To Be Enough (HiyoIku)

Chapter 2: Ikuya

"Yeah, I'll ask Hiyori about dinner later if I can catch him at the cafeteria." I promised to Makoto on the phone, my steps light, making soft crunches on the asphalt road.

There was a beautiful shade of blue unfolding itself towards the horizon. It was the colour of forget-me-nots. I still remember the first time I saw the flowers, the way they were carefully held in Natsuya lap, the gentle smile on Natsuya's face while he looked at them. The flowers had been meant for Natsuya's first girlfriend, and ever since then, they remind me of his warmth and tenderness.

I had always loved summer. Summer, he thought, is warm and beautiful like forget-me-nots. I could feel the slow burn on his scalp and the heat of the asphalt warming my soles, but still preferred it over the covered walkways that snaked through all the main buildings on campus. I savoured the heat the way one relished the physical discomfort of a too-tight hug by a loved one. There was so much to summer. The way the plum rain season's humidity intensified the heat, the pleasing surprise of a sudden gust of cool breeze, the vast and endless summer sky.

Today, my body felt like summer. Bright, sunny, weightless. Swimming a relay, making up with Haru and Makoto and Shiina, getting over the fight with Hiyori, everything had worked out so perfectly that reality felt more like a midsummer night's dream. It was so much easier to smile, joke and laugh.

Hiyori was, as expected, in the canteen. He is sitting alone, absorbed in his phone, downing a bowl of ramen. From his expression, I can see that he probably has no idea what he is actually eating. His hair is surprisingly tousled, and there are dark shadows beneath his eyes.

"Earth to Hiyori." I sit opposite him.

"Oh, Ikuya. Just finished classes?" Hiyori looks up from his phone and smiles at me, his eyes bright. He set his phone down and shifts his attention to his food. He seems surprised at what he is seeing.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

He facepalms himself with a smile. "Nothing. I'm just not good with spicy ramen. I don't know why I ordered it."

Hiyori is bad at eating spicy food. He couldn't eat spicy Korean cup noodles to save a life. "But you already ate half of it."

"Yeah...I was caught up in my work. I was thinking about a glitch in my semester project...the colours just won't work right. I'm thinking if I should ditch the pastel colours and just try bolder ones. But then if I do that I'd have to redraw the background and I really don't want to do that. Do you know how much time I spent on drawing that one goddamned – oh, sorry Ikuya, I must be boring you. How's your classes? Have you finished your assignments yet?"

Sometimes, when Hiyori is especially tired, he starts thinking aloud. That is his way of staying focused on the topic. But he usually does it alone and have always apologized if he started thinking aloud to me. To be honest, I didn't mind, and I still don't.

But I don't breach the subject. I don't know anything about graphic design or illustrations anyway. "Just had make-up classes for Marketing. The lecturer gave new instructions about our assignment."

"New instructions this late into the semester?"

"Yeah. I think most of us were thinking about decking him there and then."

"It's Kamiya-sensei, isn't it? He's pretty well-known for things like this. I hope I don't get him next semester."

"Hiyori is taking Marketing as your elective?" This was news. Had Hiyori mentioned this before? Had I forgotten?

"Yeah. A lot of graphic designers work in marketing and advertising fields. I'm thinking about entering publishing, and that's a business as well. So I think it's better at least to have some business knowledge before setting myself loose into the depths of the merciless society."

I laugh. "I'll loan you my notes."

"You'd better," Hiyori joked, but seemed to suddenly notice the sweat on my face. He asked almost sternly, "You've been out right under the sun again, haven't you?"

I nodded. "Great day. Lovely weather."

Hiyori eyed me for a few seconds, sighed, and began rummaging for the heatstroke prevention capsules in his bag. I follow the crease between his brows. I'd made Hiyori worry again.

Hiyori was always worrying. He had taken me as his personal responsibility, and had gone great lengths to care for my wellbeing. During our first summer together, Hiyori had noticed my dizziness more quickly than even Natsuya, and had kept trying to persuade me to stop going out under the sun. When I refused, he hunted the Chinatown for a Chinese apothecary that supposedly offered heatstroke prevention Chinese medicine that was really effective. Hiyori requested the medicine to be powdered and packed into capsules, carried a bottle with him all summer, and made me take a capsule every day or two.

I had only went along because Hiyori went through so much trouble to get it, but ever since then, he'd not had another heatstroke, ever.

I never told Hiyori, but for years, he cared for me in ways my own family failed to.

"C'mon." Hiyori said, holding a familiar brown-coloured capsule in one hand and a bottle of water in another. In my mind's eye I see a young Hiyori, striding purposefully along the streets of Chinatown, his olive eyes carefully tracing each sign and double-checking the address scrawled on his notebook. The sun would be beautiful but merciless, burning Hiyori's hair and skin. I could almost see Hiyori's frustration as sweat formed along the lines of his slender neck, pooling between his armpits, his chest, and the skin pressed against his backpack. Hiyori hated feeling sweaty, but at the beginning of every summer, he would make the same trip.

"Thanks." I said, meaning it. I washed the capsule down with water, glad to avoid the bitter flavour of the medicine. Hiyori's face relaxed. "I'm fine, Hiyori, don't worry so much."

Hiyori simply smiled, but there was something off about it. 

"What's wrong?"I asked.

Hiyori shook his head, the smile still carefully maintained on his face. "I was just thinking that with so much deadlines coming up, and exams drawing close, it'll only get harder for us to meet up."

"So?"

"So," Hiyori breathed, as if that word had hurt somehow, "I think it's better you keep this." He took the bottle of capsules out of his backpack and stood it on the table, between us.

"Well, I'll best be off. Catch you later." Hiyori said lightly, and left.

My eyes followed Hiyori across the cafeteria, watching him stop by the refuse corner to set down his food tray, and walk out the large, automatic glass doors, his silhouette dark against the sunlit lawn outside. The lone bottle stood on the table. I pictured Hiyori making a last trip before returning to Tokyo, explaining to the Chinese old man with balding, white hair that they were leaving, that he would need extra supplies even though summer hadn't arrived yet. Images flitted through my mind, the countless times Hiyori had presented me with a capsule and a bottle of water, and the relaxed smiles after seeing me down the pill.

When I left the cafeteria, the early afternoon sun was at its warmest and brightest, but my good mood was gone. The bottle was clasped tightly in hand, my heart heavy, as if sensing some impending change, anticipating the insecurity I would soon feel even before I understood the reason behind it.

Clouds had begun to gather at the edges of horizon. The sky didn't feel quite so endless anymore.

It was going to rain.