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16 years old
Sana loved spring.
She felt bad for those who were allergic to pollen, of course, but she was lucky enough not to be one of them, so she took that to her advantage.
It was cliché, she knew, but there was something very special about going to the park after school and strolling down the cherry blossom-covered trails while hearing the birds chirping out and about all around the place. It took her mind off of stressful things and caused her to get lost pondering about existence. It made her feel at peace.
So everyday after school she’d wander around at the park for a while, admiring nature, before walking over to her favorite bench in front of the pond that was in the center. She loved it there. There were some rocks piled up together that made up a small waterfall and koi fish were swimming around, bright and colorful and pretty.
She’d then take out the book she had chosen from the bookshop on her way home the previous week and read it until the sky was orange and the sun began setting, getting lost in different stories each week and feeling everything the writers put their characters through.
Once the sun began sinking in the horizon, she’d decide that it was getting late and it was time to head home to work on her homework, have dinner with her parents, bathe and sleep.
Some days she would get so lost in her thoughts at the park that she wouldn’t even take her chosen book of the week out in favor of wondering why she was doing this everyday. Was there some type of force that was pulling her to do it? Was it just that the simplicity of it all soothed her and then, out of habit, had her actively seeking it? Was something awaiting her around here?
It wasn’t until that particularly hot day that she began to realize.
There was a frozen yogurt shop across the street from the park that Sana had never gone to, even though she’d felt the need for something cold to freshen up more than once. The thought just never crossed her mind before, but now that it did, she decided it’d be a good idea to get some.
She makes her way to the shop, school bag dangling on her right arm as she hums a melody she came up with, excited to check out how many flavors they have— people from school said there were like twenty— and to cool down, because she hadn’t noticed until now that she’s halfway there, but the nape of her neck had gotten a bit sweaty because she forgot to bring a hairband and her loose, light brown hair was too warm on her skin. She makes a note to put one on her wrist before she leaves her house tomorrow.
As she walks in, she sees that there’s a bit of a line. Seven people. They’re not too many, and she still has a bit of time before the sun starts to set and she has to head home.
She looks around and sees a few tables occupied by girls from high school accompanied by their boyfriends, each of the couples most definitely on a date. Cute. Kind of. She puckers her lips slightly, suddenly lost in thought.
She can’t really picture herself doing something like this, at least not with any boy from school. She doesn’t really feel like there’s something wrong with her because of that, but still, she hopes that one day she’ll find the right guy who will cause that type of feelings to bloom in her.
She decides to dart her eyes away from the couples she hadn’t realized she’d been staring at for too long to be considered socially acceptable, because first of all, she doesn’t care much about who’s holding hands with who, and second of all, she doesn’t want to invade their privacy and come across as snoopy. She’d just gotten lost in her own little world for a moment.
Which then proves itself before her, because when she’s back to reality she doesn’t know where time went. There are only two people in line before her and she still hasn’t chosen a flavor because she forgot to read the chart behind the man at the register machine. She decides to take out her wallet before it’s her turn and in a strange, sudden urge, decides to go for peach. She hopes it’s good. She hasn’t tasted that flavor in a long time.
Once she pays, she thanks the man who she assumes is the shop owner and moves to the side to look for the person he said would be handing her her order.
She looks for them, waiting expectantly, excited over frozen yogurt like a child over dessert.
There were three girls working there apart from the old man getting the orders, she notices. One of them catches her eye. She’s wearing a pastel pink t-shirt and then a blue apron over it, unlike the other two who are wearing white t-shirts that look like uniforms. She’s also taller than the other two, so that makes her stand out even more. Apart from the fact that she’s wearing Sana’s favorite color.
She’s a bit curious at this point. This girl looks like she could be very pretty. And Sana had a knack for telling when a girl was going to be pretty.
She’s well-built, shoulders and hips wide just the right amount to make up the perfect proportion. Her hair is dark and glossy, tied up in a ponytail. Sana can tell her jawline is defined from the slight peek she got of her face, though she can’t see too well because of the cap she’s wearing that has the shop’s name embroidered on it.
Sana decides to check the time and the notifications on her phone as a bit of a distraction. 5:21 PM. She’ll eat the yogurt on her way home because she has some essays to work on for the following day.
She looks up again and her heart stops for a moment and her breath is caught in her lungs.
