Chapter 1: Kyousuke
The air thrummed with music, even though Hitomi couldn't hear anything yet that resembled an organized ensemble. She could feel the musical tones in the air above the heads of the chattering crowd, and it wove a subtle undertone through their conversations. Perhaps the source wasn't just the performers warming their instruments up backstage. She was trembling, each motion amplified by the vibrations of bow across string. Whether it was nervousness or excitement, she couldn't decide.
A creak heralded the opening of the doors to the recital hall by two meticulously tidy ushers. Even dressed in a form-fitting black dress with white-laced hemming, Hitomi felt underdressed. She saw her mother fix her makeup out of the corner of her eye. Her mother held a pocket mirror and dabbed at the corner of her mouth where her lipstick had started to smudge. She shot glares at passerby as they bumped past her on their way to the doors. Not for the first time, Hitomi wished she had her mother's confidence to preen in public. Surely everyone must sense, when they passed Hitomi, that she was an outsider. A few conversations filtered through her hearing about the music selection in the program and some of the better known performers. They could have been another language.
"Well, that's that." Her mother snapped her mirror shut and tucked it back into her purse. "Let's go find our seats, honey."
Hitomi followed her mother through the crowd, navigating with practiced grace among the density of bodies. She was here for someone, she wanted to say at all the faces turned in her direction, surprised to see a junior in their midst.
No. She was here with someone.
That thought lightened her step, blurred her surroundings into non-relevance, as she strode through the doors and down the long corridor. Her mother pelted her with instructions on how to act, but once the stage came into view, Hitomi's attention became impossible to hold.
Two years ago, she'd snuck backstage during one of Kyousuke's rehearsals the last time he had played at a school concert. It was the first time she'd seen him play the violin, but it wasn't the music that had moved her. He had perfect posture – relaxed and controlled, a sturdy anchor for his instrument. And she'd never seen fingers like his before. They moved up and down the strings and positions, more fluid than anything she would hope to accomplish on the piano.
They settled into their seats, a little more off-centre than Hitomi would have liked, but close enough that the performers' faces were visible and identifiable. She checked her program to see that Kyousuke had been slated as one of the last performers. She thought about excusing herself to the washroom and approaching him after rehearsals. Two years ago, she almost had. But she'd left in a hurry before the performance had even finished. After all, he was someone who didn't need to think about others that way. He had everything he wanted already, including a passion.
Recently, she had realized: she wasn't competing with his passion for music. In fact, she shouldn't. She wanted to be something separate entirely, that didn't draw him away from what he loved. But at the same time, she wanted him to pursue her, to be fixated with her.
She wondered if, before or after his performance, he might look out into the audience so that their stares could meet in the middle, and for once, she wouldn't be just another onlooker.
0-0-0
The giant wooden door of the recital hall opened and Kyousuke stepped out. Hitomi couldn't look away. She still hadn't gotten over how he'd looked onstage, completely in his own. Amid the clusters of attendees, with only his violin case to mark him as a performer, he looked too mundane. Hitomi tried to imagine the stage lights illuminating his suit, and resolved to never forget the first moment she'd seen him step out into them.
She remained standing with her mother. She could faintly hear her talking with the Kamijou family, pleasant chit-chat. But Hitomi was focused on Kyousuke. He took a step away from the door as someone behind him pushed it open. But he made no further progress towards his family, who he could probably see from where he was. He was looking around, his expression far too serious for someone who'd just received a standing ovation. Hitomi pictured him looking in her direction, seeing her waiting there for him. He'd run to her, or maybe she'd run to him first and shower him with her bouquet of roses. But the longer he stood still, the more she began to feel ridiculous. Their relationship wasn't like that, not yet. It was a formality, a courtship. Nothing more.
By that time, Hitomi had stared too long to continue to hold still. With light, self-aware steps, she crossed the lobby. It wasn't until she was only a few steps away that he noticed her.
"Congratulations, Kamijou-kun!" She held out the bouquet. "The concert was wonderful."
Kyousuke started, at first not raising his arms to accept the roses. The space between them quivered. But then he took them from her. His eyes lingered on the petals, unmoving.
"Kamijou-kun?" Hitomi's heart thudded, each beat higher in her chest. It felt like a standoff, both of them facing each other without speaking. The smallest movement could ruin the moment.
"What did you feel?" he said.
The question caught her off-guard. She might have thought that the high of performing had affected his wording if his face hadn't been set in what suggested an oncoming frown. "It was all very beautiful. I have never heard some of those selections before."
"But what did you feel?"
A warmth started at her neck, just under her chin. A thought tickled her about what she could say, but it was still too early to tell if Kyousuke would take it the wrong way. "I– I was impressed. How come?"
"I… felt something, Shizuki-san." Kyousuke's mouth tilted downwards, but not quite into a frown. "For the first time, I really felt my own playing. I wondered if it might reach anyone else, that's all. Or perhaps it's the feeling of playing in front of so many people."
"What was it that you felt?"
"I don't know." The bouquet shifted slightly in his arms, his fingers lax around the plastic wrapping. "The experience itself is something I can't explain. Afterwards, I looked out to the audience, and I felt like I was the only one in the theatre. Like a dream."
"It is rather exhilarating being on stage, isn't it? I suppose you would already know." She laughed. "The stage is so huge that it must be impossible to see anyone!"
Kyousuke took a long breath. Then, his eyes cleared and his lips spread once more. "Sorry, just forget I said anything."
Despite his expression, she knew she'd already fumbled. She should have encouraged him to explain, to confide in her all the secrets he couldn't tell anyone else. But instead, she'd clearly made him uncomfortable. "Kamijou–"
He interrupted her by reaching forward to take her hand. "Thank you for coming."
