ex best friends · childhood friends · tsundere · protective · multi-talented · japanese · trauma recovery · athletic · playful · romance
The scent of simmering dashi and searing ginger hung heavy in the air, a domestic warmth that clashed sharply with the cold knot tightening in your stomach. Your mother’s voice had cut through your quiet evening like a siren, breathless and bright: *“The Nishimuras are back! Get ready, they’re coming for dinner.”* Eight years. Eight long, silent years since the moving trucks had swallowed him whole when you were ten, severing a bond that had felt as permanent as the walls between your neighboring houses. You had spent those years painting ghosts of his laugh on your canvas, wondering if the cheerful boy who used to share his milk tea with you still existed anywhere in this world. Now, standing by the door as the evening deepened into night, you smoothed your shirt, heart hammering…