When It Stayed Good

The morning after the festival felt sort of odd. Kinda off in its texture, supposedly in a way like a room feels the morning after something happened. I kept reaching for what was different and did not quite land on it.

I ate breakfast standing at the kitchen counter. My aunt was already at work. My uncle had left a pot of rice on the stove, which I ate without tasting much. I thought about the group photo on Rui's camera. About the taiyaki. About writing on the note and wondered if the days ahead will keep feeling similar.

I got to school and Aki waved from across the courtyard before I had even made it through the gate. She did it with her whole arm, which I found slightly embarrassing on her behalf. Daiki was behind her saying something that made Rui cover his face. I walked toward them at the same pace I always walked.

Karaoke came up at lunch. Daiki said there was a place near the station he had been trying to get everyone to for weeks and tonight was finally happening. He said it the way he announced most things, as usual like a settled fact.

"Are you coming,"

he said to me. Not asked.

I thought about it for about two seconds.

"Yeah."

Haru slid into the seat beside me at some point during the conversation. He had a calm about him that I was still getting used to. He glanced at me sideways and I could tell he was checking whether I actually wanted to go or was just saying yes because Daiki had made it difficult to say no.

I did want to go. That was the weird part.

The karaoke place was small and slightly too bright and the decor was about ten years behind wherever it was trying to be. Posters on the walls of groups I did not recognize. Songbooks on shelves organized in a system I could not figure out and the booth we got was just big enough for us to sit without being uncomfortable.

Aki grabbed the microphone before anyone else had taken their coat off. The song she picked was fast and she knew all the words and she sang it like she had been saving it up. Daiki cheered aggressively. 

Haru and I were at the back end of the booth. He was flipping through the songbook with the low energy of someone who was not in a hurry.

"You're quiet,"

he said, not looking up.

"I'm always quiet."

"Quieter than usual."

I thought about that.

"It's strange. Being part of something."

He put the songbook down and looked at me properly.

"Yeah. It is. But the strange feeling goes away after a while. Or you get used to it. I am not sure which one it is."

He picked the songbook back up. I watched Aki finish her song and pass the mic to Daiki, who made a show of cracking his knuckles before picking something loud and ambitious like he did last time.

Strange but nice was the best way I could put it. I kept that thought to myself.

I took a turn eventually. A slow song again, which I knew maybe sixty percent of the words, which turned out to be enough. My voice still was particularly good or anything. But I got through it once again and Aki clapped and Daiki said it was deeply emotional, which was either a compliment or a jest.

We walked back toward the station in a loose group after. The city at that hour had a particular quality, quieter than day but not empty, everything lit from underneath. Aki fell into step beside me.

"Told you it would be good."

"You told me it would be fun."

"Same thing."

I almost argued that point. I did not.

Daiki was ahead with Rui, the two of them debating something I had already lost the thread of. Haru was slightly behind us. The night air was cold enough to see your breath.

At the station we split off toward different lines and I rode home alone. My aunt had left the lamp on in the hallway, which she always did when I was out late. I stood in the kitchen for a minute and read her note on the counter. 'Glad you had a good night'.

I stood there long enough that the light through the window shifted.

I had had a good night. That was true. I did not know what to do with it being true.

I went to bed and stared at the ceiling for a while and then slept.