Chapter Text
Sparkler in hand, laughter all around him, Sousuke can’t help but let his eyes wander up to the night sky of Mitsumi’s hometown. It's perhaps cliché to have such a thought but he’s Tokyo born and raised. He’s used to keeping his sightline steady. Straight ahead. Likely to catch the looks of others, to which he’ll respond with a reassuring and steady smile. He doesn’t often look up towards the skyline, to the emptiness above. It’ll be the same Tokyo sky that shines with nothing but the glow of the buildings and people below it. Maybe that’s why he can’t help himself. He’s heard how the sky looks far from the city at so many points in his life that eventually it became common knowledge. Yet knowing is different than experiencing and when he turns his sight upwards he can’t look away after finding himself faced with the so many shining specks across the black above him.
It’s too cliché.
The sky only loses his attention as his ears tune in to the bubbly laughter that rises easily above the rest. He finds her, cheering, practically beaming as she glows in the light of the fireworks across the sand.
A pricking heat settles across his face and down his neck just as a very different one hits his hand.
He curses, hissing as the fading sparkler falls to the ground. The burn is superficial, on just the tips of his fingers, yet it feels damning.
Feet come into his line of sight, and lead him to find Mukai, standing above him, concern apparent as every across his brow.
“Sousuke. You okay?”
He picks up the dead sparkler and stands, Mukai eyeing him all the while. He hums a small sound of acknowledgement as an answer not really feeling it in himself to give a full fledged answer. Especially one that he now knows, Mukai will see through.
You’re tightlipped, that’s an admirable trait.
Mukai follows him as he walks to the nearby bucket full of burned out sparklers and throws his own in. Mukai sighs, which prickles Sousuke’s skin, only guessing what he might say.
But that has always felt coldhearted to me…
“If you burned yourself you should dip it in some water.”
“Huh?”
Mukai’s annoyance shows so clearly across his face.
“Put your hand in water, dumbass. Before you get a blister.”
Sousuke blinks. “Did you say it that mean the first time?” He does so though, squatting down to dip his fingers in the buckets still cool water.
Mukai grumbles, “I’ll say it even meaner if you do it again.”
Nearby the girls squeal, chasing each other with sparklers, almost slipping in the sand. Sousuke looks out to find Mitsumi and Kurume nearing Fumi and Egashira with their own as the two scream and Murashige laughs, almost falling over. They make it look so easy. Even Fumi, who they’d only just met, blends into the girls’ group as if she’d always been a member. As if she’d always been a friend.
He forces his attention away the moment it drifts to Mitsumi again.
“Seriously, what’s with you?”
“Wha-”
Mukai towers over him like some kind of wannabe divine judge. The burnt sparkler in his hand a little too far off from a gavel though...
“You’ve been so spacey… pretty much since the other night.”
Sousuke’s heart rate absolutely doesn’t spike.
“When was that?”
He can practically hear Mukai’s head throb in irritation.
“You seriously gonna play that game?” He stands offering Mukai his best apologetic look, which is seemingly well received. “You're still thinking about it, huh?”
Sousuke thinks back to early spring and Mitsumi’s flushed face that had met him when he turned on his heel, awestruck at her confession. His mind had been racing yet blank at that moment, the words leaving his mouth without a second thought that they should go out. Only later did the thoughts catch up, seemingly never stopping since. Only to explode into something unknown just the day before.
Maybe that’d been the first sign.
“A bit,” he replies.
Mukai sighs, and reaches for something out of sight. “Well… just don’t over do it, I guess.” He reveals a new pair of sparklers.
Sousuke takes one with an easy smile. “Thanks, I’ll try.”
A familiar voice cuts in. “Shima-kun! Mukai-kun!”
Sousuke does not jump in response.
Mitsumi appears. “We’re going to launch the big ones! We should probably call, Yamada-kun, right?”
Her dress is simple. Sleeveless, a pastel green pattern, simple. It fits her perfectly. He directs his focus to the sparkler going off in her hand.
“Oh yeah, guess I can call him. He did say to just let him know,” Mukai fumbles for his phone, while Mitsumi stands nodding enthusiastically, more than she needs to. Not once does Sousuke want her to stop.
