Chapter 1: Choose My Chocolate

Chapter 1:
Choose My Chocolate

T O ME, it was still winter, regardless of what anyone else had to say. The signs were everywhere—in the air, in the clouds. I could tell by the way my nose was so quick to get cold, and the way my eyelids started to droop in class… Okay, maybe that last one was less of a seasonal event and more of a year-round staple. Even so, there was something about winter that made me prone to habitually dozing off, regardless of how much sleep I got the night before. Maybe my body just wanted to hibernate. Would if I could.

It was February 4—just another ordinary afternoon. Classes were finally over, and the mood in the room was light and cheerful. The instant the bell rang, a handful of people jumped to their feet and dashed off to their club activities or whatever. As I watched them go, I thought, Ah, the quintessential high-school experience . At the same time, however, I didn’t enjoy the rush of cold air that replaced the students as they ran into the hall. Brrr . I could never imagine myself eagerly skipping out into that .

Now that winter vacation was over, our seating arrangement changed, just as it had six months prior at the end of summer break. As a result, I was shuffled from the center of the room to the back, near the door. Personally, I was happy to have some added distance between me and the podium; maybe now the teachers wouldn’t glare at me every time I yawned. Unfortunately, this freedom came at a price: an icy gust every time the door opened. That kept me on my toes a bit more than I would’ve liked.

“Now then…”

What were my after-school plans? Go straight home? Or find out if Adachi needed to talk to me about something?

Here we were at the start of a new month, and Adachi was still acting weird. Then again, I only remembered her acting normal for approximately the first month or so after I met her. So, for all I knew, maybe this weirdness was her acting normal. Or maybe she’d chill out again once summer rolled around. Oh, Adachi, what am I going to do with you?

She looked over her shoulder, and our eyes met. She froze; I stared back like a deer in headlights, my textbook hovering awkwardly over my open bookbag. We were a bit too far apart to hold a conversation, but this staring contest wasn’t exactly a great alternative. Then, before I could recover, Adachi averted her gaze and started fidgeting with her bangs, so I went back to packing my bag.

These days, I found that it was actually really difficult to get a solid grasp of my friendship with her.

She often shot me these furtive glances during lunch or after school. Never during class, though, since everyone would’ve seen her doing it. Instead, she’d seemingly have the world’s quietest fit. One minute she’d blush like crazy out of the blue, and the next, she’d bury her face in her textbook, or restlessly pat her hair down. Absolutely zero chill. Naturally, this all took place right within my line of sight, because her desk had been shuffled into the center of the room where mine used to be. Since she kept wiggling from side to side, I could only imagine the struggle the girl who sat behind her went through just to copy down notes from the blackboard.

“G’day, Shee-ma ! It’s me, Hee-no !” called a sunny voice with sunny skin to match—which is to say, majorly sunburnt.

Sure enough, it was definitely Hino, except she sounded as if she was trying (and failing) to do some kind of foreign accent. Come to think of it, I seemed to recall that she’d gone abroad with her family for New Year’s. While the rest of us shivered in the winter cold, she looked like she’d stepped right off the beach.

“Was that supposed to be Australian?” I asked.

Maybe Hino had come back to Japan with more than just a deep tan.

“You ever notice how you can make your name sound more like a brand name if you pronounce it like an English speaker?” asked Hino. “We were just talking about it.”

Beside her, Nagafuji nodded sagely. Idly, I wondered how on earth the two of them ever managed to arrive at that conclusion.

“Oh, but then again, ‘Shimamura’ is already a brand name, huh? Written the same way and everything.”

“No it isn’t, actually!”

Nagafuji kept nodding, but I had no idea who she was agreeing with.

“Anyways, I just wanted to say hi. See ya!”

With a wave, Hino left the classroom, her tanned arms contrasting sharply with this snowy-white Japanese winter. Nagafuji started after her, then stopped short and turned back as though she’d just thought of something. Unlike her other half, she was ghostly pale.

“Thrown it around lately?” she asked, sliding her glasses up her nose.

“What?”

