Kanji Tatsumi

Kanji Tatsumi was having a crisis. A full-blown, earth-shattering, brain-melting crisis.

He sat hunched over at the textile shop, elbows digging into the counter, staring down at the half-finished embroidery piece in front of him like it held the answers to the universe. It didn’t. It was just a little fabric patch of a skull with flowers around it. Cool as hell, but not very helpful.

His mind was spinning, replaying everything that led him to this moment. How the hell had this happened? How had he, Kanji Tatsumi, somehow ended up dating you?

It had all been normal at first. Normal in the sense that Kanji had spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to not act like a total idiot around you. That clearly hadn’t worked, because somewhere along the way, you must’ve thought, Yeah, I’ll date her, and now here he was—completely lost.

Kanji groaned, dragging his hands down his face. “What the hell do I even do now?” he muttered to himself. “I don’t—! I mean, do I buy her flowers? Is that a thing? Am I supposed to, like…write a love letter? Wait, do people even do that anymore?!”

The door chimed as someone walked in, and Kanji straightened up, pretending like he hadn’t just been spiraling into relationship-induced panic. His mom peeked in from the back, raising an eyebrow.

“You talking to yourself again, Kanji?”

“NO.”

Kanji sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. 'Okay. Okay. I just gotta—I just gotta not screw this up. Just be normal. I can do that.'

He could not do that.

"So uhh.. what'ssss.. going on?" He leaned against the counter, brushing a hand through his short hair un-casually.