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She blazed red under the spotlight. Red, red, red, the slice of dye through her black hair, the coat of paint on her guitar, the fabric encircling her neck and her wrists and blooming like a crimson flower around her waist.
Yukina had always been fond of flowers, but she was inclined to pick out quieter colours for herself. A blue rose was cool, poised, the impossible made real through careful cultivation. Red was blinding. Red soaked through your closed eyelids and demanded you look, even when you couldn’t bear to.
The colour was bleeding from Ran, flooding the stage they shared, proof of life that pulsed more strongly with each drumbeat as it gushed away. Ran would always burn until she had nothing left, all stubborn defiance and rough edges she seemed almost to flaunt with pride.
She had something Yukina lacked as a musician, so Yukina used her. Ever the opportunist. A rivalry, as Ran conveniently called it, and Yukina apologised just as conveniently for her ulterior motives as the memory of Ran’s voice continued to shake every cell in her body. Perhaps what she was really apologising for was what it stirred in her, on a level she could not excuse.
“Afterglow … Afterglow’s disbanding.”
Ako was late, had run as fast as her feet could carry her, but seemed breathless with shock more than exertion.
The studio exploded in questions and confusion. No, Ako didn’t understand either. Yes, it came out of nowhere, but it wasn’t because of a fight. It was Ran-chan’s decision. Yes, Ran-chan said so. Ran-chan wanted this.
Yukina stood very still, fingers wound through her hair, not saying a word. When the commotion died down, everyone was looking at her.
“Yukina,” Lisa began, “are you …”
“I understand it no more than any of you do,” she said, which was true, but not entirely, and also not what she was being asked.
The truth of the matter was that it was not something to be understood. Her father had never let on to her that his band was on its last legs before it was too late to do anything about it. Lisa had let her nails grow, painting lovely patterns over their gnawed edges, even though she’d loved music more.
Ako was wilting over the cafeteria table. Yukina sat down opposite her, stirring her tea.
“I just don’t get it. Wasn’t clashing with us important to her?” said Ako, still pleading, but with a defeated note that had become more pronounced every time she brought up the subject.
“Who can say.”
“And you’re okay with that? Are you really?”
“It is not our decision to make.”
Ako slumped down again, head pillowed on one arm, poking listlessly at her spaghetti with a fork. “Aren’t you … sad?”
Yukina brought her teacup to her lips and took a long sip, longer than necessary. “Are you?” she said, even though the answer was obvious.
“I wish my sister would compete with me like she used to. They’ve all been together since I was little, but … the band is different, right? How would I know what’s best for them?”
How indeed? It was pointless for Yukina to wonder how she would have turned out if music were not her lifeblood, but she was not anyone else. Why should anyone else be willing to endure tedious contracts and dishonest dealings and tangle up parts of themselves in a machine that left precious little room for creation?
On the other hand, perhaps it was an excess of naïveté after all, to believe love could sustain itself through so consuming a blaze as Ran’s. Love was safest in a glass case, somewhere high up to catch the light, high up where you couldn’t touch it.
But Yukina aimed for the heavens, and her aim was not particularly good.
The Mitake School of Flowers was largely unchanged with the passing of the years. Or perhaps Yukina had not seen it enough times to notice the changes, before she no longer had reason to come anymore. (That she had no reason wasn’t true. She was still fond of flowers.) She had always been somewhat misaligned with the world, dates and forms and the need to keep her fridge stocked escaping her attention when there were sounds in her head that had to be polished and laboured over, or a certain angle of morning sunlight that set her to pondering the passage of time and missing her train.
She supposed she couldn’t remember exactly what the trees in the courtyard used to look like, only that the softly moving shadows they cast on the ground were familiar and a little nostalgic, as was the stark outline of the roof against the sky, its wide eaves sheltering decades of history.
The place was not quite large enough for her to lose her bearings, but she imagined it for a moment—Ran raising an amused eyebrow at her, commenting that her lack of awareness of her surroundings was still exactly the same. That said, it took some effort to locate her old rival, after she hesitated just slightly at the door and was welcomed in by someone she didn’t recognise.
Ran was teaching, in a room sparsely furnished for the small group of children inside. Her black kimono was splashed with red, but there was no red in her hair anymore, just as Yukina had traded her dramatically oversized accessories for more modest ones. Ran had never exactly been the pinnacle of elegance—she had too much fire for that—and much like Yukina, spoke no more than she needed to, but years of practice lent a quiet ease to her instruction that hadn’t been there before. Yukina respected that. Natural talent meant nothing if you squandered it, but perseverance would always yield results.
