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THE SKY WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL stretch of black, the moon somewhat luminescent, barely visible in its fading three-quarter stance, a small speckle of stars dotting the skyline — your hand framed your cheek, base of the palm supporting your chin as you stared up at the night sky.
A dreamy look was etched across your face, serenity glimmering in your eyes. Jazzy and lo-fi music one would hear in a four-star hotel lobby plays lowly in the background.
Overall, it’s a peaceful atmosphere, the spread of papers written all over in neat black ink and blue scratches of messy handwriting filling up most of the papers’ margins laid forgotten on your table, a rested elbow twisting up one particular worksheet on which an ugly ‘65’ is written in red ink.
Your mind is blank, completely devoid of any intruding thoughts of the past week, of the nerve-racking moments of receiving test papers for the end-of-year exams. It had been a stressful week, strewn with disappointments as you find most of your papers marked with the ugly numbers ranging from fifty to seventy-four — not a single A.
You had left the school without sparing a single glance at any of your classmates, much less glanced at the direction of your friend Yamaguchi Tadashi, who had been eager to compare scores with you — and hope that maybe he’d be able to slip in a request to spend some time outside with you.
Though in your disappointed state, you had left the classroom the moment the school bell rang, signaling the end of lessons for the week. It wasn’t like you to leave so early and on a bad note on a Friday, usually staying back for extra club training and walking Yamaguchi and Kei to their clubroom.
Your parents hadn’t come back from their business trip yet, their flight from France only coming back the next morning, so you had a few more hours to think up an excuse and an apology for your unsatisfactory marks.
Having the house to yourself, you had wanted to go on the routine you had gone on for the past two weeks, ditching your bag in the corner of your room before heading down the living room, making as much noise as possible on the stairs before vaulting down onto the living room couch on the tenth step, binging Netflix until it was twelve in the morning.
You would wake up, virtually dead but awake and plough through school, the shock and disappointment of your scores enough to keep you awake for the rest of the day.
(Of course, your nasty habit of watching horror movies at the crack of dawn also helped as an incentive for you to get out of the couch and leave for school, where you were not alone anymore.)
Your mindless daze, just admiring the stars and occasionally thinking of how the speckle of stars sparsely distributed on the black void looked a lot like Yamaguchi’s freckles dotting across the bridge of his nose is broken by a dark object almost slamming into your face and making a loud, thumping noise.
You’re extremely thankful for the fact that the window’s closed. Without that layer of glass as protection, your face would’ve been a thing of the past.
Your soul visibly leaves your body for a crack of a second, and in a heartbeat you’re out of your chair, hands splayed out across your even more crumpled-up papers as you stare out of the window, heart hammering in your ears.
Your eyes are widened, lips parted and expression slack as you scan your frontyard, fully expecting a trio of bulky, broad-built hulks of muscle with various weapons in hand strutting in the direction of your house.
Thank god it’s not.
No, instead, lit up by the artificial yellow light of the neighbourhood lane’s lamppost is a single, tall figure holding a square-shaped something in their left hand, right arm slightly raised as though they had very recently thrown something.
You recognise the figure as Yamaguchi Tadashi.
Blinking, the roar of your hammering heartbeat slowly fading into the normal rate, you squint and scrutinise the figure again, a frown creasing up your forehead and front teeth coming out to chew on your lower lip. Maybe you’re hallucinating; all this lack of sleep for the past fourteen days had definitely not contributed to your health.
But you’d recognise the figure of Yamaguchi anywhere, having been friends with him for over six years now. However much he growled or gained weight or lost weight or slouched out cut his hair, you’d still be able to recognise his silhouette anywhere, anytime.
Yamaguchi’s neck is craned to stare at the only lighted part of your house, raising his right arm even further up to wave at you. Slightly perplexed as to why the male is at your doorstep — no, front yard — at (a glance at the glowing digits of your bedside clock alerts you) ten in the evening, you hesitantly raise an arm to wave, too.
Yamaguchi soon makes a downward motion with his hand, a sure signal for you to come down. Your frown turns into one of a confused raise of a single eyebrow, and you quickly bend your fingers into an ‘OK’ sign. Yamaguchi’s hand drops to his side, and you take it as a cue to get ready.
Draping a sweater and an extra layer of trousers over your pair of fluffy pyjamas, you glide down the stairs, grabbing your parka and house keys from the coat rack and dining table respectively. The soft cotton of your winter boots brush against your bare feet.
The cold air of January hits your face, a huge difference to the warm atmosphere you had been idling your time away since this afternoon, and your breath makes visible, steamlike puffs a translucent white in the dark. Your footsteps are light on the stone path leading you to Yamaguchi, who’se turned his head toward you upon hearing the rustle of your parka in the otherwise silent atmosphere.
