Chapter 8

HAVING LIVED ON THIS EARTH for thirty years now, I’d certainly known this feeling before—this immense guilt that just kept eating away at me like a burning pain in my lower abdomen. So I knew that no one was going to rescue me from it but myself, and that sooner or later, I’d have to find the strength to pull myself out of this pit of self-loathing and regret and stand on my own two feet again.

I spent the New Year at my parents’ house, where I made sure to take it easy. Since this would probably be the last year my fiancé and I got to spend the holidays alone with our respective families, we’d mutually agreed to spend it separately. I also didn’t go to the little New Year’s shindig Mai threw together, partly out of respect for Karin’s concern that I wasn’t ready to see Hibiki in person again just yet. Though, despite my attempts to keep it a pretty low-key New Year, I still stressed myself out about things pretty bad.

After taking about half a month to recover, before deciding there was no way I’d let this operation end on such a sour note and gearing myself up to get back out on the battlefield, I got a call from Mai that came as a very pleasant surprise.

She asked if I could clear a day in my schedule sometime in January or February for a little birthday celebration. Since my partner and I were planning to visit our respective parents to announce our engagement in February, I figured January was probably the way to go. After giving her a few potential candidates, we ultimately settled on the last Saturday of the month. We’d already been talking about doing a little girls’ outing with Kao to make up for me missing New Year’s, so I figured maybe she was planning for the three of us to go to Disneyland or something basic like that—but leave it to Mai to completely and effortlessly subvert my expectations.

“We’re gonna do a little downtown orienteering event, with me as your guide! We’ll make our way around the city on foot, taking little pit stops at a variety of different stores, where your friends will be on standby, waiting for you to help them pick the perfect birthday present for you!”

You could tell she was very proud of this idea; I could almost hear her smug expression over the phone.

“Wait, they’re gonna buy me stuff from a bunch of different stores?” I asked. “What did I do to deserve such special treatment this year?!”

“Well, you’re the youngest, and you only turn thirty once!” said Mai. “Also, everyone who went on the road trip last year is participating, so if you forgot to get any of them a present for their last birthday, it’ll be the perfect chance for you to make up for that and buy them something nice in return!”

“Yeah, good idea. Pretty sure I only got gifts for you and Hibiki last year.”

Mai’s birthday was in October, so I’d gotten her a fancy tomato juice gift basket that came very highly reviewed—partly as a birthday present, and partly as a thank-you gift for her hard work in planning the road trip. Hibiki’s birthday was in May, and for years now Karin and I had both been getting him bottles of Suntory’s Hibiki whiskey every year as a running joke. One might ask why I hadn’t gotten anything for Karin, but we just operated on a different cadence: We didn’t get each other presents every single year. Getting Hibiki a present each year had just happened to become a tradition. Now that we’d all be over the age of thirty as of this year, just imagining what kinds of presents we might get for one another was a pretty fun thought experiment for me. Because while we were a collective friend group, human relationships were fundamentally one-on-one—and gifts were a pretty good litmus test for measuring that rapport.

Of course, my mind immediately jumped to the most obvious concern. Would I be ready to see Hibiki again by then? For the first time in about a month? After that mortifying night when I got so drunk I completely lost it and tried to kiss him and collapsed onto him like a rag doll and started bawling my eyes out?

To be clear, I fully recognize what I did was an absolutely shitty thing to do to a friend! I mean, if our genders were reversed, I could have probably been arrested for that—or, no! I probably still could have been, even as a woman! I had to give my thanks to the alcohol that night for stopping me before I did something I could truly never take back—especially to a friend who’d always been so patient with me and tolerant of my drunken behavior.

We’d sort of made an unwritten agreement to give each other some space after that and hadn’t been in contact much.

“Last thing I wanna mention, although this should probably go without saying, is that I don’t want you to go asking around to the others for more details!” said Mai. “I want it to be a surprise on the day of! And oh yeah—you can expect a very special present from yours truly!”

Following her instructions, I put the whole thing out of my mind for the rest of the month and just tried to focus on devoting myself to my work and personal life. There was one night when Karin and I hopped on a call and had a brief meeting on the future of Operation Heartbreak while playing games together, but we didn’t come up with an actual plan of action or anything.

The biggest problem we were facing right now was that, even in a one-on-one scenario, like at the hotel on the road trip or after our special dinner date, it seemed no amount of assertiveness on my part could convince Hibiki to spill the beans.

It would be so much easier if I could just write this off as all one big misunderstanding on my part, and assume that maybe he really did think of me as nothing more than a friend, but alas, I was fully convinced to the contrary. I had no choice but to try and pull myself up by my bootstraps and jump back in the ring. But what was there even left for me to try at this point? Would I have to lie to him and say I just found out I only have six months left to live or something? That was a bridge too far for me from an ethical standpoint—not that I thought my behavior on Christmas was any more excusable, mind you.

In any event, despite some remaining misgivings, I was able to wake up on the day of Mai’s little birthday event (a few days after my actual birthday) feeling mostly excited to see what she had planned. And I mean, who could complain about having all their friends make time to celebrate for a whole day? It would be an insult to their kindness for me to go into things with a pessimistic mindset.

I was supposed to meet up with Mai at eleven. After eating a light breakfast, I did my makeup and picked out a nice midwinter outfit. Since we were going downtown, I figured I shouldn’t go too casual, so I picked out one of my nice coats—not leather—and a small shoulder bag that matched.

