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“Nah, there’s no way either one of them will do it by graduation,” Eita says with a scoff. “They’re both way in too deep to take a step back and realize it yet.”
“But that’s why they’ll realize it, because they’re too into it to just be friends! I mean, they’re on a date right now!” Hayato throws his hands up, one of them nearly hitting Reon in the face.
“ We called it a date, Wakatoshi thinks it’s just ‘quality time between best friends.’ They’ve put too much into the friendship! Besides, Wakatoshi’s too busy thinking about going pro and Satori’s leaving for the other side of the world. When do they even have time for that, and they’ve got what, less than a month left?” Eita pauses to smirk at Hayato. “That’s less than a month for you to win this bet.”
“Hey, you never know with those two. Maybe they’ll do some really dramatic, romantic shit on graduation day. A grand confession.” Hayato turns to Reon and tilts his head. “C’mon, Reon, back me up here.”
Reon groans as he walks between them through the crowded shopping street. He was really, really hoping that these two would not bring up the topic of The Bet during their weekend off, but maybe that was too much to hope for. He pinches the space between his eyebrows before responding.
“I’m staying out of this bet, okay,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I want them to be happy, and I think it’s pretty clear that they like each other. But I’m not going to put a timestamp on that. If they want to work it out, that’s up to them.”
“Aw, but that’s no fun. You won’t get a free dinner out of it.”
“I can afford my own dinners just fine.”
Eita laughs. “How responsible of you.”
The three of them continue their stroll through the street. Eita continues his case for his side, drawing out the history of Wakatoshi and Satori’s strange friendship, and Hayato cuts in for his rebuttals. Reon listens to it all, nodding but keeping his mouth firmly shut. All throughout the conversation, they remain in step with each other, passing shops and stalls selling everything from light spring jackets to collectible figures to street food.
As they continue their walk, the topic of conversation drifts. Hayato takes a moment to stop by a cotton candy stall and buy a giant bag of the stuff, going into a tangent with a rumor about his literature teacher and her “possessed” cat. Reon laughs at his tangent, and Eita tries to sneak a pinch of cotton candy from the bag. Hayato stares at him, then flashes him a broad smile.
“You can just ask me, Eita!”
Eita sputters and takes a large pinch.
“In that case, I’ll take a bit, too,” Reon says, taking a small pinch for himself. The stuff is too sweet for him, but it’s light and melts in his mouth, perfect for a busy spring weekend.
Around them, the afternoon passes, and the sky’s color begins to shift from bright blue to pale pink. Other shoppers chat about their day as they go in and out of shops, and a few stall owners call out to them, filling the street with ambient noise. Between final exams, preparations for university, and the general feeling of everything rushing to an end, it’s not often that the three of them get time to just walk and breathe. Deadlines and school pressures are forgotten amidst the bright signs of shops and the taste of cotton candy. Weekends like this are a blessing.
(Wakatoshi and Satori could have joined them too; just the third year regulars hanging out, Reon told them. But they already had plans of their own, and besides, not having them around means that Eita and Hayato get to indulge in a little gossip.)
The walk is slow, with all the other shoppers in the way, until the trio reach the end of the street where most of the crowd has dispersed. It’s quieter here, with fewer shops at this end. Reon spots a miraculously empty bench and the three of them plop down, with Reon wedged in between Eita and Hayato.
“There we go,” he says. Then, a split second later: “Goddammit.”
His two friends burst out into laughter. “Yeah, there you go, old man!” Hayato says, nearly dropping his cotton candy bag.
“Take care of your knees there,” Eita quips, patting him on the back.
Reon sighs.
Eita stops laughing long enough to pull out his phone and his wired earphones from his pocket. “Anyway, I recorded another demo last night,” he says, plugging the earphones in. “I tried something a little slower, more ballad-y. I haven’t made lyrics yet, but since you two are here, you get the honor of the first listen.”
Hayato shoots Eita a grin as he reaches for one end of the earphones. “Another one from the legendary songwriter, Semi Eita? Damn, you’re busy. Don’t forget us when your singles reach number one and you get famous.”
“Don’t forget us when you’re famous, Scholarship-kun,” Eita says and raises an eyebrow. “Next thing we know, you’ll be a V. League star next to Wakatoshi.”
“Nah, don’t get your hopes up. Besides 一” Hayato jerks a thumb at Reon 一 “this guy’s a scholarship boy, too.”
