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It’s better off if I just stayed away, Shiho thinks, leaving behind Ichika in the hallway. There’s no point in staying together, especially since now that Saki’s gone and they don’t hang out as much, people have started to gossip.
Behind her, Ichika quickly cries out with a whimper, “Shiho, wait!”, but to no avail. Shiho’s back is turned away from her former friend, friendship now done and dusted.
There’s a heavy feeling within her chest as she does so, a tight, rapidly coiling bundle of sadness and grief that tries to make Shiho stop and cry and break down in that hallway in front of Ichika, but she forces it all down.
She’s seen what other people call her when no one’s looking. About how she’s such a tryhard and unfun person who focuses only on practicing music too seriously.
What’s the point of a group friendship if they all fall apart the moment someone disappears? What’s the point of them being together, if Shiho isn’t even able to visit her closest friends when they’re the most alone?
The bass on Shiho’s back feels heavy as she leaves for practice alone. An equivalent exchange for the ensured happiness of everyone, their old friendship for a dream of fame with her friends, no matter who they were.
She walks through the walls of Miyamazusaka alone, and doesn’t look back even as she leaves the gate. Maybe Ichika is still in there, running to get her stuff and chase after Shiho like she always does, yelling at her to wait and begging Shiho to talk.
Shiho decides that if that does happen, then she’s going to shut Ichika down. A mental mask slips on her face, one of the distant “mean girl” that doesn’t talk to anyone and only cares about music.
It was pathetic, really. Some part of Shiho wanted desperately to go back and say sorry, to tell Ichika that it’d be better if they didn’t talk for the time being, but she shoved that thought down. A part of Shiho wanted to hug and drag Ichika with her to practice, to cry and talk about how she wishes Saki were here.
Saki, who’s the brightest sun Shiho has ever seen. If Saki had been a star, then Shiho knows that Saki would be the sun to Shiho’s Earth, while Ichika would be the vast expanse of stars.
Shiho thought of the letter she’d planned on writing Saki and threw any thoughts of doing so down the mental trash bin that she automatically dumped thoughts related to their old friend group.
So what if Saki might be alone? She has Ichika and Honami there. She’ll understand that Shiho’s scared of hurting them all more than she already has.
Once again reassuring herself that it was fine, Shiho walks to her usual practice place alone, in the rain. Nothing’s supposed to make sense, and maybe to some normal people this won’t make sense. But for Shiho, it’s the best she can do.
Everyone’s already calling her weird, anyway. It won’t take long for Ichika and Honami to make friends that call her weird and put them in a tough place to defend Shiho.
“Sorry, Ichika,” she muttered to her friend that wasn’t here now. Who should be here, but isn’t, because Shiho threw her away because she’s a coward.
Everything will be fine.
She walks into the live house where her usual practice is, and absentmindedly goes through the motions of getting the key, noting what time she has, and the usual things that the man tells her to do.
Nothing’s ever going to be the same, and Shiho’s fine with that. As long as Saki, Ichika, and Honami are happy, then Shiho can just pursue her dream on her own, pushing forward so that she’s finally on that stage facing the world.
She doesn’t notice the tear trickling down her face, nor does she notice how heavy her breathing has become.
When she walks into the room, it’s empty. Like usual, whoever uses it previously has organized the room and left it right as they’d found it, just as Honami would have done.
Honami, bless the warm, beautiful soul she is, will probably try her best to comfort Saki and Ichika. She’ll hug and cuddle both of them until they sob out their woes into her shoulder, always being there to rein in and shower Ichika and Saki with love.
Shiho sets down her instrument case and takes out her bass, beginning her practice by tuning her bass like usual.
All Shiho needs is her bass, and music. She doesn’t need that aching pain that has taken up residence within her heart in place of where Saki, Ichika, and Honami should be. She doesn’t have a need for the desire to see them all on Tokyo’s biggest stage in front of cheering crowds.
They can survive this. It doesn’t matter whether or not Shiho can go through this or not. All that matters is that she achieves her dream, and Ichika is happy.
Nothing else matters.
//
Ichika felt like a failure. She’d failed to keep her promise to Saki that they’d all wait for her when their friend was released from the hospital.
She’d failed in telling Honami and Shiho to stay, to let her continue on being their friend.
“Ichika, I’m sorry, I have to go—”
Honami turned around and left with her new friends, as Ichika remained in the now empty classroom. The classroom that was devoid of life and happiness, just like her life was now.
Why couldn’t she do anything right?
What did she do wrong, to make Honami and Shiho leave them behind? What will she say to Saki, who’s waiting so expectantly for them all to visit and send her letters?
Ichika doesn’t know.
She’s like a lost dog without a purpose, wallowing in old memories after everyone precious to her has left her behind.
Turning to stare at the ceiling of her room, Ichika looks at the countless paper stars in which Shiho, Saki, and Honami had all worked so hard to recreate the various constellations as immature ten-year-olds, full of dreams yet unaware of how easily that would all be shattered because Ichika wasn’t enough.
Ichika Hoshino wasn’t enough, because she wasn’t able to make Shiho stay. She wants to be there with Shiho, sitting in an abandoned classroom with the two of them thinking about a gift to give Saki.
Maybe they’d come up with a lovingly recorded cover of some Miku song to show Saki once the chance came up, followed by weekly visits together, as a group.
But, what now?
She’s just suffered the double loss of both Honami and Shiho, and now Ichika’s expected to go and tell Saki that both of their closest friends have just tossed them both aside, and that now they’ll have to go on without them?
Ichika doesn’t want to contemplate that thought. She doesn’t want to see Saki hurt even further by how helpless she is in that hospital bed, unable to do anything besides watch as Ichika failed to do anything meaningful to achieve their dreams.
