Cry

Help and reach out, I thought as I entered the flower garden.

The thought of going out of my way to support another person hadn't come across my mind for the better part of a year. I was never one to act first, and even at this moment, I hadn't figured if acting out was right for her. To reiterate, my conclusion was simply speculation.

"H-Hello, P-Poet-kun." she said softly.
There was an unprecedented diffidence in her greeting. If anything, this was how she should've acted when we first met.

I did my usual routine of setting the calendar on my lap and staring at the gym wall. In our first meeting, my mind was blank; her words entering one ear and out the other. Recently, my mind had been trying to understand what her words meant. This time, my mind was clouded with what I should do about – what was supposed to be – our non-existent relationship.

"Wh-What do you do during lunch, P-Poet-kun?" she asked, rather bleakly.

Without having to think about it, I answered, "Sit at my desk and eat."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Is that surprisin' to you?" I asked.

"N-No, I was just curious to see if you hung out with friends every once in a while."

"I don't have friends to do that with."

"I-I see."
I was barely able to make out what she said. A slight cough followed.
"A-Anyways, I have good news!" her voice uplifted. "My father told me I'm on track to inherit his business. He wants to hand it over to me after I graduate high school, where I'd be working from here even though the company's in Europe."

Her excitement was genuine, but short-lived. This was her dream, and it was on the horizon like a rainbow. Although, to see the rainbow, one needed to deal with the rain first.

Following her statement, I added, "This means there's more pressure on you for exams, doesn't it?"

Her voice choked as she uttered, "M-Mhm," followed by another slight cough. If I had to assume her sitting position, I'd guess she'd have her legs up to her chest with her elbows on knees and her head buried in her arms, only lifting it to speak. Her chipperness was nowhere to be found, perhaps locked away.

She said, "I-I've been studying for the exams since the first day of school, and it's never problematic. However, it's always during the actual prep week where my studying goes off the rails. I lose concentration quickly, wanting to lay in bed and listen to music instead of doing work."

I understood what she said. The parasitic feeling of procrastination was hard to resist. It was always easier to give into temptation and drop everything that's been burdening one's shoulders. The worst part was that temptations grew stronger the closer the finish line was.

My ears twitched to the sound of a failed attempt at suppressing a sniffle on the other side of the hedge. It was followed by a strained cough. I originally thought it was her allergies, but she wouldn't suppress something I already knew about.

In a low, broken manner, she said, "M-My mother's so eager for my first exam, probably more than I am. Sh-She can't wait for her little girl to bring her that 100..."
She took a moment to – I assume – catch her breath and recompose. She continued speaking, this time hiccuping every few words.
"Sh-She didn't d-do well on any of her e-exams in high school, and was ne-never excited about her s-scores. Th-That was until she met my fa-father. Studying with him m-made her happy and excited for e-exams, even if she continued to not do well; sh-she didn't care. I wish I had something like that."

To give her another break, I made it my turn to speak.
"You do. You have your bestest friend, right? I'm sure you studied with just the two of you before, and it must've felt like how your parents did, minus the romance part, obviously. You could be studyin' with her right now instead of not studyin' with me."
I had a feeling she wanted to respond, but her voice still needed rest, so I continued talking.
"I know you don't want to tell her your secret, but you shouldn't cut the time you two have together. If she doesn't know your secret, she'll think your driftin' away from her simply because you don't want to be her friend anymore. A-And who knows, tellin' her the truth...might not be a bad thing..."
I sort of pushed the boundaries at the end. From a certain, mental point of view, that was the wrong choice.

"We..." she sniffled, "We haven't even spoken many times... Yet you know exactly how I'm feeling. How...How do you know? I-It's like you know something about me...that even I don't."

"I think I do, but that's because you knew something about that I didn't."
I had a question in mind. I had expected some resistance from someone, but I realized there was no one to stop me from saying what I thought. My mind was my own, and I decided to say,
"I'm goin' to ask you somethin', and I want you to think about it carefully. I think your answer to my question will be the same as my answer to yours. What do you want me to be for you?"

The silence proved she was cautiously pondering her answer.
"W-We were supposed to be nobody to each other. B-But... But... But..."
Her sniffling turned to weeping. She tried to control it, but was failing. It was like putting a cork on a geyser; it was never going to contain the water.
"I want us to be friends!"
The geyser erupted. My speculation was true.

Like a child getting veggies when it wanted candy, she cried and cried with no shame. Her broken voice was accompanied by intermittent gasps. Pure emotion that had built up for weeks, even months was released. It wasn't a cry that demanded pity or prompted sadness, but rather relief. She continued speaking, but her hiccups caused her words to be unintelligible.

She confirmed only later that she cried because an emotional weight was lifted from her shoulders. The burden I placed on there was fading away, but I wasn't done yet.

I feared she'd stop crying out of consideration for me, who was awkwardly sitting on the outside listening to her blow snot into tissues from her schoolbag. The truth was I wanted her to keep crying, but not with a hedge between us.

I said, "It's hard to cry without a shoulder to lean on, isn't it?"

She responded with choked sobs.
"I-I know...you didn't want to be friends...and that I said...I didn't want any as well. B-But when I saw you...at the garden every day...I couldn't join you...because I knew I'd want to...make you my friend!"

I didn't say anything.

"I'm...sorry! I should've told you...at the time...but I didn't want you...to call off the promise...in case I was wrong...I'm sorry I wasn't telling the truth..."

She said more things, but I couldn't hear them. Not because I was blocking my ears, but because...I wasn't sitting directly on the other side. I had stood up and walked away in the middle of her sentence. That didn't matter, because I was going to hear her more clearly.

The inside of the garden had changed so much from when I first entered. I noticed that the grass inside was cut cleaner than on my side, and the hedge itself was sharper in shape. The white cherry blossoms on the singular tree had never fallen to my side, but they covered the surrounding flower shrubs' roots like a cotton carpet.

Louder than ever before, she screamed, "Ah! Poet-kun?!"

There was nothing for me to say, so I turned towards her with my eyes glued to the grass. I squeezed her calendar that I was holding in my right hand. The shakiness of the calendar told her I was nervous. I began walking towards her.

"Wh-What are you doing?!" she panicked.

My decisions were rather rash, but not every action needed contemplation. Certainty made it easy to act even when uncertainty, however minor, existed. As our time amounted, I knew listening wasn't enough, because it was never the one and only criteria, it was a stepping stone.

Though Rossi-san said she didn't want my help, the action of telling me about her struggles and herself as a person told me she needed it. I was the one who had to act, to establish the connection.

I sat down next to her, although I hadn't looked at her face yet. I was still nervous, so one step at a time, please. I could feel her astonished stare as I pictured her in a daze. She would see the right side of my face shine as the sun caressed me. She must've had so many questions, but for this moment, I told her,

"Go ahead. Free shoulder to cry on."

Not a second later, her head was on my shoulder. Then I saw it...

The color of her hair.