"Ren," I whisper, and the instant I hear his name on my lips, a thousand newer memories flood into my brain. A thousand different sensations are triggered in my body, and I realise that I haven't thought about him at all today. His gruff voice, his signature scowl, his eyes that change emotions as if they were clothes, his chapped lips, his calloused hands... 

He's so familiar to me; everything he makes me feel and remember being things I've felt and remembered over and over. Worrying about Ren has become such a normal part of my day that remembering him now feels...it feels like coming home.

Rubi moves out of the way, and slowly, I walk into the classroom, finding Ren with his head down on his desk by the window. As I inch towards him, I feel a thin swirl of a faraway sadness rise in my stomach. Maybe he's having a bad dream. Ren's presence to me has always felt like that of a distant, flickering bonfire. Raging one second, ebbing the next. Crackling and smoky. Warm.

I'm tired, and I'm not strong enough yet. I know I'm not strong enough yet, and that's the excuse I use when I finally give in to temptation and crouch before him. It's almost completely dark outside and I can't see his face very well, but I'm close enough to hear the breaths he takes, soft and steady.

Lying on the desk beside him is a thin notebook. Ren is worse at taking notes than he is at teaching, and his handwriting, which has no rhyme or rhythm whatsoever, isn't doing him any favours. These notes are useless to me, and I know he probably only made them to look good for my sister. Even so, I feel a pinch in my chest when I picture him hunched over with the book in his hands, eyes furrowed with concentration, hands moving with furious strikes, all while thinking of me.

Warily, I touch the top of his unmoving hand, and a silence washes over me, soothing my nerves. It's the sort of silence that you're left with when you return to your room after a long but good day. The last of the twirling discomfort reflecting Ren's troubles dissolves into nothingness inside me when we come into contact.

As if to say everything is going to be okay now that we're close enough to touch. I lean into the feeling and close my eyes.

Ren groans quietly and starts to shift in his sleep when I slip my fingers around his, and suddenly, I remember the bile in his eyes that had been directed at me the other day when I called his name on the track field. I flinch away, and my hand accidentally rams into the chair leg beside me, sending a metallic ring humming through the room.

Keep your distance, I remind myself as I stand up, trying to even out my breathing. He doesn't like you.

He's awake. For an endless second, I nervously stare down into his eyes, glinting in the darkness. Then, "Where the fuck have you been?"

"I..." I swallow, unable to shake the feeling that I've done something wrong. "Today is my grandmother's death anniversary," I manage. "We rode out to the countryside to pay our respects to her memorial."

"Oh." Ren stands up too. "I didn't know that...fuck, um," he stutters as his hand absently floats up to the piercing in his left ear, pressing down on it with his thumb. "Are you sad?"

"A little," I say quietly, unsure of how to respond. I miss Baa-san. I miss her every day. It's a feeling I've learned to live with, and today is no different from any other.

I feel my eyes go wide as Ren lifts his arm, bringing his hand down on the top of my head. He pats it once, the motion rigid and awkward, before letting his palm rest there, a reassuring weight. "I'm not really...good at this," he admits without looking at me. "I don't know what else to do."

I'm about to tell him it's alright, when his thumb starts to move, gently stroking my hair. "Don't be sad," he whispers.

On their own, the words don't mean much. But when Ren speaks them, his voice sounds so impossibly raw. Don't be sad. This is just the way he presents himself to everyone. Always bare, angry, yet honest. Naked words and exposed eyes, every line of his face betraying exactly what he's feeling. No wonder he's always in a stormy mood. He makes it so easy for others to hurt him.

My throat clogs up at the thought of something bad happening to Ren, and I pull away from under his hand. I can't deal with this. I couldn't do anything for Baa-san. I'm doing all I can for Nee-san. I can't start worrying about Ren too. It's too much.

"What?" he asks, his voice coarse and fragile at the same time.

I shake my head. "Nothing."

He scoffs. "It's obviously not nothing."

Don't make Ren upset. Always answer when he talks to you, I repeat in my mind, but deep down, I know I just want to whine. To give voice to these uncertainties and be reassured. Comforted.

"Just coming to terms with how weak I am, I guess," I confess. Ren scowls, and it's clear that he doesn't understand, so I try to rephrase for him. "I'm scared that when the time comes, when Nee-san needs me, I won't be able to do anything for her."

"The hell?" He genuinely sounds surprised. "That makes no fucking sense. You're literally...perfect. I mean—" he screws his face together, searching for the right words. "There's literally nothing you can't do."

"I'm...perfect?" I say without thinking. "But you hate me."

Ren doesn't say anything for a moment. Then, quietly, "I hate you? You hate me."

I feel something crack open inside me. Hate you? All of this would be so much simpler if only I could. How can you hate someone after you've felt all of their pain like it's your own? After seeing it all—the hurting, the hope, the anger, the regret, the despair—leaving no corner of their heart unexplored? "I don't." Of course I don't.

"You're a real jerk sometimes, then."

"Oh, I'm the jerk?" I ask, recalling the countless times he treated me with spite.

"You're so...cold to me."

