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For the smallest fraction of a second before she spoke, before she put words to a lingering thought that had been shadowing her for a good while now, Asahina Mafuyu felt terror jolt through her system. It was as if someone had pressed a thumb against her trachea, cutting off air circulation and forcing her to become far too aware that she was alive. And it was in knowing that she was very much alive that she recognized this fear seizing her body.
Like a camera lens tightening its focus, her senses became hyper aware of the world around her. The weather at the tail-end of winter was caught indecisive between adequately warm or sufficiently chilly. The cherry blossoms had not yet bloomed this year. Adults and students alike walked the streets of Shibuya as their chatter blended into the white noise of the city.
Everyone was off in their own little worlds, completely oblivious of each other, and Mafuyu was all too cognizant of her own life. Everything, from the things that shaped who she was to the people she met to the future that inched closer and closer every day. It froze her. She couldn’t breathe.
Without air, in that single frozen moment, she was convinced that her world was ending.
The world kept moving.
Time kept ticking.
The second passed, and she voiced the words that were on the tip of her tongue.
“I don’t think Kanade can write a song that will save me.”
Her fingers curled around the bridge railing. More than a couple of seconds passed, and when no response came, she turned to the right to look at the person beside her.
Braided brown hair that was growing a little long. Brown eyes that were downcast, staring at the traffic passing under. Lips that were pressed into a tight frown. Shinonome Ena had been making her way to her night classes and dropped by a nearby art supply store for a specific tube of paint; Asahina Mafuyu had been on her way home from cram school and took the long way back. They didn’t mean to pass each other at this bridge. Had Ena taken just a bit longer at the store, or if Mafuyu’s mom had called her home earlier, they might have missed each other completely.
“I don’t think I’m the one you should be telling this to,” came the eventual response.
They both settled at the bridge. Cars, white and gray and red and blue and black, drove forward and below them, blowing an artificial gust of wind into their faces. The air was warm and uncomfortable. It carried the heavy stench of gas.
“It didn’t have to be you, I think. I just needed to say it out loud.” She watched Ena, not sure of what kind of reaction she was searching for. Something. Anything. An authentic outward reaction, unlike anything that Mafuyu could offer. “Then again, maybe you would know what to make of it, because I don’t think I do.”
That got Ena to finally look her way.
“No, you idiot. I’m saying you should talk to Kanade about this, not me. She’s the one who’s been writing songs for you nonstop,” she snapped the words at her without any real bite, shaking her head.
“I can’t do that.”
“It’s easy! Just call her to meet up. She should be awake right now.”
“And I’m telling you it’s not that simple.”
Ena rolled her eyes. “Because it’s never just a simple thing with you, huh?”
Mafuyu closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe, deep and slow. She fought the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. She didn’t understand why she was saying this to Ena, when she knew they couldn’t have one conversation without disagreeing. It seemed like a factual truth that they would always view the world in entirely different lights. This conversation was pointless from the start. And yet, a part of her wanted to persist anyway.
When she opened her eyes, Ena was on her phone scrolling through Twitter.
Why is it always so hard with you? she wanted to ask, but instead she opted for, “You were there when it happened. In my Sekai. With Kanade, the things we’ve promised each other, the things we’ve said to each other—sometimes those were the only things that kept us around. And now I don’t think I… I don’t know how to make sense of it.”
“And what. Are you saying you want to disappear again?” Ena’s voice dropped to a whisper. Her eyes hadn’t left her phone screen, but she wasn’t scrolling anymore.
“That does sound like the easier alternative than this.”
Mafuyu wanted to laugh, though she found no humor in the situation. If saying she wanted to feel suicidal was what it took for Ena to take her seriously, then so be it. She watched as the other girl clicked her phone off, tucking it into the side pocket of her school bag.
“You’re going to walk with me.” Ena regarded her with a look that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Or rather, given the way they spoke to each other, this was her way of compromising.
“Lead the way,” she bowed her head, walking in step alongside the girl. She wondered, briefly, what it must look like, to see Miyajo and Kamikou students walking together. They might have even looked like close friends from an outside perspective.
“You’re going to walk with me and you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on inside your head,” she amended.
Ena’s arm hooked around Mafuyu’s at the elbow, and together, they snaked through strangers and crowds. Mafuyu willed her feet to follow. Her mind was numb. It was blank and it was running thousands of thoughts a minute, and all at once it was too much and too little. Instead of focusing on everything and nothing, she let her hand drop, until it connected with Ena’s.
In the years that she’d known Ena, Mafuyu had paid first witness to how she constantly flipped between dichotomies. She was prideful and envious. She was curt just as she was kind. So, it didn’t surprise her when manicured fingers tightened around hers without question, and they quietly made their way towards a side street amidst the loud afternoon crowds.
They were nearing the bus stop that would connect directly to Kamiyama High School. With that, she slipped her free hand into her own school bag.
When they slowed their pace, she glanced up to find Ena observing her.
“You won’t miss your bus?”
“I have time. And we’re not done talking.”
“Alright. I thought it’d be easier to show you something first.”
They dropped their handhold so Mafuyu could sift through her bag. Once she found what she was looking for, she withdrew strips of paper and placed them into Ena’s ready hands.
“What—you want me to recycle this for you?” She raised an eyebrow at the offering.
“Don’t be difficult on purpose.” Mafuyu tugged Ena closer so that she could sort through the white strips herself, grabbing the one with the worksheet title printed on it and then stretching it thin so that the girl could read it for herself. “They handed out the future career survey this week. This is what’s left of mine.”
She felt eyes watching her closely as she flipped through a few more shredded pieces.
“It’s this part that I couldn’t answer.”
Ena gripped the rest of the slips in one hand as she accepted the one Mafuyu had picked out.
“Let’s see. ’Describe how you see yourself in five years.’ This is the one?”
“Yes.”
“Jeez,” she half-sighed, half-laughed. It wasn’t a happy smile, but Ena ended up smiling. “Talk about a loaded question to ask you of all people. And you tried feeding this to your neighborhood dog or something?”
For some reason, Mafuyu found herself smiling too. It wasn’t happy and it wasn’t forced. She guessed that some situations just called for nonsensical smiles. “I ripped it apart myself.”
“And this survey somehow led to you realizing Kanade won’t be able to help you anymore. I don’t even know where to start with this one.”
“How helpful. I don’t know what I expected,” she admitted.
“Oh, go ahead. You really know how to make me feel glad that I offered to listen.”
She wasn’t sure why it was Ena that she ended up talking to. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Ena was the kind of person to be driven by emotion. Any logical solution that she might have offered would have been something she already considered, and Ena had no way of changing her situation.
Maybe it was because they were in similar situations. Seventeen, soon to become third years, thinking about the future, willingly or not. Maybe it was because Niigo’s artist didn’t always follow logic. Or, just like their chance meeting at this bridge, maybe there was no reason to begin with. Mafuyu wasn’t heading home like she was supposed to, and Ena didn’t already have the color of paint she wanted. They were both simply at the wrong place at the same time.
“Look, Mafuyu,” Ena started, lining up the shredded pieces into a neat stack in her palm. She shuffled the strips at random as she continued, “The future is going to happen whether we want it to or not. And you know tearing up a worksheet isn’t going to make things go away. I know you know these things. So—tell me why you did it anyway.”
“If it was that simple, I don’t think I would have approached you,” she answered honestly, and she didn’t have to look at Ena to know she was grimacing.
“Try and do it anyway. You’re talking to me about it so you might as well.”
The reason, she asked. It was probably the same reason Mafuyu took the long way home today, wandering through Shibuya until she no longer saw other students in Miyajo uniforms and ultimately ending up at a bridge far from her parents’ commute. She knew destroying one slip of paper didn’t mean anything in the long term. She just didn’t want to acknowledge what was right in front of her.
It was a moment of cowardice. For what else could she consider an honors student who couldn’t fill out a future career survey, but as pathetic? With a transcript like hers, most teachers would most likely assume she just forgot to turn it in, always ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. No one would ever guess that Asahina Mafuyu, perfect and reliable Mafuyu, would intentionally avoid an assignment. Her future was obvious to seemingly everyone else. Filling out her aspirations and where she saw herself in five years should’ve been easy for someone like her. For the person they thought she was.
