On that late afternoon as the train rumbled along, there were several empty seats, but Kagiura stood by the door, watching the ever-changing scenery speed by. He relaxed as he realized there was more greenery in the city than he’d expected. He felt excitement building, though not quite the same kind of excitement he felt when his team was going off on a training retreat together or to some distant locale for an away game.

A gaggle of high school students wearing tracksuits emblazoned with their schools’ names boarded the train, maybe on their way back from practice. Kagiura sneaked surreptitious glances at them. Wonder if any of them are from my school, he thought. But while he was still reading the letters on their shirts, the train arrived at his destination.

Kagiura’s dorm was about a fifteen-minute walk from school, far enough that the closest station to the dorm wasn’t the closest station to school. There were two types of rooms: two-person and four-person. Kagiura would be staying in the former, with just one roommate.

When he met the dorm leader, Hanzawa, Kagiura immediately got the impression that he was the sort of guy who never stopped smiling. Even as they exchanged polite greetings, Hanzawa seemed to be grinning nonstop. His small talk as he gave Kagiura a tour of the facilities, including the cafeteria and the baths, was often peppered with laughter.

“Oh, right,” Hanzawa said. “Here in the dorms, we don’t get too formal, so you can just call me Hanzawa.”

“Then again, most people call me Dorm Leader anyway!”

“Huh?”

Hanzawa gave an enigmatic chuckle, and while Kagiura was still trying to decide the best way to address him, he continued: “Like I said, unless we’re talking to our friends, it’s pretty much respectful but not formal here, up to and including with the administrative staff. It’s not what you would call a hard-and-fast rule, but that’s how adults treat one another out in the working world, so it’s good practice. Gets you into the habit.”

“Huh… So you don’t worry about who’s an upperclassman and who’s an underclassman at all?”

“Not among dormmates, for the most part.”

“Wow…”

“You’ll get all the details at orientation. Oh yeah, your roommate is named Taiga Hirano. He’s a second-year, like me. You probably saw in the pamphlet, but first-years and second-years are always paired up. I guess you could call it a buddy system. If you’re confused about anything, start by asking your buddy.”

“Right. And this Hirano…”

Kagiura was just about to ask what kind of person his new roommate was, but he didn’t get the chance. The staff member at the dorm’s reception desk called, “Hanzawa? Telephone!”

“I’m coming!” Hanzawa said. Then he turned to Kagiura. “Sorry, Kagiura, but do you think you can make it to your room on your own? The doors are all numbered, so I don’t think you should have any trouble.” He was practically turning to walk away even as he spoke.

Kagiura nodded quickly. “Sure, no problem. Thank you very much!”

I wonder what this second-year, Hirano, is like. I hope he’s nice. Kagiura suddenly felt a pang of something like homesickness. Until the week before, he’d been wearing a middle school uniform, and here he was about to meet a perfect stranger who was going to be his roommate.

He wondered if Hirano was in any clubs or played on any teams. If he was on the basketball team, Kagiura had a mountain of questions for him. And even if he didn’t play for the team, maybe he had friends who did. If nothing else, the fact that he lived in the dorms meant he was away from home, too. Where was he from?

With all these thoughts running through his head, the time flew by, and before he knew it, Kagiura had found his room. He knocked gently, and the door promptly opened.

“Oh…” Before Kagiura could say hello, he found himself up close and personal with the glare of the person who had opened the door. “Hngh?” He found himself wincing under a gaze both sharp and suspicious.

Is this guy some kind of delinquent? The blond dye job, the cold look in his eyes… And are his ears pierced?

“Uh, I g-guess we’re going to be roommates,” Kagiura started. “I’m—”

“Oh, so you’re Kagiura. Sorry, I overslept. Isn’t the dorm leader with you?”

Now that he mentioned it, Kagiura realized that the other young man’s voice had that huskiness of someone just shaking off sleep.

“He got called away by a staff member. He told me to look for my room…”

I guess he’s not so scary after all, Kagiura thought. Heck, he’s downright kind… He felt warmth spread through his chest, touching the part of him that was, admittedly, lonely.

“Thank you very much, Hirano. Hey, I… I look forward to living with you this year.”

“Yeah, you too, Kagiura.”

Kagiura unpacked his things—which had arrived at the dorm just before he had—but as he hadn’t received his textbooks yet, his desk remained barren. His uniform, which hung in a spot set aside for their clothes, was a little on the large side in the expectation that he’d grow into it.

He touched the sheets, which were worn from being washed so many times. The texture was wonderful and promised to be very pleasant when he climbed into bed for the night. He looked around, knowing this was where he would be living for the foreseeable future. While his house might not have been close enough for him to get to practice every morning, he was from this prefecture. He could go home on the weekends if he wanted to. But even so…

“You all right, Kagiura?”

“Huh? Why do you ask?”

“Aw, nothing. Just thought you might be tired or something.”

“Nah… I mean, no. I’m fine.”

Maybe he’s in the advanced classes. He’d heard that most of the students who lived in this dorm were on the academic fast track. Kagiura had taken Hirano for something of a punk at first glance, but seeing him hard at work, he realized his roommate might actually be very dedicated to his studies. It made his handsome features stand out all the more and somehow made him seem less approachable.

He didn’t want to disturb his new roommate with questions about where to find food, so instead he sat down at his own desk and opened the pamphlet on dorm life. Thoughts of filling his stomach wouldn’t leave him alone. He needed food to make up for all the calories he burned when he worked out, but his monthly allowance only went so far, and students living in the dorm weren’t allowed to have part-time jobs. They were supposed to focus on their studies or their club activities.

Wonder if I can get seconds at mealtimes, Kagiura thought, and after a few minutes of such pondering, he was soon dozing off.

The hand patting his shoulder was gentle, tapping him in a pleasant, comforting rhythm. A voice called his name in a way that seemed calculated to lull him deeper into sleep, and when he confirmed it wasn’t a teacher, Kagiura felt a sense of relief. He was a growing boy, and his body demanded rest; he would catch a few winks any time there was the slightest chance. Sleeping in class was a regular occurrence for him, to the point that his middle school teachers had been at their wits’ end.

“Hey, come on. I’m gonna leave you here.”

He was right. It wasn’t a teacher…

“Kagiura, wake up already!”

Almost before the words had registered, Kagiura was sitting bolt upright, provoking a “Whoa!” from right next to his ear. Who should have woken Kagiura from his deskbound slumber but his roommate, one year ahead of him in school, Hirano. His golden hair seemed to glitter in Kagiura’s bleary eyes. It was lovely.

Kagiura nearly found himself whispering the question: Did you make it that color because it looks so good on you? Sadly, his tongue was heavy with sleep and wouldn’t form the words.

Kagiura blinked furiously. Hirano appeared to take it in stride. He was wearing a parka over a T-shirt.

“It’s almost time for lunch,” he said. “You coming?”

“I sure am!”

The first meal he had at the dorm cafeteria was heavenly. He could happily eat this stuff every single day.

Having lunch together, seated across from each other at the cafeteria table, created an opportunity for the two roommates to get to know each other a little better. Kagiura explained that he had entered the school on an athletic recommendation and that he was left-handed. Hirano listened attentively the entire time. Evidently, he wasn’t the type to smile and nod to keep a conversation going, but you didn’t have to be in order to be welcoming.

In the middle of the conversation, though, Kagiura’s hand stopped suddenly and wouldn’t move. Yes, the food was delicious, but there was a problem…

Kagiura felt his shoulders twitch. He tried to make his chopsticks move, but they stayed resolutely frozen. After a very long pause, he said, “No,” and hung his head.

Hirano didn’t look dismissive or judgmental; instead, he looked like he had an idea. “I want you to conquer that fear by the time you graduate. I’ll take that.” Then he reached out with his chopsticks and whisked the pepper away. Kagiura thought he could see a halo around Hirano’s head. Who knew that being just a year older could make a person so much better at responding to the needs of others?

“Thank you…,” Kagiura said.

Hirano chewed thoroughly and then said only, “Mm, that’s good.” The fact that Kagiura had been sure Hirano was going to berate him for being picky made his decency even more impressive.

I think I could like a guy like this…

Kagiura was starting to find himself charmed by the way Hirano’s rough tone belied his kind personality. Something told him this was going to be a very fun year.

There was just one thing he was worried about. Hirano was not the best communicator. He was fine once you got used to him, but it took a while for him to open up to new people, and he realized his appearance and behavior could scare people off. He brought it up with Hanzawa, who knew how he was, and asked for advice on how to get along with this new underclassman.

Hanzawa acknowledged that calling the new guy by a nickname might be more than Hirano could manage, and they agreed “Kagiura” was probably enough. That was well and good, but it still didn’t relieve Hirano’s nerves. Besides, “Kagiura” was sort of hard to say. Why couldn’t my roommate’s name be easier to say? Hirano wondered. Yet he still hesitated to call Kagiura something shorter.

By tradition, the single-occupancy rooms for the seniors were typically vacated by the middle of March, so the young man who’d been living with Hirano the previous year, and who was a year ahead of him in school, had already moved on to fashion himself a temple of study in his new room.

So it was that Hirano got to spend a good while in what amounted to his own private room, and he was able to get completely ready when it came time once more to live with someone else. The result was that he had slept poorly—and the result of that was oversleeping right until Kagiura appeared at the door.

Way to make a good impression on the new guy, huh? So much for all the advice.

Still, the “new guy,” Kagiura, was easy to read, and it was clear he thought the world of Hirano and took to him quickly. He didn’t seem like much of an early riser, yet he diligently went to morning practice each day; and although he had to be dealing with more rules than he’d ever had to juggle in his life, he never complained.

The other second-years on the basketball team said Kagiura was someone they’d had their eye on while he was still in middle school and that he worked twice as hard as anyone else.

He was also, it seemed, not great at studying. Just the other day, he’d spotted Hirano somewhere on campus with another upperclassman, Sasaki, and when Hirano got home, Kagiura had asked him, “Who was that you were with?”

“Ahhh, he’s having a tough time in class, so I was showing him my notes,” Hirano replied.

Kagiura looked taken aback and said, “Well, I’m having a tough time, too.” His expression was so anxious that Hirano started to feel like he was catching his roommate’s nerves.

He didn’t quite look at Hirano as he said, “I get my friend to show me his notes when I have trouble keeping up.” Hirano hadn’t felt like he was scolding Kagiura, but apparently in trying to get a complete picture of the situation, he’d started to sound like he was lecturing.

“That’s cool. Well, keep at it. Just try not to fall asleep in class, huh?”

He’d meant that last remark as a joke, but Kagiura nodded earnestly. Hirano felt like it was one of the oddest reactions he’d ever seen.

High school wasn’t part of the compulsory educational system. At this point, exam results determined your academic ranking. If Kagiura was feeling confident, then fine—but the first real hurdle would be the midterm exams in the middle of May. With the sports festival right at the end of the month, Kagiura’s schedule would be relentless, and the scope of the midterms was so specific that in your first year, it was hard to set yourself apart with your grades.

Or at least, it should have been.

There was a reason Hirano felt he couldn’t ignore Kagiura’s strange reaction. There was someone quite close to him who slept in class and sometimes even played hooky. Shuumei Sasaki was his name, and he was a regular offender when it came to coming to class late. In fact, he’d missed the beginning of class again today.

Sasaki dyed his hair a flashy brown color and had covered himself in piercings (not that Hirano was one to talk). No matter how you put it, he was a man who stood out. He was handsome, but he had a nasty look in his eyes—he acted like everything was too much trouble, and during special events, he didn’t even try to hide how disinterested he was, often staring off into space.

As classmates went, it was hard to get close to him. When a guy so tall acted so cold, people found it intimidating—but at the same time, he wasn’t quite as bad an apple as he looked. In spite of the tough-guy attitude, Hirano had heard him remark, “I don’t like to fight. I’m no good at it.”

If he had to guess, Hirano would have said Sasaki found high school boring. It wasn’t exactly that the guy had no interests—Hirano sometimes saw him talking animatedly with his friends about music, but that was about it.

