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It’s dead of the night. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of our band van. We’re supposed to be driving to the place we’re playing at in a few hours, so we can run things through one last time, but for some reason the other two are running late. Well, honestly, I’m starting to get pretty irritated, but I tap my foot on the floor of the van, trying to calm myself down (being careful not to put it on the gas pedal lest I start laying kick beats down on it). Ryo’s just texting in the seat next to me. The smoke hits my nose and I realize Ryo’s taking another drag. I scold her a bit on it. There’s a sign up in the van scrawled in permanent marker that says “smoke in the van, pay 200 yen penalty”. I bury my hands in my pockets and sink in my jacket.

It was an average gig, it was supposed to be an average day. God I wished it was, because it wasn't. I can’t stop thinking about what happened the day before to the point that it was maddening. What even is the problem? I don't know, I'm not supposed to be this pent up over something like that. I said I wouldn’t ever again! Maybe, I… Maybe I’ve been thinking about this too much even way before this. Maybe that whole conversation just reminded me of the way I really felt. And what do I feel about Ryo? What else do I feel but undoubtedly—something? Do I even want to confirm that with myself? Such a thing shouldn’t upset me at all, and well, I’m not upset at Ryo even, it’s just…

It’s such an unnecessary thing to think about. I kick around at the van’s floor.

Ryo continues scrolling her Twitter mindlessly. Occasionally, she chuckles.

Then, at times, she looks at me. I wonder if she’s waiting for me to say something.

Well what can I do but recount the event once again—because yesterday, we were talking about my first semester at college, and she was having a smoke in my room again, by the window. I already told her to knock it off because the smell was kind of annoying to get rid of, but well, it didn't really bother me in the end, but that’s not the point. I don't even know why Ryo was at my house. I came home at 6PM, and hours before that I told her not to come by because I’d probably be out cold by then (because I usually come home insanely tired), but she made herself at home in my room again, cigarette pack in hand. She got there even before I did—I guess Big Sis doesn’t really have a reason not to let her in. I knew the cigs were a fresh buy because the brand was different from last week. It’s a pack of Seven Stars now. Though, I havent smoked myself in a while (being, it’s been 2 weeks), and I really don’t want to if I don’t have to, but the tar was so pungent in the air that I could do nothing but sigh. At least she brought her bass so we could rehearse a bit. I sat on my bed, throwing around a duck plush I had, trying to ignore the smell.

She asked me what happened during the months of that semester, if I met anyone new. I think it was a genuinely neutral question, maybe she was wondering if I met more people that could be helpful for the band, or, you know, was just generally curious. I told her whatever stories I could muster about college (because there wasn’t really much). There was the fact that I'm seemingly a magnet for people with communication issues, much like Bocchi-chan, and I had a bit of a chuckle about it, ‘cause I felt like my outgoing splendor wore off a bit after I graduated from high school. Talking to people was a tad bit more tiring now, which I found kind of weird, but you know, for some reason, I didn’t feel that surprised. Nevertheless, I never fell behind with talking to anyone, especially when I have to be the one talking first, and I’ve been keeping up with my coursework with mostly no problem. Though my notes were all scrawled on crumpled papers in my bag. I guess Ryo saw one of them on my desk, because she asked me about it and laughed because it was a far cry from my detailed and neat bulleted notes in highschool. Though she said they were still detailed, just less clean.

Ryo fake cried and said she was happy for me! Oh, what the life of a non-NEET must be like, she said, but I knew Ryo was also starting to work hard in her own weird way. She was doing support bassist work for another band, and I assume it’s so she can finally recoup the costs for the things she keeps buying, but I never really asked her about who she played for ‘cause I was so busy. Actually, I’ve been nothing but busy since we graduated highschool (and, even before I graduated highschool?) I feel like that third year of high school was the last time me and Ryo really got to goof off and do whatever the hell it was we usually did. I’m just happy she’s still with me, though. The band’s had its ups and downs, but she still wanted to be the bassist of Kessoku. She quit her last band, Hamukitas, so freely—so you know, I can’t help but wonder if she’s staying because… Well, why do I always think so badly of Ryo? It’s, you know, probably okay to be selfish in that way. And I’m sure shes also staying for her juniors, I’m sure…

“I guess you met a lot of people huh? Don’t forget about me when you're famous…” I threw the duck at her. “Ow.”