He slightly does when she looks his way. Blinking in surprise. A spike of nervousness hits him.
Why?
Did she notice?
Notice what?
“Shima-kun…”
He can’t help but swallow as she approaches. He can see her face better. Her bangs clipped back, one accented with a strawberry accessory. He can’t look away. Isn’t sure if he even wants to.
“Here,” she punctuates with the sparking stick in her hand.
He may stand there without response a little longer than he’d like.
“Hurry!” She says, bouncing a bit, arm waving, towards his own hand. “Before it goes out!”
He blinks, then regains feeling and remembers what’s in his own hand. He fumbles, getting his sparkler out to tap her quickly shrinking one. From behind him, Mukai calls for the others, letting them know Yamada has joined through a glowing screen. Yet Sousuke can’t pull away. Maybe Mitsumi senses it, or does she feel it too? Or does he just want her to?
Their two sticks stay together until blinding glitter explodes from his. The space between them suddenly aglow with sparkles. The smile from his face breaks almost too easily as if he’s caught hers.
Was it always this bright?
He hadn’t bothered to give his mother the specifics.
She hadn’t cared to ask.
He’d said it after dinner, when he came to the kitchen to bring his dishes back.
“I’ll be staying with a friend for a couple days.”
Whether said friend was a single train stop away or in the countryside was inconsequential.
“Oh.” She’d said it softly, eyes lowered, towards their hands. Their fingers weren’t even close enough to touch, separated by the length of his chopsticks that sat atop his dirty plate as he handed it over. “I guess you won’t be needing dinner for a few days, then.”
In the other room he’d heard Keiri squeal with laughter as his step-father spoke in a low rumble. His mother had turned back to the running water of the sink. It’d been a rather good cue for him to leave.
Though he’d stood still a moment more, staring at her back.
She’d turned, feeling the weight of his stare - or the shadow he cast.
“Was there something else?”
He’d shook his head, and made to grab some water before retreating into the dark of his room.
“Oh! Shima-kun, thank you! You didn’t have to!”
Sousuke hands Mitsumi’s mother the stack of breakfast dishes he’s gathered from the table, smiling at her fretting. Despite him being a stranger until now, and imposing on her by staying at her home, she’d been nothing but friendly.
He guesses he finds her naturally comforting - with her familiar shoulder length hair and the similar roundness to her face.
He startles a bit when she shouts. “Mitsumi! Don’t make your friends cleanup! They're your guests!”
Stumbling, stuttering, and laughter follows before Mitsumi is bursting into the kitchen. “Wha- Ah! Shima-kun!” She takes the dishes he’s still holding and plops them into the skin unceremoniously. “Mom’s right! You don’t have to do anything! You’re our guest!”
“I don’t mind.” He hadn’t meant to get her in trouble. Despite how unbothered Mitsumi looks after being scolded, he feels a bit bad. She’d been chatting and laughing with the others moments before. “I’m the one putting you out by staying here so-”
A warm hand pats him on the back. It’s an action a little uncommon for him that he may tense a bit. “Oh nonsense! We love havin’ all of ya here!” Mitsumi’s mother's smile lines sketch along her face like refined details, so unlike the ones from stress upon his own mother’s face. He’s lost in the comparison until she’s all but pushing him back towards the sitting area where the rest of his friends wait. “Think of it as a thank you for taking care of Mitsumi for the last year! I’m sure she was a bit of a handful once or twice.”
A dish clangs against metal. “M-Mom!”
“Oh! Mitsumi! Don’t chip the bowls!”
Sousuke’s left where Mitsumi’s mother leaves him, his bare feet just touching the strip of wood where the kitchen ends and the room with breakfast and his friends begins.
Mitsumi’s brother pipes in from said room. “Ah! Did Nee-chan break something?”
Sousuke can’t quite bring himself to answer, instead returning to his cushion at the table. Mitsumi calls out a response, so his silence hopefully isn’t noticed. He can’t help it. Even as the others continue chatting he finds himself stuck for some reason on Mitsumi’s poorly hidden reddened cheeks and the way her smile is so much like her mother’s. Genuine, kind, and bright.