When Hirano got to school, he was, as usual, accosted by Sasaki, who had, as usual, missed first period. “Hirano, show me your notes from English class,” he said. Normally, Hirano would have just handed them over, but he’d been thinking, and today he decided to bargain.

“All right, but you have to show me your math notes,” he said.

“Huh? Yeah, sure, I guess. But why? You gonna copy my answers to the homework?”

“In your dreams, moron. My roommate’s trying to figure this stuff out. Thought maybe I could learn something about how to teach him.”

Math was third period. For all his academic troubles, Sasaki never left his books behind; he always had the textbook and the notes for his upcoming classes. The guy never forgot his things.

Hirano opened the notes Sasaki held out to him and sighed. It was more or less what he’d expected—a bunch of context-free scribbles. How did Sasaki even use his own notes? He hadn’t copied what the teacher had written so much as he’d scrawled down a formula in large print, beside which there was some number that he’d circled. It felt a bit like an abridged version of what must have been on the blackboard, but Hirano couldn’t tell what the number represented. The rest of the notes seemed to be furiously worked problems. There wasn’t a single line of explanation or any examples. What even was this?

“What’s this circled number?” Hirano asked.

“Oh, that. That’s the textbook page number.”

“Oh… Great.”

“The explanation and the examples are all in the book. Why would I bother copying them when I can just look there?”

While Hirano stood there pondering, Sasaki gave him a perplexed look. “You seem really, like, serious about this.”

“No more than usual.” How could he just ignore an underclassman suffering right in the same room? At least Kagiura wasn’t acting as if he felt beaten by his difficulties. He was struggling with material that was suddenly much harder than he was used to, but with his earnestness and dedication, there was still every chance he could turn things around.

“Wish you’d take my study problems that seriously.”

“All last year, you never seemed like you wanted to get any better.”

“Ha-ha. Fair enough, Hirano—but it doesn’t matter how serious you are. If your precious little underclassman sucks at studying, then he’s not gonna get any better.”

“Kagiura’s not like that,” Hirano snapped. Kagiura was serious and dedicated. Hirano thrust the notebook back at Sasaki. Sasaki’s mouth was hanging open slightly, as if he was stunned by Hirano’s reaction, but Hirano didn’t know why he would be.

“You’re both exemplary first-years.” That’s what the team seniors had said. That was their evaluation.

“This sucks…”

It was hardly unusual for perfectly capable athletes to get into school via the general entrance exams. But that didn’t change how much Kagiura had wanted to be the standout player in his year.

Kagiura stopped for some ramen near the train station to chase the gloom away before heading to the dorm, and when he got back, dinner was nearly over. Normally, he changed his clothes before he went to the cafeteria so that everything stayed clean, but today, there he was still in his basketball uniform.

He took a quick look around but didn’t see Hirano anywhere. Guess he’s already eaten, he thought ruefully. A little too scared to just ask his roommate to join him, he took a tray and found an empty seat.

With all the working out he’d done, Kagiura should have been able to eat about as much as he wanted, but the chopsticks felt heavy in his hand. He’d ordered a normal-size bowl of rice, but even that felt like a lot, and as he worked his way ever so slowly through it, all the students around him finished their meals and left one by one. Kagiura didn’t exactly have time to hang around, since he could only use the bath during the time allotted to first-years.

He felt lighter as he came through the door, calling out a greeting. His room felt like his place, his home, in a way that the dorm as a whole didn’t. It was almost tangible, something in the air like a relaxed, gentle feeling that seemed to be a part of the space.

“What’s the matter, Kagiura? You seem kind of out of it. Feeling sick?” Hirano asked from his desk, where he was studying. Kagiura had come into the room and was just standing there, without even setting down his bag.

“Huh? Aw, nothin’. I mean… It’s nothing.”

Maybe I look a bit cagey, he realized, and quickly set the bag down, then put his uniform blazer on its hanger. It was bad enough to be walking around sulking, but to have Hirano, who had nothing to do with the basketball team, worrying about him—that was too much.

“Upset stomach?” Hirano asked.

“Kind of feels that way.” Kagiura’s stomach had felt heavy and queasy, yet he’d eaten more than he really wanted and was now suffering the consequences. He supposed that counted as an upset stomach. He had a bad feeling indigestion was in his future.

“Geez, Kagiura, you look like death. Doesn’t seem like you’ve caught a cold… What happened?”

Their eyes met.

Kagiura glanced at the clock. Ten more minutes until the first-years could use the bath. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s embarrassing.”

Kagiura had come to this school thinking he could carry the basketball team, and that dream still burned in his heart. To whine about it now would be to let that dream die without even fighting for it, and he didn’t want that.

Hirano wouldn’t leave him alone, though. “You can be embarrassed here. I won’t tell anyone.”

Guess I can’t insist on having it my way, Kagiura thought. If this person was going to reach out a hand to him, he couldn’t just stay silent. Once he gave in, his only concern was the time. Hoping to get the conversation over with before he missed his chance to bathe, he reluctantly started to talk.

“There’s this other first-year on the basketball team. He’s more than 180 cm tall, and he just started playing ball this year, but he used to be on the track team, so he can really run, and he’s getting better and better at handling the ball.” He didn’t feel like singing the guy’s praises, but somehow good things were all he could think of to say.

“Yeah?”

Kagiura was quite long-limbed himself, but when faced with an opponent ten centimeters taller than he was who also knew how to move, he was at a distinct disadvantage. That’s just how basketball was. This new guy hadn’t been chosen to be part of the scrimmage games yet, but it was obvious that when he learned tactics, he had plenty of room to grow and would show them all what he could do.

The team figured Kagiura had come to them in good enough shape to play immediately, and he would be on the bench as a backup in next month’s games, but at the same time, the team had a pretty deep roster and he didn’t think he would actually get a turn on the court. If he had to stay on the bench, the gap would only grow.

Build was a part of your talent, and it wasn’t easy to find an environment where excellent teammates could put you through your paces. When it came to Kagiura, who stood out even against more experienced players, this new guy had no end of praise for him. But today, that had rubbed Kagiura the wrong way. It was like the guy was saying, I’ll catch up to you real soon.

If I was still on my middle school team, I’d probably be thrilled about him, Kagiura thought. They would have won even more tournaments together.

Instead, Hirano sighed softly, making a sympathetic sound. “That’s rough, man. I can see why you’d be upset about him,” he said. “But there’s another difference between you two, Kagiura—how much effort you’ve put in over the years. That’s not a gap he’s gonna close in a few days. I’ll bet you’ve got a lot more experience in actual games than he does, too. As for your height… Hell, you’re still growing. Don’t sweat it.”

“Yeah… Maybe…” Kagiura found that just having someone listen to his troubles had helped calm the storm within. Now he felt silly for having bothered Hirano with it.

“It’s true. Effort is, like… It makes a difference because it’s tough to keep giving it, right? It’s like studying. Doesn’t matter if you’re smart—if you never study, you’ll stop learning at some point. A sports match really means pitting your practice and the talent you’ve polished against theirs…don’t you think? So it’s like this… While this other first-year is growing, you can do plenty of growing, too, Kagiura. Right?”

Hirano was obviously thinking carefully as he spoke, and to Kagiura, his words were like cool water on a parched throat. Kagiura was almost frightened at how quickly Hirano seemed to have grasped the root of his smoldering frustration. Kagiura himself hadn’t been willing to go so far into it, and it made him more aware of the heat in Hirano’s gaze on him.

“Thank you, Hirano,” he said after a moment, although he was feeling too shy to meet the other man’s eyes. When he checked the clock instead, he found it was already time for first-years to use the bath. He jumped to his feet.

The question came so out of the blue that it stopped Kagiura in his tracks. He blinked for a second. “Huh? Yeah… Sure, that’s fine,” he said, but he wondered what had brought that on so suddenly. He still wasn’t entirely sure as Hirano sent him on his way to the bath.

From that day forward, his roommate began to call him Kagi. For Kagiura, it was only the smallest of changes in his daily life. At least at first.

A few days later, he bumped into Hanzawa in the cafeteria. “Hirano hardly ever gives anyone a nickname,” the dorm leader said almost admiringly.

“Just easier to say,” Hirano remarked blandly, but for the rest of the day, Kagiura felt like he was floating, knowing that Hirano had given him special treatment.

The sports festival came soon after, and with it an inter-team relay. The classmate who’d been so much on Kagiura’s mind was the runner representing the first-years, and he tore everyone else apart, even the high school’s actual track-and-field team members.

As he cheered the guy on at the top of his lungs, Kagiura privately resolved to find the young man later. I’ve gotta tell him how glad I am that he joined the basketball team.

Kagiura arrived at school a mere five minutes before the final bell.

“Geez, you barely made it. I know I woke you up this morning,” Hirano said.

“Yeah… Sorry. By the way, can I ask you something?”

“Hmm?”

“Who’s that guy you were talking about earlier? The one you said looked like he’d been crying…”

Hirano did a lot of odd jobs around school and knew a lot of people, so Kagiura’s initial question didn’t clarify things for him, but those last few words narrowed it down. “Oh, you mean Miyano. A junior of mine on the Disciplinary Committee.”

“Are you, uh, close to this Miyano guy?”

Hirano wasn’t sure what to make of that question. “Close? Eh, I guess we talk. He’s a bit of a weirdo, though.” He was going to add that if Kagiura was curious about Miyano, he should poke his head into the next class over, but Kagiura didn’t actually seem interested in meeting his fellow first-year.

“Hey, it’s all good, but you’d better get to class, or you’re gonna be late,” Hirano said, giving Kagiura a gentle shove on the back. Kagiura’s face finally relaxed. Huh. Freaked out about his first uniform inspection, huh? Hirano started to smile, amused to realize Kagiura had this sweet side, when he heard a voice behind him.

“What’s Kagiura doing standing around?” the person asked. “Did he fail inspection?” The speaker was another student in an impeccable uniform, suggesting he was a first-year himself. Apparently, he was also a friend of Kagiura’s. His empty hands made it clear he’d already been to the classroom to drop off his stuff and had come back for some reason.

“Nah, nothing like that. He’s my roommate,” Hirano said.

“Ah! You’re the famous Hirano, then?”

“What do you mean, famous?” Hirano asked sharply.

“I hear you’re kind enough to wake him up in the morning. I’m Niibashi, same class as Kagiura.” He gave a polite greeting, and Hirano simply said, “Sure,” realizing how forceful he must have sounded.

Niibashi was a bit on the short side, which, combined with his boyish features, made him look like a middle schooler when he stood next to Kagiura. He looked a lot like Miyano, in fact, but his air of confidence made him feel completely different. The breeze puffed out his hair a bit, giving him a sort of “fuzzy” look, but his excellent posture and the fact that he was friends with Kagiura suggested he was into sports.

“Are you also the Hirano who’s nice enough to get angry when Kagiura fails to take notes in class?”

“Ah. I only ask because Kagiura once told me that if he didn’t take notes, you’d get angry at him—but he looked rather pleased when he said it.” From the way Niibashi grinned and looked Hirano right in the eye as he spoke, Hirano started to get a pretty good idea of the young man’s personality.

He’s an egotist through and through.

He was cute, he knew it, and he was going to make use of it. It might not seem like a very nice thing to think about his roommate’s friend, but Hirano could already tell this was someone he wouldn’t get along with.

“Y’know, I remember you mentioning you had a friend who let you copy his notes, Kagi. Try to take ’em yourself if you can, eh?”

“I’ll try, honest. By the way, Niibashi, why are you here?”

Unlike Hirano, who was feeling a bit put off by Niibashi, Kagiura seemed to engage with him very directly. The rules of engagement in the dorm, not obsequious but rarely casual, meant that Hirano hadn’t really seen Kagiura talking affably with his classmates before, and it was kind of nice to see.

