A story with the characters I have the most trouble writing. That's smart.

Amagami. Enterbrain. Obviously not mine.

He never confesses a second time. Never mentions the first, not even to Tsukahara, so of course she figures it out. "She's not always as strong as she looks," she says, quietly, one day. They're in the library. Morishima's across the room, smiling into a new book—he doesn't need to see the cover to guess the contents, so he looks at Tsukahara instead.

"She always looks strong, though," he says. There's an idea thick in his throat, and he can't find the words. "She's always—bright. But I guess you've always been looking after her, right, Tsukahara?"

Something passes between them, something strange and nebulous and real that neither of them wants to acknowledge. It's not the first time, it won't be the last, and it's almost a relief when Morishima puts the book in their faces and asks them which dog they like best.

The problem with him and Tsukahara is that it started out wrong. It shouldn't have started at all—he was fine following after Morishima's heels wherever she went, getting caught up in her pace and waiting for the day that (maybe, hopefully) she would look at him and see something.

But that day never came, or maybe it hasn't come yet, and he's starting to forget it was ever supposed to come at all, and more and more often when Morishima decides it's time to drag the three of them somewhere (pet shop, sweet shop, swimming pool), it's Tsukahara he looks at first, Tsukahara with the firm grip on common sense, Tsukahara who knows when enough is enough, Tsukahara who sometimes smiles, small with her mouth, larger in her eyes, and then Morishima laughs and they're off, off, off, madwoman and tagalong and keeper to them both.

It's Morishima who fixes it all in the end, Morishima in pure Morishima-fashion who shows up late to find them sipping coffee on a park bench and wonders, smiling, cheerful, if it doesn't look like they're on a date?

It becomes real, then, the possibility voiced. Like something that could actually happen and not just a hazy hypothetical.

Morishima finds them fun to tease. She's got them holding hands in a week, and follows behind with a smile that outdazzles theirs.