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It’s only the last week of February, but they’ve hung up a banner in the cafeteria: CONGRATULATIONS, AOBA JOHSAI CLASS OF 2013! Hanamaki thinks they’ve jumped the gun. With snow still banked up against the gym doors and along the sidewalks, the sign feels like hurry up and get out of here more than it does congratulations.
He taps Matsukawa’s shoulder. Matsukawa has spent the better part of lunch tending half-heartedly to a forgotten math assignment, and Hanamaki knows he has no intention of finishing. He could use an excuse, Hanamaki thinks, as he jabs a thumb in the direction of the banner, grinning. Matsukawa grins back like he can already tell what Hanamaki’s thinking.
This used to make people uneasy about the two of them, always looking like they were in on some joke together.
“Hey, Matsukawa,” Hanamaki starts.
They’re interrupted by an unfamiliar voice. “Oh, it’s you two!”
Hanamaki recognizes the interrupter as one of the basketball club’s second years. “The radio guys,” the interrupting second-year adds.
“That’s us,” Matsukawa says, clapping a hand on Hanamaki’s shoulder. “Tuning in this Friday?”
“Obviously,” the kid says. “You should play that song again. You know, the one that’s like, duh-nuh-nuh, nuh-nuh…”
“Yeah, yeah, the duh-nuh-nuh song,” Matsukawa agrees. “We’ll see. This week’s got kind of a different theme.”
“Nice. Looking forward to it.”
Hanamaki elbows Matsukawa as soon as the kid shoves his way back into the cafeteria crowd. “Duh-nuh-nuh?”
“Hey, not that kid’s fault he’s tone deaf.”
“Actually, I think I know which one he’s talking about.”
“Me too. What were you gonna say before?”
“Eh, I forgot my line.”
They laugh anyway.
They stop laughing when Oikawa clears his throat, loudly, on the opposite side of the table. His glare looks something halfway between disbelief and indignance. Next to him, Iwaizumi’s face betrays nothing, but a fat, shiny noodle slips from his chopsticks and splashes in his udon.
“What the hell was that?” Oikawa demands.
Hanamaki is about to respond when he and Matsukawa are interrupted, again, by a whole group of fans of the Tales from Aoba Johsai Weekly Radio Adventure. They make song requests, pry details about next episode’s theme. Hanamaki even autographs a failed English test.
The crowd dissipates. Hanamaki stretches faux-casually. “Sorry, Oikawa, you were saying?”
“Makki. Mattsun,” Oikawa hisses. “What is going on?”
“You’re not familiar with the Tales from Aoba Johsai Weekly Radio Adventure? We’ve been doing it for months, now.”
“The Aoba Johsai Weekly—what?”
“It’s their radio thingy,” Iwaizumi helps out. “You guys like, what, play music and talk about nothing?”
“Half-credit,” Hanamaki says. “Every week we tell a human interest story, and intersperse it with thematically coherent and extremely cool music.”
“You’ve really never heard of it?” Matsukawa asks. “Two-thirds of the school listens to it. Of course, last week was particularly well-received—”
“The return of the legendary Aoba-nimable Snowman, courtesy of last week’s blizzard—”
“—so our stock’s really gone up. Man, it’s too bad we only have the A/V room for another few weeks. We were just hitting our stride.”
“A real shame,” Hanamaki agrees, hand over his heart.
Oikawa frowns. “I don’t get it.”
“Of course you don’t. You don’t even watch TV. You just play volleyball.”
“That goes for both of you,” Matsukawa adds, patting Iwaizumi’s arm.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Iwaizumi asks.
Hanamaki and Matsukawa exchange glances; Iwaizumi and Oikawa exchange their own in response.
“Gee, Hanamaki, how can we put this?” Matsukawa wonders.
“Hmm, I can try.”
“Please, go ahead.”
Hanamaki gestures at Oikawa and Iwaizumi. “You two are like, classic popular. A beauty-and-brawn best-friend pair. You’re a staple of high schools everywhere. But Matsukawa and I...”
“We’re the trendy to your classic. People love classic, sure, but they get excited about trendy.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”
Iwaizumi’s perma-frown deepens. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah!” Oikawa agrees quickly, pounding a fist in his palm. “That’s stupid! That’s…” His expression slips into one of wide-eyed terror; it takes everything in Hanamaki’s willpower not to laugh. “Oh my god, what if it’s not stupid?”
“No, it definitely is.”
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa hisses, leaning way too low over his tray of cafeteria food. Iwaizumi reaches to stop Oikawa’s tie from taking a swim in the day’s curry special.
“Iwa-chan,” he repeats gravely. “Are they more popular than we are?”
“Who?” Iwaizumi hisses back. “Those assholes? They’re not popular, their radio show is.”
“That’s the same thing!” Oikawa sits up and slams his hands on the table. “How did this happen? Since when are you two more popular than us?!”
“Are we?” Matsukawa asks innocently.
“Define popular,” Hanamaki says.
“Don’t make fun of us!” Oikawa snaps.
“We’re not. We’re making fun of you.”
“Assholes! Aren’t you worried about hurting my feelings?”
“Dude, it’s the first rule of making fun of someone,” Hanamaki says. “You only dish what you know someone else can take.”
“Also, pro tip, it’s only fun it they react,” Matsukawa adds.
“We’re not assholes.”
“Speaking of which, Oikawa, you free this Friday?”
Oikawa stands with a huff; the curry on his lunch tray lurches precariously. “Iwa-chan, let’s find somewhere else to sit. I’m sure we still have plenty of fans just dying to spend time with us.”
“Wait, we’re being serious,” Matsukawa says, putting up his hands. “We want to interview you.”
“About what?”
“Well, you’re like the third-most popular guy in school—”
The mangled sound that rips from Oikawa’s throat turns heads.
“Sorry, sorry,” Matsukawa manages to say, though he and Hanamaki are laughing so hard at this point that tears are streaming from their eyes. “You’re like, volleyball-famous. Plus there’s plenty of overlap between our fan clubs.”
“You’ve got a good radio voice,” Hanamaki adds. “And we’ll only ask softballs. What do you say?”
Oikawa looks beatific; he sings a yes. Iwaizumi mutters something about flattery getting them everywhere; Oikawa tells him jealousy is unbecoming.
It’s still three weeks until graduation. The snow is still banked high against the gym doors. But as the end-of-lunch bell rings, Hanamaki finds himself counting the days in his head.
The three of them are stranded that Friday after Oikawa’s interview, cross-legged beneath the narrow overhang at the school’s entrance. Oikawa sits with the S of his spine straightened flat against the concrete wall, his feet tucked in tight, like he’s allergic to the bad weather. Across the lawn, rain collects in divots and turns the snow translucent.
“It’s March,” Oikawa complains.
“It’s Miyagi,” Matsukawa replies, hand outstretched to catch fat drops against his palm.
“It doesn’t matter where we are. It shouldn’t snow like it’s January then rain like it’s August.”
Hanamaki peels his face from his knees. “Let’s road-trip to Osaka, then.”
Matsukawa hums. “I’d like that. We can stay with your cousins in Nagoya along the way.”
“Mattsun, you know Makki’s cousins?” Oikawa asks.