“’Cause you didn’t answer my text! I went out of my way to let you know that we have to move classrooms for first period and that if you don’t go straight to the new one, you’ll never get there in time. You should be grateful! The teachers are already giving you the evil eye for sleeping in class.” Niibashi was keeping his voice down so the people around them wouldn’t hear, but Hirano was close enough to pick up what he was saying. He’d assumed Kagiura was just having trouble following the class material, but he was also sleeping during lectures, huh? No wonder he didn’t always take notes.

Now, then…

Sighing a little as Kagiura scampered away, Hirano signaled the other committee members to pack up. Hanzawa, who was also the vice president of the Disciplinary Committee, would get their notes together and hand them off to a teacher. Several faculty members would be doing the uniform inspections for the students who made it to school by the skin of their teeth or were tardy.

It was the rainy season, but this was a rare sunny morning, and Hirano’s head was scorched from being out in the sun.

Speaking of Hirano’s head, he was, of course, the first offender disciplined by the faculty’s dress-code inspection.

Anxiety churned in Kagiura’s gut. Taiga Hirano was unmistakably attractive, and it was obvious how much the younger members of his committee admired him. Kagiura hardly intended to insist that Hirano should be “his” upperclassman and his alone, but he did envy those who knew Hirano in ways he didn’t.

“Hey, you’re zoning out again. C’mon, this is last year’s test. You could work on the problems from this unit, but since it all comes from the textbook, once you know what you’re likely to see, you should focus on the stuff that seems most likely to come up.”

Kagiura opened his eyes—he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them, hadn’t realized that his consciousness had scattered to the four winds—to find a sheaf of already-graded tests being slapped down on his desk. The scores were good. Blindingly good. But of course…

“Right…”

Seeing Hirano’s full name there alongside the designation of his first-year class was something new to Kagiura, and the novelty of it dispelled a bit of his drowsiness. Based on the student numbers determined by alphabetical order of students’ family names, Hirano had been listed somewhere among the second half of the class.

“Hey, sorry if I’m misreading this, but… You sort of copy your notes at random, don’t you, Kagi?” Hirano said.

Kagiura was the picture of health, and his heart was sound, yet it hurt when Hirano landed such a precise blow. “Well… Yeah, sometimes, I guess.”

“How much of the time?”

“Er… Uh, seventy, maybe eighty percent?”

“Oh, c’mon!”

Hirano must have been looking at the notebooks spread open on the desk. Kagiura could never be entirely sure how much he’d missed when he woke up in class, so he left arbitrarily sized blank spaces with the intention of copying from Niibashi afterward. When the notes he’d missed were too long for the space he’d saved, he just omitted the parts that didn’t fit.

“Yeah, I know… I have some systems. Like, I try to mark stuff in my notes when I don’t quite understand it. But in math class especially, I tend to write formulas in weird places, or I can’t get the figures to come out quite right. I’ve gotta admit, it’s not easy to study from.”

“Is it that bad?” he asked.

“Yeah, probably. I mean, it doesn’t look like even last year’s test is making a lot of sense to you. You don’t get the problems, do you?”

“No…”

“Argh. It’s like… You know. I mean, I’m kind of guessing here, but the stuff on old tests, that’s, like, what they hope to teach you, right? I mean, a lot of the time. So it should tell you what’s important. Forget the application problems for now. Focus on basics first.”

Kagiura could only bow his head and agree. Hirano gave him a reassuring pat. Kagiura almost felt like his pet. He leaned his head over toward Hirano, who snapped, “Don’t sleep in your chair.” But that remark was shortly followed by another yawn. Kagiura grinned.

So when, as Kagiura sat there in his wrinkled sleep clothes trying to suppress a yawn, Hirano ordered him to hand over his textbook, he did as he was told. Then he watched in perplexity as the other man began putting sticky notes here and there around the book. It finally occurred to Kagiura’s sleep-addled brain that Hirano was picking out the parts that were likely to show up on the test.

“It all starts with reading the textbook. Come on.”

Kagiura was accustomed by now to the sharp looks Hirano gave him, but he shrank into his seat, knowing how much trouble he was causing his roommate. He nodded obediently and tried to focus on the text. When he had finished reading the friendly, approachable explanation and looked at the test paper again, he discovered that he was indeed able to understand what they were looking for.

His real problem was that he had no confidence he’d be able to fill in the answers on the real test when he wouldn’t have the textbook to rely on.

“Guess that’s why I have to learn it,” he said with a sigh.

The results of his midterm exams had been tragic. He’d done reasonably well in the subjects he liked, but there weren’t very many of those. He’d done worse than he did in middle school—his scores were below average in more than half his classes, and he started to feel like he was really in danger. Even when he worked his hardest, though, academics just didn’t have the same satisfaction as sports.

Back in his first year, Hirano might’ve been able to spot this problem more easily.

Kagiura hadn’t even been concentrating for thirty minutes when he stood up—at exactly the moment the cafeteria opened for breakfast.

“I wanna go for a run,” he said, more eager to work off his pent-up energy than to get some food. He’d slept a lot later than usual the day before, so he hadn’t noticed, but now he realized that getting up early triggered his habit to exercise. As if on cue from somewhere in his body, he became desperate to go outside.

“You know it’s raining out, right?” Hirano said sharply.

“Man, it was sunny yesterday,” Kagiura grumbled, doing some gentle jumping jacks. Hirano stretched, too.

“Well, you gotta study, rain or shine, so nose to the grindstone. There are no shortcuts in academics… Wait, are there shortcuts in basketball?” He sounded downright serious.

When he finally stepped onto a court for the first time, his sense for the game was so profound that everyone who saw him told him that if he could work on his accuracy a bit, he’d be an incredible player. If his practice regimen sometimes seemed brutal, it was only because he had such a clear vision of where he wanted to be.

“Okay, I’m gonna work hard,” he said finally.

“That’s the stuff.”

Kagiura couldn’t say he felt any better, but he thought maybe studying was for Hirano what basketball was for him. When you were on your given path, it was easy to follow, and you knew how to go about it, even if it took hard work.

Kagiura wished he could find a way—a path that might not have any shortcuts but wouldn’t be too long. It might not be much fun, but it was sure better than throwing in the towel.

As they went back to studying, the room filled with the comforting sound of mechanical pencils scratching across high-quality paper. There was a study room in the dormitory, but Kagiura had never used it. Over and above the unique qualities of the dorm, he felt like that room sort of belonged to the kids in the advanced classes, the ones who had gotten here by taking tests. He noticed, though, that knowing there was someone else studying right next to him as he worked helped him focus.

It didn’t make any difference to his stomach, however, which started gurgling promptly at six forty-five.

“I gotta eat something,” Kagiura said.

Kagiura was happy for the offer, but he said, “I need meat. Maybe some chicken…” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them; he wished he had accepted the chocolate.

As a general rule, you weren’t supposed to eat in the dorm except in the cafeteria. You could have a drink, but any little treats in your bag, you had to munch at school. Hirano was the one who had told Kagiura that, and here he was offering him chocolate!

“When it comes to chicken, I’m a yakitori guy, myself,” Hirano said.

Ahhh. So he liked grilled chicken skewers, did he? Kagiura filed the information away in his brain as he stood up. He’d reached his limit. He had to eat. “Hey, Hirano—someone told me once that it’s better to study on an empty stomach than a full one, but I just don’t think that’s true for me…”

“Of course, if you keep going on about food. Let’s get some breakfast,” Hirano said, agreeing that a guy’s got to eat. He rubbed his tummy as he slipped on his sandals.

Kagiura, drawn by how Hirano moved in the room’s cramped entryway, almost reached out to touch him, but he forced his hand back. He took a step away from where Hirano was crouched by the door. He didn’t mind jostling with his teammates as they changed in the locker room, but he didn’t feel that close to Hirano yet. At the same time, he couldn’t help but sense that he was overthinking it.

I’d like to be good enough friends with Hirano that I don’t get an attack of nerves over something like this, he thought.

Hirano was already stepping into the hallway, looking perfectly ordinary. He was completely oblivious to the stirring in Kagiura’s heart.

Unlike Hirano, Kagiura hadn’t put his sheets out before going to the bath, so his mattress pad was still visible. “That’s no excuse to go randomly lying in a person’s bed!” Hirano had exclaimed, shortly thereafter insisting that Kagiura take care of his own bedding.

No matter how I try, I just can’t seem to remember what I did with them.

Since he was missing both the right and left ones, the chances that he’d dropped them seemed slim. The clasps hadn’t been loose, and he knew they hadn’t caught on anything. Yet they were nowhere to be seen, leaving Hirano scratching his head in frustration.

“What’s wrong, Hirano?”

A voice shook him out of his reverie, and he belatedly realized his roommate was back.

“Oh, hey. Nothing. It’s not a big deal, but I can’t find my earrings. I was sure they must be around here somewhere, but I’m not seeing them…”

Hirano never took them off except in the room, so they had to be in the dorm. Kagiura quickly crouched down. “I’ll help you look,” he said.

“Thanks, but don’t worry about it. I can do it. Just try not to step on ’em, okay?”

“Sure. But you’ve got to feel weird without them, right?”

“Eh. The holes won’t close up in just a day or two. I’m more worried about you, Kagi. Didn’t you say you had to go right out for practice after you dropped your bag off? Didn’t you promise your friends?”

The tests had gone perfectly fine for Kagiura, thanks in no small part to Hirano, who was quite good at looking after younger students. Kagiura got a score that was worth noticing, sports recommendation or no. In his own appraisal, he’d “studied like I was trying to get into college!”

There was a respite from team activities today so that the faculty adviser, current club president, and incoming president for next term could go to a conference at another school. Considering the heat, it was also something of an act of mercy, but having just survived the tests, Kagiura didn’t appreciate it.

“Oh, you’re right! Gotta go! See you later!” He looked like he was about to run all the way to practice.

Nice that he’s able to be so energetic when it’s this hot. Now that he got up at the same time as Kagiura and understood his lifestyle, Hirano had nothing but respect for how much more exercise Kagiura did than him.

“Sure, have a good workout,” he said. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when he saw Kagiura being especially careful of his feet as he left, just as Hirano had asked him.

It was just a week or so until summer break now. It’s gonna be a little too quiet, Hirano thought. His household was only himself and his parents, and his father sometimes lapsed into silent spells. Exuberance was not his “thing.”

They all got along just fine; Hirano had no complaints about his family, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang when he saw people his own age who were used to living with their siblings.

“Funny. I didn’t even think about it last year,” he murmured. He stood up and stretched his stiff hips.

He looked over at his roommate’s messy bed, a testament to how bad he was at getting up in the morning. An oversize hand towel was still balled up on top of it. Hirano even pulled the sheets off Kagiura’s bed, just in case his earrings were there (although it wasn’t likely), and then put them back neater than he’d found them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of his lost jewelry. The titanium studs, his first piercings, were matte, which made them hard to spot.

Defeated, Hirano packed his stuff back into his bag and started in on his homework. During the break, he would be taking summer lectures at a prep school, along with a number of practice exams. For a student in their second year of high school, summer vacation wasn’t much of a break at all.

To be fair, it wasn’t as though all his courses were intensive lectures, and yes, he would have more free time than usual to play around or travel. But there was no question that the flow of his time would be different than it had been the year before.

If Kagiura can just pass his classes, I’ll bet he could get an athletic recommendation to college no problem. Hirano’s gaze softened a bit at the thought—but it was a pointless fantasy right now. He started on the practice problems.

Preparations for the cultural festival would be starting the next day. In the short time before the summer break, each homeroom class would have to submit their plans to divvy up the tasks and responsibilities for getting them ready.

Just deciding what they would do was an involved process: There was a two-step audition you had to pass, including a written proposal and then an oral interview. Only if you passed both those stages could you proceed to true planning.

The only things likely to get accepted are stuff you can do on a low budget in a small space. Fact is, it’s likely to be a fight over who gets to do what food stall.

Preparations were so intense that some claimed studying for exams was easier than being on the Cultural Festival Committee at this time of year. Events were selected by a group composed of representatives of each class and year from the festival committee and the student council, along with a faculty member. The cultural festival was hard on the people who had to run it and the people who wanted to take part in it—and it all started this week.

