“Still here?” Ash’s voice cut through the echo of the empty hall, a low, easy rumble that always managed to find Sōta’s nerves and pluck them, just so. Sōta flinched, a small, involuntary twitch of his shoulder, before he could clamp down on it. He hated that. Hated how Ash could still do that, after everything. He’d been trying to get his locker open, again. The cheap metal door, dented near the bottom, was jammed, perpetually. He kicked it, lightly, a dull clang resonating.
“What, no dramatic exit for the ages?” Sōta retorted, not looking at him, still fiddling with the stubborn dial. His fingers were cold, a weird clamminess that had nothing to do with the actual temperature in the hallway, which was actually kind of stuffy. The overhead fluorescent lights hummed, a barely perceptible drone, casting a sickly yellow sheen on the beige lockers. Outside, he knew, the late afternoon sun was turning the maple trees a violent, brilliant red, but inside, it was always this dull, artificial glow, somehow amplifying the quiet.
Ash stepped closer, the sound of his worn sneakers a soft scrape on the linoleum. Sōta’s breath hitched, just for a second. His own chest felt tight. He could smell Ash then, something faint and clean, like cold air after a rain, with a hint of something else, maybe ink from a pen, or old paper. He hated that he still knew that smell, could still pick it out in a crowded room, let alone this almost-empty hallway. Ash leaned against the locker next to Sōta’s, a casual slouch that somehow managed to feel predatory. "Just checking. Thought maybe you’d finally pulled the fire alarm to escape English Lit. You looked desperate."
Sōta finally turned, a slow, deliberate movement, trying to project nonchalance, trying to ignore the way Ash’s presence seemed to warp the very air around him. Ash’s eyes, a dark, unsettling brown, met his. They held a strange mix of challenge and something softer, something Sōta hadn’t been able to decipher for months. “English Lit is my lifeblood, you fiend. Unlike certain… physics enthusiasts who barely tolerate prose.” He tried to keep his tone light, a familiar jab. It used to be easy, this back-and-forth. Now, every word felt like a tightrope walk over something sharp and unseen.
“Prose barely tolerates me, more like it,” Ash conceded, a small, almost imperceptible curve of his lips. Not a full smile. Not yet. “So, the great escape plan? Or just… contemplating the existential dread of a jammed locker door?” He gestured vaguely at Sōta’s locker with his chin. Ash’s hoodie, a dark gray, had a frayed cuff, a detail Sōta noted automatically, his gaze snagging on it, before snapping back to Ash’s face. He could feel the heat radiating off Ash’s side, even through the locker metal separating them. It was ridiculous. He felt ridiculous.
“It’s a metaphor, obviously,” Sōta said, leaning his forehead against the cool metal of his locker. The coolness felt good, a small anchor in the sudden dizzying warmth that had started to spread through him. “For life. Or, you know, my senior year. Just when you think you’ve got the combination, the whole damn thing jams up, locks you out.” The words slipped out, more honest than he’d intended, more vulnerable. He winced internally. Dammit.
Ash was silent for a beat. The air in the hallway thickened, felt heavy, like a storm front rolling in. Sōta could hear the faint, distant clang of a garbage can being dragged somewhere, the hum of the vending machines down the hall. A single, brittle maple leaf, blown in from outside, scraped along the floor, pushed by some unseen draft, settling against his shoe. He didn’t dare look at Ash again, just stared at the leaf, willing it to flutter away.
“Yeah,” Ash said, his voice softer now, stripped of its usual playful edge. “Yeah, I get that.” He pushed off the locker, straightened up. The sudden movement made Sōta’s stomach drop. Ash was towering over him now, closer than before. Sōta swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He could see the tiny flecks of amber in Ash’s dark eyes, the way a stray lock of hair fell across his forehead. He could see the ghost of a scar above Ash’s left eyebrow, from that time they’d tried to build a ramp for their skateboards and it had, predictably, gone very wrong.
“What do you want, Ash?” Sōta asked, his voice coming out huskier than he’d intended. It sounded… weak. He hated that too. He mentally kicked himself. Get it together, Sōta. You’re not some wilting flower. He knew Ash wasn't a bully. Not to him, anyway. But the distance that had grown, the way Ash had just… stopped talking to him after that Halloween party, after that one stupid thing Ash had overheard, had felt like its own kind of isolation. It had been easier to pretend Ash was just another one of the faces in the crowd, easier to avoid those unsettling dark eyes.
Ash’s gaze searched his, unwavering. Sōta felt a tremor run through him, a barely contained vibration. This was it. This was the conversation he’d been dreading, the one he’d been avoiding, the reason he always took the long way around, the reason his heart rate jumped every time he saw Ash’s backpack by his desk in physics. “I want to talk,” Ash said, simply. “Properly. Not this… whatever this is.” He gestured between them, his hand coming up, then dropping, as if unsure how to bridge the gap.
