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When she was but a little kid, birthdays were a big deal for An.
She remembers aunt Nagi explaining to her what a birthday is when she was four, a simple speech about it being a very, very special day to celebrate someone coming to this world, a day full of joy, because a new life being created is the most joyous thing of all. Although, aunt Nagi refused to answer her when she asked – very rightfully so, An reckoned – how babies are made and she just told her while snickering to ask her father or uncle Taiga.
Ever since then, An had been using a calendar solely for keeping track of birthdays. She didn’t have many friends as a kid, so it was filled mostly by her family’s birthdays, or of people from Vivid Street. Because of her limited (read, nonexistent) finances, she would always make handmade bracelets as presents for her family, small strings of colorful beads and those little squares with letters etched in them that the toy seller in Vivid Street gave her for free, raging from the celebrated’s name to RADder for her father, aunt and uncle, to whatever words she thought were important to that person.
In turn, she became a bundle of energy every year on July 1st, impatiently waiting for the 26th to come and celebrate her birthday. The people in Vivid Street would always giggle at that, endeared by her excitement, and they had even elaborated a game of guessing what her family had in store for her birthday to keep her at bay.
On her fifth birthday, her parents had bought her a giant crab plushie and her uncle and aunt had given her a new, shiny mic, its handle a beautiful dark blue covered in glitter and tiny silver stars. They had prepared her favorite cake the night before – apricot shortcake – and ate it all together in their living room before her mother had ushered her in the bathroom to have a bath with her, because she had to “get ready for your big, big day!” They had gotten her all dressed up in cool but comfortable clothes and she had climbed in the backseat of their car, sandwiched between her mother and aunt Nagi. “Where are we going?” she kept asking with a giant grin, unable to sit still in her seat, so much that her mother had to invent a game to keep her occupied. They ended up going sightseeing on a mountainous track An had once seen in TV with uncle Taiga and they took a disgusting amount of photos with the camera her mother had brought. Her father and uncle Taiga had printed the photos and kept a copy in their wallets to this day.
The locations changed each year, but the happiness stayed all the same. They went on a boat tour by a secluded coast for her sixth birthday, to Phoenix Wonderland for her seventh birthday, to an aquarium for her eight birthday, to the cinema for a marathon of movies for her ninth birthday (she had fallen asleep on her father’s shoulder halfway through the fourth film, tired of paying attention to the plots while sitting still all of that time). They went all out for her tenth birthday and booked a four days trip in Prague – one of the places where RADder had a friend of a friend that got them a real deal and let them in a concert of one of the groups An liked because her family listened to them.
Everything changed when she was fourteen.
Her love for music was stronger than ever, after witnessing the legend that was RAD WEEKEND. Her father, aunt Nagi and uncle Taiga had looked so bright on the stage, like stars that crossed the pitch dark sky, their voices throbbing through her body and resonating with her, the sheer emotion seeping in her and leaving her breathless. They had been like stars, exploding in the sky in their final, desperate moment alive before they fell apart and disappeared from the stage.
“I am going to surpass RAD WEEKEND,” An had said. “I will find someone with my same resolve and put on an event that will completely shatter RAD WEEKEND”.
She said she was going to find someone with her same resolve, so why, why was she as lonely as ever?
She poured her heart in the music, day and night, she spent every second singing, again and again, until her throat was raw and her voice cracked and faded away. She escaped to the music room during breaks in school, she ran back to Vivid Street and practiced as soon as school was over until sundown and beyond. Haruka, a friend she had made throughout the years in school, would sometimes break her out of her frantic routine by eating lunch together or with friendly basketball matches, but Haruka was always busy and there was only so much she could do to distract An from her dream.
Soon, she found herself alone, chasing someone’s back as they faded out of sight; uncle Taiga, aunt Nagi, the faint memory of that night and the taste of adrenaline on her tongue, they all slipped between her fingers and rushed away, leaving her alone, surrounded by ghosts.
Was there anyone that could stand with her, understand her fully and make her feel as loved as uncle Taiga and aunt Nagi did? After they had left, An felt hollowed, like a tree stump dried of its lymph and left in the middle of nowhere to wilt and wither, sunlight stolen from it. People rushed past her, striving and reaching for their goals, grasping them and clutching them, cradling them close to their chests as they proudly crowned their dreams, while An, stupid, stubborn An, was left alone, standing still in the middle of the crowd that moved forward without her.