Taking over an entire hallway meant the event would be a one-way affair, so they had to do it somewhere near a flight of stairs, and they would have to give serious thought to how to evacuate in the event of an emergency. Decorating the classrooms would be time-consuming, not to mention they would need to make costumes. This cultural fest would demand some real passion, and Hirano, who belonged to a club that didn’t exactly set his heart racing, had enthusiasm to spare.

Now, what about Kagiura?

Kagiura imagined someone who would be courageous enough to give him a push if there was a path he wanted to take and loving enough to wait eagerly for him to come home again. Someone with whom he could spend calm, cheerful days, without having to put on an act or force anything.

Once he realized his parents were his relationship goals, he also decided he didn’t want to just play around in relationships that wouldn’t go anywhere. Not that he had ever been one for frivolous dates but having already learned from experience that it took more than passion to make things work, he naturally found himself willing to wait and see whom he would connect with.

He wanted to be like his mom, who would ask his dad “Do you want some, too?” whenever she was having a cup of tea. He wanted to be like his dad, who would come home with his mom’s favorite snacks on a random evening, just because.

“Anyone have any other ideas? If not, we’ll pick from what we’ve got by majority vote.”

Just before the voting began, something popped into Kagiura’s head. “Oh, I know! How about yakitori?” He remembered Hirano mentioning that he liked yakitori. Maybe he’d be happy to be able to have some during the cultural fest.

“Would we need to cook it?”

“I think they sell frozen stuff at the wholesale supermarket.”

“Where the heck would we keep it?”

“We could each take some of it. If we bring it in the morning of, we could let it thaw during the day.”

“But do we do tare sauce? Salted? Both?”

“They both sound so good…”

The notion of trying to get girls to show up was forgotten, replaced by thoughts of satisfying the students’ growling stomachs. High school boys do get hungry, after all. They can eat breakfast, a morning snack, and lunch, then grab a bite after class and still take an extra-large helping of rice at dinner. With the student athletes, it was even worse, and Kagiura was no exception; he spent the majority of his monthly allowance on snacks.

With the majority vote falling firmly in favor of grilled chicken, the homeroom teacher, who had been watching the discussion play out, got slowly to his feet. “Food stalls are pretty competitive—lots of classes want to do them. And a yakitori place would have to be set up outside, so you’d need materials that could handle the elements. It’ll be tough to get this one approved if you don’t plan very carefully. I’d suggest deciding on a second choice as a plan B. Kagiura—it was your idea. You want to be our representative for the Cultural Festival Committee and brave the audition?”

He hesitated for only a second. It wasn’t about whether he was cut out for it—his mind’s eye was already full of Hirano’s grinning face.

“Gladly, sir,” he said, nodding firmly.

Kagiura immediately looked at Niibashi in the seat beside his. Niibashi might be a real talker, but he was meticulous and excelled at whatever he set out to do. Kagiura was sure there’d be no miscommunication or missed deadlines with Niibashi at his side. Not to mention that with his confidence, Niibashi was exactly the person to help pull off an event like this. The perfect ally—as far as Kagiura was concerned—for anything that would involve negotiations.

“What’s that? You want me to help? Well, I suppose you’ve got me… I know you can’t do paperwork to save your life,” Niibashi said. He might have acted annoyed, but his immediate willingness spoke to how close they had grown as they got to know each other over the past few months.

A hand shot up in the back of the classroom. “How many representatives can we have, sir? If you can be a rep and be on the committee at the same time, I’ll be happy to do it,” someone said. He was followed by several more people volunteering their time.

Ultimately, the class chose four representatives for the Cultural Festival Committee, including Kagiura (the idea man) and Niibashi (his assistant). The committee’s first meeting would be after class the next day; they would explain the materials and how to fill out the application paperwork. The four young men looked pained when they found out they would also have to help examine setups and tools, but it was too late to back out now.

Come to think of it, I wonder what Hirano’s class is doing for the festival, Kagiura thought, and closed his eyes. He could still see a faint image of Hirano’s smiling face. He wanted to tour the festival stalls with him, a skewer of delicious yakitori in his hand.

It must have been the sunlight pouring through the window that made him imagine Hirano in a light-colored yukata—the classic summer-festival image.

“I think we might see a lot more groups of friends than you’re thinking. Heck, I’ve been to one.”

“With who?”

“Hmm?”

“Who did you go with? To last year’s cultural festival?”

Hirano was quiet for a moment, confronted with Kagiura’s unusually intense gaze. It wasn’t like he’d had a girlfriend, plus he’d had to watch the stall sometimes, so there hadn’t been any one person for him to tour the festival with. Instead, there’d been a revolving door of people who happened to be free when he got off his shift, or who asked him to go in with a group on some expensive snack—that sort of thing.

“With Sasaki and some of the other guys from my class, I guess. I don’t really remember,” he said.

“And have you made any plans with anyone for the festival this year?”

“Nah. I mean, you wouldn’t go out of your way to make a date just to wander around with your friends, would you?”

“Me… It’d be nice to walk around with you, Hirano.”

Ah, Hirano realized, so that was what he’d been getting at. He felt his brow crinkle fondly. True, you probably wouldn’t meet up with someone from another class and year unless you agreed ahead of time.

“Sure. Okay, let’s check it out when we’re both off duty.”

“Can we really?”

“By the way, Hirano, what part are you going to be playing in your haunted house?”

“No idea yet,” Hirano replied. The words came out easily, but they weren’t true; in reality, the class’s discussions had already settled most of the broad contours. They would take shifts playing different monsters, so one role would be played by several people, all sharing the same costume. Hirano was going to be one of the guys playing Oiwa, a vengeful spirit from one of Japan’s most famous ghost stories. Playing Oiwa necessitated dressing as a woman, but they all agreed it was better than playing Hanako, a ghost girl who was said to be stuck in a toilet stall.

Because of the shared aspect, more than half of Hirano’s class would be cross-dressing for the event. If they weren’t careful, it could even turn out to be most of them. Part of that was because so many famous ghosts were women, but it was also thanks to several students who were eager to work on their makeup skills. They reminded everyone that the year before, they’d wanted to make a horror movie but had been voted down by the class. As a member of the Disciplinary Committee, Hirano was anxious that the monsters not be played by roughnecks who just wanted to upset the visitors, so for him, being on the scare team was perfect.

Even if it does mean that I’m likely to spend the day dressed as a woman.

“I think you’d make a perfect yuki-onna, Hirano,” Kagiura said with a grin, referring to the spirit of a woman that was said to appear on snowy nights.

Hirano nudged him. “Don’t you have homework to do? Wrap it up before we have to go eat.” Hirano stood up.

“Hey, don’t you wanna change first?”

“Oh! I almost forgot.”

Hirano worried he was nagging, but Kagiura didn’t seem upset by the reminder. It meant it was worth the effort to help take care of him.

Meanwhile, he only really saw Hirano in his school uniform whenever Kagiura contrived to pass by him in the hallway. Hirano was the first of them to wake up in the morning, but he obviously didn’t throw on his uniform before he woke Kagiura up. And he was the first to get back to the room after class, so by the time Kagiura got back, Hirano was already in his loungewear. So Kagiura had no idea what kind of accessory would look good with whatever Hirano liked to wear.

No time to go out and buy something together before summer break, either.

What should he do, then? He was still thinking about it when the team was called together to start doing drills. He’d had it pounded into him that divided attention was the best way to get hurt in a hurry, so he promptly switched his mind to focus entirely on basketball. Interestingly enough, it also helped him stop worrying about being sweaty.

The gym was closed up tight, to take advantage of an indulgent amount of air-conditioning, and between the closed doors and the absolute focus, he could no longer hear the wind orchestra practicing.

In just a few days, Niibashi had conducted research among their second- and third-year peers. It was a truly sterling performance. Everyone had agreed it would be a real trick for a bunch of untested first-years to get one of the coveted spots in the central courtyard, but Niibashi delivered an audition so polished it was hard to believe he’d put it together in such a short, hectic time.

Niibashi had a gift for networking and was already reaching out to other classes that would need similar materials. Kagiura and the other two committee representatives practically felt like his assistants instead of the other way around.

Unlike the student applicants, who were bursting with enthusiasm for their projects and on the edge of their seats to find out the results, the students on the judging side of the Cultural Festival Committee were, to put it generously, calm. To put it less generously, they seemed a bit disengaged, and that surprised Kagiura. He’d assumed that at a school that prized individual initiative as much as this one did, the members of the student council would be people who loved planning and executing. Instead, the student council president, Touou, was fussy and particular.

He was comfortable giving orders, as befitting someone who’d become student council president despite only being a second-year. And even the way he lobbed questions about the proposals, sparing no one from his condescending glare, was somehow striking—but he didn’t look like he was having much fun.

Since it was almost summer break, they only had class in the morning that day. The basketball team would be taking a break from their workouts, too. The gym was unavailable because it was being used for inspections, plus the faculty adviser was away for teacher training and the coach was off, so there was no one to oversee practice.

The team members decided to take advantage of the situation to go to a sporting goods store. Kagiura, who knew his way around the place, decided to get a new pair of shoes, meanwhile giving advice and recommendations to the others. The school used this shop all the time—it made the team’s uniforms—and it felt good to find out that the store owner knew him on sight, even though he was only a first-year, and to know that he was rooting for their team. He’d even come to some of their practice games.

Kagiura went back to the dorm with his heart dancing, eager to ask Hirano to come to a practice game, too.

Even after shopping and lunch, he was still back much earlier than usual; it wasn’t even three o’clock yet. He could do his homework and still have time to goof off. “I’m back!” he said as he came through the door, but there was no answer. “Huh…?”

Bet he’ll be surprised to find me like this, Kagiura thought. But he was disappointed—come evening, Hirano still wasn’t home. Starting to feel anxious, Kagiura left the door propped open, but Hanzawa came by and closed it, remarking, “Open doors are a hazard to other students!”

Hanzawa was on the Disciplinary Committee with Hirano, which meant they weren’t at a late meeting. “Hanzawa,” Kagiura said, “I haven’t seen Hirano yet. Do you know where he is?”

“Not a clue. But hey, he’s not a kid. He’ll be fine. I’m headed to dinner. You want to come?”

He was right: Dinnertime had started, and although there was a fairly generous window of time to eat, it was best to go early so you wouldn’t overlap with bath time.

“Yeah, sure…” Kagiura really hoped it was nothing, but his heart was still beating faster than usual as he followed Hanzawa down the hall.

Hirano got back to the dorm just before dinner ended. Since he’d gone straight to the cafeteria without putting his stuff down, it was bath time for the first-years by the time he showed up at the room. Kagiura was just leaving and only had time for a quick hello, but he thought Hirano looked a bit angry.

Hirano often talked a little rough, but it was rare for him to seem genuinely out of sorts. Kagiura wanted to ask him about it but wasn’t sure if he should. What if it was something too sensitive to discuss with him? Every day, he was self-conscious about the one-year age gap—and associated life experiences—between them. He felt anxious and wasn’t able to talk to Hirano the way he did with his friends.

“I’m done washing up,” he called, knocking gently on the door, and was rewarded with “Nice, welcome back.” But Hirano sounded more subdued than usual. Kagiura found him sitting at his desk, and there was indeed a hard look in his eyes.

“What’s happening with you today?” Kagiura ventured, feeling like the intensity of Hirano’s gaze might overwhelm him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were pretty late getting back, but it didn’t seem to be a committee thing…”

“Oh… Sorry, man. You were worried about me?”

“Yeah. I was.”

Worry. That’s what it was. When Hirano said it, Kagiura realized. The clinging unease he’d felt all afternoon and evening was painfully similar to the lonely isolation he’d felt as a child when he was alone in the house. A swirling anxiety that gnawed at him and made him wonder if something had happened to his parents to keep them from coming home for so long, or if some awful fate had befallen his older siblings or his little sister.

“Oh… Well, it ain’t exactly a pretty story.”

“Yeah?”

“See, there was a fight at school today—really just a straight-up assault. One guy just attacked another. Totally outrageous.”

