked concrete and pollen. The trees above are shedding blossoms in soft, aimless waves–pink petals falling like the breath of something sleeping. One catches in his hair and stays there. He doesn’t notice.

“Even if it’s hard,” he continues, brushing his fingers along the wrought-iron railing as you pass, the tips ghosting over it like he’s measuring the chill of the metal. “Maybe especially then.”

You blink. Not at what he says, but how he says it. There’s hope in his voice. Not imagined. Not crafted for you. Not rhetorical. Real. Whole.

He means it.

It catches you off guard. The Suguru you first met–the one who spoke of the world like it was a patient flatlining on a table no one remembered to staff–wouldn’t have said that. Not even hypothetically. But this Suguru? This one beside you?

He sounds like someone who’s found a reason to try again.

The darkness in his eyes–that tired ache, the one that used to pull his gaze inward when the world disappointed him–it hasn’t disappeared. You don’t think it ever could. But it’s dulled. Softened around the edges like a wound that’s no longer raw. Like a scar healing into something he no longer minds looking at.

He isn’t trying to save the world anymore. Not all of it. He’s simply learning how to live in it. Do what he can.

And you–somehow, impossibly–are a part of that lesson.

Sometimes you catch him watching a child in the courtyard across campus. A girl with thick braids trying to drag a stick through the mud. She stumbles. He starts to move–just a twitch–but she steadies herself. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t smile, but he holds very, very still. Like witnessing that mattered. Like it reminded him of something worth keeping.

His hands are more restless now, but not anxious. Just engaged. Present. He picks grass from the hem of your coat when you sit together. Runs his thumb along the length of your pencil when he borrows it. Lifts a fallen leaf off your shoulder and inspects it like it holds a secret he almost remembers. You don’t think he realizes he’s doing it–but you do.

He’s coming back to his body. Letting it move without fear. Letting it reach.

And for a while–a golden stretch of time that neither of you name aloud–he looks like someone who’s learning how to be held without bracing for pain. Someone who is learning, maybe for the first time, that it’s okay not to carry everything alone.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You start spending most of your time in each other’s dorms.

Not because you talk about it. Not because someone asks–but because it happens the way rain creeps into the seams of windows–quiet, natural inevitable.

His dorm is on the third floor, the one that overlooks the library courtyard. It’s smaller than yours, older, with a radiator that clicks when it’s cold and windows that fog up even when the heat is off. But it smells like him–eucalyptus soap, paper, clean cotton–and you find that you like the sound the floor makes when he walks barefoot across it. Like it remembers him.

Yours is tucked behind the campus gardens. Quieter. South-facing. The kind of space that holds sunlight a little longer in the afternoons, the kind that smells faintly of basil from the planter box you keep on the sill. You both keep your own keys, your own shelves, your own drawers.

But then your books begin to migrate–stacking themselves at the corner of his desk, slipping into his shelves. His hoodie ends up draped over your chair, long sleeves brushing your calves when you sit. Your toothbrush appears beside his one day–not in a cup, not in a drawer. Just resting. Waiting. Like it belongs.

It’s not official. It just is.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

The first time he kisses you, it isn’t under starlight or in the hush of some moment built for significance.

It’s a Sunday. Mid-afternoon. The light outside is grey and diffused, bleeding through thin curtains like spilled milk. It’s warm inside, but only because the radiator has been running nonstop for three days.

You’re sitting cross-legged on his dorm bed–the one with mismatched sheets and a lopsided stack of unread books piled high beside it–hunched over an article he recommended. Something about institutional ethics and generational poverty. You’re highlighting quotes with too much color, writing sarcastic comments in the margins. You’re halfway through circling the phrase post-capitalist hierarchy of dependency when you mutter something dry and vaguely mean about the author’s overuse of theoretical jargon.

You don’t remember what you say, only that it makes him laugh.

Not a polite chuckle. Not a breath through his nose. A laugh. Sudden. Warm. Startled. His hand presses lightly to his stomach as if it caught him off guard.

It’s the sound of something opening.

You glance up, a little surprised, and find him watching you–glasses pushed back into the half-tired crown of his hair, a red ink pen forgotten between his fingers. His hair is loose at the bottom, falling over his shoulders in soft, tangled strands, catching at the edge of his collar. One lock slides over his cheekbone. He doesn’t brush it back.

His eyes hold you like a secret.

Something shifts. Quiet. Immediate.

He leans in.

There’s no question in it, no pause for confirmation–but not because he assumes. Because something in the air between you already knows.

And then he kisses you. Not careful. Not hesitant. Real, like he’s been carrying this want in his chest for weeks without a name, and only just realized what to call it.

His lips are soft, but certain. His free hand–the one not holding the pen–drifts up to your shoulder, then stops. Hovers. As if touching you would make it too real, too fast. But he doesn’t pull back, either.

He just breathes against your mouth for a beat longer than he should. And when he does finally draw away, his gaze flickers, almost sheepish.

“Sorry,” he says, voice low. “That was–”

You don’t let him finish.

You kiss him again, and this time you lean in, and his hand finds your jaw without hesitation, thumb brushing the curve of your cheek like he’s trying to remember how it feels. His fingertips are warm. His touch is careful–not from uncertainty, but reverence.

You feel him relax into it. You feel him choose it.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

Later, neither of you talks about what it means. Not because you’re unsure, but because it’s understood.

That’s how it is with Suguru. He doesn’t fall in love with spectacle or proclamations. He falls in love with the moments that don’t get written down. In the spaces between laughter. In the margins of annotated pages.

He leaves a hand on your knee now when you study together, thumb moving absentmindedly in slow circles. He rests his head against your shoulder when he’s tired, lets you play with the strands of hair that slip from his tie when the half-knot loosens. You notice, lately, that he doesn’t tighten it anymore. He lets it fall. Lets it stay.

He starts wearing his hair down more often. Not always. Just sometimes. When it’s just you.

You never mention it, but you find yourself watching the way it moves–how it brushes the line of his throat, how it tangles when he sleeps, how he huffs when it gets in his face while cooking. You don’t reach for it.

Until the day you do.

You’re sitting on his floor, legs stretched out, sun sliding low through the windows. He’s talking–softly, absentmindedly–about a dream he had. Something about walking through a school where no doors opened, only windows. You reach out, without thinking, and tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.

He stills, but he doesn’t pull away. He turns, slowly, and meets your eyes.

“You’re dangerous,” he murmurs.

And he’s smiling. Really smiling.

You don’t say anything. You just smile back and lean your head on his shoulder, and he presses his cheek against your hair like it’s something he’s done a thousand times before.

And maybe–in another life, in some soft version of this one–he has.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

Suguru is gentle with his love.

Not fragile. Not shy. Intentional.

He loves like someone handling rare books–with reverence, with patience, with a kind of awed curiosity that makes you feel like something sacred. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t reach too quickly. He touches you like he’s trying to learn you, page by page–not just the beautiful parts, but the worn ones too. Especially those.

His hands map you slowly. Never the same way twice. Fingertips skim your jaw when you’re quiet. Trace circles between your shoulder blades when you can’t sleep. Smooth over your wrists like they’re answering questions he’s still too polite to ask aloud.

He learns what makes you laugh–not just the easy jokes, but the strange things. The patterns. The way you snort when something’s too funny too fast. He starts saying things just to hear that sound. Pretends not to notice how your eyes soften when he does.

He learns what makes your breath catch. A thumb grazing your spine. His mouth on the space beneath your jaw. The low murmur of your name spoken into the hollow of your throat like a benediction. He never uses it for power. Only wonder.

And he learns how your eyes go soft and glassy when you’re overwhelmed with love–too full of it to say so. He watches for it. Waits for it. You don’t know how, but he always catches it before you can look away.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You like to hold him.

You didn’t that that’d be the kind of person you become, but with Suguru it’s different.

You like to press your palms to the sharp blades of his shoulder and feel the slow rise and fall of his breath. You like to tangle your legs with his under the covers, to pull him into your chest while he reads, to kiss the back of his neck while he’s pouring tea. You like to lie beside him with a hand against his ribs just to feel that he’s real–that he’s there, that he’s still choosing this.

You like to touch his hair, too.

You’re not sure when it started. Maybe the day you tucked a loose strand behind his ear and he didn’t flinch. Maybe the day he rested his head in your lap and said, “If I fall asleep like this, don’t wake me.” But now it’s a ritual. A language of its own.

His hair is always half-tied now. Some days more deliberate than others–a low twist at the crown, a simple clip holding it back, a single elastic coiled three times at the base. But always, always with something loose. Something falling. As if he’s decided that a little disorder doesn’t threaten the structure. As if being seen doesn’t make him less whole.

You thread your fingers through it often. Sometimes gently, sometimes absently–while he’s reading, while you’re talking, while music plays in the background and neither of you feels the need to speak. You learn where the strands curl slightly. Where the nape of his neck is sensitive. You learn how he tilts his head into your touch when he’s tired, and how, if you’re quiet long enough, he’ll sigh like the day is finally over.

You kiss him too, of course–often, and with care. But more than anything, you hold him.

You hold him like you’re trying to give him something back. Something the world forgot to offer. Something no one told him he was allowed to have.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You catch him watching you once from across the dining hall. It’s late. You’re laughing with friends about something dumb–a meme, a spilled drink, someone’s typo in the group chat. And when you look up, he’s already watching.

Head tilted just slightly. Elbow on the table. Chin in his palm.

His hair’s half-down again, loose at the ends, catching in the harsh cafeteria lights like black gold.

You mouth, What?

He doesn’t look away.

“I like watching you exist,” he says. Not loudly. Not for anyone else to hear. Just for you.

You throw a napkin at him. He dodges it, smirking.

Your cheeks stay warm for the rest of the evening.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

He starts writing again.

You don’t notice at first, not until you see the back of a receipt left on the floor–half a grocery list, half a quote: People are not lost causes just because they hurt differently. The pen ink is fading. There’s a fingerprint smudge at the corner.

After that, you find fragments everywhere. In the margins of his notebooks–tiny sentences blooming in the white space beside statistics. On the backs of old envelopes. On sticky notes pressed between textbooks. Even once on the bottom of your coffee cup, when he forgot to take the sleeve off before handing it to you.

Little things. Observations. Seeds of thought. The outline of a curriculum. A hypothetical school where grief is a subject, and kindness is a skill, and no one is made to feel like too much. A lesson plan with no due date. A list of values. A dream.

What I want to teach: that kindness is strength. That softness isn’t a weakness. That people are not burdens just because they carry pain.

