♪♪♪
THE sun set awfully early during winter. The area was already submerged in pure darkness by five. On the way to the Benz where Mr. Nonaga waited to take me home, Kon handed me a DVD.
“I’ve been hesitating over whether I should give you this or not. Kou told me not to.” White breath escaped through Kon’s pretty pink lips. Illuminated by the lit stone lantern, Kon clutched the sides of her long coat collar together as she searched my face. “There was an arts festival held in Graz, Austria while Kou and I were in Europe over fall break. We ran into Shiroyama there.”
“Into Sou?” Mention of the name I least expected startled me. Kou didn’t utter a single word about it when he was giving me advice for the culture festival. “Is he doing well? Is he still playing the cello?” I quickly asked.
Kon’s expression softened and she pointed to the DVD in my hand. “You can see for yourself if you watch that… Please don’t blame Kou for this. My brother was only being considerate by thinking it might still be too hard on you, Mashiro.”
“…Yeah, I don’t doubt it,” I sincerely agreed after remembering the sorry state I’d been in the day of my school entrance ceremony.
Kou often didn’t seem like the type, but he was actually a considerate person. In fact, he had saved me on countless occasions since I’d gotten to know him. He’d be a great guy if his haughty attitude didn’t cancel out all the good about him. I tried imagining a sincere and honest Kou, and decided it was too weird.
He was a sore loser who was a real pain to deal with because even though he was a nice guy, he hated being thought of as such. In a nonromantic sense, I’d surely fall to my knees and mourn a great loss in my life should he ever disappear from this world. One of the worst drawbacks about Kou was that I couldn’t hate him even after listing all of his drawbacks…
“Anyways, weren’t you wary of Sou, Kon? Are you sure you want me to see this?”
Wasn’t Kon the one who’d told me not to get too close to Sou a long time ago? My curiosity getting the better of me, I put the question directly to her.
“When it comes to you, Mashiro, I get the feeling this world is no longer following the same Hear My Heart plot that I know of. That’s why I’m neither Kou nor Shiroyama’s supporter, but yours, Mashiro,” Kon declared without a moment’s thought. “Haven’t you been curious and worried about why he hasn’t written anything on any of the postcards he sends?”
“…You could tell? You can see through everything when it comes to me, huh, Kon?”
Postcards from Sou came once every week without fail. But he never wrote a reply to the letters I’d sent him. The reason for it was beyond me. Sou’s feelings, which I knew like the back of my hand while we were together, were like a riddle to me now. That reality saddened me.
Regardless of how I was feeling, I never stopped sending him letters because I didn’t want the connection between us to end for good. As I groaned to myself, I composed neutral, inoffensive letters to him.
“How are you doing? Are you eating well? Is Germany fun?”
Writing up letters full of nothing but bland questions was starting to become painful for me, so I began folding origami and including it in the envelope. I followed up my questions with a perfunctory summary of what was currently going on in my life and an explanation on how I made the origami.
Since my series on origami ruins seemed unpopular with him, I sent him a series of origami instruments including a cello, violin, trumpet, and trombone. I wanted to cover all the instruments used in an orchestra to accompany the grand piano I had given him when we’d first met.
“Thanks, Kon.” I clutched the DVD firmly to my chest and slid into the car.
✦ ✦ ✦
♪♪♪
I camped out in front of the living room TV the moment I got home. Hanaka’s eyes lit up when she saw me. “It’s unusual for you to watch TV, Mashiro. What are you watching?” She plopped down on the couch beside me.
“Supposedly a DVD of Sou.”
“Of Sou?! Wow, I haven’t heard his name in forever! Can I watch with you?”
“Of course you can. Let’s watch together!”
Hanaka jumped off the couch and went to make hot chocolate for us. The sweet hot chocolate with roasted marshmallows on top always tasted better when Hanaka made it. It was a mystery how she pulled it off, considering how much trouble she had with cooking.
Every time I was awed by her hot chocolate she’d wink and smile at me, teasing, “The secret is love.”
We sat side by side on the couch and waited for the DVD to start up. I was holding my mug in both hands, blowing on it to cool it down, when a familiar voice spoke from the LCD screen.
“Are you filming? Quit it.”
“What’s wrong with me filming? Don’t be annoying.”
The first voice was Sou’s, and the second was…Midori, who seemed to be the one behind the video camera. The scenery spun around on the screen and landed on one boy.
Decked out in an attractive black jacket, Sou looked at me through the TV screen with a deep scowl. Intense sentimentality surged within me. Sou. It’s Sou! His silky, light-blue hair hadn’t changed much. Oh, wait, maybe it’s a little shorter? Maybe it’s because he’s taller now, but he no longer looks like the cute little Sou I remember.
A mature young man who looked like the spitting image of Sou Shiroyama as he was pictured in my fanbook was standing there.
Midori moved the camera again, capturing another boy standing beside Sou.
“You aren’t performing on stage yet. No rule says you can’t be filmed beforehand. You should listen when a lady asks a favor of you, Sou,” Kou, wearing a dark-brown jacket with a scarf loosely wrapped around his neck, teased.
Midori must’ve stepped back, because now both boys appeared on screen at the same time.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Don’t confuse me with an exhibitionist like you. I don’t care for pictures or videos.”
“Huh? That’s a horrible way to put it. Letting people take your picture doesn’t make you an exhibitionist.”
Sou and Kou were lightly pushing each other around while they bantered.
Before I knew it, tears had rushed to my eyes. I frantically placed my mug on the table and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Hanaka quietly placed her hand on my knee.
I miss them. It’s so nostalgic I can’t take it. They used to always fool around like this. They nag and complain at each other, but they’re both smiling.
“Hey, can I send this video to Mashiro?” Midori’s voice asked over the quibbling boys.
Sou’s whole face softened into a tender expression as he looked straight at the camera. “I don’t mind if Mashiro says she wants to see it. Don’t force it on her. I don’t want to burden her in any way.”
Sou’s voice was a sweet alto that was slightly higher than Kou’s. The love and adoration in his eyes informed me that he still had feelings for me. My heart ached. A strong desire to see him washed over me.
But if someone asked me if this feeling resulted from love, I could only deny it. He was dear to me, someone I wanted to protect, and the person I wished would find happiness more than I wished for any other. To me, Sou wasn’t someone who could be constricted to the confines of the word “love.”
The video went on for a while after that, showing Kou and Sou talking about inconsequential things, and then Kon showed up on screen. As tears streamed down my cheeks, I anchored my full attention on my three dearest friends.
“Looks like it’s almost time for your performance. It’s a real shame we can’t film you playing the cello.”
“Why’s that?”
“I wanted to check it carefully later and search for any mistakes you made so I could point them out to you.”
“Now you’ve gone and said it.”
Sou high-fived Kou and walked off toward the stage set up in the middle of the plaza. His broad back, broader than when we were kids, grew smaller in the distance before the screen went to black. The video ended there.
I agreed wholeheartedly with Kou—I wanted to hear Sou’s cello. I wanted to submerge myself in that gentle, heartrendingly beautiful sound.
“Whew… Sou and Kou have both grown up to be so cool,” Hanaka commented, sounding emotional. I nodded as I wiped my tears away.
They really are cool. Not just their appearance, but everything about them is dazzling.
I don’t have to be romantically involved. I just want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them on stage, playing music.