Eve Festival (2)
Tae-il's pupils blew wide.
Something soft, slick with saliva, dragged across his lips. His whole body snapped taut, as if a current had ripped straight through him. His face burned. He wanted, somehow, to spill out this hot and ragged breath—and it was hopeless. The yielding thing sealed stubbornly over his mouth and refused, to the very end, to allow it.
He was suffocating. His brain screamed for oxygen so hard he could no longer tell how long he had been holding it. His lower lip quivered and went slack, the way a body shivers in the cold.
The red eyes that had been gently shut flew open. Iris rose onto her toes and pressed in harder, determined not to lose the momentum, and at that headlong assault Tae-il locked up completely.
It was wet. When something was wet, the air around it grew damp, and dampness turned quickly to cold. Whatever anyone said, it was not a sensation he particularly liked.
This is wrong.
He ought to have been feeling worse.
Thump. Thump.
His heart hammered as if something in it had broken. And the soft, yielding touch—nothing like cold at all—stirred freely inside his mouth. The rough breath Iris spilled brushed the bridge of his nose and his lips.
Then the sensation of mouth locked to mouth fell away.
"Haa..."
A thread of saliva, origin unclear, slipped from the corner of Iris's faintly lifted mouth. Cool outside air worked its way in through the gap that had opened between them and jolted Tae-il back into the reality he had briefly forgotten.
"Pwah—! Iris, you—!"
Breath barely recovered, he heaved his shoulders, covered his mouth, and glared at her. His jaw tingled. Even his breath carried her scent.
Their eyes met. Unlike Tae-il, whose pupils jumped like the sun, Iris's red irises were calm and still as the sea. She reached for him with a careful hand, the way one might touch a treasure that could never be replaced.
And just like that, she pulled his head in tight and buried it against her shoulder.
"...Hehe. I actually went and did it."
Tongue-tied as ever, Iris stuck her tongue out in a sulky little grimace, the self-mockery landing flat.
"You..."
Tae-il's lips moved. There was plenty he wanted to say. His voice would not come.
Quietly, as if giving up, he drew Iris into his arms.
"I'm sorry."
Iris apologized and patted his back. She unwound the arms around his waist, put on a guilty look, and eased away from him.
A moment later the members of Tales Tale came running in a rush. Aside from Rena and Sakuya, whose faces plainly said she actually did it, Ayane's expression was in a class of its own.
"I believed in you...!"
"Ah. Right, right..."
Remembering just how relentless Ayane could be, Iris scratched her cheek, awkward.
"I don't care about this idiot who only knows sports, but I believed in you, Iris! Traitor!"
"S-surprise...?"
"Waaah!"
What had all that comfort and friendship even been for? Ayane wailed without pause, seized Iris by the shoulders, and shook her without mercy. Sakuya, insulted in passing, let her displeasure show.
"Um, Ayane? I'm not an idiot, you know."
"Don't care! Hmph...!"
"Haah."
One glance, and the band was a wreck. Sakuya sighed. In her heart she would have loved to chew popcorn by herself and simply leave them to it, but the stage was right in front of them. At the very least, she had to settle Ayane.
"Ayane, just wait a second. I won't stop you if you hit her later."
"Ah! Sakuya, that's not fair! You're supposed to stop me!"
"What are you even saying."
If you're going to kiss someone, do it like me and don't get caught.
Grumbling inwardly, Sakuya put some distance between Ayane and Iris for the time being.
"So."
She looked back and forth between Iris, who was reading the room, and Tae-il, still frozen with his thoughts crashed to a halt.
"Why on earth did you cause a disaster like this right before we go on?"
"Th-that's..."
Under the heavy dark, Iris stammered.
A confession? A kiss? Honestly, Sakuya did not particularly care either way. Everyone had already sensed, more or less, how Iris really felt about Tae-il. The story between the two of them had been aching enough on its own. A boy and a girl in the middle of adolescence, staking everything on each other—it would have been stranger if feelings hadn't taken root.
"Waaah! Iris, you traitor...!"
"I-I'm sorry, Ayane..."
Ayane, with her knack for sensing the girls around Tae-il, seemed to have genuinely not known. Anyway. Sakuya and Rena already had a rough grasp of what this band looked like, and of how it was going to run from here on.
"Well. I figured it'd turn out like this."
Rena was a little startled, in truth, but she played it cool. Finally. It might have been closer to that feeling than anything else.
"The garbage timing is very you, and I like it. Because you're stupid. This is Iris."
