It starts with Chitanda. Her quiet affirmation that this is a confession turns the café air pink and makes the ticking of the clock on the wall that much louder. Each strike is like the beating of his heart, suddenly hammering in his chest. He gets nervous. He doesn't know what to say.
It turns out not to be about love, but her uncle. He calms down. In the aftermath, he's annoyed, but more than that, he's relieved.
He feels sick, and vows never to experience the same feeling again.
Ibara's always been a mystery to him, and her crush on Satoshi makes her that much harder to understand. He never asks about it, and she's too prideful to mention it to him. But she does talk about it to Chitanda, who for all her delicacy, never learned the word "boundaries."
He understands it even less when she explains. He figures it must be a guy thing.
Later down the line, when Satoshi and Ibara are more comfortable with their relationship, they talk. Satoshi echoes his words from that one snowy night about how he likes Mayaka, but he doesn't want to be obsessed with her. But the way he stares at her now, and how he twines their fingers when he thinks nobody's looking―how is that any different?
It's different!, Satoshi assures him with a laugh. He elbows Houtarou in the side and slings an arm over him. Even you have to understand it eventually, Houtarou.
He wonders.
Chitanda smiles at him and asks him to keep helping her and she looks so pleased, so happy, and with the wind whipping the petals off the trees into a frenzy―
He feels it again. His heart goes nuts. He tries to think of what Satoshi said it felt like, how it was all nervousness and butterflies and excitement, and.
All he feels is sick.
Their third year, spring. She catches him in the Geology Prep room on their first day back, and like the bullet train she is, she careens into him.
He says no.
She slows down for weeks, and he cannot understand.
"It doesn't seem like he's interested in anyone..."
"Yeah. It's kinda strange, huh? But that's just what you'd expect of Houtarou. He can't even waste his energy on something like that!"
"Oreki's always been weird. What makes this any different? Hmph!"
That's the conversation he doesn't hear. But he does see the sidelong glances Satoshi sends him, and the troubled frowns that Ibara can't help but wear. Chitanda, as always, just looks curious.
But she says nothing.
It's Ibara who ends up saying something. Satoshi has Sewing Club, and Chitanda has things to do at home. By late afternoon, it's just them. And that would've been fine.
"Oreki."
"Hm?"
"Are you..."
"-what?"
"―interested in anyone?"
A pause, and he looks up at her. She gets flustered.
"It's not like I care! It's just weird! It's really, really weird, so it's not like I'm weird for asking about it!"
He takes the insults like a champ. He waits. And then, she speaks again.
"No one, huh?"
"No one."
The look on her face is strange, like she's worried. He stares at it, then goes back to his book.
What's strange is everyone else.
Graduation comes and goes. So does Chitanda, off to take care of her family's affairs (not the daughter of a rich family, now, but a lady). So does his sister, who pushes him into university with another one of her weird ideas. He follows Ibara and Satoshi, just because it's the easiest thing he can do.
It's the most natural thing he can do.
Gone is the shadow of puberty over their heads, its sails unfurled and off to see new, younger shores. Satoshi gets a little taller, but he never stops looking like a girl. Ibara loses her baby-faced appearance, graduating to the halls of looking like a teenager.
He doesn't change.
It starts with Ibara.
"You can call me Mayaka, you know," she says to him one day, when they're walking home from class one day. She has her head turned away so he can't see her face.
Half of him wants to scoff. The other half, his lazier half, just returns with a simple, "Then. Mayaka."
She flinches when he says it, the tips of her ears going red.
"T-then, Houtarou."
It seems to bother her, but
he can't say he minds.
Satoshi pries the book from his hands and crawls under the kotatsu next to him, forgetting that it's meant for one person.
"What, were you planning on hogging it all day? If you're going to be that selfish, Houtarou, you'll never obtain enlightenment―"
"What are you even talking about? Go away!"
Satoshi ignores him. Houtarou decides to ignore him, too, already too tired to waste any more energy.
But then Satoshi clasps their hands, slotting their fingers together. He looks serious.
Houtarou frowns. He feels sick.
The other boy notices, and his expression clears. "Ah! It's not like that," he says brightly, releasing him. "I was just curious."
Houtarou scoots away as far as the kotatsu will allow, face annoyed. "What are you, Chitanda?"
"We saw her just last week, didn't we? Do you miss her already? Wow, Houtarou, I―"
"Do you MIND?"
All he feels is relief.
Satoshi starts holding his hand more and more, the way he used to when he and Mayaka were still figuring each other out. It makes him nervous, but with time, it starts to fade.
Mayaka starts holding his hand too, but only after Satoshi pushes her into it.
There's one night that they end up all curled under the kotatsu, pressed way too close for comfort in a space meant for one person. He's not sure how they ended up like that. What he is sure of is how his heart is going into overdrive, thoughts and panic pulsing in his veins, and.
"It's just us," Satoshi reassures him, groping for his hand without opening his eyes. He laughs, and again when he finds it. "It's nothing weird, okay?"
"Houtarou's the weird one," Mayaka gripes tiredly, but she reaches for his hand, too. She only really relaxes when his heart starts to slow down.
Nothing happens. And that's okay.
He wakes up the next morning to Mayaka curled against him and Satoshi 30 feet away in their quasi-kitchen-dining-room. Whatever it is he's making, it's probably burning.
Houtarou shuts his eyes and goes back to sleep.
Something happens. The next night, they move to the bed, because Satoshi won't stop complaining about his back.
And that's it.
Satoshi and Mayaka kiss, and they hold each other, which is what they've done for years. They never ask him to be part of it. That would be weird. But sleeping against him and holding his hand and saying good morning with stupid smiles isn't weird.
Whatever they feel when they kiss, he doesn't know what that is. But he feels this.
Another girl, another confession. She asks him to meet her out by the trees near the university's entrance. The sakura petals dance and flutter in the wind as she lays her feelings bare.
He doesn't feel sick. But he doesn't feel it.
He says no again.
This time, he doesn't feel like he's missing something.
Chitanda catches them holding hands when she drops by for a surprise visit. She looks to Houtarou first, covering her mouth politely to hide her gaping. It takes her a second, but when she smiles, she looks truly happy.
"I'm glad you're all still such good friends."
She isn't wrong.
"You were up all night reading about flowers?"
"Yeah? I mean, first I had to look up a couple for my sewing project, and then I wondered what they meant, and I just..."
"You stayed up all night! Finals start today!"
"Are you really that worried, Mayaka? Ahaha, I―"
"Houtarou! Can you believe this? Say something! Tell him he's being stupid."
"I'm staying out of it."
"You should know better than to expect Houtarou to back you up―"
"No! You shut up! And you! I know he kept you up, too! Aren't you mad!?"
"I'll just sleep later."
"O-re-ki..."
"Ah, crap! I'm late! 'bye, Mayaka, Houtarou! Catch you guys after class!"
"Wait!―" Mayaka starts, cut off by the kiss Satoshi presses to her cheek. And then he's gone. Houtarou rises to his feet, patting Mayaka on the head before slipping to the door.
"Me too. We have finals, after all."
"Urgh! You!―"
But he's gone.
And this?
This is okay.
Notes: QP: queerplatonic. A relationship among two or more people that transcends normal friendship, but lacks romantic feelings.