It was a pretty nice day, and not too windy: perfect weather for going out on the town with friends.

Upon arriving in front of the department store we’d agreed to meet up at, my guide came out to greet me in an all-black outfit, complete with a blazer, a skirt, and a classy wide-brimmed hat that hung like a lampshade over her usual smug expression.

“Welcome, Chizuru-sama…” greeted Mai. “And thank you for your participation in this special birthday extravaganza, designed from the ground up just for you! My name is Hyodo Mai, and I’ll be your host and guide for the day’s events.”

“Well, look at you,” I said. “The pleasure’s all mine, ma’am.”

“Now then,” she continued, “shall we head to our first destination?”

Despite having a smartphone that no doubt possessed all the same functionality, Mai pulled out a thick Western-style memo book and flipped it open. I assumed this was mostly just for show, because she loved getting into character like this. I knew better than to ask her what store we’d be going to first, or which friend would be there, as I assumed that was all part of the surprise. And I had full faith she’d picked each combination deliberately for maximum impact.

“Once you’ve been to two stores, we’ll break for lunch,” she said. “I’m going to disappear for a bit while you go shopping with each person, but rest assured I’ll be there to eat lunch together with you.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t stick around for the shopping part too,” I said.

“No, no—I couldn’t. Everyone’s looking forward to having their own little one-on-one shopping date with you, and so am I.”

Even if this was just lip service for my birthday, I couldn’t wait to see what she had in store—though I couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous too. Obviously, this was all Mai’s idea, but Hibiki had apparently also signed up to participate. I wondered what was going through his head right about now.

All I could do was hope he wasn’t the first person on the agenda, so that I’d have a bit more time to brace myself for battle before having to face him. I wasn’t sure if Mai had foreseen this somehow and planned a first stop to allay my anxieties. After walking through downtown for about five minutes and arriving at my destination, an outlet store for a famous chocolatier, I was relieved to see a familiar, bearded face waiting for me out front.

“Morning, Karin,” I said. “Fancy seeing you at a place like this.”

I let out a sigh of contentment. Karin was the perfect companion for a laid-back start to the day. Not that I would have minded Kao or Taiga-san either, mind you, but I definitely had a different rapport with each of them than I did with him.

“Apparently, I got stationed here as the group’s resident sweet tooth,” he said with a shrug.

“Ah.” I nodded. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“Okay, you two enjoy now! See you in a bit!” Mai said, a little too fluidly for her to not have rehearsed it in advance. She turned on her heel and disappeared around the corner of the intersection. I almost wanted to give her a little round of applause at this theatrical exit; I could totally see a mysterious wizard in some kitschy occult B-movie disappearing in the exact same way.

I’d decided in advance not to let Operation Heartbreak bleed into today’s events—which was actually Karin’s idea, to be fair. He’d sent me a LINE message last night saying I should just focus on enjoying myself out of respect for the effort Mai put in, and that we could resume the operation sometime later. I didn’t want to step all over my friends’ kindness either, and so I looked at him and forced the biggest smile I could muster—though maybe it was a bit too overexaggerated, judging from the grin he flashed in return—and we set the elephant in the room aside for a day and stepped into a realm of yummy treats.

I was a pretty big fan of chocolate. Back in college, I’d told Mai repeatedly that as soon as she got hired at a major candy company, she’d better send me samples of all the new treats they had in R&D before they came out.

The chocolate, combined with the fact it was Karin waiting for me here, made me feel a lot more pumped to get this shopping spree started all of a sudden.

The moment we walked in the door, a deeply decadent scent filled my nose, to the point where I wondered for a moment if I’d wandered into a magical candy house straight out of a fairy tale. The smell was so blissfully sweet that it was almost too overstimulating for my brain to handle. It was definitely the right call to start the day off by coming here. Not that I would have expected anything less from Mai; that woman was so perceptive, it almost felt like she could peek straight into my mind and see exactly how I ticked.

“Oh, man… I feel like I’m gonna get a cavity from the smell alone,” I said. “And I mean that in a good way.”

“If you were writing a review of this place, I guarantee your editor would force you to change that line regardless,” replied Karin.

“Gosh, I haven’t been to a fancy chocolate shop like this in so long…”

I wondered what the store staff thought our relationship was as we whispered to each other like this. One of the clerk ladies came over and told us to please just let her know if we had any questions or needed help, which we didn’t at that point in time.

“You don’t buy chocolate for Valentine’s Day anymore?” asked Karin.

“Nah, I stopped doing performative chocolate giving when I was twenty-five,” I answered. “And I always make it by hand for my significant others.”

“That does sound like something you’d do.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s probably not the most fancy chocolate in the world, but it’s light and crisp and made with plenty of love.”

“Hey, that’s the best kind of chocolate, if you ask me.”

After our small talk died down a bit, I presented Karin with a proposal that I would buy him and his wife a set of chocolates as a thank-you gift for letting Hibiki and I impersonate them for our Christmas dinner date. And for all of Karin’s other help throughout the operation, of course.

“Yeah, I’m sure my wife would love that,” he said.

Honestly, I didn’t know her too well. The last time I’d seen her was on their wedding day. But her bright, warmhearted smile still stuck out quite vividly in my memory. And while I don’t want to keep repeating myself, I hoped she could rest assured that, if Karin didn’t treasure her like she deserved until the day she died, I’d murder him in his sleep.

