The day was a slow, warm hum of dread.
Langa could feel a sob stuck in his raw throat as he sat, hands in his lap, in the sunny classroom, no matter how many times he tried to swallow it down. He couldn't pay attention to the lessons; the teacher's mumbling sounded like gibberish to his blurry brain, and he tried not to stare at Yua, but his eyes kept dragging across the desks to where she was sitting. Yua looked beautiful, because of course she did, her soft brown hair fluttering in the lazy summer air, hiding her shy smiles behind her handwritten notes. She kept leaning over the aisle to whisper to Nanami, and then Nanami turned around and stared openly at Langa and Reki, and Langa could feel his throat tight and aching, sweat rolling down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.
His limbs were wound so tightly, from the fear and the dread, and his feet were numb under the seat, his stiff hands pressed between his thighs. Across the aisle, Reki was slumped over, cheek in his hand, staring drearily out the window. Langa's throat hurt, because he wanted to say something to comfort him, but he couldn't come up with anything. He wrote a clumsy note on a scrap of paper, his left hand shaking over the words you okay, Reki?, but it looked stupid, so Langa crumpled the paper up and tried to swallow through his tight, tight throat.
He just wanted Reki to be happy.
Together they trudged through the crowded hallways up to the roof for lunch. Langa's hands ached as he unpacked his bento box, and Reki slouched against the wall next to him, sticking his feet out in front of him. "Are you okay?" Langa asked, awkwardly, and Reki rubbed his nose and squinted against the bright, bright sun.
"Yeah," he said, but his voice sounded raspy and unused. "M'good. Just thinking."
Langa clamped his mouth shut again, silently putting some of his food into Reki's lunch box, so they could share the way they always did. The dread was thrumming in his veins again, because any moment, Yua could appear on the roof and ask to take Reki away, and Langa would have to sit here, useless, staring into his empty bento box with his aching throat. He tried to eat, even though his hands were trembling on the chopsticks. Maybe this would be the last time he and Reki ate lunch together alone, their elbows bumping, rolling a skateboard between their feet, their heads leaning together against the smooth concrete wall, sharing secret smiles. Their last lunch, and Reki was slumped over, his legs spread haphazardly around his skateboard, too dejected to talk.
Langa's eyes felt sort of achy and hot when he thought about Reki being sad during his first confession. He knew he should say something, but he just balled up his napkins and stared at his feet. The day was so beautiful and sunny and perfect, and Langa's head was too fuzzy and swollen to cheer Reki up, and his eyes burned. He should bolster Reki's confidence before the confession, he should tell Reki that he would be a wonderful boyfriend, the best, that any girl would be so, so lucky to hold his hand, but the words got stuck in Langa's throat along with the sob.
He wasn't a good friend after all.
Slowly they returned to class. Underneath the desk, Langa clutched at the eyeliner tube in his pocket, trying not to stare at the clock with increasing desperation, his eyes stinging as the seconds ticked down and down, the day drawing to an end. He tried so hard to focus on the fact that Reki would be happy, Reki would be so happy and excited and full of things to tell Langa, re-enacting the whole confession in his bedroom, waving his hands around while Langa pressed his fingers tightly between his thighs, trying to nod along, trying not to cry. Reki would be smiling, so big, when he came out from behind the school with his fingers laced with Yua's, he would be smiling so happily when he found Langa by the school gates, and somehow, somehow Langa would choke his way through a congratulations and then, and then...