“I wanna eat the okonomiyaki in every city between here and there,” Hanamaki continues.
“I want Lotte Black from every Lawson,” says Matsukawa.
“We have to save room for hakata ramen, of course.”
“That’s Fukuoka.”
“Really? What’s so great about Osaka, then?”
Suddenly there’s wet snow down the back of Hanamaki’s neck. Oikawa crouches behind him and Matsukawa, dripping ice into their collars from handfuls of snow. He grins deviously. “Not ignoring me now, huh?”
Matsukawa swats unhappily at the back of his collar. “What was that for?”
“Yeah Oikawa, what the heck.”
“You two are impossible to have a conversation with,” Oikawa replies, wiping his hands on his uniform.
“That’s not true.”
“Is too. It’s like you forget I’m here!”
“Sorry,” Hanamaki and Matsukawa say at the same time.
“See?” Oikawa jabs his pointer fingers at both of them. “That’s super weird.”
Hanamaki and Matsukawa look at each other: Is it?
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Matsukawa decides with a shrug.
Hanamaki sighs. “We really are kind of hopeless without Iwaizumi. He’s our anchor. Oikawa, are you sure you can’t convince him to come to school with us?”
“Don’t look at me,” Oikawa huffs. “Iwa-chan won’t let me bully him anymore.”
“Are you sure you’re the bully in that relationship?” Hanamaki asks.
“Wow, that one’s actually debatable. Shall we discuss?”
“At length,” Hanamaki says.
“Ugh.” Oikawa stands, rubbing at his bad knee. “Thanks for the offer, but no way I’m sticking around for episode ten thousand of Let’s Roast Poor Old Oikawa. I’m going to the gym to practice.”
“Aw, we didn’t mean it.”
“You never mean anything! Doesn’t make it any less annoying.” Oikawa pushes a hand against frosted glass door. “Don’t wait up for me, weirdos.”
Weirdos! Oikawa mutters again, under his breath, as he disappears into the school.
“Do we need to tattle on him?” Hanamaki wonders as Oikawa makes his retreat.
Matsukawa shakes his head. “Better to leave Iwaizumi’s job to Iwaizumi.”
Hanamaki sighs. “We’re really not trying to be mean to him.”
“It’s Oikawa’s problem if he can’t get on our level. He’ll understand our love one day.”
“That guy’s so hung up on pure, fluffy love, he can’t even see all this love he has in front of him!”
“We’re plenty pure and fluffy,” Matsukawa says.
“Maybe you are,” Hanamaki says. “When’s the last time you got a haircut?” A drop of rain leaks from the overhang and into Hanamaki’s eye. He scrunches his face. “Man, this really isn’t letting up.”
“We’ll be stuck forever, at this rate.” Matsukawa shuts his eyes and lets his head thunk back against the wall. “May as well call it quits now.”
As Matsukawa rests, Hanamaki studies the long slope of his face and neck. He’s kind of grown into himself, lately; not just the obvious features of his surface, but his expression, too. He kind of looks too old for high school.
“I really am bummed about graduation,” Hanamaki admits quietly.
“You are?” Matsukawa murmurs.
“I’m excited, too. All signs point to not-high school being better than high school. But…”
“Yeah, but.”
Hanamaki considers closing his eyes, too. The sky is low and wooly and much too close for comfort. It might be nice to let himself be lulled to sleep by rain, to lose his hours with a friend, to wake up with their skin chilled numb and breaths puffing white in the dark.
But he doesn’t shut his eyes, and he doesn’t look away from Matsukawa. He counts the days in his head for the hundredth time, wonders what it would be like if they were more like Oikawa and Iwaizumi, tactile in their friendship, even if they had to dress it up as klutziness or clinginess or aggression. It’s probably comforting to be like that, to have a way of saying hey, I’m here. They text constantly, sure, but Hanamaki has a creeping sensation that high school might seem like a dream once he skips off to school hundreds of kilometers away.
The grey light weakens. Hanamaki pulls in a lungful of brisk air, holds it in his chest as he watches his friend. Even with his head lolled against the concrete, Matsukawa’s shoulders manage to curl forward and his back slumps. Hanamaki gets the urge to smooth out his spine like a bent coat hanger.
“You don’t look very comfortable.”
“Of course I’m not comfortable.” Matsukawa’s voice is barely there. He’s definitely half-asleep. “We could be home stewing in the bath, but instead we’re stranded in the sleet at school on a Friday night.”
“True that,” Hanamaki murmurs, as quietly as Matsukawa.
The school lights clunk to life with a flood of electric white. The wash of rain and the snow-muffled world and the musical dripping of icicles onto the pavement all settle over Hanamaki’s ears like a pair of comfortable headphones. He appreciates the stark black and white of a winter night like this one. At times like these, the delineation between objects seems much clearer than it is during the day. For instance: he and Matsukawa, cross-legged on this patch of dry pavement, boxed off from the rest of the world.
Eventually Matsukawa opens his eyes, but still neither of them move. Quiet like this scares easy.
“You know,” Matsukawa whispers, some time later, “sitting here or walking, it’s gonna suck either way.”
Hanamaki takes stock of his numb ears and stiff fingers and the icy rain soaking through his sneakers, but a strange feeling balloons from him, like the invisible tide of a warm ocean, pushing out in Matsukawa’s direction.
“Let’s just walk, then,” Hanamaki decides. “If it’s gonna suck either way.”
They hustle as best as they can along the slippery sidewalks, pruny and miserable by the time they reach Hanamaki’s, but laughing, still, because it’s probably the worst decision they’ve made all year. They take turns in the bath and eat microwave meals, counting the minutes as heat seeps its way back into their skin. Matsukawa falls asleep on the beanbag in Hanamaki’s room before he can even pull out the guest futon.
In 2012, the men’s national volleyball took home the bronze at the Asian Cup. Tokyo Skytree opened to the public. Also, the dashing Hanamaki Takahiro and painfully cool Matsukawa Issei started a radio show out of Aoba Johsai’s abandoned A/V room and accidentally became the two most popular guys in school.
“Hey, Hanamaki, how’s that for an intro?” Matsukawa’s chair is tilted back dangerously, and he grins at him upside-down.
“Eight out of ten,” Hanamaki says. “Can we make it more cutting-edge?”
“Sure. Did JAXA do anything interesting last year?”
“JAXA’s GCOM-W satellite blasted off to its new home in the thermosphere,” Hanamaki offers.
“I don’t know what it means, but I like it.”
Matsukawa transcribes the new line in his terrible handwriting, squinting behind the glasses he’s started wearing recently. Hanamaki kind of digs them. They really complement his vibe.
It’s a few weeks later, after the rain and snow have relented. Their Oikawa interview was a big hit, although a departure from their usual discussion of secret talents and local legends. They expected as much would happen. Oikawa still doesn’t really buy into their particular brand of coolness, no matter how explicitly they try to explain: Trendy is cool, cool is weird, and Hanamaki and Matsukawa are weird as hell. One might even say it comes naturally to them.
Matsukawa re-records the intro. Usually they do the show live, but today they’re kind of busy. They just graduated that morning, after all.
Matsukawa claps his hands. “Aaaaand we’re live. Sort of.”
