I_do_mud_stuff
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lara and mari, sixteen years old. lara wants to know if they'll get married one day. mari says depends - who's she marrying? it should've ended there (spoiler alert: it doesn't).
Bookmarked by I_do_mud_stuff
02 Oct 2026
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Mari, fifteen years old. Standing in front of the checkered blue backdrop with the prefecture's crest stamped over and over behind her like wallpaper. She had a gold medal looped around her neck and a trophy in one hand, its little red gem catching the light funny. Her hair was flat with old sweat, and she stared wide-eyed into the camera with an expression that wasn't quite a smile—more like she hadn't figured out yet how to arrange her face around something this big. And beside her, red hair a wild halo under the fluorescent lights—
—Lara.
Also fifteen. Holding up Mari’s certificate with both hands like it was hers instead of Mari's, looking so unreasonably delighted that you'd think she'd been the one to win.
Mari remembers that Lara hadn't even been able to read half the kanji on it. Had asked, loudly in the middle of the ceremony, what it said.
Almost three years now.
It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. It feels like last week, and also like something that had happened to somebody else.
Mari looks at the photo for a long time.
or: seventeen-year-old mari wouldn't admit she's burned out and impulsively takes a train to see lara in kobe
Series
- Part 1 of safe harbor
Bookmarked by I_do_mud_stuff
26 Sep 2026
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She loved Mari. And Mari loved her in return. But it was not the way she wanted. Lara could share the same water, the same earth, the same sun, the same air, as Mari. But she would never be able to share the same breath.
"You assumed my answer."
Bookmarked by I_do_mud_stuff
24 Sep 2026