“Wow… But you know who did it, right? Won’t they be suspended for something like that?” Kagiura said.

“The guy who jumped in to help isn’t much of a fighter, and the attacker got away. We know it’s a first-year who did it, but we’re coming up on summer break real soon, so I’m not sure there’s much we can do. The interloper wouldn’t say much anyway. Stupid time to worry about looking dumb.”

As he talked, Hirano sounded more and more upset with his friend. Even more than that, he seemed annoyed. Something between regret and frustration.

Thinking about how it must feel to know someone wouldn’t open up to you even though you were close, Kagiura reached out to Hirano, caressing his lovely golden hair. It was the reverse of their usual positions, but Kagiura thought it was what Hirano would do in his shoes: listen to him, comfort him, encourage him. Hirano would probably have been better at it, but for now, Kagiura lacked the words to hold Hirano’s anger.

Hirano’s eyes widened a little when he felt Kagiura’s hand in his hair. “What are you doing?”

“I thought maybe this would help you calm down…”

“So how long are you gonna be, uh, petting me?” Hirano asked.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Kagiura’s hand snapped back to his side. Even after Hirano went to the bath, though, when Kagiura was snug in bed, he could still feel the sensation of that golden hair on his palm.

When Hirano got back twenty minutes later, refreshed after washing the sweat off, he was no longer cheerless. He sat at his desk and pulled out what looked like a map of the school grounds, then suddenly he said, “I think we can clean this thing up before summer break comes around.” He sounded downright excited, not sullen or angry. This was the Hirano Kagiura knew.

When Kagiura asked, it turned out that Hirano had talked to Hanzawa in the bath, and they had decided how they would proceed. Namely, they would trace the path the culprit had gone running off in, then talk to students whose clubs had been active in the area that afternoon in hopes of correlating eyewitness testimony that would allow them to pinpoint the guilty student.

True, it wasn’t terribly likely that people busy with club activities had taken much notice of a random student dashing by, but the hope was that the odd way he might have been acting after the fight would have attracted some attention.

All before the start of summer break, exactly as Hirano had said.

When Kagiura got back to the room after chatting with some of his teammates who also lived in the dorm, Hirano was already turning off his desk lamp and getting ready for bed. It was unusual for him to turn in without doing some studying or even reading a book, but Kagiura decided to follow his example and climbed into bed.

Today had been the last day of regular classes, and in two days, the end-of-term ceremony would be held. The basketball team had a workout in preparation for the practice game that weekend, but Hirano was going home right away. Kagiura wouldn’t see him again until the new term started. The realization brought on a wave of loneliness.

Applications for mock tests were behind him, but mornings all this week were occupied by supplementary lectures, so he wouldn’t have thought there was time to feel lonely.

I can’t believe I’ve gotten to a point where I can feel like that about him.

Kagiura had been startled by Hirano’s flamboyant appearance at first—but, really, only at first. From the way Hirano had slid his slippers aside to the way he’d eaten Kagiura’s green peppers, Kagiura had learned how kind Hirano could be before the day was out. He was more comfortable living with Hirano than he would ever have expected to feel around someone who wasn’t a member of his family.

“Hey, Hirano?”

“Hmm?”

“That’s the plan. You’re here till next week, right, Kagi? Got your practice game.”

“Uh-huh. Plus, there are supplementary lectures this week.”

“And you’re attending them? Good job.”

Honestly, Kagiura had been a bit worried about that. His grades had hardly been the top of the class, but he’d rallied at the end of the term and done just well enough that he wasn’t required to attend the remedial lectures. He knew it would be best to attend them if he could, but he also had basketball to think about, and he could have justified being absent.

That said, the reason he’d mentioned it was because he knew very well that, left to his own devices, he would happily take the path of least resistance and put it off. But after all the help Hirano had given him, he would never betray the other man’s expectations of him. At least…as much as possible.

“They promised they’d show us how to do the problems in the summer homework. You’ve never had to attend this sort of thing, have you, Hirano?”

“Nah. I’m a diligent student.”

“Geez, humblebrag much…”

“Ha-ha. You’re pretty serious yourself, Kagi. Keep it up next term.”

“I will. Hey… Hirano?” He felt his heart start to race and clenched his fists as he lay on the bed. Why? It’s not like I’m going to say anything terrible. “Do you have plans for summer break already? I mean, maybe around the end of July or the beginning of August?” There was a note of tension in his voice as if he was confessing to a misdeed.

“That’s awfully specific. What’s up?”

“Hmm? What, you mean, like, since I’m going home anyway?” His words were dubious and slow, weighed down by sleepiness. Kagiura just prayed fervently that he wouldn’t say no outright.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not exactly out in the sticks, are you, Kagi?”

Hirano’s and Kagiura’s homes were both in the prefecture, even on the same train line. Ignoring the distance from the stations to their houses, they lived just thirty minutes apart by train.

“No, I mean my parents’ family home… Will you think about it? It’s a big place, so there’s plenty of rooms. It wouldn’t get cramped. And my relatives bring all sorts of people there every year, so you wouldn’t stand out or anything…”

He was just trying to make the most appealing case he could, but it was true. His cousin, a university student, would bring friends from his club, and relatives with small children were forever showing up with their whole clans to spend some time at a house they knew well. In short, Kagiura’s grandfather’s home was a busy place during summer vacation.

“How long ya gonna be there, Kagi?”

“I’ll catch the night bus on the thirtieth. Get there on the thirty-first. I was thinking, maybe stay two days and catch the night bus back on the third day.”

Until the year before, he’d gone with his family, so he could stay a little longer—but he’d figured this would be an easier length of time to invite Hirano. It was exactly the schedule he wanted, if possible. He had a reason he needed to stick to this precise timing.

Maybe Hirano saw that, but if he had prior commitments already, Kagiura would just have to give up…

Kagiura sat up, taken aback by Hirano’s unfussy acceptance. His phone was on his desk, charging.

“Hey, you’re not gonna ask them about it right this second, are you?”

“Uh… I guess that’d be a bad thing, wouldn’t it?”

“Of course it would! Do it tomorrow. Look at the clock. It’s lights-out already. Time for using cell phones or other devices is s’posed to be over.”

Kagiura knew Hirano wasn’t usually this much of a stickler, so he understood that the other man was trying to stop him for his own good. Just another demonstration of what a decent person he was.

“Sure, you’re right. Good night, Hirano.”

“Yeah. G’night, Kagi.”

There was the click of a light switch, and then the room was dark. When the lights went out, all the anxiety and tension Kagiura had felt moments before vanished like a dream, and he soon fell sound asleep.

“I’m not sure, myself… We do have visitors who stay for a whole week.”

“That’s really kind of them to offer, but it’s way too long.” Hirano chuckled. His voice sounded lower over the phone than it did in person. The higher tones were stripped away, and it sounded new to Kagiura.

“Summer lectures keeping you busy?” he asked.

“It’s not too bad. They wrap up by evening. What about you, Kagi? Everything going okay?”

“The team is doing fantastic. Sure wish I could go swimming in this heat, though.”

“Not that! I mean the supplementary lectures. You’re working on the problem sets before you go, right?”

“Yeah, I am. I’d better. They tell you which ones you have to do every day, or else.”

In a recent class, the teacher had told them that in his view, there wasn’t much of a fundamental difference in academic ability between the kids in the remedial lectures and anyone else—he believed that most students who claimed they couldn’t study simply weren’t in the habit of sitting down at their desks and doing it. Kagiura was inclined to agree with him. After all, he’d spent the entire term watching Hirano, who not only sat at his desk every day, but continued to study independently after finishing his homework.

Otherwise, it might have been easy to write it off and say, “My brain’s just not built that way.” But thanks to Hirano, he’d seen how daily effort created and built a gap.

“Probably better to face that in your first year. You’ll do better reviewing the first term’s material than just picking classes by feel.”

“Right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll do my best. But, uh…” He was already speaking quietly so he wouldn’t bother anyone in the hall, and now he dropped his voice even more.

“But what?”

“Without you here, Hirano, the room feels too big and quiet.”

He heard a sort of hoo, and Kagiura couldn’t help closing his eyes at a tickle that felt as if Hirano’s breath were right on his ear.

“You’ve gotta be sleepy, Kagi. Better turn in for the night.”

He wanted to protest that he wasn’t a kid who needed to be babied at bedtime, but Hirano was right; he could feel sleepiness weighing on him.

I don’t want to hang up the phone. I want to fall asleep just like this…

He knew that wasn’t possible, but to his own chagrin, he almost found himself saying the words.

He couldn’t wait to see Hirano again.

“That’s a bit sudden, but…well, all right,” his mother had said, not sounding completely sure about it. Only then did Hirano realize how high-handed he’d been with Kagiura, as if he was the only one who needed to get permission. What am I, his older brother, ordering him around? The embarrassment of it caused his proverbial tail to stay between his legs, and when they saw each other, they exchanged greetings but not much more.

Hirano’s luggage consisted of a gray Boston bag and a small bag he’d borrowed from his mother. The small bag held some modest gifts for his hosts; the day after he’d told his parents about this trip, he and his mom had gone to pick out snacks that would last all day at room temperature. But what would be the right time to give them to Kagiura?

He’d always been the older dormmate, the guy on the Disciplinary Committee—but in the eyes of the wider world, he was still just a kid in high school. He’d pictured how they might spend time in “the country”—playing in the river, swimming in the sea, watching fireworks—and he’d carefully researched how to buy a long-distance bus ticket. But he hadn’t even thought to consider how he would say hello.

The night bus, with its four-wide rows of seats, left the terminal at ten thirty PM and would arrive at Kagiura’s rural station at nine thirty the next morning. Over the course of nearly half a day of travel, how could they not get hungry?

“Think a five-hundred-ml bottle of tea will be enough?” Kagiura asked.

“I’m sure there’ll be a service area on the way. We can top off there,” Hirano replied.

“Ooh, how about some fried chicken?!”

“The entire bus’ll be able to smell it!”

“Good point… I wonder what we should bring, then…”

They didn’t want to be a nuisance to the people around them, so they needed something that wouldn’t spill, wouldn’t smell, and wouldn’t make a bunch of noise while they were eating it. That narrowed down the possibilities pretty quickly.

“For a night trip, you want something that’ll stick to your ribs. Like rice balls, maybe,” Hirano said.

“Think that’ll be enough? Ooh, I want kelp in mine!”

“You do like your kelp, don’t you, Kagi?”

“Uh-huh!”

Being away from school helped ease the sense that they had to act like an upperclassman and his junior. Instead, they just felt like a couple of guys going on a trip.

They scarfed down the rice balls almost as soon as they were on board, and while they were still checking out the onboard equipment, the bus driver gave the announcement that the lights would soon be put out. He politely requested that those using the reading lamps should take care not to bother their neighbors, after which there was much shuffling as people turned on their individual lights.

“Not sleepy, Hirano?” Kagiura asked, adding that since he’d had a nice snack, he was ready to get some shut-eye himself. And indeed, it was obvious he was fighting to keep his eyes open. Hirano didn’t blame him—it was already after eleven o’clock.

Hirano turned out his reading lamp. “Yeah, I am. I’m ready for some rest, too.” He spread out his blanket, adjusted his footrest and reclining seat, and pulled out a little bag with an eye mask. He glanced one more time around the bus and saw that only a handful of people still had their lights on.

Hirano opened his eyes again when he felt a gentle squeeze on his upper arm. The streetlamps were shining outside; they seemed so bright. At some point, his eye mask had begun to slide up, until it was just barely clinging to the top of his head.

“Hirano, we’re there. At the service station. Let’s get out,” Kagiura whispered, touching Hirano’s arm hesitantly.

“Oh… Kagi,” Hirano grunted, blearily thinking back to the schedule. They were supposed to arrive at the service area around one in the morning. He’d only been asleep for a few hours.

Hirano was hardly a morning person—on an average day, well, it wasn’t impossible for him to get up, but it could be a struggle. But he knew it was even worse for Kagiura. Yet now it was Kagiura waking him—what could he do but drag himself out of his seat?

