A MONTH HAD PASSED since that moment. Fuyuko transferred to our class and quickly became closer friends with Nomura.

I thought this meant I could try eating lunch in my own classroom again, but I was horribly wrong.

From across the room I could hear Nomura complaining about how boring the lessons had been that day.

“Don’t you think so, too, Fuyuko?” she asked her, stretching her arms over the width of the desk.

Fuyuko simply smiled at her dramatic display.

The two of them sat across one another at Nomura’s desk. I sat all the way in the back of the classroom, so as long as Nomura wouldn’t turn around, she wouldn’t have noticed me.

Though there was something I hadn’t taken into account. Fuyuko kept glancing at me. I was never eating in the classroom after all, so seeing me there must’ve provoked the thought that I was in a fight with Tatsurou or something like that.

“Whatd’ya keep looking at?” Nomura said as she turned around, her eyes falling into mine the very moment she did.

“Oh~ Koji! That’s rare, you being here and all that.” She instantly teleported over to my desk. “Want to eat lunch together?”

“Our ideas of eating lunch together aren’t the same,” I said, leaning away from her peering face.

“Huh? Don’t be so cold… Come on, Fuyuko, let’s eat at his desk.”

She shoved the unoccupied desk next to mine closer and took their chairs. She sat down in the one in front of me, Fuyuko sat down next to her.

“So, Koji, have you thought about it already?”

I had a hunch what she was trying to get at, but didn’t want to jump to conclusions, “Thought about what?”

“The future,” she replied, Tatsurou-like.

“I haven’t.” I did the same.

“You neither, huh… then only Fuyuko has a clue.”

I was surprised to hear that, and said, “She does?” to Nomura, instead of asking, “You do?” to Fuyuko.

“Yeah, but I’m not supposed to tell anyone about it.”

The two of us were having this conversation right next to the person in question.

“…Nomura.” It was only at the sound of her embarrassed voice that the two of us realised how silly we were.

“Sorry, sorry… But it’s okay if it’s Koji, right?”

Was that a good or a bad thing?

“Well anyway, as punishment.” She took an omelette roll out of my lunch box and fed it directly to Fuyuko’s mouth, “Here you go. Will you forgive me?”

“That was my omelette roll, though.”

“Anyway, let’s use this lunch break to think about our future!”

A week prior, we were asked by Hibino what we want to do when we’re grown-ups.

When this same question was asked a while back in class, there would be answers like; teacher, police officer, firefighter, nurse—occupations everyone was familiar with. Though, even as a young kid, I had no interest in any of those. The occupation I was most grateful for were caretakers at orphanages. But I’d never see myself working the jobs Tanaka and Hibino had.

“Let’s start with you, Nomura,” I proposed. “What are things you like to do now?”

“Hmmm, let’s see,” she held her finger on her lips and looked up at the ceiling. “I like playing in the park. Oh, I also like baking—”

“Let me stop you right there,” I interrupted. “You’ve never baked a thing in your life!”

“That’s not true… I often help Hibino out when she’s making sweets!”

“Your sense of helping out isn’t helping anyone out… all you do is eat the ingredients.”

“Well, that might be true… but…” she was trying to defend herself, but failed doing so, “I still like baking, maybe I’ll give it a real try next time.”

“That sounds more like it,” I said, as my way of approval.

“You sound like an old man…”

Fuyuko started giggling. The cute noise the angel made, made the both of us stop our quarrel and look at her.

“Ah… I’m sorry…” Fuyuko said.

“What? Why are you apologising? She grabbed her in her arms, “Argh, you’re too cute!”

I continued eating.

“So, what about you?” Nomura asked while casually eating out of my lunch box—this is her perception of eating lunch together.

“I don’t know. There are a lot of things I sort of like, but there’s nothing that sticks out as something I love. I think I want to find it… something I can be addicted to.”

Addicted, a word with a negative undertone, but truly, it doesn’t have to be. The same guy who said, ‘If you’re here by five, you’ll stay for life’ was certainly what you would call addicted. He was addicted to reading books, which in return made him one of the most knowledgeable individuals I’ve met in my life. At least, that’s what I believe, since I had only known him when I was very young.

Yet, that was enough to see his genius in action. He was eloquent, always seemed to have a solution for complex problems and scored really well at school.

His sense of addiction is something I had always admired, the positive kind.

“Addicted, that’s a bad thing, right?” Nomura asked.

“Most of the times I think.”

“Yeah, like smoking and drinking. Is that what you want to do?”

“Of course not,” I quickly replied. “I want to find something that I want to do so badly, that nothing can stop me from doing that thing—in a good way.”

