Title: Don't Trust Them
Published: December 13, 2015
Author: Ribbon
Target: Hirakoba Rin
Default Name: Hirotani Haruki
iii.
In our first year of high school, Rin and I were put in the same homeroom class. It was the first time that we'd shared a classroom since our elementary school days, so Rin made sure to abuse every privilege he had. Although we still didn't walk to and from school together, due to Rin's schedule, we saw each other every day in class, and we continued eating lunch together the way we used to in middle school. Though it probably irked some of his fans how much closer we'd become since coming to high school, they had the decency to respect that Rin and I were best friends, and I had the right to hang out with him as much as I wanted without incurring their wrath. Even the fans that still believed Rin and I were dating (which we weren't) left me alone.
Though, Rin deserved a fair amount of credit for that. Despite how much his popularity had sky-rocketed since returning from Nationals and the subsequent U-17, he stayed humble, and kept his fans even humbler. He steered me cleared of unnecessary spotlights, and called fans out when they overstepped their bounds. I couldn't help but think that Rin's time away from Okinawa had enabled him to mature considerably, and although I would never admit it aloud, I was proud of him. In only a matter of years, he'd evolved from an energetic kid who loved tennis to the damn good player that wiped the floor with his opponents at the district tournament. I'd seen him win love game after love game, match after match with my own two eyes — and even then, I couldn't really believe that he was the same person as the classmate that whined to me on a daily basis how much prettier I'd be if I dyed my hair.
"You're surprisingly very good." I said after we left the game and hit up the favourite fruit parlour to celebrate his team winning the district tournament.
He clutched at his heart. "So cold, Harucchi! Just how little faith d'ya have in me?!"
"I don't put my faith in delinquents like you." I joked, and he called me an ice queen in return. "But really — you made it look so easy. Just how much strength training did they make you do?"
"We do a lot of trainin' on the beach — the sand's a good workout for y' legs, y'know? An' we don't have fancy trainin' gear like the schools in Tokyo do." He paused, and for a moment, I was clued into thinking that he would suddenly start cursing the opponents that they'd lost to in Tokyo last year. He took me by surprise when he said, "Tokyo's got some real strong players. You wouldn't be sayin' half the stuff y' are now if y' went to Nationals."
"Just what are you hinting at?"
He grinned. "I'd play so much better if my best friend came 'n' cheered me on at Nationals!"
"Don't sound so exasperated — I don't have that kind of money, so it's not going to happen." I said. To mark a change in the subject, I reached out and patted him on the shoulder. "Anyway, don't be so quick to dismiss your losses in Tokyo. You guys were a dark horse in Nationals last year, right? You can't just glaze over those kinds of successes so flippantly."
He considered this. "You're right, Harucchi— I am pretty cool."
I drew back my hand. "Don't get conceited, though."
He sniffed. "So cold."
When night fell, we left the fruit parlour, and Rin walked me back home. He said that if I couldn't come to watch him at Nationals, then I should at least come to watch him at the Kyūshū Tournament. He even offered to pay for (some) of my expenses, but I politely turned him down. I reasoned that one of us had to stay on top of their study game to prevent the other from flunking out of high school. He begrudgingly agreed to stop pestering me about coming to see his more distant games.
As Rin stayed behind later and later each day at tennis practice, I once again slipped into the habit of going to the library after school and studying with the two same classmates that I'd befriended in middle school. None of us were in the same class, but we each had strengths in different areas, and we worked well together. Like Rin, the three of us stayed back later and later each day to get all our assigned work out of the way. Occasionally, when we caught ourselves studying well into dinnertime, we would leave the library and hit the town for some food. Uchimiya, one of the girls, introduced me to coffee, explaining that it would help me stay up light to finish work if ever I found myself in an academic pinch. She started me off on café au lait, but eventually, I was able to stomach straight shots of espresso (and the occasional doppio on truly awful nights). Somewhere along the line, I think I started to genuinely enjoy the taste of coffee — enough to start ordering it whenever I ate out with family and friends.
After Rin returned from the Kyūshū Tournament — once again victorious — I treated him to parfaits as a way of apologising for not being able to go and watch him play. Out of habit, I ordered a coffee with my parfait, catching Rin off guard. The look on his face suggested that he'd been completely unaware of my growing caffeine addiction; after all, I never really drank it at school, and as of late, we'd rarely hung out together outside of school.
"When did this happen?" He asked out of genuine curiosity, pointing to my coffee after the waitress who'd brought it over had left.
"Hm? Oh, Uchimiya introduced it to me. Recently, I've been studying late into the night a lot, so I started a coffee habit." I said, taking a sip of my latte. Rin looked at it, doing his best to mask his disgust; he'd never really been a fan of bitter foods, and ever since he came back from Invitational, he looked extra-fearful every time I went over to his house for dinner, and his mother put goya chanpuru on the table. "You'll understand just how hard I've worked when you see how refined my notes are. Prepare yourself for a world of pain when you cash in your next study date."
He frowned. "I believe you — y' don't need to show me. And anyway, why're y' workin' so hard? Exams aren't for weeks yet. Don't y' ever go places 'n' relax with your friends? Or y' boyfriend?"
I nearly spat out my coffee. "I barely even have friends! What makes you think I have a boyfriend?"
"A girlfriend's alright, too — I'll respect your choices no matter what, Harucchi!"
"What the — I don't need one! Geez, why are you suddenly bringing a conversation like this up?"
"Cos you always look so lonely without me — "
"Don't get conceited!"
" — and I dunno what I'm gonna do when I go away to Nationals and you're here all by yourself!"
I looked at him incredulously. Was this the reason he'd been so insistent that I make friends lately? "As much as I appreciate your concern, people on academic probation don't have the time or brain capacity to be worrying about other people."
He completely ignored what I said and, rather uncharacteristically, grew serious. "I mean, even with those two girls that y' always hangin' out with, y' talk to them like they're strangers — callin' them by their surnames when they call y' by y' first."
"We're not that close." I said. "We study together occasionally, and sometimes we'll go to dinner, but that's really it. Rather than friends, they're a little more like study buddies."
He looked as though he didn't believe me. Very slowly, he began a spiel that caught me completely off guard: "Y'know, Harucchi, there's a lot that's changed about y' since we first met, but y' still so cold." He paused to reconsider his choice of words." Well, maybe not cold, but y' so distant. I've known y' for years, but every time I think I'm gettin' closer to you, y' just... close up."
