Work Text:
Saki woke up to quiet.
She had a difficult time getting used to quiet, because her surroundings had always been loud. Her house was loud, her brother and her parents always out and about, making noise. She found comfort in waking up late on the weekends, footsteps and muffled sounds of talking below her, the faint smell of breakfast being cooked trickling into her room through her cracked-open door.
There was much less comfort to be found there, but the hospital had been loud, too. It was always busy, never a moment where she couldn’t make out the sound of nurses rushing across the halls, squeaky wheels and the tapping of pens on clipboards and conversations full of words she didn’t know. At the very least, she could lose herself in the white noise for a moment and push away her own thoughts.
Leaving the hospital had been loud, too. She’d left for a loud, loud new high school where she had been able to reconnect with her friends again, laughing, crying, playing loud instruments together. That had been her favorite brand of loud, she thought. If there was any noise she took comfort in, it was the deep thrum of Shiho’s bass, the ever-present beat of Honami’s drums, the melody of her own synthesizer.
And Ichika. Ichika’s voice, Ichika’s guitar. Ichika had been her favorite noise, back then.
That was all over now, though. There was no more high school left, no more band with her childhood friends. Now all she had was college classes, college friends, clothes shopping with Honami or lunches with Shiho once every two months or so. A small one-bedroom apartment, all to herself, always quiet.
She had no right to complain about it, she reminded herself, twisting open her blinds and squinting at the sudden brightness. She was the one who had taken that away, after all. She was the reason there was no more Leo/need, no more noise. No more Ichika.
It was a little pathetic, she supposed. She was still this hung up on an ex-girlfriend, even though she and Ichika hadn’t seen each other since they had both graduated. Even though the time they had spent together was slowly being overtaken by the time they had spent broken apart. It had been almost a year now. Saki still remembered the date by heart.
Despite herself, she fell into her own memories, days spent by Ichika’s side filling her vision. It had all been so warm, so bright, so much fun, laughing until her cheeks hurt touring the mall and drinking half-sweet boba, sharing each other’s straws. She still missed those days, no matter how much she willed herself to stop, no matter how much she knew she didn't deserve to.
She picked out one day in particular. A weekend at the cusp of summer, right at the start of their school vacation. The wet season had started earlier than either of them had expected; neither of them were dressed for rain. Neither of them had carried umbrellas.
The two of them had stood together under an awning, rain pouring heavy around them and splashing onto their shoes. The sky was dark with clouds, an occasional dim clap of thunder resonating around them, sounding far away. Ichika’s hoodie and Saki’s blouse had been spotted with rain, brief droplets that had caught them before they had managed to take shelter. Saki shook off a few excess drops from her hair.
“It doesn’t seem like it’ll let up,” Ichika had mumbled, looking down at her phone, her shoulder pressed against Saki’s. Saki peeked over to her screen. The forecast was claiming that the current conditions would continue for hours.
Saki shivered a little, huddling slightly closer to Ichika. Her outfit hadn’t been chosen for these conditions. Ichika welcomed her.
“Icchan…” Saki stared up at the sky worriedly. “What should we do?”
Ichika sighed. “We could always stay here. The rain will stop in,” she glanced down at her phone again, “a few hours, it says. It’s not exactly a great place to wait, but…” she trailed off.
“Why don’t we run? Your house is pretty close to here, right?” Saki tilted her head up, thinking, trying to remember the roads and streets around Ichika’s house, drawing on childhood memories. “It should be, like, a few minutes away.”
“We could run,” Ichika said. “But…” She was worried, Saki realized. Ichika was worried for her.
All things considered, waiting wasn’t the worst option. The awning was a little small, but Saki could certainly think of worse ways to spend a few hours than huddled next to her girlfriend, the noise of rain drowning out their surroundings.
But drying off at Ichika’s house seemed just a little bit more appealing. She intertwined her fingers with Ichika’s, returning Ichika’s questioning look with an impish grin.
“Let’s run, Icchan.” Saki gave her hand a squeeze for effect.
They stared at each other for a moment. Ichika was conflicted, Saki could tell; she still had reservations about Saki running through the rain, although Saki was sure that Ichika would rather be cozy and warm in her own house as well.
Eventually, she exhaled, an exasperated smile tugging at her lips. “Okay. Let’s run.”
Maybe Saki had convinced her. Or maybe she knew that she could never win a battle of wills against Saki. Saki didn’t know which it was. She found it hard to care as she held onto Ichika’s hand tight, taking a deep breath and bracing herself.
