radio star

vii. a means to forget

"All right. Tomorrow around five, then? No one will be in the studio lot at that time because I'm scheduled to be somewhere else, so you shouldn't have to worry about any photographers smashing your nose in again," Syaoran said into his phone, smirking.

"Thanks for your concern," Sakura muttered sarcastically. "Tomorrow around five, it is."

Without saying goodbye, she hung up, and Syaoran stared at his phone in surprise before laughing to himself. It was rare that anyone besides Meiling found the nerve to hang up on him.

He went back over the conversation in his head and realized how bizarre it sounded that he had willingly agreed to meet up with a paparazzo so she could shoot photographs of him, but at least they would be ones he would willingly take, he thought.

Of course, though, that wasn't the real reason he'd agreed to it.

A very firm no had been on the tip of his tongue, and then in a sudden two-second moment of deliberation, he'd remembered how oddly comforting her presence had been. It had been such a nice distraction to be with her all day—it had made him forget, for the first time since the scandal had occurred, the burdens of his stardom. He couldn't quite place why that was—perhaps it was her normalcy, in spite of the intrusive job she'd taken on. He wanted to feel that again. He ached for it. So, he'd said yes.

Now, he just had to figure out how he was going to tell Meiling. She would murder him... And then possibly bring him back to life just so she could murder him once more.


Sakura put down the phone, feeling dazed as Tomoyo stared at her in shock.

"Sakura, did you just hang up on Syoaran Li?"

She laughed. "I think I just did. He hasn't called me back to cancel on me, though, so I guess he can't be too angry." Her tone grew defensive. "But he totally deserved it! Just because he's famous doesn't mean he can be a jerk to me!"

"It sounded more like he was teasing you," Tomoyo said, and then she gasped. "Syaoran Li was teasing you! Oh my God, Sakura, it's like you guys are best friends!"

Sakura laughed again, shaking her head. "Would you stop it? I hardly know the guy. I've just run into him a couple of times. And quit calling him 'Syaoran Li.' It's weird."

"What else am I supposed to call him? That's his name."

"Yeah, but isn't it unnecessary to call him by his full name? You don't run around calling me Sakura Kinomoto."

"Yeah, but we're best friends. He's a celebrity. I can't just call him by his first name, or—"

"Or what, the police will arrest you?" Sakura teased, sticking out her tongue. She grinned. "Let's just drop it and watch the movie, okay? I'll tell you all about it tomorrow after I'm home. I promise."

"You call me first thing," Tomoyo said, pointing a finger at Sakura.

"All right, all right."

As the movie began to play again, Sakura found it difficult to concentrate. It was bizarre watching Syaoran on the screen and knowing that she'd be meeting with this same person again tomorrow. She wondered what had driven him to say yes. Plenty of people had called her strange, but she wondered what they'd all say if she told them that she didn't hold a candle to Syaoran Li in terms of strangeness.


"A paparazzo? You sure are full of surprises." Eriol chuckled, setting his coffee mug down and watching his friend from across his desk.

"What, are you gonna tell on me?" Syaoran responded, his chin in his hand.

Syaoran had called Eriol immediately following his call to Sakura, as his schedule had dictated that he would be at the Hiiragizawa Publications building at 5:30 the next evening. Eriol had told him to come by since he was working late, so Syaoran had picked up dinner for the both of them and let himself into the building. Syaoran had explained the situation, figuring it'd be better to do so in person than to relay it through Meiling—he still didn't know what he was going to tell her—and Eriol had reacted with amusement more than anything else. Syaoran looked around. He hadn't been to his friend's office for non-business purposes in a very long time. He felt his shoulders relax a little.

"Of course not," Eriol shrugged. "I'll just tell Meiling that I couldn't make the appointment. With how busy I am lately, it's not really unbelievable."

Syaoran nodded. "Yeah, Meiling tells me you've got a lot on your plate."

Eriol snorted. "Understatement. I think Father is getting ready to hand the company down to me in a few years, so a lot of the major work is starting to come to me instead of him. And some of these people I'm working with, I've gotta tell you—you have no idea how full of themselves they are—"

"Do you remember the industry I work for?" Syaoran said, raising an eyebrow. "I have more than an idea."

"Ah. Somehow, I forget that you're the country's most famous singer sometimes," Eriol said, smiling. "But, back to the topic. I'm curious. You know I'm not letting you walk out with just that little explanation. Who is she?"

