Love me! Not her!

Eijun watched as Sakuri-senpai and his crush, Miyuki Kazuya, discussed about a project for school on one of the tables in their school library. Eijun just wanted to start reading the new chapter of the shoujo manga that he borrowed today, he thought that the library, being a place meant for people to read peacefully, would be the perfect place to start the new book. He had heard excellent things from the girls in his class and wanted to start the new volume as soon as he finished the last volume on the floor of Kazuya's room.

But, of course, he just had to see his longtime crush and a girl that looked like Kazuya's type talking together. Their faces only around 50cm away from each other, which may not seem like a lot, but to Eijun, it only made his heart sting more than he promised it not to when he realised that Kazuya would never like him back.

Ever since Kazuya had caught Eijun's pitch on his last year of middle school to now and probably many years into the future, Eijun had grown a massive crush on that bastard of a tanuki. But when he had finally gathered enough courage to confess, with the sunset in the background and everything set up like his shoujo mangas, he just so happened to walk in on someone else confessing to him behind the school.

When he saw the scene play out, he was slightly relieved when he heard Kazuya reject the first grader -someone from Haruichi's class, Eijun remembered- , but his heart broke into a trillion pieces when he heard Kazuya say,

"I'm sorry, I like someone else. I don't plan to be with anyone else other than them."

Along with some other form of apology that Eijun couldn't catch. Eijun remembered a harsh breeze after he heard Kazuya's confession that he liked someone else and it was not Eijun. He remembered it cooling his flushed face, he remembered it rustling his hair and stinging his eyes. Wait, his eyes weren't stinging because of the wind, was it? It was stinging because of the continuous string of tears that fell and fell and fell, he could even remember how they tasted, warm and salty, regretful and bitter.

And from then on, Eijun promised himself that no, he could not like this Miyuki Kazuya because he would not like him back. And he would only keep an appropriate attitude around him, only a friendly relationship between them, because they were only a battery, and not anything else. No matter how much he wanted them to be something so much more.

Eijun was broken from his inner turmoil when he saw Kazuya's beautiful hazel eyes glance in his direction, locking onto his own molten gold. Kazuya flashed a light grin at him, and Eijun just froze, his face flushed and he abruptly stood up, his chair screeched at the movement. He gathered his unread volume of the new shoujo manga and shuffled towards the door, bowing apologetically when he passed the librarian.

He could feel Kazuya's questioning gaze as he walked out, the door closed quietly behind him.

...

Later that night, in the cafeteria everyone had finished packing up their equipment and were eating dinner. Eijun sat opposite Haruichi and Furuya to his right, he ate silently and listened to his senpai's story about an incident in class, it must have been funny because his senpais were laughing like crazy. Eijun wasn't really paying attention though, he was too busy thinking about the library-

"Ahh!"

Eijun yelped very unmanly and turned to the hands that had caused such a girly sound from his mouth. Kazuya had snuck up behind him and unsuspectingly tapped his shoulders, now smirking at the sound that escaped Eijun's lips.

"What have you been thinking about that you didn't even notice me, Sa-wa-mu-ra?"

Eijun prevented another not so manly sound, just barely, and felt a frown mold his lips. "What does it matter to you Miyuki Kazuya!" Eijun knew he was being a little dramatic but he couldn't help it, just watching Kazuya with someone else stung, but being sour about it was not going to help him.