He stayed silent for a moment. “I’m lonely.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m lonely,” he said again.
“Okay.”
“I’m lonely and…” His thin mouth crinkled. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not. “I’m gross,” he said, voice quivering.
“Yeah…”
“You think so too, huh?”
“But I love you.”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“You know it’s ’cause of you, right? ’Cause you were here for me? That’s the only reason I decided to come back.”
“I’m glad I could be here then. Super glad. I was waiting for you to come back, all by myself. I felt like I was stuck while you were away.”
Kengo slowly opened his eyes. “The hell are you talking about?” he asked, looking at me and laughing.
“I dunno.” I grinned back at him. “Hey, it’s raining…”
It was raining from my eyes and pouring down my cheeks. I had no idea where it was coming from. I couldn’t even begin to guess. But it was raining, and I bet my mascara was running. If so, this was an emergency. Still, I wanted to feel Kengo’s warmth through my hand more than I wanted to wipe the streaks away. My cool palm was slowly heating up.
“I’m glad you’re here for me, Rara.”
“I’ll always be right here. With you. I wanna be with you forever and…”
I didn’t know who gripped the other’s hand first. Either way, we were holding hands tightly, both of us pulling the other one in as we supported each other’s weight. Our bodies moved closer. Glancing around us to make sure no one was looking, we kissed over the table.
It only lasted a second. But in that single second, my everything and his everything came together to form our everything. I had lived my whole life just for this moment, and I would go on living for it and nothing else. What else could I possibly need?
I was trembling as I opened my eyes. Then, I let out a cry and nearly fell out of my chair in surprise. Panicking, I grabbed the edges of the table for support, but it wasn’t stable enough, and it and I ended up in a spectacular mess on the floor. I swear Kengo had been right in front of me a second ago.
“Alien!”
There he was, glowing blue and standing there with a mask over his face and a tank on his back.
“Wrong!” he declared, underlining and elongating the word as he took a step toward me.
I hurriedly wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I shrank away. He was glaring down at me accusingly.
“Nothing’s going to change at this rate! Why can’t you handle this? Why are you making the same mistakes? You need to be leaving that childish, pain-in-the-ass narcissist behind! Just ignore him and go on home! I don’t get it!”
I didn’t get it. There was no one else around me, just the alien’s voice booming through the cafeteria.
“You are Toriyama.”
“No, I’m not…” I was trying so hard not to cry. “I’m Kannami…”
The alien ignored me. “Stop drawing Dragon Ball. Draw Kobo-chan. Nothing’ll change if you don’t.”
I couldn’t move. My legs were shaking worse than a newborn foal’s. I couldn’t run from him. That was when it hit me: I was dreaming.
“Got it? No more mistakes. Okay, onto the next one.”
It had to be a dream, because this wasn’t what actually happened. Instead…
I was trembling as I opened my eyes.
“Rara.”
I heard Kengo’s voice with my entire body.
“You’re all I’m gonna come back to anymore. And if you disappear, I’m gonna search for you. I’ll find you, no matter how far away you go. I promise I’ll come get you. I’ll go faster than the speed of light. It doesn’t matter where I have to go, how many times, or even if it kills me. I won’t give up.”
I couldn’t say anything. I could only nod over and over.
“That okay?”
Yeah. Sure is.
A fresh wave of rain fell with each nod. I wanted him to remember this rain. If we ever got separated, I would let it fall freely as I called out for him.
Come look for me whenever you smell rain. I want you to find me, Kengo. No one else. Wherever I am, however long it takes, I’ll wait for you to come looking. Forever and ever.
X
“HUH?! WAIT! GO WHERE? GO WHEN?!”
“The year after you started dating! When you got separated!”
The year after we started dating. When we got separated. It was only about four months ago. I never thought our relationship would be tested so soon after we became official.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what my friends said.
“Pretty sure that means you’re done already.”
“I bet he’s having tons of fun over there.”
“He’s a college student living by himself. There’s no way he’s not gonna take advantage of it.”
“One of my senpais told me the college club drinking parties get pretty crazy.”
“Just forget about him already.”
Whenever I told them they were wrong, they would just come back with twice as much stuff I didn’t wanna hear. Sometimes three times as much. Wasn’t long ago that I just stopped responding to it. I just thought all my comebacks without saying a word.
That’s not true. This is Kengo we’re talking about. My boyfriend. I love him sooooooooo much, and he…
Stuff like that. But…
I sighed. The mechanical pencil in my iron grip hadn’t been doing its job for several minutes, so I threw it down. It clattered quietly as it rolled to the other end of the small café table. The textbook in front of me had been open to the same page for ages. My eyes wouldn’t focus on the text. My drink definitely wasn’t cold anymore, and water droplets were beading on the glass. I had exams. I needed to study. It was why I spent nearly five hundred yen from my allowance to come to this café. Reality was tough.
Kengo does love me, right? Like, I don’t have anything to worry about, right?