She took one step forward, then another. Then she was running, her arm trailing behind her, Ichika in tow.
The rain whipped against her face, matting her hair to her head and soaking through her clothes. She was aware of the cold, dimly, but she couldn’t feel it in herself. The adrenaline, the exhilaration drowned it out.
She was laughing. Ichika was laughing, too, behind her, although she could barely hear it through the downpour around her. The two of them had laughed all the way to Ichika’s house.
Saki laughed dryly to herself. Even though it had been more than a year, she still remembered everything word for word. She could still remember every little expression on Ichika’s face. After this long, she still couldn’t let go, even though she was the one who had forced them both to let go of each other.
She’d loved Ichika, back then. She knew it from the way her chest had fluttered, light as air with Ichika’s arms wrapped around her. From how bright and fun every day had been when they were together, when they had loved each other.
But that was then, and this was now. Saki had been the one to break it off, after all. She was the one who had claimed that she had stopped loving Ichika all those months ago.
She wondered, sometimes, whether that was true, whether she loved Ichika or not even now. It was difficult to be sure when so much of her was still occupied with Ichika, so much more than should have been for someone who had supposedly fallen out of love. But after all this time, she still didn’t know.
Her eyes had gotten used to the brightness. She looked out of her window, eyes trailing past the street below, passing by green leaves and building roofs and reaching the sky. It was vast, an ever-growing expanse of blue. The morning sun hung low in the sky. There wasn’t a single cloud.
It almost felt like an insult, to be shown such a brilliant blue sky in her state of mind. She found herself thinking that, just maybe, she would prefer to see the rainclouds from that day.
With a sigh, she forced herself to turn away and shuffled towards her bathroom, shoulders hung.
Life continued on. It always did, even though Saki’s days never ceased feeling empty.
She met with Shiho and Honami again a few days later with no aim in particular. The three of them walked around the city, touring random shops and seeing the sights, although they were long since familiar to all of them. They spent the day reconnecting, chatting over each of their respective lives, details that they couldn’t share now that they were only meeting once every few months. Honami seemed to be doing well; she was in the same college as Saki, but since they were on different career paths, they didn’t have many chances to meet. Saki was relieved that Honami seemed to be doing well with the friends she had in college.
Shiho, on the other hand, was fully dedicating herself to music. She was still aiming to go pro as a bassist, joining another band and having nothing but kind words for them. Saki was happy for her, too, although she awkwardly pushed off Shiho’s invitation to go watch her perform some time. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to; of course she did. But she could never get over the atmosphere of a live house. It dragged up too many memories for her, of playing together as Leo/need. Of standing on stage with her synthesizer at her hip, harmonizing with Ichika’s guitar. It was always too much for her. She couldn’t bring herself to go back.
Outwardly, Saki seemed to be doing similarly well. She’d made her own friends, like Honami, and was doing perfectly well in her own classes, but she couldn’t help but feel a little guilt for herself, inadequate next to her two friends. They were both making progress, after all, moving forward in their own ways. Saki, on the other hand, was still trapped in her past.
Coupled with that, it wasn’t lost on Saki the way the two of them danced around the subject of Ichika. Whether they knew how heavy her former girlfriend still weighed on her mind, she didn’t know, but they were clearly still conscious of the situation, even after so long. Saki knew that the two of them were still friends with Ichika, and didn’t miss the way that Honami would seem to let the conversation drift towards her, only to suddenly pull back and change topics with a stuttered voice and a barely-hidden guilty expression.
She was happy to see her friends again, of course, but with all of those things considered, she couldn’t help the sour taste in her mouth as she waved goodbye to them at a street crossing, the sun only just beginning to set over the horizon. Once they were out of sight, she sighed, staring up at the sky, blue tinged with orange and purple. Free of clouds once again.
She didn’t want to go back to her apartment. She couldn’t, not yet. It was too quiet, too dim. Too lonely. She picked a random direction, turned to it, and began walking.
There wasn’t anywhere she was going, not in particular. Anywhere that wasn’t home was good enough for her. She walked, nudging around the city’s crowded sidewalks, listening to the noise of cars and footsteps and idle conversations. The white noise, at least, could distract her from her thoughts, if only a little.
She didn’t know how long it took for her to hear the sound of a guitar. She had been lost, busying her mind until she couldn’t think. The buildings around her were unfamiliar.
She knew the sound of that guitar, though. Even though the noise of the city around her, she knew that sound. It was Ichika. She had continued doing her street performances, Saki knew. Honami had mentioned it once in passing, months ago. Still, Saki somehow figured she would never run into her.
