Him and Her

Crisp spring air had fallen to the humid warmth of summer several months ago. Each year it felt like summer was arriving sooner than it was ever meant to. Limbs of neighborhood trees had long since taken up their green blanket but were now begging for rain to quench a deep thirst.

A warm, light breeze pulled the fabric of a summer uniform from my skin, a whisper to remind me that the peak of summer was here.

The chime of a school bell told the stories of my survival in the first semester of my high school life. While the spring had been quiet, the school was now letting out for summer break. Voices from my fellow students rang with excitement as they planned their vacations. The quintessential part of their students' lives were on the tips of their tongues.

As for me, I was no different. Although I was doing so quietly, I was making a few plans of my own.

What I really wanted from my summer vacation was to watch the fireworks with my crush at our local summer festival. I wanted to share the festival food with him. I wanted to play games together at the stalls with him. I wanted to confess to him beneath flowers blooming in the sky.

I just wanted to be beside him.
Like always.

Rays of light soaked into my clothes, adding enough weight to feel as if they were dragging me to the ground. I was exhausted from the unusual school day but still decided to take the long way home. Light glittered through the leaves where it rained down on the concrete around me. I walked through puddles of sunlight towards the place that felt brightest to me.

Hideki's house was in this direction.

The two of us often walked home together since we didn't live so far apart. On days that we weren't walking together, I still liked to pass by his house. A little ray of sunshine before returning to the turbulent squall.

I boldly declared to myself each time that this didn't mean I was a stalker. It just felt that if I didn't stick to this small ritual, I'd lose any connection I had created with him. An obsession that clung in the deep recesses of my mind but were hesitant to show me their colors.

A silky coat of white shimmered on top of the garden wall of his neighbor's home. A beautiful pale cat stared at me, oceans filling each of its round eyes. I reached out a hand to pet her and she allowed it but stayed only long enough for a few brushes of my finger through her soft, fine fur. When she left, it felt as if a little bit of me had as well.

I was sad to see her walk further down the street and disappear behind some brush.

While picking up my books from the sidewalk, I heard the voices of a couple rounding the corner. My fingers paused around the spine of a composition notebook when I heard his laugh.

A smile that tugged gently at threads binding my heart each time that I witnessed it. There it was, before me once again.

Beside him was a girl that I didn't recognize.

She didn't look so different from me.

Perhaps she was a little taller. Her hair just a shade off from mine. Her face seemed a little unfamiliar.

Her pale sundress, half hidden beneath a burgundy sheer cardigan, was nowhere close to our uniform. Likely, she didn't go to our school. So, who was this mysterious, stylish girl?

I knew that somewhere in my mind, this stylish and cute girl was already being qualified as a threat. Although I had never had the chance to feel it before, I knew immediately that this feeling was jealousy.

When had I become so unconfident?

"Oh, it's Yu!" He waved at me as soon as the words carelessly departed from that smile. I realized how odd it must have looked for me to have been standing in front of his house with my books on the ground. Judgment crawled around in the pit of my stomach.

Hesitantly, I waved back. My fingers quickly found their way around my books and clutched them to my chest while my back straightened. My feet wheeled around to find their way back home and out of the situation. Jealousy needed a swift decision. I was willing to try again when I was better able to get a hold on my feelings.

I tried.

...I tried again.

I wasn't ready to confess to him yet. Even, though I felt like I needed to, I wasn't ready.

My eyes watched the road ahead, careful not to look back until he called after me again.

When Hideki did call out to me, my lips curled into a little smile as he focused some attention towards me. "Where are you headed?" I thought it was a stupid question but my heart beat faster just for knowing that he was talking to me. Clutching my books a little more tightly to my chest, I allowed my eyes to wander back to the two of them.

"Did I do something wrong?"

No. Of course not.

As I turned to face them properly, the girl next to him stepped forward, her hand pressed against her collar.

"Hello." Her pinkened lips shimmered as her words helped them to greet the sunlight. "I'm Chiba Mitsu, a friend of Hideki's."

"Sugiyama Yuri... Also a friend." I became suddenly aware of my own lips but my words were spoken with calculations on risk rather than through gloss. My focus returned to the person of interest in this strange party.

"Sorry, you didn't do anything wrong."

"I just panicked because I thought it might look strange, me standing here. I saw a cat and decided to stop and pet her." Almost as if he accepted my true excuse, Hideki nodded. Still, he looked for a beautiful cat that he clearly wasn't going to find.

