Disclaimer: I do not own Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun.
A/N: Aghhhh I failed on my goal. I was supposed to upload this as a birthday present for myself, but I was too late. It got past midnight T.T Anyway, enough blabber. This is something I made up because it's been too long since I last wrote. Now, continue to read, if you may. And don't forget to leave any reviews :D
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She stands on the steps and she looks down at him. Her stiletto heels would've been enough, he thinks as he curses the past four years for not giving him enough necessary vertical advantage. Her fingers are trembling as they moved steadily to her face. Her legs looked like they were about to topple her body down to the ground any minute. Her eyes were shining, like fits of glass broke in through her sockets. The night was cold and the night was quiet. And she was beautiful.
"Sa…Sasayan-kun…" Her voice moves in tune with whatever was keeping her hair blown. She couldn't count how many times his name had escaped her mouth. Somehow, her tongue can't seem to find the right folds and twists to pronounce it dearly. She purses her lips, followed by a slight turn of her head. She looks at him closely in the eye and she almost makes his legs move a few inches closer towards where she stands.
He wears that look on his face, and she finally noticed how it changes. If she had been quite the observer, she'd have noticed how his eyes had that sense of brightness when he isn't quite sure on what to say or what to do. His brows would slightly move up as he breathes in and his mouth quivers. She kept note how his lips do that little pout, and she thinks how these kinds of things are what makes Sasayan different. He's wearing that kind of face now, looking at her with those expressions as he runs his fingers through his unkempt hair.
"Look ah-" He says and he bites his lip. Note taken, he does that whenever he doesn't know what to say best next. She remembers he does this quite often whenever she talks to him. "It's getting quite late, Natsume-san. You should really go inside now."
"Sasayan-kun…" She says again. He looks at her and wonders how troublesome this girl actually is. He thinks back for the past years that he has known her and tries to find an answer how he did actually manage to tolerate all that. All that noise, that confusion, that look… That look right now. What actually are they doing standing alone in the middle of the night?
"What's the problem, Natsume-san?" He says and he readies himself for whatever might come out for the next seconds. Would she scold him for being too close to her again? Would she tell him he should have told her first before he grabbed her hand and dragged her into the sea of people, who were all too busy looking up on the show of fireworks? Would she tell him he shouldn't look at her like that again whenever she wears a yukata? Would she have scolded him for inviting her out for a New Year… what? Was it a date? Oh how she hates it whenever he calls it a date.
"Please stop…" She says and she hates herself for changing his expression. His brows furrowed and he opens his mouth, and he's lost on what to say. She smiles at him instead. "This night is a lot of fun. Thank you for asking me out tonight."
"Asking you out?" Despite the confusion, his lips start to curve at the corners. "I thought you hated-"
"Yes, this is not a date." She says, rather clearly. She remains standing but her smile has gone away. She thought for a while that it have been better if it was the other way around. "This night is so much fun… And so, please stop."
"Stop what, exactly?" Sasayan asks, and he was careful not to move towards her. She noticed how his legs trembled, and she noticed how they stopped. She loved him for that.
"Good night, Sasayan-kun." She says and she bites her lip. She notices she isn't quite different from him. She steps back a little which was hard to do on the stairs, and she turns around and sprints up when she's had enough look at him.
"Natsume-san…" She heard him call before she was up. She goes into her apartment room and she leans her head to her side to try and look if he's still down there. She has never done hiding from Sasayan, and she doesn't like the feeling. She closes the door behind her and lets it out. She screams something that might have been loud, and then she remembers that it's late at night and then her nasty neighbor and she just shuts her mouth with her hands.
She thinks about the boy she just left outside. How it's been what? More than five years now since he told her he likes her. And that ever haunting thought she doesn't want to think about pushes her into tearing her hair out (not literally) because that means she hasn't given him a final answer for more than five years, too.
And why? Why can't she just tell him no? Why can't she just tell him to go away and stop bothering her? Why does everytime she tell him that, he'd just smile and…
It never works.
It never works because he comes back time after time. He comes back even when their schools are different. He shows up at their campus gate and he walks with her home like it was still high school. He calls her and tells her the schedule for each and every single one of his baseball matches and he never invites her, yet somehow she hadn't missed a single one of those games. He calls her late at night when his studying on his own at his place and he asks questions about math, and her voice raises to a volume as she scolds him because she insists he is making fun of her, and he silences all that ruckus with his laughter. He treats her on her birthday and he doesn't give roses and mushy messages on Valentines, and she remembers once he ate the chocolates she made, because she has failed to lie to him about having someone to give them to (and she never really did think about giving them to anybody, she just made the chocolates to feel like one of the girls she'd seen). He'd said they didn't taste wonderful, only fine. He talks to her through the phone at nights she couldn't sleep, and he doesn't hang up until he couldn't hear her voice back for more than a minute.
"Natsume-san, it's 1 in the morning, you shouldn't really shout." She hears his voice from the other side of the door and she's convinced to turn the knob. But her hands froze at the touch. Quit your yapping already, Sasayan-kun, she thinks.
"Sasayan-kun, please, sto-" She says for the third time and she doesn't know how much it would take for her to say it to him until those words taste foul in her mouth. Oh God, she swore she'd say it over and over again until he's convinced about it.
"No, you stop, Natsume-san." He replies back before she can even continue. "You have to stop not answering my questions. It's hard to figure things out on my own." There's that hint of tone on his voice Natsume has never heard before. Oh wait, she might've heard it before, she just didn't listen.