“You threw him at me. I’m sad now. Boohoo.”

“Why would I f—” I caught myself in the middle of the sentence.

“Err, well. Sorry we couldn’t be together for a while.” I coughed.

“A… really long while.”

“Tell me about it. I couldn't eat free curry before and after graduation and I’m sad. Well, at least you…”

Ryo clicked her tongue and took a drag.

“Hmm.”

I tried to look away from her in silence. For some reason talking about graduation hurt my heart a little—well, I know why. I feel like since that day we changed significantly, but that’s just what getting a little older feels like, I guess? But also, having been with Ryo for so long, it feels weird. I shouldn't be so sad over this yet I am. It’s an amazing thing that we’re still friends, even. Some people can’t have connections that last this long. Nothing should've changed, and yet, I think it was because nothing did change. Though maybe the distance also just grew further, bit by bit, but Ryo’s better than I thought. Maybe she’s trying to close that distance again by ignoring my grumpy pleas and being by my side anyway. In the end, I’m the same too. It’s ridiculous how happy I get when she’s with me.

“Hey,” Ryo began. It made me so nervous—her voice had that cadence it had when she was going to say something preposterous and selfish.

“So, you like…” She trailed off.

“You… meet anyone you like in college?” I held my tongue for a moment.

“… Like? Yeah, I told you, I have fr—”

“No, like.”

I obviously knew what she meant.

“It’s the first sem, Ryo.”

“Guess you couldn’t bag that quick? There’s plenty of reasons to love you, though, hah.”

“I can’t tell if you're making fun of me or complimenting me.”

And all I could do in the end was laugh. I shouldn't be mad she asked such a thing.

I mean, we were never—were we? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t even know what to think. I remembered now, ‘cause I didn’t realize why she paused when she talked about graduation, but after the ceremony, that was the first time I think I ever saw Ryo cry. Maybe the second—I don’t know, but it was really rare. I was sniffling like an idiot myself, so I clung onto her like a koala onto a branch, and Ryo reciprocated so strongly—it was… almost shocking. She hugs me gently, usually, and without my permission (well, I let her anyway). And when I do start being clingy with her, her touch is still gentle when she reciprocates. Never grabbing at my shirt, never hugging tight, it was a light but sure hug—because she knew I wasn’t going to break away, and she knew she didn’t want to either.

That was up on the staircase right before the rooftop, some time after the ceremony ended. I stayed behind to help with some extra things, and I almost got upset when I realized Ryo might’ve left early and gone to bed again without even talking to me, like an idiot, but then I found her sitting meekly by the stairs. Anyways, it was kind of funny I was so upset, because it's not like we would never see each other again. Actually, it is weird I felt that way, huh. Ryo’s fingers aired over my hand and they touched the back of it gently. Gradually, though, her touch turned into a tough grasp, and she buried her nose in my shoulder. I scolded her ‘cause it was gross if she got her snot all over my sweater, and she made a funny sound—yet no matter how much we both joked about it, there was an undeniable sense of grief and passing. Nobody died, nobody left, the seasons just changed and we grew up, even though that wouldn't really change anything. Ryo still thanked me from the bottom of her heart anyway. I almost wanted to smack her because she made me so sad that day. I told her she was being silly, because we were still bandmates. She said, whatever, thank you still. Ryo’s sudden gratefulness after acting like a goblin this whole time, well, I couldn’t help but cling onto her too.

And I think, that was the most intimate I’d ever been with anyone. It almost felt like the end of a first love? Which, well, was stupid. We never did anything special. I think. We were never together as two people in love. We were more so just two people consigned to the same fate, walking the same path.

