The Sound of Glass Breaking
When Kurone finally noticed us approaching, she raised her free hand to wave, a bright, forced smile plastered across her face. "Shin! Akane! Over he—"
Her voice died in her throat.
Her large eyes dropped directly to our intertwined hands, and I noticed that all the color drained from her cheeks, leaving her looking sickly and pale under the neon lights.
"Well," Akane said smoothly, her thumb stroking the back of my hand as we stopped right in front of them. "We're here. Lead the way inside, Kuro."
Still in utter shock, Kurone could only nod dumbly, turning around on shaky legs to lead us into the building.
—
The neon lights of the Karaoke Box corridor cast a sickly, artificial glow over the four of us as the hostess led us to Room 7.
The heavy, soundproof door clicked shut behind us, sealing us inside a claustrophobic box of cheap leather sofas, sticky tables, and a pervasive smell of stale beer and strawberry air freshener.
The war began the second we crossed the threshold.
Kurone immediately threw herself onto the center of the U-shaped sofa, dragging Kenji down by the sleeve of his letterman jacket.
"Here, Kenji-kun! Sit right here with me!" she chirped, patting the faux leather.
Kenji listened to her with the lazy confidence of a dog who knew he owned the yard, but he didn't just sit next to her. He threw a heavy arm around her shoulders, pulling her flush against his side, trapping her in a possessive lock. Then, without any hesitation, he leaned down and planted a wet, noisy kiss on her cheek.
"You're so cute when you're excited, Kuro—" he muttered, his voice intentionally loud enough to carry over the hum of the karaoke machine.
Kurone let out a light, airy laugh—a perfect, practiced sound of pure bliss—and rested her head against his shoulder. "Kenji-kun... Ahh! I love you~!"
I stood by the door, feeling a physical wave of revulsion roll through my stomach.
It was all so agonizingly performative that they didn't look like two people in love; they looked like two actors shooting a commercial for a cheap perfume.
Kenji, sensing my stillness, shot me a sideways glance. For a moment, I thought I had seen a spark of challenge in his dark eyes, a primal smirk that said, "See this? She's mine. You're nothing." I could hear his words.
Then, he reached down, caught Kurone's chin between his fingers, and tilted her face up to his, before sealing her lips with a deep kiss. It wasn't a quick peck. It was a long, deliberate, noisy display of dominance.
'Just... why?' I asked myself. For some reason, I couldn't look away from that scene in front of me.
But as I watched them, this time I didn't feel a shred of the agonizing jealousy that would have crippled me yesterday. I just felt an enormous, bone-deep disgust.
They looked like two goldfish swimming in a tiny glass bowl, completely convinced that the entire world was pressing its face against the glass to admire them.
I didn't realize my fists were clenched until I felt the cool, calloused tips of Akane's fingers brush against my knuckles.
"Let them play," she murmured, her voice a dark, velvety whisper near my ear. "The circus has just opened."
Only her words managed to save me.
Then, with a grace that made my heart stutter, Akane bypassed the empty space on the opposite side of the table.
She sat down right next to me. And I mean right next to me. The length of her thigh pressed firmly against mine, a solid, grounding heat that anchored me to the present.
Then, Kenji pulled back from the kiss, his brow furrowing slightly as he noticed our proximity.
Probably, he wasn't used to being ignored when he was putting on a show.
Kurone, the absolute queen of control, immediately tracked the physical contact.
Her large eyes darted from our intertwined knees to our touching shoulders, the "angel" smile faltering for a microsecond before returning with a strained tightness.
"Akane," Kurone said, her voice dripping with sugary concern, "I didn't know you and Shin were so... close. How come you're suddenly hovering over him? I didn't expect you two to become such fast friends. Is there something I don't know? I am the best friend of both of you. I should be supposed to know, shouldn't I?"
The question was a blade wrapped in cotton candy. She was trying to corner Akane, to put her on the defensive, and to wrest back the control of the room.
But Akane didn't even blink. She just leaned slightly toward Kurone with a slow, predatory smile stretching across her lips.
"I found him looking sad on the street," Akane explained smoothly. "He looked like an abandoned dog waiting for his owner to remember to feed him. Well, I helped him by teaching him how to walk and then we became big friends in an instant, like we knew each other in a lifetime—"
I felt Akane's grip tighten on me.
Her words were actually true, but it was only a matter of time before Kurone would hear the rumors at school, about the flowers that I 'gave' to Akane.
Kurone coughed nervously, a flush creeping up her neck, but Akane didn't stop. Her voice dropped to a glacial temperature.
"Maybe you should have paid a little more attention to him, Kuro. To prevent someone else from..."