I wasn't sure how to respond to his sudden (albeit truthful) assessment of my personality. In the end, I said, "On the contrary, you haven't changed at all."
The look on his face suggested that he hadn't been expecting me to turn the conversation on its head like that.
"But I've always been grateful for your consistency." I went on. "It's been really easy on my heart."
In an attempt to stave off the discomforting solemnity that was weighing down our conversation, I laughed — but Rin didn't. He was giving me a strange, dazed look that I couldn't quite read. Was he dissatisfied with my answer? Or had he taken my words in a completely different way? By the look on his face, I seriously doubted that we were on the same page, but I didn't have time to ask what he was thinking. Before I got the chance to prize open his mind, he jumped into a conversation about the weather.
- x -
On Thursday, Rin and I were eating lunch together, discussing whether we should stargaze at my house or his house later tonight when, out of nowhere, he said, "Y'know, Harucchi, you should try to hang out with those two girls that you're friends with more often."
I stared at him. "How did we even get onto this conversation?"
"And you should stop callin' them by their surnames — it breaks my heart every time they call you Haruki so affectionately 'n' you trample all over their pure feelings by callin' em Uchimiya and Tsubaki."
"Excuse me, mom? Are you feeling okay today?"
I reached out to feel his temperature, but before my hand could connect with his forehead, the door to our classroom slid open, and Tsubaki slipped in. She did her absolute best to mask her shyness with a smile, but she had a hard time making eye contact with me when she spoke. "H-hey, Haruki — um, I know we usually study together after school, but... tonight, one of Aiha's friends is playing a gig in this really cool joint, and I was thinking that m-maybe you'd... want to come, too?"
Although it sounded like a nice break from studying, I was reluctant to cancel my plans with Rin. Even though I had been careful not to promise him that we would stargaze tonight, blowing off someone with whom I'd made plans with first just didn't sit right with me. As I pointed to Rin, I explained, "I'm sorry — it sounds really cool, but I promised this guy that I'd go stargazing with him."
Rin feigned innocence (rather well, too). "Huh? I didn't make any plans with you."
I stared at him. "You traitor — are you cancelling on me?" With a dramatic toss of my head, I said, "That's it, we're breaking up."
"Wait, Harucchi, no — please don't leave me!" He lamented, playing along. "I still love you!"
Turning to Tsubaki, I said, "You know what? It sounds like fun. I'd love to go with you guys."
"R-really? Are you sure?" She looked worriedly back and forth between me and Rin, obviously not picking up on the joke.
"Sure." I said, sparing Rin an amused look. "The sky's not going anywhere — right, Rin?"
"It'll probably be there tomorrow night." He said, shrugging obligingly. "But you owe me big time, Harucchi!"
"Excuse me — you're the one that's cancelling on me."
"I don't care! If your mom doesn't cook kaki-meshi for dinner, than I won't come over!"
By the look on Tsubaki's face, she didn't seem to know how to back out of the conversation, so I saved her the pain of having to do so. "I'll meet you at the lockers after school?"
A smile stretched across her face. "Y-yeah! See you then, Haruki!"
I opened my mouth, about to wish her goodbye, when I noticed the look that Rin was giving me. We made eye contact, and — stifling a sigh — I turned to Tsubaki with a smile and said, "Thanks for inviting me, Noriko — and tell Aiha I said thanks, too."
Tsubaki went red in the face, and Rin swore to God that she was shedding tears of joy as she turned and bolted from the classroom. I was taken aback by her abrupt departure, but Rin was grinning from ear to ear.
He looked very pointedly at me, his grin still firmly in place. "See what happens when y' show people a li'l warmth?"
I avoided eye contact with him. "Shut up."
- x -
Rin came over to my house the next day with a telescope that he'd borrowed from his friend Eishirou, and we set it up on my back veranda. He was trying to look at the stars while wearing my glasses; at the same time, he attempted to divulge information from me about how my evening out with Noriko and Aiha had been yesterday. Unable to hold back amusement, I recounted how they tried to hide their smiles every time I called them by their first name.
"It shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason it is — to them, anyway." I said, tossing out the empty container of my third pudding for the night and starting on another one.
"Well, you've been holdin' back for — what, three years now? You can't blame 'em for bein' so excited that they melted the heart of the infamous ice queen."
"Shut up and give me back my glasses." I said, pushing him away from the telescope and claiming it for myself. He put the glasses back on my face and asked me to point out constellations for him.
We stargazed until it was late, and Rin decided to go home at around eleven. He usually woke up early to go to tennis practice on Saturday mornings, and then he did strength training on the beach in the afternoon, after the sun bled beneath the horizon and the temperature dropped to a bearable level. Almost as soon as he'd finished describing his Saturday ritual to me, he perked up and said, "You should come strength trainin' with me, Harucchi."
"Me? Why?"
"It'll replace our old rally dates." He said — and he had a point. We were both well aware that, if I played a match against him, he would wipe the floor with me. "C'mon, I'll help whip y' back into shape!"
I looked down at myself. I couldn't argue with the fact that I needed to be whipped into shape. Lately, the only exercise I got was walking from home to school, or from school to town, or from my room to the fridge — and those measly walks could hardly be considered exercise. "Is this your way of telling me that I'm putting on weight?"
He frowned. "No, but lately when we've been climbing stairs, you start wheezing like an old man. I think your mom's getting kind of concerned that you're not exercising enough."
"Stairs are a big deal."
"...? But it's only one flight?"
Upon Rin's insistence, I agreed to go running with him. He grinned from ear to ear as he packed up Eishirou's telescope, and he told me to meet him at the beach tomorrow afternoon.
The sun was still burning bright when I arrived at our designated meeting spot the following day, and Rin walked me through his routine. He told me that the sun never really went down until seven, so he would often swim until the sand cooled down enough to run on. I trained with him until the sky started going purple, at which point he invited me to come back again early tomorrow morning to do the same thing. I found myself meeting Rin at the beach on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning every single week without fail (excepting the times that Rin had to go away for tournaments, practice matches or training camps). When summer came around, we spent a little less time training and a little more time taking spontaneous dips in the ocean. When the temperature cooled down on a Saturday afternoon, we found ourselves lingering on the shore until nighttime, our clothes soaked through and our eyes stinging from the salty breeze. Something in the air made us want to have conversations that were slightly different to our usual lunchtime chatter: we talked less about material objects; we didn't joke as much about how people thought we were dating; we argued less about why I should dye my hair strawberry blonde, and instead, we talked more about our thoughts and our past. Part of me felt that Rin really enjoyed our weekly heart-to-hearts: whereas he was an open book, I rarely talked about myself or what I was thinking.
