I ♠ Have ♢ A ♣ Secret ♡

THAT DAY, third-year classes ended before lunch in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. When I arrived at the cafeteria, I found Mickey sitting at a table with a bunch of cookies laid out in front of her. When I snuck over and stole one, I was met with a vicious gut punch.

“These aren’t for you!”

“Well, they’re good!”

A diamond floated overhead, symbolizing her anger. Meanwhile, a spade of joy rose up over the girl seated across the table: Elle. Did she make these? She smiled softly at me, but I unintentionally averted my gaze. I kept doing that lately.

“I didn’t even get to have one yet!”

“Oh, really? My bad. They’re great, though.”

She threw out another punch, and I let it land so she could vent her anger. But I didn’t want her to think I was being nice, so I added:

“Not like you could ever make these.”

Another anger-diamond rose up over her head. Then a smaller one rose over Elle’s; perhaps she didn’t appreciate me teasing her friend. But it quickly faded—one of those so-called fleeting annoyances. Nothing to worry about.

“Rrrgh! Forget it! I’m just going to ignore you.”

Mickey pressed her hands together, then picked up a cookie and took a bite. The anger-diamond faded, replaced by a large joy-spade—the largest, in fact, out of everyone currently on campus. I couldn’t tell which pips were whose, but I could see their size and location across the entire school building, and Mickey’s was by far the biggest. Pretty impressive, considering all it took was one measly cookie.

“It’sh sho good!”

“See, I told you.”

“What are you still doing here? Don’t you have track practice? Buzz off! Go to hell!”

“Wow! Rude! We don’t have practice during parent-teacher conference week—just studying or solo laps. I was over in the library just now, but then Kyou got called in for his conference, and I was bored and hungry… Elle, was I not supposed to eat these?”

“No, it’s okay. I can always make more.”

“Hmph! For Elle’s sake, I’m willing to forgive you. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Gee, thanks. Come to think of it, Looney’s conference is today too, isn’t it?” I asked, dodging her snide remarks.

“Yeah, it is. Must be nice to have such perfect grades… I bet they spend the whole meeting patting her on the back,” Mickey shrugged, though she didn’t actually seem that jealous. Over the six years since I first met her, I’d watched her spades turn to diamonds and her diamonds turn to hearts with absolutely no grasp on how her mind worked. It was hilarious.

“Elle’s got good grades too, right?” I asked, changing the topic of the conversation to the girl smiling across the table from me.

“Totally. But she had a lot of absences last year, so that might have impacted her report card.”

Some people might have disapproved of the way Mickey showed no hesitation in broaching what might otherwise be a touchy subject, but I wasn’t one of them.

“Hmmm… Can’t I just say I didn’t realize the weekend was over?” Elle joked.

“Oh my God! Ha ha!”

A year ago, Elle would never have cracked a joke at school. As Mickey laughed, a big heart of amusement rose up over Elle’s head.

Sometimes it was actually more painful to have your friends walk on eggshells around you. Mickey keenly understood this, and so she opted to joke with her instead. Relieved to see Elle smiling, I sat down next to Mickey and ate another cookie. There was no follow-up punch this time.

“These are so good. Did Kyou and Looney get to try them?”

“Huh? No…”

“Sucks for them! Now Mickey’s gonna eat ’em all.”

At this, a club of sadness rose up over Elle’s head. Maybe she was starting to regret the fact that she didn’t get to offer any to the others. Oops. I hastily changed the subject—not merely to be nice, but because I wanted to minimize Elle’s sadness as much as possible.

This was uncommon for me. Normally if I saw a club over someone’s head, no matter the size, I’d try to find out what caused it and then try to help them find a solution. Nosy, I know.

“Anyway, these are great. Is there a secret ingredient?”

That said, perhaps going against tradition wasn’t always inherently a good thing. “Tried and true” was an accepted phrase for a reason. I was so used to meddling in other people’s business that I hadn’t anticipated what would happen if I put my own feelings first for a change.

“Ooh, I wanna know, too! Tell me, tell me!”

“Settle down, kiddo. It’s a little early for you to be experimenting with advanced techniques.”

At this, I took another punch, and Elle giggled.

“Huh? Hee hee… It wouldn’t be a ‘secret ingredient’ if I told you.”

As she declined Mickey’s request, she wore the same soft, sweet smile she always did. Then, still smiling, she quietly rose from her seat.

“I’m going to the bathroom. Anyway, if I had to say, it’s probably my love. I always daydream about who’s going to eat them while I make them.”

And with that adorable confession, she walked away.

Normally I would’ve averted my gaze out of embarrassment, but this time my eyes were glued to her. Not to her smile, but to the pip swelling over her head. What was that about? As I watched her flee to the restroom, I reflexively sucked in a breath. Her pip grew and grew and grew until eventually it overtook Mickey’s spades and hearts as the largest emotion in the school building.

“Her love, huh?” Mickey murmured to herself. But I ignored her and watched Elle and her pip until she left the cafeteria. Then Mickey noticed my silence. “What’s wrong?”

But obviously I couldn’t tell her about what I’d seen. “Eh, I’m still hungry. I think I’m gonna go buy something… I’m craving salty food.”

I rose from my seat. Coincidentally, the food stand was in the same direction as the restrooms. As I left Mickey behind, I followed after Elle and attempted to figure out what was up with her. Did she feel bad for not telling us her secret ingredient? Surely her pip was far too big for that. Maybe I got it wrong the first time, and what I actually saw was a joy-spade. After all, they were the same color.

I dearly hoped I was right about that, and so I searched for her to get confirmation. Unfortunately, this hypothesis proved false. Floating over her little head was a giant inky black sadness-club.

And for some reason I couldn’t begin to explain, the sight of it made my chest ache.

 

I first noticed I was off my game well before the Culture Festival or any of that, but it was February’s field trip that put the final nail in the coffin: a girl in my class asked me out, and I turned her down. What was odd about that, you ask? It was the first time I ever turned down someone’s advances.

We weren’t really that close, but I knew her to be an outgoing, friendly girl, as well as one of the prettiest in our class. Naturally, I was flattered she felt that way about me, and normally I would have readily agreed without thinking too hard about it. Not that I’m a ladies’ man or anything, but I usually didn’t really care how well I knew a girl—if she was into me, then that was all I needed.

Looking back, this applied to more than just my love life. Maybe because of my power, I tended to value myself equal to other people. Add in my tendency to look out for people, and this would generally result in me putting their desires first.

But this time, I didn’t do that. And there was only one reason: because there was a girl I was interested in.

Oddly enough, my life was easier before I knew what kind of “interest” I meant by that. But when I turned down that confession, I started thinking maybe these feelings were more serious than I realized. Then I started to notice my own behavior, and then it occurred to me why I had decided to hold on to a bell “just in case,” and I got so scared, I threw it away.

Ashamed as I am to admit it, this was only my second time ever feeling this way about someone. At least if I was sure I was in love with her, then I could act on it. But like an idiot, I was still trying to decide, and now I was too chicken to do anything.

That said, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Speaking as someone whose most recent ex accused me of never stopping to think about how I feel, and then proceeded to dump me, it was possibly a good thing. The bad part, however, was that I found myself unable to do anything when the apple of my eye was hurting.