After perusing the various sweets in the display cases for a decent while, Karin and I ultimately decided to buy the same exact box of chocolates for each other: the brand’s signature selection of sixteen hand-picked truffles. These would be shipped directly to our respective homes, but I went ahead and bought a separate little box of three for myself, which I proceeded to open the moment we walked out of the store. I gave one to Karin, and then another one to Mai—she magically appeared the moment Karin texted her to let her know we were done—and the three of us ate them together. Truly, eating high-quality truffles with your friends was the most quintessential of grown-up pleasures.

“Thanks—that was tasty,” said Mai. “Now, we should probably be heading to our next stop pretty quick here, so are there any last words you’d like to say, Karin-kun?”

Given that we were doing five different stops plus lunch, it made sense that we could only spend about thirty minutes at any individual store—but boy, did that time fly by. Though I assumed part of the reason Mai was hurrying us along was because she wanted there to be a bit of wiggle room during the second half of the day: The more we lagged behind at the start, the harder it would be to get back on schedule later.

Karin—who’d had his hands stuffed into his pockets the whole time we’d been walking around in the chocolate shop, like he thought he was too cool for school—proceeded to bid me farewell with a similarly cool-guy send-off.

“Don’t let anyone else try to tell you you’re wrong for being who you are, Chizuru. Just enjoy your special day in your own special way.”

“What is that, an elementary school motto? Am I gonna see you again after this?”

“Go on, now. Run along, kiddo.”

And with that, he turned and walked away just like Mai had earlier. I assumed he was emulating her on purpose, as I could see him chuckling just before he disappeared around the corner, so I turned to Mai and let her know one of her agents was teasing her.

As I explained to her what we’d bought at the chocolate shop, we made our way slowly down the concrete sidewalk. Our next destination was apparently fairly close. Sure enough, after just three blocks and two left turns, I saw a very familiar face standing outside a very familiar place.

“Happy birthday, Chizu-nee!” said Kao.

“Thanks!” I replied. “Honestly, I would’ve expected Mai to put Hibiki at the music-related store, but hey! No complaints here!”

“Yeah, I wanted to get some little toy instruments for the kids.”

“Oh, so today’s not even about me, then! I see how it is!”

As we both chuckled, Mai wished us a pleasant shopping experience and made herself scarce by stealing away into a nearby alley.

“I know it probably seems like she just disappeared into a magic portal,” said Kao, “but don’t worry, she’s just gonna get a li’l cup o’ joe down the street while she waits.”

“You and your inconsistent Kansai accent, I swear…” I muttered.

All cups of joe aside, I was secretly very excited to go shopping at this particular store, despite having been here in the past. Mai really did know me well.

This entire building was one huge, lavish music store, complete with a concert hall and even private classrooms for music lessons. I still remember the one time Hibiki and I came here to do some window shopping with the other members of our band back in college. The main entrance area was so grand and awe-inspiring, it felt more like a luxury hotel than a music store. Definitely a perfect choice for a special day.

“I’ll buy you whatever your little heart desires,” Kao said confidently. “What’s it gonna be, birthday girl? A new guitar?”

“Either you don’t know how much those things cost, or you’re trying to set me up to buy you something I can’t afford in return,” I said. “Let’s try to keep it relatively low-key, shall we? Also, I’ve already decided what my next guitar is going to be. It’s one I’ve ­always wanted, but could never justify as a simple hobbyist, so I kept putting it off, saying it would be my gift to myself once I finally turned thirty.”

“Hey, I don’t mind getting you an expensive gift if it’s something you’ll actually use for the rest of your life. I mean, what else are BFFs for?”

“Oh my god, I haven’t heard someone say ‘BFFs’ since junior high… Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment, but I think I’d prefer to buy that sort of big-ticket item myself.”

I was feeling a little rattled by Kao suddenly dropping “BFFs” like that without warning—so much so that I could actually feel a bit of a cold sweat beginning to form on the back of my neck. It wasn’t just that I had both positive and negative associations with the term, but also that I simply didn’t think our relationship fit even the minimum criteria for such a label by any stretch of the imagination. Was she just trying to mess with me, or did she think we were a lot closer than we actually were?

With these questions weighing on my mind, we got on the escalator and headed down into the underground portion of the building—me in front, and Kao close behind. We didn’t exchange a single word until we arrived at the next floor. The specific brand of awkward tension I generally felt when hanging out with Kao one-on-one felt about 10 percent more awkward after that last comment, and with her lingering behind me.

It felt like we were staring each other down in an old Western shoot-out, waiting on pins and needles for the other person to reach for their pistol. I assumed Kao felt the same way, at least—my impression was we both recognized our personalities weren’t the most compatible. So she probably was just teasing earlier, now that I took another moment to think about it. But I still couldn’t help feeling a bit tense regardless.

The shoot-out metaphor might sound a bit harsh to an outside observer—but it wasn’t my intent for it to come across that way. You see, it’s not that I was afraid she might shoot me—more than anything, I was afraid of messing up and shooting her by accident.

We were friends, yes. But if I was being brutally honest with myself, out of everyone in our friend group, she was the one person who I didn’t feel especially secure in my friendship with. I could totally see us being on good terms one day, then having some sort of disagreement that would make us hate each other the next. And I was relatively certain that Kao felt the exact same way about me.

