WEEK FOUR: Friday→Saturday (Touji)

"Yuzuru-san!" Forgetting all about the fact that I was supposed to meet my family, I chased after him as he disappeared down the stairs, my heart in my throat. "Yuzuru-san!!" God, what had happened to him? His face was a mass of bruises and cuts, his eye was swollen, and he'd been crying. I was going to explode with the horror of it. What's happening? Who did that to him?

I started down the stairs, but a hand landed on my shoulder, gripping my uniform jacket. "Touji, stop."

I turned to see Natsuki behind me, my parents right next to him. I wriggled out of his grasp. "Hold on, you guys, I've got to go check on—"

"Leave him," Dad ordered, so sternly that I turned to gape.

"What?"

"We're going home, baby. Everything's settled now, come on." Mom took my arm and started leading me down the stairs. On the landing there were a couple girls waiting for us with their cameras, but one glare from my brother and they quickly hid them behind their backs.

"Mom, what do you mean everything's settled? What happened to Yuzuru-san? He's been hurt, we can't just leave, I have to talk to him." I tried to pull away, but Dad appeared on my other side and gripped my upper arm. It wasn't hard or painful, but if I struggled it would be.

"Dad?"

They ushered me out the side door of the building, and to my astonishment the Lincoln was sitting in the school's service driveway. Yamamoto, my grandfather's driver, was holding the car door open with white-gloved hands.

"Get in the car, Touji."

"But Dad!"

"Just do it," said my brother, and I found myself being pressed into the Lincoln, all the way to the very back seat. My mother and father took up spots on the bench to my left, and Natsuki claimed the one on the right. The car door closed, and my chest was heaving.

"What are you guys doing right now? Why are we in the car when our house is six blocks away? The school day's not even over yet."

"Things have changed, Touji," my mom said, crossing her pantyhosed legs and reaching for a bottle of water from the mini-fridge next to me. "You won't be attending Houka anymore."

Did I get expelled? That meant it must have happened to Yuzuru too. I felt the floorboards rumble as the car started up. If they'd brought the Lincoln, it was because they were making a statement to the school board. Reminding them who our family was. It meant this was definitely serious.

"What about Yuzuru-san?" I asked in a panic. "You said you'd take care of him!"

"Calm down. He's being transferred to another local school, just like you."

"Transferred?" I repeated in gratitude. "Oh, thank god." Then I remembered the state of his face. "But what happened to him? Why did he look like that?" Koike had said at lunch that he wasn't feeling well, but she hadn't mentioned anything about him being hurt.

"I assume he was fighting," my mother said with a sniff of disdain. "All the more reason why this arrangement is best for everyone. You don't need to be associating with troublemakers."

I sat back in the leather seat, her inflection chilling me to the bone. "What do you mean?" She didn't answer, but it didn't take a genius to figure out. They're sending us to different schools, aren't they? It made sense. No other high school was going to want to take on the public relations nightmare of a couple boys famous for their scandalous internet blog. Even if the blog wasn't ours to begin with. The idea of not being able to see him every day was awful, though.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. "I'm calling him."

Natsuki shook his head. "Don't bother, he won't answer."

"What? Why?"

Natsuki looked over at Dad, who sighed. "Touji, he had to make a choice."

"A choice?" I echoed.

"Yes, he—"

"The school was going to expel him, honey," my mother interrupted, reaching out to pat my knee. "Unless he broke things off with you. I'm sorry, but that's the way these things go sometimes." My brother coughed, and she gave him a hard look before continuing, "He agreed to end your relationship so that he could transfer out of Houka instead of gaining an expulsion on his record."

Natsuki cleared his throat and reached for his own bottle of water. "Anyway, you need to leave him alone," he said. "He made the right decision. You wouldn't want to screw that up for him, right?"

I stared at them, one at a time, darkness twisting in the pit of my stomach. "I don't believe you," I said slowly. "He wouldn't do that."

"I'm sorry, Son," Dad said, looking over at Mom. "We all heard him say he wouldn't have contact with you again after today."