“Hello, somebody wanted peach?”, the girl Sana thought would be pretty asks rather shyly.
Sana thought she would be pretty, yes, but that’s most definitely an understatement. She’s gorgeous.
Sana stands frozen in place as the girl looks around trying to find the person whose yogurt she was holding, looking a bit confused when nobody replies. Sana then comes to the realization that it’s her that she’s waiting for.
“I did.” Sana says in a soft voice, trying to regain her composure. Maybe she’s too hungry and that’s why her hands are slightly shaking and she feels lightheaded.
“Hi,” the girl says with a perfect, dazzling smile that makes Sana gulp, “what toppings would you like?” she asks, looking Sana in the eyes for a second and then staring down at the counter with a smile still plastered on her face.
Sana’s eyes widen. Toppings? She forgot that she was supposed to choose them. She was already indecisive enough when she wasn’t under pressure, it was a bit of a miracle that she chose which flavor she wanted so quickly. So now that this girl is staring at her with big, dark eyes that Sana wouldn’t mind staring at all day long, she’s suddenly out of words and forgets what she was supposed to tell her in the first place.
“I, uhm… you—” Sana mumbles, and the girl across from her looks up at her frowns a little, her smile growing bigger as an amused expression takes over her face.
Sana’s brain short-circuits for a moment and she doesn’t understand what’s going on with her, because usually she’s anything but shy. She tells herself that it might be that she’s intimidated by this girl’s looks because she wishes she was that pretty. That has to be it.
“Me?”, the girl in question asks, patiently waiting for Sana to make up her mind and tell her what she’d like on top of her food, looking at her expectantly with a warm smile and kind eyes.
What was Sana supposed to tell her now? Oh, right. Froyo toppings. “You choose?” Sana manages to get out. Where did all her confidence go?
“Choose for you?” she asks, a bit surprised at Sana’s request, but nonetheless understanding what she meant, despite the missing words.
“Yeah. I’m a bit... indecisive? And I didn’t think about them at all, so...” she trails off, finally able to look into the girl’s eyes and speak more than two words. She nods at Sana and proceeds to walk over to the left to choose the toppings.
Sana’s eyes follow the girl and focus on her intently. She has a cute nose. It fits her Asian features so well that Sana has a difficult time processing how somebody that looks like Japanese Royalty could be currently preparing her food. Her eyes then trail down to her chest to look for a name tag. Sana needs to know what she’s called.
Momo.
That’s cute. Short and sweet. Also written with simple hiragana, which is rather unusual, but a welcome surprise. Kanji could become tricky to read when it came to names. Sana wonders if it reflects the girl’s personality. If she were to guess, she’d say the girl looks a bit shy, but she also looks sweet. As for whether she’s simple or complicated… Sana thinks she’d like to find out for herself.
After a moment, she smiles to herself when she realizes how funny it is that she chose peach-flavored yogurt today. Just a coincidence.
As Momo comes back with Sana’s order, the light brown-haired girl is happily surprised with what she sees on top of the yogurt. Kiwi, strawberries and raspberries.
“I hope you don’t hate any of these…” Momo says, left arm extending towards Sana to hand her her order, the other one bending as she puts her hand on the back of her head in a cute, shy gesture.
“Actually I really like them,” Sana says, a small smile playing on her lips, “I don’t know how you knew but I’m glad.”
“Just a hunch. You looked like you’d enjoy them.” Momo says, smile slowly making its way back onto her face.
Sana extends her arm to grab the yogurt and her fingers graze the other girl’s, sending a rush of something she’s never felt before through her body. The cup in which the dessert was beginning to melt slowly was cold, but Momo’s hand from that small touch felt warm and soft and Sana knew something very important was happening right now.
Her heart was beating fast and she couldn’t seem to control it, and as she stared into the other girl’s eyes she felt as though she was charged with electricity. This was new. This was big.
“Thank you, Momo-chan,” Sana says, unsure of when she mustered up the courage to say those words, but the surprise in the other girl’s face when Sana calls her by her name gives her a spur of confidence, “see you around.”
Sana waves at the beauty behind the counter and gives her a deliberately flirty smile while turning around to make her way out of the shop, noticing how the other girl looked just as flustered as Sana felt when she first saw her.
Sana went to the yogurt shop everyday after school from then on.
