Chapter Text
“Natsuki, where are your shoes?”
Sayori had waited outside by her front door to meet her friend, apparently not wanting to go through the trouble of explaining what was going on to her parents - which, if she was being honest, Natsuki appreciated. She wasn’t sure how much more humiliation she could go through today.
“I, uh… kinda left in a hurry…” Natsuki couldn’t bring herself to look Sayori in the eyes. She could already feel her face heating up for what seemed like the hundredth time today. “Look, it’s not that important. Can we just… get inside?”
“Of course,” Sayori, gentle as ever, smiled as she took Natsuki’s arm and led her up to her bedroom. “Sorry my room is kind of a mess! Ehehe…”
It was definitely not the most well organized space. Natsuki’s dad would have probably blown a gasket if she’d had clothes all over the floor like this.
But… she supposed that was no longer a concern, was it?
Forcing herself to not immediately start tidying up, Natsuki took a tentative seat at the edge of the bed, wondering just what the hell was going to happen now.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” Sayori exclaimed. “I just read this new manga and I wanted to know if you’d heard of it! I forget, are you a fan of magical girls, or-?”
“Stop,” Natsuki said. “It’s not like I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do, but… just stop.”
Sayori’s smile fell away for a second before she tried to force it back. It didn’t quite meet her eyes this time, though.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I just thought… I didn’t want you to have to go through even more today, and I know you don’t like talking about your feelings. Which I understand! I really do!”
“Am I… a bad person?” Natsuki asked, completely changing the subject.
“What?” Sayori looked shocked, mouth dropping open just a little. “How can you even say that?”
“Forget it,” Natsuki said quickly. “J-just-! Forget I said anything at all!”
Sayori paused for a moment, seemingly trying to gather her thoughts.
Then, wordlessly, she opened the drawer to her bedside table and pulled out a pack of wet wipes. She walked over, sat in front of Natsuki, and handed the other girl a wet wipe.
“Here,” she said with a bright smile. “If you want to clean your feet off after coming here barefoot.”
A little thrown off, Natsuki accepted the wet wipe with a somewhat suspicious, “thanks…”
“I keep them near my bed,” Sayori explained, “because sometimes I don’t have the energy to walk all the way to the bathroom for a shower.”
Her blue eyes drifted downward, and Natsuki couldn’t help but ask:
“Sayori? You… you okay?”
“I actually… have really bad depression,” Sayori confessed. “That’s why I’m always late to school. That’s why my room is so messy. That’s why I sometimes can’t do things like shower or brush my hair, ehehe…”
Her giggle didn’t sound happy this time. It sounded feeble. Pitiful, even.
“So I guess what I’m saying,” she continued, still looking at the floor, “is that I understand feeling like you’re a bad person. I feel like that too a lot of the time. Sometimes I think you’d all be a lot better off if I was dead.”
“You’re not a bad person!” Natsuki exclaimed. “Th-that’s different!”
“Is it?” Sayori asked a deceptively simple question. “I think… I think that calling yourself a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person isn’t always helpful or realistic. I think that unless you’re, like, a serial killer or something, you’re probably somewhere in the middle doing your best. We all are.”
Sayori looked like she wanted to give Natsuki a hug. It was a look the smaller girl knew well, so she nodded to let her friend know it was allowed, and Sayori was next to her in less than a second, wrapping Natsuki in her embrace and resting her cheek on top of Natsuki’s bubblegum pink hair.
Natsuki felt tears bubbling up again and tried clenching her eyes shut to stop them. Why did she have to be such a damn crybaby all the time?!
“It’s okay,” Sayori said softly. “You’re not weak for crying. It’s okay to let it out. You’ll feel better after you do.”
Not that Sayori possibly could have known this, but it reminded Natsuki so much of a memory of her mother, telling her something very similar when she was a child. Perhaps it was that memory, more than anything, that made her suddenly burst into a sob, collapsing against Sayori’s chest.
“But-!” The words began clawing themselves from her throat, despite Natsuki desperately trying to stop herself from saying them. “But if I really wasn’t a bad person, then why-?” She hiccupped pathetically. “Why does my dad hate me so much? And why did my mom leave?!”
“I can’t answer that,” Sayori said. “But… I think… that kind of thing says more about them.”