I wasn’t all-powerful. Sure, I could tell when people were happy, sad, angry, or amused, but I had no way of knowing what made them felt that way, nor how to solve it. And although life had taught me a lot in that regard, the rules were different for each individual person in my life, so it wasn’t easy.

Elle had left campus ahead of us, claiming she had an errand to run, but the dark mark over her head never once faded.

Sitting in the counselor’s office, I flipped through a college guidebook, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get her darkness out of my mind.

“Hey there, my prince. Did you forget to make a pass at Miyazato-chan? …What’s that look for?”

“Nothing. I see you’re as loony as ever.”

“Woo-hoo,” Looney replied flatly, raising her arms in a less-than-genuine celebratory pose. Then she went back to sipping from her juice box. As usual, she had two pips floating over her head: an amusement-heart and a sadness-club. She was the only weirdo who always managed to have two at once.

“Is now really the time to kick back with a juice box? Don’t you have your parent-teacher conference today?”

“What, you jealous? Wanna sip from the same straw? Free indirect kiss, you know.”

“No thanks. I just ate, so I don’t need anything sugary.”

At this, she retracted her offered carton. “I bet you’d say yes if I were Miyazato-chan,” she remarked unhelpfully.

She would never make these sorts of jokes in public; she only said it because she knew no one would go out of their way to visit the counselor’s office after school. But whether I affirmed or denied her comments, she would only criticize me, so I stayed quiet.

Here in this empty room, with no teacher around to supervise us, I could hear her swallowing loudly, almost like she was doing it on purpose.

“For the record, I already finished my conference. I was going to visit the library, but then I saw Kyou and Miki-chan all buddy-buddy by themselves and decided not to interrupt. Why aren’t you with them?”

“Well, I was studying with Kyou, but then Elle left and Mickey showed up, so I figured I’d make myself scarce. Bro code, y’know. Besides, I wanted to borrow one of these college guidebooks anyway. Is that why you’re here?”

“Yeah, the teacher told me to pick a safety school just in case…not really, but I assume you’ll believe me.”

I had suspected that she probably saw me leave the library and decided to tail me all the way here, and apparently, I was right on the money. What a busybody, I thought to myself like a total hypocrite.

“So, how do you feel about Miyazato-chan?”

“I don’t know,” I answered sincerely, flipping through the guidebook without internalizing a single word that was written in it. But Looney didn’t seem to buy it.

“Really now,” she sighed. “And what will you do if someone steals her away while you’re still trying to figure it out, hmm?”

“Nothing I can do, is there?”

She let out another sigh. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to wait until entrance exams are over before I start worrying about that sort of thing. Everyone but me is such a tryhard… I know I shouldn’t be harping on Kyou to make any progress, but you never know when another anomaly will occur.”

“Yeahhhh…”

I knew what she meant by anomaly, and she wasn’t kidding.

No sense in hiding it, so I’ll explain. About three weeks ago, believe it or not, some guy from a different class asked Mickey out. Then, like a total monster, Looney went and told Kyou about it, and to say he was devastated would be putting it lightly. Personally, I would’ve liked her to save it until after our exams, but instead I was stuck thinking about how to keep him on track in case the worst-case scenario came to pass. Fortunately, however, it didn’t—Mickey turned the guy down, and Kyou went back to studying.

“I still don’t get why you did that. He would have been better off never knowing about it.”

“What if she’d said yes, then went and told Kyou the happy news? How do you think he would have felt?” With her juice box now empty, she poked me with her straw. “He has a right to know, and he needs to make a move. The worst regrets of all are those you’re helpless to do anything about.”

“Is that last part still about Kyou, or…?”

“Who knows.”

With a shrug, she spun on her heel and started walking. I figured she was headed back to the library, so I didn’t stop her. Instead, I went back to my book.

Then I heard her ask, “Let me guess: you have no idea why Miki-chan said no to that other guy, do you?”

I looked back over my shoulder to find her staring at me with a soft smile on her face—an uncommon sight.

“You really are clueless. But then again, I suppose love is blind.”

With those parting words, Looney left the counselor’s office…and right on cue, the counselor walked back in.

Meanwhile, the words you really are clueless smoldered in my gut.

 

The next day, it was my turn to have a parent-teacher conference. After school, I grabbed a meal with Kyou and settled down in the library for some studying. Then Looney joined us, followed by Elle, but no sign of Mickey—apparently, she had an errand to run.

Elle’s sadness-club was still there, although it seemed to have shrunk in the time since I saw it last. What was she so sad about? Surely she wouldn’t still feel guilty about the secret ingredient thing a full twenty-four hours later.

As we studied, the girl scheduled ahead of me came by to tell me it was my turn.

“Can you watch my stuff for me?” I asked Looney.

“I don’t know. I might eat it if I get too hungry.”

And so, I left my pencil case in her trusty hands.

When I arrived at the classroom, I found my mother standing there in the hallway, waiting for me. Together, we stepped inside. Then she greeted my teacher, and we all sat down.

Most of this lecture I had already anticipated. These are your worst subjects—study them harder. If you have lofty ambitions, you need to have a safety net in place. Blah, blah, blah. No disrespect to my teacher, but I spent the whole time thinking about Elle instead. Why was I so interested in her? And if I was in love with her or whatever, then what was I going to do about it?

Unfortunately, my only conclusion was that I was indeed clueless.

“If you’re dead set on traveling abroad, then you’ll need to put in the equivalent amount of effort,” my teacher explained with a smile.

“Don’t worry. When push comes to shove, I always pull through. Just you wait and see,” I replied, smiling back.

And so my conference ended on a high note, with no sadness-clubs floating over my mother’s head. I saw her off at the front entrance, told her I’d be home after I did a little more studying and then headed down the hallway to the library.

But I was so busy thinking, I didn’t notice Elle and Kyou walking my way until they were practically on top of me.

“Welcome back, Zuka. How’d it go?” Kyou asked, snapping me back to reality.

“Oh, hey, guys! I dunno. I was told I need to ‘study harder,’ and that’s all I really remember.”

“Thank God I’m not the only one.”

The two of us shared a laugh, and Miss Good Grades smiled pleasantly, though her sadness-club was ever-present.

“So, Elle, where are you two headed? And where’s Looney?”

“Huh? Oh, we were just on our way to buy some drinks. Looney’s still in the library. She hasn’t taken her eyes off your pencil case since you asked her to watch it for you.”

“Good grief, that nutjob.”

“Oh, c-come to think of it, you…you should come with us, Zuka-kun.”

It was just an ordinary, friendly invitation—I knew that. But normally Elle would never outright invite me along, so it made my heart skip a beat. Naturally, I agreed. A small joy-spade rose up next to her club.

Then, as we were walking down the hallway in the direction of the cafeteria, she initiated a conversation with me. Again, this was rare for her.

“You know, Zuka-kun, it’s amazing that you already have a career picked out.”

“Don’t you?”

“Mmmm… I’m not sure. I keep going back and forth, and the more I agonize about it, the less confident I feel… I wish I were like you.”

Obviously, I enjoyed her compliments…but I couldn’t take them at face value.

“It’s better to agonize over it,” I said, purely on reflex. Even I wasn’t sure how I expected her to interpret this. Both she and Kyou looked a little confused.

