"Hey, hikari," Johan's voice came from the other end. "Is this not a good time? I'm sorry if—"

"No, no, it's fine! How have you been? Would you mind turning your camera on?"

"I'd rather not. I'm not very presentable right now."

"Oh, c'mon!" Kenta let out a laughter. "What do you mean not presentable? Bad hair day?"

"I wish," Johan sighed sadly. "Listen, hikari, I don't want to worry you but I'm in a hospital."

"Hospital?! You're not harming yourself, are you? You promised me not to be stupid."

"My dad and I fought. Needless to say the fight turned ugly. But that's not why I called."

"Wait, before you go on, tell me about the fight. Did he find out about, you know..."

"I think he's getting suspicious," Johan said with a voice barely above a whisper, "and this is related to what I'm about to say. I've been dying to say this, even at the risk of a heartache."

"Are you thinking of running away? But what about your siblings? They need you."

"If going to college counts as running away, then yeah. But no, that's not what I'm getting at. Kenta, I... is it okay if I reveal the name of the person who turns my world upside down?"

"I'd like to hear about him."

"It's you. Kenta Kinoya, I'm in love with you. I apologize that I waited forever to admit it."

"You're in love with me..." Kenta repeated. "If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up."

"You're not dreaming. However, I must offer you another apology for turning this into a nightmare," Johan replied in so weak a voice that Kenta had to turn the volume of his phone all the way up. "Still there? I'm apologizing for loving you but also hurting you on the same night."

"Hurting me how? Johan, you've made me the luckiest guy in all of Indigo Inferno."

"You mean the unluckiest. Listen closely because I don't think I'd be able to say this twice. I-I wish we could be official boyfriends, but it's not happening, unless if reincarnation is real and we somehow ends up being reincarnated in another universe where nobody cares who we love."

"We d-don't have to be in a serious relationship r-right away, silly! Honestly, teddy, I-I'm just so, s-s-so thankful a-and," Kenta stammered and choked on his words. "I'm just so overjoyed t-that Kami-sama actually listened to my prayers," he finally managed to say shyly through tears.

"You're going to hate me for this," Johan said through gritted teeth. "But I plan to have a girlfriend. Sure, I'm not going to enjoy pretending to be straight, but if I have a girlfriend we—"

"Out of the question."

"But it's the only way we can date unofficially and still have a convincing alibi, Kenta!"

"I said: out of the question. That's so mean, Johan, not just to me but also to the girl you'll ask out. Nobody likes being lied to and I swear to Kami-sama I wouldn't like dating a liar. Don't be one. Please, Johan, this isn't like you at all. The boy I fall in love with is not this heartless."

"I'll tell her the truth eventually. I just need to build up the courage to—"

"So you have the courage to consider lying but not the courage to tell the world to mind their own business about our sexuality? Johan, I'm going to plead again. Please don't be cowardly."

"That's not fair. The only reason everyone even knows you're gay is because Ai—"

"Aiden outing me was a catalyst in my realization that I can't hide who I am, but at least I wasn't a planning on breaking an innocent's girl's heart!" Kenta barked. "Leave girls out of this."

"I don't like this plan more than you do!" Johan shouted desperately. "But you gotta unders—"

"What is there to understand? Looks like I'm a fool for falling in love with a future liar."

"What other options do I have? What'd you do if you were me?"

"I would rather stay single for the rest of my life than deceive a girl and drags her into something that she shouldn't even be a part of in the first place. Deception hurts, Johan. I thought you'd know better. I thought years of painfully deceiving yourself about your orientation would make you wiser. Clearly I thought wrong. Clearly I've been foolish for thinking highly of you."

"Ken—"

"Enough excuses. I don't want to hear no more!" Kenta ripped his sound processor, the only headpiece that allowed him to survive as a deaf person in a hearing world, off its magnet and let it shatter on the ground with a loud crack. "I'm NOT supposed to be able to hear anyway!"

***

Johan winced when a sickening crack echoed through his earbuds. He was about to ask where the crack came from when he realized the meaning of the last sentence Kenta half-screamed.

I didn't mean to make him lose control like that. I'm an idiot. No, even dumber and lower than an idiot. Oh Lord, what am I gonna tell the twins when they ask how the confession went?

Sighing forlornly as he opened a password-protected file on his phone's album, he began to manually erase each and every single picture of him and his beloved from the secret gallery.

I hope he'll forget about me soon and I'll try to forget him too. Forgetting is an antidote to pain.

