My Childhood Friend And The Reverberations

According to my childhood friend, “I never meant anything by it, but getting praised from some angle I never saw coming? Color me flustered.”

…or so she puts it.

This happened back in elementary school, third or fourth grade if I’ve got it right. During an art class (I couldn’t tell you what the theme even was), my childhood friend was drawing away at her usual so-so level of skill. Somehow, though, the idea behind that particular picture went over well with the grown-ups. She flatly chalked it up to her skill failing to keep pace with the concept, and yet it wound up posted in the hallway as a representative work.

Nobody around her, me included, thought much of it. She, though, wasn’t content to leave it at that opening line of hers; she went around running her own work down, saying things like ‘there’s a little kid’s drawing mixed in among all the same-grade pictures,’ and ‘I really should’ve spent more time drawing for fun back when I was younger,’ and so on. For my part, I thought it had a certain charm.

Thinking back on it now… if she really does peg her own mental age as an adult’s, then yeah, that sort of thing probably does sting. And as for how that childhood friend, Sakura Ayuri, is faring in the present…

“Ayuuu~, the kids from Class 1 say they wanna take a photo with you~.”
“Ehh… well, guess it’s fine. Be right there~.”
“…”

It had already been a week and change since the culture festival, prep period and all its little dramas included. We were about to slip back into our peaceful, uneventful days… or so I’d have thought, but the world doesn’t dole things out that conveniently. Though, well, the change that came was obvious enough, if you stop to think about it.

“You’re quite the popular one, Ayuri.”
“…I guess so.”

Ayu left her lunch sitting on her desk and let Hina lead her off into the hallway. She’d never been the type to take selfies in the first place, but these past few days she’d been posing for photos with someone or other like this, kids from other classes especially. She seemed to have gotten used to it lately. At first she’d shown some visible reluctance, but now, the moment Hina or a classmate called her over, off she went.

“…”

— Glance.

“…‘Kay, next up’s my phone~.”
“Righto~.”

(They’re already snapping away, though.)

I snuck a little peek at what was going on out in the hallway. Three girls from Class 1, with Ayu and Hina folded into the middle of the huddle to make five, were striking poses as they took their photos. Nitta was on camera duty.

“She was so stiff at first… but Ayuri’s getting the hang of it too, huh.”
“Yeah… actually, so you came to watch as well, Sumire.”
“It’s fun, you know? Getting to see the whole process of her warming up to it.”
“Oh. Is that so…”

It was true, Ayu had been stiff at first. Boxed in by girls with the easy poise of seasoned selfie-takers, she’d manage a half-smile and a peace sign, looking every inch the introvert she claims to be.

“…Well, when I say she’s ‘gotten used to it,’ mostly she’s just mimicking Hina next to her, though.”
“She poses like a mirror image of her, doesn’t she… I wonder if she’d go right back to that stiff early half-smile and peace sign, if she had someone hopeless in front of a camera — someone like me — standing next to her instead.”
“Hmm… who knows.”

Given how into it she is now, I’d like to think she won’t slip back to that… no, actually, even if she did, it’d just heap more embarrassment onto Ayu, so it’s got nothing to do with me. Not that it ever did.

“…What are you two even up to?”
“Huh? Spying on you, obviously…?”
“Why am I on the receiving end of a ‘can’t this girl tell just by looking?’ sort of face?”

The photo session had apparently broken up at some point, and out of the group from a moment ago, Ayu was the only one who’d drifted back over to us. Hina and Nitta were already gone, too. Hina had mentioned something like ‘I’m having lunch with friends from another class today~,’ so the conversation over on that side was probably what had brought them our way in the first place.

◆◆◆

“Honestly, what’s got everyone thinking they want a photo with a numbskull like this.”
“That’s harsh, isn’t it~? …Though I’ll agree with everything but the ‘numbskull’ part.”
“So you agree with the rest…”

I reached my chopsticks back to my half-eaten lunch and picked up where I’d left off. …Ah, right, there’s a cherry tomato in here. I’ll pawn it off on Ayu.

“…I mean, come on — Hotaru, or, well, the light music club crowd, them I get, right? You see people squealing over them when you’re with them.”

