Chapter Text
A car passes them. It’s loud.
The headlights could be mistaken for streetlamps, or pond water, until they fade at the bend where the road curves.
The street is quiet again.
Everything is quiet again, except for her blood.
Yachi stops.
She takes a breath.
“I love you!”
Kiyoko is only a step or two ahead. She stops. Her eyes are wide, behind her glasses, but more so behind the dark. She stares at Yachi.
It’s dark out.
“I love you, too, Hitoka-chan.”
Kiyoko pauses a moment more, and then she continues. The ground crunches softly beneath her.
Yachi flinches as a dead streetlamp above her flickers to life. It's uneven, blinding as the light settles in the glass, dimming and brightening, until mellow light seeps out of it. She stares up at it, blinking, with blood in her ears.
She stares back at Kiyoko.
Kiyoko, waiting for her at the next streetlamp.
Yachi hesitates. She catches up after a few seconds.
"Everything okay?" Kiyoko asks.
They continue down the street on gentle gravel together. If Yachi looked down, a little to her left, she could see Kiyoko's fingers at her side. She stares at the ground in front of her instead.
Kiyoko's fingers always look so soft. They feel soft. Like almond butter. Like her skin is made out of the same material as rose petals.
"Sorry," Yachi says. "I'm fine."
"You've been acting different today."
"I have?"
"Sort of all week, actually."
"Oh."
"It's alright," Kiyoko says. "I'm just worried about you."
"Don't be," Yachi probably says that too quickly. "I mean I'm fine." She corrects herself, shaking. "I don't want you to worry about me. Okay?"
"Okay."
They walk for a few more minutes in this silence.
Kiyoko bumps Yachi's shoulder with her own.
She has that small smile on her lips, looking down at Yachi with black hair pulled back. Yachi wishes she didn't look up at that smile. Not right now, anyway, when another car passes and the headlights shine on Kiyoko's face.
Her lips glisten in the headlights. Lips that always look pinker when she smiles.
As soon as they turn onto her street, Yachi feigns a smile back and darts into the lobby of her apartment building.
She ducks into the corner, on carpet where she can see through the glass windows.
Outside, she sees Kiyoko.
Kiyoko, staring through the doors.
Kiyoko, standing there, clutching her bag, just staring at the front doors.
Yachi squeezes her eyes shut.
When she opens them, Kiyoko isn't there anymore.
Yachi's mom isn't home yet, thank goodness, so she shuts her bedroom door behind her and drops her things at the foot of her bed. She sits on her covers.
A few more moments, and then she falls back, tucking her legs up against her chest. She grabs the first plush she can feel, buries her face into it. A stuffed white dog her mom gave her. It smells like her mom, and the remnants of a perfume Yachi once tried on but ended up spraying too much of a few months ago. Vanilla… Cherry vanilla…
Yachi sobs into the plush. Her fingernails dig into its softness, and her tears taste like cherry vanilla.
All of this week, all of the wind that passed through her hair on her way home with Kiyoko tonight. Everything since Kiyoko Shimizu approached her in the hallway how many months ago, Yachi cries.
She's still crying when her mom comes home.
She's still crying when her mom slips a plate of dinner through her door and shuts it.
Eventually, Yachi calms down enough to pull a tissue off her bedside table. 9:03 PM.
She wipes her nose and cheeks. The bit of mascara she puts on before school rubs off like charcoal on her skin. She tosses the tissue on the floor, sitting back against the heap of blankets she's been crying into.
Her phone lights up as she pulls it into her lap.
Two new messages from Yamaguchi.
One new message from Kiyoko.
She sniffles, tapping on the texts from Yamaguchi.
7:14 PM
Yamaguchi: hey !!
Yamaguchi: how are you feeling? how did it go?
9:05 PM
Yachi: :(((
Yachi: it did not go well. she doesn't get it
Yamaguchi: what do you mean ?? :(
Yachi: she thinks i love her as a friend
Yamaguchi: what did she say?
Yachi: she said she loves me back
Yamaguchi: isn't that a good thing?
Yachi: no it's a bad thing
Yachi: because she means it platonically. she thought i meant it platonically too
Yachi: she doesn't understand
Yachi knew this would happen.
She knew Kiyoko wouldn't understand.
Because the first time Yachi said "I love you," Kiyoko was putting chairs away in the gym. She smiled at Yachi, just like she did when that car passed. And she said "I love you" back. Just like she did on the sidewalk.
The first time they held hands, they were walking home together like they were earlier.
The first time they cuddled, Yachi accidentally rolled onto Kiyoko's futon at summer training in Tokyo. Kiyoko played with her hair, and Yachi couldn't fall asleep because Kiyoko was playing with her hair.