“…Like a passion?” This time it was Fuyuko who asked me a question.

“A passion, yeah, that’s it! I want to find my passion.”

“Woah, interesting!” Nomura noted. “Why don’t you talk about your passion, Fuyuko?”

"Nomura...” She looked away, all embarrassed again.

“Just say it already, you’re so good at it! Sooner or later he’ll find out anyway, that you wanna be a singer—” She held her hands on her mouth, shutting herself up a little too late.

I was in shock once again and asked, “She wants to be a singer?” to Nomura instead of asking Fuyuko, “Do you want to be a singer?” instead.

“…Yeah she does!” “…Yeah I do.”

Both replies came at the same time. One full of energy, the other one rather embarrassed.

“That’s amazing!”

That day we made a promise.

“Maybe we’ll find our passion in music, too,” Nomura said.

Like the naïve children we were.

“We could pick an instrument and become the world’s best musicians!”

“Yeah! Oh~ I want to play the piano!” Nomura declared.

“I wonder what I want to play…”

The world’s best. Yeah, right.

“…We could go to an instrument store with Tanaka or Hibino,” Fuyuko suggested.

“Good idea! Think the four of us could carry my new piano home?”

“You wouldn’t get one that easily,” I shot her hopes and dreams down, “but maybe we could earn an instrument as gifts.”

I wonder what our lives would look like now had we not had that one conversation.

“It’s a promise! We’ll earn them as gifts, practise like crazy and then, before we know it, we’ll be the world’s best musicians!”

I truly wonder.

* * *

“Tanaka!” After school, Nomura called out to her when she was still far into the distance. “Let’s go to an instrument store!” she yelled out, which Tanaka obviously couldn’t hear.

When she neared, she said her usual, “There you are,” with a warm smile.

“Tanaka! Can we go to an instrument store?”

“Hm? Where did that suddenly come from, did you have music class at school today?”

Nomura shook her head, “We made a promise! We’re gonna become the world’s best musicians!”

“Really? I’ll be rooting for you guys,” she said with a smile like she always did, but surely she didn’t think we’d actually become the world’s best.

She ended up agreeing to visit an instrument store the following weekend, under one rule; no shopping, just looking.

If we were just handed an instrument, which could get quite expensive, then the others would find that unfair, as stubborn as Nomura could be, that much she understood.

When the weekend finally rolled around, all of us were beyond excited. There weren’t any stores near us, so we had to take the bus for the first time in a long while.

“I’m sitting next to Fuyuko!” Nomura loudly announced, while giving me a look of superiority.

“I was going to sit next to Tanaka anyway.”

We had little sibling-like quarrels all the time, it was pretty routine for Tanaka, and by now, for Fuyuko as well.

We arrived and Nomura hastily threw open the door. The little bell hanging above the door jingled, letting the owner know that customers had arrived.

A young man appeared through a curtain behind the counter. “Welcome,” he said with a slight bow, which we returned.

The store itself didn’t really move me. It was an old store with a bunch of instruments lined up that didn’t really grab my attention.

“Please welcome to the stage, Nomura!!” she announced herself as if she was a popstar right before playing the most tone deaf tune on the piano any human has ever created.

“That’s enough, Nomura, let’s take a look at the other instruments, alright?”

Is what Tanaka said, but surely she meant, “Please don’t touch a piano ever again.”

“Nomura,” I called out to her.

“Hm? What’s up?”

“Can you try this next, please?” I asked as I handed her a saxophone.

She waved to the storekeeper and asked if it was alright to play. When she got the green light, she blew into the instrument with all her might. All of us put our fingers in our ears, both left and right shut tight. It’s clear that neither the piano, nor the sax career will take flight.

“Man, I need an instrument where I can just go ham on, like badum-badum-badum,” she wildly threw her hands in the air.

“…Like a drum?” Fuyuko asked.

Nomura’s eyes instantly lit up, “Yeah! The drums! That’s the instrument I wanna play!”

While she was having her euphoric moment, I went back to walking around in the store. Not moved by anything. This wasn’t close to what we would see on a TV show, where a character would walk into a store like this, see an instrument, instantly fall in love with it. Then, for the next years of their life, they’ll keep visiting the store until they have enough money to buy it.

While I was having my pessimistic; this is nothing like TV moment, I unconsciously stopped walking.

I slowly tilted my little head up and saw a beautiful red guitar hanging on the wall. Right when I was slandering TV in my head, my TV-moment happened a second later.

This is the one, I thought.

But unlike the tropes in shows and movies, I couldn’t wait another second to have that thing in my hands. I slowly walked up to Tanaka and asked her to follow me.