The touch sent prickles up and down her arm, and she felt her face heat up. It was akin to how one must feel under all those spotlights, like they were the centre of the world for just a few precious minutes. The awkwardness of the moment forgotten, she let her fingers relax into the warmth of Kyousuke's palm.
This moment, when she was with Kyousuke, rather than watching him as a far-off figure on the stage, was what she would choose to remember.
Standing there, hand-in-hand with Kyousuke, Hitomi again remembered two years ago when she'd snuck backstage during a rehearsal to see him practicing. But that wasn't entirely right. She wouldn't have been there by herself, not two years ago. Someone had shown her the right door to enter through, had developed enough connections to let them roam about freely.
Adrenaline spiked through her fingers, a cold chill compared to Kyousuke's hand, and they lost their grip.
"Sayaka-san…" she breathed.
She hadn't seen her friend in two days.
Hitomi's legs crossed at the ankles, and her hands rested on her knee which she strained to keep still. Her mother had always told her that she fidgeted when she was nervous. She was half-glad about that statement now. Had her mother not constantly drilled her about her posture, she knew she would practically be quivering. Not about being in the principal's office, but because she had just entered the most important stare-off of her life.
The principal poured her a cup of water while the detective talked about the things nobody wants to hear about their best friend: disappearance, notes, dysfunctional home life.
A recurring nightmare had plagued Hitomi since childhood. In it, she experienced some horrific event that usually encompassed one of her worst fears. Being buried alive. Forgetting notes on the stage. Failing out of her class. Then the scenario would repeat itself, like a movie rewound and replayed from the beginning. She would relive the same events over and over, but be unable to stop the same thing from happening. Like someone else had taken over the dream.
She felt the same way in that moment. She wished the rain could hit the windowpane a little more forcefully to drown out the detective's words, but it was like a hum in the background – another spectator. Just like the rest of the world: the jury of her trial where she was the accused.
Besides, she deserved no such respite. Her punishment was that no one else would ever know what she'd done. She would be ordered to solitary confinement, left at the mercy of her own mind.
"I'm home."
The door creaked on its hinges, and a few stray raindrops spattered across the threshold. The rain was even louder inside the house. Outside, there was only the sound of crashing on the pavement, each droplet exploding into a thousand tiny fragments. Inside, it sounded like the rain was drilling through the walls, through every crack and weakness it could find.
"Hitomi, is that you?" her father called from the living room. "Shut the door, please, you're letting the cold in."
Hitomi let the door hang open for a couple seconds more before she shut it. Her hair was tangled and dripped water, even though she'd wrung it out on the front step. Her uniform clung to her body, and mud decorated her shoes and socks. As she removed them and left them by the door to dry, she realized she had forgotten her school bag. She must have left it in the principal's office to the convenience of the detective.
Her next steps took her past the living room doors on her way to the stairs. She took care to tread quietly, having heard her parents listening to the news, but the floorboards gave her away.
"The door and now the floorboards," her father said from just beyond the sliding door. "I'll have to call someone in to get them replaced."
"How was your day, honey?" her mother asked. She paused, waiting for the traditional reply. "Honey?"
By the time the doors slid open, squeaking on their tracts, Hitomi was already halfway up the stairs.
0-0-0
Rain spattered across the windowpane, running in rivulets down to the sill where a permanent moisture had begun to build up. Mold formed in the crooks. People hurried by the entrance to the restaurant without slowing, fishing in their bags for umbrellas and raincoats. It was the ninth consecutive day of rain in a spring that had, until then, seen the best weather in three years.
"Shizuki-san? Shizuki-san, are you listening?" Kyousuke's face was defined by long shadows, which only deepened when he spoke. They caused his eyes to look further back on his face, as if he were staring at her from a distance.
"I think you should come back to school," he said.
A storm had knocked out the electricity in over half of the city's sectors the previous night, and with every gust of wind, the already flickering overhead lights threatened a repeat. Far from its usual well-lit atmosphere, the popular haunt had been plunged into a semi-gloom.
Hitomi barely turned her head. "Why?" Her voice was cracked and hoarse, grating over an already swollen throat, an unwelcome presence in her mouth. Her hands began to itch, and she realized she was gripping her coffee container so hard that some of the dark liquid had started to spill over the edges, scalding her fingers where it touched her. Kyousuke made no comment, but she could see him watching. She pulled her hands away.
"Because exams are coming up. Saotome-sensei is worried that you won't be able to catch up in time." His mouth remained open, a blocked sound trying to push its way through. At last, he gave way. "Everyone's worried."
She paused, halfway through pulling a napkin from the dispenser. It went taut between her fingers. A tear formed from the bottom and crept up.
0-0-0
The rain roared loudest in Hitomi's room, coming down in full force. The circular window at the far side was ajar, probably having been opened that morning by her mother to air the room out for the housekeeper. The blurry luminescence of the city pervaded through the rain and was the only light source she had. She did not make to turn on her light, however, nor did she cross to the window to close it. Instead, Hitomi traipsed to her desk. Her phone lay on the glass surface, the black screen so out of place amidst the clear vision she had of her rug.
The dark had always held her in its grip, forcing her mind into a state of irrationality. She felt vulnerable in the dark, as if it were unwinding her. Her mind played tricks on her, forced her to see things that weren't really there, projected her worst fears into the open. Even as she stood there, she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Her breathing quickened, her pulse rising to match it. A cold sweat broke out near her neck, traveling downwards. Visions flashed across her mind and closing her eyes did nothing to deter them.
"Why didn't you come to school yesterday?"
Sayaka didn't even look at her. "I felt a bit sick."