But right now, we were friends. Like the nuanced scent of cinnamon, our relationship treaded a dangerous line between sweet and spicy. And yet, I considered that unpredictable essence of our relationship a sort of special bond between us in its own right, even if it was nothing like the sense of security I felt with Karin. Though obviously I’d never brought it up to confirm whether or not Kao felt the same—for all I knew, she just considered us to have a peace treaty at the moment, and I was too scared to find out.

It would take ages to explain how our relationship got to this point, but it all started back in our sophomore year, after a series of pretty intense disagreements led to some serious glare-offs and us giving each other the cold shoulder for months at a time. Now that I was older and (hopefully) more mature, I could look back on that time and see both of our opinions were valid—we just had different morals and ethics that tended to clash from time to time. But even to this day, I’d never once tried to sit down and have a mature chat about all that stuff with Kao, and all of our friends recognized that period of time was a pretty hot-button issue as well, so they never brought it up either.

“Ooh, look at that!” said Kao. “Feels like we’re at a music studio all of a sudden!”

“What, have you never been here before?” I asked. “Well, I say that—but I’ve only ever been here once myself.”

They didn’t carry the guitar I’d mentioned I was planning to purchase a moment ago—or anything by that manufacturer, for that matter. But Kao still wanted to see what my dream guitar looked like, so I did a quick web search and opened its product page.

“This is the one,” I said, showing her my phone. “It’s called a Black Falcon.”

“Ooh, I like it,” said Kao. “It feels like exactly the sort of thing a dumb, angsty teenage boy would come up with—both its name and design.”

This statement rubbed me the wrong way, as it would many guitarists, for a whole lot of reasons—the least of which being it was low-key gender exclusionary. But Kao simply added, “And I mean that as a compliment!” and moved on. Did she think she could get away with saying anything she wanted as long as she clarified she’d meant it in a positive way?

“Though the price tag sure isn’t something a teenage brat could afford, that’s for sure,” she continued. “I can see now why you could never justify it.”

“Honestly, the teenage brat in me kind of wanted to just say fuck it and buy it anyway, even though I knew it would be a horrible financial decision,” I said.

“Ah, but it’s the yearnings we let go that always shine brightest in our memories. Anyway, are there any other instruments you’d want to try that I could buy for you?”

“It amazes me how you can drop a famous-quote-tier line like that and then just move on like nothing happened… Oh, wait!”

Setting aside Kao’s tendency to devalue her own words of wisdom for a moment, her suggestion did remind me there was a type of instrument I’d been wanting to pick up for one of my band’s new songs, and ideally so that I could use it on stage as well. Plus, the price tag would probably be a lot more reasonable for a birthday gift.

“Maybe a tambourine is the way to go,” I said.

“What, as a toy for my kids?” asked Kao.

“No, for me.”

“Huh? Chizu-nee, I thought you were in a rock band, not a circus parade.”

“Hey, rock bands can totally use tambourines! Wait—I know! You could buy matching ones for your daughters too, and then we could all play them together!”

“Can I just say it’s a tiny bit creepy how hard you’re trying to bond with my kids by reducing yourself to the same mental age?”

She was trying to dissuade me, but this only made me that much more set in my decision. But since we were here, I figured I might as well take a look at what else they had for sale anyway—I wanted to make the most of our little one-on-one time, after all. As we perused the selection of instruments ranging from professional to beginner-friendly, Kao and I idly talked about what kinds of music we’d been listening to lately.

“Is that band you used to love still together, Chizu-nee?” she asked.

“Yep!” I replied. “Just had a new release the other day, actually. They still sound just as good as they always did, and their lyrics just keep getting better and better.”

“See, I don’t really care that much about lyrics, myself.”

“Yeah, you’ve always said that. I remember thinking, ‘People like that exist?!’ the first time you told me you felt that way.”

“I mean, I don’t mind if a song has lyrics, but I tend to focus more on whether the syllables sound nice together with the music rather than whether they have meaning or anything. Which is why I kind of prefer if they’re in a language I can’t understand.”

This was part of the reason she and I had never gone to see a show, or even gone to karaoke together, unless it was a group thing. And the few times we had done karaoke as a group, she only ever seemed to pick Nakajima Miyuki songs. Maybe that was her vibe.

Eventually, we took the elevator up to the floor where the percussion instruments were located. Upon asking the male store clerk there where the tambourines were, he tried to sell us on a concert-grade model that went for a few hundred dollars.

“For a tambourine?” Kao questioned, voicing the same reaction I had to its price tag.

The clerk apparently got the message and proceeded to show us an alternate model that was not made with the high-quality leather. Unfortunately, this was still a bit too fancy for something little kids were going to play with, so I promised to find a cheap, kiddie version at a different store and then send them to her another day. She also did briefly consider getting them a small keyboard to share, but I thought it would be far better if she got them each their own thing that they could both play with together.

After Kao checked out and got the tambourine gift wrapped, she handed it to me, and I gratefully accepted.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be sure to let you know when I use it in concert.”

When our hands touched as she handed it over to me, I could feel her grip loosen on it almost instantly. And I could tell it wasn’t that she didn’t want to touch me, but that she was feeling a little embarrassed. This famous artist who lived in an upper caste of humanity was, for whatever reason, too shy to take a simple thank you. I wondered why. Maybe she’d had to deal with one too many clients profusely expressing their gratitude.

Still, she seemed surprisingly reluctant to end our little date. And here I’d been expecting her to whip out her phone the literal instant we walked away from the register to summon our little wizard who was out having coffee—but she didn’t. So when we took the elevator back down to the first floor and walked outside, Mai naturally wasn’t there to greet us.