Thinking about it, what I probably meant to say was this: The reason I wanted to travel was because I felt like it wasn’t in my nature to sit still all the time, and English was a useful language to know, and I wanted to make enough money to theoretically support a family, so I just went for whatever offered me all those things. Looking at it that way, perhaps I hadn’t fully thought it through—I’d simply shrugged and said “good enough.” Sure, it did interest me, but it wasn’t my number one choice. It was possible I wasn’t giving my future the attention it deserved, and compared to that, Elle’s careful consideration seemed like the smarter option.

But I failed to adequately express this, and before I knew it, we had arrived at the school store.

 

Today, Kyou pulled me aside and said he wanted to talk to me—another rare occurrence. That said, I knew we’d just be chatting over our food in the cafeteria like always. But it worked out perfectly, since there was something I was meaning to ask him, too. It was about Elle and her sadness. Kyou and Mickey were close to her, so I figured one of them might know something I didn’t.

But when we took our seats at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, Kyou hit me with something I wasn’t expecting:

“Do you think something’s going on with Miyazato-san?”

Outwardly, Elle was still wearing her usual soft smile, so I was surprised to learn that Kyou had noticed something was off. After all, I’d only noticed thanks to my power. But while I was mildly impressed…at the same time, he didn’t seem to know any of the details.

“Elle? What about her?”

“Well, ever since yesterday she’s been sort of…distant? So I thought maybe she was mad.”

I thought about teasing him, like “What are you, her boyfriend?” but that would make things complicated in more ways than one, so I bit my tongue.

“Huh. Come to think of it, she has been kinda quiet.”

“It feels like she’s avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you? What about that trip to the school store?”

“Trust me, it was extremely awkward until you got there. I think I must’ve upset her somehow…”

As I took in Kyou’s sincere concern—kinda off-topic, no offense—I found myself proud of what a good person he was. When my friends seemed sad or angry, I never let it really affect me too much. I’d think of a solution, and then take action; it was a matter-of-fact kind of approach, but also one that took a certain level of emotional ignorance.

Guys like Kyou, however, were more sensitive. They stopped to consider whether they might be the source of the problem, which, in turn, kept them from just taking action like I could. He once described me as having an “aggressive attitude” with girls, but if you asked me, that more accurately described him.

“Maybe you said something rude that pissed her off? Called her fat or something?”

“I would never say that! I’m not you! And besides, Miyazato-san isn’t fat!”

“Okay, well, maybe you said something like ‘Girls ought to be more athletic, like Miki-san!’ That’d piss her off for sure.”

“Man, why is she avoiding me when I’m nowhere near as rude as you…?”

I let out an evil chuckle; Kyou sighed and slumped his shoulders. I wasn’t able to tease him much the past few weeks due to Mickey’s anomaly, but I was glad to see he had recovered enough to complain about me. It really helped to lighten the mood.

“I can’t think of a good reason why she’d avoid you, to be honest. I could see Looney doing it as part of some scheme, but Elle’s not that kind of girl.”

“Yeahhhh… Hmmm… Could you ask Miki-san if she knows anything?”

“Ask her yourself! Actually, that reminds me…”

I was about to ask him about what Looney had said to me two days ago. After all, she made it sound like Mickey had turned that guy down for a clear reason. This led me to believe that Looney or Kyou must have done something to discourage her. Obviously, it was old news by now, so it didn’t really matter, but I thought it might help me get a clue, so I wanted to know. Maybe it tied back to Elle somehow.

But I stopped myself before asking, because I was seated facing the entrance, and I’d just seen Mickey and Elle walk in. As I froze like a deer in headlights, Mickey spotted us and waved eagerly. I waved back, and then Kyou looked over his shoulder. The pip over his head instantly switched; maybe he was reacting to Elle’s presence just behind Mickey. As for the girls, I could see their emotional reactions with perfect clarity…but I couldn’t breathe a word of it, of course.

Mickey sat down next to me, and Elle timidly sat down next to Kyou, so I struck up a casual conversation. “You guys have your parent-teacher conferences today, right?”

“Yep! Me and Elle are fully prepared to listen to them talk about how great we are!”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you, Mickey.”

“I’m gonna beat your ass, punk.”

I had expected her to punch me, but she was in a good mood, and her joy-spade didn’t waver. Instead, she let me off with a warning.

“Anyway, I heard it’s supposed to be sunny for the next two days! Man, I’m so glad the rain won’t ruin our cherry blossom picnic. Everybody remember to bring your assigned items!” she exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.

I had completely forgotten the picnic was scheduled for the day after tomorrow, but if I admitted this, Mickey would probably beat my ass for real. Lately, I’d been thinking so much, I kept zoning out.

Anyway, yes, we (and by “we,” I mean the same five-person friend group we had established late last year) had decided to throw a somewhat belated cherry blossom picnic this weekend. It was all Mickey’s idea, since she didn’t want us to “lose sight of the important stuff” while we were busy dealing with college entrance exams. Then Looney picked a date, and with that, our plans were set. Naturally, Kyou and Elle couldn’t possibly turn down an invitation from Mickey, and as for me, I loved seasonal events, so I was on board, too. Looney didn’t really care about going to look at cherry blossoms, but she kept whining about us all going on a “double date” without her, so she didn’t have a choice.

Now that I thought about it, however, it felt like this maybe wasn’t the best timing. Elle was still smiling like always, but she was leaning slightly away from Kyou…and naturally, Kyou had noticed. Both of them had sadness-clubs overhead. But Mickey carried on with a big smile regardless.

“Aren’t you excited?! Because I’m excited!”

She didn’t sweat the small stuff. I liked that about her, but every time her cheerful voice echoed through the cafeteria, Elle’s sadness seemed to swell bigger and bigger. I contemplated talking to her about it… But then again, even if I asked Mickey to ask Elle on my behalf, she was downright terrible at playing it cool.

Mickey saw my stiff smile and misinterpreted it. “What, you think I’m childish for getting excited about cherry blossoms?” She looked at Elle. “Stay away from him, okay? He’s totally dead inside.”

At this, Elle smiled stiffly to match me, but Mickey didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she kept going on and on about how “excited” she was. No way was I going to be able to use her for my purposes.

For what was probably the first time, I found myself wishing Mickey had a power like mine. Once she spotted something she wanted, she charged straight at it like a homing missile, and no one could stop her. The rest of us could only watch her go with nervous smiles on our faces.

That said, I did shoot Kyou a look that said: Take note—this is the girl you like.

 

“No clue. I wouldn’t know,” Looney replied.

“For real?”

“My prince doesn’t trust me? I’m going to cry,” she sniffed. “Actually, I think it’s just allergies.”

She pulled a college guidebook from the shelf. Likewise, to escape the guilt that sprang from using the counselor’s office as our secret meeting place, I grabbed a book at random. Naturally, the counselor in question was nowhere to be seen.

“I swear, I have no idea. Anyway, we’re talking about the kind of girl who keeps her feelings bottled up inside. Remember when she decided she could solve her problems by skipping school?”

“Dude, don’t insult her.”