Syaoran sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I don't know, some inexperienced paparazzo who I've managed to spend an already absurd amount of time with lately. My life was already bizarre before, but this just takes it to new levels, really." He proceeded to explain how Sakura had first approached him and their following encounter and trip to the hospital.

Eriol had to wipe tears of laughter from his eyes as Syaoran finished his story. "This is crazy. You can't write this kind of stuff. What the hell are you thinking? You know Meiling would kill you if she found out what you were doing tomorrow instead, right?"

Syaoran glared at Eriol, and then averted his gaze to the ceiling in a manner resembling an eyeroll. He drummed his fingers on the surface of the desk, agitated. "I know it's weird," he finally mumbled. "And I know it's stupid. But it was one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions... I was about to tell her no."

Eriol tried to decide whether or not he was surprised as he watched Syaoran struggle for an explanation.

It wasn't quite that Syaoran was doing something crazy that surprised Eriol so much. Syaoran had been in a weird place for the last few months, thanks mainly to the scandal that had erupted in his life. Losing Mizuki had only fueled this strange suffocation that had settled over his life, Eriol thought. Syaoran had always known how to deal with the storm that was his immense fame, for he had spent most of his life in the spotlight; but Eriol's observation was that Syaoran only managed to weather this storm. When Mizuki had become his support system, he had conquered it. And now that she was gone—and since she had left in the manner that she had, scandal and all—he was ready to sink.

Eriol knew Syaoran best out of anyone, save, perhaps, for Meiling; and despite the cool, collected front that Syaoran was so adept at keeping up, Eriol could see when his friend was struggling. And he had been struggling for months now, so desperate measures weren't completely out of the question.

What surprised Eriol the most was the act itself. Syaoran hated the paparazzi. After all, they contributed most significantly to the problems in his life. So what was it about this one paparazzo in particular? Granted, she didn't sound menacing, or even intrusive, which was odd. Syaoran had said, a smirk on his face, that she was new to her job and that she seemed like she had no idea what she was doing. But still—he had never been one to waste his time on people like that. He was a pragmatist. Eriol couldn't figure it out.

"There's something really funny about her," Syaoran finally said, shrugging.

"That's all you could come up with?" Eriol said, amused and disappointed all at once.

"I don't know. This is going to sound really dumb, but yesterday, when I spent the day with her, I barely thought about any of this shit that's been going on at all. It was a relief. Like a headache that subsided temporarily, or something." Syaoran grinned slightly to himself. "Although, I guess she has the kind of personality to start another headache altogether."

Eriol laughed.

There it was. She was a means to forget. How could he say no to something like that? Syaoran had been plagued by his fame all his life, and recently more than usual; it was the irony of ironies, but somehow, this paparazzo took his mind off of that, and although Eriol was curious as to how, he figured he'd get the details eventually.

"All right. You have my word. I'll call Meiling after you leave to cancel. If she finds out I was in on this, though, she's going to come in and decapitate me or something equally scary..." Eriol shuddered at the thought of being on Meiling's bad side.

Syaoran grinned. "Don't worry. She won't find out." Syaoran closed his now-empty dinner to-go box and tossed it in Eriol's trash bin. He stood up, and with a wave, turned around to leave.

"You owe me one," Eriol called, smiling as he returned to his paperwork.

"Not a problem," Syaoran responded, not turning around to say goodbye.


Sakura watched her reflection in the mirror as she tied up her hair. Straightening her blouse and glancing over herself once more, she nodded before she grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

Time to go meet Syaoran Li again.

It was a strange thought, one that she'd never have predicted she would have the opportunity to think. Even after their first encounter, she wouldn't have guessed that she'd be able to claim that she'd spent this much time with someone so famous.

She also couldn't have guessed that she'd be able to say much about his character, either, but in spite of his ego and his slight jerk complex, Sakura actually found that she was strangely at ease with this person. She'd never been one to be blinded by fame, so perhaps that was why, but she had always been certain that she wouldn't be able to act so carefree around someone of Syaoran's celebrity. It was a relief, though; work felt much less like work when it was this way.