And they wouldn’t be wrong. Logically, she knew the obvious solution was to write the future her parents often painted for her.
If only she could just be rational and accept the secure career that they were offering to her on a silver platter. If only she could surrender these useless thoughts, and embrace the kind of person that everyone expected her to be. The world would be a better place if Mafuyu stopped hesitating.
As she was right now, she had nothing to live for. She didn’t know what she was waiting for. And yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to give up.
She looked into Ena’s eyes, searching for something and not knowing what she wanted to find.
If Ena arrived at some conclusion, she wouldn’t tell. Mafuyu herself most likely wouldn’t have been able to understand. But a beat passed, and another, and Ena only shook her head. “I won’t tell Kanade about what you said to me today, okay? I—well, I can’t say I get it, because I haven’t been in the same situation or anything. But you’re both my friends. And you’re clearly thinking through things, even though you can’t explain it.”
“I wish you were this thoughtful all the time.”
“I know you’re only saying that just to annoy me, so I’m ignoring it.”
“Thank you,” she said, not sure herself if she meant at Ena graciously overlooking the jab, or the fact that she listened, and didn’t make any conclusions for her. She made a motion to grab the tattered worksheet in the girl’s hand, only to watch it be shoved into a pocket.
“And I think I’ll recycle these for you, after all,” Ena decided. “It’d be bad news if your mom came across them, wouldn’t it? She’d start asking questions.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
She glanced at her phone to check the time. “I should get going. And, uh… thanks for talking to me.”
Mafuyu nodded. Before Ena took off, she placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll talk to you tonight?”
Ena smiled—a relieved one, this time.
“On Nightcord. 25:00, on the dot. Don’t be late!”
…
Walking into Mizuki’s room felt like she was intruding.
Mafuyu’s first impression was that there was too much pink. The walls were tinged a light shade of the color, and all their furniture were off-white shades that leaned towards a rosy pink or a blush. The purple curtains added a darker accent to a room that seemed to exude every aspect of Mizuki and their affinity for everything cute, and with a sinking feeling, she wanted to apologize just for standing at the doorframe.
A lot can be gleaned about a person and their family just from entering their home. Their shared memories, the parts they were willing to put on display, the things they hid behind closed doors—it was too visceral of an experience, coming into this household and realizing just how different Mizuki’s home was from her own.
For lack of a better word, the Akiyama residence felt lived in. Whatever it was that made it feel like a “home” certainly wasn’t present in Mafuyu’s.
“Took you long enough to get back,” Ena grumbled. Sprawled on bedsheets that were just as pink as the rest of the room, the artist blinked sleep out of her eyes as Mizuki ushered Mafuyu and Kanade inside. She sat up when she made eye contact with Mafuyu. True to her word, she hadn’t said anything to Kanade. About a week had passed since their conversation at the bridge.
Their host sat them down at the low table in the middle while pulling out their desk chair to create an informal circle.
“Give them a break, Enanannn! It’s their first time coming over. Not everyone is like you and treats every house like it’s their own,” Mizuki laughed, kicking up a leg and nudging Ena by the foot.
“That’s only because you keep begging me to come over. I think I’ve earned the right to!” she retorted. She scooted to the other end of the bed, and as an afterthought, referred to Kanade directly, “I do not usually act like this when I visit a friend’s house. I promise.”
As if Mizuki had an ace up their sleeve, they hid an all-too-obvious smirk behind a hand. “I can prove it. I’ll call Airi-chan and put her on speaker.”
“Airi doesn’t count! Stop!!!”
Kanade could only laugh quietly as Ena looked just about ready to tackle the offender onto the floor. The one thing that stopped her must have been, of course, Kanade, who folded her hands in her lap politely as she commented, “I remember you said classes with your art teacher were taking up a lot of your free time. I didn’t know you were also dropping by Mizuki’s place too.”
Ena sounded less like she was explaining and more like she was complaining about her daily schedule as Kanade happily listened along. Mafuyu tuned in just enough to know the gist of it. If she didn’t take so long to get to the point, it would have boiled down to this: Yukihira-sensei’s critiques happened most days, Mizuki stood in as her personal model other days, and Ena in return trialed their outfits.
That wasn’t the part that was becoming more obvious to her as time went on, though. Rather, it was the fact that this house, this room, welcomed conversations filling its space.
Conversations. Talking. Voices. The key difference between this home and Mafuyu’s. It wasn’t about the furnishing or what color they painted the walls, though they were elements of it. Everything about this home was a reflection of its residents. It’d be difficult to walk into this room and not assume that it was Mizuki’s. And it only further solidified the gut feeling telling her that she should excuse herself.
Mizuki was already looking at her when Mafuyu turned towards them.
“Why did you call us here today?” she interrupted Ena’s tirade.
“Uh, hello? I was still talking, you know. But I guess I was wondering about that too.”
Ignoring Ena as well, Mizuki pointed at Mafuyu. “Mafuyunnn, good question.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Hey, stop pretending like I’m not here!”
Kanade ducked her head. “It is a pretty cute nickname…”
They stood up from the desk chair and cleared their throat. “Right. Actually, this is a perfect time to bring up why I brought you all here today. Becaaaause…” They paused for dramatic effect, eyeing the others. Ena crossed her arms. Kanade smiled encouragingly. Mafuyu stared. In the end, Mizuki just grinned, already knowing their audience well, and swept an arm across in an arc before continuing, “My older sister is staying in Japan for a while! She wanted to meet everyone. My dad should be picking her up from the airport around now, and you saw my mom prepping for dinner downstairs.”
“That does explain why you asked if we were free for the evening,” Kanade surmised, talking to herself. She looked to Mafuyu with clear blue eyes that always sought her out. “Is this okay for you?”
The easy answer was to point out that she was already here.
Mafuyu’s parents were at a dinner party for the night and wouldn’t come back until the next morning. Her mom would text her around dinnertime, as per usual, though it was never anything personal. So long as she mentioned what book she was reading—something she had read ahead on, so she knew what to mention—then there wouldn’t be any other probing questions. It might have only been one night, but there was a small window where her presence wasn’t accounted for.
If she mentioned any of this to Kanade, she would be sympathetic, and Mafuyu knew that she would mean it with every part of herself. A part of Mafuyu found it appealing. That someone was willing to share in as much pain as she offered.
Yet another part of her didn’t want that. She didn’t like what their spiraling thoughts did to each other.
She settled for the easy answer.
“My parents won’t be home tonight. I’m fine so long as I’m not out too late,” Mafuyu nodded.
Kanade smiled. She didn’t say anything else, but she placed a hand atop of Mafuyu’s.
“What’s considered ‘too late’ for us?” Ena joked as she leaned back onto the mattress again. She raised her phone above her head and started flicking through social media.
“Midnight seems to be what’s normal for most people.”
“I wasn’t really asking, Mafuyu.”
“Then don’t ask questions if you don’t want them answered.” She stood up from the low table to stretch her legs, and in the process towered over the lounging girl. “Mizuki is right. You do make yourself too comfortable.”
At those words, the other girl looked away from her phone. Unlike Kanade’s unguarded blue eyes, Ena’s brown eyes narrowed at her. “And you could stand to relax a bit more.”
Was it that obvious, how much she felt like she didn’t belong in this room, much less this household?
“And that’s fine! Either way is fine! I was just joking about Ena earlier. She really does help me out by dropping by all the time.” Mizuki threw an arm over Mafuyu’s shoulders, shaking her frame lightly. Always playing the mediator, they directed Mafuyu to sit at the chair, continuing to fill the air and redirecting the flow of the conversation elsewhere. “Anyway, you’ll love Eimi. I think being in America has done a lot for her.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Mafuyu replied mechanically.
She could feel Kanade watching her, quiet and receptive.
…
Unprompted, she remembered a childhood memory.
Mafuyu sat at the dinner table with her parents. The living room was silent, save for the scraping of forks against plates. She was aware of every part of herself, from the way she positioned her feet, to how she kept her elbows off the table, even how she sliced the chicken breast. If she drew any more attention to herself, it would invite her parents to comment on it. So, she dutifully ate her dinner quietly, though she didn’t have much of an appetite at this point. She tasted nothing as she ate it.
