act i
this shouldn't be happening.
( oh but it is. )
chapter three
❛how've you been?❜
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"I don't get it."
Amara sighs. "You're dumb."
"Obviously." Rena's voice resonates from the speaker on her phone, a little distant because Amara is in the middle of brushing her teeth and her phone is still on her bed a few feet away. "I'm just . . . What were you guys doing? Like you didn't know his name. But you think . . . what, you like him?"
She chokes on her toothpaste.
"I didn't say that," she rasps. "I did not say that."
"But you think he's hot. And you've been thinking about him."
"Yeah, I think about people I find hot, so what? Doesn't everyone?"
"Eh. And on top of that . . . you don't know his name."
She spits out the rest of the toothpaste, rinsing her toothbrush and putting it back in her bag. She pats her mouth dry then wanders back to her bed, dropping onto it and frowning down at Rena's face taking up the screen of her phone. Her roommate, a reserved second year on the tennis team, Saito Asano, is gone for the day; she'd said something about hanging out with her friends and heading to the Tanabata festival downtown tonight.
"So, we didn't know each other's names. Is that a necessity for being friends?"
"Yeah, it kind of is."
"That's stupid."
"That's the social infrastructure!" Rena says cheerily. "Hey, listen, I'm not saying you guys weren't friends because you didn't know his name but I honestly get the feeling you don't even wanna label whatever it was you had going on with him as a friendship. But you say you don't like him, so, pretty girl, what's the deal?"
Amara sighs. "I don't know. I just haven't seen him in like a month and a half. I stopped going to that neighborhood at the beginning of June and I haven't gone back."
The image on her phone is grainy and pixelated but Rena's dark eyebrows raise just a tiny bit.
"So . . ." she trails off expectantly. "Are you experiencing hot guy withdrawals or —?"
Amara falters.
It's true. She kind of misses it. She misses the kids, largely, and their abundant enthusiasm in playing soccer, even when it's sticky and warm and the sun drains them after only a couple hours, but there's the stranger, too — he has a guarded presence and it's wonderfully steady.
But she's so busy. She can't make time to go out there anymore. The kids understand, naturally, and say that their old spot opened up, so if she ever wants to venture back, that's where they'll be.
Third year takes up too much of her time, though.
"I'm just . . . thinking," she ends up saying lamely.
"Well, stop. Don't you have that thing you're going to do today? Festival? Tana . . . tana —"
"Tanabata."
"That."
She lies down on the bed, holding her phone over her face. Rena starts helping herself to a bag of hot fries, her fingertips stained red and covered with crumbs.
"It's later," she tells her. "I don't want to do my makeup yet. Plus, I have no idea how to put on the yukata."
"The, uh, robe thingy, right?"
Amara smiles, amused. "Yes, that. It's a complicated process. So, my friends are helping with it."
"You going alone?" The bag crinkles obnoxiously loud as Rena digs her hand back into the bag, brown eyes flickering up to something in front of her.
"With my friends," she corrects.
"Sounds fun. No boys?"
"Well. Chiyo and Hiro are very gay. And dating. And I'm —" she makes a vague gesture with her hand.
Rena gives her a pitying look. "You really gotta get back in the game."
She rolls her eyes. "The game? You sound like a frat boy."
"Amara, you are a frat boy."
"I'm gonna pretend like you didn't say that."
"Because it's true! Do you really not have anyone on the side?" Rena looks flabbergasted at the mere idea.
"I don't do that," Amara reminds her patiently.
"No favors to cash in?" She raises her eyebrows suggestively.
"That sounds horrible, Rena."
"Is dating in high school supposed to be . . . not horrible? I thought we were just accepting the bare minimum for now."
"Wow. Anyways. How's Ana?"
Rena rolls her eyes, jumping onto the new topic with renewed vigor. "Annoying. I wanna punt her sometimes, dude."
Amara raises an eyebrow. "She's one."
"She's annoying."
They talk for the next couple hours, before Rena has to go to bed and Amara has to start getting ready.
They're heading downtown by seven-thirty and Chiyo and Hiro will be in her room by seven; she still has several hours to do her thing before they get there and help her into the yukata.
She takes a shower first, shaving her legs while she's at it; she doesn't have any scrapes to show for, but there are a couple bruises on her shins. Her knees have long since healed from her tumble on the sidewalk in May and she's forgotten about the feeling of the stranger's hands on her legs — for the most part.
