Chapter 2

IT WAS THE MORNING of the day we were finally going to put Operation Heartbreak into effect, with only about five months left before we were planning to announce the wedding. And since the universe apparently had a sick sense of humor, I’d had a dream about Hibiki the night before—one in which I’d been crying my eyes out in front of him, no less. And while this was indeed something that had happened in real life on several occasions, I still found myself feeling very bitter at my brain for doing this to me.

While packing up my things after eating a simple breakfast, I finally managed to stop second-guessing myself about whether or not I should wear a leather jacket today. The whole point of this operation was to create a different enough vibe from the status quo that Hibiki might do something he’d never considered before. It stood to reason a change in my usual wardrobe might help facilitate that. Although, wait a minute—what if he associates the jacket with my identity as the girl he originally fell in love with, and ditching it would be losing out on all those nostalgia points? In the end, I decided to pack one of my lighter jackets, just to be safe.

As I scanned the room, trying to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, I suddenly felt nauseous and hurried to the bathroom. After a couple minutes of dry heaving with nothing coming up, I knew I wasn’t going to actually vomit, so I rinsed the taste of bile from the back of my throat with some mouthwash.

I felt so pathetic. I wanted to cry, just like I had in my dream last night. I wasn’t ready to go through with this at all, even after I’d come up with this whole plan and enlisted Karin’s help and everything. The mere thought of tricking my best friend into confessing to me just to knock him down made me want to puke. My fiancé had been staying here with me for some time, but I’d thankfully sent him home a couple of days ago; I wouldn’t have wanted him to see me like this. But I was even more grateful to have gotten the willies out of my system when my phone lit up a few moments later. It was a call from the last person I wanted to hear me anxious.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“Sorry, did you say you’re coming to the meetup spot by train?”

Neither Hibiki nor I bothered with a proper greeting.

“Yeah, I’ll be heading out in just a few,” I said.

“Well, I had to swing by the office real quick, so I’ll be heading there by cab. If you want, I can pick you up on the way.”

I couldn’t help but feel a bit apprehensive at this sudden unexpected development. I answered as quickly as I could to not raise any suspicion.

“Ooh, that’d be great,” I said. “You know my address?”

“How many times do you think I’ve had to call a cab for your drunk ass before?”

“Right, sorry. Stupid question.”

I told him I’d be waiting outside my building, then hung up the phone. This considerate gesture on his part made me feel sick to my stomach all over again. And I knew for a fact it had nothing to do with his hidden feelings for me either; he was literally just that good-natured.

I broke a tab off a bar of bitter dark chocolate and sucked on it to psych myself up. After grabbing my overnight bag and heading down to the main entrance of the building, I saw a black taxi pull up in almost no time at all. I waved to the hazy silhouette of the passenger in the backseat—but then they suddenly disappeared from view.

“Wait, why are you getting out?!” I asked.

“Figured you might need help with your luggage,” he said. “But it looks like you packed pretty light.”

“Well, yeah. We’re only staying one night.”

“Guess in my head I was still picturing it like one of our old band trips. Well, I’m out now, so you might as well go ahead and climb in first—seat of honor’s all yours.”

I took my friend up on his chivalrous gesture and got in the vehicle.

“Morning!” I said to the taxi driver. Then I turned to my fellow passenger. “Thanks for the lift, Hibiki.”

“No, I should be thanking you,” he replied. “Pretty sure Karin would’ve given me a ton of shit if I were the only one who showed up by cab.”

Just as I expected, he refused to accept my thanks for his kind gesture, instead turning it into a joke.

“Yeah, true,” I agreed. “He’d probably be like, ‘Wow, Sensei! Look at you, rolling up to the event in style!’ or something.”

Ever since Hibiki had started working as a certified public accountant for a major auditing firm, the rest of us took every opportunity we could to tease him for it, calling him “Sensei” or “Officer” or “Mr. Moneybags” or what have you.

“Must’ve built up some good karma,” Hibiki mumbled after a brief pause once the car set off down the road. I was already feeling pretty on edge, so this cryptically vague comment made me do a double take.

“Sorry? Where’d that come from?”

“The fact that all six of us friends from college can still get together like this for an overnight trip… I feel like you can’t just chalk that up to good timing, or our schedules happening to line up or whatever. Feels more like fate or karma, y’know? Like all our hard work is finally paying off, in a way.”

“Oh, I getcha… Well, I’d say it’s thanks to Mai’s hard work, more than anything.”

“Fair.”

Mai had been a friend of ours since college as well, and was the first unwitting collaborator Karin had roped in to our plan. While we’d originally presented this group vacation as Karin’s idea, it was Mai who’d actually drawn up the schedule and made the reservations. It pained me greatly to involve her in this, knowing full well she’d volunteer to handle those kinds of things, because we hadn’t clued her in on the real purpose for this trip. Though when I called to thank her profusely for it, she sounded genuinely ecstatic for the chance to bust out her itinerary-planning chops, which did help ease my guilt a bit. Having such a powerful coordinator on our side for Operation Heartbreak would definitely be an advantage.

“Come to think of it,” said Hibiki, turning to face me, “I’m a little surprised. No leather jacket today?”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’m wearing one in spirit.”

