# The Distance Between Us
*A Comedy Romance Novel*
## Chapter One: The Art of Pretending
Kaito had died in the same spot four times now, which was three times more than acceptable for someone who'd beaten this game twice before.
The problem wasn't the boss. The problem was lying on his bed, three feet behind him, radiating what could only be described as weaponized silence.
"You know," Yumi said, her voice perfectly flat, "most people get better at games with practice, not worse."
Kaito's character took an axe to the face. Again.
"Just rusty," he muttered, keeping his eyes locked on the screen. Do not turn around. Do not look at her. You've been doing so well.
"Mm."
That single syllable contained multitudes. Kaito had known Yumi Tanaka for twenty years—long enough to speak her language fluently. That particular "mm" translated roughly to: "I'm calling bullshit but I'm going to let you marinate in it."
Behind him, a page turned. The sound was crisp, deliberate. Almost aggressive, if a page turn could be aggressive. With Yumi, apparently it could.
Kaito gripped his controller tighter and tried to focus. The boss's attack pattern was simple: dodge left, dodge right, strike during the wind-up. Basic stuff. Except his brain had apparently forgotten how to send signals to his thumbs because he dodged directly into another attack.
"Wow," Yumi said.
"I'm warming up."
"You've been warming up for forty-five minutes."
"It's a process."
Another page turn. This one somehow sounded judgmental.
Kaito risked the briefest glance at his peripheral vision. Yumi was stretched out on his bed on her stomach, chin propped on her hand, manga held in front of her. She was wearing that oversized grey t-shirt—the one that used to be his, though neither of them acknowledged that anymore—and black athletic shorts. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and her expression was the definition of unbothered.
Completely unbothered.
Suspiciously unbothered.
He returned his attention to the screen, where his character was now very dead.
This was fine. This was a normal Saturday. They'd spent a thousand Saturdays exactly like this—Yumi reading on his bed, him gaming at his desk, existing in comfortable parallel silence. The fact that his awareness of her presence had recently become almost physical, like a constant hum beneath his skin, was irrelevant.
The fact that three months ago he'd made the catastrophic mistake of noticing that she had a really nice laugh—like, an objectively attractive laugh—and that observation had avalanched into noticing other things (the way she tilted her head when she was thinking, the small scar on her knee from when they were twelve, how good she looked in that grey t-shirt) was also irrelevant.
He was handling it. By not handling it. By pretending everything was exactly the same as it had always been.
"Kaito."
"Hm?"
"That's the fifth time."
"I'm aware."
"Are you though?"
He selected 'continue' with more force than necessary. "I'm just having an off day."
"Right." Another page turn. "Nothing to do with being weirdly distracted all week."
His shoulders tensed. "I'm not distracted."
"Sure."
"I'm not."
"Okay."
"Yumi."
"What?" Her tone was innocent. Too innocent.
Kaito finally turned around, ready to—he wasn't sure what, exactly. Defend himself? Call her out on whatever game she was playing?
But she wasn't even looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on her manga, expression neutral, one finger idly tracing the edge of the page.
"Nothing," he said, and immediately hated himself for it.
He turned back to his game. His phone buzzed on the desk.
**Takeshi**: *Dude, just tell her already. This is painful to watch.*
Kaito's heart stopped. He grabbed the phone, fingers clumsy, trying to turn it face-down before—
"Who's that?"
Too late.
"Nobody." He shoved the phone in his pocket. "Just Takeshi being an idiot."
Silence.
Then: "What did he say?"
"Nothing important."
"Didn't look like nothing."
"It was just—" Kaito scrambled for something, anything. "He wants to grab drinks next week. Group thing."
"Hm."
There it was again. That loaded syllable.
Kaito chanced another glance back. Yumi's expression hadn't changed, but something about her posture had gone rigid.
"You've been texting him a lot lately," she said, still not looking up.
"Have I?"
"Every time I'm here, your phone goes off and you get weird about it."
"I don't get weird."
"You literally just tried to hide your phone from me."
"I didn't—" He stopped. She was right. "It's not what you think."
"I didn't think anything." She flipped a page. "Why would I?"
Why would she. Right. Because they were just friends. Just childhood friends who happened to spend every free moment together, who had keys to each other's apartments, who shared family dinners four times a week and a weekly bath like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Just friends.
The words tasted wrong in his mind.
"Yumi—"
The sharp sound of a closing book cut him off. He turned to find her sitting up, manga clutched in one hand, her face still that perfect mask of indifference.
