My Childhood Friend Is A Middle Schooler

◇◇◇

According to someone, “Sakura Ayuri has a worry she can’t tell anyone.”

That had lately become a topic among me and my closest friends.

Looking back now, it was somewhere around the end of our sixth-grade school trip that it started. Little by little, just the barest bit at a time, that loud, meddlesome idiot of a childhood friend went quiet, turned subdued. Or that’s how it feels, anyway.

If she’d simply mellowed out, it would have been easy enough to shrug off. We were middle schoolers now; she’d grown up too, and that would have been that. But that wasn’t it. Her surface cheer looked as bright as it had ever been, yet every so often the plating over it would flake loose, just enough for something underneath to show its face, something she’d kept hidden all this time, leaking out.

And so this was where things stood for us, newly minted middle schoolers, and for that childhood friend of mine, Sakura Ayuri…

◇◇◇

“Ayuri! I watched that video you told me about the other day!”
“Oh yeah? How was it?”
“Well, see…”
“…”

I watch from the side as Ayu chats and laughs with a classmate. At a glance it’s a peaceful, ordinary scene. Ayu and the girl are talking away happily, and about the only thing different from before is that the stage is a middle school now. This classmate of hers surely hasn’t the faintest doubt that Ayu is exactly who she’s always been now that we’ve started middle school: the same bright, high-energy, meddlesome girl who sings so well.

“…Hm? What’s up, Gin?”
“…Nothing.”

Which is exactly why, to me, it’s so unsettling. Everyone ages and changes and grows, to a greater or lesser degree; it wouldn’t be strange for Ayu to have worries of her own, and that would only be proof she’d grown up too. But in her case, for some reason, she’s trying to hide the very fact that she has a worry at all. As if nothing were the matter.

“Y’know, Ayu… you’ve turned into a middle schooler and hardly changed at all.”
“What’re you talking about? I’ve gotten this much bigger!”
“You’ve never once been bigger than me since the day we met, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Why, you little…”

Trading jabs with her like this, she’s the same as ever, the usual Ayu, no different from the old days.

“…You don’t have any worries or anything, Ayu?”
“Worries… I guess I’d like a bit more height, and some gacha luck, and I’m still bad at history, and also…”
“Ah, yeah… never mind.”

Even asking her straight out whether she has any worries, this is the answer I get. The usual small stuff: nothing but the kind of things she’d grumble about or bring to us on any ordinary day, if that. Truly, on the surface, she’s no different from how she was long ago.

“…”

That was exactly what gnawed at me. If nothing had changed, then why had she started spending more and more time alone? Why had she taken to gazing off into the distance? Why had her eyes, every so often, begun to look so lonely?

Even when one of us close to her invited her out, whether that was Hina, or our senior Hotaru, or me, she’d hem and haw, or beg off, and it happened more and more. Less and less did she gather everyone up to kick something off, or reach out to us on her own. The shows and music she used to love, she seemed to have stopped watching and listening to entirely.

And a new catchphrase started cropping up.

“We’ve hit puberty, huh… we’ve gotten big, huh…”

She’d say it wistfully, as if to insist there was nothing strange about it, since her present self had grown and changed just like everyone else.

And yet, whenever she was with us, she’d throw herself back into her old high energy, as if she’d just remembered how. It made no sense. And so the days wore on, weighed down by the frustration of her not confiding in me and a faint, bitter sting.

◇◇◇

Golden Week was a week away. Everyone had plans of their own to go hang out somewhere, and a few were even talking about family trips. But…

“Ayu.”
“Hm? What is it, Gin?”

From her, I hadn’t heard a single thing.

The only plan I’d managed to pry out of her was one I was already part of anyway. That was the karaoke our senior Hotaru was rounding up the four of us for: her, me, Hina, and Ayu. …Though even for that, she’d been noncommittal when she agreed.

“There’s a new game coming out soon, y’know—the sequel to that one whose story you loved so much, the one you were always coming over to my place to play.”
“Ah… so I hear.”
“This coming Saturday—I’ve even got it pre-downloaded already… wanna come over?”

