Reiga sat down at the table in the middle of the tea club's meeting room with a deep exhale. Test season had not been kind to her or Suyuki, who was standing at the sink in the next room cleaning the dishes from the recently concluded meeting. Only once the other members were gone, and Reiga was alone with her friend, could she let loose and slouch over onto the table. Suyuki had been rubbing her neck and fiddling with her hands a lot more that day, so Reiga was worried that the girl's poor constitution was beginning to enact another sickness upon her. 

“Hey, Suyu, are you feeling alright?” 

Suyuki turned her head and gave a half smile, allowing her shoulders to slouch as she adopted a more exasperated posture. As she leaned onto one leg more than the other, cleaning a kettle with a moist rag, she let out a lighthearted sigh.

“I don’t like my name very much. I feel like, after I die, people will see my grave marker and think; ‘There was a person of stature.’ I don’t think I’d be able to have a good afterlife if I continuously caused misunderstandings like that. I would probably follow those people around until they passed on and would meet their spirit before anyone else. Bowing and apologizing like; ‘I’m sorry I was born with such a superb name.’”

Reiga fell onto her back, staring at the ceiling of the club room.

“I don’t know, I think you have a cool name. Takehaya Suyuki, it sounds like the final boss of that monster catching game. What else would you even go by?” 

Suyuki finished up and set the kettle on the table. She sat and rested her chin on the table as she thought for a moment. Then, she came to a conclusion. 

“Shouko, pretty good, right?” She smiled wide, stretching her chin on the wood. 

“Bleh, sounds like a shrine maiden’s name, come up with something else.” 

“Nope, I think Shouko is a good name, I’ll start introducing myself as that. I wish I could tell my parents to name me that instead. ‘The Heat of Circumstance,’ isn’t that just brimming with mystery?” 

Reiga chuckled a bit and yawned. The cold wind of winter rattled the doors while the space heater worked its magic. Her head felt heavy while Suyuki spoke, and she fell into a nap as Suyuki celebrated her new pseudonym. 

Reiga’s eyes slowly opened, prying the starch of sleep apart and contracting her pupils with the afternoon light of an April sky. Beneath her head she could not feel her arms, numb from the weight. In the distance she made out the fleeting steps of her classmates in the halls, leaving her behind coldly. A moment passed and she considered going back to sleep, but remembering plans she had, she began to lift her head. 

“Good morning Sleeping Beauty.” 

She turned to see that Keiji had not left his seat behind her. He had been filling out an English crossword book. In the sensitive emotionality of the recently awoken, she wanted to leap over the desk and embrace him. Yet her feet were firmly planted to the tiles of the floor. She dropped her chin back on her desk under the labor of an immense weight. 

“Been helping the old man?” Keiji asked. 

“Yeah. Really, he just doesn’t know when to quit. I’m sick and tired of working at a stupid post office.” Her arm went for her bag, but she stayed firmly held to the chair by the weight.

“Going to see her?” Keiji smiled softly.

She stood, bearing the burden of waking, and patted her chest a few times to knock some fresh air in. Her head felt heavy. There were those sorts of things which she was unable to change, she knew that. If anything had to change, it would be because of her. With a stern face she pushed forward. 

“See you later.” She waved to Keiji but he stood, following her to the door.

“I’ll come with.”

“Why? Don’t you go on Tuesdays?” Reiga asked. 

“Usually, but I had something important come up with the soccer guys. You don’t have a problem with me coming along?” 

A problem? More like a moral guilt. Sort of like the feeling of going to one coffee shop for years, then one day they change the brand of sweetener they use and suddenly a different shop seems better. It was a weird kind of thing, and not necessarily something Reiga felt particularly ashamed of. Technically there was nothing wrong with the idea—technically. Two notes became dominant in her mind. First being that, while there was nothing inherently wrong with it, the visit would be a bit more awkward given their individual relations to the family. Secondly, it would be a bit embarrassing showing up together. Lord knew, what if the mother started to suspect something? 

“It’s the same to me.” She lied.