***

When Baz's waltz song came to an end and turned into a mellower tune, Akira finally noticed that her cousin was nowhere to be seen on the dance floor. Cursing herself mentally for not realizing sooner that he must felt out of place among a horde of couples, she elbowed Ezekiel.

"Are you aware Kenta's not here? Help me look for him. You know this school better than I do."

"Isn't he with my brother?" Ezekiel asked, confused. "Ah well, maybe they ditched the prom. Let's hope they're still on the school ground. If not, I'll send them a text," he grabbed Akira's hand and headed for the exit. "Oh hey, that's Aiden and Kaoru!" he waved his hand as he passed them by. "Oy!" he called out. "Where's Kenta? Did you leave him sulking somewhere?"

"Sulking? What do you mean? He's in the soccer field receiving a phone call," Kaoru replied and, glancing outside to double check, realized that the phone call had ended. "Oh, he's done talking. Wait, what is he doing? Why is he hugging his knees and shaking?"

"Is he crying?!" Akira pushed Kaoru out of the way and dashed to the soccer field, followed by Ezekiel. "No, you stay here, Ezie," she begged. "My guts tell me it could be a private matter."

"I'm coming," Ezekiel insisted. "Friends don't let friends cry alone."

"We're his friends too," Kaoru added and nudged Aiden. "So we'll come with you, okay?"

"No, no, you don't get it!" Akira yelled exasperatedly. "I think he's heartbroken and need his space. If anyone can calm him down, it's me. I've known him practically all my life."

"Hm, true, you do know him best. But have you ever suffered a heartbreak?" Kaoru crossed their arms. "Let me come with you, just in case. I know from experience how horrible it could be."

***

If human tears were pearls and pearls were valued by their weight instead of size, Kenta could be the next multibillionaire. Fighting to suppress them as he might, they kept on flowing, making him shake like a weak sapling in the middle of a tornado whose roots were about to be destroyed.

If he loves me, then why doesn't he understand getting a girlfriend is a betrayal?

Rubbing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he got up and dragged his feet toward the silver pine on which the tanzaku hung. He tiptoed to get his prayer card off the branch from which it dangled and shredded it to smithereens, as if by doing so he could turn back the time and undid the wish.

Kami-sama, why'd you let my path cross Johan's just for our romance to wither before it even bloomed? Dreams upon a silver pine branch? More like nightmares, to quote the heartbreaker.

Resting his aching back against the tree's trunk, Kenta closed his eyes and let his body slide down from exhaustion. Instead of hitting a grassy patch, his tired body landed on someone's lap.

"Akira?" he asked hoarsely before opening one eye with much difficulty. "Oh, it's you, Kaoru."

Kenta sensed Kaoru's lips moving but, for the first time since his cochlear implant activation a decade and half ago, he heard nothing, not even Akira's horrified screech as she found his fragments of shattered-beyond-repair sound processor and tried in vain to assemble the pieces.

"I know I was being dumb. I'll deal with the long lectures from Okaa-san and Otou-san later," he said in anticipation of the inevitable barrage of questions. "Oddly I don't regret damaging it."

Akira pulled out her phone, typing for what felt like eternity before showing Kenta the message.

"No, I didn't confess, it was the other way around but it ended terribly," he began recounting the falling out. "He said he loves me and yet he's gonna get a fake girlfriend to cover up our tracks. I—I didn't expect to get betrayed the very same night I was confessed to. It's the cruelest thing."

Kaoru reached for his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. He squeezed back just as tightly and breathed deeply before resuming his rant. "I might have overreacted, yes, but in my defense, who wouldn't? What kind of person thought making someone unbelievably hopeful and then taking that hope away in the same breath is okay? Only an awful person could manage such cruelty."

Kaoru said nothing in response and simply continued squeezing Kenta's hand.

"As awful as I think he is, Kaoru, I can't bring myself to hate Johan. Somehow, a part of me wants to give him the benefits of the doubt, to believe that he's not betraying me, just scared out of his wits. A hidden part of me wants to swallow my pride and ask him to forgive my woefully overblown outburst. But what's done is done. The proverbial bridge is burned to ashes."

Kaoru and Akira shook their heads in unison.

"No, you don't think the bridge is burned? You don't think he's as mad at me as I am at him?"

The two teens by Kenta's side kept shaking their heads and pulled him into a group hug.

"I'm afraid you guys arebeing ridiculously—ridiculously, youhear me?—optimistic but we'll see. As soon as I get my sound processor fixed atthe audiologist's, I'll contact him if he hasn't contacted me by then. I won'tget my hopes up, though, if they were gonna get crushed again."