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Kagami had known Marinette Dupain-Cheng since she was five years old. She had known her favourite colour was pink for eleven years and that she had approximately forty-two light brown freckles speckled on the bridge of her nose. Kagami knew that Marinette’s ears would burn a bright red whenever she lied and her nose would scrunch up whenever she was confused or thinking. The girl knew Marinette that well because they were childhood friends. She had met her at a park while Kagami was playing in the sandbox secluded far away from the other children. Marinette was the only one who came up to her with a pail and shovel and had a little tulip in her bucket. She gave it to Kagami as a symbol of their newly budded friendship. Ever since that day, Kagami loved tulips. She would wear clips with tulips on them. She would wear tulip printed clothes. She’d have a garden in her mansion, with tulips in them. She’d buy bouquets, loads and loads of them and put them in every single vase there was in her home.
Kagami always put a little bit of Marinette into her everyday life. Because Marinette was her truest and only friend she ever had. The bluenette meant every single star in the sky to her, and Kagami couldn’t help but love her. She remembered the day she started making paper cranes, it was when her father passed away when she was ten years old, to be exact. Kagami made a thousand paper cranes because her father always told her that when you made a thousand paper cranes a wish would come true. Your wish. Unfortunately, when she got to her thousandth crane and used it to wish for her father to come back--he never did. So when she was twelve years old and finally finished with her cranes, she burned them and stopped making them for a very long time. Until she was fourteen years old. Why you may ask? Why did she start making them again? Kagami started making them again because she fell in love with her best friend. She fell in love with Marinette.
Kagami was in her room, folding the papers she had, delicately overlapping the corners and pieces to make a small crane. She was now sixteen and overcome with school work and her overwhelming schedule. Kagami didn’t have time to make such small little origami cranes, but when she was freer than a bird far from its cage. Happily, she would carefully and gingerly create her immaculate paper birds. Kagami liked the colour red, and she made sure that at least a few hundred of them were crimson or cardinal. But lately, she found herself making pink and blue and peach cranes. Colours of Marinette. Oh, she was truly there in her life every step of the way. The bluenette was going to come over in a few hours, and Kagami was excited. She wanted to cuddle with her and run her fingers through the girl’s hair. However, her mother would never approve of such-- she wasn’t the most laidback and easy going.
An ache in her strong but calloused fingers started to bloom within, and she finished making her eight hundred seventieth crane. With a sigh, the fencer put her cranes into a jar and made one origami tulip--for Marinette of course. Swiftly, she laid down on her bed and looked at the many tulips and pinks in her room. Sure there were her trophy cases filled to the brim with her awards, paintings and pictures of her and her family members, perfume bottles and jewelry stands, a dressing table, a desk to work at, a television, and many other pieces of Kagami in them. But she liked to incorporate as much as she could about the people she cared about in them. It was a free day for her, so Kagami fell asleep on her bed and let the sleep take over her.
She woke up to the sound of Marinette’s whispering and giggling. What a wonderful way to be woken up. With a yawn, her eyes fluttered open and tiredly sat up in her bed. Marinette was right there sitting on her bed and smiling.
“Did you have a nice, long nap sleepy-head?” She teased and oh god Kagami loved it when she teased.
“Yeah I did,” She smirked and laid back down on to her bed. Marinette lifted her feet up on to the mattress and cuddled up to her side. She then laid down and stared at the ceiling, just as Kagami was.
“You still making those paper cranes?” Marinette asked, her voice soft and delicate like a flower.
“Yes, why do you ask?” Though Kagami was super close to Marinette, she never told her she was a lesbian. She was too afraid that her one and only friend would leave her behind because she loved her as more than just a friend.
“Mayyybe because the last time you made a thousand of them, you burned them in the bonfire at Chloe’s party at the Rosewell garden?” Marinette added in a teasing manner and it for the most part made Kagami remember the time she burned the paper cranes then. Chloe was pretty annoyed when she saw Kagami throw all her cranes into the bonfire, but she didn’t say or do much about it.
“Well, I know I did. But, I found a better wish to wish for that was simply put… more realistic,”
“Ok, ok, well then what wish do you hope for?”
