The Aftermath

Shiomi pressed her lips together and pulled in a shaky breath, her fingers knotting in the hem of her skirt. For a moment she said nothing at all. Beyond the fence the forest went on humming with insects, warm and indifferent, spring going about its business as if the world hadn't just tilted under them.

Then she made herself keep going.

"...There was a homeless man near the river. He had seen the whole thing — all of it — and he never lifted a finger to stop them." Her voice had gone flat, worn smooth from the telling. "But when Haruto went in... I guess, the man realized it was a dangerous situation. He jumped in after him. Pulled him out, carried him the whole way to the hospital, and then he told the police everything."

She plucked a blade of grass and turned it between her fingers.

"There was a lot of noise about it for a while. Police, teachers, everyone's parents... And then it just... went away. The bully's father owned that hospital. That kind of man can make things go away. Both of them transferred out of the city — the bully, and Kentaro." Her thumb pressed the grass flat. "I found out later that Kentaro's dad worked under him... At the same hospital. I think that's why he did it. Chose the bully over Haru. He couldn't let his family be hurt."

Ryouta didn't say anything. He had learned, somewhere in the last few days, that there were things you didn't put words to.

Shiomi went quiet. Her thumbs, which had been turning over and over each other, went still.

"But that's not the worst part." She lifted her eyes to him, and there was something close to pleading in them now. "When I went to see him in the hospital, he had... forgotten. All of it. The river, the bully, Kentaro pushing him in — gone. The only thing left in his head was the good parts. All the fun he'd had with his precious 'Ken-chan.'" Her voice caught on the nickname. "So I told him Kentaro had to move away. That's all. And he's been happy since that day."

Her composure held right up until it didn't.

"But I couldn't— I couldn't let anyone near him again. Not after that. Watching someone crawl into his life, getting close, and then— I can't, Ryouta. I just can't—"

And she folded, finally, shoulders caving inward, sobbing into her hands without a sound.

Behind her, very quietly, a familiar voice said, "So my whole life's been a lie?"

Shiomi went rigid. Her face struck with horror, she slowly turned around. 

And there he was. 

Haruto, standing a few paces off with the bushes at his back, his face wet and streaked with his own tears, glaring at her.

"Haru— wha—" Her mouth worked around the words. "How— how long have you—"

He didn't let her finish.

"I remember all of it now, Shio." Quiet. Too quiet. "Everything. Every time you lied to me. Every friend you scared off. All of it, to 'protect' me." His jaw tightened around the word until it nearly cracked. "No. To make yourself feel better. Because you weren't there when I went into that river, and you've never once forgiven yourself for it."

Shiomi didn't answer. She couldn't. Haruto pushed himself up, tucked his eyes down beneath his bangs, and walked away without looking back.

Ryouta sat frozen in the grass between the two of them.

'Do something,' the thought clawed at him. 'Go after him. Stay with her. Do something.' But he didn't know which, and so in the end he did nothing at all — just sat there, hands dead in his lap, hating the old familiar weight of it settling back onto his chest. This exact helplessness. Watching two people he'd let himself start to care about — against everything his instincts had told him — fall apart right in front of him, and finding he couldn't lift a finger to help.

Shiomi wiped her face with the back of her wrist. When she looked at him, she was smiling — that awful, weak little smile that hurt to see far more than the crying had.

"He hates me now, huh." She said it lightly, like it was nothing much. "Thanks for listening, Ryouta. The three of us... we could've been really good friends, y'know. If I hadn't gone and ruined it."

She stood. Ryouta's hand twitched toward her — reach out, say something, anything — and stopped halfway, hanging in the air between them a moment before it dropped back to his side.

He watched them go, then. Two friends walking away from one another in opposite directions, each carrying the other's hurt, neither of them sure how to put it down.

Ryouta let himself fall back into the grass.

Above him the sky went on forever, wide and blue and empty — not one cloud to break it. He stared up into all that nothing while his thoughts came at him in waves, one crashing over the last, until one clear thing rose out of the churn and held still.

'Ah... I see it now.'

'It was me. I walked into their lives, got curious, pulled at a thread that was never mine to pull. They were fine. They were fine until I came along.'

'It's my fault. All of it.'

Something in his chest went cold and level. His head, for the first time all afternoon, was perfectly clear. He knew now what he had to do.

He closed his eyes, and lay there in the grass, and waited for the bell to call them back inside.