They both left the school and made a slow pace out of the town center into the fields on the outskirts. The girls' house sat a bit closer to the hills, where the air was cleaner and the peach blossoms lay.  That never stopped them before, so it was just nostalgic then. They caught a few odd looks here and there when their classmates rode by or looked up from their parents' fields. Reiga understood the confusion. After all, Hanasayama Keiji was the fourth most attractive guy at the school as per a recent poll. While not really special considering the poor competition a country town gave, he at least stood out more than the others. Having known him so long as she had, Reiga never really got the appeal. She was in love with him of course, despite everything that had happened that part never actually changed. She just never thought he was that attractive. 

“...and Kizubara barfed it all up.” 

“What?” Reiga asked, snapping out of her daydreaming.

“Weren’t you listening? I was telling you about how I bet Kizubara couldn't eat a whole lunchbox of natto. Where was your head, little girl?” Keiji teased, poking the side of her temple sharply. She smacked his hand away. 

“I was just thinking about things.” 

“Oh, can you share your great wisdom with me?” He slung his bag over his shoulder and jeered maniacally. 

“Really, you’re being a bully today aren’t you?” That was his way, considering how he usually acted on Tuesdays the behavior was hardly all that odd to her. Her mouth spoke faster than her sense, so the question escaped. Yet Keiji seemed unphased, likely more than aware of his faults. 

“Alright, jeez, that's my bad. For real though, what’s on your mind? You’ve been spacing out all day, and don’t tell me it’s just your dads business this time.”

What to tell him? Once, she had told him her true feelings. That time was different, with certain circumstances involved resulting in different scenarios. She was not a traitor, and would never cheat in a competition of love. The winner deserved her reward. Whether that was enough for Keiji or not, that was the issue on Reiga’s mind. In her own selfish way she knew that, as evil as it would probably be, she would cave in if he actually responded to her feelings. Youth had a way of making a person drunk with sentiments like that, as it already had that night then almost two years gone. Yes, Reiga cried, but she knew it would be for the best. Every Friday she went through the same mental struggle, trying to choose which answer was right or wrong. Trying to come to terms with her loss, but each time she would walk home still loving Keiji. 

“You know, things.” 

The house was soon visible. A rather quaint two floor affair on a road of about six of the same type. The residents were not farmers, just the usual type of people. Normal folks, and a normal girl. Reiga rang the doorbell and a few moments later Mrs Takehaya, the mother, opened with a smile. She seemed surprised to see Keiji there as well, but luckily the suspicion Reiga feared was nowhere on the woman's face. If she had shown anything at all, it was a distinct pleasure. Like the look one gets when seeing a new type of flower. She would even go so far as to describe it as pleasant. 

“Hanasayama-kun, we missed you on Tuesday.” Mrs Takehaya said, inviting them in. 

“Sorry about that, there was a soccer meeting to decide the new captain. I got elected, so I get to lead the team in the regionals.” He revealed the development casually while putting on his slippers. It caught Reiga by total surprise, and Mrs Takehaya clapped her hands together with a smile. 

“That’s wonderful news! I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear. I just made some muffins, would you both like one?” The two students nodded in affirmation. “How about drinks? Momozuki-chan?”

“I’ll just have some water, please.” Reiga smiled, and Keiji copied her order.

“Where’s Mr Takehaya?” Keiji asked.

“He usually works later on Fridays.” Reiga answered before the wife could. 

“I see, guess I didn’t know.” 

Keiji stepped in and started towards the house's living room space as Mrs Takehaya disappeared into the kitchen. Reiga went after him. Following him felt nostalgic, like all the other times they had gone there together in all the years since meeting the girl. It was that back which she followed that Reiga knew and understood. A viewer who wished to be a part of the play. Keiji opened the door to the empty room, a cabinet on one side and a table in the center. Through another door they could hear Mrs Takehaya preparing their snack. As the two sat at the table Reiga could not help eyeing the cabinet solemnly. 

“It’s the first time we’ve been here together since the entrance exams.” Keiji spoke up. 

