All that said, despite this new impulse of mine, I was currently without any direction, unsure of what I should do, what I could do. So, for now, I just decided to hit up my buddy Tousuke. He had received a job offer one step ahead of me, having devoted himself to job hunting since the end of his third year, previously having mainly busied himself with part-time work and seminars. I figured that if there was anyone I could consult, it would be Tousuke, who had far more activities, more opportunities than me, who at least ostensibly did not avoid people or loathe to set foot in new environments. I also just wanted to tell him face-to-face about the end of my job hunt.
We decided to meet up at a karaoke place, which I was convinced was only doing so well at the moment because of the amount of money we students dropped there. The location was my idea. Tousuke had previously suggested that we go to karaoke to celebrate the job offers, so I decided to piggyback off of that.
We would be meeting up that evening after my last class of the day was over. Typically, students took a lot fewer classes in their senior year, but as I had had no particular plans for the first three years of my university career, I had now cracked down on my studies, finding myself in classes alongside mostly underclassmen. It would be no laughing matter if I ended up having to stay on another term because I was short a few credits despite already having a solid job offer, so I was pretty serious about things.
In classes that had group activities, I had assumed that I would have trouble keeping my head held high among all these younger students, but it turned out that there were a handful of other wayward seniors in the mix as well, which made things a lot easier to handle emotionally. Presently, we were all huddled together, drudging our way through our lessons.
As always, I greeted my fellow group members and quietly took my seat, waiting for yet another class period to march on by. However, just before class began, a breeze stoked the flames burning within me.
From the group of juniors sitting nearby, there was a voice that could be heard clearly throughout the classroom, a loud “What?!” from a girl who I had independently decided must have a strong sense of responsibility. It was a different volume from those voices that were normally so indistinct within the din of classrooms in all their varying sizes.
I turned only my ears to her, half assuming the usual stance of a lackadaisical senior uninterested in the underclassmen I was taking class alongside, half-unable to contain my curiosity. The girl who had shouted sounded as though she was angry at someone.
From what I could gather, one of their group members had been assigned an important task but had gotten busy with club activities and neglected to complete it. Moreover, said member had sent an e-mail boldly informing them of this, as well as notifying them that they would be skipping class today, which had gotten this girl, the group leader, quite vexed. Come to think of it, we did have some small group presentations to give that day.
One of the other girls noted that person had an important part of the presentation, along with the fact that they had sent that e-mail and refused to answer any calls. Man, that sucks, I thought, fiddling with my phone, when right on time, the group leader roared indignantly, “We’re in big trouble!”
How did people get their voices to echo that loud? I wondered.
“Is it not enough for them to just sit around hogging up the whole cafeteria all day?!”
“A-all right, calm down there.”
“I can’t stand those Moai creeps!”
After an indistinct moment of silence, just then, luckily for all of us, the bell rang. The collective sigh of relief from everyone but the group leader could be felt from every corner of the classroom.
Unsurprisingly, the group that was missing their materials was not able to give their presentation during that class period. When the group leader explained the situation to our instructor, an associate professor, she was met with a reply of, “Well, they’re probably pretty busy right now,” in support of the student who had skipped. The girl’s shoulders trembled.
After class, I was a bit peckish, so I picked up a bread roll from a kiosk and ate it. I had a bit of time to kill before our scheduled meet-up, so I sent messages to my parents and the manager of my former part-time job informing them I had accepted a job offer.
I arrived at the karaoke bar about three minutes after we had agreed to meet. Tousuke was standing out front, poking idly at his phone.
“’Sup,” I called casually. Tousuke looked up, pursing his lips dramatically.
“Well, if it isn’t the man who’s just run away from a life of endless, infinite possibilities!”
“Like I ever had those to begin with.”
We continued our vapid conversation as we entered the bar, finding in fact several groups of students from our university inside. Thankfully though, there was no one who I recognized. We stood in line, checked in, collected some drinks from the bar, and moved up to our allotted booth on the second floor. A faint smell of tobacco wafted out as we opened the door. I should have just taken a seat on the sofa and struck up the conversation right away, but we had come here for karaoke after all, so I decided I may as well sing a few songs first and not think about anything.