You don’t bring it up. You don’t want to spook it–don’t want it to vanish if you name it too soon. So you fold the paper gently, carefully, and place it in the drawer beside his desk like it’s a flower you accidentally found blooming.

And maybe, in some way, it is.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

One night, curled up in your dorm room with the lights dim and a film flickering across the wall, Suguru talks about something he read that morning.

You’re wrapped in the blanket that always lives at the foot of your bed–soft and old and slightly frayed at the edges–and his arm is heavy around your shoulders, his legs stretched out long beside yours. The movie isn’t loud, some art-house thing with watercolor animation and not much dialogue. It’s playing more for atmosphere than anything else. You’ve both seen it before.

He shifts beside you, adjusting the way your body fits against his, and says quietly, without preamble,

“There was an article this morning.”

His voice is low, even. Not tense. But there is something in the way his hand stills on your arm.

“A kid. Twelve years old. System failure across the board. Everyone knew. Teachers, case workers, neighbors. They all looked the other way. And now–”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Just exhales, slow and controlled. You turn your head slightly, resting your cheek against his shoulder. You don’t say anything yet. You know him well enough to let him finish at his own pace.

“Now it’s too late,” he murmurs. “And people are pretending to be shocked. Pretending to mourn.”

He falls quiet again. His thumb resumes its movement over the fabric of your sleeve–long, slow passes, like he’s petting something that might spook. He doesn’t sound angry. He doesn’t sound sad, either. Just tired. Like he’s been carrying that story in his chest all day, weighing it against everything he believes.

You press your hand gently over his chest, where the collar of his shirt has slipped open. You feel his heart beating beneath your palm. Steady. Unhurried.

“Suguru,” you whisper.

He hums, low.

“You’re trying. You make a difference. You–you notice. That matters.”

For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. Just keeps his gaze fixed on the soft light flickering across the wall. Then he turns slightly, and kisses your temple. Slow. Thoughtful. His lips linger there longer than usual, like he’s trying to say something through that small point of contact.

You melt into him.

The room feels warmer with him like this–half-wrapped around you, hair loose and falling against your neck, chest rising with each even breath. You listen to the movie’s score swelling, a soft piano drifting through a sequence of paper birds taking flight on-screen. It’s lovely. Everything is.

You feel safe.

After a while, when the movie dips into quiet again, you tilt your head and look up at him.

“What are you thinking about?” you ask.

Your voice is hushed, but not hesitant. This is what you do, these nights–drift into gentle conversation like turning pages in a book.

He blinks, eyes flicking down to you. For a second, he doesn’t answer. Then his fingers find your hand beneath the blanket, sliding between yours.

“Thinking I like this,” he murmurs. “You. Me. Like this.”

He brings your joined hands to his lips and kisses your knuckles. One, then another. Then another.

“It’s nice,” he says. “Isn’t it?”

You nod, your smile small, sleepy. “Mm. It is.”

“We should do this more,” he says softly. “Stay in. Watch old movies. Fall asleep on each other. I don’t need much more than this.”

You lean into him again, burying your face into the space between his neck and collarbone. He smells like clean linen and cedar, like the kind of quiet comfort that never asks too much. His hair is tangled slightly against your cheek, the half-tied bun he threw together earlier now loosened by time and gravity. You reach up and run your fingers through it, gentle and slow, untwisting the strands until they fall free down his back.

He lets you.

He tilts his head slightly, giving you more space, and you feel him exhale–not heavy, not burdened. Just there. With you.

“You’re good at that,” he murmurs.

“At what?”

“Touching me like I won’t break.”

You smile, nuzzling into his shoulder. “You won’t.”

“No,” he says, kissing the top of your head. “Not with you.”

You stay like that for a long time. His fingers curled loosely around your wrist. Your hand resting over his chest. The movie ends, but neither of you move. The screen fades to black. The room dims further.

He shifts eventually, gently easing you down onto the bed, sliding under the blanket with you. His hands are warm as they pull you close, arm slipping around your waist.

“I like you here,” he whispers. “Next to me. Just like this.”

Your breath catches, just for a moment. You kiss his throat. Let your fingers drift through his hair. Let his lips find yours again, slow and familiar and full of promise.

And when he pulls you into his arms, tucks your head beneath his chin, and breathes you in like he needs it–you think,

God, I love him.

And you do. More than anything. More than makes sense.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

The bloom is gentle. Golden. Full of warmth tucked into corners.

It’s waking up to the smell of black coffee already poured into your favorite mug–the chipped one with the constellation pattern that he’d bought for you–because Suguru remembers which mornings you have class early. It’s his hands sliding along your waist as he passes behind you in the kitchenette, stealing a kiss just beneath your ear, murmuring, “Morning looks good on you” before the world has even finished yawning open.

It’s breakfast together on weekdays, the kind that’s more ritual than necessity–toast and eggs, or sometimes just shared slices of pear on a plate, drizzled with honey, eaten in companionable silence. It’s the way he always saves you the softest part. The smallest gesture. The one you never have to ask for.

It’s poetry readings on weekends–him slouching in a cafe chair with his legs sprawled, eyes half-lidded, listening to someone read about heartache or hunger while his hand curls around yours beneath the table, hidden from view but always present. Sometimes he murmurs a line he likes into your ear. Sometimes he won’t say anything at all–just squeeze your fingers in rhythm with the words.

It’s the buzz of his electric shaver against your wrist when he lets you trim the back of his neck. His head bent forward. Your hand resting lightly on his spine. His breath catching when you touch the wrong spot–or maybe the right one.

It’s his favorite playlist playing low while you study together, a medley of mellow jazz and slow instrumentals, the occasional spoken word track tucked between songs. He doesn’t need lyrics. He likes songs that let him feel. You like watching him feel. Feet tangled under the table. Shoulders bumping. Notes passed on napkins.

It’s falling asleep with his hair spread across your pillow. Waking up to find he’s pulled the blanket up over your shoulder while you slept. It’s the way his hands always know where you are, even in dreams. The way he reaches for you before opening his eyes.

It’s laughter in the dark–breathless, open, reverent. The kind of laughter that comes from joy, not humor. From knowing someone this well. From being known.

It’s long kisses that don’t ask for anything but closeness. His mouth on yours like a silent poem. Like gratitude. Like the answer to a question neither of you have spoken aloud.

And when he touches you, it’s never hurried. Never thoughtless. He holds you like you are an answer he’s been afraid to ask for. He kisses you like you’re something he can’t believe he gets to keep.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

And if some days he stares too long at nothing–if his gaze lingers past the point of stillness, if his eyes stay fixed on the same patch of ceiling, the same window, the same point in the air–you tell yourself he’s thinking. That it means he’s deep. That it means something good.

If his touch is slower, more distant, you chalk it up to fatigue. If the words come with more silence between them, if his laugh takes a second longer to arrive, if his smile doesn’t always reach his eyes–well.

Everyone gets tired sometimes.

He’s still showing up. Still kissing you in the morning. Still holding your hand under tables. Still breathing the same air.

Besides, he always comes back. Always. Even when he goes quiet. Even when he forgets to answer a question. Even when he blinks at the sound of your voice like he didn’t realize you were there–he always smiles, eventually. Always kisses your wrist. Always brushes your hair behind your ear and says your name like it means something.

You never question it.

Why would you? You’re in love.

And it feels like he is, too.

You called it happiness, because it was warm–even as something colder began to press against the edges of it.

III. THE WILT – where the slow ruin begins Some loves rot from the inside. You only notice the bruises when it’s too late.

He leaves the laundry unfolded.

Just once.

It’s a Wednesday, a little after noon. You’re coming back from a workshop with a headache and a half-scribbled page of notes you’ll never look at again. Your backpack’s too heavy. Your keys are buried in the wrong pocket. You let yourself into his dorm expecting quiet, maybe the faint smell of citrus detergent and old books.

What you find instead is Suguru’s laundry, half-done, piled in a soft heap on his bed. A warm, crumpled slope of shirts and socks, still smelling like lavender-softener–not the typical citrus–and machine heat. His drawers are cracked open. His towel’s draped over the chair. He’s not here.

It’s strange. Not in a worrying way. Just unfamiliar.

He’s usually methodical with this sort of thing. Precise. He folds with the care of someone who once learned to iron his uniforms at twelve and never shook the habit. Socks together, sleeves tucked in, edges lined like he’s preparing an offering.

You run your hand over the laundry. It’s still warm. You sit.

You fold one shirt, then another. Tuck his hoodie into a neat rectangle. Smile at the way he always leaves his undershirts inside-out. You don’t think too much about it–you just hum something under your breath, that playlist he likes playing low through your phone speaker, and let the quiet wrap around you.

You tell yourself he must’ve been called into a meeting. That he left in a rush. That he forgot. That it’s sweet, really–that he’s comfortable enough now to leave things undone. That it means he trusts you to be here, to take care of the space you’ve come to share.

You open his drawer further. Stack the clothes. Close it.

Later that night, he comes back. Late. The sun’s already long gone. The hallway is quiet.

You’re sitting on the floor in his hoodie, reading something for class you won’t remember. When he opens the door, his shoulders are slouched. His hair is half-falling from its knot. His hands are in his pockets.

You look up and smile. “Hey, stranger.”

He smiles back–slow, tired. His eyes are shadowed beneath the soft overhead light.

“Sorry,” he says. “I forgot to fold the laundry.”

You shake your head. “I did it. You’re good.”

He steps in. Drops his bag. Doesn’t say anything else.

You expect him to come kiss your cheek, like he usually does. To slide down beside you, stretch his legs out, let you play with his hair. But instead he just moves around the room, quiet, deliberate. Checks his phone. Rubs his forehead. Stares at the window for a few seconds too long.

Then–like a habit that finally remembers itself–he walks over. Sits down. Lets his thigh press against yours.

You lean into him, head to his shoulder. His arm curls around you, loose. Familiar. But his hand doesn’t move. No absent thumb brushing your wrist. No tracing letters into your skin. Just stillness.

You tilt your head up and kiss his jaw.

“Long day?”

He nods. You wrap your arms around his torso and hold him tighter.

“I missed you,” you murmur.

This time, he kisses the top of your head. Whispers something like me too. You close your eyes and let yourself believe it. You don’t ask why his fingers don’t fidget anymore. You don’t ask why they rest so flatly on your hip–not pushing in, not holding back, just… resting.

You convince yourself this is what closeness looks like when people get used to each other. When comfort replaces urgency.