It must have been shortly after meeting Kanade. It had to be, because she didn’t know much of anything about herself at the time, beyond the vague notion that she wasn’t supposed to feel this way.
A little younger and just starting high school, she wondered if everyone had these kinds of intrusive thoughts. A growing part of her was realizing she didn’t care as much as she should have. She didn’t care about many things at all, and she knew she should feel alarmed, even frightened, of this apathy infecting her like a virus creeping through her insides.
At what point did she have to reach until she was overcome? She only knew her own experience, and hoped that this wasn’t normal. She couldn’t bear living if this was all life had to offer.
Her eyes wandered to her mother. The perfume that she was wearing was pungent and overwhelmingly sweet. She presented herself meticulously in every possible way. There wasn’t a strand of purple hair out of place, and it felt as if every fold on her white blouse was assembled intentionally. Was that how she would turn out to be in the future?
She nearly considered interrupting the overbearing silence of dinnertime to ask if her parents had ever wanted to disappear. She never did, of course. She knew even back then that finding death appealing was not normal. It did not make for a normal dinner topic.
Even though this train of thought was not logical or rational, with each passing and dull day, it was becoming the only line of thinking that made sense to her.
The Asahina’s ate dinner together, but they might as well have been eating alone.
…
Dinner at the Akiyama’s was loud.
It felt as if Mizuki’s dad hadn’t stopped talking ever since he had burst through the front door, sporting broad shoulders, black hair, and an even bigger smile. He bought some gummy bears at the airport because he thought Mizuki would like them. He pulled Ena in for a hearty hug, who reciprocated it politely, and gave firm handshakes to Kanade and Mafuyu. He looked at them directly as he introduced himself, “Akiyama Touki. I’m so happy I’ve finally met everyone in—what’s your group called? Night Chord? Midnight?”
“It’s Nightcord! 25:00 at Nightcord. How many times do I have to say it?” Mizuki facepalmed, their cheeks turning red as they pried their dad away from their friends. He laughed—the loud, bellowing kind—and threw one last knowing smile over his shoulder while Mizuki pushed him to his seat at the head of the table.
In short, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Mizuki adopted a lot of their mannerisms from their dad.
“Mizuki, don’t mind him. You know he’s just making you say it because it embarrasses you,” their mom called over, carrying a serving pot of soup to the dinner table.
Touki raised his arms and presented his wife with all the admiration in the world.
“And this person? This is my lovely and wonderful and sweet partner, Michie.”
She did a small curtsy, cute just like everything Mizuki admired, before kicking her husband gently in the shin. “Honey, you’re a little too excited. Ena might be used to your antics, but let the other girls adjust, okay?”
Kanade seemed bewildered, though a confused happiness was evident in her voice as she spoke up, “I don’t mind it. Thank you for having us over for dinner.”
“ Ka-na-de. Trust me when I say this, you shouldn’t encourage the guy. He doesn’t know when to stop,” the fourth member of the Akiyama family hummed the girl’s name in singsong, sitting on the opposite side of the dinner table after setting the plates and utensils. If Mizuki’s personality took after their dad’s, then both siblings took after their mom’s looks. Her hair was a darker shade of pink and her clothes were more business casual than they were cute , but as Mizuki sat beside her with a dopey smile on their face, Mafuyu wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking at a snapshot of how Mizuki might look in five years.
“I’ll remember that for next time, Eimi-san.”
“Just call me Eimi. It’s simpler for everyone.” The older sibling waved a hand at the honorific. She seemed to naturally take up space, directing the spotlight of attention onto herself.
Mafuyu sat on the far right, and Kanade took the seat to the left of hers. Ena settled on the last chair in the row, stars in her eyes as she cooed, “You know, Mizuki showed some photos, but they don’t compare to meeting you in person.”
The recipient of Ena’s praises palmed her cheek, a small smirk playing on her lips. It seemed as if everyone in the Akiyama household had a penchant for teasing, her voice gleeful as she said, “You sound just like Mizuki when they want something from me. I can tell you two have been spending a lot of time together.”
Ena was quick to object. “N-No! Don’t compare me to them. I really do think you’re a pretty person, Eimi. I just thought I’d tell you…”
Flushed cheeks. Stumbling over her words. Starstruck over the littlest things. Mafuyu had read enough books for literature classes and written enough analysis papers to know what that could mean, though she had never felt it herself. But the fact that the girl beside her was playing into every telltale sign almost seemed too comical, and Mafuyu could only shake her head.
On the other hand, the younger Akiyama sibling seemed to marvel at this as they blurted, louder than they should’ve, “No. Way. Are you trying to flirt with Eimi? In front of her family? You just met her!”
“Oh, you’re the one with no tact!! Jeez. I just wanted to ask if she’d let me draw her sometime. Unlike you, she’s got a mature look going on.” Ena sat up from her chair, blush growing to her ears.
“If you wanted to draw a mature girl, Mafuyu is right there!”
“No, I mean, you’re not wrong, but— ugh , you better watch your back after dinner.”
“I’m being threatened! Mom!!!”
“Shush! Inside voices at the dinner table,” Michie berated.
“…I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Sorry, mom.”
The artist deflated immediately and sat down. The siblings stifled their laughter.
For some reason, Mafuyu felt her lips quirk up into a smile, though she played it off as a polite smile at the family’s antics. It just made sense that Ena acted like she was in love of all things because it had to do with art. She didn’t need to write an analysis to understand that aspect of the girl.
Eimi cocked her head to the side and flashed a reassuring smile in Ena’s direction. “I would be honored to pose for you, by the way.”
“Can we talk later? When I don’t feel like dying from embarrassment.”
“Fair enough.”
And just like that, the conversation flowed into a different topic as the serving plates were placed in the middle. Steam was still rising from the vegetable stir-fry, grilled mackerel, and a healthy serving of rice. They bowed their heads and collectively shared thanks for the meal, and readily dug into the food. Mafuyu couldn’t help but notice Kanade gulp as she reached for the plate of mackerel.
“The miso soup should have cooled down by now,” Mizuki’s mom instructed her youngest child, sitting at the other end of the dinner table.
“Thanks, mom! Love you.”
“You know I love you too.”
Mizuki was quick to snatch the serving spoon. They made quick work of pouring bowls for everyone else before their own, and then—everyone continued to talk over each other. Their dad was animated as he described some American tourists he saw at the airport terminal, while Eimi threw in bits and pieces of her parts of the story. Mizuki and Ena were whisked into the conversation. Kanade attempted to explain the process for their latest song to Michie.
Meanwhile, Mafuyu ate in silence. She responded when spoken to, of course, and Mizuki’s family seemed to know just how much to talk to her without pressing too much. It was easy. It was odd. It reminded her of how different a house and a family could be. It felt as if the very wooden frames of this household were rejecting her presence within it.
She sipped some soup and mostly kept to herself.
It didn’t taste like anything. She wasn’t sure why she was expecting anything else.
…
Asahina Mafuyu was tense. Her body was constantly on high alert. It had always been this way, for as long as she could remember at least, but she only became aware of this fact on a random lunch break in her first year of high school. One of her classmates had left to buy something from the school store and acted on an impulse upon her return, jumping towards Mafuyu and pulling her into an impromptu hug from behind.
“Mafuyu, what the heck. Your shoulders are so stiff!”
It confused her at the time. As she saw it, everything seemed to be the same as usual. She knew about muscles contracting and relaxing, knew that there were professional masseurs that were trained on how to reduce muscle tension. She didn’t realize she was ever tense to begin with.
Once she became aware of this fact, though, her next realization was that she was always tense. That is, there was never a time where she felt relaxed.
These were the first thoughts running through her mind as Eimi handed her the next plate to dry, as well as a quiet admission.
“Mizuki told me about your group, you know,” the college student whispered. Her attention was focused on scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain on one of the plates. “Not all of it. I can tell. But they said enough that I got the gist of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What I’m saying is—you can drop the act.”
Eimi volunteering Mafuyu to wash the dishes with her was an intentional move on her part, then. Mafuyu ran down a list of what she knew of the older sister. She studied abroad in America. She got along well enough with Mizuki, given the age and time zone differences. And for whatever reason, the two siblings had spoken about Niigo, and Mafuyu, though she didn’t know to what extent.
