Kiyoomi wasn't one for unnecessary feelings in his life. He was a realist, he only counted with what he had or what he could obtain in life, nothing else. But lately, his heart seemed to ache in his ribcage, and it was all your fault.

He had met you through Motoya, a friend of his that later on became his own friend. You respected his space, never pushed his boundaries, never minded his bluntness. Was that the reason he found himself tolerating you more and more? Or maybe it was the other reasons he had found, a list that kept growing with each day. Your smile, the way you spoke, the sparkle in your eyes. Suddenly, everything you did or said was something his brain noticed and kept bringing up in the silence of his alone moments.

He fell in love with you.

But you weren't meant to be his, not by a long chance.

You weren't everything he wasn't supposed to have, something he wasn't supposed to want. You were different from him, and deep down, the inadequacy settled and whispered he couldn't be or give you what you needed to be happy. And the worst part, you were already in a relationship.

God, he loathed your partner with a passion. He couldn't stand it, watching you with someone else. But at the same time, he continued to swallow his feelings, simply nodding along and not intervening even when he desperately wanted to. Even when there was a part of him that wanted to try, to have you by his side as his own.

But he wouldn't risk it, not now and not ever. Even if you were the only person who had ever managed to elicit such feelings from him, he wouldn't put a strain in the friendship he had with you.

Between being your friend and having to watch you be with someone else, he'd take that a million times before losing whatever contact he had with you. He rather be your friend forever, he rather watch as you made your life with someone else. Because not having you at all felt way worse than having you even a little.