I Like Him, Not You!

i like him, not you!

synopsis: in which you’ve finally mustered up the courage to express a bashful confession to your best friend and six-year crush…only to accidentally dispatch your heartfelt message to the wrong person.

character/s: albedo, ayato, childe, kazuha, xiao, scaramouche, thoma

a/n: @sohyuki ilysm have a wonderful day queen <3

the first thing you do is run away.

in a way, you have always been good at that. scampering from those undivulged words and imminent encounters that instilled fear in you. it spoke to you almost like a natural instinct, left you with a bitter taste on your tongue, tormented you with a sick sensation twisting your stomach.

because of this, you ran from a lot of things. from your parents whenever they frowned upon a low grade on your report card, from a pompous asshole you later mustered the tiniest courage to shove down during fourth grade, from the unwitting attention of sunbeam-amber eyes meeting yours, and from your best friend whom you’ve practically loved for the longest time.

and you decide the last one is something you’ll finally want to quit running away from.

eight little letters and three simple words, yet for six long years they have meant more than the world to you. he has always meant more than the world to you.

so you attempt to construct it all within proper sentences — desperately trying not to jumble up your phrases while trying to provide the impression that you sure as hell hadn’t been shaking tremendously as you wrote it.

but it’s so difficult to even spare a meek glance at it. so annoying that it pesters thrumming vibrations in the depths of your stupid heart. so fucking frustrating that you don’t actually bother looking at it anymore when your fingers hover over the word ‘send’.

you’ve shut your phone off after that singular moment, and stashed it away in a nearby drawer for safekeeping. and for the entire weekend, you convince yourself that you didn’t really care anymore. six years didn’t matter because you weren’t expecting an answer. just an outlet for these emotions and a burden lifted off your weighted shoulders.

and for the first time in a long while, you acknowledge how liberating it feels to not want to run.

Y/N’S CONTACTS.

him <3 (kaedehara kazuha)

✉ 4:47 am, april 4th (mon).

[ 1 new message! ] : psst. arcade after class today? :)

ah, but who would be an idiot not to fall for him?

you’ve guessed he’s received so many incessant compliments and heartfelt confessions, that despite how frustratingly courteous he was — could never actually bother wasting his time sorting through each and every one of them.

so you figure that you’re in the clear, and he won’t have to burden himself with formulating a sharp answer.

or at least, that’s what you reassure yourself when monday comes around and he greets you with an ever-familiar and warm smile.

and is also perhaps why he pretends like nothing has actually happened…

because if that happened to be the case, he was rather good at acting pretty normal. you knew that if you’d ever received such a confession from somebody, you would have been freaking out a lot more — and depending on whether you reciprocated their emotions, either avoiding or confronting them.

but this…was a little too cold of a reaction.

and yet, at the same time, you were thankful he still kept approaching and talking to you as usual. above all, kazuha was your best friend before he was the person you wanted to be romantically involved with. you could never really bear the thought of losing him as a close confidante.

but it hurt like hell because he was always too kind, always too impossible not to love. always with the 1 am calls and his soft voice when you couldn’t fall asleep. always with the weekend home visits to his place so you could share a meal together. always with the sleepovers or out catching a midnight film. always a shoulder to lean on when the tears were too much. always, always there.

you know he’ll never love you the way you knew just exactly how to love him. and that’s okay.

but if looks and words could have honestly fooled, it almost seemed like he was ridiculously unaware that you had even confessed to him in the first place.

everything stayed the same.

and you can’t help but feel sick at the reality, because a part of you wanted to believe that kazuha was in love with you, at least once in his life and perhaps never again. in sleepless turned drowsy midnight calls, in fleeting glances inside the deserted cinema, in homemade meals and warm smiles, in drowning tears and comforting hugs. in the briefest of seconds when he realized you were always there.

but the thing about love is that it’s blinded you enough to not think about the probability that he might just like you. that he may or may not have been avoiding all other confessions because he only hoped for yours. that he may be hesitating every time you two get closer because he thinks you won’t want him back. that at 1 am while you’re whispering softly through the phone about your day, kazuha’s thinking about all the pragmatic reasons not to blurt out mid-conversation that he’s always been madly in love with you.

you know one thing for sure when you dazedly stare at your phone later that day. love has blinded you enough to not think twice about why kazuha might not be acting any differently than you had initially expected. why he’s so infuriatingly unfazed. why he should have been having a more violent reaction instead of making the same silly jokes with you.

