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April 10th
This is when you find out her name. Suzume Yosano. Su-zu-me. Yosano. There's a strange, inscrutable pleasure you recieve upon saying it.
You dislike her almost immediately.
Years from now, you're going to wonder why this, of all days, is the one you remember first. Not the first day of school, or the day she returned your scarf and told you she couldn't accept it, or the day you looked at your smiling teacher and felt, unbelievably, a twinge of- jealousy? sadness?
There are a lot of milestones in your relationship with this girl, you know. The day you found out her pretty moniker is the first, and that is why you remember it.
Oy, Yosano Suzume. Look at me.
Suzume, I love you!
Thank you, Yosano Suzume.
Suzuuuuuuuuummeeeeee!
Ages are another form of measuring he uses.
Ten, the year he looks at his family and it hits him that this, this is the 'Love' thing adults are always going on about.
Thirteen, the year she leaves.
Fifteen, the year Daichi smiles, gap-toothed, and tells him, "I have a girlfriend now! I gave her a strawberry macaroon at school today!", and the year he wades through school not looking at half the faces, and the year everything blurs and feels unbearably fragile, and the year she poked him and cries, "Let's be friends!"-
Sixteen and three-quarters. The year she knocks him to the ground and tells him she loves him. The year he cries and kisses her back.
November 10th
Suzume remembers this day because Mamura always flushes red whenever she casually brings it up. ("You're the devil"- "-and what does that make you, Daiki-kun?")
.
The air is muggy and school moves slowly, and as you walk home you come across that scowling boy who sits next to you in class.
"What's up, Mamura?", you ask curiously, leaning into his space- thankfully, temporarily forgetting your charming teacher. Mamura is shaking slightly, his head turned away, a paper clutched in his hand.
"Shut up," he finally says, and you say it with him, deadpan. His vocabulary is predictable, and kind of lame.
"Are you crying?"
"No!"
"Can I see that paper?", you say, plopping down on the bench next to him. (He is silent.)
You're very young, really, and you don't know how to organise your expression when your fingers brush in a second-lasting moment.
And you can't help but observe, "She's gorgeous!", when you look at the photo he just handed you.
"I guess," the poor boy forces, looking at the ground. "All babies kind of look the same to me," he says after a beat.
"So, who's kid is this, anyway?"
You can tell he's struggling, debating over how much to tell you- but then he relents, and his shoulders sag.
"My mother's," he says lowly. "She started a new family."
Oh, boy. You look closely and you see he really is crying.
So you get up, and you buy him a riceball- the really nice kind with salmon bits- because you are sympathetic towards this rude, silent boy who is supposedly your friend, and you genuinely believe the riceball will help. The look on his face when you bring it to him is priceless- and you automatically start laughing. There's a part where his tears actually clear a little, and he cries Bastard but you're snorting harder because he is already eating it.
On this day, you gallantly tell him that the birth of a baby can't possibly ever mean anything that bad, and that you're surprised he has such a flair for melodrama, and that if he's interested in the theatre club maybe he should talk to your friend Yuyuka. He calls you a bastard once again.
When you finally call out goodbye! from across the street, you catch him looking at you with a strange, almost vulnerable expression. He looks the other way, flushing, scowling.
You hum on your way home, confident the two of you are becoming friends. Now, if only you could find something to do about Shishio...
Suzume keeps track of ages, too.
Seven, the year she chased a shooting star until she was giddy with joy, breathless with laughter.
Eleven, the year her uncle Yukichi told her he didn't know much about shooting stars, but there was.. something bright, something really lovely in her. "You're a good kid, you know." he says, ruffling her hair. "Now, come help me eat these steamed buns.." "Hooray!"
Fifteen is the year she falls in love. He's very kind, but they're not right. She doesn't cry that much. She tries to heal, but she still wants to be with him.
When her sixteenth year ends, it occurs to her that she's grown a lot. He's still very kind, they're still not right. It doesn't matter now. There is someone else, someone who'd sort of been there for a while.
Seventeen. The year she counts the number of days she holds Mamura's hand. The number is somewhere around three hundred and fifty, and Mamura's the only one who believes her.
Seventeen again, the year Shishio Satsuki realises he never meant to be a teacher this long, anyway, and he declares he is returning to university to get a Phd in japanese literature. Hours after his farewell party, Suzume finds him and Tsubomi drunkenly holding hands. Chortling at something one of them just said. Suzume's eyes widen- this is slightly unexpected- but then Mamura pulls her back, and tells her to respect other people's privacy, and she has to agree. Yukichi shoos them away- "Young lady, you still have school tomorrow!". Life goes on, and she hopes her old sensei finds himself a new life.
When she and Mamura are Eighteen, they do.. that thing. For the first time. It's nice. Mamura continues to emulate a firetruck, even on their second, third, fourth time.
Nineteen - during the summer they both visit one of the world's largest aquariums. They sit together, their faces bathed in shifting blue-green reflections, and they quietly whisper things like:
"Bastard."
"Are you cold?"
"Aren't these too many selfies?"
"Hey, you, I like you."
September 20th
You are both twenty years old. This evening, you are kissing the base of Suzume Yosano's neck. She strokes your hair absent-mindedly. Smiling slightly. You can hear each other breathing and
Lazily, your mind flickers through memories. A lot of memories. She kisses your cheek, a familiar move, and you think about how you both got here. You haphazardly wonder if this is bliss, and if that word's another word for daytime shooting star.