“Wow, listen to you. Talk about a badass mindset.”

His sardonic smirk matched his sense of humor well. And yet, despite his sarcasm, his jokes were never all that mean-spirited. It always felt like he was laughing with you, not at you, something Karin claimed had a lot to do with his (relative) popularity with women. Me, I’d always thought it was just his above-average facial features and center-parted hairstyle, which happened to be in vogue right now.

I sent Karin a quick update, just to say Hibiki had picked me up by taxi and that we were headed to the meetup spot. He almost immediately responded with “Roger.” He knew Hibiki’s office was only two stations from my place, so I figured he was smart enough to guess what had happened without me spelling it out. Incidentally, my own workplace was three stations from Hibiki’s apartment—that was purely coincidence, but my place being close to his work was because I thought it might be nice to live somewhere with friends nearby. I was sure Karin would probably yell at me if I admitted that to him now.

“Hey, not like you’ve ever updated your wardrobe either,” I said.

“What, since college?” questioned Hibiki. “Sure I have. I wear way nicer brands nowadays.”

“Riiight… Whatever you say, Sensei.”

I casually rubbed the elbow of the jacket he was wearing. I had to admit, it did feel high quality, in terms of texture and thickness.

About twenty minutes later, my teasing came back to bite me in an unintended way: He paid the cab fare in full, because “I’m the sensei here, after all.” I knew he was the type who wouldn’t let me pay my half no matter how much I protested. I let it slide on the condition that he let me pay next time—though I was pretty sure I already had several outstanding debts to him like this.

When we got out of the cab, I felt a far more drastic change in temperature than when I’d first stepped out of the house. We walked into the parking lot, waving at the large minivan parked in its center and the man leaning against the side of it. Karin lifted his free hand to wave back, then took a swig of the canned coffee occupying his other. We approached the car and were about to exchange the expected morning greetings, when the van’s door suddenly slid open and a fourth person popped their head out from the back seat.

“Morning, Chizuru!” greeted the disembodied head. “Morning, Hibiki-kun!”

“Hey, Mai!” I replied. “Thanks so much again for all your help today.”

“Why is it you always have that smug, triumphant grin plastered across your face whenever you enter the scene?” Hibiki quipped.

“What can I say?” Mai said smugly, pushing her yellow-framed glasses up with her middle finger. “Just part of being a presenter. Kinda comes with the territory.”

“You chose quite the meetup spot too, I have to say. I’m getting chills already.”

“I know, pretty romantic, right? You can admit it, it’s okay.”

Hey, romantic is perfect for our purposes, I thought to myself, nodding firmly in agreement.

We were standing in a paid parking lot on the very college campus we all used to call home—though that was more than seven years ago at this point. Since we didn’t want to force someone to wake up early to drive around picking up everyone else, Mai had suggested we meet up here, on our old turf. As our group’s primary organizer since back in the day, her talents weren’t limited to simply making reservations and drafting itineraries—she even incorporated details like this meetup point, just for the sake of giving us all a little extra hit of nostalgia.

By day, she worked in the product planning department for a major sweets manufacturer. I remembered, back when she first applied for that job, thinking that any treat she came up with would probably give you a full-on emotional journey with every bite—though, as her friend, I was probably a little biased.

Incidentally, the reason Hibiki referred to her as “Mai-san” was because they went to the same high school, where she’d been his senpai, one year his senior.

After Karin and I exchanged a typically candid greeting, we threw our luggage in the trunk and started thinking about seating arrangements. During our planning sessions, Karin and I had decided not to do anything that might seem too forced, in terms of me being obviously and deliberately too close or too distant from Hibiki.

I gave the most natural excuse I could think of: “Well, why don’t Hibiki and I sit in the back seat, so nobody has to move to let the others in later?”

Hibiki was on board with this idea, and so we slid forward the empty seat in the middle row to climb into the back. Apparently, the van Karin had rented could be converted into a four-row vehicle, so there was still plenty of room for luggage behind us.

“Dang, I can’t even backseat drive from back here,” Hibiki joked beside me.

“Yeah—no changing seats on the way back either,” Karin said from the driver’s seat, laughing despite his ulterior motives.

I’d always felt like there was something about sitting in the back seat of a car or bus with someone that felt strangely intimate. The van wasn’t even full yet, and already it felt like Hibiki and I were in our own little private world apart from the other two. Hopefully, Hibiki felt the same way and was pleased as punch to be alone in the back seat with his crush.

Not that he and I hadn’t been alone together in plenty of arguably intimate scenarios in the past. But now that there was a degree of intentionality behind it on my part, I could feel myself beginning to get carsick before we’d even started moving. This was despite Karin and I agreeing in advance that it was best to forget about the plan, and to just try my best to interact with Hibiki like I normally would.

Luckily, that nauseated feeling was quickly sent flying out the window, thanks to Mai chiming in with a rather unexpected comment.

“You two just can’t get enough of each other, can you?”

Where the hell did that come from?! It caught me so off guard that I breathed in way more than I needed to and nearly hacked up a lung. Karin was no longer in the driver’s seat to offer his reaction—he was likely off throwing away his empty can.

