[♪] The composer nodded after reading the first message and waiting for the other to finish the second one. Haruka didn’t know exactly what happened to Aine but she never asked. It was a topic that she knew was hard to bring up but she would be ready for whenever the other was. Was it going to happen now?
Once she read the second message, she decided to sit down next to the male. She didn’t want to push him but she felt he was waiting for her to say something. “What is the truth then? If you don’t mind me asking,”
Aine inhaled a deep breath, before typing out the next message to her. As he typed it, he remembered that at first he was angry at his uncle for lying to him. But then he realized Hakase had done it for his well-being. His uncle had raised him since childhood, and knew how he felt about singing. Which was why…
「Since meeting you, you gave me a little courage to look for a way to get my voice back. I went to see several doctors from my Uncle’s network to find something, anything that would get it back. Eventually, I was able to find out something… My uncle didn’t tell me the truth.」
He clenched his phone shakily, overwhelmed by the new feelings of anguish and self-loathing towards himself. All this time…
「The truth is, my voice was never gone. But in actuality, I’m just a really big coward, that I don’t want use it or sing. It’s been like this for the entire time.」
[♪] Haruka was grateful. She had no way of knowing this would occur with Aine tonight. If she had started heading back earlier or later than she did, she would have never spotted him. Were that to happened, she could only assume something bad would happen.
She shook her head, getting rid of the ‘what-if’ thoughts. The point was, she was there for the other. Like she had been promising before hand. Something was looking out for Aine and made sure that the composer was around to help him.
Sitting back, the young girl watched the other write something in the sand. After reading it, a small smile formed on her lips.
The question confused her a bit. It wasn’t a simple concern. Aine was asking something deep. However, Haruka didn’t know how to answer his exact question but she came up with something. “I wanted to help you. I care about you, Aine-san,” Was she saying it right? “I-I think you deserve another cahnce and I want t-to be the one to show you the way.”
Another chance? It was easy for her to say that, but Nanami didn’t know his terrible history.
Would she still think he deserved another chance if he told her everything?
The fact that he had lost his voice, the most cherished thing to a singer, was probably his punishment– for not being able to live up to expectations.
For running away.
And yet despite him already predicting he answer, he really wanted to know what she would say– what she would think after know the real him. Slowly, he scratched out a new message in the sand for her. His story.
「 A long time ago, I used to be an idol. Being an idol and making people happy was my dream. I worked really hard with my friends in school towards that dream and graduated.」
「 But soon after I graduated, too many people expected so much from me and there was so much work. I got scared because I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t want to fail anyone’s expectations. I felt alone, despite having my friends near me. I didn’t want to burden them. But then… when singing became painful to me… I couldn’t take it anymore. 」
[♪] “No matter what you said, I can’t see you like that.” Haruka was a patient person and respected others but hearing the other talk so lowly about himself did irk her a bit. She wished that he would see himself the way she did.
“What is it?” The way he phrased that…
「My uncle diagnosed me not too long after I woke up from my coma. He was concerned about why I was mute. After he checked me, he told me I had hypoxic encephalopathy. Brain damage because of drowning. And I wouldn’t be able to talk or sing again for a very long time. I believed in his words.」
He waited for her to finish reading the first message and quickly typed the second message to give to her before she could comment.
[♪] “I don’t think you’re heartless.” Standing in front of the other, she lowered her hand to pet the kitten on his lap. “Your kittens see what I see, Aine-san.”
With a soft smile, she looked at him. “I see hope and a kind person. I don’t think you’re a hypocrite nor heartless. All you are is a little last. It’s alright to get frustrated. You are a person, as I said before.”
「I’m a cowardly person.」 The older male looked away from her, gripping the fabric of his sweatpants. He bit his lip tightly, wondering if telling her the truth he had recently discovered, would push her away from him. Hate him. Detest him.
[♪] She sighed in relief when the door was closed. She wouldn’t admit it at the moment, but she was rather cold from being out too long. The warmth from the home was very much welcomed. She took a couple of steps into the house before turning back towards the male. Haruka shook her head at him.
“You’re not terrible,” What he said did indeed hurt the recipient but it wasn’t intentional. “You made a mistake. The difference between a terrible person and a good person is that the good person feels remorse and regret for when they hurt someone. It’s okay to make mistakes. You can go back and fix it when you’re ready.”
“Besides, you were told something awful too. You are not the only one who said something they didn’t mean, Aine-san.”
「No, he was right. I was in no position to tell him that. And beside… I’m a hypocrite.」 He heard a soft mew, and one of his kittens Rei-chan approached him for affection. He scooped it up onto his lap and patted it softly.