That was something she could confront Mizuki about later, when she wasn’t drying dinner plates. It would be rude to leave a chore halfway finished, after all.
“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” Mafuyu smiled, feeling its plasticity and how tense her shoulders were. She moved to accept the next clean plate and froze when she saw that Eimi wasn’t letting go of the plate either.
They made eye contact.
“I’m just going to put an offer on the table whenever you’re ready for it. You don’t have to do anything with it, other than know that it’s there for you. Listen. I’ve lived on my own and in America for a few years now. I won’t pretend to know your situation, but it might help to hear what it’s like, being away from everything and everyone that places you in a box,” she said, slow and methodical. She made it sound like she didn’t want to scare her away.
“I couldn’t possibly ask anything of you when we’ve just met.”
Mafuyu tugged the plate. Eimi released it without any resistance.
“That’s why it’s an offer. I’ll be in Japan for a few months taking care of some things. If you remember it while I’m still here, we can talk about it then. And if it never comes up, then,” the older girl shrugged, turning back to the sink. “We can pretend this conversation never happened.”
Somewhere in the living room, Mizuki and their dad’s bantering could be heard from the kitchen. Ena cried out something in reply. Kanade and Mizuki’s mom had stayed at the dinner table talking. No one else was around to act as a witness to this little exchange.
Eimi was right.
Mafuyu could walk away from this conversation right now, never speak of it again, and that would be the end of it. Eimi bringing it up herself would just contradict her own words. And that was something she couldn’t do, if she wanted Mafuyu to trust her and what she had to say. Trust. Trust was at the heart of what she was offering, and asking in return.
Perhaps it was because she wasn’t used to someone else giving her the upper hand. Or perhaps it was meeting someone outside of Niigo inviting Mafuyu to be something beyond a perfect honor roll student. But just for a moment, she couldn’t think of any reasons to refuse the offer.
“You’re an interesting person, Eimi,” she said with finality.
“I’m just being nosy. I’ve gotten in a fair bit of trouble over the years for it.”
Like placing the final piece of a puzzle, Mafuyu saw the parts of Eimi that reflected in her younger sibling. Friendly and good at reading the air, but not the kind of person that could sacrifice themselves for the sake of fitting in. She wasn’t that much taller than Mafuyu, but looking at her now, she did start to resemble the older sister figure that she was supposed to be. Suddenly, Mafuyu felt the years between them, and realized she was just a teenager to this adult.
She didn’t have the upper hand in this conversation, after all. Instead, what Eimi was offering was to speak on the same level to each other.
“I take that back. I think you might turn out to be just as annoying as Mizuki.”
Eimi snickered and handed her another plate to dry.
…
Yuki (Today at 12:08 AM)
What did you tell your sister about me?
Amia (Today at 12:09 AM)
yuki please don’t kill me
you know my address now ʕ ･ _ ･ ;ʔ ≡ ʕ; ･ _ ･ ʔ
i promise i swear i’m begging you that i said nothing bad!!!
Yuki (Today at 12:14 AM)
What did you tell her?
Amia (Today at 12:17 AM)
that you were figuring things out
going through some stuff
you had a lot on your mind
that everyone was, actually
Honest
those few weeks after we found out about your sekai, after everything that happened
it was a lot, y’know?
i had to talk to someone about it
Yuki (Today at 12:20 AM)
Okay.
Amia (Today at 12:22 AM)
i didn’t mention miku or anything like that though
can you imagine trying to explain that? haha
Amia (Today at 12:26 AM)
hey, you messaged me because she talked to you, right?
i figured she’d do that when she grabbed you after dinner
Amia (Today at 12:31 AM)
i don’t know what she said, but i promise i never mentioned anything specific
Yuki (Today at 12:32 AM)
I’m not doubting you, Amia. I’m just thinking.
Thank you for telling me.
Amia (Today at 12:34 AM)
so we’re good? (｡•́︿•̀｡) pien…
Yuki (Today at 12:35 AM)
Yes, we are.
I’ll talk to you at 25:00.
Amia (Today at 12:35 AM)
(Ɔ ˘⌣˘)♥
…
Something in the Sekai had changed.
Kanade had a habit of materializing into the Sekai and asking the virtual singers for their input, and Mafuyu would often join her, finding no reason not to. Like clockwork, their entrance into the digital realm seemingly summoned Luka from the wide expanse of gray nothingness. Sometimes Miku and Rin followed soon after, dawdling at their own paces, and other times Meiko lingered at a distance. On this day, Luka approached them alone.
And that was when Mafuyu heard the change. In the air, like a soft croon echoing in the empty air of the Sekai, there was music. It didn’t take long to realize it was the song that Kanade had written for her. The one that Kanade had written while thinking of her parents. The one that first made her smile, before she realized she could do it willingly.
“Luka, do you know why this song is playing…?”
Her voice trailed off as she looked into the blank eyes of the virtual singer now standing in front of them. An aloof smile, a perceptive gaze—Luka was looking at her with curiosity. “A song? I thought that was what I was coming to you two for.”
“I don’t hear anything either,” Kanade mumbled, shuffling her laptop and portable speaker to hold both with one hand so she could cup her ear.
Now that Mafuyu focused, it was undeniable that it was same song she put on repeat, dozing off to it at night. This was not the kind of song she would mistake for others. It meant too much to her. The feelings that Kanade had inscribed into the notes, all at once wistful and loving, with each section flowing with nostalgic familiarity. If someone asked her to write the song’s composition down, Mafuyu was near confident enough that she could copy it perfectly.
She knew she wasn’t mistaken, so the next logical conclusion was that the song was playing only for her.
Seeing that both Luka and Kanade were watching her, she shook her head, walking towards their general meeting spot as a lie surfaced. “I must have imagined it. Let’s go find the others now.”
“Tell me about the song.” Mafuyu turned at the request. Kanade dropped her gaze. She shifted the devices to her other arm, and with a voice that was kind, always too kind, she repeated once more, “If it’s something that can help me write a song that might save you, then I want to know.”
Her stomach churned uncomfortably at those words, like a hunger pang eating at her from the inside. She schooled her features. Kanade was always watching her. Always bringing her into the conversation, always letting Mafuyu in when she didn’t deserve it, always holding her bleeding heart open for someone who would keep hurting her. And yet, the girl offered parts of herself anyway, willingly and selflessly.
It was as if there was an empty void inside of her, starved of what was once there. The temptation to devour everything Kanade was giving to her was too much. For too long, she ignored the ramifications of what it meant to save each other, or to curse each other. One-sided, sacrificial love was cheap comfort, and she blindly bought into it. It was only when Kanade mentioned her late mother, and how it was her memory that led to the song currently filling the emptiness of this Sekai, that Mafuyu realized the love and comfort she was savoring came at the cost of someone else.
This time, she looked at Kanade, and saw the same insistent selflessness. How much of herself would she offer until there was nothing left?
“It’s…”
Whatever words she wanted to say lodged in her throat.
“You can tell me. You know I’m always here for you.”
Behind that selflessness was Kanade’s own form of desperation. Kanade needed someone to save, just as Mafuyu needed anything to stop her own pain. They needed each other, at the lowest points in their lives. She knew all too well of how it felt to grip her own throat, feeling every breath of air pass in and out, as her thoughts returned to Kanade’s promise to save her. She knew more than anyone that Kanade thought the same of her, frantic for any reason to stay alive for. It was a curse, just as much as it was a saving grace.
When did it change for her? When did she start thinking that the song that would save her was just a fantasy she exploited? Whatever changed must have triggered the song that now rung in her ears alone.
Glassy eyes stared into Mafuyu’s own as Luka observed, “Did something happen? This ‘song’ wouldn’t have appeared out of nowhere, you know. Not to mention the fact that you’re seemingly the only one who can hear it.”
Kanade ignored Luka and took a step closer to Mafuyu.
“Even if it’s hard to describe, I still want to know…”
The uncomfortable churning in her stomach made her feel nauseous. Deep down, she knew that it was for everything she had already taken from the other girl. To even consider the possibility that Kanade couldn’t do the one thing that had gotten them to this point was to abandon her. The fact that she had told Ena about it so easily made her want to gag.
