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They just happened to lose track of time one night. After spending the day shopping together, they decided to spend time together at Mizuki’s house. They’re playing Undertale (or, better put: playing it again, for the third time) as Ena draws on her iPad, splayed across their bed. They causally banter, Mizuki not paying much attention to the words crossing their computer monitor and Ena struggling to produce a decent line. Neither of them notice the time pass.
“Oh. Fuck,” Mizuki’s eyes glance to the time displayed on their computer, “the trains are closing.”
“Goddamnit,” Ena mutters to herself. Her house wasn’t that far, nothing that she couldn’t walk, but it was much more convenient to cross the handful of stations on the train than to walk them.
Her voice isn’t very angry when she says it, though. She even seems to not care that much. They notice, they always notice, every quirk and subtly, but choose not to comment on it.
“What should we do?” Mizuki asks her when she doesn’t say anything else. She went back to drawing on her iPad! She’s so rude!
“I guess I could walk home,” she mutters to herself. She must be really in the zone if she doesn’t care about the time. Or getting home.
“I could walk you back if you’d like,” Mizuki offers. Sure, the area they live in is pretty safe, but of course they’re going to worry about her getting home safe. They rather walk back with her than leave her to her own devices, especially after one in the morning.
Oh wait. It’s almost one AM. They text Kanade and Mafuyu that they’re not going to be at the meeting. And neither will Ena most likely.
Ena hums, eyebrows knitted, “that sounds good.”
“Do you need some more time?”
“Please,” she doesn’t look up and continues to work on her drawing.
They’re certainly going to miss the last train. Ena doesn’t care. Mizuki lets themself hope that it’s because she wants to spend more time with them.
It’s about the stupid drawing though. It would never be them. It couldn’t be them.
So they go back to their game, really not paying any attention this time. Their player character gets killed over and over as they’re too busy being swarmed with thoughts.
This hurts. Being like this, so close yet so far. They want to be with her. They want to push her away.
Staying like this, being so near yet never able to meet, does it hurt more than it’s worth? Should they just end it now and walk out of Ena’s life, never to face her again?
(They can’t do that. It would tear them apart. But it’s very tempting.)
Maybe if (when) Ena finds out their secret, she’ll want to leave. That would make things much easier for Mizuki. It would still tear them apart.
“You good?” Ena asks. They whip their head away from the monitor illuminating the dark room.
“Yeah!” not really, but Ena can’t know.
She doesn’t believe them, shown in the way she lifts an eyebrow.
“You’ve been on that game over screen for almost two minutes now but you’re not on your phone.”
Whoops. Caught again.
“Ahah,” they force out a laugh that ends up sounding dry, “it’s okay! I’m just,” they hunt for a lie, “thinking.” Not a lie, improvement for their own standards, but not telling the complete truth either.
Ena hums to herself, “let’s get going.” She picks up her bag and slides her tablet inside.
“Are you sure? You can keep drawing if you want!” Mizuki frantically waves their hands. They don’t know if they want to stay but they know they want Ena to stay. They don’t mind leaving, they’d rather play the villain, than have Ena leave them.
“It’s okay. It’s late. I don’t want you out late either, you know?”
Considerate and thoughtful Ena. It’s a marvel how many people think she’s mean when she’s just a big softie.
“Oh, alright,” they stand up and stretch. Maybe the walk will do them some good. Maybe they won’t decide to throw away their relationship on a whim, because they think they’re better off alone.
(They aren’t. Nothing good happens when they’re alone.
Maybe they deserve it.)
They both make their way out of Mizuki’s room and tiptoe around the house to the front door. It’s colder than Mizuki expected. Maybe they should have offered Ena one of their old hoodies. They might be filled with moth holes from disuse though. They haven’t needed them in a few years.
Too domestic. Time to pivot their train of thought.
“Any progress on the drawing?” they ask. It’s something to fill the quiet of the air and drown out their mind.
“A bit,” Ena mumbles, “your room is comfortable. I like drawing there.”
“Aww! You can always use my room when I’m not there if you want! I’ll give you a spare key.”
Ena huffs but doesn’t say anything. She surely thought something negative of Mizuki. She takes a deep breath.
“I like when you’re there too,” she rushes out. Oh. She was hyping herself up. Mizuki’s always imagining the worst case scenario it seems.
Something about their bad mood lets them say their next words, “I won’t be there one day.”
Sure, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it’s just the truth. One day, Ena will leave them, or Mizuki will finally run away like they wanted, and they won’t be able to share the same space as her.
The thought brings tears to their eyes. Maybe they don’t have the strength to run away.