A body splayed out in the mud, its features distorted by grime and human waste, a single clawed hand reaching out, frozen in death. A news headliner. A body in a ditch. Mysterious disappearance. A testimony request.
Hitomi lunged for her lamp, and a small portion of her room flooded with light in the next moment. Droplets from her hair began to run down her face as she remained hunched over. They were drawn to the creases of her eyes, distorting her vision. She blinked, and watched them fall one by one onto her desk.
She held like that for an uncertain amount of time. Then she sniffed and pushed her hair out of her face, quickly and lightly brushing her hand over her eyes as well. In the same instance, her phone buzzed.
0-0-0
The silence widened, and across from her, Kyousuke leaned back in his seat. She felt him getting further and further away, the shadows around his eyes growing darker each second.
"Are they worried for me?" she said at last.
Kyousuke nodded, his mouth stretched in a straight line. "Yes, for you."
0-0-0
The buzzing continued and the entire desk surface rattled. The name Kido Anna hovered insistently on the screen, accompanied by a photo of a navy-blue-haired girl. Hitomi looked away, towards the window. The rain was coming down heavier than before, and she found herself wishing that it would cascade right through the roof so that she could be wrapped in it, the sound of plummeting and crashing raindrops the only thing she could hear. But the phone vibrations continued to compete with the farther off downpour.
Anna called her another three times before her phone went silent. The moment it did, Hitomi snatched it off the desk and held the power button down until the screen went dark. She dispelled the tension she'd built up with one long exhale through her nose. Now there was nothing except for the cacophony of her own thoughts and the dark corners of her room, both of which were held at bay by the rain and her other lamps.
She had only taken a couple steps towards her dresser when she heard the unmistakable creak of the hallway floorboards. Her hands raised by themselves to wipe herself off, to tidy her hair until it fit it neatly around her face. But then she dropped them. She didn't know how to start cleaning herself up.
She already knew what was going to happen before her mother knocked on the door.
"Honey," she said. "Please come downstairs. It's about your friend. Miki Sayaka."
0-0-0
Hitomi clenched the napkin into her palms. "And you?"
Kyousuke's gaze was steady. His hands stretched out on the table surface, displaying his long violinist fingers. One of them twitched. "What about me?"
"Aren't you worried?"
His shoulders collapsed as he breathed out. "Yes, of course."
At any other time, such a response would have had her helplessly smiling so that her dimples were halfway up her face. But now, it sparked a cold anger. "Why for me?" Her voice was barely louder than a breath.
"Pardon?"
"I shouldn't be the one you're all worrying for."
"Shizuki-san–"
She put down the napkin. "Why would you waste your energy on me?"
Kyousuke leaned towards her again, as if pulled by an invisible tether. The tether that, no matter what they did, would always keep them interwound and rooted in this moment. "Worrying won't bring her back," he said, every word like a punch. "You can't give up your studies, Shizuki-san."
Hitomi didn't reply.
Kyousuke's fingers arched, as if moving towards a fist. But he seemed to think better of it. "You know this has affected everyone. You don't think I worry about it too?"
"No." Part of Hitomi choked, horrified by her own counterstrike. She swallowed. There was no choice now but to go on. "How could you? You have other things to worry about."
Kyousuke shook his head. "It's not like that. Other things are other things; there's no way to avoid that." At her unresponsiveness, his voice gave way to exasperation. "I can't just throw them all away. But right now, I'm choosing to worry about you. They can wait."
The bile in Hitomi's throat curdled into poison. "Until next week? There's a time limit, isn't there? There always has been. When it comes to me… and her. When did she ever come before anything else, so that you noticed her?" Her voice rose, not to a shout but to a shrill whine that broke on the last word. She blinked back tears. Half of her wanted Kyousuke to soften, to sympathize with her grief as it mirrored his own. The other half wanted his wavering demeanour to break so that she could rise up to meet it.
Kyousuke gripped the edges of the table with white knuckles. "Of course I noticed her. She was my best friend!"
"She's our best friend," Hitomi said. Now she sat upright across a deflated Kyousuke, trembling. He, defeated, but still calm, never once shedding a tear. "She was our friend and we never noticed. She's gone because of us."
He did not deny the statement, which was, to Hitomi, the same as accepting it. "You don't know that. We don't know anything."
Her cheeks reddened, the anger welling again. Her fingers tingled with it and moved of their own accord. She brought her hands down on the table with as much force as she could allow herself. It barely made a sound, which only angered her more. "Then why? Why would she leave–" Me. "Why would she leave her family behind? What is the only thing that could drive her away?"
Deep down, she knew that the Kyousuke was right and her questions all yielded no answers, despite her convictions. But she wasn't satisfied with that. Not knowing the reasons for her friend's disappearance left her in a state of free-falling. She knew that, no matter what happened, she would hit the ground hard.
The class hushed when Hitomi stepped into the room. Like a wave effect, the silence spread out from an unknown source until everyone in the room became aware of the sudden decline of voices.
Hitomi took only the briefest time to observe all of the surprised expressions, including Kyousuke's. She took a deep breath. Then she walked heavily down the aisle, bunched between desks and the gold-paned windows. This wasn't the direction she normally took and the change was duly noted by her classmates, mostly everyone's eyes now following her. Kido Anna sat upright in her usual seat two rows back from the teacher's desk on the opposite side of the room, her neck craned in a silent gesture for attention. But Hitomi didn't so much as glance over. She hadn't seen or communicated with her friend in a week. She'd almost forgotten there was an Anna in her class.
Hitomi stopped next to Rie Mitsuko's desk. Mitsuko faced the other direction, one of the few who kept their eyes downcast. She probably didn't expect to have anything to do with Hitomi.