"And you didn't do anything?" My eyes had started to burn uncontrollably. "God, Dad, somebody just beat the hell out of him, probably because of me, and then the school gives an ultimatum like that and you didn't say anything? How could you let that happen? I have to talk to him. There's got to be another way." I raised the phone again.

"We did all we could," my mom said. "But baby, I think you need to face the fact that his future is the most important thing to him right now. And really, it should be. He's very young, with his whole life ahead of him. I know it hurts, I know, but it's better this way."

All I could see now were those tears streaming down his bruised face, the stricken way he'd gazed at me right before he ran off. "This isn't right," I said, waking my phone and pressing the icon for his contact number.

The line didn't even ring. It went straight to voicemail, as if he'd turned off his phone. I dialed again, and again. On about the fifth try, when the answering service beeped, I said shakily, "Yuzuru-san, it's me. When you get this, call me, please. I need to talk to you." I hung up, biting back tears. "When he calls back," I said, looking at each of them, "we're going to come up with some way around this."

My parents exchanged looks.

"When he calls," Dad said at last.

I nodded and looked down at my phone. I turned my wrist a little, and the pink and blue points of fiber optic light from the car's ceiling glinted off the silver arrow of my bracelet. Yuzuru-san, don't give up, okay? We can figure this out.

I waited all afternoon, but my phone never rang. I didn't get any texts either. I tried calling a few more times but his phone was still off. My parents did their best to distract me by suggesting a game of cards, which had always been one of our favorite family pastimes. Even Natsuki joined in, and everyone was smiling and being so warm with me. It would have been completely perfect, if I hadn't been so worried about Yuzuru. Umeki came out of the kitchen at regular intervals to bring us snacks and drinks, but I couldn't stomach them. I was too busy feeling my pocket for my phone.

At some point it was decided that we were going out to a big family dinner to celebrate our reunion. I went up to my room to change, and as I was shrugging into my Armani jacket I got the bright idea to check the Instagram account. I dashed over to my desk and flipped my laptop open, pulling the site up.

It started off just being worrisome. There was a picture of Yuzuru from earlier today. He was wearing a face mask, trying to clean graffiti off the top of his desk alongside Utsumi and Koike. The mask confirmed what Koike had said—he had gotten a cold from yesterday's wet-uniform incident.

But then in the comments, a couple other people had posted photos of the graffiti itself, which was graphic and personal in a way that had my face burning. Oh my god, that drawing! Yuzuru must have been completely freaked out. He'd had to stare at that thing all morning? I went back to the original picture and zoomed in as close as I could on his face, but saw no indication of the injuries he'd had when I ran into him at the administrative office.

Still, I was starting to wheeze and my pulse was going fast enough to make me light-headed. Yuzuru was sick. He was being bullied. Someone had beaten him up, and the school had forced him to break off contact with me. He must be truly scared this time, because he hadn't even tried to get around it like he usually would. On top of all that he'd had exams today, too.

I had to see him.

Was that selfish, though? Maybe dealing with me was the last thing he needed right now. I was the reason he was in this mess. Maybe having that cartoon in his face all day had sent him running again, and chasing after him would only make it worse. Maybe forcing him to talk to me really would get him expelled, and if that was the case wasn't Natsuki right? Was I going to keep screwing up his life until there was nothing left?

He was definitely not okay. And I needed to know if he needed me. If he wanted me there. If not, then... then there had to be someone else. Koike, or Utsumi, or his sister. Yuzuru thought of himself as this obnoxious, unloveable pain in the ass, but he had more real friends than I did. The trouble was, I didn't have any of their numbers.

Hang on. That wasn't true, was it? I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through the contacts until I found it. Utsumi Shunji. I'd saved his number when I bought this phone, why hadn't I remembered before now? I tapped his name.

"Hello?"

I was so nervous I actually bowed with the phone to my ear, even though he wouldn't be able to see it. "Utsumi-senpai? It's Seryou Touji."

"Seryou-kun? Is something wrong with your phone again?"

"No, Senpai, not this time. It's Yuzuru-san, I can't get in touch with him. I think his phone is off."