Her mind told her to run, to turn around and run away from that guitar. She couldn’t face Ichika again. She couldn’t talk to Ichika again. What was she supposed to say? What if Ichika, after all this time, was okay, and Saki was the only one who was still hung up on her?
But she didn’t run. She took one small step forward, then another, cutting through the passerby and ducking into alleys, trying to find the source of that sound.
She didn’t know why, herself. Maybe, in some deep, twisted part of herself, she thought that she could have Ichika back. Perhaps Ichika would still be in love with her, and they could be together again. Was that what she really wanted? She didn’t know. She kept walking.
There was a small crowd around Ichika. Saki shouldered through it, muttering quick apologies and wincing at the feeling of elbows colliding with her ribs. It took just under a minute for her to reach the front. By then, Ichika had begun her performance in earnest.
Her hair was just a little bit shorter than Saki remembered it. Her face, too, was slightly more mature. But the sight of her, singing, was the same as ever, all too familiar.
Ichika had her eyes closed, belting out lyrics to a song Saki didn’t recognize into her microphone. Her hands flew over the strings of her guitar as she played. Her song was rich, filled to the brim with mixed emotions, her passion almost palpable in the air.
It was everything Saki remembered, and more. Much, much more. She watched the entire performance with bated breath, not daring to move a single muscle. Ichika could see her at any time, she knew. She had no idea what she would do.
With one last flourish of her guitar, Ichika ended her song. The people around her were clapping, a few of them yelling cheers and words of encouragement. Saki wanted to clap, too. She wanted to cheer. Ichika was amazing, of course. Her performances had always been amazing. But she couldn’t move. Her feet were frozen to the ground, a rock jutting out from the sea of applause.
Ichika was panting, wiping a bead of sweat off of her forehead as she looked out at the crowd. She looked happy; probably relieved that her performance had gone well, Saki guessed.
They made eye contact. Ichika’s smile fell. Saki felt her heart twist into a knot.
Slowly, the applause died down, and the crowd began to dissipate, but neither of them moved as they stared at each other. Saki felt her hands begin to tremble. Again, she thought about running away.
“...Saki.” Ichika’s voice was a hoarse whisper, her hand gripping tightly around the neck of her guitar..
But she couldn’t run away. Seeing Ichika had been like slotting a puzzle piece into a slot she had forgot existed, one she’d tried with all her strength to cover up. The wounds on her heart were bared now, the pain and regret and longing she’d pushed so far down bubbling up to the surface.
She took a hurried step forwards, grabbing Ichika’s free arm by the wrist. “Icchan. Please, I need to talk to you.” Ichika winced at the nickname. The sight made Saki’s throat feel tight.
“Saki.” Ichika repeated. “Why…?”
Although she looked reluctant, Ichika made no effort to move her arm away, to free her wrist from Saki’s grasp. It was enough of a sign for her.
“You’re doing street performances,” Saki said. It was an obvious thing to say, self-evident from her situation, but she couldn’t think of anything else.
Ichika slowly nodded. “...yeah, I am.”
Oh,” Saki replied, dumbly, almost under her breath.
Ichika paused for a moment, before smiling softly. “You look healthy.” The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Tentatively, Saki returned it.
“Yeah. I’ve been well," she said. “How have you been?”
Ichika shrugged. “As well as I could be, I guess.”
The words weren’t meant as an insult. Saki knew Ichika well enough to read the tone of her voice, well enough to know that Ichika wouldn’t stoop to the level of petty insults, even if it was what Saki deserved. Maybe that was what made it hurt more.
“Icchan,” Saki said through a choked-up throat, blinking away the first traces of wetness from her eyes, “I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words spilled out from her mouth along with the tears from her eyes, as if they were a flood that had pushed a dam to its brink, finally shattering it and pouring through. She'd wanted to say these words to Ichika for months, she realized. She had only been denying it to herself.
Although her vision was hazy, she could see the conflicted look on Ichika’s face. It was only natural, she guessed. She was the one that had hurt Ichika back then, and now she was crawling back. She really was pathetic. She could feel the familiar tendrils of frustration, venom directed at herself that she had tried so hard to push down for so long, clawing at her.
But she didn’t care, not anymore. She had been holding in these words for too long to stop now, even if she hadn't realized it.
“Icchan. I- I missed you. So much.” Saki let go of Ichika’s wrist, wiping tears away from her eyes.