***

Something was wrong. 

Futaba knew it the moment she stepped back into the classroom after recess.

Haruto's seat sat empty — had sat empty since the bell — and Ryouta hadn't turned a single page all period. He just sat there, chin propped on his hand, staring out the window at nothing, his face wiped clean of everything. No boredom, no thought, nothing. Just blank. She had never seen him wear an expression like that. She had never seen him wear no expression like that.

A dozen times she nearly got up. A dozen times she talked herself back down — wrong moment, wrong words, and anyway what was she even going to say? Between periods she slid her phone out under the desk and thumbed a quick message to Ryuuji. 

can't walk home with you today. sorry. 

Then she watched the clock, and waited.

The final bell rang and the room started to empty. Futaba was up and out of her seat before she could talk herself out of it, crossing to his desk.

"Ryouta, wha—"

"Stay away from me, Futaba."

He didn't shout it. He said it evenly, almost gently, the way you would read a line off a page from your notebook — then he stood, shouldered his bag, and walked out of the classroom without once looking back at her.

Futaba stood where she was, her hand still half-raised, the words she had meant to say dissolving on her tongue.

***

The message lit up Ryuuji's phone just as he was stacking the last of his textbooks into his bag.

can't walk home with you today. sorry.

He turned it over in his head a second, then shrugged and slid the phone into his pocket. No plans, then. None of the guys had roped him into anything, and his shift wasn't for a while yet. It wasn't even his brother's day on the rotation, so he wouldn't be underfoot.

He knew exactly where to go.

The little café sat on the corner two streets down from school, its windows fogged gold against the cooling afternoon. 

Nagasaki's Coffee

The door announced him with its small brass chime, and the smell reached him before anything else did — roasted beans, warmed milk, something sweet baking in the back.

"Afternoon, Mrs. Nagasaki!" he called.

The old lady behind the register glanced up and smiled the soft, crinkled smile she kept for the Ito boys. "Ryuuji. You're early, dear."

Miyuki, wiping down the counter, arched an eyebrow at him. "She's right. Your shift's not for another hour, Ryu. Come to admire us at work?"

"Just here for a coffee before I'm chained to that apron." Ryuuji dropped his bag beside a stool. "Cold, please. Blackest you've got."

Miyuki huffed a laugh and reached for a glass. "Take a seat. One heart attack, coming right up."

"Thanks, Miyuki-senpai."

He had half-turned toward the stools when he caught it — a flash of grey and maroon over by the window. Their school's uniform. A girl sat alone there, chin in her hand, staring out at the street, a long fall of white hair loose down her back. He almost tossed out something breezy, some 

hey, you from Kusu-high too? 

— and then she turned toward the sound of his voice, and he saw the tears sliding down her cheeks.

She scrubbed them away fast with her sleeve. "H-hey. Yeah. Kusumigaoka High. Me too."

Ryuuji slid onto the seat across from her without waiting to be asked.

"Right. That settles it." He planted an elbow on the table and dropped his chin into his palm, mock-solemn. "I'm not budging from this spot until you're cheerful again. That's the rule."

"N-no, really, it's fine—" she sniffled, "—I'm okay. You don't have to. I don't want to bother you."

"Bother me? Perish the thought, milady." He grinned, warm and easy. "I cannot, in good conscience, abandon a damsel in distress. It simply isn't done." He tilted his head at her. "Ryuuji Ito. Second year, Kusu High. Charmed."

That earned him the smallest, waterlogged laugh. She wiped her nose. "...Shiomi Mabuchi. Third year." A pause. "Nice to meet you too."

"Wait." He squinted at her. "Shiomi. Shiomi, Shiomi — where do I— oh." His face lit up. "You're Ryouta's friend! Small world, senpai. I'm his little brother. Ryu, if you like."

Shiomi blinked at him, thrown clean off course. "Ryouta has a brother?" She looked him up and down, as if the fact wanted inspecting. "...Huh. I guess he does."

"So, Shio-senpai." He let the honorific land, easy and deliberate, and gave her a lopsided smile. "Now that I know you're a friend of my brother's, I'm afraid you've left me no choice. I have to cheer you up. Family policy." He propped his chin again. "So. What's got you crying into a café window?"

She studied his face a moment, something almost fond surfacing through the wet. "...You and Ryouta are nothing alike, you know that? Nothing." A weak smile. "But you've got the same eyes."