Kiyoko's thighs felt like sleep, even though Yachi's eyes were open.
Yachi puts her phone on her bedside table. She curls up beneath her sheets, tugging the plush close to her again. Her toes curl, and a few remaining tears stain her pillow, her uniform which she can't find the energy to change out of.
She loves her.
The kind of love that girls have for each other, like Kiyoko thinks. But also the kind of love that makes Yachi want to kiss her. The kind of love that involves planning what kind of dresses they would wear at their wedding.
And Kiyoko doesn't get it, because Yachi is a girl.
Yachi is a friend.
Falling asleep with her sheets the color of tears, Yachi wonders what flavor of wedding cake Kiyoko would like.
Kiyoko's smile. Her blue under street light.
"Hitoka!" Her mother knocks on her door in a hurry. "Weren't you supposed to leave twenty minutes ago?"
Yachi opens her eyes to sunlight even though it was dark a second ago, just a second ago when she shut her eyes. She struggles with her blankets, stumbling out of bed and tripping over slippers, all the while sleep in her eyes makes everything blurry except for her clock. Crap, she was actually supposed to leave thirty minutes ago.
"Coming!"'
She slings her bag over her back, almost forgetting her phone.
"One sec!"
Her mother sighs but hands her a bento in the kitchen as Yachi rushes out the door.
She barely makes it in time for her first class and sits down, dazed, flinching as her alarm goes off while her teacher is talking. She turns it off with bright pink cheeks. It's enough to make her forget all about last night.
Yamaguchi peeks his head into her classroom at the break.
She doesn't forget for long.
"Where were you this morning?" Yamaguchi kneels at her desk.
Yachi slumps forward, lays her head on her desk. "I overslept."
"You had a big night," Yamaguchi nudges her hand. "Don't beat yourself up."
She groans into her elbow, pulling her phone out.
There's a text from Yamaguchi asking where she is.
A message from Kiyoko that she sent last night.
Yachi forgot. She rubs her eye and sits up, both hands gripping her phone. She forgot.
Yesterday 9:00 PM
Kiyoko: I hope you sleep well tonight, Hitoka-chan
Yamaguchi peers over her shoulder.
"She was asking about you." He says. "This morning. She was asking where you were. She was worried."
Yachi touches the message with her fingernail.
"She… She was?"
"Yeah."
"Well… That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change anything."
"It doesn't change anything, but when Hinata is late, or Tanaka-san or Daichi-san, she isn't as concerned as she was this morning."
"Yams-"
"I'm just saying."
"Okay, I know, but it's a girl thing!" Yachi puts her phone down, turns to Yamaguchi with her hands in her lap. "You don't get it. When Tsukishima is worried about you, that's cute and gay and it means something."
"It's cute and gay when Kiyoko-senpai is worried about you."
"It's different! It's different because we're both girls. It's not- It doesn't stand out that she's worried I'm late. Do you see what I mean? Just like it doesn't mean anything when I say 'I love you,' and when we hold hands, and walk home together, and-"
"Okay, I get it." Yamaguchi puts a hand on her knee. "It's different. But it's still sweet."
Yachi tries to focus in the rest of her classes, she really does, but the corners of her papers are covered in doodles. She's horrified to realize one of them is a sketch of Kiyoko's fingers.
She can't focus, thinking about Kiyoko sending that text last night. The time she took to type those characters.
Does she send texts like those to her other friends?
Her other friends who are girls?
But she probably tells her other friends who are girls that she loves them, too. She probably holds hands with them and plays with their hair, and basically everything that Yachi interprets in a romantic way that Kiyoko doesn't.
Yachi hides in the bathroom after class. She pulls at the wrinkles in her uniform, readjusts the charms in her hair a million times. The sound of approaching footsteps sends her rushing into a stall to hide until they leave.
She doesn't want to see Kiyoko.
She doesn't want to see Kiyoko until she remembers what Yamaguchi said… That Kiyoko was worried about her.
Is Kiyoko worried about her now?
What color are Kiyoko's eyes when she's worried about her?
It's enough to send Yachi, slowly, towards the clubroom. She keeps her head down, her bag in front of her as she walks.
This shouldn't be as stressful as it is, seeing as her confession didn't exactly get through. But it's always sort of stressful seeing Kiyoko.
If her anxiety had a name, Yachi assumes it would be Kiyoko.
She spends an unnecessary amount of time changing into her white practice t-shirt. And then somehow, she musters the energy to move her body into the gym, the gym where she catches a glimpse of Kiyoko's ponytail and almost begins to cry.
Yachi's hands curl at her sides.
She steps in.
"Hitoka-chan!" Kiyoko is calling out to her before she can breathe. "There you are. I was worried." She walks over, water bottles in hand.
