Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ayane knew she was pretty from a young age. 

Not cute – like those girls with a natural flush to the cheeks or round, sparkling eyes. Nor beautiful – like the women with spindly model legs and an air of elegance that radiated off a pristine, powder white complexion.

But decently pretty, all on her own. 

Family members always pinched her cheeks and gushed about how lovely she’s blossomed over the past seasons. Talent scouts would chase her down the streets of Harajuku whenever she was on vacation, desperately shoving their business card in their face and imploring her to audition or snap a couple headshots. Her female middle school classmates expressed their envy and whined of how early her hips had come in, while the boys would ogle a little too long whenever she rounded the soccer field. 

It ran in the women in her family. Her mother was a former pageant queen. Her eldest sister ran through boyfriends faster than the fashion magazines on her bedside drawer, and her middle sister casually received confessions from boys attending different schools practically on a daily. It was peculiar how beauty was the accumulated generational wealth in her family as opposed to property or money. But to them, it was their pitfall. 

This was made apparent when she came home from volleyball practice with red-rimmed eyes and a trembling bottom lip. Ayane made her way to the back patio where her mom lounged with a pack of wine coolers beside her and a cigarette lit between her fingers. Ayane got down to her knees then, tears slipping down her cheeks as she begged her mother if she could transfer schools. That she couldn’t bear it anymore – the vacant stares, glares of disapproval, silent disdain – all because she turned down a popular boy in her class. 

Her mother simply took a drag, blowing smoke into the distant peach dusk of the setting sun. 

A long pause. Then, after a moment of contemplation, her mother replied, “Fine.” 

Ayane almost flinched in surprise. That was all it took? How was she so accepting of sending her daughter to a high school three train stops away?

“But I’m not allowing this so freely, Yano,” Her mother warned, her gaze still trained on the horizon. “There’s a lesson you must learn from this.”

“A lesson…?” Ayane hiccuped. 

The cigarette butt was burning dangerously close to her mother’s lips, the smoke curling around her sleek black bob. Her words were slow and slurred. Ayane wondered if she had one too many wine coolers.

“All of this is fleeting,” Her mother grabbed her chin, forcing Ayane to peer into her weary eyes. “Money, boys, beauty. You will run out. And they will all eventually leave you.”

(Maybe two wine coolers.)

“Mom–”

“No, listen to me,” Ayane’s mother scowled, frown deepening. “The way those girls on the team shunned you…never forget that feeling. The feeling of abandonment, isolation, and betrayal. Because you must learn to protect yourself from it.” 

Ayane swallowed thickly. The sound cut through the inches-apart proximity between her face and her mother’s. The beat of silence allows her a moment to drink in her mother’s deepening crow’s feet, the pinch between her thin eyebrows, and her full lips stained sangria – the same color of lipstick that graced the empty bottles lying beside her. 

Her mother was beautiful, if not devoid of color. As if the saturation of her world was progressively sucked from her graceful features as time passed. Ayane was always too fearful to question when it all started:

When her mother left her ambitious job in Tokyo to marry her father and was doomed to become a stay-at-home mother? When her father left her family before Ayane even took her first steps – departing with nothing but a blurry-faced memory and torn up family photos in his wake? When her sisters grew up and left the house for the big city, leaving a bitter aftertaste in her mother’s mouth, because it reminds her of a life she could’ve had but gave up for misguided love? 

But, like the obedient daughter holding what’s left of her tattered family unit together, she doesn’t question her mother this time either. 

“I understand,” Ayane complied.

Her mother sighed. She put the cigarette out on the wooden surface of their patio deck. It left a black ring and a sprinkle of ashes in its place.

“Do not let others lead you astray,” Her mother warned with startling finality. “All you have in this world is yourself, Ayane.” 

She also grew up hearing that she looked older than her actual age. 

Not wiser, per say. But it did allow her some advantages: adults taking her more seriously, getting cleared to watch rated R movies at the theater, and if she was lucky enough with whoever was working behind the convenience store register at the time – buying bottles of sake for her mother without being asked to show ID. 

The jewelry shop down the street refused to give piercings to minors. Ayane easily bypassed that policy ever since she perfected her make-up routine at 14 years old. 

Somewhere along the way, Ayane started making a tradition to add a new piercing whenever something significant happened to her life. She had two so far, each a different shape and color. One after her first relationship, the other for when she graduated middle school. 

She’s getting a new one today: a diamond stud just above her earlobe to celebrate her entering Kitahoro High School in a few weeks. To mark a new beginning, a fresh start. 

While she sits in the leather seat, she notices a guy quietly watching her in the corner of her eye. The gun clicks, the needle presses through her skin, and it’s done. 

When she leaves to walk back home, the guy chases after her, bumbling, “Hey, w-wait!” 

He’s a little taller than her. Generic face, average build, and long, brown hair that falls straight past his ears. He rubs his neck, bashful.

“Sorry. I just couldn’t watch you leave without saying anything,” He confesses. 

“Oh,” Ayane says. “You were the guy staring at me while I was getting my ears pierced.”

“Y-Yeah,” The guy flushes. He clears his throat awkwardly into his fist. “I was wondering…what school do you go to?” 

She points to herself. “Kitahoro.”

Like a natural progression that happens whenever Ayane reveals her age to a stranger, the boy’s eyebrows raise, his jaw falls a bit open, and he remarks, “Oh. You look older than your age.”

She shrugs. Prepares to turn on her heel to leave.

“My name is Taki,” The guy – Taki – interjects. “I’m entering the local engineering college this year. I was wondering if…you would like to go out with me? It might be a bit tough meeting up, considering we go to different schools and all…”

He fumbles through the rest of his sudden confession, but Ayane is only half listening. A small part of her is telling her to run from how this older boy finds her attractive and continues coming onto her, despite revealing her age. But the louder, more overwhelming part finds his confession awkward and painfully sincere. 

High school starts next month. A new beginning, a fresh start. 

“Sure,” She replies cooly. 

Might as well have some fun before it begins. 

Taki is an average boyfriend, as far as all boyfriends go.

They don’t get to spend time together as frequently now that he’s moving to attend college. But nevertheless, he pays for her meals, buys plushies for her, and gifts her whatever make-up product is currently trending. He calls her “beautiful” and “pretty”, and occasionally “sexy” whenever she opted for a miniskirt or tank top on their dates. 

They don’t talk very much. She doesn’t know much about him, other than the fact that he finds her attractive, which dominates half of their conversations. The other half is purely physical. Taki communicates with his lips – kissing her fervently and nipping a line down her neck – or with his hands – squeezing her thighs or groping beneath the fabric of her shirt.

Ayane never lets it get farther than that. She may be a pretty face, but she wasn’t stupid. 

One night, Taki was feeling particularly handsy as he shoved her against his bedsheets and climbed over her. The stench of beer lingered on his clothing and his movements were sloppy and uncoordinated. Ayane rolled her eyes as his tongue traced her collarbone and his fingers danced over the curve of her waist. She stared up at the ceiling in the darkness of the room and almost laughed. Her mother would have a field day with this: her youngest daughter falling into bed with a strange man instead of running in the other direction like all the lectures she's been pounding into Ayane’s head since her adolescence. 

But then Taki’s hands pop a button to her shorts, and Ayane lightly shoves him off.

“Wha–”

“You’re boring me,” Ayane mutters, picking up her shirt from the carpet. “I have to go.”

She fluffs up her hair a bit, adjusts her clothing, and prepares to head out his door. Taki’s hand thrusts out, gripping onto her wrist.

“Ayane, what the hell?” He sounds baffled. 

“Did you forget?” She huffs. “My entrance ceremony is tomorrow. I have to get home soon and prepare.” 

His grip tightens on her, refusing to let go. 

“Geez, Ayane,” Taki chuckles bitterly. “You gonna keep teasing me like this?” 

“What are you talking ab–” 

“I’ve been patient with you, you know. I’ve been waiting all this time because it seems like you’re not ready,” He shakes his head. 

His fingers are still curled over her pulse. She squirms to remove them, but he only holds on tighter. It’s starting to hurt. 

“But you know, a guy can only wait so long,” His lips tug into a smirk. “If you don’t put out, I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate it.” 

His eyelids are heavy and dark. Ayane feels something unpleasant bubble inside her gut. She forcefully tears his wrist from his hand, letting it bruise. 

“Screw you,” She scowls before storming out of his apartment and slamming the door in his face. 

The first friend Ayane makes at Kitahoro is a girl named Chizuru, the girl she (literally) ran into after the entrance ceremony. 

She is Ayane’s foil: tall, bare-faced, stick thin but still athletic. Chizu is brash, unrefined, and so god-awfully loud. Boys surround her, but not the kind that beg for her attention. One is the buzzcut on the baseball team who naps at the back of the class and has the memory of a goldfish (Ryu, was it?) and the other is bright and easygoing Kazehaya, who seems distracted half the time by the ghost-like girl who looks straight out of “The Ring” (more on her later). 

I’ll never get along with this chick, Ayane thinks when she sits herself in front of Chizu. 

And yet… and yet…

Chizu doesn’t just gradually come into Ayane’s life. 

She crashes into it. (At full force, with no brakes.) 

At first, their friendship starts as a rivalry, and everything seems like a competition between the two of them. A long-standing contest of awkwardly skirting around each other, of who will break first and greet each other with a meek “good morning” whenever they happen to arrive together at the getabako. Friendly handshakes quickly morph into arm wrestling competitions. Long-distance runs during PE turn into sprint races against each other. 

It’s how they end up keeling over on a grassy knoll, heaving as they try to catch their breath and recover from their burning hamstrings. 

“I can’t do this anymore!” Chizu flops onto the grass, groaning. “I can’t go any further!”

“Me neither,” Ayane sinks to the ground. 

“You run too fast!”

“What?! You started it!”

But like time, slow and forgiving, they open up to each other in the midst of the swaying grass and cawing of herons. Some classmates jog past them on the trail, overlooking the two misshapen girls lying flat against the side of the riverbank basking in the sunlight filtering through the clouds. 

“I never pegged you as the shy type,” Chizu muses. “With all your make-up and such.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ayane scoffs. 

“I-I didn’t mean it in a bad way!” Chizu recovers quickly. “Well, you’ve always seemed so cool and mature compared to the rest of us girls. You’re very reserved.” Chizu sits up on the grass, breaking into a grin so wide that her eyes crease. “So, when I see you become so energetic and competitive, I’m glad I get to see this rare side of you. I consider myself lucky!” 

Something blossoms in Ayane’s chest. 

“Oh,” She mumbles. “That’s…nice. I never really got along well with other girl friends. They all assume that I’m cold or a flirt.”

“Me too. Not the flirty part. But about the girl friends part,” Chizu pouts before shrugging. Her entire face lights up brighter than the sun. “Good thing most of them see me as a boy anyway! You should hang out with me and my friends more. I like spending time with you!” 

Chizu is flamboyant, vibrant, and god, her volume needs some work. 

She’s everything Ayane is not.

But perhaps that is what Ayane likes most about her. 

They befriend Sawako a bit later after that.

Ayane’s first impression of her is akin to everyone else’s – an ominous loner with a penchant for the occult. That is, until she and Chizu are conspiring a devious scare prank during the class’s summer class event, and Sawako eagerly bursts into the empty classroom and accepts the role of the “ghost”. 

“Please, let me volunteer for this task,” Sawako implores. “I-I would like to be useful to everyone!” 

Ayane tilts her head, watching the girl carefully, and how her earnest do-gooder attitude seems to transform her features. Beneath the initial doom and gloom lies a meek girl with long and sleek black hair, pale skin, and a gentle smile. Ayane recognizes a kindred spirit in the reflection of her shining almond eyes. A girl who longs to be seen. A girl who longs to be understood. 

“Sure,” Ayane shrugs. “Do your best.” 

A week later, the unpleasant squeak of chalk and lively classroom chatter rings in the inevitable semester seating change. Everyone draws numbers to determine their spot, and it couldn’t be more obvious that the entire class is avoiding Sawako like the plague. The poor girl sits alone beside the window – #3 on the seating map – staring down at her clasped hands on the surface of her desk. Voices are laced with dread as people assigned within her perimeter desperately try to trade seats.

Idiots, Ayane scowls internally. Don’t you know she can hear you?

Kazehaya swoops in like the charming, all-around guy he is and makes a scene by forcefully heaving his desk smack dab next to Sawako. The crowd breaks into murmurs then, condemning Kazehaya for willingly subjecting himself to a lifetime of bad fortune by sitting next to her. In the back of her mind, Ayane recalls her mother’s vacant eyes and the pungency of tobacco. 

(“Never forget that feeling. The feeling of abandonment, isolation, and betrayal.” )

“Yano-san! You’re up next!” 

Ayane makes her decision before she even unfurls the slip of paper revealing her desk number. She crumples it up and tosses it back into the bin. 

“You can have this back,” She grumbles before settling on the table in front of Sawako. Ryu and Chizu wordlessly follow suit.

None of them quite understand the gravity of seating themselves in that little corner of the classroom. Not until years later. 

Their first year is punctured with equal parts sweetness and turbulence. 

Chizu finds out unceremoniously that her first love is engaged, but like the cheerful and boisterous person she is, she masks her sadness with a tight smile and nonchalant shrug. Ayane knows the feeling of self-preservation all too well, but she decides it best to keep quiet and let Chizu process her emotions with stride. 

On a particularly chilly night, their ragtag bunch of friends crowd into Ryu’s family restaurant for a steaming bowl of ramen. Ryu’s father casually mentions something related to Toru’s upcoming wedding and Ayane spots Chizu wince in the corner of her eye. 

“Say, Chizu, you gonna get all dolled up for that special day?” He asks, oblivious. 

“Heck yeah! I can’t wait to rock a miniskirt!” Chizu exclaims, an octave higher than normal. Her fists ball the hem of her sweatshirt beneath the table. It doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“No one wants to see that,” Her childhood friend teases beside her. 

“Shut it, Ryu!” 

“You’re one to talk, son. Have you rented a suit yet?” 

“You’re supposed to wear a suit?” 

In between the chaotic quartet of slurps and chatter, Ayane’s hand silently slips beneath the table to intertwine with Chizu’s fingers in comfort.

Chizu squeezes her palm right back.

Sawako: Thank you for bringing the cakes over today, Yano-san! My parents really enjoyed them! They were delicious! 

Ayane: No problem. Also, what did we say about calling each other by our first names?

Sawako: (,,>﹏<,,)

Ayane: Enjoying your new phone, I see. 

Sawako: Yes! I like emoticons very much. I find it’s easier to express my feelings this way. 

Ayane: Oh? Anything else you want to express?

Sawako: …

Sawako: Actually, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, Ayane-chan, but I never found a good time to do it. 

Ayane: ?

Sawako: I think you are very brave for standing up to the girls that spread rumors about me. 

Sawako: I want to be confident like you. I look up to you! I admire you a lot!

Ayane: Don’t be stupid. I’m the last person you want as a role model–

She quickly taps on the backspace button, deleting the message before it can send. The bright blue bubble taunts her in the pitch black darkness of her bedroom. She exhales a clipped sigh, waiting for the stinging of her eyes to subside as her thumb hovers over the keyboard. 

Ayane: Don’t be stupid. I’m the last person you want as a role model

Ayane: Thanks. 

The end of the year draws to a close and the new year rings in.