Yet I’m here thinking about this. Yet she’s thinking about it, probably. I couldn't think of any other reason why she’d ask me such a thing. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she was just asking me for the hell of it.

Maybe everything and yet nothing did change that day in March. Because the next day, I saw Ryo again at Starry. She wanted to run away embarrassed but I grabbed her by the scuff. We told each other a joking and clinical “congrats”. Bocchi-chan and Kita-chan then came in later, and we played together, like we always did. Still, the world proceeded like normal.

I realized Ryo put out her cigarette—the smell of smoke gradually vanished from the van, and from my memories.

“Well, ‘least I know I’m still with you even if you’re gonna get with a girl or whatever. In the end, it’s Yamada’s world, baby.”

“I am not—” I elbowed her. She made a funny sound again. “What kind of things are you even thinking?”

“My mind is an enigma…”

Ryo moved away from the window and threw the butt out through it—I kinda felt like scolding her about it, but whatever. She sat down on the bed next to me. Her breath was awful, honestly, so pungent of tar and tobacco, yet that’s the reason I remember how close her face was to mine. Ryo, you’re acting weird again. stop it.

You know why we haven’t said a thing to each other, and I’d prefer you not do or say anything now. Not when my world’s at peace.

Yet Yamada’s fingers traced over my hand again.

In the end, I saw a flash of disappointment on her face, and she slowly left. She told me we should rehearse instead of sitting around, which was kind of surprising coming from her. I agreed quickly, and I almost wanted to kick her, because she was doing weird things at her own pace again, but I gave up. She forgot her pack on my study desk of all things, so I nudged her and stuffed it in her pocket. Though I stole a single stick and left it later, purely by accident, on the van’s dashboard.

Her face still looks the same in the van.

Her expression is completely unflinching, and she tilts her head to the side, looking out the van’s windows. Every part of Ryo’s chiseled face stands out to me in that moment, and the lingering smell of tar kept making me think of the things she said yesterday. I remembered the Yamada of two years passed, and the Yamada of yesterday, and even though she never really changed, just growing taller and becoming a dash more irresponsible, my heart ached when I thought about all the sides of her that I've seen. It’s frustrating that she’s still so beautiful, with that slightly chiseled face, those bangs that she cut herself (yet still ended up looking cool), and I thought I’d stop thinking about those things at some point. It’s not like I thought someone like her didn't deserve those kinds of feelings (there’s always people fawning over her anyway), it was more so that I didn’t want to see my best friend framed in such a way in my head. Because there really shouldn’t be anything more to it than just me and her, playing rhythm section together, and doing whatever it was we already did together.

You know, it’s like a contractual obligation. That contract started when I wanted her to play bass with me, to see the start of all my dreams with me. Weirdly enough, in an act of solidarity and friendship, I ended up consigning myself to always having to wedge a bit of distance in between ourselves. It’s probably not that big of a deal, but I hear that when two people become too close, they start to hurt each other more than they did before—isn’t it true? I’ve seen it happen and I’ve seen a friendship or two end unceremoniously before. But is it going to be that, versus a slow dissatisfaction building in my head? Err, well, maybe I’m just being silly. Me and her said anyway, in the first place, that the band is a lot more important and no amount of anything is going to compromise it ever—even if we might clash, we might grow close or we might lose sight of each other… We’ll always keep in mind the place that we constructed together. It’s scary that these feelings make me feel like I might crash the whole place along with the bond that I kept dear the most, so I swallowed them and forgot about it. Forgot isn’t the right word… it crawls back up occasionally, and sometimes I don’t deal with it swiftly, but I get strung right back into the movement of real life, so I never have too much time to mull on it. That’s for the best, I think.

