"I can't believe I'm actually doing this…"
That's what Sumire muttered under her breath as she stood outside the front door of what was supposedly an old acquaintance's house. Yes, that's what she referred to them as: just an acquaintance, because after their last interaction many years ago, using any other term that even hinted at a positive connotation would've been insulting.
The blonde-haired woman, now well into her mid 20s, could only hope that the hatchet between the two had been buried with time. Because if not, she was definitely screwed for this bitterly cold winter night.
Without a second more to waste, Sumire rang the doorbell to the house, hoping that there would be an answer not long after. A few seconds passed, and with no answer, she began to get slightly agitated. Sumire once again rang the doorbell, not once but twice, and added three knocks on the wooden door for good measure. Once again, a few seconds passed, and there was still no answer. Sumire took a deep breath before preparing her vocal cords for what she was about to do next.
"I know you're there, Keke! Just open the door already!" With how loud she shouted that, there was no way anyone inside couldn't hear her. Agitation quickly turned to fear when there still was no response besides the judgmental looks of a few people passing by. Were they really not home? Or did they really not forgive them after everything that happened so many years ago? Sumire didn't want to believe they would be that petty, but thinking back about the distant memories she shared with them, she realized that they could, indeed, be that petty.
Giving the door one final kick, the dejected blonde turned around and descended the icy stairs back to the road as she monologued to herself internally.
So much for trying to do the right thing, stupid Sumire.
"Are you intentionally trying to piss off my neighbors?"
Sumire nearly fell backwards on the cold cement as she was startled by a voice with a slight Chinese accent. Looking up and seeing a woman of her age with ash-brown hair, a light blue coat, a white scarf, black slacks, and white boots, holding a bag of groceries, she didn't know if she should be pissed or relieved. Either way, she still recognized who she was after all these years, and for that, she was at the very least melancholic.
"K-Keke…" was all Sumire could let out at the moment. Of all the places they could reunite, a random road in Hinohara was not something she expected in the least. Why did Keke relocate to some rural village in Tokyo Metropolis instead of, I don't know, Shibuya? If there's one thing that's remained consistent after all these years, Sumire's acquaintance was still a weirdo.
"How did you even find me anyway?" Sumire snapped back to reality when faced with that inevitable question by the woman she traveled this far to find.
"I had to jump through hurdle after hurdle to get into contact with your sister just to find your whereabouts."
"Oh, her." Keke responded in a tone that was difficult to discern, which worried Sumire that those two were also on bad terms. Regardless of what occurred between her and the others in Liella, she hoped that Keke still had at least one person to talk to.
"So what is it you want?"
"Huh?"
"You came all this way to see me for something, didn't you? Why else would you come to Hinohara, unless you're still doing that whole shrine maiden thing."
"My sister took over that role not long after we all graduated. I'm here because I need to talk to you."
"I refuse. Now please leave me be." Keke attempted to pass Sumire before being grabbed by the shoulders.
"That's all you're going to say? I dragged my ass out to this rural farm village just to talk to you and this is how you're going to act?!"
Keke matched the same volume and tone as Sumire. "Because I have absolutely nothing to say to you! It would've been better off if you just stayed in Tokyo and let me be!"
"Then maybe I shouldn't have bothered at all to make things right. By the way you're acting, it's not like you care about Kanon either anyway."
There was a momentary pause between the two of them.
"W-what does Kanon-san have to do with any of this?"
"She's the only reason I'm even bothering to come this far to see you."
Keke's face changed to many expressions in only a few seconds, from anger, to confusion, and ultimately to dread.
"Did something happen to her?"
"As if you care at this po-"
The ash brown-haired woman dropped her bag of groceries on the frozen ground as she shoved Sumire against the wooden door to her house and grabbed her by her collar, all the while with tears beginning to run down her face.
"Don't pull this crap on me, Sumire! Did something happen to her!?"
With the amount of force Keke was pinning her against the hard door, both the blonde's back and shoulders were in immediate, sharp pain. Low stamina doesn't equate to low strength it seems was what Sumire was thinking to herself. At the same time, she really wanted to get out of this position before she ended up spraining or breaking something.
"Keke please, you're hurting me…"
The shorter woman's eyes widened as she quickly let go of Sumire's collar, unpinning her from her front door. The blonde bent over on her knee before letting out a series of coughs.
After a moment passed, Sumire was gently helped up by Keke, with the atmosphere still being awkward between them.
