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A matter of months ago, Mei Asahina would have thought she was getting punked if you told her that she’d be spending a late night in a café with the Jun’ichi Maizono.
Like, straight up would have rolled her eyes at you and told you to go bother someone else.
Mei likes to consider herself a girl of logic, after all. As much as she’d like to believe that dreams come true and all that, she knows that she can’t live her life with her head in the clouds.
And that’s the hard part about living… Even when the dreams are sitting right in front of you, sometimes you can’t find it in yourself to appreciate them for what they are.
But perhaps she is just philosophizing this too much.
She mostly just feels guilty at this point. Not just for being a bad companion to Jun’ichi, but for all of the feelings that are stirring inside her. Really, Jun’ichi doesn’t really even seem to mind that she has been a poor conversationalist so far. It doesn’t make the feeling go away. Unsurprising, really. She’s been feeling these little twinges of guilt ever since Minako entered Kazuki’s life, and now with her gone, and him missing her greatly, they just seem to keep creeping up. Like they want to remind her of the grave mistake she committed, falling for her best friend’s just-recently-ex-girlfriend. It’s awful.
And it’s not like she can tell Jun’ichi what happened. His entry into their lives is far too fresh, and she would hate to give him the wrong impression. After all, there is no part of her that is resentful of Kazuki. He is still her dear friend, and she knew better than to let jealousy consume her once he started showing signs of having feelings for Minako. The two of them are still thick as thieves, and she just wants what’s best for him… which only makes her feel worse, because how can she have the audacity to be upset when he’s the one who just got his heart broken?
All this, and that’s without even talking about Natsumi. The poor thing was traumatized by the situation she faced with the Ultimate Despair. The fact that she even considered joining them proved just how close to the edge she was at the time, and already having seen her go through everything with Takehiko… Once again, all Mei can do is feel guilty about not thinking about her the way she should have. Even though her mother had assured her that what happened with Natsumi wasn’t her fault – Kazuki’s mother, Kyoko, had insisted that she tried very hard to avoid telling anyone what she was really feeling – she couldn’t shake the feeling of having failed her friend. How could she have left her out in the cold like that when she needed her?
She finds herself wondering if maybe she is just a selfish person.
“Asahina, your drink is losing all sense of presentation.”
Mei’s eyes flick down to her mug. She leans against her hand as she takes in the sight of her once-warm hot chocolate sitting within — a mix of melted whipped cream, sweet liquid, and chocolatey sprinkles. She hadn’t initially planned on ordering it, but Jun’ichi could see her sour mood and suggested that a warm drink would make her feel better. “Like comfort food,” he said.
“Ah,” she mumbles, “So it is.”
Jun’ichi purses his lips, his brows furrowing. The look on his face isn’t quite one of concern, but rather suspicion. It’s like he doesn’t know what to make of her demeanour. Fair enough, considering they don’t know each other that well.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks, tilting his head ever so slightly. “You seem a bit distracted. I haven’t seen too much of that smile of yours.”
Maybe it’s just your imagination, she almost says, but knowing Jun’ichi, that will be met with a comment about how he would surely know if he wasn’t seeing her smile, because she’s got such a good one. That was kind of his thing, making girls feel special. Maybe I’m just trying to get you to make me feel special.
She pushes that thought away. She’ll never raise her spirits if she just keeps finding new reasons to be upset.
“I’m…” She pauses, trying to think of something else to say other than the truth or an obvious lie, “Fine. Just thinking about… stuff.”
A smile tugs at Jun’ichi’s lips, yet it does not reach his eyes. He obviously knows that she’s hiding something from him, but it’s not within his nature to pry, either.
“Ah, stuff. You know, I’m quite fond of stuff. Such a diverse subject.” He raises his own mug to his lips, pausing just before he goes to take a sip. “Penny for your thoughts on… ‘stuff’?”
Mei frowns, not so much at him as it is because of him – but even that is not entirely his fault. Nobody tends to respond well to phrases or hints about not wanting to discuss something when the other party is clearly upset. Who would want to leave another person sad if they could do something about it? She can tell that that’s what Jun’ichi is doing now. She just wishes he wouldn’t. It’s far too difficult to explain to him, and to be frank, she’s not the kind of person who likes emotionally unloading on others anyway. She knows she’s strong enough to handle it.