She swung her arm downward in a throwing motion, though I found myself more distracted by the jiggle of her chest. What on earth is she…? Ohhhh, the boomerang. Right.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” I said. “My sister, uh…she loves it.”

Or so she claimed, anyway. Never mind the fact that I could feel said “sister” staring at me right this very moment.

“Tell her we can have a throwing competition once she practices enough.”

“Oh, uh…sure,” I said.

With that, Nagafuji headed off after Hino, leaving me with a promise I couldn’t quite keep. I really couldn’t imagine Adachi signing up for any sort of “throwing competition,” so if Nagafuji was looking for a boomerang buddy, she was better off asking Hino.

That said, I sensed that Hino probably wouldn’t oblige, in the same way that Nagafuji never went fishing. But they were still good friends, even if they didn’t share 100 percent of their lives. I liked that about them. It was healthy to have a little distance.

“Australia, huh…?”

Admittedly, I was a bit jealous. Not only had I never set foot outside Japan, I’d never even been on an airplane. I’d at least ridden a bullet train, obviously, but that was different to me. I’m not sure why.

Once the classroom door shut and I no longer felt the frigid hallway air blowing in, I decided it was about time I headed home myself. Right as I started to rise from my seat, however, I noticed someone hovering near my desk. Frozen in place with my knees half-bent, I looked up to find Adachi standing there.

“’Sup?” I asked awkwardly.

“Uh…hey yo,” she replied, equally awkward.

Since I’d eaten lunch with Hino and Nagafuji, this was my first time hearing Adachi’s voice today. Mind you, I’d tried to invite her to join us, but she ran off. Evidently, she wasn’t comfortable around them.

Not that I couldn’t understand that, of course. Just because they were my friends didn’t automatically make them hers, too.

“Are you…free today?” she asked me hesitantly.

“Hmm?”

“Would you wanna maybe go on a trip—no, I mean, like, an outing or whatever?”

Why did she always have to cushion her words with “maybe” or “whatever”? And why did she sound so panicked?

“So, basically, you want to hang out somewhere?”

Adachi nodded slightly, and for a moment I considered saying, “No thanks, it’s too cold.” Then it occurred to me that I might come off as rude, so I thought better of it. For me, the most exhausting part of any relationship was having to choose my words. I was nowhere near eloquent enough to rephrase my sentences on the fly, so it took me a while. If only I could just choose a dialogue option from a predetermined list like in a video game.

“Oh, but if you’re busy, it’s cool. It totally doesn’t matter or whatever,” Adachi added, waving her hands as though putting up a preemptive barrier. This defensive gesture was a telltale sign of someone who lacked confidence in how the other person would respond. That fear of rejection would inevitably push the first person to assume the worst and jump the gun. Relatable .

In my case, however, Adachi’s gesture just made me want to mess with her.

“Oh, yes. Super busy. I’m so glad you understand,” I joked affably.

Unfortunately, this joke didn’t land. At all. Not only did she not laugh, she completely wilted. One more push, and I felt like she might just burst into tears. Panicking internally, I hastily changed tack.

“Come on, you should know the answer to that by now. Don’t make me look like a loser,” I laughed, hoping to smooth things over.

“Sorry,” she mumbled awkwardly.

Ugh, now I made her apologize. Guilt slowly crept over me. At this point, I couldn’t possibly turn her down without doing some serious damage.

“Okay, look—that was a joke. A bad joke. I’m sorry for screwing with you like that, because I do actually want to go.”

All at once, Adachi’s stiff expression softened, as though her whole body had turned to jelly. She was the type of girl who always wore her emotions on her sleeve, and I for one appreciated the lack of ambiguity.

As for me, I’d only grown more and more complicated as I got older. Probably something I should work on.

“Anywhere in particular you wanted to go?” I asked, knowing full well the answer would be no.

“Not really, but…”

“But?” I prompted, since it sounded like she had more to say.

“I kinda want something sweet.”

Adachi stared down at the floor, burying her chin in her scarf. Her face’s upper and lower halves moved in two directions; her gaze pointed right, while her lips curled upward in a stiff half-smile. A hell of a feat, to say the least. I wasn’t sure I could replicate it.

