Shiomi's Secret

Ryouta stood frozen for a few seconds, staring into Shiomi's fierce, stubborn eyes. When he'd finally processed what she'd said, he managed a single word. "Why?"

Shiomi looked away, her voice going low. "I've always done this... To anyone who gets close to Haru. You can't be friends with him. You… You just can't."

"…What are you talking about?"

"It's— it's complicated. Just… Just listen to me, please."

"I—"

Ryouta caught himself, and just stood there, thrown, unable to line his thoughts up. Stay away from Haruto? They'd barely met that day. They weren't even friends yet. So why was she asking him to keep his distance?

He rubbed the back of his neck. The easy thing — the usual thing — for him would be to shrug and let it go. Getting tangled in other people's business was the last thing he wanted. And yet, something about being told to write a person off, just like that, didn't sit right with him.

"…Sorry," he said at last, quiet. "I'm not going to promise something I don't even understand."

Shiomi's frown deepened. "I can't tell you that, Ryouta! Just— just stay away from him! Please!"

Ryouta turned and started for the door. "I'll think about it."

Shiomi stood there, teeth gritted, watching him go with fury in her eyes.

Ryouta walked out of the school building, still unable to shake Shiomi's demand. As he passed through the gate, he set off toward his first part-time job. He had two of them — a café and a convenience store.

Ryouta and Ryuuji had agreed to split the work evenly, but Ryouta had quietly made sure he carried the larger share. He took the weekday shifts after school; Ryuuji put in longer hours on weekends as a lifeguard at the local water park. That job paid well and wasn't tiring, which was exactly why Ryouta had steered his brother toward it. Ryuuji, a strong swimmer since childhood, had taken it because it made sense at the time. What he never realized was that it let Ryouta sell him on an even split financially — while keeping all the harder, more physically draining and longer work for himself. Ryuuji had balked at first at his brother working such long hours, but Ryouta had talked him round, and in time they'd both simply gotten used to it.

His first job was at a local café, waiting tables. The manager was a kind old woman who knew the brothers' situation and quietly slipped Ryouta a little more than the other part-timers — the least she could do, she figured, for a pair of orphaned kids. She doted on them, and respected them for being brave enough to keep a household running on their own.

Ryouta stepped inside, wished the manager a good afternoon, changed in the locker room, and got straight to work to keep his mind off Shiomi's request. He would think about it later that night.

For now, he had work to do.

***

After Ryouta left for his second job, not far away, Ryuuji said goodbye to Futaba and slipped off to the very same café his brother worked at. He had been quietly taking weekday shifts of his own, to lift some of the weight off Ryouta. He knew his brother would be furious if he ever found out. Ryouta would turn it on himself and think that as the elder brother, he wasn't providing well enough. Ryuuji understood the unspoken wish behind all of it:

Ryuuji should have fun, live a proper high school life, and never once feel the pinch of their money troubles. Even if it cost Ryouta his own high school days.

But Ryuuji wasn't stupid. 

He knew how hard his brother worked, day and night, to keep them afloat. How was he supposed to laugh it up at karaoke and snack at some restaurant while Ryouta wore himself down like that?

Ryuuji got home before his brother's last shift at the convenience store ended, and had dinner ready before Ryouta walked in.

When Ryouta came home after a long, tiring day, Ryuuji could tell his brother wasn't quite at ease — but he didn't dwell on it, and laid the table for dinner. The two of them ate and talked about their day.

"So, how was your day?" Ryouta asked, splitting his chopsticks.

"Oh, I had a wonderful time today! Do you wanna know what happened to that boy Shindo I told you about?"

Ryouta smiled, listening as his brother launched in — all fervor and enthusiasm, not missing a single trivial detail, spinning an ordinary day into a proper story. He loved dinnertime for exactly this. Getting to hear so much about Ryuuji, and the way he told things. These were the most peaceful, most enjoyable minutes of his whole day.