“I guess so, she and I joined the tea club so we couldn’t make it that often. That was a real pain in the neck.” Reiga rested her chin on the table. 

“What, you didn’t like the tea club? This is some news.” 

“I mean it was alright, nothing special. Not good and not bad. I just wanted to play around more, and she always dragged my butt into the club. I mean I can’t fault her really, we barely made the member limit at the time. The whole thing disbanded at the start of second year, they probably repurposed the shack for storage or something.”

“I didn’t know it went down like that.” As he spoke the words Mrs Takehaya entered the room with a tray of muffins and water. She set it on the table before going towards the cabinet and opening the two large doors to reveal the interior. 

Within sat a small statue of the buddha, with candles on each side. Before it there were laid a few objects, a folded obi, an incense holder, and a framed photograph. Mrs Takehaya opened a drawer of the cabinet and pulled out a small bowl and incense, which she delicately placed in the holder and lit. The bowl she set on the folded obi before returning to the table and grabbing a muffin. She then placed it into the bowl, clapped her hands, and bowed to the altar. With a smile to her guests, Mrs Takehaya then left the room.  

The two students ate in silence for a few minutes, both finding it hard to make eye contact with the figure depicted in the photo. Keiji was the first to move. He stood and sat at a spot in front of the cabinet where he pressed his palms together in a brief prayer. After a moment he relaxed and stared at the figure with a pained expression. Reiga wanted to leap at him from behind with a great big hug, punch him in the shoulder, and tell him there was no reason to get all emotional in front of her. Yet her legs were too numb, the water would spill. Excuses lined themselves up before her and prevented the comforting assault. Instead she sat next to him and adopted a similarly grave demeanor. 

To the victor go the spoils. 

There was a joke they would make sometimes, because of Suyuki’s poor constitution. It more or less went that, without someone as incorrigible and hopeless as her around, Reiga would have no idea what to do with herself. Indeed, she had been listless and flagrant without Suyuki. While her grades had not suffered greatly her personality had changed drastically. That is, the person she was below the affectations. She knew the bud that dwelt within her, she had seen it and watered it with tears for months. Though eventually the tears stopped, and she ceased to change. If she was unable to change, then Keiji was out of reach forever. She would have to be a better person, a better friend, just better. 

“If I lead the team well they said they’d give me a scholarship.”

“That’s nice.” Reiga spoke without looking at him. The cup in her hand had begun to condensate and fill the creases of her folded fingers with water. Sat on her knee’s, her legs were getting unbearably warm, and the carpet found a gap between her socks and skirt where it rubbed terribly upon her skin. 

“It made me think about what you said at the festival back then, before Suyuki…”

“What do you mean?” She asked, playing stupid, stalling, suffering. 

“When you confessed to me.” The words were a bit meager, spoken from a red face. “"I just, you know, I...I don't know why I rejected you. I did love you, but I did love Suyuki too. You brought out the best in each other, and you both got me to join the soccer club. I don't know, I'm stumbling here, eh? I just think that, maybe, if we win, I'll be going away for awhile once we graduate. I won't be staying here, I'll have to get a dorm with the others. Before I go, I just think we have to figure this out, you know?"

"'This?'" Reiga let the word on a high pitch that betrayed her feelings. Like drinking sparkling water and getting the fruit flavored hiccups, a common result of her lack of honesty. The only way she knew how to really tell him how she felt. Half-implied and half-clear. A confession only half-said, half-accepted, half of her entire self. 

Before she could answer, the door opened again and Mrs Takehaya led a young boy into the room. He may have been in junior high, but only just. He had a slim body and slanted shoulders. He seemed to be a somber, loathsome type of young boy. The grey hoodie he was wearing was a bit too big on his scrawny frame, and his eyes remained downward to the floor as he was introduced. 

“This is Nishiki. Do you mind if he sits with you a while? He came quite a way to pay his respects as well.” Mrs Takehaya smiled.

“It’s no problem to me, Keiji?” 