Hey, Mai-tan—is that really the sort of thing you should say to two friends you haven’t seen in ages? I shot her an interrogative glance. “Mai-tan” was, incidentally, a pet name one of her college boyfriends had called her, which the rest of us had later adopted to tease her.

My seatmate instantly picked up on my bewilderment, and his lips stretched into his usual smirk as he leaned with his elbow on the windowsill. I felt so seen—as if he’d already sussed out how this whole trip was a pretext to make him confess to me so I could turn him down. And for the umpteenth time, I felt aghast at how horrible I was for actually going through with this.

“More like I can’t get away from her,” said Hibiki. “You should’ve heard the way she was pleading with me over the phone the other night when she got drunk out of her mind. This girl literally still thinks my place is some free internet café for her to crash at.”

“Chizuru!” said Mai, turning to look back at me in shock. “How have you not grown out of this?! That’s college student behavior, for crying out loud!”

I frantically shook my head, but this was purely a guilt-driven reflex. It was true I’d called him up for a favor the other night—and also true that I’d been crashing at his place ever since we were in college.

Hibiki cracked a wry smirk.

“College?” he said. “Try grade school. She barges in the door and starts barking demands at me like a needy little kid. ‘Bring me water! I wanna play a game!’ And when I tell her, ‘Keep your voice down, it’s the middle of the night,’ she just breaks down and starts bawling until I go get her a glass of water. And by the time I get back from the kitchen, she’s thrown her jacket on the floor and passed out on the sofa.”

“Wait, that happened?!” I exclaimed.

Mai gave me a disapproving look, clearly at a loss for words.

I genuinely had no memory of this. In my recollection, all I’d done was ask if I could lie down on the couch for a bit, because I was feeling a little tipsy, and then thanked him for letting me stay there when I left the next morning.

“I don’t remember that at all,” I said. “You sure you’re not embellishing a bit?”

“I should install a security camera in my living room so I can get it on tape next time,” he said teasingly, then turned to look at Mai for agreement. “I’ll be sure to send you a copy if it happens again, Mai-san.”

“Okay, if that happened, I’m really sorry,” I apologized. “That wasn’t cool of me.”

“Consider yourself lucky, Chizuru,” said Mai. “Imagine if he had a girlfriend stop by that night. You would’ve been a dead woman.”

“Well, right now, that wouldn’t be an issue,” said Hibiki, casting a glance at me. “But she’s right that you lucked out in that regard.”

Just what did this little punk think he was saying? Teasing me like this, as if I didn’t know exactly why he hadn’t been dating recently?

“Psh. Like I’d ever lose in a cat fight,” I said dismissively. “But again, I’m really sorry.”

And yet, I knew he was just peacocking here. He’d happily let me do the exact same thing to him all over again. Alas, if only that tolerance could stem from being in love with me, this operation would be all too easy—but no, he was this kind to everybody. One could even say I must be pretty special to make someone so good-natured fall for me! …But that was neither here nor there. Point being, I was fairly certain that if Mai or Karin were to get drunk and miss the last train, Hibiki would happily let them crash at his place too—though I didn’t think either of them would end up in that scenario to begin with.

Still, despite him treating all his friends equally, I knew Hibiki saw me in a different, more special light. I could smell it on him—almost like a sharp, pear-scented cologne he wore now that he’d never worn back then. The profound gap between the way he presented himself as “just a chilled-out, snarky friend” compared to the truth of the matter made me feel weirdly uncomfortable, like I had a bit of dust in my eye I just couldn’t rub out no matter how hard I tried.

Eventually, Karin returned to the vehicle, clearly oblivious that I’d been fighting for my life here while he’d been gone. Apparently, the two remaining members of our party had gotten confused and gone to a different parking lot, so he’d left to collect them. After everyone got in the car and we’d all basked in our little group reunion for a moment, we buckled our seat belts and Karin put the car in drive.

The moment I leaned back and settled into my seat, I had the sudden realization that this might very well be the last trip I ever went on with friends. This, combined with the nostalgic campus scenery passing by the window, was almost enough to make me cry.

After leaving the college behind, we got on the highway at the nearest interchange. We spent the first long leg of the drive just talking among ourselves—about how long it had been since we’d all seen each other and what we’d been up to lately. By the time we pulled over for lunch at a rest stop, we still hadn’t run out of things to talk about even for a second. It had been Mai, of course, who’d decided where to stop for lunch. Since we’d be having a fancy, traditional, multi-course Japanese dinner at our hotel, it seemed like the right call to save our appetites with a small, cheap lunch.

After securing a table in the crowded food court, we all took turns getting up to go buy whatever it was we felt like eating. I picked out a set meal with fish dumpling soup and a rice ball. Hibiki, who sat across from me, got a ginger fried pork plate. This seating arrangement was not intentional, for the record, and happened purely by chance. Hibiki didn’t seem to think anything of it either.

After the six of us had taken our seats, we clapped our hands together in unison and dug in. Between bites, we excitedly resumed our conversation from the car.

“The girls are so obsessed with their dad right now, I swear. They probably don’t even miss me—I promise you, they’re too busy watching YouTube videos.”

