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Kohane stares at her ceiling and counts sheep in her head, from one to ten and back to one again.
Somehow, her nighttime routine has become the same every day. In the past, it was never so consistent, what with wanting to stay up late to read girls’ love manga or ending up finding herself absorbed in her own thoughts for hours. But after graduating to high school, she’s come to understand the true value of sleep, and consequently, of sleeping early. It helps that she’s always been a morning person.
On nights when they don’t have events lined up, she starts packing her bag for the next day at ten, brushes her teeth and washes her face fifteen minutes later, and is in bed by ten thirty. She turns her lights off at eleven, and it takes her between ten and twenty minutes to fall asleep.
This is how it’s been for the whole year- or at least, most of it.
Because recently, there’s been a new addition to her routine in the form of one Shiraishi An, or her partner, or her An-chan. An goes to sleep at different times each night all the way to morning (sometimes, Kohane wonders if she sleeps at all) yet still manages to smile as brightly as always whenever they meet each other. She texts Kohane regardless of if she’s awake or asleep, and replies to her with as much enthusiasm either way.
Kohane has grown used to it because it’s An.
So now, when it’s half past eleven and Kohane is buried under the blankets piled on top of her, she can’t help but wonder about how An does it. For Kohane to be unable to fall asleep isn’t particularly uncommon, but she’s tired both physically and mentally and just wants to close her eyes. She takes shallow breaths and moves around on her bed weakly in an effort to remedy her sleeplessness.
If she had as much energy as An did, she wouldn’t need to stay swallowed in the slowly sweltering heat of her sheets. Or if An was with her, she’s sure she’d be able to fall asleep easily. Kohane doesn’t know what to think or what to want. The clock on her bedside table ticks away every minute, and her eyes flutter along with its rhythm.
Just as Kohane feels she’s about to fall asleep, the screen of her phone blinks. She must have forgotten to turn her notifications off. The sudden glow of light makes her rub at her eyes. She reaches over and blindly grabs for her phone- her lockscreen reads a time three minutes later than her clock.
Below that, though, is a message from An. Shiraishi An, or her partner, or her An-chan. ‘Are you awake?’ it says.
Kohane doubts she’d be able to fall asleep even if she put her phone back down and rolled over. So she unlocks her phone and opens her messages, typing a response with shaky thumbs. She makes a typo once, and then twice, until she deletes her entire message and sends a sticker instead.
It loads, and then sends. An reads it. Barely a second later, she calls. Her icon is a picture of the two of them together.
As soon as Kohane picks up and holds the phone up to her ear, she hears An’s voice. “Kohane!” she says. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
Kohane sniffles and pulls her blanket up to her mouth. “No,” she mumbles. “I couldn’t fall asleep.”
An’s sigh of relief is clear even over the phone. “I was worried I would bother you,” she says. “You know, if you’re too tired, you can always hang up on me. I don’t mind.”
“I want to talk to you,” Kohane says, albeit muffled by how half her face is pressed against the pillow.
There’s a moment of silence. Across the line, Kohane hears the rustling of leaves and the grainy feedback that comes from the wind blowing into the phone speaker. For whatever reason, An is outside- at eleven thirty, almost twelve. Perhaps it’s better not to ask.
In the end, An tells her anyway. “Sorry, it’s windy outside,” she says over the background noise. “It’s not that cold, though. Hey, how tired are you?”
She’s tired enough to want to sleep for the next few days consecutively, but talking to An feels like she’s receiving some of her energy back, even if only a little. “Are you doing something, An-chan?”
“I’m, uh,” An laughs. “Kind of outside your house right now.”
Initially, Kohane’s first thought is that An should really phrase her sentences better. Her second thought is that, well, what? What?
Her eyes dart towards the window, curtains only half drawn to leave the middle of it uncovered. She drags herself out of the warm blankets so that she’s sitting upright against the headboard of her bed at an angle where she can look out. Barely anything is visible save for the street lamps that glow dimly and turn off for strange periods of time, but when she squints, she sees the silhouette of what might be An standing on the sidewalk.
