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Today is a day of celebration for Akane: it’s the first anniversary of the day her girlfriend came out to her!
One would think it’d be an awkward memory of hers, considering that’s exactly why her girlfriend’s kept saying ever since it happened. Akane, however, really doesn’t: she very much believes in the content of the message rather than in its form (…and it’s gotten her into a lot of troubles, at times), so as long as she understood, it was all that mattered to her about the form of it all. She didn’t care if it was awkward, or embarrassing, or angry – as long as she could read the message as intended.
What really was important, to Akane, was learning that her best friend, whom she had cherished ever since they were children, was a girl and, on top of it, had had a crush on her for who knew how long – she herself didn’t know because her platonic and romantic feelings formed a single ensemble, intertwined with steel. Her face was red, her eyes crazed, her breathing nervous and heavy – it was the most earnest declaration of love and coming-out letter Akane had ever seen.
She loved it.
After this, they decided to get to the next step, be it in their relationship or her friend’s journey to affirm herself. Akane was absolutely the sort to go to every medical appointment and pharmacy trip with her girlfriend… which the latter was initially seemingly not too pleased about, before admitting it felt reassuring to have someone by her side during troubled times. Truly, they were making steps, sometimes small, sometimes big.
The biggest step was finding a new name, for her friend. They brainstormed it a lot, tried to check if an already existing female name didn’t please her, but then she remembered what her (very accepting) mother said about her birth name – and, realizing she could just pronounce the meaning first kanji of it, the name Shino was born. A beautiful message indeed.
That was a year ago, though, and since then, loads of things happened. A lot of explanations happened (about Shino, about their relationship, about how life’s gone since last time), most of them going smoothly, some of them less; it helped them see who was worth keeping by their sides and who wasn’t. It was painful, sometimes, of course, and Shino has always been the sort of person to be naturally distrustful of people, thus worsening the phenomenon in that regard – but, for the most part, it was fine.
These days, their social circles have been nothing but accepting, which in terms mixed well with how much Shino’s blossomed. Akane was glad to give her hair tips and to teach her how to tie her hair into pigtails or a ponytail, even told her how to brain hair in case she wanted to try that out. It didn’t remove the tomboyish edge she had always had, of course, so Akane also reassured her that masculine girls existed and that, the further she’d get, the more she could give into that aspect of her personality.
Their way to celebrate their progress may not seem conventional, while to some it must look cliché: they’re just in a park, picnicking, because the weather is clement and it was something they could put together quickly in case they had to cancel or postpone. Fortunately, they didn’t, so they could celebrate the anniversary on its exact day. It’s a great thing that, for once, things go how they planned they would: that doesn’t happen nearly as often as she’d have liked, but hey, what’s life without a little bit of spice?
Having a moment of reprieve like that where they can just discuss what’s happened in a year or chat about whatever goes through their minds (classes, series, random tidbits) is still very much what she wanted.
They could be doing a big thing, like an entire day in an amusement parc or a party, but Shino is still not entirely good with those. Her passing is still partial, to her, and until she finds it good enough, she’s silently avoiding a lot of social outings. Not that she’d speak about those, because hiding her true feelings behind the mask of the “field’s devil” was how she coped with so many things (apparent betrayal, dysphoria, anger and sadness, identity troubles), but it’s no worries, because Akane has learnt to communicate through gestures and silence words.
They’ve had to adapt and navigate changed dynamics, after all. It wasn’t always easy or even felt natural, requiring efforts and considerations she had never had before, but it’s been worth it. It’ll always be worth it if it’s for the sake of Shino, especially now that they’ve got nothing to hide from each other: for Shino, it was her real identity, for Akane it was her attraction, and she really doesn’t think Shino’s ever regretted her choices from that day, no matter how much hassle it’s brought them.
God, she can still remember how clammy her hands were when she first realized she’d eventually have to tell people about being bisexual. Even her best friend suddenly scared her a little: even if she knew they’d be accepting, she was also afraid of people’s judgement or of having to explain so much to someone who may not have even heard of the term before. To her luck, Shino’s reaction was then something of a “oh, okay, whatever floats your boat I guess”.
It was something she had to remind her exactly a year ago because, in the couple of years that happened between the two instances, the world had spun thousands and thousands of times. A refresher truly can’t hurt when it’s the solution to an issue that could otherwise fester and make its surroundings rot away.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Her girlfriend spurts out of the blue. “We didn’t come here just for me to stare right at my face, did we?”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Akane replies, chuckling. “How about I show you what I baked for the occasion…”
“Please tell me you didn’t try to bake another of those ‘savoury cakes’.” She pauses. “Oh my god, you brought the candles too. You’re so fucking embarrassing, I swear.”
“I see that smile on your face, you’re happy that I thought about it!”
“And what if I did, huh?!”
“Well then just tell me!”
“Okay, I’ll admit it: it’s sweet. Disgustingly sweet, but sweet nonetheless… I guess.”
“That’s progress!” Akane pours them two glasses of orange juice, hands one to Shino. “Cheers!”
“Cheers.”