You nestle against him and say nothing, but in the back of your mind, something taps–a faint echo of a past version of him, of how his hands always did something. How he once pulled a thread from your sleeve without thinking. How he used to run his knuckles across your palm like a secret.

Now they’re still. And you, too in love to question it, press your hand over his and call it peace.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

His hair is getting longer.

Not by design. Not even in the way that people grow it out on purpose–with intention, with shape in mind. Suguru’s hair is just being left alone.

It’s subtle. The ends start to curl. A lock or two always slips loose from his half-tie and stays there, grazing his cheekbone like a question no one’s asked yet. You notice him pushing it behind his ear more often–the same motion, again and again, without thought. You watch his fingers thread through the same pieces absentmindedly during lectures, when he’s pretending to take notes but his eyes are fogged with something far away.

And slowly, it becomes clear. He’s stopped tying it up properly.

Once, his bun was clean. Precise. Every strand tucked in like he was protecting something fragile–an image, an order, a sense of control he never wanted to name. Even the extra tie on his wrist, thin and stretched, felt ritualistic. Sacred. A thread that kept him tethered.

Now, it’s different. Now, he twists it once–maybe twice–and lets it sit crooked at the nape of his neck, loose and sagging before noon. Some days he doesn’t tie it at all. Just leaves it half-down, flowing over his shoulders in soft, dark waves. He shrugs when you mention it. Says it doesn’t matter. That it’s just hair.

But you remember what it used to mean.

Still, you say nothing. You only touch it more.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You find excuses. Casual ones.

In the mornings, you brush the tangles out with your fingers while he drinks his coffee, legs folded under him, the room golden with light. He doesn’t stop you. He closes his eyes and leans into your touch as your fingers comb through the strands at the base of his skull. You find yourself memorizing the texture–the coarseness near the ends, the silk of new growth near his scalp. You find yourself wondering if he knows he sighs when you reach the nape of his neck.

One night, while you’re sitting on the floor and he’s stretched out on the bed reading, you reach over without thinking and start separating the strands–idle, quiet. You begin to braid it, slow and loose. He doesn’t ask what you’re doing. Just keeps reading. You braid it all the way down to the end, tie it off with the tie from your own wrist.

“There,” you say. “Now you look like a warrior monk.”

He lifts his gaze, meets your eyes for a moment, and smiles–but the smile doesn’t quite touch the corners.

“You think so?”

“Mhm. But hotter.”

“Is that a scholarly opinion?”

“A sacred one.”

He chuckles, brief. His fingers move to the braid and tug at it gently, undoing it without looking down. The strands fall loose again–soft, messy, uncontained.

You reach forward and smooth them back once more. He catches your wrist. Presses his lips to the skin just above your pulse.

You let the silence settle like dust.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

On weekends, when he sits on the floor between your legs to work on something, you absentmindedly part his hair and run your nails lightly against his scalp, drawing little lines. You trace constellations. You hum a song he likes. He leans back into you like instinct.

“You always do that now,” he murmurs once.

“Do what?”

“Touch my hair.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “No. Never.”

You kiss the top of his head and braid another small section, only to undo it seconds later.

You don’t know what it is you’re trying to fix, but your hands keep moving.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

There’s a photograph of the two of you on your desk–taken by a friend, one of those accidental, unscripted moments. You’re curled into his side on the bench near the willow tree, head on his shoulder, eyes closed. He’s leaning his head against yours. His hair is loose. Wind-blown. Tangled slightly in the collar of his coat. His expression is unreadable.

You keep it anyway. You tell yourself it’s romantic. You tell yourself it’s him.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

There’s a day–a Thursday, maybe–when you get caught in the rain on the way back from class. You burst into your dorm laughing, soaked, shivering. He’s already there, lying on your bed, flipping through one of your textbooks.

You strip your jacket off, kick off your shoes, and crawl in beside him.

“You’re wet,” he says mildly.

“I know. Hold me anyway.”

He does. You press your cold cheek to his neck. He hums. His hand moves to your back.

His hair is wet too. Not from the rain, but from the shower–you can smell your shampoo in it. The one you know he likes. You reach up and gather it gently, twisting it loosely to get the water out. He closes his eyes. Says nothing.

Your hands find the ends–long now, brushing his ribs.

“You should let me trim it,” you murmur.

“Mm.”

“Just a little. I’ll be careful.”

“Maybe.”

He doesn’t say yes. But he doesn’t say no either.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

Some days, you wake before him and find his hair spread across the pillow between you, catching light like black silk. You reach out and smooth it down, gather it into a makeshift bun with your fingers, just to keep it out of his face. You do it gently, reverently. Like you’re tending a wound.

He shifts in his sleep, murmurs your name, then turns his face into the pillow.

And you smile. Because this is love. Because this is still soft. Because he lets you hold him like this.

Even if his hands no longer hold back. Even if he never ties his hair up anymore. Even if you are the only one who does.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

He sleeps facing the wall now.

Not always. Not every night. But often enough that it catches in your throat, sharp and quiet like a splinter. It happens gradually–the same way a window starts letting in cold, not with a crash or a draft, but with a subtle breeze that you tell yourself is nothing.

It’s Thursday. Late. The rain’s tapping against the glass, soft and inconsistent, like a thought struggling to form. You’re both tangled under your blanket, limbs touching, but not curled into each other the way you used to. His spine is to you. His breathing is slow. You know he’s still awake.

His hair is fanned out over the pillow, loose and unbrushed. You reach for it. Gently comb your fingers through the strands.

“Suguru?” you murmur.

A pause. Then: “Mm?”

You press your hand to the space between his shoulder blades. “Tell me about your day?”

At first, you expect him to say later, or tired, or nothing worth saying. That’s what he usually does now. But this time, he exhales–long, quiet–and rolls onto his back. Not toward you. Just away from the wall. You take it as a victory.

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, then says, low:

“There was this boy in the class today. Thirteen. Smart as hell. Sharp. I gave him a worksheet and he looked at me like I was insulting him. ‘Is this really what you think I need right now?’ he asked me. Deadpan. Right to my face.”

You give a small smile, imagining it. “Sounds like someone I know.”

He huffs, and continues. “I said no. I said it was just a warm-up. But I could tell–he was already tuning out. Like he was deciding I was another adult who wasn’t going to see him properly.”

He shifts, one hand coming up to rub his temple. “He told me he doesn’t believe in school. That he’s just waiting to be old enough to drop out and get a job. ‘No one in my family graduated anyway,’ he said. ‘What’s the point?’”

He says it softly, but not without feeling. The cadence changes. Slows. Thickens.

“He’s thirteen,” he repeats, voice quieter now. “He’s already done. Already convinced the world won’t make room for him.”

Your chest tightens. You move closer. Your hand finds his, resting on his chest. You lace your fingers together.

“What did you say?”

He shrugs, gaze still fixed upward. “Told him I get it. That the system’s broken. That people like him slip through the cracks all the time.”

He pauses.

“And then I told him that even so, it’s worth trying. That there are people who will help. That he’s not alone.”

You wait for him to say that the boy smiled. That the boy softened. That something changed. But he doesn’t. Instead, he closes his eyes.

“He laughed at me,” Suguru murmurs. “Said I was naive.”

You try to catch his gaze, but he doesn’t offer it. His eyes stay shut, like he’s watching the conversation happen again behind his lids.

“Maybe he’s right,” he says.

You blink. “Suguru…”

“It’s just–” He shifts, not away from you, but not toward you either. “I go in there thinking I can help. That if I listen enough, try hard enough, I can make some kind of difference. And sometimes I do. I think I do. But other times…”

His voice trails off. His hand clenches once in yours, then relaxes again. “It feels like putting tape over a cracked dam.”

You don’t know what to say. So you say what you always say.

“But you’re trying.”

“Yeah.”

“That counts.”

“Yeah.”

It’s barely audible now.

He turns his face toward the wall again. Not harshly. Just with the finality of someone who’s done talking.

You shift behind him and slide closer. Press yourself into his back. Wrap an arm around his middle and hold him tight–tighter than before. Your palm flattens against his stomach. You press your forehead between his shoulder blades. He’s warm. Solid. Here.

“You matter, Suguru,” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer, but his hand finds yours again, and for a moment, it’s enough.

You listen to his breathing. Still slow. Still deep. But you don’t fall asleep. You stay awake long after the rain softens to a drizzle. You stay awake and hold him like he’s going to vanish if you let go.

And in the morning, you don’t mention it. You braid his hair while he scrolls through his phone. You kiss his temple before he leaves. You hold the shape of his silence in your chest and call it a win. Because he talked to you. And you held him. And that’s enough. It has to be.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You see it in your conversations–small hesitations, abandoned sentences, silences growing slowly like vines across an old wall.

You’re sitting together on the bench near the library courtyard one afternoon, a shared coffee between you. The willow branches overhead sway gently, the late afternoon sun filtering through the leaves in scattered, golden patterns across Suguru’s knees.

He speaks casually at first, just a low murmur beside you, his fingertips tracing absent circles on the sleeve of your jacket. You’re talking about your professor–about how you can’t quite understand her lectures, about how the readings never seem to match the class.

“I think she just likes hearing herself talk,” you say lightly, nudging Suguru with your shoulder. “Think she might secretly hate us.”

Suguru chuckles quietly, the sound more automatic than sincere. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe she’s just tired.”

You glance at him, brow knitting faintly. “Of what?”

He shrugs slowly, thoughtful gaze drifting towards the grass. “Trying to explain the same thing again and again. Trying to get people to care when they just–” he pauses abruptly. His fingers go still on your sleeve.

“When they just what?” you prompt softly.

His eyes flicker briefly, as if he’s pulled back from a thought he didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Forget it.”

You watch him closely, waiting, giving him space to continue. He doesn’t.

“You okay?” you whisper.

He nods, eyes returning to a point somewhere distant. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah. Just tired, I guess.”

You slip your hand into his, linking your fingers gently. “Want to talk about it?”

Suguru squeezes your hand lightly, almost reflexively. His thumb brushes your knuckles twice, a quiet reassurance that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats. “Just been thinking lately.”

“About what?”

He stays quiet a moment longer. The breeze rustles gently through the leaves, softening the silence. “About choices, I suppose,” he says finally, voice barely audible, distant. “About how we decide what’s worth doing.”

“That’s deep for a Thursday,” you tease.

His lips curve upward briefly, but the smile doesn’t fully form. “Yeah. Sorry. My head’s in a weird place.”

You nudge closer, rest your chin on his shoulder, and murmur softly, “Tell me anyway.”