After the day she met Momo, realization hit Sana like a ton of bricks. She had never been interested in dating because the idea of dating a girl had never even crossed her mind. She never got that rush of excitement whenever she tried to imagine what it would be like to have a boyfriend, but when she thought of having a girlfriend, specifically a certain dark-haired beauty, the story was completely different.
Sana wanted to ask Momo out, she really did, but one day she showed up at the yogurt shop and the one person she looked forward to seeing every day wasn't there. She tried her luck and went a few more times after that day, but the dark-haired girl whose smile brightened Sana’s days was nowhere to be found.
So when Sana asked about her and they told her that she wasn't working there anymore, she was disappointed to say the least. They said that she'd gotten the job to save a bit of money so she could travel when summer came.
And just like so, summer came.
Ironically , Sana's sun had left.
24 years old
Sana was very happy today.
It was a Friday and she loved the weekends just like any other young adult, but she was currently at her favorite restaurant in Tokyo having dinner with her gorgeous girlfriend to celebrate their six-month anniversary and that made it even more special than just the usual Friday. Could she ask for anything better?
Not to say she was a casanova, but ever since her big revelation and coming-out to her parents, who thankfully took it really well, Sana had been actively dating girls trying to find the one. Up until now she hadn't been lucky enough and ended up heartbroken a couple times.
Some were too selfish and Sana ended up giving more than what she got back. Others were too practical and uninterested in having conversations about abstract things that Sana loved to wonder about. The worst for Sana, though, were the ones that were possessive. When she started to feel that they were taking up all her time and isolating her from what her life was before she met them, she’d get overwhelmed and feel the need to escape. And so she did.
But this time around she was very hopeful because here she was, six months into her relationship and she still hadn't gotten the feeling that it wasn't what she was looking for. And it was the first time she felt genuinely happy this long into a relationship.
Nayeon was funny, entertaining, chatty, caring and passionate. Her accent when she spoke Japanese was adorable. To top it off, she was drop-dead gorgeous, so when she made the first move on Sana, the younger one was a bit taken aback because she was used to being the proactive one when it came to dating.
Sana was a radio station host in Yokohama and Nayeon lived across the street from where she worked, so they used to see each other when they went to have lunch at the diner 2 blocks away. That’s how they caught each other's eyes.
Sana found out from her coworkers at the station that Nayeon was a rising youtuber. She vlogged almost daily about Japanese lifestyle and recommended places that weren’t the typical tourist traps to fellow Korean citizens who were interested in coming over to Japan.
The Japanese girl couldn't resist the urge to watch the Korean girl's vlogs upon being asked out by her, and she was content and excited when she found herself absolutely charmed by the confidence oozing from the older girl and her adorable smile.
But as Sana got to know her better, she discovered that Nayeon was a very different person from what she had come to expect after observing the persona the older girl portrayed on her YouTube channel. Which wasn't a bad thing. At all. It actually left Sana wondering about her, wanting to unveil the mystery that was Im Nayeon.
And so, here they are, holding hands, in love as ever and smiling at each other at Sana's favorite spot for dinner in her country's capital.
Nayeon took the time to a reservation for them, and although she was vlogging a little bit here and there, because after all her job was to explore the country and review and recommend places for people, Sana was very flattered because she knows very well that her girlfriend's not one to plan things out too much.
Sana draws circles on her girlfriend’s hands as she contemplates how long she’s been with her and how the attraction she feels towards her hasn’t faded at all. This was definitely the most passionate and intense relationship she’s had, and she can’t imagine herself with anyone else because Nayeon just pulls a switch inside Sana’s soul that makes her feel as alive as she’s ever felt.
The highs were high, Sana ecstatic whenever the older girl invited her to join her on many of her trips through Japan during the weekends, exploring places in the beautiful land that she never imagined existed and cherishing the time they spent together dearly.
But the lows were low, the arguments they’ve had a few times over the way Sana is “a bit too friendly” with other girls sparking Nayeon’s jealousy. To Sana’s excruciation, jealous Nayeon was a difficult Nayeon. It took a lot from Sana to get her back to her normal, sweet self, but when they made up it was something else for sure.
"Are you ready to leave, babe?" Nayeon asks, her grip tightening the slightest bit on Sana's hand, her eyes with a familiar glint that Sana knows all too well.
