erika walker things you didn’t say at all
“Your sword! Your sword is sticking in my back!”
“But I didn't bring my sword to bed, Karisawa!”
“Then what's in my back?!”
“Kkyyyuuuuyyyuuuu!”
“Yumacchi that's so dirty!”
He broke out into a fit of giggles, rustling around beneath the sheets. A moment later the unwanted intrusion was facing the other direction and the blankets tightened, sealing the both of them in their cocoon of warmth.
Erika didn't mind the closeness; neither did he. Of all of her friends Walker was the one with whom she could be the most intimate, in the most platonic of ways.
It was almost unfair. By day their outspoken words of torment and borderline cruel insults taunted one another, though they knew that each respected the other's opinion regardless of how wrong the other thought it was. Such a dynamic pair, that they shared nearly everything except a body.
And sometimes they almost shared that, too.
Still, how unfair it was that one party tossed out their line to the other, a line that would forever remain unanswered. There was little room for a talk that serious in a relationship like theirs. Why should they ruin it with those sentiments, when their feelings were understood?
‘I'm sorry, Yumacchi. I don't feel that way for you. I love you, as a friend can love a friend who has surpassed all normal kinds of friendships. That if I lost you you'd leave a human-sized hole that nothing but your form could ever fill. That we speak without speaking, and feel without touching, and share a life though we are two.
‘But as you love me, I can never love you.’
Understood, but never spoken.
Erika turned. She rolled beneath the sheets and found Walker's back to her, curled in the other direction. Both arms slipped around his rib cage and hugged him closer, pressing her cheek against his shoulder blade.
“Yumacchi--” she yawned, tucking her legs against the backs of his thighs, “I win Big Spoon.”
