Chapter Text
“Shiho, I just want to talk!”
“Go away. I’ve already told you to leave me alone , Ichika.”
“Honami, wait up. Can we hang out after school?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Ichika. I’m…busy. I have to get going, bye.”
“I guess I have to get going now. See you in a couple weeks, Saki.”
“Bye bye, Ichi-chan. See you in a bit, right?”
It was night time in Shibuya. The first day of her last year in junior high has come and gone, but it seems like nothing has changed at all. Shiho refuses to talk to her, Honami continues to ignore her, and Saki, the only person who still talks to her, is in a hospital 2 hours away.
She stared at her ceiling fan, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to wrangle her brain into a state of unconsciousness, but it was no use. She couldn’t help but think about them.
What did she do wrong? What did she miss in their near decade of friendship for it to crumble so unceremoniously? She loathed it. Long walks home with no one to keep company, funny rambly text messages, late night sleepovers with movies playing in the background. All of it ended as if it meant nothing, as if her heart wasn’t ripped to pieces with every rejection, every cold-shoulder, every failed promise.
She hates it. She stares at picture albums of years gone by and clutches at the keychains that she still hangs from her bag that used to match theirs. She cries herself to sleep most days and the few restful nights she gets are filled with dreams of them. She wonders if they felt as absolutely devastated as she was.
She knows they don’t. They can’t, they won’t, they shouldn’t . She wants to think they do. She still loves them, and maybe they had loved her too, but they deserved better. They had always deserved better. She just wishes she was smart enough to where she went wrong or maybe she should have realized they were too good for her sooner.
Shiho had an overflowing passion and tenacity in what she did. Despite her cold demeanor, she always looked out for their little group. If someone pushed one of them or said anything bad about them, she’d be the first to defend them. She was steadfast and determined and would never back down to anything. Maybe she was stubborn and a little Spartan at times, but she chased her dream with no concern for how anyone would think.
Honami was the most caring person she ever met. She would give soothing words and hugs to anyone who was in trouble, but would never hesitate to be stern and talk some sense into someone. She would be the peacemaker in any argument and make even the staunchest of enemies become reluctant friends. Her compassion would make someone feel truly safe like a warm blanket to snuggle under in the winter, like all the worries of the world would wash over you.
Saki had the smile of the sun. She could easily draw people towards her with infectious joy and never ending enthusiasm. She smiled even as her disease left her bedridden and unable to do even the most basic of activities. The life she should have been rightfully given, a life with many friends, enjoying her life in junior high, going to places on vacations or just walking around the city, so cruelly taken from her by her sickness.
And then there was her. She had no dreams other than to leech onto her friends for the rest of their lives, monopolizing their attention. She no longer had any spine, ironically losing any courage she had as she got older. And she had no worth, a dead body dragging in the wind. Where did all the hopes she had as a child go? When had her plans for the future dissipate into the wind and all her dreams crush into dust? Why was it that she could hardly pick herself out of bed to take care of herself and go to school, becoming a burden on everyone else around her. How was it fair that her life was lived without inconvenience and she still somehow squandered while Saki would pray to the heavens above for even a fraction of the health she had?
But even with her imperfections, they loved her for a time. Saki, Shiho, and Honami shared their world with her, and she indulged in it until she could no longer. They bundled around a jungle gym, climbing to the top to pretend to be the tallest and once it got dark, they had watched the stars twinkle above. They would sleep over at each others houses and watch corny movies and play fight with pillows and pretend to be the ultimate pillow king. They would go to school and draw with crayons and tie together beads in friendship bracelets. Ichika was still happy then, a time when she was brave, optimistic, and kind too, a time when she believed that they would be together forever. She’s smarter than that now.
Saki got sick, and that was the beginning of the end. She had been sickly even when they first met, but it never was a big deal. The hospital was close to a flower shop which was close to the school and it meant that Shiho and Honami could go pick up flowers and listen to her ramble about flower meanings as they walked to the hospital.