"May I sit here?" Hitomi broke the silence.
Mitsuko jumped and turned around so quickly that she almost hit the person standing near her desk with her ponytail. "Me?" she squeaked.
Hitomi nodded. "May I use this desk today, if you don't mind?"
Mitsuko nodded vigorously. "O-of course, Shizuki-san. If you insist." She jumped up and began to gather her books as ripples of whispers tore at the attentiveness of the other students.
Wordlessly, Hitomi slipped into the desk as Mitsuko moved away. She didn't watch the other girl leave. She knew full well the row of desks she was heading towards. Hitomi breathed in through her nose, felt her lips start to tremble. She held like that for as long as she could before she let it out again and reached for her school supplies.
The white plaster of the school blinded Hitomi. It was midday and lunch period, and her group had snagged their usual spot on one of the benches lining the roof's fence . Beside her, Anna bickered with Ayumi over how they could fairly distribute their food. Hitomi, however, scanned the fence in routine motion. She counted every pattern repeat, every separate section. Inevitably, her eyes trailed over to the other end of the rooftop, where another group of students were gathered on a cluster of benches set up in a half moon. The silvery fabric of the boys' uniform was only slightly less blinding than the white, but that made it stand out.
Kyousuke sat amid a group of his friends, who also appeared to be having similar arguments over each other's food, his face downturned.
Part of Hitomi wanted him to look up and over. But the more sensible side of her decided that would be inappropriate. Still, she found her gaze flicking back to him more than she would have liked.
"Shizuki-san, do you want chicken or salmon?" Ayumi said. She relented for a moment to wrestle something away from Anna which allowed a decent timeframe to pass. "Shizuki-san!"
"Don't bother. She'll come around in her own time," Anna said.
Hitomi felt grateful for Anna's accidental discretion. Her friend knew full well where Hitomi's gaze was directed, even if she didn't know what was on her mind.
If Hitomi kept staring, she knew there'd be questions soon enough, so she closed her eyes and turned her head back towards her companions. When they opened, she tried to forget what she'd just seen. She reached for her bento box and swore she could feel his eyes tracking her, although she resisted the urge to look up.
Lunch period crawled by, although it was probably because Hitomi didn't have much to say. She kept her eyes downcast and chewed slowly to give herself an excuse to keep silent. Anna and Ayumi were talking about alien topics, an entire week's worth of missed material for Hitomi. Ayumi had a new boyfriend. Two students had transferred into their class from another class to avoid the wrath of Takemoto. Homura had been absent from class for four days, then scored the top grade in a quiz they wrote. Kyousuke was off his crutches. Periodically, Anna glanced at Hitomi while she said something that would normally entice her, and normally by this point, Hitomi would have caved and joined in the conversation. But today, it wasn't the gossip or personal grudges against her friends that kept her from speaking. She picked at her food. Her eyes faintly stung from the glare of the sun on her rice, and her mouth felt dry. The fish was too salty.
"Hey, looks like they're done talking about their feelings." Ayumi's chopsticks rattled as she put them down.
"Did you have plans?" Anna said.
"Of course," Ayumi said. "We were going to do a study group before class. Coming?"
"Yeah, sure," Anna said. "My scores on that quiz were awful." She leaned into Hitomi, a full-body nudge. "How about you?"
Relieved that she could at least stop eating, Hitomi slid the lid onto her box. "Um–"
"Hey, Ayumi!" a male voice said. "You still up for studying?"
Hitomi's eyes were glued to the floral designs of her bento box as a shadow fell over her, accompanied by the sound of shuffling feet.
"Yeah, let's go," Ayumi said. "I'm going to go blind up here." She jumped up and let out a loud, grated sigh, usually accompanied by a stretch.
"Actually, I'm going to stay behind with Hitomi-san. She doesn't need to study anyway." Anna pushed her hand through Hitomi's arm to link them together. Her body was still turned away towards Ayumi, and Hitomi felt the pull. "You go on without us. We'll catch up."
"Anna-san, please don't stay for my sake," Hitomi murmured.
Anna cuddled into Hitomi with the enthusiasm of a small child and squeezed her arm. "What makes you say that? I'm just enjoying the sunshine." She let go briefly to wave.
The shadows of the students gave way to the blinding white of the sun, and Hitomi pursed her lips to prevent her eyes from scrunching up.
In the next second, Anna's head dropped onto Hitomi's shoulder. The pressure forced Hitomi to relax slightly, which in turn caused her head to rise. Hitomi tried to shake her arm, but Anna's grip restricted her movement.
"See that?" Anna's temples contracted in a suggestion of raised eyebrows. "We're not the only stragglers."
The lilt of Anna's tone betrayed the mystery of her brightness of the sun gave Hitomi an excuse not to look up, but she was given few other options of where else to look. The roof walkway was a checkerboard of white and jade almost bleached green, every tile polished to a near reflective state. Even if she looked at the ground, she would see hundreds of suns glaring back at her. She raised her head, but kept her eyes downcast so that the light filtered in a reddish hue through her eyelashes. She worked her arm free from Anna's with pointed grace, but Anna's hand snagged on her elbow and wouldn't let go. At a glance, her friend's face flickered between two opposite states, her mouth undecided on its curve.
At last, Anna tilted her head. "I'll meet you down there?"
Hitomi nodded.
Anna squeezed her arm again and gathered her belongings. Hitomi didn't watch her leave; the echo of Anna's footsteps was all she had to assure herself that her friend had actually left the roof.
It would be easy to continue to sit there. Maybe Anna had been bluffing and Kyousuke had walked past Hitomi earlier with his friends. A look up disconfirmed that theory, but the silver could have been a trick of the sunlight. And, even more viably, he might want solitude as much as she did.