"Well, we were just about to go to a cafe for some lunch, with it being a half-day and all. Would you like to come with us, Miss Sugiyama?” 

An olive branch.

Even so, the fact that she bothered to invite me along was proof enough that she didn't see their outing as a date. Another part of me couldn't shake the feeling that he had been under the impression that it was.

Pieces of rose gold fell in front of his face as he made a show of patting down his pockets. "I'm just here to get my wallet since I forgot it at home this morning." It wasn’t long until he threaded rosy locks through his fingers and tacked them once more behind his ear.

"It's a good thing we didn't have lunch at school today." Although I said it, lunch was one of my favorites features of going to school.

"Right? My thoughts exactly." Though it felt reluctant, he added onto her offer. "You're more than welcome to join us, like she said."

I thought that if I could see more of their interactions together, I might be able to decipher the type of relationship they had with each other. Maybe my jealousy would be unfounded.

Though I may have been intruding on his advances, my curiosity got the better of me.

"That sounds great. Thanks for the invitation."

Shadows gathered on the wood planks where the sunlight refused to pool, each piece of shade offering respite from the afternoon heat.

Mitsu suggested that we take the outdoor seating for the recently opened cafe. Hideki and I both stared awkwardly at the seating; four chairs gathered around a square table. The indecisiveness on which seat to take ate a hole in my stomach.

"I'll grab some menus. Be right back."

Without skipping a beat, Mitsu took a seat and patted towards the chair across from her. "Let's sit across from each other, Miss Sugiyama!" Even such a warm inclusion made me feel a little colder.

Hideki took the seat to the left of her when he returned. My books took the fourth seat like a guest of honor in their own right.

"It's so interesting that this place has outdoor seating. I saw it on the way home last week and just had to pay a little visit." She looked up from her menu as she spoke, paying both my crush and I equal time. I wanted to shield myself from her bright smile; deep down, it terrified me to no end

I turned the menu card to the back and spied a few sweet treats, exactly what I would need to get through this encounter.

"I was thinking about having the burger and fries, what about you?" His eyes peered over to her ask he asked. The fact that he wasn't also looking at me made me feel a little left out.

It wouldn't be the only time it happened during our excursion, though.

I couldn't get it out of my head. It was clear that he liked her.

A small, young waitress, probably just out of high school, came to our table to take our order. A strawberry parfait from the bottom of the menu was my battle armor of choice. My eyes were glued to Hideki as he made his choice. Eventually all of us had ordered and received our food. The conversation in between barely included me.

"So, are the first-year classes at the college really difficult?"

Mitsu shook her head, soft blonde locks looked like silk against the brilliant sunlight. "It's a bit like having art class all day."

She thought her words over as she said them and chose to amend her answer. "Oh, well I suppose it might be different based on the subjects you take."

"Man, my teacher always harps on about how it'll be harder in college. It's hard to believe with how he teaches us." Hideki ran his hand across the table as if the words he spoke were written in the grain.

Although I was sitting an equal distance away, it felt like I was light years away from Hideki. I couldn't stand to look at the two of the talking together anymore so I pulled my focus to the clouds drifting lazily in the summer sky.

If I could just gather the courage to invite him on that date to the festival then maybe I could convince him that I was a choice worth making. I needed to convince him to give me a chance. If I didn't tell him how I felt, I didn't think I'd ever get the chance again.

The closer he got to her, the harder it would be.

"So how is the parfait, Miss Sugiyama? I heard that this place makes delicious parfaits when I was reading the reviews." Her gentle voice pulled me from the lazy clouds and the storm of thoughts.

"It's okay, I guess." Removing my cheek from the hand I was resting it against, I decided it wouldn't look good in front of Hideki if I gave a half-hearted answer. Bringing the group down could do no good. "The strawberries are really good; I like the candy glaze they used on them."

"However, the cookies got a little soggy by the time I reached them. I mean, I guess that would be my only complaint. It's a pretty solid parfait."

"As expected of Yu!" Fire burned beneath my cheeks as he finally directed some attention towards me. It didn't take long before he continued his puppy eyes at her, though. "She's who you'd come to for recommendations on food."

"Yu takes it all very seriously and has probably tried every restaurant in town, right?"