“Sorry,” Jun’ichi interjects, now sipping his beverage as if it will alleviate any awkwardness. “Bad joke.”
“Sorry, Maizono, it’s not you.” Mei tries to smile weakly. “I just have a lot on my mind, and I’m not sure how to talk about it. I wouldn’t want to burden you with my worries, either. I know you have plenty going on yourself, what with you trying to find a place for yourself and all.”
“Burdening me is the last thing I want you to worry about. You can tell me anything you want.”
She shakes her head, still smiling down at her cup of hot chocolate. Somehow, it seems like the whipped cream has melted even further in the matter of a minute, now a white, gloopy swirl sitting in a sea of chocolatey liquid. The visual feels strangely close to how Mei’s brain feels, with all of these thoughts racing through her head. The thought is almost enough to make her chuckle.
“I think you might’ve missed the part where I said I didn’t know how to explain it.”
At least Jun’ichi is able to get a laugh out of this situation, rubbing the back of his neck. “You got me there,” he leans forward on the table, shooting her a wink, “Got a little too enthusiastic about wanting to help out one of my favourite girls.”
Oh boy. Not this again. She can’t say that she hates it – at any other time, she might have felt flattered by being told that by a boy as cute as him – but right about now, the timing just isn’t what it should be. It only makes the pool of guilt in her stomach deepen, wondering if maybe her statement from before was truer than she thought.
“Maizono, I know what you’re doing, and I thought you were rethinking doing it.”
He blinks. “What do you mean?”
“The whole ‘make every girl feel special’ thing. When I pointed out how dangerous it was, you agreed with me.”
To her surprise, Jun’ichi seems almost annoyed as he presses his lips together. His mug meets the table with a louder clank than either of them seemed to be expecting. The worry that she has offended him sends her heart dropping into her stomach. Apologies build on her lips for a moment, but his fast reply cuts her off before she can get very far.
“I know you and I haven’t known each other very long, Asahina, but that’s not what I’m doing.”
Her voice is quiet and meek as she speaks, unable to keep from wincing just a bit. “It’s… not?”
“No,” he says, leaning back in his booth seat, the pout on his lips reminding her a bit of a child, “I mean, maybe it was a bit soon for me to declare you one of my favourite girls, but… You’ve been really nice to me, and that means a lot.”
Guilt pools in Mei’s stomach, drenching an already-soaked pain. Just another thing to add to the list. She really isn’t much of a good friend to anybody when she’s like this, is she? Her gaze finds its way back to her mug. The deflated sprinkles wink at her tauntingly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything.” She sighs, scraping at a mark on the table with her nail. “I’m not myself today.”
In spite of his offence, he nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, I noticed…” There’s a pause. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do, Asahina?”
She shrugs. “No, I… I don’t think so. You’ve already done enough, really, inviting me out like this… Even if I can’t get my mind off of something, it’s nice to be out. My dad always said that a change in environment helps when you’re sad sometimes.”
Jun’ichi’s expression softens. “You’re sad?”
A rosy colour shoots through her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to confess to that. “N-no!”
He quirks a brow.
“Okay, maybe a little… There's just a lot that has happened recently, and I don’t think that I’ve been handling it as well as I should have. Things got… kind of crazy before you showed up, and I don’t think I responded to it as well as I should have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” she grips the handle of her cup tighter. “I mean, Kazuki and Natsumi, they… they really needed me, and I don’t think I did a good enough job showing up for them. I was too focused on myself.”
Jun’ichi frowns, but lets her continue, not saying anything.
“I don’t know why. Usually they’re the ones worrying about me trying to help at the expense of myself, but this time, I just… Everything was so big . Natsumi was having a really hard time, and I tried to be there for her, but I just wasn’t making it better. She thought I just wanted to be friends because Kazuki was occupied with Suzuki.”
“Suzuki?” He prods, and Mei’s face reddens. She hadn’t meant to say that, nor had she meant to turn pink as a pansy.