— Munch, munch.

(There she goes, spoiling Ginko rotten again…)

“Hmm… ah, have some tamagoyaki too, then.”
“Yay~! I love your family’s tamagoyaki, Gin.”

(Feeding her like a pet…)

That said, Senior Hotaru and her sort seem to be popular with the boys and girls alike, whereas Ayu, for the moment, only seems to draw attention from the girls. It’s not that boys never come near her… but outside of her own classmates, at most it’s the type who, on the “to bag the general, first bring down his horse” logic, are actually angling for Senior Hotaru. In those cases they’ll ask for her contact info and the like, but Ayu just flatly turns them down and keeps them at arm’s length, so it’s no trouble.

“But all this — it’s the reverberation from how good you and the others’ singing and playing were at the festival, isn’t it, Ayuri?”
“Weeell… I guess there’s that side to it, maybe.”
“That part you could just own honestly.”

It’s not as though I can’t be honest and own things myself… no, hold on, all I actually did back there was admit I’d lost; the praise itself I kept about as roundabout as they come.

Anyway, setting that aside, ever since the culture festival, all sorts of people had been singing the praises of the song Ayu and the others put on. Word of how well it had gone over must naturally have reached Ayu’s own ears too… but her self-assessment stayed as low as ever. Or rather, praise from anyone other than the people she’d meant her gratitude for didn’t seem to move her one way or the other.

“…Ayuri, you… um… well…”
“Hm?”
“…Um… you sang that song for ‘friends’… like us, and of course, hearing it, we were moved — but there are absolutely people who came to know you for the very first time right there, and were moved by that song too, you know…”
“Adorable.”

(Adorable.)

“N-no, stop it, Ayuri…”

Sumire had gone bright red, all flustered. Well, I get how she feels. That song was flat-out declared to be aimed at her friends, and then, on top of that, to come right out and say that you count as one of Ayu’s ‘friends’… it stirs up a feeling, not unpleasant exactly, but self-conscious, a little prickly. I get it. I really, really get it.

“A-anyway…! That song had such power that it moved even people who aren’t your friends, Ayuri… so these are, like, commemorative photos of that…? Sort of?”
“…How’s that work?”
“…Ah, you know — like, ‘she’s so good she might turn pro someday; let’s get a photo with her while we’re still at the same school’… that kind of thing?”
“Me, a pro? …No way, no way.”
“It’s purely hypothetical.”

Well, this school already has the light music club, an all-beauties group whose playing is well regarded and that’s pulled in a fair few fans. So when one of that club’s members teams up with a total unknown and the two of them come out and put on something every bit as good as the club itself, then to anyone with no clue about the backstory, maybe that’s just the sort of thing that gets them all worked up.

“Well, if that’s the situation, then my music career’s over and done with after that one show, right? Something like this’ll blow over as a passing fad.”
“You don’t ever think, ‘I’m going to make my living with music someday!’…?”
“Nope, nope! Like — Hotaru’s family has a lot of people working music-related jobs, right? I hear about how the work goes and all… it’s a brutal world, that one.”
“Is that so…”
“Weeell… speaking just for me, there’s this thing I flubbed way back, so it’s a no-go, kind of…”
“You flubbed something…?”

A flub of hers? Had there ever been anything like that? Even I, the one who remembers every last, frankly utterly trivial thing she’s ever said or done, couldn’t call to mind a single future-altering blunder Ayu had supposedly committed.

“Ah… come to think of it, did I never tell you about this one, Gin?”
“Huh?! A story even Ginko doesn’t know? …I wanna hear it!”
“…I’d like to hear that one too.”
“Ehh, it’s not even that interesting a story… and Hina probably doesn’t know it either, so telling it here would be like leaving her out~…”

From the way she put it, the only one among her friends who’d be likely to know was Senior Hotaru. Still, it sounded like the kind of story she’d tell readily enough, so long as Hina was there too.

— Ding-dong, ding-dong…

“…”

Just as I sat there torn between my two options, whether to press her further or let it lie, the chime rang to signal the end of lunch break. Time to get ready for the next class already.