“Want me to LINE message her?” I asked, thinking that perhaps Kao had simply forgotten her phone at home or something. But then she shook her head.

“Actually,” she said, “could we talk for a bit first?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

We took about five steps away from the entrance, then turned to face each other. We were standing so close that if it weren’t for the stream of pedestrians passing us by, you would be forgiven for thinking one of us was about to ask the other out.

“Well, I just figured now’s probably the only chance I’ll get to bring this up, and I really don’t think I’d ever talk about it otherwise, so…”

“Okay, now you’re starting to freak me out a little bit,” I said.

If there was something she’d been deliberately not saying, typically that would imply that it was the sort of thing she either didn’t want to say, or knew she shouldn’t say.

“I mean, I’ve kept it bottled up this long already, after all…” she said.

Before I could even jump to any conclusions, she straightened out her posture. Then, with her arms hanging straight down at her side like a soldier, she bent her body at the waist and bowed her head to me.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you that one time,” she said. “Realized I never did apologize for that.”

The human memory truly was a fascinating thing—so complex, and yet so simple. Kao did not elaborate whatsoever on what she meant by “that one time.” And yet, the moment I heard those words, a flood of all the possible moments she could have been referring to came rushing to the surface—a flood of images, scents, and feelings that flashed one after another through my mind in rapid suggestion.

All at once, her figure began to blur in my vision.

“You can’t do this to me out of nowhere, Kao! You’re going to ruin my makeup!” I exclaimed, then lowered my head as well. “Well, I’m sorry too! I know I should’ve apologized back then, but I was too stubborn to acknowledge it!”

Even with my face turned directly parallel with the ground, for some reason, the tears didn’t drop straight down onto the concrete and still ran down my cheeks. I could feel the gazes of every passerby looking at us; we were a pretty weird sight, to be fair.

If only they knew we were finally burying the hatchet here for a fight that happened more than ten years prior. They’d probably scoff at our immaturity, no doubt.

I wasn’t sure if I could even give a more detailed explanation for what happened between us back then if I tried. No combination of words could possibly convey the vividness of each distinct memory from that time—the sharpness of the pain in my fingertips after having my hand slapped away, or the sheer depth of the bitterness in my gaze as I coldly glared at this woman I’d once called a friend.

We each thought the other’s very way of life was cowardly and pathetic—and eventually, we told each other as much. But to try to describe the conflict now, to an outside observer, it would probably just sound like a classic case of two young girls getting in a fight over something totally inconsequential. Which was why there was just no way another adult could possibly comprehend what it meant to have this weight I’d been carrying in my heart for so many years stripped away after all this time.

“I definitely thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna murder this woman’ at one point,” said Kao. “Sorry about that.”

“No, don’t be,” I said. “I had the same exact thought.”

We probably sounded like two little kids making up with each other, and yet for us, this was the sincerest of apologies. God, between Christmas and now, just how many tears am I gonna have to shed apologizing to my friends this winter? Thankfully, being a mother, Kao was far more prepared than me, and she pulled a neatly folded, luxury-brand handkerchief out of her coat pocket and placed it firmly in my palm.

“Here,” she said. “Another birthday present from me. Since I figured you might cry.”

“And you still decided to say it when you knew I have other friends to see after this?!” I protested. “But thank you. I really appreciate it.”

As I used the handkerchief to dab at the corners of my eyes, I noticed it had a very nice scent to it, like a fancy perfume. I felt a bit trashy for doing this, but I used the window glass of the store we were standing in front of like a mirror to check my makeup.

“God…” I said. “There’s a time and place for these things, Kao…”

“Just figured it was about time we did the grown-up thing, now that we’re both thirty and all,” said Kao.

“Yeah, no… I’m glad you did, but still…”

“You can thank Mai for giving me the opportunity. Trying to think if there’s anything else I should tell you… Same goes for you, Chizu-nee—since it’s your birthday, feel free to hit me with any questions or criticisms you’ve been holding back. Promise I can take ’em.”

“Who, me?”

As I continued dabbing my eyes, I gave it some thought. From the way Kao had phrased that, I got the sense that there was something she wanted me to bring up so that she could address. But unlike Hibiki, I didn’t have any other long-held secret emotions toward Mai that I’d been unable to say. The only thing related to her I could think of was…

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t tell me…”

Yeah, no—it has to be that.

Fearing that Mai might be waiting in the wings nearby, I closed the distance between me and Kao by two steps. She picked up on why I was doing this, apparently, as she leaned her head in close so that I could whisper in her ear.

“You’re not talking about the whole thing with you and Karin, are you?” I asked. “That little one-night stand you two had before his wedding?”

I’d never seen Kao make an expression quite like the one she did in the next moment. Her eyes immediately shot wide open, and she began trembling slightly before she eventually couldn’t contain herself and burst out laughing, as she clutched her stomach.

“Wow, Chizu-nee!” she said. “You’re one to talk about time and place!”

“Wait, was that not what you meant?!” I said. “Oh god, I’m sorry! It’s just a little rumor I heard, is all!”

“No, no, it’s fine. Although, I’m pretty sure you probably just sent a cold sweat running down his back, wherever he is. Poor guy—still feel pretty bad about that.”

She was practically sobbing with laughter now; as I watched her wipe the tears from her eyes, I found myself more in awe of how unapologetic she seemed than her wickedness.

