Ice Breaker

by FallingMarshmallows

A new year has begun, and Atobe and Sanada are both keeping a journal. When a strange event forces them to interact, one of them suspects foul play from none other than Yukimura. [A Tango Pair collab fic by FallingSilver and ToastedMarshmallow.]

12. One Final Step

Disclaimer: We don't own anything. No, really, we don't. Please don't sue us. :)

Authors' Note: Whew! We've finally managed to finish the last chapter of Ice Breaker.

FallingSilver: And it's a long one. So it back, relax, have a cup of coffee. And indulge yourself in the beauty that is this chapter.

ToastedMarshmallow: Shut up! You're turning into Atobe again! -smacks it out of her- Tarundoru!

FallingSilver: And who do you think you sound like, a-a-n? -smacks back- Anyway, we're sorry for the wait, but we really hope you enjoy it. Please review and tell us what you think. We'll love you forever. And a big thank you to everyone that's reviewed this story so far.

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２月１１日日曜日

Sunday, February 11th

I should have never gone to see Atobe today. I'm such an idiot that I managed to make things worse. And it was so stupid, too…

I got up relatively early this morning, especially considering that I hardly got any sleep last night. But I didn't really care; I knew that what I had to do today was important.

I took a train to Tokyo but got off a few stops earlier than the one closest to Atobe's house. I wanted to spend some time in a small shopping district, and figure out something I could get him. I was worried that I'd panic and mess up again when I saw him, and I thought a gift might show him that I truly was sorry.

Nothing seemed right. I thought of flowers, but those seemed both strange and cliché, and he probably wouldn't be able to smell them anyway if he was congested. I looked around in a few other stores, but I didn't find anything that I could even consider as a possibility. I've concluded that Atobe Keigo must be the most difficult person in the world to shop for. What do you get someone who has everything? Even if it's "the thought that counts," I would never be able to afford something that would even vaguely impress him. I came very close to just giving up.

I thought of the pen he got me. At first, that didn't help me; I can't afford a good pen, and I think I noticed that he was already using a very nice one when I saw him writing in his journal. But then I remembered that he mentioned he was going to need a new journal soon. That idea sounded perfect. So I went into the first bookstore I saw and looked around.

I wanted to get him a really thick one, but the only thick ones I could find looked more like huge spiral notebooks. The journal he has is bound like a book, and looks a lot nicer than the ones I saw. I was somewhat disappointed. I found a smaller one, though, that I thought suited him; it had an elegant, pearly design on the cover that was a color somewhere between silver and purple, it was bound and edged in black, and the edges of the pages were silver. I just wished it was thicker… I rationalized it this way, though: a gift from me was a reminder of me, and it would probably better if he was able to finish using it as quickly as possible, so he could just forget about me.

I walked out of the store and headed back towards the train station. By the time I got there, though, I started wondering if I should have gotten him a card or something. I told myself no (the idea seemed corny), but I still wanted a way to make it clear that my gift was an attempt at an apology—I wanted him to actually be able to see the words "I'm sorry." So I decided to write him a letter inside the journal. I sat down on a bench at the station and started writing what I felt.

My letter ended up being longer than I thought it would be. It was kind of depressing, too… I was able to express some of the things I'd figured out about him, like how genuine he is, but in doing so, I realized that I wouldn't deserve him even if I did return his feelings. I was satisfied, though; I read the letter again after I'd finished it, and I think it was exactly what I wanted to say. But now I don't even know if he'll ever read it…

Anyway, I got on the train and headed to Atobe's house. After getting through the gate and the long driveway and the huge doors and the front hall, the servants finally led me to Atobe's private parlor. I was lucky; Atobe was apparently awake and feeling better, but I still had to wait a while for him to "make himself presentable." When the butler told me that's what he was doing, I tried to get him to go tell Atobe that he didn't have to do that, but I guess my suggestion wasn't well received. So I had to sit there for a long time, worrying about what might happen.

I just had a bad feeling about the whole situation… I already knew what I was going to say: a simple, straightforward apology. But I still thought something might somehow go horribly wrong, once we started talking…

I was right.

Atobe came out of his bedroom, fully dressed and obviously trying to act like nothing was out of the ordinary. But he really didn't look well. He looked paler than normal but at the same time flushed, his nose was red to the point of looking painful, his lips seemed slightly swollen, and his eyes were pink and watery. He sounded terribly congested when he greeted me—he was trying to sound casual, too, which kind of just made him seem more pathetic. Not "pathetic" as in, I think he's a loser and wanted to laugh; "pathetic" as in, I really, truly felt bad for him.

But it's still kind of horrible to say, I know… I'm a horrible person.

And I can prove it.

I can prove it because of what happened to me, in that moment when I first saw him again… I started feeling terribly uncomfortable. Because I felt sorry for him? Not exactly. Guilty? Guess again.

I won't describe all of the thoughts that went through my head in that moment, but suffice it to say that one of these thoughts involved throwing my arms around Atobe, kissing him, holding him close, stroking his hair, and telling him that everything was going to be alright and that I was sorry and I would give him anything he wanted—and of course I knew what he was going to ask for…

I'm such an idiot. What in the hell was I thinking about?

I suppose it wasn't such a big deal, at least not as bad as it sounds… But it was one of those horrible urges, much like jumping in front of a train, that I couldn't seem to get off my mind, even though I would never come even vaguely close to actually doing it. He looked so helpless and worn out, like he needed to be held… It was somehow distracting. Just enough to make me feel slightly on edge, and make it hard to concentrate on what I was saying… It was such a stupid thing. I don't even know why I had any of those thoughts…

I started apologizing almost as soon as he sat down. I just wanted to say I was sorry for what happened on Friday, and that I shouldn't have done what I did… But he interrupted me, mid-sentence.

He said it was his fault.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He told me not to worry about it, and he was actually acting like everything was fine… For a moment, I almost believed him. But then I realized what was going on.

He was hiding behind that mask again.

This realization only served to make me more uncomfortable. I never wanted to see him wear his mask in front of me again. I hadn't realized just how much I hated that thing. It was so fake, and I just wanted him to be honest with me. I like him so much better when he's honest with me…

I argued that it was my fault. He told me to relax, and lied to me, saying he was fine. I'm not that stupid. He couldn't have been fine. It was obvious that he was hiding his real feelings from me.

I raised my voice a little. I didn't mean to, but I told him to stop pretending. He also raised his voice in response, and asked me, "Would you rather me break down in front of you?"

I said yes.

I blurted it out; I didn't think about how horrible it would sound. But it was true. If being honest with me meant he had to break down and cry in front of me, then that was what I wanted. I didn't want to see him cry, by any means… No, seeing that again would probably be more painful than a stab in the chest.

But at least I would know that it was real.

Naturally, he was alarmed by my assertion. I quickly tried to explain that, if he did break down, at least I'd know he meant what he said to me on Friday… He sighed and assured me that he'd meant it. Still not quite thinking clearly, I said yet another stupid thing. I asked him why he wasn't still saying it now.

I'm not sure what I meant by that. Maybe I was still in disbelief, and was starting to doubt that he'd really told me he loved me… I didn't actually want to hear it again. I mean, why would I? I guess I just meant that I wanted him to act like he meant what he said.

He responded by sighing again and saying that he was hoping to maintain some of his dignity. Yes, his precious dignity. That was pretty much the last thing I wanted him to bring up, though I'm not sure why. It just seems like Atobe's idea of "dignity" involves acting like he's so far above everyone else that no one can hurt him. And if that's what his dignity consists of, I like him better without it.

It's what made me hate him.

I never thought about it that way before… But it's true. That's what I've always hated about him: the way he was always so focused on winning our arguments, being right, and making sure he walked away with his "dignity" intact. I just wish he knew that's not the most important thing in the world. And I don't want to go back to the way things were between us before… I hate going backwards. It makes me feel like I've wasted time.

I guess I was hoping we could at least be friends now.

But I refuse to be friends with that fake front Atobe puts up.

Anyway, it really annoyed me that he said that, and I overreacted. I grabbed him by the shoulders and told him to forget about his stupid dignity, and that I thought he loved me.

I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

I saw his mask breaking. A little too loudly, he blurted out two words: "I do." Then he repeated those same two words, in a voice that was hardly above a whisper.

Instantly, I knew that I shouldn't have done what I did. I relaxed my grip, and felt him trembling slightly. He was looking up at me, but trying not to look up at me, his eyelashes fluttering over his blue, watery eyes… I don't know why, but I suddenly wanted to kiss him. I'm actually not so sure I wouldn't have… I heard myself say his name, and I started leaning down further so I could get him to look at me…

He pushed me away lightly. I took the hint and stepped away. Then he said, "You should go," and kept his head turned away for a moment, as if he was trying to collect himself. After a pause that seemed to last forever, he stood up, still refusing to look at me, and said, "I'm not feeling well." Then he walked into his bedroom and closed the door.

I have a feeling that door will be closed to me forever.

I felt awful. I never said what I'd meant to say, and what I said, I didn't mean to say at all. The bag containing the journal I bought him was still lying on the couch where I'd set it, beside the spot where I'd been sitting. I picked it up and looked at it for a moment, not sure what to do. Eventually I decided to set it on the coffee table, hoping desperately that he'll find it soon and look inside before perhaps throwing it away. For all I know, his servants have already disposed of it.

I feel so horrible right now. I don't even want to write about it…

I've ruined everything.

Maybe now, at least, he can hate me. That would probably be easier for him than still being in love with a jerk like me.

真田弦一郎

Sanada Genichiroh

…

２月１１日日曜日

Sunday, February 11th

I have been trying to come up with some kind of phrase that could describe the way I have felt for the past forty-eight hours, so that I could write it down on this page and look back on it later and be grateful that those days are over. However, everything I have been able to come up with seems either somewhat inaccurate or simply foolish.

The best description that I could devise is this: It feels like my body has been run over by a freight train, and that my heart has been simultaneously removed from my chest and shoved into a trash compactor.

It's certainly not a very poetic simile, but I'm sure that it is the best I can do when my head is this congested.

In any case, it's been a very unpleasant ordeal, one that I would like to forget as soon as possible. After all, it was bad enough having to wake up yesterday with a throbbing, clouded head, not to mention that horrible sensation of being almost completely unable to breathe. Still, I forced myself to crawl out of bed, even though I could feel every muscle in my body aching… At that point, I knew that I was sick, much sicker than I've been in a long time, but I must have still been laboring under the delusion that I was going to drag myself to school in spite of it. I stumbled into my closet, thinking that I would at least get dressed and have breakfast, but I hadn't even unfastened a single button before I started shaking all over, and then the room starting spinning…

Apparently, I passed out on the floor. I woke up in my bed, with several of the servants fussing over me, and it didn't take long for the family doctor to show up and state the obvious: young master Keigo had a terrible cold, and should stay in bed for at least forty-eight hours before trying to go anywhere. Naturally, attending class was out of the question, and I was even forbidden to get out of bed at all, except in cases of necessity.

It has been an absolutely miserable forty-eight hours.

After the doctor left, I managed to persuade most of my servants to get out of my room, even though my butler insisted on staying in the parlor so that he could hear me call if I needed anything. (Of course, I'm sure part of the reason for this was to make sure I didn't try to escape. My servants have generally learned not to trust me in such cases… I'm a rather disobedient invalid when it comes to being confined for any period of time.) I then spent the rest of the daylight hours drifting in and out of consciousness, and even though I was almost too miserable to sleep when my whole body was aching like that, it was infinitely worse to be awake…

After all, as long as I was awake, I was capable of thinking. And as long as I was able to think, I couldn't stop thinking about Sanada.

Thinking of him was the worst ache of all.

I'm such an idiot… I told him that I loved him, even though I knew for a fact that he didn't return my feelings. And I dared to hope that he might accept my love, even though I knew better than that, even though it was impossible. And in the end, the result had been exactly as I should have known that it would be…

I had been rejected and left to nurse my broken heart alone, like the fool that I am.

In any case, I wasn't awake for more than an hour at a time during the day, probably because of the cold medicine that was being shoved into my mouth every few hours or so. But then around eight o'clock, I finally woke up out of my drug-induced stupor, and I just couldn't go back to sleep. So I spent an absolutely wretched evening propped up in bed and going through at least two boxes of tissues, since by this point the medicine was working and my nose was starting to bear a distinct resemblance to a running faucet. I couldn't stop coughing, either, which made it impossible to go back to sleep, even though I was probably tired enough to do so.