"You wanna skip dessert?" Sana asks pretending to be clueless, the smirk forming on her lips saying otherwise, tongue darting out the slightest bit to wet them. She loved to do this.
"You know very well that eating you is my favorite," Nayeon says with a mischievous look on her face, her voice raspy and low, fingers moving to trace the back of Sana's hand faintly, causing the blonde to slowly begin to lose her resolve to stay for the final course of the dinner, "I'd skip dessert over you any day."
Nothing else needs to be said. Sana jerks her hand from her girlfriend’s grip to grab her bag and check that she's not forgetting anything while Nayeon calls the waiter over to ask for the bill to pay for their date this time around, since the younger one paid for the last one.
Once they're done, Nayeon grabs Sana’s hand and leads the way out of the restaurant to guide them to her car so she can drive them to the hotel they'll be staying at for the weekend.
Sana is too busy focused on her girlfriend and the anticipation of what’s going to happen at that hotel room to notice the surprised look on a certain dark-haired girl's face when they cross paths at the restaurant's door.
25 years old
Sana wasn't sad anymore. It was difficult to reach this point because she had really come to believe that Nayeon would be the one for her.
She mourned the demise of their relationship for months, but it wasn’t until now that she came to accept that the decision to end it was for the better for both of them.
She blamed herself for it at first.
Nayeon’s jealousy started to become more of an issue when they moved in together. Sana had really tried to tone down her “flirty attitude”, but it was never enough to satisfy the older girl, so at a certain point Sana found herself avoiding interaction with other women altogether, unless absolutely necessary.
Deep down she knew it was wrong, but she loved Nayeon so much that she was willing to do anything not to lose her, and didn’t accept the fact that it was getting out of hand. But as time went on, she was increasingly terrified that at any moment the old feeling of this not being what she was looking for in a relationship would strike back.
But it had to. It was necessary. This wasn’t what she needed, or what Nayeon needed, and it had started to become unhealthy for the both of them. It was emotionally exhausting. Sana believed that love was supposed to be uplifting, not dreadful. And that’s what their relationship had begun to feel like for Sana.
So, since Nayeon wasn’t going to be the one to put an end to it, Sana had to do it.
She's still working on fully forgiving herself for putting the other girl through so much pain. For some reason, it’s etched on her mind that it was unnecessary to do it, even though every last bit of logic tells her that it was something that had to be done for both girls’ wellbeing.
But now, she's no longer sad. It's been almost half a year, after all, and Sana thinks it’s about time to be done with the healing.
The worst part, though, is that on her journey to feeling okay again, she didn’t feel sad because she missed Nayeon. She had enjoyed their time together to the fullest. What she felt sad about was the fact that she, the girl who never had bad intentions and always tried her best to make everyone around her happy, broke the heart of the one girl who had loved her the most in her entire life. She wished every day up until this one that she didn’t have to do it.
But today, after a long and strenuous journey of introspection, she has come to accept that she needed to do it so she could grow as a person. That anyone who’s had a relationship that real and lost it had blood on their hands and wasn’t left unscathed. That she couldn’t blame herself for it forever because some things in life just aren’t meant to be.
Plus, even though at first she avoided it like the plague, she decided later on to check on Nayeon through social media to see if she was doing well. She was very careful not to accidentally like any of her posts because she believed that the less her now-ex-girlfriend heard from her, the faster she would recover from their break-up.
That’s how she found out that Nayeon had gone back to Korea for what she assumes must have been a “healing” trip. She had also come to notice from Instagram that the foreign girl seemed to have rekindled her friendship with a childhood friend that she used to mention a lot back when they were dating. Jeongyeon.
The last picture Nayeon uploaded was one that included her, and it was rather suggestive. The taller girl was standing behind Nayeon with her arms wrapped around her waist and she was scrunching up her nose as the shorter one kissed her cheek. Sana suspected that at this point they weren’t just friends anymore, but she was relieved to see that her ex was no longer suffering over the heartbreak that the end of their relationship had brought her.
She wishes Nayeon nothing but the best.
She comes back to reality when she realizes she’s been washing her hands for maybe 10 minutes now and has been at this restroom for longer than she had initially planned to. She doesn’t want the girls to worry about her and she feels bad for wasting so much water while lost in her thoughts, so she closes the faucet and looks up at the mirror.
