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Damn, it’s hot…
Akito dabbed at his forehead with his cream hoodie, the fabric sopping up the moisture. Nighttime, having descended on the humid Vivid Street, painted the shadows of the alleyways a deeper shade, quieted the usual chatter, and brightened the neon lights of the surrounding live houses. Particularly, the live house Akito, An, Toya and Kohane had finished performing at mere minutes prior, and where Akito now loitered. Well, more accurately, waited, for the sound of quick, confident footsteps, which could belong to only one.
“I finished saying bye to Toya and Kohane!” The footsteps came to a stop, their sound replaced by An’s vibrant voice. Even with her behind him, Akito could easily picture the judgement on her face as she continued, “Are you really sure about not joining them? Do you just...not get tired?”
In an attempt to spare them from the summer heat, Ken had offered to drive Kohane and Toya up to their houses. And yet, despite the cafe owner extending the same proposition to Akito, the ginger remained outside, in the heat, forced to answer An’s teasing query. “I am tired. But I figure a bit of air is what I need to cool off. And since it’s so hot, the only way I’ll get that is through a run.”
“A run? In this heat?” Disbelief dripped off An’s words. “There hasn’t been air all day." Her voice drew closer. "What are you hunched over for?"
“My laces.” Akito’s crumpled frame was titled towards his tangled laces. Tangled. A generous moniker: the words ‘an unsalvageable mess’ were far more accurate. I never usually struggle like this. Sucking back irritation as another loop led into another knot, he pushed a sigh out of his cramped lungs. His answer to An’s question held a percentage of truth: he did want to cool off. But not just from the heat.
I feel…off. Shaky hands. Uncertain heartbeat. Broken focus. Ever since the performance. Running should help. It usually does. He frowned. But, then, I usually don’t screw up my laces this badly.
The squelch of An’s shoes against the road concrete grew neither further nor closer. “Hmmmm...” Her contemplative tone confirmed the ginger’s theory: she was pacing around. Then, a stop, and a snap, the sound reverberating brightly through the night’s air and urging Akito to swivel his focus away from the laces. “Ok, I get it!”
Akito squinted, raising his head to An’s devious expression. “Get what?”
Silhouetted against the street’s darkness were the pale fingers behind the snap, and the girl’s smile, mischief tinged at the edges of her parted lips. “Let’s race!”
A blink from the boy. A race? Suddenly, the laces didn’t seem so important anymore, the white cloth tails falling from Akito’s fingers. Fingers he rubbed the back of his nape with, feeling the heat flare up again with An’s declaration. “Where? I mean- why?”
The warmth coating his neck only increased with An’s laugh. The fluorescent lights of the street refracted off the stars in her draped down, ripples of grey and blue hair, which swished back and forth as she bounced towards him. “I just feel like competing! After all,” she flashed a hand at the live house’s exterior, “you and I were neck in neck today. We need a tiebreaker! And when it comes to where…how about Dad’s cafe? You pass by there to get home, right?”
A tiebreaker. She says it like we aren’t a team. Akito snorted as he rose to his feet, snapshots of their singing flashing through his mind. I can’t pretend I wasn’t competing with her, though. The lights of the stage. The microphone’s aluminium coating in his grip. The exuberance of the audience. The notes reverberating from his throat, and the dazzling sweat of him and his teammates, like sparks of fire. Like the flames which had danced in An's amber eyes. The eyes he had caught glimpses of, several times as they sang.
Glimpses that he couldn’t tell were accidental or intentional.
There’s that feeling again. Ugh. Gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, Akito waited for the sensation to subside. It didn’t. He wasn’t surprised at that, but he was surprised by how tantalizing the idea of a race was. It could be a good distraction. “Ok, why not. But don’t blame me if you can’t keep up.” He cracked his neck, the resulting snap far louder than An’s.
“Yeah yeah! Big talk, but no action.” The girl’s grin deepened, and the grin turned devilish as her eyes, appraising the street pavement, widened. “And don’t blame me if you trip on those laces!”
“Wha- oh.” Flushing bright, tomato red, and orange, carrot stick eyebrows furrowed, Akito lowered his knee, hands poised to fiddle with the strings. “Shut the hell u-”
His voice trailed off at the sight of An’s body, crouched closer to the pavement, head lowered, fingers raised.
Raised, above the laces on his shoe.
What?
The knots flung open faster than the boy could gather his bearings, strings growing longer with each unfurled tangle, under the pressure of the girl’s deft fingers. Akito pulled his own hands back, leaving them frozen at his sides, frozen, much like his tongue. Almost like it also needed unravelling.
A satisfied sigh leaving her mouth, An chipped off the mounting silence. “Done!” Her head raised, confusion etched in the pupils she fixed on Akito. “Man, how did you even manage to get them so tangled in the first place? What are you, a grade schooler?”
Nothing quite like an insult to snap one back to reality. Akito stepped backwards, tongue loosening, face still burning. “Like I know how it happened. And, anyways, what happened to letting me trip on them?” I probably would’ve. “...but still, thanks.”
“You are very welcome!” The girl smiled, dusting off her knees before standing. “And hey, where’s the fun if you’re handicapped? Let’s have a good, honest fight!” The flame roared on in her eyes, amber irises all radiance. “Plus, then I can brag when I beat you even more!”
“Sure, whenever that happens.” Akito's mouth curled into a sneer, and he loomed over An, for full, intimidating effect. “Happens in your dreams, that is.”
“Oh no. So scary.” The girl clapped her hands together. “Ok ok, whoever wins has to…” The girl and boy scanned the surrounding trash cans, posters, brick walls, and finally, landed on a vending machine.
“Buy the other a drink?”
“Buy the other a drink! Yikes, same brainwave. Ok, are we settled?”