I could almost hear Utsumi rolling his eyes. "It's probably a dead battery. I had to lend him a charging cord earlier but the science teacher confiscated his phone right after that. I bet he hasn't charged it yet. Just wait until tomorrow, I'm sure he'll figure it out. I have to get back to work."

"Wait! Do you know if he got into a fight today?"

"A fight?" Utsumi sounded startled. "Not that I know of. I saw him right before lunch. He had a bad cold, but he hadn't been in any fights."

"Did you see him after lunch?" I pressed.

Utsumi cleared his throat. "Um, no. He went to that disciplinary hearing and never came back. I assumed... well, it seems pretty obvious what happened. He got expelled, right?"

"Not exactly. But I ran into him right as he was leaving the administrative office and his face was all cut up and bruised. Somebody hurt him, Senpai." My voice caught, and I started babbling. "He ran away too fast for me to find out what was going on. Now I can't reach him, and my parents say he had to promise not to speak to me so he wouldn't get expelled, and I don't know what's happening but I'm really worried and your number is the only one I have which is why—"

"I get it," Utsumi said quickly. "I'm at work now, but I'll get in touch with Koike-chan, okay? She'll go check on him."

"Can you give her my number?"

"Of course."

"Tell her to text me. I don't care how late it is."

"Okay."

I hung up, and a knock sounded at my door. "Touji, you ready?" It was my brother's voice. "We're heading down to the car, hurry up."

"Coming!" I put my phone in my bag and followed him down the stairs. He actually gave me a grin in the entryway as he handed me my coat. "We're going to Heichinro," he said, his eyes twinkling. It was my favorite dim sum restaurant, and normally I'd have been over-the-moon excited to be going there together, all four of us. But right now, even the fact that my brother was speaking to me again couldn't take the edge off my nerves. I offered him a weak smile.

Koike was going to check on Yuzuru, so that was something, at least. She'd make sure he got medical attention if he needed it, and maybe she could talk him into calling me so we could figure a way around the school's ultimatum. It was ridiculous that Houka could threaten him like this. How were they even going to know if he and I were speaking to each other? If we had to, we could just lay low until his transfer to his new school was complete. Then there would be nothing Houka could do about it anymore.

Dinner with my family was excruciating. The food smelled delicious, but every bite tasted like cardboard. My dad was back to cracking his terrible jokes, and forcing myself to smile took every ounce of energy I had. My mom was patting my hair and my hand, and it was all I could do not to shrink away from her touch. I knew she was trying to comfort me, but the only comfort I wanted was for them to fix this. That wasn't fair, of course. This wasn't their fault. But my heart was too anxious to be rational.

Natsuki was asking if I wanted to join him at the athletic club tomorrow for a tennis match—something we hadn't done since I was an elementary schooler. I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe."

I kept looking at my phone under the table, willing a text to come through. Had Koike gotten to Yuzuru yet? Was he eating? Had anybody bandaged those cuts for him? Was he hurt anywhere else? What if Tanaka—I was pretty sure it had been him—had done even worse things to him than hitting?

Okay, I could not let my brain go there, because I felt my stomach heave. I was going to worry myself into an illness if I wasn't careful.

The ride home was quiet. I guess my family had finally given up on trying to cheer me up. We got home and I went to my room, cursing myself for not thinking to ask Utsumi for Koike's number. Another hour rolled by. Then another. I hit refresh on the Instagram site like a crazy stalker, but there was no new activity besides the ongoing comments expressing rage at the vandals who'd marked up Yuzuru's desk, and a bunch of self-righteous trolls chastising everyone else for not respecting our privacy and causing these things to happen.

Since I couldn't reach Yuzuru by phone, I tried his email. I meant for it to be a casual suggestion that we could email if his phone wasn't working, but before I knew it I'd composed pages of emotional blather about how much I loved him, begging him to at least let me know if he was all right even if he didn't want to see me right now. I finally highlighted it all and hit the delete key. Why was I feeling so scared? Like Utsumi said, he probably just had a dead phone battery.