I tried to find some way to pass the time, just to keep my mind off of the incredibly stupid thing that I had done in trying to confess my feelings to someone who probably hated me. I didn't have the energy to read a book, though; I attempted to skim over the first few pages of some second-rate mystery novel, but the words started to blur together and my fingers ached. So I resigned myself to watching television on the flat screen in my room. Unfortunately, it was next to impossible to find any nighttime programming that didn't have any cheap, clichéd romance scenes in it… I spent nearly a half an hour watching one particularly obnoxious couple whine about the impossibility of their "forbidden love," until I finally switched to the nature channel and had the satisfaction of watching a few ravenous lions rip apart an unfortunate zebra. (To be honest, that graphic visual was perfectly suited to my mood after watching such an annoying charade.)

By the time that I turned off the television, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and I still couldn't get back to sleep. I tried, but I spent nearly three hours tossing and turning and trying not to cough. And the worst part of it was that whenever I felt like I was drifting off, I would suddenly think that I was in that freezing cold park again, calling out Sanada's name and running back and forth across the pavement, trying to find him. And then I would jerk awake and realize that I had been calling out his name to the ceiling, and I felt so depressed and humiliated that I buried my face in a pillow, until I was just too congested to breathe like that. Even if it was in the privacy of my own bedroom, it was awful to think that I was still acting so pathetic.

(Honestly, what is wrong with me? He doesn't want you, you idiot, so you can stop crying for the moon already. You're fifteen years old, not five.)

Well, one way or another, I finally lost consciousness, and I woke up again just before noon today, feeling considerably better than I did last night. I was still coughing quite a bit, and the tissues were collecting in small piles on my bed, but my body didn't ache as much and my head felt clearer. So I tried to enjoy a bowl of soup in spite of my nasal congestion, and actually managed to convince myself that today would be much better than yesterday.

I was very unhappily mistaken.

It would have been better than yesterday, I suppose, if I hadn't been informed at about two o'clock that I had a visitor. I was surprised, to say the least, and I immediately asked my butler who this mysterious guest was. He said that a young man named Sanada Genichiroh had been asking to see me.

I was suddenly filled with a genuine regret that I survived the night.

I suppose that this is an overstatement, but it really is no exaggeration to say that I would have gladly done anything at all, rather than be forced to see Sanada Genichiroh today. After all, I had waited like a lovesick dog out in the cold for almost three hours on Friday night, just to tell my sworn enemy that I had fallen for him, and before I had even gotten the words out, I had humiliated myself even further by starting to cry. The last thing that I wanted to do was to try to look this man in the face, when I felt like I might crumble into pieces at the sight of him.

But then again, it would have been just as humiliating to send him away… That would have been acknowledging that I was too heartbroken to see him, not to mention acting like an absolute coward. And as pathetic as I may have been feeling, Atobe Keigo is not a coward. So I told my butler to admit him into my parlor, and to inform him that I was making myself presentable and would be out shortly.

I then hurried into my closet and scrambled for something to wear, because I certainly wasn't going to appear before Sanada Genichiroh in my pajamas. But by the time that I had managed to dress myself, it had already been at least fifteen minutes, so I rushed into the bathroom to brush my hair, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror…

I stopped dead in my tracks.

I, Atobe Keigo, looked like a train wreck.

I suppose that it didn't really matter, because Sanada had already rejected me when I had looked my best. Clearly, my best wasn't good enough, so it was probably irrelevant if he saw me at my worst. But there was something especially humiliating about the idea of facing Sanada when I was looking like that.

My face was as white as a sheet, except for a rather sickly flush around my cheeks, and my nose was a chafed, painful scarlet, which only exaggerated the redness in my watery eyes. I had hoped to face Sanada with some shred of my dignity intact, but it was pretty obvious that it was going to be nearly impossible, when I practically looked like I had caught my death and come out much worse for the wear. I almost contemplated the possibility of telling my servants to send him away after all, but I knew that couldn't do that. And then I thought that I might at least try to cover up some of the redness on my face, even though that would probably take another fifteen minutes…

In the end, I just laughed at myself under my breath and left without doing anything at all, except brushing my hair like I had originally intended. What was the point, anyway? Sanada couldn't think any less of me than he already did. I may have been trying desperately to hold onto some shred of my pride, but I still knew the truth… My pride had melted into the snow on Friday night, and I would never have any actual dignity in Sanada's presence again.

That didn't mean that I was going to fall into his arms crying, though. Absolutely not. No, I had already resolved that as much as I possibly could, I was going to pretend like Friday night had never happened. Of course, I knew that Sanada was going to bring it up anyway, sooner or later… But I made a resolution right then and there, that when he started trying to talk about it, I was going to tell him that I was sorry that I had ever done such a ridiculous thing, and that we should both forget about it as soon as possible. It was the only solution that I could devise that didn't involve making even more of a fool of myself than I already had. So as I opened the door to my front parlor, I whispered my resolution again, under my breath: "Act like nothing ever happened. Tell him we should just forget about the whole thing."

Naturally, as soon as I saw him, I forgot whatever it was that I had just promised myself. My heart skipped a beat, as though it had somehow forgotten in the space of two days just how handsome he is, and I felt the blood rushing into my face out of sheer embarrassment. I greeted him as casually as I could, but I felt rather lightheaded all of a sudden, so I walked quickly over to an armchair and sat down. By that point, I had calmed down enough to remember that I was supposed to be acting like nothing had happened between us, so I tried to focus on what he had to say instead. (Besides, I couldn't help noticing that my voice sounded absolutely ridiculous when my nose was so congested, so I wasn't exactly eager to talk, either.)

Much to my surprise, he started apologizing to me. I'm not sure what I had expected him to say, but it had never occurred to me that he would have come to my house to apologize. He hadn't done anything wrong, after all… If anything, he had been kinder to me than I expected. It certainly wasn't his fault that I had decided to make a fool of myself. So I interrupted him and told him that he shouldn't worry about it, and that it was my fault that it had happened in the first place. I was almost surprised at how easy it was to act like everything was fine in front of him; my voice sounded careless and detached, and I think I even shrugged a little.

Of course, he tried to argue with me… I suppose that he was trying to be polite. So I told him to relax, and then I insisted that I was fine. Somehow, I was even starting to believe my own words; I could feel myself becoming detached from the pain of the previous evening, when I had cried his name out at the ceiling and wondered how I would ever forget about him. And then I realized what I was doing… I was hiding behind my mask again. Yes, that false front of mine was still there, even after everything that had happened. In all honesty, I was relieved. At least now I could use it to protect myself from my own hurt, and to stop myself from looking even more foolish than I already did.

There was just one small problem. Sanada had finally realized that I have a mask, and that I also have a habit of using it in front of him.

Apparently, he doesn't like that mask at all.

He immediately told me to stop pretending, and he sounded pretty irritated about it, too. At this point, I could feel myself getting backed into a corner, and the idea of being forced to stop acting like everything was fine was almost terrifying. There was no telling what I would do, if I was forced to be genuine in front of him… Well, that wasn't completely true. I had a general sense of what would happen. And I could feel it already starting to happen, and this was making me feel almost desperate, in spite of my greatest efforts to remain in control.

So I demanded to know if he would prefer that I break down in front of him. Much to my shock, he said yes.

I didn't have the slightest idea how to respond to that.

He went on to say that "at least then, I would know that you meant what you said." For a split second, I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I realized what he meant. He was having a hard time believing that I loved him in the first place. I suppose that's not very surprising, since we've been fighting like cats and dogs ever since the day that we met. But to me, it seemed almost absurd… Of course I love him. I've only spent the entire past month falling for him. So I sighed and told him that I meant it.

He asked why I wasn't saying it again.

I still don't know why he would ask something like that. In fact, the only logical explanation is that he is a sadist, and was entertaining some kind of sick hope that I would cry in front of him a second time. But I can't bring myself to believe that, so I still have no idea why he wanted me to tell him again that I loved him. What I do know is that I mumbled some sort of excuse about how I wanted to keep at least a shred of my dignity…

Evidently, that was the wrong thing to say.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled at me, telling me to forget about my dignity. He even said something about how he thought that I said that I loved him. Well, of course I said it! I was trying to forget that I said it, because I had already been blatantly rejected and wasn't in the mood to get rejected a second time. In fact, I was trying to pretend that it had never happened, in a desperate attempt to move beyond the pain that I felt at seeing him again. But he wasn't going to let me forget it, apparently, and feeling him bending down with his face so close to mine was making me wish that I could just melt into the chair and disappear.

But I didn't disappear, of course. Instead, my mask broke. I yelled right back at him, exclaiming that I did love him.

He didn't have to remind me of how much it hurt to say that.

Still, I felt my lips whisper it again, as though they were getting some kind of masochistic pleasure out of the activity. I felt myself trembling, of all things, and I was trying not to look at him, but I wasn't quite succeeding, either. He said my name, and I could feel a lump forming in my throat at the sound… Suddenly, I realized that it was only a matter of time before I was going to completely fall apart in front of him, and I had already sworn that I wouldn't make a fool of myself a second time, whether Sanada wanted me to or not. I felt my hands pushing him away, and I told him that he should go. At this point, I was simply desperate. I couldn't let him see me fall apart, not again, not when I was too exhausted and upset to even begin to think of excuses for even the slightest demonstration of weakness…

So I just said that I wasn't feeling well, and I got up and walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me.

I don't know what else I could have done.

I just stayed there for a moment, with my back pressed against that closed door, trying not to think about how he was on the other side of it, only a few feet away from where I was standing. And I tried not to think about how I had failed so miserably in acting like nothing was wrong, and that I was going to be fine, and that I would just move on and forget that anything had ever happened between us. I tried not to think about how the storm of emotions that I was experiencing was just proof of how much I still loved him, and how difficult it was going to be to overcome the pain of rejection, when everything in me was still wishing that he returned my affections.

Well, I tried. But I didn't quite succeed.

Still, I choked all the tears back, except one.

It didn't matter, really. Sanada had already seen me cry, and he hadn't even seen this tear at all. But somehow, that single drop of water made me realize that it was going to be nearly impossible to pick up the pieces of my heart and forget my feelings for Sanada Genichiroh.

If I were capable of believing the worst of him, I would almost wonder if he came today to remind me of that fact.

As it is, I've spent the rest of the day trying not to think about what happened this afternoon. But it goes without saying that it certainly didn't improve my mood, and this evening seemed even more miserable than the last one, even if some of my physical pain has disappeared. At least I was feeling well enough to write this journal entry, though my hand is aching now and I really should try to go sleep. I think I will try, in that case, and I can only hope that I don't spend this evening doing something as foolish as crying out to the ceiling.

Honestly, I need to grow up. There are just some things that I simply can't have, and the sooner I come to terms with that inescapable fact, the better.

I just wish that it didn't hurt quite so much.

Sincerely,

Atobe Keigo

跡部景吾

…

２月１２日月曜日

Monday, February 12th

When I got up this morning, the last thing I wanted to do was go to school. Once again, I hardly got any sleep last night and I really wasn't sure I had the energy or will to drag myself out of bed. But now I'm actually kind of glad I did.

Mostly I was dreading the thought of facing Yukimura again. I thought he would still be angry with me for refusing to go see Atobe, and if I told him that I had gone to see him, he would ask for details, and then he would get mad at me for screwing things up further.

So when he greeted me this morning and asked me how my weekend was, I didn't even know how to respond.

I suppose the way he said good morning should have helped me relax. There was no anger in his voice, nor did it seem like he was being detached and aloof when he said it. I don't think he had any intention of apologizing for anything he said on Saturday, but I think he wanted to silently let me know that he still cared about me and considered me his friend.

So I didn't really know what to say. Obviously, there was no reason to get defensive at "Good morning," but I also didn't want to answer his question about what I did over the weekend. So I literally didn't say anything.

It was Renji that broke the awkward silence, though he didn't make the situation any more comfortable. He said my name, and when I hesitated to respond again, he pointed out that Yukimura had asked me a question, obviously implying that I was being very rude by not answering it.

To my surprise, though, Yukimura took my defense. I heard him mutter, "It's okay, Renji." He must have thought that I didn't want to speak to him after our last argument. Which, of course, wasn't true; I just wasn't sure what to say to him, after everything that's happened. I sat there uncomfortably for a few more moments, still hesitating, and I could tell that he and Renji were shooting each other heated glances, silently arguing about whether or not they should force me to respond…

I ended up blurting out the one thing I felt I had to say to Yukimura, which was that he was right.