Hanamaki fishes the pocket radio from his backpack and hangs it from his belt. Kind of a goofy look, but he’s officially too old to care. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The A/V room is windowless and soundproofed (and dusty, Oikawa had complained before his interview, between sneezes). Beyond its door, the hall buzzes with last-day-of-school excitement. The ceremony took up most of the morning, but after lunch their classmates began putting together their stands for the senior festival. He and Matsukawa felt a little guilty ditching preparations, but today was their last show; they couldn’t let their listeners down.
Outside the sun blazes so bright even the blue of the sky burns his eyes. They find Oikawa and Iwaizumi hanging around the mini taiyaki stand set up by Hanamaki’s class. It’s being run by his homeroom teacher, who is made no less intimidating by a hairnet and oven mitts.
“Congratulations on your last day as radio jockeys,” Iwaizumi says.
“Thanks,” Matsukawa says.
“Well, turn it on.” Oikawa makes grabby hands at Hanamaki’s radio and fiddles with the dial. The intro song blares way too loud, and Hanamaki twists the knob down before his homeroom teacher can reprimand them.
“You know, you guys have gotten really supportive of us these last couple of weeks,” Hanamaki says appreciatively. Oikawa scoffs. “What? I’m being serious.”
“Sure, sure, Makki. Serious is definitely in your vocabulary. Anyway, Iwa-chan and I decided we’re going to have a picnic on the hill by the track. I brought a blanket.” He pats Iwaizumi’s overstuffed backpack.
“Wanna split up and grab as much food as possible?” Matsukawa asks.
“Meet there in ten,” Oikawa says.
“It’s a race,” Iwaizumi agrees.
Fine, they can race if they want to—Hanamaki lets them run on ahead, dancing his way through the crowd, bobbing his head to the music from the radio slapping against his leg with every step. Some of the food stands have radios playing their show, too, and he can’t stop smiling. Today is good, good, good. And why shouldn’t it be? He’s graduated, he has great friends, he never has to do another one of Hatakeyama-sensei’s brutal math assignments ever again. In a couple of weeks he starts college, the same one as Oikawa, down in Fukuoka.
Hanamaki loads up on ice cream sandwiches and skewered meat. He manages to balance it all across his arms pretty gracefully. If journalism ever gets slow, he thinks, he can always wait tables on the side.
He makes it to the picnic blanket last. Matsukawa is already flat on his back, eyes closed. They four of them have discussed their normal-people superpowers before, and Matsukawa’s is the ability to fall asleep pretty much anywhere. Oikawa is furtively placing blades of grass across Matsukawa’s face one at a time, waiting for him to notice. Iwaizumi notices Hanamaki and puts a finger to his lips.
They eat and they laugh and they talk. Matsukawa sleeps. He always looks like he needs it. They save food for him, except for the dissolving ice cream sandwich, which Hanamaki eats on his behalf.
Iwaizumi eyes him. “Aren’t you lactose intolerant?”
“Eh, I’m lactose uncomfortable.”
“Makki, you’re too young to die.”
“That’s super not how that works.”
It’s like any other day, really, and Hanamaki feels relieved for it. High school’s over, and yet it feels like nothing in his life has been uprooted whatsoever. High school may still be massive in his rearview mirror, but the normalness of the afternoon makes it seem small.
Oikawa stands, rubs at his bad knee. “Iwa-chan, come check the event schedule with me. Makki, you can babysit Mattsun, right?”
Hanamaki waves them off. Oikawa and Iwaizumi amble down the grassy slope.
Hanamaki wraps his hands around his biceps, skin two hours sun-warmed but not yet burnt. Next to him Matsukawa’s chest rises and falls, each breath barely shifting the blades of grass scattered across his eyes and forehead, in the crook of his neck and on the front of his uniform. Matsukawa stirs, and Hanamaki quickly lies down across from him, mimicking Matsukawa’s starfish-armed posture. When he hears Matsukawa sit up, he forces the amusement from his expression.
Matsukawa yawns, and then Hanamaki can feel his shadow hovering over him. Hanamaki feels blade of grass transferred to his forehead, pads of Matsukawa’s fingers barely brushing his skin. He nearly seizes up with nerves, the fun-scariness of getting caught pretending, so he stirs as convincingly as he can.
“What happened?” Hanamaki asks, fake-sleepy.
“Your acting sucks. How long was I out for?”
“Mmm, a couple hours. Sleep much last night?”
“The usual.” Matsukawa’s a terrible sleeper for someone who can take naps nearly anywhere. Every morning Hanamaki wakes up to his texts timestamped 2:00 am, then 4:00, then 5:00. “Where’d those two go?”
“Checking the schedule. Probably want to know when rocket club’s thing is.”
“Hey,” Iwaizumi calls up the hill, half-jogging in their direction. “Hurry up. It’s starting.”
The four of them push their way through a crowd collecting around the baseball diamond, around a chain link fence. On the other side, a few seniors from the club are making adjustments to their rocket. Hanamaki’s kind of shocked they got permission to launch so close to a crowd, but the rocket is only a foot and a half tall, CLASS OF 2013 inscribed on the side in red marker. Hanamaki finds himself squashed right up against the fence. Once he peels himself away, he’s sure he’ll have diamond-shaped impressions all up and down his left side, and the zipper from Matsukawa’s bag pressed into his right.
“Matsukawa, your backpack,” Hanamaki grits out.
“Oh, sorry.” He adjusts his bag so it’s not crushing Hanamaki anymore. They end up shoulder to shoulder, pushed painfully tight against each other as the crowd pitches forward, leaning to see whether the rocket club president is going to blow off her eyebrows with the launch like she did one time the year before.
“I wish I were in rocket club,” Oikawa says wistfully. “It looks so cool.”
“Yeah, you were kind of busy with volleyball,” Iwaizumi points out.
“I could have done both if I hadn’t been forced into Class Rep duties!” Oikawa stands on his toes, though he’s a head above nearly everyone in the crowd. “Oh well, Iwa-chan, you won’t need to be jealous any longer. My tragically popular high school days have come to an end.”
“You can say that again. No way college kids are gonna be dumb enough to fall for your shit.”
“Iwa-chan!”
“This again,” Hanamaki mutters, rolling his eyes.
“Ah, youth,” Matsukawa says. Hanamaki reflexively tries to high-five him, but his hand ends up squished stuck between their hips. This close up, Hanamaki can tell that Matsukawa ironed his uniform for graduation.
Hanamaki ducks his head. “That girl was wrong,” he mutters. They’re so cramped in the crowd he says it into Matsukawa’s shoulder.
“Hm?”
“I mean, about your uniform not suiting you?”
“Oh,” Matsukawa says. “Thanks?”
“Yeah, totally.” Hanamaki hopes the cringe isn’t audible in his voice. He hadn’t really meant for Matsukawa to hear him.
“No, seriously, thanks,” Matsukawa repeats, lower. Hanamaki squints up, trying to read his expression, but his face is only a silhouette in shadow.
“Look, look! It’s starting!” Oikawa exclaims. “Ten! Nine! Eight!”
The whole crowd counts down at Oikawa’s loud insistence, getting rowdier as the number nears zero, nearly toppling their whole grade like dominoes. The rocket hisses on the hill for a heart-stopping moment before it takes off whistling into the bright sky, toward the sunset, and the whole class erupts in cheers.