「If anything, I’m the one who’s heartless, Nanami-san. I may have just been projecting my frustrations at him because we’re alike.」
[♪] “You don’t have to apologize for that,” Haruka murmured after she read the message. Giving herself a few more seconds of holding onto the other, she sighed contently. The countless thoughts finally stopped going through her head. Regardless of what happened, Aine was physically safe. They could work on fixing everything else with a bit more ease.
“…If anything I should be the one apologizing.” She finally stepped back a bit to give him some space. “After all, I did bombard you with notifications. And came here unannounced. …. Then there’s the window. I promise I’ll fix that!” Everything she said came blurting out and there was no pause until the end. “I-I’m really sorry. I just needed to make sure you were alright.”
Letting her in, Aine closed the door before the cold wind blew in. The kittens poked their heads from the doorway of his room before scattering. The blue-haired male smiled sadly at the girl who rambled on to him, before he shook his head.
「It’s fine really. I probably deserved that.」
「But you know, I think I’m a really terrible person.」
He quietly sighed before going over to sit on the couch.
[♪] Haruka was going through different apologies in her mind in regards to the window. That distracted her momentarily from the worry she had just moments ago. It distracted her from the fact that she spammed Aine’s twitter, ran all the way over to the other’s house and knocked for a good while.
However, as soon as the door opened and she saw his face, all the worry came flooding back in the form of relief. “A-Aine-san!” Without hesitation, the young woman jumped forward and wrapped her arms around the tired looking male. “You’re a-alright!”
Her sudden hug threw him off guard and he almost lost balance. Looking at the composer with bewildered eyes, she must have been really worried about him. Now thinking back over the twitter conversation, Aine realized he probably had no right to criticize the other male. It had only been his intention to guide his former best friend’s junior to not stray from his path like he did himself.
But instead, he ended up upsetting the other, and his own self-loathing returned.
There he was, just causing trouble to people again. Why was he like this?
[♪] The composer had only planned to get his attention by throwing the pebble. Why did she do that? Only because she was tweeting at him every other minute and worried sick of him!
…Maybe that’s where all the power came from that caused the broken window.
She let out a small yelp and looked up. She noticed that there was a crack in the window. Not a small one, but a rather large one. It was large enought o let the cold air in and probably got plenty of attention.
“…” She ran to his front door and decided to wait there. “…I mean, he has to notice now, r-right?”
It wasn’t hard to conclude from the tweets that the composer had been worried about him. In all honesty, he wanted to be left alone to mull over the stinging comment Tokiya made about his voice.
But since she had gone her way over here in the cold, he might as well allow her in. After grabbing a blanket, the blue-haired man walked to his front door and opened it for her.
Even if the window had broken, he wouldn’t woken up. However, his kittens were scared by the noise and crawled on him in a panic.
He breathed out softly and on first impulse, he grabbed his phone to check the time.
Why was it off?
Suddenly, he remembered the argument he had with Tokiya Ichinose over Twitter earlier. Sighing quietly again, he decided to turn on his phone anyways. Only to find eight notifications from Nanami-san.
[♪] The rest of the lyrics did not come to her. The voice that was helping her left, telling her that she did well. Many questions swirled in her mind. Why did she know that song? Why did she sing it? Why did it connect to her and Aine?
Her thoughts stopped racing when she felt the other’s body begin to slip thru her grasp. Initially, she panicked. It hadn’t worked. All her efforts still failed. In her eyes, she only saw the male disappear. Many scenarios went through his head.
Luckily, she looked down. She met Aine’s gaze, noticing that his tears were now dried. A small smile crept on her face. Relief, Haruka felt relief take over. With no more hesitation, she fell to her knees as well, her arms out. The composer pulled the lost male into her arms.
She didn’t speak. Nothing needed to be said at that moment. Haruka would wait as long as it took for Aine to be ready. She would stay on this beach with him for as long as he wished.
The rain had let up and the wind had died down. The blunet closed his eyes, tired and exhausted from his emotional meltdown. But nonetheless, he still thought about himself– and the girl who had pulled him closely to her too.
He couldn’t believe he had forgotten about that song. He remembered he put every ounce of his heart – his feelings – into the music.
Melodia was undoubtedly, his greatest song– forged by the bonds of his friends and the experience and growth he had gained.
But what was the meaning behind Nanami singing that song? Was it to remind him of those pure days– his pure feelings?
Those feelings he remembered– they were what drove him to try and drown himself.