"You know what? I'm gonna head home."
Kaito blinked. "What? Already?"
"Yeah."
"But—" He checked his phone. 4:47 PM. "I thought we were doing dinner tonight. Your turn to pick."
"You seem busy." She swung her legs off the bed, not quite meeting his eyes. "I'll just go."
Something cold settled in Kaito's stomach. Yumi never left early. Never. In twenty years of friendship, she'd sat through his terrible middle school poetry phase, his embarrassing anime obsession period, and that time he'd spent two months learning to speedrun a game she had no interest in. She never just left.
"I'm not busy," he said, standing too quickly. His controller clattered to the floor. "Yumi, wait—"
She was already at the door, one hand on the handle. For just a moment, something flickered across her face—hurt? Frustration? But it vanished so quickly he might have imagined it.
"It's fine, Kaito." Her voice was carefully even. "See you at bath time tomorrow."
The way she said it—sharp, almost challenging—made his chest tighten.
"Yumi—"
The door closed. Not quite a slam, but harder than necessary.
Kaito stood frozen in the middle of his room, staring at the space where she'd been. The sudden absence of her presence was almost dizzying.
Slowly, he turned. His bed still held the impression of where she'd been lying. Her manga sat abandoned on his pillow—she'd forgotten it. Or left it on purpose. With Yumi, both were equally possible and meant entirely different things.
He picked up the book, meaning to set it aside, but it fell open to a marked page. A romance manga, which wasn't surprising—Yumi had been reading them since middle school. What made him pause was the scene: two characters, childhood friends, finally confronting years of unspoken feelings.
*"I can't keep pretending,"* one character said. *"Every time I'm near you, I—"*
The corner of the page was creased, like someone had been gripping it too hard.
Kaito sat down on the bed, exactly where she'd been lying moments ago. The spot was still warm.
He was an idiot. A complete and utter idiot.
She'd come over like she did every Saturday. She'd sprawled on his bed like always. And instead of doing what they normally did—talking, joking, existing comfortably in each other's space—he'd spent forty-five minutes actively avoiding her presence while she'd grown progressively more frustrated.
Because he was scared. Because three months ago something had shifted in how he saw her, and he'd been terrified that if he looked at her too long, touched her too casually, existed too comfortably in their normal intimacy, she'd somehow know.
And in trying to protect what they had, he'd hurt her anyway.
His phone buzzed.
**Yumi**: *Sorry. Forgot my manga. I'll get it tomorrow.*
He stared at the message. Started typing a response. Deleted it. Started again.
**Kaito**: *I can bring it over*
Three dots appeared immediately, then vanished. Appeared again. Vanished.
Finally: *Unless you're too busy.*
Kaito's throat went tight. In twenty years, Yumi had never—not once—been passive-aggressive with him. They didn't do that. They were direct, honest, comfortable.
Or they had been.
His thumbs hovered over the keyboard.
*I'm never too busy for you.*
Too much. He deleted it.
*Come back. Let's talk.*
Too desperate.
*Sorry. I wasn't ignoring you.*
Was that true? He had been ignoring her. Just not for the reasons she probably thought.
The cursor blinked at him mockingly. After twenty years of knowing exactly what to say to Yumi Tanaka, of never having an awkward silence or a misunderstood intention, he suddenly had no idea how to talk to her.
From downstairs, he heard his mom call out that dinner would be ready in an hour. Probably she'd made enough for Yumi too, like always. His mom had a sixth sense for when Yumi was over.
Except Yumi wasn't over. Yumi had left.
Because of him.
Kaito looked at the unsent message on his screen, then at the manga still open to that scene, then at the indent on his bed where she'd been.
Tomorrow they had their weekly bath. The tradition that had seemed perfectly normal for their entire lives, that their families had never questioned, that existed in this comfortable space of childhood innocence extending into adulthood.
Tomorrow he'd have to sit across from her in steaming water and pretend everything was fine.
Tomorrow he'd have to not notice the droplets on her shoulders or the way her hair curled when it was wet or the easy intimacy of a ritual they'd shared for two decades.
Tomorrow he'd have to keep pretending that his best friend was just his best friend and nothing had changed.
His phone screen dimmed, the message still unsent.
Downstairs, his mom called again.
Outside, the summer evening pressed golden against his window.
And Kaito sat on his bed, holding Yumi's manga, realizing that some things—once you started noticing them—were impossible to ignore.
Even if pretending was the only thing keeping your world from falling apart.
-----
*End of Chapter One*