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The bass sounded through the room and off Jiro’s room walls. Jiro sat on her bed, while Denki finally decided where to sit, and he settled on the amp. He sat on the square, listening to Jiro's bass and looking at the band posters.
He’d been fixated on a certain poster of Paramore for a while. He just took her music in while she played. Eventually, he decided to look at Jiro, and watched her fingers move up and down the guitar's neck.
It was captivating to watch. Everything she did was cool to watch. He got up and picked up a guitar from her huge shelf of instruments. It was also his guitar, because they always left each other’s instruments at the others’ room. It just made sense. He sat back down.
“You know, bass is like you. When it’s not there, everyone notices. It holds the song together.” Denki had that thought out of the blue a few minutes ago. Jiro glanced at him for a fleeting moment. “Are you trying to be philosophical?” “Did it work?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes,” she replied, slightly smiling.
He smirked and played a familiar riff, and Jiro’s head snapped up from her view of the bass. “Dirty Little Secret?” she said, stunned and smiling. “You didn’t expect me to know half the songs you do? Please, Jiro. Weezer is my Bible.”
“I thought you listened to nothing but Ed Sheeran.” “Hey, Ed Sheeran is-” She cut him off with a finger waggle. “Proving my point.”
He sighed, letting it go, tired yet very fulfilled. “How do you have smart remarks for everything?” She shrugged and laughed, filling the room after she paused playing her bass. “I picked the right friend.” “You didn’t really pick me. I picked you.”
“Well, I’m still the dominant one here.” She left it at that and resumed playing her bass.
The word “dominant” felt like a deeply poor choice of words for Kaminari, especially now, when he was currently navigating the events of this night to find a perfect time for everything he wanted to do, and certainly say.
He took his guitar pick and poked himself lightly in the leg to stop any dangerous thoughts from sneaking their way into his mind. Thoughts tended to do that a lot with Kaminari. He kept tracing patterns with his pick on his thigh, little squiggles and zigzag lines.
Eventually, the inevitable happened, and Kaminari ran out of conversation starters or witty things to say. They just played in silence.
He looked out Jiro’s open window. It was pitch black outside, and only a few lights were on. Other than the moon, you would see nothing.
Jiro looked in his direction and noticed the night sky. “Wow, it’s dark. It’s three AM, I think.” She squinted her eyebrows at the window. “We’ve been up so late,” Kaminari added.
“It was so nice outside, and cold. I can never sleep when it’s warm.” He ended up talking about his requirement for air conditioning. “You’ve seen that I have two fans in my room. They’re both pointed at my bed.”
“I think I did notice that, and-” She paused. “ Hey, since you like the cold so much, we should go outside!” She had a grin on her face. She put her bass away on the stand and stood up completely ready to feel the air.
“Please tell me we won’t jump out the window again,” he laughed despite the fear of going on that ladder again, even worse that he would have to go down now. “Nope. We’ll go out the door this time.”
He sighed in relief and stood up as well. The two walked out of her dorm and into the empty hall.
“Wait.” She turned on her heel and sped back into her room. She stretched her arm over to the bass while standing at the door and plucked a string as hard as she could. The guitar shook slightly with her yank at its string.
She ran out of the room and took off ahead of Kaminari, her cackling getting softer the farther down the hall she ran ahead. The sharp, loud note echoed and rang out in the hallway. How was everyone asleep? They should have been woken up by their chaos at some point in the night.
Her boots might have been the loudest thing in the dorm. She practically stomped down the hall with the thumping rhythm she made. Don’t forget the little spiky chains that hit the wall and floor with every step. Thank god for carpets or everyone would be wide awake.
She turned the corner and Kaminari really laughed, possibly louder than Jiro’s boots. Then again, he paused, because with her every antic that made him grin and laugh, the three really important words were right in his throat, threatening to come out and spoil everything.
Possibly spoil their friendship with a talk that he feared with everything in his life. Spoil his second chance, which might have never been there in the first place. Jiro didn’t give second chances often, but would she for him?
It goes without saying that he loved her, and she probably did back. But still the fear lingered back in his head, quiet but intrusive enough to stop him from saying anything he’d regret in the morning.
Would he regret this? When he woke up in the dorms, holding Jiro in his arms, sound asleep underneath him? He hoped not. He would never regret any time spent with Jiro, but how far could this night go before he couldn’t take it anymore?
Jiro peeked her head out from the corner. “Come on!” He realized he was just standing there, debating how to confess his undying love for her. He panicked and jogged over and she was already tiptoeing down the stairs.
Surprisingly, her only noise was the chains on her boots. “How are you doing that?” he asked, baffled. He stepped down normally, while she stepped with one foot on the first step, and hopped down with the other.
“I shift my weight to the other foot when I take the next step.” She demonstrated such when she hopped down the next step. “I get a lot of practice at night.” She looked back and smirked. “Oh…”
He forgot that she did this for a living. “What do you do down here when I’m not on one of your adventures?” he asked. She turned back ahead. “I sing. I think. Sometimes I walk around aimlessly. Climb the building. Whatever.”
“That’s very you.” she turned around once again. “What do you mean?” “I’m saying that’s very you, to go and sing in an empty hallway.”
“That hallway doesn’t deserve your wonderful voice, though. I’d rather have it all to myself.” She stopped abruptly and ruined her stepping pattern she held. She stood there, frozen as blush slowly spread on her cheeks and she stared at the floor.
“Dude. Did you just flirt with me?” She said tilting her head towards him, a slight smile forced on her face despite the absolute internal panic she was having. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if to say, are you sure you’re flirting with the right person? She may have twitched a bit, a vein on her hand stuck out.
She was trying to keep her calm demeanor when inside, she was falling apart because that little uncalled-for comment broke something fragile in her that she wanted to keep hidden and secure.
She’d tried to feed it, the monster, as she not so lovingly called it, but she was always left starving. She craved love, in any form. Sweet nothings, a loving hug, dare she say a kiss? God. She rarely got anything and it gnawed away at her, until she was left hollow and with an icky personality. It was the reason for her shitty attitude. She never thought she deserved any of it. That was what she had led herself to believe over the years.
And of all people it could be that gave her what she wanted all this time; it was the person she secretly hoped would most of all. The boy with a lightning bolt in his hair who she met at a housewarming party in middle school. The boy she grew up with for most of her life she could remember. The boy who gave her everything important to her, including him and herself.
She always beat herself up when she’d fantasize about things like these, and now that it happened in front of her eyes, she felt fear, love, too much to understand, even though she knew exactly what it was.
His eyes went wide once he realized what just came out of his mouth. He inhaled a sharp breath, not noticing that Jiro did too. He did not just do that. He regretted every action that led to this moment now.
She laughed out loud, watery, forced, and a cover up for her initial reaction. “That was smooth. Nice job.”
However, he sensed the way her voice wavered, her back turned to him. Clearly, he’d done something wrong. It was definitely the flirty comment he’d made.
His hope was all over the place. He had no idea what she felt right now. In the past, Kaminari would have been dead and buried if he even gave her a hint that he was trying to joke and make a move. Things had certainly changed.
Most of all, Jiro had certainly changed. And for the better? Or worse? No idea. He’d been left with more questions than answers. Was it the right thing to do? Should he leave her alone right now?
He hoped for a lot of things, but he really hoped she knew that right now, that was truly flirting, even if he didn’t mean to go that far in the first place.
This was exhausting on both ends. They were both stuck in a never ending cycle of debate on when to confess, how to confess, and should they confess in the first place.
No one had the courage yet. Hopefully, he was one more epiphany away. He’d had too many tonight.