Blame it all on the weather. This uneasiness and gloom, even the sun hides itself from the clouds.
People talk. The sky is bland, the atmosphere suffocates.
It's ugly—I can't stand it. I hate it.
This so-called "blue spring" just doesn't suit me. I know it only comes once in a lifetime, which is what fills me with emptiness. I can see my own future—reminiscing all these times, and would just laugh it off.
"It was like that?" I'd probably ask my own self.
I was once asked, "If you were to become a color, what color would you be?"
I never thought about it. I just said, "I dunno," and shrugged it off.
Now that I think about it, I guess mine would be "blue". I call the sky bland, but that's precisely why I like it. I just thought that the "sky" and I are just both the same—even with a bland color, it has no other choice but to keep existing.
My thoughts are interrupted as I heard the rustling of a piece of paper as my teacher held it up.
"So?", she puts down the paper on the table.
…
"What do you mean, 'so'?"
"Your essay," she said. "This doesn't make sense, Ichijo," Sensei said as she shows me my essay, pointing at it while it's still on the table.
"What do you mean it doesn't make sense?" I asked. "It's as clear as it's written there!"
"'This so-called 'blue spring' just doesn't suit me'?" she said, repeating my lines written on my paper, "You have to enjoy your youth while you still can, alright?" she added as she pats my back, finally leaving the classroom.
"I just said 'It doesn't suit me'," I muttered to myself.
…
I stared at the paper. Without reading it, but thinking about what our teacher just said to me.
"Enjoy youth," she said; but did she even enjoy her own?
If so, then how? And what does it even feel like?
I grabbed the paper and created a paper airplane with it, then sent it sailing through an open window—it's as if I'm throwing these emotions to forget. But that's not what I intended. I watched the paper airplane, spiraling into the wind, carrying my words where dead thoughts go.
The springtime of youth offers friendship and love, but no matter how much I want to grasp them, they just slide off my fingers like the wind.
The clock ticks 5:35 pm, the once bustling classroom was filled with emptiness. It was time to go home. Thinking about my youth was as fleeting as spring itself, it felt pointless.
The hallway seemed dimmer than usual. It might be because it's almost night time, or it's because it's quiet. Footsteps echoing throughout the hallway. Another set of footsteps joined mine, rhythmic and growing louder—someone was running toward me.
"Hey! The guy right there, Mister Blue!"
Huh?
As soon as I heard that, I turned around instantly, in which I saw a girl running towards me. She stopped in front of me, catching her breath before speaking.
"This—You wrote this, right?" She asked, showing a paper I previously thrown away.
I took a look at it, now reading it—indeed it was mine.
"…I did write this." I replied.
Wait.
"…How did you even know that this was mine?" I asked.
"You just seem like the type of guy who'd write things like this," she replied.
She's not wrong, but approaching me like that just because 'it seemed like it'… She doesn't even know me, how can she be so sure?
She suddenly stepped in beside me like it's a natural thing in the world—I'm not used to being with someone while going home.
Gathering my courage to speak, I finally decided to talk to break the silence.
"So? What do you want from me?" I asked.
She finally turned her attention to me, "I asked Mitsuki-sensei for help," she said.
"But she said you'd understand better," she added.
Me? Helping someone? What is Ms. Mitsuki even thinking?
"I…"
I hesitated for a moment. She looked at me, which looked like she was waiting for what I was about to say. "I don't think I can help you out, whatever your problem is," I said.
As soon as she heard that, her face went down—she looked like she lost hope.
…
"But I at least can hear you out," I said. "I mean, I'd feel bad if I just left you like that," I added.
We walked in silence, the rhythm of our footsteps filling the gaps. I kept glancing at her, wondering what she needed. It wasn't until we stopped by the playground to sit down.
Yes, the playground. A typical place for highschoolers like us to hang out when there's something bothering our mind.
The swing chain left gritty rust flakes on my palm. Ao kicked at a pebble, her sneaker squeaking against the damp rubber seat. The metal groaned like an old man's joints as she rocked back and forth.
I sat down by the swing right beside her—handing her a can of hot chocolate.
"Hot chocolate?" she said, looking at the can as I was handing it to her. "You see, not all women love chocolate as much as you probably think,"
Confused, I asked, "What do you mean?", as she took the hot chocolate out of my hand.
"You're Ichijo Hotaka, right?" She asked.
"Then you're my classmate!" Her sneaker scuffed the gravel—"Seat neighbors all semester, and you never knew me?"
…
To be honest, I wasn't really paying that much attention. Or interested. I just wanted to be by the sidelines—observing.
"My name is Ao Hoshikawa, by the way. You can call me Ao," she said. "Nice to meet you, I guess?" she added, smiling at me.
She then noticed and looked at my drink, and said, "A can of soda would've been better,"
Her smile faded as she stared into her drink. She gripped her can tightly. It was quiet, it was as if there was the calm before a storm as the chill of the wind brushed off my face.
The silence stretched between us, deepening the tension. Her expression darkened.
Ao held the can between her hands, tracing the ridges with her fingers, staring at it.
"Ms. Mitsuki said you wrote that story about the broken vending machine last year." She took a sip and grimaced. "This tastes like melted candy bars."
"Then why'd you drink it?"
"Waste not, want not." The empty can hit the trash bin with a hollow clang. "My dad used to say that. Before he stopped saying much at all."
"You should write about real things," she said. "Not just… weather crap."
"Like what?"
She stood abruptly, backpack straps digging into her shoulders. "Like why the swings here have chains but no seats. Or why sensei's coffee always smells like burnt toast."
I watched her walk away, stepping over the same cracked pavement lines she'd avoided earlier. Her shadow stretched long and thin across the wet concrete, rippling over the storm drain.
I silently sat there as the sound her footsteps from the concrete vanishes, thinking about what we just talked about earlier.
I thought she'd vanished until her voice cut through the dusk. "You coming or what?" She stood at the playground's entrance, eagerly waiting for me.
She looked at me, "Anyways," she kicked a pebble into a storm drain—"I just wanted to talk," she said.
I didn't even realize that I stepped in beside her—like it was a natural thing in the world.
I counted 5 sidewalk cracks before she would talk. That was 5 chances to ask her why she cared.
She pointed ahead, on an opposite direction, "I'm that way," she said. As she walked away, she turned around, "See you," she said, waving her hand goodbye.
Her retreating figure blurred into the dim blue sky. I touched my palm—rusted flakes clung like dried blood. When I looked up, the first rain fell.