“I’m not! I’m just saying, we still don’t know why she did that—I can only hope she’ll open up to us about it someday. But when someone like her starts acting out, there’s usually something serious behind it. Does Kyou have any idea what it is?”

“I asked him, and he said no.”

He was pretty depressed about it, too. Not good, considering Mickey’s picnic was tomorrow.

“Maybe the whole thing is a misunderstanding and they just don’t realize it. A comedy of errors, if you will. Or maybe you had your way with Miyazato-chan and didn’t give her the proper aftercare.”

“You know, I’m devastated that you think I would do that.”

“You totally would! You know if she made the first move, you’d totally go for it. You’re too nice. And too stupid.”

I couldn’t really argue with that, so I didn’t. No comment.

“That being said, you don’t usually come to me for advice. Normally, you walk around with a smug smirk like you’ve got it all figured out.”

“No, I don’t. To both.” There was no point in me lying to her, so I figured I’d just be honest. “Generally speaking, I figure it’s for the best if I only do the stuff I know I’m good at and stay away from everything else. But this time around, I want to get to the bottom of this—for my own sake and no one else’s.”

She didn’t respond.

“But I’m clueless, remember? So I thought maybe you could give me a hint.”

“A drowning man will clutch at a lunatic, as they say. Now I get it… At last, you’re no longer my prince.”

“Dude, I was never your prince to begin with.”

I laughed at her stupid joke, and yet, she didn’t laugh with me. She just kept flipping through the pages of her guidebook, though I couldn’t tell if she was actually reading it.

“You’ve always been the kind of arrogant prince who thinks you can solve other people’s problems. And lately, I’ve actually started to come around to you. But when it comes to Miyazato-chan…she deserves your desperate side, Zuka.”

For the first time ever, Looney had addressed me by my nickname. I stared back in shock. At this, she finally laughed.

“Let’s get back to the library.”

At her prompting, I returned my guidebook to the shelf and contemplated every word she said.

And for some reason, from that day forward, she never called me her “prince” again.

 

On the day of the cherry blossom picnic, I made enough yakisoba for five people, then set it in a basket, along with a blue tarp. Then I hopped astride my faithful old bike.

This year, the picnic was located at a big park on the west side of town, which made sense, since most of the people who were attending lived on that side. Maybe if the one east-sider was Elle, things would be different, but since it was Mickey, she insisted she could just ride her bike over—and she looked pretty eager about it, too. She was a dumb jock, just like me.

As I rode my bike down the street, I could see all sorts of pips floating over the heads of the people I passed. It was a pleasant, sunny Saturday, and sadness-clubs were a bit less common than usual…and yet, despite the perfect picnic weather, I spotted Kyou waiting at the crosswalk with his usual gloomy expression.

“Yo!”

“Oh… Hey, Zuka.”

He greeted me casually, like always, and his sadness wilted slightly. He was probably worried he might bump into Elle on the street. Not just because it would be “extremely awkward,” but because he didn’t want her to feel miserable being around him.

The signal turned green, and together we set off across the street. Silently, I prayed that today would work out. As we pedaled, Kyou’s sadness continued to shrink; maybe I was helping him take his mind off of things.

“So Zuka, what’d you make?”

“Huh? Oh, just some yakisoba. You know the premade, ‘just add water’ kind they sell at the store? I bought that and put some extra veggies in it. What about you?”

“…Also yakisoba.”

“Uh oh.”

“Let’s pretend we didn’t ask.”

“Right you are.”

Luckily, since Looney and Elle would be there, our meal probably wouldn’t end up turning into a sea of brown… Then it hit me: what if Elle’s sadness grew so heavy that she couldn’t bear to show up today? I hadn’t considered the possibility, and now I was scared.

But just then, I spotted a figure up ahead that put these worries to pasture. Without looking at Kyou, I raced to catch up with Elle on her bike.

“Hey there, Elle!” I called out from behind her. She flinched, snuck a glance over her shoulder and then slowed to a stop. Likewise, we hopped off our bikes.

“Morning, Zuka-kun. Morning, Kyou-kun.”

“Uh…g-good morning, Miyazato-san!” Kyou stammered, reminiscent of whenever he spoke to Mickey, except this time he was nervous for a different reason. Elle’s smile didn’t waver, but her pip did. The sadness-club that floated over her head before we arrived was now swelling even larger. It was downright massive now.

Fortunately, Kyou probably couldn’t detect this shift in her emotions. As for me, I’d been kinda hoping time would solve this problem, but it didn’t seem that way. Despite what Kyou claimed, something must have happened between him and her to cause her sadness. And I wanted to know exactly what it was.

But first, the three of us decided to stop by Looney’s house near the park to pick her up, because she had asked—or rather, demanded—that we come by in the event that we arrived early. With me in the lead, the three of us set off on our bikes once more. Behind me, the other two didn’t say a word, and for the first time, I understood what Kyou meant by extremely awkward. It was so strange—just a few days ago, they were like two peas in a pod, to the point that Mickey thought they should hook up.

Wait a minute. That can’t be it…can it?

What came to mind was a possibility that none of us would enjoy.

Right as I shook the thoughts away, however, we arrived at Looney’s house. We rang the doorbell, and a short time later she walked out in a hoodie and jeans, carrying a bright blue portable cooler.

“Morning! Oh, and feel free to park your bikes here in the yard.”

We did as requested, and then set off on foot to our destination.

The park was filled with far more people than I’d expected. I was so sure everyone would be tired of cherry blossoms by mid-April, but apparently not. Picnic lovers abounded.

Together, we headed for our arranged meetup spot: the fountain. We were nowhere near close when we heard someone shout “HEY GUYS!” Instantly, I knew it was Mickey. Sure enough, there she was, sitting on the edge of the fountain and waving eagerly.

“Good morning!”

“I see you’re early today.”

“I’m so happy I ended up making it in time!”

No, seriously, you’re really early. I was going to say this out loud, but then Mickey beamed at Elle, and Elle smiled back, and her sadness-club shrank a little, so I decided not to ruin the moment.

Although there were a lot of people here, the park itself was pretty expansive. And though the spots under the trees were taken, we still managed to find a decent place to lay down our tarp. Kyou and I handled that part while the girls unpacked their paper plates and what have you.

At last, our flower-viewing party was underway…but neither Elle nor Kyou looked all that excited. I followed Looney’s gaze and realized she was watching the two of them.

And so began a tense day of tiptoeing and probing…plus one oblivious idiot, of course.

 

“EVERYTHING’S BROWN!” Mickey shouted even more loudly than usual, cheerfully clapping Kyou on the back so hard that a nearby flock of pigeons got spooked and flew away. Naturally, it was Looney and I who conspired to get him to sit right next to her in the first place. Normally, he would have been nervously excited about it, but today it seemed his concern about Elle had won out. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could tell, but to me, he seemed depressed, as did Elle herself.

That aside, the situation we found ourselves in was kinda hilarious. Together, Kyou and I had brought enough yakisoba for a total of ten people, Mickey had brought fried chicken, and as I expected, Elle had brought something slightly fancier: Salisbury steaks simmered in beef demi-glace. Every single one of these things was brown.

As for Looney’s Viennetta ice cream, we quickly ate it before it could melt.

“I think we’ve got some fried rice balls in the freezer back home. Shall I go heat ’em up?” Looney offered.