Birthdays lost all of their magic, now that her family had fallen apart, and she wished she had someone that made her feel as warm as they did.
No matter, she told herself on days that she came home with tears in her eyes, pushing them back and pretending to be strong in front of her father, no matter, she thought, she will find someone to share her dream with someday, and she won’t be alone anymore.
Her fourteenth birthday came and passed, leaving her alone, singing on the streets, and so did her fifteenth.
Her limbs grew longer and her cheeks less full, her eyes turned a little less childish, she swapped her middle school uniform for a high school one and she grew out of the clothes uncle Taiga and aunt Nagi bought for her. They said they would call from America, yet An’s shiny new phone never lit up with their names. She started wearing make-up and coating her nails in clear polish, she stopped tying her hair in a high ponytail and took on the role of hall monitor in her new school, and still her phone was silent.
She made a couple of friends in school, along the way. One of them was called Mizuki Akiyama, a peppy and fun person with long lashes and well guarded secrets, and the other was called Makoto Sato, a girl with half-lidded blue eyes and a weird love for smoking. Makoto shared An’s passion for music and told her she wanted to accomplish something with her voice, so naturally, An had brought her to Vivid Street and showed her An’s world. Makoto seemed thrilled, walking next to her with her hands in her pockets and she stopped every once in a while to ask An about this place, how live-houses worked, if you could make a break-through on your own there.
“Of course!” An had said enthusiastically, taking Makoto’s hands in hers. Her palms were large, larger than An’s, her fingers long, adorned with many rings, and topped by her pointy nails lacquered in black. “My dad’s group was super famous both in Japan and overseas, and he started out here! By now his group has disbanded, but they’ve put on a legendary event that was deemed impossible to surpass, but trust me, I will”.
Makoto’s dark blue eyes widened. “Your dad was famous?” she had asked, pulling her close. There was a nice shine in her eyes that An found adorable.
Mizuki told An that it was better if she stayed away from Makoto, that there was something off about that raven-headed girl, but An didn’t listen to them.
Makoto consumed An’s days. An waited for her at the train station each morning before school and walked with her there, she jumped at every text she received, hoping it was Makoto, she would often sneak out of class to spend time with her in the bathroom while she smoked. Makoto would sometimes visit Vivid Street to sing there, like An did, and although almost no one ever took a double glance in the girl’s way, An was always delighted to find Makoto singing in her town.
It was one of those days that An believed she had finally found someone that thought just like her. She was leaning against the net of a random building’s rooftop in Vivid Street, and Makoto was smoking by her side after An had found her singing by a bakery shop she would always visit with aunt Nagi. Makoto was tragically beautiful: guys and girls alike were all over her, with her tall and slightly muscular body, her piercing dark blue eyes, her long, ink black hair, her eyebrow and navel piercing, her charming voice and sharp words. An sometimes wondered why Makoto had even glanced her way: Makoto could have anyone, An had no one. It was a miracle she had Haruka and Mizuki. “Say, Nana-chan,” Makoto called her as she puffed out a cloud of smoke. An didn’t know how she had become Nana-chan to Makoto, but she only called her that nowadays. “If you ever surpass that event… What will you do, after?”
An turned to her. “Dunno,” she said honestly, because An had never established a goal for herself besides surpassing RAD WEEKEND. “I’ll probably keep on singing until I’m old and weak and my voice will give out”.
“I see”.
“What do you want to do with your life, Makoto?” An shot back.
Makoto took a last, deep breath from her cigarette and then let it pathetically fall to the floor, the cinders carried away by the wind as one end burnt an angry crimson and ate away what was left of the cylinder. Makoto turned to her and puffed out the smoke in her face slowly, giving her a half-lidded look. “I wanna find someone to sing with until I die,” she simply said. “I don’t want to be alone, mostly. I’ll go where most people are ready to love me”.
An understood the feeling a little too well. “Where would that be?”
“I don’t know yet, Nana-chan,” Makoto grumbled, and she smelled like smoke and leather and An couldn’t help but stare at her, growing a little fonder still of the smell of cigarettes that she carried anywhere with her. “I just know that I want to stay with you, for now”.