One Saturday afternoon, we dragged ourselves up onto the sand after taking a dip in the sea. Rin stretched himself out, try to divulge as much heat as possible from the sand beneath his back, as he asked me if the beaches in Hachinohe were as nice as the ones in Okinawa.
"They weren't anything special." I said, curling my toes in the sand. It stuck to my still-wet feet. "I never really went to the beach a lot before we came to Okinawa."
"...? Even though it was a port town?"
"Yeah." I said. "The beaches there were never really as nice as the ones here."
There was a momentary pause. "D'ya miss it?"
"Not as much as I used to." I said — and I meant it. "When my dad first moved us to Okinawa, I hated it. I hated school, because I didn't understand what the other kids were saying, and vice-versa. They called me names likeoutsider, and they made me wish and wish that I was just back on the mainland with all my real friends. Sometimes I thought that if I wished hard enough, maybe I'd be able to go to bed one night and wake up in the morning, and leaving Hachinohe would have just been a horrible dream."
Rin was under the impression that there was more to the story. "An' then?"
"What do you mean?"
"Y' said not as much as y' used to."
I tried to shrug off my rising embarrassment. "Well... by some stroke of luck, I met a bunch of really cool people They were kind and welcoming, and for the first time since moving, I felt like I had a group to call my own." I averted Rin's steady gaze. "There was one boy in particular who stuck by me for many, many years. He was patient and encouraging when others weren't, and I'm, well..."
From the corner of my eye, I saw him tilt his head at me.
"I just — thanks, okay?"
When I plucked up the courage to glance at him, I found that he was already staring right at me, surprised by my sudden forthrightness — but he didn't seem fazed by the words that I'd been dying to get off my chest for so long. His vacant expression slowly melted away into a grin, and he said, "What're best friends for?"
I couldn't help but smile back.
- x -
For months, we continued to run and talk on the weekends, no matter how busy our lives got. Even though running in the summer heat was unbearable, I couldn't find it in myself to complain. The more I ran with Rin, the more I began to re-discover my love for movement — my love for being active, the way I'd been when we were children. But the fact that I'd lost touch with exercise for so long made me question whether I really had a right to fall back into it or not. Although I'd been thinking long and hard about what I was going to do for university, it wasn't until recently that I'd even considered studying something like sports science. How was I supposed to justify wanting to go into something that I'd been estranged from for so long?
When our second year of high school came around, my homeroom teacher started pushing us to hurry up and decide what we wanted to do after graduation. He quickly noticed how fickle and indecisive I was about what I wanted to do in the future, and thus made sure to schedule meetings with me as often as possible to discuss my options. I dreaded those meetings with him — I dreaded hearing him say the words, "For God's sake, Hirotani, what're your plans for the future? What're your interests? Hobbies? Seriously, I'm at my wit's end here"; I dreaded having to say back each and every time, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea."
The more my homeroom teacher pushed me, the more reluctant I became to tell the truth; the more reluctant I became to tell the truth, the more troubled I visibly became. Rin quickly picked up on how uneasy our homeroom teacher was making me with his constant concern for the well-being of my future self, and tried to cheer me up by bringing pudding to school for me. While I was tucking into the cup he handed me one day, feeling more content than I'd been that morning, Rin abruptly started a conversation with: "You doin' okay?"
I reached for my barley tea to take a sip. "What are you talking about?"
"It just seems like Shimano's been botherin' y' a lot. About grad plans?"
I choked on it. "... Right. I guess he has been a little unbearable lately, but I understand that he's concerned for my well-being and everything. I guess."
"D'ya have any idea what y' wanna do?"
"If I did, do you think I'd be having weekly meetings with Shimano?" I wasn't ready to admit to Rin that I'd been considering a future in sports science; I had yet to justify why or how I could enter that field, so I refrained from telling him until I could come up with a suitable reason. "I haven't though about it in depth yet. All I know is that I plan on getting a stable job that gets consistent income, so that I don't have to worry about losing my job when trends change. Speaking of trends," I went on, deliberately changing the subject, "what are you going to do when you graduate? Fashion and tennis are the only two things you talk about these days, so I'm gonna guess... a model for sportswear?"
If he was discomforted by the fact that I'd thrown the conversation back on him, he didn't say anything — he just rolled with it, accepting that I wasn't prepared to talk about my future just yet. He was a true blessing sometimes. "Nah, I can't see myself doin' anythin' except playin' tennis. I'm in too deep to get out now." He said, grinning only for a brief moment. "But I was thinkin' — not everyone can be a pro. I've seen how the guys in Tokyo play, and if I can't compete on a national level, then an international level's just a fevered dream. Still, even if it's a dream for me, it might not be for someone else, y'know?"
I blinked, surprised by how level-headed his answer had been. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to be a coach?"
His grin found its way back home. "Sorta. I was thinkin' that it might be fun to be a sports teacher — y'know, for elementary school kids, or maybe middle school kids."
"You'd have an excuse to play around all day." I mused. "You just live to be free, don't you, Rin?"
"That's what life's all about, Harucchi!" He turned his softening grin on me and said, "Even if y' don't know what y' wanna do just yet, just give it some thought, alright? It'll come to you, and when it does, we could try and 'n' coordinate our universities. Then we wouldn't have to think about how to keep in contact after we graduate."
For a moment, Rin reminded me very faintly of my father — the man who always encouraged me to think about what I wanted to do and tried to make me promise him that I would (eventually) find something that I liked doing. Although I was careful not to make any promises that I couldn't keep, I was comfortable enough assuring Rin that I would give it some thought. He gave me a look that suggested he was as satisfied as he could be with an answer as half-hearted as mine.
- x -
In the summer of our second year, Rin's sister moved overseas for a year-long internship, and he laid claim to her bedroom while she was away. It was more spacious, he reasoned, and it had a big mirror on the wall that he'd always wanted in his own bedroom but couldn't be bothered to move. The most attractive feature of his older sister's bedroom was the window that opened out onto a flatter part of the roof. Rin insisted that I come over at the end of the summer to watch the fireworks, telling me that the roof outside his window was safe enough for the two of us to sit on, and high enough that we would get a good view of the exploding colours.
