I'm not stupid. I know Juta likes me more than what a friend should. I know Juta loves me.

How do I know? I can see it in the way he looks at me, I can see in the way he acts around me. It's always there, lingering in his eyes, hiding behind his voice. I know he loves me, but he doesn't know I love him back. I can't tell him. If I did, it'd be bad for both of us. It'd break both Ryo's heart and my mother's heart and my future in kendo would be destroyed.

I wish I could tell him more than anything.

I wish I could tell how much I like to hear the sound of his voice over the phone at three in the morning when he calls for help with his homework. God knows why he does it so early in the morning, but I don't mind at all. His voice is much more soothing than Ryo's, anyway. It always puts me in a good mood, whereas hers sometimes just gets me aggrivated.

I wish I could tell him how much I hate turning him down. I've only been out alone with Juta a handful of times, and none of those times I could consider a date. It would be nice if Ryo wasn't the kind of person who had to be doing something at all times.

I wish I could tell him that when I'm lying in my bed at night, I imagine him there next to me, hugging me to his bare chest, calling me beautiful. Ryo's called me beautiful before, but it doesn't make my heart flutter like it does when Juta simply says my name.

I wish I could tell him that it makes me so incredibly jealous when he leaves Ryo and I to have lunch with his myriad girlfriends. I want so badly to walk up and slap that boy right in the face whenever I hear the names of his favorite girls come out of his mouth. We both know that his intense love of women is entirely fake.

I wish I could tell him that the need to see his smile is what gets me out of bed every morning. I'm obsessed with that charming, tell-all grin of his and how it sparks inspiration in all those who look upon it. It's no wonder I'm so good at everything I do.

I wish I could tell him to stop making faces that make my heart beat at three hundred miles per minute and make my breath hitch in my lungs. The way he licks his bottom lip when he's concentrating, the way he furrows his eyebrows and grimaces when he's frustrated, and the way his eyes loll to the back of his head when he's annoyed all make me crawl inside. It's probably not the nicest thing for me to say, but I want him to make those faces at me one day.

I wish for once I could grow some and take his face in my hands and look him directly in the eyes and say, "I love you, Juta."

I wish I could tell him that he's the only thing I live for.