Kao’s eyes creased with a strange brand of parental affection as she took a bite of her big, unhealthy cheeseburger—something she claimed she only bought because she hardly ever got to eat junk food when the kids were around. She’d moved away from Tokyo after college and was currently working as a professional illustrator while raising two daughters. Her work was selling like crazy right now too—this was the first time I’d seen her in person in over two years. Though it didn’t feel like that long, to be fair, since we still had online drinking parties from time to time.

“Y’know, I was all but certain you would’ve popped out a little boy of your own by now, Chizu-nee,” she said. This was a nickname she’d given me back in college. Being called that by a mother of two who’d accumulated way more life experience than me was definitely enough to make me feel embarrassed. Especially when I was still spending my time devising childish schemes like the one Karin and I were attempting right now.

“Well, I don’t have a husband, for one,” I said. “Also, why a boy, specifically?”

“I dunno—I can just picture you dressing him up in a little leather jacket, y’know? …Wait. You’re not wearing a leather jacket today?!”

“Heh-heh… I’m wearing one in spirit, don’t worry.”

“Dang, I associate that style with you so hard, it’s like I didn’t even notice until now. Like my brain just superimposed one onto you of its own volition.”

Everyone nodded at this casual, offhand remark from Kao as she reached for another french fry. She’d always been effortlessly eloquent—great with words, ever since we were in college. Her appraisal of my predilection for leather jackets was far more flattering to me than a certain bearded gentleman’s. I cast a sidelong glance at Karin, sitting diagonally across the table from me, and he just sort of shrugged. Yeah, that’s what I thought, buddy. Thanks for driving today.

“You really do all seem so much more grown-up now, though—looks included.”

This comment came from the third and final male member of our party—the lovable, merry, suntanned fellow we called Taiga-san. Most people in our graduating class referred to him with honorifics, myself included, because he was three years our senior. He’d been attending another college but dropped out partway through to switch majors and start over at our school. As such, he always had a bit of that “older kid who’s been held back a few grades” reputation among our friend group, though perhaps that was a slightly rude way of putting it. Maybe “nonconformist trailblazer” was a bit more apt—he was working at a tech startup right now, after all.

“Oh, yeah,” said Hibiki. “You weren’t here earlier when we were discussing Chizuru’s childish temper tantrum the other night.”

“Hibiki, cut it out,” I demanded, immediately flustered. “I told you, I don’t remember that.”

Unfortunately, there was pretty much nothing I could say to stop him at this point. Now that he’d aired my dirty laundry once more to the latecomers, I was hit by a second wave of (mostly deserved) laughter and condemnation from Kao and Taiga-san for my outrageously irreverent behavior.

“You sure you two aren’t secretly living together?” asked Taiga-san.

“Hell no, thank god,” said Hibiki.

Hearing this abject denial, Kao glanced over and shot me a meaningful look.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “I see…”

It seemed she had more to say, but she swallowed her words along with another big bite of her cheeseburger. Something told me I was going to be ruthlessly teased about this little episode later by the other girls. Karin, too, shot me a blatantly judgmental look, but I quickly averted my gaze.

There was no room for me to argue. I knew I was the one in the wrong. And yet, despite my current intentions with this operation, I couldn’t help but feel like, as my friend, it was a pretty dickish thing for Hibiki to keep embarrassing me in front of everyone like this. I went ahead and gave him a little kick in the toes under the table. I figured I had every right—and besides, his fancy-pants boots would surely protect him. He gave me a nonchalant look and flashed his usual grin.

Once we were all done eating, we took a little while to explore the rest stop, with everyone taking the opportunity to use the bathroom, have a smoke break, or peruse the junk food aisle for something we could snack on later. I wasn’t a smoker myself, so after a quick trip to the ladies’ room, I spent the rest of the time just wandering around the building. Eventually, I found Hibiki loitering in the bakery section.

“You gonna get a melon bun?” I asked.

“Nah, just lookin’ at ’em,” he said. “I know these ones are pretty famous.”

“I actually love melon buns. Think I’m a bit too full to eat a whole one, though.”

Realizing this sounded a bit unintentionally overt, and not wanting him to think I was acting any differently than usual, I decided to give up on the melon buns and was about to move on to the next section of the building. But Hibiki picked up a tray and a pair of tongs, then walked up to the counter.

“I’ll eat half, then,” he proposed.

“What? No, no—it’s fine,” I replied. “You don’t have to do that just for me. Didn’t seem like you wanted one that badly anyhow.”

“I kinda did, actually… But I didn’t wanna seem like a hypocrite, calling you childish while being the only one stuffing my face with a melon bun.”

“You are so unbelievable.”

He was about to take his tray to the register, so I grabbed him by the arm to stop him. He was lying. I knew him better than this. He probably just felt guilty about teasing me and was trying to paper over things. Although, on second thought, maybe it would be cuter and girlier for me to just let him win this one and buy it for me, rather than dig in my heels over a simple melon bun. Maybe that was in the operation’s best interest. But why should I have to be cute and girly all of a sudden when we’re supposed to just be friends?!

The voices debating inside of me could not reach a consensus.

