Someplace Like Home |n.j

38.

"So you just sit here in your free time?"

Kenji and I are on his small balcony, sitting on creaky foldable camping seats. I have my feet propped up on the metal rails just as he does. Eight years ago we wouldn't even be able to get out here. Who knew what kinds of junk were piling in front of the door.

"Yeah," Kenji sighed, then blew out the smoke in his mouth. My eyes fall to the cigarette in Kenji's hand.

His parents were always nice to me. They were understanding whenever I came here to escape from my mother and her fights with Father. The catch was that they were the same kind of existence for Kenji. I would've thought that they were the sweetest, despite their addictions. I only knew because he told me. It's terrifying really, how powerful our voices are. How we can change someone's entire reality by simply taking out or adding in a few words. If I hadn't told Namu about my childhood that night, things would've been different. He wouldn't have known me.

I cock my head to the side a little as I stared at the afternoon sky. I can't believe Kenji can just sit here and look at the same thing for so long, and more than once.

"That sounds dreadful. It's all silent and all you have are your thoughts," I shudder. Lord knows nothing in my brain is worth revisiting.

"I like thinking, I don't have any other time to do that."

"Yeah?" I try to see something in the clouds, but that's all it is, clouds. I don't have much imagination to see an animal or the face of a loved one. "What do you think about?"

"Anything, I think about where Harumi is, if he's doing well, if he's finally got himself a boyfriend, you know he always wanted one..." He sucks in a breath, "Mainly you. I thought a lot about you."

I fall silent with a thick swallow down my throat. I bite my lip, "...what about me?"

"Everything," he replied like he didn't even hesitate, "Everything about you."

Something told me he was looking at me. I turn my head to return the gaze. I scrunch my eyebrows. Could it be? Even after so long?

We were so young. My feelings for him were not fake, but our romantic feelings for one another were far from the bond of our friendship. We were just in our teens, curious and in need of an escape. Who wouldn't get butterflies in their stomach if they were seventeen and their best friend kissed them or stood too close?

Or was that just me?

"Kenji, please don't-"

"Why not?"

"I love you as a brother, Kenji."

He threw the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his foot, "That is messed up, we dated once."

I run a hand over my face and I sit up straight, "That was way more than eight years ago, why are you doing this to yourself and holding on to these feelings?"

He looks at me like he doesn't want to believe what I'm saying. It's my bad, again. I should've known before returning here. It's always my problem. I'm always too insensitive, too rash to read other people's minds. It should've crossed my mind that he could still have feelings for me, and even if not, our relationship isn't that simple. We have too much history for me to have just brushed everything off my shoulder like that. I even told him about Namu like he's supposed to fucking celebrate with me. Stupid.

It's my personality and the way I think that always hurt the people around me. I'm not careful enough, not sensible enough, and too straightforward, too stubborn.
And yet I've still got the most patient people in my life. I don't know why they stick around.

I let out a sigh, leaning back down on the chair, "I've got a guy, anyway. This won't do."

"A 'guy' that you're not even in an actual relationship with." He talks like this is debatable.

"And I didn't come back to be in a relationship either. It's not what I need right now," I swallow, then speak with a quieter voice, "...I don't want this to ruin what we have."

"It won't," I hear him pulling out another cigarette from beside me, "I could be your friend back then, I can do it now. I was just pushing my luck," Something about what he says makes my stomach flip. I feel bad. Being friends with someone that you love is painful. I don't want my existence to be a painful thing. Especially not to him. He's the only one I've got. I grew up with him and I love him. Nothing's going to change that. He's the one that makes this place a home.

A home worth returning to.

Kenji nudges my shoulder with something and I turn to see the opened cigarette pack.

"It's okay. I quit, actually."

He looked surprised.

And I get that. I used to be the one that couldn't accept change, the one that was persistent about everything, painfully persistent. You'd never guess I'd ever in this lifetime quit anything. Not drinking, not smoking. But I actually quit one of them. Nobody would guess I'd come back either. And yet I did.

Kenji knew who I was before I became who I am now. But he should be less surprised. I've changed. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here.

"Wow," he retracted his hand and stuffed it back down the pocket of his washed-out denim jeans, "Good for you."

"Yeah," I smile, looking down at my fingers that just can't stop picking at one another.

"Do you ever, uh, feel like falling back into it though?"

I nod, "Of course I do, like everything we quit. There's no instant switch...it's a constant effort."

I miss him. I shouldn't be comparing him to cigarettes. We just met at the wrong time. There is no right time with cigarettes.

He is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

"But I know what's good for me."

It's a trend these days to sacrifice yourself for your lover, to choose them at all times. That's what they call romance. Through certain lenses, I'm sure people would tell me that I don't deserve Namu because I left. That I should never return and allow him to find a woman that will stick around. And maybe they wouldn't be wrong. But it's absurd. I didn't sit around waiting to meet him, I was living my own life and so was he. We were on our separate paths and they just happened to cross. If I didn't pause my life to meet him before, why should I now? We shouldn't put our own future to a halt for some company. That just sounds forced to me. It sounds like cowardice and immaturity. Nothing lasts forever. It's a waste to keep things past their expiration date.

If one must stop their own growth for someone then it just isn't meant to be.

Despite all this, even if there really is no future that we share, even if he finds a woman that doesn't need to run around looking for her own peace of mind, I'll still love him anyway.

Wholeheartedly so.

"What are you thinking about?"

I guess I see it now, the appeal of sitting here and letting your mind go to where, or who, it wishes. I could do it for hours.

"A guy."