"I'm smarter than you, Rena-chan, you know?"
"Oblivious love-fool. Shut up and stay quiet."
"Okaaay..."
Once Rena stepped in, Sakuya took a step back.
"Rena, can you clean this up?"
"More or less."
Rena drove a hard kick into the shin of Tae-il, who had completely checked out.
"Gah!"
Thud. The dull impact against her toe was a sensation she hadn't felt in a long while. Riding a strange little nostalgia, Rena badgered Tae-il, who still had not come back to himself.
"Get it together, Idiot Shin."
"R-Rena...?"
"It's nothing. Our pig just caused another accident all by herself, the way she always does."
"Rena-chan, could you please not talk about me like I'm a walking disaster?"
"Shut up. You are a walking disaster. You damned problem child."
Ignoring Iris, Rena gently took both of Tae-il's hands.
"Shin. Get your head on straight. That girl's kiss is nothing."
"Y-yeah..."
"Rena-chan, that hurts my feelings...?"
Looking thoroughly unsatisfied, Iris touched her own pale lips. They were very precious lips. At least by her standard, the finest lips in the world, without a second.
"Hmm..."
Rena rubbed her own lips with her thumb, then called Ayane.
"Hey, Gloomy. Get over here a second."
"Huh?"
At Rena's call, Ayane came sniffling closer. Sniveling over something like this was truly pathetic, but considering the love and obsession she carried, it also made a certain sense. Frankly—at a moment this important, when they had to get on stage, wasn't it something that she hadn't shown up with a fire extinguisher?
"Hey, Shin."
"Gyah!"
Rena yanked Tae-il's gakuran downward.
"Ah. Not a necktie. This is kind of inconvenient."
"R-Rena?"
If it had been the new blazer uniform instead of the old-style gakuran, grabbing the tie alone would have been enough to drag his face down to the height of hers. Setting that regret aside, Rena called Ayane.
"Hey, Gloomy. Plant one on him."
"P-plant one...?"
Between a boy and a girl, planting one could only mean that. Ayane, conjuring a lewd fantasy before she could stop herself, flushed and covered her mouth with both hands. Rena hurried her along.
"Kiss Shin. Right now. Lay one on him."
"Hieeek!?"
"R-Rena? Even so, this is too—"
A kiss, out of nowhere. At Rena's extreme proposal, Ayane and Tae-il recoiled in unison. The suggestion was that far from common sense, and that abrupt. Rena kicked the floor in pure irritation.
"Oh, come on! Hopeless, the both of you. Sakuya! Help me out."
"Ehh..."
"I'll let you have a turn too."
"Deal!"
Sakuya, who had been content to watch, lit up at the promise of scraps and came over grinning.
"S-Sakuya...?"
"No way...?"
The two of them flinched and backed away. She approached with a wicked smile, looking for all the world like a reaper.
"Hehe. Don't be scared. Count the spots on the ceiling like a good kid, and it'll all be over."
"Are you insane...!"
At Sakuya, who sounded like some drunk old man, Tae-il spat the words and grabbed Ayane. Run. Right now, Rena and Sakuya were not in their right minds.
"Where do you think you're going!"
But Sakuya was faster.
"Kyaa!"
Caught by the nape, Ayane dropped neatly into Tae-il's arms.
"Ayane...!"
As Tae-il bent to support her, Rena tapped the back of his knee.
"Huh?"
His knees shot forward and his vision tilted.
"Shin, you little—"
The world flipped. Ayane, who had jerked her head up in pure panic before she could think, went wide-eyed.
Perfectly, their lips collided.
The lips she had given in and tasted more than a few times in secret, whenever Tae-il was asleep, met his now for real. His face burned. It flared hot, as if he had fallen into a heated kiln.
"There we go. Nice. Childhood-friend kiss. Congratulations."
Before Ayane could even register this unreal reality, Sakuya pulled them apart.
"Ah, ah, ah..."
Steam rose off the crown of Ayane's head. Sakuya snickered.
"Well? Were Tae-il's lips that good?"
"Auh, auh..."
Ayane's language circuits were fried. Tae-il, meanwhile, looked as if his mind had left entirely—he went up in a soft white blaze and dropped to his knees.
"Good. I'm next, then?"
Wearing a fierce smile, Rena strode over, caught Tae-il's chin, and forced his head up. Last of all, after confirming that no one around was watching, she met his lips.
A soft peck.
She did not get greedy the way Iris had. Lightly. A bird-kiss, the way a parent might brush a baby.
"How was it?"