I don't know if he didn't hear me, or just didn't understand what I meant, but all he said was, "What?" I repeated again that he was right (as if it hadn't been hard enough to say the first time), and that I had been wrong about everything. He walked over to my desk and asked me what I was talking about, in a tone of voice that was gentler than I expected him to use. I explained that he was right in saying that I shouldn't have done what I did to Atobe, and I added that I'd been feeling horrible about it ever since we talked on Saturday.

I think Yukimura could see how horrible I'd been feeling. I was having trouble saying all of this, because it was all still bothering me and I didn't want to talk about it. He said my name and put his hand on my shoulder. I don't know why, but I wasn't sure I wanted him to touch me. Maybe it was just my overall frustration, which was directed more at myself than him. Either way, though, I had to clench my teeth in order to resist the temptation to shrug off his hand.

I thought I should mention that I went to see Atobe, so I did. It was actually Renji who inquired what happened; I think Yukimura might have sensed that I didn't want to be asked for details. (Renji might have sensed that, too, but his curiosity probably got the better of him.) I leaned onto the desk and put a hand over my eyes, feeling both frustrated and ashamed. I had trouble choking out that I'd made things worse, and that Atobe would most likely never speak to me again, but that it was probably just as well.

I stopped myself at that point. I don't know why, but suddenly I was afraid that I would start to cry if I continued. I was incredibly exhausted (and still am); I haven't had a decent night's sleep in maybe the past week. So that certainly wasn't helping, but it wasn't just that. I don't know… Suddenly the thought of Atobe being bitter at me forever, and me never getting another chance to tell him I was sorry… It really, truly bothered me.

And so then, there I was, admitting this to my ex-boyfriend and my rather critical best friend, expecting some sort of dual lecture from the both of them. I could sense them sharing some sort of look over my head. Needless to say, that was doing nothing for my stress level.

Next thing I knew, though, Yukimura had leaned over and put his arms around me.

I made no movement to hug him back; I just sat there. But I didn't really want him to let go, either. He said, "At least you went, Sanada." And then I felt another hand on my shoulder, and heard Renji's voice somewhere above me say, "Don't beat yourself up too much, Genichiroh."

The next time I decide to sit down and count my blessings, I know what the first two will be.

Honestly, how did they know that was exactly what I needed? By all rights, I deserved a lecture from them. I guess they just figured that, since I knew I'd been wrong, they didn't need to say anything else. They knew I needed encouragement, and that laying on more guilt wouldn't do any good.

None of us said anything for a few moments; nobody moved. I don't know how long it was before Renji moved his hand and Yukimura gave a final squeeze before letting go. It was so strange, though, how natural it felt. It was the most comfortable I've felt with the both of them for a few months at least. All the stress of trying to please Yukimura and be a good boyfriend is gone now, and we're all just friends again, like we were during the first two years of junior high.

Honestly, it felt like things were finally the way they were supposed to be again.

They were incredibly nice to me, all day. What I still don't get is why Yukimura doesn't seem the least bit upset that his plan to set me up with Atobe didn't work. You'd think he'd be frustrated, and still trying to get me to fix it. But no, all he seems to care about right now is making sure that we're still friends. And I'm okay with that.

But I still feel horrible about Atobe. I feel like I should fix it, but I can't.

I was feeling alright when I got home from school. I finally felt ready to clean out my voice mail on my cell phone, which had about forty messages left on it from when Yukimura tried to call me after I caught him with Tezuka. Now that everything between us had calmed down, I decided I had the strength to sit through all of those messages and delete them, one by one. But it wasn't painful, like I thought it was going to be. I thought it would be horrible to relive that whole experience again, but actually, listening to Yukimura's voice desperately trying to say he was sorry kind of made me feel better about the whole thing. I could tell just by listening that he'd really felt bad about it when it happened, and it reaffirmed in my mind just how much he cares about me.

So I was sitting there, listening to the beginnings of each message, all of them from Yukimura: "Sanada, please answer your phone…" "Sanada, call me back…" "I'm so sorry, Sanada; let me explain…" But then suddenly, he was interrupted by another voice.

"Sanada?... It's me."

My heart skipped a beat and sank into the floor.

It was Atobe. Apparently he called the day I saw Yukimura kissing Tezuka, sometime late that night.

The rest of his message was, "There's something I need to tell you. Please call me back as soon as you get this."

I sat there for a moment, stunned. Why had Atobe called? He sounded desperate. While I was pondering this, the automatic voice mail system started its usual message, "To hear this message again, press one. To return the call, press two. To delete, press seven…"

I pressed one, and listened to it again. Then I listened to it a third time. I was trying to figure out why he called, why his voice was so urgent… At first I thought that maybe he'd wanted to tell me he loved me. But that was a while ago; it was probably too early for that…

Then I realized. He'd been trying to warn me.

After all, if Yukimura had been trying to set me up with Atobe, Atobe must have noticed how strange it was that we'd been meeting up so often lately. And he's so observant that he'd probably figured everything out by that point.

And he wanted to let me know, wanted to try to save me the pain.

It was so like him that I felt a lump forming in my throat. At least, it was like him, as I now know him … It was considerate and thoughtful of him, and the fact that he had bothered to call me and leave a message like that made me wish that I had listened to it sooner. I closed my cell phone and squeezed it tightly in my hand. Then I started feeling horrible for everything all over again, and I was seriously tempted to call him back and leave a message of my own, but I didn't. I couldn't. I'm sure he doesn't want to hear my voice ever again.

If I could have, though, I would have warned him. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have called him a long time ago and left him a message, warning him and saving him the pain of falling in love with me. But I had no idea. And it's certainly too late now.

It's very late, and I'm exhausted. With any luck, I'll be able to get some sleep tonight, if only because I'm so tired.

If not, though, I'll probably be lying awake for hours, thinking about Atobe.

真田弦一郎

Sanada Genichiroh

…

２月１２日月曜日

Monday, February 12th

I cannot wait until I am over this ridiculous cold.

Even apart from the fact that it frustrates me to be missing this many days of class, I don't think I can stand spending another day shut up in my bedroom, trying to amuse myself while I cough and sneeze my way through the long, tedious hours. Of course, what makes this problem even worse is the fact that this situation gives me far too much time to myself, which also means that I can't stop myself from thinking. And if I could just stop myself from thinking, then maybe I would have a fighting chance of forgetting about Sanada Genichiroh for more than five minutes at a time. And if I could do that, then maybe I would have a prayer of forgetting about him altogether, and I could finally stop acting like an idiot and get on with my life, instead of pining over him like a preteen girl.

Well, suffice to say that there are plenty of reasons why I am frustrated at how slowly I seem to be recovering from this illness. And even though it is the end of my third day with this terrible cold, I am still forbidden to leave the house, and it seems likely that I won't be permitted to attend school tomorrow, either. In fact, I am getting so frustrated that I'm almost tempted to break one of the windows in a desperate attempt to escape from this tedious situation.

To be fair, though, I did have one welcome reprieve from my boredom today, and it was much more pleasant than Sanada's sudden visit yesterday. Jiroh and Kabaji came to see me, and Jiroh even told me that the rest of the team had wanted to come with them, but that they had decided that I probably didn't want so many people crowding around me when I wasn't feeling well.

In any case, I believe it was about four o'clock or so that Jiroh surprised me by bounding right into my bedroom without warning, followed closely by Kabaji. As long as it was them, I didn't mind that they had come in unannounced (my servants have become so accustomed to their visits that they admit them without question), and unlike during Sanada's visit, I felt no particular compulsion to make myself any more presentable for the occasion. So it was actually rather relaxing, to be able to have company while still sitting comfortably in my bed. (Jiroh, of course, jumped right onto the mattress with me, whereas Kabaji simply drew up a chair and sat nearby.)

I have to admit that I was very glad to see them. After spending so many hours in the house by myself, I've come to realize that I dearly value those few trivial minutes that I spend with my friends during lunchtime, if only because they always serve to distract me from anything unpleasant that may be on my mind. Besides, the whole Sanada fiasco only served to remind me of just how important my friends are to me. If it weren't for the fact that I do have friends, I might be strongly tempted to believe that there isn't a single person on earth that cares whether I'm alive or not. It's a melodramatic conclusion, perhaps, but an easy one to make if you truly believe that you're alone in the world.

Well, I know that I'm not alone. I didn't always believe this, but I have come to find that it's true.

Anyway, Jiroh immediately started asking me how I was feeling, and if I would be back to school soon. I didn't know, of course, but I told him that I hoped I would be back by Wednesday. He also gave me the notes for all the classes that I had missed (I was rather touched by the fact that he had actually bothered to stay awake to take notes), and informed me that all the girls had been asking about me since Saturday. I was a little confused about this, until Jiroh explained that they were all worried that I wouldn't be at school on Valentine's Day. And then I remembered.

Wednesday is Valentine's Day.

I believe I actually grimaced at the reminder; the last thing that I wanted to think about was the idea of having to endure an entire day devoted to romance, when I am still trying to forget about my foolish confession to Sanada. Much to my surprise, Jiroh seemed to notice my expression, and he asked what was wrong. I could see the same question in Kabaji's eyes as well, and I don't quite know why, but the next thing that I knew…

The next thing that I knew, I had told them both a very brief version of everything that had happened in the past month, and how Sanada Genichiroh had just rejected me on Friday, and how I was trying so hard to forget about him, even though it seemed almost impossible to do.

Well, they had never heard anything about this, of course. I hadn't told a single person other than Tezuka, not even about seeing Sanada at the Latin concert so many weeks ago. And I certainly hadn't said a thing to them about how I had fallen for him. But they didn't bombard me with questions, or tell me how stupid it was to try to confess to someone like that (even though they would have had every right to do it, especially since they both know about what happened between Tezuka and me last summer).

Instead, they just listened. And then Jiroh said one simple thing.

"You still like him, don't you?"

I don't know why, but suddenly I couldn't say a word. I just nodded, almost helplessly, and tried to keep my eyes from watering. If it had been anyone else, I probably would have denied it in a loud voice and shrugged off the question, as though nothing in the world mattered as little to me as Sanada Genichiroh. But because it was Jiroh, and because it was Kabaji, somehow…

Somehow, I could only tell the truth. Even if it was weak of me, it was still the truth, and I simply couldn't lie to them.

Suddenly, I felt someone's arms around me, and a big, warm hand pressed against my own. I could feel a lump forming in my throat, but I managed to choke the tears back, and then I let myself relax. And we just sat there like that, with Jiroh hugging me on one side and Kabaji holding my hand on the other. No one said a word, but they didn't need to say anything for me to know exactly what they meant. And in that silence, I suddenly felt very relieved…

For the first time since he had collapsed into the snow on Friday night, Atobe Keigo knew without a doubt that he was going to be fine.

I suppose it's a terribly cliché thing to say, but I really don't know what I would do without my friends. If it weren't for the fact that they cared enough to check on me today, I would still be tossing and turning in my bed, feeling completely miserable and alone. And even though it still hurts to think about Sanada, I feel as though I've finally been given the strength to move beyond this disappointment, and to recover with the same confidence that I always have. It may take a long time for the pain to completely disappear, but I will survive it, because I don't have to get through this alone.

No, I'm not alone. I'm incredibly blessed.

In any case, I think that they could both sense that I didn't want to dwell on the subject too much, so we talked about other things for the rest of the visit. But just before the very end, something occurred to me, and so I couldn't resist asking Jiroh one question before he went out the door. Somehow, I already knew that he would have the answer that I needed…

I asked him how he had recovered from his disappointment with Marui in the fall.

He stopped in his tracks for a moment, and looked at me very seriously, which was rather unexpected. But then he smiled a little, and he said something which was just so like him that I had to smile back…

"I just kept going, that's all. Every day, it hurts a little less, until it doesn't hurt any more."

I will believe him. Even if it doesn't feel like that tonight, when I am struggling to breathe and trying my best not to cough, when the world outside the window is dark and cold, when I sit here by myself in a bed that feels painfully big and empty…

Even now, I will believe that tomorrow, the ache inside of me that is Sanada Genichiroh will hurt a little less. And I will believe that the day after tomorrow, it will hurt just a little less than that. And I will believe that every day from then on, it will hurt less and less…

Until it doesn't hurt any more.

Sincerely,

Atobe Keigo

跡部景吾

…

２月１３日火曜日

Tuesday, February 13th

Whatever it was that happened to me last night, it can't be called sleep.

