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Kana regrets the outburst as soon as it’s over. The front of Aqua’s shirt is all crumpled from her hands clawing at him - he would have hated that. She still remembers him stalking through the school hallways on that first day, uniform pressed to perfection, his shoes shining.
She’d never seen a teenage boy so meticulous, she’d teased him once. He’d just shrugged and said, very seriously, that he liked to be tidy.
It occurs to Kana that he is going to be buried like this, shirt forever wrinkled. She has to fix it. It would only need a second of contact, but whatever adrenaline had powered her before has drained away; the thought of touching him makes her feel nauseous. She’d touched him, before, casual flicks on the shoulder, her wrist glancing on his arm, a slight ruffle of his hair. He’d been so warm, so solid.
But she owes him this much. She leans closer again, smooths her palm over his chest. The wrinkles are pushed away. His skin is cold beneath it. His hair is combed neatly, parted in the centre. She’s close enough that she can see the spray of light lashes brushing his cheeks, little half halos. A mole on his neck, on the curve of his jaw. His lips, colourless now with no blood to warm them.
She had been this close once before, the day they’d done a promotional shoot for Sweet Today. They’d been waiting on the makeup artist, and Kana had amused herself by swatching eyeshadows and lipsticks on Aqua’s arm and face. A perfect model, she’d declared, showing him the mirror so he could see the graphic eyeliner she’d done on him. He had said, deadpan, that he’d had a lot of practice, since his sister would try out any new eyeshadow look on him first.
Kana lets her hand linger on his chest, for two seconds, three. Just a few centimetres below her palm is the hole in his stomach, stitched smooth. Hollow within, she imagines, missing whatever blood and viscera Aqua had managed to lose in the water before his body was found.
What earthly reason was there for this? Kana wonders. She had loved him, and he had - well, she thought he had loved her. Or he had looked at her, and for Kana that was the same thing, essentially.
There is a hand on her elbow now, leading her away - it’s Akane, Kana realises dimly. Aqua, Aqua - she won’t ever see him again, why is Akane taking her away? Kana needs to be there again, by the coffin, cataloguing every feature. She doesn’t want to forget any of him - that bright hair, the jut of his jaw - Kana remembers being 5 years old and thinking the new kid looked a little like an angel. Remembers watching him act, the cold shock of being shown up for the first time in her short life.
There is still a picture of them, tucked away in some old album. Kana and Aqua, in costume, forever 5 years old. Both of them looking quite serious for a pair of toddlers. In her most secret, shameful daydreams, she had imagined showing that photo to her kids. See there, that’s me and your dad, the first time we met. And he embarrassed me terribly.
She hadn’t admitted this dream to anyone, and especially not Aqua. She wasn’t even sure she wanted kids. And of course, even if Aqua had lived, they might not have worked out at all. Maybe he would have gone back to Akane, or met a pretty girl at university. But there was an appeal in it, the thought of that golden, lovely future - where she was loved, and by someone who knew her so thoroughly, where all the mistakes of her childhood had been rendered insignificant with time.
And there was no point to any of it, Kana thinks heavily. Who was Aqua to her, really, outside of those secret hopes? The brother of her fellow idol? Some guy she acted with a few times? She would have to walk around forever with this awful weight on her heart, and if anyone ever asked - oh, a boyfriend? - she would have to say, “No! No, we never dated at all. He looked at me, and nobody had really looked at me in so long, and he remembered I hated bell peppers…” and everyone would smile uncomfortably and nod in the way you nodded at someone who was clearly mentally unwell.
Not even a boyfriend. What a joke.
They were sitting down now, her and Akane, and Akane’s hand had migrated somehow from Kana’s elbow to her back, soothing and conciliatory. Kana felt a familiar flash of irritation - as if Akane hadn’t loved Aqua as much as Kana had, what business did Akane have looking so stoic; everyone else may have been fooled, but Kana had long learned to spot an act.
Akane may as well have lain on the floor and screamed and shook her limbs, for all the good her stupid blank expression did her. Kana could see the cracks in that visage - there was something wounded beneath, and if Kana could tease it out, then they would finally be able to fight about something again and Kana would be able to forget, for a few seconds, that Aqua was no longer there, the eternally impassive witness to all their catty arguments.
Akane turns to her, “Are you alright, Kana-chan?” And then, fumbling, “Well, of course, not alright, but you know—.“
Kana feels all the viciousness drain out of her. This, she remembers, is the girl who carries a notebook around to take notes on psychology whenever it strikes her. Akane Kurokawa had spent so long studying and embodying the abnormal psyches of film-worthy characters that she’d probably forgotten how to act like a real person.
Why else would she give up Aqua so freely when she so obviously wanted him? Why else would she be here at this funeral acting so serious and so reasonable, like Kana had been the only girl madly in love with him?
Kana couldn’t blame her any more than she could blame Taiki for his flagrant drinking. She supposed all stars had their coping mechanisms, and Akane’s was to keep up the act, even when there was no audience to impress. You don’t need to be the bigger person anymore, she wanted to say. You can say you love him. He won’t be scared away, and I won’t be jealous, he’s gone and he’ll never be ours again.
But the weight of grief seemed to have softened her mind and dragged down her tongue and so she said nothing at all.