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When Suzume came home for the first time after she started her third year at university, her mother and father both agreed that she’d matured once again. Her father called her a lady and her mother said the blazer she’d put on that day looked very nice on her. She smiled sheepishly, knowing that her smile was the only thing that hadn’t changed over the years, that people always said her smile was the gesture that made her seem a few years younger.
She was already 21, after all. ‘Only 21,’ she could hear her friends say in the back of her mind.
After high school, time seemed to fly by, but her head didn’t quite catch up most of the time. She started renting her own apartment; a cosy room with a little kitchen and bathroom. She had neighbours that were all relatively young, just like her. She cooked for herself, but she liked eating out more. She brought her friends to her favourite restaurants and would be a little disappointed when they didn’t share the same love for seafood. She adored her friends, though. They were warm, full of dreams and always there when she needed someone to talk to.
They’d take Suzume to parties. ‘Because you meet cute boys there, Suzume-chan,’ they’d say, like it was totally obvious, when Suzume once asked why parties were that much fun. She didn’t dislike them, but she always felt the need to go someplace more calm and quiet after spending more than an hour in the same space as god-knows-why-there-were-always-so-many people.
One time, she went outside the apartment of the party-thrower and hung over the rails of the balcony. She stared at the stars. When they were covered by clouds, it made the world seem so vast and safe, it almost didn’t bother her that she couldn’t see the stellar sky.
A boy (‘He was cute!! Why didn’t you make a move on him?!?!’ her friend had yelled the next morning) followed her outside. He leant on the rails, just like her and reached for his pockets. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes and asked if she’d mind him smoking one. Suzume shook her head. He lit one up. The boy was wearing a weird party hat, since the occasion that night was a girl celebrating her birthday and she’d decided to give a cap to every person she’d invited. Suzume’d shoved it in her pocket, but boys like him had actually put it on.
‘Do you want one?’ the boy asked and Suzume realised she’d been staring at him. She also realised she didn’t even know his name. She wondered if his name mattered.
She looked at the boy: at his cigarette, at his strange carboard hat. It reminded her of first meeting a person she’d rather not remember, because each time she did, her heart stung a little. Her lungs would ache. Her eyes would burn. She looked at the boy a little longer. She couldn’t make out his eye colour in the dark, but the possibility of it being green didn’t really make her feel like she wanted to find out.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Suzume replied and took the one the boy held out to her. She put it between her lips and the boy lit it for her. She inhaled and she coughed. God, this was horrible. The boy chuckled.
‘It’s your first time?’
‘It is,’ Suzume replied and coughed some more, her eyes getting watery. ‘Shouldn’t you have warned me?’
‘I think you know well enough what you’re doing,’ the boy said and he smiled some more, looking up at the night sky. Suddenly, his eyes got bigger and he looked at her, surprised and excited at the same time. ‘Hey, it’s a shooting star! Look!’
Suzume watched where he pointed, but she couldn’t see anything. The smoke of her cigarette filled the navy sky with fog that blocked her whole view. She knew better than to wish on shooting stars anyway.
~~~~~~~
After that night, she made a habit out of smoking when she was feeling empty and lonely for a person she wanted to erase out of her mind. (Already, already, he’d been there for so long, already.)
Not that it helped. And she knew it was bad for her, but so did he, and he was probably still smoking right now. He probably loved his cigarettes more than me, she’d thought one night and it made her laugh, because why did she even think he loved her? At that time, she wanted to be with him, but now, three years later, when she thought back, it all seemed so stupid. She was so naïve. She realised now. There was no way they could’ve been together back then.
University was nice. It distracted her and she immersed herself in studying only what held her interest. She still met up with Yuyuka, Monika and Nana every once in a while, but she’d lost all contact with Mamura. When Suzume decided to break up, because she just couldn’t love him back the way he did, they never talked to each other again. ‘Going back to friends isn’t an option, because I’d just stay in love with you,’ Mamura had said and Suzume had nodded, the tears streaming down her face. She liked Mamura, she really did, just not… the same way.
It was a ten-minute walk from the station to her apartment. It was mostly down a street with small cafes and shops with clothes that were cute, but very expensive, so she always picked up her pace when walking past them. After the shopping area, she got past a little park with a playground that was often used by children from the neighbourhood. Not during the night, of course. Sometimes she’d stay in the city to go out with friends. They’d chat and drink and then go to karaoke to sing and drink and sing some more. She wasn’t really a good singer, but she was sure she knew more songs than her friends, because she grew to love karaoke so much when she started going to uni.
This was one of those nights. And she could feel her voice was going to be hoarse tomorrow. She strolled down the street and turned left to walk past the park. She dug her hands in her pockets, already feeling the winter cold that was coming sooner than everyone expected, and her fingers touched her pack of cigarettes. She remembered losing her lighter earlier that week.
She peered into the park. A young man was standing next to a street lamp, softly exhaling the oh-so-toxic air. His face lit up every time he inhaled and she could see the beanie that covered his ears. He didn’t seem harmful. Oh, but what did she know about dangerous people?
Walking towards the man, she felt like her 16-year-old naïve self again. She could still feel the alcohol flushing through her veins. She stood on the other side of the light and reached for her pack. Then she looked at him. This was stupid.
‘Excuse me, sir, could you spare a light?’
His side profile was sharp. She could see his red ear lobes. As she took an cigarette out of her pack, the stranger answered.
‘Don’t you know smoking’s bad for you?’
His voice.
She turned to look at him and the lamp post made it so that she could recognize his face. The twinkly green eyes and goofy eyeglasses. The grin lingering around his lips. She knew his features so well. She’d dreamt about them, she still dreamt about them. She didn't even dare to talk about them anymore, because she knew her friends would roll their eyes, asking, begging her to forget about him already.
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She didn’t forget him, but she told herself she got over him. That she didn’t need him anymore, because she was Suzume and her father called her a lady and her mother said her blazer looked very nice. Because she went to parties and met cute boys and talked to them under starry skies. Because she went out and sang karaoke, until her heart was empty and her voice was gone. She got over him, definitely.
She didn’t need him anymore. But she still wanted him.
‘Shishio-san?’ she asked, her post-karaoke-voice rough and small. His grin grew wider and he offered his lighter.
‘It’s nice to see you again, Chun-chun.’