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When Saihara moved out, Maki had watched Momota embrace him in a too tight hug in an attempt to hide his obvious tears. She watched the spectacle as Saihara awkwardly patted him on the back, Momota saying, “I’m gonna miss you, buddy.”
Saihara responded, “Uh, yeah. Me, too.”
Maki had said, “I’ll miss you at first.”
Momota immediately launched into calling her cold while also half implying she didn’t mean the words that had just left her mouth. Saihara’s poor attempt to laugh it off in spite of the clear discomfort shining on his face only cemented her thoughts. He left with a bow of his head and a suitcase in each hand while Momota confirmed for her multiple times that real men don’t cry between his sniffles.
They returned to their now emptier apartment, and mostly Maki felt annoyance at Momota’s moping before he made the decision to wallow in his room alone for the rest of the night. She walked down the hall to her room, purposefully not lingering in the doorframe of Saihara’s former room. She might feel something for him them.
Before she slept that first night, she repeated the sentiment that Saihara was not dead, which she had spent nearly the entire day drilling into Momota. She also repeated that Momota was more important—had always been more important and always would be. One friend was more than enough. It was, after all, one more than she ever thought she would have.
Saihara’s nervous, fidgeting energy never took up much space, Maki thinks, lying back and staring up into darkness. He was always there but never really present. She thinks they had that in common as she closes her eyes.
In the beginning, she finds it in her heart of stone to miss him a little.
-
On the first day since Saihara left, Momota breaks his rule he claimed Maki never understood about waiting a day to call. He talks on the phone from morning to afternoon, and before Maki feels the need to pull her hair out, she plucks it from his hands.
Holding Momota off with one hand, she says into the receiver, “Hello, Saihara. Momota has to hang up now because I’m starting to feel like strangling him.”
Saihara laughs nervously on the other side, and he sounds too far away for Maki’s comfort. But she chooses not to think about that. He says, “Ah, well, okay—I need to finish unpacking anyway.”
Momota whines in the background as Maki says, “Then we’ll leave you alone.”
“Okay,” he says, and Maki cannot understand why he has to add, “It was nice to hear from you, too, Harukawa-san.”
She says, “Goodbye,” and hangs up before he can respond again.
Momota goes back to moping, and she barely resists the urge to throw the phone at him as she tells him to suck it up. “C’mon, Harumaki,” he pleads. “We’ve lived with him for years—can’t a guy miss his best friend?”
“You can miss him in a less annoying way,” she answers. “And it’s barely been one day.”
He waves a hand. “Absence makes the heart fucking do something—I don’t know.”
“How eloquent,” she says.
Momota rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. And I fucking bet you miss him, too, even if you don’t wanna show it for some reason, so there.”
Maki frowns at him, and her frown morphs into a glare when he sticks his tongue out at her. She throws the phone at him then, mumbling, “Be useful and order takeout. I don’t feel like cooking tonight.”
She begins to storm off to her room, and Momota calls after her, “Not it for cooking tomorrow, by the way!”
Maki slams the door to her room shut.
-
It’s on the second day when Maki finds herself beside Momota, staring down at their stove, that she realizes Saihara was the one who did all the cooking.
“Sooo,” says Momota. “I did say not it, yesterday.”
“Just help me,” she hisses, busying herself by going through their near barren cupboards.
Momota groans but begins opens their fridge to begin his own inspection. He says, “I don’t fucking get why you need me—don’t you make snacks for the kids at work or something?”
Maki pulls an only slightly old looking can of soup down to the counter. “Strangely enough,” she says. “I don’t make actual adult dinners for three year olds, no.”
Momota straightens, wandering over to inspect her finding as she hacks away at it with a can opener. “We don’t have to have an ‘adult dinner’ then, right?”
She stops and turns to him. “Do you want me to make cheese and crackers for dinner?”