She takes her time getting ready, throwing on a black camisole and workout shorts to wear underneath the yukata, before moving to hair and makeup.
She rarely ever goes out now, because the soccer tournament is starting this month — Chiyo and Hiro's, too — and practice has been hogging her time; this will probably be her only opportunity in the year to get dressed up — do one of her makeup looks she practices on herself when she's bored and has nothing to do, paint her nails (though she'll have to take it off before school), and do her hair.
Chiyo and Hiro come to her room at seven, each of them in their yukatas already, looking devastatingly pretty. Chiyo's is white with rose-pink sakura blossoms dotting it, the obi sash around her waist a darker pink, with her light brown hair piled into a high bun, bangs framing her face. Hiro's is a maroon color with pink peonies, her obi sash white and tied tightly around her waist, her black hair braided and twisted into an intricate bun low on her head. Chiyo carries a plastic bag and Amara's yukata looks even prettier in person. It's black, with intricate patterns of maroon and white lilies, smidgens of dark green hidden amongst them
Hiro seats herself on the edge of Asano's bed — only allowed because they're both on the tennis team together — and plays with her phone while Chiyo and Amara set up. The yukata is light and airy on her body, not as suffocating as she thought it would be, and she carefully folds it while Chiyo ties the white obi sash around her waist, creating a pretty bow at the back and ensuring it's tight enough to keep the flaps closed.
Hiro whistles in appreciation. "Wow. You look good."
Amara affirms such a claim by glancing over herself in the mirror, nodding approvingly; her makeup is perfect, her black hair pulled into a neat bun, though her baby hairs will probably be going crazy by the end of the night because of Tokyo's terrible humidity. "It's . . . not bad. Thank you guys."
They'd been the ones to source out the yukata; she's never gone to Tanabata in the past two years, either too busy or too scared to step out of her comfort zone.
Hiro preens. "You're welcome. Now, let's go. The train is going to be so busy."
The mention of the train station makes her and Chiyo wince. She has to pat on some baby powder to the insides of her thigh to prevent chafing, but she makes quick work of it, then piles her belongings into a small, cross-body purse and slips on black flip-flops.
It's an hour downtown, the festival located in the southeastern part of the city, close to the bayfront since the fireworks are to be launched from a few miles out.
The trains are packed and they bunch together tightly, keeping hold of a pole as the bullet train navigates around the city. Amara is cautiously aware of the bodies all around her, eyes flicking around to make sure no one on the plastic seats beside them is trying to sneak a picture under their yukatas or an older man is trying to rub up against them (both of those incidents have happened multiple times, a tragedy that befalls public transportation here all the time, and thinking about it never fails to make her skin crawl).
They make it to the pier soon enough and the view takes her breath away. The streets have been closed off, endless rows of brightly-decorated booths standing upon the black asphalt, strings of vivid pink, green, and blue decorations hung up above their heads. Music plays loudly, but the din of people rises over it, the volume of laughter and chatter increasing as they near the crowd. Warm bodies are pressing in, girls dressed in their yukatas, geishas doing traditional dances, faces painted white and shimada wigs adorning their heads. The boys are wearing their yukatas, too, though she notices that the color scheme tends to be darker for them.
A smidgen of insecurity touches her, thinking of how out-of-place she looks here, both in terms of appearance and heritage, but Hiro grabs onto her hand just as Chiyo grabs onto hers, and they enter the foray like a trio of kindergarteners being led, and she brushes those thoughts away.
The tantalizing smells tickle her nose and her stomach growls, the junk food she'd had today not sufficient enough to fill her up. She doesn't protest when Hiro leads their procession to a food booth, ordering a nice helping of yakitori and a water bottle while Hiro and Chiyo order takoyaki. They find an area to sit and eat and she wrinkles her nose as they try to get her to eat some of the takoyaki, eating her own share and ignoring them.
The next couple hours pass by in a blur. They binge on the greasy food so generously offered, play the games that vendors have set up (fail, more than win), and nighttime sets in without warning, easing the heat that the congregation of bodies has brought upon the area.
