Hiiragi Ayu:
Hey um
Can we talk?
Tomorrow in front of school at 3:30
Meet me there?
Please?
Juuzou pulled on his cigarette. The clock on his phone read 3:45. Fifteen minutes past the time Ayu asked to meet him. The smoke dwindled as the cig cindered into a bud. Juuzou chucked it into a nearby trash can. It missed the mark completely and rolled onto the concrete sidewalk. He ignored the cigarette bud by his shoe and continued on his way. The box in his pocket was now empty. Juuzou crumpled it between his fingers and groped around for another container in his other pocket. He broke the plastic seal and fished out a fresh cig. The flame of his lighter sputtered forth as he shook it aggressively; the damn thing was getting old. Juuzou sucked in the bitter tobacco as his legs carried him around town.
He passed by Shinmachi Street and paused. A family of four—a father, a mother, and two small boys—enjoyed servings of ice cream to beat the summer heat. The father smiled as he cradled his toddler-age son. The mother laughed as she wiped ice cream off her older son’s face. Their expressions looked so happy. So innocent. So young. On a bench opposite the cheerful family, a couple enjoyed some ice cream themselves. The boyfriend smeared some ice cream around his lips and his girlfriend cleaned it up by playfully licking it off. They laughed at the loving gesture as they pulled in for a tender kiss. Juuzou averted his eyes. He continued on his way.
It felt like so long ago he meandered around Shinmachi Street with Ayu; hell, it might as well be a near-forgotten memory at this point. Juuzou knew exactly what Ayu wanted from him. He knew it… And he hated it. He wanted to ignore it, but he couldn’t. It gnawed at the back of his mind, like a specter haunting him all day and night and writhing in his gut; even the tobacco and nicotine of his cigarette was becoming too much. Juuzou exhaled and pulled the cig from between his lips. He flicked it and watched the sparks dance through the air.
Juuzou knew he needed to apologize to Ayu. He wanted to. But at the same time…
It would be so much easier to just never see her ever again.
Never talk to her. Never make eye contact. Never apologize to her… And let bygones be bygones. Juuzou stuck his cigarette back in his mouth.
He was fine before he met Ayu. He would be fine without her. Juuzou clenched his cigarette and nearly folded it in two.
But she did so much for him… Ayu was always by his side, so persistent in staying there. Sometimes, it was frustrating; her struggles to communicate were kind of annoying. Juuzou remembered the tears pricking at her eyes in the stationary store at Shinmachi Street. And despite his shitty attempts to backtrack once he realized just how much of an asshole he’d been, she persisted. For some godforsaken reason, Ayu stayed by his side. Before Juuzou knew it, he became accustomed to having her around. And in the end, he was the one who drove her away… How expected. Ayu built the bridge but Juuzou destroyed it. So the task of rebuilding what she started fell onto his shoulders. As far as he saw it, there were two ways to go about doing that.
He already tried to take the cowardly approach. Juuzou couldn’t live with the pain so if it wouldn’t go away, there was only one thing to do: throw away his own life. Yet Thade didn’t let him die despite being the deity lording over destruction. Was this the universe’s way of telling Juuzou he couldn’t run anymore? There was an ember burning instead of him whose only desire was to be free from the world. After all, no one would mourn Juuzou if he was gone. Not even Ayu… Right? That just left him with one other option to rebuild that bridge. It was the one he’d been trying to avoid from the start. Was the bridge better off remaining broken? Somehow, Juuzou hated that answer more than his current predicament… And he couldn’t imagine Ayu would be satisfied either.
If Juuzou was forced to keep on living this stupid, cruddy, meaningless existence in this world that didn’t want him… Even if Juuzou could go on without Ayu… He sighed as the specter melted away and the answer laid itself out before him. He knew it all along, he just didn’t want to admit it. Juuzou didn’t want to continue living without Ayu. And somehow, that thought scared him. It terrified him—drove its nails deep into his flesh—to the point where he wanted to destroy himself. But he couldn’t. Thade wouldn’t let him. It was time to face the music… and the consequences of his own actions. What would happen even if Juuzou did apologize to Ayu? Would she take him seriously? How did one even apologize in the first place!?
Juuzou looked up and blinked. Somehow, his wanderings had brought him to Nishigaoka High school. At four o’clock on the dot. And standing in front of the main school building… Juuzou’s eyes widened.
