For We May Or Might Never



    “Kind friends and companions, come join me in rhyme~...” It was definitely an odd way to end your time at Cover High, that was for fucking sure. Through a wild combination of annoying global events, national tragedies, and the principal being outed as a pedophile, the annual Student Festival ended up being pushed back to the absolute tail end of the year. So much so, that it would also be the last time all the clubs would be able to get together in any official capacity. This led to every club going absolutely balls to the wall for an explosive send off, yours included.

The Music Club.


 You never had an incredibly vested interest in music, but when you were basically strong-armed into joining a club it was the only one that looked like anything more than a glorified detention to you and it was an opportunity for an actual block of time for the guitar practice you’d been slacking on. With the benefit of hindsight however, you’d have been sprinting into the music room day fucking one if you knew who’d be on the other side of that door every day. The one who was the first to introduce herself to you and ask about your guitar. The one who only needed to add a “for me?” to get you to agree to perform in the concert the club just put on. The one who asked you(and only you!) to help her write the rap she performed earlier today. The one who’d snagged the last of the takoyaki(they were dyed purple and shaped into these cute little squid guys, called them TakoWahki, genius) from her girlfriend’s food stand in the courtyard to share with everyone as you all winded down in the club room. The one’s just sitting there, staring absentmindedly out the window! Go up and say something to her, dammit! This is literally your last chance!

“Here’s a health to the dear lass, that I love so well…”  The shanty was a surprising choice, but Rikka is a man of culture and with quite a few others singing along, it was a good one. As you take your feet off the desk and step past the people dancing to the song in the middle to lean against the window beside her, seemingly having not noticed your arrival. Now getting a closer look, her expression is a fair bit more melancholic than it seemed to be from across the room.

Alright, Anon. This is gonna be a bit more treacherous of a conversation than you thought, just be cool, just be cool, just be fucking cool. You extend the stick containing your last 3 takoyaki to her. Your 3 little delicious octo-soldiers sacrificing themselves for a higher cause.

“Tako for your thoughts, Mori?” You say, giving them a little shake as her pink ponytail whips to one side when she turns to look at you, and smiles.
“Hey, Anon. Nah, your boy’s just thinking a little too hard, I guess.” she responds, taking your takoyaki and biting one of them off the stick. As she chews, she looks at the two remaining ones.
“Poor whittle guysh are almost too cute to eat. Heh heh, almosht.” Callii continues before swallowing the little martyr dedicated to your heartache. She’s definitely not wrong.
“Yeah, Ina definitely knows how to make a cute mascot, and credit to Kiara for being able to translate that into something not only edible, but pretty darn good to boot.” You tell her, earnestly complimenting her friend and girlfriend respectively. But, her smile falls once you mention Cover High’s resident phoenix. Ah fuck, are they going through something? They seemed pretty great a little bit ago, when Calli finished performing that rap she’d been working on for the concert Kiara all but jumped the stage to hug and kiss the rhythmic reaper.

Calli looks back out the window, and when you follow her gaze you realize the window has a perfect view of Kiara’s food stand, selling their remaining foodstuffs. To the stalls left is Ina’s small table where she’d been sketching and painting portraits for the other students, with the artist herself cleaning up all the strewn about paint and brushes, having closed down seemingly not long before. To it’s right is Gura still sitting on the board over her dunk tank, berating and goading passersby into paying Amelia to try and hit the target and cause her to fall into the water. How being dropped into a tank of water is meant to be getting one over on a shark you don't understand, but maybe that’s just those two being clever enough to make it so they win no matter what.

    “...Kusotori really is something special, isn’t she?” Calli offhandedly says, staring down at her girlfriend who’s still hard at work. You both sit like that for a while, while the club still sings and dances to the shanty. It’s kinda nice, in a way. But eventually, Calli leans back and starts looking at the windows themselves, then looking up to the ceiling.
    “These windows don’t open, do they?” She asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” You answer while Calli continues to squint at the ceiling.
“Then you wanna head to the roof? CallioP needs some fresh air, if you know what I’m saying.” She says, turning to look at you with a big grin while pointing finger guns at you. There wasn’t really any innuendo in that, but..
“Okay.”
“Suhweet! Let’s bounce!” Callii says in her fake deep tough girl voice, standing and biting off the second takoyaki on the stick before handing it back to you and heading for the door.

You look at the last cephalopod-esque snack and think for a second. Under any normal circumstance you’d be basically doing backflips and celebrating like you won the big game if Calliope Mori had asked you to head to the rooftop alone with her, but with the back and forth way she was acting just now, you don’t really know what to expect. And, when you really think about it, you don’t want to cuck Kiara. She’s a real nice girl and those two are real happy together. You kinda wish you were more self-serving when it came to things like this, though. Pesky Morals.