I went over to Rin's for dinner, and after he and I helped his mom cleaned up, we went up to his room, and he helped me out onto the window. We sat on the roof, and at around seven-thirty, the summer fireworks display light up the night sky in a flurry of explosions and myriad colours. I was under the impression that we were going to watch the fireworks in silence, but midway through the display, Rin said, "Y'know, the fireworks kinda remind me of you,Harucchi."
"Of me?" I echoed. "What makes you say that?"
He didn't look at me when he said, "I think they're really cool, but they're so damn far away."
I tried to force laughter. "I feel like we've had this conversation before."
Rin side-eyed me.
I resigned to a sigh. "It's nothing personal — it's just more of a habit, you know? I'm not someone who places trust in other people so easily."
"So what else do I gotta do to earn y' trust?"
The annoyance in his voice made me turn to look at him in surprise. "What are you saying? You're one of the people that I trust the most."
"Get outta here! Y' don't trust me — y' rarely open up to me, even now!"
"That's just my personality, okay?! I don't like opening up to people."
"Why? D'ya just not like trustin' people?"
"I've learned my lesson about trust, alright?" I said, the sudden coldness in my voice making Rin fall eerily silent. Neither of us realised that the fireworks display had drawn to a close mid-way through our argument. "I've learned that you have to be careful about who you trust, because a lot of people don't follow through with the promises that they make. I'm sorry if it's been frustrating you, but it's been sitting with me for so long that it's not so easy for me to just... grow out of the habit of not trusting people."
He had nothing to say to me in response. Part of me was expecting him to ask, "Why?" and force me to tell him just who had failed to keep the promises they'd made me — but he didn't. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but his uncharacteristic silence disturbed me. Though I was reluctant to do so, I (very slowly) started filling the silence between us with a time-old anecdote.
"When we lived in Hachinohe," I said, "I loved going to school. I lived really close, so getting up early was never a problem; I had lots of friends in my class, so I was never alone; I had a great teacher, so learning was never very hard. My dad could see how happy school made me, so he made a promise to me that we would stay in Hachinohe until I graduated high school — but he went back on his word. Before I finished sixth grade, he told me that we were moving to Okinawa for his job. Without consulting me, or without even showing any remorse for breaking his promise, we just upped and moved."
Rin was silent, taking great care to listen to my tale.
"I'd always known that he was one of those people who made promises and never kept them, but up until sixth grade, they'd only ever been minor things." I said. "I think that, after we came to Okinawa, I started becoming hyper-aware of the way people promised things and never delivered. My friends back home promised that we would keep in contact, but to this day, I haven't gotten a single letter from them. My dad promised me that, if I was good, maybe we could go back and visit Hachinohe one day — but even though I always tried to be on my best behaviour, my dad never kept his word. I think my mom was tired of seeing me so disappointed all the time, so she taught me not to hold people to their promises. To help me get over the fact that I was never going to go back to Hachinohe, she taught me that distance is something you grow fond of."
"Seems like you've grown too fond of it, though." Rin muttered.
"Maybe." I said. "But my mom was right, for the most part. Now I don't think twice about why I never got a letter from my friends, or why we never went back to visit Hachinohe despite the fact that I've been on my best behaviour every time my dad is around. It's just easier this way."
Although I'd seen just how carefully Rin listened to my story, I began to wonder if he'd actually heard a single word I'd said when he held out his pinky and looked me in the eye. "Y'know, Harucchi, not all people take the promises that they make so lightly. I get that you've had a pretty rough time tryin' to find people who y' can hold to their promises, but it won't always be like that." He said, his sudden seriousness catching me off guard. "When I say things like I'll always be here for you when y' need me and we'll always be together, I mean it. I know that it might be hard for you t' believe, but you can trust me. Cos y' know me, right? Y' know that I'd never go back on my promises."
I stared at his pinky, overwhelmed by his sudden declaration.
The faint hopefulness in my voice made my chest tighten. "Promise that we'll always be together?"
My hesitance told me all he needed to know. When I didn't meet him halfway, he dropped his pinky and he looked away. Something about his gaze seemed so unbearably sad.
"I get it." He said, trying to mask his disappointment with a faltering grin. "You don't want to make promises you can't keep."
- x -
After that night, Rin stopped making promises. I never heard him say "I promise!" or "I swear!" again. Instead, whenever he wanted me to hold him to his word, he firmly grasped my shoulders, looked at me in the eyes and said, "Alright? I'll do it — y' know I will, right?" I had to reassure him three or four times that I believed him before he would back off.
It intimidated me every time he did it, but at the same time, it was endearing. I was glad that he wasn't (completely) put off by how reluctant I'd been to pinky promise him, and I was glad that he respected me enough to stop making promises. Although I knew very clearly that Rin wasn't the type of person who made empty promises in the first place, it was touching how far he went to make sure I knew how serious he was. He was the first person who'd ever made such an effort for me. When I said this too his face at lunch one day, he gave me an incredulous look and (jokingly) yelled at me for two minutes straight about how faithless I was. He finished his rant with, "We're best friends! What makes y' think I wouldn't do somethin' like this for you, stupid?"
"I don't want to hear that from you."
As many jokes as I made about Rin's grade, we managed to get him off academic probation before our third year (thanks to my notes, and the collective efforts of me, Noriko and Aiha). With a lot of hard work, effort and late nights in the library, we managed to bring up Rin's academic performance in his weaker subjects to an acceptable level. He thanked us over and over again for helping him, repeatedly saying, "I'll make it up to y' guys! Y' know I will — right,Harucchi? Right?" He gripped me by my shoulders and start it to shake me. Noriko and Aiha just stood back and smiled as I tried to get Rin off me.
As third year pressed on, Shimano forced me to have weekly meetings with him about what I was going to do after graduation. He came back every week with a new suggestion for me based off how I was doing in my subjects and where my class teachers felt that I most excelled.
"It's hard to tell where y' stand since y' do so well in all y' subjects, Hirotani." He said, scratching his head as he looked over my academic transcript. "But with your grades, y' definitely want to be goin' to uni. If y' wanted to, y' could easily get into a good uni on the mainland."
Shimano had been hinting for a while that my academic record had to potential to grant me entry into a number of decent universities outside of Okinawa. Perhaps it was his way of motivating me: maybe he figured that, if I was given free will to go to any university I wanted to, I would make more of an effort to go out and research good potential future universities, as well as the courses that they offered. If I'd never met Rin, I'm sure I would have taken the bait and aimed for a university outside of the prefecture — but in the many years that I'd been in Okinawa, I hadn't noticed how reluctant I'd become to leave my adoptive home.
