My name’s Satoshi Mashiba and I’m a liar. 

It may be hard to believe, but when I was a kid, I was made fun of for having large eyebrows. I was called all sorts of names, pushed around, kicked and hit; the whole debacle. I was nicknamed “the caterpillar” and stomped on whenever the teachers weren’t looking. My lunch was thrown to the ground with me pressured to eat it(I didn’t, which made them even angrier). By that point, the teachers got a heads up on what was going on and put an end to it.

Correction, they just let it go when they saw the kids were being more quiet about it. Yeah, they stopped throwing down my lunch, but they threw the pieces of theirs they didn’t like my way. Yeah, no more stepping on me— instead, they’d put their arm around my shoulder as we walked out after class and pinched me as hard as they could. The ones that weren’t too disgusted to touch me, anyway. This is what I told Shoya. 

All of that was a lie.

When I was a child, I saw the new kid sitting across the room. I wasn't in the habit of staring at people, but this was different. It was like I couldn't look away. I stared and stared and stared for as long as I could. Got in trouble with the teachers for not paying attention in class, but I didn’t care. I was a child, what did studying matter? So one day, I went into my yard, picked some flowers, and after school that day gave them to that kid and said “I like you.”

That kid ran off and told all the other kids, and that’s when the bullying started.

 You see, the kid was a boy. 

Replace “having large, thick eyebrows” with “being gay”, and replace “the caterpillar” with “”. The teachers laughed behind my back, and the kids that weren’t afraid to touch me put me in a “playful” chokehold and pinched my neck so hard I bruised. 

This is the truth. 

That’s not to say I wasn’t really bullied for my eyebrows, but that was old news by the time they got a hold of me liking guys. The eyebrows were just the appetizer. 

Shoya patted my shoulder then, once again believing my eyebrow story. He was relatively gullible. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he could spot when someone was obviously being patronizing, or trying to console him with false truths. Like Naoka. I noticed that she had a habit of lying a lot when we were hanging out at the school festival with the rest of our group. Naoka lied more than I did. About friendships, about her feelings, about trivial things... But I like liars like her. They’re easy to understand. That isn’t to say I like her. To the contrary, I might actually hate her. “Might” being the keyword here. I hate bullies, and she definitely was one. I’m still trying to figure out if she is currently one now. It looks like she’s somewhat getting her act together. She still has bully-like tendencies, however. But even though she is a liar, and not a complete bully, I still don’t like her. 

The difference between me and Naoka was that I was a good liar. A good liar knows how to sprinkle in some truth. Naoka lied like she expected no one to believe her and yet go along with her anyway. Naoka lied like she was crying herself to sleep at night. That’s why Shoya could tell when she was lying and couldn’t tell with me. 

“I’m sorry, again, for hitting you that time.” I lied. 

“I said you could. You don’t need to apologize every time,” He smiled, and it was the way he learned how to after falling however many stories down from Shoko’s apartment. After going into a coma and almost dying. It’s amazing, honestly. He does that more now. Smiles. It’s crooked, and his eyes close like he can’t stand to see what people look like when they react to it, and his eyebrows furrow, because he’s always worrying about something. He smiles and he tells the truth. I smile and I lie. And thus shall it stay. 

He pats my shoulder again, one more time, before taking his hand off. He’s gotten more used to touching people too. Probably because of Nagatsuka. That guy is always putting his arms around him. He couldn’t keep his hands off people if he wanted to. 

He looked down at his feet, the open-mouthed grin faded into a wobbly smile, his forehead smoothed out from its crease little by little. A trickle of sweat climbed down from his ragged hairline and stopped right above his lowered brow. The sound of water running in the pond and wings flapping as birds took flight surrounded us two. The stout bridge above us shadowed us meekly from the blue afternoon skies while we sat on the concrete hedge underneath it. 

“I deserved it..” He said. 

“Still. You aren’t that person anymore.” I leaned my back against the wall. “You’re a really cool guy, now.”

He had a soft pink to his cheeks, and he was biting the inside of his bottom lip. But these were habits of his, and not anything to take out of context. He got like this whenever anyone complimented him. He still wasn’t used to it. He was an honest guy. Very honest. He couldn’t lie right even if he wanted to. 