“Well, if you ask me,” I said, “he’s more in the wrong for that than you are. It’s not like you had a partner you were cheating on at that point—let alone one that you were already engaged to.”

“I dunno about that,” said Kao. “But I do prefer to believe that no matter how much something feels like a mistake in retrospect, those feelings were still real in the moment. Even if the optics do look pretty bad in this case.”

“Yeah, no kidding…”

Whether they’d officially tied the knot yet was beside the point.

“Especially since now I get to tease him about it for the rest of his life,” said Kao. “That’s always fun.”

“Never mind, I take it back,” I said. “You’re totally just as guilty as he is.”

Shortly after her complicity in this crime had been exposed, Kao pulled out her cell phone and got in touch with Mai, saying she didn’t want to make her wait any longer. In spite of her occasional ruthlessness, she really was considerate of others like that, even when they weren’t around and couldn’t know we were having an extremely important discussion right now. About three minutes after she sent the message, my guide appeared from around the corner at the nearby intersection.

“What the… Mai, are you mad about something?” I asked.

“Who, me? Of course not!” she replied. “How could I be mad on such a happy day as this? Kao—do I look mad to you?”

“Not at all,” answered Kao.

Mai clapped her lightly on the shoulder, then proceeded to inform us of what the plan was from here on out.

“All right, it’s now time for our little girls-only lunch hour,” she said. “Since Kao told me in advance there was a chance you’d cry, I made sure to pick a spot where you could take some time to fix your makeup.”

“How are you so good at this?” I asked.

I appreciated this very much. Even setting Hibiki aside, I didn’t want to have to face Taiga-san and make him worry about me or wonder why I’d been crying on a day like this. Just because I was used to that sort of thing happening didn’t mean I enjoyed it.

Mai had made reservations at a nice pasta restaurant inside the department store where we’d first met up this morning. Since we still had a bit of extra time to spare, I did take her up on her thoughtful offer and stepped into the powder room to quickly touch up my makeup. When I came back out, I caught Kao and Mai whispering to each other before looking up at me with eerily artificial smiles on their faces. Perhaps they’d been discussing some surprise they had planned for me later in the day; maybe I should have taken a bit longer fixing my makeup.

Thankfully, we didn’t engage in any sappy reminiscing over the course of our lunch that might make me cry again and instead opted to talk about other things. Like how, since company health checks were way too lax, I should probably schedule a full checkup with my actual doctor now that I was thirty years old. Or what a toll giving birth took on the mother’s body. Or how anyone who thought maternity leave was just a glorified vacation should be rounded up and killed for the sake of the betterment of society. Et cetera.

Back when I was a teenager, I never would have imagined myself casually engaging in conversation about these topics over pasta, but here we were. I did still feel a bit like a fish out of water, though, as I was the only one here who had no real interest in ever having kids, so I couldn’t really be much of an active participant in these discussions. But alas, that, too, was just a part of being a grown-up.

After about an hour or so of mostly pleasant conversation, Kao said her goodbyes to me for the day, as she apparently had to go pick up the kids from their grandparents’ house later that evening. I thanked her again for her time and the lovely gift—and sure enough, she got a little bit awkward and shyly turned away, just like before.

“Here,” said Mai. “I can hold on to the tambourine for now.”

I took her up on this offer and handed her the shopping bag as we headed to our next destination. I didn’t know if she was planning to stow it away in her own little magic wizard locker or to hand it off to Karin or Hibiki at whatever café they were twiddling their thumbs at while I spent time with the others. Either way was fine with me.

I had a pretty good guess as to what the next store would be, and who would be there. When I turned out to be right about this, and I saw him standing in the corner of a building with several different storefronts inside of it, I said, “See, I knew it!” out loud.

“Happy birthday, Chizuru-san,” said Taiga-san. He was the only one in our friend group who referred to me with honorifics; perhaps the reason for this was, to borrow Hibiki’s words, because I had a “very intimidating face card.”

“Thanks, Taiga-san,” I said. “Y’know, I had a feeling you’d be stationed at a place like this, based on the sort of stuff you were talking about on the road trip.”

I pointed to the signboard nearby, which was advertising a popular outdoor brand that was renting a space in the building. Taiga-san shrugged his shoulders sheepishly.

“What can I say? Guess I’m just a little too predictable.”

“Okay, I’ll see you two later! Have fun!” said my wizard companion before vanishing into thin air for the third time now. A few moments after, Taiga-san wondered aloud if whatever magical realm she’d disappeared to was the same place she got all her crazy ideas for new and innovative candies, an idea I thought was pretty cute.

It had been eight years since Taiga-san and I spent time together one-on-one like this. And yes, I knew it was exactly eight, because I remembered exactly when the last time was: when we got lunch together at our college cafeteria right before graduation. That being said, I wasn’t uncomfortable around him by any means, and I was pretty sure he felt the same way about me.

There were times back in our college days where he and I would be the only members of our friend group in a given class together, and at least one point when we’d all gone on a camping trip together at his suggestion. When we’d been talking about that sort of thing while drinking on the road trip, and Hibiki mentioned he’d started hiking with one of his coworkers, I voiced my interest in maybe getting into hiking myself—at which point Taiga-san had said he could introduce me to some pretty good beginner hikes. This was why I’d been anticipating he would take me somewhere like this today: so I could get some outerwear or a hiking backpack. I had to admit, still having friends who were so excited to help you get into new hobbies, even at the age of thirty, was a pretty special feeling.

