THAT DAY, third-year classes ended before lunch in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. When I arrived at the cafeteria, I found Mickey sitting at a table with a bunch of cookies laid out in front of her. When I snuck over and stole one, I was met with a vicious gut punch.
“These aren’t for you!”
“Well, they’re good!”
A diamond floated overhead, symbolizing her anger. Meanwhile, a spade of joy rose up over the girl seated across the table: Elle. Did she make these? She smiled softly at me, but I unintentionally averted my gaze. I kept doing that lately.
“I didn’t even get to have one yet!”
“Oh, really? My bad. They’re great, though.”
She threw out another punch, and I let it land so she could vent her anger. But I didn’t want her to think I was being nice, so I added:
“Not like you could ever make these.”
Another anger-diamond rose up over her head. Then a smaller one rose over Elle’s; perhaps she didn’t appreciate me teasing her friend. But it quickly faded—one of those so-called fleeting annoyances. Nothing to worry about.
“Rrrgh! Forget it! I’m just going to ignore you.”
Mickey pressed her hands together, then picked up a cookie and took a bite. The anger-diamond faded, replaced by a large joy-spade—the largest, in fact, out of everyone currently on campus. I couldn’t tell which pips were whose, but I could see their size and location across the entire school building, and Mickey’s was by far the biggest. Pretty impressive, considering all it took was one measly cookie.
“It’sh sho good!”
“See, I told you.”
“What are you still doing here? Don’t you have track practice? Buzz off! Go to hell!”
“Wow! Rude! We don’t have practice during parent-teacher conference week—just studying or solo laps. I was over in the library just now, but then Kyou got called in for his conference, and I was bored and hungry… Elle, was I not supposed to eat these?”
“No, it’s okay. I can always make more.”
“Hmph! For Elle’s sake, I’m willing to forgive you. Consider yourself lucky.”
“Gee, thanks. Come to think of it, Looney’s conference is today too, isn’t it?” I asked, dodging her snide remarks.
“Yeah, it is. Must be nice to have such perfect grades… I bet they spend the whole meeting patting her on the back,” Mickey shrugged, though she didn’t actually seem that jealous. Over the six years since I first met her, I’d watched her spades turn to diamonds and her diamonds turn to hearts with absolutely no grasp on how her mind worked. It was hilarious.
“Elle’s got good grades too, right?” I asked, changing the topic of the conversation to the girl smiling across the table from me.
“Totally. But she had a lot of absences last year, so that might have impacted her report card.”
Some people might have disapproved of the way Mickey showed no hesitation in broaching what might otherwise be a touchy subject, but I wasn’t one of them.
“Hmmm… Can’t I just say I didn’t realize the weekend was over?” Elle joked.
“Oh my God! Ha ha!”
A year ago, Elle would never have cracked a joke at school. As Mickey laughed, a big heart of amusement rose up over Elle’s head.
Sometimes it was actually more painful to have your friends walk on eggshells around you. Mickey keenly understood this, and so she opted to joke with her instead. Relieved to see Elle smiling, I sat down next to Mickey and ate another cookie. There was no follow-up punch this time.
“These are so good. Did Kyou and Looney get to try them?”
“Huh? No…”
“Sucks for them! Now Mickey’s gonna eat ’em all.”
At this, a club of sadness rose up over Elle’s head. Maybe she was starting to regret the fact that she didn’t get to offer any to the others. Oops. I hastily changed the subject—not merely to be nice, but because I wanted to minimize Elle’s sadness as much as possible.
This was uncommon for me. Normally if I saw a club over someone’s head, no matter the size, I’d try to find out what caused it and then try to help them find a solution. Nosy, I know.
“Anyway, these are great. Is there a secret ingredient?”
That said, perhaps going against tradition wasn’t always inherently a good thing. “Tried and true” was an accepted phrase for a reason. I was so used to meddling in other people’s business that I hadn’t anticipated what would happen if I put my own feelings first for a change.
“Ooh, I wanna know, too! Tell me, tell me!”
“Settle down, kiddo. It’s a little early for you to be experimenting with advanced techniques.”
At this, I took another punch, and Elle giggled.
“Huh? Hee hee… It wouldn’t be a ‘secret ingredient’ if I told you.”
As she declined Mickey’s request, she wore the same soft, sweet smile she always did. Then, still smiling, she quietly rose from her seat.
“I’m going to the bathroom. Anyway, if I had to say, it’s probably my love. I always daydream about who’s going to eat them while I make them.”
And with that adorable confession, she walked away.
Normally I would’ve averted my gaze out of embarrassment, but this time my eyes were glued to her. Not to her smile, but to the pip swelling over her head. What was that about? As I watched her flee to the restroom, I reflexively sucked in a breath. Her pip grew and grew and grew until eventually it overtook Mickey’s spades and hearts as the largest emotion in the school building.
“Her love, huh?” Mickey murmured to herself. But I ignored her and watched Elle and her pip until she left the cafeteria. Then Mickey noticed my silence. “What’s wrong?”
But obviously I couldn’t tell her about what I’d seen. “Eh, I’m still hungry. I think I’m gonna go buy something… I’m craving salty food.”
I rose from my seat. Coincidentally, the food stand was in the same direction as the restrooms. As I left Mickey behind, I followed after Elle and attempted to figure out what was up with her. Did she feel bad for not telling us her secret ingredient? Surely her pip was far too big for that. Maybe I got it wrong the first time, and what I actually saw was a joy-spade. After all, they were the same color.
I dearly hoped I was right about that, and so I searched for her to get confirmation. Unfortunately, this hypothesis proved false. Floating over her little head was a giant inky black sadness-club.
And for some reason I couldn’t begin to explain, the sight of it made my chest ache.
I first noticed I was off my game well before the Culture Festival or any of that, but it was February’s field trip that put the final nail in the coffin: a girl in my class asked me out, and I turned her down. What was odd about that, you ask? It was the first time I ever turned down someone’s advances.
We weren’t really that close, but I knew her to be an outgoing, friendly girl, as well as one of the prettiest in our class. Naturally, I was flattered she felt that way about me, and normally I would have readily agreed without thinking too hard about it. Not that I’m a ladies’ man or anything, but I usually didn’t really care how well I knew a girl—if she was into me, then that was all I needed.
Looking back, this applied to more than just my love life. Maybe because of my power, I tended to value myself equal to other people. Add in my tendency to look out for people, and this would generally result in me putting their desires first.
But this time, I didn’t do that. And there was only one reason: because there was a girl I was interested in.
Oddly enough, my life was easier before I knew what kind of “interest” I meant by that. But when I turned down that confession, I started thinking maybe these feelings were more serious than I realized. Then I started to notice my own behavior, and then it occurred to me why I had decided to hold on to a bell “just in case,” and I got so scared, I threw it away.
Ashamed as I am to admit it, this was only my second time ever feeling this way about someone. At least if I was sure I was in love with her, then I could act on it. But like an idiot, I was still trying to decide, and now I was too chicken to do anything.
That said, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Speaking as someone whose most recent ex accused me of never stopping to think about how I feel, and then proceeded to dump me, it was possibly a good thing. The bad part, however, was that I found myself unable to do anything when the apple of my eye was hurting.