"…And then it turned out he hadn't brought lunch, so we decided to share some of ours with him. Poor guy… Anyway, how was your day, Ryo?"

Ryouta caught the small glint in Ryuuji's eyes — the mischievous grin he was fighting to hide, as if he already knew exactly what was coming. Futaba, Ryouta decided. His little brother's informant. He frowned at the thought of his daily doings being reported back like this. Then, a little hesitantly, he told him about Shiomi and Haruto and the day he'd spent with them — leaving out that last conversation behind the school.

Unlike Ryuuji, he couldn't shape a plain, boring day into a story with any real ups and downs. But his brother's encouraging smile kept him going, and somewhere in it he realized this might be the first time in ages he'd actually talked about himself.

Ryuuji nodded eagerly when he finished. It pleased him — Ryouta, who used to deflect the moment a conversation turned his way, had actually opened up and talked about his day. As they rose from the table, Ryuuji found himself wondering whether this small change might be the first of many, and started clearing the dishes while Ryouta headed for the kitchen sink.

"If you want something, and you work for it really, really hard," — his father's words, from when he was a child — "the entire cosmos will bend down to help you, Ryu."

Ryuuji wondered whether he was putting in enough effort himself. He smiled as he wiped down the table, and answered his own question quietly. 

"If I wasn't working hard, today wouldn't have gone like I wanted." He glanced out the window, where the small stars twinkled far off. "Right, Mr. Cosmos?"

***

The next day, Ryouta came through the school gates to find — to his surprise — Shiomi already waiting for him. She signaled for him to follow and set off toward the back of the school. He went after her quietly, a little anxious that he still hadn't made up his mind, the two of them keeping to the building's blind spots so no one would notice.

The back of the building drew crowds at recess, but this early in the day it sat empty. The grass there was soft and good for sitting, and a scatter of low bushes gave a little privacy. It ran close to the fence that divided the grounds from the forest beyond, and the hum of insects and the cheerful chirp of spring birds drifted softly across from the trees.

Shiomi settled onto a patch of grass and patted the spot beside her for him to sit. She held his gaze — the same deadly stare from the day before, after he had turned his back on her — while Ryouta fidgeted. He wasn't used to meeting anyone's eyes.

She began. "You overslept. That's your excuse for skipping the first period."

"I usually don't skip periods, but this time I'll make an exception."

"Good. So… what did you decide?"

Ryouta looked out toward the trees rather than at her. "That I'm not going to keep away from him. Not over a warning with nothing behind it." He picked at a blade of grass. "Tell me what's actually wrong, and maybe that changes. Until then…" He let it trail off with a small shrug.

"He's broken."

"And?"

"That's it. He's broken. That's all I can tell you."

"Then I guess I'm not staying away from him."

Shiomi's face twisted and she snapped at him. "What's your problem! All you did since you came here was stay away from every person in school, and now suddenly somebody talks with you and you become their best friend!? The rest of the people I warned just got weirded out and stayed away. But… not you… Why? Why can't you just stay away!? And here I expected you to keep your distance without even saying anything — but you're being so persistent, for some reason!"

She rubbed her head in frustration and made herself calm down. In a much softer tone, she went on, "Ryouta… I don't know why you avoided everyone at the start of the year, but I'll tell you a fact. Once you choose to be a loner, you'll always be one. That's how high school works. Once you pick what image you have to be in school, you have to stick to it. If you suddenly change your character, everything you've built falls down. Believe me, I know. And you chose to be a loner — the worst of all the images you could pick."

Ryouta let the words settle. The easy thing would have been to agree — say fine, keep his distance, go back to being no one in particular. He should have. Instead he heard himself answer, slowly, almost reluctant to.

"First of all… ouch." He let out a faint, tired smile. "Second… there are worse things than being a loner." He said it plainly, eyes on the grass. 

"You don't have to keep up an image. Don't have to lie about who you are. There's nothing to protect, so nothing to lose."