"I'm sorry about that."
"Don't bother with your apologies. I'm only here for her sake."
"About her…"
"Listen, Keke. Can we just go inside and talk about it? It's getting cold and I don't want to provide any more drama for your neighbors."
Keke looked behind to where Sumire was looking to see a handful of people staring at the two with looks of concern and fear.
"Fine." With a sigh, the ash brown-haired girl picked up the groceries she dropped on the ground and went around the blonde to unlock the door to her house.
Keke turned her head as she took out her keys. "Do you have a place to stay for tonight? Because if not, I have to get out the spare futon."
"I would appreciate that. Thanks."
Ms. Tang sighed before opening the door and letting Sumire in. The shorter woman made her way to the kitchen while directing her blonde guest to the kotatsu in the living room.
"You're not hungry, right? I really only have enough for one person, and you and I don't really like the same food."
"A bowl of miso soup and green tea would be fine." Sumire replied as she got comfortable inside Keke's cyan-colored kotatsu futon blanket.
Keke slightly raised her eyebrows before sighing and opening the fridge. "Aiyoo."
As the hostess got to work on the refreshments for the two, the blonde woman took a look around the small space that was her acquaintance's living quarters for who knows how long. It was neat and tidy, but also lacking in furniture, posters, or any other accessories. This surprised Sumire who remembered how cluttered and 'extra' Keke's apartment back in high school was.
Most notably, she couldn't see the framed Sunny Passion poster that she considered the ash brown-haired girl prized treasure anywhere in the house. There's a lot of questions she could've asked, but she didn't come all this way for that. Just being around Keke after so long made her more anxious if anything.
Sumire's pondering thoughts came to an abrupt end when a wooden bowl of miso soup was placed in front of her by Keke, who had a noticeably dismissive yet exhausted expression on her face.
"Don't space out like that around me. It's really creepy." Ms. Tang made her way back to the kitchen to grab the drinks for the two of them. The blonde rolled her eyes before taking a long look at the bowl of miso soup in front of her. If there was any girl who could screw up something as simple and basic as that, it would definitely be Keke. Yet, it seems like she's improved a tenfold since their high school days to where the soup was actually drinkable.
It didn't take long for the hostess in this situation to come back with drinks. The ash brown-haired woman placed a lukewarm can of Oi Ocha green tea next to the bowl of soup before settling into the kotatsu futon herself and cracking open a bottle of Tsingtao beer.
"Are you serious?" Sumire shook the can of tea with a clearly annoyed expression.
Keke took a quick swig of the beer bottle. "You don't have to drink it if you don't want to. I didn't expect anyone to show up here and have my food, let alone you of all people."
Sumire sighed before opening the can. "You're seriously not over what happened seven years ago, are you?"
"You're one to talk. It took you this long just to show yourself in front of me." Keke remarked before taking another swig of the bottle.
"Because you ended up disappearing from your apartment without a trace! I couldn't reach out to you even if I wanted to." The blonde sipped a portion of her miso soup. "It's not like we were that close anyway... I only put up with you for the sake of the others."
Keke laughed in a condescending tone. "The others? How ironic. The only reason you joined was for your own selfish goals. I bet everyone couldn't stand being around you given how stuck up and full of yourself you were! Probably explains why you had no friends prior to us becoming a group, not like we ever thought of you as a friend though."
Sumire had heard a lot of dismissive remarks directed at her by Keke in the past, but hearing the words spoken just now, she was honestly hurt, nearly to the point of tearing up with how rude her former club member was being. For now though, the blonde will assume those words were influenced by the alcohol and nothing more.
"That's not true in the slightest and you know that, Keke. I'm not the one who abandoned their apartment, cut off everyone from their life, and settled in an obscure farm village in the countryside, you are."
Keke chugged the remaining amount of alcohol before hurling the glass bottle behind Sumire, shattering upon impact against the wall and terrifying the blonde. The taller woman didn't get the chance to fully process what was happening before the ash brown-haired girl began to yell in her face.
"You don't know the first thing about me, damn it! You couldn't possibly imagine the amount of pain I was going through to cause me to leave you all. Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I wanted to isolate myself and get away from you all in this remote village?" Keke grabbed the wooden bowl still half-full of miso soup and threw it against the same wall the beer bottle shattered. "I didn't, but you left me no choice at all! It's your fault it's come to this. Not mine, yours!"
