If meeting Saki quietly changed my world, then meeting Kenta and Mei did the opposite.
They arrived like a storm.
It happened a few weeks after Saki moved in, on a bright summer afternoon when the park was crowded with kids and the cicadas were louder than our thoughts. Saki and I were sitting on the swings, pushing ourselves lazily back and forth, pretending we weren't bored.
"I miss my old friends sometimes," she said suddenly, staring at the ground as her feet dragged through the sand.
I didn't know what to say.
So I did what I always did back then.
"I'll be your friend," I said.
She looked at me, then smiled. "You already are."
That was when a shadow fell over us.
"Hey!"
We both looked up.
A boy stood there, a little taller than us, wearing a cap that was definitely too big for his head. He was grinning like he owned the park. Behind him stood a girl with twin ponytails, hands on her hips, eyes sharp and curious.
"Those swings are boring," the boy said confidently. "You should be playing tag."
Saki blinked. "We were here first."
"So?" he replied. "Tag is better."
Before either of us could respond, he suddenly tagged my shoulder.
"You're it!"
And then he ran.
"…Huh?" I said.
The girl sighed dramatically. "Sorry about him. He does that."
She pointed at the running boy. "That's Kenta. He has too much energy and not enough brain cells."
"I heard that!" Kenta yelled from across the park.
She turned back to us. "I'm Mei."
I stood up, confused but oddly excited. "I'm Haruto."
"Saki," she added.
Mei nodded. "Alright. New rule. If you're joining, no crying when you lose."
"We won't lose," Kenta shouted, already sprinting back.
He tripped five seconds later.
I remember laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
That day turned into chaos.
Running. Yelling. Falling. Laughing. Kenta was fast but careless. Mei was surprisingly strategic, shouting instructions like a commander. Saki stayed close to me, grabbing my sleeve whenever Kenta charged like a missile.
At some point, Kenta slipped near the vending machine.
The same one.
He landed flat on his back and stared up at the sky.
"…Worth it," he declared.
Mei rolled her eyes and offered him a hand. "You're hopeless."
Saki giggled. "Are you always like this?"
Kenta grinned. "Yep. Wanna be friends?"
Just like that.
No hesitation. No awkwardness.
"Yes," Saki said.
"Sure," I added.
From that day on, the park was never quiet again.
Kenta brought noise and motion. Mei brought balance and sharp words. Saki brought warmth. And somehow, I fit in between them all.
Looking back now, I realize that was the moment our small world became something bigger.
We weren't just neighbors anymore.
We were a group.
And none of us knew yet how long we'd stay that way.
The four of us started showing up at the park at the same time without ever agreeing to it.
It just… happened.
Kenta usually arrived first, running in like the park personally owed him something. Mei came next, carrying a small bag with bandages, tissues, and sometimes snacks she claimed were "just in case." Saki and I walked together from our houses, sometimes talking, sometimes not.
The park slowly became ours.
We claimed the old slide with the chipped paint as a base. The swings were for breaks. The vending machine was our landmark. If someone said, "Meet near the machine," everyone knew exactly where that was.
Kenta invented games that barely made sense.
One day, he decided the sandbox was lava, the bench was a safe zone, and the trees were "enemy territory." The rules changed every five minutes.
"That's not fair," Mei said, arms crossed. "You just made that up."
"Rules are flexible," Kenta replied proudly.
"That's cheating."
"It's creativity."
Saki tried to mediate. "What if we—"
Too late. Kenta had already sprinted away.
I remember thinking how strange it was that even when things were chaotic, nobody left. If someone fell, the game stopped. If someone got hurt, Mei took charge immediately.
Once, Kenta scraped his knee badly after tripping near the vending machine.
He didn't cry at first. He just stared at the blood, stunned.
Mei knelt down without hesitation. "Sit. Don't move."
Saki hovered nearby, clearly worried. "Does it hurt?"
Kenta nodded slowly. "A little."
I didn't know what to do, so I handed Mei a tissue from my pocket. She used it to wipe the dirt away carefully.
"Next time," she said sternly, "you watch where you're running."
"Yes, boss," Kenta replied weakly.
She slapped a bandage on his knee. "And stop calling me that."
He grinned immediately. "Thanks, boss."
She sighed, but she didn't argue.
After that, Kenta walked with a dramatic limp for the rest of the day, even though Mei told him he was fine. We all knew he was exaggerating, but no one called him out.
Days passed like that.
Sometimes we played tag. Sometimes hide-and-seek. Sometimes we just sat on the grass and watched clouds, arguing over what they looked like.
"That one's a dragon," Kenta said.
"It's clearly a potato," Mei replied.