“They said we’ve got fifteen minutes. It’ll make life easier if we get out and stretch a bit. Most people have.”

Hirano took a look around, and it was true; most of the seats were vacant. He was afraid to work his way down the narrow aisle to use the onboard toilet. Going outside seemed like a better idea.

Hirano let Kagiura lead him outside, where the lights of the service area buildings shone under a night sky that stretched as far as he could see. There were several other buses there, too, along with a crowd of private cars; the place was actually pretty busy.

“Night buses turn out to be pretty chilly,” Hirano remarked as they walked toward the facility. He wished he’d brought something with long sleeves.

“Yeah. The blanket’s not quite enough, is it?”

Maybe it was all the greenery around that made the night air tingle even though it was the middle of summer.

“It hardly feels like summer,” Hirano said.

“Wish it was this cool during the day!” Kagiura said. As they walked along, he swung his arms and legs cheerily. The bus must really have been a tight squeeze for him.

They headed for the restrooms at a quick trot and took care of business, then Hirano got some corn soup from a vending machine that dispensed its product into a Styrofoam cup. He wasn’t hungry—he just wanted something warm in his belly.

“Hot! Hot!” he said, blowing on it, but unlike in winter, the soup didn’t seem to want to cool down. He was taking little sips, trying not to burn himself, when Kagiura, who had been off buying more rice balls, gave him a funny look.

“You gonna bring that on the bus, Hirano?”

“Can I have some, then? We’ve only got three more minutes.”

“Ugh. Sure. All yours, Kagi.”

“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of it!” When he grinned, Kagiura’s handsome features made him look like a pop star. Hirano overheard a couple of what he took to be college girls walking by whisper to each other: “Check that guy out!” and “Yeah, he’s a hunk, huh?!”

Kagiura wolfed down half the soup and handed the cup back to Hirano. “It’s not hot anymore, so no worries.”

Hirano obligingly tipped the cup toward himself, feeling the temperature of the soup against his lips. “Hey, you’re right.” He finished the snack in two big swallows, then tossed the cup and hurried back to the bus. They made it with a minute to spare—they were the last of the passengers to get back on board.

Hirano and Kagiura chuckled at each other (just moving their lips, not making a sound), and Hirano made sure to pull his blanket all the way up to his shoulders. There was another brief announcement, and then the bus trundled off once more into the night.

Thanks to the warmth radiating from his tummy, Hirano slipped quickly off to sleep.

They took their time having a breakfast of curry at a café by the station, then people-watched in the station shopping center until their ride came.

Kagiura’s aunt greeted Hirano warmly. “It’s so sweet of you to come from so far away. Our Akira owes you so much.” It seemed they were going to stop at a supermarket on the way before they got to what everyone referred to as the “main house.”

“You think?” Kagiura grinned broadly, and that expression of warmth made them look even more similar.

When Hirano got out of the car at the main house, he stopped and stared in amazement.

“It’s huge!”

“Right? Perfect for big gatherings,” Kagiura said.

Hirano had already been overwhelmed the moment he noticed there were six parking spaces, and as he started to grasp the scale of the house, he found himself even more speechless at just how big Kagiura’s grandfather’s home was. Sure, Kagiura had said it was large, but this was at least twice the size Hirano had been imagining.

The style of the house was old, but it had been well-maintained—you could nearly call the place a mansion. Just like Kagiura had said, they were out in the countryside, with rice fields and idyllic scenery as far as the eye could see. The sky spread wide above their heads, a river burbled nearby, and there was an irrigation canal for farming as well—fast-flowing, Hirano noted, and probably dangerous for kids.

“Geez, this place really is gigantic… Do you ever do cookouts by the riverside?”

“I haven’t, no,” Kagiura said. “But I used to play in the water a lot there. It’s easy to get down to, and there’s all kinds of fish and animals.”

“Huh…”

The path to the front door was paved, so Hirano didn’t have to worry about his footing as he took in the scenery. It was a long way from the house, and it threw off his sense of distance.

“We’re here!” Kagiura called.

“Thanks for having me,” Hirano said. He followed Kagiura’s example and left his luggage by the door, only pulling out the snacks he’d brought as a gift and then following Kagiura into the house.

They were greeted by a couple of noisy, grinning children.

“Akira!” one of them said.

“Akkii!” squealed the other.

“Whoa! Haven’t seen you since spring break!” Kagiura said. Judging by their ages, maybe they were his cousins? Kagiura was certainly the oldest of them, and was acting like it, making him look more mature than he often did.

Where were the adults, though? Kagiura’s aunt, the one who had driven them here, had left them at the front door, saying she would go around to the side entrance.

Where and when can I give them these? Hirano thought, uncomfortably aware of the heavy paper bag he was holding.

“Oh—ahem—this way, Hirano,” said Kagiura, who was working his way down the hallway while in the midst of a sword fight with a boy who looked to be about five years old. They were each wielding newspaper swords (where had those come from?), Kagiura holding his in just one hand. Hirano thought he might take it easy on a five-year-old, but he parried every one of the child’s attacks as if loath to ever let himself be struck. He was grinning, but also clearly serious. It looked like a hard-fought battle.

When he asked “How old are you?” however, she responded cheerfully, “Four!” Whatever she thought of him, apparently she wasn’t too worried. She helpfully held up her fingers so he could see them—three of them. He found it oddly amusing not to be sure which was the right number. He couldn’t help picturing his roommate at that age, making the same kinds of silly mistakes. It helped him relax a little, so he was able to amicably greet Kagiura’s grandfather, who was relaxing in a Japanese-style tatami-floored room, listening to the radio.

He delivered the treats he’d brought, which would be offered on the family’s Buddhist altar before being put out as snacks later in the day. Soon enough, they were being called to lunch, and Hirano was introduced to the family properly.

Kagiura’s parents and siblings would be here during the Obon holiday in August, the others said. When asked why he’d chosen to come back now, Kagiura said, “I wanted to be here before the jellyfish came out in the ocean.”

He took some ribbing for his “weird reason,” and it turned out the family didn’t swim that much anyway, since riptides were common at the nearby beaches.

Just at that moment, Kagiura’s eyes caught Hirano’s, but quickly flitted away again. The real reason seemed to be that it would have been uncomfortable asking a friend to tag along during a holiday.

He’d borrowed a straw hat to keep off the beating sun, but he had changed into a swimsuit to get in the river and ended up with his torso pretty badly burned. The prickling pain got worse and worse, and when he got into the bath, he took a critical hit.

Hirano was lying limply in the second-floor bedroom he’d been given when Kagiura, who’d gone to bathe after him, appeared with a tube of some kind of cream. “They said your back is bright red, Hirano. Here, let me put this on for you. It’s meant for sunburns, and it should help a little.”

“Oh. You heard?”

“Yeah. Sounds like you were in a lot of pain when you washed your back.”

Hirano, who had been watching over the kids, had also somehow found himself in charge of bath time and wound up in the tub with three boys ranging from kindergarten to lower-elementary-school grades. One of them had been the enthusiastic newspaper swordsman.

“I was! I hadn’t been thinking about it too hard, but scrubbing my back was agony.”

“Must’ve been tough to keep them calm.”

“Yeah—I didn’t. They won’t even hold still while you’re trying to dry them off.”

“Huh? They can dry themselves at that age,” Kagiura said.

“You’re kidding.”

Kagiura chuckled. “You’re just a softy, Hirano. You take it too easy on them. Take off your shirt, all right?”

“You’ll put that stuff on for me?”

“Sure.”

Hirano pulled his T-shirt over his head, cringing as the fabric scraped across his back. The feeling of cool fingers working their way around his shoulder blades was indescribably wonderful.

After such a hectic day, Hirano had expected to turn in early, but strangely, he just didn’t feel sleepy.

“There’s a lot of manga in this room,” Kagiura suggested, so Hirano grabbed the middle volume of a comedy series and started reading. He was worried that reading in bed would make his eyes go bad, but there was no chair in the room, and anyway, this was nice.

Had the little kids already gone to sleep? When he glanced at the clock, he suddenly realized it was nearly midnight. Where had the time gone? He glanced over at Kagiura. This would have been well past Kagiura’s bedtime as recently as the previous day, but he was still wide-awake.

“Not sleepy, Kagi?”

“Ehhh. I took it easy this morning, so I’m all right.”

“I think we oughtta turn in soon anyway,” Hirano said.

“No, give it a moment longer,” Kagiura said.

“Hmm? Thought you already reached a good stopping point in your book.”

The manga had been put away, and Kagiura had looked even more ready for bed than Hirano—but for some reason he shook his head. Then he pulled his cross-body bag over and took out a little paper bag.

“Birthday,” he said, holding the bag out to Hirano.

Hirano’s eyes widened. “Huh?” He shook off the surprise and looked at the clock, then burst out laughing. It was just past twelve AM on August 1st.

He had to try not to laugh too loud because it was the middle of the night, but it was awfully hard on his abdominal muscles! Kagiura looked concerned for a moment, not sure what to make of how Hirano kept laughing, but when he realized Hirano was accepting the present from him, he smiled, satisfied.

“Happy birthday, Hirano.”

“Look at Mr. I Know Everyone’s Birthdays over here!” Hirano said. But then he added, “Thanks. Heh. Sorry for laughing.” He’d been surprised—and happy. He didn’t say it out loud, but the fact that he couldn’t keep the smile off his face probably gave him away.

“I’m glad you’re having fun!” Kagiura had a goofy smile on his face, and by now Hirano was sure he looked exactly the same. He looked in the bag to discover a small box. Some sort of accessory. Feeling a rush of excitement, he popped the box open. The inside was lined with velvet, on which sat two studs in cool blue.

“No way…,” he said.

Nodding in agreement, he went over to the mirror stand in a corner of the room and tried the studs in his ears. Maybe the holes really were closing up, because they didn’t go in quite easily; there was a little resistance as he slid them into place.

Once he had them both in, he went back over to Kagiura, who grinned again at the sight. He looked so happy it was almost hard to tell which of them had gotten the gift.

Hirano took the studs right back out again—it would be too easy to lose them, sleeping with them in—but he knew he would put them in first thing when they got up in the morning. With that thought in his mind, he went to sleep, and it was a very sound sleep indeed.

For as quickly as the children traded places in front of the package of fireworks, it was a wonder no one bumped into anyone else. When the package was almost empty, they divvied up the two kinds of sparklers between them, trying to see who could hold on to the tiny, climbing ball of flame the longest.

“It’s so beautiful,” someone said in wonderment, and no one could quite be sure who.

Then the flames from the sparklers dropped to the ground, and everything was suddenly dark. All the fireworks went in the water bucket, people collected their trash, and the candle was put out.

“It’s dark out here. We’ll do the cleanup tomorrow,” Kagiura said. Even though the words were coming from his own mouth, he felt like someone else was saying them. It was as if he himself had burned bright and then been extinguished with the fireworks, his very presence melting into the night. He almost thought he could still feel it, the faint heat at the tips of his fingers.

“There weren’t enough Flaming Spears in that package,” Hirano mumbled, and suddenly Kagiura found the idea of heading straight for the bath almost unbearable.

“Wanna go get some more, then?”

They stood in the entryway putting on bug spray. They had only their wallets in their pockets, and Kagiura’s aunt had told them how to get to the store.

They wouldn’t even know what time it was. Kagiura’s feet almost felt light at the exhilaration of knowing they were free of the dorm’s strict schedule.

The lights of the town glowed in the distance, and it was so dark that they could only just see where the path dropped away into the irrigation canal. The cries of insects that only came out at night tickled their ears. It almost gave them the feeling that summer was ending, even though there wasn’t a hint of chill in the air.

It was still only the first day of August. Hirano’s birthday.

There was plenty of summer left.

“So where are we going, Kagi? Convenience store?” Walking through the damp night air almost made Hirano feel as if he were a kid again, spending summer vacations just as he had back then.

Walking slightly ahead of Hirano to show him the way, Kagiura nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s a plan.”

