paper balls, shidou ryusei ✓

𖥻 01 - paper balls.

for the third time that day, you felt a paper ball the size of a marble hit the back of your head and then roll onto the floor, where the other two previously thrown balls lay.

you bit your lower lip, as so often, not letting on and trying to follow the boring lesson all the time. nevertheless, you felt a certain warmth in your chest when you heard the bittersweet laughter of the culprit, who was obviously making fun of you.

no matter how ridiculous it sounded, you loved ryusei's laugh - had been doing that for years. but unlike back then, he no longer laughed out of the warmest of hearts, but out of pure glee. at the same time, you couldn't really explain to yourself what the reason was for your former best friend behaving so meanly towards you from one day to the next.

you liked to think that it had something to do with that one night when you confessed that you had a crush on someone.

not even a few months later, ryusei suddenly turned his back on you, only picking on you whenever possible. you always had a bit more of a thing for your best friend than you would have liked. you couldn't help it - ryusei's smile was the first thing that triggered your feelings for him.

your rather strong protective instinct also made your heart beat faster even at a young age. regardless of the fact that you were a few months older, you were the one who always admired sae for his confidence as example and looked up to him.

he had always been more popular than you with the others, and besides, he gained far more experience than you had - after ryusei had his first girlfriend at thirteen and immediately told you about it full of joy and excitement, you felt a dull feeling in your chest. and when he told you about his first kiss with a girl, it wasn't really a nice feeling either. but when he had his first time, something broke inside you.

at the latest, when you began to wish that you had been that girl, you realized that you really did have feelings for him. however, you always dutifully kept your feelings for your best friend to yourself, because you didn't want to destroy your friendship with it - until one day.

and again, a paper ball flew in a high arc to hit your head and then roll down, where the other three were already lying.

"what are you thinking about huh?," you slowly turned in your seat to look confusedly at ryusei, who was unfortunately sitting right behind you. you noticed that his blonde hair was a bit longer again lately and you couldn't even describe how much you loved this simple hairstyle on him. "or no, let me guess! are you thinking about me?" a crooked grin formed on ryusei's beautiful lips, which you never had the pleasure of tasting.

your eyes widened in perplexity - you knew he was just teasing you again, but you still couldn't stop various images from popping up in front of your eyes in a matter of seconds and so you quickly lowered your head so as not to give your then best friend the satisfaction of having fulfilled his goal of embarrassing you.

"ugh, for real? thats embarassing"

swallowing hard, you suppressed your tears that had immediately gathered in your eyes so you hesitantly turned back to the blackboard.

why was he acting this way towards you? what did you do wrong? you just didn't know, and the fact that you didn't even know the reason for it completely devastated you.

at the end of class, ryusei bumped into you again before he disappeared through the door with his buddy sae.

thinking about everything you sat in your seat for a few minutes after the end of school, until mr. park asked you, almost annoyed, to get up and finally go home.

almost automatically you packed up your things, but before you finally left the classroom, you collected the many small paper balls on the floor that had accumulated throughout the day and put them in your bag, as you usually did.

however, ryusei did not know that you kept a jar in your room with all the collected paper balls that he threw against your head.