Yuzuru-san, I tried again, I really have to talk to you. Can I come to your place tomorrow? It won't take long.

I tapped send, then went to take a shower that did very little to clear my head. I met Natuski in the hall on the way back to my room. "Mom and Dad have a conference call," he said, "but do you want to go downstairs and watch a movie with me? I'll make popcorn."

Weeks of the silent treatment, and suddenly we were best friends again? I was tempted to say no, but it might help pass the time while I was waiting for Koike's message. Besides, maybe Natsuki was only doing this because he felt sorry for me, but was I really going to pass up the chance to repair our relationship?

I nodded, and we went to the living room. Natsuki put on some martial arts movie and brought out a bowl of microwave popcorn. I tried to pay attention to the movie, really I did, but all I could think about was the time Yuzuru and I had watched a movie together in this room. It was the night he'd come up with our rules. And then he'd let me hold him for the rest of the film, his warm weight against my chest, his soft hair under my lips, the sweet earthy scent of him filling me up with contentment. My insides ached just thinking about it.

The movie ended and there had still been no word from Koike. I had to accept that she wasn't going to message me tonight, it was almost midnight and she couldn't still be at Yuzuru's. She was probably at her own house sleeping by now. Had she forgotten about me? Had Utsumi forgotten to give her my number? Or... what if Yuzuru was so badly hurt she was afraid to tell me?

I trudged back upstairs, and Natsuki laid a hand on my shoulder. "I know it's rough," he said, "but give it a few days, things will start feeling better."

The only thing that was going to make it better was finding out what was going on. I went into my room and closed the door.

The rest of the night was spent alternately lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, getting up to check the Instagram site for the jillionth time, re-reading all my text exchanges with Yuzuru, and staring at my empty email inbox. I did actually manage to doze off a little around five in the morning, but it wasn't so much sleep as an exhausted daze, where my brain kept repeating the same paranoid fears over and over again.

I came back to my senses in a cold sweat a few hours later, and rolled over to look at the clock on my phone. Nine A.M. Okay, it was Saturday morning. Surely he'd have called by now. I snatched my phone up, but there were no calls, no texts, and no emails. No new photos on Instagram, either. And nothing from Koike.

That did it. I swung my legs out of bed and put on jeans, a t-shirt, and the first hoodie my fingers landed on in my closet. I was going to go see him. I couldn't take another day of this.

The house was quiet when I left my room. I guess my parents and Natsuki had all gone to work. There was a sticky note on the outside of my door, though, that just said "3 P.M. Meet me at the athletic club. -N"

When I got downstairs and grabbed my coat, Umeki emerged from the hall. "Touji-san," she said, "you're up. I thought you might sleep the whole day away. Would you like breakfast?"

"No, thank you, Umeki-san," I replied, zipping my coat up and stepping into my shoes. "I, um... I have to go see a friend. I'll be back in a couple hours."

"Very well."

I ran the entire way to the train station, passing by the school on the way. It was quiet, the gates closed and locked for the winter holiday. Tajiri had said the archery club would still be having some practices during the break, but I hadn't paid attention to the schedule. Yuzuru wasn't going to be there, so I found it hard to care.

By the time the train pulled into the East Kanagawa station I'd bitten my thumbnail all the way down until it was bleeding. I'm going to see him in a few minutes, I kept telling myself. And then everything's going to be alright.

I hurried out of the station and down the street, across the footbridge, and up a few blocks to Yuzuru's apartment building. I checked my watch before going inside—it was a little after ten. That was a perfectly respectable visiting time, wasn't it?

The elevator creaked as it carried me up to his floor, and I stood by the button panel staring at the back corner. That was the spot where I'd kissed him so recklessly, during the weekend he'd invited me to stay at his place. I'd shoved him into that corner and taken over his mouth, making a point to let him feel what his presence did to my body. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been so forward with anyone, but because it was Yuzuru I couldn't help it. And later on that same day, he'd returned the favor while we were practicing in the dojo, and driven me out of my mind with want.