She waited outside until the class was over. The children shot curious, apprehensive glances at her as they filed out. When the corridor was clear, she moved silently into the doorway, watching Ran put the space back in order.
Straightening, Ran turned around with a careless glance that quickly stiffened into a wide-eyed stare.
“M-Minato-san?” It sounded bewildered—as if, for a moment, she couldn’t understand how her lips were shaping the name.
“Hello, Mitake-san.”
Ran looked Yukina up and down in disbelief, mouth opening and closing for several seconds before she spoke again. “Why are you in my house?”
Ah. Yukina had just wandered through the place like she owned it, hadn’t she? “Someone let me in. Someone who works here, I assume.”
“You assume?” Ran made a motion as if to cross her arms, but seemed to think better of it, flexing her fingers jerkily at her sides instead.
“My apologies.”
“Mine too, I guess. It’s been a … Well, I wasn’t expecting …” There was silence as Ran busied herself again with sweeping fallen leaves and petals off the tables. “Can I help you then?”
That was a good question. Was Yukina here to talk? To ask why? Surely not, after all this time. She knew why.
She stepped into the room and stood examining the cluster of vases on a table, all unique shapes and sizes. “I wanted to set foot on this path again,” she said.
“That’s it? Same as always, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps. But I thought you would have changed more.”
What a thing to say. Was she asking for hostility?
Ran’s jaw clenched, even as her head stayed down and her hands kept moving. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Yukina said nothing.
“Are you trying to stir up trouble again? Is that why you came here?”
“No. It isn’t.” She paused, remembering the lights and Ran ignited by anger, glowing like hot coals—and amended, “I don’t think so.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint, but I doubt you’ll be entertained by me now. I’ve grown out of that … behaviour.”
Yukina frowned. “You don’t dye your hair anymore.”
“I’ve grown out of it.”
There was nothing unreasonable about that. Nothing to do but take her at her word. “I see.”
“Do you have business here or not, Minato-san?”
Business?
“Yes, in fact.” She hadn’t, not until a moment ago, but the natural course of action to take had now become clear in Yukina’s mind. Ever the opportunist. “I would like to try my hand at flower arrangement. Will you teach me?”
The pile of newspaper in Ran’s hands went limp. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all. You can turn me down if you wish.”
“Careful, snap it lightly.”
The first branch had been so thick at the base that Yukina struggled to cut it even with both hands and narrowly avoided sending the water dish flying across the room. Bending, however, required finesse to achieve the desired curve, if you didn’t break the thing clean in half first. Her legs were starting to ache, unaccustomed as they were to her sitting seiza for so long, but she ignored the discomfort.
“Well … you do have a good eye,” Ran observed, which was another way of saying she was overly ambitious for someone so tragically clumsy.
That was fair. Yukina set aside the branch she’d ruined and started again. Ran had given her a brief summary of ikebana styles, and Yukina rather liked the sound of the one called seika, with its deceptive simplicity of several branches arranged as if they were one. It was much too difficult for any beginner though, and the compromise was placing the elements she had in a line instead. Simple, spare elegance.
“Cut in the water,” Ran reminded her gruffly, when she moved on to the flowers and forgot the instructions she’d been given.
“Oh. Yes.” Yukina submerged the end of her chrysanthemum stem in the dish and snipped off a centimetre or so, holding the scissors at an angle. That way, the flower would bloom for longer, absorbing more water than it would if it had been cut exposed to the air. For as long as it could hold out, at least, without its roots.
“Bit shorter maybe.”
Snip. “Like this?”
“And take off a few leaves. At the bottom.”
Yukina leaned back to judge the angle of the flower where she’d secured it on the kenzan, luckily without jabbing any fingers on the spikes. “I see. Removing unnecessary elements does enhance the clarity of the line.”
“Yeah.”
Ran didn’t elaborate further, but kept an eye on her in silence—somewhat apprehensively, perhaps in case Yukina’s handiwork fell apart. Or perhaps something else.
“Are you … enjoying yourself?” she said dubiously after a while, eyeing another chrysanthemum wobbling into place on one side.
“Yes.” Completely focused on the task, Yukina was aware her face likely displayed the furthest emotion from pleasure, if any at all, but she wasn’t lying. She had found Ran’s work to be quite beautiful in the past, and the aesthetic principles of ikebana agreeable—a lavishly decorated stage was a spectacle, to be certain, but a lone vase of a few carefully selected cuttings had a unique, striking charm, the negative space around it giving it definition.
“You actually want to do this?” Ran asked, unconvinced. “Now?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Why?”