“Actually I need to use the restroom, he can have my seat.” Keiji stood quickly and bowed to Mrs Takehaya and the boy as he passed. As his face disappeared beyond the door frame Reiga caught one more glimpse of his face as it turned towards her. There was no smile on his lips, and his eyes had become red. He really had wonderful eyes.

Nishiki sat beside her and clapped his hands together in prayer. Mrs Takehaya left the two alone in their mourning. In the new silence Reiga felt a bit awkward, so she decided it would be best to strike up a little conversation. 

“Nishiki was it? How did you know her?” 

“She looked after me while my mom worked.” He did not raise his head to look at her. 

“Well, I didn’t know she did stuff like that.” Though Suyuki had been unavailable to attend the club on certain days, a strangely nostalgic mystery was solved. Pleased with herself, Reiga chose to tease the boy. “So, do you think she was pretty?” 

The boy blushed cutely.

“She was nice to me…people…” The blush faded into a painfully forlorn expression. 

That was an effective phrase. It was familiar. More than that though, it was an omen. What it meant was beyond Reiga’s understanding, beyond her feelings. There was no spectacular series of events that had transpired to lead her to that point. Keiji liked soccer, this boy liked Suyuki. The occurrence of both realizations happening on the same day was just coincidence. A terribly enervating coincidence. That simple ease that she had somehow been able to maintain, despite Keiji’s small rant, melted away. She laid her head back on the flower bed of grey haze that had met her on awakening that afternoon. 

At the time, with no outside stimulus, she had wanted to leap at Keiji. Though those were old feelings that persisted. Old things that should have died, stabbed in the chest by the recipient of their youthful arrogance. She just never knew when to give up. Whether it was that she had hoped that they could fade away nicely or that, villainously, she could take Keiji away from the ghost that haunted them. 

The ghost of emotions, rather. It felt cruel to call Suyuki a ghost, it felt awful and evil to treat her as if she was gone. Those exact sentiments are what they had fought, looking down at her in that sickbed when they were kids. The first thing Reiga ever thought was that the girl was much too thin. Her eyes were too sunken, and her skin too pale. Due to her frequent and debilitating illnesses the circumstances of that happening were always residing in the back of their minds. Still, time spent together was taken for granted. Words traded, joyful, sad, frustrated, lovingly, left on the winds of memory. Perhaps there was an idea, however foolish and hopeful, that Suyuki’s exit from their stage would be foretold by a period of goodbyes. She would take to her sickbed, as she had done before, and she would rest easy in her sheets, surrounded by her parents and friends. They were denied that. When Reiga found her friend lying in the mud with a terrible color flowing from her, there was no time or circumstance for closure. 

She held her hand like usual, when the girl had coughing fits, or her head caused a screaming pain. Reiga did all her stupid self could. The hand was warm, coughing, screaming, laughing…

In Nishiki’s eyes, in his small mourning stance, she remembered those final moments clearly. A scream heard across the festival, running through the bushes and trees alongside a crowd of curious bystanders. There Suyuki lay, choking on blood, reaching upwards towards some unknown point in the tree’s. An evil man was wrestled to the ground by the adults. A young boy sat to the side, bleeding from his shoulder, but Reiga had no thought for him. Selfish, stupid, young. She did as she had done all those times before. Taking that outstretched hand and holding it close to her heart. Suyuki’s final moments were silent except for that boy's tears as he drew closer to mourn with them.

He was still mourning her, and after several years finally had the courage to mourn alongside them. Did he have some wish for them? Did he care for them? Did he expect a reward? Who was he? Furthermore, did he have the same right as her? Did he have a greater power of will? Did he know a side or Suyuki that she had not even shown her best friends? Did he know anything about her as a person? Questions filled her head, and the picture in the little shrine could not answer them. 

Keiji opened the door again. 

“Alright, we should get going, I don’t know about you but I actually care about studying for this exam. Are you coming?” 

“Yeah, sure, just let me get my stuff together.” In that word he disappeared around the corner and she could hear small talk between him and the Takehaya matron. True to her words on that note at least, she grabbed her bag and went to leave. 

