Chapter 4 Finale
“I really like you, Sakuragi-kun,” I admit. “You’re smart and funny and—and—and oh my gosh you know, like, so much about baseball. I don’t even know what you’re talking about half the time, but you just light up when you talk about it and then I can’t help but smile too. Our extra practice sessions are so… well, painful, usually. But they’re also, like, one of the best parts of my week and…”
My cheeks feel like a million degrees, but I swallow the new lump in my throat.
Force myself to meet his gaze.
“I want to be your friend,” I murmur. “I’ve just been terrified of messing this up, and… that’s why it scared me. That thing you said.”
Sakuragi-kun’s face pinks to match my own, then he squints at me a little, like he’s trying to solve a math problem we haven’t covered in class yet.
The squint then turns into a blank stare, and he just kinda… stares at me.
And stares…
And stares…
And—
“Say something?” I squeak out, looking down at my lap. “Please?”
“You’ve, uh… you’ve really thought about this a lot, huh?”
My cheeks burn hotter.
“My brain can be… loud sometimes,” I mumble.
“And… it’s been loud… about me?”
I nod, resisting the urge to squeeze my eyes shut.
Sakuragi-kun pauses again.
“So… when you say you like me,” he starts slowly. “Do you… mean…”
…
Oh.
That gets me to look up again.
“As a friend!” I half-shout. “I like you as a friend. (…I think)”
“You ‘think’?!”
“Well! I’ve never really feltthat way about anyone before,” I say, resisting the urge to look down again. “And grown-ups don’t exactly explain what the big deal is, so…”
And is it even possible for my cheeks to keep getting hotter?!
Sakuragi-kun’s face scrunches up, and it takes me second to realize that’s it’s not disgust.
He’s… thinking.
“Maybe… kissing?” he offers eventually.
Huh?
…Oh.
“…Maybe?” I say. What elsecan I say?
Another moment passes.
“…Well?” Sakuragi-kun asks.
“‘Well’ what?”
“Have you ever… you know?”
“…Kissed… you?”
“Well, I know you haven’t done that,” he says in a ‘duh’ voice. “But… thought about it?”
“…”
“…”
“…Well, now I am!!!”
“…And? How is it?”
“Um… kinda gross?” I answer. “Kissing is just, like, mashing your food-holes together—I don’t really get the appeal, if we’re being honest.”
“Okay…” Sakuragi-kun says. “Okay, good.”
And now the mood is all kinds of weird.
“Would it… bother you?” I ask. “If I liked you that way?”
Sakuragi-kun’s face scrunches back up in thought.
“I don’t… think so?” he says after another pause. “It would definitely… complicate things, though.”
“‘Complicate things’?”
He rubs his hand down his face a little—he wasn’t planning on having to elaborate, it seems.
“It would make everything feel… higher-stakes, I guess.”
“And things already feel high-stakes to you.”
“…Yeah.”
The room goes quiet again.
I wait for Sakuragi-kun to say more, but he doesn’t.
“Um… I know this is really not a great time to ask this, but… my butt isstarting to hurt—do you think you can you, like, scoot over or something?”
Sakuragi-kun rolls his eyes, even as he seems to appreciate the break in tension a bit.
He scoots across the futon, lying down along the edge furthest from me while still remaining on top of the covers.
Then, once he’s rested his head against the pillow and gotten comfortable, he looks up at me expectantly.
I pause for a moment, then stretch out next to him, propping my head in my hand instead—no pillow.
“…Better?” he asks finally.
“Yes. Thank you for showing such concern about how my butt is doing.”
He laughs.
“I was asking how you’re doing, smartass!”
“Still ‘better’,” I chuckle.
“Okay, good,” Sakuragi-kun says.
There’s another pause where we just look at each other.
He looks… kinda tired, honestly.
Not as visibly upset, anymore, but I can tell it’s getting late.
I honestly don’t know if it’s being less tired or more tired that makes me keep going, but the night feels like… a precious opportunity. One I’m not ready to be over yet.
“Hey. Can I… ask you a question?”
“Oh no, another one,” Sakuragi-kun teases, but all he gets for his trouble is a glower.
“Fine, fine,” he relents. “Go ahead.”