“Well, then why don’t we just buy a whole box and share with everyone?” I suggested, fleeing into a third, more cowardly option. I grabbed a prepackaged box of five and forced him to let me buy it because he’d paid for the cab. I was glad they accepted my Suica card—and not just because I found it amusing that “suika” meant “watermelon” in Japanese, which matched the melon motif of the transaction. If I’d paid with cash, I knew Hibiki would have insisted on contributing at least half.

With the yellow-green box in hand, we regrouped with the two other girls in our party who were lined up at the Starbucks counter. They both burst out laughing when I told them what Hibiki had said in the bakery section. Eventually, the two other men came back from their smoke break, and we all returned to the car together. Everyone took the same seats as before, with Karin resuming his post as our designated driver.

I offered everyone melon buns once we hit the road, but other than Taiga-san, everyone said they were too stuffed. So, after splitting one in half and giving the other half to Hibiki, I set the mostly full box in my lap for the remainder of the journey. I really did feel a bit like a little kid with how much I loved melon buns. Not so much that I’d devour the rest of them all by myself, mind you, but god, did that first bite taste heavenly.

“By the way, Karin-chan,” I heard Kao say from the passenger seat, “I know I already told you this on LINE, but I finally got to pay a visit to your company office for the first time the other day.”

“Believe me, I’m aware,” Karin replied. “Now my coworkers won’t stop calling me ‘Karin-chan,’ so thanks a lot for that.”

“Sounds like you present yourself as quite the manly man at work, eh?”

“Just what exactly did you do while you were there, anyway? They keep coming up to ask, ‘Hey, how’s Hanao-sensei doing?’ before gushing about what a fun person you are.”

Incidentally, Kao was her real name, but the kanji for it could also be read as “Hanao.” This led to the guys giving her that as a nickname in college, and why she now used it as her professional pen name.

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary,” dismissed Kao, chuckling. “All I did was enjoy a few tasty drinks they bought for me with your company’s hard-earned money.”

“That’s standard procedure for authors and artists. You’re not special.”

The six of us had originally met through pure happenstance: We’d been put in a group together in one of our general education classes, back in the second semester of our freshman year. We’d stuck together ever since—though some of us were closer to certain members of the group than others. For example, Hibiki, Karin, and I were the three big gamers of the group, whereas Hibiki and Taiga-san had been study buddies who’d pursued the same major. There was a brief period where Mai and I both worked part time at the same Italian restaurant, and Mai and Kao both served on the college’s special events board, et cetera, et cetera.

For the most part, these connections all stemmed back to our college days, but there’d also been a few interesting overlaps between us after entering the workforce. For example, Kao and Karin now had a creator-client relationship. Apparently, as soon as Karin’s publishing firm found out he was good friends with a famous illustrator like Kao, they’d put a lot of pressure on him in hopes that he could get her to prioritize doing work for them over her other clients. I was told this had been a real headache for him, especially given what a scrupulous person Kao was: She’d never do anything that could be interpreted as favoritism.

Though, to be fair, I didn’t have much room to talk when it came to our group dynamic getting a bit messy and awkward after graduation. As I nibbled on the corner of my halved melon bun, I glanced to my side. Hibiki was busy talking to the pair in the middle seat about how his job had actually been fairly chill and laid-back recently.

In my heart of hearts, I couldn’t help but lament how things hadn’t just stayed chill and laid-back between the two of us as well, but I let that wish go unsaid—swept away down the highway behind us at sixty-five miles per hour.

We’d hit a bit of traffic not long after leaving the rest stop, so it took about another hour and a half to reach our seaside destination. Even so, we were still slightly too early to check in to our hotel. We decided to head to the beach and take in some of the local vibes in the meantime. According to Mai, we’d actually arrived much sooner than she’d anticipated—something she attributed to Karin’s “great driving skills.”

“Damn,” said Karin. “And here I was aiming to get us there exactly at check-in time. Guess I’m not getting the S-Rank on that mission.”

“You gamers, I swear…” said Kao, shaking her head.

I would have thought there wouldn’t be many people at the beach now that it was late autumn. After we parked the car and headed down to the shore, I was surprised to see several surfers out on the water. I’d always had a fairly low impression of the hobby after one freeloading surfer sleazeball tried to hit on me at my job back in college, but it seemed they were a hardier bunch than I gave them credit for.

Since we obviously hadn’t brought any surfboards or swimsuits of our own, there wasn’t really much to do here other than walk down the coast and bask in the smell of seawater. After listening to Taiga-san regale us with a story of his brief surfer bro phase while attending his first college, we all promptly headed back to the car. For perhaps the first time, I felt the distinct lameness of us being a bunch of boring adults in our thirties with no actual reason for going to the beach anymore.

After we checked in, we decided to go take a peek at a ­museum Mai had recommended. It felt so warm outside you’d think someone had left the heat on—thank goodness we came here by rental car and not via bullet train. I expressed this sentiment to Mai.

She shot back with some finger guns and said, “Right? I’m the best, aren’t I?”

Another win for our group planner. Why couldn’t Karin be this cute?