I'll be surprised if this entry is even coherent. No, I have not taken a nap today, and no, I'm not absolutely sure I want to try sleeping tonight, simply for fear that the same thing will happen. It was something between having a nightmare and being awake… When I wasn't tossing and turning, I was paralyzed from half-unconsciousness, helpless to escape from whatever horrible dream I was having until it came to its climax and I jolted awake.

It was just one of those nights when the heater was making me uncomfortable. Honestly, no one should wake up sweating that much in winter. All of my nightmares were feverish, sweaty dreams… Come to think of it, not all of them were nightmares. Well, at least, not all of them began as nightmares… But they were all hot and uncomfortable.

And all of them somehow involved Atobe.

I wasn't quite awake when I got to the train station this morning. I was standing near the edge of the platform, with my toes just behind the yellow line, listening to some woman next to me on talk her cell phone. I must have started dozing off or something, because just before the train arrived I could have sworn I heard the woman say, "Why am I late? Oh, the usual. Some idiot jumped in front of the trains again…" And I thought for sure I'd fallen into the gap and was going to get run over, but the oncoming train screeching to a halt woke me up. I was still standing on the platform, safely behind the yellow line.

Anyway, that's how tired I was.

I had trouble staying awake in class today as well. All my friends seemed to guess that I didn't want to be bothered too much. My teachers weren't as nice. But it was fine; somehow I got through the day. I had trouble staying awake on the way home, too. (Needless to say, while I was waiting for the train I stood well behind the yellow line.) I fell asleep on the train and slept through my stop, so I had to get on another train and go back a few stops the other way to get home.

I think I'll get a good night's sleep tonight. It's pretty early right now, and I plan to go to bed as soon as I finish this entry.

As tired as I was, though, when I got home a thought occurred to me. I've missed three kendo lessons in a row. Three weeks ago, I slept through one and Grandfather didn't wake me up. The week after that, I'd been on a date with Yukimura. And last Tuesday was the day Yukimura broke up with me.

I put on my hakama, grabbed my katana, and slipped into the dojo at our usual time. Grandfather was there, of course, meditating. It made me wonder if he'd waited for me like that the last three weeks, every time I didn't show up. I wasn't sure whether or not to interrupt him, so I just quietly went over and sat beside him. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.

After a few minutes of silence, he asked me what I was doing there. He didn't sound angry, but I could tell by his question that he was scolding me for the last two absences at least. I answered him by saying that I was there for my lesson, and added an apology for missing the last three. He was quiet again for a long time, and then he said, "You're early."

I opened my eyes and glanced at him. He didn't move or open his eyes. I couldn't understand what he meant by that; I had arrived exactly on time, neither early nor late. But, if anything, I thought he should have said that I was late, because really, I was three weeks late for our lesson.

So I replied, "Don't you mean I'm late?" But he repeated again that I was early. After another minute or so of uncomfortable silence, he got up and said, "Come back when you're ready." Then he left the training room.

It made sense to me then. He thought that I wasn't focused enough to practice.

He was right, too. I started getting angry with myself. I wish I could just get past everything that's happened to me lately. When will I finally be able to focus again? At this rate, I'll never be ready for another kendo lesson.

I tried to make a conscious decision to refocus. I got as comfortable as I could and tried to meditate. I should have known that it wouldn't work. All that came into my mind was that picture of Atobe again, lying in the snow… It was beautiful, of course; it was so horribly beautiful that all I really wanted to do was cry…

That's when I realized that I was crying.

When you meditate, you're supposed to forget about your body; you're not supposed to know how you're sitting, what you're doing, or any of that. You lose complete control over everything but your mind. So that's why I wasn't able to stop the tears from coming, and why I didn't feel them until distinct trails had formed on my cheeks.

Nevertheless, it was a disturbing discovery.

It was clear to me then that I wasn't going to be able to focus tonight. I wiped my face with my sleeve and got up, then left to write this entry and go to bed.

And I think that's all I can do, at this point. I really am tired, and I can't seem to focus for much longer than ten seconds at a time.

真田弦一郎

Sanada Genichiroh

…

"Dear Atobe,

I'm going to see you today, to apologize for what I did to you on Friday. But I thought I should write out my apology, too, because I'm not sure how much of this I'm actually going to get the chance or have the courage to say. So I'm sorry if I repeat myself.

First of all, just simply… I'm sorry. For a lot of things… First, I'm sorry I forgot my cell phone Friday morning. You were absolutely right; it was careless of me. It was a mistake, and all mistakes have consequences. It doesn't seem fair that you're the one still suffering from it. I'm truly sorry for being such an idiot.

I'm also sorry for how I responded, when you told me you were falling for me. I panicked. I really didn't know what to do; it all seemed so out of the blue… But I'm not trying to make excuses. In all honesty, it wasn't completely out of the blue… I should have noticed in the way you've been treating me lately that something had changed. You were being so kind to me, and giving me so many things I didn't deserve… I hardly even thanked you for it. I was too wrapped up in my own problems to thank you, much less notice that your heart was kind of trying tell me something. So I'm sorry I didn't realize it sooner.

And, again, about how I responded… I'm sorry for running away. I've been thinking about this really hard, and I don't think I could have possibly done anything worse in that situation. Because if I'd done something awful, maybe then at least you'd have reason to hate me, and that might be a little easier. That way you could take out your anger on me, and maybe then it would hurt less. But I didn't even give you that. I just ran away. Personally, I think that gives you every reason to hate me, but it was probably more confusing than anything else…

Is this even making any sense? I don't know.

The point is, I'm very sorry.

I'm sorry for everything, really; even the things I can't control. I'm sorry you fell in love with me. I wish you hadn't. Don't get me wrong; it's not that your feelings are a nuisance to me or anything. Actually, I'm honored that you could ever feel that way about me. But I'm sure it's not exactly a picnic being in love with someone like me. I'm an idiot sometimes, and there must be a billion reasons why you've always found me so irritating. So I'm sorry that this had to happen to you. I'm also sorry that I don't feel the same way.

You wouldn't want me anyway, actually. I'm sure Yukimura could tell you that I'm not exactly the type of person who becomes easier to love, the more you get to know me…

But you are, Atobe.

I was completely wrong about you, and I'm sorry for that too. I thought you were nothing but a fake and an arrogant snob. I was wrong. It's true that you're not quick to show people your true feelings, but I don't blame you for that. People are horrible, as I think I've proved pretty well. I understand that you've just been protecting yourself. I'm sorry for assuming the worst about you.

The truth is, you're incredibly genuine. Now that I see it, I can't believe I didn't see it before. I honestly had no idea. But you're generous and kind and thoughtful, and a ton of other things I can't seem to find the words to describe right now…

Well, the perfect example is what you did for me last weekend. You're the kind of person who, when I was hurting, took me into your home, invited me to stay in your bed, took care of me, and distracted me long enough for the pain to disappear somewhat. And on top of all that, you spent your own money to buy me something I've always wanted, for no other reason than hoping it would make me feel a little better.

You know what you did that day, Atobe? You picked up someone's broken heart, and took the time to put all the tiny fragments back together so it could heal.

I could never thank you enough.

But that's the kind of person you are. You're willing to go out of your way to help someone who's given you no reason to like them at all. Someone like me doesn't deserve someone like you.

Maybe it's better, then, that things didn't work out. I hope you find someone who actually deserves you…

You must be lonely. I'm sure you're tired of waiting, and sometimes you probably just want to give up and settle for some nobody. Don't do that; never settle for someone less. I don't want that for you. But I know that it's going to take a long time, and a lot of waiting for someone like you to find someone who deserves you. I hope you don't have to wait too much longer, though. It just doesn't seem fair.

You'd be settling for me; I don't deserve you at all. After what I've done to you, and all of the horrible things I've said to you… Atobe, I'm sorry for all of that. Nothing bad I've ever said about you was true. I was stupid; I didn't know you at all. And you deserve so much better.

Anyway… That's all I can think of to say, even though I feel like there's so much more I should say. I wanted to give you something, because I thought a present might be able to say "I'm sorry" better than I ever could. So I thought I'd buy you a journal, since you said before that your old one is running out of pages… I'm sorry that this one is so small; I tried to find a thicker one, but I didn't see any that I thought were nice… I'm sure you'll fill up this one in no time. Perhaps it's just as well. Maybe, by the time you're done filling up these pages, you can forget about me. And since this journal is small, that can happen faster. Then you can put this book away forever, along with your feelings for me.

I wish you all of the happiness in the world.

Sincerely,

Sanada Genichiroh

真田弦一郎"

…

２月１３日火曜日

Tuesday, February 13th

I hardly know how to begin this entry.

Of course, I know that I should probably start from the beginning, even though the beginning was just another boring day of being stuck in my room with a cold. In fact, the only thing worth mentioning about it is that I was feeling well enough this morning to be permitted to walk around the house. And so I refuse to start from the beginning. Instead, I will go straight to the point.

Today, I found out why I fell for Sanada Genichiroh.

I was walking through my front parlor this afternoon, when I noticed something strange sitting on the coffee table. It was a shopping bag of some kind, which immediately struck me as odd, since the servants are usually so good about keeping the room free from any clutter. So I walked over and picked up the bag, which had the logo of some bookstore that I didn't recognize on it, and then I looked inside…

It was a journal.

I have to admit, my heart immediately skipped a beat. I couldn't help remembering the conversation with Sanada so many nights ago in my bedroom, when he asked me whether I kept a journal. But I told myself that was ridiculous, and that even if Sanada had left it there two days ago, the odds were that it had absolutely nothing to do with me.

Still, I couldn't help thinking that it didn't look like the kind of journal that he would use. (It's a very beautiful book, with a silvery, mother-of-pearl design on the cover and solid black binding.) I carefully took it out of the bag to get a better look, and then I opened the cover with the intention of flipping through a few of the pages…

The first page was already full of writing, and the very first two words were "Dear Atobe," done in a strong, elegant hand that I had never seen before in my life.

It was Sanada's handwriting.

Well, I immediately started reading it, of course. I read all the way through his message to me, as quickly as I possibly could. And then I read it again, slowly taking in every sentence, every single word that Sanada had written on those pages. And as I sit here, struggling for the words to describe how this letter made me feel, I realize that nothing I can say will do it justice. Fortunately, I don't have to describe the letter itself, since it precedes this entry… Once I had read through the letter a fourth time, I was suddenly filled with the urge to try to write down all that I was feeling in response, and so I walked into my bedroom to find the journal I was currently using. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was only one page left in it after last night's entry, and that I still hadn't had the time to go and buy another one.

Well, Sanada's gift found me at the perfect time. And I can't help thinking that his message to me did the same.

So here I am, writing in this new journal that Sanada left for me on my coffee table, as I constantly flip back to the first few pages to read what Sanada wrote. And I hardly know how to describe the feeling that is growing inside of me, as I read his letter over and over again. In all honesty, I'm speechless. Even though I was already in love with him, I had no idea just how kind and observant and even eloquent Sanada could be, at least when he takes the time to write out his thoughts.

If his intention in writing this was to help me forget about him, I would have to say that he failed miserably.

I truly cannot believe how insightful his letter is. Of course, his visit on Sunday did suggest to me that he had already figured out that I have a tendency to hide behind a mask when I am around him. But I had no idea that he already knew I was doing it in order to protect myself, when the only other person who ever realized this fact was Tezuka. And in light of his insensitive comment over a month ago about "at least I have a boyfriend," that paragraph which talks so kindly about not settling for someone beneath me, even though he knows that I must be lonely… Well, it genuinely shocks me.

And that's not even mentioning the way that he apologizes, over and over again, for a situation that really wasn't his fault, simply out of concern for me. Or the way that he is so quick to thank and even praise me, for some silly little gesture that I was all too happy to do for him, even though a simple pen couldn't have possibly been enough to heal someone who was suffering so badly. Or the way that he truly seems to regret anything that he might have done to cause me pain, even the things that are completely out of his control, such as how I might respond to his gift, a gift that he clearly went to so much trouble to find.

Is this even the same Sanada that I know?

Maybe I'm not the only one whose better side is hidden somewhere out of sight.

And the more I think about it, the more indignant I am at the way that he implies in this letter that I am too good for him. That couldn't possibly be further from the truth. He was good enough for me even as I first knew him, as that stoic, antisocial tennis nerd, who had a remarkable talent for saying the one thing that was most likely to push my buttons and send me on a tyrannical rant about his stupidity. And then about three weeks ago, he had already become too good for me… That happened when I realized how much he truly loved Yukimura, and that his only actual weakness was the depth of his affection for that unknowingly blessed individual. It was because of this same realization that I fell in love with him.