She laughs to herself softly. She never thought she’d be one of those girls who do something radical to their hair after a break-up, but here she was, staring at her own reflection and thinking about how pretty her pink strands of hair look and how the color suits her really nicely.
She dries her hands with paper towels and leaves to walk back to the table she was at before heading to the restroom. She excuses herself for taking too long and proceeds to take a seat in front of the one person that she knows at this place this evening.
It was her coworker Minari’s birthday today, and since Sana was finally ready to be a social butterfly again, she came over to this rather unsophisticated and nerdy bar that Mina’s gamer friends had chosen to celebrate at. Sana didn’t mind, though.
Mina had been her crying shoulder after her tough break-up with Nayeon, and through the past six months they had become very close. The girl was very shy and reserved, so when she asked Sana if she would like to come over to her birthday celebration and hang out with her friends it meant the world to her because she knew that Mina would want to spend this day only with those she was the closest to.
Sana tries her best to socialize with all of Mina’s high school friends that were at their table. Mina had introduced them to Sana but the Japanese girl wasn’t too good at remembering foreign names, and in this case, the two smaller girls were Korean and the taller one Taiwanese.
She remembers that the small brunette’s name started with “Ch” and ended with “yon”. Chaeyeon, maybe? Mmm, something like that. The very fair-skinned girl with purple hair has a name that sounds like “dayo”. She was Korean so maybe it was “Dayoung”? Sana wonders if that’s how it would be spelled. Meanwhile, the pretty, tall girl has the easiest name amongst the three of them. “Chui”. But it’s Chinese so Sana really has no clue of how it’s written. She only hopes that the romanized spelling of their names won’t be too different from how they sound when she wants to add them on social media.
The girls are reminiscing about their teenage years, laughing and teasing each other over how awkward and cringy they used to be compared to their adult versions. Sana was doing her best to keep track of what they were saying, but strangely enough, she finds herself caught up in something else.
They’re playing Game Of Thrones episodes on the TV across their table, and although the pink-haired girl had never watched it before or felt any kind of interest towards it, she gets pretty lost in a scene that has a dragon lighting a lot of people that were in a field on fire. It’s horrifying but also fascinating, just how real it looks. She knows that dragons don’t exist and never did, but she thinks it would be amazing if they did, though also very dangerous.
Sana doesn’t know whether the woman on top of the dragon is good or bad, but she looks so powerful and confident and the Japanese girl can’t help but find it refreshing to see such a giant creature be tamed by a woman. She’s so lost in the scene that she gasps when the dragon gets hit in the wing by a giant arrow, hovering a hand over her mouth at the surprise. Her heart pounds as the creature starts to charge towards the man who’d shot the arrow that harmed it. Suddenly, some other man throws himself at the shooter to save him and they both end up underwater. Suddenly the screen turns black and Sana’s left with the suspense of it. It’s over? Like this?
“I’m here! Good evening, everyone!” Mina's fourth friend who was missing from the gathering because she had work until 8 pm says, standing by their table to Sana’s right, and once the distracted girl lays eyes on her, her heart stops and she feels like her sixteen-year-old-self all over again.
Everyone else on the table welcomes her cheerfully, but Sana is just frozen in place and speechless, and when the cause of Sana’s surprise looks over at her to greet her, the look on the pink-haired girl’s face is mirrored on the big-eyed beauty’s.
“Momo-chan?”, Sana asks, voice full of astonishment as the name and suffix leave her mouth, and she wonders if this could really be her. It’s been too long since Sana last got to see those pretty eyes and that blinding smile, but she knows it all too well. This rush of adrenaline and excitement and familiarity she’s feeling right now could only be caused by one person.
“Sacchan?”, the other girl asks back, tone laced with just as much surprise as Sana’s, “Osaka yogurt shop Sacchan?”, a dazzling smile takes over the dark-haired girl’s face and that’s all the confirmation that the Osaka native needed.
Sana doesn’t know what got into her but she jolts up from her seat in a split second once she knows that this is Momo, sweet and shy Momo, and she lunges forward to wrap the dark-haired girl in her arms, almost knocking over the empty chair beside her as she did so.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Sana says, laughing softly to herself because at this moment she feels the happiest and most excited she’s felt in months, “I missed you...” she whispers as her arms tighten their grip around the other girl’s shoulders, and it’s not until after the words leave her mouth that Sana realizes how much she actually meant them.