As she got off of the bus and headed towards the recording studio across the street, Sakura looked around; Syaoran had been right. The streets were empty save for a few passing cars and several innocent bystanders walking around in the distance; the scene looked vastly different from the sidewalk that had swarmed with paparazzi only two days before. Walking around to the back of the building, Sakura bit her lip as she scrolled to Syaoran's number and hit call.

(As much as she had reprimanded Tomoyo for being so starstruck, Sakura had decided to erase Syaoran's number from her phone as "Syaoran Li," for having his name in her phone as a contact was too strange of a concept to her. As a result, she had simply changed his contact name to "Strange Man," which was a true enough description of him. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, she'd figured.)

"Hello?"

"Hi. I'm here," Sakura said into the phone, glancing around. She felt ridiculous for being so paranoid, but if there were any other paparazzo around, her personal life would pretty much go to hell.

"Be right down."

Within moments, Syaoran had opened the door in front of her, and Sakura had to restrain herself from laughing as he did the exact same thing, poking his head around to see if anyone else was in the vicinity before stepping out entirely.

"How are you?" Sakura said, and then she reflexively wondered to herself if it was strange to be asking him something like that.

Quit, she told herself. You've said plenty of times to Tomoyo that he's no different from the rest of us just because he's a celebrity.

"I'm all right," Syaoran said, shrugging and lacing his fingers behind his head. "You? How's your nose?"

Sakura sighed. She'd never live that one down, would she? "It's fine. I don't feel a thing anymore. I really do owe you for everything, even today—"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's not a big deal," Syaoran said, waving it off. He put his hands on his hips, looking around as he thought. "So, let's figure out how we're gonna do this."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at the interruption, but figuring she'd voiced her gratitude enough for him to get the message, she shrugged and moved along. "I guess it wouldn't make sense if I took photos of you inside the studio, since paparazzi don't have access inside the building..."

Syaoran nodded. "How many shots do you need?"

"As many as I can get." Sakura was still perplexed in the back of her mind as to why he was even letting her do this. As much as she hated to admit it, she was incredibly curious. From what she'd read, he was a notoriously private celebrity. Wasn't this a little out of character for him?

Syaoran nodded. "All right. Here's the plan."

The next half-hour was spent, for only the second time in both Syaoran's and Sakura's lives, taking a staged set of paparazzi photos. Syaoran had sent Sakura across the street from the parking lot to make the distance of the photos look more stealthy and convincing, and then he'd proceeded to get in his car, as though he'd just arrived at the studio. As soon as the car door opened, Sakura began to snap pictures, and she'd giggled as he moved with exaggerated slowness to allow her to get better pictures. At the point where he moved his hands in slow motion to take his sunglasses off of his face, Sakura lost it, laughing hysterically, and hearing her from across the street, Syaoran had broken down and grinned as well.

"Wait, wait," Sakura called, looking at the screen on her camera, as he began to move in slow motion across the parking lot. "We might have to retake a couple of the ones after you take off your sunglasses."

"Why?"

"You're smiling in like, all of these! Wouldn't that look suspicious?"

Syaoran frowned, looking over at her. "What if I just happened to be in a really good mood or something?"

"No offense, but I've had to see a lot of candids of you out and about in my work, and I've never seen one of you smiling," Sakura called back.

Syaoran was flabbergasted at her confession, but then he sighed. It shouldn't have come as a surprise; Meiling was always getting onto him about looking so surly all the time. But really, he couldn't help it if he hated the intrusion of privacy. That was certainly nothing to smile about. He groaned. "Whatever," he shouted back across the street. "We're going to start a new trend, then. I refuse to take those over. I feel stupid enough as it is doing this."

Sakura laughed, and then she shrugged, raising the camera back up as Syaoran continued his zombie-like walk across the parking lot. "Whatever you say."


"Oh, God. These are ridiculous," Syaoran said, holding Sakura's camera in his hand as he looked over the pictures.

Even so, a grin flitted across his lips again, and as Sakura watched him, she truly understood for the first time why the country was so enamored with him. Indeed, she wouldn't ever deny that he was incredibly talented and charismatic, and she'd thought from the start that he was definitely attractive in a conventional way, but it was when he smiled that she saw his true appeal. It added something bright, soft, to the strong bone structure of his face, making his eyes light up with an almost orange glow.

Come to think of it, she thought, I haven't really seen him smile much in person, either. It suits him.