There was a pause that made the two of them question which one should break the silence first. And it was awkward. Sasayan wasn't sure how long he stood there, looking at the blankness of the door that didn't open. He thought maybe Natsume was no longer on the other side, perhaps that's why it's been so long. She must've left him out there.
But he was certain he wouldn't leave. He won't turn away now. And what? Sleep? Well, sleep's good. But it wouldn't work, anyway. He couldn't sleep when he knows he has put another line on the number of times he failed to understand the girl that is hopefully still on the other side of the door.
"Tell me you'd stop, Sasayan-kun… Please." Natsume says. She lets her hand drop to her side. She wouldn't open the door. No. She couldn't.
"How could I do something I don't exactly even know about?" Sasayan says, and Natsume hates how she can hear the slyness in his voice.
"You are so stubborn." Natsume says, stomping her feet. It was enough to let Sasayan be aware of how serious she is, but not enough for her neighbor to give her a scolding.
"It takes a stubborn guy to put up with a girl like you." Sasayan says, and she is almost convinced to open the door so she can run her little fist on his little chest. And not because she is insulted, but because he is always right.
Silence.
"I'm not leaving here. You know that right? Natsume."
"I know that because you don't listen to me." She says, putting every bit of annoyance in her tone. Though she knows he wont be convinced.
"Look, I won't ask you to open the door. I can stay out here all night. But I will ask you how-"
"Can I tell you something, Sasayan-kun?"
Sasayan doesn't say anything. He was so taken aback on how her mood change. So he just nodded, and realized too late it was a stupid move. He is thankful for a while that Natsume wasn't there.
"Remember that time you told me you like me?"
"Wha-what about that?" Forever thankful that Natsume didn't open the door to see him turn red.
"I can tell you're blushing right now. So don't even… Sasayan, I haven't given you an answer yet, right?"
"Ye-yeah."
"Are you asking for one?"
"Not really."
"This is my answer, Sasayan-kun."
"What?"
"Stop."
"Stop?"
"Yes."
"Your answer is stop? So is that a yes or… I'm guessing it's a no?"
"No. It means stop."
"Stop what?"
"Stop this…. These things."
"Things like what?"
"Like being so kind and annoying at the same time! How could you even wait out this long, anyway?"
He takes a while before he can reply.
"I don't know… To be honest, I don't know myself, Natsume-san." Sasayan turns his back on the door and he sits down on the ground. He traces his fingers on the dirty floor to keep him from burning out while talking about something like this after so long. "But you are absolutely confusing. Why now, of all times?"
"Stupid, don't ask things like that." Natsume says, because he has hit that spot in which she would be required to speak of the truth.
"Tell me, though."
"Because…"
Sasayan hears a slam from his back. He reckons she must've leaned back on her side of the door too.
"Because… I don't want to fall for you." She says quietly. She doesn't want to say it out loud again and she was thankful Sasayan didn't ask her to.
"So you mean stop… As in stop doing things like…" He thinks of all the times Natsume means when she says "stop". All those little acts. And he laughs. He laughs out loud because he does those things regarding whether she'd say yes or no. It's become part of his routine.
"What's so funny?" Natsume asks from the other side. She is now sitting on the floor, twirling her hair round her fingers because it's the only thing that can keep her cool while she talks about something like this to a boy.
He continues to laugh.
"Keep your voice down! My scary neighbor will wake up."
"Sorry." He says, but he's still trying hard to stop the fits of laughter from his stomach. "Have you ever liked someone other than the manager, Natsume-san?"
She doesn't want to answer because she is embarrassed. "No. Not really." She answers honestly.
"No?"
"No."
"Then should I say it again?" He pauses and takes a deep breath. "I like you Natsume-san."
She jolts on the other side and her face burns. She stops twirling her hair. "I just told you to stop!"
"Wow, it's so much easier without having to see your face. I like you, Natsume-san."
"I swore to myself when we were fighting the day after that confession that I would ask you to be friends again and stay like that. And I swore to myself everytime you do those kinds of things to me that I would never break promises I tell to myself!"
He, on the other side, stops tracing his fingers on the ground. He realizes he wrote her name down. His face turns red despite repeatedly confessing to her already.
"I- I like you… Natsume-san."
She, on the other hand and on the other side, gets tired and reaches her hand up to the knob. She stands up and opens the door slightly, letting in a cold breeze and letting a Sasayan who falls on his back in. He never considered the possibility of Natsume opening up her door that he used all his weight in leaning back on it. And now…
He lies on the floor, and Natsume looks down at him with confusion and apology scrunched up on her face. She hesitates, but she holds out her hand.
"Are you sure you want to hold my hand first?"
At that, she swats her hand away and he laughs. He stands up on his own and levels himself with her. He stands too close that Natsume wants to push him away. But she's focused on his face. She knows that look, and noticed how it changes.
If she had been observant, she'd know that he'd only make that smile at selected moments. She knows now that the difference between that smile he has when he hears a joke, or when he's with his pals, or Mitty, or Haru, or anyone else, will only be noticed based on the number of people around him. She'd only see him like that, amused and serious as hell, whenever she was the only one with him.
"Stop..." She says instead.
"No. The thing here is that you should stop Natsume-san. Stop being someone I should give a care about... a lot. If you manage to do that, I'm sure I can stop anytime I want."
She purses her lips and she stares into his eyes. And she loses.
"I like you, Natsume." He says. "Don't you feel the same?"
She buries her face on his shoulder and she tugs at his shirt. She doesn't let go.