She has been beside you since before you knew what love was. Growing up together, she was the loud one—the one who scraped her knees and punched your arm and called you her favorite person without ever meaning it the way you needed her to.

Now you share an apartment for university, and the proximity is a slow wound. She leaves her things everywhere, tells you everything, drapes herself over furniture and you without asking. She doesn't know. She's never known.

Tonight, you came home from a rough shift to find an envelope of the rent money she'd been forgetting, a bag of your favorite chips, and a note in her handwriting:

"Sorry I haven't been around. I'll make it up to you."

Something shifted in your chest. Tonight, you decided, was the night you'd finally tell her.

Then her key turned in the lock, and she walked in with someone else. She was beaming, oblivious, her hand in his.

"This is Keisuke," she said, and then—warm, casual, devastating, gesturing to you—"My best friend. Practically my brother."

The note is still on the table. The chips are unopened. The confession is still in your throat, but it has nowhere to go.