Akira reached into her pocket and pulled out a sealed pack of batteries—the same one she’d nicked from the rest stop several days prior.
“I kinda wanna go back and return these,” she said. “I think you were right; it’s not good to just take stuff we don’t need, y’know…?”
She was scratching her cheek with one finger as she spoke, clearly feeling a little bit sheepish about the whole fiasco—and probably ashamed for having taken them in the first place. It genuinely warmed my heart to see her making an effort to mend her ways and show that she understood my point of view. At the same time, this would mean trekking all the way back the way through the rain to that rest stop, then coming all the way back here before we could make any more forward progress. Frankly, it was a pretty demotivating prospect. Still, if that was what Akira felt was the right thing to do, then I wanted to support her in it—especially since I was the one who’d pushed her into having this change of heart.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Let’s go put them back together.”
“Yeah… Sorry for the massive detour,” said Akira.
“Don’t worry about it. But can I ask what you were planning to use them for? I know you said you’ve got some portable phone charger thing, but what have you even been doing on your phone?”
“Oh, right.” Akira reached into her other pocket to show me. “I’ve been listening to music on it, yeah. I’ve got a bunch of stuff downloaded, so I don’t need service or anything to listen to it. Whenever it’s too quiet or I can’t sleep, I’ll just pop in some earbuds and put something on to fill the silence for a while. Keeps my mind off of things.”
“Ah. Gotcha…”
Come to think of it, she’d mentioned having trouble sleeping a few times now over the course of the trip, hadn’t she? It was easy to forget sometimes that I was the abnormal one here for finding this state of affairs so relaxing. I had to remember that for most people, being tossed into a frozen world completely devoid of sound would be eerie to the point of deeply unsettling. Maybe even enough to drive a person mad.
And when that clicked, I felt overcome by so many different regrets all at once.
I never once considered that for Akira, those batteries were a basic necessity.
“…On second thought,” I said, “maybe we’d better not.”
“Huh?” said Akira, dumbstruck.
“Sorry, I know I’m flip-flopping on you a lot here… But if music’s what you need to help calm yourself down, then I wouldn’t say those batteries are a needless luxury at all. They’re as vital to you as sugar, or carbohydrates, or what have you.”
“So then…you think it’s okay for me to keep ’em?”
“Yeah. Just make good use of them, all right? Er, not that they’re mine to give away or anything… But you know what I mean.”
As soon as I finished speaking, I could feel my whole body tense up a bit as I braced myself for her to yell at me for having made such a big deal about it in the first place. But yet again, Akira defied my preconceptions of her, as her lips stretched not into a scowl but into perhaps the broadest smile I’d ever seen—one of pure, unfiltered joy and relief.
“Oh, thank god…” she said with an exasperated sigh, as though she’d been literally holding her breath as she waited to hear my verdict.
Seeing her relieved was more than enough to make me feel the same way. I could tell that her influence was definitely starting to have an effect on my moral compass, making me reconsider my own inner thoughts and values in ways I’d never been forced to before. If my influence was having even a little bit of the same effect on her, and we could both grow in our own separate ways from this experience…then that would make me pretty darn happy, to be honest.
“Hey, Mugino,” said Akira. “I forget—did you say you don’t really listen to a whole lot of music?”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Yeaaah, not really.”
“Well, you’re in luck, my friend, because I’ve got a ton of bangers right here on my phone! If you don’t like any of this stuff, then we’ll know you’ve got no taste! Here, lemme give you a little sampler. I’ll find something up your alley, just you wait!”
“Yeah? All right, if you say so…”
Akira and I sat down next to each other against the wall, and I watched as she quickly flicked through the playlists on her phone.
“Okay, now let’s see… Man, what even genres would a guy like you be into…? Maybe you’d like something a little more experimental like Tokyo Jihen… Or maybe something kinda retro and psychedelic like Glim Spanky would be more your speed? Both super good bands, by the way, and great starting points for sure—though I definitely wanna show you some Ellegarden stuff too… Aw, man. Too many choices! I can’t decide!”
As Akira went back and forth between this song and that, trying to decide which to play for me first (while also stopping to gush about each and every one of her personal favorites), I couldn’t help but get swept up a little by her infectious excitement. I had no idea what sort of music she had in store for me. All I knew was that regardless of what artist or genre it might be, I really, truly hoped that I could learn to love it.