Work Text:
Shintaro isn’t exactly sure how all of this happened.
He managed to fend off any potential friend in middle school — save for, you know, her — with his cold, distant, apathetic attitude. Anyone willing to go up to him — again, disregarding her — would immediately freeze when making eye contact with him, like he was some sort of male Medusa or something. His intimidating presence — that didn’t deter her at all — warded off any male companion he could have possibly had, and he couldn’t recall the last time he was friends with a couple of guys. It’s safe to say that that was probably never.
So why were his male classmates all over him in high school?
His first-year class is filled with (mostly) new, unfamiliar faces; not a single person in the room had gone to the same middle school as him, with the exception of —
“Kisaragi, how’d you do on that math quiz just now?” overlaps with “Haha, I failed another one…”, bringing Shintaro back to reality. The male voice calling his name doesn’t get his attention, and instead, he turns to the girl next to him, hiding her flustered face in her familiar red scarf that he’s surprised she hadn’t ditched yet.
In this scenario, he would rather talk to Ayano rather than the stampede of boys heading his way.
“How bad…oh, never mind,” Shintaro says with a sigh, spying the 17 percent marked in red on her paper. “You might as well mentally prepare for the summer remedial classes you’ll have to take.”
“You might be right,” Ayano says with a deflated laugh, although once again, her face brandishes a smile. “Goodbye, summer vacation…”
“Kisaragi!” The class president arrives at his desk with a grin — it’s not as nice as Ayano’s…wait, what? — and slams his paper down. He takes a peak at Shintaro’s quiz, eyes widening at the score. “A hundred percent! As expected from you.” The class president’s eyes then wander over to Ayano, who blinks at him, confused, and Shintaro feels this weird, icky feeling in his chest that makes him want to stab the class president’s eyes out.
The class president leans closer to Shintaro. “Hey, can I talk to you outside for a minute?”
He really doesn’t want to, but before he could object, the class president grabs his shoulders and drags him into the hallway. Shintaro catches a glimpse of Ayano before the president shuts the door, and she’s just as baffled as he is.
The class president turns Shintaro so that they’re looking at each other, and there’s…a weirdly determined look on his face. It makes him think of the face Ayano made just now, and his stomach starts twisting into knots.
He can pretend to be stupid, but that doesn’t work with him.
“Kisaragi, lay it to me straight — what’s your type?”
He blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“I mean…” The class president looks around. The hallway’s occupants slowly dwindle as people start preparing for their next class. They have to make this conversation quick. “What kind of girl do you like — or, hold on, are you even into them? No worries if not, dude — it just makes this a whole lot easier…”
“I…am,” Shintaro says, a faint picture of Ayano in his mind just now, but he quickly wipes it away. “But what are you trying to get at here?”
“Look. You and Tateyama are weirdly close — I don’t see how with the two of you being complete opposites, though.”
Ouch.
“But she tells me you’re just friends. I want to ask her out on a date, but…if she’s the type of girl you like, Kisaragi, I won’t step on any toes. I’m not going to do that to a fellow man.”
Now it’s Shintaro’s turn to freeze up, to turn into stone. Ayano? His type? He hadn’t thought of that at all. She was always just there, stuck to him, like a ghost haunting him — but…does he like it? Does he like her — ?
The bells chimes, and the class president sighs, giving Shintaro a pat on his shoulders. “For a genius like you, Kisaragi, you sure are taking a while to answer this question. Okay, I get it. It’s complicated. But I won’t sit still.”
That was…definitely a declaration of war. As the class president enters the room, waving at Ayano as he does, Shintaro realizes that his high school life, filled with male nuisances like that stupid president, was not because he was suddenly cool — it was because of Ayano, who made him look better than he actually was.
For once in Shintaro’s life, he’s glad Ayano’s walking home with him.
Their houses are around the same area, so this was a middle school routine that followed them even at the start of their high school lives. As they walk the familiar streets in silence, he can’t help but feel…glad. Happy. Amused by the fact that despite the class president’s attempts to keep her after school today, she denied, opting to walk home with Shintaro with a joke — “He’ll get lost if I don’t!”
The class president’s friends were…a riot, and he’s not saying that kindly. When they change for PE, he could hear their lewd jokes and cheeky remarks. He feels like he’s going to hurl at the thought of their words — the class president’s words — were said with Ayano in mind. How despicable. Don’t speak about her like that.
But why do I hate it so much — ?
“You and Adachi-kun seem close.”
“…Who?” Shintaro didn’t mean to blurt that out, but he does. Oops.
Ayano stops in her tracks, an eyebrow raised. “Shintaro, you can’t be serious, can you?” She pauses, and then lets out a small chuckle. “Hm. Bad question. The class president.”
Oh. So that’s his rival’s name. He shrugs. “Not particularly.”
“But you two talk quite a bit!” Against my will, Shintaro wants to say, but he doesn’t. Ayano takes a moment to catch up to him (cute — shit, what?) so that they’re standing side-by-side again, and she looks up at him with yet another smile. “Or is this one of those things where you are friends, but you won’t acknowledge it? I know that all too well…”
“No.” Now it’s his turn to stop, turning to stand in front of Ayano, the expression he wears stone-cold serious. The smile drops from Ayano’s face — I’m sorry — but he can’t help this weird…defensive feeling. He would never consider the class president, whose name he had already forgotten, a friend. He’s not like that. He’s not like Ayano. “No, we’re not.”
“Oh.” Ayano pauses for a second before adding, “Sorry to assume that, then.”
“…It’s not your fault.”
Shintaro steps to the side now, his eyes trained to the ground as they then continue walking. Awkward.
At this rate, maybe the class president might catch her, after all. Is the reason why she hangs around him out of obligation? He hates to tie her down like that.