She is back in line for taiyaki when Hiro whines that she has to use the restroom. Amara waves them off and they hurry to find the restrooms, since they're supposed to be scribbling down their wishes on the tanzaku and hang them up on one of the trees, then go down to the bayfront to get a good spot for the fireworks.
They're not back by the time she buys her taiyaki and finishes eating it, hanging out against a wall, and her phone buzzes right when she's watching a group of people walk to one of the booths that's offering the tanzaku.
pollito
chiyo ended up needing to use the restroom too but theres a big ass line D: go ahead n write ur wish n we'll do ours .. ill text u where we can meet for the fireworks. b careful!
She straightens up, typing out a response.
u guys too !
She slides her phone back into her purse, glancing around. All the booths in this area are busy, filling up fast with those wishing to tie their tanzaku on a branch, so she tries to hurry to the booth that seems the least crowded.
After wiggling through a crowd of bodies in front of it, she fits into a slot of space easily. The origami paper, offered in multiple different colors, sits at the center of the table, seeking hands grabbing their fill; a cup of pens sits beside it and she grabs onto a red paper, smoothing a hand over it.
Amara absently raises her hand to the cup of pens when the persistent and searching hands halt for a few seconds but startles as her hand brushes someone else's.
She retracts her hand swiftly, an apology halfway out her mouth when she lifts her eyes to see who it is.
She stops short as a pair of hazel eyes meet hers.
Her breath leaves her lungs in a rush as she realizes it's the stranger from Nakatsuwa. And any attempt at getting air back into her lungs is extinguished when she sees him smile at her, warm and friendly.
He's never smiled at her before.
Not directly to her face and not so genuinely and openly and she wishes that he'd kept that particular thing to himself because this — this is weird, it's so strange but a part of her brain notes that he looks like someone that should be smiling and with the kind curve of his lips facing her now, it — it —
Hase's loud laughter rips her back to earth. It's close, too close for comfort, and this entire night she hadn't worried about him because she'd been banking on the immense popularity of the festival and the influx of people to keep her — or him — hidden. She doesn't wish to be dragged into some painfully awkward eye contact with him and after cringing sharply, she snatches the tanzaku and darts back into the crowd.
She slips between the warm bodies, murmuring polite excuse me's as she does so, and she finally breaks through on the other side of the booth, falling into a space beside the stranger — importantly, further away from Hase.
And hopefully, if he does manage to chance a glimpse of her, he has enough common sense to back away when he sees her talking to another guy.
"Sorry," she says, strangely out of breath. Her heart is pounding hard, too, a rhythmic thrum behind her sternum. "Avoiding someone —" she stops short as Hase comes to the booth, not across from them but to their right, and she shrinks back, watching him reach for the origami paper. She blinks when the stranger steps to the side, effectively blocking him from her vision and vice versa.
When she hesitantly raises her eyes to him, he looks mildly concerned.
And she marvels at the openness of his expression.
He's usually so inscrutable; she can never guess what he might be thinking or feeling.
And his eyes — they're — they're alive.
The vacancy that haunted them is long gone, instead bright, intent, keen.
A shiver races down her spine.
"An ex?" He asks, obviously curious, and she's going through so many mediums at once.
She opens and closes her mouth a few times. She's a fish out of water and she's resembling one to boot.
Quit making a fool of yourself.
. . . Too late.
She clears her throat, nervously smoothing the yukata. "Yeah . . . Yeah, he's kind of —" she makes a face "— eh. Um, anyway, thanks for, er, blocking me."
She curses her loose tongue. He smiles, amused by something.
Probably her.
Her face heats up. Humiliating.
He shifts to the side a little, still blocking her but not her view of Hase, and she sees a pretty, brown-haired girl come up to his side.
Hirayama, a second year. In Hiro's homeroom.
Amara feels some sympathy for the girl, watching as she says something imploringly to Hase and he shakes his head in response.
The stranger follows her line of vision. "Hung up?"
The question is rather . . . forthcoming but she guesses that's part of his new bravado. That's going to take some getting used to.
She straightens her back. "Wow. No. More like feeling sorry for the girl."
"Bad blood?"
"More like bad guy." A cool breeze soothes the sticky skin on the exposed nape of her neck. "I don't really care about him anymore but I know what he's like."
It looks like he wants to ask more but he refrains, focusing on her again with an intensity that makes her skin prickle warmly.
"How've you been?"
