The Phantoms of Yesteryear (Part 1)

Kimura Ume had always considered herself happy as a child. 

Unlike most people in their youths, the social intricacies of school life from primary all the way through middle school seemed to exist on a plane she soared high above.

It’s not that she was particularly popular, it's just that she had a core group of friends that stuck with each other through thick and thin.

Tough math tests were solved with teamwork and study sessions; childhood crushes were rooted for with enthusiasm, and the little heartbreaks that once felt so devastating were shared amongst them and cared for with tenderness and affirmation.

In this group, everyone could be themselves, and their personalities juxtaposed with each other created a unique balance.

To start with, there was Fukiyose Sayuri.

She was considered the tough one of the group, having hit her growth spurt earlier than most, she towered over the boys in her class. The comedy that her physical properties were at odds with the meaning of her given name wasn’t lost on those closest to her, and although she had gathered quite the reputation for being scary to everyone else at school, Ume and her group called her ‘Lily-chan’ as a term of endearment.

Sayuri shared Tani’s interest in Sumo wrestling; in fact, all things combat sports was her passion. Even more so than the real fights, she loved professional/performative wrestling. She saved up an entire year’s worth of allowance and stored up funds from odd jobs at local restaurants she worked weekends at to surprise their group with tickets to watch a big NJPW event.

Ume reminisces upon that night as one of the best she's ever had. For that act of kindness and many others, Sayuri holds a special place in her heart.

Next on the list is Gen Nagai, the sporty member of their group. He was a basketball player specifically, he could even stand toe to toe with Sayuri. The problem was, he wasn’t very good at it. To everyone's surprise, he was one of the worst players on the team despite being one of the tallest. But what he lacked in talent and coordination, he made up for with hard work and grit.

In the off chance he had free time, he spent it training and working on his technique, getting marginally better every single day. His progress didn’t go unnoticed by the rest, and they supported him every step of the way.

Despite his commitment to his sport, he served as the comedic backbone to their group, always seeming to have a joke prepared to whip out in order to lighten the mood, or a perfectly placed comment to dumb something down. As far as laughs go, he was always the one to serve them up on a golden platter.

Ume can vividly remember watching him play the intercity championship game against a rival school. There he had the best game of his life, scoring the most points on his team by a lot. His level of focus was truly a sight to behold.

However, with his team being down one point with just a couple seconds left remaining on the clock, it was up to him to make the final shot to win the game and advance to the next bracket in the intercity tournament.

With the eyes of the entire school on him, he dodged a couple defenders and gave it his best possible shot. 

Unfortunately, it bounced off the rim and missed.

When the buzzer signifying the end of the game ripped its abrasive bellow through the gym, he collapsed onto the floor in a wreck.

The first to run out onto the court to show him support wasn’t his team, it was Ume and their friends.

Later that night they treated him to fast food and boba, telling him how proud they were of his efforts and that he has nothing to be ashamed about.

It's hard for a person to see the bright side after such a heartbreaking loss, but good friends are there to explain that giving it your all will always be more valuable than winning.

The third member of her friend group was Tairabayashi Kaede. Out of everyone, he shared the most in common with Ume. Not quite the film buff that Ume was, he loved anime and even had a bit of a following online for a shounen web novel he liked to write.

There were a few times where the group would hop on a weekend train to Nakano Broadway, and Ume and Kaede would show the rest around the trinkets and games with great enthusiasm. Afterwards they would go arcade hopping and manga store crawling. On those nights, Ume used to have spirited debates on what constituted a good anime even though their tastes didn’t differ too much.

Kaede loved action anime, especially ones with high quality animation. Ume loved anime that had a psychological factor built into the story to give the characters more depth.

As one could imagine, the arguments were trivial, but entertaining nonetheless.

Treating the day trips as little getaways from her normal life, it was always a treat to spend it with them.

Kaede felt comfortable sharing his interests with these friends of his, and they all accepted his interests as though he were as normal as anyone else. When responsibilities kept them from going out, all of them would carve time out of their evenings to play online video games together.

Kaede had a harder time navigating social life at school however, his given name being more feminine seemed to attract the snickers of girls and the unfair attention of bullies in his class, but his group would always come to his aid to keep them at bay.

Especially the fourth member of their group and Ume's childhood friend since primary school, Akihiro Tani.

Tani was undoubtedly the glue that held them all together. In an odd way, he shared some traits with everyone, yet was very uniquely his own brand of person.