“I don’t know—maybe,” he says. “Or maybe I could call Shuuichi, and ask—”
“We’re having soup,” she says.
Momota pouts like a child. “But I hate soup.”
“And I’m sure you also hate starving,” Maki says. “So pick one or make you own dinner, idiot.”
He huffs. “Fine—I’ll eat your crappy soup. You don’t have to get mad about it.” She gives the can opener a particularly hard crank. Momota continues on, “I don’t remember Shuuichi ever complaining about always cookin’ for us—”
And he cuts himself off, throwing his hands up to defend himself as Maki presses too hard and the can gripped in her fists nearly explodes over their once clean counters. She stares at the mess blankly, absently wondering if she should clean it up. Another part of her answers that Saihara always did the cleaning.
Momota opens his mouth, and Maki throws the can opener down on the counter. “Just order takeout again,” she says to him, already stomping out of the room.
-
On the seventh day, Maki walks in on Momota sitting on their couch, staring hard at his phone. Very slowly he says, “So… I shouldn’t call Shuuichi to hang out so he can clean our apartment, right?”
She rolls her eyes. “Didn’t you hang out with him yesterday?”
“Well, yeah,” he says, shifting to face her. “But our apartment’s still fucking dirty and crap. Also,” a sudden surge of emotion comes over him, and he gestures aggressively, phone still clenched in his fist. “Did you know that apparently his new apartment is right across the street from fucking Ouma’s?”
“No,” Maki says.
Her clipped answer doesn’t deter him in the slightest. “I fucking didn’t either! So, listen, yesterday, here I am standing on the goddamn street by myself already looking like an idiot ‘cause you bailed on me, and I’m just waiting for Shuuichi to buzz me in, and then out of literally fucking nowhere—”
Momota’s story twists and rambles, and Maki settles herself on the couch next to him, entertaining herself with the long stands of her hair.
Time stretches on, and after a particularly impassioned declaration that required pacing the room, Momota collapses on to the couch, “And then when Shuuichi finally got the gum out of my hair, he was all like ‘oh, I’m sure it was an accident—I’m sure Ouma-kun didn’t mean to.’ And that is just absolute fucking bullshit, right?”
“Probably,” Maki hums.
He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Course he fucking took Ouma’s side—he’s his new best friend now or something.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Are you jealous?”
“N-No!” Momota answers too quickly. “I’m just—being jealous would be fucking stupid.”
“It would,” Maki agrees. “You’ve been acting really childishly ever since Saihara left, you know.”
He snorts. “Yeah—between the two of us, I’ve been acting childishly.”
Maki snaps her head to him, a death glare carved on her features. “What does that mean? Do you want to be killed?”
“Calm down,” Momota says. “I’m just saying you’ve been acting kinda weird lately—especially when you bailed on me today.” Maki fidgets with her hair, and he says, “It’s okay if you miss him, you know.”
She stands, announcing, “I’m going to bed,” before walking off.
She hears Momota’s exasperated sigh carry all the way to her bedroom door.
-
On the fourteenth day, Momota finds her sitting on the roof, staring at the stars glittering above the glow of the city lights.
He places the thin blanket in his hands over her shoulders, and Maki can’t find it in herself to fight him anymore than a bitterly mumbled, “I’m not cold.”
Momota shrugs and settles down beside her. “Save it for later then.”
She doesn’t push it off, and they watch the meager stars dotting the sky. The sounds of the city echo below, and after a particularly loud roar from the sea of traffic, Momota lays on his back folding his arms behind his head, saying, “I should get a motorcycle one of these days.”
Maki rolls her eyes. “I’m not taking care of you if you fall off and break your neck.”
He waves a hand. “Oh, c’mon—that’d never happen. I still need to go to space. But,” he grins up at her. “I’d look really cool on a motorcycle, wouldn’t I?”
“No,” she says. “And I’m not helping you get one.” She pulls her knees to her chest. “They’re too dangerous.”