My brain begins to race. Cold? I didn't mean to be. I didn't know that was how my behavior towards him made him feel. I just...didn't want to upset him. Open your mouth. Answer when he talks to you. Be patient. And when possible, stay away. Stay away. Because he doesn't like you. All I've been doing is following a set of ground rules I laid down for myself.

My palms go cold.

Have I been going about all of this the wrong way? Have I been making mistake after mistake without even realising it? How much longer? My eyes prickle. My throat feels dry. How much longer till I end up just like my father?

When I don't respond, Ren sighs in frustration and touches his fingers to my hair again. "I don't hate you, idiot." He looks into my eyes as he says this, and they're rare, I realise, these brief moments when I can meet his gaze. Look at him only to catch him looking back. Ren is terrible at keeping eye-contact.

My cheeks burn. "So, you like me?" I need to understand. I need him to be clear.

"I didn't say that," he grumbles, averting his eyes again, his hand flying back to the glinting stud in his ear.

"Ren."

"Fine. You're...fuck, you're not half bad, okay? And you're the most competent bastard I know, so if you say degrading bullshit like that again, I'll kick your ass. Got that?"

I feel a strong tug at the corners of my mouth when I hear those words, just as the memory of a voice—harsh and worn, stubborn and kind—echoes faintly in my ears. Because I'll always be here to give you a good smack if you ever start talking like this again. 

"What? Why the hell are you grinning like that?"

"Nothing."

His scowl deepens. "Don't you dare—"

A whiff of air escapes me. A short, quiet laugh. "Alright, alright, I was just thinking that...my grandmother would like you. I'm sure of it. That's why I..." Except, there's more. Ren doesn't hate me. I've got this new piece of information now, and I'm not sure what to do with it.

Maybe it would be okay for me to be around him more often, talk with him, ask him questions, and be there to see what kind of face he makes when he eats the food I cook.

He chuckles. "You're a real grandma's boy, huh? Didn't see that coming."

He awkwardly hands me the notes he made for me, and I take them, my fingers momentarily brushing against his. "Thank you." He looks at the floor and shrugs. "Figured you'd freak the fuck out about everything you missed once you got back, so...I thought I'd save myself the trouble of having to watch you lose your shit."

I'm about to speak when he roughly clears his throat. "Is Senpai...is she doing alright?" My smile isn't holding up anymore.

I'm an idiot.

"I was worried...or something," he mutters, before lifting his head and fixing me with openly expectant eyes.

Maybe it would be okay. But what would come out of that? What would staying with him accomplish? If anything, spending more time with Ren would leave me with less time to study. If you want to look at flowers all day, raise a field of them. Anything less is a waste of time. I want to watch Ren all day. That much is quite apparent. But trying to build anything with him would be pointless. Because all the things I want from him, he wants to give to someone else.

I can't risk pursuing these feelings when I'm not even sure if they're real. I can't go uprooting everything I've built just because there's a boy I can feel, thanks to the whims of the universe. There must be a puppet master somewhere out there, pulling at his red strings and making our hearts dance for each other. How can I be sure if I even like him? I look at his face then, as his expression starts to slowly change, and my chest hurts. 

It would be so easy to just go with the flow. To fall into step beside Ren and live life with him close by. But I've been working so hard, and I've come too far to let an abstract concept like fate start controlling my life. I can't rely on something like that.

I can't afford to make any more mistakes. I could waste a lifetime looking back on all of them, and while trying to fix every wrong step, I could end up on a completely different stairway, one that only leads downward. I could lose everything and become just as powerless as my father.

I could lose Nee-san.

"If you're worried, you should check on her yourself." Ren isn't screaming on the inside anymore. It's quiet. There are no more disturbances.

He's finally happy. Or he's getting there.

Things are ideal right now. This way, we both get what we want.

"Call her." This is what you wanted. "I'm sure it will..." This is for the best. "Make her happy."

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

When we come out of the classroom, Rubi and Irina aren't there anymore. It's odd for her to leave without saying anything, I think, as I descend the stairs to the ground floor of the building, a measured four steps behind Ren. It might be okay for me to walk with him, but I don't do it. I don't want to let myself get used to looking to my side and finding him there.

When we emerge into the deserted grounds of the school, I feel my shoulders relax as my eyes latch onto a familiar figure, crouched before a patch of unkept grass. She's still here. It's trivial. It's stupid. But my days no longer feel complete without hearing an earnest, "See you tomorrow!" I've been unknowingly holding on to those words on the way home every day. A promise. Tomorrow will be the same.

I move closer and catch sight of what Rubi is looking at. It's a lone flower, petals soft and white, stalk curved and thin. On that stretch of pressed grass and mud, it looks unbelievably fragile.

"Pretty, isn't it?" she whispers without looking up at me, a faint smile on her face.

"It won't be here tomorrow," I mumble. Even if it isn't trampled over by then, the thickening clouds in the sky will make sure of that.

"Maybe." She glances up at me, her face bright. "So we might as well enjoy it while it's still here, right?"

END OF CHAPTER

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

A/N

RRT has fanart now. Can you believe it?

As a writer, this is the most beautiful thing that can happen to you. To have someone love your character's enough to want to draw them, that's so fricking awesome. It means more to me than you could know, and I'm excited to show this off here.

All credit for the following art goes to the wonderfully talented thecharnelraven, thank you so, so much!