Ichika didn’t move. “You…missed me?” she said. “I thought…”
Saki shook her head. “I missed you,” she repeated. “For all these months, all I could think about was you, Icchan. I want…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. What did she want? To get back together with Ichika? She wasn’t sure anymore. She had never been sure.
“Can we meet again?” Saki blurted out, interrupting herself. “Sometime soon. Whenever you’re free. We can get coffee or something, anything. I just want to see you again.”
That was it. She just wanted to see Ichika again, although she realized it only as the words formed on her tongue. The details weren’t important.
“Saki, you…” Ichika looked like she could cry, too. Whether it would be from happiness or sadness, Saki wasn’t sure; her expression was completely unreadable. Saki hoped she was happy, though. She prayed for it, prayed for Ichika to accept her back.
“You broke up with me,” Ichika continued. “I don’t understand- why-”
“Icchan, please.”
Ichika was silent. Saki fell silent, too, letting her gaze fall to her own feet as she clasped her hands together. She felt a single tear trickle down her face, and let it drop to the pavement.
“Okay.”
Saki’s head shot up. Ichika had her lips pressed together in a grim expression, staring to her side. “Let’s get coffee. Sometime.”
Slowly, Saki’s eyes widened, and the ground fell out from under her.
All things considered, Saki’s breakup with Ichika had been rather mundane.
It was a day on the borderline of winter and spring, Saki shivering slightly in her cardigan while Ichika looked just a bit too warm in her coat. The two of them were eating lunch together, as was their routine; it was easy to rendezvous when they shared their classes - they were third-years, now, but Saki had somehow managed to stay in the same class as Ichika the whole time. It was Saki’s precious time to spend with Ichika, a half hour of laughter and idle conversation fit into the middle of her tiring days of school, part-time jobs, and practice with Leo/need.
This time, though, the two of them ate in silence, Saki staring down at the path of Miyamasuzaka and watching a leaf blow idly by in the cool breeze.
It had been like this for almost a week, now. Saki wasn’t quite sure why, herself, but she couldn’t seem to talk with her girlfriend normally, the way she had for months, the way the two of them had since they were children. And if she wouldn’t start the conversation, she knew Ichika would be hard-pressed to.
As she had done constantly ever since this whole thing started, she risked a quick glance at Ichika, following the chopsticks in her hand as they traveled to her mouth, eyes resting on her face. Ichika took a bite, swallowed, and looked up, smiling gently as her eyes met Saki’s.
Saki was used to the rush she felt whenever she looked at Ichika. It had started when she had first fallen in love with her, and had only grown stronger once the two of them began officially dating. Recently, though, she had felt that rush begin to dwindle, fading away and replaced by some kind of unease, cold fear that gripped her heart until it felt like it would burst. She couldn’t return Ichika’s smile. A lump formed in her throat as Ichika’s expression slowly fell. She looked away again.
Ichika wasn’t stupid. This strained week of their relationship had taken its toll on both of them. She was worried, Saki knew, but she was never the type to risk overstepping her boundaries. It was that care that Ichika still felt for Saki that was truly crushing, pressing down on her until she felt like she would collapse.
Because she couldn’t return it.
“Icchan.” Saki spoke suddenly, setting her own chopsticks down and looking up at Ichika. She had to say something; it couldn’t wait any longer.
“Saki.” Ichika looked at her curiously, frowning. “What is it?”
Losing the spark. It was a phrase that Saki had heard countless times, in TV shows or movies. A relationship that stretched into the long term risked losing that feeling of excitement, doomed to fall into dreadful mundanity.
It was only after meeting Ichika again that Saki realized that that had never been the problem; it was never the mundanity that bothered her. She could have spent a lifetime with Ichika back then, doing nothing at all.
But the two of them had passed the honeymoon phase, to be sure. They were stable. Going steady. And something about that unsettled her, deep inside.
She hadn’t understood that back then, though. She couldn’t have.
“I…don’t know if we should keep staying together,” she said. That was all she had known.
Ichika blinked once. She opened her mouth, then shut it again and nodded. The hurt was visible on her face. Saki felt the sight of it sink into her stomach, sitting like a stone inside of it.
“You must have been thinking about it a lot,” Ichika said, barely louder than a whisper. “It’s felt like you’ve been holding something back for a bit now.”
Saki had been thinking about it. But still, she felt like Ichika’s words weren’t true. She hadn’t thought about it enough. She’d just charged forwards like she always did, still unsure of herself even as the words were beginning to leave her mouth. It hurt - Ichika was hurting, too, and it was her fault.