“Maybe I’m just a terrible daughter! Maybe I’m too bratty, maybe I’m not good enough at controlling my emotions! Maybe I ruin everything!”
“You didn’t ruin everything!” Sayori protested. “You still have the club!”
“Yuri isn’t going to want to talk to me ever again after what I did!”
“Well I just don’t think that’s true.”
“What do you know about it?!” Natsuki snapped.
“What could you possibly have done between when Monika and I left you two and when you called me?”
Shit. Natsuki really didn’t want to tell her.
“I don’t… want you to hate me, too…” she tried, hating how weak of an excuse it was.
“I promise I won’t!” Sayori said innocently. “You’re my friend. I could never hate my friends, no matter what. Besides, if I didn’t have you around, who would I talk about manga with? Yuri and Monika don’t read it!”
“I kissed Yuri!” Natsuki blurted out before she could stop herself. Just like, she realized bitterly, when she’d kissed Yuri. She hadn’t been able to stop that impulse, either.
Sayori, to her credit, did not let go. She didn’t even flinch at the admission.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“It’s not! Did you even hear me?” The last thing Natsuki wanted right now was to be talked down to. “I kissed Yuri! On the lips! I didn’t even ask if she wanted it first, and I should have, and now I’ve probably ruined whatever shaky friendship I had with her and she’s gonna think I’m just some gross pervert!”
“Did Yuri say that?” Sayori asked.
Natsuki paused, dug her phone out of her pocket - Yuri hadn’t even texted her. Like, at all.
“She didn’t say anything. I didn’t give her a chance. I just ran out and came here.”
“Then you don’t know that she would have rejected you,” Sayori said. “You just can’t know that, Natsuki…”
“You’re not… disgusted with me?”
“Of course not! Truthfully, I… kinda hoped you and Yuri would get together. I think it’d be cute, ehehe…”
That was a bit of a shock.
“What, are you some kinda himejoshi or something?” Natsuki tried to hide her surprise.
“I love my friends,” Sayori said simply. “I want my friends to be happy, and I think you and Yuri could be really good for each other. I’ve always thought you two are more alike than most people would think…”
“You don’t even know if she likes girls like that,” Natsuki muttered, though she felt a little better that Sayori didn’t hate her. It wasn’t like she expected her friends to be homophobic or anything, but that didn’t make the anxiety over being outed any better.
“Well, you don’t know that she doesn’t,” Sayori countered. “I think there’s hope for you two. I really do.”
“Right…” She wasn’t sure she bought that. But it still wasn’t the worst feeling in the world to hear Sayori say it.
“How about this?” Sayori continued. “Tonight, we can stay up and watch whatever you want. I kinda get the feeling I’ll have trouble falling asleep tonight anyway. Tomorrow, since we don’t have school, we can do whatever you wanna do to get your mind off of all this. Sometimes, that’s exactly what someone needs!”
“Yeah. Okay,” Natsuki still wasn’t convinced. But she’d welcome the distraction anyway. This past week had been… a lot. She felt like she’d lived like six lives in six days. “Maybe we can watch the first season of the anime they made of ‘Parfait Girls’?”
“Sounds great!” Sayori grabbed her laptop.
“But only if you let me explain all the changes they made from the manga.”
“I think I’d really like that, Natsuki!”
Yuri felt like her head was spinning.
She was laying on her bed, arms bandaged after another incident that she was too weak to resist. It had been awhile since she’d had the urge strong enough to do both arms, and now she was trying to fight off the shame while her poor mind tried to make sense of everything.
No matter how much she’d hurt herself tonight, she couldn’t shake the feelings of… guilt.
Yuri didn’t know how she could have possibly reacted any differently. But she still felt, very strongly, that she had failed Natsuki somehow.
She had failed.
Failed what, exactly? That was the question, wasn’t it? Yuri tried to go over the night’s events objectively. Now that the overwhelming urge to make herself bleed was out of the way, perhaps she could figure out why she was feeling this way. Why she always had to feel everything so strongly.
Okay. The club had brought a bunch of Natsuki’s things to Yuri’s house. Things that were still there, like a stuffed animal and a phone charger. (Natsuki had trusted Yuri with her things. Natsuki never trusted anybody with her things.)
