Her voice was fragile and scared, like a lost child who’d been left behind by their parents. I couldn’t tell what the significance of these words was, or if there were any hidden undertones she was trying to convey, but I knew there was only one way I could respond.
“Of course not,” I said. “How could I ever hate you?”
I managed at long last to wrap my trembling hands around Akari’s back. Tension continued to lock every inch of my body into place, but somehow I managed to will my arms around her. I knew it was the right thing to do. We stood there like that for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, until eventually, Akari gently tugged herself away. Now, her faintly flushed cheeks were mere inches from my face, so I could watch her bleary eyes twinkle in the soft moonlight.
“Let’s go home,” she said softly.
The two of us continued making small talk on the walk back to Akari’s place, almost as if the embrace we shared up on the rooftop had been nothing more than a fever dream. We were talking as candidly as we had been in the classroom an hour or so ago, each of us taking turns recounting memories that we could both laugh at or be astonished by. It felt so natural that it honestly made me start to wonder if the rooftop incident really had been nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from speculating as to why she’d been so assertive in embracing me like that. Obviously, that was intended as a show of affection of some sort—what I couldn’t grasp was what kind of affection. For all I knew, that could have been anything from a simple expression of momentary gratitude to a confession of love. Without knowing where on that spectrum it fell, I had no way of knowing the proper level of affection to reciprocate with.
“Hey, Kanae-kun,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Wh-what’s up?” I replied. My voice cracked.
“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight. Something tells me I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep now.”
“Sure thing… Glad to hear it. Yeah, feel free to hit me up whenever you need a friend to talk to.”
“Nice. I think I’ll take you up on that.”
Akari smiled at me—and that alone was enough to send a euphoric rush coursing through my veins. That in turn made me realize that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t tell where her head was at; I was grateful to earn affection from her in any form. I decided, then and there, to stop overanalyzing her emotions. From now on I’d bask in the glory of whatever affection she felt I deserved. For tonight, though, the end of our dreamlike encounter was drawing near. Akari’s apartment complex soon came into view.
“You wanna meet up tomorrow too?” I offered, half out of concern for her, half out of my own desire to get as much quality time together as possible.
“Sorry, I don’t think I’ll have time. What with getting ready for the wake, and all.”
“The wake…? But that was… Oh, right.”
Akito’s wake was held on the night of the 5th. I was going through the days in reverse, so I’d already experienced it, but it hadn’t happened for Akari yet.
“Yeah, sorry. We’ve been running ourselves ragged the past couple of days, trying to get things ready for the funeral… And I can’t leave my mom to handle it all herself, y’know?”
“Hey, no need to apologize. You’ve got a lot on your plate right now, I get it.”
“Thanks for understanding…”
Her expression turned glum, and she hung her head a little. I ground my teeth together, wishing I hadn’t ruined the mood by asking about tomorrow. Determined to salvage the conversation so we could end off on a high note, I forced a chipper inflection and tried to reassure her.
“Hey, don’t get too down on yourself about it! I’m gonna go back and save Akito anyway, remember? Then everything will go back to normal.”
“…Yeah, I know.”
“I know I can pull it off, just you wait. All I’ve gotta do is make sure he doesn’t go out drinking that night.”
“…Right.”
This didn’t seem to do much to raise Akari’s spirits—if anything, she seemed even more crestfallen now. Somehow, my attempts to cheer her up had backfired, and I started panicking internally. Her one and only brother died a few days ago. I should have avoided bringing him up in conversation at all costs. I was reprimanding myself for this critical judgment error when Akari surprised me by deliberately continuing the conversation about him.
“What was your impression of my brother, Kanae-kun?” she asked, still looking down at the ground. “Do you still look up to him, even now?”
“Man, that’s a tough question… Obviously, he was my hero growing up, but nowadays? I wouldn’t say I ‘idolize’ him anymore, per se. Not that I don’t still have a ton of respect for the guy! I mean, how could I not, after he saved me from those bullies back in elementary school?”
“Oh yeah… I totally forgot about that.”
“As for my impression of him, well…he always struck me as a bit clumsy when it came to expressing his emotions and stuff like that.”
“How do you mean?” Akari asked.
“Well, I remember this one time in third grade, I think it was… He came up to me at the little candy store in town, and he was like, ‘Hey, you’re friends with Akari, right? Do me a favor, will ya?’ or something similar.”
“What was the favor?”
“He basically just asked me to look out for you, and be a really good friend to you, and stuff like that. Because he felt like he wasn’t really being a very good older brother and like the only thing he was any good at was baseball.”