Saki tilted her head. "It looks like a rabbit."
I squinted. "It looks like nothing."
They all stared at me.
"…You're boring," Kenta declared.
Maybe I was. But they didn't stop inviting me.
Eventually, summer started to fade.
The air cooled. Cicadas quieted. School loomed closer, something adults talked about more than we did.
The first day of school came faster than expected.
We stood outside the classroom, all four of us lined up awkwardly. Kenta was bouncing on his heels. Mei was reading the class list. Saki clutched her bag tightly.
I remember noticing how loud the hallway felt.
"So," Kenta said, breaking the silence. "If we're not in the same class, we still meet at the park."
"That's not how it works," Mei said. "We'll be busy."
"We'll make time," Saki said quietly.
They both looked at her.
Kenta nodded. "Yeah. Park rule."
Somehow, we ended up in the same class.
Even now, I don't know how much of that was coincidence.
School changed things.
We had schedules. Homework. Rules that didn't bend like Kenta's games. But it also gave us new routines.
We walked to school together. Sat near each other. Shared erasers, notes, and snacks we weren't supposed to bring.
Kenta got in trouble a lot.
Mei corrected teachers when she thought they were wrong.
Saki was quiet but observant.
I stayed somewhere in the middle.
One afternoon, after school, we stopped at the vending machine again.
Kenta stared at it thoughtfully. "I'm buying one today."
"With what money?" Mei asked.
He pulled out a few coins. "Found them."
"That's not yours," she said.
"It was on the ground."
Saki frowned. "That's stealing."
Kenta hesitated, then sighed and put the coins away. "Fine."
We sat there instead, watching other people use it.
At the time, it felt normal.
Looking back, I realize something.
We weren't special kids.
Nothing dramatic happened. No big promises. No life-changing moments.
Just time.
Shared time.
And somehow, that was enough to tie us together.
Back then, I didn't think of what we had as anything special.
That's the strange thing about childhood friendships. You don't label them. You don't question them. You don't sit around wondering how long they'll last or what they mean. You just accept them, the same way you accept the sky being blue or the park being there every afternoon.
Kenta, Mei, Saki, and I didn't decide to become friends.
We didn't promise anything.
We simply kept showing up.
And that repetition did the work for us.
If someone didn't come to the park one day, it felt… off. Not wrong exactly, but incomplete. Like a chair missing from a table. We never said it out loud, but we all noticed.
Looking back at those days, I realize how balanced we were.
Kenta was movement. Noise. Energy that never seemed to run out. He made decisions without thinking and laughed before the consequences caught up. He turned ordinary afternoons into chaos and somehow made them memorable.
Mei was the opposite. She watched before she spoke. Thought before she acted. If something went wrong, she was already kneeling down with a bandage or correcting the situation with a sharp word. She didn't demand attention, but when she spoke, everyone listened.
Saki existed quietly between them.
She didn't lead or follow. She simply… stayed. She noticed when someone was left out. She remembered small things. If Kenta was unusually quiet, she'd ask why. If Mei looked tired, she'd suggest taking a break without making a big deal out of it.
And me?
I was there.
That sounds insignificant, but at the time, it wasn't.
I listened more than I spoke. I watched more than I acted. I didn't stand out, but I didn't disappear either. Somehow, that was enough.
I think friendships at that age don't form because people are similar.
They form because people fit.
And we fit.
Not perfectly. We argued. We disagreed. Kenta annoyed Mei constantly. Mei scolded him constantly. Saki tried to keep the peace. I stayed quiet until someone needed help carrying something or finding something they lost.
But no one ever walked away.
Not once.
Even when we fought, it was temporary. Loud words. A few minutes of distance. Then someone would say something dumb or do something clumsy, and the tension would dissolve.
Adults often talk about childhood friendships like they're fragile.
But ours wasn't.
It was simple.
It was built on shared space. Shared time. Shared boredom. Shared laughter. Shared scraped knees and snacks split four ways.
There were no expectations.
No roles we consciously chose.
That's why it lasted.
We didn't ask each other for more than what we could give.
And because of that, what we gave felt enough.
If someone had asked me back then what my friends meant to me, I wouldn't have known how to answer. I probably would've shrugged and said something like, "We just hang out."
But now, even staying within those memories, I can see it clearly.
They were the background of my childhood.
Not the highlights. Not the big events.
The constant.
They were there on ordinary days. On quiet days. On days when nothing happened and that was okay.
And maybe that's why those memories feel so solid.
Because they weren't built on anything dramatic.
They were built on presence.
And at that time, without knowing it, we were already doing something important.
We were learning how to stay.