“Me too”.
Months passed, and An found herself gravitating more and more towards Makoto. The girl would come over to An’s family cafe, she would even spend the nights sometimes and she always spoke to An’s dad, she looked for An during breaks and constantly asked her about music. She invited An on walks during the evening and spent more and more time in Vivid Street, although she never told An when she would come in her street. An had finally found someone that was always there for her, someone that was willing to stand still in the crowd with her for as long as she need, until all of the ghosts faded away and An wasn’t scared of being left behind anymore. She loved Makoto more than she ever loved someone up until that moment.
Once, while they were laying on An’s bed, Makoto shook her by her shoulder. “Nana-chan,” she called. She smelled like cigarettes and air-spray and she wore dark red-lipstick that made her mouth look like a raw cut in her face. “Do you ever think that what you’re doing is useless?”
An twisted on her duvet and looked at Makoto. “What do you mean?” she asked in a small voice.
Makoto stared at the ceiling, never once glancing at An’s way. “Like… You ever feel like, no matter what you do, you won’t ever surpass that event?”
That was a loaded question, An reckoned. Surpassing RAD WEEKEND was the goal of her life – the only goal she had set for herself in her entire life, honestly, so the idea of never being able to surpass it was something that made An’s heart clench painfully, a dark blotch of despair covering her entire mind and body until she couldn’t breathe nor think anymore. Not surpassing RAD WEEKEND would be something cruelly ironic, with how life seemed to rush past An while she was stuck, how everyone and everything surpassed her as she stumbled in the dark, terrorized of being left behind. “I don’t let myself think about that possibility. When I’ll find someone with a resolve as strong as mine, we will finally work together and we’ll surely surpass it. It’s just a matter of time”.
“What if that someone doesn’t show up?” Makoto asked as she closed her eyes.
An had considered the possibility. She was extremely picky and selective when it came to potential partners, she knew that, but it was for her own good: she had to find someone with great skill and passion to even dream of surpassing RAD WEEKEND, let alone actually doing it. She had only considered one person, really, a boy her age called Akito Shinonome. He was new to music and his voice was still rough and shapeless at the time since he had just started singing, but he had an iron resolve and a burning passion for music, he diligently trained and informed himself as much as he could to get better. An had dropped the idea when he almost immediately found himself a partner, a quiet guy named Touya Aoyagi that let Akito’s love for music bleed onto him until they found themselves sharing the same dream.
An was incredibly jealous, she had to admit, but she couldn’t help but daydream of someone for herself as she watched them learn and grow together, falling in step day by day until they were perfectly in sync. She just hoped they wouldn’t surpass RAD WEEKEND before she did.
“I’m sure there’s someone out there whom I can share my dream with,” An answered truthfully. “As I said, it’s just a matter of time. I’m not giving up on my dream even if I don’t find someone. I’ll surpass RAD WEEKEND on my own if I need to”.
“What if you’re better than them? Or if they’re better than you?”
An stilled. Being better than them wasn’t a problem to An: she would just stand by their side and wait patiently for them to catch so that they could be going forward on the same level, but… What if they were better than her? Would they be willing to do the same as An and just stand there with her, ghosts rushing past, as she tried to catch up? That depended on her hypothetical partner’s nature, she reckoned. They could be willing to wait, but they also could be impatient to go on, and if they did, then An…
Her stomach clenched and she tightened her fists. “We’ll do our best to stand on the same ground”.
Makoto finally, finally turned to An and studied her contrite face. She stared and stared, until she said: “you’re unmovable, Nana-chan”.
An didn’t even have the time to blink before Makoto grabbed her face and smashed their lips together. She had just stolen her first kiss.
They started dating after that. An was still surprised at the idea of her crush on Makoto being reciprocated and it had all came so suddenly, after knowing each other for so little, but the lingering taste of cigarettes on her tongue and the traces of red lipstick on her cheeks said otherwise. Mizuki had expressed their concern regarding the development in An and Makoto’s relationship, but ultimately let An do whatever she wanted because they trusted her judgment and they didn’t want to dictate An’s life. In exchange, they would turn around anytime Makoto kissed An and stop talking whenever they were around her.