Yuri had tried to tell Natsuki that she admired her strength and bravery. (Natsuki had told her to stop. Had Yuri crossed a line?)
Natsuki had grabbed her wrists. (Had she felt the bandages beneath her sleeves? Was she disgusted? Is that why she ran off without hearing Yuri out?)
Yuri had been so shocked by the feeling of someone’s hands on her cut up wrists that she hadn’t moved, and Natsuki had…
Natsuki had…
Yuri brought a trembling hand to her own lips as it began to sink in what had happened after her wrists had been grabbed.
Had that really happened?
Maybe Natsuki had just been tired, desperately reaching out for whoever was nearby. Maybe if it had been Sayori or Monika, Natsuki would have kissed them.
Even as she thought that, Yuri was well aware it sounded absurd.
But she was sure it was just… that Natsuki was feeling a lot of confusing, complex emotions after Yuri had offered her somewhere to stay. After Yuri had helped her run away. It was understandable that a girl who had been shown so little kindness in her home life might latch onto the person who saved her.
Somehow, thinking that made her feel a little dirty. Did she really think so little of Natsuki? The smaller girl had always been emotional, yes, but she also had always been practical and perspective and… and reasonable. Natsuki was the one who reined in Monika and Sayori when the other two went too far in club schemes. Natsuki was the one who told Yuri directly when she was getting too much in her own head.
Yuri couldn’t just… write some complicated reason for Natsuki to do something very simple. Her friend wasn’t a character from one of her dark fantasy novels.
And usually when someone kissed someone else, there was just one obvious simple reason for it.
She took a breath, trying to focus past the stinging pain radiating from her forearms. Okay, so Natsuki was a lesbian, or at least bisexual. Yuri wondered briefly if it contributed at all to how poorly her father treated her, and then decided that it didn’t really matter if it did.
Regardless, Natsuki could do a lot better than Yuri.
Natsuki was cute, even if she hated being told as much. She was confident, and fashionable, especially compared to Yuri who tended to dress more for comfort and, well, for hiding her arms. And Natsuki wasn’t freakishly tall. People liked tiny girls, didn’t they?
“So why me?” Yuri whispered to her empty bedroom.
She had always been fascinated with the full scope of human emotions, and the extremes that people were driven to by them. It was something she read voraciously about precisely because she had so much trouble understanding and regulating her own feelings. She experienced her own emotions deeply - the scabs and scars on her arms and thighs were testament to that fact - but struggled to process them. Part of her had thought that if she could just understand them in fiction, in mirrors of her own reality, she could maybe one day learn to understand them in herself.
She didn’t understand what she was feeling about Natsuki kissing her.
So what would she do if Natsuki did it again? Without grabbing her wrists this time?
She tried her best to imagine it. She tried to visualize Natsuki leaning in, up towards her face so their lips could meet. She tried to remember the sugar-sweet smell of Natsuki’s chapstick.
Her face heated up, and even though no one was even there to see her, she had to resist the urge to hide behind her hair. She could feel her heart start racing, almost as if it was trying to claw itself out of her ribcage.
At first, Yuri couldn’t understand why she was reacting like this.
But then, she recalled reading about something like this. More than once, actually - descriptions of something of this caliber weren’t terribly uncommon in some of her more romance-leaning gothic novels.
“...oh, dear,” she murmured quietly, then blushed even harder at how silly it sounded. “I think… I might have feelings for Natsuki!”
She would have to do something to make this right.
But… how?
“Wuh-?”
For the second time this week, Natsuki found herself waking up in a strange bed, disoriented. It took her brain a few moments, once again, to wake up enough to remember that she was at Sayori’s. In fact, Sayori was still asleep next to her, snoring softly.
They hadn’t gone to sleep until at least two in the morning.
Natsuki sat up, running a hand through her messy pink hair. What on earth was she supposed to do while she waited for Sayori to wake up? It felt weird to go shower in someone else’s house, and she didn’t know if she should make breakfast.
She checked her phone to see… the time. Definitely just to check what time it was, and not at all to see if Yuri had texted her at all.
Her screen remained black, and she realized she’d left the charger in Yuri’s bedroom. Her phone was dead.
“Figures…” she muttered.
“Hm?” Sayori said groggily.
“Shit,” Natsuki said. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up or anything.”
