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“So Mukai thinks I’m naturally cute?” Is a thought Mika has repeated over and over again for a little less than a year now. She can count on one hand the amount of times she’s caught herself glancing or staring at him simply wondering what makes him think she’s cute. Attractive even? One part of her says hopefully.
That part of her is also the part that has slowly started to crush on him over the course of their senior year. They haven’t been in the same class, thank god for that, but since Mika is good at english and Mukai is good at subjects like math and science they decided to help each other out ahead of finals and entrance exams. These study sessions, usually consisting of just the two of them, are also where Mika’s crush on Mukai has found space to develop, shockingly enough.
After realising she had a crush on him she wanted to reject it, a friendship like hers with Mukai has grown into something she shouldn’t really take for granted and she didn’t want to make it awkward for the rest of eternity by being rejected by him.
But the side of her that had started to crush on him told her that a guy like Mukai also isn’t something to take for granted, and since the chance of him liking her is there (He does find her cute after all) she should go for it.
Confiding in Yuzuki wasn’t much help either. She’d also told her to go for it, and when Mika told her it was Mukai this was about, Yuzuki told her she should really go for it, that Mukai would fit her really well.
It’s not like she’s opposed to it, either.
Cute isn’t the right word for him, nor is hot. Attractive works. She feels attracted to him, but there’s a difference, no?
She just doubts that he feels the same,
“Besides, you and I are just friends.”
——
Her last walk from the subway station to Tsubame West feels bittersweet. She’s happy, of course. She has lovely friends, a crush, good grades, and she’s grown so much during high school she sometimes asks herself if Mika Egashira in her first year of high school would even recognise her today.
But she’s unsatisfied, there’s something she stil-
“Mika!” A familiar voice shouts from behind her, something resembling a laugh in his voice, the source of her dissatisfaction; “Mika, I never expected you of all people to be late for graduation!”
What?
She looks at her phone, 08:56. They should’ve been in the assembly hall a minute ago. She hastily shoves her phone into her bag and starts running after Mukai. No, Tsukasa.
They make it into the assembly hall at 08:59, a minute before the principal starts his sending off speech. After a quick “excuse me” and “sorry” from both her and Tsukasa to their teacher they find their spots in the crowd, where she immediately begins to zone out. She can’t be bothered with listening to this speech.
They then receive their diplomas, along with a white rose, which she tucks into her chest pocket on her blazer. Mitsumi receives her diploma last, a sign that she’s the valedictorian, to the surprise of basically nobody who has had her in their class for the past three years.
She listens to Mitsumi’s speech as valedictorian, of course. She laughs when Mitsumi mentions her throwing up on their homeroom teacher on her first day, and tears up a little when she starts thanking her friends, classmates and teachers.
After leaving the assembly hall and the school they’re welcomed out by their families. She takes photos with her family (of course!), the english conversation club, and the “gang.”
Their homeroom teacher from their first year takes their photo, and Yuzuki lightly shoves Mika into Tsukasa right as the photo is taken.
Yamada looks at the photo and laughs, then whispers something to Tsukasa. He laughs more when Tsukasa slightly blushes and tries to laugh it off, whatever it was that Yamada said.
After photos, hugs (and one or two confessions, she’d heard,) the graduates were slowly brought into their home rooms for a brief send off from their teachers.
Shima is the first to pop his head into hers and Yamada’s classroom, then comes Yuzuki and Mitsumi, then Makoto and after a while Tsukasa. Upon being asked where he’d been he says someone wanted to confess to him, but that he turned her down.
Mika subconsciously sighs of relief, only realising what she did when Yamada looks at her with a raised eyebrow. She basically glares at him and he grins, then leans in to say that he’s pretty sure it was only him that noticed, maybe Yuzuki.
She’s not really surprised that Tsukasa got asked out on graduation day. She knows that he gets a lot of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, he’s gotten more chocolates than Shina every year of high school shockingly enough.
“Say!” Mitsumi shouts and snaps Mika out of her thoughts, “Where should we go to celebrate graduating?”