It was almost An’s sixteenth birthday at the time.
“Are you doing anything for your birthday?” Haruka asked her from the other side of the call. “It’s just three days away”.
An put her phone down on the desk. “I’m going on a date with Makoto,” she said.
“Oh,” was all that Haruka mustered.
An, who was going to grab her hairbrush, stopped in her tracks. “What is it?”
“I… Didn’t know you two were official”. Haruka’s voice was distant and- was that disappointment that An heard?
“Well, we are,” An said, trying to keep her tone casual.
“Do you think this is a good choice, An? How do I explain… Are you sure Sato-san has good intentions?” Haruka hesitantly asked, treading not-so-carefully around An’s emotions.
An felt a muted rage fill her, flowing down her arms and making her clench her teeth. Why, why did everyone think that she should break it off with Makoto? First Mizuki, now Haruka… Even her father disagreed on their relationship, despite how much Makoto talked to him! “Why do you think she doesn’t?” she growled back.
“An, I’m going to be extremely honest here, but… I think Sato-san is simply using you. You said she wanted to make a living out of being a singer, and you told her your father was famous, right? She always talks to your dad, she sings in Vivid Street and asks you about agencies and how get more people to listen to her. Does she ever tell you when she’s practicing? Do you ever talk about non-music related stuff?” Haruka explained, passing the ball back to An.
The true answer was no, no they didn’t, no, she didn’t tell her, nor she wanted An around when she sang, she didn’t even show real interest in An’s dream, just questioned her, certain of her failure in surpassing RAD WEEKEND. Before An could answer, she heard her father shouting downstairs, in the cafe, and-
And Makoto screaming back.
An’s hands were shaking. “Haruka, I have to go, something’s going on in the cafe. I’ll call you back when I’m free, okay?” she said, and hung up before Haruka could even reply.
She bolted downstairs, almost slipping down the steps and stumbling on the landing, her breath quick and erratic. She entered the cafe just in time to see Makoto slam the door behind her and march away in the street. An’s father, behind the counter, was seething and he went to dry the clean, wet cups with a white rag: to calm down, surely, An guessed, knowing him. “Dad?” she called with a point of hesitance. “What happened?”
Ken Shiraishi wasn’t a person that got angry easily – or at least nowadays. He was level headed and preferred to discuss calmly to screaming and shouting endlessly, so him fighting with his daughter’s girlfriend came as a bit of a surprise to An. “That girl,” he huffed. “She’s a stubborn one. She kept asking me to get her a contract with a record label that works between Japan and America”.
I think Sato-san is simply using you.
Haruka’s words resonated painfully in An’s mind, like an alarm bell going off. Makoto had been asking her father to get her a contract? She hadn’t even told An she was coming over – not that she ever did. An’s mouth turned dry very quickly, her tongue stale and rigid like cardboard as she ran it over the back of her teeth and inhaled sharply. “She did?”
Ken looked up and straight in his daughter’s face. He breathed out and put his cup down, facing An instead. “Yes, she did. At first, I tried to explain to her that getting a contract like that out of the blue is hard, I could hardly get a contract for myself, let alone her, someone that no one knows of and with little to no experience… But she insisted, and so I said I wouldn’t help her. She- never mind”.
“Dad,” An scowled, moving closer to him and crossing her arms. “Please tell me”.
Her father sighed. “She started insulting me, and when she started screaming I simply lost all composure. That was a short-coming on my behalf, I will admit, but she was being so stubborn and rude that I couldn’t stand to be treated that way in my own local,” he said.
“That’s not like…”
That’s not like Makoto, is what An wanted to say, but she knew that would be a lie. Makoto was very prone to bursting out like that, spewing out rude stuff as anger took over her, so An wasn’t exactly surprised. She let the conversation fall.
Three days later, Makoto didn’t show up for their date.
An had woken up to her mother singing happy birthday to her, to a warm hug from her father and a kiss on the forehead from the both of them. She had received a happy birthday text from both Haruka and Mizuki, alongside an audio of Mizuki singing happy birthday for her as well, but no trace of her girlfriend. Still, unperturbed, An went on with her day, had breakfast, went out to buy groceries and then came back home, got changed and started getting ready for her date.