"Actually, I was thinking about staying in Okinawa." I said.
Shimano looked excited — mostly because I'd finally given him a piece of information to work with. He left me briefly in the meeting room and returned with papers from his desk. He talked me through the courses offered at each of the twelve different universities on the island and recommend a few that I check out. "If y' get even an inkling as to what field y' wanna go into, let me know right away. We could prob'ly find a work experience placement for... whatever it is y' wanna do."
He dismissed me not long after that, so I went to the rooftop. Rin was waiting for me there with two lunch boxes, packed to the brim with leftover kaki-meshi that his mom had made the previous day. I told him all about my meeting with Shimano, and when I brought up work experience, he turned his full attention to me.
"I was thinkin' about doin' work experience, too." He said.
"At an elementary school?" I asked.
"Nah. There's a recreation centre in town that I went to with the boys the other day," he said, referring to his fellow teammates, "since we don't have fancy trainin' equipment like the guys in Tokyo do. I was thinkin' that if I wanted to be a sports teacher, it might be a good place to familiarise myself with different sports, y'know?"
"Yeah, that makes sense." I said. "Good for you, though — it sounds like fun."
I'd only meant to sound like an encouraging friend, but I knew that as soon as those words left my mouth, Rin would take them the wrong way. And he did. His eyes lit up, his grin widened, and he said (rather insistently), "You should do it with me, Harucchi! Shimano keeps pestering y' to do work experience, right?"
It didn't sound like the worst idea he'd ever come up with (not like the ideas he had about me dyeing my hair, anyway) — and it wasn't like working at a recreation centre didn't interest me. On the contrary, going there with Rin might give me a reason to justify why my heart started to swoon every time I thought about pursuing sports science after graduation.
"Alright then." I said. Rin seemed surprised that he'd won so easily. "I'll go with you."
Shimano looked like he was going to cry when I told him that I wanted to do work experience at a recreation centre. In between prayers of thanks to Buddha, he told me to report back to him after my day of work experience and let him know what I thought. "There aren't many universities in Okinawa that offer sports science, but I can think of a few to recommend to y' — Meio's prob'ly the best, though. They're based in Nago, but you should go and look at their program if you're interested." With a gusty sigh, he said, "If I don't get a student with grades as good as yours into a good school, Hirotani, y' class teachers'll never forgive me."
Rin and I organised to do work experience at the recreation centre on the following Friday. Rather than getting the fun jobs, we were mostly asked to clean the equipment used for various recreational activities, but we tried to make our time productive. While we were pumping up flat volleyballs, we watched a match from afar, and Rin explained the the game to me, pointing out when players performed sets, digs, spikes and dumps. When we were polishing bats and balls, Rin was explaining to me the differences in training between baseball players and tennis players. When we got onto the topic of pitching, Rin started talking about the yips.
"There's a weird rumour that one of the boys from Seigaku got the yips." Rin said. "I always thought it was a thing that happened more in golf."
I looked at him thoughtfully. "It seems kind of interesting, though, don't you think? It's weird how people can just suddenly lose their ability to do seemingly basic things, like putting or throwing accurately."
"Interesting?" Rin echoed. "I guess so... but I'm not really interested in sports psychology, y'know?"
For a moment, he stopped talking. Then he audibly gasped.
"Harucchi, are you interested in sports psychology?" His voice was so loud that a couple of batters turned to look at us, wondering what the ruckus was all about. In a more hushed voice, he went on excitedly, "Did y' finally find y' passion?!"
I coughed pointedly. "To be honest with you, I've been thinking this over for a while. I just... wasn't sure I could justify wanting to go into something like sports science after falling out of exercise for so long."
Rin stared at me. "Harucchi... are you stupid?"
"Shut up! I don't want to hear that from you!"
A grin broke across his face. "Y' don't have to justify anythin'. No one's expectin' you to have a clear idea of what y' wanna do from the day you're born, y'know? If you enjoy doin' it and if it interests you, then that's enough."
For some reason, our conversation put him in a good mood. Even after we migrated from the baseball cages to the gym, where we were told to wipe the sweat off the equipment (undoubtedly the worst job in the entire centre), he kept humming as he worked. I side-eyed him until he turned to look at me. "Okay, what's up with you? You've been acting really weird this past half hour."
His grin grew wider. "I was just thinkin' how rare it is to see you get excited about somethin'."
"Excuse me — old man? I think you need to get your eyes checked." I motioned grandly to the equipment in the room and waved my cloth at him.
"No, I mean, when we were talkin' about the yips before." He reminded me gently. "These days, y' never really seem excited to do anythin' except eat. It was real cute when you were gettin' all excited 'bout the yips 'n' sport psychology stuff."
He laughed when I struggled to make eye contact with him.
"I've always liked being active, but the life of an athlete was never really for me. When I found out that sports science was a thing, I started to feel like... maybe it was okay to pursue a career in sports without having to be a pro athlete or anything." I said, trying to shrug off my embarrassment. "I'm still conflicted about it, though. Shimano told me that the best place to do sports science is in Nago, and that's... kind of far."
Rin considered this. "Nago's not so far. If one of us learned to drive, it'd be about an hour, so if we went to Meio, we'd be able to commute ev'ry day if we wanted to."
"... We?"
"Aw, don't be so cold, Harucchi! I told y' that we'd always be together, right? And if we both wanna do somethin' in sports science, it makes sense, right?" Then he stopped talking so abruptly that I wondered if he was having flashbacks of the night we watched the fireworks from his bedroom window, where I refused to pinky promise. Instead of looking sad, however, he gripped me by the shoulders and shook me back and forth. "Could it be that y' weren't takin' me seriously? I mean it: I'd never leave y'! We'll always be together, okay?"
"Okay, okay, I know — I believe you!" I said, trying to disentangle myself from him.
He seemed satisfied with my answer, and resigned himself to a grin.
I sighed. "Well, I'm kind of glad that you're willing to come to the same university as me. I'd probably have a hard time making friends."
He looked at me incredulously. "What're y' sayin'? Y' made friends with Uchimiya and Tsubaki, right? Y' doin' just fine on your own."
"Mind you, I had a little help." I said, looking pointedly at him.
"Still." He said.