“Those are brown, too!” Mickey and I snapped in unison.

Then I continued, “Real talk, though, who cares if the food is brown? It’s still good! I know it’s partly my fault for making the same thing as Kyou, but hey…Elle’s looks good, at least! Is it homemade?”

Before she responded, I saw Looney smirk at me from Elle’s other side.

“Oh, um, yeah… Technically they’re homemade, but they’re also really easy, so… Anyway, Mickey’s fried chicken sure looks good!” Elle gestured to Mickey’s chicken with her dainty little hand.

“Man, I haven’t had her mom’s fried chicken since junior high.”

“You don’t think maybe I made this?”

“Nope!”

A little anger-diamond rose up over her head. Then, for some reason, one rose up over Elle’s head, too…but it was quickly replaced by a sadness-club. It reminded me of the time I made fun of Mickey in the cafeteria…

Hold on. Maybe I can figure this out.

Every time I insulted Mickey, Elle got angry. Was it because she didn’t want Mickey to feel bad? In that case, why didn’t she get angry when Looney insulted Mickey? On second thought, did Elle mistakenly think Mickey was in love with me or something? If so, then she was probably sad that I was choosing to support Kyou’s crush on Mickey instead. That would make sense.

In that case, all I needed to do was clear up the misunderstanding.

I’ll just explain everything to Mickey and—wait, but then she might figure out that Kyou likes her. Okay then, maybe I should tell Elle that Mickey and I are both interested in other people? No, that’ll just backfire!

“Your cooking is a delight, Miyazato-chan.”

“Hee hee! Thank you, Looney.”

And yet her sadness didn’t fade.

“Ha ha! Yeah, no kidding! This is awesome!”

“Th-thank you!”

Mickey’s joy-spade was bigger than ever—totally at odds with Elle’s feelings. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes one person’s joy could overwrite another person’s sadness. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

“Yeah, uh, it’s really good, Miyazato-san,” Kyou chimed in courageously.

“Uh…yeah.”

Shot down, just like that. Kyou slumped his shoulders. I looked at Looney, half-expecting her to tease Elle about her awkward response, but instead she looked at me. Then, with a tiny head-tilt, she reached out with her disposable chopsticks and took a big bite of yakisoba directly from Kyou’s Tupperware container without even putting it on her plate first.

“Kyou’sh yakishoba ish—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

She swallowed hard. “There, happy? Anyway, Kyou’s yakisoba is pretty good, too. You should try some, Miyazato-chan.”

She held the container in Elle’s direction. Clearly, she was trying to change the subject to Kyou on purpose so she could probe Elle’s feelings. This was what I wanted, too, so I appreciated it.

Sadly, this attempt ended in failure. Though Kyou’s was the only dish Elle had yet to try, she shook her head vigorously. “I-I don’t want any! I mean, uh, I’m not that hungry!”

“…Oh. Okay then. I’ll happily consume these calories in your place.”

Looney took another giant bite directly from the container. She shot me a quizzical glance and then began to chew with her usual sleepy look on her face.

As they talked, I watched Kyou the whole time. Frankly, I felt the urge to jump to my feet. But I couldn’t, of course. If I took action right away, Elle would blame herself for ruining the party. Instead, I stayed seated and prayed for Kyou to hang in there.

After a few more conversations and a few pieces of chicken, I looked over at him. “Hey, do you know where the bathroom is?”

He noticed the look in my eyes. “I…I’ll show you.”

He promptly pulled his shoes on. Likewise, I rose to my feet and stepped into my sneakers.

“This way,” he called, and with that, I followed after him. A few dozen steps later, I breathed a sigh of relief. At last, I’d managed to get him out of there. Any longer and he would have crushed us beneath his giant sadness-club. Not literally, of course—the pips weren’t tangible objects—but even then, it was big enough to make me nervous.

“What did I do wrong?” Kyou asked, once we were well out of earshot of the girls. I didn’t need to look at his pip to know how he was feeling, and that was a bad sign. I didn’t have to worry about anyone else seeing his pips, but if Mickey saw the look on his face right now, she’d totally cause a scene. Thank God I got him out of there.

“Something’s definitely up with her.”

There was no point in me trying to reassure him without any evidence. The bathroom thing was just an excuse, but we walked in anyway, just to keep up the pretext.

“Remind me: how long has this been going on?”

“Since the day after my parent-teacher conference.”

“Okay, so something must have happened the day before. Maybe she got upset about something and didn’t tell you.”

As we heeded nature’s call, Kyou recounted everything he could remember about what happened that day.

“I honestly can’t think of anything! We talked the same amount as usual…about normal stuff… We complained about the art essay for history class, but that’s about it. Miyazato-san was the one who initiated the conversation, too, because she didn’t understand one of the prompts… And that same morning, we ran into each other on the way to school, and she gave me a cookie! And I told her it was good!”

“A cookie?” Was it one of those cookies?

“Yeah. She said she made them as a study snack.”

“What kind was it?”

“Just plain little round ones. Did she give you some, too?”

“Yeah, I ate a bunch. They were definitely good.”

“Okay, then that can’t be it! Seriously, why would she get mad at me?”

Good question. At this point, Kyou was well within his rights to be upset with Elle, too. After all, she was pushing him away for no discernible reason. But of course, no anger-diamond ever rose up over his head. Instead, he was deeply worried about having upset her. Once again, I found myself admiring him for being so different from me…but now wasn’t the time to focus on that.

“Maybe I should ask her about it directly?” I offered, since it felt like our only real option. But Kyou didn’t look enthused.

“If she thinks I made you ask her for me, she’ll only get even more upset.”

This struck me as a little paranoid, but hey. “Should’ve known you’d say that.”

In that case, what were we left with? For my own personal purposes, I needed them to restore their friendship, and the cookies were my only clue. Hmm.

Wait, but…I’d asked Elle if Looney or Kyou had gotten to try her cookies, and she’d said no. Why would she lie about that? What harm was there in Kyou eating her cookies? Hmmmm.

“Okay then, I’ll casually ask Mickey about those cookies from the other day. Maybe she knows something. You’re cool with that, right?”

“Well…yeah, I guess it can’t hurt…”

Good, good. Our not-quite-plan was set. Now I just needed to observe everyone’s emotions and think carefully. I would have to wing it, but eh, that was just my style.

When we returned to the tarp, Mickey was wearing a joy-spade overhead, as usual. Looney had both an amusement-heart and a sadness-club, also as usual. Only Elle was out of place with her one giant sadness-club. I plopped down in my previous spot.

I knew if I launched right into the main topic, it’d be obvious that we’d planned it, so instead I decided to start off with something innocuous as a cushion. Something like: funny to think that by this time next year, we’ll all be in college.

But before I could speak, Mickey interrupted me with the world’s most fake ahem. Then she looked around at all of us, and her joy-spade swelled.

“Okay, now that everyone’s here, there’s something I want you all to see.”

Well, this is sudden, I thought to myself, but judging from her spade, it was probably something positive, so I decided to let her have the spotlight. This could very well be precisely the kind of cushion I needed. She fidgeted for a moment, then reached behind her and pulled her book bag onto her lap.