A part of me thinks that she’s thinking the same things I am, but that’s way too ridiculous. She probably doesn’t really care—or, she does, but probably not so much so that it bothers her. Not to the extent that it’s bothering me anyway, and you know, maybe this is all ridiculous, maybe nothing will happen if I confess to Yamada, but that’s going to change everything, isn’t it? When I’m trying to keep everything under wraps and when I’m trying to get to the end of my goal, moving constantly, I don’t think there’s room for mistakes. Especially not when I’m already making them myself. I can barely keep up talent-wise with the rest of everyone, so I’m not going to introduce any more problems than I already have. Luckily I’ve been pulling through with managing everyone, and my college exams and enrollment went, well, smoothly enough, but still—

And my mind tumbles on endlessly. It’s pointless to worry about this. It’s pointless to even think about this ever. See, Nijika, Ryo doesn’t care, she’s just sitting next to you without a care in the world—she’s chuckling at a video of a cat trying to get out of a pillowcase. I stare at her like I’m trying to bore holes in her, but I don’t think she even notices. I hear a bunch of cats fighting over trash outside, and the occasional unmuted video from Ryo’s phone. They’re still not here.

“Where…” I tap my fingers on the driver’s seat, “are they?”

“Texted Bocchi earlier. It’s been about, hm, 40 minutes?”

“I mean, I guess they still have time until the show itself.” I chewed on my lip. “Would prefer if we could practice one more time, though.”

“I told her that. She apologized maybe 10 times in my messages and told me she was getting here soon.”

I sighed.

“What about Kita-chan?”

“Also apologized. Said she just needed to finish up on something.”

And I couldn’t keep an audible groan from getting out. Ryo, elbow on the rolled down van window, buries her chin in her hand.

“They could at least tell us why…” I try not to get mad at them for things like this. It’s pointless to do so, but sometimes it’s for reasons I can barely comprehend. Even Ryo herself is constantly tardy and missing, yet this is the one time she showed up early, way before anyone else. I tilt my head back and forth. There’s nothing I can really do unless I drive to each of them one by one, but that’d just waste even more time, because who knows where they are right now? I send Kita-chan a couple of texts, then I send Bocchi-chan one long, gentle text, because it’d be even worse to just scare her and make her more anxious than she already is. I don’t want them to get discouraged, but it’d be great when they’d at least be transparent with where they were. If they weren’t going to stop things like this from happening, because it’s already happened more than once.

I chewed on my lip a bit more, then I threw my head back on the seat. No point in anger, no point in anger. Well, I guess I got so angry that I forgot what I was thinking about earlier for a bit.

But I eyed Ryo once again. She looked especially nice in the moonlight, honestly.

“Nijika,” I almost jumped, hearing my name. “You got any snacks?”

“No…” I was also kinda hungry, honestly.

“Oh, sucks. Yum, more tobacco then.” She chuckled airly.

“Don’t—” Ryo flicked her Zippo open. “Okay, you have a 400 yen fine now. Pay up, Yamada.”

“Aw, crap.”

She put the lighter down on the dashboard. There was an ashtray on it too, which, well, I don’t even know why that’s there. We usually put it away when the other two are there. It was black, kind of shiny—had a bit of Marlboro branding on it, and it had about two butts in it already. I looked up at the dashboard mirror, and I could see Ryo staring back at me in it.

“Well, leader. Want to talk about something instead of staying quiet?”

“Huh?” “I’m kinda bored.” Ryo whistles a little. She picks the lighter back up and starts flipping the lid open and closed. The clink of it was so rhythmical, that before I knew it, I was tapping my foot to it.

“I don’t have much to…” I kept still for a moment.

“… Do you think we’re gonna play well enough later?”

“Of course. I think our practices were pretty decent. Actually, more than decent.” The Zippo lid clinks back and forth still.

Ryo's line of sight in the mirror doesn’t break away from mine the whole time. “I’m not calling you a worrywart, but I think you can calm down. Take the edge off a bit, maybe.”

I huffed.