He would style his uniform as casually as possible, never buttoning up his collar and always wearing his shirt untucked despite the protests from teachers. His mannerisms were relaxed and always gave off the impression that the world simply existed around him, which made him feel untouchable. He wasn’t standoffish, but he came across as someone too cool for school without explicitly trying to be that way.

Tani was confident in anything and everything he had a passion for, and would let people know about it with self aggrandizing jokes at his own expense. So despite his belief in himself it only ever came across as charming.

Believe it or not, Tani was quite popular.

So if and when anyone tried to bully Kaede, one word from Tani was enough to put a quick stop to it. In a way, he was a wall of protection from the cruel world of school. Ume can’t be sure, but being friends with him since primary school might have been the reason why she was been able to unabashedly be herself as she grew up, never worrying about her long braided hair or her thick coke bottle glasses, she was fine so long as Tani was her friend.

The same could be said for the brash Sayuri, the motivated yet untalented Nagai, and especially for the nerdy Kaede.

The benefits of his friendship stretched beyond even that, he was the one person who could help them solve any math problem or English lesson; he was like a living encyclopedia with the amount of knowledge he had stored within his head.

Despite the fact that he was barely passing classes himself, they knew he was extremely smart and chose not to apply himself so he could better serve his friends and their needs. This added to his aura, and made him seem even cooler than he already was.

He would do little things like give personalized gifts on random days. Things like pro wrestling figurines, new editions of mangas, rare editions of old films, personalized sweatbands for sports. He would also be encouraging to the point that he seemed to show more interest in their interests than his own. No one was more supportive than he was.

His actions made them feel special, made them feel important, and made coming to school every day to see him worth all the trouble of everything else that could possibly be there.

So when Tani didn’t show up for school one day and didn’t tell anyone why, they were very concerned.

Texts went unanswered for days, knocks on the front door of his lifeless house received no response.

Two agonizing weeks passed by...

And then Akihiro Tani finally showed up to school.

He looked completely different though, almost like he aged a couple years. The darkened shade under his sleep deprived eyes had completely abducted what was once an effervescent face.

With his collar buttoned all the way up and his shirt properly tucked in, he stood astute when he finally addressed them all together.

“I’m sorry… But I can’t hangout with you guys any more.”

Those words were received like a stake through a vampire's chest.

They all asked for an explanation, but all Tani did was bow.

Sayuri had even physically shook his shoulders, to her surprise the action received no response. His expression didn’t even change despite her shouts and her threats.

Ume’s voice didn’t reach him either, he didn’t even look at her before he turned away from all of them and made his way down the halls of their middle school.

Before he did though, Ume saw within his sleep darkened eyes something horrible. He looked like someone whose soul had been crushed underneath the foot of a cosmic giant.

She stood there watching his form move further away from her, and didn't chase after him.

Surely, he didn’t mean what he said and he’d come back to her eventually, right? 

They’ve been inseparable since the third grade, so no way after all this time spent together he’d simply move on like that.

He couldn’t possibly choose to spend the rest of their final year in middle school apart can he?

Well, that’s exactly what happened.

Texts remained unanswered on both Lime* and all other social media platforms. At school, Tani simply floated along on his own like a wandering ghost searching for something that has long since faded from whatever universe that it once existed in.

The billboards broadcasting the weekly student rankings showed her that his grades skyrocketed to the top of their entire school, and she noticed that whenever he was alone he’d have his face hidden within a book, paying no mind to anyone around him.

It continued on like this for months until graduation day.

Although with reluctance, the rest of their group had long given up on him by that point, and that concession spelled the end of their friend group as they knew it. Nagai started hanging out with members of the basketball team more often, Sayuri began to spend her lunch break with other classmates, and Kaede followed Ume around almost desperately. 

He shadowed her so closely due to the fact that he had no one else he was remotely close to. Whenever unlucky enough be left on his own the bullies would come slithering to him like hungry snakes, so if there was ever an opportunity to find protection with Ume he'd take it.

Because of the group's drift, they all applied and were accepted into different high schools. Kaede tried to get accepted to where Ume was going, but without Tani there to help him study, his grades slipped and he was forced into attending his second choice.

Hearing that Tani had signed up for Kokusai High school--- far away from where she'd be going, Ume felt it vital that she at least try to find out why he stopped talking to her before she loses her chance to ever get that answer out of him.

