“Accepting gifts means you have accepted his feelings, you know,” Kenzo commented casually as he dropped to the seat.
I rolled my eyes, scoffing. “I don’t think that’s how it works.” I unlatched the straw glued to the body of the tiny milk box, punching the sealed hole at the top. “Besides, it’s just chocolate milk. Everyone gives anyone chocolate milk. It’s not an offering of affection. Or a bride price.”
Then he lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “Whatever you say.”
He dragged his tray closer to himself, going for the fries immediately. Before he dug in, his eyes flickered to my hand.
“How’s it?” he asked, nodding at it. “Did the painkiller work?” He had rushed to the nurse’s office for painkillers the second we pulled into the school. I told him it was just a dull ache. But he wouldn’t have it.
“Mhmm,” I hummed, slurping on the chocolate milk. It tasted nice and cold…refreshing.
“It must have really shaken you,” he mumbled around the chicken wing attached to his lips. “I didn’t realise it meant that much to you.”
I forced a smile, the kind that stretched but didn’t quite reach my eyes.
Of course he didn’t realise how much it meant to me. Six years later and he still thought I was only desperate to enlist in the school because I loved it.
“I’m sure it can be fixed,” he suggested. “It can, right?”
“Not everything broken can simply be fixed, Takahashi,” I sighed. “Even if it can, it will never be the same. It has already been broken once. The cracks, no matter how invisible, will always be there.”
He dropped the chicken wing, a frown on his face as he studied me for a second, looking at me the way he usually did when he realised I was hiding something or withholdinginformation. But he didn’t ask. Kenzo was like that. He would never push. He would just wait until I unravelled on my own.
“Remember how nervous you were before going on stage that day?” he asked, desperate to change the air between us. “I was scared you were going forget.”
A soft laugh slipped from me. “You told me not to faint there. That you wouldn’t be able to carry me.”
“I would’ve though,” he whispered. “I would’ve carried you like a valiant knight.”
I smiled, the memory flickering in my mind. “The poem gave me everything I thought I wanted.” A passageway to his school…and maybe his heart too. Little did I know he already loved me, but not in the way I’d hoped. Not in the way lovers did. Because his heart wasn’t built to love me like I wanted.
“Itgaveyou?” he echoed, brows furrowed as he emphasised on my choice of tense. “Did you lose it? What it gave you.”
“I just realised—” Before I could respond, a tray crashed somewhere behind me, loud, sharp, and metallic. The sound sliced through the noise in the room, causing my pulse to jump, my breath hitching.
For a second I was back in my room, the award frame flying off the wall, clattering to the floor with a loud shatter. The crimson liquid spreading across my palm, the world tilting on its axis.
“Beth?” Kenzo’s voice reached me, steady and soft.
I blinked and looked up. “Huh?”
“Are you okay?” He had stood from his chair, leaning across the table, hand firmly on my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I was just…startled, that’s all.”
“Are you sure?” He didn’t look convinced.
“Yeah, of course.” I managed a smile, forcing it to last longer than a second.
“You should stop–”
My phone vibrated, cutting him off. I slowly reached for the device that was face flat on the table, flipping it over in my palm.
The name across the screen made my heart skip, my fingers trembling slightly.
“Who’s that?” Kenzo asked, nodding at the phone.
I lifted my gaze to him.