Honestly, my heart gave a little thump. When we hung out, the one to kick things off was usually Ayu or Hina; me being the one to suggest something was almost unheard of. On the rare occasion I did want to do something or go somewhere, it was usually this childhood friend of mine who’d sense it and suggest it first. But…

“Uuuhm… sorry, Gin!”
“…Huh?”
“That day, there’s somewhere I absolutely, absoluuutely have to be…! Would the next day, Sunday, be no good… maybe?”
“…This place you want to go—can’t I come along?”
“…If I can help it… I’d rather go alone.”
“…I see.”
“You went and invited me and everything, so I’m sorry, okay? You should totally play through the game without me! I mean, I’m just watching from the side anyway, so play it however you like, okay?”
“…Whatever. I only asked just in case.”
“Sorry, Gin.”

It felt as though a hole had opened clean through my chest.

She was apologizing so earnestly, hands pressed together, looking sorry from the very bottom of her heart.

Then you could at least take me with you… even though I… even though I think of us as best friends.

…Such was the selfish thing I found myself thinking, even as I fought to keep it from showing on my face.

◆◆◆

Golden Week began, and the Saturday in question arrived. Truth be told, I had no plans for the day. Ever since Ayu turned down my invitation, I hadn’t been able to think of anything in particular I wanted to do, and I’d figured I’d just make it a day of lazing in bed and gaming to my heart’s content… but…

“…Why am I even awake.”

For some reason, I’d woken up early in the morning. Restless, unsettled somehow. Normally I’d have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but maybe because of the bad dream I’d had, I wasn’t even in the mood for that.

“…”

The cause is obvious: that idiot childhood friend of mine.

Ayu, the girl who’d share and split anything fun the instant she found it, who’d throw herself in with her whole heart whenever a friend or someone dear to her was troubled or looked to be hurting. I was fond of her. Having been right there in the same neighborhood with her for as far back as I could remember, I counted her my number-one friend, my best friend. I’d even figured that, family aside, the one who understood her best was, when it came down to it, me.

But that was arrogance.

The moment she actually came to carry a worry of her own, I had no idea what it was. And on top of that, she wouldn’t come to me about it. If anything, she was hiding it, as if there were nothing there at all.

…I really did like Ayu quite a lot, huh…

That’s exactly why it came as such a shock: to have my invitation refused to my face, to be left in the dark about what she’d be doing, to be set behind it all.

Sure, Ayu’s her own person too; she’s bound to have things she wants to do alone, things she wants to keep hidden. And yet.

…Maybe I was just being self-absorbed.

For all that she barges her way into other people’s hearts, she lets no one into her own. Not even me. She won’t let even me in. And feeling as though that truth had been shoved right in my face, I couldn’t even bring myself to boot up the game I’d set up as an excuse to get her to come over.

“…Where’s she even going, that girl.”

As I lay staring up at the ceiling, the question crossed my mind out of nowhere. Maybe it was just an excuse because she wanted to be alone, maybe even a lie. But Ayu jokes around plenty; she doesn’t lie. If anything, she’s the type who says, ‘Once I’ve said it, I’ll make it come true as best I can,’ and then actually goes and does it, whether she can manage it or not. Chances were, plans or no plans to begin with, she’d be going out no matter what.

“…”

It bugs me. And it wasn’t only me. There’d been times Hina and Hotaru got turned down too. Just what is she doing, brushing off invitations even from those of us closest to her? Or, in this case: just where is she going?

“…All right.”

I spring bolt upright out of my futon and start getting ready. Maybe the reason she won’t talk is that she’s gotten caught up in some kind of trouble, and she’s carrying it alone so as not to drag the rest of us in. That bleeding-heart softie is exactly the type.

“…”

I know. This is nothing but a pretext, through and through, meant only to put my own doubts to rest. There’s no way something straight out of a manga or a TV drama is actually happening. What I’m about to do is a contemptible thing. I’m trying to drag out into the light the very secret my friend wants to hide, and dressing it up in a hollow show of good intentions labeled ‘worried about a friend.’

…But still.

“Even I…”

Even I want to be there for Ayu. Ayu, who, when we first met, gave me the words I’d wanted without ever realizing I wanted them. Ayu, who’d hear me out and lift me back up whenever I was hurting or low. Ayu, who, when I was lonely, would put on her clowning act, sidle up close, and stay right there at my side. More than anything, I wanted to be a source of strength for that precious best friend of mine. …Even if I was the only one who thought of us as best friends, even if it was nothing but a self-absorbed, one-way feeling.

“Let’s just do this…!”

Just this once, a little… no, I’ll give it everything I’ve got and do my best for my friend.