He plucks a pen from the cup but makes no move to start writing on the paper, rolling it between his fingers. He's dressed in denim jeans and a navy blue t-shirt, looking entirely too handsome for her comfort. She's so aware of her own appearance now, feeling the ridiculous urge to check her makeup and make sure it hasn't smudged, or maybe make sure the yukata still looks fine and the obi sash is still tied perfectly at the back.
This is so stupid, she laments, reaching up to scratch her cheek nervously as she pretends to think about her answer, making a face. Nothing has changed. Except his eyes. And the way he carries himself. And the way he talks. And —
Fuck.
"I'm good," she manages. "Busy. But I'm fine. I don't . . . I don't know if you're still hitting the park but um, sorry about . . . falling out on that. Like I said. Busy."
He laughs softly and she thinks it's a wonderful sound.
"You don't have to apologize for that," he says. "I haven't been going, either." He smiles ruefully. "Too busy with practice."
She blinks. "Oh, you — you joined again?"
"I did. I —" he stops suddenly, glancing behind her, and when she tentatively looks back, she sees the vendor in charge of the booth giving them some serious side-eye.
"Oh." She looks back at him, grimacing.
He smiles and her chest squeezes. "Why don't we do this first?"
He picks out another pen and she takes it from him, careful not to touch his hand.
He's changed. It's so obvious. And she wants to so badly ask what happened — did he have a change in heart? Did someone bring him out of his slump?
Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Best friend?
But it isn't her business.
It isn't her business because she doesn't know his name.
She bites at the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to think about her wish instead. She bends over the wooden table of the booth and scribbles down her wish in messy Kanji.
advance to the finals and go to nationals with my team
It's admittedly basic. Expected of an athlete like her in her third year. But she wants it. They've been working so hard these past two years and they can never make it past the semi-finals. Even if they go to finals and lose, she thinks she could be satisfied with that.
There's still room left on the paper. She casts a furtive glance to the side, seeing that the stranger is writing down his wish — wishes — with practiced calm. She doesn't try to see what he's writing down; it's likely along the same lines as her own.
On a whim, she presses the pen to the paper.
leave this year without drama and maintain my friendships
Her leave is a sore spot for Chiyo and Hiro. She's set to leave for San Antonio the evening of their graduation, because even if she's graduating here, she's still a high school student at Monte Vista. And the cruel reality about graduation is that even if you say you'll keep in touch, you'll inevitably drift apart. Since they'll be literal thousands of miles apart from each other, it's even easier to drift from each other. But she tries to be hopeful — for them, at least.
It's unlikely that she'll come here for college, too, as her mother would prefer to chain her to their house and keep her there for the rest of her time in college.
She grimaces thinking about the conversation and tries to banish the thoughts from her head. It's barely July. She has more than half a year before she leaves. The senior class at Monte Vista hasn't even started their final year yet.
"Ready?"
She breaks away from her stupor and nods, putting the pen back into the cup. He picks up two strings from another cup and she murmurs a quiet thank you when he passes one to her.
She hesitantly follows him away from the booth, eyes darting around, keeping an eye out for both Hase and Chiyo and Hiro.
This is fine, she assures herself. Hiro said she'd text you to get a spot for the fireworks. Until then, you're on your own.
Almost like he knows what she's thinking, he asks, "I'm not taking you away from anything, right?"
"Huh? Oh, no, no," she hastens to reassure him, shaking her head. She mindlessly follows him up a set of concrete stairs that leads to a large courtyard, where several trees are spaced throughout the area. They step away from the stairwell so they don't block the foot traffic but make no move for a tree. She falters as she looks around.
Fairy lights are strung up upon the trees, hundreds of tanzakus dangling beside them, the multi-colored papers looking strangely at home. More lights crisscross above their heads, connected by the buildings around them; it creates a warm, yellow glow and she relaxes.
"My friends," she resumes speaking a few seconds later. "They're out and about. What about you?"
He shakes his head. "Mine are preoccupied with the games. None of them were in the mood for this but I figured," he shrugs and smiles and it still sends shocks through her system, "it won't hurt, right? A wish for victory."
"Yes," she agrees softly. "For victory."
He leads the way to a tree close to the stairwell and they split. She tries to find one of the lower branches, her string already looped and knotted through the hole in the paper, ready to be tied around a small branch, but the search proves to be difficult. She sighs, finally finding a free spot on a branch close to the moss-covered wall, but it's out of her reach by a couple inches.
