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It was all so cliche.
Banri hadn’t told anyone about his secret. Save for two people he could (begrudgingly) trust not to spill the beans: he ranted to Tsumugi-san over one of their cafe meetups, while the cup of coffee in front of him steadily grows colder by the minute untouched. He told Azuma-san, who found him staring at the night sky mindlessly at 3am in the morning and somehow got him to open up. Both of them promised to not snitch on him, which he took upon himself to trust.
In the end it was he himself that was the weak link.
It was all so stupid. He got into a fight again with that bastard Hyodo - and over the most trivial of things, to nobody’s surprise - and in the heat of the moment blurted out something like, “I’m this pissed ‘cos I love you!” and froze.
It was too late for takebacks.
He couldn’t forget the look on his roommate’s face. Expression shifting to bewilderment, then disbelief. But that was all about he remembered as he grew more horrified at what he had said by the second and sprinted out of the door.
“Settsu-!” he heard Hyodo yell after him, but he had decided: he won’t be facing him, not anytime soon.
Heck, he didn’t feel like facing him ever again.
He ignored the way his cheeks and nose burnt as he ran out of the dorms. Tsumugi-san must have been in the common area as he heard a faintly concerned “Banri-kun..?” before he slammed the door shut.
This was all so embarrassing.
It was raining hard. Hard enough to drown out his pants and the sound of his heart pounding.
He didn’t give it a second thought and sprinted out into the rain as if his life depended on it.
He just kept running; he didn’t have any particular place in mind, and found himself in an unfamiliar place. Or maybe he couldn’t recognise it because the surroundings appeared murky with the heavy rain blurring everything out.
“Settsu!!”
His heart leapt from that all-too-familiar voice, and at the same time a bitter feeling rose from his stomach. It’s not possible... He dared himself to turn around the slightest bit, and found Hyodo a distance away, panting, with an umbrella opened in one hand and another in his other hand.
( It was all so cliche , just like in those light novels and manga books that the shoujo manga club often gush and talk about, but he was convinced there wouldn’t be a happy ending to this one.)
The rain seemed to have lightened a little, and he wished it wouldn’t.
He felt utterly trapped.
“Get out of here. Don’t come after me.” Banri turned away, his voice almost breaking.
“At least take this umbrella.”
Why are you being kind to me? I don’t deserve this. “Don’t need it.”
He thought he heard Hyodo inhale, before he heard footsteps coming closer.
“Get away from me, you-”
The rain was no longer coming down on him. It caught him off guard, and he turned to see Hyodo holding out his umbrella, shielding him, but getting drenched in the process. Banri noted with slight amusement that his roommate’s fringe was falling out, perhaps both from the running and the rain, but kept that to himself.
This was definitely not the time for it.
“Are you an idiot. You have the other umbrella.”
Hyodo snorted. “Takes one to know one.”
Banri rolled his eyes, but gingerly took the umbrella from him. There was a pause as Hyodo scrambled to open the other one.
“You can go back now.” Banri turned away yet again. He wouldn’t know how to handle anything further than this.
“But-”
“ Get lost. ” He spat and started to walk away.
“Really? After what you said to me?” Hyodo was shouting over the noise of the rain, but he didn’t seem angry, didn’t sound frustrated. Banri badly wanted Hyodo to just hit him or something; they were now in uncharted waters and Hyodo was not being his usual self around Banri, or maybe Banri was too used to calling his roommate’s acts of kindness towards him gross and shrugging it off and trying not to think about how he would like to have more of that. Regardless, this whole thing was driving him up the wall.
“Just… forget it. Alright? Or rather,” he paused. “This is the only time I’ll say this. I lost. I lost to you. You win. Are you happy now?” That was enough. He started to walk away and tried to ignore how his eyes burnt.
Hyodo was now yelling. “Stop right there, Settsu Banri.”
That ticked him off. “The fuck?! Didn’t you hear a single thing I said, you bastard!” he yelled back.
“Hear me out!” Hyodo yelled again, and with those words Banri couldn’t find it in himself to move any further from his position, but before he could hate himself for it, Hyodo was talking again.
“You didn’t lose. In fact,” Hyodo took it upon himself to walk closer, and stood in front of him. Banri sucked in a breath and counted to ten. Trust Hyodo not to listen to anything when it comes to him. Trust Hyodo to stand up to him despite his protests. Trust Hyodo to know the worst of him, see the worst of him, and still want to stick around with him.