He sounded a little wistful, and I couldn't figure out why — but I tried not to dwell on it. Although we both knew that it wasn't necessary, I was touched that Rin was making the effort to stay close me, even though I'd hadn't pinky promised him on the night of the fireworks. Thankfully, he didn't seem sore about it, but I couldn't help but wonder if my reluctance to promise him had caused him to start acting unnecessarily in order to prove to me that he would keep his word and stay by my side.
Privately, I hoped he wasn't: it made me uneasy when I thought about how far Rin was going just to prove to me that he was worthy of my trust.
- x -
When I went back to school the following week and reported to Shimano that I wanted to study sports science at Meio next year, he broke down into tears of joy. He kept going on about how proud I'd made him and the rest of my class teachers, and I tried to humour him by smiling periodically throughout the meeting. After Shimano had finished having his little moment, he went straight into business, giving me fliers for Meio and giving me tips on how to get admitted into their sports science program. He said that it might be problematic that I'd never done any sports clubs, despite my degree of choice, so he recommended that I find a way to get as much sports club activity on my high school transcript as possible before graduation.
As painful as it was, I ended up asking Rin if the tennis club needed any helpers. I told him that I didn't necessarily need to be part of the tennis team: all I needed was some experience that I could put on my transcript. Even unofficial managerial work would suffice. But Rin, of course, was ecstatic, and — contrary to my wishes — he used nepotistic means to get me into the club. He gushed about how, after six long years, we would finally be able to start walking to and from school together again, like true best friends should.
I sighed at his exuberance, but privately, I shared his sentiments. It was nice feeling, waking up early in the morning to Rin's annoying and insistent messages, and going home with him, Noriko and Aiha late in the evening after the four of us studied our way to splitting headaches. Then, when summer came, Rin and I went to Tokyo for my first (and his last) Nationals tournament. Although he spent a lot of his free time playing practice matches against his teammates, he still (somehow) managed to spend an obscene amount of time with me. During the day, when he did strength training or he needed to warm down, he made me join him. After practice every day, he came over to my room for a chat, and then forced me to tag along with him when he decided that he needed to the convenience store for a second dinner. We snacked on our pudding outside and, if we had time, we'd squeeze in a light rally (in which Rin always crushed me) before bed.
Shiranui, one of Rin's teammates (who didn't intimidate me), always seemed surprised when he saw Rin talking my ear off. While we were watching a practice match together one day, he commented, "I've never seen Hirakoba talk so much before."
"Really?" I said. "I've never seen him talk so little before."
"He's a bit of a lone wolf, so it's rare t' see him interact with people the way he interacts with you." Shiranui said. "In previous years, when we came t' Nationals, he always kept t' himself."
"That... is not the Rin I know." I said. "If I so much as refuse to listen to his problems, he gets kind of... whiny. Do you know how many years he's been trying to get me to dye my hair strawberry blonde?"
On the tennis court, Rin sneezed.
"We hang out so much that even our classmates have started thinking that we're dating." I said.
Shiranui looked surprised — well, as surprised as he could be. "Y' mean you're not?"
"You thought we were?"
"I mean... he talks to you so easily, and he's always hanging around y'... what were we supposed to insinuate?"
"We're not dating." I insisted. "He's just my... super clingy, and... super whiny best friend."
Rin sneezed again. Shiranui didn't look convinced, but he decided not to say anything further when Chinen conveniently walked past.
Although (in my opinion) Rin's team was incredibly strong, they lost in the quarter-finals to a "super powerhouse Tokyo school that had so much money it'd put y' dad's hard work to shame, Harucchi". Many of the Higa tennis club members wanted to stay behind to watch the "stupid, rich boy school" get crushed by another team, but when their coach threatened to leave them behind in Tokyo, they found the motivation to pack up their bags and board an aeroplane bound for Naha.
When they returned, Eishirou passed the leadership of the tennis club onto Aragaki, the only second-year varsity member in the entire club, and all the third years gracefully retired. Rin and I fell back into the habit of going to the library almost every day after school to study with Noriko and Aiha. Since I was still keen to get more experience for my transcript, I asked Aragaki if it was alright to keep helping out by making training menus and doing other such managerial jobs, and he was quick to agree. Rin often tagged along, but rather than helping me out, he enjoyed playing rallies with the new varsity members and giving them advice on how to improve. When some of Rin's former teammates — namely, Eishirou, Kai and Shiranui — got wind of what Rin was doing, they showed up occasioally to help train the new varsity team, much to the relief of Aragaki.
Before we knew it, our final year of high school came to a close, and graduation day was upon us. After the ceremony finished, Aiha and Noriko came to find me and, tearfully, asked if I wouldn't mind keeping in contact with them, given that I (technically) no longer had any obligation to spend time with them any longer. I said to them, "Of course we can. We're friends, aren't we?"
They stared back at me, on the brink of tears.
Rin spent the majority of his final day on the receiving end of tearful and heartfelt thanks from his former teammates — especially Aragaki and the other new varsity members. They thanked him for coming back to help them, even after they retired. To my surprise, they even turned to thank me for all my hard work as a manager. One of them said that they wished I'd joined the tennis club years ago.
"That's what I've been tryin' to tell her for years!" Rin exclaimed, giving me an exasperated look.
"Don't look at me like that." I said. "I was turning it over in my head for years."
"Harucchi, you liar! I gave you seven club admission forms every year, and you never turned in a single one!"
"Shut up! I never had an incentive to join until Shimano said to me, 'Hirotani, you'd better get some club experience to put on y' transcript, or else!' "
"Doesn't that make it sound like he was threatenin' you?!"
Before we went home, Rin met up with the other seniors from the tennis club. We listened to them reminisce about how different their high school graduation had been to that of middle school. Eishirou suggested that they all go out for one last meal, to celebrate "their last years as young men together."
Rin tried to back out. "I dunno... it sounds swell and all, Eishirou, but Harucchi 'n' I are movin' to Nago on Monday, 'n' I haven't finished packin'."
"But Hirakoba-kun, that's exactly why we should be celebrating." Eishirou reasoned. "And, Hirotani-kun, in exchange for all your help this year, would you do us the honour of accompanying us to dinner this evening?"
"Thank you for the offer, but I'll be okay. This guy can join you in my place." I nudged Rin forward, and he looked back at me, a little bewildered. "It's fine — you're too slow at packing, anyway. Message me what needs to be put away in boxes, and I'll pack it for you."
