Eventually I said yes

Multiple invitations, 80% of the time for brunch. I could have accepted a dinner invitation instead.
However, if I'm going through with something, I commit 100%

There was a group in our class belonging to a multi-class clique that we would make fun of.
Composed mostly of girls who would spend their lifetimes sitting their asses at a coffee shop table.
What did they even do?
With an open mind eager for understanding, I tagged along thrice after multiple invitations.

They'd talk. Talk about people.
For hours. Along days. Accumulating weeks. Piling up months.
Culminating in three years of stagnation after which they all turned their backs on each other over petty drama.
We vowed never to allow ourselves to turn into something like that.

The brunching stereotype still rang clear in my mind. Part of me wondered if this was some kind of elaborate prank.

And sure enough...!!

LMAO GUYS CHECK IT OUT スレナガ ACTUALLY THOUGHT IT'D BE BRUNCH! WHAT A TOOL!
GRAB THAT HELMET WE'RE BMX'ING TO THE PAINTBALL FIELD!

... Such thoughts invaded my mind as I walked into the riverside coffee shop-slash-restaurant.

There they were, sitting at the table.
[If I ever get to give away even more of my personal information, I will add to this segment of text]
And スレ友④号, looking very droopy, but not any fatter. And next to him, his sunshine of a girlfriend, bloated as always, her black beady eyes still with that possessive shine of a woman angry at the world for having to settle.

And they went on to talk. About the shows they watch on netflix, podcasts and, most of all, about people.

A singular thought occurred to me:

When did everyone stop wanting to do cool stuff?

The people I was sharing the table with were now complete strangers with who I once shared a part of my life.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I have no friends.

I politely left after being there for a polite two hours, politely chiming in, politely answering questions, politely asking questions, politely telling harmess jokes, politely desperately calling out to the depths of their souls to try and get their old selves to resurface. The rest of the day, night, following day, week, flagellating myself looking for the answer to the question I had asked myself.

Only one answer could be found.

Brunch was their epitome of coolness.

Those times I gave a chance to that other clique. I was the only one among my friends who was invited. So as to not intrude on their natural habitat, I only suggested bringing along people from my circle on the third iteration.

It's difficult to stress that I was never the type to be popular. All I did was spend time among friends, strike circumstantial conversation with other people at school and throw banter at anyone who I had a good impression of. I lunched at home and home was my destination after school. Classroom clown might cut it, but I steadfastly refuse that typecast.

Were my friends all part of the Fox&Grapes club with me none the wiser? Certainly a chronic crush or two of a couple of my friends were part of that other clique, but the experience was as mind-numbing then as brunch had been now. Was it not mind-numbing to them? When did talking about other people become such a dominant focus of their activities? Was that their ideal all along? Did I nurture unrealistic expectations? And what right did I have to impose my views and life philosophies on them?

But what right did they have to string me along? The sensible thing to do is reciprocate the honesty I always showed them. We're supposed to be friends. If we're so different, why stick around? Why not rebuke me? Were they suffering me out of necessity? Was I being unwittingly sequestered, pawn in a nebulous game of social influene?

Was that vow ours, or mine?

The bitter epiphany: I was still a teenager, even if I fancy myself half a standard deviation above the norm.
The crueler epiphany: I was seeing things in my friends that possibly weren't even there at all. I was not as wise as I thought in picking my company.
Yet I was the biggest sucker, because I actually believed in all of it.

I had a dream of my friends
They 「Grew Up」
But it was alright

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