There wasn’t anything to talk about. There was only everything for me to be thinking about—because I like this side of Ryo too, even though I wished she’d stop smoking so much, even though I tell her off and she reminds me that I’m being a hypocrite, and I usually just stand defeated—she’s also always telling me off in her strange little words and whatnot. It’s weird how this woman keeps letting herself into my life and my business even though I didn’t ask her, and yet I let her anyway. Why ask about how I’m doing at university? Why ask about everything and all that, why thank me, why stick by me for so long? It’s so so weird, because she doesn’t even care about other people that much. She’s like a cat. If you feed her enough, she’ll like you, and she’ll stick to you forever, but she doesn’t care about other people, because they don’t feed her. Hey, is that why you’re with me, Yamada? Because maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t really question when you act all distant and vague—who sits here, pondering what the meaning of the words we exchange are, while you live free not caring about a single thing? No, no, wait, that’s not her business at all. I don’t need to demand this from her—we both know this. It’d be a disservice to my understanding of her so far if I demand an answer and an end to these feelings. Ryo comes out of the hole when Ryo feels like it—there’s no forcing her out of it.

Time will keep moving on though, and with it, I don’t know if my heart will ever rest. Hey, I don’t even usually care about this kind of thing ever. It’s not important to have a high school romance, it’s not important to have a university romance—it only ever matters to have the people you cherish by your side. All of your friends, all of your family, I’d never compromise them for anything so trivial as that. So what will I do? Yamada Ryo, you’re my best friend, and you’re one I’ve had by my side for years. I won’t die if I can’t kiss you, and I won’t die if we’re not labeled lovers. Nothing needs to change, because everything else will change too and I don’t need you to change especially. It’s all pointless, isn’t it, Nijika? Well, I’m sure I’ll forget about this tomorrow. I’m sure Kita-chan and Bocchi-chan will finally come by, and finally, I’ll never think about this again, and finally, there’d never been anything felt between me and you, Yamada. I just need to keep playing the drums to your bass. I just need to keep the rhythm steady.

I keep tapping my foot on the van floor, and Ryo presses a button on the radio. She turns the volume way down, and a song plays faintly. It’s a song in English, and I realized it was playing off of the CD she burnt some songs into some time ago—wait. I realized it was the CD she made for me. The van we ended up being able to afford was kind of old, but the good thing is that it also had a player in it (among other things), though it was kind of an old-fashioned one without Bluetooth and stuff. Ryo’s a huge nerd about these things like usual, so she said she’d make me a few CDs for the fun of it, since she had a PC with a disk drive (for albums, I think.) I think this was the emo mix she made for me… though putting this one on always feels like a weird mood swing. The tempo swings from slow and contemplative to energetic and emotional—and like the one playing right now, there’s a few songs in English, so sometimes I don’t really understand it, but it’s not like I can’t appreciate the sound.

I don’t listen to emo music a lot, I guess I just asked her for some recommendations. It’s been… interesting to listen to. I looked up the lyrics to one of the songs once and I found a Japanese translation. I mean, ‘cause of Bocchi-chan, you can call our genre emo, so the songs really reminded me of her lyrics.

“Amehrican… Fewtbohll.” Ryo says, in a really weird pseudo-accent. I think that was the name of the band, on the LCD display.

“That’s how you read that?” I say.

“Kinda. It’s more like, American Football.” She says, in a more understandable accent.

I mean, I knew that.

“There’s like, a lot of relationship-problem-related songs on this CD,” Ryo quips, “I dunno if that’s your thing, now that I think about it.”

“I can listen to it. I mostly just focus on the sound. I mean, I don’t really know what’s going on in the English ones anyway.”

“Imagining you as the target audience for all these ‘I wish you were dating me!’ songs is kinda funny—”

“Right.”

I realized the cig I snatched from her yesterday was still on the dashboard. A headache began to set in, but I hastily picked it up anyway. It was a bit crumpled and a good bit of the tobacco fell out, but I put it in my mouth and I could taste it already.