“Ahem! Well, you see…”

Then she paused to look at all of us a second time, with a gleeful grin that was utterly ignorant of how anyone else was feeling.

“Will you spit it out?!” I snapped impatiently.

“Okay, fiiiine! Guess what? I made cookies! Now clap for me!”

Elle was the only one who obliged. The rest of us froze, staring at her.

“Uh, guys? Hello?” Mickey scowled at us for ruining the excitement of her surprise.

Then Looney said the words that were on my mind: “Is something wrong with you?”

“Excuse me?”

Mickey glared at her, and Looney glared back. This should have been hilarious, but nobody laughed. So instead, I took it upon myself to ask the million-dollar question:

“What’s with the cookies all of a sudden?”

There were two meanings to this. One: why would she choose this exact moment to announce her cookies? The timing was so eerily perfect, it made me wonder if she’d overheard my conversation with Kyou. Two: why would she think to try another baking experiment when we all knew very well that she was a complete disaster at anything domestic?

“Well, I wanted to try something different for a change of pace.”

Don’t you remember what happened last time?!

Only Looney and I knew Mickey well enough to know just how terrible she truly was. Take her shoes, for example—when she tried to patch a tiny hole, she ended up ruining them completely and then tried to pass it off as “the latest fad.” Naturally, she couldn’t cook her way out of a paper bag, either. She was worse at Home Ec. stuff than Looney was at sports, and Looney couldn’t even ride a bike.

The looks on our faces must have been pretty severe, because Mickey burst out laughing. “Yeah, I know it’s not often I bake something! Okay, long story short…”

At this, Elle sucked in a tiny breath, but Mickey didn’t notice. Or maybe she did but interpreted it differently.

“Elle encouraged me to try her recipe—you know, those cookies you stole that one day in the cafeteria? She made them for me so I could see an example of the final product. But then somebody started EATING THEM! Ugh, I’m mad all over again!”

Sure enough, an anger-diamond rose up over her head…but then her smile returned. As for me, I was used to her mood swings, so I wasn’t worried.

“Anyway, yeah, I tried out Elle’s recipe!”

“Okay then. If it’s Elle’s recipe, it’s safe to eat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

I was trying to be supportive instead of argumentative, but Elle’s sadness had started to grow even larger, right from the moment she sucked in a breath. What was the harm in sharing her recipe? I couldn’t begin to imagine. Meanwhile, Mickey continued her little presentation, her emotions the polar opposite of Elle’s.

“To be clear, I practiced several times over the last week, and I’m pretty sure I got them right this time.”

“Oh, so that’s what you meant by ‘I ended up making it in time’…”

“Yep! Anyway, try ’em!”

“You know I already got to try Elle’s finished product, right?” I teased. “My standards are gonna be super high. Not sure you’ll be up to par.”

Just a normal conversation with Mickey, like always. Lighthearted ribbing from a longtime friend. None of it was said with malice…and yet my words sparked an anger-diamond over Elle’s head. But before I could figure out whether she thought I was being serious—

“I mean, yeah, I don’t expect mine to taste as good as hers!” Mickey shot back. And at this, Elle’s anger flared up even larger than her sadness.

To everyone else, her behavior must have seemed rather sudden. As for me, I knew she was trying to escape the feelings weighing down on her, and so it seemed perfectly reasonable. Either way, there was one brief moment in which she glared at me, exposing that flood of emotion. Then she jumped to her feet and pulled on her shoes.

“I’m going to go wash my hands.”

And with that, she sped away.

“Huh? What’s gotten into her?” Mickey murmured.

But I turned away and nonchalantly stood up. Then, with a glance, I left everything to Looney and stepped into my shoes.

“You too, Zuka? You guys know I brought wet wipes, right?”

“Sorry. I’ll be right back.”

“Miki-chan, shall we play a round of Old Maid while we wait for their return? I didn’t bring any playing cards, but we can all use our imaginations.”

The idea was so idiotic, it got a laugh out of Mickey, and I took that opportunity to chase after Elle. No longer did I pause to wonder what was going on with her. I didn’t worry about making her feel bad, either—I just went after her because I wanted to.

Fortunately, I found her pretty quickly, taking short little steps on her short little legs all the way to the park entrance.

“Elle!” I called after her once I had caught up.

She flinched. Her anger was gone now; only her unfittingly large sadness-club remained, practically blocking out the sun. But she didn’t look back. Instead, she ran through the trees. Naturally, I gave chase.

“What’s the matter?”

I knew it wasn’t the most tactful question, but it was all I had. She remained silent, pressing forward into a deserted grassy section of the park. But something told me I couldn’t let her leave. If necessary, I’ll have to stop her by force, I thought to myself like an idiot.

But as it turned out, I wouldn’t need to go that far. She steadily slowed her gait—whether out of courtesy to me or some other reason, I wasn’t sure. Then, at last, she came to a stop, as if to suggest she was out of energy entirely.

I took a few extra steps, then came to a stop myself. Was she willing to talk to me? Hopeful and scared, I gazed at her from behind and waited for her to speak.

What I heard next was a tiny, feeble voice.

“Leave me alone.”

Small, yet sharp, like a rose’s thorn.

As I stood there in silence, she spoke again, still quiet. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just went with my gut.

“Nah, you don’t have to apologize. I just felt like maybe I hurt you, so I wanted to talk to you about it. And if so, then I’m sorry, too.”

She didn’t respond to this. Then a group of kids ran past on the street nearby, possibly spurring her to continue.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Zuka-kun. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t? Okay then… Did something else happen? Want to talk about it, or…?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she answered flatly.

Normally, this was the part where I’d back down. If she didn’t seem to want my help, then I’d tell myself there was no point in me pressing the issue. But I felt differently this time around.

“You’re right—maybe it doesn’t. But I still wanna help you. So if you’re willing to talk to me about it, then I’d really like it if you did.”

It sounded so utterly idiotic, even to me. All I did was repeat the same exact request she already denied, and it was painfully obvious how little consideration I was giving to her feelings. But in spite of my regrets, Elle responded nonetheless.

“Nothing ‘happened,’ Zuka-kun,” she said in a quiet voice.

Well, at least she didn’t reject me a second time. But I had no idea why her answer was different this time around. There was a long silence—one minute? Five? Ten?—and then, after a few deep breaths, Elle finally conceded.

“…Cruel.”

“What?”

At first I thought she was talking about me, but she wasn’t.

“I was cruel.”

Then she finally turned to look at me, and when I saw her face, I knew I had screwed up. I shouldn’t have chased after her. She left because she didn’t want anyone to witness this, just like Kyou and I earlier. I understood now…but it was too late.

“I was cruel to Mickey.”

“How?”

“The secret ingredient.”

I looked at her.

“I kept it from her.”

Real talk, I thought I was hearing things. “What?”

I just couldn’t believe it. All that sadness over an ingredient in a recipe? I failed to take it seriously, and as a result, I made the dumbest possible suggestion.

“You know Mickey probably doesn’t care, right? Just tell her some other time.”

“No! You don’t get it!” She shook her head vigorously, and then revealed to me her deepest worry—something I never would have expected. “I was scared that…I was going to lose my best friend…”

“Your best friend?”

She nodded wordlessly, and I half-expected her head to fall right off her neck.