A minute later the both of us were staring at it.

I opened my mouth, but right when the words were about to come out, I got stopped in my tracks.

“Remember what I told you guys, no shopping, just looking.”

I knew, and like Nomura, I understood. Yet my desperation activated my bargaining-mode.

“Then, the next time we get gifts… can I get this guitar?”

She sighed, then ruffled my hair, “I knew it would come to this…” I thought surely that was a no, but, “I’ve already talked to Hibino about it. Everyone will be getting a present during summer break. If by then, you still really, really want it, then it will be our gift to you. Sounds like a deal?”

“Yeah! Thank you so much!”

“Be sure to thank Hibino as well when we’re home.”

The results of that day were; my sudden interest in playing the guitar, Nomura’s destined instrument, the drums and Fuyuko who ended up tagging along with Nomura’s instrument quest.

* * *

When about two months had passed, and my interest in that guitar hadn’t faded a bit—in fact, only increased—it was at last time for summer break.

I had been constantly plaguing Tatsurou about how badly I wanted my small hands on that guitar. I also told him about our promise to become the world’s best musicians, but he seemed to have little interest in such a dreamy promise.

“Good luck with that” is what he said. Even though he was uninterested in participating, I felt that he truly was rooting for us.

On the Saturday after our last day at school we were already headed to the store.

This time it was me who hastily opened the door, with a little less noise compared to the always-loud Nomura. The bell jingled, the shopkeeper greeted us and I was off to the guitars. From this point onward, I didn’t rush it, because I wanted to make this moment as special as possible. I slowly walked through the aisle where at the end, around the corner, my guitar was hanging on the wall.

At a turtle’s pace I was scanning the other instruments in that isle, as if I was a real music connoisseur.

Every few steps, I would turn my head towards a random thing in the aisle.

Ah, what a fine Marshall guitar amp.

When I got to the end of the aisle, I slowly raised my little head again. Finally being reunited with my destined instrument, the red guitar.

Though this time, when I raised my head with a smile as smug as it gets, the red guitar didn’t captivate my attention as it did last time, the guitar wasn’t there.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I tried not to panic, the shopkeeper might’ve placed it elsewhere. I walked around the store again, this time I dropped my slow-pace act and walked around as fast as I could.

In the end, no matter how many laps I walked around the store, it wasn’t there.

“…Are you alright, Koji?” Fuyuko asked.

I failed to hide my panicking expression, yet recovered, “Yeah, I’m fine…”

“Are you looking for the guitar?” she asked.

I was a little surprised that she got that right, but I guess it wasn’t hard to tell, “I was, but it’s not here.”

She smiled, almost like Tanaka would, and gently grabbed me by my arm, leading the way to the counter, where Tanaka was talking to the shopkeeper.

“Hm? What’s wrong?” she asked, either me or Fuyuko, but neither of us replied in words.

“…Koji?”

“I’ll go look for it one more time,” I said.

When Tanaka noticed my strange behaviour, she smiled. Through that smile I instantly was transmitted her ‘life doesn’t always go your way’ lecture.

But I was wrong.

“I saw you peacefully walking around the store, so I thought I’d let you be. I didn’t realise you were panicking when I let you get out of sight,” once again, she was ruffling my hair in a comforting manner.

“There was no need to panic, Koji. I already asked the shopkeeper to put it aside for you a while ago, since you wanted it so badly.”

“Really?” all the life that had been sucked out of me returned in that moment.

Surely my eyes must’ve been glistening just as wonderfully as my unforgettable, red guitar was—my first guitar, of luckily, many more.

Nomura chose a drum-set that would be delivered to our house shortly after.

Fuyuko ended up being the one choosing the keyboard. Though her voice was an instrument in and of itself, as Nomura always claimed.

* * *

That summer, all of three of us tried our very best at getting to know our instruments.

“Bad,” Tatsurou said, after I lent his ear for my horrendous guitar performance.

The first few minutes together with my guitar were spent fooling around with the strings, seated on the ground and having Tatsurou as my audience.

I had laughed at Nomura’s piano tune before, but it sure bit me back hard when I first picked up the guitar.

“Yeah, I’ll need to practise a ton more. Sorry that you’ll have to deal with that.”

“It’s alright.”

“By the way, what did you end up choosing for your gift?”

“This.” He pulled out a gaming console from underneath his pillow and started humming as he showed me.

“Woah, looks nice. Did I interrupt you by busting in with my guitar?”

“No, I stopped because I wanted to listen.”

