The rain had finally stopped.
But Yuuji still felt soaked, like the water had seeped beneath his skin and settled in his bones. He sat at his desk that evening, staring blankly at his untouched textbook, the words blurring on the page.
Ren's voice echoed in his head.
> "I like you."
He'd said it with terrifying ease, like it was a simple truth. Like liking someone wasn't complicated. Like it didn't come with consequences.
Yuuji stood up and moved to his window, pulling the curtain back. The courtyard below shimmered with puddles reflecting the dusky sky.
And suddenly, without warning, he was thirteen again.
---
Then.
The art room was quiet, filled with the smell of linseed oil and fresh paper. Yuuji sat alone at a back table, sketching quietly with a charcoal pencil. His hand moved carefully, precise—lines, shadows, angles.
A boy sat across from him. Kenta.
Sharp-eyed, always smiling, full of energy Yuuji wished he had.
"You draw like you're trying not to breathe," Kenta had said once, laughing. "Like the paper might shatter if you press too hard."
Yuuji had just shrugged.
That day, Kenta leaned over the table, grinning. "Draw me?"
Yuuji froze. "W-What?"
"C'mon. You're always sketching things—try me."
"I don't… draw people."
"You mean you don't draw me," Kenta teased, leaning closer.
His face was too close. Too bright. Too kind.
Yuuji's fingers tightened on the pencil. "I can't."
"Why?"
Yuuji looked down. "Because I don't want to mess it up."
Kenta watched him for a long moment, the smile fading into something gentler.
Then—quietly—he said, "You never mess up."
Yuuji's heart fluttered wildly.
That moment—soft, silent, thick with unspoken things—should've passed like nothing. Should've stayed safe inside the quiet walls of the art room.
But someone had seen.
The next day, Yuuji's desk was covered in ink.
His sketchbook—his favorite one, the one he never showed anyone—had been torn to pieces, pages thrown into the sink and soaked until the lines bled into ghostly blurs.
There was a word scrawled across his chair in permanent marker.
> "Freak."
No one said it to his face. No one had to.
Kenta never spoke to him again.
Yuuji never stepped into the art room after that.
---
Now.
The memory slammed into him like a fist.
He sat down heavily, breath catching. His hands trembled.
That was why. That was why he'd shut it all down.
Why he kept things neat, quiet, unfeeling. Why he stayed just far enough from everyone that they couldn't see him clearly—because when someone had seen him, really seen him, it had cost him everything.
He was afraid.
Not of Ren, not exactly.
But of believing that maybe—just maybe—this time, it could be safe.
And being wrong again.
---
Later that night, he pulled out an old box from beneath his bed.
Inside was a tattered sketchbook, its spine split and edges stained with water. He hadn't opened it in years.
He flipped to the page he remembered—the one that had survived.
A half-finished drawing of a boy's eyes. Sharp. Bright.
He touched the paper lightly.
Then, reaching for a fresh page, Yuuji picked up his pencil.
For the first time in years, he drew.
Not Kenta.
Not a landscape.
He drew Ren.
Half-turned, leaning against the library desk, smirk fading into something tender.
And this time, his hand didn't tremble.