“So, you wanna get some kind of sugary snack?” I asked. Would sugar fix whatever’s going on with your face?

For some reason, her shoulders flinched in response. “Uhh…yeah. A snack.”

“What, so a non-sugary snack?”

“No, no, sugary’s good,” she answered in a tiny voice that I could barely make out through her pouted lips.

For some reason, it felt like I was missing something, but, eh, at least I had a general idea of what she wanted. If we went to the mall, we could buy all kinds of junk food—a lot of it sugary, some of it savory. Ooh, or we could get donuts again. That sounds pretty good, actually.

It was nice to be able to think back to decent memories for a change. I’d left lots of stuff in the past thus far, and that wasn’t about to stop anytime soon. However, as long as I had some small amount of enjoyable times to look back on, that was good enough for me. To facilitate that, I’d have to create the memories myself. Throw enough spaghetti at the wall, blah blah blah.

I decided to spend my afternoon with Adachi, who was still acting as bizarre as ever.

Yep, just another ordinary afternoon.

***

Judging by my tendency to ride double on Adachi’s bike, maybe I was still technically a bad kid on the inside. Granted, according to my little sister, I would always be a “bad kid” as long as my hair was bleached… But, lately, I wasn’t sure what to do with it anymore. My hair, I mean. With my dark roots starting to show, I looked like a burnt flan.

Should I re-bleach it, or let it grow out? Either way, I needed to pick one and commit to it. I couldn’t keep waffling forever.

A little under twenty minutes later, we arrived at Adachi’s chosen destination: the large mall we’d visited together on Christmas. Its vast, sprawling parking lot was dimly lit under the setting sun.

Adachi and I weren’t the only teenagers around, either. Plenty of people milled about wearing uniforms from other schools, all of them exhaling white fog. The sight reminded me of just how cold it was outside, which in turn sent a shiver down my spine. How I yearned to reunite with the toasty-warm kotatsu table back at home. But that’ll be hours from now at this rate, I thought as I watched Adachi lock up her bike.

A few steps inside the mall, she reached out and pinched my index finger between hers, hesitantly holding it aloft. Her skin was about as warm as the mall itself, which is to say, very . Warmer than outside, anyway.

“Can we…?”

Apparently, she wanted to hold hands. Well, at least she’s started asking permission first. That’s an improvement…I guess. A pink flush ran across her cheeks in a straight line, possibly from the stark temperature change.

“Go for it,” I nodded, and a moment later, she clamped down on my hand like a vise. She gazed at our intertwined fingers for a moment, then hastily lowered our arms back to our sides.

I really didn’t mind holding hands with her, but it bothered me the way she always got so tense about it. She faced straight forward, almost as if everything from the neck up was frozen in place. If I knocked on her cheek, would I hear an echo? Is she still human? She’s not even blinking!

“So, what are we doing? Getting something sugary?”

“Yeah,” Adachi nodded stiffly.

“Okay, well, there’s a donut shop right over there,” I suggested, since it was entirely possible she couldn’t turn her head to see it.

It wasn’t the same chain we went to at the train station, but it was still pretty decent, in my opinion. And, since donuts were like 90 percent sugar, the shop struck me as a satisfying solution for her craving. Still, I had the feeling that, if we went inside, Yashiro would show up out of nowhere and get in line behind us…or would she?

Adachi stopped short, turned, and peered into the donut shop—on her tiptoes, no less. What on earth is she doing? I watched her for a moment, then followed suit, turning toward the front of the store. This donut shop was right near the main mall entrance, and it had very few walls, enabling passersby to see clear through to the counter display.

Of course, this meant the employees could see us , too. I felt them looking at us—the awkward weirdo, and the curious girl holding her hand. Or maybe it was just the hand-holding thing. Is it really that weird? Hmm. I guess it is. I averted my gaze.

Diagonally behind us was an info board with movie times listed on it. An opposite-sex couple stood in front of it, holding hands as they scanned it up and down. Pretty normal stuff. Likewise, a mom held hands with her young son as they walked into a nearby EDION. The mom bent over slightly to accommodate this, and she looked tired, but otherwise, yep, seemed pretty normal. Then there was me and Adachi… Weren’t we a little too old to be holding hands?