The last flowers she gave to Saki before she left were chrysanthemums, the flowers of the sun and immortality. Then she left for another city to get treatments for disease. No longer could they go to see her every day, but they still saw her at least once a month. That is, until everything started falling apart.
Shiho left soon afterward. Ichika should have seen it coming. She could hear the rumors about Shiho in the halls. People brazenly called her stuck up, a heartless monster, a friendless loser. She would always try to dispel these rumors. She’d say that Shiho was actually really kind, that she would help anyone in need, that she was her friend. But no one would listen or believe it.
Those things Ichika said came easy to her, she knew it to be the truth, but while they were easy to say they were even easier to brush off. The bullying continued and even her own name started getting dragged through the mud, but nothing she did worked. She should have said more, done more, been there for her, anything more than what she did, but the time for those actions had long passed and Shiho left.
Inevitably Honami soon followed. Her bullying started much more abruptly than Shiho’s. All of a sudden, it was like everyone was against her. Ichika saw her eating alone in hallways, heard her sobs in the bathrooms, felt her tear stained shirt when she hugged her. Honami was kind, Honami was caring, Honami was not untouchable.
She couldn’t handle it, and no amount of comforting from Ichika could soothe her. Nothing from Ichika could help her. Maybe Shiho with her brutal honesty or Saki with her abounding hope could have done something, but she only had her and the obvious soon followed. She left her and found that, despite being the ones to incite the bullying, her classmates were still better friends to Honami than her.
She felt their absence every day. When she tried to make friends with her classmates, all she could think about was how their laugh didn’t have the same tinkle as Saki’s did, how their fingers had no callousses like Shiho’s, and how their bento boxes didn’t look as neat as Honami. All the friends she tried to make felt like shallow replicas of what she was trying to replace. Even her best efforts of friendship were hardly more than acquaintances.
When she went out, she couldn’t help but search for their presence in everything. The small children’s drawing that was hung on the wall that still looked better than Honami’s drawings, the phenny plushies in the windowsill that Shiho would pretend that she didn’t find cute, the big billboards and signs that would distract Saki and inevitably have them try something new.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it. Checking the clock, it was already 3 am and she couldn’t even stop wallowing in self pity to be able to go to sleep.She got up and grabbed her phone, put on some earbuds, and put on some music.
If there was one thing she had in this world, it would be Miku. She was her comfort, her rock, and her guide for as long as she could remember. Her parents had introduced Ichika to music from as far back as she remembered. She had found CDs of Miku and had instantly fallen in love. Songs about love, about friends and family, about what it meant to live, she cherished them all.
Her name was intrinsically connected to music and it showed through her love of Vocaloid. She would share this love of music with her friend and her parents whenever she could, and analyze and contemplate the lyrics, the beats, and the chords for days on end. She loved Vocaloid and Hatsune Miku, but even that pure simple desire got corrupted.
Her world was falling apart at the beginning of middle school. Her simple love of Vocaloid shifted into a lifeline. She wanted to be comforted, she needed to be told she was loved by someone. She needed to be able to feel like she belonged, like she had value in this world. She needed to be given hope, to believe that something was worth living for. In those vulnerable moments there was no one else she had but Miku.
Maybe it would be considered pathetic for her to cling onto a virtual instrument like her life depended on it, but it was the only way she could cope. Miku could be anything anyone wanted. Each person and producer breathed their own life experience into a vocaloid’s soul, like the collective consciousness of humanity. Every story told through Vocaloid was beautiful, thought provoking, or just plain fun. Vocaloids could be kind, tenacious, and empathetic, or silly, foolish, and naive, or villainous, cowardly, and selfish. However, more importantly even all those things was what a vocaloid could not do.
A vocaloid could never lie to you.
A vocaloid could never be hurt by you.
A vocaloid could never leave you.
So for these reasons, she would continue listening to Miku and confiding to her the deepest fears and wants that rested in her heart. A sad existence yes, but the only existence that she could live.
Maybe it was the exceptionally strong feeling of self loathing or maybe it was just the anniversary of another year of middle school spent alone, but something was different about this night. As she drifted off to sleep, her dreams would bring her to a world unknown.