Chapter Text
There were blue flowers planted around the walls of Miyamasuzaka Girls’ Academy.
Really, Haruka thought, the entire scene in front of her was beautiful. If she had been enrolled at the start of the year, along with all the other students crowding the front gates around her, it would have been even more so. She could picture vividly in her mind the sight of pink cherry blossoms falling from the sky around her, her first day of school tinted by the flurry of petals. It was grossly picturesque.
That was only her imagination, though. In reality, Haruka’s first day of school was a good month later than the first day of the students around her. The trees lining the school’s campus were beginning to sprout green leaves in place of cherry-pink flowers. The students around her had each learned their own routines. It was only her who stood alone, unsure of herself, unmoving in front of the school doors. It was still spring, though, and so flowers were in full bloom every direction she looked.
She had never planned on attending high school normally. As an idol in ASRUN, there simply wasn’t time in the day for her to keep up her activities while attending day school at the same time. With the help of her agency, she had made arrangements to earn her high school credits asynchronously. She’d completed her last stretch of middle school in the same way.
Now that she had left ASRUN, now that she was no longer an idol, even something as mundane as attending high school was a daunting prospect. She could hardly even remember what her life had been like before passing auditions. The gray school uniform on her body felt stiff and unwelcoming, so much unlike the frilly fabrics of idol dresses.
She forced her legs to take one step forwards, along the path, towards the school’s entrance.
Her current circumstances were something she preferred not to think about. She swept away thoughts of light blue glowsticks, of Mai’s pained anger, and of the trembling of her own legs, away like dust from an old countertop. If she lingered too long, she knew, she would never be able to take another step forwards. The school bells would ring, and she would still be stood outside, like a statue, forever.
Another step forwards, then another. She sighed..
It was in the past now, after all, she reasoned with herself. It had been half a year since she had quit ASRUN. The entire group had fallen apart afterwards. They were nothing without their center, one of her groupmates had told her, poorly-hidden spite licking at her tone of voice. Maybe it was true. Haruka didn’t want to consider the possibility. She had shut her ears to every single mention of ASRUN from then on.
Her chest hurt. She ignored it and took another step, past the bounds of the doorway.
She’d been shown her locker by Miyamasuzaka’s staff during her makeshift orientation, on a weekend when the school was empty, quiet save for the sounds of sports teams practicing. The staff had taken her through everything, from classrooms to club rooms, the gym where the basketball team was practicing – vaguely, Haruka wondered if she should take up her old hobby again – and the outdoor courtyard where groups of students would come to eat lunch or socialize.
Haruka’s own locker was in front of her now. It was just below eye level, surrounded by other lockers, with the kanji for her last name printed onto a tag stuck to the front. Tentatively, she slid her newly bought loafers off, exchanging them for the indoor shoes inside.
The flowers around the school had been just as vibrant during that little tour as they were now. Haruka had only noticed them, though, because the staff had pointed them out to her. They were the work of the beautification committee, they had told her, pinks and reds and yellows sprouting from the flower beds.
She supposed the school had every right to be proud of their flowers. They had grown well, vibrant and healthy and full of color. But she hadn’t cared much for them back then. Although she could see the colors, something about it all was lifeless, empty, somehow.
There was only one color she could truly see. Nestled within the other flower beds, there were small carpets of light blue and white flowers. The color was much like her own image color, she thought. The color of the pen lights her fans had held for her, bathing an entire crowd of supporters in her hue. The thought brought a pit of emptiness to her stomach.
On either side of the school’s main entrance, there were two beds of those blue flowers. Haruka looked backwards. From where she was standing, she could see them through the door.
With effort, she tore her eyes away and stared back at her open locker. Mechanically, she pushed it closed until it shut with a metallic click.
“I’m Kiritani Haruka,” she said, although she had just written her name on the blackboard behind her. “I’ll be in this class from now on. It’s nice to meet you all.”