And that doesn't even include the side of him that I have seen today, in between these beautifully written lines of black ink.

I just wish that I could tell him how wrong he is about that assumption. The truth is that I couldn't ask for anyone better than him. It doesn't matter, of course, because he doesn't return my feelings, and I certainly don't intend to bother him any longer with my claims of affection, when I know that they would only trouble him and cause him even more unnecessary frustration…

But Sanada, if only you knew how your letter made me feel, you would never say such a thing.

You wish me all the happiness in the world, but I couldn't have that without you.

Well, I hardly know what to write anymore. It feels as though there must be so much more to say, especially about this letter, which has moved me so far beyond my ability to adequately express my emotions that I can't even begin to explore it. Somehow, I just don't have any words left, except for these three feeble, insignificant ones, but to me, they mean the whole world and then some…

I love him.

Oh god, I still love him.

I don't know what else to say.

…

Well, it's getting late, and I should probably be trying to get some sleep, instead of writing in this journal for the second time in one day. But somehow, I simply can't stop reading over Sanada's letter to me, even though I've already read it more times than I can count. By this point, I've practically memorized every single word on these pages, and yet somehow, there are still things about it that continue to surprise me.

To be perfectly honest, the more I read it, the more I find this letter extremely perplexing.

The beginning of the letter still makes sense to me, of course, even if the way that he apologizes for the situation is rather excessive. After all, Sanada is certainly the type of person to take responsibility for his actions, and I would imagine that he is so incredibly strict with himself that he would even take responsibility for things that are out of his control. So while I don't agree with him, I wouldn't say that it's an unexpected response.

The rest of the letter, however, makes absolutely no sense.

He says that he wants me to hate him, or at least forget about him. While I could understand that sentiment if he finds my feelings a nuisance, he specifically says that he is honored by the way I feel. But if that's true, then why does he wish that I didn't love him? He then says that it must be difficult to be in love with someone like him. That couldn't be further from the truth! It's quite easy to be in love with him; even when I already knew that he didn't feel the same about me, he still made me feel like I was walking on air during that day we went shopping together. He even goes so far as to say that "You wouldn't want me anyway," citing the fact that Yukimura dumped him as proof of his assertion.

That is absolutely ridiculous. Simply because Yukimura acted like an idiot does not mean that Sanada is unlovable. Yukimura's actions reflect badly on Yukimura, not on him.

And you're wrong, Sanada. I do want you. I believe I've already made that perfectly clear.

Of course, the part where he starts to compliment me is even more perplexing… While I did say that it proves that he's surprisingly observant, especially when it comes to the false front that I use, it's still much too generous for someone like him to say about someone like me. And that's why I just can't understand it. If Sanada truly wanted me to hate him, why would he make such a point of saying kind things about me? Doesn't he know that such a thing only makes me wish even more desperately that he would return my feelings, so that I could be closer to someone who actually seems to understand me?

And then he says the most ridiculous thing of all: "Someone like me doesn't deserve someone like you."

My mind can barely even comprehend such a statement. In what parallel universe is Sanada currently living, that he's actually come to believe such a thing? Perhaps it's just a little white lie, one of those excuses that a person naturally uses to discourage unwanted attention, but I have a very difficult time picturing Sanada resorting to such an underhanded technique to try to get rid of me. If anything, his character would have to suggest that he truly means what he is saying… But when in the world did Sanada Genichiroh start believing that Atobe Keigo is too good for him? It's just utterly bizarre.

He goes on to tell me that I should never settle for anything less than I deserve, and that I would be settling for less if I chose him. He then repeats his assertion that he doesn't deserve me, and cites the fact that he said some rude things to me in the past as proof. Really, this makes absolutely no sense at all. What about all of the horrible things that I've said to him? For every insult he ever gave me, I paid him back double, with interest.

I just don't understand what he's trying to say. Is this his strange way of rejecting me, because he feels that he has to be as complimentary as possible, in some sort of misguided attempt to let me down gently? Or does he truly believe every word that he wrote on these pages? I don't even see how that's possible.

If he truly believes that I am a wonderful person, how can he also believe that I would fall in love with someone horrible? If he really is honored by the fact that I love him, why would he want me to hate him? If he actually thinks that he is such a terrible person, then why does he take the time to be so gentle and kind in his letter? Why not just live up to his claim and say something to make me hate him? At least then it wouldn't be nearly so unexpected and confusing. It would just sound like the same old Sanada that snapped at me by the fountain, instead of tantalizing me with this new version of Sanada that I find myself loving even more deeply than the original.

I don't know. I just don't know what to think anymore.

I really should be going to bed now. I have to recover from this cold… I've already spent far too many days in this room, missing class and moping around like a child.

But, really… This letter makes absolutely no sense at all.

…

Yes, it's three o'clock in the morning, and yes, I'm still awake. Somehow, it's just impossible to sleep, when I can't stop thinking about the letter that Sanada wrote. These pages may very well be the only response that I will ever get, in regards to my feelings for him. And so I want to understand it. I want to know how he feels about me. I want to know if maybe, someday, there is still the slightest chance that he could feel the way that I do, even if it's impossible. And if it is impossible, I just want to know for certain that this is the case.

I want to know if this letter is a rejection. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be, or at least not a coherent one.

But then what is it?

I truly don't know the answer to that question.

I've been thinking about something else, too, and that is how different he was acting in front of me when he came to visit my house on Sunday. Presumably, he came here to give me this journal, as some kind of unnecessary apology for what happened in the park. But he never actually got around to giving it to me, and he certainly wasn't saying any of the things that he says here in his letter. Instead, he was saying all kinds of strange things, things that didn't make any sense at all, especially in the context of this kind message…

Well, I can just look in my old journal to prove it.

Yes, it's all here… He came over to my house on Sunday, and the first thing that he did was start apologizing to me, even though he didn't do anything wrong. But I suppose that this part still makes sense, given the fact that he's so quick to take responsibility for things that are out of his control (such as when Yukimura broke up with him). After that, though, his actions make absolutely no sense at all.

For one thing, he became extremely upset when I tried to act like everything was fine, and he even told me directly to "stop pretending." If he really understands why I act like a fake, which he says that he does in his letter, then why did he get so angry when I was just trying to keep myself from getting hurt any more than I already was? Why should he care whether or not I'm wearing my mask in front of him? He has no interest in getting to know me, or at least he's never expressed any such interest. I really don't see why he should have been so angry about something that he even seems to excuse in the letter.

The only potentially logical explanation for this behavior (and in my opinion, it's still very illogical) is that he truly believes that underneath my mask, I am the wonderful person that he praises in this journal. But that is so hard to believe, and it's even harder to believe that he would take it personally that I would hide my true feelings from him.

Again, why should he care?

Still, as illogical as that part of our conversation was, the strangest part was probably when he exploded at me, telling me to "forget about my dignity" and to tell him once again that I loved him. Why in the world would he want me to say that again? If he truly believes that I'm too good for him, and that I would be wasting my time by "settling" for him, then why on earth would he want me to repeat my confession? If anything, he should have been angry if I did try to say it again, because that would mean that I truly wanted to "settle" for him and didn't believe a word he says about himself in this letter. (Which I don't, of course, but I never intended to tell him that I loved him again. I already knew that it would hurt too much.)

He even took me by the shoulders, physically touching me in a way that he should have known would only make the situation worse, and bent down close to my face as he tried to persuade me to tell him that I loved him. Why would he do that? Why would he even try to come within ten feet of me, if he truly wants me to forget about him?

I just don't understand it. Somewhere, in all of this, there has to be at least one lie, for any of it to make even the slightest bit of sense.

But then which part is the lie?

Needless to say, I'm starting to get extremely frustrated with all of this. I don't like having puzzles held up in front of me that I cannot solve, and I've been trying to solve this one for hours. Of course, I know that it's rather pointless to be trying to figure out what Sanada meant by his behavior… Either way, he still doesn't return my feelings, and so nothing between us can possibly change. He even states that explicitly in the letter, and he would have retracted his statement during our conversation if he didn't really mean it.

But I am starting to believe that he doesn't really want me to forget about him, since he made such a point of visiting me on Sunday. And his letter already proves that he doesn't actually want me to hate him, because he took the time to write it in the first place.

No, instead he wants to force me to tell him again that I love him.

Sanada, you are as confusing as hell.

In any case, I can't spend any more time pondering this bizarre mystery, as much as it frustrates me to give up on it without reaching any sort of conclusion. I really need to get some sleep, if I'm ever going to recover from this cold…

But, honestly, it's just so terribly frustrating. All I want is to understand what he meant.

I'm almost tempted to go over to his house and ask him.

Sincerely,

Atobe Keigo

跡部景吾

…

２月１４日水曜日

Wednesday, February 14th

I almost laughed out loud when I wrote the date. Because I forgot again that it was Valentine's Day today.

But I can't laugh. I have to be quiet.

The first time I forgot what day it was today was this morning. I had no idea that it was Valentine's Day until I got to school. Instantly, I was greeted by the sight of a second-year accepting chocolates from a shy-looking girl right in front of the gate.

I almost turned around and went home.

It was especially depressing, because I'd been in such a good mood until then. I'd finally gotten a full night's sleep last night, and I felt like everything was back to normal, and maybe I could just forget about everything that's been bothering me. But when I realized what day it was, I couldn't help suddenly feeling lonely. (Now I know what single people complain about on this holiday. Being alone on Valentine's Day never bothered me until this year.) In any case, I forced myself to endure it.

What was extremely odd, though, was how much chocolate I was getting. I opened up my locker this morning, and I think there was more chocolate in there than there's ever been. This was the one year I expected to get hardly any (if any at all), since I figured that the girls in my grade would have given up by now. I thought for sure that the rumors had spread about Yukimura and me going out. Maybe they've already heard somehow that we broke up, and their offerings of chocolate were some misguided attempt at making me feel better. But if they heard about it that fast, frankly, I find that disturbing. Nevertheless, I tried to accept their pity chocolate as graciously as I could.

This was the first year I actually ate some of it, though. I would never admit it to anyone, but I have somewhat of a sweet tooth for chocolate. I don't have a sweet tooth for anything else, really, but ever since Marui forced me to try some of the better-quality chocolate last year, I have to admit that I like it. So now when Marui drags us all to some café or parfait shop, occasionally I'll offer to share a small chocolate cake with someone.

Anyway, I figured I could use some chocolate today. So I sneaked a few pieces today at lunch and between classes.

Renji ate some of it, too. I don't know why he does that every year; he gets plenty by himself. I think he has something against eating the chocolate that's actually given to him, because he feels like it would give the wrong idea to whoever made the chocolate he ate. Anyway, while he was snitching, he noticed that I'd been eating some. Judging by the look he gave me, I think he wanted to laugh.

Yukimura also got a ton of chocolate. And he was being nice to me all day; I think he must have guessed that I was feeling a little depressed. Akaya even asked me if we were getting back together. I told him no, of course—

Why am I spending so much time writing about this? This isn't the important part…

Oh, forget it all.

Atobe came over today.

When I came home from school, I was feeling cold, so I thought it might be nice to take my bath before dinner. The warm water felt really good—for the minute or so that I was able to enjoy it. What interrupted me was something that I irrationally dread every time I get into the bath: my mother calling, telling me I have a visitor. Just my luck. I had to get out of the bath, finish washing, and get dressed as quickly as I could, which took a lot longer than I would have liked. The whole time, I was wondering who in the world would have come to my house today.

As I was coming down the hall, the first thing I heard was coughing. Immediately I knew who it was. Part of me wanted to turn around and go hide in my room, but actually I started walking faster towards the sound. I'm not sure why; I think I just wanted to know what Atobe was doing here, especially since he was apparently still sick.

When I came in sight of the front room, my mother had her hand on his forehead and was asking him how he "got such a terrible cold." I stopped then, worried about what Atobe might say in response. He glanced at me, then said it was his fault, and that he'd waited outside too long for "someone."

I don't know why he didn't just say it was me.

I just stood there like an idiot, though, staring at him. He looked better, but still very sick. The sight of him was starting to make my heart race, somehow. He wasn't quite looking at me, but instead kept glancing at my mother, politely listening to her rant something about how "inconsiderate" it was for "someone" to keep him waiting that long.