Except for them, of course. Matsukawa turns his face from shadow and looks at Hanamaki with his sideways kinda grin and suddenly he’s leaning close, closer, right up next to his ear, his breath tickling Hanamaki’s neck. And Hanamaki thinks of course, this is what the last three years have been, the bus rides back from matches, the half-year since the Tales from Aoba Johsai Weekly Radio Adventure began. They just didn’t know what it all meant until now.
This is just the kind of thing that occurs naturally, he thinks, strangely peaceful, when two people really get each other.
It’s his graduation day, and it’s not like Hanamaki was looking for it, but he feels a hint of order in the vast, weird universe for the first time.
They’re jostled even closer by the cheering crowd, and Matsukawa has to grab the fence to keep them from falling over, boxing Hanamaki in with his arms. Hanamaki’s brain stalls. Matsukawa’s lips are still right up against his ear—not even close to a whisper, not with the crowd bleeding into white noise around them—“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
Hanamaki’s throat feels dry.
“I got an apprenticeship at Hokkaido Broadcasting.”
Hanamaki’s still a little stuck on the thought about two people getting each other, and so he says blankly, “Like, uh, that Hokkaido Broadcasting?”
“That Hokkaido Broadcasting.”
“In Sapporo?”
Matsukawa nods, too close for Hanamaki to properly see, but he can feel it against his shoulder.
Hanamaki exhales. He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath. “Wow,” he says. “That’s fucking amazing. I didn’t even know you applied.”
“No one knew, it’s not like I was expecting to get it.” Matsukawa’s still caging him in, but Hanamaki can’t bring himself to look at him, he’s so embarrassed—what was he expecting, some kind of love confession?—so he looks at Iwaizumi and Oikawa instead. Oikawa’s picked Iwaizumi right off the ground, and Iwaizumi’s got his arms raised in the air.
“I was thinking, though,” Matsukawa continues, and Hanamaki squeezes his eyes shut, hoping his face doesn’t look as hot as it feels. “Maybe we could keep doing the show together. Even if we’re in different cities.”
Hanamaki’s eyes fly open. He pulls back at Matsukawa so he can look at him.
“So,” Matsukawa says. “What do you think?”
Above them, the rocket catches gold from the blinding sun. It arcs from the sunset-orange hillside eastward, toward the sky already dampened by blue.
“Sapporo, huh,” Hanamaki says slowly. “This is going to make amazing fucking material for Weekly Tales.”
Matsukawa is grinning, grinning, grinning, and Hanamaki finds himself grinning back
He ditches his disappointment, his embarrassment. Who needs a confession, or universal order? He is, in this moment, happy in a way he bets people only get to be happy three or four times in a life’s entirety.
After that, when Matsukawa’s talking to Hanamaki, he’s always talking right in his ear. They take each other on tours of their new cities via phone, the fish markets and the seaside ports and the shopping arcades. Sapporo and Fukuoka are nearly as far apart as any two cities in Japan can be, but they don’t talk about distance. It’s Hanamaki’s third week in the south, and today he and Matsukawa have decided to conquer the Canal City Mall.
“Rent is fucking bananas here,” Hanamaki complains as he peruses a wall of gummy snacks in various shapes. A shop clerk with a ponytail gives him a look—who the heck are you talking to—and he motions to his headphones as explanation. “And everyone’s dressed for the beach all the time, except at night, and then they’re dressed for clubs. I never really thought of Miyagi as unfashionable, but...”
“Right? I feel like people can tell I’m from the middle of fucking nowhere just by looking at me.”
“Hmm. I think people appreciate our rural charm.”
“Our charm is in no way rural.”
Hanamaki decides on a bag of green-and-pink turtle-shaped gummies, tearing open the plastic before he’s even out of the store. “Okay, we’re walking again.”
“Where are we going?”
“Hmm, who knows?”
Hanamaki ambles along the tiled walkways, next to a wide canal that stretches as far as he can see in either direction. Underwater lights flash in time with tinny music pouring from high-up speakers, and mist hangs in the air from pluming fountains. Above him, he tells Matsukawa, five or six stories bloom out in a semi-circle, pink like a seashell. The mall transitions to wooden bridges, brass light fixtures, walls reclaimed by lush vines. Another section reminds Hanamaki of the ancient math textbooks they used in second year at Aoba Johsai, primary colors and abstract shapes that are so retro they’re fashionable all over again. He finds a keychain that says SHY BOY! and Matsukawa makes him buy it for him.
Sure, it’s not quite as fun as hanging out in person, but there are definitely things Hanamaki can appreciate about the new stage their friendship has entered. For instance: It’s way easier to hide his feelings when they’re not face-to-face.
And, to be honest, Hanamaki is relieved he never got the chance to say anything. Matsukawa would have forgiven him, probably, but it’s not Matsukawa he’s worried about. The embarrassment of rejection always sours into resentment.
Hanamaki can hear Oikawa before he’s even re-entered the apartment. Oikawa has a habit of stomping around and slamming cabinets and letting doors bang shut and sighing, loudly, until Hanamaki asks him what’s wrong. Then he just smiles and sings, “Wouldn’t you like to know!”
Hanamaki isn’t sure if Oikawa always moves through his living spaces so gracelessly, or if it has something to do with his recent, likely Iwaizumi-related moodiness. Hanamaki is embarrassed to admit it: ever since his Matsukawa Revelation, he’s been more in tune with, well. That kind of thing.
Still, he’ll wait until they’re barhopping or something to work up the courage to ask about it.
Hanamaki settles into his desk. It’s still surrounded by unpacked boxes, a half-constructed do-it-yourself bookshelf. He’s already regretting transporting his entire library down to Fukuoka. Hanamaki hangs up on Matsukawa and switches to Skype.
Matsukawa’s face appears in the call window. It’s almost 8:00 pm, but he’s still in his cubicle. His apartment wi-fi is dodgy, he’s explained, and besides the walls are too thin to laugh too much, and besides his boss lets him borrow recording equipment so long as he locks up the office after he’s done. In any case, Hanamaki thinks Matsukawa looks at home, framed by clutter. The precarious towers of CDs and manila folders and cardboard boxes marked with illegible blue ink are probably a fire hazard, but at least they’re homey.
“Long time no speak,” Hanamaki says.
“Seriously?” Matsukawa laughs at Hanamaki’s sleeveless tank, which says in block characters, I’D FLEX, BUT I LIKE THIS SHIRT. “I can’t believe you let Oikawa drag you all the way down to Fukuoka.”
“You let Ando-san ship you off to Sapporo.”
“Yeah, Ando-san’s paying me.”
“Oikawa pays me.” Hanamaki twists around and yells into the bedroom where Oikawa is noisily sorting his laundry into drawers. “You’re paying me for this, right, Oikawa?”
“OF COURSE IT PAYS TO LIVE WITH ME,” comes Oikawa’s voice through the door.
“See?” Hanamaki says.
“Yeah, I’m going to ask you that question again in a month.”
Hanamaki tilts back in his chair as far as he can without falling. It’s nearly pitch-dark and the city glows invitingly outside his window. Fukuoka is expensive, and too hot for sleeves some days, but he’s glad he came.