“You know I’ll always be by your side, right?” Ena reaffirms, because of course she has to yank Mizuki’s abandonment issues like weeds out of the shrubbery.
“Yeah, of course,” they mutter. They don’t believe her, as much as they’d like to, as much as they try to.
She pokes their side, “I mean it.”
The look they give her must be pathetic because her face twists into something that resembles pity and Mizuki feels their insides burn.
“Why don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you,” they say before they even think. The lies come much too easily to them. It makes that pain inside of them burn brighter.
“Mizuki,” she stops dead in her tracks and turns to face them. The first thing that comes to mind is that they’re blocking up the street, they’re calling too much attention to themselves, people already hate them enough why does she want it to be worse —
She grabs their hand, unknowingly pulling them out of their anxious spiral.
“I care about. I care about you so deeply, I…” Ena trails off, changing the direction of the conversation, “I don’t want to leave you. Ever. I will always listen to you, just say the word.”
Mizuki has grown too attached. They accidentally developed feelings that they had been trying to avoid. They didn’t expect it, they justify, to develop this irritatingly strong crush on Ena, but here they were. Knee deep in feelings and murky secrets, they struggled to keep their head above the water.
And now they can’t say no to Ena for anything.
They would stay forever, just like she wanted them too, if they could. They would leave if she asked, kicking and screaming, but they’d do it. They would go to the ends of the earth or reach the heavens.
With that she turns back towards the direction of her home and continues walking. Mizuki’s mouth is dry, their legs have stopped functioning.
They’ll do anything for her. Except move.
Something cracks, they feel the dam falter and splinter.
“Why?” is all they can get out.
Ena turns back around, the lights of the lamppost behind her make her look ethereal, and takes a step towards Mizuki again. They stop meeting her eyes. They don’t think they can take much more of it.
“Why what?” Ena prods for detail, though Mizuki is sure she knows exactly what the ‘why’ was referring to.
“Forget it,” they mutter and force their legs to move, “let’s get you home.”
“Mizuki,” Ena takes their hand, “I already told you why. I care about you. You’re my best friend,” she intertwines their fingers together. Mizuki’s face burns.
“I want to stay by your side because I like you, not just for the sake of it. I want to help you,” she grips their hand tighter, “if you’d let me.”
They couldn’t keep putting this off. Well, they most definitely could if they wanted to (and they did want to) but it wasn’t right . They were pulling Ena along a path of deception, leading her to dead ends with weak affirmations that it would ever change. And it was wrong.
How to even tackle the subject was a whole other matter though. It’s already been this long that they’ve been lying to her, what’s another day more? What’s another week, another month, another lifetime? She’ll hate them regardless, they were only delaying the inevitable.
Once the facade came crashing down, Mizuki wouldn’t be able to pick up the pieces. It’s too late.
They couldn’t help but feel bad about leading her on like this though. She thinks they’re something they aren’t, she’s going to abandon them when she discovers the truth, and she’s going to hate them for lying to her for so long.
Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll accept them and love them and care for them.
She doesn’t realize how fragile Mizuki’s heart is, nor does she realize how much of it she holds in the palm of her hand.
But people have made empty promises to Mizuki before and plenty of people have left them for even smaller reasons. More have left them for one specific reason.
No one has cared about them the same way as Ena has. No one’s even dared to look at them, to stare straight into their soul, to love them as much as she has.
They can’t lose this. They’ll break, they’ll be a shell of their former self. They’ll be even more of a shell than they already are.
They just want to be themselves. They’ll always be themselves.
They just want Ena in their life. She said she’ll wait as long as she needs for them.
Would she want to stay by their side if she knew?
Too many people have rejected them for who they are. Too many people have called them weird and thrown a myriad of derogatory language their way. It’s hard not to believe it after having it reaffirmed, time and time again.
Would Ena be so vain? So shallow? Disgusted by Mizuki’s inherent repulsiveness—
Stop. Stop stop stop. They take a deep breath. In and out. They squeeze Ena’s hand.
They aren’t gross. They aren’t a weirdo or whatever people have said to their face or behind their back. They’re just themself. They’re cute, they’re funny, they’re passionate, kind, caring, thoughtful—
(It’s not working, but hey, they’ll keep trying.)
“I’m sorry,” Ena lets out, “I just want you to know that I mean it.”
“I know you do,” they can’t help the way their voice cracks, “that’s what terrifying.”
Would Ena be so vain? At first glance, one might assume so. But her vanity is shallow, it’s a desperate plea for acceptance, for something, for anything. Mizuki knows this. Ena is being sincere.
“How so?” Ena prods, nosy as always.
“I’ve never,” they pick and choose their words, precise as always, “I care about you too.”
Ena doesn’t reply. She’s giving them space for a real answer.