and boy, you’re bewildered when you find two chat notifications waiting in your message box. one from kazuha, inviting you to the nearby arcade after class…except for some absurd reason, there’s no record of an embarrassingly heartfelt confession registered in your shared chat history.

the second from a boy you barely knew but always subconsciously noticed in class, sitting rather ominously in your DMs with the strangest of messages. and it’s only when you begrudgingly open your shared chat, that you clearly feel how your heart stops in one horrifying instant.

because sitting there in the most unexpected of places, lies the culmination of six long years building up to a terribly emotional confession.

but…it’s not for the boy you had hoped would receive it.

that guy in class (xiao)

✉ 11:54 pm, april 2nd (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : who are you?

xiao wishes there was a guidebook for how to handle all probable awkward situations, in the unfortunate circumstance that he’d ever find himself impossibly lodged in the middle of one.

but there’s none that exist to date. and he thinks not even the internet can help him figure out what to respond to a sudden and random heartfelt confession sitting peacefully in his message inbox.

he hasn’t exactly done anything to be loved or wanted by anyone. and at first, your contact name barely registers anyone he recognizes in his head. so he sends the first question he thinks of as a response, and shuts his phone to close his eyes and rest.

but then sunday morning comes and it clicks. he remembers. he knows who you are. because of that, xiao finds it all absurd.

it wasn’t like he intended to stare at you. he was always prone to dozing off mid-classes, eyes instinctively sweeping across every inch of the classroom, outside the window to greet the blinding light of the morning sun, and then reluctantly retreating back inside…

only to see you. and for you to see him.

so the odd pattern repeats. everyday.

you’d think he have broken out of such a quirky habit of looking. he’d think you’d have stopped meeting his eyes every single time. but you always manage to see each other — and past that, neither of you dare make the effort to talk to one another.

it was some sort of unspoken understanding between you two, momentary peace that isn’t built on a real connection. just that he finds comfort in your eyes, while you’re left breathless at his.

but for you to confess, and oh so suddenly without any particular reason to make you like him.

so he realizes the message presently occupying his DMs (and unconsciously plaguing his thoughts) isn’t truly meant for him.

monday eagerly arrives, and he stares. more often than usual, more often than he’d want to. he wonders if you’ve noticed how you fucked up, because he’s almost certain he knows who your vulnerable confession is intended for.

and it’s late in the afternoon when you shyly pull him aside to talk about it. how embarrassed you were by your clumsy mistake, how deeply you felt apologetic for sending it to him, but most importantly of all —

“i’m really sorry, but i like someone else and not you!”

strange how your first conversation turns out like this. he’s always imagined it would begin very differently. perhaps with you pointing out the fact that he always gazes at you, him asking you in return why you always look back.

and almost on impeccable cue, you suddenly smile and tell him about all the times you recognized him because of how often your eyes met, even though you’ve never talked to each other. you’re sorry for not talking with him sooner.

but xiao thinks nothing is going to change just because you’ve verbally acknowledged each other.

he was sort of wrong. the next time you met glances, you smiled. several more times after you’ve started doing it, he starts to reciprocate with the smallest of smiles too — the kind that makes you feel like its your shared little secret.

and you’ve both changed in certain ways. you talked with each other more often, occupying vacated classrooms during breaks and making a bit more room for each other within your drastically different lives. he even starts to join you during lunch whenever kazuha was too occupied with homework, and lets you drag him along to amusement parks or anime events you presumed kazuha wasn’t too interested in.

but the craziest part about it all was that you admitted to never actually confessing to kazuha after all that’s happened.

perhaps you were left traumatized by your previous opportunity to confess to your best friend. perhaps because of a certain “someone’s” consistent jokes, you were too horrified to ever want to confess to somebody ever again. perhaps you were simply confused about the new boy weaving his way into your life.

one thing’s for sure, xiao feels strangely relieved that you decided not to send the actual message to your crush.

and maybe even a little dirty part of him hopes you’ll eventually forget about confessing to kazuha at the end of it all.

saturday boyfriend (childe)

✉ 9:06 am, april 5th (tues).