He knew that with a few shortcuts, they could soon be at a twenty-four-hour supermarket that had an excellent fireworks selection. Getting to the convenience store would take twenty minutes or so if they went straight down the road, a bit more if they didn’t walk too fast. That way they’d have more time together.

“Buy some ice cream and go home?” Hirano answered. Kagiura got snacks to eat on the road all the time, but this was the first time he’d heard Hirano say anything of the sort.

“They’d melt by the time we got back.”

“So we eat ’em while we walk. Only need to get enough for the two of us.”

“Ahhh…”

“What? Eager to bring a present for your cousins?” Hirano asked.

“Eh… More like others did the same for me when I was little, so I thought maybe it was what you were supposed to do.” He had a little more money in his pocket, since he didn’t have to buy his own snacks while he was with his family, plus his relatives had given him a nice bit of pocket change. Both of those reasons came to mind, but he didn’t say them. Even if he’d had a bit less cash on hand, he figured he still would have wanted to indulge those kids.

“Huh! I like the way you think,” Hirano said.

“Oh yeah?”

They kept their voices down so they wouldn’t echo around the darkened road, and it almost gave the impression that they were melting into the night themselves. As he listened to Hirano, Kagiura was seized by the feeling that they were going somewhere much farther away than the convenience store, and he swallowed heavily.

“Yeah.” After a beat, Hirano continued, “Your family’s a lot like you, Kagi. I’ve never met them before, but I totally feel like I have. Before we got here, I was worried I might be an outsider, but you were right—I’m glad I came.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve spent a long time living with youngsters.”

“Oh? I thought you didn’t have any little brothers or sisters.”

“Dumbass. I meant you, Kagi.”

“Do I really seem that much younger than you? Am I that much of a handful?”

“You’ve got morning practice every day, but you can’t wake up on your own. They say you fall asleep during class all the time. And you suck at studying, so you need someone else to light a fire under your ass before a test.”

Kagiura’s eyes brimmed, but he found he had no comeback. Hirano was hardly wrong, after all.

Hirano grinned at him. “Yeah, you’re a handful. But I know you’re trying your hardest, and I know you’re a decent guy. Your team is taking a pause from practice during the break, but you’re not, are you? I saw how well-used the hoop in the garden is. Everyone told me how you spend plenty of time shooting even on vacation, and that’s when I was like, ‘Hey, Kagi’s really serious about this basketball thing.’ I was really impressed, man. If you work that hard with the team, no wonder you’re tired in class.”

The gentle cadence of Hirano’s voice drifted to Kagiura’s ears, and he felt as if those words were warming his entire body. If he’d felt as if he were fading into the humid night before, now it seemed he stood out sharply; he could feel the hot blood coursing right down to his fingertips.

Because of all that, when he received such unadulterated affirmation, Kagiura wasn’t actually sure if it was all right for him to accept it and celebrate it uncritically. He wondered for a moment if he hadn’t tried too hard to look good for Hirano.

But he soon remembered: Back in May, shortly after the semester had started, when Kagiura had been pathetically jealous of one of his teammates, hadn’t Hirano spoken well of his abilities then, too? He seemed to know full well the pain of panicking into comparing yourself against someone who was starting from behind you.

Finally, Kagiura said, “Thanks, Hirano.”

They crossed an intersection, waiting awhile because the light worked on a sensor that didn’t notice them right away. Then they were on a street with more traffic lanes but also a wider sidewalk, a large thoroughfare lined with recognizable chain stores. As they passed a searingly bright video-rental place, Hirano remarked wryly, “I’ll bet the police would take us home to our parents if they saw us go in there.”

There were still a fair number of cars going by. Kagiura and Hirano walked side by side, and even as he felt his own heartbeat in his fingertips, Kagiura unmistakably felt his hand brush Hirano’s. He glanced briefly in Hirano’s direction to see the brand-new studs glittering in his earlobes. They were a gentle blue color, not unlike Hirano’s eyes, and the way they shimmered seemed to make the night road even brighter.

“Those ear studs look really good on you, Hirano,” he said. He felt a rush of pride; he had picked them himself, after all. He smiled broadly at Hirano.

It was true, wasn’t it? Kagiura wasn’t exactly with Hirano twenty-four seven, but they were together from the time they got back to the dorm in the evening until they both left in the morning. Kagiura probably spent more time with Hirano than anyone else.

It was only natural he should be able to pick out the perfect accessory for him.

Hirano had briefly wondered what he should do, but then decided not to worry about it and didn’t change the studs he was wearing. He kept the old ones around the dorm, just in case, but by and large he planned to keep using the ones he’d gotten from Kagiura.

With the beginning of the new term, preparations for the cultural festival picked up speed. Even the first-years, who weren’t used to tackling a project without a teacher’s guidance, gradually started to stretch their wings. The committee members had a particularly heavy burden, and without the help of their classmates, they would never have been able to find time to study.

As it was, Kagiura had basketball on the mind and his grades weren’t so good. Hirano hoped that taking on yet more extracurricular responsibilities wouldn’t make them worse—but he knew it would depend on how much effort Kagiura put in. It was hardly as if the committee members were the only busy ones. Around this time of year, every student was pushing themselves for the cultural festival, and the sports teams had to keep practicing hard in preparation for the fall tournament season.

Add the fact that the nights hadn’t gotten any cooler, and it wasn’t an easy time. Meanwhile, most students could hardly wait for the cultural festival. It might be fair to say that was the case for all of them.

Girls would be coming! Otherwise, how could it be a festival?

That’s right, and this year, it was Hirano’s class. Hirano himself would be among the cross-dressers as the famous ghost Oiwa. Oiwa appeared in the ghost story “Yotsuya Kaidan,” where she died still furious about her treacherous husband, Iemon, then proceeded to curse to death all those who had been involved. A number of variations of this well-loved story existed, and Hirano’s class would be basing their costumes and makeup on the ghosts presented in the “Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan,” one of the most popular versions.

Hirano was shown reference images of faces hideously disfigured by poison—Oiwa’s fate in the tale—and they were stuff that would be downright traumatic when people saw it in the dark. The artists decided to go with the Halloween-style makeup that was so popular these days, and today after class they did a trial run on Hirano, checking his skin color and how everything looked. The result was spectacularly grotesque. They prayed they could keep the secret safe until the very day of the haunted house so it would have the greatest possible impact.

Hirano was just finishing up his homework when the door opened with a click. His roommate was back. It was still light out, but the hour was late enough that dinner had already started.

“Hey, Hirano, I’m back,” Kagiura said.

“Welcome back, Kagi,” Hirano replied.

They had spent some time together over the summer, sure, but the break had been long. There was something fresh and new about Kagiura now that he was used to living in the dorm—and probably about Hirano, too, he suspected. He felt closer to Kagiura than before, no doubt because he’d met his family and relatives.

Hirano was in his second year of living in the dorm, but without him quite realizing it, his need to act like the more experienced roommate had begun to ease and fade away.

Hirano and Kagiura hurried through their homework almost as if it were a race, then headed for the dining hall a bit later than usual. It always did take three or four days to get reacclimated to the rhythm of life in the dorm.

It was then that Hirano remembered how before his underclassman had arrived, he’d actually been pretty nervous. At a Disciplinary Committee meeting, he’d brainstormed with Hanzawa about how to avoid intimidating his new roommate. They had agreed that to really get along, it wasn’t enough just to be extra nice at first; instead, they came up with practices Hirano would be able to maintain in the long run, like maybe using a nickname or just generally addressing his roommate casually.

Oh yeah! I used to call him by his whole last name all the time!

But it had been too long—troublesome to say—so he’d shortened it, and that was how he referred to Kagiura most of the time now.

Even as he spoke, he couldn’t help privately chuckling at himself: What am I, his personal tutor?

Like most exams, the results of the tests that were given right after summer break were distributed to all students, showing where everyone ranked and the gaps between them. For first-years, it was mostly a point of reference. But given how much the tests covered, they were sometimes used in combination with a student’s entrance exams to help determine which schools they should shoot for in the future.

“It was…close.”

“How close?”

“My homeroom teacher said it wasn’t bad enough to get summoned to the faculty office for a lecture, but that I’d better keep putting the work in.”

“Ah…”

So not great, then.

Hirano had seen how hard Kagiura had worked, and almost wished he could reassure him on nothing more than the degree of his effort—Kagiura was practically dripping with disappointment. Still, he’d been unprepared, and there was no getting around it.

“Just make sure you really buckle down after the cultural fest, Kagi. If you miss out on some notes, make sure you ask someone to show you theirs by the next day. Don’t let it build up, or you’ll only get more and more confused every day.”

Hirano tried to look strict, although in his heart he hoped he was just worrying too much. The beginning of anything was so important. He knew a lot of guys who had come in on athletic recommendations like Kagiura whose grades had really suffered when they got into their second year.

“Sure…,” Kagiura said. Then he added, “Hirano, would you tutor me again?”

“Yeah, sure. You can pay me back by getting good grades.”

“I will! Uh… Can I ask you something?” The way he sort of shrank in on himself as he voiced the question was charming in the way only handsome guys could pull off.

“What’s that?”

“Did your roommate tutor you when you were a first-year?”

“Hell no.”

“Huh. Didn’t you two get along?”

“We got along okay, but we weren’t exactly close. I wasn’t as approachable an underclassman as you are.”

That was just how it usually was in the dorm. Hanzawa seemed a bit sensitive about homosexuality, and he was notorious for his ability to sniff out any guys who seemed to be getting too close and drop in on them at inopportune moments. Word had it his contempt for gay people wasn’t completely arbitrary but had something to do with his family circumstances, so even Hirano pitied him for it.

“So you’re saying I’m, like, superspecial?”

“What, you happy about it?” Like a puppy? Hirano teased, getting a big grin out of Kagiura.

“Sure. Y’know, I’m really glad I ended up as your roommate, Hirano.”

Hirano couldn’t help but smile at how good Kagiura was at being lovable. Against someone so affectionate, he would never win.

What was more, he was being considerate of Kagiura. Just like Hirano. Even though Hirano had his own studying to do, even though he was only a year older, he was always sure to ask Kagiura if he was doing okay and reminded him to make sure he caught up on his studies once the cultural festival was over.

What Kagiura felt was too vague to be called true love; he was still at the point of might, but there was no question that he felt affection for Hirano. Watching him, so dedicated and so cool, makes me realize I have to step up, too.

It was a lot like basketball practice, where a failure to pay attention could get you hurt. They were in the home stretch on preparations for the cultural fest, and it could get distracting, but in order to get the most out of the experience, he had to see his responsibilities through to the end.

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Niibashi,” he said.

Preparations for the cultural festival were coming along nicely. So nicely, in fact, that although Kagiura had begged off basketball practice to go to a committee meeting, the meeting wrapped up in no time at all, and he found himself with some free time on his hands. Normally, he would have gone to join practice, even if he did have to jump in midway, but somehow he just wasn’t feeling like it today. Instead, he decided to head straight back to the dorm. It wasn’t even five o’clock.

I wonder if Hirano’s back yet, he thought as he knocked and opened the door. “I’m back,” he said.

“Urk,” he said.

“Y-yukata…,” Kagiura said, staring openly. It looked fantastic on him. Even though it was technically a woman’s outfit.

“I was checking the fit,” Hirano said.

“You realize you’ve got the wrong side on top?” asked Kagiura. There was no way Hirano didn’t know the way he had it, right side on top, was only for dead people, but Kagiura felt obliged to make sure.

“I’m supposed to be a ghost,” Hirano snapped. That explained it.

“Ahhh, for your haunted house… So you’re going to be one of the jump scares, Hirano?”

“Yeah, I am… Oh, that reminds me. Don’t come to our haunted house.”

“Why not?”

It would have made sense if Hirano had insisted that he show up, but telling him not to come? That was unexpected, and Kagiura felt a little put out. Of course he wanted to see Hirano’s haunted house.

“I’m embarrassed to try to spook people I know.”

After a pause, Kagiura said, “Which ghost are you, Hirano?”

“I’ll tell you if you promise not to come.”