“Icchan, I…” she trailed off.
Ichika smiled, pained and lifeless. “If that’s what you want, then it’s okay, but…why? What happened?”
Saki bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I just…don’t feel right anymore, when I’m with you. Not like I did before.” The words were spilling out of her now. Maybe they had been building for longer than she knew. “I feel…scared. Of something, somehow. Uneasy.” She laughed, not a single drop of joy behind it. “Maybe it’s stupid. I don’t know.”
“It’s not stupid.” Ichika moved closer to her, resting her hand on Saki’s arm. “If you’re not happy being with me, then I’m glad you’re saying it. I-” her voice cracked, and she sniffled. She only realized then how much she must have been hurting Ichika. She was hurting Ichika so badly, but Ichika was still trying to be strong. All for her. She felt awful.
“I want you to be happy, Saki,” Ichika continued. “If that means breaking up with me, then that’s okay.”
And that was it. Saki had broken up with Ichika, just like that.
The rest of that day was a hazy memory in her mind. The two of them didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day, Saki stealing quick glances at Ichika before hurriedly looking down at her untouched notebook, fidgeting with the retracted pen in her hand. With a few phone messages, Ichika quietly called off Leo/need’s practice for the day, and Saki went straight home, praying not to run into her.
She might have cried. She probably did, she figured, but she couldn’t remember a specific moment. That night and the following days and weeks blurred together. She could only remember a few specific moments from that time.
She remembered breaking the news to Shiho and Honami; Ichika had already told them both, she learned. Neither of them gave much of a response; they were restrained, respectful. If they had any feelings on her decision, they didn’t show them. Saki wished they would have. Whether she wanted comforting or to be torn apart, she didn’t know.
She remembered their last practice together as Leo/need. Initially, none of them had wanted to break the band up. Ichika herself insisted on it. But when they had tried to play together, the tone of her guitar was empty, and Saki’s playing was out of rhythm, her fingers slipping on the keys. In the middle of their first song, Shiho suddenly stopped playing.
“This isn’t working,” she had said. “We can’t play like this.”
Shiho’s voice was level, almost cold and yet distinctly not. She stared at Saki and Ichika with neutrality. Saki found no anger, no disappointment, no sympathy in her eyes.
She was right, of course. In that blunt, matter-of-fact way that she always was.
They stopped practicing together after that. Two weeks later, they graduated.
Saki and Ichika had been friends for as long as Saki could remember. They had been playing together since they were little kids, Ichika had visited her in the hospital throughout her middle school years, and they had stayed close throughout all of high school. Until they had broken up, of course.
The near-year that Saki and Ichika had spent without contacting each other was the longest time they’d spent apart. Ichika had always been a familiar sight to Saki, a comforting one. Even after all this time, she still was.
The Ichika that was in front of her now, though, had twinges of unfamiliarity too. Her hesitant expression, the way she refused to make direct eye contact, the way her fingers wound around the handle of her mug as if it was her lifeline; all of that was new to Saki. She was the Ichika she’d always known, but somehow wholly different. It threw her off, sent her head spinning.
That it was her own fault only heightened her unease.
Saki brought her own mug to her lips, the scent of milk and sugar sharp on her tongue, and she took a small sip, staring down at the drink, light brown and cloudy. She saw Ichika do the same. Hers was almost black.
“I’m glad that you came today,” Saki said, genuinely. If she was honest, she had been worried the entire time that Ichika wouldn’t show. She didn’t think she could blame Ichika if she didn’t.
Ichika shrugged. “I said I would, right?”
“You did.” Saki laughed quietly. “I guess so.” That was right. Ichika was never the type to go back on her promises, after all. She never had been. At least some things didn’t change.
Saki noticed something that had, though. Maintaining eye contact with Ichika was a fruitless endeavor, so she glanced down at Ichika’s drink instead. “You drink black coffee now?” She asked.
“Sometimes,” Ichika said.
“Wow.” Saki’s eyebrows raised. “Did Icchan become a bit more mature?”
In a way, she hated how easily the light jab flowed out of her. It was still natural, too much so. It felt like she could forget the past year, forget their breakup, and just fall into place the way the two of them did a year ago. Maybe that was what she wanted, but it didn’t feel right to her, to act as if nothing had ever happened.
But Ichika finally looked up at her, mildly amused despite everything, before glancing back down at Saki’s coffee cup. “You still get your coffee the same way as always, though,” she said, smiling lightly. “Lots of milk and sugar.”