[ 1 new message! ] : so you’re the girl who likes xiao?

the thing is, childe could have never actually perceived the day when he’d get a phone call late in the evening from xiao, inquiring about what to say in response to an abrupt confession from a stranger.

his brusque and characteristically quiet best friend — had suddenly gotten some crazy chick to fall for him? with that shitty personality?

oh, the unexpected news gave childe the laughter of a lifetime. and yet, he couldn’t help but feel curious about the idea of it. what kind of interesting person would ever be attracted to someone like that guy? (respectfully, of course.)

fortunately to satiate the whirlwind of questions that night, xiao later sends him a text of your name with a message not to bother you.

and childe’s eyes go wide when he eventually puts a face to the name. you, the weird chick always absently staring over at xiao in classes?

perhaps he should’ve seen it coming. he did think it was weird how he sometimes found you glancing quietly towards his friend. but he sort of assumed you’d have liked kazuha instead — you know, your actual best friend — over some guy you’ve never even talked to in your life.

so with the right determination, he makes it his personal mission the following monday to devote his own precious time for a stakeout. because who’s to say you weren’t secretly some disgusting pervert targeting your uninhibited emotions to an innocent classmate?

childe observes you from afar the whole day. from the moment you found your seat in class that morning, watching you lock eyes with xiao mid-science discussion, routinely tagging along with kazuha for lunch, and even as you’re concentrating on a note-taking phase during the afternoon break.

you haven’t made any explicit moves towards xiao…yet. it’s a rather normal and innocuous day for you.

until afternoon comes — and near the school gates, he watches as you awkwardly tug xiao aside to talk to him briefly. childe pauses in his steps, staring at your huddled silhouettes while attempting to decipher the distinct mood of the conversation. he sees you smile at one point, and how you courteously greet each other goodbye when it’s over.

did xiao accept your feelings then?

that night, he gets your number from a mutual friend, and sends you a harmless text message the next morning. if xiao reciprocated your interest in him that day, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to eventually get to know each other during the long run.

but when he arrives in school, he’s greeted by the sight of you staring at him in surprise and asking if you could spare him a minute of his time to talk. and it’s right then that you explain and attempt to clear up the misunderstanding that transpired between you and his best friend.

it still makes childe laugh at the absurdity of it whenever he thinks about the mistaken confession, and how throughly embarrassed you must have been for unhesitatingly sending it to a complete stranger.

from that fateful day on, you two started to become close friends. and to mark that unforgettably momentous occasion for you — childe would routinely find a way to weave his presence into your saturdays, bringing flowers, chocolates, typical department-store love letters, or text you a long ass cheap excuse of a profession — to remind you of your “beautifully executed confession”. even though really, it’s just a dumb excuse to poke infuriating jokes at you.

those continuous, and admittedly humorous endeavors of his, became some part of the reason why you could never bring yourself to confess to kazuha again…or anyone else for that matter.

and you know, maybe celibacy was the way your life was always destined to be. maybe you weren’t supposed to give out your heart to other guys, because you were solely meant to receive any form of romantic gesture every saturday from a certain ginger-haired bastard. and well, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to have in the world.

or maybe he’s accidentally caught feelings when he suddenly put more thought than he should have, into picking out a gift on a random saturday.

maybe one average saturday, he’ll unconsciously fall for your smile and the sarcastic words of gratitude you’ll throw back at him.

and maybe, just maybe…on some imminent saturday, he won’t know what more to give other than his real and heartfelt confession to you.

homework hotline (albedo)

✉ 6:15 am, april 7th (thurs).

[ 1 new message! ] : hey, coming over to yours later for that project due next week.

you’ve had close friends come over to your apartment often, but none have ever made you feel as utterly relieved compared to when albedo visits.

it’s always been challenging for you to keep track of homework loads, or stay motivated while reviewing for an upcoming test due the end of the week. and albedo’s presence magically helps you to be productive with exactly all of that.

perhaps you feel more motivated, or somewhat pressured to accomplish tasks in the company of a person who’s actually mastered diligence. whatever it is, for the past few years it’s given you higher grades than you’ve ever expected to receive pitted against your previous academic years.

and ever since then, you’ve made it a point to always partner up together during projects, which he easily obliges to. plus, you’ve succeeded as a team in plenty of tasks for so long, that albedo naturally feels more inclined to work with you.

he also can’t deny that the company is indeed familiar and comfortable, therefore making it the most preferable alternative.

besides, he’s made himself at home in your apartment for a handful of years now, that it’s almost as if he practically lives together with you. an extra toothbrush left in your bathroom cupboard, a similar set of pillows and blankets stashed inside your closet, albedo’s hoodies and clothes folded in a neat pile within a separate drawer — his presence in your home was always just there.