But Akane didn't finish the sentence. She just turned her head, her golden eyes locking onto mine, letting the heavy, scandalous implication float in the small room.
Kurone swallowed hard, her composure cracking. "I... I have always paid attention to Shin! For seven years! He's my best friend, you know!"
"Sure," Akane replied, in a tone that meant the exact opposite.
Kenji just yawned, probably bored about our talks.
Desperate to change the atmosphere, Kurone jumped up and grabbed the tablet to select a song.
"K-Kenji-kun, let's sing together! That song we listened to yesterday!" The Angel said.
"Ohh! I was waiting for that." He said, his mood completely shifting to a 'joyful' one.
Kenji groaned playfully, then stood up and took the second microphone.
Then, they chose the song and the music started—a bubbly, upbeat pop duet about eternal love.
The worst part was that this song was the one that me and her used to sing together in the park years ago. If she wanted to make me feel miserable, she was starting to succeed.
The song started, and they immediately became unbearable.
As they sang, they engaged in a nauseating display of manufactured affection.
They exchanged languid glances, Kenji's arm snaking around her waist, his fingers drumming against her hip.
Kurone leaned back against his chest, practically purring like a kitten, making sure to face our direction as much as possible.
Snuggling and performance. They were trying to prove that their love was a fortress, and that Akane could never compete with the perfection Kurone possessed.
But their eyes were empty. There was no soul in the room.
Meanwhile, trapped on the narrow sofa, Akane was not a passive spectator.
It started with small things. Her hand came to rest casually on my thigh.
Then, with an effortless shift of her weight, she hooked her ankle around mine, and as the pop song hit its climax, Akane raised her arm and draped it casually behind my neck, her fingers lightly playing with the ends of my hair, pulling me just a fraction closer to her.
"Dammit..." I whispered, feeling the heat rising in my chest. "I'm about to run away from here."
"Shh," she chided playfully, her breath tickling my ear. "Listen to the song. It's beautiful."
The sarcasm was thick enough to cut. She wasn't even looking at the lyrics on the screen. She was staring dead at Kurone, watching the cracks form.
And she had noticed that.
The moment the duet ended, she practically shoved Kenji back onto the sofa.
"Oh God—that was soooo tiring!" She exclaimed while sitting back on the sofa with her smiling Kenji. "D-Did you like that song, Shin? I know you always listened to that!"
'She really had the guts to ask that.' I thought, gritting my teeth.
"Well... it was... nic-" I tried to speak, but she interrupted me.
"My turn to sing solo," she announced, her voice slightly breathless, surprising everyone.
She tapped the screen rapidly. A few seconds later, the opening chords filled the room.
I recognized it instantly. It was the ending theme of the anime we used to watch together every afternoon when we were kids. It was the song we used to hum while sitting on the swings at the neighborhood park.
It was her ultimate weapon. Nostalgia.
She started to sing. Her voice was genuinely sweet, hitting the melancholic notes with practiced ease. But she wasn't looking at the screen or Kenji.
She was looking directly at me.
"We made a promise under the summer sky..." she sang, translating the Japanese lyrics perfectly.
I didn't know what she wanted to do, but I knew that she did it on purpose.
While listening to her performance, I was sitting there with Akane's arm around my neck, and I felt an enormous, exhausting, bone-dry disgust.
"Are you wondering if you forgot something?" Akane whispered, her lips brushing against my earlobe.
"What?" I asked, my voice flat.
"Her pitch is completely off," Akane said, a wicked smirk in her voice. "She totally missed the G note."
Akane was right. Kurone was kinda off-tone, but I probably was too blinded by nostalgia mixed with disgust to notice that.
And then, just to ensure the execution was flawless, Akane let out a soft, amused chuckle.
She surely did it on purpose.
It wasn't a cruel, mocking cackle; it was worse. It was the conspiratorial, pitying laugh of a professional musician listening to a tone-deaf amateur. A laugh that said, "How embarrassing, she can't even sing."
Kurone heard it.
She had been waiting for my tears, but instead, she heard the girl sitting next to me laughing at her.
Kurone's voice hitched, missing the next beat, stumbling over the lyrics, and for the first time in seven years, her perfect performance collapsed entirely.
Her face flushed a violent red and then slammed the microphone down on the table, the feedback whining sharply through the speakers.
"Is something wrong, Kuro?" Akane asked, her voice dripping with fake innocence. "Did the track skip?"
"Nothing," Kurone snapped, dropping onto the sofa, her eyes shiny with hot, humiliated tears of frustration and a pout on her face.