I continued, just to see how he would react. I kept my eyes on him as I said, “Thanks for hearing me out today.”

His eyes were wide and they were glancing around nervously, like he didn't know where to look. Never at me, though. He still had that small, honest smile on his face. “Um.. Was there any reason you wanted to tell me this? Is this the reason you invited me out here?” Shoya was an awkward dude but he knew how to talk to people. He must’ve realized what he was doing and finally met eyes with me. In the corner of my eye, I saw that his hands suddenly stopped moving. I hadn’t even noticed him wringing them until now. I focused back on his gaze. His irises were really small but this close I could see that they weren’t black like I’d initially thought, but a dark hazel. 

“We never hang out, just the two of us.” I said. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He looked surprised. The thought of having friends never occurred to him.

No, it wasn’t that it never occurred to him. It’s probably that he wasn’t expecting someone to say it aloud. Like it was embarrassing to be friends with him, or something. Like it was a secret between us and everyone in our group. Saying it out loud for him to actually hear was different from assuming it in his head. 

“Friends..?” No one has ever asked him if they were friends before, I guess. “Yeah..! It’s just, I thought you were only hanging out with me because you thought I was weird and you wanted to finish the movie.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because that’s what you told me. Remember?” His voice was so low. Maybe he didn’t want me to hear him. Maybe he didn’t want to offend me. 

“Ehh..? I did?” I lied, clasping my hands behind my head and smiling at him the second he looked away. 

“Yeah,” He clenched his intertwined hands tight in his lap. They looked both bony and soft at the same time. His knuckles were prominent, but the back of his hands were plump and his wrists were thick. 

A bird's wings flapped somewhere close by. 

“You, on the other hand, are quite used to hanging out with Shoko alone, huh?” Once again, I’ve grabbed his attention. “Feeding the fish bread.”

He seemed to relax somewhat. “Yeah, whenever anyone else is too busy, I guess. We mostly just stand in silence or talk about school. It’s much calmer when no one else is there, though.”

I place my hands back down on the concrete surface. “You learned sign for her.”

“Yeah,” He laughs, his eyes closing again. “Would you like to learn too? Miki actually asked me before to teach her one of these days.” He’s talking a lot more naturally again. 

“Oh? When was that?”

“After class the other day. When we were going to the vending machine, remember? With Nagatsuka? She stopped me at the door and—”

‘I have a crush on you, Shoya.’

I wonder how he would react if I said that right now?

“Oh, so that’s what that was about.”

“Yeah..!”

I like you. 

“Well in that case, I don’t know. Isn’t learning sign language hard?”

But you like Shoko, don’t you?

“At first, but you get used to it. With practicing. I’m sure Shoko wouldn’t mind—”

I like you. 

“Really?”

I like you. 

“Yeah! If Miki wouldn’t mind it?”

“Why would she?”

“You two are together, right? She probably wouldn’t like you hanging out alone with other girls..”

Miki… She’s even more of a liar than me. I’m hiding only one part of myself, but she’s pretending to be a completely different person. It’s an entirely different level of lying. It's an impersonation. I smile to myself. I like liars like her, too. She was very convincing when she was lying about being a bystander while not being in the wrong. She was also very convincing when she was crying to Shoko about everyone having their own problems and it being OK to not learn from your mistakes. She’s interesting. I was telling the truth when I told Nagatsuka and Shoya I liked her. I like her almost as much as I like kids. She comes in third, along with all the other liars I know. And first place..well, it goes to—

“Shoya, I’ll tell you the truth,” I like you. “If Shoko ever tells you to stop hanging out with someone because they're a girl, you should run.” But that wouldn’t be the truth, would it?

He flinched, face contorting in alarm. His thin brows creased his forehead and his teeth showed behind his frown and for a second he’d looked like he’d been caught by the cops doing something illegal, but he quickly cut eye contact and closed his mouth tightly shut and looked down worriedly at the ground. And that caught my interest. “It’s not like that..”

—honest people.

I can’t tell if I’m lying anymore. 