He sighs, more breath than sound, and shifts his position slightly. You hold him tighter, subtly coaxing him back.

“I keep thinking,” he starts, “about how everything I do–everything I’ve tried to do–seems so small now. Like trying to change things feels naive. Like that boy was right.”

Your heart dips. You shake your head against his shoulder, voice earnest. “But it’s not. It’s brave. You’re doing good, Suguru. You have no idea how many people look up to you–”

He interrupts gently. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

His thumb stills again, fingers slackening around yours, just a bit, then tightening again as if he realizes he’s pulling away. “I used to think I had some kind of answer. That if I cared enough, listened enough, worked hard enough, it would make a difference.”

“It does,” you insist, voice small but firm.

“But does it really?” he whispers. He isn’t arguing–just wondering. Genuinely uncertain. “There are moments when I believe it. And then… times when I look around and see all the way things stay the same. Like I’m standing in the middle of a river, trying to stop it with my hands.”

Your heart aches. You twist toward him, reaching up to gently turn his face to you. “Hey. You’re making more of a difference than you realize. You’re just one person, Suguru. You can’t expect to fix everything alone.”

His eyes soften, weary and fond. “I know that.”

“Then why does it sound like you don’t?”

He pauses, lips parted slightly, words half-formed on his tongue. But then he closes his mouth, shakes his head faintly. “I don’t know,” he murmurs finally. “Forget it. It’s just a mood. It’ll pass.”

You tilt your forehead against his, eyes slipping shut for a moment. “Let me help,” you whisper. “You don’t have to carry everything on your own.”

His breath hitches almost imperceptibly, and for a brief moment, his shoulders relax. “I know,” he says. “I know you’re here.”

You let silence sit between you a few moments longer, breathing in the scent of his hair, feeling his steady heartbeat beneath your palm. When you open your eyes, he’s staring again into the distance, expression mild but unfocused.

“Suguru,” you whisper softly.

“Mm?”

“Look at me.”

He does, slowly. His gaze settles onto yours with careful intention, his dark eyes quietly intense beneath the tangled fringe of his hair. You brush it back from his cheek, letting your fingers linger.

“You’re allowed to rest sometimes, you know,” you say. “You’re allowed to let things go.”

He searches your eyes for a long moment, as if looking for something he’s afraid he won’t find. Finally, he whispers, barely audible, “Am I?”

Your heart tightens painfully, twisting in your chest. You cup his face with both hands and kiss him softly, almost desperately. He kisses back, tender but quiet, reserved.

When you pull away, he breathes out slowly, eyes half-lidded. “You always do that.”

“What?”

“Kiss me when you don’t know what to say.”

“Because I love you,” you murmur gently, thumbs brushing across his cheekbones. “Because sometimes words don’t feel like enough.”

He nods, leaning forward to press his forehead against yours. “Maybe they aren’t.”

You hold him there for another heartbeat, your lips ghosting across his temple. “We’ll be okay,” you whisper.

You don’t let yourself notice how he doesn’t answer. You simply pull him closer, arms wrapping tighter around him, burying your face against his neck. He sighs softly, breathing you in like comfort, and you let yourself believe it’s enough.

It has to be, because loving someone means believing you can carry them through whatever silence they’re caught in.

You kiss his jaw, his throat, holding on as if holding him might keep whatever’s inside him from coming loose. And when his silence stretches quietly into evening, you pretend it doesn’t mean anything at all.

That you’re enough.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You’ve never not spent a Saturday with him.

It’s unspoken–a quiet kind of ritual, Saturday mornings are yours. Whether it’s a cafe with crooked chairs and too-loud music, or a slow walk through the park, or a street fair that makes Suguru complain about overpriced food while still buying you two cones of mango sorbet, it’s always the same rhythm.

You wake up. You text. You meet. You exist together.

But today, there’s nothing. No message. No knock. Not even a half-hearted meme dropped into your chat like a breadcrumb.

You try not to panic. Try not to assume.

You tell yourself maybe he’s sleeping in. That maybe he’s in the library, that maybe his phone died, that maybe he’s just tired. Still, the silence wraps around your shoulders like a too-heavy coat.

By midafternoon, you give up pretending it doesn’t bother you. You pick up your bag, grab him a smoothie–mango, his favorite, a quiet peace offering–and make the familiar walk to his dorm.

The hallways is silent. The air feels stale. When you knock, your knuckles make too much sound. There’s a long pause before he answers.

“Yeah?” His voice is soft. Tired.

You push the door open slowly. “Hey. I brought you something.”

He looks up from his desk, blinking like he’s been pulled from far away. His notebook is open. His hair is loose, falling over his shoulder in tangled waves. He’s still wearing the hoodie he had on yesterday.

“Shit,” he says. “I forgot.”

You step inside. The room smells like paper and him. “It’s okay,” you say quickly, brushing it off like it doesn’t sting. “You were probably busy.”

“No. I just… lost track.” He sounds apologetic. Distant. Like someone returning from a long trip and realizing they left the lights on.

You offer him the smoothie with a crooked smile. “I brought sugar.”

He takes it gently. His fingers brush yours–warm, comforting. Something in him softens when he sees your face. He sets the drink down.

“Come here,” he says, and when you step forward, he pulls you into his lap with both arms around your waist.

You settle easily, legs folded over his, your nose brushing his temple. “I missed you,” you murmur into his hair.

He exhales through his nose, like he’s been holding something in. “You’re so good to me,” he whispers. “Even when I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

He tucks his head against your shoulder. You run your fingers through his hair, untangling the ends with soft little strokes. It’s a mess today, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“I don’t want to forget you,” he says suddenly.

You freeze. “What?”

He pulls back slightly, just enough to look at you. His eyes are steady. “I mean–I don’t want to get so wrapped up in everything else that I forget how much you matter to me.”

The words hit you like wind against the back of your throat. You blink slowly, unsure of how to answer, so you reach for his face instead–cradle it between your hands and kiss him, slow and deep.

He kisses back with more hunger than usual–not urgent, but intentional. Like he’s anchoring himself to the shape of your mouth.

When you part, breathless and warm, you rest your forehead against his. “You won’t forget,” you whisper.

“You think?”

“I know.”

He laughs under his breath. “You sound sure.”

“That’s because I am.”

You curl into him, head tucked into the crook of his neck. He smells like faded cologne and your shampoo. His fingers trail down your back slowly, just lightly enough to make you shiver. He kisses your hair. Then your temple. Then your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth.

“You’re it for me,” he whispers.

You close your eyes. “Suguru…”

“No, really. I think about it a lot. All of it. You. Me. The future.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You smile, impossibly full. “Tell me.”

He shifts, holding you closer, so close your heartbeat sounds like it might echo through his ribs.

“We’ll live somewhere quiet,” he murmurs. “With soft lighting. A kitchen that always smells like something sweet. You’ll leave books all over the place. I’ll complain about the mess and read them anyway.”

“Mm. Sounds realistic.”

“We’ll adopt a dog.”

“You hate dogs.”

“I hate loud dogs.”

You laugh, the sound curling through the air like a ribbon. “What else?”

“You’ll keep trying to cut my hair, but I won’t let you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you only want to do it when you’re mad at me.”

“Lies.”

“You braid it like you’re keeping me from unraveling.”

You go quiet. Your hands still in his hair.

“And I like being kept,” he adds softly. “By you.”

You lean in. Kiss him again, slower this time. He hums into your mouth. His hands trail down your spine. You feel him breathe–deep, even, steady–like he’s pulling in the smell of your skin, the warmth of your shirt, the sound of your voice saying his name.

“Don’t disappear on me again,” you whisper.

“I won’t,” he says. “I promise.”

You don’t ask how long he means. You don’t ask what’s been pulling him away, or why it’s been winning, because this–his arms around you, his lips on your cheek, his heartbeat beneath your palm–this feels real. Present. Here.

And that’s what love is, isn’t it? Choosing to believe.

He kisses your wrist, your throat, your shoulder. You laugh again, breathless and full of him.

You fall asleep in his bed that night, tangled in limbs and whispers, your legs across his lap, his fingers threaded through yours, his hair in soft waves over your collarbone. And when you wake in the morning, he’s already up, already dressed, already gone.

There’s a note by the pillow.

You looked too peaceful to wake. I’ll see you tonight.

You smile. Press the paper to your chest.

Love, you think, is this.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

Monday. It rains.

Not a soft spring mist, but a steady curtain of grey–the kind of rain that settles into the bones of the campus and makes everything smell like pavement and moss. The windows fog from the inside. The dorms are quieter than usual, muffled by the weather, the air thick with the hush that only comes when people are trying to wait out the world.

You come back to your dorm later than usual–drenched from your walk across campus, shoes squelching softly against the tile. Your umbrella broke halfway. Your fingers are stiff with cold. Your hoodie’s soaked through. You’re expecting Suguru to laugh, to reach for a towel, to murmur “you always forget the forecast” when he comes by later.

He’s there when you open your door. He’s curled up on the edge of your bed–hair damp, pulled into a half-twist that’s already slipping loose, eyes distant. His hoodie hands off one shoulder. A book lies beside him, open but untouched. The room smells like jasmine tea and wet fabric.

“Hey,” you say, closing the door behind you. “You’re early.”

He looks up like he didn’t hear you come in. Then his gaze softens, just barely. “You’re soaked.”

“Caught in the storm.” You smile, shaking off your sleeves. “What else is new?”

He doesn’t answer. You kick off your shoes and pull off your hoodie, shivering slightly. You don’t expect help undressing–he’s not the kind of partner who hovers–but you do expect a joke. A look. A kiss.

Instead, he just watches you in silence, his hand resting on his ankle, fingers twitching against the fabric of his sweats.

“Everything okay?” you ask, softer now.

Suguru exhales through his nose, almost a laugh. “One of the kids at the practicum got suspended today.”

You pause in the middle of peeling off your wet socks. “What? Why?”

“He pushed another student,” he says. “And when the principal asked him why, he said ‘Because nobody listens until you hurt them.’”

You straighten slowly. “That’s…”

“True,” he says. Blunt. Immediate. “Pain gets attention. Grief gets sympathy. But kindness?” He scoffs. “Kindness is background noise.”

You walk toward him, cautious, heart cracking quietly. “Suguru.”

“They called his mother,” he continues, voice low, bitter. “She didn’t even sound surprised. She just said, ‘Boys act out’. And the principal nodded like it was gospel. Like of course–why try to understand him?”

He leans back against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling. Rain drums softly against the window. You sit beside him, wet fabric clinging to your knees. “What did you do?”