“Good luck on your test.” Nishiki mumbled, eyes stuck to the floor. 

“Hey, Nishiki-kun, did you know her that well?” The boy glanced at her sideways, still too shy for a direct look. “I mean, you knew her name right?” 

“Shouko?” The boy gleamed. 

A swelter ran down Reiga's spine. There were those times when Suyuki was so sick she could hardly move. There were those times she went to school anyway, just to be nearer Reiga and Keiji. Times when she would make backhanded jokes at her own expense. About her condition, about her life, about her own name. 

“You don't have to apologize for your name.” Reiga told Suyuki back in those wistful days. “It's pretty.”

"It is, but I like Shouko more. It sort of reminds me of that moment, well, I guess it's hard to explain, isn't it? It was the cold that made it feel so surreal, the cold that followed me to the Swiss doctors, the cold that didn't leave my side when I came back home. Then, on a simple assignment to deliver homework, you guys opened the bedroom window. You didn't have to, and you could have left the homework with my mom, but you came up to my room. That genuine light was not different from how it was before, but I saw you both in it, and I guess that was when it first happened, you know? The heat of circumstance, of unnecessity leaking into the carefully assembled world of my hospice. I just think, you know, it'd be nice if I could do something like that for someone else one day.”

Suyuki dropped her chin onto the table that separated the two girls and sighed. 

"I'm just rambling nonsense again, aren't I?" 

Reiga laughed. 

"No more than usual." 

Suyuki stiffened up and straightened out her expression, an attempt at looking serious which caused her cheeks to bulge and make her seem like she was pouting. 

"You can call me whatever you want, but when you hear the name Shouko again, you better stop making fun of me!" 

There were those sorts of things which Reiga could not control. Though she had tried to save Suyuki all those years ago, she had no chance. Whether it happened the way it did, or naturally through her illness, it was her fate to move on before them. That was the hard part, the sheer feeling of inconsequence.

Suyuki gave that boy her warmth, and though he looked low, Reiga could see the flowering bud within him. It hid, just below the surface of childhood worries, waiting for the boy to grow. Waiting for him to understand. Maybe it was a word, or an action, but she could see it somewhere deep in the boy's eyes. A seed planted by circumstances. She felt, without any reason beyond sentiment, that Nishiki would one day be a very happy person. He would be full of life, and it was because of Suyuki. Though it was a faint sort of thing, it told Reiga what she needed to do. It told her how to grow as a person, and how to move on from Takehaya Suyuki. 

“She really was.” Reiga smiled.

Miss Takehaya had wrapped muffins in pastry paper and handed one to each of the high school students. They received their gifts and left the old matron as she was. They emerged from the small suburb onto the field roads that led slightly uphill as the wind began to pick up with the onset of a mirage of stars in the amber sky. 

Keiji needed an answer, otherwise he would remain as he was forever. Frozen in time like Reiga, like Miss Takehaya, like little Nishiki. Each of them had to find their own way out of that cold abyss that the absence had opened up beneath them. For Keiji, Reiga thought she knew the right path forward. At least, a way for them to begin the journey back up into the light. Walking along beside Keiji, who was a few paces ahead of her, Reiga came up with a funny plan of action. 

“Alright, kiss me.” 

Keiji’s stride halted. 

“Sorry?”

“I think if this thing between us is going to resolve we need to kiss. So, how about it? A beautiful and erudite young lady has made a request of you.” She sneered, holding her chin upward. 

Keiji narrowed his eyes. As he stepped closer he firmly grabbed both of her small shoulders and stared directly into her. Try as he might, he could not keep the blood from his cheeks. A handsome, sporty, and confident sort of guy, blushing just like the schoolboy he was. She took a level of pride in her ability to do that to someone. It lasted only a moment, as he drew in to meet her lips in the shy darkness of hastily closed eyes. 

There was a shiver that went down her back, like a prankster dropping an ice cube in her shirt. She wanted to pull away, almost on instinct, but her brain pushed against that feeling, and into the embrace she was suddenly a part of.