She had chased his wandering form off of school grounds and down the street until he stopped at a train track crossing.

“Tani…” she softly muttered.

He didn’t turn to greet her, the arm of the guard rail slowly lowering in front of him blocked his exit.

“....”

“Where do you plan on going?” she asked with bated breath.

“I’m going home.”

“No… Where do you plan on going without me?”

“....”

“Did I do something wrong? If you can tell me, I can properly apologize and make it right.”

She could see a shift in Tani upon hearing that, his shoulders tensed up and he canted his head forward. The abrasive sound of the warning bells began to ring, pulling down the ambience of the warm late afternoon day to add a cool sense of foreboding.

“You didn’t do anything wrong…”

“Then why can’t I come with you?”

The train warned of by the bells suddenly zoomed by, the noise creating a crescendo for the forthcoming answer that felt more like the arrival of a weapon of mass destruction.

“Because you’re not meant to be there with me.”

Ume’s face twisted in a way that made her large glasses feel tight on her face. “T-That’s not fair… I don’t get a say in the matter!? We’ve been friends for so long, it’s not supposed to just end this way!”

“It has to be this way..!” Tani was clenching his middle school diploma in his hand so tight that his knuckles turned white. He released the pressure of his grip along with his tensed up shoulders as though he gave up on something before saying, “You will be alright, Ume. Just forget about me and make some new friends when you get to high school. I’m sure you’ll find plenty.”

“I don’t want new friends!”

The long locomotive finally passed by, and what came next was an eerie silence that left the air around them buzzing with an electricity that pulled up the hairs on the back of her neck.

“....”

Shackled only with the view of his back she couldn’t be sure of what she saw, but Tani seemed to be agonizing.

Ume bit her bottom lip and asked, “Tani, can you at least look at me?”

If he was refusing to talk, she could get all the evidence she’d need if he’d only turn to show her his face.

“I can’t look at you.”

The guard rail arms blocking his way slowly made their way back up, and like a caged bird that found an escape, Tani had a way out. He didn’t hesitate to walk away from her.

“Please Tani, don’t leave me like this!” Ume begged.

He stopped in the middle of the train tracks, the trailing wind from the locomotive that just passed by earlier swirled there in a zephyr, sending nearby tree leaves along with his hair into a melancolich dance.

“I’m sorry, Ume.” He said, still refusing to turn and look at her. “Thank you for everything… Goodbye...”

As soon as Tani reached the other side of the train tracks, she felt like he had reached a point so distant that no matter what she did she’d never reach him again. He was like a faraway galaxy millions of lightyears away that she could only view from a high powered telescope.

Knowing that in reality he was only a couple dozen feet in front of her, the greatest regret of that moment was not running in front of him to block his path and at least see with her own eyes what kind of expression he wore.

If she did, maybe she'd have gathered some evidence other than the words he spoke that had so thoroughly crushed her. 

Instead she let the middle school diploma she had in her hand slide out of her grasp, fallen to her knees, and cried.

This was how Ume lost what she considered the happiness of her childhood.

Two years later during the latter half of her second year of high school, she had long reached the point that Tani seemed confident she’d be able to achieve for herself.

She found lots of new friends, found fame online and even somewhat of a moderate fortune from the work she had been doing as a model. Even though she pretty much lost contact with Sayuri and Nagai, she remained friends with Kaede throughout high school.

The two would text, send each other funny videos they found on social media, and play online video games together as per usual. When Ume had time they would even occasionally hangout. After all, people don’t really change who they are by simply altering the way they present themselves to others.

Just because Ume ditched her comfortable hairstyle and her large glasses for contacts, designer clothes and a long morning routine getting her stylish hair in order--- she still enjoyed the things she'd always enjoyed.

And it was on one of those rare days where the two met in Ikebukuro that Kaede surprised her by bringing a new friend along to join them.

The boy was perhaps even more stylish than Ume. 

She had something in common with the boy other than their good fashion sense. He was in the same line of work as her in the entertainment industry. So she immediately recognized him with his dyed blue hair and stunning good looks. This boy was a teen actor, and a very famous one at that.

“Nice to finally meet you Kimura-san," he said with a gentle tuck of his hair behind his ear and a bright blue eyed smile. "The name's Hagihara Katsurou.”

To this day, Ume views this first meeting with him as the official end of her childhood...

To Be Continued