She bowed towards the rows of desks laid out in front of her, doing her best to ignore the stares of her new classmates and the unfamiliar feeling of chalk dust on her fingertips. There were so, so many eyes on her; it reminded her of the endless waves of crowd judgment she had learned to hate. Her body screamed at her to shift in discomfort, or to cover her face.
Still, she held a placid expression and a light smile on her face as she raised her head, staring out at no one in particular, and took large strides towards the back of the classroom as her new teacher bid her back to her seat.
There were whispers, everywhere. Not a single person in the class seemed unaware of who she was. She wondered if people had spread rumors of a popular retired idol coming to their school, whispering it to everyone who had been unaware now that she was here in front of them. She felt a pang of sickness to her stomach. Her face was unmoving.
Her new desk was towards the back of the classroom, next to the window. It was a small blessing, she supposed, that once she sat down there were classmates crowding around her from three sides and not four.
“Hey, is it true that you used to be an idol?” A girl with a low ponytail thrust her head forward with wide eyes.
“Duh. Of course it’s true, she’s, like, super famous. You haven’t heard of ASRUN?” Another girl called out, craning her neck over the small group that had gathered around Haruka’s desk, trying to get a look.
“I can’t believe you’re actually here in this school with us,” another girl said. Haruka turned her head towards the voice, but couldn’t see who it came from. Her head was spinning.
“Um,” she said, quietly, holding her hands up placatingly. Most of the girls seemed to get the message and backed away. Through it all, though, the mask of a smile never left Haruka’s face.
“I used to be an idol in ASRUN, yes.” She turned her eyebrows up in a look of slight exasperation.
“Used to?” a girl mumbled.
“Yeah,” another answered her in a hushed whisper. “They disbanded a while ago. You didn’t know?”
“I was a really, really big fan of you when you were in ASRUN!” One girl in a bob cut stepped forwards. “I was so sad when your group disbanded…”
Another pang of sickness. Haruka kept her mouth frozen in place, so that it wouldn’t show on her face.
“But y’know,” the bob-cut girl continued, “seeing you in person, I really feel like, wow, she’s just as cool and idol-like in real life, you know?”
A few of the other girls murmured in agreement. Haruka let her eyes flit back and forth between them. She opened her mouth to say something, to give thanks, maybe. But she found that she couldn’t find the words, and shut it again.
“Hey, if I bring a poster to school tomorrow, will you sign it for me?” The bob-cut girl spoke again. A few small giggles rang out from the class, and she flushed slightly. “Um, sorry if that’s weird. You don’t, like, have to if it’s too much trouble, I’m just- I would be really happy.”
Haruka stared blankly at her for a moment. Really, signing an autograph was the very last thing she wanted to do at that moment. All of this was. The constant reminder of the fans she had and the hearts she had broken by retiring, of who she had been before and who she could never be again, felt like her own personal brand of hell.
She made herself nod. “I could do that. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all,” she said.
The girl’s face lit up. It was somewhat like being at a handshake event again, Haruka thought. She had used to love the smiles of her fans when they had met her. As she looked at her fan now, though, there wasn’t a single bit of joy in her heart.
“Okay, that’s enough,” the teacher called out, tapping at the board with her wooden pointer. “Class is starting. Back to your seats.”
That was enough for the students; each of them shuffled back into their own seats, an atmosphere of slight ashamedness resonating from the crowd of them. Haruka breathed a small sigh of relief. She was sure there would still be stares and whispers, but the very least, there would be a reprieve from talking to them until lunch.
As she glanced around the room, though, shuffling through her bag for the fresh notebook and pencil she had packed, she noticed one pair of eyes on her in particular. Despite all of the commotion, the girl who was assigned to sit next to her hadn’t moved from her chair, nor had she said a single word. But she was still looking at Haruka, even though most of the class had turned their attention away from her and towards the teacher’s lecturing by now.
Curiously, Haruka glanced over to her side. The girl looked relatively unassuming, with long black hair and bangs that swept down either side of her face. Her eyes widened slightly as the two of them made eye contact, and she realized that Haruka was looking at her.