“An-chan,” Kohane says.
The silhouette waves a blurry arm- it’s definitely An. “I see you now!” she cheers.
With whatever life Kohane has left in her, she slowly peels the heavy blanket off of her and slips off of the bed. Her slippers are somewhere in the room- maybe by the door, or under her dresser- so she doesn’t bother to find them at all, and instead shuffles towards the window in only her pyjamas. It doesn’t take long to open the window and pull the curtains apart a little more. At the very least, the light that comes from the window isn’t enough to make her eyes hurt, and seeing An ends up being all worth it.
Even if it’s as not-that-cold as An says it is, Kohane thinks she’s wearing far too little for the night weather. An is staring up at her with her phone to her ear, in a baggy shirt and unbuttoned jacket, and when her eyesight adjusts to the outside lighting she sees that An’s socks are different colours. “An-chan, you’ll get cold,” she says.
An shakes her head and changes her hand to a thumbs-up. “I’m good, don’t worry. What about you?”
“My room is warm,” Kohane responds. “Sometimes too hot.”
She hears the whistling of the wind in the speaker, and then An’s faint humming. “Want to come outside?” she asks.
Maybe at the beginning of the school year, Kohane would have said no in favour of the opportunity to rest well and get to bed on time, all so she could wake up early the next day. But seeing An by her front yard as if she’s been waiting for her makes her want to say otherwise. Her bedroom is warm in the stuffy way, the way she doesn’t like and feels clouded in. An is warm in the familiar way, from her gentle hugs to her whispers of anything and nothing.
She makes a decision faster than she expects. “I’ll put my coat on,” she says.
An’s cheer of joy fades out of hearing range once Kohane puts her phone down on her bed, but she sees An grinning outside, and that’s enough. She reaches for her coat in the corner of her room and tucks it over her pyjamas. One glance in the mirror is all she needs to know she looks ridiculous: heavy winter coat layered over soft blue pyjamas. Maybe she should wear polka dot socks.
There’s no time to mull over it. She grabs whatever pair she can find and sits on her bed at the same time, grabbing the phone and propping it up against her shoulder and her ear. “An-chan? Are you still there?”
“Yup!” An replies.
Kohane wears her slippers backwards, and fumbles her way out of her room with one arm tucked in her jacket sleeve. “I’ll be out soon,” she says.
At the very least, it’s good that her parents haven’t come home yet. She wouldn’t know what to tell them, because the truth of the situation is that leaving the house when it’s almost midnight only because her girlfriend asked her to isn’t something she’d want to admit. Although she guesses that somewhere in her, there’s always been an urge to sneak out like this, to have fun and enjoy the air freely during the quietest times of the day.
It wouldn’t surprise her if An knew that, if she guessed it too.
The doorknob is cold even on the inside, but Kohane unlocks it and twists it open easily. An is waiting for her right in front of the porch steps- the warm light from inside the house shines on her skin, no matter how faintly, and makes her look like a fairy with her sparkling hair and sparkling eyes and sparkling everything.
By this time in the season, most of the snow has melted, so Kohane wears her sneakers instead of her boots and steps outside. The door clicks shut behind her, and An smiles in front of her. “Hey,” she says. She walks forward.
Kohane holds onto the edge of her own coat until An reaches her and hugs her, enveloping her in the colours of blue and gold and An. “Hi,” she responds.
For a moment, this is all they do. An nuzzles her face into the crook of Kohane’s neck, and Kohane lets her, gently tangling her fingers into An’s hair in return. Her neighbours must know An by both first and last name, what with how often An clings to her at the doorway, but Kohane can’t say she minds at all.
But eventually An does lean backwards, all to kiss Kohane sweetly. “Your socks are cute,” she mumbles against her lips. She smells like lavender.
She looks down and notices that her socks are polka dotted after all. “They’re thick,” she says. She holds onto An’s arm. “Good for the winter.”
