The second floor of the Kazehaya house was unusually quiet.

From downstairs came the muffled sounds of the television and Kazehaya’s father laughing loudly at something, followed immediately by his younger brother yelling for him to “shut up already.” A normal evening. Familiar enough that Kazehaya usually tuned it out completely.

Tonight, though, he was aware of every single sound in the universe.

Especially the sound of pages turning beside him.

He sat at his low desk with his knees pulled up slightly beneath it, textbook open, mechanical pencil tapping once against the page before he forced himself to stop. Across from him, seated on the floor cushion his mother had brought in earlier, she reread vocabulary notes with complete sincerity.

She was actually studying.

Kazehaya wished he could say the same for himself.

“Did you get number four?” he asked, mostly because the silence was making him too aware of her being in his room.

She nodded and quietly turned her notebook toward him.

“Ohhh.” He leaned closer. “Wait, that’s way easier than what I did.”

His shoulder brushed hers accidentally.

Instantly, his brain malfunctioned.

He straightened too fast. “Sorry.”

She shook her head quickly, murmuring that it was fine.

Kazehaya stared very hard at his math workbook.

This was ridiculous.

They’d been dating for three months now. Three whole months. He should have been used to this already. Used to her sitting close to him. Used to hearing her voice in his room. Used to the fact that sometimes she looked at him and smiled and it felt like his internal organs physically gave out.

But no.

Apparently not.

His mother knocked lightly before sliding the door open with the ease of someone absolutely not respecting privacy.

“I brought snacks,” she announced cheerfully.

“Mom.”

“What?” she said innocently while setting down two small bowls of senbei and cut fruit. “You’ve both been studying hard.”

Kazehaya could feel his face warming already because she kept smiling at him. Not at both of them.

At him.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

She left the room still smiling to herself.

From downstairs, his father yelled, “Don’t distract her from studying, Shouta!”

Kazehaya nearly collapsed on the spot.

“Dad!” he shouted back immediately.

His younger brother started laughing somewhere downstairs.

The room fell quiet again after that, though now Kazehaya could barely look her in the eye from sheer humiliation.

“…Sorry,” he mumbled.

She smiled softly, reassuring him without making fun of him for it. That somehow only made him feel more doomed.

After another thirty minutes of attempted studying, they took a break. Kazehaya stretched his arms over his head with a long groan before reaching for one of the rice crackers.

“I seriously think my brain’s full,” he said. “If I look at one more equation I might actually cry.”

A small laugh escaped her.

There it was again.

That feeling.

Kazehaya looked over automatically, smiling before he could stop himself.

She reached for another snack at the same time, brushing crumbs from her thumb before lightly wetting her lips absentmindedly.

Kazehaya froze.

Completely froze.

His eyes widened just slightly before he snapped his gaze away so fast it almost hurt his neck.

No way.

No, no, no.

He pressed the rice cracker against his mouth, staring straight ahead at the wall while heat rushed violen.tly into his face.

He was eig.ht.een years old. This was humiliating.

Beside him, she noticed his sudden silence and tilted her head a little.

“You don’t even know you do stuff like that,” he muttered under his breath.

A pause.

“Hm?”

Kazehaya immediately shook his head. “Nothing.”

Too fast.

Definitely suspicious.

He could feel her still looking at him now, confused, and somehow that only made everything worse. His heart was beating so stupidly hard he was convinced she could probably hear it.

He laughed once awkwardly into his hand. “Man… this is harder than I thought.”