“Jeez, Rinka, just look at my hair! It’s a mess thanks to you!”
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, my bad.”
The three of us were walking home from school, Momose and Aiba chatting happily in front as I lagged a couple paces behind them.
“I can tolerate the hugging,” said Momose, “but patting me on the head’s a completely different matter! It’s condescending, for one thing, and uncouth to boot.”
“Is it, now? I’ve always thought it’s just normal,” replied Aiba.
“Really, Rinka? Your dearest childhood friend spends her precious free time after school cheering you on, and this is how you repay her? You need to learn some respect!”
Momose was in an irritable huff, and Aiba casually brushed off her every objection. The two of them held nothing back from each other, but there wasn’t any real hostility behind their snappy back-and-forth either. It sort of looked like the two of them were enjoying their little verbal sparring match.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Aiba finally conceded. “How about I treat you to some ice cream to make up for it?”
“Ice cream?!”
Momose’s eyes lit up as Aiba pointed toward a food truck that just happened to be set up on the other side of the park we were passing through. A sign in front of the truck had a big drawing of an ice-cream cone filled with soft serve on it. Considering the heat and humidity, I was all for it—ice cream really did sound like it’d hit the spot.
“I-I’ll have you know I’m not the sort of girl you can bribe with an ice-cream cone!” Momose snapped, recovering quickly from her moment of temptation.
“Oh? Well, I’m certainly in the mood for some. I’ll be right back.”
“Hey! W-Wait, I’m getting one too!”
The two of them dashed off toward the food truck together, and I let out a quiet sigh as I watched them go. It’s still so hard not to get nervous around them, I thought to myself. We’d been friends for a whole year, but I still hadn’t quite shaken the awkward diffidence I displayed toward them every once in a while.
Both of them were incredibly cute, yes, but that wasn’t all they had going on. They had, I don’t know...a certain glamour to them. If the world was a stage, then Momose and Aiba stood perpetually in the spotlight. The word “sacrosanct” suited them perfectly, and if I’d met them in any other way, I’m pretty positive I’d have ended up as just another one of their fans, idolizing them from a distance without a care in the world.
But that wasn’t how it had turned out. What had actually happened was a downright miracle. I’m sure that sounds like an exaggeration, and maybe it is one, but if I’d taken even the slightest step differently, made even the slightest mistake, I know for a fact that I never would’ve been able to make friends with them.
It all started back when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, bright and early on the day of our entrance ceremony—my very first day of high school.