Syaoran handed the camera back to her, snapping her out of her thoughts. He stretched before looking at his watch. "Man, I really was planning on getting some work done. We took a little longer than I thought we would."

"Ah. Sorry about that," Sakura mumbled.

"Don't worry about it. Are you hungry?"

Sakura looked up at him, perplexed. "Er... A little, I guess—why?"

"I'm starving. We probably can't go anywhere to eat without getting photographed, but you can come in. There's a small kitchen downstairs. I can make us ramen."

Sakura held up a hand, about to refuse—there was something confusing about spending time with Syaoran, although she enjoyed it, and confusion, particularly over someone incredibly famous, was the last thing she needed at the moment. Unfortunately, though, her stomach beat her mouth, and its low growl indicated that she should say yes.

"Sure, why not?" Sakura sighed, although she could probably have fired off ten answers to that question, and she followed him inside.

Conversation between them was surprisingly easy as Syaoran stood at the stove, making ramen, and Sakura sat at the little table in the kitchen. Both refrained from asking anything too personal, but through the conversation, Sakura found Syaoran to be quite grounded for a celebrity, and Syaoran, as he'd predicted, once again found himself forgetting his troubles as an unfamiliar ease settled over him.

"All right," Syaoran said, carrying the pot of ramen over to the table and setting two bowls out in front of them. He tossed her a pair of wooden chopsticks across the table, lifting his chin a little. "Eat up."

Sakura stared at him in surprise, not even bothering to reach out to grab the chopsticks, which fell on the floor.

She felt a pair of arms slide around her waist from behind and she squealed, turning around to see laughter in his eyes.

"Dinner's ready," he said, grinning at her reaction.

"It was my turn to cook today, you know—"

"Whatever, you have yet to taste my delicious—"

"Two-minute ramen?" she finished teasingly.

"Ten-minute," he corrected, steering her over to the table and sitting her in a chair. "Besides, its delicious."

Grabbing a pair of chopsticks, he tossed them at her across the table, lifting his chin slightly. "Eat up!"

"Honestly," she laughed, "do you have to throw them at me every time? You might poke an eye out one day."

Before she could begin to eat, he stood up, walked over to her side, and held her face in his hands before kissing both of her eyelids.

"I love you."

It was the first time in all her life she'd ever heard words so tender spoken to her like that.

"Sakura?" Syaoran frowned, walking over and grabbing the pair of chopsticks and handing them to her. "Are you all right?"

Sakura shook her head to clear it, blinking a few times. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, smiling. "Sorry, I just got caught up in a memory."

"You picked a random time for it," Syaoran mused, sitting back down in his own chair.

Sakura laughed. "Yeah." She looked at the pot of ramen before her. She wasn't particularly hungry anymore, but she put some in her bowl anyway. "Thank you, this looks great."


Syaoran frowned as he watched Sakura, who was scrolling through pictures on her camera on the sofa across from him.

She had been about to leave after dinner, and Syaoran had originally held no intentions of keeping her there any longer, but he'd changed his mind. Her mood had changed so abruptly that it had startled him, and she'd been uncomfortably quiet for almost the entire meal. He wondered if it had been something he'd done. It didn't particularly affect him one way or another if she was upset about something, but it was bothersome to Syaoran in that she was no longer the lively presence he'd been seeking out.

So, he'd asked her if she wanted to stay for coffee, or maybe some tea, and with a slightly surprised expression, she'd merely nodded and followed him upstairs to the same room where he'd taken her when she had hurt her nose.

He didn't want to pry, but it was eating at him. They'd only met a few times, but he had never seen her like this before. It was unsettling. He sighed, figuring there was no harm in asking.

"Is something bothering you?"

Sakura looked up from her camera. "Hm?"

Syaoran shrugged. "It seems like something about you is... I don't know, off, I guess."

Sakura felt her eyebrows rise at his perceptiveness, but she quickly laughed it off, setting the camera down on the coffee table and reaching instead for the cup of tea that Syaoran had poured for her earlier. "You hardly know me. How can you know if something is off about me?"

"Call it intuition, or maybe since the last two times I've met you, you were a chatterbox. You've just been awfully quiet, ever since dinner."

Sakura shrugged. "Nothing's wrong."

Of course something was wrong, but who was she to open up to a complete stranger, and a celebrity, at that? She was acutely aware of how he was watching her unabashedly, his legs propped up on the coffee table and his torso draped over the sofa. Why was he so observant? Weren't celebrities supposed to be completely self-absorbed?

