PARTICIPANTS: V / G / D / B

The moment Russo walked into the room, the whole place seemed to brighten.

RUSSO: Good evening. I’m Eddie Russo with VIGUE. Thank you for taking the time today—

Russo broke off mid-sentence.

His eyes had landed on B.

RUSSO: ...Oh. My. God!

Apparently, whatever greeting he’d prepared had gone straight out of his head.

RUSSO: I thought a Roman statue had just descended from heaven.

V laughed.

V: B makes quite an impression up close, doesn’t he?

RUSSO: That doesn’t even begin to cover it!

Russo was still looking at B.

RUSSO: Of course, you’re all absolutely gorgeous, but you know what I mean, right? He’s in a league of his own. I’m getting light-headed—

B didn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest. He smiled a little and held out his hand.

B: Thank you, my lady. I owe you a drink for that.

Russo shook B’s hand.

RUSSO: Oh, I’m holding you to that.

V: Looks like we’re off to a good start.

V smiled and gestured toward the chairs.

Everyone took their seats.

At least, there was no longer any need to explain what kind of person Russo was.

Still, a little of that initial awkwardness remained, making it feel slightly too soon to dive straight into the main subject.

RUSSO: Just one thing before we start.

He was trying to break the ice.

RUSSO: Which one of you is the slowest to reply to messages?

Almost at once, V, G, and D all looked at B.

B, for his part, barely reacted.

G was the first to speak.

G: I’m the fastest. Definitely.

The question, of course, had been who was the slowest.

D laughed.

D: G replies without thinking. ‘Yeah.’ ‘No.’ ‘OK.’ ‘Fuck.’ He usually replies within ten seconds.

G: Hey, D’s never sent me a message I had to think about. Not once.

Then he looked at B.

G: B doesn’t reply about half the time.

Russo turned back to B.

RUSSO: Oh, come on, B. You don’t even send an ‘OK’?

B shrugged and looked over at G.

B: I reply when there’s a reason to.

A brief silence followed.

Apparently, no one had expected that answer.

RUSSO: ...Jesus. That’s a seriously dangerous answer!

D burst out laughing.

D: Fun, right? These two are always like this. So, where do we start?

Truth be told, the main reason Russo had pitched this interview was that he wanted to meet B in person.

Of course, that alone wasn’t enough to justify an interview.

So he built the interview around THE FUTURE I LET GO, one of his favorite G：B songs.

RUSSO: B, you seem really good at drawing a line between what matters and what doesn’t.

RUSSO: By the way, who wrote this song?

D: I did.

RUSSO: Oh, you did.

Russo turned his attention to D.

RUSSO: The person who wrote these lyrics doesn’t strike me as someone who can just cut himself off from people or feelings that easily.

RUSSO: And yet, in this song, you say you let go of a future with someone you loved.

After a brief pause, Russo asked:

RUSSO: So... why did you let it go?

Before D could answer, G cut in.

G: Seriously? This actually happened?

Russo looked at G.

B looked at G too.

B: You didn’t know?

G shrugged.

RUSSO: And you, V? Did you know?

V: Yeah. D talks to me about this stuff a lot.

G immediately added:

G: Come to think of it, D’s always getting teary when he talks to you late at night.

RUSSO: Oh, I do that too.

Russo’s response was immediate.

He turned straight back to D.

RUSSO: D, what happened?

D thought for a moment.

D: Uh—about the song? Or last night?

Russo fell silent for a moment.

Apparently, he and D were going to get along just fine.

Russo turned back to B.

RUSSO: B, I’m so sorry.

RUSSO: But it looks like I’m going out for drinks with this one tonight.

B didn’t look disappointed in the slightest.

B: Good idea.

B, of course, hadn’t actually meant it as a literal invitation.

At that point, V quietly steered the conversation back on track.

At this rate, the interview really might end with nothing but plans for drinks.

V: D sometimes puts things in ways the rest of us would never think of. I think that comes from how much time he spends thinking about the past. Most people don’t spend that much time looking back, do they?

V said it as though it were only natural.

RUSSO: Really? You guys don’t?

B answered immediately.

B: Yeah.

G didn’t answer.

Russo didn’t miss the silence.

RUSSO: G?

G: ...Not really.

RUSSO: Hmm. Not really.

Russo leaned forward slightly.