“Yep.” Akito’s joints popped as he stretched, the muscles in his legs tensing in anticipation, and his determined smile growing by the second. He joined An at the line where the live house’s alleyway tapered off. I’m gonna win this. “Don’t cry when you lose, ok?”
“Same to you!" An’s shoulder brushed his as she aligned herself toe to toe with him. "Ok, ready, steady…”
The words didn’t reach Akito’s senses. All he could focus on was An’s shoulder, enjoined with his, and her face in his peripheral. Her smile shone with boundless energy. The stars in her hair gleamed with purpose. And her lips continued to move.
And although the street was dark, damp, and devoid of spectators…it’s just like we’re on stage...
“...GO!”
...Huh?
Akito’s mouth gaped at the girl, who’s white sneakers bounded off the pavement, sprinting steps following the winding road path. The girl who had just been beside him. The girl who had been counting down. The girl who now had a very, very, very large head start on him.
And all he had was his own daydreaming to blame.
“Oi! An!” Damn it. Damn it DAMN IT. Am I stupid? Pelting forward, Akito became a streak of orange, a splash of inferno against the street’s greys and light blues. What the hell was I thinking about? An is going to laugh her head off. She probably already IS. His pace quickened with the humiliating thought, and his pulse thundered with each obstacle he narrowly dodged.
After nearly colliding with a fire hydrant, he slowed, swiping at his skin. The wind’ll help me cool down. Yeah, right. All I feel is more on edge than ever. His hoodie might as well have been a fur pelt, his skin prickled with heat so strongly. So painfully. So, why am I smiling?
The toothy, almost canine smile on his face, on all accounts, made no sense. He was losing. He was in severe danger of An’s teasing, and if he knew anything about her, it was how she wasn’t one to miss a chance to embarrass him. He was sweaty, and tired, and still, despite it all, smiling.
Despite it all, not wanting things to end.
The feeling bolstered at the sight of a wooden sign, showing the Crass Cafe was just up ahead. And from its general direction came blue tinged locks springing up in the air, alongside plaintive cries.
“This- is- so- tiring-”
With each shaky, white sneakered step toward the cafe’s doors, another gasp rose from the racer. The sneakers halted as the figure crouched down, the visible parts of their hands clamped over their exposed knees.
White sneakers. Blue hair. An…well, I guess I haven’t lost yet.
Pulsing energy through his legs, nearly lame from tiredness, he sprinted. Ignoring the slippery posters which clung to his feet, ignoring the breathlessness in his lungs, and embracing the feeling of passion in his chest, he ran up to, and then past, his lumbering rival. And stopped.
The lights dotting WEEKEND GARAGE’s exterior illuminated Akito’s copper scalp, and magnified the shadow of his hunched body. Circles bloomed on the concrete where the droplets of his sweat fell, and as soon as his pants subsided did An appear, all perspiration, tiredness, and defeat.
“That- was-” she gasped, rubbing at her ankles, “- horrible . I am never, ever doing that again!” Regardless of the exhaustion dripping off of her, literally and figuratively, the blaze in her pupils remained.
She wasn’t so bad. If she trained, she might be able to beat me. Maybe. “Well, you still have energy left to whine with,” Akito coughed, the saliva feeling salty in his parched throat, “so maybe we could have a rematch. But today? My victory.”
“Grr…like you need to tell me twice.” Sighing, An fanned her skin with her hands, and then let them hang loosely at her sides, as though entirely devoid of energy. She joined Akito’s spot in front of the cafe’s door, but didn’t make any move to go inside. “So? Which drink? I’d get you coffee milk, but it is pretty late, and… woah.”
The ginger next to her blinked. “Woah what?” He inquired, confusion in his tone as he traced the line of An’s vision. A line which led to the sky, devoid of stars, but stunning. “...woah.”
The moon, in full bloom, a silver, grey, and gold sphere, hanging like a Christmas ornament, was what prompted the exclamations from the two. The shape seemed to ooze pure white, dissipating in the Earth’s atmosphere, beams diffusing into a faint glow. A glow of shimmering dust, settling over the cafe’s exterior, drenching the two teammates in moonlight.
“So beautiful~”
The words didn’t reach Akito’s senses. All he could focus on was An’s face, close to his. Just like before, at the start of the race. And still holding the same liveliness. Holding the same illumination as they did during the live show, during the race, and now, glowing during the aftermath.
“Just like the sun.”
Tearing his gaze off An’s side profile and directing them to the ground, Akito fingers rose to his lips. That's it. His lips, shaking, unnaturally warm, which had come loose suddenly, just like his knotted laces. That’s what was stuck in my head. But why? His brows squinted with frustration. I don’t get it-
“Uh, this is the moon we’re talking about? Not the sun?” An’s features flooded his sight again, and Akito’s pulse jack hammered again. “Earth to Akito?” Head angled down to peer up at the ginger’s expression, her hair fell like a dark curtain. “Are you seeing how beautiful the moon is right now?”
“Oh- I- yeah.” Akito jerked himself back to create more distance, lifting his head to the moon again. “Yeah. I guess the moon isn’t bad…”
“‘Isn’t bad’ ? Wow…” An huffed, reaching for the pocket in her puffed, multi toned jacket. The black screen of her phone, pointed at the inky sky, nearly camouflaged itself, if not for the moon’s contrast. “I bet Kohane and Toya’ll will have nicer words than that!”
The camera application glowed to life, and Akito’s teammate focused her pupils on the sky. Her focus rendered her unaware of Akito’s sidelong glance, the thoughts burning in his mind, and that he hadn’t finished his sentence.
The moon isn’t bad…but it’s not as beautiful as the sun.
And as the two stood side by side, in the cosmic spotlight, the night smelled of salt, new feelings, and tender words, left unsaid.
- End