He turned, then, and looked in her direction. It wasn't her imagination that time. His gaze lingered longer than it would have taken a refraction to light up her vision. She took a breath, blinked, and chose a place on her skirt to focus on while she made the long trek across the rooftop. She stopped walking at the corner of the semicircle of benches, where a gap allowed students to pass through. She lifted her head slowly and made Kyousuke's bento, propped on top of his schoolbag, the focus of her gaze, everything else moving on the edges.
Kyousuke's expression was one of surprise at her approach, and his lips parted to reveal his front teeth. His bag shifted on his lap, losing balance the longer he held still until it finally slid down his knee. He leaned forward to catch it.
Hitomi realized her own mouth was open. She'd been ready to speak, to say something that would either hurt or move him. But her opportunity had passed, so she opted for taking a seat next to him while he reorganized his belongings. She stared down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap.
"It's like… nobody remembers her."
Kyousuke grunted as he brought himself back into an upright position. "I'm sure that's not the case. They're just… trying not to think about it."
"Why can't they think about it? Why won't they just–" Face their true feelings? Hitomi's throat burned.
"They didn't know her," Kyousuke said. "Not like we did."
Hitomi's fingers tingled and she suffocated it with a tighter grip. "We didn't know her. The real her." All they'd known was the Sayaka who joked away her own secrets, who would lend a shoulder if needed but never requested one. "If we had, then we might have prevented this."
"You can say that all you like. You can keep blaming yourself, but I don't think it's going to make any difference," Kyousuke said. "I know I wasn't the best friend I could be to Sayaka, but telling myself that over and over isn't going to bring her back."
"You really think you weren't her best friend?" Hitomi said. "You really think that?"
"What do you– Hey, are you crying?"
"No."
Her hand flooded with warmth as he placed his fingers over it and squeezed gently. They were long enough to wrap up her entire hand, and that excluded the size of his palm.
He shouldn't be reaching out to her. Not her, of all people. That thought filled her with a brief surge of panic, and she jerked her hand away. She blinked even though she knew it wouldn't solve the problem. In fact, it did the opposite. Her blinks sent the tears cascading down her cheeks, and once the first few fell, there was no stopping the rest. She drew her arm close to herself to rest it on the opposite hip in a deflated sort of hug, and felt the warmth that had just been there drain away within milliseconds.
"I'm sorry, I don't think I can," she said.
"Shizuki-san–"
"It isn't right. She was my friend. I don't know why she left, or what happened to her. I don't know if it was me. I'll never know what she really would have wanted. That's why… I can't."
"Shizuki-san… You have to understand. We never thought of each other that way. She was like my sister."
"No. She loved you. You were the only one who could make her cry. I hate to think it, but that's what we're doing right now. We're hurting her, whatever's left of her."
"You know that's not…" He let go of the rest of his sentence in a sigh. "What if you're right? How will this change anything?" His hand lingered in the air like some poised animal, vying for attention. "Shizuki-san, please… We can do this together."
Then she realized. He did feel the same way as her. She saw his lips trembling, his shoulders following suit. He was teetering on the edge of the chasm, doing what anyone else would do and reaching out to someone for help. But Hitomi knew that if she reached back, they would go down together, dragging each other all the way to the bottom.
The soles of Hitomi's feet vibrated with the sound of the bell, deafening through the outdoor speakers. She waited for Kyousuke to move, but he didn't even start at the sudden noise. She shifted first, sniffed, and feigned brushing hair away from her face but rubbed her eyes in the quick motion. "We should get to class," she muttered. She straightened and patted down her skirt. "I… think it's best if we stop seeing each other, Kamijou-kun."
"But why? Tell me how I can help you."
Her eyes fell on him, drawn by some invisible tether, like the weight of her sins on the back of her neck. His upturned face looked as helpless as she felt. "You can't."
She knew how childish it was of her – how foolish. But she ran and she didn't look back.
Hitomi heard whispers in the hallway throughout the last week of classes. They lacked the energy to be in referral to summer activities and besides, summer wasn't nearly as anticipated as it used to be in elementary levels because it brought with it the prospect of summer school, especially for Hitomi's classmates who were flocked with not only exam preparations but also high school applications. There would be an expected level of excitement among a quarter of the student body towards the last days of exams, but not while class was still in session. Moreover, the whispers always stopped when Hitomi came into view. It bothered her to be the outsider on a secret that all her classmates seemed to know. Naturally, she assumed it was about her. But Anna would usually keep her well-informed about all the gossip surrounding their group. On some days, Hitomi would approach her friend whispering to Ayumi, but both would fall silent when she got within earshot.
That wasn't to say Hitomi found herself without companionship. Anna clung to her more tightly than she ever had, almost like a bodyguard. She would wait outside of the classroom on Hitomi's assigned chores days or lounge by Hitomi's locker when the latter turned up to school in the morning. Hitomi couldn't miss the way Anna leaned into the locker next to hers – the one that had been empty for the past two months – or the way her friend smiled and chirped and pretended like she didn't know where she was standing or why she wouldn't have been in that spot before then. After a while, Hitomi found it easier to smile with her.
The whispers, however, raised a doubt in her mind. That something lurked behind Anna's usual cheer. A notion about their friendship, or perhaps about Hitomi, that had drawn attention outside of themselves. And the whispers had become a catharsis for Anna.
That, or it was Hitomi's own paranoia at work.
"Hey, um," Anna said on their final day of classes. She rested, with her arms crossed, against the adjacent locker, everything about her posture suggestive of a routine she'd fallen into. She was still wearing her track clothes, having come to meet Hitomi after they'd both finished their after-school activities.