She left and quickly reached the meeting spot for their date, the station right outside of Vivid Street. She sat down on the bench near the entrance of the station, fixing her blue dress and smiling widely, patiently waiting since she had arrived a few minutes early. Time passed, but no sign of Makoto. Well, maybe she was just late, right?
Five minutes turned into ten, half an hour turned in a whole hour, until An realized numbly that Makoto would not come. Not a text, not a single call. There was just An, sat alone on a bench as people who had been waiting for their trains threw pitying glances at her, and all that she could feel was the well known hurt of being ignored and not receiving even a happy birthday from the people she cared the most about.
She was once again standing in the middle of the crowd, people rushing past her, while her feet melted in the ground, grew roots in it, unable to move a single step. Invisible, insignificant, unwanted. She was tying ribbons to the pinkies of the ghosts, tugging on each end to pull them back to her, begging to not be left behind, pleading, crying, until those ghosts that she oh so loved came back to haunt her. An’s chest was tight and hollow, and she felt as if her bones were caving in the empty void that was her body. A tree stump, a small trunk that could be bent easily, swayed this way and that by even the smallest gust of wind. Something tired and numb that laid abandoned in the undergrowth, something that could never grow into anything new and couldn’t even hope to reach towards the Sun.
She went back home, dry tears digging in her cheeks and empty eyes blurred like old, dirty glass. She didn’t answer when her parents asked her what was wrong, she just walked up to her room and locked herself inside, sinking her face in her knees and sobbing because she had been left behind again, like an abandoned toy once its owner got sick and tired of playing with it.
Makoto didn’t contact her for days on end, and when An finally managed to talk to her in person, she simply said: “I didn’t need you anymore, An. Like… I thought I could make myself a name in the music industry through you, but you were good for nothing. I didn’t get what I wanted, so there’s no need to hang out with you. You’re the one that’s assuming and expecting shit from me. I don’t need you anymore and I got tired of you, An”.
An told her to fuck off and she blocked her number. Mizuki and Haruka didn’t tell her they had warned her this would happen, they just comforted her through her anger and heart-break. An started to hate the smell of cigarettes.
A little over a month later, she met someone that flipped her life upside down. Bright brown eyes, golden hair that reminded An of sunflowers, a smile that could light up the night sky hidden under layers of shyness and anxiety. Her name was Kohane Azusawa, the sweetest girl An had ever had the pleasure to know, the center of gravity that pulled An and her new friends all together. Kohane, Akito, Touya; they lit up An’s world, rocked it to its foundations and cradled it back into stability, finally giving her someone to rely on and chase after her dream with. An came to love them with her entire heart, but something still tugged at the strings of her mind – a root that held on tight to the ground, something that asked her, how do you know they’re not just like Makoto?
Her seventeenth birthday came and passed, without anyone knowing. A happy birthday text at midnight from Haruka and Mizuki, a warm smile from them the following morning, a kiss on the forehead by her parents accompanied by a hug. She went to practice with her friends – with Vivid BAD SQUAD – and she went back home, quietly, unseen.
No one of the three realized something was wrong until February.
“An, your birthday is coming up soon, right?” Akito asked during a cloudy afternoon while they all sat together in Weekend Garage.
An almost fell from the clouds as he spoke. By that point, An had realized that she had a crush on all three of her teammates, something that terrified her, because what if this ends up like with Makoto? What if they, too, abandoned her the moment they got bored, or when they realized she was falling behind all of them, or when they realized just how much of a burden she was? What if they were disgusted at the idea of trusting her, of letting her so close while she had feelings for all three of them? An was terrified of being abandoned again, so she tried to not ruin anything, treading carefully through their dream and friendship alike as if it were a mine field.
“U-uh?” she mumbled dumbly. What was Akito even going on about? “Whaddya mean?”
Touya put down his steaming cup of coffee and looked as if he was just hit by realization. “Oh, that’s right. Your birthday has yet to come, but we are in the same year, so it must be before the end of March, like Kohane’s,” he thought out loud, to which Akito nodded. An was a little jealous of the way Akito and Touya seemed to always be on the same wavelength, if she was being honest.
Kohane nodded enthusiastically at her side. “They’re right, An-chan! We still have to celebrate your birthday”.
