the gentlest place to fall
(a kenmei oneshot)
Mei had always been difficult to reach.
But it’s not like she wanted to be. And it’s not because she believed herself to be above anyone else, or because she did not crave companionship in the quietest, most secret corners of her heart.
It was simply that there were too many doors inside her, and she had spent years keeping every single one locked.
There was the door behind which she kept her fears. Another for the things she wished she could say. Another for the questions that had no answers.
And somewhere deeper, beneath all of them, there was a place she rarely dared to enter herself — a labyrinthine depth where every thought contradicted another, where every feeling seemed to carry its own opposing shadow.
Mei spent every passing day there often, but she never really picked up the courage to tell anyone.
To everyone else, she was composed. Quiet, collected, perhaps a little distant.
She had been called distant before, though never directly to her face. She had heard it in the way conversations seemed to quiet when she approached, in the hesitant glances of people who didn’t know whether they were welcome around her.
Mei never blamed them for it. She understood how she appeared. She did not speak unless she had something worth saying. She rarely volunteered pieces of herself. When something hurt, she became quieter. When she was overwhelmed, she withdrew. When she cared too deeply, she hid it so carefully that sometimes even the people she loved had no idea they were loved at all.
It was easier that way, she told herself. Easier to keep things tucked somewhere beneath her ribs than to place them in another person’s hands and discover that they had never wanted to hold them.
Kenma, however, had always been an exception to things Mei never thought could have exceptions.
He never seemed bothered by her silence. He did not treat her quietness as an invitation to fill every empty space, nor did he mistake her need for solitude as a rejection. He understood that sometimes Mei needed to disappear for a while, not because she wanted to leave anyone behind, but because there were days when her own mind became too crowded and she needed somewhere quiet enough to hear herself think. So he let her go when she needed to go.
He simply made sure there was always somewhere for her to return to.
One afternoon, they were sitting together in their usual corner after school. The classroom had emptied long ago, leaving behind the faint golden light of the sun and the distant sounds of students making their way home.
Kenma was playing on his console, his headphones resting loosely around his neck, while Mei sat beside him with an open notebook she had not written in for the past twenty minutes.
She had been staring at the same sentence for so long that the words had begun to lose their meaning. Her mind had wandered somewhere far beyond the page, sinking gradually into that familiar and terrible depth where every thought seemed to lead to another.
She had been thinking about something someone said earlier. It had probably meant nothing, she knew that. Rationally, she knew it had meant nothing.
But her mind had already taken the words apart, examined the tone, the expression, and every possible implication hidden between them. Now she was wondering whether she had done something wrong, whether she had spoken too much, whether she had been too quiet, whether someone was upset with her, whether she should apologize, whether apologizing would make it worse.
One thought became another, then another, until she could no longer remember what the original thought had been.
“Mei.”
She looked up.
Kenma was watching her.
“Hm?”
“You haven’t turned the page.”
She glanced down at her notebook and realized he was right.
“Oh.”
“You’ve been staring at it for a while.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“About what?”
She hesitated, before uttering out a single word —
“Nothing.”
Kenma looked at her for a moment longer.
Mei looked away.
There it was again — that unbearable feeling of being noticed.
She wished she knew how to explain that being seen was comforting and frightening in equal measure. She wanted someone to notice when she wasn’t okay. She also wanted them not to ask. She wanted to be understood without having to confess anything. She wanted to be held without having to admit that she needed holding. There was no logic to it, and she hated herself for that.
“I’m fine,” she said quietly.
The words came automatically, so easily that she almost didn’t notice she had said them.
But Kenma did. He set his console down. He only looked at her.
“You don’t have to be.”
Mei went still.
It was such a simple sentence, barely anything at all. Yet somehow, it found the exact place in her that she had been trying so desperately to hide.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Kenma’s voice remained gentle. “You always say you’re fine.”
“Because I am.”
He gave her a look.
Mei almost smiled, almost.
Then the expression disappeared.
“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.”
“You can say you’re not.”
The words caught somewhere in her throat.
She wanted to. So badly.
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There were so many things she wanted to say that sometimes she thought if she ever opened her mouth, everything inside her would come spilling out at once. She wanted to say that she was tired. That she wanted to stop thinking so much. That she wanted to stop questioning whether she was too much or not enough. That she wanted to be able to reach for someone without immediately wondering if she had reached too far.
Instead, she whispered, “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
Her eyes began to sting. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m feeling. It’s so hard trying to articulate all the mess inside my head while remaining steady on the surface. It’s so, so hard.”
Kenma stayed quiet.
Mei gave a small, humorless laugh. “And then I wonder why I’m always tired.”
“I think you think too much.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to figure everything out tonight.”
She looked at him. “What if I never do?”
“Then you don’t.”
The simplicity of his answer made her chest ache.
“What if I’m too much?”
“You’re not.”
“What if I become difficult?”
Kenma paused, before giving a blunt reply.
“You already are.”
Mei stared at him, almost offended, until she noticed the faint smile on his face.
“I’m still here,” he added.
Right then and there, something inside her softened.
She looked down, and the tears she had been holding back finally slipped free. “I don’t know how to let people stay.”
Kenma reached for her hand, giving her enough time to pull away if she wanted. She didn’t.
“You don’t have to know.”
“What if I push you away?”
“I’ll give you space.”
“What if I don’t come back?”
“I’ll wait.”
Mei’s fingers tightened around his. “And if I do?”
“I’ll be here.”
That was all it took.
She leaned her head against his shoulder, her tears quietly rolling down her cheeks in a way she would have hated anyone else to see. Kenma didn’t tell her to stop, nor did he ask her to explain herself. He simply stayed beside her, his thumb brushing gently over her knuckles.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You apologize too much.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to apologize for feeling things.”
Mei closed her eyes. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“You don’t have to stop today.”
For once, she didn’t argue.
She let herself remain there, suspended between the quiet of the classroom and the chaos inside her own mind. The thoughts were still there. The doubts had not disappeared. Nothing had magically become easier simply because she had finally allowed herself to be seen.
But maybe that was not what she needed.
Maybe she did not need someone to untangle every complicated thread inside her. Maybe she only needed someone who would sit beside the knot without calling it ugly. Someone who would understand that sometimes she needed solitude without mistaking it for rejection. Someone who would let her be quiet without asking her to become louder, let her be afraid without demanding courage, let her struggle without making her feel guilty for it.
Mei had spent years believing she had to become easier to love before anyone could truly stay.
Kenma never asked her to.
He simply stayed.
And perhaps that was why his words lingered so deeply inside her, even after the classroom had grown dark and they had finally gone home.
“You don’t have to be.”
Not fine, not certain, not fearless, not easy to understand.
She could simply be Mei — complicated, quiet, sensitive, frightened, thoughtful, and still learning how to exist within the depths of her own soul.
And if she became lost there again tomorrow, perhaps it would not feel quite so terrifying anymore.
Because somewhere beyond all those tangled thoughts, there would always be someone waiting at the edge of the darkness, holding out a hand without asking her to hurry.
Someone who would never demand that she find her way out alone.
Kenma.
And for Mei, perhaps that was the gentlest kind of love there was: not being rescued from the depths of herself, but knowing that she would never have to face them entirely alone.
And somehow, for the first time, that felt more than enough.
— this has been in my drafts for 2 weeks wow