“Mm… ‘sokay!” Sayori sat up with a yawn. “I probably would’ve gotten up soon anyway, I’m hungry!”
Natsuki wasn’t sure if Sayori was lying about that - she may well have slept in for a couple more hours - but her friend being hungry wasn’t out of character, so she decided to let it slide. It wasn’t like she wanted to be trapped sitting in bed waiting for Sayori to wake up, after all.
“Do you want me to like… make you some rice and eggs or something?” Natsuki offered, somewhat awkwardly. She wasn’t even sure if she was making a serious offer until Sayori’s eyes lit up.
“That sounds so much better than cereal!”
“Your parents won’t mind?”
“Ehehe… they probably left for work already. They’re usually gone by the time I wake up.”
The pair of friends went downstairs in the clothes they’d slept in. Sayori’s clothes fit Natsuki a little better than Yuri’s, but the shorts she’d borrowed still sagged off her small hips.
As she cooked, Sayori chit chatted with her about possible plans for the day, and Natsuki pretended not to notice that Sayori was definitely making an effort not to mention Yuri.
“We could go for a walk in the park!” Sayori suggested. “It’s… probably good for us to get out of the house. Usually on weekends I just stay in my room, but I’ll make an effort to go out for you.”
Natsuki set a plate of food in front of her friend before sitting down with her own food, pushing the egg around her plate. Sayori didn’t live very far from Yuri, so it was probably the same park she had napped in…
“I don’t really want to go to that park,” she said with a frown.
“Oh…” Sayori’s face fell for a second before she took a bite of her food and smiled again. “This is really yummy, Natsuki!”
“You’re laying it on a bit thick. I’m fine, I swear. I just… don’t feel like going to the park today. That’s all.”
“Waaaait, I have an idea! What about the bookstore?! Don’t they have an excellent manga collection?” Sayori asked. “I’ve been wanting something new to read! Maybe you can help me pick something!”
Poor Sayori was trying so hard to cheer Natsuki up. The smaller girl didn’t really think she was worth all of this. She tried a joke, forcing a toothy grin:
“Well, I do have the best taste in the club! Okay, I’ll offer you my awesome manga expertise. But you gotta help me do all these dishes first.”
“Aww, what?” Sayori pouted.
“You heard me,” her grin expanded. It was easy to joke like this, to pretend everything was okay, even for just a moment. Natsuki was kind of a pro at pretending that everything was okay. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”
Sayori groaned. But she didn’t say no.
Yuri looked down at the thin book in her hands.
She had determined that she needed a conversation starter if she wanted to bring up her recent… revelation… with Natsuki. And if Natsuki had suggested finding an anime she could share with Yuri, perhaps that was the smaller girl’s preferred way of bridging that gap.
Yuri’s plan was to find a book, perhaps a romance between two female characters, that she could give to Natsuki. She wanted to write a poem on one of the flyleaves.
But she wasn’t sure Carmilla was the best choice. Yuri hadn’t read it since she was 13. However, she was fairly sure it didn’t end happily. Besides, she doubted Natsuki would have the appetite for such a suspenseful atmosphere, even if it was a relatively short read.
Yuri sighed and reshelved the book, eyes scanning the shelves for a better choice, when she heard something that nearly made her jump out of her own skin.
Was that… Sayori’s voice?
Yuri peered around the edge of the shelf she was looking at to see Sayori and Natsuki in the bookstore’s manga session. Why did they have to be here all at the same time?
“Have you read this one?” Sayori was kneeling in front of the shelves, holding up a volume for Natsuki’s opinion.
“Yeah, that one’s pretty good,” Natsuki shrugged. “It’s a prequel series, though, and the series that follows it kind of ruins the whole thing, you know?”
“Oh, that’s kind of a bummer. I hate when series do that…”
They didn’t seem to have noticed Yuri yet. Maybe she could leave the store without them seeing her at all.
Any hope of that was dashed when Natsuki turned towards her. All at once Yuri watched the color drain from her tiny friend’s pretty face.
“Natsuki?” Sayori looked up from where she knelt, her eyes following her friend’s pink gaze until they, too, landed on Yuri. Her expression turned sheepish. Yuri knew for a fact Sayori didn’t want to hurt her or Natsuki. In fact, she realized Sayori had probably taken care of Natsuki last night.
