Take Me Into Summer

Prologue/Chapter 1

It was loud that summer, the summer that everything happened. It feels empty now. Like something's missing. You sit beside me, yet it feels like you live all the way in the North Pole. And I realized that Iー I still miss you. But we aren't together because of that one summer. Because we both gave up trying.

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Golden rays of light shined into my room, illuminating the snow globe on my desk. I shivered as my fan blasted a cool jet of air at me. Then something knocked at my window. Two knocks. Three knocks. I stumbled to my balcony, only to see Kei and Shouhei at my window. A small pebble flew right by my face as I nearly screamed.
"Aya wake u-up we'll be late!" Kei shouted.
Beside him, Shouhei yawned and rubbed his eyes.
"Hurry up Aya, Kei wants to take us somewhere before school starts." Shouhei sleepily added.

"Fine but you have to stop throwing pebbles at my window Kei, you almost broke my window"

"I DIDN'T THROW THE PEBBLES IT WAS SHOUHEI" Kei yelled glaring at me and motioning to me with his hands to hurry.

Walking back to my room, I grabbed my school uniform. It was my first year at Suma High School. I admired the uniform for years as a middle schooler and it was finally my turn to wear it. I fitted on my skirt, and retied my ribbon. My hair was pretty short as I used to be in my middle school's swimming team. But I had hurt my back in the Kansai Finals.
My mother caught me as I was running out the door.

"Ayaka here's some toast, is Shouhei-kun and Kei-kun here today?"

"Morning Mom," I kissed her on the cheek and reached for the toast, "yeah, they want to head to school before everyone starts getting ready for the school festival tomorrow. See you later!" I yelled.

Rushing towards Shouhei and Kei, I brought my bike with me and continued to eat my toast. It was just the way I liked my toast with lots of butter.

"Well good morning sleeping ugly, you dreaming about seeing Midorikawa today?" Kei mocked. Midorikawa-kun was in the class above me and was in charge of the photography club that I had joined this year. The only really reason I joined was because Midorikawa-kun was there.

I punched him in the arm. "At least he has manners thank you."
We all got on our bikes and walked out onto the sidewalk. I felt eyes watching me eat my toast. Glancing sideways, I tried to see who was watching me. A pair of hands stretched out to my face, one holding my chin and the other grabbing my toast. Screaming I spun around and saw that it was Shouhei that stole my piece of toast. I jumped up and down trying to retrieve my piece of toast, but Shouhei (who's close to five inches taller than me) jumped with me. Sighing I gave in, and Shouhei grinned like a child as he bit into my toast.

Kei spoke, barely in a whisper, "We're almost there guys."

He climbed onto his bike and started to ride off. Shouhei and I tried our best to catch up but Kei was so far ahead of us. Humming, Shouhei started to speed right by me.

"Race you Aya, ready, set, go!" He cried out.
My bike rolled down the hill as I saw how beautiful that day was. The whole town was rushing past me as a crystal blue sky stretched out in front of me. There wasn't even a cloud in the sky to cover up the sun. A warm breeze blew as o heard the voices of cicadas chirp in unison. Not a person was in sight as I sped down more hills. To my right the view of the ocean emerged. The crystal blue sky and the sapphire water shimmered like gems. I parked my tree next to Kei's bike and turned to Shouhei.

"Is this where Kei wanted to take us?"
"I guess so."
"It's amazing! By the way I won the race you owe me ice cream."

I took out my camera from my bag and started taking pictures. Kei and Shouhei were both running down the hill, probably racing each other like always. They stumbled over each other and all three of us laughed as I took stupid pictures of them. Little did we know that this day was the last day for the three of us. At least it was the last for me.