The silence that followed her words alerted Hitomi's attention, if only slightly more than usual. "What is it?"
"I wondered if we could do something today."
Hitomi tried to put on her most neutral smile to hide her disappointment. "I apologize, Anna-san, but I'm busy tonight."
"I'll walk with you, then," Anna said. She dropped her arms and swung them at her sides. "You go towards the river, don't you? My bus stop is along the way."
Hitomi swallowed and pretended to reach for another possession so she could hide her face behind her locker door. "If you insist."
They were coming up to the crosswalk leading towards the park when Anna suddenly came to an abrupt stop and fell a couple paces behind Hitomi. She fumbled in her pockets. "Shoot, I forgot!" she said.
Hitomi turned around to wait for her friend. She thought of her mother pacing at home in front of the piano. "What did you forget?" she asked.
"I forgot to return this to Kamijou-kun." Anna held up a neatly folded piece of paper.
Hitomi's smile faltered. One thing she hadn't failed to notice along with her friend's increased assertiveness in their friendship was that Anna seemed to be spending time with Kyousuke a lot, especially in the recent weeks. Whenever Hitomi passed by, Anna would pretend she hadn't been talking to him, but in the past couple days, she'd even been approaching him in class to join his circle of friends. She needed not be so concerned. Hitomi had already convinced herself not to care. It had been a year since she'd last had any close relation with Kyousuke, and Anna was her best friend. Bitterness would be pointless. Or so she tried to tell herself, perhaps to avoid thinking about the last time. She wouldn't make the same mistake again.
Anna snapped the piece of paper from side-to-side, her teeth visible on her lower lip. "I don't know what to do. My bus will be here in two minutes."
"Can't you give it to him next week?" Hitomi said.
Anna shook her head. "He needs it for this weekend."
Sheet music, then. But why would he give some to Anna? Hitomi pressed her lips together to avoid the thought.
"Say, Hitomi-san…" Anna's face brightened. "You wouldn't happen to have any lessons today, right?"
"Well, I am supposed to be home to rehearse with my mother," Hitomi began.
"But no paid instruction? Great!"
Before Hitomi could react, Anna tucked the piece of paper into her hands. She let go before Hitomi could reject them, and common courtesy kept her from letting them fall to the ground. "Anna-san, I–"
"Please do me this favour?" Anna said, her voice tipping upwards as she bent in front of Hitomi and stared up at her with wide eyes. "I promise I will be your locker guard dog for the next week and attack any boy – or girl – who so much as looks at it."
Hitomi couldn't help but laugh, even if just as courtesy. She realized it was a mistake when Anna leapt up, gave her a loose hug, and made her escape across the street. All she could do was stare after her in shock, too surprised to do anything at first. Anna was too far away to shout, so Hitomi pulled out her phone, crushing the paper Anna had just given her against it.
A heavy weight suddenly hit her shoulder from behind, nearly sending her phone flying from her hands. Her teeth gnashed together and missed her tongue by millimetres.
"Ah, Shizuki-san, I'm so sorry!" The voice belonged to Ryuji Yamashita or more specifically, the class ditz. Or at least, that's what everyone had called him before Kyousuke had befriended him in the previous semester.
Hitomi let out her breath as Ryuji took her arm to help steady her. She'd half been expecting Kyousuke to turn up just then.
"I'm quite alright." She pulled away from Ryuji. Was Kyousuke with him? They usually walked along this road in a group or just together. But there was no sign of a familiar silver-haired boy approaching them from behind. The path was mostly clear of students, most of whom had already left before Hitomi or gone the opposite direction towards the main roads.
"Where is Kamijou-kun right now?" Hitomi said. Of everyone in their class, she figured Ryuji would be the least likely to ask her questions.
Ryuji's face shifted – of course it would – but not into the secretive smile she was used to seeing in others' expressions when she mentioned that name. He looked earnestly surprised. "He should be leaving the school around now. Coming this way," he added, as if Hitomi didn't already know that.
"Thank you," she said.
"Er, Shizuki-san, I hope everything's okay," he said. "Anna's talked about you a lot. And Kamijou– Well–" He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, all without glancing at Hitomi. "I'm sorry again for nearly knocking you down."
It wasn't until Ryuji had moved past her and continued towards the river that Hitomi realized she could have just handed him the paper and asked him to deliver it for her. He wasn't too far away to yell, but Hitomi didn't even turn towards his departing back. Her eyes were fixed on the distant surface of the river. A handful more steps would bring her to the railing that separated the water from the path, and if she turned her head slightly, she would be able to see the Mitakihara skyline, framed in a vibrant gold. Golden hour, as many liked to call it. The intersection ahead would also be where she and Kyousuke normally parted ways. Kyousuke would go right towards the waterfall and the bridge, and Hitomi would go left towards the city interior. Normally, she wouldn't even choose this path to begin with, not when she could cut through the park that was hidden in the thicket beside her. But she hadn't taken that path in over a year.
"Shi-Shizuki-san," an unmistakeable voice said from almost directly behind her.
Hitomi only turned her head enough to catch Kyousuke on the periphery of her vision.
"What are you doing?" he said.
"Admiring the sunset," Hitomi said. "Is that so wrong?"
"No, it's just– You're in the middle of the path," Kyousuke pointed out.
"Ah. I'm sorry, I hadn't realized." Hitomi picked her bag off the ground and stepped to one side towards the dense foliage. She waited for Kyousuke to rest next to her. Directly ahead of them, she could see the glimmer of the sun's reflection in the river, shifting lower.
She was shaken from her reverie by the flash of Kyousuke's silver jacket, and she realized he had walked past her.