You resolve yourself to follow her and chow down on the last purple prize impaled on the stick before following Calli, who you see is waiting for you at the door. You flash Rikka a peace sign while he points at Callii and gives you a smile and a thumbs up, before going back to singing with the others.“..all grief to refrain, for we may or might never all meet here again~.” 

As you two walk down the hall, Calli glances back to the room and listens to the muffled singing.
    “I really like that song. It’s weird cause it’s normally not your boy’s style but, something about that one I dig.” she tells you.
    “Here’s a Health to the Company is quite nice. I only recently told Rikka about it but it seems like a ‘Shanties Virus’ has gotten to most of the club.” You explain as you top reach the door to the rooftop.

You half expect the door to be locked and for this whole attempt to be a wash, but it opens just fine and she holds the door open for you, offering a cheeky “Lady’s first.”, which you oblige with a small roll of your eyes. You take a moment to breathe in the fresh summer air, now a little cooler thanks to the onset of the evening. Calli goes and sits on the concrete edge, looking through the fence back down into the courtyard again, and you take a seat next to her, looking over at the Rapping Reaper. God, she looks absolutely gorgeous in the sunset, jesus fuck. Nevermind, your previous apprehension was silly, no matter what happens from here, this sight was worth it.

Calli finally notices your staring and seems to get a little embarrassed.
    “W-what? Do I have something on my face?” The orange light of the sun makes it hard to tell if she’s blushing or not.
    “Nah, I’m just thinking. What’s got you out of sorts, Mori?” You ask, deciding you want to get down to the bottom of this. Maybe you can help in some way.
    “Ahh...uh…I...no, it’s...” She stutters a bit before looking down at her lap, nervously wringing her hands and not saying much else.
 “You okay?...Calli?” you say while leaning a bit closer. She jolts like she just got a static shock when you call her Calli. Okay this is getting weird, people call her that all the time! But, just when you’re about to open your mouth to speak, she finally says something.
“I feel split, Anon.” Calli finally says without looking up from her lap.
“There’s something that’s been at the forefront of my mind for a while now and I could go on without doing anything about it but that’d be really, really unfair to people involved, but at the same time I don’t know how those people would react to it if I do and I could make it way way worse...You know?” She spills, looking up at you and waiting for your answer.

You exhale and look off to the side, tracing invisible lines through the gravel on the roof as you contemplate what you think the best course of action for her would be. You understand the worry, and from the earlier talk in the music room you can piece together that Kiara is a major factor in this problem she has, so understandably she wouldn’t want to risk hurting her. But, on the other hand, her being so important to Calli means she’s got a right to know. You tell Calli this line of thinking, and bitterly think it’s absolutely rich coming from you, since you’re absolutely smitten with the reaper in front of you and would sooner jump off this roof than admit that right now. She’s quiet for a while looking down at the ground between the two of you while she thinks. She’s quiet for long enough that you worry you’ve said the wrong thing.

    “That’s just my immediate line of thinking though, Calli, and I’m not particularly a people person. You always seem to know what a good course of action for someone is, so I’m sure whatever you decide on will be what’s best. I know it.” You stand up and brush some non-existent dust off your pants and begin to make your way to the door. Congrat-fuck you-lations, Anon. The girl of your dreams just confided in you and you basically offer some piss poor advice and run? Awesome, just stellar, incredible. What a cadillac of a man you are. 



Prick.

    

“ANON, WAIT!” You’ve only made it about 4 steps before Calli’s shout stops you. You turn and see that she’s stood up and then makes the few steps to catch up to you.
    “Sorry Calli, but I’m pretty bad at this whole advice th-”
    “Call me Mori.” She cuts you off. Now you’re kinda confused, so you voice your confusion by giving her a “huh?”
    “I...I like when you call me Mori, Anon. It just sounds nice coming from you. I like alot of things you do, a-actually.” She pulls the brim of her hat down a bit, and kicks at the gravel. Now even the sunset can’t hide her blush. You don’t know what expression you’re making but she doesn’t seem to be put off by it, shyly looking up at you.
    “I realized it when you were helping me write those lyrics a little while ago, but…” She takes another step forward so her chest is pressing against yours.
    “I think I felt this way for a while before that.” She takes her hat off and tosses it to the ground behind her, then slowly reaches up and grabs your arms, causing you to reflexively do the same to her.

    “You feel the same way, don’t you? I can see it now. The expression I saw on your face whenever we spoke, I’ve seen it in the mirror when I think of you.”

The rest of the details fade away from the world. All you can see, hear, and feel is her. Her pink hair is softly blowing in the breeze. Her normally pale skin a dark red from her blushing, her scarlet eyes are half lidded and hazy as she looks into your eyes. She’s breathing heavily, and you can now feel her warm breath on your face, her touch on your arms feel like lightning going through your whole body. She continues to lean in.
    