which is why later that evening, as you and albedo are busy preparing dinner before you cram an overnight agenda of finishing several projects in advance, he casually suggests the idea of moving in together instead.

and it’s frankly not that terrible of an idea. the rent would be split between you both so you’d save much more, there would be no more trouble commuting to each other’s places to finish school-related tasks, house chores would be divided amongst the two of you, and albedo could occupy the apartment while you were out on weekly visits or sleepovers in kazuha’s.

so the deed is done. by the following week, you’ve already prepared other necessary accommodations, and albedo comes over with a small duffel bag (since most of his stuff was already left at your place) and a brand new key for your shared abode.

neither of you can really feel like something has changed. if anything, it seems more natural to have him permanently living with you because it makes things more convenient.

and ever since then, you’ve been constantly seen together a lot more frequently inside the university premises (causing some familiar faces grow envious at the sight of it), but the both of you preferred to keep your current home status as a personal secret so as not to fuel too many strange rumors.

you do homework with each other a lot more often. you’re also left in awe by the occasional detailed doodles scrawled across the corner pages of his lecture notebook. one late evening, you were wondering if it was the sleep taking over you, or he actually drew a little portrait of you on one of the tightly folded pages.

everyday, you’d take turns doing certain things during your well-deserved breaks. albedo, on one hand, teaches you how to draw and paint. you’re not exactly the best at artistic endeavors, but he was always patient and supportive, going as far as to provide specific remarks on the things you needed improvement with.

on other days, you’d convince him to sit down with you to binge food while watching your favorite films. he’d initially oblige to appease your kindness and hadn’t realized it at first — but at some later point, he ended up loving all the same movies as you did.

it’s slow but anticipated, the way he falls in love with you. perhaps a part of him has always seen this ending coming — recognized the dangerous path he was treading, and yet took it without any complaint.

even though he saw through your heart and how you wanted someone else. even as he witnessed the romantic gifts you carried back home with a giddy smile. even while he listens to you upsettingly vent about the most impertinent guy who keeps making his way back into your life.

because maybe deep down, he’s always hoped to love someone like this. the sound of your laughter filling his ears while making dinner. films on television illuminating your face in the darkness. yawns you stifle when it’s midnight and you’re almost finished with homework. fluttering eyes in the morning. enchanting smiles quirking across your lips. napping soundly on the study desk even though you kindly insisted on waiting up for him before you both slept. how it feels to talk about everything and nothing at the same time.

it’s natural and innate. foreign yet so familiar. a breath of fresh air. and yet, the feeling of home lingers across his fingertips.

a written, unchangeable, and hopeless destiny for albedo to always fall without constraint. and the saddest truth is — he wouldn’t have wanted this love for any other way.

BLOCKED — 4th grader asshole (scaramouche)

✉ 2:35 pm, april 9th (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : you’re paying for the next meal dumbass.

scaramouche to you was a lot of things. perhaps the first and most notable one of them all was that he was an impressively pompous asshole.

and you suppose he’s always been like that. the same bitchy bully you’ve regretfully crossed paths with during the fourth grade.

the strangest part is, you’ve never actually done anything to piss the boy off. or at least, none you could still vividly remember. but you were certain that you weren’t too shitty as a kid, and your first interaction with scaramouche wasn’t even close to offensive.

it happened on the elementary playground, when you first caught sight of the little boy eagerly chasing after his friends, before suddenly tripping over a rock and diving straight into the ground. you remember the degrading echoes of his friends’ laughter, how you worriedly walked over to him and asked if he was okay. how you stretched your hand out to the kid on the ground, and how he stared at you with an unreadable gaze. and before you even knew it, past that singular moment, every single day of 4th grade became absolute war.

could anyone blame you for simply being courteous? he had terribly shitty friends and you only wanted to help…which yes, unexpectedly backfired with irreparable consequences. how were you to know in that second that something horrible would happen?

maybe you should never have approached scaramouche that day. or maybe you also would’ve regretted never helping him out.

either way, the thought has always plagued the back of your mind, and you wonder if your life would have changed so drastically had you made a different choice in that playground.