There was something a bit strange about that girl, she thought. She had probably been observing Haruka the entire time, but she never tried to get a word in, nor even make her presence known. But most of all, while the other girls had worn curious gazes or excited smiles, this girl’s face was unreadable. Her eyes were deep, gray, almost lifeless. Her expression had been neutral and blank.
It was almost as if Haruka had been looking into a mirror of her own self, below her practiced smiles and expressions. She felt a small shiver go down her spine.
They held eye contact for one second that seemed to stretch for far longer. Then, shyly, the girl ducked her head and looked away, back down at her notebook, where she had been scribbling something in pen. Slowly, Haruka turned her gaze back towards her own desk, too.
Inevitably, the girls in Haruka’s new class 1-C pounced on her like vultures on a carcass. It seemed as if wherever she went, there were new invitations to eat lunch together, to visit a club, to go shopping or to a cafe or to grab a bite of fast food to eat after school. There were almost too many for Haruka to accept. She felt as if she was being dragged towards every single direction, pulled taut until she could almost snap.
For a time, she decided that it would be easiest to go along with whoever asked her first. That way, she could maintain a fair excuse for not accepting an invitation, repeating “I have other plans today, sorry” with the same apologetic smile and bow of her head, over and over again.
On her first day she went to visit Miyamasuzaka’s basketball club. One of their third-year managers had seemingly gotten word that Haruka had been a basketball player in her early days of middle school, and had visited her class after school. It had been a relatively convenient invitation for her to accept. She had already had the thought of visiting them anyways.
The basketball club was familiar enough. It seemed similar enough to Haruka’s middle school’s club, if more rigorous. When the manager asked her if she was interested in joining, she gave it a moment of sincere thought. Looking at the team reminded her of the things she had once loved about basketball: the team spirit, the shared drive to be better.
In the end, though, she had politely declined and gone straight home. She didn’t think she could go back to playing basketball anymore. The reason she had given the manager was that she hadn’t played since early middle school and her skills were dull, but that was only half of the reason. She liked the sport, and liked exercise, but the idea of being part of another team effort made her sick.
Over the next few days, she bounced around a few other different places. She spent lunch with various groups of students, in her classroom or in the courtyard. After school, she went to a family restaurant to eat and do homework one day, and to the mall to shop for clothes another day.
She supposed that it was fun. None of the people she was with were rude or unwelcoming. It was quite the opposite, in fact; everyone was polite to her, cheerful and clearly making an effort to make her feel welcomed.
At the same time, though, she realized after a few days just how shallow all of it was. There wasn’t much she had in common with these people, after all. All she could really do was follow along, smile and nod and laugh and speak when she was spoken to. There was no real chemistry, no real interest past the surface-level novelty of being friends with an idol.
That was likely why none of those groups had reached out to her a second time, Haruka thought. If she hadn’t been former super-idol Kiritani Haruka of ASRUN, there probably wouldn't have been a first.
She held that thought in her mouth as she sat by herself in the classroom during lunch time, the spite of it like poison down her throat. After a few days of that, she took to eating lunch alone in whatever secluded spot she could find, away from the watchful, judging eyes of her classmates.
The courtyard quickly became her favored spot. It was easy enough to find a place where she was mostly obscured from view, and few enough people went there for lunch that it was quiet. She could eat in silence, in peace, wordlessly chewing on her food as she sat and stared out at rows of blue flowers.
It went on like that for a few more days. Occasionally, a girl or a small group of them would approach her in the courtyard, gray uniform and cardigans obscuring her view of her flowers. She assumed that they had seen her through the windows. Those conversations were awkward, and usually when it happened it ended with Haruka being roped into eating lunch with another group of people who she couldn’t break past the ice with. Sometimes, though, she was left alone, and she satisfied herself with that.
On those days when she was alone, she often found her eyes wandering. There were few people who went out into the courtyard, but the number was never zero; there were always a few groups chatting to break the silence, and a few people sitting alone. They were like herself, Haruka assumed. They were just seeking a quiet spot to be by themselves.
