Shujin/Aoki; something in your head you've been fighting all along.
She gets him. In a way no one ever has.
They walk and they talk, and he finds wonderful and strange that she can confide in him – like a friendship and partnership that is completely unlike with Mashiro and Kaya.
It's a pattern that he could imagine himself getting used to.
But she has this smile, in a way he doesn't understand, that elusively slips his grasp and leaves him confused far more than the kiss that imprints into his skin in the whisper of goodbye.
It doesn't mean anything, that's just how Aoki says goodbye.
And then she looks at him, and he's confused, and his throat is thick, and then he turns and walks away.
It's a pattern he won't get used to.