“What could I do?” he murmurs. “I’m not a teacher yet. I’m no one. Just another adult taking notes. Watching the system do what it’s always done.”

His hand flexes once on his thigh. You reach out instinctively and lace your fingers through his. His skin is warm. Steady. But his grip doesn’t tighten.

“You care,” you whisper.

“So what?” he snaps–softer than anger, but sharper than he’s ever been. “Caring doesn’t fix anything. It just makes you hurt more.”

The words sting. More than you expect. You pull your hand back slowly. Not because you want to, but because it’s the only thing your body knows how to do.

“I’m sorry,” he says instantly. The moment he sees your face shift, his voice changes. Softer. Regretful. “I didn’t mean that. Not like that.”

You say nothing. You reach for the towel on your desk, dabbing at your wet sleeves, heart thick in your chest. You want to tell him about your day. About the advisor who told you your thesis was ‘lacking structure’. About how you spilled tea on your notes. About how you stood in the rain with your umbrella turned inside out, waiting for someone to offer help–and no one did.

But you don’t. Because he’s already spiraling. Because this isn’t about you. Because you love him.

“You’re just tired,” you murmur instead. “It’s been a long week.”

He nods once, like that gives him permission to fall apart. Then he reaches for you–slow, open-palmed–and gathers you into his arms. You let him.

You fold against his chest, the rain still pattering outside, the warmth of his body already undoing the chill in your skin. He buries his nose into your damp hair. Kisses the crown of your head like an apology.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” you breathe.

“I love you.”

You close your eyes. Press your cheek against his chest. Listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart–the one you swear you’d follow anywhere.

“I love you too,” you say. “We’re okay.”

You say it like it’s a prayer. A spell. A promise you can make true just by saying it enough times. His hands slide up your back. He doesn’t say anything else, but he holds you tighter, and you let that be enough.

You let the sting of his words sink deep and settle. You call it a mistake. A slip. The product of stress and heartbreak and fatigue.

You let it go. Because he’s warm, he’s here, and this still feels like love.

Even when it hurts.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

It’s late, but neither of you are asleep.

The desk lamp is dim. The rain from yesterday has tapered off into mist, and the windowpane is still streaked, still speckled with the memory of water. The whole room smells faintly of jasmine and graphite, your shared blanket still folded at the end of the bed, untouched.

You’re studying. Or trying to. Suguru sits beside you on the floor, back against the bed frame, knees drawn up, one hand curled loosely around a mug gone cold. His textbook is open in his lap. Yours is splayed out beside him, pages weighted by a highlighter that’s long since dried out.

You’ve both been sitting here for hours. Reading, scribbling notes, reaching out occasionally to squeeze each other’s hand or brush a shoulder in passing. It’s quiet. Comfortable.

But also–not. Because you’ve read the same paragraph four times and can’t remember a word of it. Because Suguru hasn’t touched his page in almost twenty minutes. Because his hair, once pulled back in a loose, half-tidy twist, has fallen completely down his back now–thick, unbrushed, strands tucked behind only one ear, the rest spilling in disarray over his hoodie. He doesn’t seem to notice.

You watch him from the corner of your eye, the soft profile of him lit in gold. The gentle slope of his mouth. The hollow curve of his collarbone. The stillness.

It’s not unusual for him to be quiet. Suguru lives in quiet. But this silence feels different. Tired. Heavy.

And still, when you nudge his knee with yours, he turns toward you instantly–like muscle memory. Like you’re still the one he’ll always look for.

“You okay?” you ask, voice soft.

He nods. Smiles, but it’s small. Faint. The sort of smile that doesn’t move the eyes.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Just… saturated.”

“Too much reading?”

“Too much thinking.”

You offer him your hand. He sets his mug aside and takes it. His palm is warm. Familiar. You trace your thumb along the base of his fingers–a ritual now, one of many. But tonight, his thumb doesn’t move in return. No circles. No tapping. Just stillness.

You kiss his knuckles anyway. “Want to take a break?”

He shrugs. “Don’t need to,” he says. But he doesn’t reach for the book again.

You tug his hand gently. He lets you pull him toward the bed. You sit against the headboard and open your arms. He settles between them without resistance, his head resting low against your chest, knees bent, hair falling forward like a veil.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders. Pull him in. It feels like holding something fragile. You press a kiss to the crown of his head. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he exhales and says, “I used to think being in love would make everything easier.”

You pause. Your hand stills where it had been gently stroking his back. “It hasn’t?”

“No, it has,” he says quickly. “You have. I just–” He shifts, bows his head deeper into your shoulder. “I think I expected it to fix something in me.”

Your arms tighten. “Love doesn’t fix,” you whisper. “It holds. It shares.”

“I know.”

Your hand finds his hair, and you begin to gather it, brushing it back from his face, then letting it fall again. The strands catch in your fingers. They’re silk-warm and familiar. You braid one section loosely, then undo it. Braid again. Undo.

“You haven’t trimmed it in a while.”

“Mm.”

“Let me?” you offer, quiet, teasing. “Just a little. So you can see again.”

He hums in reply. Doesn’t say yes. Doesn’t say no.

His hands drift along your waist. They’re moving now, but barely–more resting than reaching. You want to ask him what he meant. About being fixed. About what still hurts. But the words sit too sharp in your throat, so you don’t. Instead, you kiss his temple.

“I love you,” you say, more than once.

“I know,” he whispers, forehead still against your collarbone.

And when he lifts his head and kisses you–soft, slow, real–you let yourself breathe. His mouth is warm. His hands have found your face. He’s saying your name like it still means something.

“You’re the best part of my day,” he says, voice steady but low. “I know I don’t always say it. But it’s true.”

Your eyes burn. You laugh through the tightness in your chest. “Say it again.”

“You’re the best part of my day.”

You pull him closer. He lets you. His arms fully wrap around your waist, pulling you into his lap. You bury your face in the space between his neck and shoulder, breathing him in like oxygen. And when he sighs–long, quiet, tired–you don’t ask what it means.

You just hold him tighter. You don’t know how else to keep him there.

He falls asleep in your arms that night. His breathing is even. His face is soft. His hair spills over your chest and arms like ribbon. You watch the rise and fall of his back. The gentle twitch of his fingers.

And even as your throat aches with something unnamed–a weight that presses just behind the bone–you let your hand rest over his heart.

You fall asleep that way.

You held him like a promise, even as he stopped reaching back–and told yourself that maybe if you loved him hard enough, it would count as both of you.

IV. THE HOLLOW – the love that is no longer returned There is nothing crueler than loving someone who has already given up.

You start talking more, because he starts speaking less.

It’s a rainy day, but not the romantic kind–not the kind you could write into a love poem and read aloud in the candlelight. This one is grey, low, heavy. The clouds don’t roll in with drama. They just arrive. And they stay. The kind of weather that settles like dust in your lungs. The kind that makes everything feel farther away.

The window is cracked an inch for air. The rain drizzles against the glass with no rhythm. No passion. Just persistence. Like even the sky has grown tired.

You’re in your dorm, and he’s here too. His body in the room. His presence? Not quite.

He’s curled into the armchair near your desk, legs pulled up beneath him, hoodie sleeves pushed to the elbows. His laptop glows faintly in his lap, a document open but untyped. His eyes are on the screen, but not focused.

You’re sitting on your bed, a half-finished book in your hand. One you’ve been trying to read for days now–rereading the same lines, the same paragraphs, over and over. Each sentence sits in your mouth like paper.

Outside, a car passes. Its tires send water spattering against the curb. The clock ticks. Your coffee is cooling. There’s a soft buzzing from somewhere–maybe your phone, maybe the old radiator. And there’s him. Just sitting. Too quiet, too still. Like a cathedral with no choir.

So you speak, because someone has to.

“Do you remember that curry shop near the train station?”

No response.

“The one with the mint rice and the stupid little bell on the door? The bell that always rang three seconds after the door closed?”

His eyes shift. A beat later, he murmurs, “Yeah.”

You smile. Carefully. “We should go back.”

He nods. That’s all.

You reach for your mug and sip your now-lukewarm coffee, throat closing slightly around it. You stare at him for a second longer than you mean to. He’s not upset. Not withdrawn. Not cold. He’s just not here.

You keep going. Voice low, as if you’re speaking to a skittish animal.

“There’s a bookstore I found online,” you say. “New. It’s a bit of a walk. But the owner leaves handwritten recommendations on index cards and hides them in the jackets.”

Another pause. Another soft reply: “Sounds nice.”

You wait for him to say let’s go. Or show me. Or when? But it doesn’t come.

You smile again, even though it doesn’t reach your eyes. You nod like he’s agreed, then you put the book down and climb off the bed. The room is cold against your skin as you step barefoot across the rug and sink down beside him on the armchair, pressing your shoulder to his.

He shifts. Just slightly. But he doesn’t pull away. You take that as a win.

You lean your head on his shoulder, like always. He tilts his head toward yours, like always–but it’s slow now. Delayed. As if he forgot for a moment that you were there. As if it’s something he has to remember to do.

You don’t mention it.

You reach for his hand. His fingers are warm, familiar. You stroke your thumb along his knuckles, searching for something–tension, response, anything. He breathes out, slow. Leans further into the chair. And still doesn’t squeeze back.

“You’re quiet today,” you say softly.

“Mm.”

“Thinking?”

“Always.”

You pause. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

You turn your face into his shoulder. His sweatshirt smells like laundry detergent and rain. Like someone who used to come home at the end of a long day with stories to tell.

“I miss your voice,” you whisper.

“I’m still using it.”

“Not on me.”

He stills. You lift your head, look at him. His face is a shadow in the low light. The planes of it more pronounced somehow, like his grief has taken shape and settled into his bone structure.

“I miss you,” you add. Your voice barely carries.

“I’m here.”

“That’s not the same.”

He looks at you then, and for just a moment–a moment–you see it. The pain. The flicker. The echo of the man who once told you he’d never let the world break him.

He opens his mouth like he might say something. He shifts closer instead. Wraps an arm around you. Pulls you to his chest.

You let him. It’s all you’ve got. Touch is the only language he still speaks fluently, and if he holds you like he means it, then maybe the rest of him will come back eventually.

Later, you lie side by side on the floor. The rain hasn’t stopped. His hair is down, draped over the collar of his shirt like a curtain.

You reach for it. You don’t even think. You just gather a few strands and begin to braid them, clumsy, loose.

“You used to keep it neater,” you say.

He hums. “No one to impress.”

“I’m someone.”

“You’ve already seen the worst of me.”