Summers in the city were cramped. Even more so than normal.
When he took the train he’d be ever more conscious of how squished up against strangers he was. Even more so when said strangers were girls getting a little too close for comfort. It wasn’t worth it to get mad. They’d apologize after grazing in his hand or stumbling into his back - as if the train hadn’t been moving slowly the whole way without a single sudden stop. He never let any annoyance show. There was never a point to it. It was always easier to accept it. Smile and let it go.
Which he did.
It was just that the prickling sweat at his neck from the heavy breath of people all around him made it a little harder than normal.
That was probably why he'd catch a couple in the crowd, two people squished together, somehow by choice, holding hands, arm to arm, smiling bright, despite their sweat and the outside heat - and he’d wonder.
Why?
“Oh my gosh! Yes! I wanna go!”
“I-It’s nothing special! Way smaller than our school…”
Murashige’s eyes are practically sparkling, as the rest of them lounge around the table, sipping their drinks, trying to stay cool.
Their stay in Mitsumi’s hometown had already led to many of the stereotypical summer festivities. Shaved ice, the beach, watermelon, fireworks, the beach again, a loafing about doing nothing much of anything on one particular day when the heat was a bit much for all of them. Sousuke found himself scrolling on social media with the company of one of Mitsumi’s cats while Mukai snored beside him. He paid very little attention to where the girls sat around watching TV, Mitsumi waving the heat off with a paper fan. Her hair blowing gently back and forth as she did. Before he knew it he’d been watching her for an hour.
Time was slipping through their fingers, as it often did during summer break. And with it new ideas and activities on how to make their stay worthwhile.
“Aww but it’s where you went to middle school,” Murashige whines, “I wanna see where you grew up!”
Egashira, sipping on a glass of cool tea, pipes in, “You said your old classmates are gonna be there?”
Mitsumi holds her own glass, ice bobbing up and down in the glass, as she twists it in her hands. Sousuke watches as some of the condensation drips down against her fingers. He swears it’s almost in time to the drop that hits his. “Yeah, they asked if I wanted to meet up.”
“It’s probably been awhile since you last saw them,” Mukai points out.
“Mmm,” she thinks rather seriously, before replying, “I guess it has. Last time we all met up was last summer.”
“Then we have to go!” Murashige insists, pulling on Mitsumi’s arm. “ Pleaseeee~”
“W-Well…”
“Maybe they have some dirt on her, she doesn’t want us to know,” Kurume adds rather slyly to which Mitsumi flusters comically and they all dissolve into laughter.
Sousuke watches on as Mitsumi smiles at Murashige’s tugging, and Kurume’s comments, yet still sure he sees a bit of her nerves underneath it. She’d seemingly had them since she’d received the text from her hometown friends.
He hadn’t said anything - not from lack of trying - just somehow unsure of how to find the words. His throat, jaw, and voice all content to stare silently as he’d done uncontrollably the last few days.
Even now, he finds himself stuck, frozen in place, like the cubes in his drink, until eyelashes blink his way and she smiles at him shyly. He melts in place and suddenly panics. He can’t read her mind, but suddenly wishes he could. He wonders what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, what she wants, and when this started. He can meet her eyes but can’t grasp what it is she’s asking. Had he always been so bad at this? He can only guess. His mouth opens, before his brain has quite caught up, and goes with what might be a typical answer to her nerves.
“Would you rather us not go?”
That smile slips off her face, replaced rather quickly with a shock he feels.
“What?! No! Of course not!” Mitsumi argues back, almost hitting the table with how hard she sits up. “I want you guys to meet everyone! I just… I mean, there’s only a few days left before we head back to Tokyo. I figured, we might wanna do something more special.”
For whatever reason, Sousuke can’t imagine what that something else may be. He can imagine the messiness of bringing two friend groups together. The reasons someone might want to keep their past quietly hidden. He’d been rather neutral on going or not going. Or… he thought he’d been.