I swallow.
Take a deep breath.
…And freeze.
Sakuragi-kun waits for another few moments, then pokes me in the shoulder.
I go limp, letting the hand that had been propping up my head fall off the futon and resting my head on its arm instead.
“Oh no,” Sakuragi-kun says. “Did another question break your brain?”
“No…” I groan. “I just… I was gonna ask if you had anything else to say about my, um… my thing I said. But…”
“‘But’?”
“But… now I don’t know if I should,” I say carefully. “Pushing you too hard was what led to… that whole thing earlier. So now things just feel a little…”
“High-stakes?”
“…Yeah.”
Sakuragi-kun goes quiet again.
“I really am sorryabout all that,” I say. “And you don’t have to say it—that you want to be my friend. I just… want you to. But I want you to want to, you know? So if you don’t want to, then I want you not to. Did… that make sense?”
“It did,” he says, then his brows furrow, too. “Are you okay, though?”
“Huh?”
“You look… off,” he says. “Is your brain being loud again?”
I swallow, then nod my head.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, already fidgeting with my fingernails. “I just don’t…”
“Don’t…?”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t like making a big deal about it.”
“No?”
“No.”
Sakuragi-kun snorts another little laugh.
“Trying not to upset people?” he asks through a tiny smirk.
“…Maybe.”
“Even if it keeps you miserable instead?”
“They can’t help it my brain gets loud sometimes,” I mutter. “But I can help whether or not I make other people miserable.”
“So… your choices are basically ‘invisible’ or… ‘contagious’?”
“Are you going somewhere with this?” I scowl.
“Nope. Just… call it a hunch.”
My brow furrows.
My chest hurts.
“…I don’t feel miserable when you’re around,” I mutter.
“Yeah, well,” Sakuragi-kun looks away. “You’re… different.”
I prop my head back up in my hand.
“…I am?”
“Of course you are,” he huffs. “You run your mouth off but then apologize to strangers? I can practically see your brain running at a million kilometers an hour, but then half the stuff that pops out of your mouth is just total nonsense!”
“Hey!”
“And—” he cuts in. “I know you said you don’t have a crush on me—and if you say so, then I believe you—but then you, like, follow me around like a lost puppy! Sometimes I can practically see your tail wagging. So it’s like… what do I even do with that?”
“You… you believe me when I say things?”
“That’s what you took from what I said?”
“I dunno! I just…” I say, then a bit quieter— “Not everybody does. So.”
“Yeah, well… I trust you.”
“I…” I swallow. “I trust you, too.”
“Even if… I can’t say it, yet?”
“I told you you didn’t have to.”
“I want to, I just… I’m scared that if I say it I’m gonna let you down. …Is that silly?”
“I’m probably the wrong person to ask about whether a certain fear is silly,” I tease.
“Yeah,” Sakuragi-kun chuckles. “You might be right.”
Sakuragi-kun’s face goes back to serious, and there’s a moment before he speaks again.
“What if… what if I can never say it?” he asks.
“Then… we’ll just be ‘different’ together,” I say.
Sakuragi-kun thinks for a moment before nodding.
And then the room just kinda… settles back into quiet after that.
Not awkward quiet.
Just… quiet.
Peaceful.
Relaxing.
Relaxing enough for the late hour to catch up with me, apparently.
“And with that,” I say through a yawn. “I should probably go ‘be different’ back on my own bed.”
“Wait.”
I freeze.
The word is so quiet I half-wonder if I just imagined it, but I’m definitely not imagining the slightly-panicked look on Sakuragi-kun’s face.
Or the way he’s grabbed onto my pajama sleeve like it’s a life-raft.
“Can you just… stay a little longer?” he asks in that same small tone.
Something in my chest tightens.
I nod.
“…Yeah,” I murmur. “I think I can annoy you for a little while longer.”
Sakuragi-kun climbs into his futon, the distance shrinking between us.
“Better?” I whisper.
Sakuragi-kun lets out another little snort as he nuzzles his face into his pillow.
“My butt’s fine. Weirdo…”
I chuckle, but don’t say anything. Just settle down beside him. Rest my head on his pillow.
And I never do make it back to my bed.