The town floods to the shrine at midnight, and Ayane ducks her head as she slips through the crowd to avoid running into any classmates before retrieving a rolled up fortune. Chizu has already left with Ryu while Sawako and Kazehaya are off somewhere else being oblivious to each other's feelings, so she tucks herself between a hidden thicket of barren trees, far away from the bonfire surrounded by families and couples. 

She exhales deeply, plumes of frost dusting over her trembling mittens as she stares down at the roll of paper. 

She unwraps it carefully. 

Fortune: Bad Luck

Fuck. 

She reads on. 

Friendship: You are surrounded by precious friends! Your year will bring new memories. 

Romance: Now is the time for a fresh start. Let go of anything holding you back. 

Ayane stares at the print for a long time before peering up at the moon, waning in the ink black night. She closes her eyes for a bit, letting the snowflakes nestle into the tufts of her hair and the chill settle into her bones. She calculates the plan in her head. Then, she stomps the fortune into the snow-covered ground and breaks into a run. 

The jewelry store is miraculously still open when she arrives at its doorstep, sweaty and out of breath and dusted with melted snow. The shop owner, recognizing her as a regular, ushers her inside with a smile. “You’d be surprised how many people want piercings or jewelry on New Year’s Day,” He explains. “A way to commemorate and ring in the new year, I guess.” 

She settles on a silver loop on the helix of her ear. Something spiral. Something infinite. 

“So,” The shop owner nods his approval. “What are we celebrating today?”

Ayane doesn’t hesitate. “Friends.”

Next, she races off to Taki’s apartment. 

He’s probably asleep. Or out with his college friends. But Ayane doesn’t think she can wait a moment longer. 

It takes two knocks before the door swings open, and she’s faced with a surprised looking Taki. She should feel anxious, heartbroken, or guilty at least. But standing there on his front porch, she has never been more sure of anything in her life. 

“Ayane? What are you doing here?” Taki sputters. “Come inside, you’ll catch a cold–” 

“I’m breaking up with you,” Her words cut colder than the air outside. 

He doesn’t take it well.

He responds with a harsh blow across her cheek. The mark burns raw and red like a wound, and it stings more than the fresh piercing she got less than an hour ago. She’s too shocked to move. 

Taki balks, as if horrified by himself. He drapes himself over her, sobbing as he clutches onto the back of her coat, pleading, “I-I’m so sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking! Please, don’t go!” He blubbers for her forgiveness and settles for bargaining his way back into her heart, but Ayane feels nothing but disgust twisting in her gut. Every single jealous text, angry phone call, or stained memory of his harsh hands on her skin bubbles up her throat like bile. 

“You’re pathetic,” She scoffs, shoving him away from her and walking out of his life. 

Her cheek is still sore and hot to the touch as she makes her way home, so she decides to drop by the convenience store to grab a bandage and cold compress. 

As she exits the doors of the 7-Eleven, there’s a large group of girls around her age milling about by the entrance way, seemingly moping over something.

“Aw, where did he go?” “Did he run off when he saw us?” “What do you think his fortune is?” “I hope it’s good fortune with relationships! He seems like the type to have luck follow him wherever he goes!” 

One of the girls turns in her direction, and crap – Ayane is pretty sure they’re in the same home ec class. She slowly backs away, trying to sneak back home around the back of the store, but bumps into a solid chest instead. 

Before she can stumble backward, a hand reaches out and catches her arm to steady her.

(It’s big and warm and belongs to a boy. She doesn’t pull away.)

“Oops! Sorry, didn’t see ya there!”

Ayane glances up, processing their tall height and wavy blonde locks, but quickly ducks her head, hiding her bruised cheek behind her layered haircut. She trains her eyes downward at their shoes, just inches apart on the slippery dirt road. She didn’t get a good read on his face. 

“Are those girls still there?” His voice is hushed. “They didn’t give you any trouble, did they?” 

“Er, I guess? They’re by the entrance,” Ayane blinks. 

“Darn! Maybe if I take the back alleyway…” The guy ponders out loud. 

“Excuse me–” She tries sidestepping him, and his fingers loosen over her wrist. 

“Oh!” He exclaims suddenly.

The guy leans down, tilting his head a bit to get a better angle of Ayane’s face. She flinches, turning away from his eyes. He’s for sure noticed the bruise by now , she groans internally. She tries to come up with a slew of hasty excuses in her head as she watches his jaw fall slack: it’s not what you think, I ran into a pole on the way here, my cheeks just get purple in the cold–

“Is that a new piercing?” He gawks, a finger pointing at her helix. 

Ayane backs an inch away from his vicinity, a hand unconsciously reaching up to shield the silver loop newly positioned on her ear. 

“Yeah…”

“I knew it!” He sing-songs. “At first I thought your ear was pink because of the cold, but turns out I was right after all! It’s a fresh piercing! So cool!” 

This guy’s even more cheery than Chizu. 

Her gaze is still transfixed on the icy asphalt. If she were to look up right now, it'd probably be a cross between a glare and an eyeroll. 

“Ah, and here–” The guy finally lets go of her wrist to squat to the ground. She tries not to let the absence of heat bother her. He scoops a handful of snow, packs it between his palms, and thrust it out to her. “Use this for your bruise.” 

So he did notice it. 

“What?” Ayane deadpans. 

“Like this!” And in one swift move, the guy stuffs the snow against his cheeks, covering the expanse of his face and leaving nothing but a mop of blonde hair visible. “The cold from the snow will help it heal faster! And it feels refreshing too!” His giggle sounds as clear as a bell. Ayane is dumbfounded at how he finds the concept of shoving snow against her face and risking hypothermia to be a delightful matter. 

Who the hell is this guy?

“There he is!” A shrill cry comes from behind them, followed by a chorus of squeals and the crescendo of enthusiastic stomping. 

“Uh-oh, gotta run! Bye-bye!” The blonde races off just as quickly as he came.

When Ayane finally makes it home and sets her plastic bag of items on her desk, the snow seems to beckon to her as it falls harder outside her window pane.

Curious, she cracks a fraction of her window open, letting a small pile accumulate into her cupped palm. She presses the snow against her injured cheek, and almost instantly, her shoulders deflate and her face melts with relief. 

That weirdo was right. 

Nevertheless, whoever that guy is, she hopes they never cross paths again. 

Second year ushers in new classroom assignments, new promises, and new classmates. 

One of them is Miura Kento. Ayane dislikes him instantly. 

He’s got his golden retriever reputation on lock with his fluffy blonde hair and downturned puppy eyes and impish grin. When he walks down the school hallways, sunbeams seem to shoot out of his face and flowers dance around him like a halo. He’s possibly the only one that rivals Kazehaya in popularity. His fanclub of girls flock to him every passing period, inquiring about if he ate, what he’s currently into, or if there’s anyone he’s interested in – with enough enthusiasm to rival professional news journalists. 

Ayane immediately reads through his superficial mask. Like a dog, he sticks his overly friendly nose into others' business without a care for the consequences. 

Especially when it comes to Sawako and Kazehaya’s relationship. 

Ayane spent her entire first year trying to gently nudge those two idiots in love together. She wasn’t going to have this guy erase all that effort and take the satisfaction from her. 

She waits for the perfect window to corner him. She stays behind a bit after the final bell rings, lying that she left her jacket behind in the gym and urging Chizu and Sawako to go ahead and walk home without her. As class representative, Pin had assigned Kento to retrieve some documents and drop them off in their homeroom after classes. Ayane leans against the edge of her desk in their empty classroom, waiting patiently. 

The sliding door breaks through the quiet, signaling his return. 

“Oh, Ayane-chan! What are you still doing here? The class bell rang half an hour ago,”

“What’s your angle?” She cuts to the chase. 

Kento drops off the stack of papers on the pedestal at the front of the room before making his way over to her. He plants himself on the top of a desk directly across, and even though he’s seated with his back slouched, he still meets her at eye level. 

He blinks owlishly, feigning ignorance. “What are you talking about?” 

“You’re messing with Sawako,” Ayane hopes her glare punctures through his facade. “You should leave her alone.”

“Why? Because she likes Kazehaya?” He asks bluntly. He grins victoriously at the microscopic wrinkle of her nose. Bingo.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, continuing casually, “I’m just curious about what kind of girl she is. After all, she hangs out with you and Chizu, who don’t seem like her usual type of friends. And she’s in love with a boy she practically doesn’t have a chance with. Wouldn’t someone like that interest you?” 

“No,” Ayane huffs, steeling her emotions by shoving aside the explosive urge to defend Sawako. “I do the decent thing. Which is minding my own business.” 

Kento chuckles brightly, and for a brief moment, Ayane is hit with a wave of déjà vu. Why did that sound so familiar? 

“I know you would. You’re just that type of girl, Ayane-chan,” Kento hums. 

“What do you mean by that?”

He shrugs. One corner of his lips tugs higher than the other. “I’m saying that Sadako is not the only one I like observing.” 

Her pulse malfunctions. 

His dark pupils engulf the hazel of his eyes. She shifts uncomfortably under the intensity of his gaze. He steps closer and Ayane instinctively tries to back away, but the desk merely screeches still behind her. 

“Despite your looks, Ayane-chan, you’re quite reserved. It seems like you don’t open up to people easily,” It’s like he’s staring straight through her. “But when it comes to your friends, you’re very passionate about them. I like seeing you all worked up like this. You’re so intriguing, Ayane-chan.” 

What the hell…

The classroom door slams open and Pin comes trampling in. 

“Kento! Where the hell did you leave the papers–” He squawks, stopping abruptly when he processes the scene in front of him. “The heck? You two kids trying to make memories in an empty class or somethin’?” 

“N-No way!” Ayane snaps, hurriedly grabbing her bag and making a swift exit. “And stop meddling!” She calls back, though she isn’t entirely sure if she was directing it toward Pin or Kento. 

The echo of Kento’s laughter follows her all the way home. 

Somehow, Kento’s constant interference ends up working in Sawako and Kazehaya’s favor. 

Ayane perches against the rooftop railing following the school festival, watching her two friends confess their feelings to one another amidst the backdrop of a starry sky and steady ocean waves. It’s clumsy and achingly endearing, the way the two of them fall into each other’s orbit like perfectly aligned planets. Ayane feels something squeeze tightly in her chest but she can’t bring herself to look away. 

Chizu always joked about Ayane being a masochist. But standing here alone, witnessing how palpable the love between Sawako and Kazehaya is even a distance away, she thinks she might be the opposite. She’s happy for them, truly. But she also hates the ugly way that envy knots in her stomach at the sight of their infectious joy. 

It hurts, she sighs. It really fucking hurts. 

“Not joining the after party?” A pleasant voice calls out to her. 

Kento. 

His smile widens as he nears her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with your girlfriends?” Ayane scoffs. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating with our class?” Kento banters playfully before peering down at what caught her attention. “What are you watch – oh! Look at those two lovebirds! I’m happy for them.” 

“...Yeah,” Ayane rests her chin on her folded elbows, opting to distract herself by observing the swaying palm trees instead. “They’re cute.”

Kento settles against the railing as well, leaning forward to tilt his head and get a better view of her.

“You look upset,” He frowns. 

“I always look like this,” She retorts. 

“No way! You usually look pissed off when I’m around. Like there’s daggers shooting out of your eyes!” 

It makes her crack. Not a full laugh – more like a half exhale, half chuckle – but it’s the first time she’s smiled that night. 

They fall into companionable silence, content with the distant lullaby of seagulls and salty ocean breeze. The night passes by agonizingly slow. Kazehaya and Sawako are long gone, and she’s sure some of their classmates have already headed home, but Ayane stays fixed in place like a mountain, firm and immovable. Kento stubbornly stays by her side, steady and flowing like the wind, gradually eroding her walls over time. 

“You know… I’m actually quite jealous of them,” She whispers. Salt lingers on her tongue. 

“Same here,” Kento’s voice is soft and wistful. “I suppose it’s a good thing those two got together. I’m relieved this all happened before I fell for Sadako.” 

Ayane almost chokes at his sudden confession. “You–you what?” 

He laughs, bashfully scratching the back of his head. The blonde curls at the nape of his neck bounce right back. “I mean, she’s cute and all. But looking back, I don’t think my feelings for her were as real as Kazehaya’s. I thought they weren’t compatible together. So I suppose I liked the idea of her being with someone else – someone like me – more than the idea of actually dating her. I just assumed I could make her happier.”

Her eyes nearly roll to the back of her head. The ego on this guy. 

“You’re such a meddler,” She tsks. 

“Ouch! So cold, Ayane-chan!” He clutches at his chest, feigning a wound. Then, he apologizes ever so softly, and it almost gives her whiplash. “I really am sorry for messing with your friends.” 

She’s a little stunned at his words, so she takes a moment before steeling herself to glance over at his face. What she sees makes her lungs collapse. He’s staring right back at her. With lips tugged into a resolute line and eyes so earnest that it thaws something she didn’t even realize was numb inside of her. 

“Then why do you do it?” Ayane asks, carefully selecting her words so they sound more curious than condescending. “Why are you so concerned with other peoples’ business and interfere when things don’t work out the way you intend them to?” 

Thankfully, it doesn’t look like Kento takes offense to her question. If anything, it makes him contemplative. He picks a loose thread off his button-up, twirling it between his fingers, taking a minute to consider if he should tell her the truth or not before eventually relenting. 

“My parents separated when I was in middle school,” He sighs. “All they did was fight since I was a kid. They barely tolerated each other in the marriage. I sensed the separation was coming in the events leading up to it, but I still did everything in my power to try to keep them together. I tried to lay low and be a model son – aced all my tests, finished the chores, obeyed their directions – hoping I could distract them from finding any more problems they had with each other.” 

Ayane believed that Kento was made up entirely of curves and soft corners. So when his jaw tenses and his fists curl over the metal railing, it’s the first time Ayane has ever seen him with edges and sharp angles. 

“It didn’t work. As hard as I tried to keep my parents together, they still got divorced in the end,” He mutters. “I suppose it was for the best. But ever since then, I can’t help wanting to please others or go out of my way to make people happy because…” His eyelashes flutter heavily, casting shadows over his high cheekbones. “Because I want to prove that I’m capable of fixing things that are broken.” 

Everything he speaks about feels like unfamiliar territory to her. Kento faces things head-on, brazenly and without restraint, just to mend others’ problems. Even the way he drinks in her features, from the slight pinch between her eyebrows down to her full lips, is all-consuming. 

On the other hand, Ayane wouldn’t dare take a risk without first analyzing every possible route that could go wrong. 

She spent her entire life repressing any juvenile emotion she felt and hiding it behind a hardened resolve. It’s nice , seeing someone who allows their thoughts to play over their face like light on water. A part of her thinks Kento is brave for revealing such vulnerability. The other part thinks he’s foolish for doing so.

“Always trying to be the hero, huh?” She smirks. 

“Of course! I’m the perfect role for a charming male lead, don’tcha think?” He flashes his stupid, signature hand signal and cheekily sticks his tongue out. “Anyway, that’s my sob story.”

Kento plays it off with a tight smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. He stretches his arms over his head, sighing contentedly and humming a tune merrily to himself.

“What about you Ayane?” He turns to her now, his eyes wide and radiant as they refract the stardust of the night sky. “Why are you always so guarded?”

It feels like a blow right in the jugular. 

Jeez, this guy really doesn’t have a filter. 

“You’re bold for asking me so directly,” She comments. 

He raises his hands in faux surrender, laughing. “Sorry, sorry! You’ve just spoken so little. I’m beginning to miss the sound of your voice.”

