Author's Note: This lovely Japanese movie unusually features an established couple. Here's 250 words of backstory for them. 🙂
Ootani was never quite sure what made Tachibana notice him in the beginning.
Ootani wasn't outgoing, didn't have an easy smile or friendly word for everyone - in fact, in almost every way, he was the opposite to the other boy, withdrawn to the point of sullenness, as every single female relative of his liked to point out. Yet somehow, over the course of a school year, they had become inseparable. Maybe it was exactly that Ootani was so different, a calm anchor around which Tachibana could revolve. And Ootani had finally found someone with whom he could laugh and be playful, someone who never seemed intimidated even by his blackest moods. Someone whose company he never got tired of, and who never told him to get lost.
Maybe it wasn't all that surprising that Ootani fell in love with him. He'd never been in love before, but there was no room for doubt in his mind that that was what he felt, this intense emotion, taking root so deeply he was afraid of being overwhelmed sometimes. How could one person mean so much?
But then Tachibana smiled at him, eyes crinkling, making all of Ootani's fears melt away under his warm regard. And when, during one seemingly random break, Tachibana kissed him, tasting of their shared cigarette, Ootani responded without hesitation.
He was never quite sure what made Tachibana do this either, but he'd take it. He'd take anything he could get, for as long as Tachibana would let him.