Eventually, it became too much to bear, and she sighed.

"Okay. You're right, something's been bugging me. So what? What are you going to do about it?" Sakura didn't mean for her words to come out as hostile as they did.

"I could listen. And if I'm warranted, maybe I could offer you advice."

"It's silly," Sakura muttered.

"Try me." Syaoran crossed his arms, his gaze on her unwavering.

Sakura looked down at the cup of tea in her hands, wondering for a moment where she should start.

"Well, I have this ex... We dated for three years, through most of my college career. We broke up about a year ago and stopped talking almost half a year ago, and—" Sakura glanced up at Syaoran, and she found her confidence wilting under his watch once more. "I've just been thinking about him, that's all," she finished softly.

Syaoran shrugged. "I know that's not the whole story. If you're not comfortable telling me, it's okay. But," he said, meeting her eyes dead-on, "you should know that I've seen and heard a lot of ridiculous things in my lifetime. I wouldn't judge you for anything."

Sakura bit her lip. Of course she wanted to vent; it wasn't in her nature to keep things bottled up. And his presence was oddly soothing despite the idea that his celebrity should have been intimidating. But was she really about to divulge one of the most personal parts of her past to a stranger?

Are we really strangers, though? We're almost acting like friends.

Really, what could it hurt?

Sakura set the tea down on the coffee table and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She sighed and looked up at him. "You promise you won't tell anyone?"

Syaoran rolled his eyes. "Actually, I was planning on running to the tabloids and telling them everything," he said. "You're the gossip columnist here, remember? You have my word."

Sakura flushed, but she appreciated his promise all the same. Nodding to herself, she began to continue where she'd left off. "We broke up a few days after I graduated college. I guess it made sense—we were going separate ways and we wanted different things. But we still kept in touch, because we said we were best friends and that nothing would change that."

Syaoran scoffed, and rather than getting offended, Sakura smiled ruefully. "I know. It was silly of me to think it could be like that."

Syaoran held back his surprise at her reaction, watching her more carefully now. What had happened to make her so remorseful, he wondered?

"Anyway," Sakura continued, "I was still very much in love with him when things ended. So of course talking to him as a friend meant a lot more to me." She paused, her brow furrowing, as she looked off to the side. "I'm not really sure what it meant to him. And now, I even wonder what his motives were."

"Is he the one who broke up with you?"

Sakura nodded.

Syaoran's jaw visibly hardened before he spoke again. "It's almost always harder for the person who got left behind."

Sakura remembered then that he'd had his own share of heartbreak, and that he'd had to weather it in front of the whole world. It suddenly seemed easier to tell him her story.

"You're probably right. I'm positive it was easier for him. I'm sure that he thought about getting back together every once in awhile, but for me, it was different. Every night that we talked, I had to wrestle with my hopes, trying to quell them because I had to stop myself from thinking things would go back to the way they'd been."

She sighed shakily, and she widened her eyes, feeling silly that she could tear up about something that had happened so long ago. "We were from the same hometown. So a few months after we'd broken up, when we both went home to visit for the holidays, we decided it'd be okay to see each other."

Syaoran knew where this was going. He resisted the urge to say anything and waited for her to continue.

"We spent a lot of nights together over that period. I feel so bad for him, he must have felt so awkward," she said, laughing, although her laughter didn't sound quite right. "A lot of times, we'd be lying in bed and I would just start crying because I didn't know what to do. I wanted him to come back to me for good. He called it 'being friends,' but it fucked with my mind so much. I just wanted his full devotion again."

She shook her head. "It was so stupid of me," she muttered. "I should have known I was asking for too much."

A period of silence followed as Sakura stared at the floor, her gaze cast downward, lost in her own thoughts and nearly forgetting Syaoran was even there.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

"Hm?" She raised her head, drawn back out of the confines of her mind. Her tone was careful—pleasant, almost—when she continued. "Oh, right. Well, we talked about it a lot. He told me he wasn't certain what he wanted anymore, because before he had seen me again, he had been so sure that he didn't want to be with me. But now that he'd spent time with me, he didn't know—because he realized he still loved me, he said. And God, how excited I was to hear that, you have no idea. I'm pretty sure that's the closest my heart has ever come to exploding," she said, smiling a little at the thought of it. "Our last night before we both had to leave town again, I told him that I'd made clear what I wanted from him, and that it was up to him. I promised him I'd be fine either way. I told him I'd give him some time to think about it... So he kissed me good night, and the next morning, I left town." She wrinkled her nose, finally looking back up at Syaoran. "This is the part I absolutely hate telling, because this is the part where I sound like the biggest idiot."

