“Can I ask you something?” Rina set her beer down. The clink of glass on the oak table was a small explosion. “Do you ever feel like you’re in the wrong story?”
Erito had no good answer. He still doesn’t, years later. He could say chemistry . He could say the heart wants what it wants . But the truth was uglier: he had wanted something that wasn’t his, and he had taken it. Not because Rina was special. Not because Kaito was flawed. But because, for one selfish, burning moment, Erito had wanted to feel chosen.
“You’re staring,” she said, not looking up from the couch where she was curling her legs beneath her.
Erito sees them at a convenience store. Kaito, his hair longer, his shoulders looser. And beside him, a woman who is not Rina—a cheerful, round-faced woman with a baby strapped to her chest. Kaito laughs at something she says, and the sound is genuine. He has healed. Erito - Rina Kawamura - Best friend-s girlfrien...
Erito drove to the meeting point—a pedestrian bridge over the Kaname River, where the three of them had once thrown cherry blossom petals and made stupid promises about being friends until they were old. Kaito was already there, leaning against the railing, looking out at the water.
“Traffic,” Erito lied, stepping inside.
He walked away. Erito watched him go, the city lights smearing into gold and red through his tears. “Can I ask you something
“We can’t,” she said, but her body was still pressed against his, her heartbeat a wild drum against his ribs.
Erito had laughed then. He wasn’t laughing now. He was watching the way the condensation from her beer dripped down her index finger.
“I’m sorry,” Erito said. The words felt like gravel. He still doesn’t, years later
Her breath caught. A tiny, involuntary sound. And then she was leaning forward, and he was leaning forward, and the space between them collapsed like a star going dark. The kiss was not gentle. It was hungry, desperate, the kind of kiss that happens when two people have been drowning separately and finally find a single piece of wreckage. Her hands fisted in his shirt. His fingers tangled in her damp hair. The cobalt ink smeared between them.
“Don’t contact her,” Kaito said. “Don’t contact me. If I see you again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“I don’t know,” he said. And that was the real betrayal. Not the kiss. Not the motel. But the fact that he had destroyed a friendship for a reason he couldn’t even name.
Instead, he said, “Because you are.”