And- oh, oh, now An realized her mistake. She had never even told them when her birthday was because what even was the point, if they would just forget? What if they didn’t even care? There was no point in telling them, not when she was incredibly scared of being seen through and ignored again. Now, because of her mistake, her teammates were assuming, just because An had kept the information from them and- “uh, no? My birthday is in July”.
Everything stilled as silence fell over the four. Kohane’s face was hurt, while Akito’s and Touya’s were stuck somewhere between stupor and disappointment. An had caused that, she realized slowly. She had fucked up.
“We- we missed your birthday?” Kohane asked in a tiny, strained voice.
An froze in her seat, her mouth hanging, but Akito beat her to it. “When?” he asked, veiled anger seeping in his voice, barely concealed.
An gulped. “The twenty-six,” she said under her breath, red spreading across her cheeks, shame shame shame. “Really, guys, it’s not a big deal”.
“Not a big deal?” Akito echoed, and he had to put his face in his hands to breathe deeply and calm down.
Touya reached across the table after he let go of his coffee and took An’ hands in his. His palms were warm, but the tips of his fingers were cold, maybe from clutching the cup; after all, Touya tended to run a little colder than normal people on the outside, and a little warmer on the inside. “Your birthday is important,” he said with his tiny, kind smile. “We should be celebrating the birth of our best friend, of such a dear person, and a birth should be the most joyous thing and the most important thing to celebrate. That’s why we care”.
Something ached in An’s chest, her heart slammed painfully against her ribcage as Touya’s voice overlapped with the voice in An’s memories, the ghost of aunt Nagi hugging her child-like frame from behind. She wanted aunt Nagi back, she wanted to hear her role model wish her happy birthday, to sing together again, but more than anything, An wanted to show aunt Nagi how far she had come and how strong she had become, and who she owed it to. She desperately needed to let aunt Nagi know the people who had brought her where she was now, let her meet those who were uprooting her from the place where she had been stuck every since aunt Nagi had abandoned her and who were walking hand in hand with her in the middle of the crowd, not quite as swift as the people rushing past, but slowly catching up nonetheless. Kohane, Akito, Touya: An owed them so, so much.
Kohane nodded and put her hand on An’s shoulder, her face lighting up at Touya’s words. “We love you, An,” she added, while Akito finally looked back at her and nodded along. “We love you so much. We want to be with you, we want to stand by your side, both on the stage and in our regular lives. We want to comfort you when you’re sad, and we want to share your smile in the happy days. We want to laugh and cry with you, and support you every single step of the way. After all, we are all together in our journey to go beyond RAD WEEKEND, aren’t we?”
An couldn’t believe her own ears. She knew that words often didn’t measure to actions, but what Kohane had said were the words that shook An’s heart and made it pound, tears rushing in her eyes and down her cheeks as warmth filled her chest, because finally, finally, she felt her feet move on their own, finally able to move forward in the crowd. Her teammates were quick to move next to her and engulf her in a group hug, and An felt the ribbons she had tied to the ghosts fall to the ground.
The months passed, and love blossomed between the four musicians. An didn’t find it so strange now, the fact that Kohane, Akito and Touya really loved her and wanted to be in a relationship with her.
The months passed, and her eighteenth birthday was just behind the corner. This time she knew that her phone could never light up with aunt Nagi’s name again, and although the notion still hurt her more than anything, she could find it in herself to make peace with it, if she really tried. Aunt Nagi’s ghost was still next to her, holding out a yellow ribbon for her to tie around their pinkies.
Her phone did light up. Haruka, Mizuki, Mita, Touno, Souma, Tatsuya, and so many other friends she had made in school – Shiho, Minori, Rui, Ena and more. An was grateful for them all, because finally, she could see, she was not alone. Although, there were three crucial names missing…
Unlike the past years, her parents didn’t come to wake her up on her eighteenth birthday. She woke up all on her own, in the quietness of her room, which was suspicious, honestly. What were her parents scheming? She got up and changed into casual clothes, washed her face and brushed her hair and decided to inspect the kitchen when she heard hushed voices crowding one over the other.
“Sheesh, Aki, be careful!”
“This thing is heavy, Ko, cut me some slack”.
“Honey, your end of the banner is too high up- ah, Touya, stay just like that, hang on a little longer! Your end is perfect, let Ken fix his and…”
“I think I hear footsteps… Has An woken up?”
