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Reina used to climb up Mount Daikichiyama whenever she felt the urge– endlessly, almost, in braids or black heels or a yukata patterned with birds poised to take flight. Years ago, she had made a solemn promise to herself that she would only run away if it was upwards, if it was towards something, and the mountain stood as a reminder of that promise. Reina could get a break from her life for an hour or two, and with it could come some purpose, some semblance of clarity as she watched the city far below her and then turned her back to it.
Besides, it wasn’t as if there was much else for her to do in Uji. Reina didn’t precisely loathe shopping, but she certainly couldn’t abide the thought of the groups of students there, messing around with their hair and taking photos. In her mind, such groups would turn towards her, then look through her just as quickly, on to the next store on their list.
(Reina had told Kumiko all of this, once, when they were shopping together for summer outfits. Kumiko had laughed and nudged her. You always need to be the center of attention, don’t you, she had said, and then I think you would look better in this shirt than me , and the topic had not been brought up again. But they never went back to a shopping center during a school break.)
And so Reina had climbed the mountain on all the nights when she felt like life was pressing in on her from all sides, when her thoughts were tangled by the lights in her basement, when she needed to be anywhere other than where she was. As she became used to the path, her walks took on a meditative quality– the pureness of her effort on the way to the top, her distance from the world slowly made physical, allowed her to escape herself. She could leave reality behind, and she would rediscover it on the way back down the mountain, step by rhythmic step. It felt like a high note on her trumpet, one with perfect vibrato and clear tone, the kind that made people stare– but this ritual was just as piercing, and she was allowed to keep it all to herself.
(Her parents believed that Reina was simply particularly dedicated to her favorite shrine, and Reina had no issues with that. She would have told them the truth if they had asked, but people tended not to.)
But then Reina had shown Mount Daikichiyama to Kumiko on that fateful night. Her gamble had paid off, of course, and she had never regretted showing Kumiko her true nature in that place where her skirt mingled with the stars, where her sound could carry forever. However, that night had been sacred, and Reina was sometimes unfortunately sentimental. She had tried to climb the mountain again without Kumiko, the next time that she needed to, but her thoughts weren’t the same. Instead, they lingered on Kumiko’s breaths as she struggled up the mountain, Kumiko’s hair blown by the wind, Kumiko’s wide eyes as she listened to Reina’s confession, her smiling nonchalance finally wiped away (the soft skin of Kumiko’s face under Reina’s fingertips–)
This was just as well. Her routine would simply have to change. Reina would hike Mount Daikichiyama when she was with Kumiko, now, or when she needed to be with her, and she would find somewhere else to go when she felt her future before her so keenly that she didn’t dare to ruin it by picking up her trumpet.
And she really did try. She went down to the river, and through parks and back streets, but nowhere was like the mountain. Everywhere was running away. The rest of the city was owned by Yuuko’s clenched fists, by Kaori’s sad smile, and Reina found herself returning home unsatisfied. She tried to throw herself into practice, but rote repetition in her basement had paled in comparison to Kituji’s rooftop on a sunny day, Kumiko watching beside her. She still did what she had to do, of course, but there was no emotional release in it. There wouldn’t be until she could stop picturing herself onstage, warm lights and invisible crowds, and instead actually be there .
She was sleeping less and less. Some part of her brain was convinced that she could live on a fantasy, that the cheers of a crowd would sustain her, that her own knowledge of her destiny was equivalent to six hours’ rest. When she did fall asleep, Reina never dreamed of the things she wanted to. All she ever did was run, stopping just short of a pair of golden eyes.
(Kumiko was always suggesting new things to do with Reina. First it was a snack at the corner store, then a playground in the middle of the night, then trying on swimsuits in the same dressing room. Sometimes, the two of them simply sat across from each other on the ground and talked about the world. Kumiko said it again and again, like a fact and not a prayer: If anyone on Earth will be special, it’s you , and sometimes I want to come with you when you go on tour , and then they talk about how terribly boring Shuuichi is as a human and how awful most high school band pieces are. And then, when the day is over and Kumiko is no longer next to her, Reina longs for that part of Kumiko’s easy certainty, the way that Reina’s dreams are part of the fabric of her world instead of something tearing against it.)
And still, Reina did not return to Mount Daikichiyama alone. As a rule, she did not break promises to herself. But little by little, she exhausted her other options. She found herself taking longer walks and pacing in circles in her room more often, sleeping only as a last resort, drinking coffee at midnight with her head in her hands because she was still sometimes caught by a terrible need to do something entirely unexpected. She lived during the day, and practiced until she could only see the horizon, and at night she put on black dresses and heels and hated her youth and the path before her in equal measures. Kaori’s expression lived somewhere within her, now, marked in red. A warning.
For two years, Kaori had been the best. She had given that up, in the name of preserving her nature, and somewhere within Reina were glass edges that could not allow that to happen. She ran her fingers along them as the sunset slipped past her, eyes unseeing.
Reina would be special. She would . But her tone had not been steady enough lately. She had not walked the perfect line between emotion and technique, caught up in petty high school drama, and there were people in the world who were not brought down by such things. She needed to become one of them once again.
She needed to climb.
“I’m leaving,” she said on her way out the door. Her voice was steady, flat, aimed at no one in particular. Her parents heard, or they did not.
She climbed in her white heels because she needed them. She tried her hardest to center her thoughts on her future, on the infinite sky above her and the limitless trees. She told herself to become the wind.
It was no use. Her mind cleared, fragment by fragment, but not with lonely and clear-eyed ambition. Reina paused and turned back towards the bottom of the mountain.
“I will be the best,” she said, and in her mind it echoed in another voice.
She smiled.
Kumiko surely wasn’t waiting by the phone at this time of night. But Reina had no more doubt that, if she found out what was happening, Kumiko would gladly climb up the mountain beside her, as long as she could complain just a bit at the top. After all, she was that kind of person.
Reina would let her, and save her confession for the top of the mountain with the lights of the world behind her, as she had last time. Before she took her phone out of her pocket, Reina set her mind on what she would say.
( I never said the words out loud to anyone but you. Nobody was worth telling but you. You made it real, when you played beside me, and now you have to live with that. You have to live with me, every day for the rest of our lives, until I can finally become special. I won’t let you go until that life is close enough that I can hold it alone.)
The phone rang once, then again. Reina tensed.
“Reina? Are you okay?”
“You know where to find me.”