After driving up into the foothills for a little while, a modernist building appeared through the trees like a giant white box. None of us had been here before, so we were all quite mesmerized by the extremely long elevator ride, the shimmering lightshow on the ceiling, and the view of the ocean from the top.

As we walked through the exhibit floor, admiring the art on display, I left Hibiki with Taiga-san for a bit to walk over to Karin. He was examining a painting all by himself.

“Thanks for driving today, friend-o,” I said.

“…What are you doing? Go be with him, you moron,” Karin muttered at a museum-appropriate volume, after scanning the vicinity to make sure he wasn’t around.

“Wouldn’t it be more suspicious for me to be around him at all times, though? Plus, I figured it’ll be harder for us to check in with each other once we’re at the hotel.”

“Fair point. So, how’s it going so far?”

“Oh, we’ve been chumming it up all morning, don’t worry.” He turned to look at me; his furrowed brow suggested that he was not amused. “Okay, I guess I did get kinda ticked off at him when he was teasing me about that night I blacked out earlier, to be fair.”

“That’s not what I meant. But whatever, I guess—no point in changing your behavior. We don’t want him to get suspicious when we’re trying to manipulate him.”

“Hate that you worded it like that, but it’s kinda true, yeah.”

I cast a quick glance diagonally across the room to where Hibiki was standing. He and Taiga-san were discussing something or other in earnest as they pointed at different parts of the painting in front of them. A little ways away, Mai was examining a different painting while Kao was looking at her phone.

“Well, ulterior motives aside…” I said.

“Yeah?” said Karin.

“I’m really glad we were able to make this trip happen.”

“Me too. Almost makes me want to plan another group outing like this, once all this messy business is behind us.”

“Thanks for all your help, really. And for driving.”

Eventually, Kao started walking over to us, still staring down at her phone. Out of an abundance of caution, we cut off our conversation there.

“Looks like we got rain clouds on the way, Mr. Driver,” she said.

Though our conversation had been brief, Karin’s words had definitely given me a renewed sense of determination about this whole thing. It was true I needed to be resolved enough to potentially destroy my current relationship with Hibiki. But I was also 100 percent sure I wanted to build back our friendship anew after this was all over, even if it wasn’t going to be a simple walk in the park.

As we looked around the museum waiting for the rain to let up, we killed just enough time for the skies to clear.

When we arrived back at the old-fashioned, ryokan-style inn we’d booked, a woman in a kimono greeted us politely. While not the latest and greatest of hotels, it was considered quite the hidden gem for its food and hot springs, according to Mai. The atmosphere was on point, and it was blissfully free of the boisterous commotion you might expect from a more popular tourist spot—though I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell you why they had multiple tiny seesaws set up in the entryway.

After checking in, we were split up by gender and followed our designated attendants into cramped elevators as they guided us to our respective third-floor rooms. We passed right by the men’s room and around the corner to our own room. It was about the most stereotypical ryokan room one could imagine: a living area about ten tatami mats in size, and a spacious veranda sitting area facing the outside. After a quick overview of the room’s amenities, our attendant let us know we didn’t have neighbors in the room next door, so we wouldn’t have to worry too much about keeping our voices down. She asked if we had any further questions.

After a bit of thought, Kao held up two fingers—then added a third.

“Could we get two beers, and three glasses, please?” she asked.

“Of course,” said the attendant. “Any preference in terms of brand?”

“If you’ve got Yebisu, that would be great.”

The attendant confirmed her order, then bowed and left us.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” I asked.

“Honestly, I was planning to start pregaming before we even got here,” said Kao. “But I figured I’d better not, since I was sitting in the passenger seat, and all. Totally would have if I’d been sitting in the back, though.”

The beers arrived before we even had time to change into our yukatas. Mai and I joined Kao for this inaugural drink, and each of us downed a full glass as we sat across from each other at the low table. Then, almost immediately, Kao poured each of us a second.

“Um, I was planning to go take a dip in the hot springs right after this…” I said.

“Oh, come on,” chided Kao. “Splitting two beers among three people makes it basically nonalcoholic.”

I had no clue where the logic was in that, and yet at the same time, it felt like a weirdly compelling argument.

“So tell us, Chizu-nee…” she went on.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“You and Hibiki must have banged at least once, right?”

“I beg your pardon?! That is a highly inappropriate question!”

Here I was, reacting like a scandalized mother to a woman who actually had children. Where in the heck was this coming from?! Beside us, Mai was kicking her feet and laughing.

“Nah, get real,” she said. “I mean, if something had happened between them, I’m pretty sure Hibiki-kun wouldn’t still be teasing her about getting drunk and coming over to his place. He doesn’t seem like the type to kiss and tell in that regard.”

I was not enjoying this conversation one bit.

“No, I think that’s just camouflage,” said Kao, shaking her head. “I can totally see him trying to throw us off the scent like that.”

This explained the knowing glance Kao shot in my direction back at the rest stop, and the quip about us secretly living together. Poor Hibiki. Haven’t even been at the hotel for thirty minutes, and already they’re spreading nasty rumors about you. Incidentally, the box with the other melon buns had been absconded with to the men’s room.

“Of course not,” I said. “We’re just friends. Period.”