even until today, he still somehow manages to wander into your life oh so effortlessly. in the hallways, ramming into your shoulder without sparing a mere glance or an apology. in the middle of class, absently toying with your free locks of hair while you grumble several coherent insults towards the boy. during gratitude day, him stealing your white blouse scribbled in your friends’ messages and writing some of his own unwanted words on it. in the art room, cornering you with that devilish smirk and a finger against his lips as he warns you not to make a single sound, while the hall monitor angrily screeches his name around the deserted corridors…most likely intending to throw him in detention.

even at the comfort of your own home — he’s the neighbor who (unfortunately) moved around the same time as you did, except he lives in the spacious flat two floors below.

and it infuriates you to the ends of the earth. how he’s always been there. how he somehow still is.

when you aced a major test, he was there with an irritated scoff, reminding you not to get too full of yourself. when he saw how you started to fall for kazuha in the early years, he was there to poke fun of you for wanting a “nice” guy, because nice was just an equivalent for boring. when he saw you standing outside your house beneath the rain — soaked, shivering, and frustrated after a big argument with your parents — he shoved an umbrella in your face and told you how you looked absolutely horrendous.

he’s seen too much of you, both in your happiest and at your worst. not even others like kazuha or close family friends have witnessed or known such dark parts of you. why did it have to be him? this boy who has been constantly tormenting you for several years of your life?

even as you surround yourself with better people, you still think about the insolent asshole roaming around the hallways. still overly conscious about his presence whenever you’re in the same room (more than you would have wanted). still thinking about his umbrella in the rain.

and perhaps that was the most perplexing thing which unknowingly drew you to scaramouche. that you never really knew which side of him you were going to get everyday.

one moment he’s explicitly arguing with you in the middle of plain daylight (which unfortunately, later lands you both in detention) — then all of a sudden, you’re riding a bus at midnight to your apartment alone, and he’s the person coincidentally seated next to you, flinching at your snot as he hurriedly juts a handkerchief towards your teary face.

he’s always headed towards the apartment at the same time you exit the bus coming from the university. and although you two constantly bicker and fight along the way back to the building, he was there to accompany you on the lonely walk home.

he pokes fun about your painfully obvious crush on your best friend, but tones it down on the sunday he sees you with puffy red eyes after confessing and attempting to convince yourself you didn’t care if he didn’t want you back.

even more so when you’re unwillingly forced to share a table with him inside a popular and crowded restaurant during lunch — him insulting you for the way you scarf down your food like a pig, and yet his hand subconsciously reaches out to wipe the sauce smudge on the corner of your lips before casually licking it off his thumb.

you’re staring at him in confusion, grateful yet weirded out at the…generous gesture. but all he does is scoff disapprovingly at your face, because there’s no masking the strange red flush that creeps up your cheeks from the uncharacteristic tension and his sudden physical contact.

and for the first time in the years you’ve known him, you’ve only made yourself presently aware of the reddish tint that sets the tips of his ears aglow.

what you’ll never actually realize is how much effort he’s been constantly making to conceal that singularly instinctive (and frankly, repulsive) action that reminds him of how vulnerable you’ve always made him feel — ever since you gave him your hand back in fourth grade.

it would’ve helped him a lot more if he had never noticed you prior to that. how nice you were to the other kids and teachers. how adorable you looked in those neat pigtails. how you had unknowingly charmed every single person into the palm of your hand, and how you were still so infuriatingly enchanting and oblivious at the effect you had on others…even until today.

he hated feeling vulnerable more than anything else in the world, knowing that he was also one of those idiots helplessly wrapped around your finger. just that unlike the rest of them, he’d never actually stoop down so low with his pride to say it out loud.

and he hated that everyday, you were always making it all the more easier for him to admit it to himself. to scream out to the world that scaramouche hated how much he has somehow, foolishly, and quite impossibly, always been in love with you.

organization hottie (ayato)

✉ 5:23 pm, april 9th (sat).