Kenji sighed, clearly annoyed that the mood had been killed, but he leaned over, patting her knee. "Come on, babe, it was fine. Don't let the weirdo get to you," he muttered, glaring at Akane.
Akane ignored him completely, smoothly slid her arm out from behind my neck, and stood up, walking toward the monitor.
"My turn," she said simply.
Kenji kept petting Kurone's head, who was buried into his shoulder. "Here, here... she was just joking, come on! We are here to have fun, Kuro!" He said.
"Mmm! No! I sang badly!" She muttered, snuggling into his chest even more.
In that moment, Akane started scrolling to decide which song to sing.
She didn't choose a sugary ballad or a pop hit. The speakers suddenly erupted with a heavy, pulsating bassline, followed by a gritty, distorted guitar riff.
It was a dark, sensual rock song. The lyrics were about waiting in the shadows, about obsession, about a predator finally cornering its prey.
And as she started to sing, her voice a low, raspy, magnetic growl, she didn't look at the screen once.
She looked at me.
"I've been waiting in the dark for you to see the flame..." She sang, her voice was so... sensual and beautiful. I loved its sound.
Then, she walked away from the monitor, closing the distance between us, but she didn't sit on the sofa.
She sat sideways on the armrest right next to me, invading my space entirely, and her hand found the back of my neck, with her thumb stroking the skin, while Kenji started to drink a soda.
"And now that you're here, I'm never letting go..." She whispered.
The room suddenly felt incredibly small. The air was thick, charged with a sexual tension so palpable it felt like static electricity.
Kenji stopped mid-sip of his soda, his eyes narrowing in uncomfortable confusion. He didn't know what the hell he was watching, and Kurone's gaze locked into us..
The angel, however, knew exactly what she was watching.
She held her breath, her hands clutching her skirt, turning a sickly shade of pale green as she witnessed a raw, unfiltered chemistry that she probably could never replicate with Kenji.
When the song ended, the final heavy bass note seemed to rattle the walls, and the silence that followed was deafening.
Akane didn't move away. She kept her hand on my neck and slowly turned her head to look down at Kurone.
"So, Kurone..." Akane started, her golden eyes glinting with a lethal calm. "This guy here, Shin... he's single, right?"
Kurone blinked rapidly, shifting uncomfortably under Kenji's sudden gaze. "Well... yes, but—"
"Great," Akane interrupted, leaning down so her face was inches from mine, her voice a smoky purr. "Then there's no problem if I keep him for myself, right? You're not his girlfriend. You can't claim any rights over him anymore. Or am I mistaken?" She asked. "And... I'm your best friend, so I'll promise to take good care of him." She added, while caressing me.
Kurone turned the color of ash.
It was a masterstroke. Akane had trapped her perfectly.
Kurone couldn't say no without admitting to Kenji that she wanted to keep Shin as a backup. And she couldn't say yes without completely severing the leash she had held for seven years.
"N-no, of course..." Kurone stammered through gritted teeth, her eyes darting nervously to Kenji. "Shin is free to... be with whoever he wants..."
The words looked like they burned her throat as they came out.
I felt a sudden, profound lightness in my chest.
A lock had been broken. A permission slip I hadn't realized I needed had just been signed.
"Yeah," I said, a slow, cold smile spreading across my face—a smile I had never worn in my life. "I am free. For the first time in seven years."
Kurone glared at me, desperation leaking through the cracks in her mask. "Shin, we aren't here to talk about the past..."
"Oh? I thought we were here to celebrate?" I interrupted, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I looked at Kenji with a big smile on my face. "Let's celebrate with some memories, friend."
Kenji raised an eyebrow, his athletic arrogance shifting into a wary curiosity.
"You know, Kenji," I started, my voice casual, as if I were discussing the weather. "When Kurone used to get mad in middle school, she would throw her textbooks out the window. Once, she took a classmate's bag and threw it into the fountain just because the girl 'looked at her funny'."
Kenji's frown deepened, with his lips forming a small smirk, while Kurone turned a violent shade of purple.
"S-Shin! That's not true! And don't talk about those embarrassing things—" she shrieked.
"Oh, really? What about the time you cried for an hour because I told you that you needed to study harder for the math midterms? You called your parents and told them I hated you, just so they would yell at me." I said.
"Or... shall we talk about... Yuki? The girl you wouldn't let get close to me because I couldn't have female friends?"
Kurone opened her mouth, but the denial died on her tongue. She couldn't deny it without admitting she was a liar right now.
Kenji shifted uncomfortably, letting out a nervous, confused chuckle. "Uh... you never told me that stuff, Kuro..."
