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In truth, Kaminaga thought about a lot of things.
On the day of the farewell, he looked around the bare living room and thought about how beautiful it had been when lights seeped in during sunset, the orange and golden hue, the shadows on the floorboards. The apartment was small, typical of that for students, and with just a few steps you could reach the now empty kitchen.
Most of things had been packed into boxes and taken out, but on the counter, there’s still left a single coffee machine. It made him think about the smell of coffee in the mornings and how Miyoshi always liked his bitter. Maybe it even smelled like home, Kaminaga thought again, one that soon would be no longer.
He took a seat at the tiny dining table, the only piece of furniture that they didn’t own, and continued to contemplate about his life during the last few years.
---
Four years ago, the apartment had been exactly like this; plain, quiet, empty.
It was just before university started. He could still recall how Miyoshi stood in the center of the living room with both hands on his hips, making a full 360-degree turn as he ruminated about what furniture to be placed at which corner, pushing imaginary tables and chairs in his mind.
Kaminaga wasn’t too interested in home decor. Just place whatever at wherever, and move it if you didn’t like the position later. “You’re taking your damn time, are you considering the feng shui?”
Miyoshi glared at him and made sure Kaminaga can see his expression, but in the end he gave up being a perfectionist and they went to Nitori together. The two of them knew each other from high school, Miyoshi was a transfer student who came at the start of their second year, while Kaminaga was one of his first friends. In truth, he didn’t even feel like they would get along in the beginning, but things just somehow worked out, and they decided they didn’t hate each other enough to not want to be roommates.
Neither of them bought many things the first time they made a trip to the furnishing store—students had students’ budget, after all—but Kaminaga remembered that he got them a set of apple-shaped mugs, one red and one green, which then became Miyoshi’s favorite. The latter would always use the red one to make himself coffee, and enjoyed it slowly as he worked on his assignments. Kaminaga liked to sit close to him, sometimes to work on his own college stuff, sometimes just to annoy his roommate.
“Why did you even take international relations?” Miyoshi once asked him during those times.
“Well, you see,” Kaminaga said, holding back a smile, “I had actually wanted to become a spy at first.”
Miyoshi’s eyebrows climbed up so high, but the corners of his lips curved in amusement. “A what?”
---
Days and nights alternately went longer, and seasons were passing in a blink. Living together soon became a habit; sharing groceries, waiting for each other to come home from classes and part-time jobs, curling up together for late-night movies; things that he didn’t know he would one day miss. Kaminaga became accustomed to such routine so quickly that he couldn’t remember what it was like when Miyoshi wasn’t around. Being with him just felt natural, as if they had known each other for a much, much longer time.
Once or twice, Kaminaga pointed out half-jokingly that they might as well have been a couple or something—taking turns in cooking and doing the laundry, things like that—didn’t it sometimes feel like they’re actually together? And Miyoshi simply laughed it off, like he always did.
In truth, maybe Kaminaga did secretly hope they could’ve been something more, like those roommates in cliche rom-coms, accidentally falling in love with each other. (Or maybe Kaminaga actually did, it’s just that Miyoshi didn’t.)
During the last days before graduation, he liked to watch Miyoshi paint as he thought about what they were, and what this was. Kaminaga would like to think that he and Miyoshi were something more, but their relationship never got to pass touches that lingered a little too long or a drunken kiss that one time in their junior year—but did it even matter if Miyoshi said he didn’t remember anything?
---
The sound of door sliding open broke him out of his musings and Kaminaga raised his head, asking, “Are you done? Nothing’s left?”
Miyoshi nodded, then his gaze landed somewhere in the kitchen. “Ah, you can keep that.”
“Keep what?”
“The coffee machine.”
Kaminaga reflexively turned his head to it. A stream of memories came rushing in, like still pictures of bygone days, superimposed inside his head. The coffee machine was ridiculously expensive, the only thing Miyoshi didn’t want to compromise, adamantly buying the most luxurious one. He had thought Miyoshi would rather die than to part with it. “But isn’t that your favorite?”
“That’s why I’m giving it to my favorite person.”
Kaminaga smiled at that, faintly.
Miyoshi glanced at his watch, and pulled the handle of his large suitcase. “Time to go, or I’ll be late for my flight.”
“Then let’s go.”
In truth, Kaminaga had thought about this over and over. He knew he wasn’t at all ready to say goodbye, he knew he didn’t want to let Miyoshi go. In truth, he knew he didn’t want to part like this, yet he didn’t know himself what he was still holding onto, because weren’t friends supposed to be supportive of each other’s dreams? And he at least wanted to be a good friend, if he really couldn’t be something more. “Don’t forget to send me postcards from Germany.”
“Of course, how many do you want?”
“How about a dozen for every semester?”
“Greedy, aren’t you?”
It felt almost like a breakup—but it’s silly, he thought.
After all, nothing could end if it had never even started in the first place.