It was the truth—and yet, saying it did kind of hurt, given the situation.

“Friendship, love, desire, and action don’t always have to happen in that order,” said Kao. “Heck, in the right circumstances, you don’t even need half of ’em to do the do with somebody. And it’s not like you’re married or anything either, Chizu-nee.”

“What does that matter? You do realize people can’t just go back to being casual friends once they’ve had sex with each other, right? Also, why are we even having this conversation?! I haven’t seen you in two years, and this is your icebreaker?!”

The timing was eerie too. Had she somehow picked up on me and Karin’s scheme with her incredible perception skills? She had walked over to us right when we were talking about it at the museum, after all.

“Hey, two years is a long time,” she said. “More than long enough for something to happen between good friends.”

“I-I’m telling you, there’s nothing there.”

“Also, I disagree that it’s a friendship-ender. Doesn’t have to be.”

Kao had always loved this sort of thing, ever since we were in college—not asking about people’s sex lives, mind you, but just trying to suss out how they felt about other people and what kinds of relationships they had. Sometimes this would even help us discover things about ourselves we wouldn’t have considered otherwise. In a way, that was true here too. She was right: A friendship could bounce back from just about anything if both parties wanted it to. And that was a very, very heartening thought to me, in my current position.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “And why didn’t you bring up this little ‘theory’ of yours when we were drinking together on that call the other night?”

Granted, she now had the additional context of that embarrassing night I spent at Hibiki’s place recently, but that wasn’t outside our status quo.

“Some things you can only pick up on in person,” she said. “Watching you two together right now, I feel like there’s just a different vibe in the way you look at each other. There’s like, this aura of seduction almost.”

“He literally points and laughs at me like I’m a little kid. You call that seduction?”

This was so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh on the inside—and yet, my throat was trembling. She was way too perceptive. While I still wouldn’t call what Hibiki was doing “seduction” by any means, it was clear that she’d picked up on the same waves of warm emotion I felt emanating from Hibiki in no time flat—along with my own reservations and misgivings about what I was trying to do here.

“Chizu-nee…” she intoned. “Sometimes being able to act like kids around each other is exactly what makes sparks fly. And sometimes it’s the things that feel like mistakes at first that feel so right in the end. Anyway, let’s go hit the hot springs.”

“Oh, come on! You can’t just drop a line like that and then instantly move on!” I shouted, exasperated.

“Yeah, I would’ve given that one at least five seconds to marinate at least,” Mai agreed.

As she and I laughed at Kao’s bizarre proclivities, I couldn’t help but feel myself crack a grin at how effortlessly we fell right back into our old rapport. For four years our conversations had felt exactly like this. I still remembered the time back in our third year of college when Kao randomly said she wanted to go to Hokkaido in the dead of winter. Mai immediately started looking stuff up, and then not even five days later, the three of us were standing together in a winter wonderland. Those were good memories, for sure. I still remembered the faux-fur-lined leather jacket I’d worn on that trip.

After changing into our yukatas and putting our slippers on, we stepped out into the hallway. The window had been left open for ventilation, and the cold air blowing in chilled my ankles. When we walked past the men’s room, we didn’t hear any voices inside, so I assumed they’d already headed for the baths themselves. The only plans we’d made with them at this point was to meet up right before dinnertime.

Once we’d navigated the building’s convoluted twists and turns, we eventually arrived at a large but modest bathing area. Only one other group of guests was currently making use of it: an older woman with a young girl. Both had gotten out and left in the time it took for us to wash ourselves before getting in.

For an open-air bath, it was extremely cozy. Even sitting in a circle around the perimeter with our backs against the rocks, the tips of our toes still touched in the middle. But the clear skies overhead and the warm water up to my shoulders felt rejuvenating enough to make me not mind the snugness one bit.

“Okay, I’m just gonna be honest with you, Chizuru,” said Mai. Her expression turned serious mere moments after we all let out a collective sigh of relaxation.

“Hm? What’s up?”

“About the whole thing with you and Hibiki-kun—and I’m sorry in advance if you’ve still got a surprise announcement for us up your sleeve in that regard, but…”

A surprise announcement? Like what? That I’m planning to force Hibiki into confessing his love for me? Even a careless idiot like me would know better than to announce something like that to the whole group.

“Okay, judging from your expression, it seems like you don’t,” continued Mai. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna take that as a no, so I’ll just come right out and say it: I was honestly pretty convinced this whole trip was just an excuse to get us all together so you and Hibiki-kun could announce you just got engaged.”

This caught me so off guard, I recoiled and hit the back of my head against the rocks behind me. Thank goodness I had my hair tied up in a bun in the back to soften the blow or I might have died. But in any event: I beg your fucking pardon?!

Before giving Mai a piece of my mind, though, I scanned the vicinity.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “The men’s bath is completely disconnected from this one. I made sure to check the building layout online before we came here. Also, they sell cup ramen at the little hotel store. Can you believe that?”

That’s our trip organizer—always thinking of everything. Good to know that even if the guys don’t get enough to eat at dinner, they’ve still got options… Wait, why am I getting sidetracked here?!

“Jeez, you too, Mai?” I complained. “Where the heck are these allegations coming from?”