“I… c-can go,” Yuri stammered. “I-I mean… If you w-want me to, that is…”
“Sayori,” Natsuki said, “do you mind giving us a minute?”
“But…” Sayori looked between the two of them, then stood up. “Okay. I can go look at the new stuff by the front for a bit.”
Yuri felt her pulse increase as Sayori stepped away from the two. Her arm itched and she wanted desperately to hide. She almost wished she had never had her realization about her own feelings. It was making her overthink every single little thing her body was doing in Natsuki’s presence!
“Look, we don’t have to do this,” Natsuki broke the awkward silence.
“Huh?” Yuri blushed. “What do you-?”
“Last night,” Natsuki also seemed unable to meet Yuri’s gaze, looking very determinedly down at the floor as if it was the most interesting floor in the world. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of been going through a lot lately, so… so can we just pretend that last night didn’t happen and go back to being best friends?”
“No.”
“Wh-what?” Natsuki looked stunned, and Yuri realized all too late that she had just said that. She hadn’t meant to. But it was out in the open all the same.
“I… I mean…” Yuri grabbed a strand of her own hair. “W-what if… what if I don’t…” Her voice got tiny as she made herself finish the question, “...want to?”
Natsuki opened her mouth as if to reply, but seemed unable to make the words come out.
Well, there was certainly no way to go back and forget it now. So Yuri tried to gather any courage that may have been hiding anywhere inside of her.
“I don’t want to forget it, Natsuki,” Yuri said, voice barely over a whisper. “I want… to talk about it.”
“H-here?” Natsuki squeaked. She actually squeaked. If the circumstances were any different, Yuri would have found it adorable. As it was, she was far too self conscious of her own speech to register too many emotions about Natsuki’s.
“N-not necessarily here,” Yuri said. “We can… go for a walk?”
“...you’ll have to text Sayori and let her know so she doesn’t freak out. My phone is dead.”
“W-won’t she see us if she’s by the front of the store?”
Natsuki shrugged. Yuri figured it couldn’t hurt and shot off a quick text message to Sayori (well, quick for Yuri) before gesturing for Natsuki to follow her. Face red as a beet, she did not turn to check if Natsuki actually was following while she beelined for the exit.
“H-hey,” Natsuki’s voice came from behind her. “Hey, Yuri, slow down for a sec!”
The two were now outside of the store and Yuri let out a sigh, leaning against the side of a nearby building.
“Jeez,” Natsuki said, catching up. “Not all of us have your long legs, you know!”
Yuri looked down at her own hands clutching at her hair. The awkwardness of the moment started to seep back in.
“Hey,” Natsuki continued, “what did you mean by… n-not wanting to forget it?”
Yuri paused, trying to figure out what the best course of action was here. She’d… asked a lot of Natsuki this week. Surely, she could also be brave about this one little thing, right?
“E-exactly what I stated,” she answered. “I don’t… wish to forget it.”
“Okay?” Natsuki knit her eyebrows together, confused. “Can I at least know why you don’t want to forget me embarrassing the shit out of myself?”
“I also acted… regrettably,” Yuri admitted. “Natsuki, I… I wish you hadn’t run. I’m glad Sayori was able to be there for you, but I wish you’d stayed so I could… s-so I could…”
“So you could what?”
“Explain myself,” Yuri finished weakly.
“Okay. Explain yourself then. Because, honestly? You’re not making a whole lot of sense.”
“Well, I… I didn’t realize you were going to be here! I didn’t exactly have time to gather my thoughts!” Oh, no. This was going all wrong. Yuri tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Natsuki, I… I didn’t mind you kissing me.”
That seemed to throw Natsuki off guard, and Yuri wondered if the smaller girl had been somehow trying to shield herself from rejection.
“You… didn’t?” Natsuki asked, sounding suddenly so unsure.
Yuri had wanted to make this right, hadn’t she?
“I liked it,” Yuri whispered. “I think… I like you.”
Natsuki did not react how Yuri expected. Instead, she just looked stricken and asked, “Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Why are you making fun of me?” Natsuki insisted. Yuri’s heart dropped.
“Natsuki!” She insisted, feeling so hurt by the accusation that she suddenly forgot to be shy. “How could you even say that? I would never make fun of you for something like that! I’m being genuine!”
