“I want you to have it.” Nalu insists.

“...I’m sorry.” The empty living room, and it’s deafening silence, were often too much for Sho. He’d watch the wrinkle lines on his mother’s face deepen, listen to her sighs, her unsaid worries. Sho never said anything, perhaps for worry of seeing her cry- wanting to preserve the strength she’s always tried to show him. But there are a million ways to say I love you: putting a blanket on her when she’s passed out on the couch, having dinner ready when she comes back from her second job, always making sure that he did well in school so as not to worry her. Always, always, trying to give back in other ways. How could he not? Is that not what it means to love someone?

Sho places the box gently on the sand between them, vivid color against neutral beige. Tanaka doesn’t respond, just stares at the box with a reflective expression. Sho’s heart feels on fire, throat constricting with the pressure to say something, anything.

But what is there to say?

The beach is never quiet. Even now, during its least populated hours, the tide is there to fill the silence Sho hates. He used to sit on the beaches in his hometown after school, just like this, letting the ocean rock him to sleep. They would tell him it’s okay to breathe, there you go, follow my lead. And he did, chased after the waves with a craving for something that would make him feel more alive. Surfing became the only thing he had.

Sho thought he was okay with that. Nobody could give him the feeling of freedom that the ocean did. But the more he hangs out with Hinaoka and Tanaka, the more Sho wonders if that’s enough- it’s as Tanaka said. They really do understand each other…

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