Plus the distance is bound to do some good for the Matsukawa Situation.
He tells Matsukawa about his classes. The journalism program is pretty much everything he’d hoped, although his peers seem pretty boring so far. Matsukawa says he wouldn’t worry; he spends all day with journalists, and they’re much cooler than any of the adults he’s ever met before. Hanamaki had badgered Matsukawa to look into the same program that he’s in now, had promised to help him study for the entrance exam, but Matsukawa had just grinned and taken out a composition returned by his teacher earlier that day, littered with red marks. Hanamaki didn’t understand how somehow so good at talking could be so bad at writing, but Matsukawa had just shrugged and said the second he tried to put any of it down on paper, it would fly out of his head. He was doomed to radio. “Not like you,” he’d told Hanamaki, and looking back on it now, Hanamaki thinks that might be the first time he felt light-headed around his best friend.
Twenty minutes later Oikawa marches in the living room to announce he’s taking a nap.
“Sweet dreams,” Matsukawa calls from the screen.
“Thank you, Mattsun.”
Oikawa slams the bedroom door shut so hard that the dishes rattle in the cabinets. Hanamaki and Matsukawa go wide-eyed trying not to laugh.
“We should record while sleeping beauty’s not stomping around Godzilla-style,” Hanamaki whispers.
“I agree.”
“I’ve got my mic all set up. You?”
“Let’s do this. Starting in five, four, three…”
The red light on his mic winks on.
“Welcome to Stranger Things Have Happened, the coming-of-age comedy podcast that’s bound to shake up your life...for the better.”
Hanamaki-san, I’m sorry to impose, but I’m looking at a vet program in Fukuoka next weekend, and wanted to know if it’s not too much trouble if I could spend the night? - Watari (from Aoba Johsai)
Hanamaki cackles and shoves his phone between a half-asleep Oikawa and his breakfast. “Oh my god, please look at this text.”
“Poor Watacchi. There’s no telling how many beers it would take for him to stop being so fucking polite to us.”
“Yeah, he should tell us to fuck off.” Hanamaki texts back, lmaoooo watari i remember who you are. hit us up any time
A few minutes later Watari sends him Thank you very much, Hanamaki-san, followed by the details of his trip. Hanamaki starts thinking it might be a good time for a reunion, and pulls up a list of bars that don’t card on a local message board.
“Obviously Matsukawa’s out,” he says, internally grateful. “But maybe Yahaba would come along. And Iwaizumi, if they’re making the trip from Sendai, anyway. Do you want to ask them, Oikawa? I’ll pick out the bar.”
“Hm. Okay.”
They settle plans to go out to celebrate Watari’s visit, two weekends from next. They’re solidly in the winter of their second semester now, but the weather still gets up to 15° or even 20°, some days. Hanamaki misses the cold. On their last episode of Stranger Things Have Happened, he and Matsukawa debated whether season of birth has anything to do with tolerance for heat. Between the two of them, both winter babies, they concluded correlation and causation.
Their podcast has been going great. Hanamaki almost wishes it weren’t, because at this rate he feels kind of doomed. They don’t have a ton of listeners yet, but some of Matsukawa’s journalist co-workers have recommended it on their blogs, and more nerve-rackingly, it’s fun and fulfilling and incredibly meaningful to share a creative project with a friend.
But Matsukawa’s kind of more than a friend to Hanamaki, so. Therein lies his issue.
Hanamaki steels his nerves, opens his contacts. The only two people he has under his favorites are Home and Matsukawa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*~*~*~
Matsukawa is his best friend.
Matsukawa is like a bad case of retinal burn.
Hanamaki can’t pay attention in lecture half the time. It makes him feel pathetic.
He hits CALL.
“What’s up?” Matsukawa says.
“About Sunday.” Hanamaki winces; the lie in his voice feels obvious. “Something came up. I can’t make the fish market thing anymore.”
“Something came up at 4 am on a Sunday?”
“Well.”
“That’s okay. It’ll be nice to sleep in, anyway.”
“Oh. Good.” Hanamaki frowns at Matsukawa’s nonchalance. Begs, telepathically, that Matsukawa would look for the invisible subtext of Hanamaki’s call. Sub-subtext, even. But their telepathy is faulty over the phone. “I’ve got to go now. Watari’s almost here, and we need to get him suuuuper drunk.”
“That sounds extremely fun.”
“It should be.”
“Talk to you Monday? For Stranger Things?”
“Yeah.” The fake doorbell sound chirps as Hanamaki punches the END button, returns to his contacts, and removes Matsukawa from his favorites before his sentimentality can catch up to him.
“Hi,” Watari says. He’s wearing navy pants, white sneakers, and a sharp-looking polo.
Oikawa wraps his arms around Watari’s fuzzy scalp before he even says hi. “Wow, Watacchi, who knew you looked so cool in casual clothes! I just want to eat you up!”
“Um, thanks, Oikawa-san.” Watari, still in a headlock, offers them a plastic bag full of Lotte Black. “Here. Not really standard temiyage, but I remember you guys used to eat it after practice all the time.”
“Watariiiii,” Oikawa wails, hugging him even tighter. “You’re so sweet and good, how did we ever leave you behind?”
Hanamaki slaps Oikawa on the back. “Don’t kill him just yet. We have plans for this one, remember?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Watari says, utterly unfazed. Hanamaki wishes he had a poker face half as good.
They sit at the kitchen table while Oikawa does dishes—he swears it will only take fifteen minutes—and Hanamaki would protest, but Watari seems weirdly relieved that Oikawa is interested in things like clean kitchens. Watari even offers to help, but Hanamaki makes him sit and spill all the details on how practices are going.
“How many weeks do you think until Kyoutani and Yahaba kill each other?”
“More like days. It’ll be okay, though.” Watari glances at Oikawa. “They’re nothing like Iwaizumi-san and Oikawa-san, but I think we’re still a strong team.”
“Of course you are,” Hanamaki says. “I guess Yahaba and Iwaizumi couldn’t make it with you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think to invite them.”
Hanamaki throws a glance at Oikawa. “No, of course, I thought Oikawa—hey, Oikawa, were they busy?”
Oikawa shrugs, his back to them at the sink. “I forgot to ask. Sorry!”
Eventually they pry Oikawa from his cleaning, and they take Watari to a bar that in the next neighborhood that doesn’t card. Despite his senpais’ peer-pressuring, Watari only orders chu-hi, which is nearly just soda. They tell him how cool college is, but how they miss the team really badly, and how their new team is so good that they’re both still reserve players nine months into their college careers.
“Of course, I’ll be captain eventually,” Oikawa says, nose in the air. “I may defer to our new Setter-senpai for now, but the second he graduates, that spot is mine.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Hanamaki says. “I’ve been practicing my set-up, too.”
Oikawa looks betrayed, though he’s so much better than Hanamaki it’s laughable.
“And Watari,” Hanamaki continues, “your set-up isn’t so bad, either, huh? You wanna come around and play for us once you move here?”
“I would never,” Watari says, raising his finger, a pinky swear. “You’re not still giving Oikawa-san too a hard time, are you?”