The elevator dinged and slid open, and I took a breath, gathering my courage. Stepping out into the hall, I spotted the door of his apartment at the very end and watched it get closer as my feet carried me over the worn carpet. Before I could lose my nerve, I knocked. "Yuzuru-san? Yuzuru-san, it's me."

I waited a few seconds, but nothing happened. I knocked again, a little harder. "Yuzuru-san? Are you home?" Feeling a little sheepish, I put my ear to the door. But I couldn't hear anything. I knocked some more, until one of the doors across the hall opened and a lady stuck her head out to shush me. I dropped my hand, frustrated.

Then it occurred to me, maybe he was at cram school? He shouldn't be going anywhere, sick and injured as he was, but if he was stubborn enough to go in a wet uniform I wouldn't be surprised if he'd gone in his current state, too. I guess I should have thought of that before I came all the way here, but without being able to get in touch with him any other way, this was the only solution I could think of.

I slumped to the floor, my back against his front door, and checked my watch again. If he was in cram school it would be a couple hours before he got back. Okay, fine. I'd wait. I'm not leaving until I see him.

I tipped my head back against the door and closed my eyes. Periodically there were voices, scuffling, and the sound of the elevator as people came and went from other parts of the building. I put my hand over the bracelet on my wrist and fiddled with the arrow, tracing it until my fingertips had memorized every last irregularity in its shape. My brain drifted in and out of conscious thought, and I focused on keeping my emotions calm.

He would be coming home soon. We'd think up a plan for the next couple weeks, even if it meant we couldn't see each other in person until his transfer was complete. Being sent to different schools would be tough, but we could make it work. He didn't have cram school Wednesday nights, so we could at least date once a week after school started up again. Maybe on Sundays, too. And after graduation, depending on where he went to university, we'd still find a way. I'd take a train to Tokyo every weekend if that's what it took. Maybe I could even stay overnight at Grandfather's, he and Yuzuru seemed to get along so well so he might not mind...

"What are you doing here?"

I opened my eyes to see Koike and Utsumi looking down at me with tense expressions. I scrambled to my feet, bowing. "Koike-senpai, Utsumi-senpai, you're here?" I looked past them down the hall, but there was no sign of anyone else. "Where's Yuzuru-san, he's not with you?"

Koike's mouth compressed into a thin line. "Seryou-kun, you need to leave."

"I will, I just need to see him for a—"

"He doesn't want to talk to you."

Her words crept down my spine like a flash freeze. "What?"

"Just go home, okay? It's over."

I blinked stupidly. "What do you mean, it's over?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. He's breaking up with you."

I sank back against his door, shaking my head. "No, listen, I know the school threatened him, but my parents are willing to help. I just need to talk to him for a few minutes and I can explain everything."

Koike looked over her shoulder at Utsumi, then back at me. "You think the school...?" Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. "Seryou-kun, just what exactly did your parents tell you?"

"Everything," I said in earnest. "That Houka forced him to choose between ending our relationship or getting expelled. But I'm not going to let either of those things happen. I know there's another way." I looked back and forth between them. "Please, is he all right? How badly is he hurt? How sick is he? I've got to see him, just for a few minutes. Houka will never find out, I swear."

Koike swung her head from side to side slowly. "Wait here." She pushed me away from the door, and knocked. "Shino, open up. It's me and Utsumi."

My heart locked up in my chest. Was he really in there? He'd been home all along?

After a minute there was a rustle on the other side of the door, and then I heard his voice. It was so coarse and broken I barely recognized it. "Is he still out there?"

Koike fixed me with a sharp look, and I felt like every bone in my body was crumbling into dust. "Yeah, but he's not coming in."

"He has to leave," came the reply.

"Yuzuru-san!" I cried, turning toward the door and pounding on it with my fist. "Please!" I was starting to get tunnel vision. What was happening? Why was he being like this? He was the one who'd figured out how to get around the school's no-contact orders in the first place. He was the one who'd borrowed a Santa Claus costume in order to go on a date with me, who'd snuck food into the computer lab every lunch period so he could video-call me from his phone. Was he really giving up now?

