"hey," yuji says, one bright and brilliant sunday morning, with no apparent reason, "i think i'm falling in love with you."
the birds keep chirping outside, incessant on the windowsill. the sunlight is blinding, rippling over the words on a page that aren't being read. the world doesn't stop turning, and megumi doesn't wake up. he stares over the top of his book instead, eyeing yuji who is looking back at him, head tilted upon his folded arms where he rests on the table.
"what do you think?" yuji asks. casual. effortless. beaming.
what do you think, as in, what did you think of the movie, fushiguro? what did you think of that kick? what did you think of the restaurant? never, what do you think of me telling you that i probably love you, then expecting a response entirely without prompting or build up or proper preparation?
except, yuji does mean that, and he is waiting for a reply completely unprompted without build up or proper preparation. so, naturally, megumi flattens his gaze on instinct and betrays himself like he always does when given the slimmest of chances to mess up.
"i think you're an idiot." he answers, tone dry and deceptively truthful, when he's definitely supposed to tell yuji that he just might love him back.
but it works, because megumi always forgets, the margin for error with yuji is always an inch wide and never more. there's a reason he just might love him back, after all, even if it's a selfish and totally conceited sort of motive to have. yuji laughs, like cold water on a hot day and stars in the early evening. it's the sound of forgiveness that megumi knows he doesn't deserve. his book slides out of place at that point and he loses the page he was halfway through.
"in that case, can i call you megumi now-" yuji grins, rising from the table, eyes filled with a horridly hopeful elation straight out of a foreign dream, "megumi?"
it's strange that megumi still hasn't woken up, and that yuji is in front of him waiting, inexplicably patient.
"what's the point of asking if you do it right away anyways?" megumi is brazen about it, but he's not at all brave. he hesitates for all of two seconds before collecting himself and getting up to leave, ignoring whatever yuji's almost about to say.
in his dreams, he crawls up and out of the ether, towards the sunlight that he's never going to touch. he gets so close, but he's only ever close enough to say sorry without hearing a response.
sometimes, if he just forgets the feel of the shadows swallowing him whole, he can manage to read the lips as they tell him- tell him it's going to be okay.
every time, in all of megumi's painstaking waking hours, he's sure that yuji can handle it. yuji can handle megumi, because there's no one else who can or will, and that's the only way anything will ever be truly okay. and didn't yuji promise it? didn't he look megumi in the eyes to swear, to commit, to try? didn't he say it, really, not in a dream?
megumi would forgive him if he fails, because yuji forgives him all the time. for saying sorry, and for never saying enough when it counts.
