At the end, when everyone calmed down, we all sat together at the bar with a bottle of beer. I told them all about my life, past, present, and my future plans.

After two years working at Raito Kiss, one of the most recognized magazines in the country, I had decided to leave my position for a better one at Cinderella City magazine. Even though CC was a little smaller, my work as an editor and interviewer would not be affected in the slightest and, in fact, my salary would be much higher.

Nonetheless, what really mattered to me was not the fact of earning more or less money, it was being able to return to my city, where I grew up and with the people I loved the most.

"But don't you think I'm going to be here every day, mornings, afternoons and nights, like before. I have to take care of my job", I warned them as soon as I finished speaking.

"You sure have changed..." Minato told me bluntly. Miyoko and Reina, along with my aunt, nodded.

His reaction was not surprising. The Ayumi of 2 years ago would not have settled for a job locked in an office. No, she would have split in two every morning in front of record companies, and every night on the bar stage. Singing, drinking, crying, laughing.

However, the Ayumi in front of them was serious, rational, she valued and respected her commitment to the company she worked for. Not like her friends.

Minato and Reina, despite working at an advertising agency by day, became two punk addicts at night. Disheveled, they put on their earrings and loose clothes to live in the bar. They hid their way of seeing the world.

Miyoko, Minato's twin sister, on the other hand, was a photographer by vocation and since she worked with eccentric people, she didn't struggle to hide her nature. Her violet hair streaks, her huge neckline, her high boots and the large earrings hanging from her ears gave her away.

The three of us, united by our favorite group, Takotsubo, octopus trap or also known as broken heart syndrome. Even if I had changed, I still loved them as they were, both, the group and my friends.

"Ayumi"my aunt's voice, in a serious tone, made me come down from my little cloud because, after minutes of silence, she finally deigned to speak. “Have you been to the apartment?” she asked, avoiding my eyes and pouring herself a glass of wine.

"Yes..." I mumbled, "I’ve met Miyazaki". 

She sighed, took a sip from her glass, and leaned against the bar, "you see, Ayumi, when you left I had to continue running the bar with Mai, alone, and before I knew it we were short of money. That's why I rented it". 

"It's okay, I understand". I knew that my aunt had to face hundreds of adversities related to money because of me, there was no point in getting angry when thanks to her I was still there, alive.

My friends exchanged a brief glance.

 Miyoko caressed my back. "You can stay with me and Minato, I don't know if the CC headquarters will be close to our flat, but there is a spare bed and..."

“Stop that nonsense,” said my aunt, interrupting. She took a set of keys out of her pants pocket and dropped it on the bar, "no one lives there, they have a new apartment, and his mother told me a few weeks ago that the house is intact". 

I recognized the stuffed white rabbit stuck to the keychain: they were the keys to that place.

“So, him and her…” I hugged the stuffed animal in my hand, "they live together".

No one dared to answer me, they didn't speak, they just looked away, uncomfortable. It was obvious, too much time had passed for that not to have happened.

"They are not married". Or maybe not. Intrigued, I turned to Minato, who with a worried expression ruffled my hair. "Not yet".

Yet, what did yet even mean. Although it should have felt like a relief, it did nothing but burn, hurt, ache. 

"He has missed you too," I heard Reina. But I could tell she was lying to me.

He had taken off the weight of the girl who was chasing him, who was bursting his ears with her songs. 

That girl was me, the stupid childhood friend who had composed a song for him when he had returned with someone else. For him, I was a burden.

"When does the song round start?" I changed the subject.

"You can start it" my aunt said encouragingly.

I opened my hand, left the rabbit off from my hands and diverted my eyes towards the stage next to the bar and smiled. After hours of travel, I finally smiled. I smiled confidently, without pain. 

☻☻☻

The Music Island was a bar that at first glance, from the outside, had nothing special, but inside it hid a small stage, about 200 centimeters high, equipped with a drum set, two electric guitars, two basses, tambourines, triangles, amplifiers... It was the musical refuge that my aunt had built for years, although at first there was only one keyboard.

That stage was free to use at open mic nights by the public, and free to use by any of us, her niece and friends, at any time. She gifted it to me, or at least that's what she had always said. But I knew it wasn't mine, after all, that bar had always been her dream.