“Yooo, free 200 y—” I shushed her and dropped a 200 yen coin into the cup holder in the middle. That’s usually where we kept the fines.

Ryo dropped two in, then lit a new one herself. I dug around my pockets for a light. Nothing. Just receipts. Some paper I forgot I was scrawling on. Had the scheduled times for today’s gig on it.

Ryo quietly hovered her Zippo over.

I pointed the cig towards it, and I could taste nothing but smoke, tobacco, and some hints of sweetness. Nothing but misery in my heart right now, really, but I blew out the smoke through the van’s open window. I’m not going to do this again for another week. Not if I can help it. Not if you can help it, Ijichi. You cannot be dying in a few years and just let all your hard work go to waste for no reason, other than that you couldn’t deal with your problems properly. That’d just be the idiotic way to go out. God, it’s fine… my self-discipline isn’t usually this poor, anyway. I’m fine. ‘Least I don’t buy my own packs, usually.

“Hey.” I took a drag. “Ryo.”

“Yeah, what,” she said, a bit flat.

“Remember our third year graduation?”

“‘Course I do. Wasn’t that long ago, but I guess a year and some is already a lot of time.”

“And you remember—”

“Yeah.”

There was no hesitation in her voice. I took another drag, and the more I smoked, the more the tobacco felt a bit unpleasant to taste. Not that that was what mattered right now, anyway.

“Why, is there something ‘bout it?”

“Not… really… I just kinda… remembered it again, I guess. All the stuff you said.”

“Like—” “Like, thanks, Nijika, for letting me play for you? Or thanks for always cooking for me. Thanks for letting me leech off of you. You know, I almost thought something wasn’t right that day, like, Yamada, admitting to being a leech?”

Ryo cleared her throat and blew out some smoke. The song kept going in the background, and the most prevalent thing you could hear from it was the twinkle of the guitar.

“Mean, don’t tell me you didn’t appreciate it.” “Of course I did…”

And the way you hugged me, too, Ryo. Of course I appreciated every bit of that.

“Because, you know. It’s rare for you to be honest.”

“Yep, my character archetype—” “‘Cause you’re so mysterious, yes.”

Ryo nodded in dumb satisfaction.

“Thanks for the hug too.” Ryo said, plainly.

I blew out some more smoke. I tried not to look at the dashboard mirror, or at her. I could feel her stare, though.

“Woe is me,” Ryo fake-weeped, “you haven’t hugged me in a while, Nijika.”

I almost coughed. Not because of the cigarette.

Ryo looked at me, not expectantly, but it still made my head spin a little.

“You…” I responded with the only way I ever knew how to respond to her, “want to hug, now?”

“Oh—” Ryo looked a bit surprised. “I guess.”

She put the cigarette out on the ashtray.

There wasn’t much blocking the way between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat, besides the gear shift lever, so I inched over until I was kind of squishing against Ryo, because there wasn’t much space (and there never was space for two people in the passenger seat.) Ryo gently wrapped her arms around me as soon as I got to her, and I was still holding the cig in one hand, so I hugged her back with my other. She’s so warm—and, well, smells of smoke, but so do I right now anyway, and I could feel her melting into my shoulder for a bit, kind of nuzzling her face into it. I feel like crying. It has been a while, and I forgot how much I liked doing this kind of thing with her, which was completely ridiculous. I don’t know why, I always felt a bit more at peace whenever Ryo was being touchy—and she wasn’t around to be touchy in the first place recently, because she’s out playing support gigs, and I’m out working my way through college, so I let out a few shaky breaths, trying not to feel so miserable about all this. Ryo pulled my other arm down, and I figured it was to hold it, since she always liked doing that, and I took another drag out of my cig, and I think I heard her chuckle a bit. Ryo always liked playing with my hand for whatever reason. Her fingertips were usually calloused when she did.

“Invigorating,” she said, raising her head, “though I’m getting squished against the door now. I think I’m good.”

