Our New Year's Eve

According to my childhood friend:

“There are folks out there, I’d bet, who — just for the single moment the year ticks over — switch the TV to a channel playing classical music and see in the new year that way.”

…or so she says.

This year, since that girl’s spending it at her grandparents’ place, she probably won’t get the run of the remote… which leaves me picturing, just a little, how she’ll ring in the new year this time around.

In any case, I had no way of knowing how my childhood friend, one Sakura Ayuri, off somewhere far away, was actually spending her evening, so I’ll set that aside. As for how my own year’s end was going to go…

◆◆◆

“So at college, a buddy hit me with, ‘Since it’s called toshikoshi soba — year-crossing soba — the soba’s the part you eat after the year’s crossed over; before you cross it, you have udon.’”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then he goes, ‘Eating the soba once the year’s crossed is the proper custom’…”

And so my dumbass big bro got suckered into buying four whole servings of udon all on his own. I’m team soba, so he can polish those off himself.

“Four servings really is too much for me! Come on, help me out here, sis!”

Not my problem. They haven’t even been boiled yet, and it’s not as if they’ve got to be finished by the end of today.

Anyway, after a nice chat with Sumire-san during the day, I’d headed home as usual for a laid-back year’s end. The next time I’ll see her will probably be… well, we’ve all promised to make our first shrine visit of the year together once Ayu’s back, so it’ll be then. Until then, I’m planning to laze around the house or pick up another shift at my part-time job.

“The toshikoshi soba’s readyyy—”
“Mom!”
“Kanata, yours is udon, so it’s not done yet~ Boiling four servings takes a while~”
“I’ll burst before the year even crosses, Mom! You don’t have to boil all of it!”

…Around midday I’d been thinking how peaceful it was without that loud idiot of a childhood friend around… but the second I got home, things turned out plenty rowdy here too.

◆◆◆

“Phew.”

Same as always, I finish up my bath and the rest of my nightly routine and lie down on the bed. Even on a night no different from any other, there’s a part of me that gets a little restless, even a little excited, at the single fact that the year’s about to turn over.

Right about now my parents are surely down in the living room with the TV on. I used to pile in with them, laughing along at the year-end specials… but somewhere along the way, as I got older, I took to keeping apart from the family until just before the year turns over.

“…”

It’s been a while, but I open up the social media app. I do follow a handful of classmates, and I’d started wondering how everyone was spending their year’s end.

“Huh, Nitta-san’s throwing a New Year’s Eve party with some other friends…”

Honestly, I’m a little envious. There was that one time a few years back, whenever it was, when we all happened to be able to get together right at the turn of the year, and I still remember how much fun that was. That was back in the younger years of elementary school… but we’re high schoolers now, so maybe it’d be fine to make plans of our own, everyone gathering of their own accord, like a sleepover, to see in the year together… or so I catch myself thinking.

In that sense, Nitta-san might just be the most grown-up of anyone my age around me. And that’s with someone in the mix who’s on her second go at life, no less.

“…”

After going through the classmates whose accounts I know, I finally check in on the usual gang’s social media. That said, Ayu may have an account, but she barely uses it. Not that I’m one to talk.

Sumire-san, it turns out, has actually gone and made an account, but…

‘E-even if we are friends, telling you my account is a bit much…!’

…so she said, and I never did manage to get her to share it.

Hina’s probably busy playing host to her grandparents and a cousin; aside from a single post about that cousin a few hours ago, there’s no real activity.

Last of all, Hotaru-senpai. A little while back she’d posted something, in such a roundabout, hard-to-parse way, that was really an indirect gripe about the relatives’ gathering. On top of that, she was lobbing Ayu a roundabout ‘I miss you’… a love-call, basically. Ayu’s never going to see it, Senpai, so you’d honestly do better to just tell her straight… though I suspect Ayu herself would be a little put off if you did.

◆◆◆

On my own account I toss off some offhand post about being bored, chuck my phone onto the sheets, and flop back down.

During the day I’d thought about spending it in a properly year-end sort of way, but there was no way some spur-of-the-moment whim was going to add up to a fulfilling New Year’s Eve… in the end it felt like just another ordinary day, only with a self-imposed gaming ban on top. If Ayu were here it’d be a different story… but there’s no use crying for the moon.