"Well. A kiss is a kiss. What's so amazing about it."
At Sakuya's question, Rena—cheeks gone pink—turned her head away with a little hmph.
"Whoa..."
At a development she had never once imagined in her life, something that genuinely exceeded imagination, Iris clapped a hand over her mouth.
What did my kiss just do...?
From a distance, Fuyuko—done talking with the broadcasting-club members handling the stage—approached and tilted her head.
"Hm?"
Tae-il, soul departed, was collapsed on the floor in a perfect defeated sprawl. Ayane had steam pouring off the top of her head, and now her soul was leaking out of her mouth as well. Sakuya had laid Ayane out on a sheet and was already secretly sweeping Tae-il's lips clean, smacking her own with satisfaction. Rena, who had acted unbothered but was apparently embarrassed on the inside, kept stomping the innocent floor. And last of all, Iris stared at the members in a daze.
"You're up soon. What are you doing over there?"
Fuyuko had no idea. In that short span, she had no idea what a hideous typhoon had torn through this place.
The long-awaited final stage.
Tales Tale.
Lily, the vice president, had suplexed Ueno—who had been about to step up yet again—and left him planted on the floor, then gone onstage herself and finished a brief introduction.
The last stage. Naturally, the slot that had to be closed by the flashiest, most skilled act. Headliners, too, tended to take the very end, when the atmosphere reached its peak.
Shin Younghoon stole glances at the stage while pretending not to care. Yoo Ha-na and Yuuna clasped hands and bubbled with oh-my, oh-my, swelling with anticipation. Yuuya closed his eyes and prayed. Izumi and Yahiro waited, pleased, for a stage that was as good as their juniors' official debut. Sera and Kiriko, watching from the very back of the Great Auditorium, knew how much effort Tales Tale had put in, and hoped they would finish the stage safely.
And not only them. This was, after all, a stage for the most popular first-years in the school. Yuma's students had poured in by the crowd. Everyone was watching for the Tales Tale stage about to begin.
Of course, not everyone was hoping they would succeed. There were people like Minata, class president of Class 1-8, who wished for others' misfortune and failure. Being popular also meant having a lot of enemies. There were certainly people who found the sudden appearance of Tales Tale unpleasant. Plenty of teachers felt the same. Sakuya and Rena in particular were prospects for the athletics club and the art club, and more than a few teachers had protested—why on earth were they over there, wasting themselves?
Click.
To the audience's sharpened hearing, the footsteps mounting the stage sounded especially loud.
Click.
The girls climbed the stage with confident strides. Among them was one boy.
"Tae-il...?"
Maybe his health had worsened over the Cultural Festival; his color was dark, his face a little gaunt. Contrary to Yuuya's worries, Tae-il stood straight in his place, in front of the synth.
"First, let's just get through this. Somehow."
Murmuring it under his breath, he put on the hat he had been holding to his chest. A black fedora.
"Haha. That brat really knows how to make a person happy."
It wasn't expensive—a cheap thing—and yet he treated the hat Yahiro had given him as something precious. Proud and grateful, Yahiro wiped under his nose.
Tae-il laced his fingers and clasped his hands together.
"Hoo."
He breathed into them. He gripped the gakuran sleeves tied at his waist, then nodded.
Drums, bass, and guitar as well. Having received a ready sign from everyone, Iris slowly turned to face the front of the stage.
She could see the audience. Unlike rehearsal, the view was packed so tight she could not make out a single gap of empty space. In that view were people she knew, and people she didn't. It was the same as the first time she had stepped onto a stage. Strength gathered in the hand holding the mic.
It's okay.
She closed her eyes and settled her breathing. And she imagined. Rather than the memories that were endlessly sad and painful, she called up only the ones that had been joyful and happy.
Iris opened her eyes.
Ah.
In every one of those memories, Tae-il was there. Like fate. After she met that strangely pathetic man, her life had begun to change completely. Even if the two of them were not fate, it did not matter. Because she would consider them so.
Softly, she brushed with her thumb the lips that still held the lingering trace of Tae-il, and ran her tongue along her teeth. Iris smiled, satisfied.
As expected. She might feel a little sorry toward Tae-il himself, and toward Ayane, but the kiss just now had been the right answer.
Her remaining hand, the left, took hold of the mic as well.
The plane carrying us has already taken off.
A plane, once airborne, does not land until it reaches its destination. Let's fly. Let's soar toward the dream.
She switched the mic on. Feeling the faint warmth at her fingertips, Iris slowly let out a breath that still held his.