Both Tousuke and I sang whatever songs we liked in whatever way we liked, regardless of whether we both knew them or whether our own choices would get the other pumped up. Every once in a while, one of us would find the song the other was singing catchy, and we would make a note of it in our phones’ memos so that we could look it up online later.
This was the proper way to enjoy karaoke.
After we had had a little bit of fun, Tousuke stood from his seat for the umpteenth time, saying he was going to get more drinks and asked me what I wanted; I asked for a melon soda.
I watched him go but thought it would be weird to sing something without him and so just scrolled on my phone in the meantime. It would take him a little while since the only bars were on the first and third floors. Melon soda was only available on the third floor, incidentally.
I finished checking over my feeds on some social networks I had joined just to lurk, and started to feel a strange curiosity and discomfort when Tousuke returned, making a show of furrowing his brow and sighing through his nostrils. I knew from experience that this was a face he made when he was trying to disguise actual irritation.
“Thanks. Something happen?”
“Oh, caught on, did you? Gonna ask about it?”
“What is it?”
He took a swig of the Calpis he had bought himself, glancing outside of the windowed booth door. I followed his gaze but saw nothing and no one there.
“Hm, maybe I was mistaken.”
“Could be.”
“Listen. Ugh, I hate seeing people have that much fun.”
“Well, aren’t you a piece of work,” I snarked.
But Tousuke shook his head in a joking matter with a, “Non, non.” He continued. “It would’ve been fine if it was more upstanding young students such as ourselves or a group of cute girls, but there are two types of gatherings I absolutely cannot stand. One, couples.”
“And two?”
“Big, noisy groups.”
“I mean, I get that.” I nodded, the portrait of unparalleled virtue.
“Right?” said Tousuke, pointing back at me for no particular reason.
Then, he said something that was incredibly relevant to me.
“What I hate the worst, though, are those lame people who walk around like they own the whole place, on campus and off. They act like they’re the representatives of our school or something, making a mess everywhere they go. It makes outsiders doubt the character of even upstanding guys like us.”
“…Yeah.”
I nodded in understanding. I understood immediately who it was that Tousuke was regarding with such contempt, these “lame” characters who acted like they owned the place. He was always taking any opportunity he could to badmouth them, after all.
Most crucially though, I knew who he meant, because I resented them as well, more than Tousuke, more than even the group leader who had been so incensed during class. So as not to be distracted by that last fact, I scrunched up my face and asked, “Let me guess, Moai?”
“Yep. They were swarming all around the party room on the third floor. They’re so annoying. I should’ve gone down to the first floor.”
What an utterly fortuitous topic of conversation.
“Off by a factor of two,” I teased.
Tousuke sullenly put in a new song, so I granted him a reprieve. It was the latest track from his newest band, which put him in a good mood.
Normally, I would have felt the same.
Normally, I would have been irritated to know that those people were at the same establishment as us, just like Tousuke was. Having to cross paths with the Moai folks during my university life was inexcusable.
Today, however, was different. You could perhaps even call this convenient. I had decided on something, after all.
I would talk to Tousuke. I would tell him that there was something I planned to do—something that I had to do, in order to give the last three years of my life any measure of meaning. Before anything else could happen, I decided to confide in my dear friend.
In order to do so, first, I would have to tell him all about them. I had to tell him about the Moai that we had originally built, and the Moai that Tousuke so loathed.
After much loud protest and resistance, Tousuke set down the mic, and I took the opportunity to strike up the conversation. “Okay, listen.”
Tousuke’s only reply was to look back at me, wide-eyed and questioning.
“Can I talk to you about something a little serious?”
“My, how rare! It’s one thing to come from me, the honors student, but to think that even Kaede would have something serious to say! What ever could that be?”
I gave him the expected retort of, “I don’t see any honors students here,” before once more starting, angling myself slightly away from him so as not to make the conversation seem too intense.
“So those Moai guys, the ones you hate.”
“They oughta go back home to Easter Island!”
“Yeah, so about them.”