“Suzu’s in love. And with a bad boy, too,” Ms. Nakai abruptly announced one day during a break in choir practice.
“…Wh-whaaaat?!”
I’d been thinking back on what happened at the Dragon’s castle, my hand resting on the upright piano and my head in a daze. I blushed and protested incoherently.
“No—no way. Why do you think that…?!”
“It’s written all over your face,” Ms. Nakai said, like a detective pointing to a smoking gun. I covered my bright red face with my hands.
All five of the choir members were seated on a bench, grinning.
“Teen girls just love bad boys,” Ms. Kita said, flapping her fan.
“‘He’s so sweet and lonely deep down,’” Ms. Okumoto teased, grasping the back of the bench with both hands.
“‘I’m the only one who understands him!’” Ms. Nakai added, lowering her teacup momentarily. They all exchanged glances and laughed.
“I said you’re wrong!!”
I knew they were teasing me, but I couldn’t help protesting. Of course, my denials probably just further convinced them they were right.
“How about giving him a present?” Ms. Hatanaka suggested helpfully.
“Huh?”
“I studied abroad in Ohio in my last year of high school. There was this one boy with these penetrating eyes, always by himself. He seemed lonely.”
“The lone-wolf type?” Ms. Kita asked, covering her mouth with her fan and widening her eyes like a doe-eyed maiden.
Ms. Hatanaka shrugged. “I was kind of interested in him, so I decided to give him a birthday present.”
“What did you give him?”
“A song.”
“A song?” the other ladies echoed in unison.
Ms. Hatanaka looked at me. “A birthday song. I wrote it and sang it to him.”
“That’s so beautiful,” Ms. Yoshitani said, pressing her hands to her chest.
“A love song!”
“That was the first time I saw him smile. He said he was happy.”
“Did you two date?”
“Goodness, no!”
“Why not?”
“He was only in eighth grade!”
“No way!” they cried.
“He cried at the airport when I went home. It was sweet.”
I gazed at Ms. Hatanaka’s beautiful profile. I’m sure she was gorgeous in high school. I wondered what ever happened to the junior high boy. Did he still remember the present she gave him?
As I walked along the Kagami River on my way home from school, a thought occurred to me.
“I’ve never written a love song before…”
I looked up and glanced around searchingly. The river was calm that day. True to its name, it reflected the nearby buildings like a mirror. Several children were playing on the far bank; a few women were playing badminton. Cars were parked outside Yamauchi Shrine. Elderly couples were leisurely ambling along. Bicycles passed me by.
Fragments of everyday life. Could I find hidden beauty in the road I was so used to walking?
I followed a pair of wagtails with my eyes as they skimmed the river’s surface. As I watched them fly, a melody came to me. The wagtails rose from the river, switching places in the air. I felt myself becoming freer as I observed them.
I craned my neck, squinting into the afternoon sun. I could see Shinobu behind my closed eyes. He was on the basketball court.
A lazy six-eight beat. I stepped in time, getting excited.
Another image of Shinobu came to me. The sensation of his hand squeezing mine.
The feeling of slowly soaring down a river.
The Dragon appeared in my mind’s eye. He was gazing sharply up at me.
I lifted my heels and did a pirouette.
Another image of the Dragon. His sensitive, kind voice.
I—no, Belle—couldn’t stop thinking about him. That was the truth.
But could I call it love, like Ms. Nakai had?
I didn’t know.
Love.
I’d never had anything to do with romance up till now.
But there was a place in my heart I’d always kept hidden.
A feeling I’d always had.
Did this come from the same place?
If it did—
But was it worth anything?
Could I—?
But it didn’t matter. I felt free.
I put my heart into the melody.
I let the sensation linger, then opened my eyes.
Somehow, I was at the aqueduct just before Yanagihara Bridge.
I nodded to myself. It wasn’t half bad. It was a quiet, sad kind of song, but among the better ones I’d written lately.
“Might as well record it,” I mumbled to myself.
I swiped from my phone’s home screen until I got to the songwriting app—but suddenly, my fingers froze.
“…Huh?”
I swiped back to the home screen. The red circle at the top right corner of the messaging app showed an unusual number of notifications. 200, 250, 300…
“So many…,” I muttered, tapping it. An avalanche of messages appeared.
I saw her holding hands with Shinobu
Is she showing off?
Why her though?
Apparently they’re old friends
That doesn’t mean she can get away with whatever she wants!
Girl thinks she’s hot stuff. She should stay in her lane
“What in the world…?!”
Rumors about me were flying fast and thick in the high school girls’ group chat I belonged to. The blood drained from my face. My hand shook as it gripped the phone. Was I about to be excommunicated?
Oh crap!
I straightened up, spun around, and started running like my life depended on it.
What do I do?
My phone buzzed. A phone call at a time like this?
“Suzu!”
“Hiro!!”
“You didn’t tell Shinobu you liked him, did you?!”
“No, I didn’t!!”
“Did he tell you he does?”
“Of course not!!”
“So why…?”
“We just—”
“Held hands?!”
This was a battlefield.
A wasteland where speculation, suspicion, selfishness, and hatred tangled together both inside and outside the group. All at once, in the forests, fields, villages, rivers, and beaches of the battle map, the figurines of the girls in my class spun around, revealing different faces.
All of them were furious.
“I didn’t hold his hand! He just grabbed mine!!” I insisted, trying to defend myself, but the girls kept hurling themselves against me one after another, and my hit points kept going down.
“That’s all?! Now it’s blown up. Shinobu must really be something. It goes to show how he’s on basically everyone’s radar,” Hiro pointed out.
“I didn’t even do anything!!”
“This is spreading like wildfire. It’s like all the girls who flirted with him and all the ones who didn’t but wanted to suddenly stopped holding back and everything just exploded. This place is a real hornet’s nest. It’s scary.”
Scuffles were breaking out everywhere. They were all basically the same, but some developed into battles. Knights on horseback leered at each other, their flags flying high. On other fields, troops armed with guns stared each other down. And on others, bigger platoons armed with bigger guns were a hair’s breadth from all-out war.
“But everyone used to be friends!” I protested.
“You never really know, I guess. If they keep showing their true colors, we’re gonna have a full-blown war.”
“What should we do?”
“I suppose I have no choice.”
Hiro’s figurine burrowed into the ground of the battle map and circled around to the bottom of the field.
“I’ll figure out a game plan and shake things up. You try talking some sense into the more rational girls!”
“I’ll do my best!”
Hiro’s trap made of words sent one figurine after the next flying. The battlefield was in chaos. Without pausing for breath, she moved on to destabilize the next group. Hiro was the type to strike hard and fast. Meanwhile, I gathered the courage to approach one group of girls.
“Listen to me! Shinobu’s just a childhood friend!”
I moved on to another group.
“He was treating me like a little kid!”
I pleaded my case desperately.
“He would never date someone like me!”
My timing was good. The leaders of the various factions were exhausted from the unexpected battles and leaning toward pacifism anyway. They listened receptively to me.
Good point
Everyone needs to chill.
Yeah, simmer down, ladies
Their figurines flipped once again, showing their ordinary faces.