She was clearly trying to sound nonchalant about it, but I had a hunch that it had been gnawing at her brain all day. I could see a hint of anxiety deep in her eyes that she simply couldn’t conceal. Something told me she wouldn’t accept me trying to paper over things just to reassure her—so while I wasn’t entirely ready to talk about it, I figured I should be open with her. Plus, I knew it was going to eat away at me if I kept it bottled up forever.
“He told me you’re thinking about breaking up with me,” I said.
Ushio sucked a sharp breath through her teeth, though it was barely audible. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and hung her head. Finally, after another few seconds, she peered nervously up at me again.
“And…what was your reaction to that, Sakuma?”
Wow. So she’s not denying it, huh?
I felt shaky on my feet all of a sudden, like I’d taken a blow to the chin. I’d never been slapped across the face before, but I imagined this was what it would feel like—both jarring and sobering at the same time. Still, I tried to hold myself steady.
“I mean, I took it pretty hard, obviously. True or not, the thought of you being unhappy in this relationship but suffering in silence was really upsetting to me, not gonna lie.”
Not to mention the fact that she confided in Sera about this, of all people, before coming to me or Hoshihara to try to address it. But I didn’t want to say this out loud, since I knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything aside from making Ushio feel bad.
“That being said…” I did my best to conceal my dejection and stay relatively mature about all of this. “If you’re already starting to feel like you want to cut things off…then maybe that’s ultimately for the best. I wouldn’t want you to stay in a relationship that makes you miserable solely for my sake.”
I had to admit, I was largely putting on a brave face here, even if I meant what I was saying. But again, I didn’t want to act pathetic by demanding an explanation or begging for another chance or whatever if she’d already made up her mind, since that would only make it harder for both of us to come out of this without any hard feelings. Because even if we did have to call this off, I wanted us to stay in each other’s lives.
“It’s not your fault or anything like that,” said Ushio, and I could tell from her expression that this was no hollow consolation. “And it’s not that I don’t have feelings for you anymore either. Because I do, to be clear. It’s just that, well…”
Her voice took on a slightly more depressive note.
“Now that we’ve actually started dating, it’s kind of changed my perspective a little,” she went on. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having a really good time going out and doing things with you, getting food together, and stuff like that. I still feel way more comfortable around you than anyone else I know. At the same time…I can’t help but feel like we don’t have to be boyfriend and girlfriend to do any of those things. And if being lovers doesn’t come naturally to us, then we might as well just be friends, y’know?”
I chuckled weakly at this, though I knew it really wasn’t something to laugh about. Mainly because I agreed with her.
To be perfectly honest, I’d been feeling the exact same way—which was why I’d been trying to force myself on occasion to act more like her boyfriend and initiate more couplesy stuff with her. But the very fact that I saw those things as some sort of “quota” that needed to be met from time to time in order for us to qualify as lovers was probably indication enough that we were better off just staying friends.
“Please don’t take that the wrong way,” Ushio said, her eyes pleading and sincere. “I know it might not be the easiest thing to hear right now, but…I don’t think this has to be a negative thing. I’d rather try to look at it optimistically, if we can.”
I could tell she was trying to be very careful and considerate with her wording—though I could not for the life of me imagine how she could possibly spin this in a positive light. I waited as she took in a deep breath, then looked me straight in the eye.
“Like, you know that phrase, ‘more than friends, less than lovers’? I’ve never been a huge fan of it. Because it implies that there’s some objective hierarchy there and that being lovers is strictly superior to being friends.”
A sudden flurry of ocean air blew between us; I strained my ears so as not to let a single word get lost within the howling wind.
“I don’t see it that way at all, personally,” she went on. “It’s not a ‘better’ type of relationship—or even a closer one, in a lot of cases. There are plenty of people out there who will always prioritize their friends over their significant other, as well as friends who’ve been through way more with each other than even their own families. They’re just different types of relationships, not two different levels of a relationship.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said. Now I could see what she was trying to say: in her mind, going from lovers to friends wasn’t a “downgrade,” per se—just a simple change in label.
“This isn’t me saying ‘Hey, I think we should break up.’ This is me saying we never were lovers, Sakuma—not really. We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. And I don’t want to risk our whole relationship by trying to mangle it into something it’s not.”
There was a weight to her words that reverberated in my ears.
When she was finally done saying her piece, she let out a long exhale, as if a large weight had been lifted off her shoulders. But it seemed her self-confidence had left as well, as she looked up to warily gauge my expression.
“So, um… How do you feel about that?”
“Believe me, I don’t want to lose you as a friend either,” I replied, and Ushio’s gaze took on a shade of relief.
Truth be told, I was still far from satisfied. Not that I didn’t agree with any of what she was saying; it did seem like the safest, most logical choice for us. Yet there was something about this explanation that I just couldn’t swallow.