Shin's expression didn't change.
"I never said we were friends."
The words fell between them like cold metal.
Minato froze.
For a moment, he couldn't understand what he had just heard.
Shin continued in the same calm voice.
"I already know what you want. Or at least… the kind of attention people like you want."
Minato stared at him, stunned.
Those words were so sudden—so sharp—that they struck him before he could even think.
"Hm…?" he murmured weakly, his mind struggling to catch up.
"What… what do you mean?"
Confusion spread across his face.
The warmth of their quiet walk disappeared in an instant.
Minato stood there, unable to understand why Shin had suddenly said something like that.
The words lingered heavily in the air between them.
And for the first time since meeting Shin Hitori, Minato felt something he had never expected to feel from him.
The pain of words he could barely endure.Shin looked at him quietly for a moment before speaking again.
"I knew from the beginning," he said calmly. "People like you… when they want something from someone, they get close to them. And once they have it, they almost forget that person."
His dark eyes remained steady, watching Minato without a trace of emotion.
"So I already know," Shin continued, "that you must want something from me too."
The evening air felt strangely heavy.
Minato stood there, still trying to understand why the conversation had suddenly turned like this.
Shin spoke again, his tone unchanged.
"So come on… just say it already. Don't stand there like that."
There was a brief pause before he added,
"Something like… I'm popular with girls too, so maybe you want me to help you and your friends get closer to them."
His gaze shifted slightly away.
"But if that's what you're after," he said quietly, "then I'm never going to help you."
For a moment, silence stretched between them.
Minato remained still, absorbing the words.
Then he suddenly smiled.
He let out a slow breath, as if releasing the tension that had been building inside him.
"I don't really know why you're acting like this all of a sudden," he said calmly.
Shin didn't respond.
"But I can tell you one thing."
Minato lifted his head slightly, his voice clear and sincere.
"Yes… I do want something."
Shin's eyes flickered slightly, though his expression remained calm.
"But it's not what you think," Minato continued.
He paused briefly before adding,
"Remember that day in class? When I said something, and you replied with those strange philosophical words?"
A small, awkward smile appeared on his face.
"I just thought it was interesting."
Minato scratched the back of his head lightly.
"So… I just wanted to become friends with you."
"That's all."
For a moment, Shin said nothing.
The silence between them felt different now.
His face slowly lost what little expression it had, turning pale and distant.
As if something inside him had suddenly stopped moving.
Yet in that brief moment—
The corner of his lips moved ever so slightly.
A faint, almost mischievous smile appeared for just a second.
A smile so small and fleeting that Minato never noticed it.
Or perhaps… he simply never realized that, for the first time in a long while,
Shin Hitori might have just heard something truly honest.After that conversation, neither of them said another word.
The road home had fallen into complete silence.
Their footsteps echoed softly against the pavement, but even that sound felt distant somehow.
Minato didn't try to speak again, and Shin didn't say anything more.
Eventually, they simply parted ways.
—
The next day arrived like any other. But the fun part was that nothing had truly changed.
At least… not on the surface.
The morning sun shone over the school gates, students filled the hallways, and the usual noise of school life carried on as if nothing had happened.
When Minato saw Shin Hitori, he greeted him the same way he always did.
"Morning, Hitori."
Shin glanced at him briefly.
"Morning."
That was all.
It almost felt as if the conversation from the previous day had never existed.
No tension.
No mention of it.
Just the same quiet exchange as always.
Yet something had changed.
Minato found himself talking more than ever before.
He filled the silence with random thoughts, small stories about school, and casual remarks about things happening around them.
Sometimes he laughed at his own words.
Sometimes he simply kept speaking because the quiet between them felt too heavy.
And as always—
Shin listened.
He walked beside Minato calmly, his gaze often drifting elsewhere, his expression carrying the same distant calm. To anyone watching, it might have seemed as if he wasn't interested at all.
Yet he never told Minato to stop talking.
He simply listened… the same way he always had.
.....
But that was only the beginning.
At the time, neither of them realized it.
The quiet days, the small conversations, the simple walks after school—those moments felt ordinary, almost peaceful. As if their strange friendship had already found its balance.
But it hadn't.
Not even close.
Because little by little, things were going to become more complicated.
More than either of them expected.
The more time they spent together, the clearer it would become just how different they truly were. Their ways of thinking, the things they valued, even the way they saw the world—everything stood on opposite sides.
And slowly, those differences would begin to show.
Minato would try to understand him.
Again and again.
But there would always be something about Shin Hitori that remained just out of reach.
Something distant.
Something unreadable.
No matter how close they became, there would always be a part of Shin that Minato could never truly understand.
And that was only one of the many things waiting for them.
Because their story was only beginning.
And the path ahead was far more complicated than either of them knew.