She grabbed my wrist suddenly and pulled me into the room, asking me what took me so long. At first I was a little confused; I thought she was talking about last Friday. But then I remembered where I was, and apologized, explaining that I had been taking a bath.

She, of course, felt the need to comment on how odd it was for me to take a bath so early, and then said something about how I seem to have my father's bad timing. Then she turned back to Atobe, asking if he needed anything, offering him tea… Honestly, I was wishing she would just leave us alone. I still didn't know why Atobe was here, but I was positive that he wanted to talk to me, and we certainly couldn't talk in front of my mother. I think Atobe was feeling just as impatient as I was. He declined the tea, and I think Mother took the hint. She said that I would get anything that Atobe needed, and told us she would "leave you boys alone."

Before she was even gone, I turned down the hallway, telling Atobe that we could talk in my room. He followed quickly behind. I closed the door behind us and asked what he was doing here, to which he reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the journal I'd bought him. His question was, "What is this about?"

Well, frankly, I was just relieved to see that he'd gotten my note. What made it even better was that he was going to give me the chance to explain, to tell him that everything I'd wanted to say to him on Sunday was in that note, and that I was sorry for what actually came out of mouth. I was so relieved that I almost smiled as I asked him if he'd actually read it.

He confirmed that he'd read it, and then he started complaining about what was in it. He said something to the effect of, "This is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said to me, which is saying a lot. How could you believe any of this?" I didn't quite understand what he was so angry about—at this point, I could hardly even remember what I'd written. He opened it up and pointed out how I said that I didn't deserve him, and that he'd be better off without me.

I still didn't understand what the problem was. I told him that I'd meant every word.

He was really upset, and he seemed to be stumbling over his thoughts a little. He asked me if I thought he was stupid enough to fall for someone that didn't deserve him. But that's a terrible argument; his intelligence has nothing to do with the fact that he fell for me. If it did, I'm sure none of this would have happened. I reminded him that he couldn't control who he fell in love with. (I'm sure he knew that; but apparently he wasn't able to think clearly at the moment.)

He really wasn't well. This combined with the fact that, as I said, he was upset; so upset that I could see him struggling to keep from shaking. He was saying something about how "it's not true" (I assume he was referring to what I wrote), and that he wasn't stupid, and then I saw his eyes sort of go out of focus… The last argument he gave me before he passed out was, "I don't just love you, Sanada; I adore you."

He probably won't even remember that he said that.

I caught him as he was falling, and I guess I just held him there for a minute, thinking about what he said. The fact that he loves me is strange enough. But, apparently… he adores me.

Words could never explain how that makes me feel.

I guess what he was trying to tell me was that even if he couldn't keep himself from falling in love with me, he still thought I deserved him, and it wasn't just his feelings talking. He'd thought about it, and had somehow come to the conclusion that I wasn't completely detestable. Instead, he found me worth adoring.

Again… words are so useless.

He was still in my arms. I adjusted his position and held him a little closer for a moment. He seemed to be sleeping. I was relieved that he seemed somewhat comfortable, and it felt nice, holding him securely in my arms like that… But I wasn't quite sure what to do. I considered carrying him out to the front of the house and sending him home in his limousine so he could rest. But I decided I couldn't do that. I decided that I didn't want him to leave my sight.

I knelt down carefully and laid him on the floor, using his bag as a temporary pillow while I set out my futon. Once I got him comfortably in my bed, I went to ask my mother for a cool washcloth, told her what had happened, and asked if Atobe could stay the night. Then I told Atobe's chauffer that we would call sometime tomorrow when he was ready to be picked up. The man wrote down a number for us to call and left.

I made sure again that Atobe seemed comfortable while he slept. He slept the entire time. He's still sleeping now. After I made sure he was alright (and watched him sleep for a little while), I did some studying and then sat down to write this entry.

But I really can't leave it at that.

At the same time, though, I can hardly concentrate enough to keep writing. I said I studied, but really I just stared blankly at my textbooks for a few seconds at a time, turning around every now and then to watch Atobe sleep. And I keep losing myself in thought when I do that, until a few minutes have passed and all I've been doing is staring at him. He looks very tired. But at least he seems to be sleeping peacefully because of it. I'd feel horrible if he was having nightmares…

I wonder if I've ever given him nightmares.

And, again, I find myself having wasted about nine minutes just staring at him.

And I'm likely to waste even more time now that I'm sitting at his side.

I can't even tell you what I'm thinking about, while I watch him sleep. I guess I'm doing more feeling than actual thinking. But I can't even tell you what I'm feeling, because either it keeps changing, or it's some strange emotion that is guilty and depressed and peaceful and happy, all at the same time. I guess it's sort of what I feel when I meditate, and that image of his face pops into my head…

Except he's here now.

He's flushed, and maybe sweating a little, unless that's just the moisture from the washcloth. He's still sick, he's still all alone, and he still has every reason to hate me and is probably tortured by the fact that he doesn't. When he wakes up, I have no idea what I'm going to say to him. He's probably going to freak out, maybe even get angry at me for sending his chauffer home. If not that, he'll be angry that I let him sleep for so long. And because I have no clue what to say, I'm probably not going to react much more tenderly than I did when I went to see him on Sunday. By the time I go to school tomorrow, I'm probably going to feel even worse about this whole thing than I already do.

So why is it that, right now, I feel like everything's going to be alright?

Suddenly, I want to stop writing. I don't really want to think about this anymore…

But maybe, for his sake, I should…

God, why is this so hard?

I think I love him.

There… I said it.

The truth is, I've been forcing myself to deny it for a long time. Especially these past few days… I looked over a couple of my latest entries (which were surprisingly coherent, despite my lack of sleep), and the only thing I can conclude is that I love him. I can't stop thinking about him. Even today, with all the chocolate and the flowers and the "romance," when every inch of my loneliness should have been forcing my mind to think about Yukimura, and how, a month ago, I'd wanted to share today with him… I wasn't thinking about that. I thought about it a little, maybe, but mostly I was thinking about Atobe. I couldn't seem to stop thinking about how lonely he must have been today, sick in bed, alone, without even chocolate from his hundreds of female fans to comfort him, and how I sort of wished I could go over to his house and give him some of mine.

I'm still struggling with this, though… I mean, does that actually mean I love him? Or is it just some strange obsession?

I don't know. How can you tell if you love someone?

Love is… Well, I thought it was what I had with Yukimura. The way I admired him. The way I always wanted to be near him. The way I wanted to take care of him. The way I wanted to hold him and kiss him. The way it tingled in my ears every time he said he loved me. The way I constantly worried about him…

I would die for Yukimura. That's what love is, isn't it?

But I think I would die for Atobe, too…

Honestly, I can't find one single difference, at least not in the list I just gave. The only difference I can think of is that I've seemed to have more irrational urges to kiss Atobe. I suppose I had some of that with Yukimura… I guess the real difference, then, is that I don't know why I always feel like kissing Atobe.

I care about him. I've been worried about him. I want to be near him and take care of him; I want to hold him and never let go. And (if I'm being completely honest with myself) I'm ridiculously attracted to him. Not only that, but now that I've realized what a kind person he can be, I admire him deeply. What's left, really?

When I put it like that, I feel like I should have figured this out a while ago.

Like I said, though, I was forcing it back. The main reason was Yukimura, of course. He was right when he said I was stubborn. I had absolutely convinced myself that I could never be with anyone else. And I suffocated him that way. No… I suffocated both of us.

Another reason I didn't want to fall for Atobe, though, was probably because… Well, it's going to be hard. Being with someone who drives me this crazy, as opposed to someone I feel very comfortable with… I mean, I feel so much when it comes to Atobe. I feel so many different things, and so strongly, that sometimes being around him makes me feel like I'm going to explode. It's always been that way with him. I just never imagined it turning out this way.

I'm a little afraid, I guess.

No… I'm very afraid.

After everything that's happened with Yukimura, and how painful that was… I can't even imagine how much worse it would be with Atobe. Yukimura's a very good friend of mine, someone I've known for a long time and feel like I've known for even longer. Deep down, I knew that ending our relationship wasn't going to end our friendship. He'll always be there for me. And (again, if I'm completely honest) I wasn't that attached to the romantic side of our relationship anyway. I mostly just wanted to be close to him, and be able to let him know that I cared.

But with Atobe…

With Atobe, I've suddenly become crazy with greed. I want it all. I want him to give me everything. Or if he won't give it to me, I want to take it. I want to rip off that mask of his and dive into the deepest core of his inner being. I want to know everything about him: what he's feeling, what he's really thinking, what he wants. And yet I love the torture of it all, the way I'll probably never have him completely figured out, because there seems to be no end to him, at least if what I have been seeing in his eyes lately is any indication. And I want to give him everything in return. I want him to figure me out, to dig into my heart and see everything, until there's nothing else to know.

I don't even know what I'm saying anymore… I didn't know that all of these words were trapped inside of me.

But I'm scared…

What if, after all of that, after all of the torture and the pleasure and the taking and the digging and the giving… What if it didn't work out?

I can't do this. I am scared to death that he would leave me. After all the passion is quenched and dealt with, how do I know that there will be anything left? What if the "love" that we think we have for each other goes away, and all we're left with are our arguments?

I can't possibly imagine a more bitter break-up than the one Atobe and I would have.

I think I would jump in front of a train.

But does that maybe prove that we should be together?

Besides, listen to me; I'm skipping right to the breakup, before anything has even happened between us. I guess I'm just not much for the impulsive approach. I'm hesitant to jump into something as dangerous as this, when I have no clue what's going to happen.

I'm vaguely tempted to call Renji and ask him for advice.

But then again… Didn't Yukimura already talk to him?

Atobe just stirred a little in his sleep, and now I've lost my train of thought.

I love him. I really do. Since when, exactly? I don't know. Maybe it was sometime in the past few days. Maybe it was when he confessed to me, or when I saw him cry. Maybe it was when he let me stay over at his house. Or maybe it was when I tackled him into the snow and wanted to kiss him. For all I know, it was when I saw him again at the Latin concert in the beginning of January, when I tried so desperately to suppress the fact that I'd wanted to see him again, but proved that fact by spending more than a half an hour looking for him…

I don't know when it was. But it happened.

And here we are.

Here he is, in my bedroom, in my bed, sleeping. And here I am at his side, wishing that he's dreaming about me, which makes no sense at all, because I know that right now, he couldn't possibly have a single pleasant dream about me. I'm watching him sleep, praying he's comfortable, and feeling myself falling somehow deeper in love with him, now that I know what that feeling is.

I've been selfish.

I've only been thinking about what I want. I want to be with him… I want him to give me everything… What about wanting him to be happy? I want that, too. As I said before, I wish him all the happiness in the world. I told him he could have that if he found someone else, but the truth is, I can't stand the thought. When I went over to his house on Sunday, and asked him why he was acting like he didn't love me (or at least like nothing had ever happened), in all honesty I wanted him to say it again, even though I told myself I didn't. I could listen to that sound forever. "I love you, Sanada… No, I adore you…"

I've been such a hypocrite. I've been saying all this time that I want him to be happy, but I've been too scared to do anything about it. That's the problem with a lot of people, isn't it? They complain about what's wrong with the world, but they don't actually do anything about it themselves when they're the ones who could.

I could make Atobe happy. He doesn't have to be alone anymore.

He has me now.

And someone needs to tell him that when he wakes up.

真田弦一郎

Sanada Genichiroh

…

２月１５日木曜日

Thursday, February 15th

For the first time in my life, I truly believe that words have become insufficient to express my feelings. Up until this very moment, no matter what happened to me throughout the entire course of my existence, I have always had plenty of words to describe it. In fact, the only problem that I ever encountered in terms of expressing myself was knowing when to stop talking.

I suppose that if today were still yesterday, I would use a word like "happiness" to describe how I am currently feeling. I would probably go on to list some synonyms for that word, such as "joy" and "ecstasy" and maybe even "rapture," if I found myself getting particularly carried away. I would say things like "I feel as though I'm flying," and that "My heart is so full it might burst," and maybe even throw in some kind of extravagant and unnecessary metaphor, such as, "My soul is a rose, and it has finally opened up its petals to the world, bursting into full bloom in the sunlight."

But for the first time, these hackneyed clichés don't just feel like a bad movie script in desperate need of revision. No, they are simply unable to do justice to the true nature of this feeling. Even an excessive and melodramatic word like "rapture" sounds empty and cold, just a few small strokes scratched across a piece of paper, with no more significance or meaning then a blank page.