“You mean Mickey?”

She shook her head, and I half-expected it to come flying off.

“Kyou-kun.”

“Kyou?”

Now I was really confused…but I could think of one potential explanation, so I summoned up my courage and asked:

“Are you in love with him?”

“It’s not like that.”

At this I felt a rush of relief, but I would have to figure out why some other time.

“Listen, I…I know I’m being weird…”

“Yeah?” I nodded, preparing myself to hear whatever came next.

“But for some reason, I…I don’t want to think about my best friend getting with his crush. I don’t like Kyou-kun the way he likes Mickey—we’re just friends—but it just makes me so sad…and so I…I lied…”

Her voice was hard to hear, but I did my best to listen. Then she paused, and I waited for her to continue.

“I let Kyou-kun try my cookies, then lied about it and refused to share the secret ingredient. I knew my cookies were better, but I kept it from her to make sure hers would be worse. I don’t know why I was so cruel… I was just so scared…”

I wanted to say something. I racked my brain, looking for the perfect words. But in reality, the perfect words didn’t exist…because I didn’t understand how she felt. I had never been in her shoes.

Why would anyone be afraid of their friend’s love life going well? I couldn’t even imagine it. Was it because they wouldn’t spend as much time together or something? It wasn’t like they spent a ton of time together as is. Was it because Kyou wouldn’t think about her as much? It’d be weirder if he did!

Even if the two of them did grow apart somewhat, it wouldn’t change the fact that they were friends. As long as Kyou was happy, that was all that mattered. Romance was just another part of life, and there was nothing sad about it at all.

As I stood there in silence, Elle shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know it’s dumb, and I know I shouldn’t care, and I know it’s wrong, but…I’m sorry…”

“No, you don’t have to apologize—I’m sorry, too.”

I had nothing else to say.

“I’ve been trying to do something to fix it…so I tried distancing myself from him…but it hasn’t been working…”

Aha.

“I’m just scared… No matter how close we get, I’m scared he’ll abandon me…”

THAT’S your biggest fear?

She loved her friends so much. She worried so much about what they thought of her. This was no time for me to let my mind wander, and yet I couldn’t help but feel mildly impressed.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but…” She shifted her gaze to look at me, like she was searching for the words that eluded her. “I think it’s probably just me being paranoid… I’m sorry.”

Paranoia. Excess self-consciousness. Something she had that I lacked.

“I know I need to stop being so self-obsessed, and I want to change, but…”

Reflexively, I shook my head. “You’re fine the way you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re fine the way you are,” I repeated automatically.

It was an unfiltered response to her statement, just like when we talked about life after high school like a few days ago. Once again, I wasn’t sure how I wanted her to interpret this. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the right words to express them all.

Thinking about it, what I probably meant to say was this: You’re fine the way you are because you help us more than you realize.

For example, she got Mickey to finally take an interest in people who weren’t dumb jocks like her (and me, for the record). Mickey had never even contemplated the concept of refusing to go to school until Elle came along and taught her how to find common ground with someone who was different from her. She had broadened Mickey’s horizons.

As for Looney, Elle helped her change, too. Hard to believe someone like Looney would ever say “I can only hope she’ll open up to us about it someday.” Normally, everything she said had an underlying purpose or joke, but she stood to gain nothing from making that comment to me. It had been a true expression of her sincere feelings—something she’d probably never revealed to anyone but Mickey. Something that came from the softest depths of her heart. Real talk, ever since she became friends with Elle, Looney had really started to connect with the rest of the class.

As for Kyou, well, it went without saying. He was so happy to have Elle around—honestly, he probably related to her a lot more than he did to me. And when she found the strength to come back to school, he seemed to find his own courage, even if only a fraction.

In short, I wanted Elle to know that she had helped all of us simply by being herself. Besides, even I…

Once I arrived at my own feelings, I finally understood.

“I know I shouldn’t be like this… I’m sorry.”

“That’s not true, Elle.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

I had finally figured it out. Not how to ease her sadness, or how to fix her friendship with Kyou. By thinking about her, at long last, I had selfishly come to understand myself—why I was interested in her, what made her special to me.

“You don’t have to apologize for it.”

It was all so simple. Long story short, I was trying to learn from her—desperately trying to glean the knowledge only she could offer, just like Mickey and Looney and Kyou, hoping to one day find the humanity I never had.

“You’re not weird. You’re fine just the way you are.”

You see, I’d had one particular belated realization—about myself, not her.

As it turned out, I’d been repressing the sadness I felt over my last breakup. Sure, my ex was the one who’d asked me out in the first place, but I’d enjoyed being with her, and when she dumped me, I was crushed. I just tried to convince myself I wasn’t. I told myself it was what she wanted. But deep down, I always thought to myself, maybe if I had actually stopped to think about my own feelings, she would have stayed with me. Maybe then I never would have needed to pretend I was fine when I wasn’t.

I wanted to learn that it was okay to be sad, and I wanted someone like Elle to teach me. Someone as self-conscious as Kyou, but far more stubborn.

“Me and Mickey don’t see things the way you do,” I said.

Knowing Elle, she was worried that Kyou would forget about her completely…because she worried that if she would forget about him completely if their positions were reversed. If I’d been that self-aware, maybe my breakup wouldn’t have been so painful.

“So, no, you don’t need to change yourself. You’re unique the way you are, and you don’t have to apologize for it.”

It was the truth of how I felt. She was fine the way she was, and I didn’t want her to change—nothing more, nothing less. But of course, now that she had opened up to me, I knew that sentiment wouldn’t help her sort out her feelings whatsoever, so I continued.

“Basically, like…Mickey and I don’t think that way, so you don’t need to worry. If you told her what you told me, she’d just shrug it off. I mean, look at Looney! She’s a jerk to us all the time, but we’re still friends, y’know?”

“But I was trying to be mean…on purpose…”

“Okay then, just do something extra nice for her to make up for it! Bake her some more cookies or something, I dunno.”

“But what if I’m mean to her again?”

She wasn’t going to be easily persuaded. She was convinced that her sadness and fear would never truly go away. This was the same girl who, when being in the classroom became too much for her to bear, chose not to change classes but to remove herself instead. Not only was she stubborn, but she was determined, too.

I felt a strange, tight sensation in my chest, like trying to fit a square peg through a round hole.

“Well, uh, it’ll still work out! Trust me, I’ve known Mickey since junior high. I know what it takes to make her mad for real.”

“And I was cruel to Kyou-kun, too…”

“Kyou’s not the kind of guy who would hold it against you.”

“…Zuka-kun?”

“Yeah?”

“Haven’t you ever stopped to think about what your life would be like without Mickey?”

The sudden question caught me off guard. I contemplated it for a moment, but in the end, I still couldn’t see things her way.

“Can’t say that I have. Obviously, I’d never say this to her face ’cuz it’s cringey and all, but…we’ll always be friends, no matter what.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do.”

I knew what friendship was like, and it wasn’t that fragile. Honest to God, I wasn’t lying…and yet Elle’s sadness and anxiety showed no signs of shrinking. Then again, I hadn’t exactly provided any evidence to support my claims. I did have some, though.

