Interlude: The Cheering Squad for Their Love
Having someone confide a secret in me — that was the first time in my life that had ever happened.
If I remember right, it was spring of our freshman year. We were on our way home from hanging out, waiting on the station platform for the train.
I’d just gotten a mixer invite from a different friend, and it reminded me — right, Yui doesn’t have a boyfriend either, does she.
Figured I’d invite her along, so I asked, casual, “Got invited to a mixer, want to come?”
Yui turned to me and said, easy as anything:
“I’ll go if cute girls are coming.”
I think I actually said, out loud, “huh?” It’s a mixer, why “girls”? Baffled, unable to catch her meaning, I just stood there blank, and Yui laughed and looked me straight in the eye and said it.
“I like girls, you know.”
“Huh?” — I remember that ridiculous sound coming out of me. Can’t be helped, I don’t know about Tokyo, but I’d just come up from deep, snow-buried rural Tōhoku, so something like this, I’d only ever seen or heard about on TV.
I couldn’t think of a single clever thing to say, and all I managed was a blank “no waaay…”
*
Right then the train arrived, and we boarded it like nothing had happened. Yui and I kept up ordinary small talk after that, and we parted at the station nearest my apartment.
The instant I got home, I rushed to the used bookstore nearby and bought so many books on “homosexuality” that the plastic bag handles nearly cut through my palm.
Bringing the stack up to the register, I remember the male clerk giving me this appraising, judgmental once-over, and feeling more than a little awkward about it.
At the same time, I found myself worrying, just slightly — had I reacted the same way this clerk just had, when Yui first told me about her sexuality, and hurt her without realizing it?
Staying ignorant felt wrong to me. I needed to reset my whole frame of reference and actually learn something real. For that, I needed information from as many angles as possible, no single-sided bias. Academic texts, essays, novels — anything, I just wanted information, any of it. One book wasn’t going to cut it. That’s what I decided.
I’ve always been decent at studying, if I’m honest. Don’t underestimate a hardworking Akita girl. Compared to exam prep, this was nothing.
I forgot to even eat dinner, and read through everything I’d bought until the sun came up the next morning.
*
Maybe because of her looks, Yui had been terrifyingly popular with girls from freshman year onward. That line I’d read in one of those books — “roughly 8% of the population belongs to a sexual minority” — watching Yui, I came to understand it wasn’t wrong at all.
If anything, going by actual observation, it felt like even more than that.
Because out of any ten girls, at least one, without fail, would fall for Yui.
I think a lot of that comes down to her looks, honestly.
She had that kind of pull. And while she was picky about looks, she didn’t seem to care at all about the “type” beyond that. The girls she went around with were older sometimes, same age sometimes, younger sometimes.
Simply put — as long as the face was cute, that was enough. Watching the girls who flocked to her once they learned she was gay, none of them seemed to be looking for anything more than that either.
I don’t understand what it feels like to fall for a woman myself. If 8% belong to a sexual minority, I guess I’m one of the 92%. Yui had absurdly sharp instincts, so she’d clearly clocked from the very start that I wasn’t interested that way, and never once looked at me like that.
Might just be that my looks aren’t her type either, admittedly… well, doesn’t matter either way.
Yui and I clicked from the moment we met. I was sure, instantly, we’d become best friends, and that instinct turned out right. Second year, third year — I stayed right there beside her, unchanged.
Watching Yui repeat those nightly flings, over and over, always looked hollow to me. Like she was trying to fill some hole I couldn’t see. I scolded her about it plenty of times. Told her, one of these days you’ll get stabbed and I won’t feel sorry for you. Every time, Yui just laughed it off, deflecting.
Somehow it felt like there was something there I shouldn’t touch, so I never pushed harder than that.
Yui started changing right around the summer before our third year. Looking back, that lines up almost exactly with when the girl who’d started sharing her place that spring ran away from home.
I’d always figured Yui was just a shallow face-chaser, but her taste shifted completely, out of nowhere.
Up until then, aside from “attractive face,” the girls she played around with had no real pattern to them at all — and suddenly, visibly, that changed.
Long chestnut hair. Big, round eyes. Soft, fluffy clothes, a sweet face. And the finishing touch — always younger. Every single one of them carried this vague sense of déjà vu.
Laying out the common thread among the girls Yui had started favoring, all the features traced back to one single girl.
—So obvious it was almost funny.
Every single one of them resembled that girl somewhere. What an idiot. No matter how much you hold someone who looks like her, in the end, if it’s not actually her, it’s just hollow.
I think, by this point, Yui had already fallen for her. She never said it out loud, but having watched her this closely, for this long, I could read it in her behavior. However you looked at it, Yui was in love with that girl.
Why not just quit fooling around with irrelevant girls and actually date her? Was she really that hopeless a case?
I went to the café where the girl worked to ask around, and though she’d said, plainly, that her romantic interest was men, it didn’t seem like Yui was completely out of the running either.
If anything, it looked like she could probably close the deal if she just pushed harder. I couldn’t understand why Yui — someone who could reel women in as easily as twisting a baby’s arm — was hesitating this much.
Just hurry up and date her already. Quit fooling around and have a real relationship for once.