"Here." His soft voice breaks her concentration. "Let me."
She freezes mid-stretch to the branch when he gently pries her fingers off the string, reaching up to the branch effortlessly. She sees the sinews and tendons of his arms flex and move as his fingers deftly tie a knot on the string, the heat of his body brushing against her back, permeating the thin, airy material of her yukata.
She swallows thickly, reaching up to touch the paper as another breeze whisks through the courtyard. The paper flutters gently in the wind and he pulls his hands back, falling out of her vision. She gets caught up in the glow of the tree, its lights, and tanzakus, calming the flutters in her stomach and the quick pound of her heart.
The stranger makes a quiet noise behind her.
Feeling a little more level-headed, she turns, finding that he's looking toward the stairwell. She frowns as she sees that it's full, people heading down.
"Fireworks?"
"Probably," he agrees, then checks the time on his watch, its display bright in the lowlights of the courtyard. "They're starting in ten minutes. No wonder there's such a rush."
"Will you be with your friends?"
"I'm not sure if I'll be able to drag them away from those games," he says with a wry chuckle. Her stomach flips.
"Well." She checks her phone, finding no new texts from Hiro. She bites her lip, thinking over her options.
She types out a quick text to their group chat, hyper-aware of his eyes on her.
ill meet u guys down at the bayfront.. ill try to get a good spot. take ur time :)
Amara sends the text and lingers there for a few seconds because she can feel the burn of his gaze and it goes straight through her, like with one glance, he knows what she's thinking — feeling.
It seems like he's undergone this ridiculous sort of metamorphosis. It sets her on edge and she simultaneously likes it and hates it, because before, it was like his mind was a million miles away and that made it easier to interact with him, but now, he's focusing on her, diverting his energy to listening carefully, and she has no time to contemplate how to talk to him.
She lifts her eyes, steeling her nerves. He meets her eyes steadily, something like encouragement in the tug of his mouth when he nods for her to say what she wants.
"If it's fine, we could head down to the bayfront already. My friends will probably meet me there."
"I don't mind at all," he agrees easily.
They start for the stairs, which is sufficiently filled with people vying to get a good spot for the fireworks, so the traffic moves like molasses, too many people squeezed into the stairwell.
She stumbles over her footing at a rough push from a particularly impatient person but the stranger grabs onto her wrist, steadying her, warm hand searing into her skin.
She tries not to sound so affected when she mutters thank you.
Once they're free of the stairwell, he sticks his hands in his pockets and asks, "So. How's soccer?"
They set off for the bayfront, sticking close to each other and talking as they walk. He keeps her personal space in mind and she greatly appreciates it. Her wrist still tingles from when he touched it, imprints of a rough, warm hand frozen in her head, but she gains enough of her bearings to talk about soccer before asking him about baseball — the entire point of the conversation.
His voice is nice to listen to, albeit a little quiet amongst the convergence of other voices. She learns that he's back in as a manager, but takes on a proactive role for the pitchers on the first string. He does not say any names — both in the case of his school and the other players — and she assumes they're keeping up their guise of anonymity.
It's never felt like a necessity to give their names, like something they have to do to keep the conversation going or ensure that things don't get weird.
It's just that unimportant.
Though a quiet voice in the back of her head murmurs that she won't ever officially be friends with him if she doesn't have a name to attach to the face.
They make it to the bayfront, the cool breeze carrying the poignant smell of sea salt, the full moon in the sky bringing the tide in. It's hard to hear the waves crashing against the pier as they merge with the crowd but they manage to squeeze to a free spot near the end of the pier.
The rail comes up to her chest and she leans forward peering at the inky blackness of the ocean. The waves crash violently against the concrete, arching high enough to splatter some water but not enough to spill over the edge. The breeze carries a gentle spray of mist and she turns her face away from it.
He leans his arms on the rail, the wind ruffling his fringe. She thinks he looks so pretty with the pearly glow of the moonlight highlighting the panes of his face but it feels like she's crossing a line thinking such things (he is a stranger, for all intents and purposes) and so, she busies herself with checking her phone for new messages.
"Am I being abandoned already?" His voice is teasing.
