Komiko and Katie
Copyright© 2026 by Komiko Yakamura
Chapter 5
It was the second Friday of November when Komiko opened the door.
They’d been texting for an hour — the usual comfortable meandering, Daisuke’s week, a history test, a teacher who’d said something worth dissecting — when Komiko set her phone on her chest and looked at the ceiling and felt the moment arrive the way you feel a change in the air before rain.
She picked the phone back up.
Komiko: Can I tell you something?
Katie: Always.
Komiko: I think you’re one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever known. And I don’t say that the way people say things they don’t mean. I mean it the way I mean everything. Quietly and completely.
She put the phone down. Picked it up.
Komiko: I just wanted you to know that. Goodnight Katie.
She set the phone on the pillow and closed her eyes.
She didn’t sleep.
Forty seconds later her phone lit up.
Katie: Don’t say goodnight yet.
Komiko looked at the screen. Waited.
Katie: I need to tell you something and if I don’t say it now I don’t know if I ever will so I need you to just let me say it okay?
Komiko: I’m right here.
A long pause. The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Katie: I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done this. I’ve never even wanted to do this with anyone before which is part of what’s been making me insane for the past month because I don’t understand it and I can’t make it stop and believe me I’ve tried.
Katie: I think about you all the time. Not like a friend. I mean I do, you’re my best friend, you’re the only real friend I’ve ever had but it’s not just that and I think you probably already know that because you’re you and you see everything.
Katie: I think about holding your hand. Actually holding it, not the hallway thing, I mean on purpose in front of people. I think about what it would be like to kiss you and I know that’s probably
The message cut off. Three dots. Then:
Katie: I know that’s a lot and I know we’re both girls and I don’t know what that means about me because I never thought about a girl like this before ever in my life and it scares me how much I don’t care that it should be weird because it doesn’t feel weird it feels like the only thing that makes sense and that scares me too
Katie: I’m sorry. I’m making a mess of this.
Katie: I just. I look at you and something happens in my chest that I don’t have a word for. And you said that thing today about finding out what’s actually true and I think this is true. I think you’re true. And I think I’m
Three dots. A long pause. Then:
Katie: I think I’m falling in love with you.
Katie: I’m sorry. I’m sorry if that’s
Komiko: Stop.
The word arrived before Katie could finish. Firm and gentle at once.
Komiko: Don’t apologize. Not for a single word of that.
Komiko: Are you crying?
A pause.
Katie: No.
Komiko: Katie.
Katie: Maybe a little. Shut up.
Komiko: Don’t shut up. Don’t stop.
She was sitting up now, her back against the headboard, the quiet house around her, her own eyes full of something she wasn’t trying to hold back.
Komiko: I’m going to tell you something now and I need you to hear all of it.
Katie: Okay.
Komiko: I have been watching you since the day you walked into that classroom. Not the way people watch someone to figure out if they’re a threat or what category to put them in. The way you watch something you recognize. Something that matters.
Komiko: I saw you look at me and not flinch. Do you know how rare that is? People look at me and see something small to dismiss or something small to protect or something small to make jokes about. You looked at me and just — saw me. Like I was exactly the right size.
Komiko: I’ve been feeling this too. I didn’t say it because I needed you to find your way here yourself. I didn’t want to push you somewhere you weren’t ready to go. But I’ve been here. I’ve been here this whole time.
Katie: Komiko.
Komiko: I know.
Katie: No I mean. I’m really crying now.
Komiko: Me too.
Katie: You don’t cry.
Komiko: I do when it matters enough.
A long pause. Komiko could picture her — lying in that functional, affectionless room in the foster house, copper hair spread on the pillow, phone held above her face in the dark. Alone in a home that had never been home. Saying the truest thing she’d ever said to the one person who would receive it completely.
Komiko: Can I tell you something else?
Katie: Yes. Tell me everything.
Komiko: I grew up watching what my father called love. What he did to my mother. What he made of everything that was supposed to be tender. I grew up thinking that was what it was. That intimacy was just another word for someone taking something from you.
Komiko: I never thought about wanting anyone. It didn’t feel like something I was allowed to do. Wanting felt dangerous.
Komiko: And then you sat down next to me and told me I was pretty and I went six shades of pink and something happened that I didn’t understand yet.
Komiko: I understand it now.
Katie: What is it?
Komiko: It’s the first time I’ve ever wanted something and not been afraid of it.
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