Confession of a Poet

Take a deep breath deep breath deep breath
Let it go let it out let it go let it out
Take a deep breath deep breath de

Kanji threw his mp3 player across the room. It hit the wall with a sickening thud and rolled onto the floor like a dead lizard. Now ma's gonna kill him, or probably confiscate his sewing kit. Which is kinda the same as killing him anyways, but slower and more painful. He shuddered at the thought of the Jack Frost doll he'd been working for the last few weeks remaining unfinished.

And where did that metaphor come from? He hated lizards - he found them creepy and there was a time in kindergarten when he was chased around the playground by a big, green gecko the size of his thumb. It still gave him nightmares.

And really, who the hell writes lyrics about taking deep breaths and then use it in a damned rap song? Hell, what happened to good old zen music with shamisen and shakuhachi and water splashing around randomly in the background? It seemed like the only thing he could find at the CD store was stupid songs with people screaming their heads off and guitars so distorted he wasn't even sure if he was listening to the sound of an eight car pile up or music. The only other place where he could get real music was through pirates sites on the net, and hell if Kanji would resort to steeling. His ma raised him right, damnit - the only day he was gonna steal was when

Kanji banged his head onto the table.

"Damnit," he muttered to himself for the umpteenth time. "Now I'm just procrastinating. Stop being such a coward. Be a man Kanji, be a man!"

With the pep talk over, he lifted his head off the table and immediately wished he hadn't done so because now the paper was stuck onto his forehead. Unsticking it, he read and re-read it and decided that the slight forehead grease didn't matter. It was crap anyway - no way he could give that to her. The paper was crumpled and thrown carelessly behind his back where it hit the trash can, rebounded, and joined a pile where dozens of other crumpled paper lay abandoned.

He took his pen and began writing again, this time with the steeled resolution of getting through it in one swift strike, no matter what.

You are my burning
fire, my sunshine my soul
I love you Yuki

...might as well draw a heart symbol and hang himself from a tree, all the good it'd do giving it to her. He had the sudden image of Yukiko laughing so hard she had to go to the emergency room and felt even more dejected. Great, not only he was going to end up hanging himself, he was probably going to end up killing Yukiko too. Murder suicide. At least Othello ended up famous. And how many syllable were 'fire' exactly? Or my? My? Ma-i?

"Kan-chan! You're going to be late!"

What's done's done. If he was gonna die, at least he'd do it like a man. He stuffed the haiku... thing into his pocket and went outside with his shoulders squared, the stance of a man who knew his doom was nigh approaching.

"Amagi-sempai!' said Kanji, banging the door open. He ignored the utter silence that had descended (bar a yelp or two by a poor, easily impressionable girl) and descended upon Yukiko's desk.

Yukiko - who was about to bite into her curry bread when Kanji entered - looked up. "Kanji-kun? What's wrong?"

"A. A. A. AMAGI-SEMPAI!"

"Um. Yes?"

"I- I. We should. I have. Argh!" He wanted to punch himself in the face. He looked beseechingly at Souji, but found only his placid expression. Somehow that made it worse.

"What's wrong?" Yosuke said, grinning widely. "Gonna drag Amagi and make lo-" he caught the look on Kanji's face, blanched, and suddenly found the equation in his maths book very interesting.

"You're not going to lose anything, Tatsumi," said Souji, when the silence dragged on. He gave a knowing smiling and went back to helping Chie with her homework, giving a small shrug when she looked at him with a lifted eyebrow.

He's right, Kanji thought. He's got nothing to lose. A bit of embarrassment, the cost of a few meters of rope and a bad mug-shot in the front page of Inaba Daily, but that's it. Nothing to lose. He took a deep breath. "A- Amagi-sempai. I want you to. To, ah, come with me. There's something I wanna give you."

Yukiko stared at her bread, then at Kanji. "I apologize, Kanji-kun, but I still haven't eaten lunch, so- ugh!"

"Uh, Amagi-sempai?"