The warmth on my cheeks continued to grow until they felt molten. I knew it wasn't exactly praise but it certainly felt like it.

"N-Not all of them..." I couldn't tell him that I valued food so strongly because I didn't have much to eat at home. The money I received from extended family on holidays was always put towards eating. I eventually started eating at restaurants because the kitchen was never clean. Even if it was, the restaurants kept me from having to return to that husk of a home.

"If you ever want company when you go, I'd love to try some new places as well." Was she trying to make friends with me? I wasn't exactly looking to make friends with her but I couldn't think of a nice way to turn her down.

Instead, I nodded and made up a reasonable excuse. "I've already spent all of my money for this month so it'll be a while before I can go anywhere else."

"I'll be sure to let you know the next time I go out, though."

She smiled at me as she took out her phone. "Then can I get your name on messenger?" Hesitantly, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my skirt and showed her my messenger ID. Pale, slender fingers slid across her screen; she typed the ID into her phone. "I'm sending you a message."

A notification appeared across my home screen and I clicked it to see her message.

“Thank you for coming with us today. I don’t think you like me very much right now but I hope that we can become friends one day.”

She smiled at me once more before picking up her bag. "My dad worries about me if I stay out too late so I have to go home now. Thank you for inviting me; Let's do this together again soon!"

Her similar blue eyes found mine and she focused her attention towards me "It was nice meeting you, Miss Sugiyama"

Hideki pressed against the table, his body seemed to be unable to decide if it should continue to sit or not. "You don't want me to walk you home?"

"I'm okay, really. I walk through here all the time." I finally met her eyes completely as she stood to leave. "See you next time!"

“Goodbye." I muttered it quietly but I was sure she had heard my sentiment. Hideki waved just a little too long with a smile on his face as she left.

It was just the two of us left.

I didn't know what to say to him. He hadn't exactly come here to talk to me either. Eventually, the two of us stood up to go inside and pay for our meal. He paid for both of theirs and I was left to pay for mine, which is no different from what I expected from the trip anyway.

"I guess this is it for today?" I asked him as we left the cafe and stepped once again into the summer sun.

"I guess so. Later, Yu."

As he began to walk off, I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. He stopped and turned to face me, a look of concern playing across his face. "S-sorry." I released the thin fabric and tried to push myself to look him in the eyes. "I…"

"I actually wanted to ask if you are free on Sunday."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Were you wanting to go to the arcade again?" Did we really go to the arcade together enough to auto-complete my request? “You still have the high score but I'll beat it this time for sure."

Yuri: "N-no... It's not that." I pressed my thumbs together and watched my feet, pondering if they were sharing the same sentiment as my shaking hands. "I thought maybe we could go to the summer festival together."

"Should I invite Mitsu. The two of-"

"No." Hot tears threatened to turn into rain. My defeated voice only carried so far. The black pit in my stomach became heavier. Heavy enough to fall to the ground beneath my feet.

"Today..." It took me a moment to pick it up and gather my words again. "I was feeling a bit left out today so I thought we could spend time together..."

"Just the two of us." My face became so warm that it interfered with my thoughts and words. I couldn't keep the words from escaping even if I didn't mean them. "Not like a date or anything but still…"

"Just the two of us."

Hideki nodded his head, a lovely blanket of bangs and hair falling from those tucked behind his ears. “Alright. Sunday it is."

"Just text me what time we should meet up and where."

This time I nodded in return.

"I'll talk to you then!" His fingers stretched out to tell me goodbye as he turned to his route. "Later, Yu!"

A smile I couldn't hide had been brought back to life. Even though I told him it wasn't a date, it would still be one to me. I knew I had to use that day to confess to him. It was frightening. Such a lovely but frightening thought. I knew that with Mitsu in the picture, I might have little time left to do so.

It wasn't like I didn't want him to be happy, though. I just wanted to be happy, too. I wanted him to be happy with me.

On my way home, I found that there was a little more pep in my step. I turned down an alley, a shortcut I often used to get through the city during the daytime. A familiar white coat glittered in the trace amounts of sunlight that made it into the valley of buildings.

It was the same cat from earlier. It felt like maybe this was a sign of things to come. She must have been hungry, though, because she was rummaging through the garbage. I approached her slowly, hoping I wouldn't scare her by making any sudden noise.
I stretched my hand out towards her and nearly found the tip of her nose with my finger.