“I missed you too,” Momo says, leaning back from the hug a little bit to look at Sana, smiling at her just as warmly as she did when they were both sixteen, “you look even prettier than you did back then” she finishes off, hand coming up to tuck a strand of Sana’s pink hair behind her ear, and Sana hadn’t expected Momo to be more confident now because she’d always come across as the more timid one, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t pleasantly surprised.
She snaps out of it when she hears Mina clear her throat and realizes just how weird this entire scene must have looked to the rest of the girls sitting at the table, so she lets go of Momo and turns around only to see all four of them staring up at them with funny, awkward expressions.
“Mi-chan, hi! Happy birthday!” Momo says cheerfully, walking behind the birthday girl and wrapping her up in a warm hug.
“Thank you, Mochine! I’m glad you made it.” Mina replied with a smile, her voice soft and soothing as she deliberately ignored the elephant in the room and tried to return the hug by putting her arms up so she could wrap them around Momo’s neck.
“You two know each other?” the purple-haired girl sitting across from “Chui” asked bluntly, moving her hand from left to right point at Sana and Momo, causing Mina to crack up because apparently she knew this was going to happen. Her name was Dayeun, right? She was bold.
“Yeah, we used to see each other when we were younger,” Momo answered, still hugging Mina from behind, grinning as she turned to look at Sana, who was still standing at the side of the table, chair long forgotten from the moment she saw the one girl that had changed everything for her all those years ago.
Sana decides it’s a good idea to go back to her seat next to the Dayeun, because her knees are starting to feel weak again just like they used to every time Momo smiled at her upon noticing that Sana had showed up at the store again.
“So you dated?” the small girl next to Mina with a beauty mark on her chin asks, a playful smile appearing on her face, eyebrows lifting up and down as she looks at Momo.
“Not really, but I used to go buy frozen yogurt everyday at the shop she worked at just so I could see her,” Sana confesses without really thinking much about it. Her eyes widen a bit when she realizes what she’d just done.
“Wait a second,” Mina says, realization dawning on her, “that means you are the Sacchan that Momo used to mention a lot when she moved here with her family in junior year?” she inquires, eyes directed towards Sana, her tone full of disbelief.
“I guess? I mean, she started calling me that after I told her what my name was,” Sana says with a small smile, feeling shy all of a sudden, “she said it sounded much sweeter and fit me better?”
“It still does,” Momo says as she lets go of Mina and walks over to the one free chair that’s next to Sana, causing everyone at the table to stare at her in awe, amazed at the confidence she carried because the Momo they knew from high school wasn’t like this at all.
“Oh wow, I didn’t know you had this much game in you,” the purple-haired girl said in a funny, American-like accent, making everyone giggle while Momo winked at her and pretended to shoot her with a finger gun. Sana kind of wishes she had done that to her instead.
“It’s what owning a dance studio does to you,” the tall girl finally speaks, her accent different from that of the two smaller girls at the table, “it’s like switching from normal mode Mina to gaming mode Mina. Day and Night.” They all laugh again, Mina hitting the girl in the arm with her right hand and covering her face with the other one, slightly embarrassed at how different she was when her competitive streak took over.
They spent the rest of the evening chatting, drinking and laughing, Sana feeling like she was just another one amongst the group of old friends. She came to learn that the girls’ names were actually spelled Dahyun, Chaeyoung and… Tzuyu? How that’s supposed to sound like “Chui” is beyond Sana’s mind, but it is what it is.
She also took advantage of her tipsy state to let her hands sneakily graze those of the girl sitting to her right, grabbing onto her arm and leaning her head on her shoulder as she laughed whenever something funny was said.
By the end of the night, just as they were getting ready to pay leave, Sana turned to her right, slightly drunk and so, so happy. She stared at Momo intently for a moment and when the girl’s lips started to turn upwards, Sana smiled back. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten a chance like this, after so many years. So before she got too lost in the moment, she tucked her phone out of her handbag and asked the girl for her number, confessing that her biggest regret from her teenage years was that it took her too long to do it back then and then it was too late.
They began dating the following week, right at the beginning of April.
Spring meant even more to Sana ever since.
29 years old
Sana stares at the flames burning before her as she leans back into her lover’s arms, her thoughts wandering to deep places as she listens to the fire crackling and feels soft hands tracing her forearms and hands soothingly.
