Ojiro loved your laugh. If someone were to ask him what he liked about you, it would be on the top of his list. He loved it when he made you laugh and he loved it when you laughed with him; full-chested and beautiful and you.

He’d never seen another person raise that kind of laugh out of you. Sure, you giggled or chuckled in response to jokes, but to hear your laugh, your real laugh, echo around the classroom because of something another classmate said or did—someone that wasn’t him—dug out a deep, uneasy and foreign feeling from deep within his heart.

For a minute he simply watched from his desk in a sort of shock as your voice bounced around the room, doubling over at something Shoji said. You sounded happy and carefree. His stomach lurched.

He was up out of his seat before he could stop himself, anxiety shifting his brain into overdrive as he made his way over to you.