“I can’t talk about it right now. Please,” Mafuyu whispered.
She trusted Kanade more than anyone else in the world. Kanade had given her so much and had forced herself to be acknowledged when no one else could, but it was this same resolute love that was now souring. Mafuyu couldn’t live without it. Mafuyu couldn’t live with it either.
Her phone was in her hand in an instant. She felt a hand wrap around her wrist as she paused the song, and then the world was fading into a blinding white, and the hand disappeared along with it.
…
Drifting between consciousness and a restless sleep, Mafuyu’s thoughts returned to that evening in Kanade’s room.
Different details rose to the surface of her mind as the memory lingered. Touch–she felt the blanket draped over her body, the weight of it and how much thinner it was than her own covers. Her head rested on a flat pillow. Hearing–if she focused, she could hear the soft hum of computer fans just off to the side, and the slow inhale, exhaling of another person. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt rubbery. The air in the room smelled stale and stagnant.
By the time she opened her eyes, she was already looking down towards Kanade, crouched beside the bed and clutching Mafuyu’s hand with both of her own. Her fingers were thin, and they were cold to the touch. She looked at disheveled silver hair. She stared at the tiny frame of this person who brought her into her home. She thought about the fever numbing her senses, the uncomfortable pit in her stomach, how it was too hot and too cold at the same time, and then she recalled Kanade pressing a wet towel to her forehead.
Mafuyu had asked a question. It was about the song. She wanted to ask before the rest of the world realized she was awake once again, and demanded that she act as the perfect daughter, or the perfect honors student.
In these half-dreams, half-memories, she couldn’t make out what kind of expression was on Kanade’s face. Was she happy to respond? Did it hurt to talk about her mom? Was she frustrated that she couldn’t do more for Mafuyu? She was always so kind, too kind even, for her. She accepted everything about Mafuyu, the good parts and the bad, and all Mafuyu had to do in return was figure things out for herself, and wait for Kanade to write the song that would save her.
Sometimes, when it felt like her thoughts were crashing in on her, she wondered what other questions she could have asked in that moment, and what responses Kanade would have given in complete honesty. It was a dangerous game not knowing how much she could tell Kanade before it was too much. Even worse, she didn’t know how far the other girl would go for the sake of saving her.
She felt cold hands tighten around her own.
She was reminded of a rainy day, a phone call, a wavering voice that swore that she would find the song that Mafuyu needed. What kind of face was Kanade making as she said those words? She needed Mafuyu there as a reminder. She needed Mafuyu.
Suffocating and musty, her thoughts remained within that littered room that felt more like a coffin than it did a bedroom.
…
Mafuyu woke up to private messages from the other Niigo members.
…
K (Today at 12:30 AM)
Yuki?
I’m sorry if I pushed too much
K (Today at 1:15 AM)
Your finals are coming up, right?
I’ll tell Amia and Enanan that you need to focus on school
You don’t have to reply
Just come back when you’re ready
I won’t ask about it again
And I’m sorry
…
Amia (Today at 1:25 AM)
gross!!! finals?! don’t remind me!
(╥ ᆺ ╥ ； ) miss you already yuki
oh and good luck with studying btw
…
Enanan (Today at 4:33 AM)
yeah right something happened didn’t it
k’s an open book
i bet amia’s noticed too but they’re too nice to say anything
Enanan (Today at 4:35 AM)
did you tell k?
Yuki (Today at 5:00 AM)
You’re the last person I want to talk to.
Enanan (Today at 5:00 AM)
yeah well you should’ve thought of that before dropping that bomb on me
Enanan (Today at 5:01 AM)
you can’t just ignore all this, yuki
Enanan (Today at 5:42 AM)
ha ha ha you think you’re sooo funny ignoring the message where i tell you to stop ignoring shit?!
god i don’t even know why i try with you
…
There was comfort in a life where all her decisions were made for her.
Part of why she was able to play the role of the proper daughter for so long was its convenience. If her mom wanted her to sit and look pretty, then she would do just that. It was easy to be the obedient daughter that nodded and agreed to whatever her dad said. It was through her compliance that she was able to withdraw into herself. None of it mattered to Mafuyu. She had no emotional stakes, nothing she desired. It was easier to follow their instructions than to confront the fact that she had lost herself along the way.
Falling back into old habits and motions was easy, so much so that she almost couldn’t believe she had any “new” habits to begin with. Her morning had come and gone far too quickly. She smiled when smiled at. She greeted her homeroom teacher as always. She laughed at a joke her classmate told. By the time it was lunch, it felt as if any pain or guilt from the night before had subsided.
Or perhaps it was her body that had gone numb.
Mafuyu felt as if she deserved it. She stared at the bento box her mom had prepared for her, and though the lack of taste never stopped her from eating in front of others, she couldn’t imagine swallowing any food today. She suspected it would just come back up if she tried.
The rest of the school day followed similarly. By the time the final bell signaled the end of class, she stared at detailed lecture notes that she didn’t remember jotting down. She couldn’t remember if she had said goodbye to her classmates, or if she had smiled as she helped carry some supplies with her teacher. Every action taken, every word spoken, they were all a predetermined script that everyone expected from her. It was mechanical. An artificial copy of the real thing. And it all blended into an indistinct nothingness.
She expected her commute home and her dinner with her parents to be the same: relying on old habits that numbed her body from the inside out, until the apathy seized her mind and she was nothing more than an empty puppet. She could see it happening so clearly.
Until she saw Shinonome Ena.
Brown hair tied in a small ponytail, lips pursed in a disappointed frown, arms crossed as she waited, it was unmistakably Ena, waiting by the school gates of Miyamasuzaka.
“Why are you here?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
Ena shot her an exasperated look.
“Because you’re my friend , whether you like it or not. And because I’m stuck with caring about what happens to you—since something obviously happened—and because you haven’t talked to anyone else about what you’re thinking, I really had no choice but to corner you here.” The girl approached her, frown deepening as she looked Mafuyu up and down. “So… are you doing okay?”
Mafuyu hadn’t thought or voiced her own thoughts all day. Her mind, her tongue, whatever physical part of her that she needed to speak, felt like an atrophied muscle constricting from lack of use. In front of her was someone who hated this manufactured smile and despised this constructed personality. She mirrored Ena’s frown. Her cheeks ached from the forced smile she plastered on.
“I don’t know,” she answered. It was the truth.
“Again, with your I-don’t-knows and your smiles,” Ena muttered. She made no attempt to hide the disdain from Mafuyu, and Mafuyu herself didn’t take offense, only raising an eyebrow when the girl grabbed her hand.
“I’m not going to run away, so you don’t need to keep holding my hand all the time. I just need to tell my mom that I’ll be dropping by the bookstore.”
“Uh, no. It feels like you’ve been doing nothing but run away. I’m holding onto this hand.”
That cut Mafuyu’s thoughts short. Like a splash of ice-cold water, it seeped through her cogs and wheels, and her inner mechanisms malfunctioned. Nothing in her script told her how to respond to something like that. She didn’t know how to react to the accusation.
Her voice sounded small, not at all like the dependable front she so often put on, as she found her words and eventually asked, “…Is that really how you see me?”
The hand holding hers was too warm for her liking, but neither of them let go.
“Lately. Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
“So that I don’t run away?”
“Sure, that,” Ena shook her head, and with one step, then another, she started walking off school grounds, Mafuyu in tow. Once they started down the main street towards downtown, the girl continued, “and maybe it’s because I know what to look for, but you looked like you needed a friend. I’m here for that too.”
She didn’t say anything else after that, and Mafuyu didn’t know how to respond, so the conversation ended there.
Mafuyu allowed herself to be pulled along.
…
There was an insatiable hunger in Mafuyu.
Not for food. It couldn’t be food, when Mafuyu couldn’t enjoy the taste. It instead craved the emotional availability that others offered so freely. It was a bottomless pit that always needed to consume more, always more, as if there was never enough to fill the empty void inside of herself. Faced with someone like Ena, this hunger for something she didn’t have reared its ugly head.
Even as they sat across each other in some café that she didn’t care for, Shinonome Ena took pictures of the interior, sighing at how cute its décor and furniture were. Two orders of dessert dishes were already placed. Pictures of those would be taken as well, of course. It was for social media, it was for reference, it was because of something as simple as liking it. This was the girl who loved art so much that she was compelled to keep drawing, despite the world telling her she had no talent for it.