She was short, shorter than him by at least twenty-five centimeters. Her auburn hair—cut into a short, messy bob—billowed in the summer wind. Half-rimmed glasses surrounded her large, doe-like brown eyes. She wore a bright, sunset orange off-the-shoulder tank top and a sherbert pink skirt. White sandals adorned her feet and clutched in her hands before her was a matching purse. She was waiting for someone. She was still waiting for him. Ayu blinked as he noticed Juuzou just down the road, staring at her like a deer in headlights.
“Hanazoe!”
Juuzou couldn’t move. He saw Ayu run towards him and he wanted to sprint away but his legs wouldn’t budge. His breath hitched in his throat as Ayu arrived in front of him. She took a moment to catch her breath and recompose herself. When she looked up, Juuzou’s whole body went rigid.
“Hanazoe… Thanks so much for coming.” Ayu focused her gaze onto Juuzou; their eyes met. He thought his heart might stop. “The truth is… I wanted to apologize.”
Wait, what?
“I realized… I realized that I went too far yesterday,” Ayu explained.
No, stop…
“I should have respected your wishes and left after you told me you wanted to be alone.”
That’s not—
“But in the end, I just pushed you over the edge.”
Stop it.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Stop it.
“I’m so sor—”
“Stop it!” Juuzou yelled. “Stop… Just… Stop! Why are you apologizing!? You didn’t do anything wrong! I was the one… I was the one who hurt you! Why do you…” Juuzou sucked in a breath. “Why do you still care!?”
“Because… Because I still want to be your friend!” Ayu cried, gripping the handle of her purse tighter. “Yes, you hurt me, but… I also hurt you. And I want to make up for that.”
“No, you… You didn’t do anything! It was all me!” Juuzou gripped his temples. “I was the one who ran my mouth. I was the one who turned on you. Right from the start—from those soccer players to the shit that went down with Honda and then Izayoi—you always just got hurt by being around me! And I’ve always treated you like shit. Admit it,” A breathy laugh escaped his lips; his fingers ran through his bangs as he clawed at his face, “you don’t want to be around me anymore.”
Just tell me it’s true. It would make this so much easier.
“What…? No… No! Hanazoe, how could you say that!?” Juuzou flinched at the pain echoing through Ayu’s voice. “Of course I want to be around you!”
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it—
“I want to stay by your side!”
“Why!?” Juuzou demanded. “You make no goddamn sense, you know that!? Why the hell would you want to stay with a guy who just can’t stop fucking hurting you!?”
“We’re friends,” Ayu insisted. “Yes, you hurt me with your words, but… That business with the soccer players and Honda and Izayoi was never your fault. And even though you could be mean, you always recognized when you went too far. And you tried to improve! I care about you because you’re my friend, Hanazoe. I want to stay by your side because of that. I won’t abandon you no matter what. That’s what it means to be friends.”
Ayu extended her hand. Juuzou blinked at her palm. It was wide open, with her fingers spread slightly apart. Juuzou gulped; his throat was so dry.
Can I trust those words? Can I trust that hand? Even if I reach out to her, won’t she just rescind her offer at the last minute? Does she really want to stay by my side from the bottom of her heart? When I need her most… Will she still be there? If she knew everything about me… Would she do what my parents did? Would she betray me like they did after everything she said? Can I even believe her!? But… Fuck, I just… I want to run into her arms. Would she… Would she accept me as ugly and broken as I am?
His feet moved of his own accord. Juuzou wrapped his arms around Ayu and she did the same in return. Tears streamed down his face as his legs lost strength. It was warm; so, so warm in her embrace. More so than Juuzou ever could have imagined. Like an angel’s wings wrapping him in a sea of tenderness. Juuzou buried his face into Ayu’s neck and cried. He felt her hands stroke his back as he broke down in sobs.
“I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry, Hiiragi. I’m sorry for everything! I-I didn’t mean it… I didn’t mean a word. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m so sorry…”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Ayu soothed, rubbing her hand along Juuzou’s back. “Thank you for apologizing, Hanazoe.”
She accepted it… She accepted that cruddy apology? After everything I’ve done to her, she still wants to be my friend? So does that mean…
“I want you in my life,” Juuzou admitted. “I want you by my side. But… I’m a screw-up. A delinquent. Everyone treats me like some problem that can’t be solved. So… I’m sorry if I can never be as good of a friend to you as you deserve.”
