“100 points. Perfect.”
It felt like checkmate in the very first move.
After school, we were at the karaoke place, just as promised. I let Komaki go first, wanting to gauge her skill, and she chose a trendy love song.
Surprisingly normal, I thought, until she started singing, not just hitting every note perfectly, but even mimicking the original artist’s vocal timbre flawlessly.
And the result? This.
100 points. I’d never even seen a perfect score on those amateur singing contests on TV. My personal best was a measly 98, and my friends usually considered anything over 90 a win.
The phrase “a frog in a well” echoed in my mind. I felt a sheen of sweat break out on my forehead, fueled by pure anxiety. I couldn’t bear the thought of Komaki snatching away another one of my precious things.
“What should I sing next?”
Despite already achieving perfection, she was still planning on singing more. I snatched the karaoke remote from her and quickly reserved my go-to song.
As the melody began to play, I grabbed the microphone. Just then, my gaze collided with Komaki’s impassive eyes.
“Looks like you’ll have to get a perfect score to win,” she said, before turning and leaving the room. Did she think my singing wasn’t even worth hearing?
It was infuriating. But the song I’d chosen wasn’t one for such raw emotions, so I took a deep breath.
It was a sweet love song, a hit from about ten years ago, with lyrics that repeatedly declared, “I’m so glad I met you.”
Maybe it was cliché, but I loved this song. It was unpretentious, incredibly sweet, and had a gentle melody. Just singing it made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Taking advantage of being alone, I poured my heart into the song. Komaki flickered through my mind for a moment, but I shook my head to banish her. Meeting Komaki was the biggest stain on my life, a past I longed to erase. If only she hadn’t existed, my life would surely have been richer. Probably.
‘98.553 points’
Those numbers flashed on the screen along with the jarring karaoke background music. My best score ever, and yet… I had lost.
The distant memory of my friends praising my singing skills felt like a lifetime ago. As I was choosing the next song, Komaki returned to the room, as if on cue.
In her hands were a melon soda and a dark, brownish liquid.
Melon soda was my favorite, so I naturally assumed she’d be the one drinking it. But then, a glass filled to the brim with the green liquid was placed in front of me.
“Drink up.”
I blinked, bewildered. What was she plotting now? I was wary, but my throat was undeniably parched, so I took a tentative sip through the straw.
It tasted normal. Artificially sweet, the kind of sweetness that would delight a child, with a faint melon scent that waved at you from afar. It was the taste of my favorite cheap melon soda.
“Your face looks ridiculous.”
Komaki was sipping a revolting-looking concoction of muddy yellow, green, red, and black through her own straw.
That little… had she mixed them? That was forbidden sorcery, only permissible for elementary and middle schoolers.
“Mind your own business. …Wait, did you get this just to say that?”
The green liquid fizzed softly. The loud background music from the scoring screen drowned out the sound of the bubbles.
“Maybe? You like it, right? Drink it and be grateful.”
“…Thanks.”
Komaki turned away when I offered a straightforward thank you. If she didn’t like being appreciated, she shouldn’t have brought it in the first place, I thought briefly.
But as I sipped the cold melon soda, an uncharacteristic feeling of gratitude welled up within me. Even though she might do something awful to me any second now.
“Is it really that good?”
I nodded, my mouth still full of melon soda.
“Hmph.”
Just as I registered her disinterested tone, Komaki’s face was suddenly inches from mine. Before I could even think, her lips were on mine.
A wet “slurp” echoed in the small room. The sound reverberated in my skull, grating on my ears, and I scrunched up my face.
Komaki’s tongue forced my lips apart, and the melon soda I was drinking began to spill out. She swallowed it with a soft hum, and then lightly sucked on the tip of my tongue. My mind, which had gone completely blank from the suddenness of it all, rebooted, and I pushed her cheek away.
“Pervert.”
“Who was it that lost the bet?”
I choked on my words.
“…Fine. So, was it good?”
If she was going to steal my lips, the least she could do was say it tasted good. I shot her that look, but she remained unfazed.