I don’t know what she was agonizing over, but wasn’t this exactly the chance to finally go straight?
That settled it — I decided I’d throw myself fully into supporting these two.
From there, through summer, into autumn, Yui’s fooling around visibly, steadily dropped off, and by winter, it had stopped entirely.
That notorious playgirl Yui had apparently fallen so hard, so genuinely, for that one girl that she couldn’t even bring herself to sleep with anyone else anymore.
Meaning no substitute could even function as a substitute anymore.
That single-diamond necklace, always resting at Yui’s collarbone without fail — when it disappeared, and its glimmer showed up instead at that girl’s chest, I remember being genuinely, deeply happy about it.
Making her feelings this obvious, and still refusing to actually date her — Yui really is stubborn to a fault. Watching from the sidelines, I kept thinking, isn’t she just strangling herself?
As the two of them’s cheering squad, I think I put in some real effort over that year. Frustrated with how slowly things were moving, on New Year’s shrine visit day, I decided to needle Yui, just a little.
I deliberately took that girl’s hand, stole her right out from under Yui, and, sure enough, watching Yui’s face twist with childish jealousy was genuinely hilarious.
See? If you want to keep her all to yourself, you actually have to say so, properly. That’s what I wanted to tell Yui.
That scarf the girl had apparently given her — Yui wore it, without fail, every single day, the whole winter. I’d never seen Yui like this. I’d always thought she was just an empty playgirl who’d never fall for anyone — turns out love changes a person that much.
It was heartwarming, honestly. Exactly why I kept thinking, over and over, just hurry up and date her already.
*
Always so unbothered, so breezy about everything, and yet when it came to this girl, apparently none of that applied. The second spring came around, and things between the two of them shifted, drastically.
That day marked the turning point of their whole relationship.
She called me in a panic, and I had no idea what was going on. The moment I picked up, Yui said, voice shaking, “Ritsu, help me. Please.”
I knew immediately something had happened. Mid-afterparty, I slapped down cash for my share of the bill, apologized to Yuuri, and rushed out of the bar.
What Yui told me after that felt like a parade of words too unreal to be real.
I hadn’t known, this whole time, that Yui had a fiancé. Simply put, the fact she’d been hiding had just been discovered by that girl.
And the girl, hurt, had run off, and Yui hadn’t been able to chase after her.
Are you an idiot, I lashed out at her. I was too stunned even to speak properly. I know how deeply, genuinely you love that girl. I know you can’t love a man.
Everything Yui had ever done finally connected, right then, in my head. Ahh — right, so that’s why she never made a girlfriend. That’s what it was all about.
Not like Yui at all. You, of all people, should have handled this better — the words rose to the back of my throat, and I swallowed them.
Because she’s in love. In love badly enough to lose herself entirely — that kind of real love. So I’d wanted to keep cheering that on, for her.
It’s true, the usual Yui would have handled this far more gracefully. If it had been anyone but that girl.
What Yui did wasn’t forgivable. But I’ve watched this idiot for three years. I know exactly how serious she is. So in the end, I still end up taking Yui’s side. Because we’re friends.
Back then, I told the girl, “you should decide for yourself” — but honestly, some part of me was hoping, desperately, that she’d choose to stay by Yui’s side.
But the next day, seeing that girl’s face, like something had lifted straight out of her, I knew, with certainty — Yui’s heart had been broken.
Bad luck, falling for someone like her.
This girl was simply too sincere, too honest. And each of them, trying so hard not to hurt the other, ended up refusing to walk that thorny road together. That’s the whole ending of this love story.
I decided I’d stay by her side. Even after that girl was gone, Yui’s life would keep going. However painful it was, she had to keep walking forward.
She couldn’t afford to stay frozen forever, so I wanted to do everything I possibly could for her, as her friend.
And so, some number of nights after that girl had left, a message arrived, plain and simple, exactly like Yui — “I’m at the usual bar, come.”
Doing as told, showing up, I found her slumped over the counter, apparently thoroughly drunk, and let out a sigh at the sight of her back.
Ahh, look at the state of you. This is exactly why I told you to chase after her.
I patted her back, said “you okay?” and Yui, cheek still pressed flat against the counter, said, tears welling, “Do I look okay?”
“Not even a little.”
Saying it, laughing, Yui’s brows drew together, sulky. Who knows how much she’d had — her face, usually so unaffected by alcohol, had gone completely red.
“…If you think that, then be nicer to me.”
“I think I’m plenty nice, don’t you? Want me to introduce you to some cute girls? Should I call a few over right now?”
I asked, just to ask, and, sure enough, Yui shook her head, side to side. Right, figured — not exactly in the mood for that right now.
“Cheer up, I’ll stay with you till morning today.”
I said it and rubbed her shoulder. Already thoroughly drunk, Yui nodded, small, head still hanging.
Even as their cheering squad, this whole time, I feel genuinely disappointed it turned out this bitterly. But I bet that girl’s crying alone right now too, probably. Compared to that, at least you’re still a little better off. Because I’m here with you right now.
I’ll be kind to you, until you’re back on your feet.
Though, once you are back on your feet, of course — I’m collecting on this debt.