Just One Night (Issei Matsukawa)

Issei

The minute that I stepped into our apartment, I could already tell that something felt wrong. Knowing Sayo, she'd texted her boyfriend the minute we'd separated earlier. If that were the case, then he would no doubt have told Issei. Things were going to be tense...

I found him sitting at the kitchen table, arms folded neatly and his phone sitting in front of him. His gaze flicked over to me when I entered. He looked pissed. "Have a nice little date?"

"It wasn't like that. I don't date." As much as I keep saying that, I really should just tattoo it on my forehead....

"Bullshit." He held up his phone, showing a picture of Yuuji and me in the café. I looked like a stupid lovestruck teenager... "Iwaizumi thought he recognized you and messaged me. I didn't want to believe it was actually you... and then Makki told me that Sayo said you ran off with him."

Okay, so maybe going off with Yuuji had been stupid, but Issei had no right to be mad. "It's not any of your business who I see. It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything."

"That's not even the issue..." Issei put his phone down. "Yuuji? Your fucking ex of all people? After what he did? He shows up and you just go running right back to him? Are you really that stupid?"

Issei doesn't mean it the way that it sounds. In my head I know that... he's just really hurt... but that doesn't mean that his words aren't painful. As much as I want to argue and defend my actions, I choose to bite my tongue and keep quiet instead. It's not worth trying to argue over.

Things go silent for a while. Issei is really upset... but honestly, I can't even begin to understand why... "I didn't sleep with him," I said, finally breaking the silence, my voice quiet. "I was going to... but then I thought about you... and then I couldn't do it. I left him and came straight home."

He looked at me, a bit shocked. "You... you didn't hook up with him?" I nodded. "Because of me?"

"Don't go thinking anything of it..." I sat down in one of the chairs by him. "I don't know why I even thought about you then... or why it made me change my mind..."

Issei reached across the table and put a hand on mine. "I'm surprised you even stopped yourself... Iwaizumi said that you seemed super happy with that guy..."

He wasn't wrong... in that moment with Yuuji, I'd felt happy... happier than I've felt in... well, since the days when we'd been dating.

"I... yeah... I was..." I took a deep breath, steadying all my nerves. Issei deserved the truth, at the very least. "Yuuji... when we were together, I was head over heels for him... I really believed that I was in love..." Looking back, it was stupid to think that since I had still been in high school. "He wasn't my first anything, but he was the only one I'd ever felt so strongly about... I... I even thought that maybe he was the one... and then, out of nowhere, he ends it. Tells me that it's not me, that it's him... Sayo tried so hard to cheer me up... and it was starting to work... I might have even been able to get over him... but then I saw him... some other girl hanging off his arm and making the stupidest lovestruck face... and he was smiling... Smiling. Not even a day had passed yet since we'd broken up and he was off being happy with some other woman..."

He really doesn't need to hear this, but at this point, I can't even stop myself. "I wanted to be angry... but all I could do was think where did I go wrong? Where did I screw up to make him want someone else?" I took Issue's hand in both of mine. "And today... I know I should have just told him to just go to hell... but I couldn't... because no matter how much I said that I was over him... I wasn't... After all this time, I still can't move on..."

At that moment, there was a sudden pain in my stomach, right along the lower part of my ribs. I flinched and immediately brought a hand to that spot.

The face I made must have looked terrible, because Issei went from across the table to at my side in a mere instant, asking if I was okay.

I simply smiled. "I think it kicked."

Issei laughed. "That's it? That face... you had me worried something was actually wrong."

"Let's see what face you make when you get kicked in the ribs from the inside."

"No thanks."

Issei... even if he'd been really upset with me, he'd still come running when he thought that I was hurt... If ever I decided to love again, I'd want it to be someone just like that... and nothing like Yuuji.