“Hey…” Saki pouted, but it didn’t last long; she couldn’t help herself from smiling as well. Maybe Saki would never forget the rift that had formed between them. Maybe Ichika wouldn’t either. But, even though they had been broken up for as long as they had been together, they had been friends for many times longer than that, she realized. Although the strain in both of their voices might not go away, they were still Ichika and Saki. Childhood friends, bandmates, girlfriends, exes. Whatever it was, they were still themselves.
The two of them shared light conversation as they drank their coffee, looking out the window and watching the sun rise over the buildings’ skyline and the streets gradually fill with passerby. Ichika’s hesitation never truly went away, and neither did Saki’s, but a childhood spent together slowly began to win out over a year spent apart. At the very least, the two of them could talk to each other.
Both of them had sat awkwardly for a moment when they were done, mugs empty and drinks paid for, loitering in the booth that they knew wouldn’t be theirs for long. Although the two of them had made steady progress to normalcy, there was still tension building. There was no way there wouldn’t be, Saki guessed, smiling grimly to herself when she figured Ichika wasn’t looking. She supposed she wanted…something out of this. All they had done was talk about nothing.
She opened her mouth.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?”
But Ichika was faster. Saki stared dumbly at her, mildly surprised. Then, slowly, she smiled, nodding. “I’d love to,” she said. It seemed that Ichika wasn’t the only one who wasn’t ready for their encounter to be over. She let herself take a mild comfort in that.
As morning stretched into noon, then afternoon, the two of them wandered aimlessly around the city, dipping into shops, rifling mindlessly through clothes and accessories and books, idly talking the whole way. They’d both spent most of their lives in this city, and they had certainly been around it plenty of times. Most of the spots they went, Saki remembered, were places they had gone to on dates before. It was unavoidable, really. They both knew the spots they liked by now. The spots the other liked.
Despite everything, it was fun, Saki thought. Even though Ichika couldn’t look her in the eye, and even though Ichika drew away whenever she came near, Saki couldn’t help but enjoy herself a little. It was only after Ichika was in reach again that she realized how much she had missed her, how large the void she’d dug from herself had been.
That void was yet unfilled, though. Their past hung heavy over both of them, unspoken words hidden behind every one of Saki’s questions and Ichika’s short responses. The day they spent together only gave it more time to build until it beat down on Saki like the afternoon sun; it was another clear day, and she had to squint a little to make out Ichika as the two of them stood outside a shop neither of them cared about, where neither of them had bought anything.
“...anywhere else you want to visit?” Saki offered, no real drive in her voice. The time where they were supposed to have split had long passed, she knew, but she couldn’t leave Ichika yet. She was dragging her heels.
Ichika shrugged. “Anywhere is fine, I guess?”
It was the sort of noncommittal answer that Ichika had given every single time Saki had tried to talk with her. Saki hadn’t expected anything else. “Alright,” she said. “Then, how about-”
“Actually-” Ichika interrupted her, taking a step forward, then back again. “We should talk.” Her voice had gone quiet.
“Oh. Right. We should.” Saki let her voice drift to the same small volume, a deep, thick feeling beginning to pool in her heart. She had known this was going to happen, hoped for it even; she should have been happy that Ichika had brought it up for her, she thought. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be anything but anxious, fear she had kept deep inside her for the entire day bubbling up to the surface.
Ichika sighed. “Look, Saki,” she said, “what is…” She made a vague shape with her hands. “What is this?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?” Saki ran her tongue over her lips. She was sure what Ichika meant, really, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She didn’t want to be the one to break the dam.
“Well, I mean. You broke up with me,” Ichika said. “And now, almost a year later, you just…come back, and say all that stuff and ask me out again, and I just- I don’t know. I’m confused.”
Saki hummed. Ichika had every right to be, after all. “I get it. I…honestly don’t know for sure myself. I just wanted to spend time with you again, Icchan.” It was an awful answer, she thought. Barely an answer at all. But she couldn’t give Ichika anything more, not yet.
“You just wanted to spend time with me again,” Ichika quietly echoed. “Okay. So do you just want to be friends again? Because that day you came up to me again, I thought that maybe you-” She cut herself off. “I might just be presuming here, so I’m sorry, but do you get how that felt for me?”
Saki shook her head, genuinely this time. She didn’t.
“...I thought I had messed up somehow, back then,” Ichika said. “I thought I wasn’t good enough. I still think that, or maybe I don’t, I’m not even sure anymore, after you said all that stuff the other day…” She looked to the side and bit her lip. “I don’t know if you know this,” she almost whispered, “but I still love you, Saki. I never stopped loving you.”