So why does something about her words hit him as uncomfortable? Something to be corrected?
“No way! We wanna see your hometown! That’s something special!” Murashige jumps in, “You gotta show us all the sights!”
Mitsumi’s mouth squirms, Sousuke can’t understand why he can’t look away. “I don’t know if that includes my middle school…”
Egashira snorts, “Oh there’s definitely some dirt she wants to keep hidden.”
Like a firework Mitsumi shoots up her face now clearly red. “There’s not!”
He thinks about her smile.
That’s nothing new.
On the day they’d met he’d seen her crying face, bruised and decorated with little pieces of gravel after she’d had a rather miraculous fall from their dash to school together.
He’d thought about it that night too. How she’d stood, shoulders squared, her voice clear and strong through the loudspeakers, as she’d given her opening speech without a single stutter or glance to a notecard. Along with the tinted green of her cheeks moments after she’d walked down from the stage, seconds before she spewed her guts all over their home room teacher.
And the next night. He’d thought about the tight seriousness over her brow as she’d belted out a children’s tune at karaoke in front of their peers as if it were the national anthem. And then finally about the gentle smile she’d offered him after fluffing up his hair unabashed as if he really were her family dog back home.
He’d laid in bed each night that first week of school, chuckling to himself. A slice of the city lights’ glow cutting through the gap in his curtain no longer the only thing keeping him company as he drifted off to sleep.
He liked her from the start.
Admired her.
Envied her.
How much higher could a person be in one’s mind after that?
Enjoyed time with her.
Looked forward to seeing her.
When had the more started? Why couldn’t he keep track?
Noticed her.
Missed her .
Wasn’t it normal to miss a friend? Wouldn’t anyone notice the little details of someone so important? Couldn’t he like her, simply for who she was?
Felt like himself with her.
Felt like she was herself with him.
After they’d tried going out - upon his request - and stopped - upon hers - he couldn’t stop wondering.
How did she see him?
How did she feel, that he apparently didn’t?
Liked her.
Missed her.
Wasn’t that enough?
He liked her as much as someone could. For Mukai and others that was apparently romance , but so was messy marriages and distant families. Unwanted touches on the train.
An empty black sky that apparently had stars to find.
Only you never could, even if you tired, not beneath the blinding lights of the nearby skyline.
So why can’t he stop looking?
“Mitsumi-chan!”
“Fumi! Guys!”
They walk beneath the simmering heat of the summer sun as Mitsumi bolts ahead. Fumi intercepts her in a hug, only to be joined by the others standing nearby. Sousuke had heard Mitsumi had only been in a class of seven other kids, but seeing the number right before him is another thing. It makes the quiet dwindling of the Japanese countryside all the more apparent.
Mitsumi pulls back from the small group, drawing their attention to Sousuke and the others. “These are my friends from Tokyo! They wanted to meet you guys!” She does an awkward dance of sharing each side's names and then rather smoothly directs one of the girls to Kurume who apparently shares an interest. It seems rather easy then, the girls begin chatting, while the four boys wander over to him and Mukai.
The tallest boy, Tacchan , Mitsumi had called him, offers a friendly grin. “I’m sure Ikajima seems pretty small and empty compared to Tokyo, huh?”
“No not really,” Sousuke finds himself answering. “It’s definitely different, but nice.”
“Break from the hustle and bustle, huh?” The one shorter boy laughs, Daichi, Sousuke thinks.
Mukai hums in agreement, “You have no idea.”
The six of them settle into casual conversation, chatting about some books they’ve read or shows some of them have watched. A few questions about Tokyo come about but not overwhelming. Mukai and him ask some about growing up in Ikajima. Overall it’s a comfortable chat, not too awkward. Eventually the girls join their circle and they all begin complaining about middle school as they make their way across the school grounds towards the entrance. Mitsumi and her hometown friends slightly leading the way
Tacchan , quite clearly the leader of the group Ikajima group, or at least the most outgoing, jumps in after the chatting seems to lull, as they get inside and switch their shoes. “Hey, you guys got any plans later?” He asks, mostly to Mitsumi. Sousuke feels so far on the opposite end of the circle.