"Kamijou-kun," she said.
He turned. "Yes?"
Hitomi stared at him. At his unassuming eyes and his cheeks rounded into their usual half-frown. Did he suffer, too? All this time, he'd been the recipient, batted between her and Sayaka and now Anna. Anna was probably the most forward with him out of the three of them. Hitomi decided to add her silence to her list of regrets. If she'd only said something sooner and not played such childish games, perhaps things would have blown over faster. That day in the café, she'd seen something in Sayaka's expression other than heartbreak. Her friend had been in turmoil even then. If Hitomi had said something to her sooner or said something to Kyousuke...
She'd spent too much time with such regrets, and she'd long since missed her opportunity to do anything about them except try to be more forward with Kyousuke.
She cleared her throat. "Has something happened?"
"'Something?'" Kyousuke repeated, but the lack of hesitation in his voice gave enough away about his understanding of the question.
She wouldn't play the fool for her peers. There wouldn't have been so many whispers if there wasn't something going on. Something that affected her, but that she couldn't know about. So then, she deduced, it was something that indirectly affected her. A sore spot that no one wanted to disturb. "Is there something going on with you?"
Kyousuke breathed through his nose. "...Sort of."
"Will you tell me what it is?"
Kyousuke shifted his weight from side to side. Hitomi's gaze slid routinely down to his fingers. They gripped his school bag but loosely, too long to wind around fully without his nails digging into his palms.
"I'm moving away," he said at last.
Hitomi blinked and brought her eyes back to his face, unable to find contact in his downcast gaze. "Where?"
"What does it matter?" Kyousuke said with a sigh. "I won't be going to high school here. My parents want me to go to a specialized school for music students."
The path between them glowed bronze, every crack perfectly outlined by shadow. Unlike the rest of the city, this path and paths through the nearby park were made of interlocking stones rather than cement. They'd barely passed the line of cement marking school property.
"That's wonderful," Hitomi said at last.
"I'll have to start all over again. From nothing."
"It's normal, though, isn't it?" The sheet of paper had begun to feel heavy. "Moving away for high school." He wasn't the only one she knew of leaving the class. Kaoru, an acquaintance of Anna's, and Homura would not be returning the next year either.
Kyousuke blew out through his mouth, a practiced release. "I'm moving away for good."
"Ah," Hitomi said. She could imagine Kyousuke having told Anna already, and her friend's outraged response. "So that's why Anna-san didn't want to give these back to you in person."
"What?" Kyousuke said. He stopped shifting and leaned forward slightly.
Hitomi decided not to dwell on the reaction and held out the piece of paper.
Kyousuke had to take a few steps back towards her to accept it. He unfolded the paper and studied it for less than a second. "These? They're just sketches Kido-san was showing me in class earlier." He held it out for her to see.
"Then why–?"
With a few heavy strides, he crossed the distance between them, leaned down, and kissed her. It wasn't so much a kiss as it was his lips brushing her cheek, right next to her mouth. There was no other contact, no words involved. She pulled back in surprise but didn't raise her arms. They both knew what that meant.
Kyousuke straightened. His eyes moved with hers as she tried to avoid them. "Forgive me," he said. "But I didn't want to regret what might be the last time I see you."
He did not ask anything more of her like Hitomi expected, and it surprised her. Instead, he turned away to steady his breathing. She had recovered by then as well, and took several shuffled steps backwards. They were still near school grounds, after all. She took the moment to gently touch the side of her mouth. Her skin tingled. The sensations closed in around her fingers the longer she held them there and then scattered when she took her hand away. But there was nothing sensual in what she felt. The kiss hadn't been meant to spark romance.
Kyousuke snorted, a short shake of his shoulders. "I've been such a fool."
Hitomi dropped her arm. She tried to remember if his words should spark pity or relief in her, neither of which she felt. Perhaps the city's golden hour had put her into a state of tranquility. "Yes. We both were," she said. "And now we will live with it."
Kyousuke went still. "You're right. There's no point–"
"Why do you act as though you're looking for my forgiveness?" Hitomi took a breath. When she let it out, she felt the last of her adrenaline subside. The first time she'd taken the liberty to walk alongside Kyousuke, he'd been confused. She'd been confused. But they'd both proceeded with a hopeful curiosity, with smiles and giggles and talk about silly things. Now, they both had a weight and although most of it would never be relieved, Hitomi realized she'd always had a solution for at least half of what bore down on Kyousuke and perhaps part of what bothered her. "You shouldn't waste your time, Kamijou-kun."
"Wha–"
She walked directly up to him and, before he had a chance to turn around, leaned into his back. "There's nothing to forgive."
"Shizuki-san… We'll keep in touch, won't we?"
She nodded. Her lips quivered in indecision. "That would make me happy."
June had unexpectedly turned into the month of rain. Not the downpour of spring, but a light and humid drizzle. It rained when half the sky was still clear, the warmth of the sun still tangible enough to discourage the use of a raincoat. Similarly, the rain did not demand an umbrella, but rather teased it.
Nevertheless, Hitomi preferred to be safe.
She stepped out her door and held out her arm, testing the weather. It seemed the sky was no longer in a state of contradiction, as if the rain was holding off for the sun. The wet cement of the street steamed, as if coaxing her out into the heat of the day.
Hitomi tucked her umbrella under her arm and pulled her door shut. Before her was a metal latticework of stairs and balconies, leading from ground level to higher apartment levels. Hers was only three storeys up. To her left, she spotted another student, Iwakuma Goro, leaving his apartment. He glanced up and raised his eyebrows at the sight of her, perhaps surprised to see her dressed so nicely in a black blouse and skirt, but probably more so because she was leaving in the first place. She smiled back knowingly. The other students who had rented apartments in the area had seldom been seen outside for the past week. Exams were fast approaching and most of them were senior or graduate university students.