Kagiura couldn’t make that promise; he knew he couldn’t keep it. Finally, he said simply, “I do want to come.”

Hirano heaved a sigh and then, uncharacteristically, pulled the dividing curtain between their sides of the room and disappeared behind it. He was probably changing again. But even Kagiura could tell that his annoyance was just a cover for his embarrassment.

“Yeah, that happens this time of year,” Hirano said.

“I wonder if it’ll be sunny next week…” He sighed and gave a dry cough. Maybe his throat was bothering him, because he took a lozenge out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth.

“Well, there’s always the backup day.”

“Was everything okay last year?”

Hirano thought he could hear the lozenge click off Kagiura’s teeth.

“Not sure. I guess if I don’t remember, that means it probably was.”

“The teacher said we wouldn’t have to stop if it sprinkled, but I think what he meant was we’d use the gym, and I just wasn’t sure if all the stalls would fit in there…”

“Ahhh, so that’s what they’re doing with the outdoor stuff. Sorry, I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. Thanks anyway.”

“By the way, have you decided who’s taking what shift during the festival? If I’m going to check it out, I figure I might as well do it while you’re behind the counter.”

“Yeah, we’ve got it all set… But if our schedules match up, I was hoping you and I could check out the festival together.”

“You sure you want to go with me?”

“Sorry for the short notice. It’s all right if you’ve already got plans with someone else.”

You don’t look like it’s all right, Hirano thought, observing the pout that immediately appeared on Kagiura’s face. Was this a sign of him giving up too quickly—or not quickly enough?

“Sure!”

With that, Kagiura announced that he was going to do his homework by dinnertime and sat down at his desk; Hirano opened a book of practice problems so as not to disturb him. The only sounds were the scratching of their mechanical pencils, paper, and the occasional small cough. A faint sound, dazing him, like when a rain shower passed outside.

Curious, Hirano focused and listened, and realized Kagiura seemed to be drinking more water than normal. Well, who could blame him? The weather was still hot enough to make you want to jump straight in a pool during the day, but the nights were getting colder and colder. Kagiura might have had stamina to spare, but between sweating during morning and evening practices and rushing all over for the Cultural Festival Committee, this couldn’t have been an easy season for him.

Hirano knew guys like him didn’t always pay attention to their own health. It was just a tickle in the throat now, but if he wasn’t careful, it could become a full-blown cold.

It’s always the ones who look the toughest, Hirano thought.

“Yeah. Well, we all made the dough together.”

“I think it came out really well.”

“Huh? Oh, ha, thanks. Think of it as comfort food… Even if I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Wonder if I should eat it right now,” Kagiura mused. It would be dinner soon.

“Ahhh… Well, just between the two of us… I ate one, too.”

Hirano held a finger to his mouth in a hush-hush gesture. It caught Kagiura completely by surprise, and with the cookie already in his mouth, he coughed hard and started to choke.

“Hey, you all right?!”

Over the course of the last six months together, Kagiura had learned that Hirano was really soft underneath his appearance, but even so, this caught him off guard. “I th-think I inhaled some cookie,” he said.

“Huh?!”

He might really like this guy.

He still wasn’t outside the realm of might…he thought.

“I-it was so good I ate it a little too enthusiastically,” he said, trying to cover for himself and earning a gale of laughter from Hirano.

He’s really quick to burst out laughing!

“Ha-ha-ha! Yeah? That’s great, then. Ha-ha-ha!”

“Bah. You laugh too much, Hirano,” Kagiura said, and attempted to conceal his embarrassment by hiding behind his magazine.

Hirano apologized but was still chuckling. “Geez. If I ever get married, I hope I find someone who wears their heart on their sleeve like you do, Kagi.”

Time seemed to stop. Kagiura went stock-still and dropped the basketball magazine.

Does he not realize what he said? Kagiura thought. Even though it had almost knocked him over! He was so frozen with shock that he was late to dinner.

The long-awaited day of the cultural festival was bright and clear; indeed, almost hot. The school grounds were packed with people, creating a colorful display, for on this day of days students were allowed to wear casual clothing even at school.

Kagiura was wearing a T-shirt the class had designed: the word yakitori emblazoned on an orange shirt along with an image of a skewer. The simplicity of it was eye-catching.

Some of Kagiura’s classmates had complained that they wouldn’t know what to wear to school if they didn’t have to stick to the student uniform. Kagiura had dismissed them, thinking it was hot enough that everyone would just be wearing T-shirts anyway, but come the day, he started to understand how they felt. Seeing all these different outfits where he normally saw only a sea of student uniforms somehow felt reckless and wild and left him antsy and excited. And if Kagiura, who was used to wearing casual clothes around the dorm at least, felt that way, how much stranger must it have been for the students who commuted from home?

A year ago at this time, Kagiura, whose school choices had been limited, was still struggling with where to go and what to do after middle school, and he hadn’t attended this cultural festival, although the weather had been perfect for it. So now everything he saw seemed fresh and new, interesting and exciting even though he’d seen the other students getting everything ready.

Most of all, every bit of the food looked delicious.

Hirano let Kagiura choose where they went (“It’s my second year anyway”). They walked straight past someone holding a sign that read CHEESE YAKISOBA IN THE COURTYARD!! The yakisoba fried noodle guys were the yakitori stall’s rivals, but Kagiura still planned to try it eventually.

The line for yakitori was good and long, longer than it had been during Kagiura’s shift in the morning. When they got to the front of it, they were handed a cup of yakitori skewers, and then they set off exploring, Kagiura practically dragging Hirano all the way.

“Sure, no problem.”

“And, uh, sorry you had to see that,” he said to the two accidental witnesses.

“Don’t apologize! It was a feast for my eyes!” one of them called back. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe she meant because Kagiura was so handsome.

“Sorry. Guess I sort of killed the haunted-house mood.” Hirano rifled through Sasaki’s bag, which was sitting nearby, and helped himself to a couple of the candies inside, offering them to the two young ladies. “I hope you’ll take this candy with my apologies.” His makeup had been ruined when his wig came off, and he was trying to keep that side of his face hidden. He couldn’t help the sense that handing out candy while looking like that was horrific enough, but it wasn’t nice to scare people while you were trying to apologize.

“Eep! I mean, sure.” The girl who’d cried out earlier still sounded a bit out of sorts.

No sooner had Sasaki (aka Hanako) opened his bag after they got off their shift than he noticed something was wrong. “I sense I have fewer candies in here,” he said.

“I gave a couple to some customers.”

“And why would you do that?”

Sasaki seemed awfully suspicious, considering he was always sharing his candies, but Hirano wasn’t sure exactly how much to tell him. He decided to give him the short version: “A bribe to shut them up.” He didn’t feel like talking about another guy falling on top of him.

“That sounds awfully shady…”

“Ahhh, just take one. Anything but the milk flavor.”

“No, I’ll definitely pay you for this one. This one’s for me personally.”

Sasaki responded to Hirano’s insistence with an odd look. Suspicious, like there was something on his mind. “Is it just me, or are you acting a little funny, Hirano?” It felt distinctly weird to have a guy in makeup, grinning nonstop, say you seemed “a little funny.”

“What? Why would you say that?” Hirano said.

“It’s like you’re even better at looking after others than before.”

Hirano realized that at this rate he was headed straight for a ribbing. “Dunno what you’re talking about.” He pointedly looked away and started digging in his wallet. There, some change. He held the coins out to Sasaki in exchange for the candy. There was plenty of it still in his bag.

If Hirano was, as Sasaki said, getting better at looking after others, it was probably because of Kagiura. Living with him had taught Hirano that even when he was really worried about the guy, just telling him what to do didn’t have any effect. Plus, he’d learned about joy—and about gratitude.

He’d started to think lately that the reason his parents could communicate so naturally and easily was because they’d been doing it since before he was born, sharing with each other and valuing each other. He should communicate those same things to his friends.

“Oh yeah. You remember that thing before summer break?” Hirano was still a little bashful about it, but he decided he could tell Sasaki now and decided to forge ahead.

“Hmm?”

All but obsessed with finding the culprit and wrapping the matter up before summer break started, Hirano had completely forgotten to say what he was supposed to say to Sasaki.

“What, that old thing? That’s been better for ages.”

“Oh yeah? Well, thanks for helping out that underclassman.”

Hirano was trying to sound casual, but Sasaki was openly amazed. “Never thought I’d hear something like that out of you, Hirano. Shock of the century!”

“Aw, shaddup.”

“Need anything?”

“Mm.” Hirano didn’t really answer but handed him something.

Kagiura blinked at it. “What’s this? Candy?”

“Sorry you didn’t get a chance for a good scare at the haunted house.”

Is that what was on his mind?

Not only had he knocked Hirano over, but students from another school had seen them! Forget about being scared—Kagiura would have frozen either way. Hirano didn’t seem particularly bothered.

“I thought it was plenty scary—that makeup of yours,” Kagiura said, not sure how to feel.

“Yeah, I saw that had you going. The whole thing wasn’t very haunted house-y, though. Anyway, think of that as my apology. Your throat’s been bugging you, right?”

Kagiura didn’t say anything right away but was struck by Hirano’s offer. He treats me with so much kindness.

“Oops, don’t you like candy? Wait, but I saw you eating those molasses candies the other day.”

“I like it,” Kagiura said, feeling a rush of heat in his chest, something far beyond the average warm glow. Yes, he did like candy, but what really made him happy was knowing Hirano was thinking of him.

“Cool. That’s great.”

“I really like it…”

How many times would he have to say it before his true meaning, his true feelings, got across?

He couldn’t find another word to say.

They headed to dinner together a little earlier than usual. They were sitting and eating when someone pulled out the chair next to Hirano. He had an idea of who it was—there weren’t a lot of other students in the dorm who felt comfortable casually approaching him. It turned out to be Hanzawa, the dorm leader. Kagiura didn’t see much of him; what with basketball practice, he tended to eat later than Hanzawa.

“Where’s your roommate?” Hirano asked offhandedly, and the word sent a thrill through Kagiura. Do they use the same word for me? he wondered. It sounded so easy, so intimate.

“Asleep. Had a bit too much fun at the cultural fest, and now he doesn’t want to get up, so I left him there.” Hanzawa sounded pretty tired himself. Kagiura felt like he was overhearing someone’s secret, and it made him a little uncomfortable. When he finished eating his salad, he busily involved himself in his stir-fry, but soon he froze with his chopsticks in midair.

There’s so many green peppers…

Hanzawa, ever alert to small things, noticed him. “Aren’t you going to eat that?” he asked. Curse him.

At almost the same moment, though, Hirano said, “Just one.” He was so thoughtful.

“Right…” Just one. Kagiura could do that. He swallowed a pepper, and Hirano grinned.

“Nice work.”

“Thanks, it feels like it. But I’m not sure I can do another one…”

Hanzawa watched this friendly exchange wide-eyed, but there was nowhere for him to get a word in. Hirano, usually a stickler for table manners, simply reached over and started picking peppers off Kagiura’s plate with his chopsticks, smiling the whole time. When he had eaten all of them, Kagiura exclaimed, “Thank you, Hirano!”

That was when Hanzawa finally found his voice. “There’s nothing…happening between you two, is there?” he asked Hirano, sounding profoundly uncomfortable.

“Happening? Don’t know what you mean. This is what a great friendship looks like. Right, Kagi?”

“A great friendship… I guess you could call it that…” Transfixed by Hirano’s easy smile, Kagiura found he could hardly nod his agreement, and it made his reaction seem insincere.

“You guess? Am I wrong?”

Hirano looked completely at ease, while Kagiura seemed to be trying to process what was going on. Hanzawa studied them both. He murmured, “Could it be…?” But then he shook his head as if to dismiss his own question.

Kagiura, meanwhile, felt a grin come over his face, a grin of complete agreement with Hirano. Hirano had called them friends. Had called Kagiura a great friend of his.

A joyful glow spread through him, and when he spoke, he had never sounded so happy. He knew he must have the biggest smile on his face. “Hirano, I’m so glad I met you!”