Second Serenade: Chapter 16

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The call came the day after the newspaper announcement—a Wednesday afternoon.

Aketo had just returned from cram school, his hand on the banister as he started up the stairs to his room, when the house phone rang. Neither of his parents were back from work yet.

He doubled back to the living room and grabbed the receiver from its cradle on the low cabinet.

“Hello, Aketo speaking…”

Silence.

He frowned, thinking it might be a prank call, when a low, familiar voice crackled through the line.

“It’s Sunahara.”

Aketo’s spine went rigid. His grip tightened around the receiver.

“Can you come out?”

“W-where are you?”

“…The park.”

“Ten minutes—no, five. I’ll be right there.”

Before he had even finished speaking, the line went dead with a sharp click.

For a second, Aketo just stood there, stunned, the receiver still clutched in his hand. Then, snapping back to reality, he dropped it, snatched his house key from the side table, and bolted for the door.

He sprinted down the sidewalk, legs pumping as fast as they could carry him. He couldn’t be late. He couldn’t let Sunahara slip away.

The familiar dark blue car was parked in front of their usual meeting spot, its paint glinting faintly in the fading sunlight.

When Aketo approached the passenger-side window, Sunahara lowered it just a crack, just enough to be heard over the soft hum of the engine.

“Get in.”

◇:-:◆:-:◇

The car sped down the highway, its tires humming against the asphalt. Neither of them spoke. The silence between them was thick, awkward—the kind that only grows heavier when two people share a confined space without a single word to break the tension.

Maybe Sunahara felt it too, because he reached over and flicked on the radio. An old Western song crackled through the speakers, the kind with a slow, nostalgic melody that felt oddly out of place against the blur of the passing road.

They had been driving for about forty minutes when Sunahara finally pulled into a small seaside parking lot.

“Closed on Wednesdays, huh?” he muttered as he eased the car into a space.

Aketo looked up, and his heart gave a painful jolt.

It was the same café where he had, indirectly, told Sunahara he wanted to break up. The curtains were drawn, a small "Closed" sign hung in the window, swaying gently in the sea breeze.

Why here? Of all places, why would he bring him here?

Sunahara got out of the car. He didn’t head for the café or the beach, just wandered aimlessly around the empty lot, lighting a cigarette as he went. He wore a short jacket today, the kind that made him look neither quite like a high school student nor quite like an adult—somewhere in the blurry in-between.

After a while, he perched on the low metal railing that separated the lot from the sea, the salty wind tossing his hair into his eyes.

He didn’t call out or wave, but something about his posture, the way he sat there, felt like an unspoken invitation.

Aketo stepped closer, stopping just within reach.

“I got dumped here once,” Sunahara said, more to the wind than to Aketo. “A girl I used to date broke it off right in this spot. And then you said pretty much the same thing to me, I swore I’d never come back.”

The wind ruffled his bangs, and he ran a hand through them, pushing the stray strands out of his face.

“But somehow, this felt like the right place to do this,” he continued, his voice low, almost a murmur. “I’m transferring to a new school. Thought it might be a good chance to… clear things up between us. We never really had a proper conversation about any of this.”

Clear things up… He probably meant to cut ties, to wipe the slate clean and move on. Not that it was necessary—if they just left things alone, their connection would likely fade on its own.

“I’m not you,” Sunahara went on, eyes fixed on the dark waves beyond the railing. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours. Maybe you didn’t even want to come here. Maybe you’re just here out of obligation, feeling guilty or annoyed that I dragged you out. Maybe you’re tired of listening to me complain.”

He paused, drawing in a long drag of his cigarette.

“But I can’t stand leaving things unclear. I need some kind of closure, even if it’s just for my own peace of mind. So I’m going to say what I have to say.”

He lifted his head, meeting Aketo’s gaze head-on.

“I loved you,” he said, his tone as steady as if he were stating a simple fact. “You were a student, a guy, and a real pain in the ass, but I still fell for you. I got so caught up in it, it was almost stupid.”

A bitter smile curled at the corner of his lips.

“But this is it for us.”

It was the first time Aketo had ever heard him say it—I loved you.

Sunahara had once said it took him a year to confess to someone he liked. This time, it had only taken him six months. That was progress, at least.

Aketo stood there, his expression unreadable, his body completely still. Sunahara let out a small sigh, the smoke from his cigarette curling into the salty air and asked, “Shall we go?”

“Or… do you have something you want to say to me?”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

Something about that made Sunahara chuckle softly, a quiet, almost resigned sound.

“No, nothing I want to say. But… I do have a favor.”

Sunahara shrugged, pulling another cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

“I’m listening, but it depends on what it is. If you’re about to tell me to throw myself off this railing, you’re out of luck.”

Aketo reached out both hands. Sunahara’s face stiffened—maybe he really thought Aketo was about to push him off. But instead, Aketo pressed his face against Sunahara’s chest and wrapped his arms tightly around his slender back.

“Hey…” Sunahara’s voice was strained, his cigarette slipping slightly between his fingers.

“I… I want to stay with you. Always,” Aketo whispered.

His voice was small, but the words carried, cutting through the wind and the crash of the waves below.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Sunahara could feel the warmth of Aketo’s breath through his shirt, the faint press of his shoulder blades beneath his jacket.

