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Tadashi has a grand total of twenty four friends on his Facebook account.
Most of them are high school classmates - not quite friends as such - just people kind enough to add him as a friend, or if he were honest - just those looking to inflate the number of ‘Friends’ they had as some sort of imperceptible social trophy, rather than any desire for meaningful connection. His own home page is devoid of any self-posted content, containing only yearly two-word birthday messages he replies with a thumbs up. His profile page lists his birth city, Naha, and nothing else. His profile picture is that of a grainy, off-centre rose.
None of it matters to Tadashi. He’s only on Facebook for one reason.
It’s a ritual at this stage. Finish the day’s work with Aiichiro-sama, take a shower, have a simple dinner with his dad, retire to his new quarters in the servants wing.
Lie on his bed with his laptop on his chest.
Ainosuke’s profile is the first and only thing to pop up in the search bar when he clicks on it.
Or rather, Adam Shindo. He’d changed his name three months into college in, and it feels a little weird, bit Tadashi’s just gotten used to it.
He scans the page for updates, but there’s nothing new today. Disappointing, but that’s okay. He’ll just do what he normally does – scroll.
He’ll never tire of the photos, the messages on his wall, the status updates. Tadashi devours them all with the enthusiasm of a starving hound being given a bone. Any scrap, any glimpse of Ainosuke and his new life is a flood of happy hormones, the kind that leaves him coming back for more.
There is plenty of content and photos – Ainosuke is tagged in something every other day, but his own albums are plenty fascinating on their own.
There’s an album titled ‘NY weekend’ with pictures of Ainosuke and three others eating bagels and posing with the Brooklyn bridge in the background, of them sampling dumplings in Chinatown, of Ainosuke on a ferry with the wind in his hair.
There’s pictures of him in a massive crowded stadium decked out in maroon, holding a banner painted ‘GO HAWKS!!; a selfie in a library captioned ‘urghhh finals week!! :( , an album with pictures of coffee art and croissants, an album called ‘mobile uploads’ that consists of random pictures of campus, friends, vaguely interesting things.
There’s a few photos of him on the beach wearing sunglasses and no shirt (Tadashi’s heart rate spikes a tinge, always), an album of fifty-two photos that he’s tagged in from Japan Week 2012, where he’s dressed in a dark blue yukata that matches his hair – sitting at a booth, dipping for mini rubber balloons, eating multicolour dango, flashing that perfect smile in a group photo.
(Tadashi lingers a little on that one. He looks so happy.)
Then comes the deluge of birthday wishes (all one hundred and three of them, because Tadashi counted).
There are the messages peppering his wall as well – friends, classmates, frat brothers? Tadashi isn’t sure what that means, but he feels a little tight in his chest, reading through them. These were the people who were in Ainosuke’s life now.
‘What happens at Delta Chi stays at Delta Chi, but holy sh1t Adam your a legend’
‘Hey did you get my message? Answer my texts dumbass’
‘Thanks for all your help organizing Japan Week! It was so much fun!! <33’
‘Go to Ikea and look up Darmks - it’s only 10 bucks!’
‘I know you got an A ‘didn’t study’ my ass ur a right dick Shindo’
'karaoke next week? cmon you know you want to'
He knows all the little wall scribbles by heart. It makes him feel warm and empty at the same time, like he’s chasing sand.
He scrolls until he reaches the photos from last month's house party - the ones Tadashi knows he shouldn’t look at because it bores the hole in his chest even deeper every time, but like watching a trainwreck in slow motion, he can’t stop himself.
Thirty-six photos in an album. Ainosuke is tagged in ten of them. The quality is terrible - everything’s grainy and foggy, like a distant memory, the one you’re not quite sure is a dream or not, but immortalized pixels don’t lie.
One of the pictures features him in a top-down angle. He’s wearing a white sleeveless turtleneck and skin tight jeans; there’s a fake tattoo on one cheek, he’s posing with a peace sign and sticking his tongue out. Half his chest is obscured by a girl’s face. There’s an arm casually slung over his shoulder - a male arm - but the face it belongs to is blurry.
The next photo shows him out of focus amongst a group of five, knocking back shots. He’s wearing some ridiculous pink sunglasses with horizontal lines and looking like he’s having the time of his life. Purple strobe lights accentuate his bare upper arms, which look infinitely more toned compared to the last time Tadashi saw them.
There’s Ainosuke, in a selfie with a girl doing duckface.
Ainosuke, shirtless in the snow, face flushed, smiling and pointing at something off-screen.
Ainosuke leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette.
(It’s unfair how good he looks, even when the shots are candid and taken from angles impossible to look good in and in terrible quality.
But he does, and Tadashi can’t stop looking.)
There’s a photo in which Ainosuke is not tagged in, but Tadashi is fairly certain it’s his blue mop at the edge of the picture, one featuring a group of cheerleaders.
And he’s sitting on someone’s lap, back to the camera.
Tadashi stares at the photo for far too long.
The messenger tab has been open for the last five minutes. There are no messages between them, but he’s already typed in ‘hi Ainosuke-sama. How are you?’ He hovers the cursor above the ‘send’ button, then deletes the message.
Somewhere, far, far, away, Ainosuke Shindo is having the time of his life, and not missing his childhood friend one bit. And why would he? Tadashi had done nothing but ruin his life – the ugly incident with Aiichiro-sama was barely a year ago, and in Tadashi’s mind is still as fresh as though it happened yesterday. He’s noticed the lack of any connection to skateboarding in all of his posts, and it stabs him a little every time he thinks on it.
No, it would be better not to taint Ainosuke-sama’s experience by reminding him of Tadashi’s existence.
Somewhere, far, far away, in a frat house where the air is thick with bass beats and sweaty bodies and warm beer, Ainosuke Shindo is in the bathroom, missing home and typing ‘Tadashi Kikuchi’ into the search bar of his Facebook app, wishing his childhood friend would text, just once.