“Anon…” It comes out more as a breathy moan from her and good lord it’s like you’ve just heard something you’ve needed to hear your entire life and never knew. Your heart feels like it’ll explode out of your chest, you’re pretty sure you haven’t breathed since one inhale that was entirely her.
    “I…” Her eyelids flutter shut as the tips of your noses touch and pass each other. Your grip on her tightens and you keep your eyes open, drinking it all in like she could disappear at any moment.

Just two more words. Just two more. Please. Those last two and she could literally do whatever she wanted to you after, she could make you do anything. If she just says them.

“I…”

Please…




“KIKKERIKII!!”

The two of you jumped like there was a gunshot, looking around for the phoenix on the roof before you realize that it came from the courtyard down below.

“Danke schön, everyone! We’re now closing for the day but thanks to all of you who bought everything! Sorry about selling out of the TakoWahki so quickly, we didn’t expect they'd do so well! Heehee!” Kiara continues to thank patrons as you exhale, the brief panic attack already subsiding. You turn from the courtyard to look back at Calli, who’s still staring out to the courtyard now with a pained expression.

Oh no.

She briefly looks down at the ground before looking at you, with tears in her eyes.

Fuck.

She quickly wraps her arms around your neck, buries her head into your shoulder and weeps. You shakely wrap your arms around her and let a few shuddering breaths as you try to not do the same. But it’s when Calli first says “I’m sorry” that you realize it’s over. That it’s actually over. All over. Game over. Game didn’t even start, really. Did you even have a chance? Who knows? Even if you did, it was for a second and it’s gone now. Done. Closed up.

Close up.

Do it, Anon. It’s for the best. You both know it’s over, someone just has to make the first step in conceding that now. And it has to be you. Pull yourself together, cry when she’s gone. Don’t do it when she’s so close, that’ll make it so much harder. You take another deep breath and let go of her. She continues to sniffle into your shoulder for a moment but eventually follows suit.

    “Anon, I-” “It’s okay.” You cut her off. She tries to protest that notion but you continue.
    “I was gonna go a long time wondering ‘what if I had said anything?’, so to get not just that, but basically a confession in turn along with an acceptable reason about why we can’t be together...it’s okay.” She sniffs and wipes her nose with her sleeve before speaking.
    “It’s not fair...to you.” You pick up her hat and brush off stray bits of gravel
    “Maybe not, but something like this couldn’t be fair to everyone.” Putting the hat back on her head “No reason to risk a perfectly good relationship on my account, yeah? Now, I’m sure your girlfriend’s looking all over for you. Go see her before you get an earful,  Mori.” You pat her on the shoulder and gesture towards the door. She steels herself, nods and goes over to the door and pulls it open, but stops.

    “Are you coming?” She asks as she turns back to you.
    “Nah, I’m gonna enjoy the fresh air a little longer. See you at graduation.” You flash her a peace sign as she leaves.

Only once the door clicks shut do you let your tears flow, unimpeded and ugly. You don’t get the chance to talk to her at grad, too crazy and you’re being pulled in other directions. The music club group chat slowly becomes less active till it dies. You guess Calli deletes her account there for one reason or another not long after that, cause it just disappears before you can figure out how to talk to her one on one again. Enough time passes that, aside from the nagging feeling that a piece of you is gone that you can’t get back, it’s like you two never met. And life goes on.


Three Years later…

It was a strange thing to see her again. But you suppose “Remember to Forget” is an oxymoron your subconscious couldn’t get over. She’s doing well, great even. Her and Kiara are the same as they ever were, this whole livestreaming business must be good for them. But one night, on a day off after too many drinks, you make a decision. A test.

Calli asks an innocent enough question, what was her Deadbeats’(cute name) favorite verse from any song. And it’s your chance

Slapping down enough for a red superchat you send your answer

    “‘Our ship lies at anchor, she's ready to dock. I wish her safe landing, without any shock. If ever I should meet you by land or by sea I will always remember your kindness to me~.’ Hey this is a deadbeat with some taste! Big ups to AnonChama, I-wait...hold up a sec, deadbeats...Okay sorry, yeah but as it turns out your boy’s got an interest in sea shanties, or that one at least! Anyway, this one is from..”

Pretty normal reaction, you think. Nothing special aside from that kinda weird pause, but that could be any number of things. You turn off her stream and head to bed.

You wake up to the sound of your phone going off, but it’s not the alarm. Someone’s calling you on that old chat app you haven’t used in fucking forever. If some fucking Indian scammers have moved on to that things you’re gonna lose it, you think as you tap to answer your phone, letting out a yawn.
    “Uh, hello?”
    “A-Anon?” A female voice responds.

And just like that, you’re torn wide open all over again.