“Well, it’s basically spring now,” An says. She takes Kohane’s hand into her own and presses their palms together. “But you’re right, it still is kinda cold, huh? I don’t wanna make you stay out for too long.”
Kohane has a hundred things to say, a thousand if you count everything she’s already said in the past, but she links their pinkies together instead. “Did you want to show me something?”
“More like take you somewhere, if you’re up for it,” An responds. She smiles cheekily and pokes Kohane’s face. “If you don’t want to walk, I can carry you, by the way.”
If she were more awake, Kohane would want to hide her face and tell An she’s being unfair, but the vague drowsiness she’s felt for the past few hours means she hums absentmindedly and leans into An’s side instead. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she says softly. “I’ll be okay, An-chan. We can go.”
“If you say so,” An says. “But the offer’s always open.”
Instead of any more conversation, Kohane tugs her coat on tightly and leads An out towards the sidewalk. It takes a bit of time to walk properly, to keep herself steady when she’s just come from the fluffiness of her blankets to the cold air here, but An’s presence beside her helps. What little of the snow is left makes spots of white on the sidewalk that crunch under her footsteps, echoing in what is otherwise complete silence.
Almost complete, at least. Every now and then, the wind rustles the branches of the trees and whistles as it passes past Kohane’s ears. More importantly, An crunches the snow just as much and walks just as loudly and keeps her just as close as always, all familiar sounds and feelings that comfort her in the dark.
Like most times, she doesn’t know where An is taking her, but she trusts An with her heart and hand and everything in between. It won’t be anywhere far if An intends to take her back home before her parents return, but she can’t think of anywhere notable within the neighbourhood, especially not when it’s this late.
But An walks, and holds Kohane’s hand like she has no plans to let it go, so Kohane follows her in her sneakers and polka dot socks.
They reach the bus stop, the one where Kohane often waits to take the line leading to Weekend Garage. An brings her past it, then to the right, down a path that sprouts out from the main sidewalk and into a small field of short grass. In the distance is the silhouette of a construction site. In front of them is a playground.
“There it is,” An says. She momentarily presses against Kohane’s palm with her thumb before dragging her forward. “I was worried I got lost again.”
So that’s it: An’s ‘somewhere’ she had wanted to take Kohane is here, the playground she had visited every weekend in grade school and the playground they’d went to at the end of their first date, wasting hours of the nighttime standing on the swingset and sitting by the bright red staircase. She remembers how An had asked her to stay with her a little longer, and then how she’d led An down the same path from her house to the field. She doesn’t think she could ever forget.
The park is as empty as it was back then, each crevice filled with open space. Looking at it in the dark, it’s really nothing to be impressed by given its size. The playground is centered in the sandpit, made up of a playhouse connected to a swing set with bending slides around poles and every colour imaginable.
It makes her heart feel light and fluttery. Kohane imagines fleeting images of An’s smile from their first date, and every smile after that.
An takes her towards the swing set. She lets go of her hand and sits on one seat, and then pats the other. “C’mere,” she says. Kohane tucks her coat under her and sits down.
The swings face the sidewalk they had just come from, and the neighbourhood that sits beyond the road. The few lights of the houses that stay on resemble stars dotted against the shadows of the roofs. With how open the view is in front of them, the wind that blows against Kohane’s face is undisrupted in its flow.
She looks to her side, at An, and sees that her hair falls on her back and looks like it waves in the same wind. An notices and looks back.
It’s a few minutes before midnight, and the moon is hanging at the top of the sky, and An is beautiful. Kohane digs the heels of her sneakers into the sand and pushes herself backwards, staying propped at an angle. “It wasn’t this late when we first came here,” she says.
“I didn’t want to keep you for so long,” An replies. She kicks at the sand, making the swingset creak. “I had to leave a good impression on your parents.”