Oikawa sniffs. “Makki’s not nearly as good at giving me a hard time without Mattsun to double-team me.”
Hanamaki chokes on his drink.
Watari pats his back. “Oikawa-san, rephrase yourself before someone dies.”
“And what’s with that reaction?” Oikawa asks, sounding like he knows exactly what is with that reaction. “Anyway, it’s boring to talk about school. Let’s move on to our love lives. I’m dying to hear who and what you’ve been up to.” He glances down at his glass, a little hesitant. “Mine’s been so dull ever since Iwa-chan turned me down.”
“I’m sorry,” Watari says sincerely, at the same time Hanamaki exclaims, “So you two did have a falling out!”
Oikawa glares. “Nice consoling, Makki. You could learn a thing or two from Watacchi.”
Hanamaki winces. “Sorry. Really.”
“When did this happen?” Watari asks, doing his best not to sound overly curious.
Oikawa waves a hand. “A few days after graduation.”
Hanamaki pats his arm. “We would have rooted for you, if we’d known. The captain and the ace is a pretty romantic combination.”
“Your precious ace broke my poor old heart,” Oikawa says with one of those overlarge grins people wear to say yeah, everything sucks, but no, they’re not looking for pity. “Also, I just came out to you. Congratulate me, jerks.”
“Congratulations,” Watari says.
“Yeah, seriously,” Hanamaki says.
“It does feel kind of nice to say it. Who knows, I might get nervous and throw up later, so you guys better keep being nice to me.” Oikawa takes a deep breath. “But this isn’t even about liking boys! This is about heartbreak. Everyone deserves to talk about their heartbreaks. Don’t you think so, Makki?”
“I guess,” Hanamaki says nervously. Even though it was his plan to bring up their failed high school crushes, now that the conversation’s happening, he wants to run away. He’s in public, he’s with his kouhai, and Oikawa, as always, is one step ahead of everyone else.
“At least you have some distance now,” Watari say to Oikawa, mercifully.
Oikawa disagrees. “Distance does not make the heart grow fonder! Distance makes the heart develop selective memory problems.”
“Is that so?” Watari takes a sip from his mostly full glass.
“Watacchi, you seem like a born matchmaker. You know anyone looking to date an all-around great guy like me?” Oikawa fishes an ice cube out of his drink. “It sucks knowing you have to move on, of course, but…”
“Chin up, Captain.”
“Yeah, Captain,” Hanamaki says. “You’re a catch.”
Oikawa looks infinitely pleased, even as he says, “Am not.”
“Are too,” Hanamaki says, ruffling his hair. Oikawa tries to duck away, but Hanamaki insists, saying are too, are too, are too. Watari joins in and eventually Oikawa is laughing so hard half the bar is staring at them.
Oikawa scrubs away the watery look in his eyes and sighs. “And what about you, Makki? Are you going to keep your love life hidden from us?”
A sickly eternity seems to pass, but Hanamaki responds almost without pause: “What love life? I’m in the same boat as you.”
Oikawa hums a go on. Hanamaki could die, but he’s not taking this leap halfway. “Well, it’s not like I got so far as telling Matsukawa how I feel. It doesn’t always take a confession for you to know, though.”
“I knew it!” Oikawa snaps. Hanamaki glares. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Honestly, I’m a little surprised it’s not mutual. You guys still talk constantly.”
“We’d have rooted for you, too, you know,” Watari says, looking genuine. “The whole team, I mean.”
Oikawa pouts at him. “Would it kill you to look a little shocked, Watacchi? It’s bad for your health to act so mature.”
“Buy me a drink, then.”
Oikawa gasps, delighted. “Rule-breaker! Criminal! Felon!” He pets at Watari’s fuzzy scalp like a cat. “Makki, our cute little vice captain is grown up after all!”
Later, Watari is out cold after two plastic mugs of chu-hi, and Hanamaki and Oikawa continue their talk out on the veranda in their apartment. It’s only a two-by-four slab of concrete with a metal railing, but the breeze and the view make up for it. Their conversation is candid, and painful, and it could be the liquor talking, but it makes Hanamaki feel kind of safe and fuzzy.
“Hey, Oikawa,” Hanamaki says. “This is new, right? The obsessive cleaning thing?”
“Damn it, I didn’t think you could tell.” Oikawa flicks at the tab on his empty can of beer, exhaling like he’s exhausted. “I was just doing it to distract me, at first. Apparently I need a lot of distracting.”
“That’s tough.”
Oikawa points at him accusingly. “Anyway, how come you didn’t turn into a compulsive cleaner after getting all love-sick?”
“Hmm, I don’t think that’s what would happen to me. Maybe I should go get myself properly rejected and find out what kind of complex I’d develop instead.”
“Hopefully the kind that turns you into a neater roommate.”
“It’s kind of cool, though. I feel a little left behind,” Hanamaki mutters. He tilts his canned beer as far as he can without spilling it. A drop sloshes off the balcony anyway, disappearing into the darkness below. “It’s kind of like you’re growing up, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but am I happier?”
“I don’t know. I always thought high-strung personalities like yours were doomed to permanent distress.”
“Jeez, thanks.”
“You never know, though. We’re still growing. You might chill out, eventually, and I might learn to do dishes.”
“Why does your goal get to be so much easier?”
“Because I’m not as high-strung as you,” Hanamaki says, although he’s not sure that’s true. “The future is...bright?”
“Ew.”
“Fine, it’s 50/50.”
“It’s inevitable.” Oikawa borrows Makki’s beer, takes a sip. “Oh, Makki. This would have been so much easier if we could have just fallen in love with each other. Wouldn’t that make those jerks jealous?”
Hanamaki has never thought for a second that dating Oikawa would make his life anything like easy, but he feels a closeness that usually only comes out for him after a couple of drinks. He’s in his second semester of college, and he’s embarrassed to still have hang-ups about a high school crush. So it’s really yet another reason to be grateful for Oikawa.
He sighs, ruffling Oikawa’s hair again. “One could only hope.”
Hanamaki’s taken to doing his assignments in a second-floor coffee place overlooking the beach. It’s a week and a half after his birthday, February, and still close to 10°. The locals are walking around miserably in their scarves and winter coats, but Hanamaki has stuck to Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops indignantly. He wants the people around him know that he in no way considers this real winter.
He leans over his perch, a tall table overlooking the grey-blue waters, watching boats carving the waves with their bows. The clouds are pink and fluffy, like frosting on a birthday cake.
His phone buzzes. INCOMING CALL: Matsukawa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*~*~*~
Hanamaki’s not really in the mood; he was just starting to understand his statistics assignment. But Operation Distance Himself from Matsukawa is twice as difficult without Matsukawa’s cooperation. The study group at the table next to him glance at his buzzing phone. Hanamaki gives in and picks up.
“Hey.” Hanamaki curses inwardly.
“Happy Thursday,” Matsukawa says. “So remember when we made plans to see Otaru this weekend?”
“Yeah,” Hanamaki says. He sees an opening; time to kick Operation Distance Himself back into gear. “About that—”
“Well, I may have gone a little overboard this time. Check your email?”
Hanamaki refreshes the inbox on his laptop. One new message: BOARDING PASS CONFIRMATION FOR ANA4922. His heart stops.
“What is this?”