I bit my tongue.

“Yeah, okay,” I broke away, and I crawled back onto the other seat.

I think I was making a weird face. Ryo looked at me and we made eye contact for a bit, then she made kind of a sad face, opting to bury her chin in her hand once again.

It’s all going to hell. Actually. Since it’s all going to hell anyway, since it’s been about an hour and those two still aren’t here, and since I love Ryo so much it makes me a dumbass anyway, I might as well say something, for God’s sake. What do I gain out of being quiet—I gain a lot, actually! I can’t screw over whatever I have now, and you know, hell, nothing might even change, and not a single thing would’ve been gained or would’ve been lost, but I would gain if I said something, right? But it’s too risky—you can’t gamble on those terrible odds, Nijika. Stop it, stop it. I don’t want to think a single thing about this anymore. I’ll smash my head in so I stop thinking about this! No, I’ll say—

“God, damn it,” this is so stupid,

“Ryo, you know, I really lo—”

HONK!

… Loud. Loud car horn.

Ow, ow, ow, my head.

I hit my head. On the steering wheel. I heard some trash cans get knocked over. I think I surprised some cats.

Ryo was trying not to laugh. But for some reason, like something clicked in her head, she stopped, suddenly. She clicked her tongue, and I groaned so awfully loudly. I think I heard some cats knock over some things, then I heard some other things getting knocked over, with some loud footsteps in the distance, then I realized they weren’t cats. I heard the voice of my junior anxiously yelling “sorrysorrysorrysorry!” while trying to run towards the van, out of breath. Behind her was the other, scratching the back of her head and apologizing so carefreely, and she yelled, asking why she heard the van horn go honk! Ryo yelled back at them through the side of the window, telling them to hurry up, and she said she has no idea why the horn went off either. As they were approaching, I put out the cig on the ashtray. Weirdly, it was stood up in a V shape next to Ryo’s and the ends of the butts touched. I tossed the ashtray down on the floor of the driver’s seat, then I yelled back at them too to hurry up. In the end, there was just a lot of apologies, some light scoldings, but some laughs still, because Ryo was teasing them about whether they were late because they were on a date or something. Kita-chan smoothly denied it, said she just happened to meet Bocchi-chan on the way to Shimokita, while Bocchi-chan melted into a puddle at the mere insinuation that they were dating, so she couldn’t really say anything back to confirm nor deny. Kita-chan complained too that she could smell faint traces of smoke again, because it irritated her nose a bit, but she dropped the topic immediately, opting to ask instead if we talked about anything fun. I said no. Ryo said yes. I told her it wasn’t anything important. Ryo said we were gossipping about the people who run the venue we were going to, actually. Kita-chan just wanted all the insider scoop on it.

I rolled the windows back up, and started the engine of the van. The song Ryo put on had already changed at that point, but I couldn’t tell what song it was. I heard vague English musings of a singer and his inability to understand the one he loved.

In the end, it was just another meaningless night, in a meaningless day, in my lines of meaningless weeks and weeks. I won’t try to say anything about it again, probably. I don’t know if she heard me through the horn. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like we’ll bring it up to each other anyway. And it’s not like anything went badly either, in fact, everything went off without a hitch, and they even told me my drumming felt more powerful than usual, and still, Ryo went up to me and did her stupid fist-bump-thing. We hadn’t done that in a bit. I already had our next live on schedule. I told them when to come in for practice. I told them to also text me if they wanted anything else. Politely, they all nodded.

The only thing that stood out to me, in the end, was when I drove Ryo back to her house, us two only left in the van, and she made a solemn expression as she got off. She told me thanks for earlier. I did nothing but smile.

And, she asked me,

“Can I see you again tomorrow? Oh, how about the day after tomorrow. If not tomorrow. Or, anytime, really.”

I just gave her a mumbled yes and a thumbs up.

I remembered the cigarette butts on the ashtray, and weirdly, I felt like they were closer than me and Ryo ever were.

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