Chapter 43
What was that all about earlier?
Koi curled up tightly on his narrow bed, deep in thought. At the time, he'd blamed his mood swings on puberty, but now that he was home and thinking clearly, something felt off.
If it really was puberty, wouldn’t it happen all the time?
Koi was seriously troubled. He had learned in class about emotional fluctuations during adolescence and had experienced some of them himself. But he'd never had the environment to express those feelings. He’d always held them in, ignored them, and they’d just passed him by. Maybe, he thought, they were only surfacing now. But if that were true, one question still remained.
Why does it only happen when I’m with Ash?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with an answer. And the emotions that came with puberty were supposed to swing wildly between anger, joy, and confusion. But the only emotion he ever felt was joy. And that joy appeared only when he was around Ash.
It’s weird. What’s wrong with me?
Koi turned over with a serious expression. Even now, just thinking about Ashley made his ears twitch—he could feel it himself. He hastily clutched at his twitching ears. This is the problem. This. He knew Ashley often stared at his ears. And every time he did, without fail, they were moving. By the time Koi realized it, Ashley was already smiling.
Ashley never teases me about it or anything, but still...
Feeling his face heat up, Koi clamped his hands over both ears.
It’s so embarrassing.
Even after boldly blurting out how much he liked Ashley, now he was blushing at the thought. But it wasn’t just the twitching that embarrassed him. It was the fact that his ears were always reacting to Ashley—only Ashley—that made him feel exposed.