I suppose, in that case, that I will just have to stick to simple facts, as long as my words continue to fail me. After all, no matter how insufficient those words may be to describe it, I simply cannot survive another minute without giving some kind of expression to these frighteningly beautiful emotions that are taking root inside my heart. And above all else, I do not want to forget what has just happened to me, over the past twenty-four hours…

No, I want to remember it for the rest of my life.

By the time that I woke up yesterday, it was early in the afternoon, and my head was so clouded that I had almost forgotten why it took so long for me to fall asleep. But then I looked beside me, and there was the brand new journal still lying on my bed, and I remembered Sanada's letter and his kind apology and everything that had been on my mind the previous night. Just like that, all the frustration and confusion that I had felt came flooding over me, and I was filled once again with that completely ridiculous urge to see Sanada and ask him directly about it.

Even if I had decided that I had the courage to visit him, however, it didn't look as though I was going to be allowed out of the house. After my somewhat restless night, my fever had spiked again and my cough was worse, so the doctor said that I had clearly "overexerted" myself the previous day. (I'm not sure how simply going downstairs to have some tea during the afternoon could possibly be "overexerting" myself, but I digress.) So I had already resigned myself to another horribly dull day at home in bed, and I began to try to come up with new ways to distract myself.

I finally settled on the idea of reading a book for a while, but it was so uncomfortably silent in my room that I decided to turn on my sound system and set it to one of the quieter playlists. I sat there in my bed for nearly an hour, flipping through an 18th century German bildungsroman novel, with mostly classical music playing in the background. But suddenly, a different song came on over the speakers, a melody that attracted my attention before I even realized that I had noticed it. For a moment, I couldn't place the song, and so I couldn't understand why it had caught my ear by surprise. But then I remembered where it was from.

It was that tango song, the one from the concert.

It was the same song that Sanada and I had remembered so long ago, when we had been struggling to win our doubles match… The song that I had recognized during the concert in January, the one I couldn't get out of my head for days after seeing him again…

The song.

Our song.

At this point, of course, I completely forgot about the book in my hands. Instead, I lost myself in the memories of all the times that Sanada and I had met over the past year, whether by chance or by design, sometimes in the most unexpected places. I thought about all of the trivial conversations, the heated arguments, the rare smiles… It seemed to me almost as though the memories themselves were forming a kind of dance, each one of them a different step but united by a common rhythm.

The song neared its climax, and I thought of the frustration I had felt, when I had been sitting in that concert hall in January listening to this exact same tune. I had been horribly frustrated, because I had been convinced that something was going to happen, and yet the only thing that had actually followed the song was silence. I had stood outside in the snow, waiting for Sanada to appear, but we missed each other and the evening had ended in disappointment. Yes, the dance ended for that night, and there had been no applause.

But now that I was thinking back on it, that wasn't quite true. Yes, that evening had been inconclusive, a pause in that subtle dance of ours, and yet it hadn't ended, either. That was the same time that I had become so frustrated with the situation that I had decided to confront someone about it, so I drove all the way to Rikkai two days later and found out the truth of what happened from Sanada himself.

It was always like that between us, I reflected. Sometimes I would take the lead, and sometimes he would… But Sanada was the stronger one, the one keeping his feet on the floor when I would get carried away with my steps and become unbalanced. And I was the one who would finally take the initiative, in those long pauses that seemed as though they would last forever, in those moments when both of us thought that perhaps the song was finally over. But then I would take another step… I would show up at his school, I would walk up to him in the park, I would force him to come home with me, I would call him on a Thursday night and prepare to tell him the most frightening thing that I have ever said aloud…

Suddenly, something occurred to me. What about now? What about this moment, when I was claiming to be so frustrated by this terrible silence, these unanswered questions about the letter that was lying, half-forgotten, on my bed? What was I doing, just sitting here by myself, waiting for something to happen?

I was letting the pause continue.

It was my turn to take the lead again.

I don't know when I had come to believe that our strange dance had ended. But the truth was that it hadn't ended at all. It had come to the end of the song, perhaps, but Sanada wasn't letting go, and I had been refusing to respond to his subtle gestures, his ambiguous statements that had no clear meaning. Wasn't this confusing letter on my bed the undeniable proof of that fact? Wasn't he waiting for me to ask him about it, hoping that I would give him a chance to explain himself? I had never given him a chance, after all… I had turned my back on him, retreated into my room, and shut the door.

But as long as this letter sat here on my bed, our dance had not ended at all. This was the final pause, perhaps, before we came to the end… It was true that I didn't want it to end, and that I was afraid of slipping and falling down again, just like I did in the snow on Friday night. But a pause can't last forever; every dance has to come to an end, no matter how painful it may be.

And it was my turn to take another step.

One last dance for us both.

This was something of the rather surreal train of thought that was racing through my mind, while I got out of bed and hurried to get dressed. I knew that I had to go to Sanada's house now; there was no avoiding it any longer. I slipped the journal with the letter into my school bag, gave my chauffeur a call on my cell phone (who had no idea, of course, that I was still supposed to be in bed), and then glanced at my closed door before creeping back into the closet. My butler was probably in my front parlor again, in case I needed anything, so there was no point in taking the normal route out of my room.

Fortunately, there is a certain small passageway inside my closet, the one that the laundress uses to pick up my clothes. So I tiptoed through this opening and out into the hallway, trying my best to be as quiet as possible. I was somewhat worried that I would cough and alert any nearby servants to my activity, but I actually managed to make it all the way downstairs and out a side door without any trouble. Before I knew it, I was inside my limousine and on my way to Sanada's house.

I spent the whole ride with that same tango song stuck in my head, but instead of annoying me like it used to, it was almost comforting to have that tune playing inside my mind, urging me on to what I assumed would be the last of my interaction with Sanada Genichiroh. I took the journal out of my bag for part of the drive, glancing over it a few times to remind myself what I wanted to ask him. And as I remembered what had bothered me so much about it, I found myself getting almost angry in my confusion. What in the world did Sanada mean by any of this, anyway? He said that he was unworthy of me? At the very least, we were equals, but I knew better than that.

He is a wonderful person. I'm not stupid; I know when I've come across an inferior human being, and he is nothing like that at all. He is a strong, steady individual, the kind of person that you can always count on in every situation, and underneath that antisocial exterior of his, he has a vibrantly passionate and loving heart.

And he had dared to assert in this letter that I didn't really want him!

In any event, it took a long time to get to Sanada's house, and by the time I stepped out of my limousine, it finally occurred to me how reckless my behavior was. I may have wanted answers, but that didn't change the fact that I was showing up to Sanada Genichiroh's house uninvited, when my first visit there had been intimidating enough. And this time, it was almost twilight on a weekday, and there was no telling whether his whole family was there, or if they were already having dinner, or if Sanada was even home in the first place. And what was worse, I wasn't feeling well at all, and my cough was still causing me considerable discomfort. I certainly didn't want to start coughing in front of his relatives; that would have been terribly rude, and I was sure that it wouldn't leave a good impression on what I assumed must be a very strict family.

Still, I forced myself to walk up to the front door, even though my heart was pounding and I felt rather lightheaded. I stepped inside the entryway and took a deep breath before announcing myself, but even with that pause, I still could hear the nervousness in my voice. I only had to wait a brief moment, before I heard the very light sound of footsteps coming down the hall, and I was greeted by a beautiful middle-aged woman in a kimono. At first, this only made me more nervous; there was something in her dark eyes that was almost mysterious and was doing nothing to reassure me about my unexpected intrusion. But then she started talking, and there was something so soothing in her voice that I was finally able to breathe a bit easier.

She wished me a good evening, inquiring if there was something she could do for me. I suddenly realized that there was something strange about her, that she reminded me of someone else, but I still can't put a finger on who that could possibly be. In any case, I asked if her son was at home, assuming that she must have been Sanada's mother. She smiled at that, which gave me the distinct sensation that I had seen that same smile somewhere else, and then she turned and called down the hall, "Genichiroh! You have a visitor!"

I expected that Sanada would appear right away, but he didn't, which made me slightly more anxious. Sanada's mother then introduced herself, though I forget her name almost as soon as she said it, because my head was still so clouded. In any case, I tried to introduce myself as coherently as possible, bowing a little and giving her my name. She asked how I knew Sanada, so I told her that I played tennis for another school— Hyotei, if she had heard of it. She said that the name sounded familiar, but that her son didn't talk about tennis much, or rather that her son didn't talk much. (I found her hint of irony rather amusing, even in my more muddled state of mind.) She laughed a little, and I tried to laugh with her, but I really was starting to get nervous while I waited for Sanada to appear.

I started to try to explain that I had played doubles once with Sanada, in an attempt to explain a little better how I knew him. Unfortunately, that awful scratchy feeling in my throat suddenly worsened, and I started coughing in front of her. Needless to say, I was terribly embarrassed, but she immediately started expressing concern for me, saying that I sounded awful. I was trying to hold back the coughs, and asking her to excuse me, but she told me not to apologize and even put her hand to my forehead, remarking that I had a fever. She asked how I had caught such a horrible cold, and I was going to respond, but I had to pause for a moment…

In that moment, Sanada had appeared in the hallway.

He was wearing a yukata again, and his hair was wet, which slightly confused me. Still, I forced my eyes to look away, trying to stop myself from staring at him. I then told his mother that it was my own fault that I had caught a cold, because I had been waiting too long outside for… someone. (I certainly didn't want to get Sanada in trouble with his mother, just because I had been an idiot and waited so long for him.)

It was rather humorous, actually, because Sanada's mother responded to my explanation by exclaiming that it was "inconsiderate" for this someone to have kept me waiting, and wondering aloud who would have done "such a terrible thing." But then she noticed Sanada standing there, and she immediately asked her son what had taken him so long. It was really quite ironic, the way that she was taking out her mild anger for my predicament on her son, when he really was the one who had kept me waiting. She pulled him into the room, and he started apologizing, saying that he had been in the bath (which explained the wet hair). But she just shook her head, saying something about how he had his father's bad timing. It was almost strange, to see someone as intimidating as Sanada being treated like a clumsy son, but I suppose that everyone must play the role of a child to someone, after all.

Well, needless to say, I was getting very impatient to talk to him, and the way that my heart had started pounding when he came into the room wasn't making it any easier to focus. Sanada's mother started saying something about bringing me some tea, but I declined her offer as politely as I could. She seemed to take the hint very graciously, saying that she would leave the two of us alone in that case, and that I should ask Sanada if I wanted anything.

The instant that she started walking down the hall, Sanada turned around and started hurrying down another hallway. I was a bit surprised, but I scrambled after him, trying to keep up even in my lightheaded daze. He was saying something about "talking," but I didn't quite catch it. I was really starting to feel sick now; my body was aching again, and I could tell that my fever had risen since that morning. We came into another room, which I was quickly able to identify as Sanada's bedroom, and Sanada closed the door and turned around and faced me. I stopped breathing for a moment; being alone with him inside an enclosed space was making me feel even dizzier than I already was.

But then I forced myself to remember why I was there, to take that next step, to ask him what that letter really meant. And so I was ready, when he asked in a surprisingly quiet voice what I was doing at his house. I reached into my bag and pulled out the journal that he had given me, and as I did, all of that frustrating confusion spilled right out of my lips. I waved the journal in front of him, demanding to know what in the world it meant. He seemed almost relieved, and he asked rather gently if I had read it. Well, this was just getting strange, at least from my point of view… Here I was, being so irritable with him, but Sanada was being so calm, not taking the slightest offense at my frustrated tone.

It occurred to me, for a brief instant, that this was the same Sanada who had written me such a kind and generous letter.

Still, as I said before, I was irritated, and it was becoming even more inconceivable by the minute that he could think that he was beneath me. So I told him that yes, I had read it, and that it was the most ridiculous thing that he had ever said to me, which I still think is the truth. And I demanded to know how he could believe a word of what he had written. He asked me what I meant, so I tried to open up to the letter, but my fingers were barely working… I was practically shaking, but I forced my hands to pry open the cover, and then my eyes skimmed quickly over the words. I pointed out that he had written that he didn't deserve me, and that I would be settling for him, and that I would be happier without him…

He confirmed that he had meant every word of it.

To be honest, I was appalled. Looking into his eyes, there wasn't even a hint of deceit in them; instead, they were filled with a warm sincerity that I had never seen before. But how could he possibly believe such things? I asked him rather bluntly if he thought I was stupid enough to fall in love with someone who didn't deserve me. I suppose it wasn't a very logical comment, but I would still like to think that I wouldn't lose my heart to someone despicable, and anyway, my thought process was becoming even more muddled by the second… He then calmly pointed out that I couldn't control who I fell in love with, and then I knew that I was in trouble, because he was starting to be the voice of reason in this conversation, which was just completely unprecedented.