“Hanazoe… I don’t care about any of that,” Ayu protested. “To me, you’re just Hanazoe. Yes, you’re flawed, but so what? I have my shortcomings too. It’s okay. Just continue being yourself.”
Juuzou pulled back to gaze at Ayu. The smile on her face was as warm as her embrace. Her brown eyes were soft; there wasn’t a trace of contempt within them. Her honesty radiated off her like sunbeams.
She… She really does accept me. She sees me for who I am. Not a screw-up or a delinquent or a problem that can’t be solved… She doesn’t care about any of that. She sees me.
“Hiiragi… Please, help me.”
“Sure! How can I help you?”
“Wha… But… But I didn’t even tell you what I need help with!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ayu insisted. “Friends help each other out! That’s what they’re there for, aren’t they?”
Really? So even if I bare all of my problems to her, she’ll help me through them? Even if I show her how fucked up I am, she won’t care? Is that what friendship means to her? She’s… Hiiragi is…
What did I do to deserve this? To deserve her?
She’s by my side now. So… I guess that means it’s time to confront everything all at once. But now… Now, I’m not alone. I don’t have to do this alone. She’ll be right here. Right by my side.
“I want… I want to change,” Juuzou confessed. “I just… Something has to change. B-But… I don’t know… I just… I’ve been wandering aimlessly in the dark for so fucking long… I… I gave up on myself a long time ago. I don’t…” He shut his eyes as the tears surged forth once more. “I don’t know what to do anymore!”
Do you have the answers, Hiiragi? If so… Please, tell me. I never asked to become this. I never wanted to become this! I want to change. I need to change. I don’t want to go back to who I once was—the subservient boy to his parents—and I like my outward appearance, but… I can’t stay as I am now. I just… I don’t know where to go from here!
“It’s okay,” Ayu reassured. She cupped Juuzou’s cheek and wiped away some of his tears with her thumb. “Little by little, we’ll figure it out together.”
“Hiiragi…” Juuzou closed his eyes and leaned into her touch.
She doesn’t have all of the answers… But that’s okay. It used to be scary trying to figure this all out for myself. I didn’t have any answers to the problems I was struggling with. So I fell in with Honda and the Chasers. But no one liked my solutions. My parents especially hated my answers even though they imposed the problems onto me in the first place. But now…
Now I have Hiiragi with me.
“For now,” Ayu pursed her lips and pulled the cigarette out of Juuzou’s mouth, “I think you should try to quit smoking.”
Juuzou grimaced but replied, “Yeah… I guess you’re right. It’s bad, I know it is…”
“You should also try building some new habits and hobbies,” Ayu suggested. “I read somewhere that doing so helps fight the urge to smoke. You like music, right? And if I remember right, you play the guitar.”
“Yeah.” Juuzou paused. “I used to write songs, actually, but I stopped a little while back.”
“You should try to get back into that! I bet it’d really help. If you get stuck, just reach out. I want to help you.”
“Yeah… I will, thanks. Just… I got a question for you.”
“Hm? What is it, Hanazoe?”
“Why… Why do you always blame yourself for things that aren’t your fault? You didn’t do anything wrong yesterday, Hiiragi. It wasn’t that you went too far, I just…”
“Oh…” Ayu sighed. “Well, I… I didn’t want to blame you, Hanazoe. I didn’t want to make you the bad guy. It was easier to just blame myself. And then my thoughts spiraled so… I felt like I needed to apologize.”
“Hiiragi… Oh, god.” Juuzou ran a hand down his face. “Can you promise me something?”
“What is it?”
“Don’t… Don’t do that again. Please. It was unbearable watching you shoulder the blame for something I know I was responsible for.”
“Hanazoe… Okay, I understand. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Oop, sor—”
Ayu slapped a hand over her mouth just as Juuzou glowered at her. She giggled sheepishly as his face broke into a smile.
“God, you’re so…” Juuzou pulled Ayu deeper into his arms. Her slender body fit right into the notch of his elbow; his hand buried itself into her auburn locks. The crook of her neck smelled of strawberries and vanilla. “Hey, Hiiragi?”
“What is it, Hanazoe?”
“Thank you… Just… Thank you for everything. For not giving up on me. For accepting me. And for staying by my side.”
“Of course, Hanazoe!” Ayu wrapped her arms around Juuzou’s neck; he nearly moaned as her fingers swept through his long brown hair. “I’ll always be here for you.”