Songs of Our Breakup (Playlist Book 1)

by Tria, Jay E.

  Jill swung Julia behind her, leaving the guitar duties to Miki and Kim, both her palms now pressed on the mic as she launched to the song’s last verse.

  “When the light comes I know for sure/ You’ll be here and I’m no longer alone/The dark will warm, and I know/You’ll never leave me all alone.”

  Miki felt murmurs surf through the crowd and realized a moment too late that Shinta had reached the stage. He took Jill by the exposed band of skin on her waist and kissed her, just as the last word to the song left her lips.

  Nino was finished with his last beat, but he was on his feet, still pounding on his drums, as Son let out a long whistle. The thumps hammered inside Miki’s ears as he stood rooted on the floor, in full majestic view of Jill kissing Shinta back, her fingers knotted through his hair. He let out a low groan on his mic, but the sound was quickly drowned by the calls and hooting from the crowd.

  Finally, Shinta pulled back. Miki felt heat return to his fingers. He turned to Kim. He obviously saw Shinta now, if the way he was staring at him was any sign.

  “I always wanted to do that,” Miki heard Shinta say.

  “Hem, hem,” Miki said to his mic, averting his gaze from the guy who was living the dream.

  ***

  Jill and Shinta left soon after Trainman’s set. Shinta allowed himself to be teased, pinched, hugged, and harassed by Son and Nino, his ardent fans. Then he took Jill by the hand and led her away from the heat and racket of Commute Bar.

  Shinta’s arm was around her waist now, her hand inside the back pocket of his jeans. Miki watched them walk towards the parking lot, partially hidden from view by patrons spilling out in the streets. From where he was sitting on the curb, Jill didn’t look too annoyed with Shinta anymore, a month’s worth of tardiness be damned.

  “I thought the Japanese don’t like public displays of affection,” Miki said to Kim beside him.

  Kim took a long gulp of beer before he answered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He kept his gaze on the low brick building in front of him.

  “Well he’s not really in Japan, is he?” Kim answered. “I guess the rules are bound by geography.”

  Miki thought he understood why someone wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off of Jill. “Or he’s just horny,” he muttered.

  Kim burst out laughing. “Aren’t we all?” He threw a suspicious look at the bottle in Miki’s hand. “How many have you had tonight? That comment is way out of line for you, young man.”

  Miki shrugged and downed the contents before it was taken from him. Some conversations required alcohol. “Remember that time you punched a guy in the crowd because he was staring at Jill the whole set?”

  Kim scowled. “Staring at her while he had his hand inside his pants. There’s the rub.”

  “You jumped off the stage and punched him.” Miki continued the drive along memory lane. “Jill had to pull you off of the poor dude because Son and I didn’t move fast enough.”

  “Then she threw her own punch and broke his nose.” They chorused, laughing as one. Kim met Miki’s empty bottle with his for a toast.

  Miki’s gaze returned to the street. If he squinted really hard he could see Jill’s lime green Beetle driving off into the dark, humid night. Or maybe he was just imagining it.

  “You’re really okay with this?” Miki waved his hand in the air, in the direction of the empty, Beetle-less street, sure that Kim would get what he meant.

  “I should be,” Kim answered quickly. “This is actually my doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah it is.” Miki couldn’t remove the accusing tone in his voice.

  Miki was used to seeing Kim and Jill together. He had met them as a couple, like a two-in-one deal. Kim had stood there outside their Economics 100 classroom on the very first day of freshman year, the rock god with his battered guitar case, day-old hair, and ripped skinny jeans, marking his territory even before Miki had realized that he was nursing a fast crush. It was a bitter pill that was easier to swallow.

  Shinta and Jill as a couple was a different monster altogether. Writhing and coiling deep inside his intestines, glowing in their beauty, the two-headed creature lost in their long entwined fingers and mouths moving as one.

  It’s not that Kim isn’t a good looking man, quickly came the loyal thought in his head. It’s just that he was the boy-next-door, the common-man-type of good-looking. And it was good to see a commoner snatch a win and claim the princess.

  It gave Miki hope.

  He turned to his friend. Kim wasn’t at his charming peak now though. His sunken cheeks gave him a hollow, starved look, and the dark shadows under his eyes did not help. He had lost some weight in the past few months, and Miki attributed that to the endless days he spent with his mother as she went through chemotherapy, and the long nights he spent with the band as Trainman promoted their new album. He wondered if Kim still knew the happy state known as sleep.

  Seeing Jill with Shinta could not help his current well-being though. Miki knew it was not helping with his.

  “You know I always thought I was going to lose her to you.” Kim shot Miki a look, a corner of his mouth turning up. “Like the best-friend-to-lover trope in the romantic comedies that she liked.”

  Miki choked on the last gulp of his beer. He wiped his mouth and forced himself to cough out words. “Not true. You were always crazy jealous about Shinta.”

  “Well who wouldn’t?” Kim threw his hands up in the air. “I mean look at him. He’s like trouble waiting to happen. Only that he’s the nicest guy! It’s hard to stay angry at him.”

  “True. Really nice guy,” Miki agreed quickly, bobbing his head.

  “Don’t worry about me. I still think it was a good idea. Breaking up with her.”

  “I’m not worried about you. And I do think you dragged it on longer than you should have.”

  “Were you waiting in the wings?”

  Miki answered Kim’s wry, taunting smile with a bark of a laugh though inside he wanted to cry.

  Kim could mope all he wanted. But he had the easier end of the moving on scenario. He had loved the girl, had been loved by the girl, until love wasn’t enough anymore.

  It’s harder to get over someone who was never really yours. You see that person smiling and it breaks your heart two-fold. Once because seeing her happy makes you happy. The second time because you know she’s oblivious to what you’re feeling. And it hits you that you are suffering alone, while basking in her warm light, and it makes it all the more difficult to ignore the pinpricks of pain on your fissured heart.

  “Well you’ve got Ana now,” Kim was saying. “So I’m not worried about you either.”

  “Yeah.”

  Miki must have been silent for too many seconds after that one word. Or he stretched it out in his lips too long. In any case, Kim had turned his head, squinting darkly at him. He heaved out a breath that came from the pits of his stomach. Kim had a tendency to be intuitive, and also to be quite melodramatic.

  “Mikhail.” Kim tore through his hair in frustration, his inherently grim mind probably concocting the worst. “What did you do?”

  Miki dared not look at him. The concrete between his sneakers and the baby cockroach crawling up the sidewalk offered a better view. “About Ana…”