“But you’re you,” the shorter girl deflated. “And I’m… just Natsuki.”
“You mean… you’re brave and confident and stylish. And I’m quiet and shy and don’t know how to talk to those who don’t share my interests.”
“You’re tall and elegant.”
“I actually don’t like being tall,” Yuri said. “I’d rather be small, like you.”
“You don’t want to be small like me,” Natsuki said. “Not for the same reasons I am, anyway… But if you’re not making fun of me… why did you freeze like that?”
Ah. There was that. Yuri wasn’t sure how to answer that. Not without… revealing something that would probably make Natsuki not want anything to do with her anymore.
Perhaps it was selfish, but Yuri didn’t want that. She didn’t want to send Natsuki running.
“I was just… surprised,” she said slowly. “I don’t always react ideally to unexpected things happening. But that wasn’t because of you. I promise.”
“Oh…” Natsuki seemed… well, ‘lost’ wasn’t really the right word for it. Yuri really couldn’t read her friend’s face too well.
“Natsuki,” she took a breath, trying to calm her poor racing heart, “I am… truly sorry if you thought, even for a second, that my reaction was about you. But next time you kiss me I’ll try to react better.”
Natsuki went pink.
“N-next time?” She choked out.
“Sh-should I not have said that?” Yuri felt panic rising inside of her. Had she messed this up?
“You were serious about liking me?!”
“I’m not in the habit of lying about that kind of thing. I’m not exactly… the most experienced when it comes to this sort of thing, so you’ll have to bear with me, but i–if it’s okay with you, I’d like… I’d like to…”
Why couldn’t she say it?
It turned out she didn’t have to.
In another moment of impulsiveness - or perhaps of forcing herself to - Natsuki reached out and took one of Yuri’s hands off of her hair.
“Still,” the smaller girl seemed to be trying to sound braver than she looked. Her face was still very red. “I probably should have asked first.”
“Ask now,” Yuri heard herself say. Had she always had the ability to be so bold?
Somehow - and Yuri wasn’t sure how it was possible - Natsuki’s face got even more red.
“C-can I-?” She started trying to stammer out the question.
“Yes,” Yuri interrupted her, leaning down a little in anticipation.
Natsuki raised herself up on her toes to press her lips to Yuri’s.
Yuri felt like she was about to float away, like a balloon. She… couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever felt like this.
A loud squeal made both girls jump.
“I knew it!” Sayori exclaimed.
“S-Sayori!” Yuri felt her own face go red. Natsuki buried her face altogether in Yuri’s arm. “I- I thought you were in the bookstore!”
“I knew you two would be so cute together!” Sayori didn’t respond to what Yuri said, running over to hug both of her friends. “I’m so happy for you!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Natsuki’s voice was muffled, but Yuri thought it sounded like she was smiling. “Get off of me.”
So that was it, then.
It had been so easy. Natsuki wasn’t used to things going well for her. But maybe it was about time.
She was back at Yuri’s house. Even though it was, like, the most embarrassing thing in the entire world, she’d let Yuri explain her situation to her parents. (She’d been waiting in the other room - Natsuki didn’t think she could handle being in the same room as that conversation.)
She was allowed to stay as long as she needed.
Of course, the girls had neglected to tell Yuri’s parents about the fact that they were… well, they hadn’t defined what they were yet. But they held hands and kissed and stuff. Natsuki didn’t know if regular parents were cool with that kind of thing. Her father would have beat the shit out of her for it probably, but she was the first to admit that wasn’t exactly normal father behavior.
“We did this backwards, you know,” Natsuki said to Yuri while the pair sat together in Yuri’s bedroom.
“What?”
“Yeah,” she continued, “because most couples date for a while before moving in together. And we haven’t been on a real date yet.”
“W-we can go on a real date if you want to!” Yuri smiled, cheeks flushing a bit. “I m-mean… maybe not right this second, b-but…”
“Hey, why were you in the bookstore today, anyway?”
“Hm?”
“Like,” Natsuki looked down at her phone, which was finally on the charger, “you didn’t even call or text me after I left. You just showed up in the bookstore.”
“I… wanted to text you, but I couldn’t figure out what to say,” Yuri looked over at her. Natsuki still wanted to melt when she looked at her. She still wasn’t really sure she deserved all of this. Maybe it was all a dream, too good to be true.