“I dunno if it’s just that I’m the oldest one here, or what,” said Taiga-san, “but whenever I get inspired with a great gift idea for one of you guys, I just have to go for it, no matter how expensive it might be.”

I’d met him at the age of eighteen. At the time, I’d found it pretty damn hard to be casual around someone three years my senior. I mean, hell—by the time I entered high school, he’d already graduated.

“Oh yeah? Maybe I’ll just have to pick something out that looks real fancy then, without even looking at the price…”

You’d think that maybe I just learned to loosen up around him over time, since we were in the same year at college, but that wasn’t it. I mean, maybe that could have been a part of it, but in Taiga-san’s case, it felt like a different dynamic entirely.

The best way I could think to describe it was that we, as a group, had collectively made him being older than us into a sort of inside joke. Sometimes, we’d tease him about it, and other times, he’d jokingly lord his title of “the oldest” over us, as though that were some sort of argument-winning trump card. We were all in on the joke, him included—which was why I still called him “Taiga-san,” despite us clearly considering ourselves on equal footing as friends. It wasn’t like with Mai, where we both went out of our way to pretend the age gap between us didn’t exist.

I wasn’t sure why I was overanalyzing my relationship with Taiga-san all of a sudden. Maybe it was because of that conversation I’d had with Kao earlier. Not that there was anything wrong with it, mind you—I felt like a little introspection was warranted, now that we were all over the age of thirty. Heck, I’d been doing the same thing trying to reflect on my relationship with Hibiki, albeit for entirely different reasons.

The first thing we did upon stepping into the open-concept storefront was browse through their selection of self-branded items. I had to admit, outdoor gear was kind of beyond my wheelhouse—even more so now that I was working for a company that left me with very little spare time for hobbies. Outside of that one group camping trip back in college, and a few trips to popular tourist destinations, the only memories I had of being out in “­nature” was going to a summer music festival way out in the middle of nowhere with Hibiki and the others. Which mainly only stuck out in my memory for how goddamn hot it was sitting in direct sunlight all day on a cheap blue tarp.

“I guess a windbreaker would probably be the safest choice,” I said.

“Feel like you could do a bit better than that,” said Taiga-san.

I wasn’t sure if he was saying this from a price standpoint, or in terms of it being too unadventurous, but I didn’t ask. One of the things I’d always liked best about our rapport was that we just kind of said things like this and then didn’t elaborate. There was something sort of fun about restraining yourself from making the “easy” comebacks and just moving on with the conversation like it didn’t even matter.

Come to think of it, there’d been a time back in college where we’d randomly bumped into each other downtown and gotten so excited about the coincidence that we went into a nearby convenience store, bought a couple of beers, and then chugged them right there on the street before saying goodbye and going on with our respective nights. It had been such a bizarre interaction, looking back on it—but that was exactly what made it feel so fun and spontaneous. Although it was kind of weird that all these random moments were suddenly coming back to me now. It was almost like burying the hatchet with Kao had pulled the cork from all the memories I had bottled up, and now they were all rushing to the surface and overflowing.

I took a peek at the price for a type of backpack I frequently saw people wearing around town. Call me a penny-pincher if you like, but if you asked me, it seemed way too expensive to me—regardless of whether I was buying it for myself or getting it as a gift from someone else. Meanwhile, Taiga-san was looking at a baseball glove nearby.

“You know, I wouldn’t normally agree to this,” he said, vague as ever. I tried my best to deduce what he might mean by “this.”

“What, you mean dedicating a whole day to celebrating me?” I asked.

“Heck no. Although that would be a pretty funny thing for me to say right now, as you’re trying to pick out something for me to buy you. Me just being like, ‘Wow, Chizuru. You must think you’re so much more special than the rest of us, huh?’ or whatever.”

“I know, right? Can’t believe you’d be such a dick, Taiga-san.”

We both chuckled softly at this. I’d grown to really treasure the differing senses of humor I had in each of my friendships. I loved the way Karin and Hibiki and I could bust each other’s chops until we were all cackling like idiots, and the way Kao and I made knowingly catty little digs at each other—just like I loved these more earnest, innocent chuckles I shared with Taiga-san from time to time. These moments felt all the more important to me as reminders that I was still human, now that I’d become a cog in a soulless corporate machine.

“No, I totally wanna celebrate your birthday,” he said. “I swear it’s not that. You know what, here—let me just start rambling to myself about it while you look through those T-shirts or whatever, and you can listen if you want to.”

At his suggestion, we moved over toward a table piled high with expensive, name-brand T-shirts, and I started looking through all the different cute designs. These were definitely more reasonably priced for a birthday gift—although they didn’t feel very “outdoorsy,” which was kind of the whole point.

“If I’m being totally honest,” said Taiga-san, “I think it’s pretty messed up to try to force a change of heart in someone, or make them see things your way even when they’ve explicitly stated they just don’t feel the same. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say it’s basically the height of hubris. You can’t change who someone is deep down that easily.”

“That does sound like something a hippie like you would say, yeah.” I nodded.

For a split second, I almost thought he was talking about Operation Heartbreak. But he couldn’t possibly know about that unless Karin had blabbed to him about it, and I was fairly certain he’d never do that. Plus, it wasn’t like I was trying to change Hibiki’s mind or anything—I was just trying to get him to confess his feelings to me.