“Nngh…”

I groaned before I could stop myself. It felt like the mall’s entire natural ecosystem had taken one look at us and come crashing to a halt. All eyes were on our limp, tepid hands.

Unfortunately, it was too late to take it back and pretend it never happened. That applied to a lot of things, actually. When it came to relationships, ending things was always a thousand times harder than starting them. Take this very moment, for example: could I pull my hand away right here and now? No. My life had led me into this situation, and all I could do was keep going with the flow to see where it took me next.

It would take a great deal of courage and conviction to derail this train—and those were luxuries I simply didn’t have.

“Nope,” Adachi muttered in a small voice, then looked back at me anxiously, as she often did these days. Back when we first met, she used to be a lot more relaxed, but alas. “Sorry, but I’m not really…feeling it.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but I decided to accept it regardless. You do you. “In the mood for something more Japanese?”

“Not…exactly…” She tilted her head at me, puzzled.

You think YOU’RE confused? Try being me right now!

“Anything you have in mind?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, no…yeah, no.” She shook her head. Wait, but then, how do you know you don’t want Japanese sweets?

My little friend was acting especially finicky today, and I found myself wishing she would just be straightforward with me for a change. I envisioned it in my mind’s eye: Adachi, perfectly eloquent at all times.

Yeah, no, that’s not Adachi.

This trembling baby fawn I saw before me? That was my Adachi.

With no clear destination in mind (as far as I knew, anyway), she started walking, and I followed. “That reminds me—I wanted to ask you…”

“Yeah?” said Adachi.

“Do you think I should bleach my hair again? Or go back to my natural color?” I asked, toying with a random strand. If I couldn’t decide on my own, then clearly I needed an outsider’s perspective to help me make the final call.

At my question, Adachi ran her gaze over me—from my scalp to my shoes. Not sure what my shoes have to do with it, but okay. Maybe she was taking my overall aesthetic into account before she answered. After a long and thorough examination, she closed her eyes, as if pausing to imagine my two hair options.

You know it’s not that serious, right?

With her eyes closed, she was perfectly unguarded. I couldn’t help but think about all the pranks I could pull on her right now. I could pinch her lips until they puffed out like sausages, or stretch her cheeks until she looked like a squirrel… Ugh, I sound like a little kid. Cringe.

Then Adachi opened her eyes, and I officially lost my chance to mess with her. She stared at my roots and furrowed her brow.

“I’ve never seen dark Shimamura, so it’s hard to say for sure.”

“Yeah, I keep my dark side safely locked away! Heh heh heh!” I joked after a pause.

To be honest, I didn’t really like the sound of “dark Shimamura,” but whatever. Admittedly, if you asked me to choose between “dark Shimamura” and “light Shimamura,” the first one did sound cooler. But I digress.

“See, I’m kinda caught in the middle right now, so I gotta make a decision soon,” I explained, running a hand through my hair to show her. For some reason, as the strands slipped through my fingers, Adachi reached out and caught them—as if she was the other half of an hourglass, and my hair was the sand.

Speaking of which, I’d wanted to get an hourglass for a while. I would try to remind myself to buy one, only to inevitably forget later on. The plan always slipped away from me…like sand. Poetic.

Adachi stared at the hair in her palm. Her gaze was so impassioned, I had to wonder if she had a personal opinion to offer on the subject.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She immediately flung my hair away. “Nothing,” she blurted out.

Doesn’t really SEEM like nothing, I thought as I smoothed my hair, but I held my tongue.

In the end, I never got a clear answer out of her about my hair. Instead, she simply started walking. We passed KFC, then OOTOYA, then Shabu Sai, until we reached a branching walkway. There, on the right-hand side, was a Western-style cake shop.

“What about this one?” I suggested. Once again, Adachi craned her neck to peer inside. What’s the matter with you?

“Yeah, this one looks good,” she replied. Finally . I was dying to know what her lofty standards were, but the squirrely look on her face suggested that she wasn’t about to tell me.