You pause. Then, softly: “I’ve seen all of you. That’s not the same.”

He’s silent. You finish the braid. Undo it immediately. Start again. You could do this forever–touching him, tending him, filling the silence between you with all the softness he no longer gives himself.

You think if you love him hard enough–long enough–he’ll speak again. That one day he’ll look up and say thank you for waiting. I’m back.

But all he says is, “You’re good to me.”

And your voice cracks when you whisper, “So be good to yourself.”

He doesn’t answer. So you hold his hand again, and let the silence stretch.

When he sleeps beside you that night, breathing steady and deep, you lie awake, holding his hand like a lifeline, whispering little nothings into the dark.

“I’ll wait,” you murmur. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

“Come back.”

“Please.”

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You’re still holding him, but he’s already letting go.

Sunday comes quiet and heavy, like morning fog after a long night. There’s no warmth in the sunrise today–just a pale wash of grey seeping softly through the windows, painting everything in muted shades of silver. It’s a morning that hushes you without reason, silence that’s not peaceful, but cautious–afraid of waking something that’s already restless.

You’re tangled together on Suguru’s dorm bed, backs against the headboard. The covers are pushed down to your ankles, forgotten. He sits stiffly, knees pulled halfway up, his arm loosely around you as you tuck yourself into his side. Your textbook lies open, spine-up, pages spread face-down on the sheets–abandoned again. Your tea is going cold on the desk, untouched.

At first, you think he’s fallen asleep again. His breathing is slow, steady, and you hold perfectly still–watching the rise and fall of his chest beneath the faded cotton of his hoodie, counting the quiet rhythm. You trace your finger over the faint lines of the fabric, half-smiling to yourself at the sleepy softness of it. You wonder if he’s dreaming.

But then he shifts a little, his fingers twitching softly where they’re tangled with yours. His hand tightens briefly, releases again. You glance up at him.

“Suguru?”

His eyes aren’t closed, after all. He’s staring upward–at the ceiling, at nothing, at everything.

For a moment, he says nothing. Then, softly, “You changed me.”

The words hang between you like smoke, weightless and heavy at once. You don’t move; you barely breathe.

He sighs gently, a hollow sound that seems too big for his lungs. “Before I met you,” he continues, voice low and achingly calm, “I didn’t think trust was possible–not really. It always came at a cost. A price. A sacrifice. No one was kind unless they wanted something.”

He pauses. The words fall slowly from his lips, like each one hurts a little more than the last. “Kindness,” he murmurs bitterly, “felt like manipulation. Like every good deed had a hidden reason. A catch.”

You move slightly, turning your head against his shoulder to look up against him. He’s still staring at nothing. His gaze is distant, searching through memories he hasn’t let you touch before.

“And then you showed up,” he says, softer now. “You didn’t want anything. You just–cared. You loved me before you knew whether I deserved it.”

“I love you because you deserve it,” you whisper gently. “You always did.”

His eyes flicker, glancing at you for a second before drifting away again. He shakes his head, as though you’re missing the point.

“You made me believe things could be better,” he says quietly. “You made me think that maybe people were good, after all. That maybe it was worth it–to try, to hope, to care.”

“It still is.”

He exhales slowly, the sound heavy in his chest. “I thought so, too.”

You reach up, fingertips brushing the edge of his jaw, then move slowly upwards to touch his hair. It’s loose again, falling around his face in long, tangled waves that always soften when you comb them back. It’s become second nature–to brush his hair behind his ear, twist it carefully into a messy knot, braid little strands when he’s distracted. You’ve done it countless times before, always welcomed, always soft.

This time, when your fingers skim his hair, he tenses.

It’s subtle–a small tightening of his shoulders, a quick breath, a gentle shift away from your touch. But you feel it immediately.

Your hand freezes mid-motion. You pause, heart twisting a little. He doesn’t look at you.

You let your hand fall slowly back into your lap. Your fingers curl there, empty. You try not to show the way it aches inside your chest.

After a silence that feels far too long, he speaks again, voice quieter, rougher around the edges.

“There was a student,” he says, softly, like a confession. “He was bright. Curious. The kind of kid who could do anything if someone just let him.”

You stay very still, heart hammering in your chest.

“He started skipping classes,” Suguru continues. “He started coming in with bruises he wouldn’t explain. I tried to report it, tried to do something–but no one listened. They told me to stay out of it. Told me the system would handle it.”

He laughs bitterly, a feeble, shattered sound. “And then one day, he just… stopped coming. Nobody cared. Nobody noticed. The world just–kept going.”

His voice cracks quietly. “It’s always like that. The kids who need the most are the ones nobody fights for. They’re the ones nobody sees.”

You reach for him again, carefully, sliding your hand gently into his. His fingers grasp around yours reflexively, and you breathe out at the reassurance of his touch.

“I wanted to save them,” he says. “All of them. But how can you save someone when the world just wants to forget?”

“You’ve helped more people than you know,” you murmur. “You’ve done so much already.”

“But it’s never enough,” he whispers back, almost to himself. “There’s always someone else. Someone slipping away.”

“Suguru…” you breathe, lifting your hand again–slower this time, wary of rejection–and reach again towards his hair. You pause hesitantly, hand hovering.

He notices. He notices the way you pause, the uncertainty in your gesture. He sees your doubt, your hurt. And it breaks something small inside him.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, catching your wrist, guiding your hand back to him–slowly, carefully. “It’s okay. I–I didn’t mean…”

He trails off, unable to say it. You brush your fingers through his hair once more. This time he lets you, leaning into the touch like someone starved of tenderness.

“You don’t have to do it all alone,” you whisper, letting the strands of his dark hair slip through your fingers like ink. “You don’t have to carry everything by yourself.”

He closes his eyes. “But if I don’t, then who will?”

“We’ll figure it out,” you say quietly. “Together.”

His shoulders tremble slightly beneath your hands. He bows his head, face hidden by the long strands of his hair falling forward. You catch them, tucking them behind his ear. But even as you do, you feel it–an unspoken distance between you. The space he’s already begun to place between himself and the world. Between himself and hope.

“I’m so tired,” he whispers finally, voice barely audible. “Of trying to fix things. Of losing.”

“Then let me help,” you whisper back. “Please.”

He turns into your touch, breathing shakily against your palm. “I don’t know how,” he says, so muted it barely carries. “I don’t know how anymore.”

You hold him close, wrapping yourself around him as if you can shield him from the weight of everything he’s tried to carry. You stroke his hair reverently, whispering soft words you wish could heal.

But somewhere deep down, you already know. He’s started letting go.

You’re not sure your hands alone can hold all of him together anymore, but you hold him tight anyways. You press your face into his shoulder, listening to his heartbeat as if memorizing the rhythm. You whisper softly, “It’s going to be okay. We’ll be okay.”

You know you’re trying to hold back a storm with two open palms, but you stay there with him regardless, wrapped in quiet grief and stubborn love.

Maybe if you stay, he’ll stay too, and right now, keeping him in your arms feels like the only kindness you have left to give. Because, despite everything, you can’t yet admit to yourself that kindness might not be enough.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You keep talking about forever. He has already stopped picturing it.

It’s almost midnight when you bring it up.

The room is dim, draped in that low amber hush that only happens when a lamp is left on too long and no one wants to admit the day is over. The walls are half-bare now–the art prints rolled and tucked away, the photo strips from your first year clipped off the board. A mug sits cold on the windowsill, next to a planter long since emptied of the basil it used to hold. Everything smells faintly of cardboard and lavender dryer sheets, and something else you can’t name–something like the ache of a place you’ve already begun to mourn.

You’re sitting on the floor, legs folded beneath you, wrapped in your favorite blanket. You’ve had it since before Suguru. He used to tease you for it, calling it your ‘emotional support cocoon’. Now it feels like armor. Your laptop is open in front of you, the screen glowing soft and blue, tabs stacked like a half-built life: apartment listings, furniture inspo, a recipe blog, a budget calculator you haven’t had the heart to open.

Suguru is lying above you on the bed, stretched out on his side, facing the wall. His hand rests limply under his cheek, his dark hair spilling over the pillow like ink across paper. The room is quiet, save for the occasional click of your trackpad and the sound of his breathing–slow, even, distant.

You hesitate before speaking, but the words have been sitting on your tongue all week, and they taste heavier the longer you hold them in.

“This one has a backyard,” you say, softly. Like offering something sacred.

He doesn’t answer right away. You can’t tell if he’s heard you or if he’s just thinking, which feels like the same thing these days.

“South-facing,” you continue, scrolling. “So it gets good light. We could put a little table out there. Or a bench. You could drink coffee outside on Sundays.”

Still nothing. Just a small, indistinct sound–something between acknowledgement and apathy. You wait, but nothing more comes. So you try again.

“Remember when you said we’d get a dog?”

That stirs him. His gaze shifts, and he rolls over, faintly, slowly. You catch it out of the corner of your eye.

“You said you didn’t like dogs,” you remind him, with the ghost of a smile. “But you’d make an exception. For me.”

There’s a pause. Then, finally: “A quiet one.”

Your heart lifts. “Low energy,” you echo. “Soft ears.”

“We were going to name her after a flower.”

“Aster,” you say.

“Or Dahlia.”

You smile, and for a moment–just a moment–it feels like you’re still in the dream. You rest your hand on the mattress near his, not quite touching. The space between your fingers and his feels impossibly wide. You don’t press into it. Instead, you look back at the screen.

“We could still do that,” you murmur. “That backyard would be perfect for her. And you could take her on walks when you don’t feel like talking to people.”

His gaze drops again. His face is unreadable in the low light.

“You said you’d build me a bookshelf,” you continue. “Even though you didn’t know how. You said you’d learn.”

He says nothing. You press on.

“You said we’d make the kitchen smell like oranges. That we’d argue about dishes. That we’d grow old being ridiculous and ordinary. Together.”

Still, no reply. You turn your head, look at him fully now. There’s a shadow of something behind his eyes–pain, maybe. Or guilt. Or the echo of something long gone.

“And you promised you wouldn’t disappear on me,” you whisper. “You said you’d stay.”

That’s when he closes his eyes. Slowly. Like it costs him something. Like this is the part he’s dreading.

And then–silence. Not heavy. Not sharp. Just… quiet. An absence so vast it fills the whole room.

You stare at him, your hands folded in your lap now, clenched tight. The moment stretches. Suspends. Breaks.

“You should move in with a friend,” he says. Soft. Measured.

Your breath catches. The words don’t register at first. They’re too at odds with the softness in his voice, the gentleness of his expression. It’s like being handed a blade wrapped in velvet.