“Sayori and I were there to look at manga,” Natsuki continued, “so were you just there coincidentally, or did she tell you we’d be there?”
“Sayori didn’t tell me anything, I promise,” Yuri said. “I was actually… looking for something for you.”
Natsuki felt herself going red again.
“C-come on!” She exclaimed. “You can’t just say stuff like that. What do you mean you were looking for something for me?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to speak to me,” Yuri admitted. She looked somewhat shy, like she didn’t exactly want to be saying it, but seemed to be making an effort to say it anyway, which Natsuki appreciated. “I remembered you’d mentioned wanting to find something we could enjoy together, so… I had the idea to find a book that involved a romance between two female characters. I was going to write a poem for you and everything.”
“That’s-!” Natsuki felt her jaw drop. She looked away, trying to hide her smile. “That’s really sweet, actually. What did you end up landing on?”
“I hadn’t actually… decided, yet. The last book I had been looking at was Carmilla.”
“I’ve literally never heard of that,” Natsuki said. It didn’t sound familiar.
“It’s not really your type of book. It’s about, um…” Yuri looked a little embarrassed. “A lesbian vampire…”
“I thought you said you weren’t into vampire stuff anymore.”
“I-I’m not, but… I just thought… I don’t know. You wouldn’t have liked it anyway. I remember the ending being bittersweet.”
“Ah,” Natsuki said. “You know… I don’t only read stuff with happy endings. I mean, I probably wouldn’t like reading something like that, and I do tend to prefer happy endings, but like… it’s not always realistic, you know? After all, my own life hasn’t always been the happiest…”
“A little happier now, I’d hope.”
“Yeah,” she smiled, looking back over at Yuri. “Though I do think my dad’s eventually gonna figure out I ran away. I just hope he’s too much of a bum to do anything about it.”
“I’ll protect you,” Yuri said, reaching over to squeeze Natsuki’s hand.
“Come on, what are you going to do against a fully grown man?”
“I have knives,” Yuri gestured to the items in her strange collection that were on display.
“Yeah, in your bedroom,” Natsuki pointed out. “Not with you all the time.”
Yuri didn’t speak, but Natsuki didn’t miss how her cheeks colored a little before she turned her face downwards.
“Not… with you all the time, right?” Natsuki repeated.
“Sometimes,” Yuri finally admitted, voice oddly quiet. “They’re sometimes useful to have.”
Having grown up with a father like hers, Natsuki was hyper vigilant to changes in mood. She had to be to survive. So it didn’t escape her that Yuri’s mood had shifted. It didn’t escape her that Yuri’s fingers were fiddling with her long sleeves.
Always long sleeves…
She decided not to push it, and pretended to yawn.
“It’s been a big day,” she said. “We should get some sleep.”
“R-right,” Yuri replied. “Do you want to use the bathroom first or should I?”
“I will,” Natsuki jumped up. She wasn’t sure why. But something was telling her she should. Instinct, maybe. Whatever that was.
She didn’t actually even know what she thought was happening.
As she changed in the bathroom, she thought that maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe she was just so used to things going wrong for her, that the idea of someone she liked actually liking her back was making her go a little crazy.
‘Don’t ruin this for yourself, Natsuki!’ She internally scolded herself. She was being absurd, worrying over what was probably nothing all because… what, because she had once read a manga with a menhera-type character? Yuri was just a little odd, she’d always had strange interests! That was one of the things Natsuki liked about her!
She had almost convinced herself by the time she was ready to brush her teeth.
Yuri’s family kept the toothpaste tube out on the bathroom counter, but back home Natsuki had kept hers in a drawer. So without thinking, she yanked the top drawer open.
And that’s when she saw the knife.
It was in the back of the drawer, shoved beneath a folded face cloth, but the force with which Natsuki had opened the drawer had caused it to shift out from underneath. It was the type of knife which folded open and closed.
Why was it in here? Why had someone tried to hide it beneath a face cloth?
Natsuki felt her paranoia rise again. Was this Yuri’s? Was her bad feeling somehow related to this knife?
Without fully understanding what was going on, she grabbed the hateful utensil and shoved it into the pocket of her pajama pants. She was sure there was an innocent explanation for it.
At least she hoped there was.