Could anyone blame Mafuyu for wanting that? It seemed like a fantasy imagining what that would be like, to know herself with so much resolution. Ena was not perfect. That much was obvious. But in her imperfections was someone with a clear sense of what she liked or disliked.
The waitress placed a plate of fluffy pancakes and another with custard pudding between them.
Ena thanked the waitress then motioned to get Mafuyu’s attention. “Okay, I need you to scoot to the right there. Your shadow’s in the way.”
She did as she was instructed, watching as more pictures were taken. Today’s pictures were for social media, then. Ena never posted her photos right away. She took her time to edit them, to choose the right day and occasion to post a certain topic. Mafuyu didn’t quite get why Ena put so much effort into posting online at all, but it was something she still put in the time for. It was another part of Ena that she chalked up to being two completely different individuals.
“Since I did something for you, I want to ask you about something.”
“I’m listening,” Ena answered as she placed her phone on the table.
“Did you have to fill out a future career survey too?”
“Hm? I did.” After a moment of deliberation, she sighed and slid over the pudding to Mafuyu. “Take this one. I figured you would like the texture.”
Mafuyu lifted a spoon and cut into the offered dessert, staring at the caramelized sugar. Her thoughts flashed back to lunch and her uneaten bento box. With a glance at Ena, she slipped the spoon into her mouth. She swallowed with a gulp.
They would never see eye-to-eye on most things. Ena was the kind of person who wanted too much, who always overthought and always overreacted, and took personal offense to things that didn’t matter. That was how Mafuyu viewed Ena, and she didn’t think any of it was incorrect. Despite all of that, knowing that Ena was lazy, and a procrastinator, and someone who thought too much of what it means to have “talent”, she was also one of the few people in Mafuyu’s life that she didn’t have to be a “good girl” around. She spoke directly to Mafuyu when no one else would.
They didn’t always get along, and they were fundamentally different people, and it was because they were polar opposites that she asked, genuinely, “What do you want to do in the future, Ena?”
The girl in question waved her fork in the air in thought. She chinned her elbow, slicing a small piece of the pancake, and took a bite. She covered her mouth as she chewed, and Mafuyu ate some pudding as she waited. Ena sliced into the pancake once again as she finally responded, “I’m going to apply to Tokyo University of the Arts. I put it down as my first choice—it was actually the only school I wrote.”
“Art school,” Mafuyu rolled the words around in her mouth. The fact that Ena wanted to pursue art wasn’t what surprised her. That was one of the few things that was easy to understand about the girl. No, it was the fact that she didn’t write down any other alternatives. “Are you that sure that you’ll get in?”
“Ha! I wish,” Ena laughed. The last time she heard that laugh was when the girl threatened to quit art, calling her own art as an optional addition to Niigo’s appeal before running off into the Sekai. “No. I know more than anyone that my art still has a long way to go. The go-to answer is that Geidai’s tuition wouldn’t kill the college fund my parents saved up for me. But that place has the most competitive entrance exams for art schools in Japan, you know? I want to pass them to prove that I can make it on my own. And if I can’t—”
“That’s a big ‘if’ you’re raising there.”
“I know , Mafuyu. It’s my future I’m talking about here,” she snapped. “If I don’t make it, I’ll take a gap year. I already talked to Yukihira-sensei about it, and if Geidai doesn’t work out, I’ll study under him at his atelier. Then I’ll try again the next year.”
“I see.” Hearing Ena lay it all out for her made it sound so simple. She knew where her passions were, the kind of future she wanted, the things she needed to get there. It sounded so wonderfully simple, and yet Mafuyu still felt as if considering her own future was an impossibility. Even imagining herself as a doctor only painted a black nothingness.
For a single moment, the empty chasm within her that would happily consume Kanade turned towards Ena, and something like anger bubbled within her at the girl for knowing what she wanted in her future.
“Now it’s my turn to ask you something,” Ena declared.
The moment passed, and Mafuyu was relieved that Ena couldn’t read minds, because she wouldn’t have been able to explain herself if she tried. She ate another spoonful of pudding. It was soft. The caramel sauce felt sticky. Though she couldn’t describe the taste, these were still concrete sensations, and she let them ground her in the present. If Ena was asking a question, it would either about her own future, or about Kanade.
Ena nabbed a piece of pudding and slid it into her mouth as she started, “Alright. Tell me what happened last night. Seriously, if you heard Kanade last night, you would get why I’m asking. She sounded like she was ready to cry all night.”
“I almost told her last night when we were in my Sekai,” Mafuyu admitted, only realizing afterward that that was the truth. “But I couldn’t. When she was standing in front of me and saying she wanted to help me… I couldn’t do it.”
“If you couldn’t tell her, then what’s the problem?”
It felt like some cruel joke spun by the world, that Ena was somehow the voice of reason between them now. From an outside logical perspective, she either told Kanade the truth, or she didn’t. But her relationship with Kanade wasn’t as simple as just admitting that songs weren’t the solutions to life’s problems. If only it was.
“Kanade and I… if Kanade wasn’t around, I think I would have let myself die much earlier.”
“Mafuyu…”
Her voice wasn’t kind, or sympathetic. It had an edge to it like a warning, and in a way that only Ena could, Mafuyu could tell she cared.
“Let me finish. It probably doesn’t make sense to you, but Kanade is the same, and we both know that about each other very well. I could tell, last night. I knew all along. For her, nothing else matters so long as she can save me.” She placed her spoon down. She didn’t feel like eating anymore. She thought about the phone call, the desperation in Kanade’s voice as she reaffirmed her end of the promise. Her words came out slowly as she reached an unsteady conclusion with, “And that’s… why it isn’t simple.”
“Mafuyu,” Ena repeated, the same warning in her voice. A hand reached across the table and grabbed her own. “You have to tell her. I don’t know how or when or what you’ll say, but pretending that things haven’t changed isn’t going to help.”
“Do you really think I’ve changed?” She looked at Ena, who struggled and argued and cried over her art, but refused to back down. This was someone who had changed since they first met each other. She went from running away from her own art to chasing after her dream properly.
“Haven’t you? The old you would have never said any of this,” she pointed out, motioning to herself. “Much less to me. Hell, a year ago I would’ve been too angry to even listen to you. I think we’ve both changed for the better.”
For the better.
For someone like Ena, saying something like that was par for the course. For someone like Mafuyu, it hadn’t even been a possibility until someone had pointed it out, and ultimately, that was the kind of person Ena was to Mafuyu. She was a challenge—to Mafuyu’s preconceptions, to what she thought was normal, even to how she thought of herself. She was difficult, and angry at the world, and nothing like Mafuyu.
“I’ll think about what you’ve told me today,” she said, staring at the hand holding hers. They couldn’t be more different, and Mafuyu was glad for it. “Ena… thank you for coming to get me today.”
“I am a pretty good person, aren’t I? You’re welcome.”
“Please don’t ruin the moment by being you.”
Ena pinched Mafuyu’s hand, scrunching up her nose while she withdrew her hand. “I talked at you, you talked at me. And the world didn’t end because of it. So, you can go do the same with Kanade, okay? I can’t really say anything about what’s going on between you two, but—I don’t know. Talk it out.”
When she put it like that, it almost felt like it could be that simple.
…
It wasn’t the afterlife, but this empty Sekai was something close to it. This was always how she imagined it would be like. What came after death was a conscious existence within a deep, never-ending gray, never knowing when it would end. There was nothing to bother her. Nothing she desired. Nothing expected of her. Here, in this blank canvas of her supposed emotions given physical form, Asahina Mafuyu could cease to be a person.
For a long time, that idea comforted her. If life demanded more than she was able to give, there was always an emergency exit for her. All she had to do was give up.
She couldn’t even do that, in the end.
Miku appearing on her phone didn’t solve any of her problems, and escaping to this empty realm that resembled the kind of afterlife she longed for didn’t answer any of her questions. Two years later, though, and perhaps this place did make things a little easier. Enough that it didn’t feel so empty anymore. Even now, there were still faint echoes of Kanade’s song playing through the endless expanse.