Sumire didn't know what to say. She was honestly terrified of Keke at this moment, terrified of what she might do next. Even during their harshest fights in high school, Keke was never like this. How seven years can change someone inside and out.
It wasn't even a few seconds after that exchange that Keke slumped back into her side of the kotatsu and an awkward silence once again took over the atmosphere. Sumire slowed her once-heavy breathing before as she felt more at ease. She slowly grabbed a hold of the can of green tea before taking a small sip of its content. Once again though, Keke would break the silence of the room, this time with a remark that put Sumire on her last nerve.
"If it was up to me, you wouldn't have been allowed to join Liella in the first place." The ash brown-haired girl said in a dismissive tone.
Slamming the can of green tea against the kotatsu counter, Sumire yelled in frustration. "Well it wasn't. It was up to Kanon, and she was a better person than you ever could be!"
Keke was prepared to immediately bark back with another remark before properly analyzing what the blonde just said.
"What…?"
"You heard m-"
"What do you mean by she was?" Keke was now talking in a whisper, and just like that, the atmosphere of the room shifted again.
Oh shit was all Sumire could tell herself. Taking a deep breath and mentally preparing herself for what would be the hardest conversation she would have with Keke, which is saying a lot, the blonde held her hands together and placed them on top of the kotatsu table.
"I don't want to be here as much as you do, but I think it's important that you know this."
Keke was silent, but had her full attention to what she was going to say. Taking a deep breath, Sumire began to recollect something she wished she never would have to in her life.
"It was four days ago in Shinjuku. Kanon was in the underground tunnel in the train station at night, coming back from a concert. She was with Chisato when it happened. That's when…" Sumire cleared her throat. "they were robbed at knifepoint."
Only Keke's panicked breathing could be heard as her eyes began to bottle up with tears.
The blonde wasn't faring any better. While not fully crying, a few streams of tears ran down her face as well. "Chisato attempted to fight back, but it led to her and Kanon getting hurt."
"Su…" Keke whispered under more intense breathing and tears.
"Chisato only had minor injuries on her arm, but K-Kanon was stabbed... in the abdomen."
"Sumi…" Another call out that was inaudible under her heavy breathing and tears.
"They were both rushed to the hospital as soon as emergency services arrived, but by that point…" Sumire wiped the tears off her own face. "Kanon w-was already d.. de-"
"Sumire!" Keke's words finally reached her, with the blonde woman looking up to see a woman-no, a girl who she could barely recognize.
"Please… Don't finish that sentence. I…"
Sumire got up from her side of the kotatsu and put an arm around Keke, who quickly embraced and cried into her shoulder.
"I know. It hurts for me too, Keke. So much."
Keke continued to sob into Sumire's shoulder as she wrapped her arms around her waist. "I-I don't w-want to believe you..."
"I don't want to believe me either..."
The two cried and comforted each other for a while. It might've been a few minutes, it might've been a few hours. Regardless, no amount of time that night was going to heal either girl's emotional wounds. Sumire couldn't bring herself to say the word she never wanted to use in regard to one of her closest friends. Yet, she knew that Keke understood exactly what she wanted to say, and that's all that mattered.
Clap Clap.
The two women did one final bow in front of Kasuga Shrine as they finished their prayer in the early morning. The sleep they got last night, or the lack thereof, had taken its physical tolls on them both. Keke had bought both her and Sumire cans of Boss Coffee to help sober them up, but it's unlikely even coffee could provide a boost to either woman's sleep deprivation. Sumire only hoped that it would be enough to get her through the two hour journey back to her house.
"You can stay a bit longer, y'know."
"I wish I could, but yesterday was my only free day. I have to get to another shoot later this afternoon which I'm not looking forward to."
Keke hummed, not in a dismissive manner nor a cheerful one. "Well, I hope that goes well for you. I wouldn't mind tagging along but I'm short on funds at the moment."
"Trust me, showbiz ain't something you'd wanna tag along with me for. It's just full of people who have a stick up their ass who expect nothing less of perfection."
"Sounds familiar."
"Yeah well, there's a reason I'm in showbiz and you're not."
The two wanted to laugh but could only exchange brief smiles to one another.
"Believe it or not, but I did miss having you around Keke. It was… nice being with you during our high school days."
"I'd say the feeling is mutual but, I honestly haven't reached that point emotionally yet."
"Fair enough."