They can’t disclose it. They can’t tell her. They can’t. It’s much too vulnerable for them.
She should know. She would want to know how much she means to them.
She can’t know how fragile they are. Their glass form that she has gotten so close to, much too close for Mizuki to feel safe. She has the power to destroy them. They made the mistake of giving her that power and now she doesn’t know her finger is on the trigger targeting their heart.
“I’m sorry,” is all they can say. The rising guilt is more than they’re able to bear. Ena gives them a questioning look.
They want to elaborate, but elaborating requires exposing everything they’ve done wrong. If Ena knows how much they’ve wronged her, the secret wouldn’t even matter at that point. She’d leave, she would leave because they’re a terrible person, with a shitty evasive personality and a penchant for lying.
“I’m not a good person, Ena,” they admit. It’s true, they aren’t. They never have been. People are allowed to keep secrets, Mizuki doesn’t owe the world anything, but they keep stringing Ena along, building a web of deceit and false promises.
“I don’t think that,” she stares at the floor, “I think you’re a good person. I think your mind is taking over your heart. I’m not going to internalize any of that self-deprecating garbage you spew. I’ll only listen if it’s real.”
Ena’s a better person than she’ll ever know. She’s sweet, caring in her own way, strong-willed, and assertive. She’s everything Mizuki lacks, their cowardly nature, their tendency to accommodate for everyone around them, to fold so easily, to not even allow themselves the relief of trusting others.
“Thanks,” Mizuki rocks their arm, bringing Ena’s along with it. The night air picks at their skin and their hands keep each other warm.
It hurts. They want her to leave. They want her to get closer.
“I know when you’re just making excuses,” Ena replies and Mizuki’s worried that they’ve been caught in the lie. But she doesn’t come out with a speech about how horrible a person they are.
“You just like me. Like all of us. We all have,” her face contorts into a scowl, “issues or whatever. It’s why we all work on those stupid emo music videos.”
Mizuki tries to hold back their laugh, but it comes out as a stifled snort.
“It’s true! While Akito and his buddies are going out and making whatever EDM crap and doing dumb dances, we’re isolating ourselves in our dark rooms, losing sleep to make music that’s all about being depressed. And like, yeah, there’s a use for it! Like the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it but,” Ena catches her breath, “I have no clue where I’m going with this.”
Mizuki breaks out into a full laugh. They receive a death glare in return.
“Anyways,” Ena interrupts their laughter, “you’ve got your own set of problems and issues with yourself. I’m not gonna let that get in the way of how I see you, ‘cause I think you’re more than your issues,” she stumbles on her words for a moment, changing the direction of her sentence, “uh. You’re a good person.”
She works so hard just for them, because she wants them to be happy. She may think that Mizuki is a good person, but in reality, it’s only her. It’s only ever been her.
“Thanks, Enanan,” Mizuki forces themself to stop being giggly, “I didn’t expect you of all people to be so self aware about our group.”
“Self aware? It’s so painfully obvious. I don’t know what you mean.”
“You can be a little dense sometimes!”
“De— Bitch! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember when Airi kept talking about Shizuku, like everyday, to the point where you complained to me about it and then was like, ‘oh, Enanan, I like someone, she’s so perfect, she’s got blue hair and I want to kiss her sooooo bad ,’ and you didn’t know it was Shizuku?”
“That was one time! And how was I supposed to know? I didn’t want to assume anything!” she huffs.
“Remember how Akito would disappear for hours and you didn’t realize he was in a music group?”
“He could have been studying!”
Mizuki raises an eyebrow and Ena folds.
“Fine. He wasn’t studying. That doesn’t matter. He could have been doing anything else.”
“All he did was talk about music, right?”
“Fine! I can be a little oblivious! But not always, I noticed that,” her voice fades as it crept towards a more sensitive subject, “that you need someone to help you. I’m here for you.”
“You just pay extra attention to me,” Mizuki jokes.
“Maybe I do,” Ena admits. Mizuki feels their face grow hot. Maybe if they could stay just like this, dancing around each other, pretending that whatever is happening between them isn’t happening, everything will be okay. If Mizuki can just hold the lie for a little longer, bottle their feelings a little harder, maybe it won’t hurt as much. Maybe their yearning will let them stay and enjoy Ena’s presence.
“Thanks for being here for me,” they say and they mean it. They’re more grateful for Ena than she’ll ever know.
“Of course, you big dummy,” Ena presses her shoulder against them, “you’re my best friend.”
“You’re my best friend too,” Mizuki mutters as they look down to their still intertwined hands. Their heart swells.
They can’t lose this. But maybe, just maybe, it won’t be an issue.