Title: Flashlight
Fandom: AnoHana
Pairings/Characters: Yukiatsu/Tsuruko
Warnings: Slow, introspective
Summary: He always thought she was rather difficult to understand, but then he realised she was exactly the same as him.

He didn't know if she had always been like this, or that she had changed over the past years.

They were the only ones who had stuck together after Menma's death. It wasn't like it was planned. Everyone had drifted apart. None of them went back to the secret fort, because it just wasn't the same without the childish giggling, without the unselfish wishes of a girl who loved them all. Most of all, that place just reminded them all too much – perhaps, it reminded himtoo much. As far as he knew, the rest had gone on to their separate ways.

Except, Tsurumi was always there by his side.

It could have been luck that she was in all his classes all the way up to middle school, and then they entered the same high school as well. Granted, it wasn't much of a surprise, especially when both of them were particularly smarter than the rest – it was natural that they did well and enrolled in the most academically acclaimed high school. But surely, it couldn't have been just luck when he met her surprised eyes (though the expression shifted a second later) when he sat down at one of the random tables in the classroom on the first day.

It wasn't like they talked much despite going home together everyday. Somehow, it just became like a force of habit. They lived in the same area, and took the same train for the same number of stops. She would rarely strike up conversation, and he didn't see the need to start one. After all, he only pretended around other people. There wasn't much point pretending around Tsurumi, because she saw through everything.

It scared him the first time she did that.

He had been sitting four seats away from her (as usual) as they waited for the train.

"You still like her, don't you?"

He didn't even know what brought that sentence on. After years since that incident, neither of them had actually brought up anything related to it. Yet, it slightly sickened him to know that he knew immediately what she was talking about. He met her serious side glance for a second, her nose still buried in her book, and turned his eyes back to the train platform.

He never answered her, because he knew she knew.

It still scared him the second time she did it. And the times after.

When he saw Yadomi along the train tracks as they walked home, he couldn't stop the irrational sense of anger driven towards the other boy. No, it wasn't irrational, because he hated Yadomi. He hated Yadomi and wished everyday that the boy didn't exist – then perhaps, Menma would've have…she would've have…

But more so, he hated himself.

Tsurumi hadn't said a single word when he let curses fly in an uncharacteristic fashion as he kicked the sidepost with all his might as soon as Yadomi was out of sight. Instead, she calmly waited for him, and didn't even comment after he grudgingly resumed their walk home. Truthfully, he hadn't cared about what she thought of him then, because he was just frustrated at himself for being obsessed with a dead girl, and even more, frustrated that he knew and was falling deeper into it anyway.

It was only when he stared at the white dress in his closet that he realised Tsurumi had seen through him once again.

He still did it even though he knew he would humiliate himself.

Maybe because he wanted so much to believe that Yadomi was telling a goddamn lie, because dead people couldn't come back to life, and certainly, Menma couldn't have ever forgiven him for what he had done. He didn't want false hope, and so he destroyed whatever hope the rest had been clinging to.

It was better this way.

Yet again, Tsurumi didn't so much as comment about it the next day as she slid into her seat beside his in the classroom nonchalantly, as though he didn't embarrass himself by parading in a white dress and wig pretending to be the girl he once, and even now, loved.

He had already gotten used to the fact that she probably had seen through him again, but then, he started to wonder why.

He did try asking her about it.

Once.

Not really.

"Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee somewhere?"

It had been causal, just a random request to hang out. She had paused over the phone, and understandably so. Her response had been blunt and sharp.

"No thanks. I need to study."

Inwardly, he had been relieved. He wasn't quite sure if he was ready to know how she did it, how she seemed to understand him even more so than himself. It was kind of creepy, to be honest. Especially when he didn't understand her as much as he liked to. He didn't know half the thoughts that flitted through her head, or whether she actually thought of anything else other than the books in her hand.

He didn't even know if she thought of that day as much as he did.

It was only when he saw her like those times – hair short, no glasses, tears spilling over her cheeks – that he realised she wasn't different from him at all.

He couldn't believe this was Tsurumi, the girl with cuttingly frank statements, the girl whom had the most emotional control than anyone else he ever knew, the girl who was in contrast, so strong, breaking down in front of everyone else.

And it was because of him.

He hadn't understood how someone else would ever understand the pain and regret he held for steaming for years in his rotten heart for a girl that was so pure. He didn't get how Tsurumi seemed to empathize, not pity, with those unspoken looks of hers like she knew how much he hated Yadomi for liking Menma, how much he hated himself for hating Yadomi, and how much he hated himself for hating Menma who liked the Yadomi he hated.

It was because she was the same – she didn't really need to understand to see through him, because she had been his mirror all this while.

"Saite yo…watashi wa…"