Kurone looked at him, panic rising in her chest. "Because it's not important! He's making it sound worse than it was!"
"Ah, one more thing, Kenji," I continued, the blue-white flame burning cold in my chest. "Those big red roses you bought her on Valentine's Day? Her favorite flowers have always been pale pink. She hates red roses. But she told you she loved them because red looks better for the aesthetic on Instagram."
This time, Kenji didn't laugh.
The casual arrogance was wiped entirely off his face, replaced by the dark, bruised ego of an alpha male who realized he had been played for a fool.
Kurone looked like she was about to explode, and Kenji, unlike me, was not a doormat. He felt mocked. He felt used as a prop.
"Is that true, Kuro?" Kenji asked, his voice sharp and suddenly very cold. "Do you actually like my gifts, or do you just like what they do for your follower count?"
"Kenji-kun, don't listen to him! He's just... he's just mad because I spend more time with you!" she cried, pointing a trembling finger at me.
"What the?" Kenji repeated, his voice rising, the anger boiling over. "You told me he was just a friend who was cheering our relationship! You told me you didn't even consider him a guy!"
"O-of course... he is just a friend..." Kurone said, her voice dropped to a small whisper as she looked down at the floor, poking her index fingers together.
"Then why the hell do you care so much about what he thinks?!" Kenji snapped, standing up, towering over her. "Why have you been staring at him all the time? You pretended to give attention to me for the last twenty minutes! Did you drag me here just to make this loser jealous by any chance?!"
The castle of glass was collapsing. Kurone didn't know which lie to cling to anymore.
"Kenji, please, not here..." she whimpered, shrinking back into the sofa.
"No, we're talking about this right now," he insisted, grabbing his jacket from the table. "I'm not a prop for your stupid high school drama. I'm out."
"Kenji, wait!" Kurone burst into tears. It was real, ugly, desperate sobbing. Her perfect world was ending.
She stood up, ignoring Kenji's retreating back, and reached a trembling hand out toward me.
"Shin... please..." she sobbed, mascara running down her cheeks, ruining the perfect "angel" face. "Tell him... tell him I'm not like that... tell him I really cared about him and that everything you said was a joke, please..." she kept sobbing.
I looked at her, and at the hand that had held my pinky in the sandbox. And then, I looked at the face I had worshipped for a quarter of my life.
In that moment, after hearing her words, I felt absolutely nothing. No pity. No love. No desire to save her. Just a vast, empty wasteland of disgust.
"That's not my problem anymore, Kurone," I said, the words falling from my lips like heavy stones, crushing the last ember of her hope.
Kenji cursed loudly. "Whatever. You two deserve each other." He slammed the door of the karaoke room open and stormed out into the corridor.
Kurone was left standing alone in the center of the room, crying into her hands, completely shattered. She looked at me, then at Akane.
"A-Akane..." she hiccuped, a pathetic, broken sound. "Will he... will he come back?"
Akane stood up slowly, walked over to the table, picked up a napkin, and held it out to Kurone.
"Don't worry, Kuro," Akane said, her voice dripping with a terrifying, synthetic sweetness. "Guys like him... they're like boomerangs."
Kurone looked up, a desperate, pathetic spark of hope in her tear-filled eyes.
"Eventually..." Akane continued, leaning in close, "...they always come back to the people who actually know how to treat them."
The words sounded like a consolation. But the subtext was a brutal, lethal strike: 'Not to you.'
"I-I guess that the Karaoke is over now, right?" Kurone said, trying to wipe her tears away.
"Come on, Kuro. Calm down. He's gonna call you by tomorrow." Akane said, trying to reassure her.
In that moment, Kurone spoke. "P-Please, Akane, can I stay alone for a bit?" She asked, while moving her gaze to me.
"Ah, fine, if that's your choice, Kuro. Call me if you need something, okay?" Akane said.
"Y-Yeah. Now go, please." Kurone replied.
For some reason, I didn't feel the urge to hug or comfort her. I just wanted to run away.
Then, Akane turned her back on the crying girl, walked over to me, and held out her hand. I took it, our fingers interlocking securely.
We walked out of the room, and I didn't look back even though I could hear Kurone's wails echoing faintly against the soundproof walls, but my feet didn't slow down.
"You were perfect," Akane murmured as we stepped out into the cool evening air of the city.
I squeezed her hand, letting the neon lights wash over us.
Then, Akane leaned her face close to me.
"I guess... that we should go home, right?" Akane whispered while her index finger traced some patterns on my chest.
"I guess so..." I said, smiling.
And then, we started walking, with my mind racing with a million different thoughts.