Yukina dropped her hands. “Mitake-san, I cannot concentrate if you keep asking me questions. I don’t remember you being so inquisitive.”
“Yeah? I’m sure there’s a lot you don’t remember.”
The half-completed arrangement sat between them, severed stems scattered beside it. Yukina stared at the slanting lines, buds dangling from them precariously as if they would tip the whole piece over at the first sign of a breeze. There was an odd sensation pressing against her throat. Was she coming down with something?
“I don’t know what it is you’re trying to say, Mitake-san.”
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, showing up like this is just another Tuesday!” A flash of white canines, and Ran shoved her hands in her wide sleeves. “What am I getting worked up for?” she muttered.
That’s just like you, Yukina would say—a compliment, really, but one so specific to their past relationship that it almost certainly wouldn’t get across right now.
Or maybe it wasn’t like her at all. Yukina couldn’t know. She had made it her business not to.
“And you …” Ran let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Forget it. I don’t know what I expected.”
Yukina blinked. “Eh?”
“That’s how you are, isn’t it?” Ran was smiling now, the way Lisa had when she’d said she was happy while her bass sat in a closet under a film of dust. “Hell, I even told you to set your sights above you and nowhere else. That’s how it was always gonna be, no matter what I did.”
“And you … gave up?” said Yukina slowly.
“I ended our legend on my terms,” Ran corrected her, lifting her chin slightly, eyes flashing, as if daring Yukina to argue. “We never intended to go pro like Roselia. The best we could do was go out like a blazing star and bask in, well … the afterglow, as it were. This school wasn't gonna run itself, you know. And everyone else has their livelihoods to get on with.”
“Yes, I know.” It was more or less what Yukina had heard after all, years ago. “That is your right.”
Watching Ran’s performance that day, Yukina had felt like she was bleeding too, rooted to her seat with every note lodging deep in her flesh so she couldn’t lose focus on the dissolving present even for a moment. Burning so strongly was excruciating, of course, but the dazzle made you forget that. How foolish. How miraculous.
Ran laughed again. “Yeah, that’s a response from Minato Yukina alright.”
“No,” said Yukina.
“Huh?”
“There are things I may have forgotten, as you say. But I have never forgotten the way you carved your music into every stage you stood on.”
“That was the plan,” said Ran shortly.
“I looked at you, Mitake Ran. How could I not?”
“Yeah, I basically forced you to.”
“That is not what I mean. You know that.”
“Don’t say this to me now.”
Ran had cried that day, bits of hair sticking to her face with sweat and tears, and there were tears in her eyes now, just a glimmer, small in a way no part of her heart should be. Yukina’s hands rested in her lap, fingers loosely curled under her knuckles. She clenched them tighter for a moment, pressing down on her stiff knees.
Oh. She hadn’t moved in too long. It called to mind the time Roselia had stayed the night at the agency studio, playing continuously for so many hours they couldn’t feel their legs anymore.
She was, she reflected, not getting up any time soon.
So she sat in silence, stewing in her accidentally self-inflicted predicament, while Ran kept blinking hard with her head turned to the side and didn’t appear to notice.
“I know,” said Ran. “I know I should be the one apologising, but all I’m doing is whining like a little kid …”
“I did not come here seeking an apology.”
“Then what?” Ran’s face contorted. “Then what?”
“I think I … need to be here.”
Yes, that sounded right, if a little too desperate and selfish. But Yukina was playing this by ear, to no one’s surprise.
Ran made a noise that managed to be incredulous and unimpressed at the same time. “What for? Short on inspiration? I can’t help you there.”
“This isn’t about Roselia,” said Yukina. “Much of it wasn’t, to the point I was afraid the strength of my own feelings would lead me astray.”
Ran couldn’t look at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you before that I was not as steadfast as you believed me to be.” If she was, she might have done something. But she preferred not to remind even herself of the fact. “Perhaps I did not show it clearly enough,” she went on. “How deeply your passion struck at me. What you—”
“Stop it.” Ran slipped out of keigo, a swift crack of ice. There was a pause. She bowed her head. “Please.”
This was not a position Yukina found herself in often, and it was about as unpleasant as she'd expected. But so be it. Coming here had been her decision, however inexplicable.
Ran got to her feet. She didn’t tell Yukina to leave, but Yukina wasn’t stupid enough to make this worse than it already was.
Except she was, because she was certain she could not get up without causing a scene. Ran had her back turned, and Yukina slid her legs out from beneath her centimetre by centimetre, glowering down at their temporary failure to perform the most basic of tasks.