 

I walk out of the wake to take a deep breath and Miki is right behind me, small, dainty hand on my shoulder. As she leans in close to me, trying to be comforting, she says something to me and walks away. I don’t see where to. I don’t even hear her. The ground where I’m standing looks suspiciously like the one at the pond I was at with Shoya. If I just don’t look up, I can pretend the sky is as pretty, too. And that the weather isn’t so cold. And that the funeral was still for another few days, and I hadn’t just walked out of it. I can pretend Miki wasn’t the same as the girls at school who only liked me for my looks. That she wasn’t here just to get bonus points so that I would one day date her with as much fervor as she thought she was dating me. I can pretend I was straight and that I liked her back the same way and that my uncle was still alive and that I didn’t think about Shoya every so often and that I didn’t wish he were with me right now. I can pretend that I hadn’t felt jealous when I heard Nagatsuka say that Shoya had jumped from a building after trying to save a girl he liked. I can pretend I wasn’t jealous of her. I can pretend I didn’t wonder if he would jump for me or come find me so he could take me away from here. I can pretend I wasn’t utterly aware of whenever Shoya was looking at me and that it didn’t hurt me that time he called me a weirdo. I can pretend that not telling Miki I don’t like her and that I only allow her to be around me to keep up charades isn’t wrong because in this universe it would be a lie. 

And I’m a liar, so pretending comes easy to me. 

“Satoshi!” 

It’s his voice. I’m such a good liar that I twisted reality to be able to hear his voice. 

“Sa! Toshi!” It’s closer. It’s..real? I look up, and it had started to drizzle at some point, because Shoya’s standing in it and his shirt is slightly darker in some places and he’s panting as he stands there, twenty feet away and out of breath. He takes in one last deep breath and jogs over to me and out of the rain. I take a step back as he puts his hands on his knees and tries to get his breath back. He doesn’t have an umbrella. 

“Dude, are you ok?” I look at him incredulously as he pants like a dog. “Where’s your umbrella? What are you doing here— Did you run in the rain?”

He puts up one hand and I close my mouth, looking towards the entrance to make sure no one is seeing this. “Why didn’t you..” he starts to say, breathing harshly but beginning to stand up. “Haa.. why didn’t you tell me,” Gulp, “the other day, that your uncle died..?” He finally starts breathing normally and stands, though not straight up. He’s still bent over, like he could crash at any moment now. He has something black in his arm. A jacket?

“I? Why does it matter?” I laugh. I can't help it. This is so bizarre. What is he doing here?

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” He says, voice breathy. He stands up fully, hands on his hips as he arches his back and stretches. 

I look at him, feeling the edge of my mouth twitching. “You ran all the way here for that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” He looks back at me, eyes wide and brows raised and mouth parted as he lets out tiny breaths. 

He’s being honest. He’s completely telling the truth. 

I let out a little laugh, feeling my eyes warm and tear up for the first time today. God, I had gotten through the entire day until now..

I can’t look at him. He’s too bright. I wipe my eyes discreetly with my arm, sniff. 

Even though I can’t see him, I can feel him getting closer. He’s not even touching me but he feels warm. My entire torso feels like it's next to a fire. My throat is burning, and so is my nose, and now the sides of my face. I’m such a loser..! Why is he so warm?

“Satoshi?”

“Why are you here?”

“Miyoko texted me that Miki went with you to your uncle’s funeral, and I was in the area, so I thought maybe you’d want some more company…” The rain is getting harder, gradually. It’s no longer a drizzle. It’s so movie-esque, Nagatsuka would trip. But I still can’t get myself to look at him. Is this what Shoya feels all the time? Maybe if I keep my eyes closed, he’ll disappear. 

Ugh, that’s such a girly way to think about it.

I put my arm down. I steel my heart, clench my teeth, and meet his eyes. Because if I’m going to do this, I’m not going to be a wimp about it. 

He has that worried look on his face again, but as soon as I look at him, he smiles. And it's not wobbly. Instead of furrowed down, his brows are furrowed up, and he looks glad. “When we were talking, I noticed how you were acting differently. How do I say it,” he was bent over, trying to get a look at my face when I was hiding it from him, but now he stands upright. “There was this look on your face… You looked unhappy.”

God, is this what love is?