"I'm sorry. I overslept."
"That's alright."
Yachi can't meet her eyes. She doesn't know what color they are.
Kiyoko pauses beside her a moment, but then she's on her way to get water. Yachi looks up. All she can see is the back of Kiyoko's head.
Practice feels longer than school, to Yachi. She busies herself with keeping score during their scrimmage, refilling water despite Kiyoko's insistence that she'll do it.
When Kiyoko is too close, Yachi takes a step back.
They begin cleaning up. Kiyoko is too close, moving the scoreboard, and Yachi moves out of her way. Three steps back. Four.
And finally, when she can see the sun over the hill, when they finish earlier than usual and Yachi won't have to explain to Kiyoko why she's walking home alone. But then Yamaguchi says he forgot something in the clubroom. Yachi doesn't know how to say no.
She hurries up the stairs, repeating the words "blue notebook" so she can get it quickly.
She steps inside, and Kiyoko is there.
Kiyoko, slipping her glasses on.
Yachi spots the notebook on the floor. She grabs it quickly, turning to flee, praying that maybe God is sympathetic today and Kiyoko won't notice her.
God is never sympathetic.
"Hitoka-chan," Kiyoko says, surprised. "Wait. I want to talk to you."
Yachi freezes.
"Shimizu-senpai."
"I know something is going on." Kiyoko folds her arms across her chest. "There's something you won't tell me. I don't want to pry, but you're upset about something."
"Shimizu-senpai…"
"Is it something I can help with?"
"It’s, no, it’s not- Shimizu-senpai…"
Kiyoko steps closer.
Yachi doesn't have room to step back.
"It feels like you’re ignoring me," Kiyoko says, softly.
"I wasn't ignoring you-"
"Then why weren't you looking at me?"
"I wasn’t-”
“Hitoka-chan, you still aren’t-”
“Please don’t think I was ignoring-”
“-You’re still not looking at me.”
Yachi looks up. Her eyes meet Kiyoko’s eyes. She knows she’s blushing thoroughly, violently, stupidly. She gets caught on Kiyoko’s drawn brows and parted lips.
“There.” Kiyoko murmurs.
Her bangs spill out from behind her ear, down her cheek. A few strands curl up and touch her beauty mark.
“I wasn’t ignoring you.” Yachi says quietly.
"Really?"
"Really." Yachi lies.
"Do you have feelings for someone, Hitoka-chan?"
Yachi’s eyes widen; hot-cold air floods her chest, but when her attention flits to the wall, Kiyoko steps that way.
Kiyoko watches her, fingers twisting nervously in front of her waist.
"It wasn’t… I… Yes," Yachi says. “I do,” she blurts.
Her fight or flight tells her she's walking into moving traffic. But all of those pep talks Yamaguchi gave her, they must mean something. She was supposed to confess last night; if it's today instead...
Kiyoko takes a small step back.
"I thought that could be it."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Yachi tries to breathe.
"It's okay. You don't have to tell me who it is, unless you want to."
Yachi remains still, not fully understanding. It takes a moment.
"But I just want to help you. Whatever that looks like." Kiyoko says.
"Wait." Yachi grips the notebook. "You mean you don't know who it is?"
"Should I?"
Yachi knew this would happen.
"You can talk about your feelings with me, you know," Kiyoko goes on. "I know you get anxious easily. I'm sure you're anxious about your feelings, too, aren't you?"
Yachi knew this would happen.
"Have you thought about confessing?" Kiyoko asks.
She knew Kiyoko wouldn't understand.
"I tried- I tried already," Yachi stammers. "And s- I mean, he didn't get it." That pronoun sounds so wrong in her voice. "But he's older than me, and I don't have any experience."
Kiyoko raises her eyebrows. "Experience?"
"Wait, I mean, not like that! But you know what I mean. I guess I mean, relationship experience. I haven't confessed before, or kissed anyone, or-"
"I see.”
"Mhm.”
Yachi stares at the ground, at the place between her shoes until she's sure an earthquake is about to happen because the ground has to be trembling.
Kiyoko takes a breath.
"Would it make you less anxious if you had experience like that?"
"...Probably."
"Then… That's something I can help with."
She looks up at Kiyoko.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Kiyoko shifts her weight. She looks at the floor, the same place Yachi was looking. The skin around her beauty mark is pink. "I've kissed someone before. I could help you."
A beat.
"You mean…" Yachi swallows and it hurts. "You mean you want… You want to kiss me?"
"If it will make you less anxious," Kiyoko says, "then I don't mind."
Kiyoko looks up beneath her eyelashes. Her eyes are so blue.
Yachi wonders what her own eyes look like.