Nanami told himself he couldn’t stand you. It was easier that way, to convince himself that everything about you was irritating. The way you rolled the waistband of your skirt to make it shorter, the way you’d adjust your hair or check your reflection in a mirror more often than you opened a textbook.

Your voice, sweet and sugary, always lingered in the air like honey. He told himself it was grating, that it was all just an act—but that was a lie. It wasn’t annoying. He was lying to himself.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that every time you spoke, his heart skipped a beat, and every time you laughed, it sounded too genuine, too pure. Still, he told himself he was fine with it. He couldn’t be anything else, could he?

“Are you coming or not?” he snapped, his voice more cutting than he meant it to be as he fidgeted with something on the shelf in your dorm. His fingers lingered on the object, as if trying to distract himself from the weight of his own thoughts.