I was a little taken aback by his cut-throat honesty, in a refreshing manner this time.

“Yeah, I’ve been going on and on about it these past few weeks,” I said, scratching the back of my neck.

Later that day, in the room next doors, I heard the most incompatible instrumentals… ever.

Nomura’s energetic passion was apparrent through the sound of her music, so was the gentle and soft side of Fuyuko present in the sound of her keyboard. The two of them together, however, were the very definition of a cacophony.

With my guitar on my back, I knocked on their door. That was the first time I did since Fuyuko started living there.

“Come in~” Nomura melodically said.

“It’s me,” I said as I opened the door.

“Oh~ Koji! It’s been ages since you came to my room.”

She seemed full of joy, Fuyuko, too, smiled at my entrance. I took a seat on the floor and asked, “Can I be a part of your noisy performance?”

“Sure!” Nomura grabbed her drumsticks and tapped them together a few times before going bananas.

Fuyuko followed her lead and started gently playing her keyboard.

I plunged into the cacophony as well and played the strings of my guitar to my heart's content, not caring at all how terrible we sounded.

But for a short, fleeting moment all three of us fell in tune. We stopped right after.

“That… was pretty alright wasn’t it?!”

“...I think so, too.”

“Let’s go again.”

This time, we started off better than the last, but we didn’t reach our three seconds of harmony again.

“Maybe it will go better if Fuyuko leads,” Nomura suggested. “And maybe try singing as well." There it was again, that hint of teasing in her voice.

“…Okay.”

To both Nomura’s and my surprise, she actually agreed.

She started gently introducing the sound of her keyboard again. For the first few notes, both me and Nomura kept quiet. I joined in with some low repetitive notes of my guitar, then Nomura tapped in with a single tap on her drums about every second.

It didn’t sound good by any means, but we were quite in sync.

At the pinnacle of our harmony, Fuyuko brought heaven to earth with the majestically divine singing voice of hers.

She wasn’t singing any words, “Na-na nana naaa~”

The angelic tune rang in my ears, without noticing it, my guitar came to a halt, so did Nomura’s drums. Her keyboard solo, accompanied by her singing, was left. At that moment I knew that if one of us were to make it to the big stage—one of the world’s best—then surely, it must’ve been her.

A pure, clear voice that gently fluttered its way into my eardrums. As short as it lasted, I knew that if I wanted to keep up, I had to seriously increase my guitar-game.

* * *

In that same summer, all three of us took lessons for our respective instruments. Our classes took place in the same building, but only mine and Fuyuko’s started, and ended, at the same time.

“…Koji.”

It was getting late, the two of us had just finished our classes and were on our way home.

“Yes?”

“I think… you’ve changed a little.”

I panicked a little upon hearing that. “In a good way, or a bad way?”

She giggled a little and reassuringly said, “In a good way.”

So, I’ve changed, huh…

“There’s this sparkle in your eyes,” she said. “When you’re playing the guitar… it looks to me as if you’re free.”

Free, the same word she used after climbing up that tree.

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you free when you’re playing the piano?”

“Not really.” Unusually, her answer came very quickly, instead of the usual delay.

I wanted to further ask her about it, but she beat me to it and continued, “I don’t feel free when I’m playing the piano, but when I’m singing… it’s the same as being high up in the air.”

I didn’t fully understand what she meant, and she couldn’t explain the magical feeling with words. She told me that as long as I’m passionate about playing the guitar, as long as I have this sparkle in my eyes, I’ll be free.

* * *

“It’s hot,” Tatsurou said, late at night.

I was surprised he was still awake, since he usually falls asleep because of my rambling.

“Want me to open the window?”

“Please do.”

I climbed down the ladder, partially opened the curtains and then opened the window.

The night breeze instantly had a cooling effect in the room. I put my hands at the bottom of the window frame and leaned out the window.

“Ah, so refreshing,” I whispered.

In the next second I felt that awkward sensation going down my spine, that sensation you feel when someone’s looking at you. It couldn’t be Tatsurou, otherwise I would have been feeling it the entire time, I looked beneath the bottom of the roof, but there was no one there.

Was I just imagining it?

I tried ignoring the sensation.

“…Koji?”

I wasn’t imagining it. I turned my head to the right, there my eyes met hers, she was sitting on the side of the roof.

“…Fuyuko?”

“Um… good evening…”

“Good e—wait no, what are you doing on the roof?”

She looked up at the night sky, at the full moon, “I just thought it must be sort of like the tree in a way. High up in the air.”

“Do you do this a lot, climbing on top of the roof?”

She softly chuckled, probably because I asked the exact same question when I saw her in the tree.