"Mhm. Our dad's." He said it lightly, though it warmed him to hear. "Anywayyyy... Senpai. Talk to me."

And she did. She had already told Ryouta, the hard part of getting it off her shoulders the first time was done. She turned back to the window and told him all of it — the whole miserable afternoon, start to finish — while Ryuuji listened without once cutting in. Somewhere in the middle of it he caught Miyuki's eye across the room and mouthed a single word; a minute later a mug of hot chocolate appeared at Shiomi's elbow, steam curling off it. When she had finished, she wrapped both hands around it and took a small sip.

Ryuuji turned his cold brew in a slow circle on the tabletop.

"Shio-senpai." His voice went gentle. "You did your best. You did what you thought was right — for years. Playing the overprotective friend, chasing everyone off, all of it, so Haru-senpai wouldn't have to pick up again something he'd been lucky enough to put down." He looked at her steadily. "That's not nothing. That's an awful lot to carry on your own. And then to have him remember like this, all at once... Yeah. You're allowed to be a wreck right now."

He smiled at her, and this time there was less charm in it and something more grounded.

"But hey, don't count us out just yet." He leaned back. "Everything's going to be alright, senpai. Sooner than you think. Ryouta's not the type to just sit on his hands once he's seen something like this. He never could."

Shiomi gave the mug a thin, unconvinced smile. "...I don't know..."

Then Ryuuji sat bolt upright, as if struck by lightning.

"Shio-senpai. Important question." He fixed her with a grave look. "Have you ever sung the songs of Nine Idol Stars?"

Shiomi recoiled. "Oh, no. No way. Absolutely not." She groaned into the table. "Do you have any idea how traumatic my childhood was? Haru sang those things all day. All day."

"Oh, believe me, I know. I suffered too — Rika-pyon on loop, dawn to dusk." He shuddered theatrically. "And I'll let you in on a secret I learned the hard way. The only cure for a song those two idiots stuck in your head... is to sing it louder yourself." He stood and swept a hand toward the door. "Karaoke. Come on."

She protested, but she was already getting to her feet, letting herself be tugged along.

They were nearly at the door when Miyuki's voice cracked across the café. "Oi— Ryu! Ryu, where do you think you're going?! Your shift's next!"

Ryuuji threw a hand up over his shoulder without breaking stride. "Thanks for covering for me, Miyuki-senpai! You're the best!"

The chime rang, and they were gone.

"That boy." Mrs. Nagasaki chuckled from behind the register and set about pulling a fresh cup. She carried it over and pressed it into Miyuki's hands. "You don't mind the overtime, do you, dear?"

Miyuki sighed at the door where the two of them had vanished. "...Nah." He took the coffee. "That girl looked like she needed cheering up. And who's better at that than Ryuuji?"

"Don't you fret." The old lady patted his arm on her way past. "Natsu-chan will be in soon to help you."

Miyuki's ears went pink. He turned back to the counter very quickly. "...So? Natsu's no help at all," he muttered. "Always breaking the dishes."

***

Haruto had been walking a long time now.

He didn't know how long, exactly — long enough that the sun had slid down behind the rooftops and smeared the whole sky orange, long enough that his legs had stopped their complaining and gone quiet. He drifted into a small public park in some part of the neighborhood he didn't recognize and dropped onto a bench in the corner of it.

He couldn't go home. Not yet. And he couldn't go to the other place either — the lonely little park at the dead end of the street, the one with the rusted swings and the overgrown weeds, the one only he and Shiomi had ever known about. Especially not there.

So he sat, and he let the memories come.

They came clearly, every last one of them, sharp-edged and new, and he turned them over one at a time. When he thought about soccer, he almost laughed. All those years, all that talent everyone envied him for, and the root of it was nothing grander than a small boy who had wanted to be as good as Kentaro. That was all it had ever been. A borrowed dream he had long forgotten he was chasing.

And all the others. Every kid over the years who had come up bright and friendly and then, sooner or later, drifted away and kept their distance, for reasons he had never once understood. 

But he understood now. He knew whose quiet hand had been on every one of them, steering them away from his life.

He got it. He did. He knew why Shiomi had done what she had done.

He just... needed someone to be angry at. And she was the only one still standing close enough to take it.

He let out a long, tired breath and dragged a hand down his face. Hours he had spent now, turning Kentaro over and over, and he was sick to death of it. Idly he wondered whether Shiomi had thought to grab his bag from the classroom. Then he decided he didn't care. He would get it tomorrow.