I tried to stammer out something about how it simply couldn't be true, and that I wasn't stupid at all, but it seemed as though the entire room had started to spin, and that some sort of heavy darkness was pressing in and weighing down on my head…

Apparently, I passed out in Sanada Genichiroh's bedroom.

The next thing that I knew, my eyes had opened halfway, and I was staring rather fuzzily at a completely unfamiliar ceiling. There was some kind of slight rustling noise in the room, and I moaned out Sanada's name, not even thinking about what I was doing. Much to my shock, I then heard Sanada's voice quietly saying my name in response. Just like that, I remembered where I was, and I tried to sit up in bed but only managed to come up halfway on one elbow in my haste. I immediately started asking what had happened, and what time it was, because it had become very dark.

I then saw Sanada kneeling next to me, and I felt his hands pressing gently against my shoulders, helping me lie back down again. He told me in his deep voice that it was eleven o'clock, and that I had passed out while we were talking and that he had decided to let me sleep for a while. Apparently, he had even told the chauffeur to come back tomorrow, so I asked in my confusion if I was spending the night, which he immediately confirmed. He then told me I wasn't allowed to argue with him, but the truth was that I was so bewildered and disoriented by all of this that I couldn't possibly have objected.

After all, here I was, lying on a futon on the floor of Sanada Genichiroh's bedroom, with Sanada himself hovering over me like some kind of guardian angel, when I could have sworn upon my life that he cared no more for me than he did for a speck of dust.

While I was still trying to comprehend this, Sanada walked over to a drawer and took something out, coming back over and handing it to me. It was a powder blue nemaki, one of those traditional Japanese robes for sleeping. He told me to change into it, saying that it would probably be more comfortable for me, but he warned me to try to avoid standing up, because he didn't want me to "get dizzy and fall over again." (I have to admit, this makes me wonder… I certainly didn't feel sore, which I would have expected to be if I really had fallen down onto the ground. Does that mean that Sanada caught me when I passed out?)

He then left the room, saying that he would get some medicine and make me some tea. I followed his orders and changed out of my own clothes, which was somewhat challenging, but after that, it was comparatively easy to slip into the Japanese robe. And I have to admit that I felt much better, being out of my own clothes which had been extremely hot and sweaty from the fever, and now draped in this cool, airy fabric that fell loosely across my skin.

Before long, Sanada had come back into the room again, holding several things in his arms. He knelt beside me again, handing me a glass of cold water, while he measured out some medicine for the fever and helped me take to it. He also helped me drink some of the tea that he had made; it was slightly sweet and very fragrant, and it was so soothing that I have to assume it was some kind of special homemade recipe to help a person fall asleep.

I think it was about this time that I started to feel rather choked up, not from my cold but rather a sudden and aching feeling of gratitude, that he was doing all of this for someone like me. After all, I'm not used to being taken care of by anyone, unless it's a person on my father's payroll and that happens to be a part of their job description. It was one of the warmest, sweetest things that I had ever felt in my whole life. I wanted to thank him, but somehow my mouth just couldn't form the words.

In the meantime, he had helped me to lie back down again, and he draped a cold washcloth over my forehead and helped me pull the blankets back over my chest. He asked me if I needed anything else, but I couldn't think of a single thing in the world that I wanted in that moment, so I said no. But then he started to pick up his alarm clock and a change of clothes, which confused me, so I asked him where he was going. He told me that he was going to sleep in the living room.

Instantly, I was filled with a rush of guilt… Somehow, it hadn't occurred to me that I was sleeping in his bed, keeping him out of his room. I tried to sit up again, saying that I refused to throw him out of his room just because I had passed out in his house, but he kneeled next to me and put a finger to my lips. I was so surprised that I fell silent, as he reassured me that it was "no big deal" and told me to try to go to sleep. I couldn't help sighing a little; he really was being so terribly kind, and I just couldn't understand why. It almost seemed like I must have been dreaming.

At that point, I simply couldn't help asking him why he was being so kind to me, but he just gave me that beautiful smile of his and reminded me that he "owed" me. And then I remembered the whole incident at my house, when I told him to spend the night because he had looked too exhausted and heartbroken to make it home. I was almost disappointed; that was such a logical answer, and I should have thought of it in the first place. Still, I couldn't help wishing that the real reason for his behavior was that he cared about me, but I already knew that was impossible…

Sanada Genichiroh taught me to believe in the impossible.

He seemed to notice my disappointment, and then suddenly, without any warning, he leaned in and kissed me lightly on the forehead, wishing me sweet dreams. I was almost too shocked to feel the instant flutter in my chest, that beautiful feeling that came over me at the slightest touch from his lips… I sat straight up in bed, staring at him as he tried to leave, as I desperately demanded to know "what that was for."

He stopped in the middle of the doorway and asked what I meant, but I was so stunned that I couldn't even begin to guess why he didn't know what I was talking about. So I just asked him very bluntly why he had kissed me like that. He was looking at me, but not really responding, and there was a strange expression on his face that I couldn't read at all. I was trying desperately to understand it… I needed to understand it…

So I pointed out that he didn't have any feelings for me at all.

… Did he?

I simply couldn't help asking him.

He sighed and came back over to me, telling me that I shouldn't strain myself. And he kneeled again, saying something about how I "needed my rest" and should "go back to sleep." Needless to say, I was getting extremely frustrated; I had the distinct sensation that this was some kind of game that he was playing, and I wasn't in on the joke. So out of sheer desperation, I grabbed his robe and told him to be direct with me, told him that I needed to know the truth. He cracked another smile, and then he gave me his answer.

I was being completely honest; I really did need to know the truth. But in retrospect, I'm not certain that I was ready for the answer that he gave.

I wasn't prepared for my life to change forever.

It is just like Sanada to avoid responding with words, whenever he can. And he didn't bother to use a single word in this case. They say that actions speak louder than words, of course, and it's an overused cliché that gets applied to all sorts of irrelevant situations. But I can safely say that in this instance, it was an understatement.

Sanada's kiss against my lips was the most powerful statement that I have ever heard.

He had pulled me into his arms, and his lips were pressed firmly against my own, in an unmistakable expression of passion and longing. I had already dreamed of feeling Sanada's lips against mine, shortly after that incident where he fell on top of me in the snow, and I had firmly believed that no real feeling on earth could be more pleasurable than that. But my dream was like a flimsy shadow compared to the real thing, to that moist warmth hanging on his lips, to the intoxicatingly smooth motion of his mouth pushing firmly against my own. It was so powerful that I almost started to believe that I was drunk, and by the time that he pulled away, my head felt as though it was floating somewhere above the ceiling.

Sanada asked me if I was alright, but I was starting to feel rather dizzy again. So I told him that I was fine, but that I needed to lie down. I think he expected me to simply fall back down onto the bed like a well-behaved invalid, but to be perfectly honest, that kiss had made me feel quite capable of being wicked. So I pulled him down on top of me and continued to kiss him, as though tomorrow didn't exist, or at the very least that it didn't matter. In many ways, though, it really didn't matter at all…

How could tomorrow possibly matter, when I had Sanada Genichiroh's lips against my mouth?

I don't have the slightest idea how long we were lying on the floor like that, kissing each other again and again. I wish I had the words to describe all of the things that I was feeling in those moments, with the overpowering knowledge that Sanada not only cared for me, but that he reciprocated all of my love for him. I believe that I did wonder, for a split second, just when he had fallen for me, but it was a question that paled in significance compared to the answers that his lips were already giving. And even the most profound of those answers were unimportant, compared to the indescribable feeling of at last finding someone who was not only worthy of my affections, but also loved me in return.

How can I describe the feeling of having your love reciprocated, after part of you has started to believe that such a thing is impossible?

It is like the entire world being turned upside down, and before you know it, you find yourself falling headfirst into heaven.

The kissing was over all too quickly, despite the fact that it also seemed like it lasted forever… Sanada was the one who pulled away, insisting that I needed to go to sleep (I suppose it was out of concern for my condition, but at that point I could have died happy, for all I cared). He gave me one last kiss on the lips, brief this time, but just as sweet as the others, and then he told me goodnight. Now that the rush of excitement was over, I couldn't help feeling a profound sense of disbelief, and I started to wonder if I was really just dreaming all of this up, somewhere inside my head… But I told him goodnight as well, and then a drowsy feeling of exhaustion came over me. I must have fallen asleep almost instantly after that.

I don't remember any of my dreams, but I woke up this morning with the distinct feeling that I had experienced nothing but pleasant ones for the past nine hours. My fever has finally broken, and I don't feel the slightest bit dizzy anymore, though I still have a cough. And so here I am, sitting in Sanada Genichiroh's bedroom, writing all of this down and still half-believing that I am simply going to wake up and find out that this was all one long, continuous dream, full of dreams within dreams. At first, I had decided that most of it couldn't have been a dream, since I am after all still in Sanada's room. So I concluded that I simply must have imagined the part where we were kissing, when I found out that he loved me. It had been so unexpected, after all, and he had surely left for school already, so I had no way of asking him whether or not it had really happened.

But when I walked over to my bag to take out my journal, so that I could try to write all of this down, I opened it up, only to have a separate piece of paper fall down to the floor. I instantly picked it up and read it, and this small piece of paper disproved my assumption that I must have dreamt up the most wonderful part of yesterday. And so I will enclose this tiny note after my entry, as proof to myself that dreams can fuse with reality, and that sometimes, despite every indication to the contrary, the impossible can still happen, in sheer defiance of the mundane.

I wanted to write some terribly eloquent entry about all of this, something that could convey all of the things that I am feeling, as I sit enveloped in the warmth of Sanada's bedroom and wait for him to come home. Still, I have been finding myself decidedly incapable of the task. There are no words for the indescribable, and there is a profound reason that writers and poets and artists have struggled for centuries to explain the very same emotion that I am feeling. So I will not try to do it any longer. Instead, I will return to one of the thoughts that I had, before any of this had happened, before my life had been changed for good…

I said something toward the beginning of this entry, about how I believed that my relationship with Sanada Genichiroh was like a dance, and that through all of our turbulent interaction together, we have been dancing to a song that we have heard playing through our minds, in a passionate, rhythmic tango. Step by step, we have danced through our initial indifference, then past a feeling almost akin to disgust, then a passionate dislike, and finally coming through that angry hatred to more confusing, contradictory feelings.

At times, though, that dance has felt more like a play, especially in the past month, when so much of our interaction was staged by two ambitious directors who apparently saw some sort of spark there that was invisible to us. And they nurtured that spark into a brilliant flash of light, something that I was forced to acknowledge, even as Sanada insisted on going through his lines with his eyes closed. But when Tezuka handed me the script to my most important scene, the one in the snow on a Friday night, I was convinced that it was the final climax to a tragedy. There seemed to be some kind of encore, though, some sort of last scene that needed to be played out, because the light had not been extinguished and the curtain would not come down, though I waited for it to do so for nearly five days after my tragedy had been concluded.

As it turned out, I have been acting the whole time in a romantic comedy, and someone simply forgot to give me the script for the finale.

I said near the beginning of this entry that when I decided to come here, I had assumed that yesterday evening was to be my last dance with Sanada Genichiroh. The strange thing is that I have been saying all along that every interaction with him would probably be my last, at least for a while, and yet that has never once been the case. And now he has given me the most unexpected surprise of all, in hinting that he would not only like to keep dancing this strange dance with me, but that he would rather call me his partner as we keep stepping awkwardly through life.

And so, with the happy reassurance that the note inside this journal has given me, that I did not imagine his request or exaggerate these events, I can conclude my thoughts for now, as incredible as they may be. And I may say this one final thing with confidence, no matter how unforeseeable the rest of our future still remains…

Our dance has only just begun.

Sincerely,

Atobe Keigo

跡部景吾

…

"Keigo-

I love you.

-Genichiroh"

…

The End.

---

Authors' Note: That's the last chapter of Ice Breaker! We hope you enjoyed it! But we also wanted to let you know that there will be an epilogue, so stay tuned for one final part to this story. (It's going to be dedicated to all you Tango Pair lovers out there, since we figured you wanted a glimpse into their actual relationship, right?) We hope you'll look forward to it! Thanks for reading.