Tuning Hearts

1

The slow music of a local band drifts through the small bar, the bass thrumming low enough to settle in my chest. The place smells faintly of old wood, spilled beer, and cheap cologne, but it's not unpleasant, more like a blanket of memories from every livehouse I ever set foot in. People are scattered across the dimly lit room, some gathered tight around their tables, others leaning lazily at the bar. The conversations blend into a low hum beneath the music, punctuated now and then by bursts of laughter or the clink of glasses.

I sit hunched over my own drink, tracing the rim of the glass with my fingertip, pretending to be casual while my thoughts chase each other in circles. Every so often, I lift my head to take in the room.

To my left, a group of old biker guys with weathered jackets raise their mugs in a raucous cheer, the kind that sounds more like a war cry than a toast. To my right, a younger crowd sways with the music, eyes half-closed as if the rhythm alone is carrying them somewhere far away.

And then there's her.

Azusa.

The sight of her sends my stomach into freefall.

At first, when I caught a glimpse of her across the bar, I thought it had to be a trick of the light, one of those cruel coincidences where a stranger looks just enough like someone from your past to twist the knife. But then she shifted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in that precise, almost impatient way of hers, and my heart nearly stopped.

It's really her.

I didn't prepare for this. How could I? What are you supposed to do when your ex-girlfriend from high school shows up in the same bar as you, looking older, sharper, more composed, and yet so painfully familiar you can hardly breathe?

Okay, sure, "ex-girlfriend" feels like a phrase stolen from someone else's life. It's been well over a decade since we were those people, since I was stumbling through adolescence, guitar in hand, desperately trying to impress her with half-baked songs and too much energy. We grew up. Moved on. We had to.

But that doesn't mean what we had disappeared. Not for me.

I grip my glass tighter, cheeks already warming. "Get it together, Yui," I mutter under my breath. "You're not seventeen anymore."

And yet the memories surge up uninvited, the after-school practices, the scolding looks she'd give me when I slacked off, the way her face would soften whenever she thought no one was watching. Back then, loving her felt as natural as breathing. Letting her go felt like trying to unlearn gravity.

Now here she is, in the same room, and all that weight comes crashing back before I can even take another sip.

I force myself to look away, back down at my drink, though my eyes betray me after only a few seconds. They flicker back to her like a magnet I can't pry off the fridge.

She's sitting a couple tables over, angled just enough that I can watch without being too obvious. She's not alone, two people are with her, one chatting animatedly, the other scrolling through their phone, bored. Azusa listens politely, nodding now and then, but her body language tells a different story. Arms folded, posture a little too stiff, eyes wandering between sentences. She looks like someone who's keeping herself there out of obligation, not enjoyment.

Her hair's different. Shorter, like she took scissors to all the length we used to braid and play with after practice. It suits her, though, sleek, neat, a little mature. There's a pair of small silver earrings that catch the bar's dim light whenever she moves. Grown-up touches, subtle but impossible to miss.

I take another sip of my drink, though it does nothing to steady me.

She doesn't laugh the same way she used to, either. Or maybe she does, but I haven't heard it yet. Back then, it used to bubble up out of her, unplanned, the sound of her defenses slipping. Now... now she gives small smiles, quick and polite, the kind you give when you're present in body but not in spirit.