“I wanted to make sure you were OK. If something’s wrong, I want you to be able to tell me.” He has a determined face, a fist on his heart, and a foot too close to me. I step back one. “I want to be here for you. For all of my friends..!”

I blink at him, hand close to my face and brows furrowed slightly, not sure what to do next. Ah, but now he’s blushing, and he steps back, hands up in surrender as he murmurs something to himself all panicked. I relax. That’s much more like him. 

“Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry...”

Cry? I touch my face, and yeah, I am crying. Holy crap. I can’t remember the last time I actually cried about something. I wipe the stray tear off, then another, and then my vision is too blurry to see and I’m stuck wiping my eyes over and over. 

And now I’m sobbing. Great. 

“Um, I just want you to know,” he says, again, sounding awkward. But I can’t see his face. Hopefully he has the decency to not look me in the face if he’s not going to leave. “It’s OK to cry… You’re not worth less for crying.” He says. “I’m actually really happy you feel comfortable enough to cry around me.”

I want to scream at the top of my lungs, but the sobs are taking up all the space. I LIKE YOU! Please, I don’t want to like you any more than this!

I manage to see him through the tears, and he’s holding out a tissue to me, face turned to the entrance to the funeral home. He’s also wearing the jacket he was holding before, and it’s actually a black blazer that matches his pants. He didn’t just have a blazer with him when he just happened to get a text about me being at a funeral. Which means, unless he borrowed it from someone on the way here, he hadn’t actually been in the area. Which means he went out of his way to come here to see me. 

Which means he lied. 

Crap...crap, I think I found the best kind of liar… 

I take the napkins and blow my nose, laughing to myself. “..I’m so lame.”

“There’s nothing wrong with crying, even if you’re a guy.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s true,” He laughs. And this time it’s real. I laugh too. 

When he stops, he holds out his hand to me again. I stare at him, and I stare and stare and stare. He says something, and the rain almost drowns it out. Almost. “You can hold my hand if you need to.”

And he says it confidently, without a blush on his cheeks, without a bite to the inside of his mouth. And he’s staring at me, determined, again. And he stares, and he stares, and he stares, hand outstretched.

 I take it. 

I was right. His hand is plump and warm. Hard to force myself not to squeeze. His palm is smooth, damp from airing out his wet shirt and his hold is gentle but firm. Like I could let go at any time but he surely wouldn’t be the one to do it first.

“The moon.” I toss the used tissue in my other hand to the garbage can against the wall and make it in one fell swoop. 

“Huh?” He asks, then turns to his left. We’re both facing the doors inside now, but then Shoya asks, “Where’s Miki?” And then he stops. I look past him to see Miki standing ten feet away, two drinks in her hands and two eyebrows raised to her hairline. 

“Oh..! Hey, Shoya..!” She says, shocked. She walks up to us, appearing like she doesn’t know what to do. “If I’d known you were here, I’d have got you a drink too!” She looks down to the hand that’s holding Shoya’s and the one that’s not, then glances at the juice boxes in her hands. “Um, ha, if only Satoshi had three hands, I could hold one too!” She shrugs. “Oh well!” Then hands me a juice box and goes to the other side of Shoya, taking his other hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to her. 

I keep a poker face but Shoya flinches hard, squeezing my hand and flushing a light pink, yelping at the sudden contact. 

“Oh come on!” She laughs, eyes closed. “You’re almost as red as Satoshi!”

Huh? 

I touch my face with the juice box, unable to see what she’s talking about. But, no, of course, I was crying just thirty seconds ago. My eyes must be red, and my nose, and cheeks. Gosh, I must look like one of Santa’s reindeer. 

“Don’t worry, Satoshi, you’re still as cute as ever!” Miki says as she and Shoya both look at me, Shoya with the nervous face again, biting the inside of his bottom lip. 

“There’s no worry about that..!” I say, feeling my face burn up again. Shoya, or I, or both of us squeezes the other’s hand. 

Miki laughs one last time. “Ok! Let’s get back in there!”

“Yeah..!” Shoya tries and fails to match her energy. 

“Yeah!” I give them a bright smile, turn to the entrance, and take a step. 

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please leave a comment! also, I dont know when the next chapter will be up, this was a pretty rushed job for Arospec Awareness Week