“Sorry,” Sunahara said, pushing firmly against Aketo’s shoulders. “But you’re a nuisance. Whenever I’m with you, you throw me completely off balance... Maybe I should just say it plainly. I’m sick of this. Sick of being tormented by this stuff. Every time you say something, it drags me down, hurts me. I get jealous. I hate it. I hate feeling like this.”

Aketo looked up at him, eyes sharp and unblinking.

“But you just said you liked me.”

“I do. That’s exactly why I hate it now. I’m done getting jerked around by your whims.”

It made no sense. They clearly felt the same way about each other. Breaking up now would be a mistake. A huge mistake.

“Saying you hate it because you love me... That’s a bullshit reason, and I don’t accept it. If you’re actually serious about that, I’ll shove you off this ledge right now.”

The crash of the waves suddenly felt deafening. Sunahara’s exhale hit him like a physical blow, the weight of it settling into his bones.

“That’s exactly what I mean when I say you’re unpredictable,” Sunahara said, his voice tight. “Most of the time, you’re calm and collected, but the moment you get worked up, you act on impulse. You’re the type to do something without thinking, only to regret it later.”

It felt like it might end here. Sunahara clearly intended for this to be their final moment.

But Aketo couldn’t let that happen.

Sunahara might have seemed younger, his short jacket and boyish face giving him a youthful appearance, but he was infinitely more mature than Aketo in all the ways that mattered. Still, that didn’t mean Aketo would just let him walk away. He would use whatever dirty tricks it took, tell whatever lies were necessary, just to stay by his side.

“You don’t trust me,” Aketo said, his voice sharp. “You’ve already decided I’m just being capricious.”

Sunahara didn’t deny it. “Yeah, I have.”

“In the end, you’re only thinking about yourself. You don’t care about my feelings at all.”

“I’ve heard enough about how you feel to last me a lifetime. And look who’s talking—you’ve never once thought about how I feel.”

Sunahara shook his head as if to say, This isn’t what I dragged you out here to do. Not to fight like this. But even though he called Aketo out to talk, now he was trying to end the conversation halfway. Aketo panicked. It can’t end. If it ends like this... it’ll stay this way forever. Desperately, he grabbed Sunahara’s slender shoulders and shook him.

“I like you, Sensei! I like you! I told you that, didn’t I? Even when I was dating Otomo, it wasn’t any fun! Because I was always thinking about you! ...Even that time I forced myself on you, I regretted it afterward. Seeing you hanging out with people like Kakegawa or Hayashida pissed me off. I was shocked when you threw that book at me—I just... I just wanted to have a normal conversation with you. I just... wanted to kiss you. One more time.”

The words spilled out, a tangled, jumbled mess that didn’t make any sense even to him. He couldn’t stop the flood of thoughts, his mouth left hanging open as he struggled to put his feelings into some kind of coherent order.

Sunahara just stared at him, clearly bewildered by the outburst.

“Fine then,” Aketo snapped, his voice shaking. “If you’re not going to care about me, then I won’t care about your feelings either. Even if you tell me to leave, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay right here, whether you like it or not.”

Before Sunahara could finish forming whatever words were on his lips, Aketo smashed their mouths together in a rough kiss. If Sunahara said anything more about breaking up, about how this couldn’t go on, Aketo felt like he would explode. The kiss had only been meant to silence him... but little by little, it softened, turning into something different. Something that felt like a real kiss between lovers.

“My head’s going to explode,” Sunahara murmured, his breath coming out in short, shaky bursts when they finally broke apart.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

Still pressed against his chest, Aketo could feel Sunahara’s heart pounding—faster, much faster than before.

For a moment, Sunahara’s fingers hovered uncertainly in his hair, pulling away and then returning, as if struggling with the impulse to either push him off or pull him closer.

Then, as if surrendering to the inevitable, Sunahara wrapped both arms around Aketo’s head, cradling him close. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the top of Aketo’s head.

“Do you really like me?” he whispered, his voice tinged with something almost like desperation.

“If you do… don’t ever start hating me. Just stay like this. Always.”

◇:-:◆:-:◇

It wasn’t as if there were no problems. He still had to break up with Otomo, and there was the whole situation with Kakegawa to deal with. Even so, compared to the happiness he felt now, all those little complications seemed trivial. After all, the person beside him in the driver’s seat was his now.

The car sped through the deepening dusk. The sun had already set, leaving no trace of its lingering light. They reached a traffic signal on the quiet highway, the only car stopped at the intersection. Sunahara shifted the gear into low.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

In early spring, even a warm day could turn brisk once night fell.

“I’m fine,” Aketo replied.

As he looked at Sunahara’s face, a sudden urge to kiss him welled up inside. For some reason, he felt a strange certainty that Sunahara wouldn’t push him away.

Leaning over the console, he pressed his lips to Sunahara’s. Sunahara instinctively flinched back in surprise, but he didn’t resist.

The light turned green, and a white car that had quietly crept up behind them blared its horn. More cars lined up behind it, joining in a chorus of impatient honks. A few drivers in the oncoming lane leaned out of their windows, peering curiously at the idling car, but the interior was cloaked in shadow, revealing nothing.

Neither Aketo nor Sunahara heard a single note of the commotion outside. They were too lost in the sweetness of their kiss.

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