Elle shot me a look that said Are you telling the truth? Then I looked into her eyes, into her fearful heart, and finally conceded. Silently, I apologized—but not to her.

Sorry. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m still taking baby steps. I hope you can forgive me.

With that selfish apology complete, I looked Elle in the eye and donned a smile. “Yeah, I think you’re gonna be just fine.”

She looked straight back at me, but I didn’t avert my gaze. In exchange for learning about her way of thinking, I would instead share a bit of my own. That way we could fill each other’s gaps. And as the thought crossed my mind, for the first time, I felt my heart take shape.

“You see, uh, the truth is…”

I was perfectly fine keeping it to myself, but as I prepared to reveal my secret for the first time in who knows how long, I was overcome with shame. In that moment, I felt like this exchange had taught me more about human emotions than I’d ever learned from looking at the pips.

 

“Ta-daaaa! See? Don’t they look good?!”

“Whoa… Coming from you, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they actually look like cookies!”

At my compliment, Mickey glared at me for a moment, then smirked and thrust her chest out proudly. “Ha ha! Pretty impressive, am I right?”

“Wait, but…didn’t you use Elle’s recipe? Why do they look different?”

“Good eye! See, I added chocolate as my secret ingredient!”

She gestured happily to her cookies, which were just as brown as everything else we’d eaten.

“If you think chocolate counts as a secret ingredient, we may need you to get your eyes checked,” Looney snarked. Mickey responded with a smile and a punch, then handed out little gift bags to each of us—first Looney, then Elle, then me, then Kyou.

These cookies were really nothing special, but nevertheless, Kyou was as stiff as a board. I elbowed him for fun.

“How about it, boys? Does your heart flutter, getting cookies from a girl?” Mickey grinned. Unbeknownst to her, however, she was right on the money. About Kyou, anyway.

“Well, it’s better than the M&M’s you gave me for Valentine’s, I guess,” I answered on his behalf. Normally this would be enough to satisfy her, but today she was too worked up to let Kyou off the hook.

“What about you, Kyou-kun?”

“Uhh…er…”

“Well?”

“Um, y-yeah. I’m really touched. They look great.”

“Ha ha! Glad to hear it!”

Her joy-spade swelled overhead. Kyou was always terrible with compliments, so it took a lot of courage for him to praise someone outright. Joy-spades sprang up over Looney and Elle, too. So, on behalf of the group, I gave Kyou another elbowing for good measure.

“Go on, now! Everybody dig in!”

On command, we all untied the ribbons on our bags, pulled out a cookie, and put it in our mouths. For a moment, everyone fell silent…and what happened next betrayed my every expectation.

“Holy crap, these are good?!” I blurted out without thinking.

“They are,” Looney nodded. “And there’s no way Miki-chan has any connections to a cookie factory.”

“What cookie factory?! I bought the ingredients, I made them, and now I delivered them! It was all me!”

“Mickey, these are great! The chocolate really adds something!” Elle exclaimed without a trace of sarcasm.

Beaming, Mickey thrust her fists into the air. “Yes!” Then she looked at Kyou. “What about you, Kyou-kun?”

Questioned yet again, Kyou hastily chewed and swallowed his second cookie so he could respond. It was entertaining to watch.

“Uh…y-yeah, they’re good. Really good.”

“Awesome! Good thing I took Elle’s advice!”

As she raised her fists in victory once more, I found myself quietly relieved. Not about the cookies—about Kyou and Elle. But as I would soon discover, this wasn’t the only good thing that would happen today.

“Kyou-kun, I’m going to have some of your yakisoba, okay?”

As Elle reached for Kyou’s Tupperware container with a smile, Mickey let out a tactless “What the…?”

“Weren’t you full?”

“I thought I was, but apparently not. Whenever I eat something sweet, I always start craving something salty… Yeah, thish ish really good!”

Elle grinned at Kyou, who stared back in shock. Then he smiled, too, and a joy-spade rose over his head. Words couldn’t begin to express how relieved I felt. At last, all of our problems had been solved.

“You know, I’m glad we did this,” I said suddenly.

“Right?!” smirked Mickey, the main organizer of our little event.

“When Miki-chan fails her entrance exams, let’s all get together and have a good laugh,” Looney suggested, ruining the moment. Then Mickey retaliated with a karate chop, and Kyou and Elle laughed. Spades and hearts as far as the eye could see.

Then something else occurred to me: I didn’t actually care about helping people. This was what I wanted.

And when the realization set in, it felt like my ex’s voice finally stopped reverberating in my head.

 

Okay, time to talk about my secret. Not that it’s all that important, mind you.

I got my first girlfriend back in junior high. Back then, I was every bit as sports-obsessed as I am now, so I didn’t know much about relationships and wasn’t that interested. Still, I had the vague understanding that romance was something that happened between close friends. So, naturally, I ended up dating my closest female friend. I was comfortable around her; she was more fun than the other girls, so I figured I probably had feelings for her. To me, it was love, and it appeared to be mutual. And so our relationship began with two sentences:

“Wanna be my girlfriend?”

“Ha ha! Sure!”

But about a month after we became an item, I think we both simultaneously realized that something didn’t feel right. On the way home after my club practice, we were eating ice cream when she said it out loud.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

Then, for the first time, I realized: friendship was not the same thing as dating. Platonic love was very different from romantic love.

Looking back, we were too bashful to even hold hands with each other. So naturally, we broke up soon afterwards, and things were awkward for a while after that. But fortunately, it was only temporary, and after about a month I was ready to laugh it off. Like an idiot, I had decided that it was less embarrassing to just lean into it.

But while she laughed along with me, she must have been really embarrassed about it deep down. After all, even if she really did have romantic feelings for me, the relationship still hadn’t worked out, in the end. As far as I was concerned, we’d gone back to being regular friends and I’d gradually forgotten all about it, but for her, this shame must have deepened with each passing month. Then, on the day of our junior high graduation, she brought it back to the forefront of my mind and made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone it happened, blushing beet-red as we made our pinky promise.

“Cross my heart and hope to die… I don’t wanna do the needle part, though,” I muttered to myself.

“Huh? What was that?” Mickey asked, glancing back at me as she rinsed out our Tupperware containers in the drinking fountain—a chore foisted upon us after we lost a round of rock-paper-scissors.

“Oh, uh, nothing.”

Maybe I couldn’t manage the needle thing, but I’d let her hit me with one of her kicks, probably.

After she washed the last container, I towel-dried it, and then we headed back to the tarp where the others were sitting. Mickey was humming to herself, enjoying our stroll through the park. And as I gazed after her, I found myself wanting to tell a friend what I’d selfishly learned about my feelings, even if I knew she wouldn’t understand it.

“Next time, it’ll be the real deal,” I said.

I was expecting her to say “huh?” and shoot me a puzzled look. But instead, she stopped humming, and her joy-spade swelled like a balloon as she looked up at the sky.

“Ditto,” she said.

“What?”

I stopped short. Likewise, she came to a stop and glanced over her shoulder.

“I took Elle’s advice,” she continued.

Then she set off walking once more. And when she spotted my best friend carrying the rest of the dirty Tupperware, she took off like a jet.

Dazedly, I watched her go. Then I started laughing.

We were all so clueless that it was kind of hilarious.