Sumire's bus to Musashi-Itsukaichi Station was due to arrive in five minutes, and between that time, she didn't want the last time she would see Keke for a while to go to complete waste. It was at this point the blonde remembered she had yet to provide her former classmate the most vital piece of information.
"Here." Sumire reached into her pocket and handed a letter to Keke.
"Huh?"
"On the back are the phone numbers and addresses of me, Chisato, and Ren. You still have a phone, right?"
"Hey, just because I'm now living in this village doesn't mean I've gone off the radar."
"Good. I'm sure the others would love to hear from you. They've definitely missed you more than I have, and I'm sure you'd be the first to agree."
Keke sighed. "I'll be sure to call them… What's in the letter though?"
Sumire rubbed the back of her head nervously. "I think it's better off if you find that out yourself."
"I see. So, is this where we depart?"
"For now, yes. I don't know the next time we'll be able to meet. I'm sure you'll meet Chisato and Ren at the… well, you know."
"Yeah." Keke gently coughed into her hand. "I'll be sure to talk to her mom and sister too. I owe a lot to them."
"I'm sure you do."
The sound of a bus pulling up in the distance got the attention of both girls. Sumire stretched her arms and took one big gulp of her Boss Coffee.
"That's my queue to get goin-"
"Sumire wait."
The blonde turned around to look at her acquaintance.
"Let's keep in touch going forward, o-okay? I hated how we never talked after all this time, especially over something so trivial. That it had to take... Kanon… to get us to talk again."
Sumire walked towards Keke before looking directly into her eyes. This lasted for a few seconds before she flashed a smile.
"The reason we even talked to each other in the first place was because of Kanon, silly."
The ash brown-haired girl was admittedly flustered. "I mean, I know that bu-"
"I'll be sure to keep in touch with you, Keke. It's better for the both of us if we keep those bad memories behind us anyway."
"Yeah… I just wanna say by the way."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry about those harsh words I sa-"
"I know, and so am I. Again, let's leave that in the past, Keke."
"But there's also the bott-"
Keke was interrupted for a third time by Sumire, but instead of with words, she was taken aback when a soft and gentle kiss was left on her cheek. Sumire topped the kiss with a quick yet comforting hug.
"There. Leave it all in the past and look forward for us both, okay?"
There were many things Keke wanted to say, but she settled on returning the hug instead of speaking with words. If there was one thing she liked about the time she spent with Sumire, it was how surprisingly huggable she was for a prima donna. Past all the bickering and fights the two had, they were, no matter how many years passed, more than just classmates, club members, or acquaintances. They were friends, and both Keke and Sumire knew that deep down.
The bus passed the two women who stood hugging each other on the Shrine steps, signalling to them both that Sumire really had to go immediately. Reluctantly letting go, the blonde woman left her friend with a wink and a bow before making a dash for the bus station.
Keke stood in the same spot she stood as she witnessed Sumire nearly miss her bus, hop inside, and watch her disappear down the curvy roads of Tokyo's rural village. Breathing in a deep sigh, the ash brown-haired woman got her phone out and added the phone numbers to her contacts that were written down on the letter.
The letter.
Did she really want to see what the contents of the letter contained? It wasn't even half a day when she found out the fate of her first friend in Japan. If anything, it was likely to bring back the roaring storm of emotions that kept both her and Sumire up the whole night. And this time, there would be no friend to comfort her if it did.
Curiosity got the better of her, as it always had though. Opening up the contents of the letter, what she found wasn't what she expected.
A photo.
It was a photo of her and Kanon in their school uniforms with what appeared to be a diploma in their hands? Yeah, it was coming back to Keke now. It was taken on the day they graduated their third year of high school together. The last day she and Kanon ever saw each other, as the next day was when the ash brown-haired girl ghosted everyone.
The photo itself wasn't enough to make Keke emotional, that is, not until she looked on the reverse side. Nothing could prepare her emotionally for what she was about to read next.
To Keke,
I hope this photo somehow makes its way to you soon. I heard from Sumire-chan that you were nowhere to be found in your apartment. I tried to contact you over the phone many times but it went to voicemail each time. Everyone is worried about you, and I hope you make your way back to us very soon. No matter where you are or what you're going through, just remember that I'm always here for you. I can't wait to see your cute face again in front of me. Without you, my life would never have been the same.
I love you Keke. I always have. I always will.
Your friend,
Kanon Shibuya
I love you Keke. She said.
I love you Keke. She said.
I love you Keke. She said.
...
I love you too, Kanon. Was all she could reply.