Yamada immediately shouts bowling, but is shut down because everyone knows he only wants to go bowling because he’s way better than everyone else.
“Karaoke?” Shima suggests, and while nobody flat out rejects the suggestion, nobody agrees either.
“The beach?” Mika thinks loudly and everyone nods in agreement,
“Alright, it’s decided!” Yamada exclaims and pulls his phone out, “Is anyone bringing fireworks?”
——
Mika steps out of the room to grab a glass of water. Even though they had initially agreed to go to the beach, they eventually landed on going to karaoke anyways. It’s basic. Everyone does it. But it’s fun, so who cares?
She looks at her phone, it’s 7pm, almost half past. They’ve been out for two hours now, having had some ramen first at the restaurant Makoto has her part-time job at.
She looks at the direction signs and there’s apparently a publicly accessible rooftop, so she decides to go up there after grabbing a glass of water.
The second she steps out into the chilly air of a Tokyo spring night, it reminds her how hot and stuffy it gets inside karaoke places. The small rooftop is almost empty, except for an audibly drunk couple sitting on a bench a few steps away from her. There’s a light breeze, too. The faint glow, sound and skyscrapers to both her right and left remind her that they’re not far away from the bustling cities of Shinjuku or Shibuya.
She walks up to the edge of the roof and leans on the railing, resisting the urge to look over the edge and down to the street.
She instead looks behind her and coincidentally sees the door open and Tsukasa walk out of it,
“So this is where you went?”
She nods, and seeing him in his uniform reminds her that it’s the last time they’ll ever wear their high school uniforms. They didn’t have to wear them, but the group had decided that they should wear them while celebrating their graduation.
“It’s..” he inhales, “pretty nice.”
“Calm,” she adds and he nods.
Tsukasa stands beside her and leans over the railing, looking down,
“It’s far down, isn’t it?” He says and adds, “Didn’t feel like it was that tall of a building when we were walking up the stairs.”
She hums in agreement, staring dead ahead and still resisting the temptation to look down.
They stay silent for a while, but a bearable silence. Comfortable.
She hears a faint snort from him, and glances at him. He looks away,
“Are you crying?” She asks “No,” he replies, “Maybe a little,” he mutters.
“I,” she inhales, “I get it, Mukai,” Tsukasa, is what she wanted to say, “I do.”
He wipes his face with the sleeve of his sweater, then looks at her,
“You’re also crying?” A slight laugh, the type she recognises more than she wants to admit.
I am? Is her first thought, then she realises she is.
She hums, “I,” a pause, “I think I liked high school way more than I expected to.”
“Yeah,” he says, “Me too.”
His right arm, the one he’d wiped his own face with, moves a little, then he visibly hesitates before wiping her tears with it, and she becomes too self aware of how hot her cheeks feel.
He pulls his arm back and goes back to leaning on the railing, not saying a word. Her gaze lingers on him for a moment, then she too looks down at the road.
“It’s not that high up, Mukai,” Tsukasa. He laughs.
Then they go quiet. She feels a hint of uncertainty in the silence, but it’s still comfortable.
She’s in the process of biting her cheek, looking for something to say, as Tsukasa breaks the silence with a sharp inhalation,
“Egashira,” he pauses, looking over at her as if to make sure that she’s listening, which she is.
“Let’s, uh,” he exhales and swallows, “Can we keep hanging out like we’ve done this year even after graduating?”
His cheeks are pink. He’s trying not to avoid her eyes. It’s painfully obvious what he’s hinting at, but she has to make sure;
“As friends, or..?”
“No,” he states
Oh. Okay.
She laughs, “Sure, yes Mukai, I will go out with you.”
He sighs, scratching his neck, then laughs with her.
——
As they walk back to the room, Mika nudges Tsukasa,
“Let’s not tell them, okay?” She asks and he nods,
“When someone figures it out, we’ll tell them,” she adds,
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he says and slightly smiles, and she smiles back.