"Make him go away, Koike-chan," Yuzuru said from the other side of the door, followed by a fit of coughing so deep and harsh that it terrified me. That was much, much worse than a regular cold. I turned to Koike with wide eyes.

"How bad is he? Tell me!"

"Bad," Utsumi piped up from behind her. She turned to glare at him, but he pushed his glasses against his nose and eyed me with disapproval. "Tanaka and his friends really did a number on him. Black eye, busted lip, purple ribs, the works. We think he has a bronchial infection too."

I slumped against the wall. "Oh my god."

"Getting involved with you was a bad decision," Utsumi said. He didn't sound spiteful, more like a teacher delivering a matter-of-fact lecture. "And now he's giving up everything to protec—"

"Enough." Koike delivered an elbow to his side so hard that he oofed. She turned back to me, her brows knitted together. "Leave, Seryou-kun. You heard Shino, he doesn't want you here. The break up is real. He won't be talking to you anymore. So just go away and leave him alone." She pointed down at the paper bag Utsumi was carrying. "We're trying to bring him medicine and food, but he's not going to open up until you leave, got it? So if you really care about him, go."

I looked down at the bag, then at Koike's unwavering, stern face, then at the white-painted surface of his apartment door. I laid a hand on it, wishing I could reach through and touch him. I wanted to hold him so bad my whole body hurt... but it probably wasn't anywhere near the amount of suffering he was experiencing right now, every bit of which was my fault. No wonder he didn't want to see me.

"Yuzuru-san," I called through the door. "I'm going, okay? I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, for everything."

The only answer I got was another horrific round of coughing. With tears blurring my vision, I bowed to Koike and Utsumi. "Please take care of him, Senpai," I said, then stumbled down the hall for the elevators. They dinged and I got on. Just as the doors were closing behind me, I heard Koike knocking on Yuzuru's door again. I closed my eyes, and felt them spill hotly down my face.

Everything after that was a blur. When I got outside Yuzuru's apartment building, it was snowing. The cold was intense enough to make my teeth chatter, but even though my body was reacting I couldn't really feel it. I don't remember the walk to the footbridge, but every step felt like there was a fifty-kilo weight strapped to each ankle. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to turn around and go running back to his apartment door, to plant myself outside and shout that I wasn't leaving until he changed his mind.

But everything he was going through right now was because of me. What right did I have to demand anything of him, when being with me had already cost him so much? I was the one who'd done this to him. I couldn't even blame it on Tanaka. This was all me, and my screwed up, clingy, spineless personality. If only I'd gone after Nakamura and her friends the first time they'd posted those photos. If only I'd insisted we follow the school's no-contact order last week. If only I'd said no that first time he asked me out. Or the second time. Or the third one.

If only I hadn't fallen in love with him.

At the top of the footbridge I had to pause. This was where he'd torn up that movie pass last month, dropping the pieces into the traffic below, and I'd known he was ready to end our one-week dating game. At the time, I'd thought that was some of the worst heartache it was possible to experience, but it was a mere paper cut compared to this. It had really happened this time. He was really done with me.

My legs wouldn't hold me up, and I dropped to my knees on the rumbling bridge, my face pressed to the frigid metal bars. Sobs wracked my body until I couldn't see, I couldn't think or hear or feel anything but the pain. We'd been dating a month. Why did this hurt so much? A month was nothing, right? If this was how bad it felt now, I didn't know how people who lost their partners after decades together could even find the will to draw their next breath.

I crouched there for ages, clinging to the side of the bridge over the roar of passing traffic. I couldn't move. I didn't care if I ever moved again. I should just turn into a statue out here, freeze solid like an ice sculpture, and let the snow cover me up until I became part of the bridge that people passed every day and never thought twice about. People were already walking by, eyeing me and making small concerned comments. A couple asked if I needed help, and I shook my head. The smile I summoned felt grotesque on my face, but I guess it was convincing enough and they moved on.

Eventually I realized there was a vibration in my pocket that was different from the rhythm of the bridge underfoot. My phone. I pulled it out and tried to make sense of the words on the screen. The green incoming call button was flashing, so I touched it and put the phone to my ear.