Mafuyu found Kanade near the general meeting area, sitting with Miku and Rin among the pile of blankets and cushions. Those were recent additions to the Sekai. Mizuki had taken upon themselves to using any of their extra materials to throw them together, and before any of them had noticed, the collection of comforters had accumulated into a comfortable pile. Rin was huddled within several layers of blankets.
The two virtual singers regarded Mafuyu with small smiles of acknowledgement.
Kanade was slouched over her laptop, too focused on her work to notice Mafuyu approaching them, until her eyes glanced up and they made eye contact. She closed her laptop immediately. She stood up, meeting Mafuyu halfway, hands reaching for her before freezing. After a moment, Kanade retracted her arms awkwardly.
“Mafuyu. I haven’t seen you in a few days.”
Her voice was garbled, as if she had just stopped crying recently. Ena hadn’t been lying. The pit in Mafuyu’s stomach bottomed out once more. She hadn’t joined their Nightcord calls since her last encounter with Kanade. Mizuki still messaged random links in the middle of the night, but for the most part, she had spent it studying in radio silence. Now, standing in front of Kanade again, she wanted to go back to that limbo state of not knowing if they would be able to talk directly to each other. It was easier to avoid the issue than to work through it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t contact you sooner,” she started, because she didn’t know how else to. “I… have been thinking about things lately. I was hoping we could talk alone.”
“Of course,” Kanade placed the laptop to the ground, glancing at Miku as she did so.
“I can… watch over it for you,” the girl offered quietly, from her cluster of pillows beside Rin.
“Thank you, Miku. I’ll come back for it later.”
They chose a random direction and started walking away. As far as they understood how a Sekai worked, there were no landmarks to keep track of. It felt as if parts of the Sekai would constantly shift, or the distance between them would change, and it was only through holding a specific part of the Sekai in mind that a person might find their way to their destination. Mafuyu thought of the optical illusion of an endless staircase—it only looked infinite if looked at a certain angle.
Today, as Kanade and Mafuyu walked to an unknown part of the Sekai for some semblance of privacy, she started thinking their own relationship was something like an optical illusion. At first glance, none of the complicated and troubling feelings were apparent. But with a change in perspective, the festering feelings were uncovered, like maggots just beneath the decaying skin of an animal corpse.
Unprompted, Mafuyu confessed, “The song I can hear in the Sekai. It’s yours. The same one you wrote for me based on the memory of your parents together.”
“Is it really?”
“It is. I would never mistake it for anything else.”
Kanade sounded so surprised, so happy to hear that it was her song, as she smiled. “Mafuyu, I’m glad I could write a song that could stay with you. Do you remember what Luka said last time? Do you feel like you’ve changed in some way?”
She didn’t like this feeling in her chest. The air in her lungs felt uncomfortable against her ribcage. She could feel her heart pumping blood in and out, and with each thump it felt as if it could stop at any moment. Kanade wanted this heart in her to keep living. Kanade needed her to live, so that she might be able to prove that she was useful to someone.
Mafuyu found comfort in the optical illusions, the endless staircases, the unconditional love that came at the cost of someone else. It would be terrifyingly easy to allow things to go back to the way things were, but just like how learning how an optical illusion worked stole the magic away, she knew that there was nothing to return to. Something in Mafuyu had changed, after all, whether she was prepared for it or not. The song playing in her ears was proof of that.
She had run away before, but she found herself facing Kanade again. She wanted to die, but it sounded like a feeble excuse to avoid the problem in front of her. She didn’t want to live but she didn’t have the guts to kill herself. Mafuyu didn’t like that her decisions were so full of contradictions. Laid out like this, it made her seem unreliable. Maybe she was.
Standing with the one person who pulled her back from the point of no return, Mafuyu wanted to be honest, and that meant admitting to Kanade that she no longer believed a song could save her.
“I—Kanade…”
Her vision grew blurry. Warm tears brimmed her eyes, and she raised a hand to feebly touch a wet cheek. Asahina Mafuyu was crying. She couldn’t remember the last time this had happened, and the sensation felt both foreign and nostalgic. Her body seemed to remember, sniffling and hiding her face away from the other girl. Her muscles suddenly felt very heavy. More tears spilled from her eyes, and biting her lip only allowed a strangled whimper to slip out.
She didn’t know how she had fallen to the ground. She only felt Kanade’s arms around her shoulders, and then her head was resting on her lap. This wasn’t how it supposed to go. Kanade wasn’t supposed to be the one comforting her, combing gentle fingers through her hair. Kanade was the one who should have been hurt in this situation.
In one final effort to convey her original intentions, Mafuyu sat up from Kanade’s lap. They were physically close in a way that they hadn’t been for a while now. That was something she hadn’t realized until they were once again in each other’s personal space. This close, she couldn’t hide her crying.
“A-Are you okay?” Kanade slowly raised a sleeve to wipe away tears.
“I’m not,” Mafuyu choked out.
Awkward arms wrapped themselves around her in a tight hug. “Okay. That’s okay. Niigo, the virtual singers, we’re all here for you, okay? And if the song I wrote meant something for you, then maybe the one I was working on earlier might be able to do—something, anything…”
“Kanade, that’s what I need to tell you.” She felt her words scrambling to latch onto the mention of her songs. How many compositions had Kanade written for her since they swore to one another? How many sleepless nights had the girl ignored in favor of finding the right melody, the right instruments? She didn’t deserve to, but Mafuyu found her arms reaching around Kanade’s back, and clutching at the fabric there. “I don’t want you to write anymore songs. The change isn’t realizing I’m not okay… I’ve known that for a long time now. The change is that I don’t think your songs will save me.”
Holding Kanade in her arms, she could feel how thin she was, even under her tracksuit. She felt how tense she was, and it only made Mafuyu hold her tighter. Words like apologies and appeals to not hate her, to not turn on her, to not be disappointed bubbled forward one by one. She couldn’t find the right words and ended up with a loose string of “I’m sorry” over and over, as she continued to cry on Kanade’s shoulder quietly.
“I’m sorry, Kanade… I’m sorry…”
When the girl finally responded, she simply called her name, “Mafuyu.”
“Yes…?”
She rubbed her eyes to rid them of tears, and she clung onto Kanade’s words just as she was gripping her in her arms. It came to her that she never saw Kanade’s expression as she reacted to her words.
Instead, she focused on Kanade’s wispy voice as she spoke quietly, “Thank you for telling me… if you really think that, then there’s no helping it. But if you’ll let me, I want to keep writing songs for you anyway, even if you don’t believe they’ll save you. Maybe the right one will come up and it’ll change your mind. Just please—please don’t shut me out. Let me help. It’s the only way I know I can.”
Kanade didn’t get it.
“You’ve already given too much, Kanade…” Unspoken, she wanted to tell her that she needed to save some of that selfless love for herself. Please. Please, she wanted her to think of herself in the same way she disregarded everything for Mafuyu.
When she pulled back from their embrace, she realized it wasn’t an overcompensating love that led to her request. Kanade was pleading with her.
She didn’t want to be thrown to the side, and Mafuyu didn’t want to cast her aside either. Contradictions, inconsistencies. Even though Mafuyu trusted Kanade more than anyone, she found it harder and harder to convey that to her. It was illogical. She wanted Kanade’s love, and at the same time detested herself for taking it. Kanade was too kind, already willing to overlook that something had shifted between them—and Mafuyu couldn’t resist.
Offered to her so directly, she craved the comfort that Kanade so eagerly wanted to provide.
Mafuyu nodded.
She couldn’t trust herself to speak. As she buried herself into Kanade’s arms, she heard the girl exhale a sigh of relief. She didn’t understand what there was to be relieved about. They pulled each other into a tighter hug. Their arms latched where they could, desperate to feel the person and know that they weren’t alone. If it was Kanade, Mafuyu knew that they would always be at each other’s sides.
She didn’t know if it was the same as wanting things to be different, but things couldn’t stay the same. Or rather, everything was already changing, and Mafuyu was changing alongside it.
…
Final exams passed uneventfully.
Mafuyu started joining Nightcord calls again.