"Chie! Why did you kick-"

"I THINK YOU SHOULD GO WITH HIM." When Yukiko looked at her with the same utter confusion, Chie sighed and decided to go with stressing each syllable instead of sheer volume, hoping it would somehow reach into her friend's thick skull. "Just go, okay?"

"Um," said Yukiko, who had no idea what was going on. "Okay."

"Sorry," Kanji said, feeling more down by the minute. "It's a bad spot to pick, huh? Going to the rooftop in the winter and all. If you want to we could. We could go somewhere else, and uh." But what he really wanted to say was: Do you mind averting your eyes for a bit while I stuff my head into a toilet and drown?

"It's alright," Yukiko smiled and pulled her sweater in tighter. "It's not that cold anyways - and, you said that there was something you want to give me?"

"Oh. OH. That." Kanji wished for a more dramatic build up, kind of like in those shitty dramas with beaches, sunsets, and a lot of crying, but take it for the sempai to cut straight to the point. She was dense to the point of being inconsiderate, but that was he liked about her. One of the things he liked about her. One of the things out of everything. Well, there was no turning back now. He reached inside his pocket, took as long as possible to fish it out, and held it out towards her with both hands.

"A piece of paper?"

"A note," he said. "I mean, a poem. I- I wrote it yesterday. Today. This morning. I want you. To. To read it."

"Oh, I see. Well then."

Kanji closed his eyes and clenched his fists as he saw Yukiko unfolding the paper. He held his breath and waited for her laugh. And waited. And waited. He knew from reading novels that moments like this could stretch a second into eternity. If they were right then he would just stand there like an idiot for a few more eternities until she started her famous laugh. Or maybe he would just end up standing there forever and ever, waiting for the laugh that would never come because he never heard her leave in disgust, tearing it into shreds. Tearing his heart into shreds. He couldn't even think of that. He knew he wouldn't be able to bear it if she

"Kanji-kun."

His eyes snapped open. She was staring up at him with her solemn, dark eyes (her beautiful, beautiful eyes), holding his poem between her hands. His poem. Whole. Why wasn't she laughing? Pointing at him, waving the paper about and claiming how utterly silly it was? But his sempai (his? What a joke) wasn't cruel. She was dense, insensitive, sometimes air-headed, but never, never cruel. She was just being nice. He was sure of it.

"Kanji-kun," she said again. There was an uneven quality to her tone that Kanji didn't miss. There was nothing he would miss. Not with her. "I..."

"Y'know what, sempai," he rubbed the back of his head and put on his best grin. "It's just a stupid thing that I wrote. You can just ignore it. I mean, I don't even know if I got the syllable count right. Haiku's pretty damn hard, y'know, I had to spend the entire night in front of the computer reading a whole bunch of haikus to make sure I got the idea, but in the end I realized that literature is only for people like Shakespeare and that Hermestway guy or that Heathercliff chick and her sisters, whatstheirface, Bronto or somethi-"

"Stop it."

Kanji was momentarily taken aback by the force behind her words. She didn't shout, but it was a tone he had only heard her use inside the TV when one of them did something stupid. "Sempai?"

"You're putting down yourself," she said, eyes no longer solemn. "What did you expect me to do after reading this? Laugh?"

"Well... yes. I actually imagined... you doing that." There was no use lying now, not at this stage. "Yeah. I actually expected you to laugh. Maybe throw it away."

"You- I had no idea that you would think of as such a person." Yukiko bit her lips, averting her gaze. "Such a person..."

"What! No! That's not what I meant, what I meant was. Was."

"Well, what did you mean then?" Yukiko said, her voice betraying a tinge of anger.

Kanji had no idea why she was reacting like that. After all, that was probably what his reaction would be if her were her and for some reason this creepy guy showed up out of nowhere and gave him a stupid scribbled haiku with a bunch of crossed words. And he told her exactly that.

"I see," said Yukiko in a calmer voice. "So you think it's stupid."