“Besides dinner at home, not really? Why?” Mitsumi probes, giving him a rather scrutinizing squint.
“Well, since you guys are here and we already got permission to walk around the school anyway, we were thinking… why not stay until it gets a little darker…”
Sousuke immediately clues in as Tacchan reaches into the backpack he had slung over one shoulder. He rustles around until he pulls out a flashlight, revealing a few more tucked inside.
“…and have ourselves a test of courage.”
They draw lots once the sun has set and the stars are out.
Murashige and Kurume each end up with one of Mitsumi’s friends. Mukai with Egashira, despite the odds, and him with Mitsumi’s friend, Yuuko Nakagawa.
“AH! I’m with Tacchan! No!”
Sousuke looks back to find Mitsumi clutching her head in exasperation upon her pick.
“Hey! That’s what I should be saying!”
“Fumi! Switch with me!”
Fumi laughs, “No way! I’m with Rika-chan! I’m not switching!”
Mitsumi pouts, wandering over to Kurume who throws up a hand before Mitsumi can even say her first name.
The lot in Sousuke’s hand is suddenly heavy. It’d be rude to his partner to switch so suddenly. It’s just a game. But for some reason as he sees Mitsumi’s old friend throw an arm over her shoulders, he wants to.
“Suck it up, Iwakura. You said it first, no switches. We’re a team so you better not slow me down!”
Sousuke watches on, unable to look away. Mitsumi in a loose flowery shirt and short flowing skirt, bangs pulled back to one side, sulking unseriously with a glimmer of laughter in her eyes as she bickers with her old friend. All while said friend touches her with ease.
“Uh, Shima-kun?”
Egashira stands with Mukai at her side, the two of them eyeing him rather strangely once he notices them.
He chuckles. “Sorry, Egashira-san, what’s up?”
She raises a brow like she knows something he should, but doesn’t say. Instead she points towards the dark shadowy hallway they’ve deemed as the starting point of their test of courage. “Nothing, just that I think you and Yuuko-chan are up first.”
“O-Oh!” He looks back around for his partner, standing nearby, who he’d almost completely forgotten. “Sorry, Nakagawa-san…”
Nakagawa offers a smile, a bit of nervousness behind it. “It’s okay, Shima-kun…if it were up to me I wouldn’t go first…”
A cheer from the group, “Oh are we startin’?”
Tacchan appears, “Make sure you guys come down the other stairwell, okay? Or else it doesn’t count.”
“Uh, right,” Sousuke answers, trying to retrace their tour through the school earlier as Mitsumi comes up beside her old friend with a flashlight in hand. She holds it out to him and smiles as he takes it. He must click it on and confirm it works because there’s suddenly light shining between them. Not that he spares it a glance. Eyes stuck on that smile. “Yuuko knows the school but you may have to lead the way, Shima-kun!”
“M-Mitsumi-chan!”
One of their other girls laughs, “You always were a scaredy-cat, Yuuko!”
“I-It’s different in the dark…”
He should probably say something. So badly does it feel like he needs to say something.
Behind him Egashira makes a comment at her poor luck at pulling Mukai and not someone who knows the area to which his friend chides. The others laugh and Sousuke’s own partner takes a step towards the dark. He should follow but he’s stuck in place, staring. Seeing her, despite the flashlight now tilting towards the ground.
“Shima-kun?”
The slight question shakes him from whatever stupor he’d fallen into. She seems relieved, gives him a small salute, and then a smile that he must hit with the beam of the light for how it shines. “I’ll see you at the other side. Okay?”
He nods, the certainty of that not at all an issue.
Instead it’s that right after that she walks away, heading to stand by someone else, as he’s forced to follow after his own partner into the darkening hallway ahead. The issue is that there’s nothing on his tongue, not even the start of a word, yet it presses to the roof of his mouth like there’s something he wants to say. It’s that behind him as the cheers and clamor from the others for their own turn begin to quiet with the distance Mitsumi’s stands out clear as she laughs at something Tacchan said.
It’s that with every step away he can’t help but want to stop and turn back around.