She rolls her eyes before she can stop herself, looking up at him and sliding her phone back into the purse. "No, my friends have gone silent on me, so I guess you're stuck with me —"
"Or you're stuck with me."
She eyes him. "Yeah, I think that's a better way to put it."
He laughs but the sudden deafening pop of fireworks makes her jump and whirl around. Fireworks arch high in the sky, bright reds, greens, and blues popping simultaneously, some fizzling out and falling, while others dissipate as soon as they explode.
She's entranced with the bright colors dancing in the midnight sky for a few minutes, watching as the fireworks vault into the air and explode, hands braced on the railing. The black nail polish on her fingernails shines faintly with the glow of the fireworks and she idly rubs her index finger over the nail of her thumb.
"Is this your first time?"
His voice is unobtrusive, near her ear. She wants to shy away but glances at him, seeing his eyes are on the fireworks as well. She's chained down by the way the colors reflect in his eyes, so bright and warm.
Her tongue is heavy in her mouth. "Yeah," she breathes. "Too busy last two years. And scared. That was a factor."
He looks at her, lips quirking. "Why scared?"
Her grip on the rail tightens, the metal becoming slippery under her palms as heat prickles her neck.
She laughs, bashful. "Just wasn't in my comfort zone."
He gears up to reply to her —
"Amara!"
She flinches at the loud yell and turns quickly, heart galloping to full speed as she meets Chiyo's eyes. Hiro waves her over, impatience written all over her face.
But . . .
She looks at the stranger and feels the weight of the change. He's regarding her carefully now, but it's not like hesitance or disappointment or anything bad. It's . . . it's curious, like he's looking at her differently, and maybe he is, now that he knows her name, and she wonders if it had been what he was expecting — wants to ask, but refrains from doing so.
"I guess . . . I need to go," she forces herself to say. She hates how much he's thrown her off; she had more time to think over her replies and be a smartass about it but he gives just as good as he's getting and it makes her unsteady.
"I'd say you do," he agrees, a hint of amusement in the curl of his lips. He looks incredibly unbothered about this turn of events, more pleased than inconvenienced, and she wonders if he's been curious since they met or if his interest has only bloomed tonight.
"I'll see you around?"
He leaves it hanging, no strings, no commitment or obligation, despite the caustic effects of her name being thrown into the mix. It makes her melt a little, at how accommodating he is.
"Maybe," she agrees. "If not, good luck with baseball."
"Good luck with soccer," he echoes. The fireworks are still popping, but their noise is muffled; the glow of the moon and fireworks dance on the side of his face, making him look like something that Michelangelo sculpted rather than a teenage boy.
She exhales quietly and turns away, squeezing her way to Chiyo and Hiro, where they batter her with frenzied questions about the stranger — who is he, why haven't we heard about him, so this is the guy you were seeing in Nakatsuwa, what do you mean you don't know his name?
They hassle her the rest of the night and she dismisses their questions. It's not that important. Not really.
Even if he knows her name, she doesn't know his, and it's unlikely that she'll be returning to Nakatsuwa ever again. When soccer ends, she'll have her SATs to take again, common apps essay to begin working on, and college list to wheedle out. Too much work, too little time.
The stranger is merely an odd blip on her map of importance, skirting closer to the edge of oblivion as their interactions dwindle.
She'll push him out herself if she needs to.
Aren't you curious? Chiyo asks on the train ride home.
No, Amara tells her. But even she knows it's a lie, because after Chiyo and Hiro finally pull back on their offensive fronts and they get back to campus, after she showers and wipes off the makeup and crawls into a bed for a good sleep, she finds herself waking in the dead of the night, fragments of a dream of rough hands on her skin, warm lips on her neck, and warm summer wind lingering in her head.
━━━━━━━━━━ author's note
things are going to become Very Complicated for amara from here on out :] as they should be! it won't be fun for her but certainly for us (and chris LOL)!
we're really starting to get into the main event, especially with the next couple chapters :D also u guys probably got a notif for the intro and act i, i added some stuff and changed things for chris and amaras character intros ... i'm quite pleased with it so if u guys want to check that out then! it helps set things up too, esp with additions in act i hehe
in any case, i hope u guys enjoyed as always! if there's something u want to say / ask and don't want to do it here, my inbox on my tumblr epioneses is always open (with anon!) :]
until next time!