Kohane holds onto the metal links on either side of the seat. They’re cold to the touch, but she grips them tightly nonetheless and rocks herself forwards and backwards. “What’ll they think of us going out on a school night?”
“Well, they know me now,” An says, waving her hand dismissively. “And they know I love you way too much to do anything that’d be bad for you.”
Following Kohane’s example, An eases herself into a gentle swinging motion. It’s not so much that they can’t still talk to each other, but it’s enough for Kohane’s feet to lift off of the ground and for her to be able to stretch her legs out. “You seem confident, An-chan,” she says.
“I don’t think I’m wrong,” An teases.
Kohane shakes her head. “Maybe you’re not,” she replies.
Her parents do like An, have liked her since they first met her when she went to their house and introduced herself as Kohane’s partner and gave them a big box of tangerines as a gift. They’ve been asking Kohane increasingly often to invite An over again, or prodding her for more details about their performances during dinner. It can’t be avoided when Kohane herself had been captivated too, just by seeing An on stage when they first met.
Between that time and now, a lot has happened. Too much, or not enough, or an amount she can’t decide. Kohane enjoyed all of those times and she enjoys the present, where they sit on the swings and listen to the faint sounds of the metal hoops against themselves.
“Kohane,” An hums. She turns her head, and some of her hair falls against her shoulder. “Your parents are coming back later, right?”
She readjusts her position and nods. “Around one.”
“So tomorrow?” An stops her movements with one sneaker digging into the sand, and takes her phone from her pocket. She glances at the time- it’s three minutes to twelve, or to tomorrow.
“Tomorrow…” Kohane mumbles. “I guess so. Did you need something?”
“Nah, not really,” An replies. Her lips curl up like she’s trying not to laugh. “Just asking about my future parents-in-law.”
Kohane shouldn’t have expected anything else from An. She sighs and smiles, reaching out to gently bat at An’s arm. An catches her wrist and takes her hand in her own instead, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. It’s sweet, and warm, and makes Kohane feel light from her head to her toes.
“You make it sound like you’re proposing, An-chan,” Kohane says softly.
She lets her hand fall into An’s grasp as An brushes over her ring finger. “Should I propose for real, then?” An asks.
Kohane is about to say something in return, another word of lightheartedness or another laugh as she normally does, until An reaches into pocket once more with her free hand. She furrows her eyebrows and Kohane watches as she takes out a small box. Covered in velvet lining, wrapped with a pink ribbon. Blue like the colour of her hair. Her breath hitches.
She’s able to get the box open with only one hand. Nestled in the middle of its cushion is a silver band, thin and smooth and decorated with pink gems like the petals of a cherry blossom.
A ring. It’s a ring, and it’s An who’s giving it to her.
An looks as pretty as ever, as wonderful as ever with the box in her hand and her view fixed on Kohane. The corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles.
Before Kohane knows it, she’s crying. It’s just a little bit at first, one tear that beads up and falls down the side of her cheek, and then it’s too many at once and too much at once and Kohane can’t see anything but the blurred view of An’s bright smile and the way her eyes shine under the moon.
“So, how about it?” An says. She puts the box down on her lap and wipes at Kohane’s face with her thumb, soft and familiar. “Wanna marry me?”
What does An expect for her to say? Kohane sees how An holds her hand so lovingly, and so comfortably, and she feels warmth in her fingertips. “An-chan,” she says, sniffling. “Did you…? The ring-”
“I guess it isn’t really a ring,” An says. She tucks her hair behind her ear and points to her earring, and when Kohane looks carefully, she sees that she wears a silver ring just like the one on her lap, with small blue crystals across its width. “I got mine like this, and I asked for yours to be put on a necklace. I thought you’d like it more.”
It’s ridiculous, because Kohane does. She really does like it, the idea of keeping her ring close to her heart and keeping An even closer. An knows so, because she’s An.
“Are these…” Kohane’s voice trails off without her realising it. “You say you asked for it. Does that mean…”
“They weren’t custom made, but I had them modified,” An answers. She takes the box with the ring and shows Kohane the hidden pocket on the pack with a necklace chain. “They were in the store, right beside each other, like they were made to match.”