It was winter and Momo and her were taking a vacation from work for two weeks, so they had decided that it would be nice to have a little romantic getaway in Hokkaido. It was snowing outside and it was very cold inside despite the heating system, so Momo went on to build a fire so that the both of them could stay warm.
So here they are, sitting on a carpet that they dragged to the front of the fireplace of the small house they’d chosen to rent, Sana between Momo’s legs, laying back into her blissfully happy, head resting comfortably on her girl’s left shoulder.
“Momorin,” she mutters softly as she proceeds to intertwine their fingers together, reflecting on what she’s been thinking about for the past half hour or so.
This was her favorite thing about being with Momo. They could either have conversations about anything and everything for hours, or stay comfortably silent for long periods of time, just wrapped up in each other’s arms, both lost in their own thoughts. And what made it even better was that she never felt self-conscious to share her deepest thoughts with the other girl, because she knew that no matter how weird or complex they could get, Momo would always listen and never judge her.
She’d never reached this level of comfort with anyone else before, and it made Sana feel so at peace to have someone this close to her. Someone who meant this much to her.
“Hmm?” The girl behind her mumbles, tracing soft circles on the back of Sana’s hands with her thumbs and leaning her chin on the blonde girl’s right shoulder to somehow get even closer to her, even though their bodies were pressed flush together, fitting like a perfect puzzle, and their faces were so close, cheeks grazing each other, that they were essentially breathing in the same air.
“That myth about the red thread of fate… you know the one,” Sana says, and Momo hums in response but Sana continues, “two people destined to be with each other, tied by a red string that pulls them closer and closer until they finally end up together. Do you think that the thread is actually red? I mean, it’s obviously an invisible string because if it exists nobody can see it, but... why do you think they chose red ro represent it, out of all the colors that there are?” Sana asks, wanting to hear her lover’s interpretation..
Momo stays silent as she stares at the fire, chin still resting on Sana’s shoulder as she gets lost in her thoughts for a moment before speaking up.
“I think it must be because most people have romanticized the idea that a relationship should give you emotions that they relate to the color red? Just like in movies, they portray it as passionate, intense, full of longing and lust. You know, it’s usually like that…” she trails off. Sana hums, taking in what the girl holding her just said. She disagrees on the concept of romance that they sell off in movies and in many books, though.
“It makes sense… but I’ve had something like that and now I know that it wasn’t what I truly needed,” she says, tightening her grip on Momo’s hands, happy with how calm and relaxed she felt whenever she spent time close to her like this, “if we were meant to be together in that way— I mean, you know, we’ve been talking about all the coincidences that lead us here—” he says, for some reason a bit sheepish, “what do you think the color of our string would be?”
Momo doesn’t really have to think hard about it to answer.
“Golden,” she replies quicker than expected, as sure of it as she is that she loves Sana.
“Golden?” Sana asks, a smile taking over her face as she wonders why Momo chose that color for them, “Why?”
Momo leaves a kiss on Sana’s shoulder and another one on the nape of her neck before replying. She lets out a deep breath, and just like this, Sana knows this will be another one of their especially deep conversations. Momo begins.
“Simple. Because you’ve lit up my days ever since the day I first saw you walking through those glass doors at the yogurt shop. It was my first day and I’d forgotten to put on my uniform shirt that day so I was wearing your favorite color under that blue apron. You still light up my life up to this day. And it’s not just because you’ve dyed your hair blonde now—” she says with a soft laugh, feeling the girl in her arms vibrating from her own amusement too, “it’s because you’re the sunniest person I’ve known in my entire life. You try to make everyone around you happy and you actually manage to. It’s impressive.
“And it’s not only that, but every moment I’ve had the chance to spend time with you— and I don’t mean back when we were young and too dumbfounded and shy when we saw each other at the yogurt shop that we only managed to greet each other and make small talk— I mean ever since we started dating, I’ve felt like what we have is something so, so special. Something to cherish and take care of, like a treasure. I really believe that we were always meant to be together because I’ve never had something this precious. It’s worth more than all the fortune in the world to me.
“And at last… it’s literally right here for the entire world to see.” Momo says as she untangles her left hand fingers from Sana’s and begins to move them to trace each of the younger girl’s fingers until they land on the object she’d been looking for “A golden ring. You have one. I have its match. I’m yours and you’re mine. It’s you and me, together. Forevermore.”