“Happy belated birthday,” Matsukawa says. “Well, it’s a gift for me, too. Did you know the midway point between our birthdays is Friday the 13th this year?”
Hanamaki fixes his eyes at a point on the reflective white dunes below, staring until they half-blind him.
“Hanamaki? You there?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m...wow.”
“You are free that weekend, right?” Matsukawa asks nervously.
“Of course,” Hanamaki says quickly. He feels himself getting weird looks from the study group again, so he lowers his voice. “Thanks. I’m...really excited. Honestly.”
“Me too.” The grin in Matsukawa’s voice, even through the phone.
Hanamaki is 60% sure it’s a bad idea as he slips the round-trip ticket beneath Oikawa’s door, hours later, after midnight.
Oikawa’s not sleeping, of course—he was just on his laptop with the covers pulled up over his head—a lesson that Hanamaki is apparently still learning, ten months into living with him. Oikawa must sleep with one eye open, always looking for an excuse to stay up another hour; Hanamaki has had to ban vacuuming after 1 am more than once.
Oikawa shuffles into the kitchen in his slippers and settles cross-legged at the table across from Hanamaki, envelope in hand. “So, what’s this for?”
Hanamaki clears his throat. “I was going to make you keep me company on the way to the airport, anyway, so I figured I should get you a gift.”
“I didn’t know you were going on a trip, Makki.”
“It’s kind of...last minute,” he admits. “Matsukawa got me a ticket to Sapporo.”
Oikawa steeples his fingers and waits. Another thing about living with Oikawa: Hanamaki’s really come to appreciate the persuasive power of silence.
“I think I’m going to say something while I’m there,” Hanamaki says. “So I thought maybe...I wanted to give you the chance to settle things with Iwaizumi. If you wanted. So we can both move on.”
Oikawa is silent for moments longer. Hanamaki freaks inwardly, until at last Oikawa smiles, leaning over his hands.
“Very thoughtful, Makki. You’re shipping me back to pseudo-suburban Miyagi while you get to fly off to fancy Sapporo? Some best friend you are.”
Their flights are cheap, early evening, leaving within an hour of the other. They skip Friday class, sleep in late, eat a pancake breakfast for lunch. The afternoon creeps up on them and take the train to Fukuoka Airport.
“You know, you never really did say what happened,” Hanamaki says quietly. “With Iwaizumi. You’re not obligated or anything, but…”
Oikawa keeps his eyes trained on the window. Hanamaki feels surprised that Oikawa’s reflection matches his perfectly calm expression, like there should be some sign of his panic in his face. He wonders if Oikawa is actually planning on talking to Iwaizumi, or if he’s just going to surprise his parents.
Finally, Oikawa speaks. “I made him go to dinner with me. Then we went to the park. We were lying down and looking at the summer constellations and I guess it all felt so romantic I got it in my head it would be a good idea to confess. He wasn’t mad at me, at least not any madder than usual, so I guess it could have been worse.”
Hanamaki notes the conspicuous lack of Iwa-chans, the hushed tone on their not-quite-empty train car. He feels a pang of sympathy along with his own fear. He knows what he has to say to Matsukawa, and he hates it. But it feels kind of adult, moving so deliberately toward something that scares him.
His intention is to say something as soon as he lands, because he’s afraid if he waits until Sunday, Matsukawa will feel taken advantage of, like Hanamaki’s convinced himself they’ve had this whole romantic weekend when it was anything but. It’s not the easy thing to do, but he thinks it’s the right thing to do, at least as right as a thing like this can be.
The airport isn’t crowded at 4:00 pm on a Friday in February. The security line and the bus to the terminal almost feel normal and fun, like when he and Oikawa first moved to Fukuoka. But eventually they reach the fork in the branching halls where they have to split up, and the reality settles over him again.
“Well, good luck,” Hanamaki says.
Oikawa groans. “This is the most ridiculously meddling thing anyone has ever done to me.”
“I would say you’re welcome, but…”
“Yeah. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
The winter light slants through the massive windows of the terminal. All around them, people pass on all sides, bumping into their oversized sports duffels with the Aoba Johsai logo embroidered along the side. They probably look like high schoolers. They were, not even a year ago.
“Oikawa,” Hanamaki asks, because he wants to know what he’s in for. “Would you mind telling me...what exactly did Iwaizumi say?”
“Don’t be an idiot.” Oikawa’s impression is pretty good. “We’ll always be friends.”
“And you’re sure that’s a rejection?”
“It was pretty clear.” Oikawa sighs. “Iwa-chan wasn’t awful to me or anything, I just couldn’t stand talking to him after that. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“It does kind of suck,” Hanamaki admits. “But I’m holding out for it to suck less. He’s my best friend.”
Oikawa grins. “Quit being so mature, Makki.”
“I’m not sure I am. I feel pretty stupid most of the time, to be honest.” He sighs. “Anyway, I wouldn’t be so sure Iwaizumi hates your guts."
Eventually Oikawa’s flight is called, and they depart for their respective gates.
Mountains ripple like waves between the puffs of clouds, and soon they’re zipping over the Sea of Japan.
Hanamaki gets the feeling his seatmate wants to sleep, so he slides the panel shut and pushes down, for the tenth time, his urge to escape. So what if he’s hurtling toward his greatest fear in a metal tube at hundreds of kilometers per hour without anything he can do to stop it? He has to keep in mind that people fall in love with their best friends all the time. What he’s doing is done every day, by thousands of people. Though probably in less dramatic fashion.
They land ninety minutes later. Hanamaki tries to convince himself that seeing Matsukawa in person for the first time in so many months won’t affect him. Matsukawa isn’t a student, so he doesn’t get breaks, and they haven’t seen each other since the evening before he and Oikawa left for Fukuoka. But they video chat constantly, so he’ll be fine.
But Matsukawa is standing there in a jacket he’s never seen before holding a piece of paper with Hanamaki’s name on it in his shitty, terrible handwriting.
Sometimes, in Fukuoka, Hanamaki likes to swim in the ocean. He likes the sensation, hours later, when he’s trying to fall asleep, of the water pulling him, strong and gentle, from the sandy bottom, keeping his head above the arcing waves.
And Hanamaki felt this way almost a year ago, beneath the overhang in the winter rain, stranded after school: life as a series of waves, sometimes rising and sometimes falling. Sometimes being pushed forward into something, by a tide, without resisting.
It’s kind of how he feels in that airport, moving toward Matsukawa.
Like, not to be dramatic, or anything.
“You hungry?” Matsukawa asks, first thing.
And okay, so he did promise himself—and Oikawa!—first thing he’d do was admit his feelings and let the fallout happen the way it was going to happen.
But god, it feels so unreal to be here, he thinks dinner couldn’t hurt.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Great. I know the perfect place.”
They eat in a izakaya in a basement in downtown Sapporo, beneath a music store and a medical clinic, surrounded by red-faced business people and at least a hundred houseplants.
Afterward Matsukawa leads him to the station to catch a train to Otaru, which is a half an hour outside of the city. The train is packed with all sorts of people, and Hanamaki wonders if this is normal for Sapporo. He thought Fukuoka was just as bustling, but here there are kids overbundled in snow pants and marshmallow jackets, young couples clinging to each other as the train bends around curves. He and Matsukawa give up their seats for a clique of fashionable grandmothers and join the couples huddled up against each other for balance.
