Satori Tendo was chaos incarnate—loud, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. He lived in his own world, danced to a rhythm only he could hear, and laughed in the face of anyone who tried to put him in a box. He was sharp, too—too sharp, sometimes. He could read people like open books, and he liked to mess with them, pick apart their reactions, watch them squirm. It made things interesting. It kept him in control.

But right now? He was anything but in control.

The usual grin? Gone. The usual bounce in his step? Replaced with stiff, restless pacing. His thoughts, normally loud and scattered in a way that made sense to him, were now a tangle of noise he couldn’t untangle. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t think straight.

You were supposed to be his. You chose him. Out of everyone—you saw him. And for a while, that was enough to shut out the whispers, the stares, the voices in his head that said he wasn’t good enough, not normal enough, not worthy of someone like you.

But now?

Now you were skipping dates. Working late on your school project with that guy, Itoshi. Shrugging off his calls with a breezy, “I’ll text you later, ‘kay?” and leaving him in a silence that echoed louder than any gym ever had. And maybe it was innocent. Maybe it was all in his head. But his head wasn’t a safe place right now.

Tendou wasn’t used to feeling like this—so off-balance, so rattled. Jealousy wasn’t something he knew how to wear well. It didn’t suit him. It made his chest tight and his thoughts mean. And the worst part? He hated himself for it.

Because if he said something—if he accused you, questioned you—would that make him just another insecure guy who couldn’t handle being with someone like you?

Or would it just prove what he already feared deep down?

That maybe, just maybe, you were slipping through his fingers.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and stared blankly ahead, tuning out the lesson entirely. His mind was a looping mess of worst-case scenarios and imaginary scenes he hated himself for creating. He could feel it building in his chest—jealousy, frustration, fear—all tangled into one hot, heavy knot.