“Hah, that’s a lot to expect! I’ll be doing other things in university aside from volleyball. I want to get the full experience and all.” Reon laughs and takes the other end of the headphones. “Anyway, a ballad from Eita? Now this will be interesting.”
“Better be interesting in a good way,” he says. He scrolls to an audio recording on his phone, and presses play.
First, Reon and Hayato heart the crackle of background noise in Eita’s dorm, then their ears fill with the crisp chords of an acoustic guitar. They lean back to take it in. Hayato stretches out his legs, takes one last mouthful of cotton candy, then closes his eyes; Reon takes a pinch of the stuff too, then gazes up at the sky. The notes of a guitar being plucked float into the soundscape, dreamy yet ephemeral, and the melody seems to dissipate as soon as each note finishes its course.
It’s not the first time Eita has made them listen to one of his demos, but the new song seems to have memories embedded in every note.
Reon’s memory drifts to an evening in the dorm common room in their second year, when Eita showed off his new guitar and played a few songs for them. That quickly turned into a jamming session, with the volleyball team yelling out their favorite songs and poor Eita stuck on accompaniment. They were quickly reprimanded for making so much noise, but that didn’t stop them from playing on at just a slightly lower volume.
Hayato’s memory, meanwhile, turns to the team doing cooldown stretches once after practice in their first year, when he and his teammates did not know each other so well yet. He remembers hearing a song out of the blue, and everyone nearly jumping out of their skin at its suddenness: a weird made-up song about stretching their limbs until they snap. He looked up from his stretches to see Satori singing and wiggling out his limbs like jelly, and the whole team burst out laughing.
Memory after memory comes to them, floating away with the notes of the song. Everything seems to melt away as soon as it’s felt: the guitar strums hanging in the air, the taste of cotton candy in their mouths, the recollections of the last three years. In their place, a new thought occupies Reon’s and Hayato’s senses.
This really is their last year.
Every memory that comes to mind is just that, a memory, no longer tangible. The year is closing out, and soon everyone will go their separate ways, and days like this at the shopping street will float by, too. Eita’s song comes to an end as well; the last few strums of the guitar fade into the air, just as the shopping crowds begin to thin out even more. The bag of cotton candy sits on the bench, suddenly half-empty.
When the song finishes, Reon snaps back to reality. He wipes a stray tear from his eyes, then turns to Eita, who has been watching them with glittering eyes. Hayato takes a few moments to come back to earth; he remains with his eyes closed, then stretches his arms out in a yawn, the earphone falling out of his ear as he does. There are little pricks of tears in the corners of his eyes, and Reon suspects that they aren’t from his yawn.
“Don’t tell me my song was that boring,” Eita pouts.
“Boring? No way, Eita. What the hell, that was一” Hayato grasps at words 一 “it was amazing. Like, damn, I got all soft inside listening to that. I felt so many things!”
“Things?”
“Warm things. You know what I mean, I liked it.”
“I liked it, too,” Reon says, giving Eita a smile. “Kinda felt like I was listening to the soundtrack of the last three years.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Hayato says with a snap of his fingers. “I kept thinking about all the memories of school.”
Eita grins and clenches his fist in the air. “Fuck, that’s perfect! I spent weeks figuring out the melody! The last months of the school year just made me want to… write something. Squeeze out the memories. I wanted to get all these crazy feelings out of my system.”
“You really did pass on those feelings to us, huh,” Reon says, and Hayato nods in agreement. “And your guitar-playing skills have gotten a lot better. You’ve been playing more now that we don’t have volleyball practice?”
“Yeah, I have!”
“See, you really are gonna get famous,” Hayato says. “Years from now you’re gonna be writing all these hits, then I can tell people about all those demos you made us listen to.”
“Hey, let’s not go too far ahead! I haven’t even made lyrics for the damn song.”
“And we have to graduate first,” Reon adds. “Pass our exams, figure out where to go and everything.”
A pause from Hayato. “Yeah, that.”
The three of them fall silent, letting the feeling sink in. The scenery of the shopping street unfolds in front of them, and time slows down just for them: the shoppers passing by walk a little more slowly, and the spring breeze blows a little less strongly. For that moment, everything else 一 exams, university, careers 一 can wait.
Finally, Hayato breaks the silence. He takes a pinch of his cotton candy and lets it melt in his mouth before speaking. “Also, I’m still waiting for Wakatoshi to confess before the school year ends.”
“Wakatoshi isn’t gonna realize his feelings that fast!” Eita retorts.
Reon just sighs and lets their conversation continue again. Better to enjoy his friends’ banter while he still can.