“What?”

He looks at you fully now, and you wish he wouldn’t. Because his eyes are tender, too tender. Like he’s already grieving you.

“Just until you figure things out,” he says. “So you’re not alone.”

You close your laptop. The hinge clicks shut like a final sentence.

“I thought we’d move in together.” Your voice doesn’t shake. It floats. Weightless.

His face folds slightly at the edges. Regret. Maybe even love. But no denial. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I already am.”

He’s too calm. Too steady. Like he’s been rehearsing this.

You blink at him. Once. Twice.

“You’re planning a future I can’t give you,” he says, softly. Almost lovingly.

You swallow. The burn in your throat rises fast–too fast. Your hands clutch tighter at the edge of the bedsheet, knuckles white. “I’m not asking for much,” you whisper. “I’m not asking for perfect. I’m asking for you. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“I know.”

“Then why–”

“Because I still want you,” he says. And the way he says it breaks you, because his voice is steady. Honest. “But I can’t want anything else.”

And then the tears come. Not loudly. Not with sobs. But with quiet. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere too deep for sound. You blink and blink and they fall anyway–slow trails of salt down your face, one after another, pooling at the edge of your lips before falling to your lap.

He sits up. Reaches for you. You flinch–just barely. But he notices, and he stops. His hand hovers. Withdraws.

You wipe your face with the back of your sleeve. You don’t understand why he’s saying all of this. He was getting better. Your cheeks are wet. Your eyes are burning. Your chest feels like it’s been cracked open just wide enough to let something holy bleed out.

“It’s okay,” you say, through sniffles. Your voice is too small. Too bright. Too false. “I get it.”

“Please–”

“I get it.”

You rise to your feet slowly, setting your laptop down on the floor. You cross the room with slow, deliberate steps and kneel beside one of the open boxes you’ve started putting your belongings into. You pretend to fold a sweatshirt that was already folded. Pretend to sort your notes. Pretend your hands aren’t shaking.

Your back is to him. You don’t ask him to follow. He doesn’t speak again. He doesn’t move.

In the silence, something delicate between you finally dies–not loudly, not with drama, but like a candle extinguishing after burning too long. Quiet. Inevitable.

By morning, nothing will be different. But everything will.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

You love him loud, and it still isn’t enough.

You’re sitting across from him in your room–the air thick, unmoving–and the silence has gone on too long to feel like anything but surrender. The light outside is dusky, purpling into blue, and the lamp on your desk doesn’t reach the corners of the room. Shadows stretch wide beneath your bed, beneath his eyes.

He’s been distant for days now. Weeks. Months, even. His words rationed like water in a drought, his touch feather-light and far between. He leaves early, returns late, stands in your doorway like he’s a guest in his own life.

But tonight, he came in and stayed. Sat down without a word. Draped himself into the armchair with that quiet, heavy stillness that feels like resignation.

You watch him. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at you.

The storm has been waiting in your throat for days. You swallow it one last time and then finally say–

“We need to talk.”

He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t blink. Just lets the words hang there. You don’t move closer, nor do you soften. You’re tired.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

A pause.

“Doing what.”

He says it flat. Not curious. Not accusatory. Just empty.

“Shutting down,” you answer, voice sharpening. “Drifting through every day like you’re not in it. Saying nothing and pretending I won’t notice.”

That’s when he looks at you. And something in your chest clenches–because his face is calm. Too calm. Like this is just another conversation. Like you haven’t been aching next to him for weeks. Like he hasn’t already been breaking your heart in increments.

“I’m still here,” he says quietly.

“No, you’re not,” you snap. “You’re around. You exist. You breathe next to me. But you’ve already left, Suguru, and I’m the only one who’s still trying to pretend that’s not what’s happening.”

His jaw tightens. His eyes harden. There’s a shift, perceptible–a flicker of something defensive. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Your best is silence,” you fire back. “Your best is turning your face away when I say I love you. It’s letting me dream out loud while you stare through me.”

That hits something. He sits up slightly, tension gathering in his shoulders like thunder. His voice comes out colder. “That’s not fair.”

“You’re right,” you say, laughing bitterly. “It’s not. None of this is fair. You, loving me and still leaving–that’s not fair. You building a life with me in your words, then walking away from it in your actions–that’s not fair.”

“I didn’t mean to–”

“Didn’t mean to what? Let me fall for a future you never intended to live in?”

His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. But you don’t stop. You’ve waited too long.

“Do you remember what you said? That day you told me about the dog, the backyard, the oranges in the kitchen? You made it sound like you could see it. Like you wanted it. With me.”

“I did,” he says, and there’s frustration now. Frustration and pain and something old. Something weary.

“Then why are you walking away from it? And don’t give me the same excuse you gave me last time.”

“Because I can’t give you that anymore.”

The silence that follows is sharp. Like something splintering. You stare at him, heart pounding in your chest, blood roaring in your ears.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t have it in me,” he answers. “Because I’m empty. Because every part of me that used to believe in that kind of life is gone.”

You shake your head, standing now, your hands clenched at your sides.

“No,” you whisper. “No, you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to stand here and tell me you can’t give me anything–me, of all people–when I’m the one who’s stayed. When I’ve been here through everything.”

He stands too–slowly, carefully. But he doesn’t reach for you.

“This isn’t about you.”

The words are soft. Matter-of-fact. But they gut you, and you freeze.

It’s not a shout, not an accusation–it’s worse. It’s detachment. It’s resignation. It’s him drawing the line you thought you could erase.

You laugh, but it breaks halfway out of your mouth. “God, do you hear yourself?”

He doesn’t speak. Of course he doesn’t.

“You think that makes it better?” you say, voice trembling now. “That this isn’t about me? That I just happened to be here while you burned out? That I just coincidentally get to be collateral damage while you decide the world isn’t worth hoping for anymore?”

“I didn’t ask for you to carry this.”

“But I wanted to!” you shout. “I wanted to carry it. I wanted to fight for you, for us. But you never gave me a chance. You just started fading. Slowly. Quietly. And I noticed, Suguru. I noticed every time you looked away. Every time you let go first.”

Your voice is cracking. Splintering. Shattering. You feel it reverberating in your chest, in your ribs.

“You didn’t want help. You didn’t want to believe in anything anymore. You just wanted me to stop trying.”

He doesn’t deny it. You feel your heart break.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

The storm is dying.

Not outside–outside, the sky is still quiet. No thunder. No wind. Just clouds sitting low over the city, heavy with the weight of something waiting to fall. But in here, between the walls of your small dorm room, between you and him–the storm is ending. Or maybe, more truthfully, it’s entering its quietest stage. The one where no one yells. Where no one moves. Where only grief remains.

You’re both still standing, raw from what came before. Your voice still echoes in the corners of the room. His hands are clenched at his sides, but his expression is unreadable. There is no rage left in him. Only something muted. Suppressed. Heavy.

You take a shaky breath. Then another. And when you speak, it’s not with anger anymore. It’s with everything you’ve kept folded inside your chest like prayer.

“I still believe in the world.”

The words are small, but they carry. They land in the space between you with the weight of truth.

Suguru flinches. He looks at you like that’s the saddest thing you could’ve ever said. His shoulders lift, slightly. He breathes in like he wants to argue.

You don’t let him.

“I still believe that people are capable of good. That they can grow. Change. I believe that kindness is more powerful than cruelty. That softness is not a weakness.”

He looks away, his eyes moving toward the floor. You don’t follow them.

“And I believe in you.” You say it clearly. Not whispered. Not as a plea. A truth.

He exhales slowly, his chest falling.

You take a step forward. Cautious. As if you’re approaching a wild animal that used to come when you called, but now looks at you like a stranger.

“You told me once that you wanted to teach. That you wanted to be the kind of adult you never had. Someone who listened. Someone who noticed.”

Another step. He says nothing.

“You still are that person,” you say. “Even if the world is heavy. Even if it hurts. You are still good. You are still doing good. You’re still the boy who helped strangers carry their groceries, who stayed after class to ask if someone was okay.”

His lips part, but no sound comes out. He just looks at you like his heart is breaking into pieces and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

“You don’t have to save everyone,” you say. “You don’t have to believe in the entire world. Just believe in one thing. One person. One reason. And if you need that reason–”

You press your hand to your chest. “Let it be me.”

He blinks, eyes focusing on you properly. And god, he looks like he’s already halfway gone.

You pretend not to notice. You keep going.

“I’ll stay,” you whisper. “I’ll stay with you. Even if you’re tired. Even if you’re angry. Even if you stop talking and you forget how to hold me and you don’t want to get out of bed. I’ll still stay.”

He closes his eyes. His hands curl into fists.

“I met you when you were at your lowest,” you continue. “And I loved you. I never asked you to be whole. I never needed perfect. I just needed you.”

You’re crying now, but you don’t feel embarrassed. Not anymore.

“I still do.” You step closer, so close now you can feel the heat of his body. “I can take care of you. If you let me. If you stay.”

The silence between you deepens like a wound. And then–he speaks. Softly.

“The world is broken.”

“Maybe,” you say. “But that’s why we stay. That’s why we love. That’s why we try.”

“You’re idealistic,” he murmurs, almost gently. “You always have been.”

“I’m hopeful,” you correct him. “I have to be. Someone has to be.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It is.”

He shakes his head. “You’re so naive.”

You go still. He says it gently. Kindly. But it cuts like a blade all the same.

“It’s never been about you,” he says. “This–this darkness, this weight. It started long before you. And no matter how much I love you, it’s not something you can fix.”

Your voice cracks when you answer. “But I want to try.”

“And I love you for that.”

Your eyes search his face, and what you see there breaks you. Because he’s not cold. He’s not cruel. He’s not pushing you away because he stopped loving you.

He’s doing it because he still does.

“Then tell me,” you whisper. “Tell me I was enough.”

He steps forward. Cups your face in his hands. “You are.”

“Tell me you loved me.”

“I love you,” he says. “I love you.”

And then he pulls you into his arms. His body folds around yours like something holy. His fingers slide into your hair, trembling. His breath is hot against your temple.

“I want you,” he whispers. “I want you. Only you. Nothing else. No dreams. No future. Just–you.”

Your arms wrap around him like instinct. You bury your face in his shoulder. “Then stay,” you whisper in return. Your voice is shaking. “Please, Suguru. Stay.”

He doesn’t answer. He holds you tighter instead.

•──────────────────────────────────────────•

It’s after graduation. A Tuesday.