“Ah!” Shintaro’s stopped by Ayano grabbing his arm, and before he could say anything, she looks at him with a smile once again, pointing across the street. “Hey, that store is finally open! Why don’t we check it out?”
It was a music store that had been under construction for quite a while, but the words “GRAND OPENING” signaled that they were now ready for customers. They had passed by the building frequently on their way home for months now, Ayano usually musing about how she wanted to see its contents, and with the excitement on her face and the tight grip she had on his arm, it seemed that she wanted Shintaro to come with.
…Fuck it, screw my cool guy persona. Just for today. He relents with a nod, and she immediately starts dragging him across the street with a skip in her step.
The store is filled to the brim with CDs, vinyls, and merch of artists he had never heard of. Sorry he mainly listens to Vocaloid music.
Although the names are unfamiliar to him, Ayano seems to know quite a bit, squealing in delight at the very first display they see when they enter the store. “Shintaro, they have all the albums of my favorite idol group!” She picks up an album with…a ton of guys on it. Thirteen, if he counted correctly. She points to someone with black hair. “This guy writes all their music! He’s been doing it since the beginning.”
I can do that, too, is something he wants to say, but he hadn’t told her about how he started writing music recently. Why is he weirdly jealous?
Ayano drags him to other corners of the store, pointing out different albums from girl groups to anime soundtracks, eyes sparkling at every new item. While it seems that she’s having fun browsing, he’s having fun watching her.
Huh?! Weirdo!
“…Why would you buy a CD, though,” he says when Ayano picks up an album of an extremely old anime’s main theme songs, “when it’s all online?”
“Hm.” Ayano stares at the CD’s plastic case for a second. “Well, I guess for me…it’s something physical. It’s a reminder that these exist. You know what I mean?”
He doesn’t, but he nods anyway. Ayano can see the half-hearted agreement he gave and shuffles through her back, pulling out —
“Wow, miss, I haven’t seen a walkman before!” The store attendant comes up from behind them, a young man who immediately turns to give Ayano a grin. It makes Shintaro sick. “We’re the same age, aren’t we? How do you have one?”
Yeah, and another thing — you had that in your bag this entire time?
Ayano gives the store attendant a smile, and it almost kills Shintaro then and there. “It was my mom’s! It’s one of the few things I have of her. When I listen to something in here, I feel like she’s right there with me.”
The store attendant nods, takes a glance at Shintaro, and says, “Well, tell your boyfriend that we have a grand opening discount! 50-perfect off all items! I saw you eyeing a bunch of albums already. You should pick one!”
Before they can clear up the misconception about their relationship, the store attendant walks away, leaving the two of them behind.
Shintaro clears his throat. “Well. That’s a good deal.”
“Y — yeah…” Ayano fiddles with her mom’s walkman in her hands. It’s bulky, huge. There’s a tangle of earbuds on top of it. It looks ancient.
But Shintaro…is curious about what she listens to. How she listens to songs on that heirloom of hers. He clears his throat again. “…You should get something. For you and…your mom to listen to. My treat.”
Ayano’s eyes widen. He can get used to this. “Shintaro, are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
Take that, class president.
Ayano chooses a CD of a compilation album of anime openings from a certain year — “my siblings and my mom loved all the anime from this era!” — and immediately places it in her mom’s walkman when they start walking home again.
What he doesn’t expect is for her to hold out an earbud towards him, saying, “Will you listen with me?”
He can’t say no to that sickly sweet smile of hers.
It’s anime he’s watched before — he’s too embarrassed to admit he used to watch them with his little sister, though — so the songs are familiar. If he wasn’t careful, he might even start singing along. But it’s familiar, and the sentiment behind her choice is heartwarming, so he doesn’t mind it at all.
Sharing earbuds meant standing dangerously close to the girl, though, his throat feeling like he had just swallowed fire, his heart being pushed out of his chest like that one scene in “Howl’s Moving Castle”. If he tripped over a pebble, he would fall right into Ayano’s arms.
Would that be so bad — ?
He shakes his head. What an awful thing to think about when he silently reprimanded the class president’s dirty thoughts earlier. He tries to be extra careful with his step, all while sparing a glance at Ayano by his side.
She’s looking ahead, a small grin on her face, obviously enjoying the music of her youth. He catches her mouthing the words from time to time, something so undeniably endearing, and he realizes that if she fell, he wouldn’t mind catching her in his arms.
But if she did, he doesn’t know what he would do next. He would probably pick her up and whisk her to his house, where he’ll show her the song he’d been making that was, without a doubt now, all about her.
She was a beacon of light made with with hot gas, comprised of different elements, and made to twinkle. A bright star in his night sky.
And he wanted her all to himself.
Stars don’t live forever.
Supernovas are a bright explosion of light that indicates the end of a star’s life. His star died jumping off the school roof. The blood that pooled under Ayano’s dead body was that of wine. She was a red wine supernova.
Her father had placed his wife — Ayano’s mother — Ayano’s walkman next to the flowers on her desk, along with her scarf when he got to school the next day. Shintaro wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. Just a measly “sorry”.
When he took a peak at the CD inside the walkman, it was the one he’d gotten for her. He locked himself in his room after that day, and he didn’t come out for two years.
Ene’s appearance, his faithful meeting with the Dan, running into Konoha — they all felt like speckles of stardust that Ayano had left behind in the wake of her death, bits and pieces that he clung onto in some weird, vague hope that it could bring her back.
And as he walked into the red heat haze finally realizing what he had to do, he finds her falling, a confirmation that his weird inclination to gather what was left of her stardom wasn’t a wasted effort.
She’ll fall right into him, and this time, he won’t let go.