Takehaya was sick, not that Reiga cared. She was busy watching Keiji across the room with distant eyes. With warm cheeks. Still, Keiji cared, and when the teacher asked who would be willing to take the assignment to Takehaya, he raised his little hand. It was her chance, taken advantage of and acted upon. Yet when they arrived at Takehaya’s home Reiga’s attention was taken away from him altogether. 

Suyuki was doing mostly well for herself, she still got sick often, but she was finally attending class. Reiga spent less time worrying about her friend's state, and even took the chance to leave Suyuki with the tea club friends she had gained through her own power. Reiga spent more time with Keiji, watching him play soccer, walking home with him. All of those feelings, all of those far sighted external admirations brought into light to season the new knowledge gained from several years beside his supportive gaze. Suyuki was a result of their combined effort, that was what Reiga told herself. Yet were it not for his willingness to deliver the parcel, would Reiga have given the truant a second thought? 

Two years prior to that walk at dusk, Reiga’s answer was negative. It was only through him that Suyuki’s life was possible, and he was all the better for it. All the more beautiful for it. Fueled by such self-defeat, she loved him even more. Then, when he rejected her feelings, there was rain. Her knees were wet from the mud she fell into, and her face swollen with the hideous misunderstandings of youth. She despised herself for getting between them, for interfering in the story of their love through no other intention than selfish delusion. Like a thief at a wedding, finally caught on the altar, ring in hand. 

Then Suyuki died. 

Without a bride to reprimand her, the thief was frozen in place. Cuffed to the altar as the groom held his fallen beloved in his arms. What she felt, at that moment when her restraints and her feelings had reached their natural, villainous, end, could only have been total catharsis. She had slipped the cuffs and reached a place beyond herself, a place apart from her own resentment for what she meant to them, for what Suyuki had thought of her. It was in Nishiki’s eyes that she saw who Suyuki must have loved more than Keiji, and more than herself. How much of it was wishful thinking? How much was misunderstanding? Amid uncertainty, Reiga could only think back to those days when Suyuki took on the name Shouko. She could only think of the smile on her face as she would look deeply into Reiga’s half-attentive soul. Yes, they shared a love for Keiji that neither thought should be met with words, but Suyuki loved the both of them more so than that meager romantic sentimentality. She had given herself over to an emotion above the need to fulfill base feelings like desire or childish infatuation. 

Suyuki had loved Reiga as well, and the cuffs never had been locked to begin with. The ice that had held Reiga in stagnation for those last two years was no more than a chill breeze that had come and gone. It was only with the smell of death on the air that Reiga had thought it to be greater. And now the smell was gone. 

Reiga pulled away from the kiss for a moment and chuckled to herself. Released from the delusion of self-resentment, the matter at hand had come to its pinnacle. She had bared her heart to him in all of its glory, and he rejected her. There was only one course of action that made sense. Reiga reeled her arm back and let it loose with speed, colliding her open palm with the broadside of Keiji’s handsome face. The smack echoed across the quiet fields. 

Keiji was pushed back a bit with laughter, confusion, and pain. 

“I’m breaking up with you!” Reiga shouted with a wide smile. Keiji rubbed his cheek while laughing, but tears ran from those fiery eyes. Resolute, pounding himself in the chest to catch his breath, he stood straight and started walking on again. 

“Honestly, who does that? You know you're a real nutcase?” 

“Am I? I think Shouko would have liked it.” 

“Suyu, huh?” He stared off into the orange clouds with glassy eyes.  

She smacked his shoulder with strength, sending him forward again. 

“You’re not allowed to think about one girl in front of another. Go on, we have to hurry up or it’ll be too late to do any studying.” 

With a lighthearted jaunt Keiji made his familiar long strides across the asphalt. Walking alongside the broad waves of wind that shuffled over the tufts of grass and grain in the fields. Warm spring air floated peach blossom petals into Reiga’s hair. As she picked the petals out and dropped them back onto the whistling torrents, she felt light. As if some frozen weight had lifted itself from her labor, letting her float on the wind and into the far off April skies.