“This is… fine,” Sōta tried, a pathetic attempt at deflection. He knew it was bad. He knew it was clumsy. The words tasted like ash. Ash just looked at him, one eyebrow arching in a silent challenge. Sōta’s cheeks heated. He could feel the flush spreading, a hot, mortifying wave. He wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole. Why was he always like this around Ash? So transparent. So… affected. It was infuriating.
“No, it’s not,” Ash countered, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. “It’s a hallway. It’s a locker that won’t open. It’s us, avoiding eye contact in the cafeteria for six months like we’ve committed a crime.” Ash shifted, subtly, putting more weight on the hand propped against the locker, effectively trapping Sōta between his body and the cold metal. Not aggressively. Never aggressively. But with an undeniable, quiet possessiveness that made Sōta’s heart hammer against his ribs. He felt the tremor again, stronger this time.
“Six months… feels longer,” Sōta admitted, the words barely a whisper. He finally looked up, properly, into Ash’s eyes. He saw something flicker there, a flash of something akin to hurt, then quickly masked. Ash had always been good at masking things. Sōta, on the other hand, wore everything on his sleeve, or worse, on his face, in the involuntary flush that always gave him away. He hated being the one who always reacted, who always felt too much, too openly.
“It does,” Ash agreed, his gaze still locked with Sōta’s. “Look, I… that night at the party.” Ash paused, a slight hesitation. “I shouldn’t have just… walked away. I heard what those guys were saying. About you. And how you… you didn’t deny it.” Ash’s voice was low, almost a murmur, but each word resonated through Sōta. He remembered that night. The crushing shame. The way his stomach had clenched. The snickers, the whispered comments about him, about how he was ‘too soft,’ ‘too quiet,’ ‘probably one of *those* guys.’ And then Ash, his friend, just… gone.
“What was I supposed to say, Ash?” Sōta shot back, a flash of anger, hot and unexpected, cutting through his embarrassment. “Yeah, you got me, I’m secretly in love with the idea of a romantic comedy montage? What would *you* have said? Standing there, surrounded by… by them?” He hadn’t meant to snap. He just felt so exposed. He was tired of feeling exposed. Ash didn’t deserve the bite in his voice. But he couldn’t take it back. Ash’s expression tightened, just barely.
“I would have said something,” Ash replied, his voice still quiet, but with an underlying steel that surprised Sōta. “I should have said something *then*. To them. To you.” His dark eyes were intense, searching, peeling back every layer of Sōta’s carefully constructed indifference. Sōta felt a jolt, a current running from Ash’s gaze straight into his chest. It burned, a strange mix of residual hurt and something else, something terrifyingly new and alluring. This was the Ash he knew, the one who stepped up, the one who didn’t back down. The one who had always been there, until he hadn’t.
Sōta looked away, focusing on a scuff mark on Ash’s shoe. A small, almost invisible scuff near the sole. He didn’t know what to do with the intensity Ash was radiating, or with the sudden, raw honesty. He was used to the witty deflections, the verbal sparring that kept everything at a safe, superficial distance. This felt… dangerous. Like standing on the edge of something immense and unknown. Ash had always been the steady one, the anchor, the one who saw things clearly. And Sōta had always been the one who got caught in the currents.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Sōta mumbled, trying to wave it away, to minimize it. But the tremor in his hands, clenching at the strap of his backpack, betrayed him. He could feel Ash’s gaze still on him, unwavering. It was like a physical weight, pressing down, demanding he acknowledge whatever silent accusation, whatever silent plea, was hanging in the air.
“It does matter, Sōta,” Ash insisted, his voice closer now, a low murmur right beside Sōta’s ear. Sōta hadn’t even noticed him move. Ash’s arm was now resting on the locker above Sōta’s head, effectively caging him in. The heat from Ash’s body was overwhelming, suffocating and intoxicating all at once. Sōta’s breath caught again. He could feel the slight rustle of Ash’s hoodie against his own hair, the faint scent of rain and ink stronger now, dizzying him. He tried to think, to find another witty retort, another deflection, but his mind felt blank, completely empty, save for the thumping of his own heart.
He finally risked a glance, his eyes darting up, catching Ash’s. Ash’s gaze was softer now, almost… tender. It disarmed Sōta completely. All his defenses, his witty armor, his practiced nonchalance, crumbled. He saw the genuine concern there, the regret, and something else, something deeper, something he hadn’t dared to name, not even in the dark, quiet corners of his own mind.
