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Fear stems from ignorance, from the unknown, from things lurking in the dark corners of the world that humans aren't meant to see.
Kosei had discovered that sometimes fear came from knowing something too well.
Of all the people Kosei ever met, Senri had always been the easiest one to comprehend. Even when they argued, even when Senri teased him for overthinking everything, even when he complained about how unnecessarily complicated situations seemed thanks to Kosei, there was something comforting about him. Senri was predictable in the best possible way.
In his childhood, Kosei used to think that maybe everyone had someone like that. Someone who could understand what you were going to say just by taking a look at you. Someone who could take you out of your own head.
Senri vanished sometime during their high school days.
Kosei never spoke about that period. He disliked how people looked at him when mentioning those years, the pity in their eyes, how they treated Senri like someone already long-dead.
When Senri returned, Kosei had embraced him without asking any questions. He didn't want to question it, as that would mean admitting that there was a period when the one he liked the most was gone for a while.
For many years, he convinced himself that Senri returning was enough and that that was the important thing.
After their encounter with Legacies and the confirmation that Echos existed, Kosei started feeling something was wrong, at first not with Senri, but with himself. The night after seeing an Echo for the first time, he couldn't sleep.
Echoes were unnerving because they existed somewhere that could not be categorized by human logic. They were living creatures, technically, but there was something disturbing about them.
He thought — once — that they were something beautiful that shouldn't exist.
He hated how fascinated he felt by them. He hated that part of him that wished to understand them.
Most of all, he hated how every new information they gathered about Echoes led his thoughts to Senri. How impossible it seemed since Senri was Senri, his childhood friend, his only friend. The one who knew him better than anyone else.
Then why did Kosei see something unnerving in Senri?
Why did he notice every tiny detail?
Senri smiled sometimes, in a strange way, as though someone had learned to copy his smile after observing. Kosei hated himself for noticing that. He hated himself more for being unable to stop noticing things.
"You've been avoiding me."
Senri's voice dragged Kosei out of his thoughts.
They were sitting behind the school building after classes. Kosei liked quiet places like this, so Senri took him there.
Senri looked at him with the same slightly annoyed expression he had worn for years.
"You're acting strange," Senri continued. "Did I do something?"
"No." Kosei looked away. He had lied, but he also wasn't sure what the truth was either.
Senri sighed and leaned against the wall.
"You keep doing this thing."
"Doing what?"
"Act like I disappeared even when I'm sitting right next to you."
Kosei felt his chest tighten. He was afraid of realizing that the real Senri had already disappeared and that he didn't notice it.
"Kosei, " the way Senri called his name made his chest hurt more. "I'm still Senri. I know you feel something's different. I know you notice things. You always do."
"Senri—" For a second, he wondered if he had spoken his thoughts out loud.
"But I'm still me."
Kosei wanted to believe it more than anything, yet all he could think was: please don't change, please don't make me lose you.
The desperation behind it made him feel embarrassed because he felt too much about it. How he needed Senri, how each absence felt like an eternity, how the world became more quiet without him.
People didn't feel that way about friends. At least, that was what Kosei believed.
However, he spent many years trying to put his feelings in a proper category.
Friendship? Dependence?
Any but the one thing that made him feel scared.
Because how could someone look at their closest friend and wish for something they were not supposed to wish, something unnatural?
How could someone find comfort in something that should terrify them?
How could someone see a creature and find it beautiful?
"Kosei."
Senri reached for him.
Kosei did lean towards him, and the realization of his actions made him sick. He expected to feel disgusted or feel fear, but whatever he felt was too close to happiness.
Senri noticed the change in Kosei.
"...I didn't want you to see."
"See what?" Kosei asked, breathing becoming uneven when Senri stared at him in silence.
Then he showed him. Just a little, enough for Kosei to understand.
Almost human eyes, shadows of pink and blue color around them, hint of a huge shape behind Senri, something ancient and beautiful — a tiger?
Kosei couldn't move. All his instincts told him to flee since this was something he was afraid of. Something he had been afraid of for a very long time. A monster taking a familiar form.
Something trying to pretend someone he loved. It was wrong, he told himself. Horrifying.
Beautiful.
And that last thought scared him the most.
"How..." He nearly stopped breathing for a second. The word barely escaped from Kosei's lips. "How can I..."
He was scared because he cared. He was disgusted because he cared.
"I told you," Senri whispered. "I'm still me."
Kosei covered his mouth, trying to steady his breathing. His mind refused to accept what happened. Something inside him screamed that this was wrong and that he should feel only fear, that he should hate this.
However, he remembered their years of friendship, of loving this person before he let himself think about what that love meant.
And now, having the truth standing in front of him, he was even more confused.
If Senri was a monster, then why did it feel safe being near him?
If this disgusting thing was, in fact, disgusting, why had he reached out anyways?
If this was wrong, why did it feel so much like love?