“Look, I’m just being honest here, all right?” she said. “Figured maybe you told Karin-kun before the rest of us, and it was his idea. But after seeing you two interact today, and hearing about that little incident at his place the other day, I can see that your relationship just isn’t stable enough yet to be thinking about marriage.”

What was with the sudden barrage these two had been hitting me with ever since we’d gotten to our room?! If this were an FPS, I’d be accusing them of friendly fire right now. Did they think anything was fair game now that it was just us girls around?!

“Our relationship is perfectly stable,” I said. “We’re friends. It’s been that way for over ten years now, and it’s not gonna change.”

“Look, I’m just saying it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that you’ve finally come to terms with how you really feel about him after all these years, all right?”

“Huh?”

Now this was just getting ridiculous. I was trying to get Hibiki to confess his feelings for me—yet Mai apparently thought it was me who had a crush on Hibiki.

“I think you’re a little off base here,” I said bluntly, trying my best to stay cool.

“What—are you saying my love radar’s malfunctioning?!” Mai asked defensively, looking genuinely taken aback. Love ­radar? That was almost as cheesy as Operation Heartbreak. Didn’t any of us know we were supposed to be in our thirties?

“All right, Mai,” I said calmly. “I’ll bite: Just what exactly about the way me and Hibiki act around each other led you to that conclusion?”

“I think Hanao-sensei put it pretty well earlier. Seeing you acting like a little brat around him definitely makes it seem like you’ve got a big ol’ crush on him.”

“You bet yer sweet bippy!” exclaimed Kao.

“That’s not even what she said,” I replied. “And Kao? Drop the fake accent. You only lived in Kansai until you were three years old, you poseur.”

But her upbringing was neither here nor there—the more important thing right now was clearing up this dangerous misunderstanding.

“Please tell me the whole group isn’t convinced I’m secretly in love with him,” I whined. “Especially not Hibiki himself. I think I’d literally die of embarrassment.”

Not to mention, it would make what I was trying to do right now even crueler.

I could feel myself starting to get dizzy, even though I’d only been bathing for about five minutes. I got up out of the water and sat on the rock I’d hit my head against.

“I don’t know about the whole group,” said Mai. “I think it’s just wishful thinking on my part, probably.”

“Wishful thinking how?!” I was getting exasperated.

“I mean, I’ve told you before that I think you two would be really great together, haven’t I? And now we hear this story about you getting drunk and barging into his place? Even taking Hibiki-kun’s good nature into account, I think it speaks volumes that he was the first person you thought to call, even when you were so plastered drunk you couldn’t remember it the next day. Sure it wasn’t just because you’ve got feelings for him?”

“Of course not! I mean, I get that it probably doesn’t sound very convincing coming from the same girl who doesn’t remember anything about that night, but I mean it!”

No—what was I even saying? It didn’t matter whether I remembered it or not; I knew exactly how I felt about him and why he would be the first person I would reach out to in that situation. But when I tried verbalizing it in my head, the words I came up with sent a chill down my spine before I could even say them. I quickly got back in the hot spring, submerging myself up to my shoulders as I laid my feet on top of theirs.

“It’s not that I have feelings for him,” I said. “It’s just that he’s the person I feel safest around, is all.”

For me, this was a simple statement of fact. And yet, thinking about it from his perspective, it must have felt pretty goddamn terrible to be treated this way by a girl he knew would probably never look his way. Thinking about it seriously like this was enough to make me feel ice cold on the inside, despite the warm bath and my flushed skin.

Again, I’m so sorry about all of this, Hibiki. Really.

“Oh my god,” said Kao, slapping herself in the forehead. “I take it all back.”

I braced myself for her to say something devastating—but not hard enough.

“I’m sorry for implying you two were just friends with benefits,” she went on. “You’re so destined for each other, the whole world might as well revolve around you two. Like, I think the universe might literally come to an end if you two never boned.”

Boom—headshot. Game over.

“Yeah, sorry, Chizuru,” apologized Mai. “I’m not as much of a hopeless romantic as Kao here is, but even I think you should at least give Hibiki-kun a chance.”

I reached for the white towel I’d hung on the nearby fence to keep dry, then covered my face with it and threw my head back in despair. This was not going according to plan.

“Uh-oh! I think we bullied Chizu-nee to death,” mused Kao.

“No, I’m alive!” I insisted. “I just don’t get why you’re so dead set on me having feelings for Hibiki, specifically! I mean, why him and not Karin?! He and I have been gaming buddies for just as long!”

“Well, he’s got a family, for one thing. He’s too much of an upstanding guy and a devoted husband to cheat, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, right. Kinda forgot about that for a second there.”

“Also, he has a weird beard now. Hard pass.”

“I was literally thinking the exact same thing when I saw it today!” exclaimed Mai. “He looked so much better without it!”

As I burst out laughing at this sudden change of topic, I could feel the towel’s fabric puff outward from around my lips—while the part covering my eyes stayed firmly adhered, dampened with tears. I’m not gonna be able to take this thing off for a while yet, am I? The towel levitated briefly once more, as I chuckled weakly at my own misfortune.