An loops the chain through the ring, and then holds it up around Kohane’s neck. Kohane holds her breath as An reaches behind her to clasp it together. “I don’t know what to say, An-chan,” she murmurs.
It’s beautiful, it’s lovely, it’s everything she could have asked for. All these words on the tip of her tongue, but nothing she finds herself wanting to express. Maybe all she can do is say An’s name, over and over again, until An calls her name in return.
An adjusts the necklace so that the ring sits perfectly centred in its place. “As I thought, it looks the best when you’re wearing it,” she says. She tilts her head to the side and her earring catches the light of the moon. “Not bad for a proposal, don’t you think?”
“So we’re getting married now, An-chan?” Kohane replies. The blue of An’s hair is vivid like her eyes, like her earring, like her everything.
“Yup,” An says. She moves back and forth on the swingset, little by little with her sneakers as an anchor. “Then, when I watch you sing on stage, I can tell everyone ‘Hey, that’s my wife!’ or something.”
Kohane smiles. “Will we live together?”
“In a two-story house with a fancy alarm system,” An replies.
“I’d like a garden.”
An laughs. “Anything you want, as long as we can go and get married now.”
The swingset creaks when Kohane pushes herself just once against the sand, going backwards and then forwards as it slows down. “We’re in high school, An-chan,” she says softly. “We’ll need to wait a few more years at least.”
“That’s fine,” An responds. “I’ll just propose to you every day, until we really do get married.”
It’s just like An to say so. It’s just like An to take Kohane’s breath away even in the open space between the sky and the sand below them. An looks at her like she’s a constellation, and Kohane sees thousands more stars in her eyes, in her hair, and she feels sparks when An holds her hand.
“When we’re older,” Kohane says.
An’s eyes twinkle. “Yeah, when we’re older.”
Then An opens her mouth as if to say more, but her voice is caught and all Kohane can do is wonder why. Until An blinks hard, and finds her phone to tap on its screen, and her eyes widen.
An gets up from her seat and moves towards Kohane so fast she almost trips, barely managing to catch onto the chains of Kohane’s swing seat. She lets go and hugs Kohane tightly, with her arms and her warmth and her lavender. “I can’t believe I almost missed it,” she says, muffled by how close she is to Kohane. “Happy birthday.”
Ah, that’s what it is. In her hand, Kohane sees a glimpse of An’s phone screen, brightly lit in the dark as it lists the time. Just past twelve. Just past midnight.
And now it’s tomorrow. Or today, which was tomorrow just ten minutes ago. It’s the second of the month, and it’s the feeling of An’s lips against hers for the second time too, and more than before Kohane feels like she’s floating.
She knows that An is smiling before she sees it. “I was the first, right?” An says. She pulls away from her, but still stays close, maybe even closer than before.
Kohane doesn’t know who else would do such a thing, would invite her out close to midnight and keep her company and steal her attention (and her heart) just to wish her a happy birthday, just to be first. Because it’s An, she feels it’s only right for it to have happened this way.
Because it’s An, she laughs and looks forward and kisses her once more again. “Thank you, An-chan,” she replies. “You were the first.”
She wonders what she’s talking about. It doesn’t matter, not when An’s expression lights up from such a simple sentence, and not when Kohane’s heart beats in her chest embarrassingly loud from seeing it. The night breeze is there, must still be there since An’s bangs go left and right and get in her eye, but she doesn’t feel it at all.
Kohane is older now, by a whole year. It’s one step closer to really getting married, or so An would say. The ring on the necklace is a comfortable weight against her heart. An’s earring is as pretty as the rest of her.
In their little slice of the world, in their bubble of shared thought and whispers of meaningless words, it isn’t a year that passes. It’s just one more minute, or one more second, or one more I love you that floats up and up into the night.
It’s one more moment with An, and it’s enough.