#jyuto

“Nice going, Jyuto.” You grumble, slamming your car door as you raise your phone to try and find a signal.

“Oh please,” he shot back, “you’re one to talk. Who told me to take a left instead of a right?”

“You didn’t have to listen to me!”

He scoffed, arms folded over his chest. “You were adamant that this was the way! And now, not only are we late, but we’re lost too! Everyone’s going to wonder where we are.”

Shrugging, you answer, “perhaps they will. But I’ll just tell them it was your fault.”

You felt a smack against the back of your head, and you shot a venomous glare to the offender. All he did was give you his cute puppy dog smile in response. You scowled, as you dropped your phone and turned it off. “There’s no signal. We’re stuck here.”

“Then it’s a good thing I sent a text to Samatoki before we made that stupid wrong turn telling him we were probably going to be late.” Jyuto replied.

“You shouldn’t text and drive.”

“And you shouldn’t force people to take a ‘shortcut’ when you don't know for certain if it is a shortcut or not.”

Rolling your eyes, you mumble, “thanks, Jyuto. I really appreciate that.”

He opened his mouth but shut it a minute later. Instead, he sighed and went back to the car. You glanced backwards to see what he was up to, but decided you didn’t care and began to mess with your phone. With any luck, Samatoki had a plan to come find you guys and you’d be saved before you had to spend the night with just Jyuto.

Besides, it was Rio's dumb idea to go camping together in the first place. Of course, you’d never tell him that in person, but it was a dumb idea. It’s like he knew you were trying to avoid Jyuto like your life depended on it. And he probably did. He was perceptive that way. At least he had the decency to suggest all of you go camping together, that way if you were really dead set on avoiding Jyuto, you could play it off as just wanting to spend time with the others.

You swallowed a groan as you laid back on the hood of the car. This was hopeless. You never should have agreed to go on this trip. It should have tipped you off when they made the two of you take your car by yourselves. This was all some elaborate ruse for you to tell Jyuto why you were avoiding him. But you’d rather die than tell him, thank you very much.

The sound of the car’s horn jolted you off the car. 

“Hey, get up.” He shouted at you from out of the driver’s window.

“WHAT THE HELL JYUTO? WHAT WAS THAT FOR?”

He didn’t answer you. Instead, he got out of the car and tossed your sleeping bag at you. “Here. Take that. You’re going to need it.”

You frowned. “We’re not seriously camping out here, right? We can keep circling around until we find the campsite.”

“We’re almost out of gas. I’m not going to waste the rest of our supply trying to find the others.” He explained with a look of indignation. “Besides, we’re technically still in the campgrounds. Nothing is going to get us if we camp out here. We have a tent. We have some snacks. And we can always huddle in the car if it gets cold or starts to rain. No big deal.”

To him, it was no big deal. To you, it was life or death.

“Fine.” Your voice came out strained, but you tried to ignore it. You moved to help him as he pitched the tent for the two of you. You also tried to ignore the thoughts that you would be sleeping so close to him in this tiny tent.

“After this, we should get some firewood.”

You nodded. “I’ll go east, you go west.”

He gave you a teasing impressed look. “You know your directions? If I had known that, I would have asked you to help get us out of this mess.”

Rolling your eyes, you shove him playfully. “Oh please. You do know which way west is, don’t you? Because if you know your directions as well, you could also get us out of this mess.”

Jyuto scoffed. “I know which way west is. Besides, you suck at putting this tent together. I’ll let you get a head start on finding that firewood while I finish up here.”

Standing, you brush your hands on your pants and say, “Alright. I’ll have way more firewood than you by the time I’m done.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

With a huff, you walk into the copse of woods next to your makeshift campsite, and start picking sticks for the fire. It was pretty easy to find firewood and you could tell you’d have more than enough very soon. However, your mind was elsewhere instead of the little bet you made with him. 

You were stuck in the woods with none other than Jyuto Iruma, the guy you’ve had the biggest crush on for the past year. This was literally the worst case scenario, a cringey cliche you’d read in trashy romance novels. Sure it was fun to read about, but not to experience yourself. 

Besides, this was Jyuto you were talking about. If you did make it to the campsite, you were sure Rio and Samatoki would try and throw the two of you together. But now it looks like it was going to happen without their help, which made you feel the tiniest bit better. However, if you did somehow try to confess to him, and he rejected you, the painful awkwardness would increase tenfold as the two of you were stuck together. You couldn’t do it. You had to keep your mouth shut about your feelings for him. You couldn’t bear to have him hate you or even worse, make fun of you for your feelings.