They released a new song shortly after finals wrapped up, and celebrated at the usual diner. Things, at first glance, seemed as if they were returning to some semblance of a routine. Ena never commented on if she noticed anything beyond giving a strange look between Mafuyu and Kanade, and only Mafuyu would have known what that look meant. It was a question. A semicolon at the end of the last time they spoke one-on-one, waiting for Mafuyu to continue the conversation.
She didn’t know what to say, much less explain the exchange if she got that far. So, like she had grown accustomed to, she didn’t say anything at all. Ena surprisingly didn’t push and Kanade smiled at her like she usually did.
Her routines, the world as she knew it, were slipping back into what she was used to. She dropped by the library to check out a few books her mom recommended. She turned in her future career survey late as her homeroom teacher amicably waved her off. Her third and final year of high school started, and it felt like any other day. And yet, she felt restless. The routines might have been the same but everything surrounding them had long since changed.
It was mid-April, clear blue skies without a cloud in sight, when Mafuyu left club activities a little earlier than she was supposed to. There was no invitation. No one was expecting her. Still, her feet hopped onto a different bus, departed at a different stop, went down different streets. Her mom would still be at work, and her dad only ever returned in time for dinner. She wouldn’t stay long. She would return to the daily routine that awaited her without a complaint.
The Akiyama residence was inconspicuous from the outside, with its pale beige paint and unassuming brown roof tiles. Mafuyu pressed the doorbell. A moment later, Eimi swung open the door and was caught off-guard when she noticed it was Mafuyu standing on the front porch.
“Wow. Hey! Mafuyu. I didn’t think I’d see you so soon.”
The plastic smile smeared itself on her face in an instant. Mafuyu bowed her head as the older sibling beckoned her in. After slipping off her shoes, she was led into the living room, where she stated, simply, “Actually, I wanted to see Mizuki today. Sorry for the sudden visit.”
“Oh? That’s fine too,” Eimi said over her shoulder. If she was disappointed that Mafuyu wasn’t here to talk with her, she didn’t let it show. They stopped at the bottom of the staircase. After sharing an awkward look, she motioned upward, “They’re just catching up on anime in their room, so feel free to interrupt them. You know the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure. I’ll be down here if you need me.”
Mafuyu was halfway up the stairs when her eyes caught the photographs lining the wall beside her. Most of them were of Touki and Michie together, seemingly always at a different locale in each shot. Any photos of Mizuki captured their embarrassed smile, and it seemed like Eimi was always laughing at whoever was behind the lens. The one Mafuyu stopped in front of was her high school graduation photo.
The lower angle of the camera made Mafuyu suspect that it was Mizuki taking the picture. The younger Eimi was happy. A smiling, blurry figure of a girl jogging towards the camera as she waved her diploma tube in the air. Mafuyu could imagine the scene easily. There was Mizuki, younger and quieter and glad to be out of shot, and then Eimi, finding a way to include her little sibling in the story. She could only imagine what led to getting this specific picture printed and framed.
Little things like this were why she didn’t like being in someone else’s home.
Having this kind of vulnerability hung up on the wall was not something the Asahina’s did. It forced her to realize that the people around her were human. They weren’t just people who expected things out of her, or acting only for their benefit. There was an entire life full of experiences that she would never be privy to.
If Mafuyu could live her life without knowing this fact, she felt that life would be easier. No interest in others. No interest in what their ambitions or their futures were. Having no investment in other people meant the emptiness she felt inside could be left undisturbed. She already knew she was contradicting herself, asking Ena about the future she was pursuing. She already knew she was a coward, scared of what letting Kanade go would do to the girl.
But it was only in this moment, as she stared at this candid photograph, that Mafuyu confronted another fact: that wanting to know more meant exposing the weak parts of herself.
Her memories wound back to what last happened in her Sekai, as Kanade’s song rung in her ears and her hands desperately clutched onto the girl like a lifeline, and her thoughts wound further back to her torn up future career survey, and Mafuyu realized that she had already made her decision.
She could no longer rely on others to think in her place.
Kanade and her songs were an emotional crutch when she had none. Blindly following her parents’ wishes lulled her into an apathetic agreeability. They were opposite ends of the spectrum, but they resulted in the same thing—Mafuyu allowing others to carry the burden of responsibility.
Somewhere between knowing that things could never be the same and knowing that things were already changing, somewhere between not knowing what she wanted in her future and refusing other proposed futures, there was Asahina Mafuyu, and a part of herself that couldn’t give up. On her life, on her future, all of herself. She didn’t know what kind of person she would turn out to be if she pursued this line of thought. She didn’t even know what parts of herself were her authentic self, or a patchwork of what others expected of her. Still, she wanted to believe this quiet voice in her, the one that kept her around despite it all…
She wanted to believe that was Asahina Mafuyu, clasping onto hope that things might turn out okay, after all.
Mafuyu lifted one foot, then another, and eventually she was climbing the stairs.
It was as if her mind went on autopilot afterwards, knocking softly on Mizuki’s bedroom door and watching as her friend looked at her in surprise. She wanted to ask about the graduation photo at the staircase. She wanted to hear the story behind it. Instead, she let Mizuki pull her into their room, ushering her to sit at the edge of the bed. Ena had looked so comfortable in this room. She napped in this bed as if it was her own. Not having any specific reason, she decided she wanted to see what that was like, and she let herself fall back onto the mattress.
“…fuyu. Mafuyu?” Mizuki was speaking to her. Was it possible to not hear a person’s words despite being right in front of them? She wanted to apologize for not listening, yet no words came out. When she shook her head, Mizuki sat beside them on the bed. Finally, she heard a coherent sentence. “So, uh, do you need some space? Did you want to talk?”
No questions about why she was here. Nothing about how it was a school day, and how she should still be on school grounds. It was just like Mizuki to forgo the obvious questions to focus on what Mafuyu needed, and it was because of that that she shook her head again.
“Eimi told me you were watching anime. Aren’t I interrupting that?”
“I think you rank just a little higher than the next episode of an isekai anime.”
“Flattering,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She felt the mattress dip beside her. Mizuki was laying down along with her. Intruding in a person’s room, where people kept their closest belongings and memories, she felt like she had to offer an explanation. But she had no specific reason for why she approached the Akiyama residence again. The future was approaching, everything was contradicting each other, and amid the chaos was an offer on the table. After a while, she found her words. “I’m tired, Mizuki. I think I have been for a long time.”
They didn’t offer any words of consolation, just a low noise to let Mafuyu know that they were listening.
Different strands of thought came to mind. There was the future career survey. Mizuki didn’t know that she had told Kanade to stop making songs. She thought about the future, and grasped her fingers around that. It made her nauseous. It made her think about the responsibilities she was ignoring in favor of lying around on her friend’s bed.
“By the time you start your last year of high school, everyone’s already asking you about your future plans,” she spoke. “I’ve never had any plans. The only plan I had was to kill myself before turning eighteen, and nothing else mattered. My parents wanting me to be a doctor didn’t sound real because I was so convinced that I wouldn’t be around long enough for it to be a reality. But something changed—or maybe I’ve changed. And now I’m left with a future I didn’t think I would live to see.”
“Is that scary? Having to live with that for the rest of your life.” The way Mizuki asked the question made it sound like it wasn’t directed specifically to Mafuyu.
“I have no choice,” she affirmed, and the answer felt like it wasn’t specifically for herself either. “I don’t know what to do, but something has to happen. I don’t know. It just can’t stay the same anymore. That’s what I know.”
“Mafuyu…”
“I’m not expecting you to have answers,” she turned her head to the side, opening her eyes to see Mizuki staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t think I’d have any for you,” they admitted. “The most I can do right now is to be right here for you. And we can stare at nothing for a while.”
“I would like that.”
Mizuki smiled. “Me too.”
She found herself staring up at the ceiling again. Beside her was someone who was all too aware of the people around them. Not in the same way as Mafuyu, no, but they were aware of other people just as much as Mafuyu was. The kinds of expectations people held for others, the disappointment and contempt that was found when those expectations weren’t met—it was different and the same.
Perhaps, without realizing it, that was why she ended up at the doorstep of the Akiyama’s. With a family not like her own, in a house that couldn’t be more different, and a friend that she could drop her mask around, she wanted to see if there was anything here for her.
“Mizuki?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
For just a while, Mafuyu wanted to imagine that she could be comfortable here.