A/N: There was only one way a word like this could go, am I right.
Disclaimer: I'm just a poor, starving artist who asks for nothing in return.
After Harada-san sat down beside him on the bench, she kept quiet. He knew better than to expect that she had come merely to spend time in his presence, particularly after he had barely managed to keep himself from tipping over and clutching his chest throughout the school day.
Still, he kept his eyes riveted on the book before him and let her sit and wonder.
"What do you want out of life, Hiwatari-kun?"
When she broke the silence thus, she almost surprised him enough to earn a confused glance, but he kept his gaze down.
"Peace and quiet to read my books."
"I don't think so," she said, her voice the same certain softness she adopted when trying to take care of him.
"I am sorry to disappoint," he replied blandly, then turned a page.
Her eyes did not leave him, and after a time she asked, "What do you want, that gets you out of bed in the mornings? Makes you keep putting up with everything?"
"Some people do not need to think out things such as that."
"But you aren't one of them."
He pressed his lips into a displeased line, then fixed his attention on reading once more.
"Is it so hard to say what you want?" she pressed, scooting nearer to him.
At last he looked up at her and weighed her intent expression. When he determined that she would not leave him be without an answer, he declared, "It is impossible to have what I want. To say it out loud would be to face denial."
Taken aback, she sat up straighter and blinked at him, then frowned. The idea troubled her only for a moment before she said as firmly as he had, "You don't know that. You think you know everything, but you don't know that. You should try to get what you want, and if it is impossible—you should find something else."
Like her, he thought, in the glory of her impulsive, carefree, yet nurturing self, the contrast to all of the darkness of the Hikari, a true opposite of light rather than the mockery that was the Koukuyoku.
He turned back to his book and murmured, "You are not meant to be philosophical. It does not suit your nature."