“I hated it,” Ash confessed, his voice almost a whisper, his gaze dropping to Sōta’s lips, then back up to his eyes. “Hated the way they talked. Hated that I didn’t say anything. Hated that I thought… maybe if I just ignored it, it would go away. Hated that I let you think it was okay for them to say that about you.” Ash’s free hand, the one not caging Sōta against the locker, came up, hesitantly, and brushed a stray piece of hair from Sōta’s forehead. The touch was feather-light, almost imperceptible, but it felt like a jolt of electricity, a shock running through Sōta’s entire body. He visibly shivered.
Sōta’s eyes widened. He couldn’t speak. His throat felt tight, constricted. This was too much. This was everything. He had expected anger, or dismissiveness, or another attempt at their usual banter. He hadn’t expected this raw, unvarnished honesty. He hadn’t expected this vulnerability from Ash, the grounded one, the one who always seemed so put together, so in control. This was his ‘gap moe,’ he realized, his own version of that intense, almost possessive softness Ash only showed around him. He felt like his chest might just split open.
“I just… you didn’t have to ignore it for me,” Ash continued, his voice still low, intimately close. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I never… I never wanted you to feel like you had to shrink yourself down. Not for them. Not for anyone. And especially not for me.” Ash’s thumb, still resting gently near Sōta’s temple, stroked a tiny, almost invisible circle against his skin. Sōta felt his eyes burn, a sudden, unexpected sting. He blinked rapidly, trying to ward off the ridiculous, humiliating tears that threatened to well up.
He felt so exposed, so seen. And it was terrifying. And utterly, completely captivating. He was supposed to be the reactive one, the one who was overwhelmed, but in this moment, Ash, the pursuer, felt so intensely close, so present, that Sōta felt like he was the only thing holding the world together. He felt the rapid beat of his own pulse, thrumming in his temples, his wrists. He could almost hear it, a frantic drum against the sudden, profound quiet of the hallway.
“It wasn’t… just them,” Sōta finally managed, his voice barely a breath. His gaze dropped to Ash’s mouth, the soft curve of his lips. “It was… everything. The way you looked away. The way you stopped replying to texts. The way… suddenly it felt like there was this wall. And I didn’t know how to climb over it.” The words came out in a rush, a jumble of raw, untamed emotion. He felt a tremor in his voice, but he didn’t care. Not anymore. Ash was looking at him, truly looking at him, and it felt like a dam had broken.
Ash’s thumb stopped stroking, but his hand remained, warm against Sōta’s skin. He looked utterly wrecked, a flicker of pain crossing his features. “That was… that was me being an idiot,” Ash admitted, his voice rough. “Me, being scared. Scared of what it meant. What it would mean for us. For… for everything.” His eyes, dark and deep, held Sōta’s, refusing to let go. There was an unspoken confession in that gaze, a silent acknowledgment of the terrifying, exhilarating thing that had been simmering between them, just beneath the surface, for so much longer than six months.
Sōta’s head swam. Scared. Ash was scared. The grounded, protective Ash. That thought, impossible and startling, sent another jolt through him. It changed everything. It reframed all the pain, all the confusion of the past months. It wasn’t indifference. It was… fear. And suddenly, Sōta realized he wasn’t just reacting anymore. He was feeling a fierce, almost protective surge of his own. He wanted to reach out, to touch Ash’s face, to trace that scar above his eyebrow, to tell him it was okay. That he understood.
The school bell shrilled then, sharp and sudden, signaling the end of the day, shattering the fragile, charged quiet of the hallway. Sōta flinched, a full-body start, his heart leaping into his throat. The sound echoed, shrill and harsh, against the metal lockers, bouncing off the linoleum floor. It broke the spell, but didn't erase the feeling, not really. Ash slowly, almost reluctantly, pulled his arm away from above Sōta’s head. His hand, however, didn’t drop to his side. Instead, it moved, with an almost agonizing slowness, until his fingers brushed Sōta’s, barely, just the tips, sending another electric shock through him. Sōta didn’t pull away. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
Ash’s gaze still held his, unblinking, profound. The sound of distant chatter, of lockers clanging open and shut, of students rushing past the end of the hall, began to filter in. The real world was intruding, pushing its way into their suspended moment. Ash’s mouth opened, as if to say something, then closed. He squeezed Sōta’s fingers, just once, a silent message, potent and undeniable, before he finally, truly, let go. Then he turned, his movements fluid and quick, and walked away, disappearing around the bend in the hallway, leaving Sōta alone with the echo of the bell and the lingering heat of his touch.
Sōta stood there, by his eternally jammed locker, the maple leaf still at his shoe, the weight of Ash’s words settling deep inside him. The hallway was filling now, a tide of students flowing past, their voices loud, their backpacks jostling. But Sōta barely registered them. All he could feel was the ghost of Ash’s touch on his fingers, the faint scent of rain and ink, and the bewildering, exhilarating, terrifying knowledge that Ash was scared too. And that, maybe, just maybe, they both wanted the same thing.