W a r m t h | iwaoi

{8} - l o v e

i wish she didn't hate me.

every night i prayed and prayed, to god or whatever was up there-
for her to stop looking at me like i was some sort of scar; an ugly smear on the organized and clinical catastrophe she called her life.

i prayed for her to meet eyes with me and see something other than a mistake.
i prayed for her to look at me and to notice how my blue irises reflected hers.
i prayed for her to see herself.
i prayed for her to see herself all those years ago; strong-willed and fiery.
not the woman she was today.
not the woman with sharpened pencils and perfectly ironed suits and long empty silences and hollow eyes with dark circles from waking up at three a.m choking on air unable to breathe in the inky darkness of the night because there are things that live in the shadowed corners of her mind like men with pretty faces with words like
l o v e
dripping from their lips.

i want her to open the windows to her mind that she boarded shut on the day i was born. i want her to see the child she never wanted.
i want her to see me.
i want her to see that i'm no longer a baby in a cradle- i'm no longer helpless.

and for once in her entire fucking life,
i want her to look at me and see her daughter.

•

"nukumi! smile!"

i reactively turned to meet the flash of the camera- and the owner of the overwhelmingly delighted voice.

they always make a big fuss about my birthday.

happiness and anticipation filled my every step. in addition to my friends, i had asked my long time crush to come to my birthday party, and he'd gladly agreed.

i made sure that everything was perfect- everything had to be perfect. i was determined to become the most generic teen romance movie protagonist of the century.
i'm definitely getting there.

through my daydreaming, i felt a nudge from my father. he was visibly uncomfortable, his brown eyes frantically scanning the crowd.

"so w-who is this guy? is he hot? is he a bad boy? is he one of those-"

"dad, for the love of god, please don't say anything weird to him. i'll pay you a stripper's income for you to just smile and nod."

he chuckled and was about to retort, but was interrupted by the sudden sound of strangely familiar bickering.

"don't do anything weird to her, okay?
i know your father just loves to give you ... unusual advice."

"i do not! and he asked me in the first place, there's no way i could turn him down!"

a couple came striding in, an apathetic looking boy trailing behind, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. his eyebrows were furrowed, and he looked like he wanted to puke. i could tell he had a hard time with his parents.

but he was just-
too cute.

a loud gasp erupted from my father's mouth,

"shrimpy?! and tobio, too?!"

he was always so loud. that's how you could tell tooru was in the room. hajime, or as i like to call him, dad #2, was his foil, very nonchalant. when it came to tooru though, all of his pent up emotions seemed to flood out. the two suited each other so well it was almost scary.