“But see, if you ask me,” Taiga-san went on, “there’s a difference between that and trying to make a person realize, deep down, their feelings actually aren’t that different from the feelings of someone they really care about. In those cases, I’d say it’s less like you’re trying to change who they are, and more that you’re just trying to make them realize something about themselves they weren’t fully cognizant of before.”

“Uh… I think that makes sense?” I hesitantly agreed.

“I think our little wizard friend has another big wish she’s trying to make come true today, aside from just celebrating you, is what I’m saying.”

“A wish, huh…” I muttered as I folded up the T-shirt I’d been looking at and put it back on the shelf. I hoped Taiga-san would pick up on what I was trying to ask without me having to actually ask it.

“In this case, I don’t really know if that wish of hers actually aligns with how you really feel deep down. But the reason I’m telling you all of this in advance—albeit by rambling vaguely to myself about it—is because as someone who’s friends with you both, I’d really like it if you could both give each other’s feelings the respect they deserve. And if possible, for you to leave enough room in your heart to at least consider her perspective.”

He really was being as vague as possible, without giving me even a single shred of concrete information to go on. But my answer was already set in stone.

These were my friends, after all.

“Of course,” I said.

“Phew,” said Taiga-san. “That’s a relief to hear.”

Without exchanging a single glance across this entire exchange, we moved on to the nearby outerwear section. I knew the cold-resistant jackets cost a pretty penny, but the thinner ones were probably not too unreasonable for a gift between adults.

“Sorry I even have to say this, but could you pretend like you’re totally oblivious?” asked Taiga-san. “I really wasn’t supposed to say anything about it, like I assume the previous two didn’t, so if you wanna hold it against someone, let it be me, not her.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Not planning to tell anyone about some idle rambling I just so happened to overhear. Although if this ‘wish’ of hers is for me to run for political office or something, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to disappoint.”

Taiga-san was kind enough to give a pity chuckle to this lame joke of mine.

Then, just like we agreed, we went on to try on a variety of different jackets and compared and contrasted the different textures like nothing had even happened. In the end, I settled on having him buy me a relatively lightweight hoodie that I could wear all year round. According to the store clerk, it was both water and UV resistant. I had her set aside the one I’d picked out (in the aptly named “Mountain Blue” colorway) for me at the register while we went to pick a reciprocal birthday gift for Taiga-san.

Obviously, though, my mind was somewhere else completely.

Part of me wished Taiga-san hadn’t told me anything. Knowing Mai, she’d probably sworn him to secrecy, so for him to break that promise, it must have meant that this little “wish” of Mai’s was something he knew I’d take issue with. And no matter how hard I tried to focus on shopping to distract my mind from thinking about it, I just couldn’t stop myself from trying to figure out what in the world she could possibly be up to.

Naturally, the first thing that came to mind was her trying to set me up with Hibiki. She’d made no secret of her intentions in that regard while we were in the hot springs last year, after all. But if that were the case, I was afraid I’d have to disappoint her. Because I already had a partner—and to be honest, even if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t consider it. So if push came to shove, I might just have to be blunt with her about that.

If anything, she should be grilling Hibiki about this, not me—he was the one who’d been not-so-secretly in love with me for years and refused to say anything about it. And there’d been plenty of opportunities throughout that period when I’d been single too.

Granted, I was assuming a lot here. If this was actually about something else entirely, I had no problem hearing her out with an open mind. If she was about to propose to me that we start our own business together or something, I’d gladly talk that idea over with her; even if I couldn’t realistically jump into something like that right now, there was always the possibility we could make it happen in the future. I mean, hell, we already knew a good accountant.

On the other hand, what if she wanted to confess to me? No, no—even setting aside the issue of gender, entertaining the notion that two of my friends were secretly in love with me was so hilariously conceited—I should probably just shut up already.

Whatever Mai’s wish might be, I hoped I could grant it. Especially after she’d clearly put so much thought into planning today and had even given Kao the perfect opportunity to finally clear the air with me. Whether that was intentional on Mai’s part, or merely a byproduct, I still felt like I owed her big-time.

God, what a hilarious friend group we were, each of us planning our own little operations and roping everyone else into them.

“Okay, I think I’ll get this,” said Taiga-san. “And I promise it’s not just because I’m trying to be modest or whatever.”

After considering a variety of options, he’d ultimately settled on a simple bucket hat, which was less than a third as expensive as the jacket I’d picked out. But according to him, he already had pretty much all the outdoor gear he could ever want. I suggested we could go somewhere else to find something for him in that case, but he insisted that wasn’t necessary and headed straight for the register with the hat still on his head. It did suit a guy like him pretty well, I had to admit—what with his tanned skin and friendly face.

After checking out separately, we exchanged the gifts we’d bought for one another. Then, as I turned my gaze toward the exit to leave, I saw that my guide was already waiting for me on standby. When I told her she was giving off fantasy vibes today, both with her outfit and her way of suddenly disappearing, and that it made me wonder if perhaps she got all her new candy ideas from some magical realm, she kind of frowned.

“I know you’re just joking,” she said, “but I’m a little insulted you’d think I’d just plagiarize product ideas from somewhere else.”

“Oh,” I said. “Right, that was rude of me. Sorry.”

“So, next time you try one of our new candies, and it tastes like something from a totally different world, do me a favor and let that be our little secret, would you?”

As she held her index finger up in front of her lips, I couldn’t help but be reminded yet again that I had the best friends in the whole entire world.