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“You write songs?”
Ayano’s chipper, upbeat voice is the first thing he hears once he’s finally taken out his earbuds, taking his usual seat next to her – it’s the same even in high school, it seems – as he settles into the classroom for the morning. Spring was a presence that could not be avoided with blooming cherry blossoms displayed from the windows and the underlying buzz of finally becoming first-year high school students that seemed to waver off of every classmate around them.
Spring also had…some sort of effect on her, and it wasn’t just in the form of her new uniform. He couldn’t figure out why it felt like looking through rose-colored glasses whenever he spared her a glance and she smiled. He rubs his tired eyes. Maybe he was just seeing things.
He supposes she’d seen the file on his phone that he’d been listening to – which was, to be frank, a song he was working on, with the title of it simply being “demo”. It was just a melody, nothing else. He pockets his phone, a scowl on his face.
“You’re a high schooler now and you still stick your nose in other people’s business?” He retorts, though for some reason, he’s less angry than he thought. Maybe he was getting too used to her.
“Just something I picked up when I became a big sister.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“It totally is!” She leans in a little closer – she might tip over in her seat at this rate. When was their homeroom teacher going to arrive so he could bolt out of this conversation?
It wasn’t that writing songs was an embarrassing hobby of his. It was just that…it was a quiet hobby. Nothing to boast about. They were for him only – or so he tells himself that. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, right?
Her eyes, for some reason, seem to gleam with excitement. She rattles on. “I didn’t know you could write – let alone make music! That’s so cool!” She pokes him in the arm. “ You’re cool!”
He was no stranger to her compliments, as uncalled for and as far-fetched as they were. It’s not like he can shake it off, either, the things she’d tell him – because for some reason, he liked hearing them come out of her mouth. She was confusing.
“If you ever finish one,” she says, sitting back down properly in her seat, a smile ever-present on her face, “I want to hear it.”
He waves her off with a hand. Her smile stretches, and she opens her notebook right as their homeroom teacher appears.
“Mm. I’ll hold you to that, Shintaro.”
“You look frustrated.”
The way she swings her feet as she sits on the rooftop bench is comical. She was like a child, petulant and impatient. Or perhaps she really was that carefree in the moment. She takes a bite out of her lunch as she tilts her head, prompting him to answer.
“So what if I am?”
“Well – why are you frustrated?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
Silence.
Ayano takes a sip of her drink. She looks off into the distance, into the sky that surrounds the rooftop. She continues, her voice a soft, reassuring tone. “It always does. So humor me, will you?”
He sighs. Gray clouds were scattered about far away, but they were inching closer to them. There was promise of spring skyfall; it wouldn’t be long until they felt raindrops on their head, and they would be forced inside. It was a jungle down in the cafeteria, the classrooms were loud, and their upperclassmen were sparse when it came to appearances in their special needs room – the rooftop was all they had during their lunch period, and perhaps it was the fact that it was just the two of them up there that he could afford to actually do what she’d asked before they would have to rush inside.
“Just have some writer’s block.” He says it nonchalantly, accompanied with a shrug of his shoulders. So every musician hits that sort of wall. It was nothing new to him.
Yet her eyes widened, and she looked intrigued. As always, he had her full attention – what he did to deserve such a thing is still a mystery. “Do you?”
He takes a sip of his soda this time around before he answers. Maybe it was because she seemed genuinely interested that he kept talking. “Not the best time to have it when you’re trying to enter a concert.”
“You’re entering in a contest?!” The way she said it was so loud that he felt like the whole high school could hear. He winces internally. She grabs his arm. “Then you’re right! It’s no good to have writer’s block!”
It was a contest held by a producer – “Happy Virus” was the name they went by – he held in high regard, one where the prize was some time spent with that producer and whatever the winner wanted to present. He was entering anonymously, and he didn’t expect anything out of it. If anything, it was good practice…if he got out of this writer’s block, that is.
He shouldn’t have said that to her. But the damage was done, and she was far too excited to stop. It was like he’d pulled the trigger on a gun that made her far too invested in this whole thing when he himself wasn't expecting much.
“What’re you going to do about it?”
“Anything!” Her eyes were…sparkling. Bright, like shooting stars passing by. Except her eyes shining like that weren’t so rare. “I may not know much, but I’ll help you get out of this slump!”
He almost interjects, almost tells her she doesn’t have to – but the rain clouds approach, and he feels droplets fall on his head. They have to rush inside, and he doesn’t find the chance – or the will, who knows – to tell her no.
“Hmm, but to say, ‘write about what you know’...” Ayano was tapping the end of her pencil on her notebook passively, looking more frustrated than he was about the whole ordeal.
They were supposed to be studying. The classroom was empty for the day, the sudden downpour having run most people away from lingering in one place for too long. Not them, though. She was already falling behind, and as always, he was dragged in to help.
“It’s no good to say that to a genius like you.” She says with a playful huff, her smile widening. “You know plenty of things. Quick – what’s the next sign after yours?”
“Pardon?”
