3

“I’m definitely gonna be feeling this tomorrow. And I’ve got all my unpacking to do.” Eita touched his shoulder, which was already flaring up.

“Well, you can take the opportunity to start training back up.”

“As if. This hurts enough already.”

Haruto offered a pained smile at Eita’s reply, probably figuring that kind of answer was inevitable. But his face quickly hardened over, becoming somewhat nervous. “”So, uh, Eita.”

“Hm?”

Haruto jumped to his feet. “I… gotta go tell her how I feel.”

“…Huh?” Eita sat up, his response sounding absolutely silly as he failed to comprehend what he had just been told.

“They’re still making noise, so she has to be there.” Haruto stood up and focused his eyes ever so slightly towards the school building.

Eita didn’t know what noise he could’ve been talking about. The only sound was the brass band playing away. “I don’t really follow…”

Eita’s concerns remained unanswered as Haruto dashed away towards the school, going faster with every step. He really looked like he was putting his all into it. As Eita watched the other boy go, he recalled what Haruto had said earlier.

Something about a prayer.

“Is that… what he meant?”

He wanted to hit a home run to get the confidence to tell his crush how he felt about her. That weird, roundabout kind of solution was just the kind of thing he would’ve done in middle school, too. Eita couldn’t remember the number of one-on-one at-bats he’d been forced into to help Haruto build the confidence for something.

Eita pulled his phone out of his pocket, quickly opening up LINE and sending Haruto a stamp cheering, Go get ‘em!

Haruto stopped, presumably noticing the notification, and looked at his phone.

A stamp replying Roger that! popped onto Eita’s screen.

Their first LINE interaction in three and a half years.

Now that they were together again, Eita couldn’t believe how hesitant he had been to make contact for so long. What had he ever been worried about?

Even after moving and changing schools, even after being separated, and even after the messages stopped coming, Haruto had remained as Haruto.

As Eita was coming to that realization, another LINE message from Haruto popped up.

Right, forgot something.

What? Eita replied.

Natsume’s still around.

When Eita saw that sentence, his heart skipped a beat.

It was a name that was just as unforgettable as Haruto’s.

Natsume Mio.

A classmate from middle school. They didn’t have a particularly special relationship or anything. They were in the same class group for a while, and after she joined the student council Eita would pitch in for something and they’d have a short chat. But they were just classmates. Nothing more or less.

But Eita still remembered her full name among the many classmates whose names and faces had long since faded.

Nothing had ever sparked between them, but even after so much time passed that Eita was forced to assume nothing would ever come of it, the spark inside him still seemed to remain.

As he opened up to that side of himself, nostalgic emotions suddenly flooded inside him, pulling at his heart. Memories of another time played inside his mind.

It was middle school, and she was carrying boxes for some kind of student council work. She heard laughter and stopped in her tracks, turning to find Haruto preparing equipment for practice and laughing along with his teammates.

Her sigh was painted white in the cold winter air, and the dry breeze forlornly blew back her short, black hair.

He should have gotten out of there as fast as possible. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been busted for seeing her. Maybe then she wouldn’t have threatened him with that, “Tell anyone, and you’ll wish I killed you.”

That sulky expression had always stuck with him. That genuine way she was staring at him, trying to act tough and threatening.

“At least I’m still alive,” Eita mumbled, grimacing as he recalled the old threat. He tucked his phone back into his pocket.

There was no need for her to add insult to injury like that. Eita had been dealing with his own feelings, too.

He thought all of that would be over once he moved to Fukuoka. Even when his father told him that his banking job would be moving them back to their hometown, Eita hadn’t bothered raising his expectations.

In fairness, nothing had happened yet. He’d just gotten a text saying Natsume’s still around. But that little message was already enough to let his heightened emotions peek out.

Eita was too embarrassed to face that fact head-on, so he tried forcefully changing the subject to divert his attention and pretend he hadn’t realized anything.

He pulled out the entry pass he had shoved into his pocket earlier. “Guess I’d better return this to the office,” he said out loud, unnecessarily.

“Thank you very much.”

The main office was on the first floor of the north office, right inside the guest entrance.

“Were you able to get a good look everywhere?” The secretary asked behind the counter, greeting Eita with a smile.

After returning his pass, Eita bowed and offered another “Thank you very much” before leaving the office.

He put the school slippers he had been wearing back in their designated shoe locker and changed into his outside shoes. By then, the only thing filling up his entire headspace was Haruto’s LINE message.