She misses Saki. Happy, bright Saki, who was the one that brought all four of them together. She was always thinking of new ways to encourage Shiho, Honami, and Ichika to get out of their shells and enjoy time together.
And Honami…Honami, who was always making sure they were safe, the girl who Ichika thought would always be there for them and acting as the glue which held everyone together.
She even missed Shiho, who drove them all to do better, yet also tried to make them happy. Ichika remembered how Shiho had reluctantly helped Ichika and Saki give Honami a specially baked apple pie for her 12th birthday, clumsily creating an overbaked apple pie that Honami ate entirely with a huge smile on her face.
“Uhm, thank you so much, everyone!” Honami cried out with an indescribable smile of happiness on her face.
Saki laughed, waving it off with a grin on her face. “No problem, Hona-chan! We’re all friends, right? It’s thanks enough seeing that pretty smile on your face!”
Her look is echoed by Ichika, who simply blushes and says, “Yeah. I want to keep seeing you smile, so anything you want, I’ll do it.”
They both turn to Shiho, and Saki narrows her eyes mischievously. “Shiho-chan,” she begins, “it’s your tuuurn~!”
Her arm wraps around Shiho’s waist, dragging the latter in a way which brings her closer to Honami. “Go say it~”
Shiho stammers, blushes furiously red, and then groans.
“Ah, fine. Your smile is enough. Being like this is…good.”
Ichika wants to go back to that life, that old life where she could enjoy making Saki, Honami, and Shiho smile and they could make her smile, instead of…whatever was happening now.
There’s a knock on the door, and Ichika’s mom walks in and opens the door.
“Ichika, dinner’s ready. Come down soon, okay?” she announces like usual, unaware of the mental beatdown Ichika is giving herself.
“Yeah, okay, got it.” In response, Ichika gives her mom a happy mask of “not depressed Ichika”, and the latter nods and walks away, leaving Ichika behind.
For a moment, Ichika considers just not going to dinner, or going to do anything.
Life was better when her friends were around. Ichika could go down and eat like normal because she knew that tomorrow, Saki, Honami, and Shiho would be there to chat with her at school.
She turns to look at the empty doorway, and for a brief moment sees Shiho walking through that very doorway and into another life without Ichika.
She sees Honami being led away by her new friends, away from her old life.
And finally, she sees Saki floating away into a doorway of light, gone and dead and leaving her alone—
A sob escapes Ichika, and she buries her face into the pillow as the tears finally come out and don’t stop, as the heavy emotion in her chest finally spills out as little droplets of grief and mourning onto the pillow which years ago would have been shared between all of her friends, just like it should be.
She doesn’t want to live anymore. Not without Shiho and Honami, now without them being there to visit Saki as friends, or maybe something more.
But for now, she has a façade to keep up. Her mom will get worried if Ichika doesn’t show up or do anything, so in turn she walks out of her room and wipes down the tears, burying any emotion deep into her chest away from her mom to see.
Ichika just has to deal with life know, whether she wants to or not.
//
The next two months pass by like a long, painful march. For Shiho, it’s simply going through the motions of grinding out assignment after assignment, test after test, and keeping up grades while pouring her life into music.
For her, as long as it doesn’t remind her of the deep longing in her chest, Shiho is fine doing so.
Ichika and Honami must be fine, she thinks, since they haven’t gone running back to her, desperately trying to win Shiho back as a friend.
But then, on the third month anniversary of Saki’s hospitalization, Shiho finally notices that Ichika is alone.
It’s a simple scene, but Shiho sees Ichika sitting by the tree they’d used to sit at for lunch, blindly forking food down into her mouth.
Except what takes her attention is the fact that Honami isn’t there. There isn’t anyone there with Ichika.
And the first thing Shiho feels upon that is guilt.
Because the moment Ichika caught a glimpse of Shiho staring at her, she’d stood up and seemed ready to run at Shiho and grab her hand, which Shiho wouldn’t have minded. But those hopes were dashed when Shiho had run off instead, breathing heavily from the building guilt.
She’d been wrong. She’d thought that Ichika would have friends, that Ichika would have a support system, but Shiho had been so, so wrong.
Ichika had been let alone to suffer and wallow in self-despair, thinking that it was her to blame for them all breaking apart, for their friendship ending like Tekkadan in her favorite Gundam show.
And it was her fault. She’d chickened out and ran away to her safe haven of loneliness and music instead of reaching out like she should have.
“I’m sorry, Ichika. I’m sorry,” she gasps between heavy sobs. By now, there are students staring at her with curiosity at the normally mean girl breaking down.
But the worst part?
Shiho knows that she can’t go back. There’s no point in going back, when Ichika and Honami must think that Shiho betrayed them, and they would be right on the money.
Shiho’s betrayed the people that she’d wanted to be with for the sake of a dream, for the sake of a dream that doesn’t really exist anymore.
She runs into an empty classroom, and stares at her desk silently.
That stupid sense of despair and hopelessness is back again, like a persistent friend who doesn’t want to leave.
Shiho should have just stayed with Ichika and joined together in a duo of loneliness. She should have visited Saki like a good friend and partner, not leave her in the dark about their friend group like a monster.
There’s students passing by in the hallway as lunch continues on, staring at Shiho from their detached perspectives toward her life that’s now a mess.
The world must go on, but Shiho doesn’t want it to. She wants to disappear from this world, to become nothing or turn back time to that day where everything broke between them all.
Her apology dies on her lips just like the remaining hope in her chest, leaving behind empty desires and dreams.
As it should be, for someone like her.