Today, however, Hitomi had decided to set aside her books for something of equal or greater importance. She waved at Goro who waved back before starting the trek to the ground.
Yokohama dwarfed Mitakihara in size, but the infrastructure and layout was eerily similar. It took three bus rides to get through the downtown area alone, and another half-hour ride to the shoreline. Hitomi managed to work through most of her Calculus assignment before the announcement of her final stop.
Hitomi was the only passenger to disembark, although she wasn't surprised. It was a quiet street, with a red-bricked road running beneath sakura trees serving as the sidewalk. A tall cement wall rose on one side, which evened off to create another level. It was broken by a set of stairs. She could see long green grass growing at the top. The occasional rev of passing cars could still be heard, but most of them stuck to the main roads. After all, this was meant to be a peaceful place.
Keeping her tread light, Hitomi climbed the stairs. As she went, she heard rumbling. The intensity of the sunlight was notched down noticeably as grey clouds once again moved in to cover the sun. She reached around to fumble for her umbrella, which she had hooked to her bag, but realized it wasn't there. She must have left it on the bus. She bit back her outburst, however quiet it would have been, and kept moving.
She followed a small, tiled pathway. On either side of her, grey headstones loomed from the otherwise picturesque field. Colourful flowers broke the monotony of grey and green, either growing around the sites or left as bouquets beside the pillars. Other spots were marked by flat marble slabs set into the ground.
Hitomi kept her pace slow as a sign of respect. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. A low-standing headstone barely stuck out amid its peers. A tree grew nearby, its roots probably occupying the space where the coffin would have been. The gravediggers were likely leaving room for burials.
Hitomi stood still for a few minutes, head bowed. Then she raised her chin enough to see the words scrawled on the stone. Near the top, it read, Miki Sayaka. There was no date underneath. Instead, there was only the inscription, She lives on.
This was usually the part where Hitomi's smile became painful, where she would drop to her knees and place her hands on the stone as if searching for some trace of her friend. Today, however, she felt the loss as a dull ache in the back of her throat when she swallowed, and in the weakness of her fingers and knees.
Thunder rumbled again, much closer than the last time. A drop of rain fell onto Hitomi's head, followed by another and another. She pulled her rain jacket from her bag and had just enough time to drape it over herself before the downpour began.
She watched the headstone through the haze of rain as a sort of halo formed around it, created by hundreds of raindrops spattering the surface and bursting apart at once. The stone was cheap. It wouldn't take long for the surface to erode entirely. Perhaps the groundskeeper wouldn't bother with a replacement if it did. It would simply disappear, turn to nothing.
Hitomi's chin trembled. She could feel a dampness spreading through the thin material of her coat. But to be driven away from the memory of her friend because she couldn't endure the rain felt like a betrayal. She had done it before, and she could just as easily do it now for Sayaka's sake.
She lowered the jacket to let it rest on her shoulders, trading her hair for her skirt, which was already flattened against her legs. Water ran down her cheeks and nose as she stared at Sayaka's tombstone.
The rain stopped falling, but the sound continued. A shadow fell over her, and she didn't need to look over to see who it was.
"Hey," Kyousuke said.
She should have known she might meet Kyousuke here. He attended a music academy in the same city, only a few minutes away from her by bus. They would always be linked together, by the person who should have been there with them, but was now represented by a grey stone in the ground.
His presence wasn't intrusive, like she thought it would have been. She didn't feel any more or any less sorrow with him there. It remained nestled in the back of her throat and pit of her stomach, a constant sting.
The shadow of his umbrella lifted off of the headstone briefly as he took his turn reading the inscription. Hitomi sniffed and closed her eyes, letting him have the moment to himself.
An arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her into the warmth of his body. It drew from her the tears that she could not shed on her own, not without support to bring her back from the downward spiral of grief. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, so she turned her face away and rested her ear against his chest to listen to his heartbeat.
"I am thousand winds that blow."
Hitomi's eyes opened. She looked up at him in surprise at the sudden speech.
Kyousuke's voice lilted as he recited. "I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight, I am the rain. Do not stand on my grave and cry. I am not there; I did not die."
The words hung in the air. Hitomi's lips twitched into a quivering smile. Kyousuke lowered his umbrella again, and as his body relaxed, Hitomi allowed herself to settle comfortably into the crook between his shoulder and arm.
Kyousuke said, "It's a song the choir is practicing. I thought you might like it."
"It's lovely," Hitomi said. "Only–"
The gravestone steamed as the rain turned to a misty drizzle. Impossibly, the rock was glistening, the surface set with tiny crystals that were otherwise invisible in daylight. The lump in Hitomi's throat was still there as she took in the sight, but it felt less painful. With every passing day, her breath came out a little more smoothly. She could recognize beauty again, through the pain, through the words of the poem.
Only…
"It's hard not to feel sad," Kyousuke finished for her.
"Yes," Hitomi said. "I will never stop being sad… but I don't think I should. It reminds me that there was once happiness. I don't want to forget." She leaned into Kyousuke, and his support became an embrace, their arms wrapping together and their eyes meeting on the gravestone.
A/N:
I had to do way more research for this chapter than I thought I would, so if I do make any continuity or canon errors, feel free to point them out.
The poem used at the end of this chapter is called "Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep" by Mary Elizabeth Frye. It's on Wikipedia if you google it, and I also put a transcription of the full piece on my profile (as well as a link to the sung version "In Remembrance" I referred to). Yes, choir class can be useful.
To be continued in:
Chapter 2: Sayaka