She swallows thickly. It’s getting to the point where she can’t look at him directly for longer than a few seconds without wanting to crawl away and hide. For the first time, a boy is finally seeing her for who she is. The heat of his gaze makes her feel more transparent than ever. She might combust on the spot. 

She considers biting back with another one of her sarcastic remarks, but his honesty has loosened her a bit. 

“I…I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet,” She admits. 

“Oh–”

“But,” She chews on her bottom lip. “I will one day. Maybe.”

His eyes are still shining. 

“Okay,” Kento whispers. “I’ll wait for you until then. Whenever you’re ready.” 

Just like the tide coming in and out, something changes between the two of them that night. Slowly but surely. 

She should’ve known when they collided into each other in the middle of the hallway. 

When Mogi asked her out, publicly in front of all her friends, she didn’t hesitate to say yes. After all, she’s always had a weak spot for bold confessions.

The Okinawa trip was coming up, and with all her classmates eagerly thrusting themselves into romantic pairings, she was glad she wouldn’t be an outsider to all the fun. For a moment, she lets herself be hopeful. She doesn’t run from the possibility of falling in love with him, even if it takes time. 

This one was going to be different. 

(She’s so entranced by Mogi’s sincerity that she fails to notice the way Kento’s face falls behind her.)

She should’ve known the first time they kissed. 

Talk was banal. Mogi simply nodded along to whatever she said, punctuating each statement with a painfully simple “that’s cool” or “sounds fun” when she recounted what she did during her day at the resort. Mogi didn’t even bother to disclose his own activities before he started to press her a little too hard against the palm tree and leaned in. His teeth knocked into hers and his tongue was already poking against her lips. He doesn’t give her enough opportunities to come up for air. It feels suffocating. 

He doesn’t offer to walk her home. 

She should’ve known when Sawako asked her when she started having feelings for Mogi, and she had to resist the urge to blurt out, “I don’t.”

So she makes it known by providing an equally public declaration to Mogi in front of him and all his friends, this time announcing that they should call it quits. 

As she sits on the curb of some neighborhood alley, she considers for a moment where it all went wrong. Not just with Mogi, but with every single boy she dated. 

Then it hits her that she’s only ever been on the receiving end. 

She has never once been the romantic heroine of her own story, flying past the halls of her school in search of her crush as an exhilarating soundtrack swells in the background, ready to lay out her feelings on the line before time runs out. She will never be like Chizu or Sawako, standing in front of the one they love with glistening tears and trembling hands and stumbling words, pouring their heart until it bleeds onto the floor. She’s never had her pulse race or cheeks flush. She’s never been breathless. 

Her throat squeezes, an indication that she was going to start crying any minute now. 

On the last day of her school trip in Okinawa, surrounded by the sticky summer heat and fleeting fragrance of hibiscus, she comes to two conclusions:

She is not built for love. 

And that her mother was right all along. 

(“All you have in this world is yourself, Ayane.” )

“Ayane-chan!” His voice pulls her out of the dark like a lighthouse. “What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Kento wordlessly scoots himself beside her, hands twitching at his side to reach up and tuck some of the auburn bangs away from her face. 

“I’m fine,” She lies between her teeth. She tries to convince herself by chuckling bitterly but it only comes out in a strained croak. “I’m not upset. Really. I’m…I’m fine.” 

But the tears come out anyway. They spill relentlessly, pelting like raindrops onto the concrete. 

Kento pulls her into his arms. He’s warm and solid, grounding like gravity.

He smells like salt air, fresh cotton, and something vaguely boyish. 

She asks why he isn’t saying anything, begging him to speak so they’re not just surrounded by the sound of her hushed sobs soaking into his shirt, but he doesn’t. He simply tightens his hold around Ayane, letting her rest her head on his shoulder and delicately running his fingers through her hair. 

How strange, she thinks. The way being in Kento’s arms seems to fill her lungs with air instead of taking her breath away. 

She’s definitely not avoiding him. 

Last week while everyone gathered around Sawako’s desk to collect the photos from their school trip, Kento had leaned in from behind her, shuffling the pile before commenting “Ayane-chan looks cute in this one.” The sliver of his neck peeking from behind his uniform collar, the scent of his lavender shampoo, and the centimeter difference between them made her head spin, so she hurried out of the classroom and chalked it up to a stomachache. 

This morning when Kento opened the door to their classroom, she backed up and tried bolting the other way, bumbling an excuse about how she heard Pin calling her name from below the staircase. (As if in a miraculously timed comedy sketch, Pin rounds the corner to their classroom, muttering blankly, “Huh? No, I didn’t.”)

And whenever Kento turned to look at her from two rows ahead in the middle of a math lesson, cheekily whispering “A-ya-ne!” with the corners of his eyes creased and a cheeky smile plastered on his face, it becomes second nature to turn her head the other direction. It’s because my make-up looks bad today, she tries to convince herself. She focuses on Sawako’s blooming herb garden or the sparrows perched beyond their classroom window, anything to distract from the way her heartbeat seems to stutter.

When he waves to her from across the train tracks after school, she’s grateful for the distance between them. He’s gone by the time the train passes. Her eyes linger on the caboose, wondering where he’s headed to, and if he’s the type of guy to chase after a train carrying someone he loves. (Definitely.)

“Hi, Ayane-chan!” Kento chimes from behind her. She nearly jumps out of her skin.

“What the hell?” She exclaims. “I thought you already left with that train! Stay away.” 

“You wound me! But at least I know you’re the same old Ayane,” He’s watching her with those all-knowing hazels again. “You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?”

He says it more like a fact than a question. 

She squirms under his gaze. The defenses come back up. She shuffles a few steps back and tightens the scarf around her face. 

“Well, duh. I was embarrassed,” She mumbles under her breath. 

In an act of armistice, Kento buys her a coffee from the vending machine. Her cheeks burn hotter than the can between her fingers. 

“I…I’m not one of your Kento girls,” Her grip tightens over her drink. The tin crinkles beneath her fingertips. 

He tilts his head a bit, confused. “My what now?”

“You don’t have to be so nice to me,” The words come flooding out like a broken dam, cold but lacking conviction. “Like I said, I’m fine. It was just a stupid fling. I’m not even taking the break-up with Mogi that hard–” 

“Ayane,” Kento interrupts, shaking his head a bit. “I didn’t buy you a drink because I pity you. Or because I’m trying to win you over on my side, or because I have any other ulterior motive planned.” His eyebrows lower as if he were unraveling something fragile in his hands. “I did it because it’s cold out and I want to look after you.” 

She was definitely turning red now. 

“Well, maybe I am trying to win you over a little…”

“Knew it,”

“Hey! I’m just trying to be a gentleman!”

She kicks a pebble on the ground, watching it roll off the platform. “A gentleman isn’t into girls like me.” 

Kento is quiet for a rare moment. 

“I wish you didn’t have such a low opinion of yourself, Ayane-chan,” His tone is gentle. “You’re smart. You’re capable. You’re always worrying about others.” 

The words deflect off her like a mirror. 

“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” Ayane argues back, shoulders rounding in on herself and tightening her hold on her school bag. “I only put myself first.”

“Since it takes time for you to build trust in others and open up,” He reasons. “But when you finally do let people in, they become very precious to you, don’t they?”

Each word he says is a harder pill to swallow. She feels exposed, but under the softness of his gaze, it doesn’t feel unsafe.

She doesn’t feel self-conscious. She doesn’t feel judged. 

(She feels visible.) 

“How…How do you know all of this?”

Kento finally steps forward, tightening their proximity, and she lets him. He reaches out to loosen the scarf around her neck a bit, chuckling at the sight of her slack jaw and cheeks dusted pink. 

“Because I want to be one of those precious people in your life, Ayane,” He whispers. 

Her ride pulls up not a moment too soon. 

The train on platform 2 will be departing soon. Please watch your step!

Like always, as soon as something good comes to her, Ayane runs in the other direction. This time is no different as she bolts from him and retreats behind the train doors, afraid of ruining whatever they had any further. 

But this time, she looks back. 

Kento is still smiling even as the train pulls away and the platform disappears from sight. 

“I like you, Ayane-chan!”

No, you don’t. 

“I can’t take that you keep walking away from me!” 

It’s all I’ve ever known. 

“I like every part of you. The awkward you…The kind you…”

Then you’re a fool. 

“I like you!”

You’ll regret it. 

“If you’ve never loved anyone, then try loving me,”

I don’t deserve you. 

“You don’t need to start liking me now,”

Then when? In our next life? 

“Let me care for you,”  

Despite the unforgiving snow and his teeth chattering 100 kilometers per hour, he insists on having her wear his jacket. He tugs her closer and oxygen returns to her lungs. His knuckles are bloodied, the same color as the crushed rose petals beneath her feet. Her tears fall to the rhythm of his thundering heartbeat. 

Idiot. 

Infuriating, lovable idiot. 

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

“Ayane, join me for a cup of tea before bed, would you?” Her grandmother called from the living room. 

“Coming!”

Every year, Ayane and her sisters packed their bags to stay at their grandmother’s house in the countryside for the summer. Her sisters were fast asleep in the other bedroom, their soft snores drowned out by the chirping of cicadas and flutter of wind against the whistling grass. Despite the moon being full and out, the heat and stickiness of July continued to permeate into the night. 

Her grandmother sat cross-legged beneath the low wooden table, smiling patiently as she watched her youngest granddaughter settle onto a floor mat and politely pour a stream of piping sencha tea from its ceramic kettle. Like the rest of the women in her family, her grandmother retained her beauty. She left her gray hair long and woven into plaits, something that Ayane found unusual compared to the other elderly ladies in her neighborhood who kept their hair short or tied up. 

“You’re entering middle school this year, aren’t you?” Her grandmother hummed. 

“Yes,”

“Are you excited?” 

“Um, I guess,” Ayane shrugged. 

Time moved differently in the country. The fireflies fluttering around the patio seemed to be blinking in slow motion. Ayane awkwardly attempted to take a sip of her tea but it scalded the tip of her tongue. 

“Ayane, you’re a smart girl,” Her grandmother said pointedly. “The smartest of your sisters. Sometimes, I think you’ll grow to be even sharper than your mother.” 

She didn’t know how to respond. It had been a long time since someone complimented Ayane on something other than her looks. 

Her grandmother swirled her teacup, eyeing the loose leaves at the bottom. “Hokkaido is much too small for you. Your ambition and wits will run out of room.”

“Grandma…” 

Her grandmother pulled out a newspaper from beside her and set it on the table. Something related to economics was printed bold on the front headlines, but her grandmother pointed her finger to draw attention to the photo below it.

The photo was a snapshot of a cityscape at night. Unlike what Ayane was accustomed to in her small town, the printed picture depicted a bustling crosswalk, buildings stacked atop each other, and a million fireflies shining together. She only realized later that those were not fireflies, but flickering city lights captured in a moment of time. 

“Go to Tokyo when you’re older,” Her grandmother urged. 

“T…Tokyo,” The name rolled nicely off Ayane’s tongue. 

Her grandmother nodded. Sympathy flashed in her eyes. “Your mother gave up her dream job in the city to marry your father. I told her not to, but she was blinded by love. And now she lives with that regret everyday.” 

Ayane’s cup of tea was left untouched. 

“So when you get the chance,” Her grandmother’s gaze was steadfast. “Go far.” 

Ayane’s mother picked them up the next morning. She hurriedly stomped her cigarette onto the ground and kicked it beneath a car tire when her daughters emerged beside their grandmother, bags in tow. 

“I thought you said you wanted to quit smoking,” Her grandmother said, stone-faced. 

“And I thought I told you to stay out of my business,” Ayane’s mother scowled, piling the last duffel bag into the trunk. “Get in, girls.” 

On the drive back, Ayane fidgeted in her seat, which her mother quickly detected from the rearview window. 

“Grandma told me something interesting last night,” Ayane muttered.

“And what would that be?” 

“She said you used to work in Tokyo. But then you left the city to marry dad…and that’s why you’re unhappy,” 

The car grew deathly quiet. Her mother’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, the sound of leather wrinkling breaking the silence. 

“Your grandmother has grown senile,” Her mother’s eyes narrowed in the rearview window. “It won’t do you much good to see her again. We’ll sign you up for summer classes.” 

The shrine is busy as usual on New Year’s Eve. 

But with Kento by her side, his hand enveloping her own, she doesn’t feel so lonely this year. It’s strange to think that just a few nights ago, these were the same knuckles that came to her defense and yielded a bloody nose. Kento squeezes her mitten as they squish through a busy crowd gathered to pull their fortunes. He glances back every now and then so as to not lose her in the sea of people, flashing a small smile in reassurance as they finally navigate towards the front. 

She feels safe in the palm of his hands. 

“Let’s open it at the same time!” He suggests enthusiastically. She shrugs as he counts down from 3 and they simultaneously unfurl their slips. 

Fortune: Bad Luck

Her eyes almost roll to the back of her head. 

Kento gasps beside her as he cranes his neck to read her fortune. “Oh no!” 

“Don’t worry about it,” She sighs, dusting some snow off the parchment. “I always pull bad luck.” 

“What else does it say?”

Romance: Your heart will be in turmoil this year. Stay true to yourself and your feelings.

Kento pouts. “What does that mean? Will we go through relationship troubles? Or fight a lot?” 

“Dunno,” She stuffs the fortune into her front pocket. “What does yours say?”

Kento proudly showcases his to her. 

Fortune: Good Luck 

Romance: You will undergo significant growth in relationships this year. Be patient with others. 

“You must be my good luck charm, Ayane-chan!” He chuckles. 

She sneezes in response. Kento hurriedly yanks off his beanie and stuffs it tightly over her head. When Ayane adjusts it exasperatedly over her bangs, she peeks up at him and fights back a snort at the sight of his disheveled blonde hair. 

“You already lent me your scarf,” Ayane complains, pointing to how goofy she looks with two different colored wool scarves wrapped around her neck, making it extra toasty. 

“You mustn’t catch a cold, Ayane!” Kento protests. 

“What about you? Aren’t you freezing?”

“Nope!” He shakes his head. Snow flies off his curls. “I feel plenty warm whenever I’m around you!” 

Observant as ever, he notices the way her eyebrows are furrowed and how curt her answers to his questions are during the entire walk back home. He drops her off on the front porch step and bids her good night, but not before leaning in to press his lips on Ayane’s forehead, soothing the crease between her brows. Her breath hitches in surprise, stunned, and he smiles in satisfaction. 

“I know you’re probably concerned about what your fortune said about us,” Kento’s thumb brushes a snowflake off her cheek, melting it beneath his fingertip. “But you shouldn’t worry, Ayane. Because no matter what comes between us, we’ll figure it out together. Okay?” 

Her chest tightens. She nods, staring down at her feet. 

What she doesn’t have the heart to tell him is that it wasn't the romance fortune that left her conflicted, but the one written below it. 

Travel: You will find yourself at a crossroads this year. Pave your own path. 

Ayane waits in anticipation as Kento takes his first bite of the chocolate cupcake. 

She watches as he takes his sweet time licking off the ganache frosting and chewing the sponge indulgently. He doesn’t speak for a good minute. 

“Is it bad?” 

Kento shakes his head, humming to himself and blurting, “No, no, it’s delicious!” 

She releases a breath she hasn’t realized she’d been holding.

She had to apply extra concealer this morning to cover up the dark circles beneath her eyes after staying up late last evening over at Sawako’s house to learn the ropes of how to bake the perfect cupcake. Then spent the rest of the night laying awake and staring up at the ceiling, losing sleep over how she’ll deliver Valentine's Day chocolate to a boy she likes for the very first time.