Silence fell on the room and then more hushed, much more frantic whispers spread through the room as An circled the corner and entered the living room to a scene that made her heart swell. Kohane and Akito were setting up the dinner table, a pretty cake decorated with frosting, whipped cream and fruit slices sitting in the center, a few bags and small boxes wrapped in presents paper sitting next to it and candles that read “18” abandoned in front of the cake. Touya and Ken were hanging a banner to the archway between the living room and the corridor that read “happy birthday, An-chan!”, while Yuka – An’s mother – was standing a little further back and giving them directions to fix it. Upon hearing An, they all stilled and turned to her.
“… What?” she asked under her breath, eyes wide as she took the scene in.
Yuka was the first to react. “An!” she exclaimed with a bright smile. “Happy birthday!”
Before she could even dream of getting closer to her daughter, Akito and Kohane bolted from behind the table and tackled An in a tight hug that resulted in the three of them falling to the floor. “Happy birthday!” they both cheered on either side of her head, directly in her ears. Akito moved so that he was the one underneath rather than An and pressed a small kiss to the crown of her head.
“I- thanks, guys!” An said in a muffled voice, on the brink of tears.
In her peripheral vision, she saw her father and her other boyfriend let go of the banner, now well secured against the wall, and the latter walk up to their pile of limbs with a fond smile etched in his face. As An was trying to get up, Touya also fell to the floor on top of them and hugged all three of them to his chest. “Happy birthday, my love,” he whispered, tightening his hold on them, which made An turn as red as a tomato.
“Okay, guys, please don’t squish my girl,” Yuka laughed from above them.
They finally let her go, and after her ritual hug and kiss on the forehead from her parents, they made her sit at the table, in front of the cake, and Kohane insisted on taking a few photos. A few, in Kohane’s language, translated in exactly forty-three photos of them in different poses and different combinations of people on the camera, An perpetually in the center. “You made the cake?” she asked between a photo and the other.
Ken nodded. “Me and your mother made the cream, Akito made the base and put it all together, Kohane decorated it and-”
“And Touya cut the fruit and helped me put it on the cake!” Kohane proudly exclaimed, which resulted in Touya turning a slight shade of pink.
An giggled and they ate the cake together – An and Akito got a second slice, of course, An broke the candles and made another wish, and she complimented her partners and parents for how good the cake was.
Akito and Ken put away the dirty plates and as soon as they were back, Kohane said: “come on, open your presents!”
Oh, right, An thought. How long had it been since she had opened a present? Ever since RADder disbanded, she had always asked her parents for dinner together, nothing more, nothing less, so the feeling was a bit foreign to her. There were five presents on the table: a voluminous bag, a smaller packet, clearly handmade, held by a thin cyan ribbon, a rectangular box the size of her laptop, another square box a little bit smaller, and a third rectangular box, although much smaller than the first two, maybe as little bit larger than her palm. She looked up. “Have you all got me presents on your own?” she asked.
Akito shook his head. “Nah. We picked ours together. We just wanted to spoil you a bit with three presents. Go on, open them”.
An blushed at that. “There’s no need to spoil me…” she mumbled, grabbing the bag. She tore it open and, moving away some tissue paper, she found a ball of shiny black and blue fabric. Curious, she pulled it out of the bag, carefully, and the material cascaded down on her legs, a gorgeous skirt resting in her lap while she held the upper part of the dress by its sleeves. “This is…” she choked out, standing up to study it better. “Oh God, this is beautiful”.
Akito gave her a slight grin, while Touya and Kohane exchanged a fist bump. “I saw it once while shopping with Ena and immediately thought of you. I texted them immediately and bought it with their stamp of approval,” he explained as he walked up to An and grabbed the dress to check if it was the right size by putting it against her chest and back. “Seems like I got it right,” he sighed with relief.
An put it away with great care and reached for the packet. She pulled the end of the ribbon and let it fall to the ground while she opened the paper and pulled out four bracelets. Each was a different color, pink, orange, blue and cyan, and each had small beads with letters etched in them. “Kohane, Akito, Touya, An”, and to each was attached a small charm to its clip: a cloud, a sun, a moon and a star.