One day, half-obscured by the trunk of the tree behind the bench Haruka liked to sit at, she caught a flash of long black hair and gray-blue eyes, trained down at the ground below her feet.
She blinked, staring for a moment, memories of her first day in class flowing through her head. It was the same girl she’d made eye contact with back then. Her name was Hoshino Ichika, Haruka had learned. She was the class representative, so Haruka had picked up on it quickly. Haruka supposed it made sense that she was eating alone. After all, despite being the class representative, she was unassuming and kept to herself. It didn’t seem like she had any friends to eat with, in 1-C or outside of it.
Ichika looked up from her own lunch and met Haruka’s eyes with a small start. She quickly averted her eyes, but Haruka kept looking this time. She wasn’t quite sure of why; but the more she looked, the more she realized that the feeling in her heart was just like how she felt as she looked out at those flowers. Uncertain, melancholic, but at the same time enrapturing.
Before she could even consider what she was doing, she had gotten up, wrapped lunch box in hand, walking across the courtyard towards Ichika’s widening eyes.
“Kiritani-san?” Ichika looked up at her with a confused expression. Haruka met it with a practiced soft smile.
“Can I sit next to you?” she asked.
Ichika stared at her for a moment in silence. Then, she shrugged, almost unnoticeably. Haruka took it as enough cue to sit down.
“Are you looking at those?” Ichika asked.
As Haruka turned her head back towards Ichika, she made a small gesture with her hand towards the beds of blue flowers Haruka had been staring at.
Haruka and Ichika eating together in the courtyard had become a somewhat regular occurrence. The day after the first time, the two of them had made eye contact once again, and Ichika hadn’t said anything when Haruka had moved to take her seat. From that point onwards, whenever Ichika was in the courtyard, Haruka would sit next to her. They ended up together most days.
The atmosphere was always somewhat awkward between them. Neither of them seemed to have much interest in starting a conversation; Ichika’s question had been the first thing she had said to Haruka all day. Still, in the rare moments when they did talk, Haruka found Ichika to be polite and generally pleasant to talk to.
Even if it was awkward, Haruka was fine enough with the quiet. Quiet meant that there was no pretense of wanting to be friends with a famous idol. Haruka had been the one to approach Ichika, after all. She was sure that Ichika was aware of who she was, if not from prior knowledge then from the whispers of their classmates, but it seemed as if to her she was still “Kiritani-san”, and not “Kiritani Haruka”. She liked that part most of all.
After a moment of thought, she nodded. “I was,” she said.
“Are you interested in them?” Ichika tilted her head slightly. “You glance at them a lot, don’t you?”
Haruka let out a quiet laugh. “You noticed? Yes, I guess you could say that.”
“Why?” Ichika asked. “Do you like flowers?”
Haruka quieted for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I guess I just like the color of those ones.”
Of course, she was lying through her teeth. She knew exactly why she had been staring at those flowers, and it wasn’t because she liked the color.
“They’re called nemophilas,” Ichika said. “They’re Western flowers that bloom around this time. They represent…” she paused for a moment, looking up in thought. “Success, or victory. But they’re annual, so they die only a few weeks after they flower. It’s a little ironic, huh?”
Haruka stared blankly at her, watching Ichika’s expression turn from neutral to slight embarrassment. The longer she spent staring, the more she could feel her own smile drop.
“I’m sorry,” Ichika smiled placatingly, the apology in her words mirrored in her eyes. “I’m interested in flowers and flower language, so I just started going on and on.”
For a moment, Haruka didn’t say anything. Then, she slowly forced herself to smile again. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I don’t know about that kind of thing, so it was interesting.”
She looked back at the flower beds, light blue staring back at her, burning itself into her eyes. Her throat went tight. When she couldn’t bear it any longer, she tore herself away, looking down at her lunch box, down at her lap, down and down further into the ground until she was looking at nothing at all.