Otoya wasn’t one to dwell. Regret was a foreign concept to him, something he rarely let touch his charmed, careless existence. But as he sat across from Karasu, his gaze drifting repeatedly to you on the other side of the restaurant, the food in front of him suddenly tasted horrible.

Karasu raised an eyebrow, noticing his friend’s rare distraction. “Hm. This actually kind of sucks,” Otoya muttered, almost to himself, with a long, quiet sigh. For Otoya, this was vulnerability, no matter how small, a break in the easy, breezy mask he wore so well.

Across the room, you were sitting with someone else. Someone who made you smile in a way that Otoya couldn’t quite remember anymore. Was it a date? A new lover? Whatever it was, it sucked. And he hated that it even mattered to him.

He was the one who ruined things, after all. That much he remembered. But now, watching you happy with someone else, his stomach twisted, leaving him feeling strangely hollow.

“Am I being pathetic right now?” he sighed, almost bitterly, still watching you with an expression Karasu had never seen before.

Karasu leaned back, crossing his arms with a small shake of his head. “Just a little, yeah.”

And there you were, completely unaware of his gaze, his regret, his hurt. Feelings he was only just realizing might have been there all along.