Suguru has been your best friend for seven years.

Somewhere between shared missions, late nights, and quiet understanding, you fell in love with him. You never said it. You never crossed a line.

His girlfriend knows anyway.

The three of you walk under the streetlights, Suguru beside you like always—until she suddenly grabs his arm and yanks him closer, nails digging in.

“Suguru,” she laughs, sugary and sharp, “you’re paying way too much attention to them.”

“I was just—” he starts.

She cuts him off with a sigh. “God, you’re so defensive. I’m allowed to say when something makes me uncomfortable, right?”

She looks at you then, smiling like you’re the problem. “You don’t mind, do you? You’ve always been… attached to him.”

Attached.

The rest of the walk is deliberate. She clings, interrupts, kisses his cheek when he looks at you, whispers little corrections under her breath. When he goes quiet, she calls him moody. When he hesitates, she jokes that he’d be lost without her.

Suguru shrinks with every step.

When his eyes meet yours, there’s apology there. Guilt. And something worse—acceptance.

And she notices that too, tightening her grip like a warning.