but you still crumble
"Yukiatsu."
His thumb scratches against the glass cup at the sound of that. Only Tsurumi calls him that. Only she can call him that because she never had the courage to stop addressing him that way, never had the ability to trust their friendship to something more than childhood escapades. He lets her because it is the only way he knows how to keep her together.
When Anjou calls him that, it's different. It's not just a clingy nickname. It's a curse, a reminder of things he's been trying to leave behind for six excruciating years. She sits across him in the tiny booth squeezed at the back of the family restaurant, stirring her lemonade with a straw. She doesn't know what she's doing when she uses his name like that. Maybe she thinks she does. Maybe she's trying to outsmart him, push him off balance the way he does it to her. It won't work though. Yukiatsu will always be better.
Anjou and Menma had coined the name for him, partners in crime only when they didn't need to be.
"Atsumu?" Menma wonders, eyes wide and lips squirming with the pronunciation. The others laugh at the mention of his first name and Yukiatsu is exceedingly embarrassed by how... serious it sounds.
"How are we gonna make that into a cool nickname?" Yadomi asks aloud, raising his hands, expecting the answer to fall from the sky.
"Yuki!" Anjou squeaks, stepping out from their circle, her eyes sturdy and keen behind her spectacles. "I like that," she says, playing with the straps of her overalls.
"Yu-ki-at-su!" Menma chants. A breeze rattles through their secret base, mussing her pretty hair. "I like it! Loads and loads!" she smiles effortlessly. Beautifully.
"Then... Then it's good," Yukiatsu decides, breathless.
"Yes, Anaru?" he replies, lifting the corners of his lips.
The girl across him stops stirring. She winces and something in her eyes begins to crumble. Yukiatsu wants to do something hateful now, something mean and unexpected and something that will remind him why he's spending time with her, of all people. He wants to tell her he left his wallet at home, he wants to break something. He wants to borrow her fake eyelashes. He could pull them off way better.
Then, he remembers that Menma had been the one who'd given her that nickname.
He slides his napkin up to her closed fists.