He turned his head — and there was a girl on the next bench over, sitting with the exact same slump he was in, staring out at the exact same nothing. He looked closer.

"...Futaba?"

She looked up. "Oh... Oh! Hey, Haruto." She lifted a bag off the seat beside her — his bag — and held it out. "Here. You disappeared after recess, so I figured leaving it in the room overnight wasn't the safest bet."

He took it and settled it against the bench leg. "You're not going to ask? Where I went?"

She looked away, out into the darkening park. "I would. But honestly, I don't have it in me right now... Ryouta told me to stay away from him."

"What?" Haruto tilted his head. "Why?"

"No idea." Her voice went small. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. "...I wonder if he hates me. I dropped into his nice quiet life out of nowhere, y'know? Ryuuji told me it'd be fine, but—" She shook her head. "Now I'm not so sure I should've bothered him at all."

"I think you did the right thing," Haruto said, and there was a small grumble underneath it. "You were worried about a classmate. There's nothing wrong with that. If anyone's in the wrong here, it's him — being rude enough to tell you to get lost."

"Classmate." Futaba echoed the word softly, and let it trail off somewhere she didn't follow. "...Yeah."

For a moment she seemed to be turning something else over entirely, somewhere he couldn't see. Then she blinked it away and sat up, changing tack. "So. Where did you go, after recess?"

"Ditched class. Went for a walk." He tipped his head back against the bench. "A long one."

"Okay." She almost smiled. "And why'd you do that?"

Haruto sighed. Maybe it would be better to take it off his shoulders too. So he told her. All of it — the river, the forgetting, Shiomi's years of quiet lies, the whole thing coming down on him at once behind the school.

When he finished, Futaba let out a breath. "...Ouch." She winced. "And here I am, sulking about getting brushed off. God."

Haruto shrugged. "Don't. We've all got our own stuff going on — no point lining it all up to see whose is the worst." He stared out at the black shapes of the trees. "Honestly, it's not even anger that I feel. Or sadness. It's just... empty. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel right now. Whether I should be furious at Shio for lying to me for years—" his jaw worked, "—or grateful, because she only did it trying to look out for me."

Futaba got up from her bench. She crossed the little gap between them and sat down beside him, and after a second she reached over and patted his shoulder, once, awkward and kind.

"For what it's worth," she said, "I think what's done is done. The past already happened. You can't change any of it. So maybe just... take the new memories for what they are, and keep going."

Haruto looked up. The sky had gone fully dark now, the first faint stars pricking through it.

"...Maybe you're right," he murmured.

***

The clink of chopsticks against the ceramic bowls filled the small kitchen. Steam rose gently off the rice. Ryuuji had thrown together something warm and simple, and for a while the two of them ate the way they always did — easy, unhurried — until Ryuuji set his bowl down and looked up.

"Hey, Ryo." He said it carefully, testing the water. "I ran into Shiomi-senpai today. She told me about everything — her and Haruto." He turned his chopsticks over in his fingers. "What do you reckon we should do? To help them."

Ryouta didn't lift his eyes from his rice.

"Help them?" he repeated, flat. "The harder you push into something like that, the further apart they'll pull. It isn't our place." He set a slice of pickle on the rim of his bowl and left it there. "Better to stay out of it."

"But—"

"No." The word came down clean and final. "I don't want you getting in between them, Ryu."

Ryuuji watched him for a long moment.

"...And what about you?"

Ryouta stood, gathering his empty bowl.

"I'm going to take responsibility."

He carried his dishes to the sink and climbed the stairs without another word, the old wood creaking under each step, and left Ryuuji sitting alone at the table.

For a while Ryuuji just looked at the empty stairwell. Then, slowly, a grin crept across his face. He reached over, plucked up the pickle his brother had left untouched, and popped it into his mouth.

'Responsibility, huh.' The grin spread wider. 'There it is. Finally. I've been waiting all year for you to react to something.'

Beyond the kitchen window, far off over the rooftops, the small stars had begun, one by one, to come out.

***

Upstairs, Ryouta changed into his pajamas and lay down in the dark.

He closed his eyes. He turned the decision over once more, feeling along its edges for the crack in it, the place where it might be wrong.

He didn't find one.

'Yes,' he told himself, and the cold, level certainty settled over him like a pulled sheet.

'It's for the best.'