Emerging into the light of the lamppost, your eyes adjust to the dark deftly and you recognise the object in Yamaguchi’s left hand — the square object is a picnic basket with a prettily embroidered white and blue cloth surrounding it.
“Tadashi?’ His first name comes out as a question from your lips, and the brunette follows your gaze down to the basket he was holding. “What is this … ?”
“Ah!” The brunette’s blush spreading across his freckled face is barely visible in the dimly lit area. “You seemed to be having a bad week, y’know? And I didn’t want you to spend the weekend unhappily, so … I … can I take you on a picnic at the hilltop?”
You stare.
“Y’know, there are quite a lot of stars out here in the countryside, and there’s a hill away from most of the building lights where we could go stargazing and have some snacks … only if you want to, of course!” He chuckles awkwardly. It’s clear that the young boy isn’t used to asking people to do things with him, judging by the fidgety way his hands keep on shifting from side to side, the visible stutter in his tone.
You can’t help but think about how the whole notion is so him, and a small smile surfaces on you face as you recall the several moments over the years where Tadashi had turned into a stuttering mess in front of his friend of six years to merely ask her to do something.
This is so Yamaguchi — despite the fact that you meanly ignored him for most of this week, wallowing in your self-induced pity sessions, the boy’s so sensitive of your emotions, even doing something special for you this late. The way he spent his time coming all the way to your house with a picnic basket in hand warms your heart, though guilt does pool into a small pit at the bottom of your stomach.
What did you do to deserve such a sweet guy like Yamaguchi?
Your face widens into a wide yet mildly-put smile, nodding slightly.
“Of course, Tadashi. Lead the way.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
The trek up the hill was a little rough, sharp blades of grass making noises against the two of your parkas and trousers, an occasional grasshopper or two finding its way onto your pants ending up with you panicking and yelling wildly as a chuckling Yamaguchi flicks the insect off of your trouser.
By the time the sheet is laid out on the top of the hill, the two of you settling down onto the mat and Yamaguchi starting to take the contents of the basket out onto the small, folding table set out in between you two, the atmosphere’s much less awkward, Yamaguchi chuckling as you recall a bunch of stupid yet nostalgic times back in middle and elementary school.
You had frozen at the sight of handmade food laid out onto the table, cheeks starting to redden not just from the cold as you admired just how heartfelt the food looked like, like Yamaguchi and poured his heart and soul into the making of these little sandwiches and scones.
Yamaguchi was such an angel, you thought, shaking your head a little as Yamaguchi stares at you, a little concerned. For such a loud and dramatic person like you, it’s somewhat surprising to see you so silent.
Yet a comfortable silence befalls the two of you after you graciously thank a blazing Yamaguchi for the snacks, both of your heads risen to watch the expanse of stars dusted across the dreamy black canvas of night sky.
It was truly a beautiful sight, the sky around the more densely populated areas of star glowing a pleasant shade of deep blue, edges of white and silver shining from the small, diamond-like specks of space wonder, the occasional plane light blinking red and green.
It’s truly a calming sight, and the chilly breeze that tickles at your bare neck and face, ruffling your hair, the cooling scones and sandwiches in your hand, mouth exploding with the sweet and savoury taste of the food you’re chewing on only making the experiment a hundred times better than back in your room.
“It’s a weird phrase to say, but it’s not the moon that’s beautiful tonight,” the sound of Yamaguchi’s voice, slowly and steady, calm and level without a trace of stutter in it spurs you to look at the boy. Said boy doesn’t seem to be looking at the stars; he’s enraptured, staring at your side profile, admiring the way the stars, however far away, seem to illuminate you like an angel.
It only makes staring at you more pleasurable. He can never get sick of the calm, peaceful silence the two of you are experiencing right now, and he can’t help the look of pure wonder from spreading across his face as your eyes, the colour in them lit by the stars and swirling like a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours meets his warm brown eyes, a shade of golden brown now thanks to the starlight.
Your breath doesn’t become bated; your heart doesn’t begin to hammer in your chest.
No, it’s a sense of pure, ready, absolute sureness, the look of utter calm as if you could wait forever for Yamaguchi to finish his words. After all, even if the words aren’t spoken directly, the way he looks at you, the way you look back at him only reflects what the two of you share; an unreliable bond of trust, of friendship that has been through thick and thin, be it you hugging him tightly after the loss of a game, letting his tears shock the fabric of your clothes, or him letting you clutch at his shirt as useless tears fall like pearls from your eyes, knees skinned and jersey drenched with sweat and tears.
“The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they?”
You are beautiful tonight.