Ichika said something else after that, but Saki didn’t listen. She couldn’t listen, not when her brain was buzzing like it was filled with static and her heart was turning itself inside out. Those words were what Saki had been waiting for, she realized. Maybe they were the words that she had wanted to hear the entire time, a year spent apart from Ichika, staring listlessly up at the ceiling lights in her apartment, alone, thinking about her. Her mouth was hung open, and her eyes were wide; she was only dimly aware of it through the emotion pouring through her, joy and relief and soul-crushing fear all at once.
“...you still love me?” she said slowly, unmoving.
“Of course.” Ichika said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Saki blinked. Mindlessly, she closed her mouth and stared down at her own shoes. For just a moment, it was all too much for her, and she felt a familiar shadow pass over her heart. A part of her wanted to run away again. That part of her that made her uneasy, made her scared whenever she was faced with the prospect of something real.
She forced her head upwards and stared Ichika in the eye. Ichika’s expression was shaky, yet determined. Saki mirrored it.
She had made the mistake of running away once, before. She wouldn’t make it again.
“Icchan. Let’s get back together.”
Ichika’s determination seemed to fall away in an instant. She reeled, staring dumbfoundedly at Saki. “W-what?” She sputtered. “You actually…”
“Yeah.” Saki nodded. “I should never have broken up with you. I’ve been regretting it this entire time.”
It was only as she said it that she truly understood it for herself. She could almost feel a year of restless thoughts, of uncertainty, of aimless emptiness, solidifying in her into something coherent, something she could finally put words to. She was still scared. She was scared of what Ichika would say. She was scared of what she herself had just said. But she would face it this time, facing Ichika. She set her mouth into a straight line.
Ichika’s shoulders visibly fell. She looked uncertain, weak almost. “I…don’t know,” she said. “If I can. I mean, it’s so sudden, and…” And Saki was the one who had broken her heart in the first place. It wasn’t that easy to trust her again. Ichika didn't say it, but Saki knew.
“I understand,” Saki said. It was only fair, after all. “But you love me, don’t you?”
Ichika’s brow furrowed. “Well, yes, but-”
"I really am sorry for back then, you know," Saki said. "I said it before, but I never should have broken up with you. I was just scared, I think - of the commitment, of how real it all felt. But I went about it completely the wrong way, and I messed all this stuff up, and no apology will ever be enough to fix that. I know."
“But I love you, Icchan.” Saki took a deep breath. “You love me, and I love you too. I want us to be together again. I want this.”
Ichika looked at her, almost as if she was frozen in place.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me,” Saki continued. “I won’t ask you to forget about what happened back then. I won't even ask you to trust me. But if you want this even half as much as I do,” she moved to grab Ichika’s hand, squeezing it tightly, “then won’t you try it? Try us, again?”
After a moment, she laughed. “It’s selfish, isn’t it? I know it is. I’m just charging towards what I want without thought, like I always do.” She gave Ichika’s arm a small tug. “But it’s good to be selfish sometimes, isn’t it? It’s good, sometimes, to just think less and do what you want.”
For a moment, Saki felt like they were back in high school, back under that awning, hiding from the rain pouring down around them. Ichika had made a similar face back then, she remembered, a little reluctant and a little uncertain, even if they were in the open on a sunny day now, and both of them had grown up. She had held her hand, pulled on it the same way.
Ichika had huffed the same way, too, back then, looking at Saki with the same light smile. “I feel like an idiot. There’s a part of me that’s screaming at me to stop, to just shut up. But you’re right, Saki,” she continued. “I’m uncertain. I’m scared of getting hurt again. But I do want this. I have this entire time. So…” She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
The two of them didn’t move. But as Ichika lightly squeezed Saki’s hand back, Saki was back in that rain, sprinting with reckless abandon towards the droplets that were hitting her face, Ichika by her side.
It was the sound of shuffling footsteps in the kitchen that woke Saki up. The feeling of emptiness in her arms, and a small divot in her mattress left unfilled.
She was confused at first, her brain too preoccupied with shaking off the haze of sleep to put together coherent thought. It was only as she took her first slow steps out of her bedroom door that she truly remembered why exactly she had woken up.
Through blurry eyes that she rubbed out with one hand, she slowly made out the outline of Ichika, body towards the kitchen sink but head turned towards her. She was wearing a shirt that Saki recognized as hers, comfortably oversized but just a little bit smaller on Ichika. A glass of water was in her hand.