“Gemini!” Ayano can’t help but laugh a little. “Hm. Okay. Maybe that could be what your song is about?”
Never mind that she knew his sign – whatever that meant. He shakes his head. “We’re supposed to be studying.”
“How am I supposed to study when you’ve got writer’s block?”
He lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s really not as important as getting your grades up – which are already so damn awful. Didn’t we just start?”
“Maybe I’ll just do summer remedial classes…”
“You’ll resort to that?”
“I don’t want to. But I’m about ninety-nine point nine percent sure that I’ll have to.”
There’s a look in her eyes that’s unreadable for a moment, like there was something else with having to take those classes over the summer that seemed to almost bother her. Ayano was just as difficult as this writer’s block she was so fixated with.
But before that could linger, her expression changes and she pipes up again. “What about writing about something you don’t know, then?”
That catches his attention. He doesn’t say a thing, but his brows furrow the slightest bit. Was it a stupid idea? Maybe. But it sounded like something she would suggest, and that made it all the more interesting.
“Like?”
A pause. “Like…”
He wants to roll his eyes, but he doesn’t. She didn’t have an idea. He reaches over, pokes her forehead with his pencil. “If you don’t have a clue, don’t pretend you do.”
Ayano huffs. “I’ll think of something.”
“Tell me once we’re done studying.”
“Destiny.”
She swings her school bag as they walk. The study session spanned longer than expected, but neither could find it in them to part ways during that time, something left unsaid between the two of them. The result, however, was them walking under flickering street lamps and a dark night sky. And although he was a weak boy, he wouldn’t let a girl walk home alone.
He glances her way. “What about it?”
“Well, do we really know what our destiny is?”
“Are you trying to sound smart?”
She shakes her head, laughing a little bit to herself. “No. I mean it.”
“I don’t believe in destiny.”
“I figured.”
She stops walking for a moment. She’s illuminated by a street light, and yet it seemed like she was brighter than even that. Or maybe it was the fact that her scarf was bright red.
She turns to him –
He wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but it was a wonder someone as breathtaking and brilliant as her would spend time with him. Maybe it was just a cruel coincidence that let their paths cross, to have met this girl who couldn’t leave him alone. He could try his damn hardest, but to try and describe her with words alone would be futile. Perhaps the producers he looked up to could write a song about her, but he never could. Not in a million years.
“But maybe that’s it,” she says, and she never failed to render him speechless with that smile so sincere and uplifting. “You don’t know about it, right?”
He almost wants to laugh. Almost. “So it’s about what you said earlier about writing what I don’t know?”
“I’m sure you have something to say, even if you don’t believe in it.”
She starts walking again.
He can’t help but ask. “Do you?”
“What?”
“Believe in destiny?”
She hums, the smile on her face growing softer. “All heroes have destinies.”
He takes that as a yes. He never really understood her fixation on heroes, but he knew what it meant when she brought them up – that it was an absolute to her.
Shintaro didn’t want to believe in destiny. It was a hope that could easily be crushed, and he didn’t feel like going through that. It’s easier not to believe it than to wonder if it was his destiny to do that, to have this, to live through anything, and to hope it was all worth it in the end.
But as he glanced at her again as she walked ahead, he couldn't help but wonder if he could count their friendship as destiny. For some reason, it always felt like it.
He shoves it aside. He didn’t want to have false hope.
“Did you ever finish it?”
“Finish what?”
“That song you were writing for a contest.”
“Oh. That.”
They took refuge from the summer heat by sitting under the air conditioning of their hideout, sitting inches apart on the couch. The other members of the Dan had run off to buy decorations for Hibiya’s going away party, and he and Ayano were made to stay and make sure the kid didn’t catch wind of it. At least, that was what their excuse was. The other members knew they hadn’t talked much since all the events of that summer transpired, and perhaps they were being courteous.
He scratches the back of his head. “I did. I submitted it. I didn’t win.”
Ayano frowns. “What a shame.”
“I expected it.”
She sighed, crossing her arms and blowing some of her bangs out of her face. “Still. For you to be frustrated over it…it mattered to you a little bit.”
She was painfully observant as ever. It’s like she never died.
“So…what did you end up writing about?” She asks.
“Destiny.”
Her eyes widen, and she sits up. She looks at him in shock. “Seriously?”
Had he meant to? No, not really. But in retrospect, it was because she suggested the topic that he had been driven to do so. Looking back at it now, it was painfully simple why it was about that. That thing he didn’t believe in – because she did, and in turn, so did he, even for just a moment.
And perhaps even now. She was there, alive, as if nothing had happened, even when everything and anything did, in fact, happen. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Maybe she was right – heroes did have destinies.
“Do you want to hear it?”
Her smile is the same as always. That much hadn’t changed.
“Of course I do.”
They share earbuds as he plugs it into his phone. And as they listen, they lean closer, as if it would help them hear clearer.
So much so that their shoulders brush, but neither of them pull away. They get even closer.
It might have been cliche to say, but maybe it was destiny for him to fall for her.