A Cold Snap
17.
I open the door.
Yutaka is still there. I expected him to have left a long time ago.
But Yutaka is still there. Still waiting for something. 'You're looking better,' he remarks.
Really, I wonder. Why is that?
'There's something in your eyes…' He shakes his head and his hair flops about. He needs to cut it – but that's an idle thought, really. He doesn't need me to tell him. 'Say it again?'
Say what?
'Say you hate me again,' he says, and his voice isn't that confident one that can do no wrong but manages to anyway. 'Say it again, please?'
It's easy. I do hate him, from the bottom of my heart.
'Your hair needs a trim.'
Rather, I hate him at the bottom of those water waves.
And he smiles. He's relieved. He's happy I can't say it a second time, can't mean it.
'I'm sorry.'
His voice is still kind of meek.
He's not perfect. But he means it.