Kento received it with grace, which for him involved strutting down the halls and proudly announcing to total strangers, “My girlfriend made me a homemade chocolate cupcake today!” 

A smidge of chocolate ganache frosting lingers in the corner of his mouth. Ayane leans in to wipe it with her thumb, making contact with his tongue as it peeks from his symmetrical pink lips to lick it off at the same time. Electricity strikes all the way to her toes. 

“This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had,” He praises, seemingly unfazed by her flushed cheeks. 

Kento scratches behind his neck and the inside of his wrists. She’s glad he’s also just as nervous as her. 

“You’re being too nice,” She mumbles. 

“No, I mean it!” He argues. He’s been slowing down the pace, taking bites evenly and delaying his swallowing. She chalks it up to the heaviness of the cake batter. “What’s in it?” 

“Um, the usual stuff I guess. Flour, chocolate, eggs, sugar, butter, walnuts…” 

“Oh,” Kento blinks. “I’m allergic to walnuts.”  

A beat. 

“What?! ” Ayane shouts in alarm, grabbing hold of his shoulders and shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” 

“I’m sorry!” He sputters, tongue swelling up to twice its size. “It just tasted so good and you look so cute when you’re blushing–”

She only then realizes that he wasn’t fidgeting due to nerves, but because his body was having a full-on allergic reaction. His neck has started to turn pink and the hives on his arms are fully visible now. Panic bubbles up her throat. 

“We have to get you to the infirmary,” She demands. 

Within fifteen minutes, the school nurse is injecting an Epipen into his thigh and his skin has returned to its normal complexion. Kento leans against the headboard of his infirmary bed, humming contentedly as if he didn’t almost endure anaphylactic shock. Ayane pulls up a chair to sit beside him, amazed and slightly envious about how he’s so collected even after all the events that have transpired. The curtain drawn around his bed offers them some semblance of privacy. 

“I’m so sorry,” Ayane apologizes profusely. “I should’ve been more careful and double checked the ingredients with you.”

“That’s alright, you couldn’t have known,” Kento shrugs. A smile spreads on his face. “That just means we’ll have to get to know each other a little better.” 

“How are you feeling?” She nudges a glass of water to him. 

He accepts it from her, taking a sip. “Never better!” 

“How are you so calm about this?” She frowns.

He reaches over his blanket to find her hand on her lap. Their fingers intertwine like it's second nature. 

“It feels good to have you looking after me,” His laugh is featherlight. “I like it when you care for me like this.”

Of course I care about you, idiot. 

But is it enough? 

As their third year ushers in, with it comes the looming presence of dreadful cram school schedules, ambitious college dreams, and future career decisions. 

It’s torture, Ayane thinks, forcing impressionable 18-year-olds to make an ultimate decision that will essentially determine the trajectory of the rest of their lives. 

“Ayane-chan?” Kento asks beside her. 

“Huh?” 

She blinks out of her stupor. The both of them were leaning against the wall of their hallway, the last of their class to be called in individually for Pin’s guidance meeting. One of Ayane’s hands is occupied holding Kento’s. The other clenches onto her career questionnaire: What are your interests? What are your goals? Where do you see yourself in the future?

Ayane decided to go the safe route, jotting down some college in Sapporo that will be more than happy to accept her lackluster academic performance. She can't help but feel like she’s betraying a part of herself, as well as her grandmother. And although she hates to admit it, a part of her mother, too. 

“Are you nervous?” Kento squeezes her palm. “I can go first, if you’d like.” 

“Oh…sure,” She mumbles, fidgeting with her slip of paper. 

Kento lifts their clasped hands to his lips to press a kiss beside her thumb. Her heart starts to fray. 

“Next!” Pin beckons from inside. 

“Be right back,” Kento grins from the sliding door before ducking his head in. 

He’s not wrong. Kento’s meeting only lasts five minutes. 

He emerges from the classroom, groaning, “Pin is no fun!” 

“What did he tell you?” Ayane smirks. 

“He said I need to think about my career goals more seriously,” He puffs his cheeks out indignantly. Ayane raises an eyebrow, snatching his questionnaire to peer at his answers. 

What are your interests? Whatever Ayane is into!

What are your goals? To go to the same college as Ayane!

Where do you see yourself in the future? Doesn’t matter, as long as Ayane is there!

Her stomach lurches and she doesn’t know why. 

For once, a guy is willing to cross seas and move mountains for her.

She should be happy. She is happy. 

“Pin is right, Kento,” Ayane hesitates. “Maybe…maybe you should be more serious about your future.”

Even if it means I won’t be in it. 

Kento looks at her fiercely, with enough faith in his bones to rally armies or bring them to their knees. 

“My future is you, Ayane,” Kento says with unflinching resolve. “And I’m very serious about it.” 

“Yano, you’re next!” Pin calls. 

She’s about to hand him back his questionnaire but he’s already shoving her to the doorway. She quickly stuffs it into her pocket. 

“Go on,” He shoos her. “I’ll be here when you get back.” 

Kento is still waiting for her by the time the meeting ends. 

He always is. 

Next stop, Haryu junior high. Please stand behind the red line and wait for the doors to open. 

The subway car lurches to a stop.

She jolts awake after her head nods off and her neck strains from the whiplash. 

“Oops. Let me readjust myself,” Kento says, shifting in his seat and setting his school bag on the other side. 

Ayane grumbles, opening her eyes and blinking groggily. Her mouth is dry. Her mind is still muddled as she tries to process her surroundings: the tattered fabric of her subway seat, the swaying arm handles above her head, the obnoxiously bright overhead lights, and telephone poles flying past their glass windows. 

“You fell asleep,” Kento explains. “You must be tired from cram school, Ayane-chan.” 

“Oh…”

“Here,” Kento leans in even closer, nudging his shoulder to her. “Rest your head. I’ll wake you up when it’s your stop.” 

Something pleasant flutters in her chest. She obliges, slumping against her seat and nuzzling her cheek onto the broad slope of his shoulder. Her auburn hair tickles the crook of his neck and the cotton of his school cardigan smells vaguely of fresh laundry and department store cologne. She glances down at where their hands are draped lazily over each other on the lap of her pleated skirt. She can feel fatigue start to overtake her again. 

Ayane used to protest against Kento following her home. She was perfectly satisfied with him accompanying her to the train station every day after school, but riding it together would be an inconvenience, considering he took the train going the opposite way since he lived on the other side of town. She tried arguing that it would take him twice as long to return home after he dropped her off, but he cut her off with a swift peck on the lips. (“I don’t mind! It just means I get to spend more time with you!")

“Hey, Kento…” Her finger absentmindedly traces the lines running through his open palm. 

“Hm?” He’s sitting remarkably still next to her, rigid as a statue and fearful to even take a breath, careful not to stir her awake again. She thinks this might hold the record for the longest time he’s ever gone without yapping or gesticulating around her. It’s endearing. 

“Why do you like me?” Her eyelids flutter heavily. 

“For so many reasons,” Kento answers. 

“Such as…?”

Ayane waits for him to continue but he doesn’t.

So he can’t come up with any good reasons as to why he’s dating me, she thinks bitterly. Why would he, anyway? Who would have a good reason to stay with some like her – cruel, dull, and cowardly?

“You’re not gonna tell me what they are?” Her lower lip trembles. 

“I could,” He says. Ayane can feel the muscles of his jaw twitch above her. He’s smiling. “There just wouldn’t be enough time in the world.” 

Oh. 

“Then at least tell me until I fall asleep?” She asks quietly. 

He noses the crown of her head, whispering, “Okay.” 

The sky turns indigo outside. 

“First off, I like how cute you are, Ayane-chan. Not just appearance-wise, but your mannerisms. I like the way your eyes light up whenever Chizu or Sadako are around. Or how you bite your lip in concentration when we study together. I like how awkward and clumsy you can be, no matter how hard you try to hide it. You mumble in your sleep – did you know that? You’re so kind, Ayane. You always save the juiciest fruit in your bento for me…”

Her eyes shut, listening to the melodic sound of his calm voice and savoring his warmth before it seeps away from her. 

By the time he starts complimenting her intellect, she’s already fast asleep. 

18.

What an odd age. 

Ayane doesn’t wake up feeling any different. Her morning routine is the same, her train ride to school is uneventful, and the weather is as gloomy as yesterday. The only contrast between today versus any other day of the week is the way she’s been inundated with texts since morning. She doesn’t have to glance at the screen to check who they’re sent from. 

Kento: GOOD MORNING!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY AYANE-CHAN!!! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

Kento: Aren’t you excited? I am!!! I can’t wait to see you today! ☆(*^o^)乂(^-^*)☆

Kento: Meet me at our bench in the courtyard before the first bell rings! I have a surprise for you! 

Kento: Oops, I kind of spoiled it, haven’t I? ( ⸝⸝⸝> ⌓ <⸝⸝⸝)

She huffs a smirk to herself, shoving her phone back in her cardigan and making quick strides to the courtyard before their morning classes begin. Sure enough, Kento is situated at their usual lunch spot, pacing back and forth beneath the shade of an overarching maple tree. He waves excitedly when he sees her approach, racing over to meet her halfway. 

“Happy birthday, Ayane-chan!” He shouts before he even reaches her. 

“Geez, announce it to the whole school, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just so excited!” Kento thrusts his gift out to her. In his palms is a small, pink box sealed nicely with a silk bow. “Open it!” He’s practically bouncing off the balls of his feet. Any faster and he’ll start to take flight. 

She carefully unwraps the package to peer inside:

Twin silver dangling chain earrings, studded with dainty diamonds and a clover charm at the ends. 

Her breath snags in her throat. 

“Do you like them?” He asks expectantly. “I picked them out specifically for you!”

“Yeah…” She angles the box, watching the jewelry gleam in the sun. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

“Yay! I’m so glad!” 

With each passing day, punctuated by cram school sessions and late nights researching universities in the library, it’s been getting harder and harder to look him in the eyes. Like the rest of their classmates who have been reflecting about their prospective paths, Kento has been spending their lunches chatting nonstop about colleges at Sapporo. He practically drives himself giddy gushing about moving in with Ayane, having dinners together, falling asleep to the rhythm of each other’s heartbeat…

The feeling of dread that’s been pooling in her gut since the start of the final year of high school only grows deeper. Her body has been subconsciously putting up its defenses again through tight-lipped smiles and fleeting touches. Thankfully, Kento hasn’t noticed, but she’s going to have to rip the band-aid off sooner or later. 

(“You’re so kind, Ayane.”)

Is this what you call kindness? Ayane thinks. The fact that she’s been slowly and quietly pulling away from him so that she can spare him the hurt? 

“Hey,” She inhales shakily. “Are you free to hang out with me after classes?” 

“Ayane-chan is inviting me out to spend time with her? I’m honored!” 

The doorbell chimes above their heads, signaling their entrance. 

The jewelry shop owner’s head pops up from behind the counter, “Oh, Ayane! To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Hello,” Ayane bows before motioning toward Kento, eagerly trailing behind her. “This is–”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Kento supplies cheerfully. “My name is Miura Kento. Or you can call me Mr. Yano!”

Ayane has to resist the urge to smack her forehead. 

“I’d like to get two new lobe piercings, please,” She requests. 

“Sounds good. You two make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be right back,” 

Ayane settles in her usual leather stool and readies herself for the needle. After ogling the interior of the shop, Kento pulls up a chair beside her and twirls her copper locks around his finger. On any other day, she would’ve reproached him for sitting too close to her. But when he’s quietly staring at her like this, enraptured like she’s the singular most beautiful girl on earth, she lets him indulge for just a little bit longer. 

“Would you like to hold my hand, Ayane-chan?” Kento offers before the needle pierces through skin. 

“...Sure,” 

The process is quick – an extra hole on the lobe of each ear. As they clean the area, Kento pulls out the earrings he gifted her. 

“Let me,” He whispers. 

He has a surprisingly delicate touch. She turns her head a bit, granting him easier access as he hangs each earring on her lobes. His nose brushes the junction where her jaw meets the hollow of her throat. He can feel her breath catch just as he pulls away, taking the scent of his cologne with him. 

Kento’s hands lower, grasping onto Ayane’s and squeezing them. By now, she has every ridge and callous of his palms memorized. 

“Right now, all I can give you is this pair of earrings,” Kento’s cheeks are dusted pink, but his voice is unwavering. “But one day…I hope it’s a ring that I can put on you, Ayane-chan. If you’ll have me.”

Ayane feels the knot in her stomach twisting a little tighter.

She wishes that he were an awful boyfriend. She’s had shit luck when it comes to romantic partners, and with her stellar track record, each break-up has been smoother than the last. This would’ve been so much easier to handle if he were a bad guy.

Kento is anything but.

Which is why it’s going to hurt like hell when she has to let him go. 

She doesn’t know what she wants anymore. 

“I’m going to check my reflection in the bathroom. Wait here for me?” She’s already slid off the chair and gone by the time Kento nods in confirmation. 

She slams the door behind her and runs to dry heave over the toilet. Her eyes start to well up. Shit . 

Meanwhile, the jewelry shop owner beckons Kento over, a knowing smile on his face. 

“Did you gift her those earrings?”

“Yep! They look nice right?” 

The owner chuckles, amused that one of his stoned-faced regulars is dating such a bubbly personality. “You’re lucky. She must really like you. She doesn’t just get piercings so freely, you know.”

“Really?”

“She told me she only reserves piercings for special occasions in her life,” The older man nods. “You must mean a lot to her.” 

“Does it still sting?” Kento asks on their walk home. 

“No, it’s fine now,” Ayane shrugs. “I’ve gotten so many that it doesn’t really hurt anymore to be honest.”

Leaves crunch beneath their feet, filling the silence. They stroll side-by-side down a slope to an intersection of the street, nearing the corner of her house. Ayane holds her school bag on the same side as where he’s walking again. 

“You have lovely earlobes, Ayane-chan,” He comments out-of-the-blue. She scoffs in reply. “It’s cool how you have so many piercings.” He hesitates for a moment, broaching the topic tentatively. “Do they have any special meanings?”

“Some of them do,” She answers elusively. 

(She’s pulling away from him again. She thinks he doesn’t notice.

He does.)

“What about the ones I gave you?” He tries to keep his voice level. “What do they mean to you?”

“I guess they symbolize…” She ponders for only a brief second before shrugging nonchalantly. “My 18th birthday?” 

Ah, so nothing to do with us. He thinks. Nothing to do with me. 

He stops abruptly in place.

“I love you,” Kento declares to her retreating back. Ayane flinches, noticing how he’s fallen behind. She glances back over her shoulder to where he stands firm with fists clenched at his sides.

“Wh-What?”

“I love you, Ayane,” He repeats.

He steps closer to cradle her heart-shaped face in his hands. His thumbs brush over her pulse point, feeling it race beneath his fingertips. Her earrings dangle in the sun and twinkle like light refracting off a mirrorball. He doesn’t care that he’s choking on half his words, or that he can feel the blood rushing to his ears, or that he could feel his knees about to give in any second now. 

The world could pull to a lurching halt but he simply doesn’t care. He can’t go on without letting her know. “I love you so much. Just the way you are.”

Her eyes widen, pupils dilating so wide that they nearly swallow her irises. 

“Because of my lovely earlobes?” She cracks a smile. 

“Because everything,” He whispers just before leaning in. 