He took out his phone and checked his LINE homepage. Sure enough, there it was. Natsume’s still around.

“He means she still goes here… right?”

He doubted Haruto meant she was in the building at the moment. And actually, why did Haruto even bother to bring her up? Eita didn’t remember ever telling him about anything. Plus, he thought he’d been pretty subtle about it all. So how did Haruto…

Thinking about all kinds of things, Eita wandered outside, where he was immediately recognized.

“Oh, Izumi!”

Hearing his name get called, Eita stopped dead in his tracks. He looked up to find a girl coming out of the student entrance in the central building, directly opposite to the doors he had just come from.

“It’s been a while… So hey, what brings you here? Did you move back in town? Since when?” The girl walked up to Eita, rapid-firing questions.

Her hair had a slight tinge of lightness to it. She wore makeup, but just a modest amount. Eita was small for a guy, but she still seemed rather petite to him.

She seemed like the type of girl to have a group of friends that everyone in class would know.

But none of that mattered to Eita at the moment. He was mainly concerned with one question: Who was this girl? She seemed to know him, but Eita didn’t think he knew her.

“…Hello,” he replied, his wariness harshly coloring his tone. His facial expression, voice, and approachability were all noticeably awkward.

The girl’s face took on a puzzled expression as she watched Eita. “Don’t tell me…” She frowned, beginning to look annoyed.

But before she could finish her sentence, a nearby shout cut through their surroundings.

“Morikawa!”

The voice was laced with nerves, and probably came out a bit more high-pitched than intended. Eita recognized it immediately. It was Haruto, probably getting started on that whole “tell her how I feel” thing.

A figure came dashing out of the guest entrance, passing across Eita’s right field of vision. Haruto was looking straight ahead, and didn’t even seem to notice Eita.

Haruto stopped about 30 feet from the school gates. He was out of breath, which made sense since he’d been running all over the school, but his expression didn’t show the slightest fatigue.

A tall female student turned around. “…What? Souma-kun?” Confusion was written all over her face. Eita assumed she had to be Morikawa.

She had long, beautiful hair that had likely never been dyed. Her skirt looked pretty long for a high school girl, too. If Eita had to guess, it was probably exactly school-regulation length.

Overall, she didn’t leave much of an impression. But there was something in the way that she held her hair back from the wind, and how she watched and waited for Haruto. It made her look a little more mature.

“That figures…” said the girl who knew Eita’s name in more of a sigh than a whisper.

Eita turned to look at the girl again just as she let out a sigh that turned white in the cold air. Her forlorn gaze at Haruto made for a familiar profile that Eita knew he had seen before.

“…Oh.” Before Eita could stop himself, he let out what was almost a gasp of surprise.

He had seen her before.

He had even remembered her name.

Eita let his guard down since Haruto had vaguely messaged that she was “around”. Or maybe it was more than that.

Her hair was longer than before. She had dyed it a lighter color.

Her face looked so different, and she looked much more mature… and at the very least, she hadn’t worn any makeup back in middle school. Those surface level changes had made it harder to notice right away.

But there was the way she would sadly look at what she wanted.

The way that she would twist her mouth in annoyance.

The way that she could casually toss out “Izumi” without honorifics.

She was exactly the Natsume that he remembered.

Eita had just assumed that she would stay the same when he wasn’t watching. Not that it was any excuse.

He had really messed up. She probably wouldn’t buy anything he could make up about how he couldn’t tell it was her. Especially when she started the conversation by recognizing him…

He wanted to address the fact that she was upset with him as soon as possible, at least letting her know he recognized her. But Haruto was right over there, making a whole deal out of telling the other girl his feelings for her… So Eita wasn’t sure what to do.

He wasn’t sure if Mio’s feelings had changed.

“I… So like, um…”

“…Yes?

Haruto and Hazuki started their conversation, and Eita had no idea what to make of it. But Mio’s face as she watched Haruto was exactly like it used to be.

“I have to tell you something, Morikawa. Um, I-!”

But Haruto was plowing ahead, desperately trying to convey his feelings to Hazuki. There was no time for Eita to think everything through. And there was no sense in trying to stop him.

So all Eita could do was watch, right there by Mio’s side.

Completely oblivious to his surroundings, Haruto looked straight ahead and said his piece.

“I! I’m free tomorrow!”