Syaoran said nothing, but his expression was mild, open. It was enough for Sakura, somehow.

"For weeks after I came back to Tokyo, I called him and texted him, keeping up this pretense of friendship, always hoping he'd tell me that he'd finally come to a decision—even if it meant that he had decided not to be with me, after all. But I never heard. And so finally, one night," she said, her voice suddenly dropping in volume, "I called him and asked him. I told him I just couldn't wait anymore."

Syaoran pursed his lips. "And?"

Sakura looked up at the ceiling, avoiding Syaoran's eyes and closing her own, feeling childish for the tears that were finally escaping from beneath her lids. "He told me he'd been dating another girl, someone he'd been talking to for months, for about a week, and that he was sorry," she said, exhaling a short breath of disbelief, even now. "I guess it was dumb of me, but I had just been under the impression that it was either me or no one else. But he'd never promised me that, so it was wrong of me to assume. I just couldn't make sense of it—how could you still be in love with someone and then move on to someone else anyway? He said he still wanted to be friends, but—" Sakura shook her head. "I told him that I probably couldn't talk to him for a long, long time. And he said that it was okay, and that he would be ready to be friends again whenever I came back around, but I don't think it's going to be that way. Ever." She let out a long, shaky exhale.

Biting her lip and lifting a finger to wipe away a tear before it fell, she mumbled her next few words. "And I try not to think about it, because it's been awhile now and he's perfectly happy and I've been fine, but lately—"

She pressed a fist against her mouth, crying in earnest now; she hadn't retold that story since she'd told Tomoyo after it had first happened. She hadn't expected the wounds to still feel so fresh. And she felt horribly embarrassed—really, she hardly knew this guy, and although it was silly, somehow it felt like a taboo to be sobbing like this over something so stupid in front of someone famous, someone who had seen and heard it all already.

Syaoran didn't know what to say. He knew the heartache she was feeling, but at the same time, it hadn't quite ended the same way for him. At least Mizuki hadn't made such an attempt to string him along. He hadn't spoken to her since they had ended things. He watched Sakura try to stop her tears, and he wanted to move beside her and contain it somehow, or perhaps help her to let it all out—but how weird would that be, he wondered? He'd never been particularly affectionate with anyone besides his ex-girlfriend, and he was wary of lending his affections to another girl at all.

But he couldn't just ignore her, he thought, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, trying to figure out if he should move to help her. She was a nice girl, undeserving of the hurt she'd received. His frown grew deeper as he watched her blink rapidly and wipe her eyes on her sleeve, trying to stop herself from crying anymore.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said, sniffling and then breaking into a half-attempted laugh. "This is all such old news, and everyone has to go through it at some point. But thank you for listening, I really appreciate it—"

She looked up and nearly jumped back in surprise. Syaoran was no longer sitting on the sofa across the coffee table from her, but rather standing right before her, his hand held out and an almost exasperated look on his face.

"Syaoran, what—"

"Come on," he said. "I know something that'll make you feel better."


That's the end of chapter seven! So, finally, now you know who the blue-eyed guy is from a couple of chapters before, although he is nameless as of yet. If it wasn't clear, he was also the one from her memory in this chapter, which was triggered by Syaoran's incredibly similar mannerisms to her ex. That memory was of the first time he told her he loved her, if that wasn't clear, either. XD (I try to go for subtlety, but I guess I'm ruining it if I feel like I should explain at the end of the chapter... -sweatdrop-) Anyway, Syaoran thinks he's not very emotionally invested in this whole thing and that he's kind of in on it because he likes the way it makes him feel, but if you like the way someone makes you feel, then you'll probably grow to care for that person, don't you think? Haha. I hope I'm not moving them along too fast—at this point, I'm trying to portray them as strictly platonic. Hope I'm succeeding. Well, thank you for reading, and please leave a review on your way out! See you guys again soon, hopefully!

Love,

boreum dal