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I THOUGHT, BY THIS POINT IN MY LIFE, I would have already outgrown my nerves. That I’ve leveled myself up enough to overcome the unexplainable yank in my stomach every time something important comes up — calculated every possibility, optimized every route. But like clockwork, all of the vitality I’ve stockpiled for this singular, pivotal moment seems to dissipate like smoke the moment you enter my field of vision — replacing itself with something else.
There’s no word I can think of to describe it. Anxiety feels too negative, excitement too much — anticipation? Yes, that could be it, but it doesn’t feel enough, either. I’ve never been good with words, but with you it’s as if I get worse — you always make me feel all jittery. I don’t want to lie and say I liked it from the start. It terrified me, your capacity to just be. To exist and take up space even in the face of environmental hazards, courageous in a way that I could only cower at, how it felt as if your gaze lingered upon me even when I believed I was safe from its intensity.
I don’t know how I ever believed I would be safe from you.
Romantics would call it fate, or maybe you were just Chekhov’s gun hanging off the wall — someone valuable that I had brushed past even if there was a blazing sign above your head that practically heralded your importance to the quest at hand. Whatever it might be called, the threat of you — of you overturning my life, of you swearing that promise on graduation day — loomed like the full moon’s Shadow. Inexplicable, and inevitable.
Nothing could have prepared me for the way you’d re-entered my life. I thought it was just another shallow promise — by now, I thought I understood how people worked. I thought of you and your feelings as something that would eventually be tempered by time, even if I believed at least some portion of it was heartfelt; after all, not everyone would put in the effort of sewing something by hand in order to pull together a plush just like that. I hadn’t realized just how deeply your affection ran for me.
I mulled that over several times. What had I done? There was no walkthrough I could consult if I ever felt stuck; no examining a dialogue tree to see which choices led to which outcome. It felt exhausting just to think about, but I continued to think about it all the same — under the guise of interest, of course, because back then I was so certain that was all it was. You were another person that I just wanted to examine and understand — why would you do that? After everything I’d done in my fear of being perceived by you, what had I done to earn your undivided attention?
A smaller, tinier replica of the well-worn plush sits in my pocket now — it once felt like the first piece of evidence towards unraveling the mystery of your devotion. I squeeze at it to bring myself from the then and there to the here and now; from the root of all these life-changing decisions to the outcome that sprung forth. You’re practically bouncing on your heels with every step, the train of your dress and the satin of the carnation ribbon wrapped around your waist flowing behind you like water.
You have to intertwine your fingers with mine for me to return to the moment with you; the smile you offer me is almost shy, different from the beaming grins you’ve come to offer me as we got to know each other beyond surface-level pleasantries. “Kenma,” you say — and I’ll never get used to how sweet it sounds from your lips after years of calling me by my surname. “Are you really distracted right now?”
“No,” I mumble back, because it’s true, in a way, the way all my thoughts all just come back to you. You look at me, smiling wider, as if expecting me to continue. “I’ve only been thinking about you, Zemu.”
Your cheeks warm at that, and it’s impossible not to smile at you, too, even if you’ve elected to stare at the floor while the officiant speaks in front of us.
It took me a long while to come to the conclusion that this was simply not something I would ever understand. I would just have to endure that fact, as I do with much else — that you love me for reasons I’ll never quite be able to comprehend. You could explain to me — as you have, several times, over and over, tirelessly and without complaint even if I’ve already stopped asking because I’ve resigned myself to my fate. I could give you my own reasons, too; your persistence, your joy even in troublesome times, your unwavering devotion… all of these and more, all rooted in the fact that I could never quite understand them.
And I’ve decided I can live with that. I find myself wanting that. To see you as you are, wholly and truly, and still find new things to discover about you that make me fall in love with you over and over again.
I seal the promise when I turn the veil over your head, when I take a moment to gaze into the warmth of your eyes; when I lean down slant my lips against yours with a certainty that tells me that this is all that matters: the overwhelming love and affection that I can feel down to the marrow, and the hope that I would be able to harbor it for you just as much.