“…Guess I’ll head down to the living room.”

A bit over an hour left until the year turned over. A touch earlier than last year, but going down to the first-floor living room should be fine. There should still be some of that extra udon my brother bought going spare, and on New Year’s Eve, at least, I feel like it’s fine to flirt with the forbidden late-night snack.

With that, I sit up, and just as I go to reach for the phone I’d carelessly flung aside…

— Bzzz!!!

“…Oh.”

My phone, buzzing to let me know a message had landed from someone.

“Who is it…? Oh, it’s Ayu.”

My childhood friend’s message sat on the screen: ‘Random, I know, but can I call you right now?’

“‘I’m free, sure’… and — oh. That was fast.”

The moment I let her know I was free, the screen flipped to an incoming call. Faster than I’d braced for… and since it came so suddenly, I found myself a little tense about what she wanted to talk about.

“Helloooo!”
“Ugh, too loud… what do you want?”

Maybe it’s the year’s-end air that does it, but Ayu’s energy feels a touch higher than usual. Unlike me, she seems to be having a fun year-end over there.

“Ahh, since this year’s about to wrap up, I’ve been going around saying my greetings to everyone before it turns over, y’know.”
“You could just do that after the new year. Why so last-minute…”

We’re about to dip under an hour left. Did she start this on another sudden whim, I wonder… if so, she might still have others to call, so maybe I should let her go sooner rather than later.

“I started with Hina-chan around eight, then got on with Sumire-san-chan and Hotaru-chan… but the chats with everyone got way livelier than I figured.”
“Hmm…”

So she’s already talked with everyone. In that case, staying on a little longer wouldn’t… be a problem, I guess?

“This is kind of like one of those teacher conferences.”
“Indeed! It’s your end-of-year review with Ayuri-nee-san! Everything we cover gets factored into your next performance assessment!”
“An assessment of what…? Besides, we’re the same age now, aren’t we.”
“Now, now.”

On the other end of the line she’s surely wearing that usual little smile she puts on to dodge a point, and I can feel my same-as-ever childhood friend right there in it. Then again, it’s only been since the day before yesterday that we last talked, so of course nothing’s going to change in that short a span.

“Ahh, this year sure had its share of everything too, didn’t it, Ginko-san.”
“There’s still the third term, isn’t there.”
“There’s only the third term left, though! And compared to the others the third term’s a short stretch too, and once it’s over, a third of high school is done and gone!”
“Now that you mention it… well, maybe you’re right.”

Grown-ups love to say things like ‘a year just flies by~,’ but I figure that comes from piling up life experience, and… from the fact that, once you’re an adult, you lose that guaranteed yearly event of moving up a grade, that forced change of scenery. For someone like me who doesn’t fall into that category, the feeling doesn’t quite land… I can’t help thinking there’s still a whole two years and change left to go.

In Ayu’s case… given her track record, it’s honestly up for debate whether she ought to be filed under “adult” at all, so I really can’t say whether the weight of “two years and change,” the way a grown-up means it, lands on her the same way.

“Anyway! Let’s do a quick little look back — nothing heavy — starting with…”

◆◆◆

“And so, get this, Hotaru-chan at that moment was totally… hm? Ahh… Gin-chan, the year’s gonna change pretty soon here… what do you wanna do?”
“What do you mean, what do I want to do.”

A glance at the clock put it somewhere around 11:45, which left about fifteen minutes until the year turned over.

“I mean, are we good just crossing into the new year like this?”
“…Sure, why not.”

Is there really any need to go out of our way and hang up? Seeing in the year while still on the call… there’s a faint wistful charm to it, honestly, so it’s fine by me. Actually, we’ve only worked back as far as summer in this recap… what kind of pace was she keeping with the other three, this girl?

“Then let’s stay like this.”
“Yep.”
“But what should we do… carrying on the look-back like this would leave it at an awkward stopping point, and… oh, I know — Gin-chan! How about we look at the stars!”
“Stars?”

No sooner had Ayu said it than, without even waiting for my answer, she sent a crisp click down the line, the unmistakable sound of her switching off her bedroom light. Well, I’ve got no particular reason to object… so I get up off the bed too, switch off my own light, and peer out at the night sky through a gap in the curtains.