"Well. Yeah?"

"Tell me why you wrote it, then."

Kanji stared at his feet. "Because I..."

"Yes?"

"I. Uh. Err." He could feel the heat of Yukiko's impatient gaze. Why was it so hard to say? He wrote it down in that stupid poem, why is it so hard to say out loud? "Because I. Err..."

"I think lunch is about to end, now if you'll excuse me..." Yukiko said coldly, and was about to walk away when Kanji grabbed her by the wrist.

"Wait!" Damn all to hell. He's gonna do it. All or nothing. Be a man, Kanji. Be a man! "Aargh! Because I love you, Amagi-sempai. Damnit, I love you! That's why I wrote that shitty poem. That's why I-"

He stopped when he felt Yukiko pry her wrist off and gently enfolded both of his trembling fists inside her hands.
(warm; like fire, like the sun)
"Thank you, Kanji-kun. For those words."

Confused, Kanji stared at her. "So, you're... you're..."

"Yes. I like you too, Kanji-kun."

Now he like his jaw had just dropped off its hinges. "But. But. You never showed any signs that you li- feel the same about me."

"Remember the day when you gave me a doll when we were children? The one with buttons as its eyes, the one wearing a red dress." Of course Kanji remembered, as clear as he remembered her brilliant smile when he handed her the doll, cheeks red, trying hard to think of something to say, if just for an excuse to stay a moment longer. "I think I always had a crush on you since that day. But you slowly drifted away. I think, I have actually forgotten about you, because the Kanji-kun I knew were so different from the teenager with the rough temper I see when I visit your mother. But whenever I see the doll..." she looked up at him and smiled, "I still think of the quiet, gentle boy who gave me something he treasured just to cheer me up when I was crying at the river bank. And I think you're still the same boy, Kanji-kun."

"...I'm sorry. I guess my temper got the best of me. But I never stopped thinking of you, Amagi-sempai. It took me a long time to muster up the courage, and I thought you and Seta-sempai were going out so I never even tried. Thought I had no chance. I'm just a punk, and he's like an idol or somethin', always having chicks after him and stuff."

"Seta-kun?" Yukiko laughed. "Oh no. He's someone important to me, but we're just friends. I never viewed him as anything more. And you're not just a punk, Kanji-kun. He's handsome, and Chie has the hots for him, but I think you're just as good."

Kanji was silent for a while, reveling in the sensation of her hand against his. Something he never thought would happen in a million years. "So," he said finally after clearing his throat, looking very awkward. Despite the cold he was sweating from nervousness. "Would you... would you become err- becomemygirlfriend?"

"...Yes. Although," Yukiko said, trying her best to sound dignified. "The Yuki in that- that poem snk was a bit hahaha a bit too snk snk much." And with that she failed splendidly and broke into a full gale laughter until she was bent-double and had to lean on Kanji for support.

Well, Kanji thought. That went surprising well. Now he'd just have to wait until she was finished laughing, and then he could punch the air and do a silly little dance around the rooftop.

His mother found the broken mp3 player, of course.

So he went home, hid his sewing kit, and grinned like an idiot while his ma yelled at him for not having respect for money, you're grounded for a week, Kan-chan! and so on for the next fifteen minutes, by the end of which her mother was so concerned with his idiotic grinning she ended up taking him to the hospital, thinking that her son had finally gone mad from all the studying he did the past few days.

End.

Based on a badbadbathhouse prompt: I want one of the IT members to be confessing to someone else, absolutely POSITIVE they will be rejected. So, really nervous and upset and feeling sick, borderline having a panic attack, just hoping that confessing will help to make the feeling go away. But, of course, they're accepted in the end :)

It's really my first attempt at writing anything close to romance (without the other party going batshit insane), so please bear with me until I watch more movies where the guy and the girl go goo-goo eyed at each other. Also, the formatting's a bitch, okay? I hate ff. You can't even strike out words. What's this? :(