She was woefully stuck in semi-numbness coloured with the beginnings of shooting pain when Ran looked back at her. With the steely resolve of a soldier facing a firing squad, Yukina tightened her jaw and pushed herself onto her feet.
And fell, of course. There was no way out of this situation that didn’t involve making a fool of herself. She might have crushed several flowers if Ran hadn’t made an instinctive lunge, catching her in an awkward tangle of robes and hair.
Yukina’s knees made contact with the tatami, rather more gently than she’d anticipated. For several long seconds Ran’s arms were wrapped around her, hot as a furnace. Yukina didn’t usually mind being touched as much as the average person might expect of her, but now found she minded quite a lot. At least, that was a more tolerable description of what she felt than any alternative.
She didn’t realise she had reflexively clutched at Ran’s sleeve until Ran pulled back abruptly, silk tugging against and then slipping like water through Yukina’s fingers. Ran’s hands grabbed onto her shoulders instead, fumbling a little, startled eyes finding hers.
“Are you … uh …”
“Sorry,” Yukina said. Her bones felt as if they might shatter beneath the force of Ran’s grip. It was with unreasonably great difficulty that she found her voice. “I don’t sit like that on a regular basis.”
Ran stared at her. She bit down hard on her lip but couldn’t stop the peal of laughter from escaping. “Oh my gods, Minato-san.”
“Is this not a common experience in your classes?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s usually less of a spectacle.”
Despite everything, Yukina chuckled along with her.
The flush in Ran’s cheeks made her look almost as alive as she’d been mid-performance, luminous under the stage lights. “What am I doing?” she whispered, catching her breath as if she’d just drawn in a crowd.
Yukina waited for her to let go.
“Minato-san …”
Yukina waited for her to let go.
Ran sank slowly to the floor, spine curling like a willow branch. Her hair fell over her face, brushing against Yukina’s collar. Her hands didn’t budge. “I thought maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t say anything to them … and even if I did, I can’t be a musician half-hearted.”
Of course she couldn’t. That was true of both of them.
“But I write. Like I’m possessed. I can’t help it. Piles and piles of unfinished lyrics as if I can’t live without it … Is that better than watching all of us fade into something unrecognisable with every lukewarm show? I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to.”
Ran’s hands were digging into Yukina, nails into skin, so hard that Yukina couldn’t move if she tried. Holding her in place, a compass needle pointed north, even now.
“Mitake-san,” she said softly.
“It was supposed to be untouchable. Our stage. GBT. Even though Afterglow lost. Even though I could never reach high enough. They were everything I could’ve hoped for and more. But afterwards … it doesn’t just end.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Like running a marathon, Mira had said. Yukina supposed Ran was more of a sprinter too.
“I must look so lame right now.”
Yukina wondered how Ran could think that when she’d just had her former upperclassman quite literally fall into her arms in the most pathetic way possible, but kept the thought to herself. “Our stage will always exist untouched,” she said instead. “I can’t tell you what is right, but I promise to treasure it. Although the past cannot be changed, or overly relied upon … I’ve come to realise that does not necessarily mean it should be left alone either.”
Ran raised her head. “So that’s why you came.”
“Yes. I suppose that is one reason.”
“Who taught you that? Roselia?”
“I resent your tone, but I did have help. More than I deserve.”
She could not tell Ran about the sense of something missing that had stayed with her through the years, through whirlwinds of autumn leaves and sunsets that brought her back to the Haneoka rooftop—something lost that could not be regained. She had buried her longing, and whatever else came with it, in a solitary corner of her heart, as she had many things that had knotted themselves too tight to unravel. Of course, some things were better not left unsaid—she’d had that pounded into her too—but nonetheless, some were, and would remain so.
She lifted Ran’s hands carefully off her and pulled her to her feet, holding on for a moment longer before releasing her grip. “And this may be uncalled for, but personally, I think you should do as you please.”
She had always loved that about Ran.
“I am.”
Yukina looked around at the flowers—nestled in the alcove, painted on a hanging scroll, wrapped in bouquets fresh from the market—and smiled. “Yes. You are.”
Ran’s eyes misted over, but she blinked it away, clearing her throat. “Do you … want to finish that?” She nodded at the vase.
“Maybe some other time,” said Yukina, even though they both knew fresh flowers wouldn’t last long enough for that. “Ah, actually.”
She knelt down to pick up an unused red camellia. Ran gave her a quizzical look as she stepped close, still just a little shorter like she had been back then without her shoes, and tucked the flower in Ran’s hair. Her fingers lingered, tracing the stiff curve of jet black down the left side of Ran’s face.