RUSSO: So there are some things, then? Like what?

For some reason, D answered instead.

D: G has an incredible memory.

V looked at D.

V: D, I don’t think that’s what Russo meant.

D didn’t answer. He just shrugged.

Russo didn’t press him any further.

RUSSO: What about you, D?

Russo brought the conversation back to him.

RUSSO: Do you look back on the past a lot?

D seemed to be searching for the right words.

D: To me, even the smallest things from the past are treasures.

G reacted immediately.

G: D’s mind is seriously something else.

V: Well, anyone would want to hold on to good memories, right?

V said it calmly.

Russo picked up on that.

RUSSO: Yeah... good memories...

RUSSO: But D never said they were only good memories.

D gave no sign either way. He just smiled a little.

D spoke again.

D: Doesn’t it hurt to think about someone you loved?

This time, no one interrupted.

D: But even so, it’s still a precious memory, right?

This time, Russo was the one who fell silent.

A brief pause followed.

RUSSO: ...Jesus. You’re right.

Somewhere along the way, Russo had stopped analyzing what D was saying and was simply agreeing.

G: Seriously? That’s interesting.

G looked straight at Russo.

G: I’ve found someone even more interesting to watch than D.

Russo smiled back at him.

RUSSO: G, now I’m starting to want to chase you too.

G replied without missing a beat.

G: You won’t catch me.

V: We haven’t even gotten to the song yet.

V said with a wry smile.

He had a point.

Russo, however, didn’t seem too concerned.

RUSSO: It’s fine. I’ve got the rest of the night to hear all about this boy.

The next moment, D was already reaching for his phone.

D: The kebab place next door makes a seriously good Grasshopper. I’ll make a reservation.

Russo’s train of thought stalled for a second.

A kebab place. A Grasshopper.

Not exactly two things you’d naturally picture together.

Still, that was something he could ask D about later.

Whatever progress the interview itself had made, the plans for afterward were steadily falling into place.

A big part of why I wanted to do this interview in the first place was B.

There’s no point pretending otherwise now. I made it obvious enough at the start of the interview.

Incidentally, B never did invite me out afterward.

Instead, it was D I ended up going out for drinks with that night.

Just as he’d said at the end of the interview, we went to the kebab place next door.

And I should mention this, too.

D was right about the Grasshopper.

Why a kebab place serves Grasshoppers, I still have no idea.

I don’t remember which drink I was on when G’s answer from the interview suddenly came back to me.

The one he’d given when I asked whether he ever looked back on the past:

“...Not really.”

“What was that about?” I said to D.

D thought about it for a moment, then said, seemingly out of nowhere,

“Then ask G.”

I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

He actually called G.

Both D and G gave me permission to include what follows.

A little while later, G showed up looking much more casual than he had during the interview, in a distressed ENFANTS RICHES DÉPRIMÉS T-shirt and a KMRii leather jacket.

As he ate his kebab, he said,

“What? You called me out here for that?”

I asked him,

“But you didn’t say no.”

“Not really means not really.”

“That’s why I’m asking what you meant.”

“You remember yesterday, right? If you didn’t remember anything at all, that’d be amnesia.”

“You know perfectly well that’s not what I meant.”

G grinned, clearly amused.

He didn’t deny it.

In the end, I did get G to explain what he’d meant by that “Not really.”

Whether it was the kind of answer I’d been hoping for is another matter.

Come to think of it, that was pretty much how the day had gone from the start.

I’d arranged the interview because I wanted to meet B.

Instead, I ended up having drinks with D afterward.

Then G joined us partway through.

Almost nothing had actually gone the way I’d expected.

That doesn’t mean it was a bad interview.

Quite the opposite.

An interview that turns up something unexpected along the way is far more interesting than one that ends up exactly where you planned.

Finally, I should say something about “THE FUTURE I LET GO.”

It seems the song really was based on one of D’s past relationships.

D said,

“Doesn’t it hurt to think about someone you loved?”

Then he added,

“But even so, those memories are still precious to you, right?”

Those words stayed with me long after the interview was over.

You can’t live two futures at once.

Sometimes you have to let one of them go.

Even if you let go of a future with someone you love and choose to walk away, it doesn’t erase the time you spent together.

At least D called those memories precious.

And I—

Jesus.

I know exactly what he means.

—Eddie Russo, VIGUE