You've known her for most of your life...and now she's getting married. Only problem is, you haven't told her what you've felt ever since then.
You’ve known Koma Mayu your whole life.
From living in the same neighborhood to going to the same school in the same classes each year like two people who were joined at the hip.
Some people became friends through grand moments.
Then there was you and Mayu who became friends through repetition.
Through the same routine.
Through the thousand small accidents that eventually harden into fate.
Walking to elementary school because both your mothers trusted neither of you alone near traffic, sharing umbrellas every rainy season because she never remembered hers and always acted surprised by weather, as if clouds always knew the best time to start pouring. Trading lunches because she hated cafeteria food and she just so happened to love your mother’s cooking. Competing over test scores, then pretending not to care. Arguing over nonsense so frequently that teachers began separating you by instinct before attendance was even finished.
When you were seven, she shoved you off a swing because you said her drawing of a rabbit looked like an deformed potato with lopsided ears.
When you were eight, you took the blame when she broke a classroom window with a dodgeball because she cried too convincingly to make the teacher believe otherwise.
When you were ten, she announced to three horrified classmates that she would probably marry you someday since it was the “easiest” choice.
When you were eleven, she denied ever saying it with such violence you nearly believed her.
That was Mayu.
Loud where you were quiet, impulsive where you were being cautious.
By middle school, people assumed you were siblings.
By high school, people assumed you were dating.
By college, people assumed one of you would confess eventually.
Neither of you did.
Or rather, you didn’t.
Mayu treated affection like confetti, easy to throw yet hard to keep track of.
She linked arms with you crossing streets, fell asleep on your shoulder during train rides, stole food from your plate without any moral regard. Called you first when she got accepted into university, when she failed a driving test, when she cried after a bad breakup, when she locked herself out of her apartment wearing slippers and her pyjamas.
You were the person she ran to.
You made the fatal mistake of thinking that meant something romantic.
Maybe it did once, maybe it never did.
Feelings didn’t arrive for you in a singular strike of epiphany.
They arrived like moss, quietly, gradually, spreading over everything before you realized it was actually there.
Somewhere between helping her study for exams and watching her laugh so hard she hiccuped milk tea through her nose, you fell in love with her.
Then stayed there for years.
You told yourself there was time.
There was always another season.
Another graduation.
Another summer festival.
Another almost-confession interrupted by phone calls, friends arriving, bad timing, your own cowardice dressed up as patience.
And Mayu, oblivious or merciful, continued being herself.
You seemingly lost track of time as it passed, lost track of the days where you could’ve said something or just anything in that manner.
Now, time decided to hit you square in the face.
She got a boyfriend.
Right, it stung at first but you thought of the other exes she had and maybe it would’ve ended the same but time hit you with another punch straight to your gut.
She was getting married soon.
And here you were having brunch with her and her fiance.
The cafe was one of those polished places, white walls, hanging plants, wooden tables so smooth they reflected your mistakes back at you. Soft jazz drifted through the room like it paid rent there.
Across from you, Mayu was slicing through her stack of pancakes as she leaned in to the man beside her while he said something you didn’t quite catch.
“You’re staring again,” she said around a bite.
“Sorry, spaced out a little.”
“Sure,” Mayu said, unconvinced.
She pointed her fork at you without looking away from her pancakes.
“That’s what you call it when your soul leaves your body?”
“I call it being hungry.”
Beside her, her fiancé laughed softly.
Takase Rin had the kind of laugh that sounded expensive, low, easy, annoyingly sound.
You distrusted it immediately.
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