The cap you didn’t want to wear is hanging by a pushpin near the door, half-crushed from the rain that fell as you walked home that day. You haven’t taken it down. There’s a part of you that thinks maybe it deserves to stay where it is–limp and damp and uncelebrated. Like everything else that was supposed to feel like a beginning.

Your room is almost empty now.

A box sits in the corner filled with folded sweaters and things you don’t want to remember owning. There’s another by the door, filled with books Suguru lent you over the years–some dog-eared, some annotated, one with a sticky note still pressed between the pages where he once wrote, You’ll like this one. It’s gentle.

Your laptop rests on the bed. The apartment listings are still open. You haven’t closed the tabs. You haven’t packed the charger. You haven’t even touched the envelope marked LEASE OPTIONS sitting on your desk–the one you once filled with printed tours and scrawled notes in different colored pens.

Because none of them matter now.

He’s standing in the doorway. He hasn’t said anything yet. He doesn’t have to.

You’re sitting on the bed, knees pulled to your chest, one hand resting on a balled-up hoodie–his. He’s wearing the other one. The black one. The one you said made him look soft around the edges. The sleeves are a little too long. He doesn’t push them up.

You look up at him.

His bag is slung over one shoulder. His hair is tied, but loosely. Too loose. Strands are already slipping.

You spoke the night before–barely. There were no more arguments. No more tears. Just the quiet weight of knowing. You had curled beside him on the bed with your fingers buried in his shirt and your face tucked beneath his jaw. He hadn’t said anything. He had just held you. Tighter than usual, but not tight enough.

And now it’s morning. And he’s leaving.

You open your mouth. Close it. Try again.

“You’re really doing this.”

He nods. Your throat closes.

“I thought maybe,” you whisper, “maybe you’d wake up and change your mind.”

He looks at you then–really looks–like you’re the last soft thing he’s allowed himself to look at. His face is unreadable–not because it’s blank, but because it’s everything at once. Grief. Love. Fear. Guilt. All of it wrapped into silence.

“I thought maybe you’d stay,” you say.

“I want to.”

The way he says it cracks something inside you.

“Then stay.” You sound too quiet to be begging. But you are. You are.

He closes his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” you ask. “Why not just… try? We don’t need a perfect plan. We can take the smallest apartment. Eat cheap takeout. Sleep on a mattress on the floor. I don’t care, Suguru. I don’t care. I just want–” Your voice breaks. “I just want you.”

He sets his bag down beside the door. Steps toward you. And you think, for a heartbeat, that this is it. He’s changed his mind. He’s choosing you. He’s staying.

He kneels in front of you and takes your hands into his–god, they’re warm–and holds them like something breakable. His thumbs move in small, trembling circles over your knuckles.

“I love you.”

You start crying. Not suddenly. Not loudly. Just a soft, shaking sound that comes out of your chest like the ending of a song.

“I love you,” he repeats, eyes locked to yours. “I love you so much it hurts.”

“Then don’t leave.”

“I have to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Because if I stay,” he whispers, “I’ll rot in front of you. And you’ll keep calling it love. And one day, you’ll forget what real love is supposed to feel like.”

“Don’t say that.”

He squeezes your hands. “You’d carry me until your legs gave out,” he says. “And I’d let you. But I can’t let you do that.”

“You promised–”

“I know.”

“You said you wouldn’t disappear.”

“I tried.”

You shake your head, tears slipping freely down your cheeks now, your throat threatening to close up. “I waited,” you cry. “I fought for you.”

“I know,” he says, voice wrecked, ragged. “You were the only thing that kept me here as long as I stayed.”

He leans in. Presses his forehead to yours.

His hair falls into your face. You smell the lavender shampoo you made him try last month. The one he pretended to hate. You never told him you knew he kept using it.

“I’ll think about you,” he says. “Every day. Every time I see something soft. Or kind. Or almost beautiful. I’ll see you in all of it.”

“You can still have me.”

“No. You deserve someone who wants more than survival.”

You close your eyes, taking a shaky breath. “You were my more,” you whisper.

He kisses you.

Not quickly. Not like goodbye. Like memory. Like something he wants to seal into the corner of your mouth and carry with him forever.

And then he pulls away. His hands fall away from your face, his fingerprints burned into your skin.

You reach for him–not because you think it will stop him, but because your body doesn’t know how not to.

“Don’t forget me,” you whisper.

His voice breaks when he answers. “I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to.”

He stands. Lifts the bag. Walks to the door.

You don’t watch him go. You stare at the laptop instead. The listings still open. The cursor still hovering over a link. As if the future is waiting for your input.

The door clicks. Softly. And the silence that follows is louder than any scream.

You bury your face in your hands and cry.

He didn’t slam the door. He folded himself out of your life like he never wanted to hurt you.

You lose Geto Suguru on a Tuesday.

You think that that’s the worst thing he could have ever done to you.

When he left, he didn’t take his clothes. He took the light. And you’re still looking for it in every room he isn’t in.

V. THE ECHO – where grief is soft, and memory is louder than silence Some people leave like a storm. Suguru left like silence after music–sudden, unkind, irreversible.

The apartment is quiet.

Not peaceful. Not tranquil. Just quiet in that dull, hollow way that settles around the bones like smoke and never quite clears. The kind of silence that doesn’t soothe but stretches. It clings to the corners of your furniture. It lives in your coffee mugs and inside the jackets hanging by the door. It waits in the seams of things. You don’t remember what anything sounded like before he left–only that it’s been quieter ever since.

You live here now. That truth doesn’t sting like it used to, but it still aches. Not like a wound anymore, but like a healed break that never reset properly. The apartment isn’t much: one window, cracked tiles in the bathroom, a fridge that hums when it thinks no one is listening. The radiator creaks every time it turns on, like an old man sighing in his sleep. You’ve memorized the sound of this place. The way it breathes differently without him in it. It doesn’t carry echoes well. Maybe that’s a blessing. Maybe that’s why you chose it.

Still, sometimes you think you can hear him. Not his voice, exactly. Just the shape of him. The memory of a presence. The phantom weight of a gaze that always saw you like you were more than you believed you were. You sit in the chair by the window and you feel it–the ghost of the way he used to look at you. Like you were the answer to a question he had been trying to ask his whole life.

You have a routine now. Mornings begin with silence and coffee–two sugars. You water the plants. All three are still alive, against all odds. You whisper to them. Not because you believe they understand, but because you’re tired of hearing nothing speak back. You read when you can, though most days you just turn the pages and let the words drift past you like fog. You work. You walk. You buy groceries for one. You learn to sit with loneliness without trying to feed it.

And sometimes you cry. Not with drama, not in torrents. But with the soft, startled grief of realizing you’ve reached for him again. The phantom muscle memory of laying out two mugs instead of one. Picking up a book and wondering if he’s read it. Feeling laughter rise in your chest and turning to share it before remembering that you can’t.

It’s strange, loving someone who left gently. There’s no hatred to cling to. No betrayal to burn your way through. Just the steady knowledge that they loved you, and left anyway. That they were kind. And tired. And breaking. And that you couldn’t save them without losing yourself. That maybe they knew that before you did.

He didn’t take everything. He never would. But the things he left behind are worse. His handwriting on a receipt tucked into the drawer. The coffee you only bought because he liked it. The scent of his shampoo lingering in your towels long after you stopped using them. A playlist that still plays when your phone forgets it’s supposed to forget him. A stray hair tie at the bottom of your drawer.

Some days, you pretend you’re fine. You move through the world with the grace of someone who has practiced the choreography of grief so long it looks like living. You smile. You hold conversations. You even laugh. And no one asks, because you’ve become very good at dressing your ache in language that passes for okay.

But some nights, you sit on the floor, back against the radiator, and remember that loving him was the most honest thing you ever did.

You don’t try to forget him. Some days, that feels like the only promise you can still keep. You let yourself remember. You let yourself mourn. You light a candle on the windowsill, even though he never believed in that kind of ritual. You write down things you wish you’d said aloud. You whisper his name into the steam of your coffee. You open the drawer where his spare toothbrush would’ve been and close it again.

It helps. Sometimes.

Today, you open the box you never meant to touch. The one he left, labeled in his handwriting: “misc”. The letters tilt forward like they were written in a hurry, but still carefully enough to be legible. You sit on the floor, cross-legged, and lift the lid like it might still breathe. Inside: the scarf from your first winter together, itchy and beloved. A dog-eared book with annotations in two colors. A hair tie. A list.

Just one page.

Just one set of words he never read aloud, but you’ve seen before.

things to teach – kindness is strength – silence is not always peace – you are not too much – softness is not fragility – no one is unlovable – the world is hard – love anyway

You trace each line like a prayer. These were the things he wanted to teach. Maybe the things he wanted to believe. Maybe the things he couldn’t carry anymore. Maybe that list was his last act of faith, scribbled into existence before the light in him went out.

You fold the page. Not tightly. You tuck it into the book you still read sometimes, when you need to hear his voice in your head. And you sit there, on the floor, surrounded by things he left behind, and let the ache in your chest widen without resistance.

You think about the way he used to touch you. Gently. Like you were made of smoke and paper and prayer. The way he would hesitate before holding your face in his hands, as if reverence was a language best spoken without words. You think about the way he never spoke of the future like it was owed to him, only borrowed.

This is what it means to love someone like Geto Suguru: it means gentleness. It means holding grief in your hands like water. It means remembering that sometimes people break even when they are loved. That sometimes love isn’t enough to keep someone from walking into silence. That sometimes the kindest thing someone can do is leave before they make you watch them disappear in pieces.

But it also means this:

It means you were seen. Known. It means you were held by someone who understood what it meant to be tired and still soft. That for a time, you got to witness someone who tried to believe in the world and loved you while they could. You were chosen, even while he was unraveling. You were the thing he wanted to keep safe from himself.

You will keep loving. That is what you choose.

You’ll move again someday. To a bigger place. One with more sunlight. Maybe a dog, if you’re brave enough. You’ll meet people who make you laugh. You’ll love again, maybe differently, maybe less fiercely. But you’ll never forget what it felt like to love someone who carried their sorrow so quietly, it took you years to realize they had already let go.

And when you light the last candle that burns down in the bowl you made with him once in a pottery class neither of you liked–you whisper:

“I hope you found somewhere soft to land.”

Some things don’t end. They just change shape. And some people don’t leave. They stay quietly–in the places you don’t look at too often.

A/N: thank you for reading! i've been feeling really down lately and i just automatically started thinking about suguru and here we are. (yes i cried writing the last part) (art by risujuju on X)

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