Eventually, you had too much firewood for you to carry and you carefully made your way back to the campsite. Jyuto wasn’t there, and you assumed he was looking for his own firewood. So you stack your wood, create a makeshift fire pit with rocks and the sticks, and light a fire.

By the time he came back, you were already preparing the food you brought. “Not bad, but I brought back more.”

You frowned. “Likely story. At least I started the fire. You were too slow to come back.”

All he did was laugh and set his own firewood next to yours. The two of you shared a meal together, with the two of you drinking more beer than was probably necessary. Afterwards, you showed him some of the constellations you remembered. If you didn’t think too hard, you could pretend the two of you were on a date together. If only that were true. But you tried not to think about that.

When you couldn’t stop yawning, Jyuto stood up and held out a hand to you, which made your eyes widen in surprise. “C’mon. Let’s go to bed.”

You had to remind yourself you weren’t dating, that you were two sort-of friends that were on a camping trip together.

Ignoring his hand, you slip into the tent and into your sleeping bag. “Good night, Jyuto.”

“Good night.”

You hoped sleep would come easy to you, but you were annoyed to find it eluding your capture. You couldn’t stop yourself from tossing and turning, trying not to think about the boy sleeping next to you. At least, you hoped he was asleep. You’d hate to be what would be keeping him awake.

“Hey, are you awake?”

Jyuto's voice was quiet and a little unsure as he called out to you in the dark.

You stop moving to answer, “I’m awake. What’s wrong? Do you need me to put more wood on the fire? I can do it.”

“No.” He mumbled. “The fire should be good. It’s just…”

When he trailed off, your heart clenched. What was he trying to say? “Yes?”

“Why are you avoiding me?”

You were really hoping he wouldn’t ask you that question in a million years. And yet here it was, floating before the two of you, waiting for your answer. You didn’t know what to say and yet a million things rested on the tip of your tongue. What could you tell him? What did he want your answer to be? You wish you had the answer, but it was just out of your reach.

The sound of his sleeping bag caught your attention and you shouldn’t have looked, but you did anyway. Jyuto had turned so he could look at you, his head propped up by his hand. There was no malice or frustration in his eyes that sparkled even in the dark. Instead he looked at you with genuine curiosity and a little sadness, judging on the downward curve of his lips. Despite the look he gave you that tugged harshly at your heartstrings, you still couldn’t think of a “right” answer.

“I love you.”

Well, that certainly was an answer.

His eyes widened at your words and you wanted to swallow them. You wished you could rewind back to the start of the day so you could avoid this whole mess. But that was impossible. Just like it was impossible to take back the words that were now hanging like a thick fog between the two of you.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s just go to sleep and forget I said anything. Tomorrow we’ll find the others and we can put tonight behind us where it belongs.”

It hurt to deny your feelings like this but you had no choice. He didn’t seem to accept your feelings, though he didn’t deny them either. Still, you didn’t want things to go this way. You wanted to confess when you had more courage and could face him with certainty. Now you could never speak such words to him again, lest things become awkward like they were right now.

“I don’t want to forget.”

His words were so quiet, you almost lost them in the middle of your inner breakdown. Now it was you who turned to look at him with wide eyes. However, his gaze was anywhere but yours.

“What I mean to say is, I may or may not like you an awful lot too. I mean love is a strong word for right now. But I do like you more than what a friend would. I didn't want to tell you because I’m not very good at being vulnerable, and I wanted to do this right. I thought that on the car ride back from the camping trip might have been a good time to tell you-”

“And yet I ruined it by saying it now.” You couldn’t help but giggle. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s just funny that we were both worried about the same thing when it came to telling the other our feelings. I mean, I didn’t mean to say I love you, because I agree, love is too strong right now. But I do care almost too much about you, Jyuto.”

He smiled and your heart almost melted. “That’s good to hear. Because I feel the exact same way.”

“I can’t believe this happened like this.” You returned his smile. “But I’m glad it did. I would have died if the others heard this.”

Jyuto nodded, his expression dropping to gravely serious. “Absolutely. They do not need to know a single thing, alright?”

You nodded and linked your pinky with his. “Our confession will be our little secret.”

He brought your interlocked fingers to his mouth and kissed them, making you blush. “We should really get some sleep now.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Good night, Jyuto.”

“Good night.”