He kisses her, slow and sweet. One hand of his falls over the curve of her spine while the other cradles her cheek. Ayane returns the favor with lips plush, soft, and tasting like cherry lip gloss. Her arms sling loosely over his neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach his height and tug him closer. His lips grow more fervent against her own. He kisses her like he’s fearful of letting go. 

He kisses like he’s begging her to stay. 

Ayane wills herself to dream of Kento. She wants him to be the first thing she thinks about in the morning and the last thing she thinks about before she falls asleep. She convinces herself that if she tries hard enough, it will make her realize that he’s all that she needs. 

I can be happy with him in Sapporo. 

I can be happy with him.

I can be happy.

“Are you holding yourself back, Ayane?” Pin’s words jolt her back to reality. 

She registers that she’s been blanking out and staring down at the same words on her questionnaire since the start of their career meeting. Pin leans back against his chair, pensive as he scrutinizes her for a moment. He shuffles his stack of college brochures, splaying out a select few in front of her, one of which includes Tokyo J University. The bold headline showcasing their study abroad program taunts her from the table. 

“I’m just choosing a school that suits my level,” She fiddles with the hem of her skirt. 

Her grades were subpar. She didn’t participate in any clubs. She’d be lucky if the teacher sitting across from her was generous enough to get off his lazy ass and write her a decent recommendation letter. She knew what she was getting into. 

She can already see it all: she and Kento will move into a shoebox apartment a walking distance away from their college campus. He’ll major in interior design and she’ll study something related to business or science. After a long day of classes, she’ll come home to the sight of him cooking dinner in their quaint little kitchen (because she can’t cook even if her life depended on it). They’ll sit in their kotatsu and play footsies beneath the futon. They’ll cuddle on the couch at night and fall asleep with their limbs intertwined and a movie playing in the background. 

With Kento, she can envision what the future looks like, frame by frame. She didn’t have to live it to know the ending. 

But when she glances down at the Tokyo J pamphlet, she can’t even imagine what the next ten minutes will look like if she moves to the city. 

It kind of thrills her.

“It’s fine to aim a little lower to be safe,” Pin leans in, interlocking his hands over the surface of the desk. “But I can tell you’re limiting yourself, Ayane.” 

His words cut through her like a dagger. 

“Have you ever done anything that made you put forth every bit of effort you had? Your academics, a sport, or…a relationship?”

The knife twists. 

“You’re young,” Pin slides her questionnaire back to her. “You’re at an age where you can still make mistakes and learn from them. Don’t be afraid to take risks.” 

She’s too ashamed to look up, lest he reads through her cowardice.

How the hell is she supposed to pack her bags, move an entire plane flight away, and start her life anew when she can’t even muster up the courage to confront her boyfriend who sits two seats away from her?

When her head hits the pillow that night, she thinks about fluffy blonde waves, sweet hazel eyes, and a laugh that rings clear as a bell. 

But what she dreams of are honking taxi cabs, shoulders bumping in a bustling crosswalk crowd, and rain-slick roads reflecting city lights at night. 

Sometime later during the week, Kazehaya taps her on the shoulder during their English lesson, whispering if she has an extra eraser available that he could borrow. 

She shuffles through her pocket, feeling a piece of crumpled paper and a spare eraser, the latter of which she hands to him.

Later that night, she unfurls the paper and realizes that it is Kento’s career questionnaire that she forgot to return to him following their initial meeting with Pin. Even his handwriting is as animated as him. It makes her smile. 

Where do you see yourself in the future? Doesn’t matter, as long as Ayane is there!

She runs her fingers over the last few words until the graphite starts to smear.

She rolls up his questionnaire and tucks it in the corner of her bedside drawer.

Right next to her Tokyo J University brochure. 

Clouds were starting to roll in. The forecast called for an incoming storm. 

The last time Ayane stood on a rooftop like this, perched over the railing with the breeze blowing through her hair, was almost a year ago at the beach following her class party. She still remembers the salt of the air and distant crashing of waves against sand. 

Kento had bared his soul to her before reading through hers. His half-lidded eyes glazed over her cupid’s bow as he asked why she was so keen on keeping her walls up. (God, the way he looks at her.) She only then realizes that she never gave him a proper explanation as to why. 

The door to the school rooftop creaks open. 

“Ayane-chan, I got your note,” Kento calls, holding up the evidence for good measure. “You wanted to meet?” 

“Yeah,” She doesn’t move from her position over the railing.

She peers down below at the courtyard, bustling with students unwinding during their lunch break. A second-year couple has overtaken their usual bench below the maple tree. She watches them lovingly feed each other a homemade bento, giggling with each fallen grain of rice. 

Kento shuffles over beside her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers. “Are you hungry? We could run down to the cafeteria–” 

“Kento,” She shakily unlatches herself from the railing. “We need to talk.” 

“What’s up?” He grins. His cluelessness only makes this worse. 

Ayane feels the knot in her stomach twisting a little tighter. “I...I really like you, Kento.”

“I really like you too, Ayane-chan,” He laughs at her sudden confession, wrapping his arms around her waist and tugging her close. He stamps a kiss on her temple, her nose, her cheeks. Each one stings. She begs for time to simultaneously slow and speed up. Anything to ease the pain. 

“This…this isn’t an easy decision for me,” She swallows the lump in her throat. 

His joy cracks. He pouts, “What do you mean?”

A small, strangled sound slips from her mouth. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

“Why would you have to?”

“Because I do,” When she raises her head again, her eyes are red-rimmed. “I want to go to Tokyo.” She corrects herself, punctuating her next words. “I’m going to Tokyo.”

Kento looks stricken. Like she just slapped him in the face, and perhaps in some metaphorical sense, she did. His hands fall from her waist.

“What?”

She presses her forehead against his chin for a brief moment, inhaling and exhaling, gathering what little strength she has left before completely shattering his heart. “I’m sorry. You’ve been so supportive and loyal to me all this time and I-I didn’t know how to tell you–”

“Tokyo?” He’s blinking like he can’t believe his ears. 

The words erupt from her like a broken dam and she simply can’t hold back the floodgates. “You say that you like me the way I am, but I’m not a good person, Kento. Ever since I was young, I’ve always been too afraid to take risks or apply myself. I can’t be that girl anymore. I can’t stay here any longer. I won’t grow. I’ll be a coward for the rest of my life.”

She wishes Kento would catch her shoulders. She wants to tuck her head into the lovely crook of his neck and feel his arms squeeze a little too hard around her ribs. But he’s flinching with each puncturing word, as if retroactively bracing for impact. All she can offer him is a slow death.

“Tokyo J University has a really good study abroad program. This could be my chance to finally take a leap of faith and chase a dream that I’ve had ever since I was a little girl. I know I’m being incredibly selfish but I just – I need something for me. Can you understand that?”

Kento won’t meet her eyes. 

“Then I’ll go with you,” He frowns. “I’ll find a university in Tokyo, too, so we can stay together.”

Frustration rises up her chest. She shakes her head adamantly, hands bunching the front of his shirt. 

“Why are you choosing your future according to where I go?” She cries, slamming her fists into his chest as the wind carries her voice away from the roof. “What about your dreams, your passions? Why does it depend on me?” 

“Because I love you,” He answers simply. Like it was the most obvious answer in the world. 

“What if it all goes wrong?” Her lip quivers. “You’ll resent me.”

“That’s impossible,” 

“Kento,” She tries to choke back a sob but it comes out as a pathetic hiccup. “Everyone else is leaving after high school and going their own separate paths. You have to let me do this. You have to let me go. There’s nothing left for me in Kitahoro to stay for.”

He's looking at her like she’s a stranger. 

“You have me,” He says, and Ayane winces. 

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. 

“Please don’t think I’m pushing you away,” She pleads in between unshed tears. “Please don’t be angry at me.”

Kento huffs out half a breath, shakes his head a little. His jaw tenses. He turns to exit the rooftop and the sight of him leaving is almost enough to make her wish she could take it all back. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ayane,” Kento murmurs at the doorway. “I could never be angry at you.”

She almost doesn’t register the sound of the doorbell at first due to the overwhelming clap of thunder rolling outside her window. 

Ayane hastily grabs a jacket and races down the stairs, wondering if her mother came home early from work due to the storm. 

When she opens the door, Kento is standing on the other side. 

He’s still in his school uniform but it’s been soaked to the bone. His blonde waves are a wet mop over his forehead, covering his forehead and eyes, and his clothes cling onto his shivering form. Lightning strikes outside, followed by another torrential downpour. His fists are balled at his sides and his bottom lip is quivering, but she doesn’t think it’s entirely from the cold.

“What the hell?” Ayane exclaims. “Kento, get in, you’re going to catch a cold–”

“Don’t go!” He shouts. The rain is pouring so loud that it almost drowns his voice out. He doesn’t budge from her front porch step.

She wonders how long he’s been standing here before ringing the doorbell. How long he’s been braving the storm to complete this grand romantic gesture, standing before her looking ever so stubborn and handsome, begging her not to walk out of his life.

Something splinters inside of her. Crashes into a thousand brilliant crystals onto the floor. 

“Kento,” Her voice breaks. “Please, just come inside so we can talk about this.”

She has to practically drag him inside by the wrist, ushering him up the staircase and into the bedroom. He plops himself on the edge of her bed, sitting obediently and remarkably stoic as she hurries back with a towel. She stands in between his legs, drying his blonde hair with the towel and watching the color return to his skin. 

“Stay,” He whispers. 

“Kento…” Her palms have made their way to the outline of his face and the ball of her thumb caresses his jaw slowly, soothingly. His arms fall and hang over his knees, his line of sight still down at her feet. He softens under her touch. 

“If you have to choose, then choose me,” He finally looks up at her, with eyes fragile as ruined glass. 

“I’m choosing myself, Kento,” Her entire body wilts like a dying flower. 

Kento pleads with her beneath mile-long lashes.

“I can’t make you stay?” He asks weakly. “I can’t make you change your mind?” 

“I’m sorry,” Ayane wipes away something wet that escapes the corner of his eye. She can’t tell if it’s a tear or a raindrop. 

His lips are chapped and pulled into a tired smile. He leans forward, resting his forehead against her sternum and letting the cold skin in. 

“It’s okay that you didn’t like me at first. I thought I’d be patient and wait until you were ready,” He admits as she cards her hands through the curls at the nape of his neck. “I was confident that I could win you over and that you’d fall in love with me. Little by little.” 

His shoulders begin to tremble again. He looks miserable. He looks like she’s still hurting him.

“You thought about your future before dating me. You dreamed of going to a university in Tokyo. But…did you ever imagine me in it?” 

Selfishly, Ayane decides to spare him one last time. She pulls his face away from her to drink him in and commit everything to memory, her thumbs stroking the lovely angle of his cheekbones, anchored specifically for her. She closes the distance between them, clashing against his frozen lips and letting it set fire to all the bones in her body. 

Kento wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her close and twisting their bodies so she can fall into the bed. A tear falls down her cheek, but she’s too devastated to determine if it came from her or from him. He hovers above her, breathing heavily as she angles her head to press her lips below his ear and whisper repeated apologies, praying that he doesn’t hate her. 

They kiss slow and open-mouthed to the sound of pouring rain. Kento pulls his shirt over his head and Ayane sighs into his hair. 

“Don’t go,” He cries into the hollow of her throat. “Don’t go.”

Sunlight drifts through her curtains, refracting a distant scent of island hibiscus and the echo of waves overlapping sand, stirring her awake. 

When she reaches across the sheets, the other side of the bed is empty. 

She rubs her eyes, noticing a letter folded neatly atop her bedside drawer. 

Ayane-chan,

I am writing this in a hurry because I have to sneak out quickly before your mom catches us together. I don’t want you to get in trouble with her. So I apologize if my handwriting is messy and my feelings do not properly reach you. 

First of all, I love you. I love you, Ayane, so much that it hurts to breathe around you sometimes. I guess now that we’re breaking up, I can finally catch my breath. 

Secondly, never forget how much I liked you. That way, you can like someone just as much. Make sure you like him a lot, even if that guy can’t be me. Make sure you like them so much that it feels like your lungs are malfunctioning. 

I had a lot of time to think last night. 

You looked so peaceful as I held you in my arms. You talked in your sleep. You called a cab over to take you to Shibuya. Even in your dreams, you’re far away from me. 

When I first confessed to you on Christmas Day, I said that I couldn’t bear the fact that you keep walking away from me. But I now realize that I can’t change it, because it’s simply who you are. Ayane, you are the type of person who walks away from whatever is holding them back, and the type to run toward something that will help them take flight. I only wish that I was the one you were running to. 

If you want to go to Tokyo J University, then you should go. I will support you, even if I can’t fully accept it yet. 

I was really happy to be your boyfriend, Ayane. In your own way, thank you for caring about me during our relationship. 

When we see each other at school again, let’s not be awkward around each other. 

– Kento 

Ayane doesn’t even realize she’s been crying until the teardrops splatter onto the paper like a downpour, smearing the ink until the words blur together. 

She is afraid of what she’ll see in the mirror. 

Is it the same, old Ayane that she saw in her own bathroom reflection while brushing her teeth this morning? Will it be herself in ten years – a confident and domineering CEO of her own company? Or a spitting image of her mother, decades past, before her youth was chased away from her?

All her friends had perfectly reasonable dreams for the future, which was also the theme of their last ever school festival. She helped style Sawako’s bangs and lent her a pair of glasses to fulfill her teacher costume. Chizu opted for a colorful bandana and apron to represent her ramen shop owner ambitions. (Which Ayane knew was plan B. Chizu’s plan A was always going to be Ryu.) 

Ayane adjusts her pencil skirt uncomfortably for what feels like the hundredth time in that hour. All of her classmates are crowded around the courtyard, fawning over each others’ outfits. The cluster of familiar faces are dressed up as their future career goals, all so fully realized and self-assured, makes her sick to her stomach. 

While Chizu is making some off-handed comment about Kazehaya’s sports attire, Ayane murmurs, “I’ll be right back,” before shuffling away from the crowd and hurrying back inside the school building to find a bathroom. 

A body blocks her way up the staircase. 

Kento looks equally surprised to see her, brows shrugging and lips slightly parted as she rounds a corner and nearly trips over where he’s sitting on the landing. Hazel eyes roam over her ruffled, pink blouse and the braided knot behind her head. They both still for a moment, petrified like two marble statues facing each other, her chin dipped in slight surprise while his is angled up to peer from his seat at the base of the stairs. 

He awakens first. “Hi,” Kento smiles. 

“...Hey,” She wills herself to speak.

(Did it always hurt this much to look at him?) 

“What are you doing here?” His tall frame nearly swallows the first few steps of the stairs. 

“Getting some air,” She stares down at her ballet flats. “You?” 

“Same as you, I guess,” He shrugs. 

Kento scoots over a bit, leaning against the median of the staircase in a silent invitation for her to take a seat beside him. She considers bolting the other direction to spare herself from the mortification and awkwardness. But when he looks up at her with eyes so unguarded, like the calm after a storm, she can't bring herself to refuse. 

“You look nice,” He comments as she slides herself beside him. Close enough that their shoulders would brush if they both sat up straight. “Businesswoman?” 

“CEO,” She corrects.

He whistles in response, “The world isn’t ready for you, Ayane-chan.” 

“And you’re…” She tries to puzzle together Kento’s outfit, but it just looks like one of the regular shirts and trousers that he used to wear on their dates. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Myself!” He chimes in. “It doesn’t matter what I want to become. I’ll be the same me in the future anyway!”

A snort escapes her lips. “Sounds about right.” 

Her lip curves into a half-smile. His finger twitches beside her, inches away from where her hand rests on the tile floor. 