"But Harucchi — "
"Oh my God, Rin, I'm literally going to see you tomorrow. Just go and have fun with your favourite people, and celebrate your years as young men together." I said, shoving him into the custody of his former teammates.
Although Eishirou insisted that there was a place for me at the table if I wished to dine with them, I politely declined his offer, reluctant to intrude on their team dynamic. I said my farewells to the group, thanking them for letting me join the tennis club so late into the year, and — in turn — they thanked me for my hard work and spirited participation. As they departed, Rin looked like he wanted to whine at me for flaking out on him, but he didn't. In the end, I suppose he wanted to spend his last day as a high school student eating with his teammates of five years just as much as everyone else in the group wanted to.
After stopping by my own house for a snack or two, I went to Rin's house and greeted his family. I told them that he was out eating with his friends from the tennis club, and that I'd come over to help him finish packing. His grandmother offered to beat Rin up a bit when he got back, but I assured her that it was alright, since I was the one who told him to go with his friends, and since I was the one who offered to pack for him in the first place.
As a token of their thanks, Rin's mom sent me up to his room with barley tea and an assortment of snacks. Once she'd left me to my devices, I checked my phone and found a message waiting from Rin. He berated me for not coming along, and then detailed a list of things that he wanted packed. Laughing a little at the inconsistencies in his tone between conversation topics, I sent a confirmatory reply before setting to work.
I spent the majority of the afternoon folding up Rin's clothes and packing them neatly into boxes. After that, I moved onto cleaning the floor of the closet, which had boxes filled with useless junk. Rin had specifically stated that he only really wanted a couple of the boxes: one of them, he said, contained my photocopied school notes that helped him to pass high school; the other, I discovered on my own, was filled with photo albums.
After making myself comfortable on Rin's bed, I decided to take a little break and look through his photo albums. He had never been the most organised person, but he had put a surprising amount of thought and care into organising his memories. When I opened the first album, I was immediately met with pictures him as an elementary school boy, wearing a stupid yellow hat and shouldering a brand new rucksack. As I flipped the pages, I began to see pictures capturing him, Tobio, and the rest of kids in the dodgeball gang against various backdrops.
Eventually, I came to discover the pictures he had of us.
The very first picture of us together was the day that we went on an excursion on the river, and our teacher had taken a picture of him and I watching a couple of ducks squabbling on the bank. At that time, I supposed I'd never really considered that any of my elementary school friends would become a long-term investment, so I never saw the need to buy photos; Rin, evidently, thought differently. As I continued looking at page after page, album after album, I saw milestones in Rin and my friendship that I couldn't believe I'd forgotten. In our first year of middle school, Tobio had taken a photo of me and Rin dancing at the school festival. I recalled the memory with a bit of a laugh: Rin wanted to dance, but he didn't want to look like a loser and dance by himself, so he made me dance with him. Although I'd tripped a fair few times, Rin's prowess was able to compensate for my inability to dance well. There was the time in our second year of middle school when my mother, gushing like I was some kind of spring bride, took a photo of me and Rin on our way to the school Christmas party. It was the first time that Rin had seen me in a dress, so when I came outside, decked out in the fanciest clothes that I could find (and afford), he stared at me for such a long time that I'd uncomfortably demanded, "What?"
His response had been, "Are you wearing a dress?"
"... Yes? Have you got a problem with me wearing dresses?"
"No, I just never see you wear 'em! Y' look real pretty in a dress, Harucchi." He had said, grinning from ear to ear and laughing when I shifted uncomfortably.
There were several photos of me and Rin on the school trip in our third year of middle school to Hiroshima, but my favourite was one that a classmate of ours had taken of Rin and me in Momijidani Park. I'd been wearing a singlet and shorts, owing to the fact that I was a true northerner, while Rin was wearing a light jumper and track pants. He had an arm thrown around my shoulder, and I had an arm thrown around his waist, since I'd never quite managed to be taller than him. The both of us were grinning broadly. The sight of Rin grinning, of course, was fairly standard, but I'd been told by many of my classmates that seeing my smile had been a momentous occasion. Even Rin had captioned the picture in his album with a disbelieving, "H-Harucchi's smilin'?!"
In our first year of high school, Rin insisted that we take a picture in front of the cherry blossoms near my house to commemorate the first time that we'd first walked to school together in a long time. It was a little bit blurry, since we'd been running late for school that day, but I could see why he'd decided to keep it when I saw that he'd captioned the photo, "A new year, a new start — maybe Harucchi'll notice me this year! (LOL)".
When we were in our second year of high school, Rin suggested that we go to the Tanabata festival and hang our wishes on the bamboo tree in the middle of town. He'd neglected to mention that I should come wearing a yukata, putting me in an uncomfortable position when we walked around — him wearing a yukata, and me wearing jeans and a shirt. The entire night, Rin referred to himself using feminine pronouns, and made non-stop jokes about our backwards gender roles.
"Haruki-kun, can you buy me a soda?"
"Oh my God, Rin."
"So cold, Haruki-kun! Why don'cha call me Rin-chan, like y' always do?"
"Die, trash!"
I hadn't realised how long I'd been on Rin's bed, going through his old photo albums, until the door to his bedroom opened, and he walked in with a plastic bag bearing the mark of the yakiniku restaurant that he had (most likely) gone to with his teammates. He opened his mouth, perhaps to announce that he'd brought food back for me, but then he noticed that I was sitting on his bed, looking through his photo albums. His opportune silence gave me the chance to speak before him.
"I didn't know that you were such a romantic," I joked, "Rin-chan."
He almost dropped the takeaway on the floor when I called him by his childhood nickname. "H-Harucchi?! Are y' feelin' alright?! You didn't hit your head or anythin', right?!"
"I'm fine, stupid — I'm just trying to be wistful." I said, waving him over to join me as I walked down memory lane. "I was a little surprised to find that you were the kind of person who liked to document memories this meticulously."
I shuffled over to make room for him, and he sat down next to me, dropping some barbecued meat in my lap and mentioning briefly that it was a souvenir — in the words of Eishirou — from "the odyssey" that he'd undertook with his fellow young men. After that brief exchange, we sat on the bed for a good hour or more, looking and laughing about photos, and reminiscing like old men. After I called him sentimental trash for the umpteenth time that evening, he said rather indignantly, "Cos you're important to me, stupid! Of course I'd wanna keep stuff like — wait, turn the page back; I think I saw somethin' funny."
