A Taste of Forever

- Encounter 9 -

Yu had felt his phone vibrate. He had broken off the kiss long enough to make up an excuse that he needed to check up on Nanako. Rise gave a small giggle of understanding, lingering on her bed before she got up to her vanity to check herself.

The silverette exited the room that was almost closing in on him. He pulled out his phone so fast, walking down the hallway and falling against the wall as he read the words of the message.

Text Received from Yosuke Hanamura:

Do whatever you want to do. I'm out with someone else, so I'll talk to you later.

Do whatever he wanted to do?

Yu re-read the text a few more times, trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind the words. But he knew there wasn't any. The fact that he was also out with someone else at that very moment made him feel uneasy. His hands shook a little, and as he went to start a reply he stopped himself.

A flash in his mind made him remember that guy, the one from before-the one that had been just a little too close to Yosuke. For some reason, Yu felt like it was him that he was out with.

"Narukami-kun..! Is Nanako-chan okay?"

The soft voice of Rise rang through the hall as she called to him from her room.

Yu was completely frozen on what to do. He was too caught up in his moment of shock and a building jealousy and anger that he felt himself being tugged in two different directions. He could easily leave, go find Yosuke, yell at him for ever daring to go and…but at the same time he had no right to. They weren't together; they were just friends who did things sometimes. And lately that wasn't even enjoyable for either of them.

Would it be for the best? Was that what his response was trying to signify?

Feeling the plastic in his back pocket, he decided to move forward away from the one thing that was uncertain and towards the thing that was.

Yosuke was surprisingly in a good mood the next morning when he woke up for school. The bit of tiredness that was still in his body from the drink he had the night before hardly even fazed him. He had even completely forgot about how his best friend had possibly had sex with the model, that was, until he saw them walking along their route the next morning.

Her arm was latched onto his, a bright smile on her lips as he was animatedly talking with her.

That was when Yosuke suddenly felt every ounce of happiness he had disappear as quick as he had breathed.

Trying to remain hidden, he kept to the other side of the street, lingering behind them as he tried to focus on his music and nothing else. As he felt brown eyes suddenly shift onto him, a yell was directed at him, and he had no choice but to look over and wave at the couple. Rise was yelling for him to walk with them, and he found himself more than half-heartedly trudging across the street to the couple.

Yu merely spared a glance to him before looking back to the girl. Yosuke took notice of that and it made his heart break even more.

"We were just talking about how Narukami-kun is such a great cook!"

"Yeah…he is." Yosuke mumbled back as they started walking towards the school again.

"He made such a great dinner last night, and dessert was even better." The girl giggled as if the words had a secret meaning to them.

"I bet." Yosuke shoved his hands into his pockets, staring off to the side as he was really hating life in that moment.

"We need to find you a girl to go out with!" Rise exclaimed as she still clung so adamantly to the boy's arm.

"He's already seeing someone."

Yu broke through the conversation, looking at Rise's confused look for a second before shifting his gaze to the brunette who was still looking away but had visibly tensed.

"Right?"

"O-Oh yeah. It's kind of recent, but yeah I am."

"That's so cute! Oh-I wanna meet her! You should've told uuus!"

Yosuke felt embarrassed, heartbroken, uneasy, and confused all at the same time. All he could do was keep his gaze away from them, especially as he felt grey eyes staring fully at him now.

"Oh hey-Yukiko- be right back I need to talk to the girls before class." Rise gaze Yu a cute look of hers before leaning up to kiss his cheek and run further ahead to the two girls as they were walking to the school grounds.

The two walked in silence. There had never been a heavy sense of discomfort between them, so this was a first. As they reached the school gates and headed closer to the building, Yu waited until they were inside, having shed their shoes and going towards the stairs before he tugged the boy's arm and hurled him into a dark alcove nearby.

"Where were you last night?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I have the right to know."

"No, you don't."

"I'm your friend aren't I?"

"I don't know anymore."

Yu slammed his hand against the wall, keeping the boy's body between him and the wall as he stared at him with a deadly gaze.

"How the fuck can you say that to me?"

"Because we don't act like friends anymore. Before we still were and then all of that happened and now-I don't even know anymore."

"So you don't want me around now, is that it?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what? You want that other guy around instead of me? Is that it?"

Yosuke could already sense where this conversation was heading.

"If you start letting your jealousy-"

"You were just as jealous before, or did you already forget how you sucked me off in the stall at that restaurant?"

Yosuke went silent as Yu was all but trying to seethe in that moment.

"Did you sleep with her?"

The one question that Yu wasn't expecting to hear in that moment, it caught him off-guard. His eyes showed a tint of surprise before they lowered to slits.

"Did you?"

With the question repeated to him, he could only mutter his response lowly.

"Yes."

"I knew it. I fucking knew you would do it."

Yosuke glanced away, feeling like he didn't want to be even within a feet's distance of the other. He felt dirty, unsure of even how to stop himself from breaking down over something like this. He didn't even have a good reason for it, he just knew it hurt.

"What was I supposed to do after you told me to do whatever I wanted, and you said you were out with someone else?"

"I don't know-maybe not do it?!"

"If you would stop sending me mixed signals then maybe I would know that!" Yu tried to keep himself from yelling too loudly, he didn't want students finding them. "You can't keep running from me, you have to tell me what this is."

"There isn't a this. And even if there might've started to be before, there definitely isn't now."

There was a half-choke on his words as he tried not to completely break in front of him. He didn't want him to see just how much this was affecting him.

"How the hell is that even fair? You push me away, tell me to go out with her, and now you're getting upset like I cheated on you or something?"

"I know it's not fair. Which is why I'm letting you do whatever you want."

"What?"

"Nothing else is going to go on between us, okay, so you can date Rise without any problems."

"Yosuke-"

"I have to go."

He pushed the boy's arm away, wiping the tears on his sleeve as soon as he was turned from him. He'd never walked through the halls of his school so fast in his entire life. All he knew, was he needed solace from the situation. He needed to clear his head, to find some way to cope with the emotional blow.

Without even realizing it, he was leaving the school grounds and heading to the place that he had just left the night before.