“See? Ringing in the year while gazing up at a starry sky isn’t half bad, is it?”
“Yeah, maybe it’s not bad.”

Maybe it’s partly that it’s decently rural around here, but a good many stars stand out in the night sky… Ayu said she was headed to her grandparents’ place up in the mountains, so the sky over there might look even clearer than mine.

“That’s Deneb, Altair, Vega…”
“That’s the Summer Triangle. Why are you suddenly singing?”
“A song about the winter constellations just wouldn’t come to me on the spot…”
“That’s just you having a bad memory… not that I can come up with one either.”
“Riight~?”
“Oh, shush.”

And so, trading jabs back and forth like that, the usual give-and-take plays out. Is this really how a person ought to spend New Year’s Eve, I wonder… and yet, gazing up at the same thing as someone far away is a little romantic, I catch myself thinking too.

…Provided the other party weren’t Ayu, that is. Allow me to tack that caveat on.

“What’s that one again, the one shaped like an hourglass.”
“That’d be… Orion, I think?”
“Impressive you can answer that… if you’ve got room to memorize that kind of thing, maybe try putting a bit more into studying.”
“Why am I getting dissed when I gave you the answer… besides, we had a whole lesson on constellations back in elementary school, remember?”

Oh, hush. I’d just completely blanked on it; that was me covering for a bit of embarrassment, is what it was… not that I’d ever breathe a word of it out loud.

As I sit there silent, thinking all that, Ayu goes quiet too. For a second I wonder if the call’s dropped… but we’re still connected, so she must just be lost in the starry sky as well.

“Gin-chan, three minutes till the year crosses over, y’know.”
“…Oh, is that so.”

She clearly hadn’t forgotten we were right on the cusp of the new year. Me, on the other hand… I’d gotten so caught up picturing what kind of face Ayu was making over there that I’d forgotten for a second.

“You sure about the timing?”
“Locked in, y’know.”

Maybe she’s got some clock pulled up online while we talk; she’s awfully sure of herself… well, no sense being a stickler about accuracy, so I’ll leave it to her.

“Let’s both say ‘Happy New Year’ the very moment the year changes, yeah?”
“Sounds good.”
“All right, we’re about to dip under ten seconds, so… ten, nine…”

The countdown begins from Ayu’s lips. Realistically, nothing physically changes in a body just because the year turns over… and yet, oddly, my heart starts to race.

“Eight, seven, six…”

Restless somehow, I find myself mouthing along with Ayu’s countdown too. Right about now, everyone else is probably counting down just like this.

“Five, four, three…”

At last we slip under three seconds. Like the stars I’m gazing up at now… is Ayu feeling this same racing heart, I wonder. And then…

“Two, one…”

“Happy New Year!”

Along with three voices’ worth of ‘Happy New Year’ (not from Ayu’s end of the call, but right in my own ears), a bang! bang!… the sound of fireworks going up reaches me from somewhere nearby.

“Some town or other’s setting off fireworks.”
“Ehh! Really?! Can you see them?!”
“Mmh… can’t tell… actually, hey…”

…Maybe I’m imagining it. Running into something like this at the very start of the year would be far too unpleasant, but I can’t just leave it unchecked… I feel like something I’d honestly rather chalk up to my imagination just happened.

…It’s like… I could swear one more girl’s voice, someone besides the two of us, got mixed in there…

“Hey, so, this isn’t really the thing to ask the very second the year changes, but…”
“Hmm?”
“…Just now, didn’t some weird voice get mixed in?”
“Eh! A ghost?! Come on, Gin-chan, pulling a scare like that right at the start of the year…”
“Right? It’s just, I could’ve sworn I heard a third voice in that ‘Happy New Year’ a second ago…”
“Oh, you mean Yuu-chan? She’s been right here beside me the whole time, though?”

Someone was there?! And she’d been sitting dead silent next to Ayu this entire time?! True, Yuu did say she was the daughter of Ayu’s father’s older sister, so it’d be no surprise for her to be around at the paternal grandparents’ place, but still, come on, seriously!!!

And so, thanks to this rather nasty little prank, a conspiracy between my childhood friend and the self-styled “Ayu’s partner,” the year dawned on an anticlimactic little note of weirdness… and that was how I spent my year’s end.