“Oh, um… Kazuki’s ex-girlfriend, and my…” She pauses, still not quite sure how to recover. “Friend.”
“Right,” he nods, a little too understandingly for her liking, “Friend.”
“They broke up right as all this was happening, and Kazuki’s great-grandfather… He was always needlessly hard on him, and the pressure was on right then, too. He was starting to doubt himself. So then, we were both worried about Natsumi, and of course the whole Minako thing happened, and with the pressure of his grandfather factored in as well, he must have been going through hell.”
“I’m sure it was difficult.”
“I can only imagine.”
“But it sounds like it was difficult for you, too. The fact that you know exactly what was happening though, to me, says that you were there for them. You might not have been perfect, but-” he shrugs, plastering on that signature Maizono smile, “Who is? You couldn’t have possibly juggled everything, Mei. You’re just one person, and it sounds like your hands were full. I mean, this Suzuki, she was your friend too, right? Losing a friend is hard on its own, but you were trying to juggle a few things that sounded pretty heavy.”
Mei shrugs awkwardly. “I guess…”
“It sounds like you carry a lot for your friends, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s just important that you not do it too much, or you’ll start to forget that you deserve good things, too.”
She blushes, a bit shy about meeting his gaze, even behind the sunglasses that disguise his identity. “I know… People tell me that kind of thing all the time.”
Jun’ichi folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head, a slight laugh escaping him. “And you don’t listen?”
“I try to. It’s just… it’s hard when you want to help, and you feel like you can’t do enough.”
“Hey, you are doing more than enough. You’re out here with me on a night you really didn’t want to go out on, right?”
“I… suppose.”
“And you ordered a hot chocolate just to indulge me, even though you’ve hardly drunk it.”
Mei raises the glass and takes a sip. “Hey, this was legitimately a good choice. It’s just the moping that’s been getting in the way.”
“ Anyway, ” Jun’ichi snickers, “You deserve to feel special too, and like your feelings matter. They're just as important as Natsumi’s and Kazuki’s. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, and I don’t know the two of them all that well, but they don’t seem like the kind of people who come crying to your doorstep. I figure you probably did your best.”
“You’re… not wrong there. Natsumi tends to yell and push people away, and Kazuki, well, he’ll talk about his feelings, but he’s pretty tough. He won’t go any further than he’s comfortable with, so it can be hard to get anything out of him.”
“Right. So why are you beating yourself up again? You can always try to help people, but one important thing I learned is that you can’t help someone if they don’t want to be helped. And sometimes, even if they want your help, there are certain circumstances even you will need help to defeat. Like I said, you’re only one person, and you’re doing great for one person! But you can’t always be a part of the band. Sometimes Mei the solo artist has to get her time, too.”
“I know. I just don’t want to hurt my friends.”
“You won’t. If you hear this a lot, I’m sure it’s from them, yeah?”
Mei bites her lip, trying to fight off a nervous giggle. She couldn’t count on one hand the amount of times that Kazuki told her to take better care, or how Natsumi would clumsily hint that she wanted to help Mei sometimes, too. “Yeah…”
“So they’ll definitely be happy. I’m sure they think Mei Asahina is pretty special, too.”
God, she hopes that the warmth spreading through her chest hasn’t found its way to her cheeks once more. It’s hard not to get bashful around a boy like Jun’ichi, with his gorgeous features and sparkling personality, but it’s a battle she knows she has to win. She wants him to feel comfortable, too.
Heh. Here she is doing it again. It must come as naturally to her as blinking. Even so, sitting here, across from him, she wonders if he really does mind. That satisfied grin on his face from his pep talk says otherwise.
Maybe his desire to make sure every girl knows how amazing she is isn’t all bad.
“Thanks, Maizono. I appreciate you saying that.”
“But will you take it to heart?”
“I’ll… try. Admittedly, sometimes I’m not sure how to. Like, take care of myself first, I mean.”
“Well-” he chuckles, pulling his phone out from his pocket and wiggling it at her, “That’s when you give me a call. I’m kind of an expert at that kind of thing.”
Mei laughs, shaking her head. “I might just have to take you up on that.”