Ever since they first met, there was this feeling inside him that he could only know as love.

Everyone knew it, everyone could feel it in the air, everyone could see it from a whole nine yards' distance.

Yet every time he tried to act upon it, he always ended up disappointed - whether it was by the circumstances just not being right, his crush, Hinata telling him he had someone else already or just him not being there anymore.
As this went on, he fell deeper and deeper into the well of depression - after enough attempts at trying, and enough despair following each time he was turned down, he knew just enough to give up and take his feelings to the grave instead.

Years passed.

Then decades passed.

And when he thought he had finally died, he woke up as a teenager on his bed again.

Another chance, another possibility to try again.

Yet no matter what he could do, he never actually managed to tell him about his feelings.

Years passed again, decades passed again.

This very sequence of events had already happened over and over again.

How many times had he tried? How many moments did he take opportunity of? How many times had he been rejected?

It was winter of 2013 again. The Battle at the Trash Heap, played multiple times already. Everyone was gathered together, and it would soon be time to face each other.
He had already lived through this moment dozens of times already. But deep down. he also knew that this was the moment.

As Kenma faced the orange-haired player who was in front of him, he mustered enough courage to say something.

"Shoyo."

"What's up, Kenma?"

"I... I love you."