[ 1 new message! ] : see you on monday.

you tried not to squeal too loudly when you suddenly received the text message. but albedo could see the way you tightly pressed your lips together to stifle back a wide whooping grin.

and why wouldn’t you be thrilled? you had just gotten accepted into your university’s official charity organization! it was certainly the perfect opportunity to expose yourself to more learning experiences and activities past the fields of academics.

obviously, it wasn’t like a super attractive person was currently heading the committee and had just sent you a text saying you got accepted a couple minutes ago…

or…okay.

so maybe there’s a bit of an influence. i mean, was it that bad to find a guy who devotes his time for others insanely charming?

of course, it wasn’t anything serious like the way you felt for kazuha. it was more of a happy crush, if you would call it — someone you have a slight romantic admiration for, but don’t exactly harbor any deep feelings towards them.

admittedly, you had naturally considered the prospect of finding yourself with nothing to do over the course of summer, and you figured applying in the organization wouldn’t do much harm for you anyway…even though you had some reservations about the final decision to sign up for it.

and then, you heard about how ayato was recently elected to oversee the committee activities for the following year. thus, the rest was simply history.

the next week, you’re swamped with exchanging introductions among several new members and almost immediately busying yourself with the upcoming project meeting.

oddly enough, you’ve been assigned in the same team as ayato for your first project. and although you began on a rather rough and awkward start together, he guides you through the transitioning process until you’ve learned at least enough things to handle some separate tasks independently.

you’ve always assumed ayato was an overly formal and aloof person to approach compared to the others — however on the contrary, you were pleasantly surprised to discover that he also beheld a mischievous side conflicting his own outer demeanor.

there were days when even he would occasionally reach out to talk about things past organization-related matters. simple questions such as asking about some input on a certain movie, if you had completed this previously given assignment, or merely checking how your day was going.

and maybe it was just strange for you to suddenly realize how human ayato feels.

sure, he was often distant and burdened under plenty of responsibilities. you’ve heard your fair share of rumors and how he was always seemingly placed on a pedestal above all — perhaps you’d almost forgotten that at the end of the day, he was still just trying to get his own shit together, like everybody else.

he was precisely nothing short of a normal guy. the kind who pokes good fun around and plays chess on breaks. the kind who still asks if you want to accompany him to springtime festivals. the kind who smiles at you when he sees you standing across the hallway. the kind who elbows you subtly when you’ve dozed out in the middle of somebody’s monologue. the kind who feels like you‘re somehow beginning to know him better than you know yourself.

and ayato thinks you’re the kind he wondered what would happen had he met you all those years ago instead. if he had an opportunity to know you better before, than he did today. if he would have liked you any sooner, or always just a little later.

maybe it’s true that ayato could work hard to be a lot of things. after all, he couldn’t have become half the man he was today if he hadn’t convinced himself to put in more effort than anybody else.

but maybe there were also some things ayato could just never bring himself to have, no matter how hard he tried. maybe there were always meant to be some moments and people he wasn’t possibly cut out for.

and maybe he could try all he wanted, but he could never really work hard enough to ever make you notice his own lonesome heart — always patiently waiting.

BONUS CONTACT ! — a short side story.

radio boy (thoma)

✉ 3:07 pm, april 5th (tues).

[ 1 new message! ] : hey y/n! do you mind stopping by the broadcasting room for a bit?

although thoma has always been well-favored among people of all ages, he feels that there’s nobody else he’d rather spend his company with than you.

it’s not that he’s wanted you for ill intentions or in a romantic perspective. just that you were his favorite person who was so invariably easy to talk to.

you first met thoma inside the broadcasting room, randomly paying a visit out of curiosity to ask the title of a particular song played during the morning break. and then the following day, you came back to ask on behalf of your friend about another song.

before either of you knew it, you were making regular yet brief appearances to the little recording area — not just to ask about songs, but also to initiate small talk about how the other’s day was going. it was later on you discovered that thoma was a student from another class in the same university who volunteered to work for the campus radio station.

on most days, you’d bring him pastries or coffee to satiate his empty stomach, since thoma preferred to spend most of his free time in the broadcasting room. sometimes, he’d also be generous enough to let you borrow some of his cd’s or flash-drives of music playlists that he thinks would suit your taste.

during periods when you were too busy to pay a visit, you’d send him a quick text apologizing in advance. but not even five minutes later, a familiar song would suddenly blast through the classroom speakers in response, and you couldn’t do anything to hide the contented smile from quirking across your face.

when thoma begins to fall in love with you, he finds himself secretly dedicating certain songs to you on the campus radio — either playing tracks he knows you love, or music that he thinks reminds him of you.

of course, you’re not really sure when the boy behind the radio started liking somebody. just that all of a sudden on an average weekday, you belatedly noticed how his choice of tunes changed, and never became the same as before.

and every time you’ll teasingly question thoma about his arbitrary selection of songs in hopes of prying him for a name drop, all he does is shrug with a quiet smile — saying that you, out of all people, should know her all too well.