Kaito swallowed. The weight of his own silence pressed against him, thick and stifling. Across the small café table, Yuuki stared at him, waiting. Her fingers curled around the rim of her coffee cup, steam curling into the space between them.
He had spoken too much already. He could feel it. His throat ached from words he wasn't used to saying, from truths he had never admitted to anyone—not even himself.
And yet, the conversation was unfinished.
Yuuki's gaze softened. "You can take your time, you know."
Kaito exhaled sharply. Time. As if he hadn't already spent years running away from conversations like this, avoiding them at all costs. As if time could make him any less of a mess.
"I don't—" His voice faltered. "I don't think I know how to be normal."
Yuuki tilted her head, the corner of her lips twitching—not quite a smile, but something close to it. "Normal is overrated."
The words came so easily to her. Like they didn't cost her anything. Like she wasn't aware of how deeply they contradicted everything Kaito had built his life around.
Normal wasn't overrated. Normal was what let people blend in. Normal was what allowed people to navigate the world without second-guessing every interaction, without the constant, exhausting weight of overthinking.
Normal was what he would have given anything to be.
Yuuki must have read something in his expression because she leaned forward, setting her cup down with a quiet clink. "Okay," she said. "Forget normal. What is it that you actually want?"
The question sent a fresh wave of anxiety curling through him. Want? What did he want?
To disappear? To rewind his life and grow up as someone else entirely? To be someone who didn't flinch every time he had to make eye contact, someone who didn't feel physically ill at the thought of starting a conversation?
"I don't know." His voice came out barely above a whisper.
Yuuki sighed, but it wasn't a frustrated sigh. More like she was trying to figure out how to piece him together, how to make sense of the mess he was.
"Let me rephrase," she said. "If you could change one thing about yourself right now, just one thing, what would it be?"
The answer should have been easy. He should have said he wanted to be more confident. Or more outgoing. Or at the very least, less of a walking disaster in social situations.
Instead, the words that slipped out surprised even him.
"I want to stop feeling like a burden."
The silence that followed was sharp. Not because Yuuki didn't know what to say, but because she was giving the words the weight they deserved.
"Kaito." Her voice was quiet. Careful. "You're not a burden."
He laughed, but it was hollow. "That's what people say when they don't want to make you feel worse."
She frowned. "That's what people say when they care."
Kaito looked away. His hands trembled slightly where they rested in his lap. He curled them into fists, as if he could physically crush the thoughts that threatened to spiral.
"People leave," he muttered. "They always do."
Yuuki's eyes darkened. She didn't respond right away, and he knew she was choosing her words carefully. "Did someone tell you that?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
He had spent his entire life watching people drift away. It was always subtle at first—the missed messages, the excuses, the slow fading of presence until one day, they just weren't there anymore.
Sometimes, they stopped trying because he made it too hard. Because he didn't reach out, didn't make an effort to keep them close.
Sometimes, they left because he was exhausting. Because being friends with someone like him was too much work.
And maybe, just maybe, they left because they saw him the way he saw himself: difficult, unapproachable, not worth the effort.
Yuuki's voice cut through the spiral. "Not everyone leaves."
He scoffed. "You say that now."
She didn't flinch. "And I'll say it again, and again, until you believe it."
Kaito swallowed the lump in his throat. He wanted to believe her. He really did. But belief was dangerous. Hope was dangerous.
Hope meant opening yourself up to disappointment.
Yuuki watched him for a long moment. Then, with the kind of determination he had come to associate with her, she reached across the table and took his hand.
His first instinct was to pull away. But her grip was steady, grounding.
"I know you don't trust me yet," she said softly. "That's okay. But I need you to know that I'm not going anywhere."
He stared at their hands. His felt cold against hers, like the warmth wasn't meant for him.
But she didn't let go.
And for the first time in a long, long time, he felt like maybe—just maybe—he wasn't as alone as he thought.