"Touji?"

It wasn't Yuzuru. Not that I'd thought it would be.

"Shino." The very last person I wanted to talk to about any of this, why was she calling?

"Touji, where are you? Natsuki's been waiting for you at the athletic club but he said you never showed and you aren't answering his texts."

"Shino," I said again, my voice quivering with so much more than cold.

"God, you sound terrible. Natsuki said you got dumped, that sucks. Where are you right now?"

"On a bridge."

"What bridge? What are you doing there?"

"The East Kanazawa footbridge. It's by his house. He sent me away, Shino. He won't talk to me. He's sick, and he's been beaten up, and it's my fault. I'm supposed to go home but I can't get off this bridge. My legs aren't working. Nothing's working."

"Touji." All the playfulness vanished from her tone. "You listen to me. I want you to stay right where you are. Don't move, do you hear me? We're coming to get you."

I dropped the phone and pulled my knees into my chest, resting my forehead on them. Hadn't she heard me? I couldn't leave this place. Once I left here, I could never come back.

I was never going to see him again.

I curled into myself even tighter. How had this happened? How had we ended up like this? The traffic was still traveling down below, the snow was still falling, people were still walking by in both directions, living their lives. But for me, it was over. Life was frozen here, in this moment, and I didn't want it to move on.

After a while, someone was saying my name. "Touji. Touji, come on, get up."

There were strong hands on my shoulders, lifting me to my feet. I looked up to see my brother searching my face with mild annoyance, his breath steaming in the air. Shino was at his side in a cheery pink knitted headband, cheeks reddened by the cold.

Natsuki sighed, looking me up and down. "Come on, man, I know breakups stink, but this is taking it a little too far, don't you think?"

I promptly twisted to the side and threw up. It was mostly acid, because I hadn't eaten much of anything since lunch yesterday. I would have collapsed with the force of it, but Natsuki had good reflexes and his arm snapped under my midsection. I hung there, my guts continuing to heave long after my stomach had gone empty.

Natsuki was thumping my back, and guilt swept through me when I realized some of the foulness had ended up on his shoes.

"I'm sorry," I gasped, gagging a little. "I'm so sorry, you guys."

Shino's arm went around my back, and together the two of them straightened me up. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Let's just get you down from here and warm you up, okay?"

They led me down the other side of the footbridge, where Natsuki's black BMW was parked at the curb. I was loaded into the back seat and Shino climbed in next to me, handing me a pack of tissues. When I couldn't figure out what she wanted me to do with them, she plucked a few out and started wiping my mouth, then the front of my coat. "Damn, Touji, your hands are blue."

She took her gloves off and folded her palms around my fingers. They felt scalding, but she wouldn't let me pull away. When Natsuki gave us a reproving look in the rearview mirror, she snorted. "Eyes on the road, hot stuff. Nothing to see back here."

The car started up, and as soon as the heater came on it was like my internal organs had an epiphany about how cold we were. I started shaking. Bone-deep, uncontrollable shaking that rattled my teeth and rendered my limbs unuseable. Shino put her arms around me, pulled my head down to her shoulder. I tried to push her off, because Natsuki had only just started speaking to me again and I couldn't jeopardize that. But in my current state she had a lot more strength than I did, and she just squeezed tighter.

I lost it. The sobs returned, as hard and consuming as before, because I'd lost Yuzuru and I wasn't even brave enough to keep from betraying Natsuki in something as small as this... being held right now was what I needed, even if the only person I wanted wasn't ever going to touch me again, and Shino was absolutely forbidden but she was also warm and familiar and comforting in all the ways she wasn't supposed to be. I couldn't stop any of this from happening and the whole world was fucked up and I was fucked up and it was all just one giant mess that I wanted nothing to do with anymore.

Shino was rocking me in her arms, shushing me gently, and I gave up caring. It didn't matter if Natsuki hated me. He couldn't possibly hate me more than I hated myself. I went limp in Shino's arms, and cried.