“Worried about me, Harumaki?”
“Do you want to be killed?”
Momota laughs, and she punches his arm, and the stars shine down on them.
Eventually, when Maki’s sure Momota’s half asleep, she says, “Do you ever… look at the people around you and imagine how they’ll die?”
He shifts, and slurs out, “Can’t say that I have. Well,” he sits up on his elbows. “Guess I got a feeling that someone’s gonna strangle Ouma one of these days.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she snaps. “Forget it.”
“No,” he says. “I wanna hear. I’ll be serious.”
Maki sighs. “Fine. I just… one day you’ll do something stupid, and I’ll get a call and that will be it.” Momota falls silent, so she keeps going. “I’ll have to identify your body, and that will be the last time I ever see you.”
“You’ve…” he searches for the words. “Put a lot of thought into this.”
“More for you than the others,” she says. “Tojo will be stress. Amami—a plane crash. Saihara…” she looks down at her shoes. “I don’t know. Probably suicide.”
“Why,” Momota breathes out. “Why do you think about this stuff?”
“I don’t know,” she snaps. “I just do. I’m not used to having people around me, so…” she pulls the thin blanket tighter over her shoulders, “I guess I’m just waiting for them to leave again. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” he answers. “Saying goodbye sucks.”
Maki looks back up at the stars. “It does.”
-
On the fifteenth day, she calls Saihara.
He picks up, already saying, “Hi, Momota-kun—I’m sorry today’s not a good day for—”
Maki says, “It’s me.”
“Oh,” he says. “Hello, Harukawa-san. It’s nice to hear from you.”
“You said that last time,” she answers.
“‘Last time?’”
“We spoke the day after you left,” Maki says. “Momota was being annoying and called you, and I told him to stop.”
“Oh,” Saihara says again. “Well, it’s still nice to hear from you.”
Maki sighs. “Yeah. It’s… nice to hear from you, too.”
He asks how her day was, how Momota is, and puts her on hold because someone—she guesses Ouma from the resigned sigh—keeps ringing his doorbell. She has little to say, and Saihara even less, and his fingers fumble over the receiver when he says, “I know it hasn’t been very long, but I miss you guys.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she says. “Doesn’t Momota text you everyday?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says. “But it’s still an adjustment to go from living with to… not doing that, I guess. Sorry—I’m not explaining this very well.”
“No,” Maki says. “I understand. You used to do our dishes and now you don’t. It takes some getting used to, especially since Momota’s a slob.”
Saihara laughs. “Ah, I guess that’s true—uh, I mean the ‘me doing the dishes part,’ not the… Momota-kun part.”
“No, that’s true, too,” she says.
“Ah, maybe,” he says. “But I still miss having him around. He was, um,” she hears Saihara fidget on the other side of the phone. “Um, I mean I guess I thought I’d never have people like him who actually like having me around.”
Maki doesn’t respond immediately, and in the following silence, Saihara begins to stutter out an apology before Maki cuts him off. “Don’t apologize. It makes sense. Are you ever,” she glances around the empty apartment, “just waiting for him to get sick of you and leave?”
“Sometimes,” Saihara says with a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s why I tried to be as helpful as possible. Uh, sorry if that was annoying.”
“Saihara,” she says.
“Yes?”
“Did you just apologize for taking out our trash for years?”
Saihara pauses. “Uh, I think I did.”
They talk—they talk for far too long, and Momota wanders into the room to smile down at her when Maki swallows her heart of stone to say, “I’m sorry for saying I wouldn’t miss you.”
Momota shouts, “Shuuichi, Harumaki misses you so much!”
Maki whips her head to him to snap, “Do you want to be killed?”
She hears Saihara softly laughing on the other side of the phone, and on the sixteenth day, she finally goes with Momota to the other side of town, across the street from Ouma’s apartment to meet with Saihara under three city stars shining down through the glow surrounding them, warming her slowly melting heart.