So Hanamaki says another little prayer to whatever god of self-discipline is probably giving him the stink-eye right now. He’ll say something soon, really, but he’ll take whatever punishment there is in exchange for a little more time before things get really, really awkward.
“So, there’s another surprise, but you may have already figured it out,” Matsukawa says.
“Something big in Otaru tonight?” Hanamaki guesses.
“The Snow Light Path festival. It’s supposed to be unreal.”
Hanamaki looks at the crowded car. “It must be.”
“Yeah, well, it is the day before Valentine’s. So that explains that crowd,” Matsukawa says, eyeing the couple next to them.
“Aha. Bet tomorrow will be even busier.”
The train plows out of Sapporo, through the winter night, into a more rural stretch of Hokkaido. It rushes by slushy sections of sea, over tracks so low they practically touch the water. Eventually they pull up to Otaru Station, and it’s started to snow. It whirls down in clumps and people shuffle awkwardly across the platform, trying not to slip.
The sky feels deep here. Not as deep as Miyagi, but much closer to it than the purple and orange nights he’s gotten used to in Fukuoka. After a half kilometer moving with the crowd, they approach the festival, which is centered around a canal by the sea.
It’s crowded, sure, but the scene is muffled by snow, piled high in drifts. Matsukawa told him once, on Stranger Things, that Sapporo is the snowiest big city in the world. And Hanamaki can believe it. The drifts are hollowed out with pink and blue and green lights illuminating them from the inside, the paths lined by candle-holders carved from ice, snow sculptures shaped like animals, massive icicles hanging like curtains from every eave. In the canal, the water is so dark and silent that Hanamaki would swear it was frozen still, if not for the tea lights floating leisurely along the way.
Hanamaki can’t really find the words, but he feels calm. The calmest he’s felt all night. The way every surface glitters each time he turns his head, the way something can exist only to be beautiful, it really makes the bitter feeling in his chest seem trivial.
“This was worth it,” Matsukawa says.
“Yeah,” Hanamaki breathes.
“Come on. Let’s walk.”
They make their way toward the pier beyond the canal. Matsukawa tells him about his apprenticeship, how his cubicle is a converted broom closet and he’s gotten so addicted to the shitty office coffee he offers to do weekend work, sometimes, just so he can go in and make himself a cup.
“There has to be better coffee out there,” Hanamaki says.
“Oh, for sure. But this stuff is so awful it makes me feel alive.”
“I’m going to admit something bad,” Hanamaki says, suddenly, then he thinks, not just yet. “I bought Oikawa a ticket to Miyagi. He and Iwaizumi had a falling out, so I made him go try to fix it.”
“Holy hell, Hanamaki,” Matsukawa says, more flabbergasted than he’s ever heard him. “You know they didn’t really have a fight, don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know that.”
Matsukawa sighs. “I think you probably did the right thing. If Oikawa’s going after him, he probably doesn’t even realize what a favor he’s doing for Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi's the one who's scared right now.”
Hanamaki stops short. They’ve abandoned the crowds by now; it’s just them and the sound of the waves along the pier. “How do you know?”
“Hmm, I just got the feeling,” Matsukawa says. “Plus I’ve been talking to Iwaizumi about it for months.”
Just then, Hanamaki’s phone buzzes—a picture from Oikawa. It’s a selfie of he and Iwaizumi, outside somewhere, smushed together in-frame. They don’t look their best with the flash turned on, but Oikawa is kissing Iwaizumi’s cheek, and Iwaizumi doesn’t look even close to murderous. He shows it to Matsukawa, a slow grin spreading across his face.
Matsukawa runs a hand through his hair. “Oh, thank god.”
“Who would have thought?”
“We should have thought. Doesn’t it make so much sense, in retrospect?”
“Yeah,” Hanamaki agrees, and he’s so happy for his friends that he doesn’t even care how nervous he feels anymore. “It really does. Wow.”
“Wow,” Matsukawa repeats.
They’re grinning at each other again, Hanamaki realizes.
“It makes a lot of sense,” Hanamaki repeats, and he knows his voice is shaking.
“It does! Man, this is so distracting.” Matsukawa throws his hands up in the air. “And here I was, trying so hard to be obvious.”
“Obvious?”
Matsukawa takes a step toward Hanamaki. Hanamaki instinctively steps back; he’s ecstatic for Oikawa and Iwaizumi and it’s snowing and he’s standing there wishing he had a scarf in a port town thirty minutes outside of Sapporo, but it’s too much, he decides suddenly, to let a night like this end badly.
But Matsukawa’s not waiting around for Hanamaki to ruminate any further. He closes the distance between them in another two steps. “So, I really, really hope this doesn’t seem out of nowhere, but I’ve been thinking.”
Looking up in Matsukawa’s face, Hanamaki remembers being pressed against a chain link fence in early spring, the feeling of a revelation. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking too.”
“Probably not the same thing as me.”
“No, we are.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Matsukawa insists with an edge of exasperation.
“Shut up, I would be.” And Hanamaki musters every ounce of courage in his heart and his bones and he leans up and places his lips somewhere on Matsukawa’s face. Then he says, “Shit.”
“Shit,” Matsukawa repeats. His shoulders have gone stiff, and he’s touching his face with his frozen, purpling fingers.
“Okay,” Matsukawa says slowly, after a moment. “You’re right. We are thinking the same thing.”
Hanamaki kisses him again, smiling too wide for it to be any good, so he lets Matsukawa crumple on him, his grin uncomfortable and ticklish against his ear. Hanamaki snakes his freezing hands into the pockets of Matsukawa’s coat as Matsukawa mumbles, “I am so glad I blew a whole paycheck and a half on you.”
“Yeah, I’m not so glad I blew ten months of college with the attention span of a love-sick middle schooler. You should have seen my grades.”
Matsukawa looks taken aback, an expression Hanamaki remembers seeing for the first time when they played Shiratorizawa and lost the first set 15-25. “Dude,” Matsukawa says.
“Babe,” Hanamaki replies, and they burst out laughing, hiding their faces in each other’s shoulders.
Hanamaki groans, embarrassed. “Man, I was sure I was only coming here to get rejected.” He pulls his hands from Matsukawa’s pockets and replaces them under his scarf. Matsukawa slides his fingers under Hanamaki’s collar in revenge.
“This kind of rocks,” Matsukawa says.
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“You know I’ve had a good feeling about you since the day we met?”
Hanamaki wrinkles his nose. “Let’s not be one of those embarrassing couples.”
“Come on, how embarrassing do you bet Oikawa and Iwaizumi are being right now?”
“Fair,” Hanamaki says, and he slots one of his hands with Matsukawa’s. It feels natural, and correct, like the straightening of furniture, a step in the right direction.
The snow continues to fall, glinting in the light, vanishing into the sea. Hanamaki finds it hard to believe that there could be nights like this, ones that exist for the sake of being only good. He has a feeling he’ll doubt his luck all over again in the morning.
But then again, maybe it’s not so hard to believe: He fell in love with his best friend, and that friend loved him back. Surely stranger things have happened.