Shiomi frowned, almost sneering, but he went on anyway.

"And when you're on the outside of everything, you start seeing it clearly. All the faces people put on so nobody looks too close." 

He stopped. He hadn't meant to keep going — but the rest was already sitting there in front of him and he couldn't help but speak his mind. 

"…You're scared of something," he said quietly. "Losing him? Or him losing himself?" He made himself look at her. "Which is it?"

And this time, it was Shiomi who looked away — a tear slipping down her cheek. The wave of feeling she had kept locked away for years finally breaking loose.

She whispered, "Both."

Ryouta caught himself, and tried to make up for how blunt he had been. 

"Shiomi, you can tell me about it. I'm sorry — I didn't mean to come at you like that. Look… how about this? We've still got time to run back and make first period. So we do that, and we talk at recess. Right here. Is that okay with you?"

"You just didn't want to skip the first period, right?"

Ryouta gulped and stammered, "I— uh… I won't… uh— completely deny that."

His admission startled a laugh out of Shiomi, and she wiped her tears as she said, "Recess. Right here. Don't be late, or I'll kick your butt."

"Yes, ma'am."

'What the hell, Ryouta Ito,' he thought. 'How did you pull that off?'

***

The classroom door slid open a beat before the bell, and Futaba looked up — half the room did, the way people always glance at whoever's cutting it close.

It was Ryouta.

He crossed to his seat at the back the way he always did — quiet, unhurried, folding himself into the room like he would rather not be seen at all. The same as any other morning. 

And yet… not quite. 

There was something looser in the set of his shoulders today. And just before he caught himself and wiped it away, she saw it — the faint ghost of a smile, like he was proud of himself.

Futaba watched him a moment longer than she had meant to. When he happened to glance up, she lifted her hand and waved.

She didn't expect much back. On a normal day she would get a small nod at most — the bare minimum to admit a person existed — before he disappeared behind his book again. But this time he blinked at her, and after a second the corner of his mouth tugged up, and he raised his hand in return. Only a little. Still half-somewhere-else, wherever that look had come from.

It was nothing, really. A wave, and a half-wave back. But as the teacher walked in and she turned to face the front, Futaba found herself smiling too.

'Huh,' she thought. 'Something's different about him today.'

***

The bell for recess rang, and Haruto watched Ryouta get up and walk out of the class. Ryouta had managed a quick good-morning and small convo between the periods, but they hadn't spoken since. Haruto had wanted to spend more time with him — eat lunch together, get to know him better. For some reason, he had taken a liking to him and wanted to be a good friend.

So it caught him off guard when Ryouta slipped out early, and he couldn't quite bring himself to ask why. Ryouta never left his seat at recess unless something important pulled him away. Haruto glanced over at Futaba to see the girl was off chatting with her friends. 

So what was the hurry? Did he have other friends? 

Curious, he decided to trail him and find out who this mystery person was. What he did not expect was to find Ryouta meeting up with his own childhood friend — Shiomi — behind the school.

It was still early enough that no other students had wandered down, and he watched the two of them settle by a cluster of bushes, somewhere out of sight. Something strange twisted in him — an uncomfortable ache in his chest as he watched them tuck themselves away. He couldn't put a name to the feeling. He only knew, somehow, that he had to hear what they were saying. The thought of the two of them alone together was unbearable in a way he didn't understand, and so he decided to listen in.

He crept up quietly from the other side and hid himself behind some bushes.

'They only met yesterday,' he wondered, edging closer, just within earshot. 'How are they this close already?'

Ryouta met Shiomi at the same spot they had talked that morning. He sat down beside her, and she began. 

"Alright, Ryouta." Shiomi drew in a breath, steadying herself. "I'm trusting you with this. Don't make me regret it."

And, with no idea how much the next few minutes would change her life, she started to speak as Haruto listened closely from the bushes.

"You better not tell this to Haru."