“I liked the idea of us matching,” Touya said, grabbing the star bracelet and sliding it around An’s wrist. “Saki brought it up and she, Honami and Tsukasa helped me make them. Tsukasa gave me the idea of the matching charms. I asked Akito and Kohane and we settled for these. You’re our star after all, aren’t you?”
An threw her hands around Touya’s neck and hid her face in his shoulder. Perhaps they didn’t need to know that bead bracelets used to be An’s go-to present when she was young. She personally put on her partners' bracelets and gave a small kiss to each of their hands as she did. “I wonder who I’d be without you,” she sighed, reaching for one of the rectangular boxes.
“Single and a solo singer,” Akito teased, which earned him a small punch from An.
She tore the paper of the box and opened it, finding a professional set of four mics in it, with a pretty magenta rimming around the head. “Oh! We needed new mics. Ours were getting old and were malfunctioning a lot during practice. Thanks,” An said.
Ken gave her a knowing smile as she grabbed the other bigger box. There was a binder inside- no, not a binder, it was… “A photo album?” she asked. It bore their small logo drawn by hand – the disk over a splash of paint – on the front and upon opening it, An found an alarming amount of photos of them, practicing, hanging out, performing on stage. Each had a small caption and there were doodles all over the pages, as well as glued tickets of their events or cut out flyers or copies of tickets from the cinema, from when they went together. An had to move the album away to avoid ruining it with tears.
“An-chan?”
“I love you guys so much,” she sobbed in her hands, already feeling three pair of arms wrap around her. “Oh my God, I love you”.
The warm embrace brought her so much comfort, but at the same time, it reminded her of how much things had changed in the span of a year. Her feet were moving, large strides as she finally began to walk, the ghosts trailing behind her.
Kohane patted her head gently. “Then… I think you should open your last present. Taiga asked me to give it to you,” she murmured.
They didn’t let her go as she reached for the last box. Hesitantly, with trembling hands, she opened it and slowly took out her present. It was a pretty brown frame, and in it was guarded an old photo, its corners yellowed by time: little An smiled brightly in the center, sitting in aunt Nagi’s lap, surrounded by uncle Taiga, her father and her mother. Her hands shook so much that Touya had to cup them with his and Akito gently turned the frame around, presenting a small message left in the back. An recognized the writing immediately, and a choked sob left her lips while her partners soothed her with caresses and soft kisses on her hair.
“My dearest An, I hope you will grow up to become a strong, skilled woman, the kind of woman I wish I could have raised. I hope you will find beautiful people to surround yourself with, great partners to chase your wish with and that will fill your heart with happiness. No matter what happens to you, I will always be watching over you, each step of the way as you strive for your dreams. I am proud of you, regardless of who you will become. You will always be my dear An, and I will always be your beloved aunt Nagi. We will meet again someday, and you will tell me everything you have accomplished then. With love, aunt Nagi”
“Nagi has always believed in you so much,” Ken said, when she was finally done reading. “I’m sure that she would be cheering you on and telling you to never give up on your dreams, An”.
An nodded weakly and hugged the frame close to her heart. “Aunt Nagi…” she whimpered. “I just wished she could see me now, with all the people I love. I miss her so much”.
The arms around her tightened, if only just a bit. “It’s okay, An. We will take care of you in Nagi’s stead. We will always be by your side, just as she wished she could do”.
An had come to believe she was like a tree stump: hollowed out, insignificant, unwanted. Centenary roots reaching down to the core of the Earth, binding her in place, her blinding fear of being abandoned freezing her until she could barely even look in front of her to the people rushing past and reaching their dreams, while only ghosts kept her company, mocking, held together by ribbons and broken promises. But now was different. Kohane, Akito and Touya had dug into the dry, sterile earth hardened by her paralyzing fear and pulled the roots out, removed one by one each of them, reassuring her that she was enough, they loved her, they would never leave her behind. Those roots cracked and crumbled to dust on the ground, their hold around An too weak to held her in place as she finally started running alongside her partners, untying all of the ribbons that clung to her fingers and finally reaching towards her dream with them.
She didn’t know how long it would take, nor how difficult it would be, but as long as she had her partners by her side, she could do anything. An wasn’t scared of falling behind and being forgotten anymore.