The yellow store sign was adorned with a cartoon of an old man named…Beard? Really? Gee, how creative. A delicious, doughy scent wafted from inside, drifting up my nostrils and tickling the back of my throat. From the looks of it, the store’s main products were cream croissants, choux au craquelin , and cheesecakes. Definitely sugary, and definitely not Japanese. This would surely meet Adachi’s requirements, right?

The cake shop offered “limited-edition” chocolate cream puffs, too. But, honestly, I couldn’t really tell them apart from the dark-brown deep-fried cream puffs next to them. I glanced over Adachi’s shoulder at the poster behind her and realized what the limited-edition chocolate pastries were for: Valentine’s Day.

Oh, right. I forgot that was around the corner.

I’d need to pick up something for my bratty sister, or else she’d never let me hear the end of it. And this year, I could already foresee Yashiro standing right next to her, holding her little hands out expectantly. I heaved a small sigh.

With long, awkward strides, Adachi stumbled around me until she reached my opposite side—still holding my hand, mind you. Naturally, this forced me to spin in a circle to accommodate her. Her palm was getting sweaty, and she was doing the neck-craning thing again, peering behind me as nonchalantly as possible.

I turned to follow her gaze. Only one thing of interest was behind me: the Valentine’s Day poster featuring limited-edition products.

“Valentine’s,” Adachi murmured. Her voice cracked a bit as she read the rest of the advertisement aloud, her eyes glazed over slightly.

“Yep, that’s what it says,” I agreed.

She started to hiccup, her gaze flitting restlessly to and fro. Dude. Chill .

“It’s already that…hic …time of year, huh?”

As you can imagine, having the hiccups made it impossible for Adachi to play it cool, no matter how hard she tried. Fortunately, even I wasn’t that oblivious.

“What about it?” I pressed.

Instantly, Adachi grew visibly flustered. “Huh? Oh, well, nothi—hic —nothing much, really,” she stammered. Her eyes darted around in all directions as if she was drawing a spiral with her gaze, her face a kaleidoscope of colorful expressions, her words punctuated by the occasional hiccup.

Did she bring me to the cake shop to strike up a conversation about Valentine’s Day? That would certainly explain why she’d passed on getting donuts. Man, talk about convoluted. Or perhaps “beating around the bush” was more apt than “convoluted,” considering the lap she’d done around me just now. Guess that makes me the bush.

Did Adachi want gift advice? If so, then who the hell was the recipient? Did she have some secret boyfriend I didn’t know about? No way. Not possible. If she did, then surely I would’ve noticed hints by now, and rest assured, I hadn’t. In fact, I’d never seen her spend time with anyone, besides…well…me .

Which would mean…

“Is it me?”

That was the answer I arrived at via the process of elimination.

Adachi flinched and staggered backward until it looked like she was about to fall over. Thinking quickly, I tugged her by the hand I already held—but then she stumbled forward with the momentum, her face crashing into my chest. End result: a surprise hug I didn’t know I wanted. Now I could smell her scent mixed with the pastries’ sugary fragrance.

Adachi froze, hunched over against me, and at that point I wasn’t really sure what to do next. Considering our height difference, it wasn’t exactly the most natural position to stand in, and I wasn’t easily able to support her weight.

Her eyes were still wide open, frozen in shock. I watched as—right before my eyes—the blood rushed to her head, starting from her neck and slowly working its way up to her scalp. Meanwhile, her gaze flew around at a speed I didn’t know was humanly possible. I’d never seen anything like it.

Gripped with emotion, she slowly pushed herself back to her feet, using my shoulders for support. Then, a beat later, she seemed to snap back to reality. The blood drained from her face, and she clutched at her hair. Then she started shaking her head vigorously in denial. Denial of what, I didn’t know, but she was bouncing all over the place like one of those spring-loaded toys. Suffice it to say, it was…kind of freaking me out.

I couldn’t just let her have this meltdown right in front of the store, lest we cause a disturbance. I pulled her away, taking wide, awkward steps as I physically dragged her off. On the other side of the walkway was a Japanese restaurant, its display window all decked out with…tuna. Romantic . Fortunately, this increased distance from the Valentine’s Day poster seemed to help Adachi calm down.