“…Well, it’s not interesting and it’s not the sort of thing to broadcast, so — once the fuss dies down and we’ve run clean out of things to talk about and it’s like, ‘I’m so bored I could keel over!’, I’ll tell you then.”
“…You’ll tell me someday, won’t you?”

For my part I wasn’t all that fussed either way, but… did you want to hear it that badly, Sumire?

◆◆◆

“You might not realize it yourself, Ayu~… but the reverberations from that song are honestly incredible, y’know?”
“Huh.”
“Hmm.”
“You two are so unenthused…”

Not that I was the one who sang it… though Ayu’s own lukewarm reaction is one I do have to wonder about.

And so, after school. Today none of the four of us had anything in particular going on, so we were all heading home together.

“You’ve got a lot of friends in other classes too, Hina.”
“That’s right~. Lately I get asked a lot by friends of friends to tell them about that live show~.”
“So they come to you, not Ayu, huh.”

Normally the response you’d expect is ‘go get the person herself!’

“Ah~, that’s because we’re going with the story that Ayu’s shy around strangers, see…”
“As if someone shy around strangers would pull the stunt she did.”
“‘That’s exactly why — because she squeezed out that much courage — the song came out so heart-shaking,’ is what everyone tells me~.”
“That’s an awfully generous read they’re giving her…”

Well, Hina’s got a silver tongue, so part of it is probably her steering people toward such a charitable read.

“And for my part, look — I’m just a shy, timid, small-animal-type pretty girl who happens to be a little good at singing, right? Getting hemmed in by strangers like that is a bit much.”
“Don’t go saying that about yourself.”

And on top of all that, she’s secretly got the ‘reincarnator’ attribute tacked on in the back, is that it. Oh, put a sock in it.

“Now now, Gin. Believe it or not, I’m Ayu’s exclusive personal manager~.”
“Huh? What’s this now.”
“Right up until the festival, Hina was adjusting all sorts of things behind the scenes so Ginko wouldn’t catch on. Ayuri’s schedule, and going around with Ayuri to ask the whole class for their cooperation, and so on.”
“Ayu…”
“I truly can never thank her enough…”

…Well, here was yet another spot where Ayu had leaned on the people around her, and it was precisely because she’d poured all of that, along with every bit of gratitude built up until now, into it that the singing came out the way it did.

“Now now, your gratitude came through plenty with that song~.”
“Ehh… but it still doesn’t feel anywhere near enough.”
“Oh? Well, if you’re going to say that much~…”
“Ooh, what, what? Sounds like there’s something I can do?”
“Ta-daa~!”

What Hina whipped out, seizing her moment, was her smartphone. This too, in its way, was one of the changes since the festival, I thought, already guessing what she was about to say.

“So then~, Ayu, before we split up, let’s do today’s commemorative-photo segment~.”
“I don’t mind, but… you really never get tired of this, huh, Hina.”
“No arguing that.”

We walked as far as the station, where the two of them would usually peel off from us… or so I figured, but the instant we hit the station front, Hina, same as ever, pulled out her phone and sidled up to Ayu.

Lately Hina had taken to wanting a photo with Ayu at least once a day like this. First a two-shot, then Sumire and me folded in afterward.

“Okay~, squeeze in, squeeze in~.”
“It’s like this every time, but — aren’t we too close?”
“It’s ‘cause we don’t have a selfie stick~. Next time, on a day your part-time job’s off, Ayu, let’s go buy one~.”
“I don’t really need one, though?”
“…Even if you bought a stick, I bet you’d keep taking your selfies this close anyway.”
“Yep.”

Against the backdrop of the same old familiar station, the two of them pressed together close enough for their shoulders to touch and took a selfie… well, Hina did, really. Even Ayu, whose resistance to being in photos had faded lately, still got flustered by this every single time. Given how genuinely grateful she is, though, she’s not about to turn it down.

With Hina taking the lead, the two of them snapped photos against all manner of backdrops, and after a while Sumire and I would get folded in too.

It’s a little dumb, and it’s embarrassing being watched by the other students heading home… I think all that, and yet, well, this too is a page in our memories, I suppose. I’ll let it slide and go along with it.