The days passed, one blending into the next like a slow-moving river, the current steady but unrelenting. School felt like a blur. The mornings came too quickly, and the evenings didn't feel long enough. My grades? Well, they were a mess. But for once, I didn't really care. It wasn't that I had given up on everything, but when I looked at my textbooks or stared at the assignments piling up, my mind just wouldn't focus. It was like my brain had decided that this wasn't the time for schoolwork. Not when there were other things—bigger things—floating around in my head.
Kaito, Taichi, the mess we were in... all of it swirled like a fog I couldn't shake. But there was one thing that had shifted, one thing that kept me grounded when everything else felt out of control: Isamu.
As the days went by, I found myself spending more and more time with him. Not just the tense, quiet moments between us that had started out so awkwardly. No, this was different. We started talking more—really talking—about anything and everything, not just the mess we were caught up in. We laughed at dumb things, exchanged random observations, and shared moments that felt like we were finding our way back to something simpler, something familiar.
He was still his usual self: sarcastic, sometimes frustrating, but with an honesty that cut through everything. I noticed how he would slip into silence when something was weighing on his mind, but when I was around, he didn't hide it as much anymore. There was a rawness to him that felt real in a way I hadn't expected. And even when he wasn't talking, I could feel him there, always present.
It wasn't just the quiet moments either. There was something else—something unspoken—that had been growing between us. We would sit next to each other in class, both of us half-heartedly trying to focus on the lessons while our legs brushed under the desk, the contact sending a warmth through me that I couldn't ignore. Or we'd sit together at lunch, eating in companionable silence or occasionally cracking jokes at the other students around us. We didn't have to say much to communicate, and somehow, that made everything feel lighter.
The first time he had invited me to his place, I hadn't expected it to feel so... comfortable. It wasn't anything grand. His apartment was small, cluttered in the way that made it feel lived-in, and there was always a faint smell of coffee in the air. He made us dinner—instant ramen—and we ate on the floor while watching some random late-night show, our shoulders occasionally bumping as we passed the bowl back and forth. It wasn't anything special, but it felt like home in a way I hadn't realized I needed. And the weird thing was, I started looking forward to it. To the quiet, to the routine of just being with him without needing to explain anything.
The days blurred, but with Isamu, they felt less heavy.
I wasn't the only one who had changed, though. He'd started opening up more. I'd catch him staring out the window sometimes, lost in thought, and I'd ask him what was going on. And though he was still reluctant to talk about certain things—especially about his past—he didn't shut me out. The more time we spent together, the more I saw the layers of him I hadn't known existed. He wasn't just the guy who cracked jokes to hide his pain, or the one who avoided confrontation with a shrug. There was a depth to him that pulled me in, that made me want to know more.
But even with all that, it wasn't perfect. I could still feel the weight of everything that had happened before hanging in the background. We both knew it. The things we hadn't said. The things we had yet to figure out. The mess with Kaito still hung over us, unresolved, like an uninvited guest that refused to leave. I didn't know if we would ever truly untangle it. But for now, it didn't seem as important. At least not when I was with Isamu.
The grades, though, were a different story.
I had never been great at school—never cared enough to put in the effort, always finding my attention pulled elsewhere. But now? Now, I could barely remember to check my assignments or study for tests. I didn't care. I had bigger things on my mind. Isamu, for one. The rest of the world? It could wait.