Considering the contrived way in which she’d attempted to start this conversation, I wasn’t really sure what she was about to say, but I decided to give her a minute. Finally, she asked, “Do you have any…plans…for the fourteenth?”

“Nope.”

Sure enough, I was right. It was like the Christmas thing all over again. Apparently, Adachi’s bizarre antics were a reliable precursor to some kind of invitation. Feels like I’ve learned something new about her.

“Then…would you want to…hang out that day?”

She spoke haltingly, like she’d given up on playing it cool. Probably for the best. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly as her eyes looked to me for help. Her ears, her nose, and even the backs of her hands flushed bright red until she nearly matched the tuna display behind her.

Adachi tuna… That almost sounds like it could be a real species. Bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, Adachi tuna…

I hastily derailed this idiotic train of thought. We weren’t going to get anywhere unless I said something. Fast.

“Well, uh…do you want me to get you chocolate, or do you want to get me chocolate?”

I had a feeling this wasn’t the right question to be asking, but I couldn’t stop myself. Staring blankly, Adachi twirled her index fingers around each other in a little circle.

“I want you to—well, actually, either way—I mean, like, an exchange sort of thing?”

Both of us, huh? It was more than I expected her to ask for. Still, at least now I could see what she was getting at.

“Hmmm…”

I’d bought chocolate for my sister before, but never for a friend, and the two weren’t exactly the same thing. Of course, Hino and Nagafuji did it every year, supposedly…but me and Adachi?

I imagined the two of us in their shoes—me as Hino and Adachi as Nagafuji. Nope. No way. Their friendship was in a whole different league; my friendship with Adachi couldn’t possibly last as long as theirs. How many years did Adachi and I have left, anyway? Would we make it to the end of high school? Or would we end up in different classes next year and gradually drift apart? Wouldn’t be the first time.

In elementary school, you couldn’t have paid me to go into any other classrooms. Probably because there were usually teachers in there. Or perhaps it was because I knew I didn’t “belong” in there, so I didn’t feel comfortable “trespassing.” Once upon a time, I’d lost a friend because of that…and now I couldn’t even remember her name.

Plus, now that I was in high school, that just felt like way too much effort. I couldn’t imagine myself ever wanting to go to all the trouble of—wait a minute .

Now that I thought about it, the chances were high that Adachi would simply track me down herself. Maybe a class change wouldn’t be enough to end our friendship. The thought felt reassuring somehow.

At this point, I’d known Adachi long enough to have an idea of who she was as a person, and this chocolate-exchange idea was so very her . Considering the way she always jumped at any opportunity to hold my hand, I could tell that she was starved for human connection. Maybe she longed to create the sort of idealized friendship she’d never had. Far be it from me to blame every little thing on her family situation, but I was pretty sure her frosty relationship with her mother was at least partially to blame.

Not that I had any intention of being Adachi’s surrogate mom, of course.

“Don’t you think it kind of ruins the fun, planning this out in advance?” I asked.

It was like if Santa sent me a letter telling me he was coming to my house and detailing exactly what he was bringing me. To me, it didn’t matter whether I actually liked the gift itself; the mystery was the fun part. Maybe that was because I’d spent my life never really yearning for any specific thing.

Adachi considered my opinion for a moment, then slowly shook her head. “Surprises are overrated; I’d rather know. That way, I don’t get my hopes up over nothing.”

“Really…?”

She nodded slightly. Apparently, she sincerely felt this way. Personally, I had trouble grasping it.

“Besides, there’re still a hundred other problems,” she added.

I heard her mutter something under her breath, but she was all hunched over, so I could barely make it out. Problems, huh? Yeah, well, for every one of your “problems,” I’ve got a hundred questions to go along with it.

Still, instead of just going with the flow, Adachi was trying to fight against the current. She had the courage and conviction I lacked, and I could respect that…even if I did sometimes feel as if she was using me as a stepping stone.

So, this is what I told her: “Sounds good. I guess you can be my Valentine this year.”

***

The way I saw it, my life was one long, unending gray blur…but the events of today, February 4, sprinkled a tiny bit of color into the ten days that followed.