For hours I sang and played with my friends until my throat was burning and my fingers were numb.

Clapping and humming, people followed me without shame or fear, because there, in that bar, we could all be noisy. And, in just a few hours it was full.

As the guitar gained intensity along with my voice, Minato's drums gave way to us turning up the volume, to go a little crazier. "And what happens in this world, in which we cannot love?!" My hands were shaking, but I had to continue. "Let's destroy it, so it will never come back! God, look, the end of the world is full of chaos, this is the end of the world!" And my long-awaited riff resonated, leaving everyone heartbroken.

For two years, my love for Makoto clouded me and for the first time in a long time, I heard again what helped me breathe, exhale carbon dioxide, and inhale oxygen in the form of nitrogen.

"I didn't know there was a free microphone night today" I heard murmurs in the distance, but absorbed in the music, was unable to recognize where they were coming from.

"Me neither" until, finally, I recognized that voice that for some reason my mind had decided to record. At the door, next to another blonde man, he looked at me.

One of his strands fell in front of his eyes. He pushed it away and clapped his hands.

When our eyes met and I saw his smile I realized it. I smiled too.

☻☻☻

After leaving the stage, I went out behind the bar, to the same place where two years ago my heart got broken.

He, Miyazaki, was waiting for me there, leaning against the wall of the bar, laughing, "you play very well".

Embarrassed, I lowered my head. Whilst it was true that he said it with a chuckle, I knew, from the serious nuance in his eyes, that they weren't empty words. He really meant it. 

"Thank you... It's been years since the last time. Remembering has been more pleasant than I thought it'd be.

"I'm glad". He searched in his pants pocket and handed me a sheet of paper. "When I saw you in my apartment I didn't recognize you, your hair is longer," he crouched down slightly, getting closer to my face, "I bet even your eyelashes have grown", and moved away again, "your body has also changed a lot". 

"Huh?" I asked, stupefied, red from head to toe.

"This is yours, I'm sorry for reading it", he extended the paper again. 

Confused, I took it and as soon as I read the first sentence I realized it, "the draft…", I only needed to read the first crossed out stanza to identify it: I knew this day would come.

I squeezed the paper in my hands, heard, felt how it crumpled, "why do you have it?"

"So you don't remember? You left it in your room, when I settled in I found it in a drawer". 

Furious, I finished crumpling the sheet in one of my fists and, blinded by rage, I threw it towards the road.

But then I realized something important, "wait". He had talked about my physique. I turned to him, "my hair is longer... Have we met before?"

He sighed, “I was here two years ago, when you sang.”

"What?, he-here?"

"Yes, here," he looked away from my back and, intrigued, I turned around, "behind that post".

"Behind the post…"

A telephone pole, quite tall, and quite wide.

"The boy you were with rejected you and after a few months I remember you left Tokio". 

Completely shocked, I was unable to react, turn around or say anything. He had seen me. Someone saw me at the moment when Makoto rejected me. I felt acid, reflux, rising up my windpipe, stinging.

"You seemed like an idiot to me".

Outraged, I turned to him, "hey, is being sensitive a bad thing?!"

"No, the bad thing is letting someone else decide your future".

I thought like that too, before. Maybe that, the fact of knowing that he was right, that my decision seemed the right one, but it was just an escape, irritated me, and not so much his words.

I couldn't continue talking to him and, fed up, I turned around and walked towards the door of the bar.

"Wait "until his hand stopped me. He, gently, caressed my fingers, "stay in my apartment."

Surprised, I turned around, "what?, why would you...?"

"I could never forgive myself if I left a person with so much talent hanging on the streets".

"Are you serious?" I asked, skeptical.

"Do you only ask stupid questions?"

Irritated, I took his hand away from mine, "you're such...!"

But he held it again, "I'll look after you, for you." His eyes hypnotized me. 

I really thought he was crazy, but maybe I was the craziest one, because, deep down, I believed that the best thing would be to return to my home.

I captured in a memory impossible to erase his gaze as he kissed my fingers, in the same place where my heart was shattered.

The Fatum’s Theory