But I wasn't listening to him. My mind had stopped processing his words after his abrupt declaration of my importance. While it didn't surprise me that Rin had declared his thoughts with such ease, what I didn't expect was him to answer my jibe so naturally with, "You're important to me, stupid!" I'd always been aware of how cold I sounded every time I answered his affable declarations of friendships with colder responses or by changing the subject, but saying anything otherwise had always come so unnaturally to me. I didn't have as easy a time as Rin evidently did, expressing his fondness for his friends and keeping pictures of memories that he shared with them — but perhaps that was what kept me so drawn to him. Perhaps he thought that his infrequent announcements as to how much I meant to him made me feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, he never knew just how much it moved me every time he said it.
Rin broke me out of my thoughts by waving a hand in front of my face. "Harucchi, you okay?"
For a moment, I was silent. Then I looked up at him and said quietly, "Thanks, Rin — for being my friend."
The grin on his face slowly faded from sight. "I hate how y' always take things like this so seriously."
"... Sorry."
"Y' don't have to thank me for something like that, stupid — y' don't ever have to thank me for things like that." With a low-key exhale, he swept on, "Y'know, I've always wondered if y' ever considered us best friends. Even when I hear y' say it with your own mouth, I don't know whether t' believe you or not."
"You should believe me." I said, my sudden firmness catching him off guard.
"Y' don't make it easy, though."
"I know... I'm sorry."
"Y' don't have to apologise for things like..."
He trailed off completely when he saw me holding my pinky out in his direction.
I gave him a lopsided smile. "You've been patient and you've been kind, so let me make it up to you." I wiggled my pinky in his face. "Here's a promise to say that we'll always be together."
The mesmerised look on his face was truly something to be hold.
Very slowly, he raised his pinky to shake mine.
And, just as I was about to pull away, Rin surged forward and engulfed me in a tight embrace.
Friendship always seemed to come to Rin naturally, but still, he knew and respected that it wasn't my forte; perhaps that was why he understood just how much a promise that I was willing to make meant, and perhaps that was why he'd been so moved by it. I slowly wrapped my arms around him in response, and for moments on end, we stayed like that. Tucked in his embrace, I couldn't help but recall all the times I'd compared Rin to my father. Whereas my father always gave me quick, one-armed hugs, Rin embraced me with the strength and warmth of a bear. Whereas my father always left me to assume whether he truly loved me or not, Rin always made it clear how important I was to him. Whereas my father was never genuinely sorry for all the promises that he'd made and broken, Rin always found a way to make up for his mistakes.
As I grew older, the shreds of faith tied me to my father had slowly begun to tear; to this day, I no longer held anything that he said to me in high regard. Every White Day, I accepted his obligatory roses; every birthday that he remembered to call me, I listened to his obligatory words with detachedness and an empty heart; every New Year's Day, I tuned out when it was his turn to state his obligatory resolutions.
But with Rin, he gave me more and more reasons to tie new bonds of trust with him every single day. Every White Day, he showered me with gifts and declarations of his platonic love for me; every birthday, he dragged me and my mother to his house and threw a big celebration for me that involved obscene amounts of food, karaoke, and presents; every New Year's Day, he would tell me his goals for the future of our rivalry ("I'm gonna mop the floor with y' at tennis every Sunday!"), and then his goals our friendship ("I'm gonna by y' such a swell birthday present that it'll melt y' ice queen heart and you'll be crouched at my feet in tears!"), and then his goals for our best friendship ("I'm gonna make y' acknowledge me as y' best friend this year, Harucchi!").
I smiled into his shoulder.
My dad, in more ways than one, had never really been a good man.
But Rin, I felt, might have been a little bit different.
Princo & Ribbon
July 2, 2016.
Kyūshū Tournament: I've been a little inconsistent in my tournament names, but the Kyūshū Tournament is basically the prefecture tournament for the Kyūshū region. I felt like I should clarify this since I've been using "district tournament" and "national tournament" against "Kyūshū Tournament".
Goya chanpuru: According to Wikipedia, goya chanpuru (ゴーヤーチャンプルー) is a stir-fry of bitter melon, tofu, egg and sliced pork. Apparently, it's also Kite's favourite food. If you want more information, then — as always — just ask Princo... after she recovers from finals. (Princo: Ribbon did a good enough job explaining it, but I translated a recipe if anyone wants to attempt making it [link].
Uni: I've never heard anyone outside of Australia refer to university as "uni", so it might be slang, it might not be. I don't know. For the sake of my curiosity/cultural awareness, tell me if you refer to university as "uni" and you live outside of Australia!
Yips: According to Wikipedia, it's "the loss of fine motor skills without apparent explanation [...]. Athletes affected by the yips demonstrate a sudden, unexplained loss of previous skill." Depending on the athlete, they may be able to recover from it, compensate for it in another way, or they may be unable to recover from it and then be forced to retire. From what I recall, both Tezuka and Miyuki (Chitose's little sister) are both said to have had the yips, though I think it's more common in sports like golf and baseball.
Shiranui and Chinen: Apparently, Shiranui's pretty bad at dealing with Chinen LOL.
Momijidani Park: According to Wikipedia, Momijidani Park (紅葉谷公園) is a maple leaf valley park, located at the base of Mt. Misen in Hiroshima.
Tanabata: According to Wikipedia, Tanabata (七夕) is a festival that celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime annd Hikoboshi, which I guess are said to be like the Japanese Romeo and Juliet. It's usually celebrated on July 7, but some places hold it on other days between July and August. If you want more information, go to Wikipedia or ask Princo LOL. (Princo: Additional important note is that at the festival, people write their wishes on paper strips and hang it onto a bamboo tree with decorations.)
Yukata: According to Wikipedia, yukata are a Japanese unisex garment that you generally wear during the summer, since they tend to be made from cotton or synthetic material, and they're unlined, making them lighter and/or cooler and/or more breathable I guess. If you want more information about it, ask Princo LOL. (Princo: It's basically a better kimono.)
Yakiniku: If you guys watched the Nationals arc, then most of you should know what yakiniku (焼肉) is, but if you don't, it's kind of like Korean barbecue. Basically you grill meat and stuff by putting it on this mesh thing over a direct flame and God I'm so bad at explaining things JUST ASK PRINCO LOL.(Princo: Grilling meat and then you use sauce; the two most common are yakiniku tare (varies but typically has miso, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, etc...) and salt/lemon. You don't use them interchangeably, it differs by the type of meat you order.)