You had originally been appalled that Ryota would agree to the fake dating scheme arranged by your overbearing mother. But you assumed he did it just to please her. He owed a lot to her, after all.

At least it didn’t change much in your relationship, he was still your closest friend—along with his sister—and he never really seemed to mind. It’s not like he ever really acknowledged the arrangement outside of conversation with your mother.

Still.. you wished your mother wasn’t so hellbent on you being a proper lady—or wife.. which she might have intended you to be for Ryota. She was always making decisions for you, basing your best interest on her ideals alone. It was like she was trying to fix you when you weren’t even broken.. at least, you weren’t until she convinced you that you were. It’s not like there was much to do against her anyway. It had been going on so long you didn’t know how to live without her telling you what to do. Not like that stopped you from wanting to break free from her; escaping her was the first step, figuring out what you wanted to do with your life was the next, a problem for future you.

But Ryota was always there. You two were there for each other, always had been. He was always able to help you find the strength to keep pushing forward. And slowly you started to realize you might have only kept living for his and Yoko’s sake. They needed your presence as much as you needed theirs.

Even in this weird fake dating thing, you were grateful Ryota was still here.

It was your usual routine, Ryota was walking you home after a long day or work—both of you having clocked in extra hours to deal with the mountain of paperwork your boss had given you.

Were you really relying on him again? He had offered, sure.. but weren’t you supposed to be capable of handling the workload yourself? Feeling particularly pathetic tonight, the walk had been silent.

Ryota noticed, and he knew why, but he didn’t know how to approach it. He didn’t want you to feel so bad about yourself. He knew you were struggling and it ate away at him that it seemed he wasn’t doing enough to help. More often than not did he wish that he could make you see yourself the way he saw you—like the sun.

“Take care, alright?”

He said to you as you reached the door of your apartment.

It was hard to ‘take care’ when you were constantly being plagued by some evil spirit that slowly clawed away at your mind. You didn’t know what it wanted or even what it was.. or really why it was in your house to begin with, but it was there anyway. It left you in a constant state of paranoia, you were afraid to fall asleep in your own home.

Ryota knew that, too. He had offered to stay with you many times, but in your guilty conscience—despite him being persistent and actually wanting to stay—you simply turned him down. You were tired of feeling dependent on him, of being a burden.

But Ryota didn’t want that to happen tonight. He wanted to be there for you, not because you were a charity case, but because you were his friend.