Sana doesn’t know at which point throughout her wife’s speech she began to cry, but by the time her lover is finished speaking, she finds herself choking up, trying not to let the sobs she’d been holding back escape.
She’s thankful when she feels strong arms snaking around her waist to hold her tight. Another thing she loved about being with Momo was that when it came to affection, she didn’t need to ask for anything because the older girl somehow sensed whatever it was that Sana needed.
Sana wipes her tears from her cheeks and turns around, the dark haired girl’s arms loosening around her as she feels the blonde moving, and proceeds to wrap her own arms around Momo’s neck and her legs around her waist.
“I love you so much,” Sana says, her grip around the other girl tightening as she remembers everything she just said to her, “I’ve never been happier.”
“I love you too, baby,” Momo says, leaving a trail of kisses from Sana’s cheeks to her neck, “I couldn’t ask for anything else...” she whispers as she hides her face in the cook of her wife’s neck, breathing her in and enjoying the intimacy of the moment.
“If I had to go back in time and go through everything that I went through again just to end up here with you,” Sana says, leaning back a bit to find Momo’s big, dark eyes staring deeply at her, the soft smile that she loves so much right there on her perfect lips while as plays with the dark baby hairs at the nape of her neck, “I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. I’d do it over and over and over again if it meant that we would be together in the end.”
She can see that Momo’s eyes are beginning to tear up, which is a rather unusual thing, so she moves her hands up from behind the older girl’s neck to cup her face and readies her thumbs under those pretty, dark eyes to wipe away the tears whenever they come.
She’s not as surprised when Momo leans in to kiss her fiercely at this moment as she was earlier when she had said all those beautiful things to her.
She knows that her wife’s one to express her feelings through actions rather than through words. And she’s had a great time learning to interpret her body language throughout the years they’ve been together. She knows very well where this is going.
She sighs into the kiss, enjoying the way their lips fit so well together, lost in the way that Momo’s lips are pulling hers to trap them in between them just perfectly. She doesn’t know how or when it got established, but whenever they started to kiss Momo would trap Sana’s top lip between hers, leaving Sana’s to trap her bottom one. It was just their way, and Sana didn’t mind at all because she was obsessed with Momo’s bottom lip.
She enjoys the way Momo’s tender hands begin to sneak under her sweatshirt, tracing her lower back softly with her short fingernails and sending goosebumps through her skin all over the blonde girl’s body.
Sana lets go of the kiss when she feels like she’s running out of air and throws her head back, happy when her wife doesn’t stop kissing her, simply redirecting the attention to the younger girl’s neck, sucking at it softly and making the girl on top of her shut her eyes as she lets out a sigh.
Sex with her wife was amazing, but making love with her was an other-worldly experience.
Not only was her body perfectly sculpted and toned, but she was so good at everything she did that once they were finished, usually after hours of exploring each other’s bodies and giving each other pleasure, Sana was more satisfied than she’d ever felt with any other person. She didn’t know if it was Momo’s dexterity, the feelings involved, or both of them combined, but it was definitely something else entirely.
But despite how good the sex in their relationship was, Sana was aware that it was simply an amazing bonus to their relationship.
So as they’re both laying in bed later, the comforter half-covering their naked, spent bodies as they’re close to falling asleep, Sana knows. She’s known for four years now.
She no longer felt like she was longing for something, like she was lost and wandering in search for a safe place, because she had everything that she ever needed right here, next to her. She turns around and wraps one arm around her wife, feeling as though she’s soaring through heaven, and sighs happily, the exhaustion and satisfaction from the previous hours taking over her body, close to sending her to another dimension.
She had been through hell and back, yearning for what she’s lucky enough to have in her life now for so long. But every bit of pain she experienced, every tear she shed and every heartache she had gone through no longer meant anything to her, because the girl in her arms had brought such happiness and calm to her soul that all of the sadness she once felt was nothing but a long-lost memory of the past.
Still, she’s glad that everything unraveled the way that it did, because it’s thanks to that that she can appreciate how good and healthy and wonderful her relationship with Momo is, and she doesn’t take it for granted for even one day.
So right as she’s falling asleep, Sana knows. Her journey through hell had been worth it because here she was, in heaven, with her angel wrapped safely in her arms.
And she wouldn’t have had it any other way.