“Did you…did you pass your entrance exam?” Kento asks delicately.

His Adam's apple bobs slowly, anticipating her response. He’s grateful for the privacy of the staircase where he can quietly admire the way her skin glows with the sun and how she still smells sweetly of her favorite floral perfume. 

“Yeah,” She nods. “I found out yesterday.” 

“Congratulations!” He beams. “I knew you could do it! You studied so hard and it paid off.”

Kento wonders how she reacted and who she decided to tell first. Did she race back home, excited to tell her family? Did she hurriedly go through her contacts list, calling everyone to share the good news? Did she immediately book her train to Tokyo right then and there? 

(If they had still been together, would she have leapt into his arms, laughing so much their ears rang and until their happiness eclipsed everything else in the world?) 

“Thanks,” She says shyly.

She tucks an auburn lock behind her ear. Her piercings glisten like crystals in the sun. He notices that she’s not wearing the dangling diamond earrings that he gifted her. 

“So you’ve made your decision,” It sounds more like a statement than a question. 

“I…” Ayane gulps. “I don’t know.”

She thinks back to her bedroom back home, in all its haphazard and half-empty glory. She took down all her posters last night. The suitcase at the base of her bed is already packed with whatever clothes and make-up she could fit. In a week, all of the hopes and dreams that she collected from the past eighteen years of her life and managed to fit within those four walls will be taken with her on a one-way trip to the city. 

“Why are you hesitating?” Kento frowns. 

He asks her the question she’s been dreading all week.

A one-way trip. 1,200 kilometers. 8 hours by train. 17 hours by car. 

“Because I never take risks,” She huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m too afraid to try anything and fail.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Ayane,” Kento asserts. 

Normally, she would feel small whenever someone called her out on her cowardice. But when she glances back at Kento, it’s paralyzing. His amber eyes spark with enough fury to burn down entire forests. If he always looked at her like this, she’d never look away.

“You took a chance on me,” He says. “You took a chance on love.”

It feels like being pushed off a cliffside. 

Ayane abandons her search for a bathroom. 

She doesn’t need a mirror. 

When she looks at her reflection in Kento’s eyes, she thinks she knows exactly who’s staring back at her. 

The confetti suspends ever so slowly, even when nobody is watching. 

Ayane steals a moment to take it all in, standing in the eye of the hurricane, letting the dazzling colors of blue, white, pink, and gold fall around her and nestle in between the tufts of her hair like a halo. Her classmates leap from their chairs and cheer in elation. Others are already racing outside to the courtyard to reunite with their families and pose for graduation pictures in the foreground of budding sakura blossoms. The gym echoes with joyous applause and bittersweet laughter. 

This was the grand finale – a culmination of every precious and irreplaceable memory of her tumultuous teenage life.

Three years of high school. 

Blink and it’s over. 

Chizu and Sawako hold her hands through the flurry. Snot is pouring down Chizu’s nose and Sawako is sniffing so hard that it turns her nose pink, but Ayane doesn’t have the heart to tease them. Not when she can feel her own eyes glisten and throat start to close up.

“Thank you for everything,” She manages to utter, squeezing their palms. 

Four little words are not enough to encompass how grateful she is. They’ll never be enough. 

She’ll miss pinching their cheeks or teasing them relentlessly until they blushed to the roots of their hair, and the knowing smiles shared in silence during their late night talks in Sawako’s bedroom. She’ll miss waking up in the middle of the night because Chizu called to recite a weird dream she just had, urging Ayane to remember it for her in case she went back to sleep and forgets it (she always does). She’ll miss borrowing each others’ gym clothes, wordlessly handing over hair ties, scribbling notes during class, and doubling over with laughter so uncontrollable that it would make her belly hurt. 

She’ll miss being girls together. 

“G-Good luck, Yano-chin!” Chizu blubbers. 

Sawako nods, bidding her goodbye. “Call us when you get to Tokyo!”

“I will,” Ayane vows. “I promise.” 

The three of them fall into each other's arms, collapsing like dying stars, tear-soaked and radiant. 

Chapter Text

It was unusual for the snow to last this late in March. 

Ayane lets it crunch beneath her feet as her suitcase rolls behind her. Does it ever snow this hard in Tokyo?

She passes by all the landmarks in her small town on the way to the train station, each step making it harder to leave. Some of the local vendors and next-door neighbors wave goodbye to her, bidding her farewell and good luck on her university journey. She lingers a moment too long in front of the jewelry shop. Ayane already said goodbye to her mother in the morning after she finished packing. She received a stoic “safe travels” in return, which in hindsight, was more than she was ever expecting. 

She waits on the platform, counting the plumes of frost that escape from her lips and gripping the handle of her suitcase tighter with each passing second. The nerves start to take over so she opts to buy herself a bottle of tea from the vending machine in hopes of quelling her deafening heartbeat. 

“Darn! Hey, excuse me, do you happen to have any extra change–” The person in front of her mopes before turning around so she is met with a familiar pair of hazels. “Oh, Ayane-chan!” 

“Kento,” Ayane blinks in surprise.

Similarly, he’s also bundled up in a knit scarf and thick jacket. His blonde curls are tucked snugly beneath a wool earflap cap, the thick pom pom strings dangling beside each curve of his cheshire smile. Some snowflakes hang on the slope of his long lashes. She has to resist the urge to brush them off. 

“We can’t seem to stop running into each other,” His grin is mile-wide. “It must be fate.”

She narrows her eyes. “Are you following me?” 

“I promise I’m not stalking you,” Kento waves his hands frantically, tone endearingly incessant. “I’m actually headed out, too.” He points to his own suitcase, leaning behind him against the benches. “Well, as soon as I get a drink for the road.” 

Ayane shrugs, muttering, “I owe you one anyway,” before purchasing a canned coffee for him and a green tea for her. 

Kento wipes a pile of snow off the bench and the two of them settle beside each other, luggage in tow and anticipation high. The snow starts to fall again, slower than the confetti back during their graduation ceremony, almost as if earth’s orbit was stalling into a stop. Ayane reaches out with her hand, watching it descend and melt into the creases of her palm. 

“You’re still going to Sapporo?” She asks. 

“Yep,” Kento pops open his can, taking a sip. “My older sister lives in the city, so she’ll be helping me move into my dorm.”

“That’s nice,” 

“Mhm,” 

Kento had it all figured out. Even before he pulled his little stunt with the career questionnaire, Kento knew that he was going to study interior design. His entire face beamed whenever he got talking about antique furniture or architectural design. His room looked like it belonged in an IKEA showcase. 

The boarding ticket inside Ayane’s coat pocket weighs heavy as a brick.

While Kento’s dream was already whole, her’s was only halfway formed. She still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her career. (She bubbled in ‘psychology’ for her major – just like everyone else who knew they wanted to study something interesting but was too prideful to choose ‘undeclared’.) When she shuts her eyes tight and tries to imagine what her life will look like in the next ten years, all that confronts her is opaqueness, as if looking through a fish bowl and seeing nothing solid or coherent. 

What does that make her? 

Hopeless?

Dread rises up her chest. In and out, she tells herself, but each erratic rise and fall of her shuddering breath only grows more rapid. Control is slipping away from her, sucked away like the heat, until all that’s left is a shell of shivering skin and bones. 

“What about you?” Kento turns to ask in anticipation, but his expression falls at the sight of her trembling hands. Her bottle of tea slips from her grip and he catches it without fail. 

She doesn’t even register the tears until the salt hits her tongue. 

“I–” She wipes furiously at her eyes. “God, sorry, I don’t even know why I’m crying.” 

“Ayane–”

“I don’t know why I’m so scared,” She buries herself beneath the shield of her scarf. “I’m here . I want this. I’ve wanted this for so long.” 

She’s been holding onto the Tokyo J university brochure since her second year. The New Year’s Eve fortune from the shrine was pinned above her bed as a reminder that she deserved to chase after whatever she wanted. She’s been dreaming of the city lights, tempting like flickering fireflies diving between blades of grass, ever since that last summer night she shared with her grandmother. 

Ayane realizes then that her problem wasn’t picturing the city. 

It was picturing herself in it. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” She springs from her seat, reaching for her suitcase and backtracking in a panic like a derailing train. “Maybe I was getting too ahead of myself. Maybe–maybe this was all a mistake–” 

“Why are you doubting yourself?” His voice falls on deaf ears. 

“Because look at us! ” Ayane protests, throwing her hands up and letting every ugly feeling of fear and defeat and self-loathing inside of her burst in an uninhibited, shrill cry. “We gave it a go and look how we turned out.” 

She expects Kento to frown up at her. Maybe even flinch, as if an instinctive reaction to the needle prick of her words, because at this point all she does is hurt him anyways. Any normal human being would be affronted by her outburst, especially a jilted ex who has just been told that their recent relationship was a failure. 

But a snicker escapes between Kento’s teeth. It crescendos into full-on laughter. 

“Yeah, look at us!” Kento leaps from the bench as well, hands on his hips and grinning down at Ayane. “A couple of screw-ups.” 

His smile beams like the sun. The world starts to spin again. 

(Infuriating, lovable idiot.)

It takes a moment for her to thaw. Each muscle gradually relaxes and she can feel the air returning to her lungs. She feels apologetic. Embarrassed. 

“You always know what to say,” She sniffs. 

“One of my many redeeming qualities,” He poses with that awful signature hand gesture beneath his chin. It’s grown on her. 

“I’m sorry. I…I was awful to you,” She admits. Sometimes I think I still am. 

“That’s not how I remember it,” Kento shakes his head, expression softening. “You’re one of the best parts of my last three years.” 

His hands reach out to unglue some of the hair sticking to her wet cheeks and stroke it away from her scarf. His smile is gentle but his eyes are filled with an unspoken sadness that causes something inside of her to crumple.

“Did you ever regret dating me, Ayane?” He whispers. 

She answers before the last syllable even leaves his lips. 

“Never,” She says truthfully. “Not once.” 

The train on platform 2, bound for Tokyo, will be departing soon. Please watch your step!

A whistle sounds in the distance. Kento’s gaze darts from the distant train back to Ayane, his Adam’s apple bobbing thickly. His hands lower until they grip onto her shoulders, squeezing them tight. 

“Ayane,” Kento says, unshakable. “You’re going to Tokyo.”

“Kento–”

“No, Ayane, listen to me,” Kento declares, nose just inches away from bumping into her own. He smells like freshly packed snow, warm cotton, and ground coffee beans. It’s dizzying. “You’re going to Tokyo. You’re going to the city, and you’re going to make a wonderful, amazing life for yourself.” 

“What if I love Tokyo? What if I never want to leave?” She fists the hem of her coat, willing her chin to quit trembling again.

“Don’t be afraid to love it,” His thumb soothes the pinch between her eyebrows.

For a moment, she thinks he might lean in and press his lips against her forehead, but he breaks away reluctantly instead. 

“You deserve the world, Ayane. And if your world is in Tokyo, then you have to go.”

Ayane is grateful for the thunder of the train’s engine and the shrill whistle announcing its presence, which blocks out the choked sob that escapes her lips. 

Last call for the train to Tokyo! Please step back as the doors close. 

Kento helps roll her suitcase off the platform. She lingers behind the train doors, one leap away from her future. The crack between the platform and the train floor feels like a canyon separating her from everything she’s ever known and everything she has yet to learn. When she navigates to her seat and glances out the glass to where Kento stands, with his hands stuffed in his pockets and smile inexplicably tender, she understands why people dive from the skies. 

Kento memorizes the entire map of Ayane’s face under the suspending snow. There’s a faraway look in her eyes. 

She’s already 1,200 kilometers away.

The train lurches forward, sending her to the great unknown. 

Kento waves, and as the engine gathers momentum, he breaks out into a run. 

He runs and he runs, flying across the platform and chasing after the train like a bullet, smile breaking through the snow and never tearing his eyes from her window. She can almost hear him calling out to her. Ayane, Ayane. 

Everything blurs. She’s not sure if it’s from her tears or the racing railway. 

He disappears after the train speeds through a dark tunnel. 

Tokyo waits for her. 

She loves the city. (Shocker.) 

The entire train ride there, Ayane worries that she’s been overestimating its merits and talking it up too much, and perhaps Tokyo will be nothing but an overblown nightmare. 

And in truth, some parts of it are: the relentless shoulder bumps from stone-faced office workers, the morning subway crowd packed like sardines, the risk of being flattened at a crosswalk by a speeding cab, the tourists that boast a remarkable lack of awareness. But she loves all of those parts just the same. 

There’s so much of the city that she can’t get back home. She’s explored more cuisines in a single block of Toshima than the entirety of Hokkaido. It takes her nearly a week to memorize the metro station and its intricate web of subway stops. The saturation of digital billboards and light-up signs have exposed her to hues on the color wheel that she didn’t even know existed. Even the metropolitan air is different. People either live like it’s their last day on earth or like the day will never end. 

She grows accustomed to her routine of attending classes, studying back in her room, and hanging out with friends late into the night – a semblance of peace in the middle of a bustling, urban life. She befriends some girls down her dormitory hall. Time seems to fly by faster in the city, punctuated by midterms, club meetings, house parties, and all-nighters. 

In Tokyo, she’s reborn. 

So when her friends invite her out to a group date at a karaoke bar and the friendly brown eyes of the physics major with short, black hair and deep dimples linger on her for a bit too long in the middle of her poor rendition of a heartbreak ballad, she no longer shies away. She jumps all in, and as she falls, she sheds the cowardly Ayane of her past on the way down. 

Within her first year at Tokyo J university, Ayane has a new boyfriend, new friends, new home, and a new life. 

She doesn’t forget Kitahoro. 

A framed photo of her class during their graduation sits on her bedroom drawer. It candidly captures a moment in time, of uncertainty and doubt and purposeless ambition. She doesn’t recognize herself in the picture – the Ayane that still had some baby fat in her cheeks and a haircut that barely brushed the curve of her shoulders. 

(Her new boyfriend likes her hair long.)

Chizu and Sawako visit from time-to-time whenever they can, but their schedules are also packed with Sawako balancing her student teaching internships and Chizu trailing Ryu across the country for his university baseball tournaments. So when they do happen to finally visit the apartment she rents out with her boyfriend between the summer of her first and second year, it feels like she’s been transported back to the past, to an era of flip phone charms and homemade chocolates. 

They think her boyfriend is nice. And that her apartment is just right. 

It feels as if nothing has changed, even though everything has. Sawako wears glasses now – chic cherry red frames that Ayane helped her pick over a phone call – due to all the nights she spends staying up to grade papers. Kazehaya takes the train up to her university during the holidays, but Sawako doesn’t divulge much beyond that before her words start to stutter and her cheeks bloom red. Not only has Chizu’s height grown (a full inch, to Ayane’s horror), but so has her love of anything feminine. Ayane sends her a couple care packages a year, bundled with extra make-up samples or trendy fashion items that can’t be found back in the suburbs. 

“Ryu likes you in miniskirts?” Ayane smirks behind the rim of her Asahi. 

Chizu flushes. “He likes me in anything.” 

They sit criss-crossed at Ayane’s little coffee table in the living room, falling back into their friendship with ease between the exchange of college stories, slurps of ramen made from scratch, and the aftertaste of lukewarm beer. (Chizu offered to cook them dinner, proudly showcasing the tonkotsu ramen recipe that she’s perfected ever since she’s been working under Ryu’s father. Ayane can feel her eyes sting as soon as the broth hits her tongue.