“I think, I just want… a chance. I just want to have a chance with someone,”
“Someone?” Marinette’s eyebrow perked up and she seemed curious. Kagami tried to keep a poker face, a bit of her anxiety rumbled within the confinements of her stomach.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,”
“No, no, hold up Kagami! If you’re making a thousand freaking paper cranes just to have a “chance” with “someone” then this sounds like a pretty big deal. Don’t you think?”
“I… I don’t know ‘Nette. They may not like me,”
Marinette scoffed and pinched Kagami’s cheek, “May not like you?! Kagami, you’re an amazing person. Who wouldn’t like you?”
“You of all people…” She mumbled under her breath and made sure it was almost inaudible.
“What was that Kaga?” Her voice sounded so saccharine and melodic. Kagami wished she could listen to her all day long.
“Nothing, I just mean… I don’t think it’s a crush or anything,” It was. Big time. And Kagami was pretty good at lying, which made sense. She was lying about her feelings for Marinette, her sexuality, her opinions, everything from her mother. She lied like it was second nature. And the truth is, Kagami knew Marinette hated liars. But this was one lie, Kaga had to tell herself.
Marinette frowned and simply said, “Kaga, is this someone a boy?” She gently raised an eyebrow in curiosity and bit her lip. Quietly, she turned her head over to face Kagami and stared into her dark cinnamon eyes.
Kagami’s eyes widened ever so slightly and she stayed silent for a minute, “Maybe, maybe not,”
“If it’s not a boy… is it a girl…?”
Her back tensed up and her body started to sweat, she felt like there was a gaping hole in the place of her heart. She wanted to pull the covers over her and be swallowed by all the fire and smoke that seemed to be enveloping her. The rawest of pains shot up her stomach and burned at the core of sternum, it was more like a spitting volcano of lava and hot magma coursing through the islands of her misery. If she could have been engulfed by the anxiety that flushed its way through her system, she would be paralyzed. And Kagami was paralyzed.
“Why would it be a girl…?” She finally spoke, but it sounded like she was choking for air. Kagami didn’t sound strong or powerful, she elicited fear and dreadful weakness. Marinette gave a soft sigh and hummed in dissatisfaction.
“Because, you never talk about boys Kaga. You always talk about girls. You have everything pink and all things tulip here in your room,” Marinette stated and she scrunched her nose up again. She was thinking.
“‘Nette I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about any of this,”
“Ok, that’s fine. If it makes you uncomfortable then no problem. But, there’s really nothing wrong with you if you like girls. You know I’d never hate you or stop being friends with you, just because you liked them,” Marinette reassured a Kagami that wasn’t even aware she needed to hear that. She simply let the quiet take over her and the two let the day pass by in silence.
It was Kagami’s birthday of all days, and she finally made her last origami crane. Her thousandth crane and she doodled a little “I love you Marinette” on it. The cold night air blew by in the garden, and Kagami sat there alone on the bench. It was the last hour of the day, eleven o’clock pm. Patiently, she sat in front of the little pond she had and decided instead of burning her cranes she would drown them instead. She sighed and looked at her seven jars worth of her little origami figures. Maybe she could make her wish, maybe it would come true, it had to have come true. Holding on to her last paper crane and a candy-coloured tulip in her hand, she wished to herself.
“I wish Marinette and I could date,” Kagami said out loud to the garden, to the pond, to the stars, to the cranes, and worst of all… to Marinette. Because Marinette was right there, she was there and she could only gape at her. Kagami didn’t know she was there, it was too dark for her to see. But, she was there.
“Kagami…?” She spoke up in the chill of the night and the soft spring breeze. She took a step closer to her and under the moonlight, she was an angel. Kagami’s eyes widened, her heart rapidly beat against her chest, and she couldn’t really register that Mari was right there. Under the light of the sky, you could see the brightest of blushes and the smallest of smiles from Marinette. But Kagami would never notice that, for she threw her crane into the pond of their garden and she ran. Kagami ran and Marinette was left alone in the garden with seven jars of nine hundred ninety-nine cranes. Because Marinette too loved Kagami and her love for her was like origami. She watched as Kagami sprinted back into her home and there she was, grabbing a paper from her pocket. Marinette made the final thousandth paper crane and ran right after her.