“Nah, not really. It was lukewarm.”
“Then drink this. I can’t let my beloved melon soda be insulted like that.”
I pushed my glass towards her.
“I don’t need it anymore. I have this.”
She held up her glass of what looked like a mixture of ink and muddy water.
“You mixed that, didn’t you? With all sorts of stuff. It definitely tastes awful, and it’s so childish.”
I’d never ordered from the drink bar with Komaki before, so this was a new side of her. The fan club members might swoon, but seeing Komaki, at fifteen years old, doing something like this made me recoil slightly.
“I did. Cola, oolong tea, you know. It tastes bad, but I like this kind of thing.”
Komaki spoke in a quiet tone. The words that flowed from her thin lips were strangely soothing to the ear, which only irritated me more.
Drinking that doomsday concoction, no less. Just because she was a little good-looking, had a pretty voice, and could sing well…
…Okay, not just a little good-looking.
“Even something perfect on its own becomes disgusting when you mix it. I like that.”
A peculiar hobby. Something perfect on its own was best enjoyed in its original, flawless state. But I had a vague idea of why she might say something like that.
Maybe she was projecting onto it, layering it with her own complexities.
She was perfect at everything she did, which was why she looked down on others and why she disliked me, the ordinary one who always challenged her. But maybe, just maybe, she also longed to be imperfect.
If she wished to become something foul, losing all traces of her original, distinct colors…
It infuriated me.
A sudden surge of irritation made me snatch the glass from her hand and put the straw to my lips.
“This… tastes… awful.”
Sweet, bitter, and with a strange, indescribable odor. If this was what she aspired to be, it was a sensation beyond the grasp of a normal person.
But even I could drink this disgusting liquid with her and say it tasted bad. I wanted to deny, deny, deny the feelings she harbored. And with that…
With that, I wanted to drag her down from that pedestal of perfection and flawlessness.
“If you drink this kind of stuff, you’ll get sick. If you’re going to mix things, why not try orange juice and Calpis or something?”
More than anything, I wanted to refute her belief that she was a perfect being. It was probably the most difficult thing I’d ever attempted in my life.
“But then it wouldn’t taste bad.”
“You want it to taste bad?”
“I want something delicious to become disgusting. …You probably wouldn’t understand, though, Wakaba.”
“Yeah, I don’t.”
Even if you wanted to become imperfect, there was no need to become disgusting. Some combinations could become delicious, like orange juice and Calpis.
The mixed drink wouldn’t be the perfect orange juice or the perfect Calpis anymore, but still…
If it tasted good, that should be enough.
If the mixed drink turned out disgusting, it would negate all the original value. That felt a little wrong.
“I still don’t understand Umezono. And I don’t like you.”
Muttering the confusing thoughts in my head, I reserved a new song on the karaoke remote. The melody started immediately, but this time, she didn’t leave the room. Instead, Komaki picked up a microphone and turned it on.
Her voice, perfect like the original singer’s, layered over my amateur singing. Even if I was considered a good singer, it was no match for her pro-level talent. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t harmonize; the clashing sounds echoed in the room like mismatched buttons.
My eyes fell on Komaki’s glass. That’s exactly what we are right now. But it wasn’t Komaki trying harmonize to me, and it wasn’t me trying to harmonize with Komaki.
That’s why we inevitably clashed, lost our harmony, and became some strange, indescribable color.
If anyone saw us right now, they’d probably make the same face I did when I drank that concoction.
‘82 points. Maybe try to be more aware of your pitch?’
A score that neither Komaki nor I would ever get if we were singing alone appeared on the screen.
I almost laughed to mask the unpleasant feeling in my chest, but I stopped when I saw Komaki staring blankly at the score.
“Terrible,” I muttered, placing the microphone down. Komaki said nothing.
“I’m singing alone next. Just listen.”
I started singing without waiting for a reply. Komaki didn’t interrupt, but somehow, that disastrous duet had thrown off my rhythm, and I couldn’t manage to score over 90 even once afterwards.
No matter how I tried to rationalize it, a loss was a loss.