It tastes like home.)

“Do you like it here, Ayane-chan?” Sawako asks. Her skin seems even paler than the moon shining outside her apartment balcony, bright and full. 

“Of course,” Ayane shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“It’s just that…well,” Sawako chews on her bottom lip, exchanging a quick glance with Chizu before staring down at the hands bunched in her lap. “Tokyo is such a big place with so many people. Doesn’t it ever overwhelm you?” 

“Sometimes,” She confesses, absentmindedly stirring what’s left of the remaining soup in her bowl. “But it can be nice. The city is so big, it makes everyone else’s problems seem so little in perspective.” 

Ayane swallows down the lump in her throat. The blades of the living room fan whir behind her, blowing thick and humid air through her hair that has grown down to her shoulder blades. (It’s the first thing Sawako pointed out when Ayane opened the door for them.) Even in the quiet of her apartment, the peace is punctured by the occasional punch of laughter and distant honking of cars in the streets below. 

“I’m happy here,” She insists. “I really am.”

Like they’re fifteen again, Chizu’s hand sneaks under the table to squeeze her palm. 

“Good,” Chizu smiles. 

“Do you ever get homesick?” 

Ayane stirs in the dark. A hand clutches the front of her boyfriend’s shirt, the other rests just above his hip bone, hiding beneath the sheets. His voice is rough with sleep. It echoes where his lips are, positioned just above where his chin rests on the crown of her head. His fingers softly run through the auburn locks splayed across her pillow, nails running smooth down the slope of her neck, skin on skin. 

“No,” She mumbles. Surrenders to the heaviness of eyelids. 

“Hm,” 

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” He grunts. Even with her eyes closed, she can feel him watching her in the quiet of their bedroom. Each word rumbles from his chest, cautious and caged. “You never really talk about it. Your hometown, back in Hokkaido.” 

“There’s not much to talk about,” 

“Well, sure. If you say so,”

“I mean it,” She grumbles awake now, staring straight into the fabric of his cotton shirt. “There’s only one 7-Eleven in my entire neighborhood, two if you count the next town over. We only had three homeroom classes in my high school grade. One train station. There’s nothing back home.” 

“But you miss it,” He says. 

“I–”

“You don’t talk to me about it. But you talk in your sleep, Ayane,” He says, breath fanning over her forehead. “You talk about going to the shrine. You talk about ramen. And your friends. And getting a new piercing.”

Ayane doesn’t respond. She prays that if she stays quiet long enough, it will seem like she’s fallen asleep, and he’ll drop the subject. But then his hands lower to the crest of her right ear and her breath hitches at the warmth tracing her diamond studs and silver loops. 

“Your earrings…do they mean anything?” 

“No,” She lies between her teeth. 

Even beneath the blanket and her boyfriend’s arm draped over her waist, it feels cold. Ayane buries herself deeper in the sheets, hoping it swallows her whole. 

“It’s like…even when you’re here, sleeping in my arms,” He whispers. “You’re dreaming of somewhere else entirely. You’re in a world that I can’t reach.”  

Ayane: Hi Sawako. Are you busy?  

Sawako: Hello Ayane! I apologize, I’m in the middle of a teaching seminar! I can text you back in a bit. 

Sawako: Did you need something?

Ayane: No, it’s fine. I’ll text you later. 

Ayane stares blankly at the glare of her phone screen. 

The salaryman sitting beside her manspreads even farther and the elderly lady to her left hacks up a wet cough for what feels like the tenth time during her entire subway ride home. A couple high school kids accidentally trip over her toes when they rush over to doors, but she’s too exhausted to mutter a simple, “sorry”. She eyes them giggling together – probably just released from classes and headed home judging by the slight skew in their pleated skirts and loosened bows around their necks – as they huddle over a gossip magazine. 

The sight of it makes her stomach twist. 

One thing she underestimated about the city was how lonely it was. 

She loved it at first. In fact, she thought the sonder of it all was romantic. She relished in the fact that she was starting anew, where not a single soul knew who she was nor cared. She could easily disappear in a crowded crosswalk or packed club dance floor, lost in a sea of so many unfamiliar faces, and emerge from the other end unscathed without a single eye batting her way. 

But as time passed, it hardened her to perhaps the harshest reality she’s had to learn since coming to Tokyo. In a city of over 14 million people, her existence was so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that it seemed nothing she did mattered. Things grew rote and monochromatic. A dullness permeates and settles lazily over her days like a bed of fog. What she looked forward to the most these days was her head hitting the pillow at the end of the night. 

She trudges all the way home and hesitates in front of her apartment building. Instead of entering, she sinks to sit on the front landing, staring out into the emptiness of her empty neighborhood alleyway. 

The night chill blows through her skin. Sitting there alone, the cool asphalt beneath her thighs and a heavy weight in her chest, feels like Okinawa all over again. 

Instead of the aroma of island honeysuckle or the distant crashing of waves, she’s comforted by lingering plumes of cigarette smoke and the echo of television static in the apartments above. A stray tabby scampers past, hissing at her. 

She unlocks her phone, scrolling through her contacts list with controlled, measured swipes before holding it up to her ear. 

You’ve reached Chizu! Sorry for missing your call. Leave me a message or tell a funny joke after the tone!

It was a futile effort. She knew that Chizu was somewhere in Miyagi right now, cheering on Ryu during the semi-finals of his college baseball tournament. 

Her friends were moving on, and she’s still stuck sitting on the same concrete steps. 

All you have in this world is yourself, Ayane, she begrudges resentfully. 

A thumb hastily scrolls through the list as her eyes start to sting, blurring the rest of the contacts. It lands on a name she hasn’t spoken aloud since the end of high school. She sucks in a sharp breath, holding it in her lungs until her head starts to spin. 

In a miraculous feat of stupidity or fate, she presses on his name. 

One ring. Two. Three. 

He picks up on the fourth. His voice sounds the same as always. Merry and ringing clear as a bell. 

“Hello?”

She hangs up. 

She splits with her boyfriend a month later. 

It was bound to happen anyway. 

He was going to study physics abroad in Canada during his third year, and he planned on staying overseas afterwards to find a job. 

Ayane never fit into his equation. 

The break-up is perfectly amicable. She helps him move out of their apartment, packing the rest of his belongings into a suitcase and various cardboard boxes. There isn’t much sentimentality to spare save for the few polaroid pictures or matching keychains that they gifted each other from past dates. 

Before he leaves, he tosses something on their dinner table. A brochure.

Tokyo J Study Abroad Program: Explore the world while also earning college credits! Countries include: Brazil, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, & United States. Flight, lodging, and meals are included.

“Wherever it is that you go to in your dreams,” There’s a knowing smile on his face as he balances the stack of boxes in his arms. “I hope you arrive there soon, Ayane.” 

She doesn’t know what compels her. 

Maybe it was the pervasive loneliness of coming home to an empty apartment. Maybe it was Kazehaya’s recent Instagram update – a photo of adjoined hands overlooking the riverbed that ran toward their old high school. Maybe it was the fact that it was her 21st birthday, and she was spending it huddled in her kitchen, enduring the wrath of her mother’s poison. 

“Ayane? Ayane – are you still there?” Her mother barks through her phone. 

She lies against the surface of the fridge door, letting its slow rumble run down her spine. The tiles are cool beneath her feet. The remaining color of the sunset drifts through her blinds, painting the interior of her kitchen in rectangular beams of light. She’s resorted to watching the dust dance through the air. 

(She’s tired. So, so tired.) 

“Yes,” She croaks. 

“Good,” Her mother huffs at the other end of the line. “I heard you broke up with another boyfriend already. You’re only in your third year of college. How many have you dumped already – four? Five? Don’t you have any shame?” 

Her fists clench, unclench. 

“This is what happens when you go to the city,” She continues. “Your ego gets too inflated. You start thinking you can do whatever you want without any consequences.”

“Yes, mother,” Ayane drones. 

“People – men – are going to expect too much of you now. All you’ll do is disappoint them,” 

“Yes, mother,” Heat rises up her chest. 

“You should’ve listened to my advice, Ayane,” Her mother tsks. 

An angry bubble bursts in her throat. Years of suppressed resentment that had been stewing inside of her with nowhere to go erupts from her mouth, each word more serrated and deliberate than the next. 

“What, so I don’t end up like you?” Ayane snaps. 

Her mother sputters at the other end of the line. “How dare–” 

“Goodbye, mother,” She says sharply before hanging up. 

It’s then, drunk off spite and loneliness, that she decides to call him. 

(Because he always knows what to say.) 

“Hello? Ayane-chan?” 

She could almost cry with relief. It feels like an eternity since they last spoke. And yet to hear him say her name, called out so softly and safe from his mouth, feels as if no time has passed at all. Has the sound changed since they last parted ways on that train platform three years ago? 

“Kento…” She sags against the crisp chill of the fridge door. Her shoulders immediately deflate, as if the very timbre of his voice unraveled every taut fiber of muscle that had been previously coiled. “You picked up.”

“You called,” He says matter-of-factly. But not curt. He sounds just as surprised to hear her. 

She wonders what he looks like now. If like her, he’s let his hair grow out since high school, falling into long waves of gold and soft as corn husks. If the groove in the corner of his eyes has deepened each time he smiles and the dimples above his cheeks crease.

“I’m sorry,” She blurts. 

“Whatever for?” 

“I just…” She runs a hand over her face. “I’m sorry if I caught you in the middle of something. You’re probably busy–”

“I’m not,” He interjects. “Ayane, why did you call?” 

She releases a slow, shuddering breath. Counts backwards from ten. “Did I…did I ever disappoint you?” 

“No,” She can almost hear him shaking his head at the other end of the line. “Why would you think that?” 

“I don’t know,” Ayane releases half a hiccupy, hopeless laugh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Ayane,” He speaks carefully. “I haven’t heard from you in three years.” 

Time doesn’t heal her wounds. They reopen, raw and tender. 

“I–I know…” 

“What is it that you want from me?” 

Too much. 

“I guess I just wanted to hear your voice,” She pulls her knees up to her chest. 

The other end of the line falls silent. She’s worried he may have hung up, and considers clicking it dead herself, wallowing in shame. But then he speaks up again and her heart whirs back to life. 

“What do you want me to talk about?” He asks gently. 

“Anything. Everything,” She says. “Tell me everything that I’ve missed these last three years.” 

He chuckles. Everything instantly feels lighter. “How much time do you have?”

They talk until the stars go black. 

They talk through Ayane brushing her teeth and Kento washing his dishes, their voices blending with the domestic clanging and rustling of navigating through their respective evening household routines. If they strained their ears hard enough, she could hear the rustle of his clothes as he changed into his pajamas and he could hear her sink into her bed and burrow beneath the sheets. 

When he asks, she tells him everything – about her overbearing mother, her apartment in Tokyo, and her loneliness. He’s waited long enough, ever since that night on the beach after their class party. He listens with abundant patience, intermittently signaling his presence with a hum or quiet question, the sound muffled between her ear and the pillow. 

He tells her about how he’s still studying interior design. About the summers in Sapporo, his boring professors, and his part-time job at a frozen yogurt shop.  

Time may have pried open old wounds but Kento’s voice is a calming balm that soothes the ache. 

“Ayane? Are you asleep? 

“Huh?” She murmurs, blinking her eyes open to the smoothness of her ceiling. “Oh. Almost.”

She feels guilty for letting him ramble for so long while only half-listening. The hand holding her phone has gone numb, but she doesn’t want to roll over. 

“Sorry, I should let you go,” He suggests. She was yawning. He had to repeat his last question. 

“No,” Ayane protests weakly, the heaviness of her eyelids betraying her. “I want to keep hearing your voice.” 

“Okay,” She can almost hear him smiling. “I’ll talk until you fall asleep.” 

(Ayane nodding off on his shoulder. Kento pressing his lips to the crown of her hair. The sway of the train car taking her home. Kento cataloguing everything he liked about her.) 

He sounded like he was moving, maybe sitting up. 

“Ayane, you know you can talk to me if you need anything right?” Kento says. “I’m here for you. Always. I don’t…” He blows out a breath. “I kinda hate how it took us this long to reach out to each other.” 

“I know. I wish I called sooner,” She almost admits that she did, that one night that she abruptly hung up on him a couple weeks ago, but it’s too far into the night and her bones are barely holding her up. 

“You’ll call me?” Kento hums into the phone. 

“I will,” 

“Oh, and Ayane?” 

“Mm…?”

“Happy birthday,” 

Their voices find each other, three years overdue and thousands of miles apart, but under the same sky.

He calls her when she’s boarding the shuttle to class, enthusiastically yammering through her the wired earbuds as she settles into her usual window seat and tries to stifle her giggles behind the lapels of her coat. (“...And then my professor called on me in front of the whole lecture hall, right as I was mid-snore.” “How rude of him for interrupting your beauty sleep.” “Right?! That’s what I said!”)

She calls him while he cooks dinner and leaves her on speaker phone, using her weekly catch-up narrations as a podcast in the foreground of blanching vegetables and oil popping in a pan. (“What’s on the menu today?” “Yakisoba,” “Smells delicious,” “You can smell through the phone?” “Of course.” “Your talents never cease to amaze me, Ayane-chan.”)

He calls her during his morning walks to the gym, she calls him during her touch-ups at the salon. 

He lulls her to sleep, when the moon is waxing beyond her bedroom window and the hand of her clock ticks midnight. She presses her phone against her cheek, letting the pleasant rumble of his half-asleep murmurs run down the pulse on her neck like music notes on a staff. 

When she teeters on the edge of consciousness and her dreams, she imagines the sentience of his voice. It envelopes her, lazily and content, like an arm draped over her hip and lips coating over the helix of her ear, whispering for her to sleep, that their day has been long, that he’ll put the coffee on tomorrow. 

(“Ayane? Am I losing you?” “No. I’m right here.”)

Like a fresh spring breeze, his voice carries her into the sweetness of summer, and then into the incoming draft of autumn’s chill. 

Ayane flips through the travel guide on her lap, pausing on a page depicting a museum with spiral ramps, tiered walls, and a domed skylight. It instantly draws her attention. 

She scribbles the name of the building down in her notebook (Guggenheim Museum) below the growing list of tourist spots she intended on visiting during her stay in New York: the MET, Strand Book Store, Chelsea Market, the ferry to Coney Island…

Beside her, a toddler excitedly slams his chubby fingers against the glass. A parent scoops them up in their arms, letting the child squeal and gurgle at the sight of planes taking off on the airstrip. Despite the roar of jet engines and intermittent announcements reverberating throughout the terminal, some passengers are snoring soundly in the seats across from her. Others wait patiently around the perimeter of their gate with their heads buried in a book or scrolling through their phones. 

Ayane toys with the brochure in her hands, fingers tracing over the bold red text: Tokyo J Study Abroad Program. She’s fidgeted with it for so long now that the corners have frayed. 

In 14 hours, she was going to be surrounded by city lights again, but across a different ocean. 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She knows who it is before even picking up. 

“Hello?”

“Hey!” Kento exclaims. “Have you boarded yet?” 

She glances down at her watch. “We’re about to. My flight’s in half an hour. If it’s not delayed.”

“Are you ready?” His breathing is slightly uneven. It was 9 in the morning – he should be walking to his first class. (They had each other’s class schedules memorized within their first month of talking.) 

“Yeah. I’ve got a whole list of attractions I want to visit,” 

“What are you most excited to see?”

“The snow,” 

“The snow?” He snorts. “Not the Statue of Liberty? Or Times Square?”