“I lost.”
Trust Hyodo to surprise him from time to time, even if he had never wanted to admit it
It took Banri a while to register what Hyodo threw at him. “What,” was all he could come up with, and he dared to look up at Hyodo now despite his heart screaming, all the while hoping that his streaks of tears wouldn’t be noticed.
Hyodo was looking at him earnestly, intensely, and Banri so badly wanted to peel his eyes off - he felt as if Hyodo could see through him and know what he was thinking and he felt naked, but at the same time he wanted to hold his gaze a while more, mesmerised and entranced by the man in front of him like he had always been, and really, who was he to back down from a challenge especially from Hyodo?
The worst kind of dilemma.
“Settsu,” Hyodo looked startled, and Banri realised that his crying didn’t go unnoticed.
“Just, forget it,” he started to say and shifted his gaze away, but Hyodo interrupted him.
“Come back.”
“... Huh?”
“Everyone needs you. The director, autumn troupe, the entire company.” Banri saw Hyodo shift his umbrella a little.
“And. I need you.” Hyodo was no longer looking at him, and Banri could see his ears slowly turning red.
His breath caught in his throat. “Hyodo…”
This can’t be happening… Did he miss any signs? He had been so caught up with worrying over his feelings that he hadn’t considered looking around him, or paying any heed to the one closest to him.
They shared a moment of silence, with only the sound of the rain hitting their umbrellas breaking the peace, as loud as the thoughts in his mind.
“No, I lost,” Banri spoke first, mouth running faster than his mind. “I lost when I fell for you, and thought you didn’t. So I thought you completely had me, and I didn’t know what to do.”
It was still hard to talk over the rain, and hard to get the words out while struggling to hold the rest of his tears back. But this time, Hyodo didn’t miss any of it.
“Settsu.” Hyodo got closer to him, and their umbrellas were now touching. “Listen...” he took a deep breath. “You’re an important part of my acting journey. And my life.”
Hyodo suddenly found the floor really fascinating, and Banri noticed his entire face was now almost entirely dyed red before realising that his own face was also burning up entirely, despite the chill of the rain.
“That was the dumbest confession ever,” Hyodo continued, mumbling-but-yelling at the floor. “But ‘s still braver than me, never wanting to say anything or act on my feelings. It’s your win.”
Who are you calling dumb, you bastard , Banri wanted to say, but a sob escaped him instead. Trust him to lose any semblance of control when it comes to Hyodo, too.
Hyodo immediately looked up. “Oi, you alright-”
“I’m okay, I’m just-” Banri sniffled and wiped the streaks of tears off his face. “I’m okay.” He didn’t know what to think. His head was a mess now, but he could feel his chest constrict in a way that suffocated and liberated him at the same time.
“You aren’t.”
“I already said-”
“You can’t really argue with me on this…” Another pause, and Hyodo then held out his free hand.
“Let’s go back first.”
Banri knew his heart hadn’t stopped pounding loudly ever since he left the dorms, but it felt louder than ever as he took a deep breath and let himself grab onto Hyodo’s wrist.
“Where are we now anyway?”
Hyodo scoffed and tugged him along. “Fuck if I know, you ran pretty far.” But there was no malice in his voice with a faint hint of fondness.
Banri allowed himself to laugh at that. “Pathetic.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I meant the both of us.”
Hyodo considered for a moment. “Settsu, let go of your hand for a bit.”
Banri already felt disappointed at that request. “Didn’t you offer your hand?” he whined.
“Just do it,” Hyodo sighed.
Banri let go, and immediately after he did Hyodo grabbed his hand, intertwined their fingers together and continued to tug him along.
“Now, that’s better.”
It was barely above a whisper, but Banri heard it loud and clear, and felt his face burn up again and was suddenly torn between hiding in a hole and hiding in Hyodo’s shoulder.
This was all so unfair, he thought. And yet it was everything he could ask of and more. Part of it wondered if it was all a convincing trick, since this was still not a shoujo manga, but the warmth of Hyodo’s hand and the firm and constant, earnest tugging convinced himself to soak in the current moment and to slowly be able to start believing. In himself and in them.
Banri resorted to bumping shoulders (and umbrellas) with Hyodo as they silently retraced their steps.