Work Text:
“Then we kissed. And it was so...”
“Wait, what?”
Natsuki stares at me, the straw of her milkshake balancing precariously on her lower lip, with the stunned look of someone who has just been told that an asteroid is going to collide with Earth, for ever changing the destiny of humanity.
And even if I can't help thinking that kissing Mizore has turned mine upside down, my ego is not yet so developed that I believe the fate of mankind will be utterly changed by that kiss.
Well, okay, I confess that after leaving my friend – my girlfriend now? – on her doorstep, I felt as if a camera were following me all the way back home, the birds dancing for me in the sky, the light breeze on my face humming a blissful melody, and the people I passed some extras in the musical that life was shooting especially for me as the sun set on this beautiful day.
The feeling was so wonderful that I decided to make the moment last a little longer before going home, to make it a magical and luminous pause. And who better than Natsuki to share it with? A quick message, a twenty minutes wait, and there was my best friend at the door of that charming café we love so much.
As soon as our orders were served - strawberry vanilla milkshake for her, mango parfait for me - I began to tell her what had happened with Mizore.
If I were as expert as Asuka in the art of storytelling, I could have described things in a way that did them justice. But I'm just me, and words tumbled out of my mouth like notes too impatient to fit on a musical staff. It was probably out of rhythm, a bit discordant, but the last movement certainly had an impact on Natsuki, causing her to stare at me as she does now.
“Mizore? You? Kiss?” she finally summarizes, clearly punctuating each of her words as if supported by the beats of cymbals.
Beats that resonate in my whole body, nestling in my heart, trumpeting the arrival of the broad smile that I feel spreading across my lips.
The smile I discovered just today after confessing my feelings to Mizore.
The smile I had locked away and buried so long ago, so deep inside, only showing the world a cheap version that I thought would be enough to protect me from others and above all from myself.
The smile finally free, finally alive, breathing in the world and the people.
My smile.
My smile that beams and shouts from my face with more power than a brass section, which I accompany with a silent nod to confirm to my best friend that, yes, Mizore and I kissed.
***
“Wow...”
Okay, I'm not the kind of person who will ever win an eloquence contest, but I still am a more or less articulate girl, with a vocabulary that is at least in the standard of ordinary mortals. Which, by all logic, means that I can form vaguely constructed sentences and therefore make vaguely constructive remarks.
But, in this specific instance, nothing other than that 'wow' came out of my mouth.
Nozomi and Mizore kissed.
It's so surprising, so extraordinary and yet so... right? I don't know if 'right' is the appropriate word. But it's the one that comes to my mind as soon as I have recovered from the shock caused by what my friend has just revealed and which I have poorly articulated through my laconic 'wow'.
Nozomi and Mizore kissed.
This sentence whirls and twirls in my head, a gentle and luminous ballet, as I stare at the girl in front of me, who is also watching me. A magnificent smile lights up her face, a smile which seems to sparkle down to the very depths of her beautiful azure blue eyes.
I know this girl very well and thought I knew all her smiles. But I don't know this one. I don't know where she found it, if there was a big lottery and she won the first prize, or if a treasure map led to this incredible loot.
The smile nevertheless gives my friend a new aura, lighting her up in a way I had never seen before. A way full of joy and promises. It's both wonderful and strange. Unsettling even.
As an unknown philosopher might say: wow.
Who are you, Nozomi Kasaki?
It's a question which should seem ridiculous to me – I know who my friend is, don't I? – and yet I seriously ask myself this question just as I finally decide to take a sip of my milkshake.
The vanilla strawberry frappe slips over my tongue along with an answer that I can't seem to put together. Which doesn't surprise me in the least. Contrary to the preconceived notion that first and second year students have, the Kitauji High School Concert Band vice-president doesn't have an answer for everything. Far from it.
I stare a little more intently at the girl sitting opposite me, whose smile doesn't seem willing to ever leave her face.
I know this girl very well. One of the brightest stars at Minami Junior High. Back then, her aura attracted a good number of people who couldn't help but orbit around her.
It was mesmerizing. She was mesmerizing.
Maybe that's why I initially wanted to join her circle of friends, her galaxy.
And of course I was greeted with that smile which almost never left her face and of which I was convinced until a few moments ago that I knew all its variations.
The more time passed, the closer I got to Nozomi, the more I got to know her, to discern the cleverly masked craters, the turbulent waters that roil beneath the apparently calm sea of her eyes.
That's why I tried to support her as best I could when she left the orchestra in freshman year and then when she wanted to come back to it one year later.
Nozomi, my friend.
My best friend, perhaps. It's something I'm never really sure about, especially since there's Yuuko.
Well, Yuuko is obviously a different matter. It's... I don't really know what it is. Another question to which I am still unable to clearly provide an answer.
In the difficult times, Yuuko has been there for Mizore, just as I have been for Nozomi. I can't wait to see her reaction when she finds out about the kiss.
All hail Mizore! A star so long lost, so long eager to fade behind Nozomi, who only recently seems to have been unveiled to the world and to herself.
Her oboe solo on 'Liz and The Blue Bird' during one of the orchestra's rehearsals is still imprinted on my memory and my senses.
The distinct impression of witnessing a soaring flight that day.
It was mesmerizing. She was mesmerizing.
Two stars, however different they may be, who manage the miracle of finding each other and dancing together while following their own paths.
I take another sip of my milkshake. Nozomi, who seems perfectly content with the silence around us, savors her mango parfait with relish, without losing that magnificent smile I didn't know she had until today.
Her smile. Her true smile.
And it suddenly occurs to me that it's not 'Who are you, Nozomi Kasaki?' that I should have asked myself earlier, but 'Where have you been all this time, Nozomi Kasaki?'
Unless you ask the right question, you can't get the right answer.
Because Nozomi is definitely here at this moment, right in front of me. So vividly and naturally here. So vividly and naturally her. Finally here. Finally her.
I don't know why, but a wave of happiness seems to roll over me and rise from the depths of my being, sweeping everything in its path, to crash against the dam of my teeth and explode in a roaring laughter.
Taken aback, Nozomi pauses, her spoon held up in the air like the baton of a conductor.
“It's not a joke, we really did kiss,” she protests, misunderstanding the reason for my laughter.
“I know,” I reply after catching my breath.
We look at each other for a few moments and, like a choir singing in unison, we belt out the most beautiful laughter in our repertoire.
The remaining part of the evening is spent in a joyous and cheerful atmosphere. Nozomi is inexhaustible when it comes to Mizore, in a way that I didn't know about and that I enjoy discovering.
Night has already sung its first notes as we say our goodbyes on the café's doorstep.
Nozomi glows with a radiance that outshines the stars in the sky, and it is a wonderful sight to follow her silhouette slowly fading around the corner, a luminous trail in her wake.
That's what 'being in love' looks like.
This thought crosses my mind at the speed of a rocket before landing somewhere in my heart.
Without really knowing why, I glance through the café window. A waitress is clearing the table we have been sitting at.
My gaze falls on the empty plate that previously held the frozen dessert Nozomi savoured.
My thoughts drift back to my friend, to her voice when she confessed to me that she and Mizore kissed, to her incandescent and invincible smile.
Love tastes like a mango parfait.
It’s a rather stupid thing to think, and yet it whirls and twirls in my head, a dazzling and intoxicating saraband, so much so that I feel an irrepressible urge to share it right away with someone. Well, a specific someone.
Turning my gaze to the starry sky, I take a moment to breathe in its bewitching infinity, realm of all possibilities, before picking up my phone to call Yuuko.