“I want to know if the snow there is any different from here,” She leans against her chair, peering out the window. A shiny, Herculean plane rolls up the concourse. “I loved the snow in Kitahoro. It was so fluffy and white and easy to pack. Tokyo’s snow was different – wet and melting before it even touched the ground. I wonder what the snow in New York will be like.” 

“You’re blowing my mind. And here I thought all snow was the same,”

Something chirps on his end. He must be at a crosswalk.

“What’s the name of the American university you’re attending again?”

She answers before while balancing her phone between her cheek and her shoulder as she stuffs the rest of her items into her carry-on. “They’ve got a really good counseling program.”

“Is that what you’ve settled on?”

“Yeah. Maybe corporate or private practice,” She picks at her chipped nail polish, pondering for a moment. “I’m glad I stuck it out with psychology. It’s helped me learn a lot about myself, relationships, and my ambitions.” 

“That sounds just like you, Ayane,” He makes an approving sound. “Always looking out for others. Moving from one big metropolitan area to the next. A real city girl.” 

“Yeah…” 

Good morning passengers. This is the announcement for flight 23B to New York City. Please have your boarding pass and identification ready. Regular boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes. Thank you.

The people around her stir awake, briskly grabbing their luggage and forming a misshapen queue at the gate. Ayane reaches for the handle of her suitcase but her feet are planted on the carpet. She doesn’t want to hang up yet. 

“What’s on your mind?”

“Huh?”

“I can tell when something’s bothering you, Ayane,” Half of it sounds cheeky. The other half sounds concerned. “What is it?” 

Ayane bites the inside of her cheek. The line grows longer. 

“Am I running again?” She sighs. “I mean, I loved it in Tokyo. And I still do…but now I’m moving away to a whole other continent. It just feels like I’m running again, right as things get good.” 

The rhythm of his footsteps pause on the other side of the phone. 

“Ayane,” Kento rationalizes. “Running doesn’t just go in one direction.” 

She nods into her phone, as if understanding what he’s saying. 

“The way I see it, running goes two ways. Away or toward,” He explains. “You’re not running away from your dreams, Ayane. You’re running toward them. Chase them. Don’t let them slip away.” 

The words peel her like fruit. 

This is the final boarding call for passengers booked on flight 23B to New York City. Please proceed to gate 5 immediately.

“You’re more wise than you look,” Ayane takes one last look at the Tokyo skyline. 

“I always have been! It just gets overshadowed by my good looks,”

“I gotta go,” She makes her way to the end of the line. 

“Okay,” He hurries through his last message, sensing her urgency. “Listen, with the time difference and all, I understand if you can’t–” 

“Call me,” She says. 

“Ayane,” 

“Call me before you think I’ve landed,” 

He laughs. She wants to bottle up the sound and take it with her on the carry-on all the way to New York. 

The first thing she does when she arrives on American soil is leave Kento a voicemail. 

The second thing she does is head to the nearest tattoo & piercing shop by her campus. A girl her age with a sleeve of bright and bold flowers blooming down her arm helps pierce a golden hoop through the conch of her left ear. It’s one of the most painful ones she’s gotten so far and is still tender to the touch a day later, but she breaks into a grin each time she catches it peeking from her reflection. 

“Quite a ballsy move to pierce it here,” The employee praises. “What’s the special occasion?” 

To being bold. To doing things scared. 

To diving in with eyes closed. 

New York is exactly how she pictures it to be. 

Charming, messy, and alive. Everything in Tokyo paled in comparison. New York City was a living organism that she nested in, riding the bloodstream of its subway and arriving at the beating heart of Grand Central Station. 

She meets her roommate, an effortlessly chic fashion design major from France, and settles into the dorm with little fanfare. The picture frame of her high school graduation photo sits on the surface of her headboard. The walls do little to block the cacophony of noises that penetrate its walls – blasting sirens, honking cabs, warbling street musicians, and hollering street vendors. 

During her first weekend, she indulges in her first bacon, egg, and cheese bagel and strolls to the Museum of Modern Art. As she peruses through its pristine hardwood floors and modernist displays, one piece of art captures her attention in particular: a painting of mellow tempera strokes depicting a woman in a pink dress, torso twisted at an incline in the middle of a barren field, gazing at a distance farmhouse. 

She squints at its description: Christina's World (1948) by Andrew Wyeth. An illustration of longing, isolation, and how the human spirit champions against adversity. 

She sits on a bench, gaze glued to the painting, and waits. 

“Which should I choose? Scarecrow or gladiator?”

“I dunno. Whichever you like more,” Ayane folds the rest of her freshly laundered shirts in a pile, stuffing them in a drawer as Kento’s groan resonates on speaker phone throughout her dorm room. 

“C’mon, Ayane! The Halloween party is this weekend and I can’t decide!” 

“Okay, okay. Then…scarecrow,” She picks randomly. 

“Mm, that’s what my girlfriend said too. She thinks my blonde hair will look more natural in that costume,” Kento agrees. 

Girlfriend. 

My girlfriend. 

It slips out of his mouth so naturally that she gets whiplash. She blinks into the wall, feeling like someone just punched her between the eyes. 

He casually drops the bomb like a habitual greeting (“Hey, how was your day, by the way, I have a girlfriend”) and Ayane racks her brain to remember if he ever mentioned her before and she had strategically blocked it out in self-defense.

Her jaw tenses, locked with equal parts indignation and sympathy at the idea that he was keeping this information from her. She shouldn’t feel entitled. It was his life, after all. A life that he somehow neglected to inform her about.

“Y-Yeah,” She stutters quickly, hoping the silent pause she took didn’t start to reach suspicious territory. “Besides, you don’t really have the right build for a gladiator.”

“Ouch. Even when you’re American, you know exactly how to wound me, Ayane-chan,” 

“Oh! I spotted a four leafed clover today on the way to class,”

“Magical,” 

“And my older sister announced that she’s having a second baby! I’m going to be an uncle again!”

“Congratulations,”

“I wish you were here, Ayane. It snowed for you,” 

(Her heart soars.)

(1) Missed call from Kento – 11:39 AM. 

Battery life: 9%. Turn on low power mode? 

Ayane curses under her breath. The rain splatters onto her phone screen. She quickly stuffs it inside her pocket. 

She knew she should’ve checked the weather app this morning. Apparently, it was going to be a wet November. The light sprinkling quickly turns into heavy raindrops, angled and unforgiving as it pelts against her coat and steeps into her hair. She races down to Penn Station, immediately spotting an international phone booth and exhaling a sigh of relief. 

She inserts a few cones and presses a slew of numbers that she has memorized by heart. 

A few passersby toss a curious brow at her dripping bangs and sopping wet shoes but quickly move onto their next destination without a care. (New Yorkers.)

“Hello?” Kento answers. 

“Hi,” She still winded after running for nearly fifteen minutes straight. “I was in the middle of class when you called. Then I got caught in the middle of a drizzle that turned out to be a storm in disguise. And my phone was about to die, so I had to find the closest thing–”

“Ayane. Take a breath,” He chuckles. 

She heeds his instructions, inhaling deeply through her nose. 

“You’re breaking up a bit,” He hums. “You sound kinda funny. Like a robot.” 

“Oh. Must be the rain. I’m also in a busy railway station,” She mutters. “Power lines…international calls…” 

“Mm…” He sounds groggy. “Do I sound any different?” 

“No,” She cradles the phone with both hands. “You sound exactly the same.”

Ayane liked how New York still had public phone booths, how she could coil her finger around the rubbery cord. Something to keep her hands busy. She also liked how it was pay per minute. It makes her conversations with him that much more significant. Every word carries weight when time is counting down. 

“What’s the time where you are?” She asks. 

“Hm? Oh…about one in the morning,”

“Shit. Sorry,” She curses under her breath. 

“That’s okay. Time zones,” He yawns. 

“I should let you sleep,” 

“No,” He crackles through the receiver. She could picture his face halfway into a pillow, balancing the phone on his ear. “Tell me about your day.” 

Ayane inserts another coin and leans against the limestone walls, sliding down further and further until she plops herself on the floor of the busy station. The phone cord extends, stretching across the Pacific until it reaches him. The world shrinks until it’s just her, wet and curled up in the corner of Penn Station with a phone dangling against her ear. 

She talks him down until the minutes run out. 

He’s been calling less and less these days. She doesn’t blame him. 

Finals were approaching. Japan was seeing record freezing temperatures this winter. It was always hard to schedule calls across the world. 

And he had a girlfriend. 

Her thumb hovers over his name on her phone screen, tempting her beneath the flickering overhead lights of the Brooklyn subway station. 

Last call: 10:09PM, two weeks ago. Call again?

Fuck it. 

Each ring drones slowly as the L train squeals to a stop and the doors open in front of her. 

It finally clicks. Some shuffling and then,

“Ken–”

“Hello?” A strange voice answers. Distinctly feminine and definitely not belonging to Kento. 

Ayane freezes in place. All the cogs in her body screeched to a sudden halt. 

Commuters shove past her as if she were an inconvenient pole standing in the middle of their way. The area clears, the doors close, and the train rolls away. She misses her ride. 

“...Hello?” The voice asks again. Sweet and twinkling like wind chimes. 

“Natsumi? Who’s calling?” Kento asks in the background. 

“Sorry,” Ayane mumbles. “Wrong number.” 

She hangs up abruptly. 

She imagines tipping off the platform edge, falling into the subway tracks, and letting the ground swallow her whole. 

The last time she hears his voice is on Christmas Eve. 

Christmas in New York was a different animal. It takes her nearly twice as long to board the train down to Rockefeller Center. She had been pining since late autumn to catch a glimpse of the famous Christmas tree overlooking the Manhattan skyline, and when she finally cranes over the observation deck to peer over at the bustling holiday crowds and iconic gilded Prometheus, the sight takes her breath away. 

The Rockefeller tree stands regal and tall, shining with a million brilliant lights and overlooking the packed ice rink below. She sends some pictures to Sawako and Chizu, wishing them a Merry Christmas and texting that she’s thinking of them. She weighs the option of reaching out to Kento as punches of laughter and George Michael’s crooning resounded throughout the public square (♪ Tell me, baby, do you recognize me? / Well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me. ♫). 

She buys herself a cup of overpriced hot chocolate and distracts herself by people-watching the bashful couples, rowdy tourists, and clumsy parents guiding their children through the ice, all moving in perfect synergy around the circumference of the rink like schools of fish. She’s so engrossed by the pattern of blades cutting smoothly over the frozen block and the Christmas tree lights refracting off its glistening surface that she almost misses the buzz in her parka. 

“Hello?” 

“Ayane,” Kento greets.

Relief blows through her like a ghost.

“Kento,” She’s shaking so much that her phone nearly slips from her hands. And not because of the cold. “Is it Christmas already in Japan?” 

“Yeah,” He replies. “It’s Christmas morning here.” 

“Oh. Well, Merry Christmas,” 

“Thanks,” 

The paper cup has softened in her hands. The rim is stained with the glaze of her cherry lip gloss and bent out of shape from the tic of her nervous biting. 

She wishes to start over – hang up and call him again – just so she can hear the melodic rise and fall of the syllables of her name fall from his lips, always lovely and never out of tune. 

She can’t recall the last time they talked. Frankly, she doesn’t think they ever did. The last time he spoke to her was through a voicemail, apologizing that he missed her call and promising that he’d call back once he was no longer busy. (He never did.)

“How…how are you?” Ayane asks, slipping to a more private area of the observation deck. 

Kento sucks in a breath. “The same as always. Just trying to keep busy.”

“You must be getting busier than usual,” She says. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.” 

She waits for him to tell her about Christmas in Sapporo, the gifts he bought his nieces, and the kind of snow that falls outside his house – the words galloping at 100 miles per hour like wild horse – but he doesn’t. 

He responds with a simple grunt. 

“How’s Christmas in New York?” He asks, diverting the topic. 

“It’s crazy here. People go all out. I think you’d like it,” It slips out before she can catch it. “You should come visit sometime.” 

She immediately wishes she could take it back when the line goes silent. 

Was she being too rash? 

His tone has been abnormally flat and controlled since he picked up. As if his vocal cords were pulled taut, ready to snap. 

It’s not like him. 

She misses the Kento that loved talking to her about anything and everything: what he’s thinking, what he’s worried about, what he’s been craving for dinner.

She misses Kento talking until the sun rose over the horizon of the Chelsea skyline. 

She misses Kento talking.

“Kento,”

“Yeah?”

“Is the connection bad?” 

“No. It’s fine,”

(♫ My God, I thought you were someone to rely on / Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on ♪)

“Ayane,” He sounded tired. Intent. “I think we should take a break.” 

“What?”

“I–” His voice comes out thick. “I think it’s best we stop calling each other like this.” 

Her heart drops. She feels like she’s back on the subway platform, teetering on the edge.

“Did I say something wrong?” 

“No. No, this isn’t your fault,” Kento says tightly. Like it hurt to speak. “I just–I really like this girl. I don’t think it’s respectful to her if we keep talking like we do.” 

“Your girlfriend,”

“Yes,”

She tucks her tongue between her teeth and thinks about biting it all the way through. 

A couple snaps a selfie together in front of the tree beside her. She ducks away from the corner of the photo. A teenager bumps into her back, muttering “Excuse me”. Hot cocoa splashes from her cup and puddles onto the cement. 

She’s grateful she wasn’t calling from a public telephone. 

This hour-long silence between them would’ve cost her a pretty penny. 

“Is this something you want?” 

“I do,” He answers carefully. “Just for now.” 

“Just for now,” 

“Yeah, until…”

“Until when?” He splits with his girlfriend? Another three years pass?

He huffs. Frustrated. Mostly at himself. “I don’t know. The next time we see each other again?  When you come home?” 

She begs the question that’s been sitting in the pit of her stomach since the Tokyo International Airport terminal. 

“What if I never do?” A tear slips down her cheek and splatters onto the back of her hand. 

“Ayane…”

This wasn’t a break-up. How stupid of her to even remotely think it is anything close to one. 

He was never hers to begin with anyway. She made that abundantly clear when she practically shoved him away during their entire third year of high school, when she was pleading with him to let her go. She wonders if this was what he felt like when she was pulling away from him. If it ever hurt this much when he saw her caller ID after years of radio silence.

Ayane doesn’t have any fight left in her. 

“No, you’re right,” She says defeatedly. Wipes a hand over her nose. “We should take a break. Be our own people for a bit.”

“Ayane,” He sounds soft, concerned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not,” She insists. “Does it sound like I’m hurt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t heard your voice in a while,” He swallows thickly. “I don’t want our last phone call to end like this. I don’t want to hang up with you hating me.”

“No one could hate you, Kento,” She remarks. Joylessly. “That’s like, biologically impossible.” 

She wishes he would crack a smile, huff a laugh, even if it was just to be polite. It would hurt less. It crushes her like boots flattening a bouquet of dozen red rose petals. 

“I don’t care if other people do,” Kento whispers. “It just matters to me that you don’t.”

“Well, I don’t. Okay?” 

“Okay,”

She tries to catch him in her palms, admiring him one last time before the release, but he’s already slipping like water through the cracks.

“So. I guess this is goodbye,” She inhales a shaky breath. It lodges in her throat. 

“I…yeah,” He hangs his head. She can tell by the way he sounds farther away. “I guess so.” 

“Take care, Kento,” 

“Goodbye, Ayane,” 

She waits for the other end of the line to go dead. 

The sound of the dial tone drags on, then mellows out into silence. Like a flatline.