“No, this is the first time actually.”

“Huh… so why now?”

“I opened the window to cool off, then I crawled out and sat on the roof.”

“You’re a strange one,” I let the words slip out of my mouth.

She turned her gaze back on the moon, “…I believe I am.”

To break the awkwardness that I had caused, I asked her, “Do you feel free here, too? On the roof.”

She thought about it for a second, closed her eyes when the wind turned gusty and sent her hair flying. Even at night, it looked as if she was radiating angelic light.

“…I’m not sure. It feels different from climbing trees.”

“Maybe I should try climbing in a tree sometime,” I had said those words for the sole sake of saying them, but it stirred up Fuyuko’s excitement.

“That sounds like a great idea! Why don’t we climb up a tree tomorrow?”

“Ah, um… sure.”

The night breeze was getting chillier than before, this was a little too much of a good thing.

“It’s getting cold, I think I’ll go back to bed,” I said.

“I’ll do so, too. Good night.”

“Good night.”

I left the window slightly opened, closed the curtains and climbed back to bed. On the ladder, Tatsurou asked, “Been talking to yourself?”

“To Fuyuko… you could clearly hear me, right?”

“Joking.”

I sighed, “I thought you fell asleep again as you always do, anyway, good night.”

“Night.”

I quickly fell asleep after that.

The following morning, all of us were headed to the park. This meant I could try to feel free by climbing on a tree with Fuyuko.

During breakfast that morning I had already asked Nomura if she wanted to try climbing a tree as well, but unexpectedly, she’s afraid of heights. It wasn’t necessarily strange to be afraid of heights, but the speed at which she admitted it was so quick, that the fear must be pretty intense.

“Alright everyone, don’t go too far, Hibino and I will be sitting here.”

I always wondered what adults did at the playground instead of playing. Surely they wanted to go down the slide and rock back and forth on the swings, too. But I was wrong, this wasn’t like the ice cream. Some things only have a certain time and place to be enjoyed. Knowing this now, I might’ve wished I played a ton more in the playground during the time I enjoyed that.

Nomura, as usual, was on the swings. She said she’ll cover for us in case Tanaka or Hibino asks us where we are. Surely they wouldn’t be happy knowing we’re climbing up a tree.

“Thanks Nomura, we’ll be back soon.”

The two of us sneaked out of the playground through the trees and walked in a straight line from our starting point all the way to the tree where I had seen her that time.

It was rather easy to get there if you didn’t take the main path, like I did.

“…Are you ready?”

“Yeah, will you be going first?”

“…Alright.”

She took a few steps backwards, ran and jumped on the tree. From where she was now, she climbed upwards, branch by branch.

Next it was my turn. I copied her and sat down next to her on a tick branch.

“So… how do I feel free now?”

“Well… maybe try closing your eyes?”

I did as she said and closed my eyes. Losing the concentration of my sense of vision made room for my focus to fall onto my other senses.

I smelled the refreshing scent of nature, being flown into my nose by the breeze—gently brushing over my face and my hair.

I opened my eyes again, “I’m more calm than before… but when do you feel free?”

“…That’s hard to say, since I already do.”

I couldn’t help but let an “oooh” escape my mouth, “So you already do, huh…”

For the next few seconds, we sat on the tree in silence. I looked down beneath my shoes and saw just how high up we were. No wonder Nomura was scared of this, it would’ve hurt a ton if we were to fall off from this height.

“So—” I started speaking again, “You said you feel free when you’re singing, too, right?”

She nodded.

“Then what happens if you sing while sitting on a tree?”

Her eyes widened, she probably hadn’t thought of this yet.

“…I’ll try it.”

“You will?” My surprised response came a little too quickly.

She looked a little uneasy, but determined all the same. She held her fist up, in front of her mouth and cleared her throat, “I’ll only do it if you look away… It’s embarrassing.”

“Alright, I will,” I turned my head towards the big tree trunk.

After a little hesitation, it was there again. The sound that gave my entire body chills. This girl sitting next to me didn’t only look like an angel, she was as gentle as an angel, too and to top all of that off, she had the singing voice of an angel as well.

When I broke my promise of not looking and turned around, I saw it. A real angel. Her silver-white hair gently swayed by the rhythm of the wind, her cheeks were slightly pinkish-red—she was embarrassed after all. Her eyes were still shut, and her legs were swinging at the beat of her singing. And I swear, I could see the fluffy feathers of her angel wings growing. If she spread them, surely I would’ve fallen out of the tree.

Then her singing stopped. “…I told you not to look, right,” she said, completely embarrassed.