She remembered then that Ichika had stayed the night at her apartment, and suddenly, everything made much more sense. She laughed to herself. She still forgot sometimes, even though they had been back together for months.
“Good morning,” she heard Ichika say. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”
Saki stretched her arms above her, shaking her head. “Maybe. But it’s okay, I would have woken up anyways.” She winced a little at the raspiness of her voice, sleep still clinging heavy to her throat, but reasoned that Ichika had heard worse from her.
The two of them went about their morning routines as usual. Ichika used a spare toothbrush that had already been designated as hers, and changed into the clothes she had left for pajamas from yesterday, They cooked breakfast together, although Ichika insisted on doing most of the work. Not that Saki minded; watching Ichika cook was a gift in itself.
Staring at Ichika’s back as she leaned over a cutting board, making slow, meticulous movements of her knife, Saki felt something stir inside her. There was a certain comfort and happiness in spending this kind of quality time with the girl she loved, to be sure, but past that she could feel a familiar, darker undertone in the farthest reaches of her heart.
She’d felt it before, of course. She had felt it when she had first been together with Ichika, and when they had broken up. She had felt it in the time they had spent apart. She continued to feel it, as the weeks stretched into months that they had been together again. She might have even felt it when she was just a child, playing together with Ichika, Shiho, and Honami in the park, seemingly carefree; although that was so long ago now that she couldn’t tell.
It was a sort of unease that she still couldn’t put a name to. If she had to guess, she would trace it back to the time she had spent in the hospital, bedridden as her friend group fractured and fell apart. Although it was nebulous in her mind, she could identify the patterns in which it reared its head: it came when she was with her friends, with Ichika.
It was something between the precious feeling of having something special and the twisted fear that it would fall apart. Where it lay in that range, she wasn’t sure.
It had never gone away. Maybe it would never go away. But as she slowly wrapped her arms around Ichika in a back hug, resting her chin on her hunched shoulder, it paled in comparison to the comfort she could feel in her chest, in the parts of her body that met Ichika's. It felt small, somehow, manageable enough.
“Icchan,” she mumbled, without a particular end.
“Saki.” Ichika laughed a little. “I can’t focus if you do that.”
Saki pouted. “Maybe you don’t need to focus. You don’t have to cut those so evenly, you know? You’re so slow.”
“They won’t cook evenly if I don’t make all the pieces the same size.” Ichika nudged her gently in a get-off-me motion, and Saki relented.
“It’s okay,” Saki said, letting her hand brush past Ichika’s forearm. She wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the vegetables on the cutting board or not, not anymore. Maybe it was because Ichika sensed it that she smiled gently at Saki as she moved away to her own devices.
Even if it wasn’t, Saki thought, there was something behind that smile of Ichika’s. She could almost see the scars of past pain, happiness and sadness and conflicting feelings tucked into the background of caring kindness, hidden yet ever-present, just as present as the lingering unease in her own heart. She hoped that Ichika could feel her own feelings, that she could convey the guilt, the pain she had felt herself, even the warm feelings she was beginning to let herself feel now.
Maybe she was right. It would be okay. As the two of them ate breakfast together, she let herself believe it would.
“It seems like it’ll start raining soon,” Ichika said later while glancing at her phone, empty plates surrounding her and Saki at the table. Saki hadn’t opened the windows, she realized, but even with the blinds closed the uncharacteristic darkness of the sky at midday was unmistakable.
As she twisted them open, she saw that Ichika was right. There were dark clouds looming over the cityscape below, barely a ray of sun in sight. She made a small noise of disapproval. “You’re right. It does.”
She glanced back at Ichika. Ichika glanced back at her.
“Icchan.” Saki smirked. “Wanna stay until it passes?”
Ichika smiled knowingly. “That would be best, I think. I don’t think I can make it home without being rained on. If it’s not a bother, of course?”
“Of course not,” Saki said, and that was that.
As the steady thump of raindrops hitting glass filled Saki’s apartment, the two of them set out on something of a home date, if it could even be called that. In truth, there wasn’t much for them to do. They did the dishes while sharing idle conversation, made tea and drank it while pacing around the apartment. It was the sort of day that Saki would have considered boring, empty, back when she had been apart from Ichika. But Ichika’s presence made it so much more rich, so much more full.
“You kept your keyboard?” Saki heard Ichika say from the bedroom, and walked over to see Ichika looking at it, tucked away in a corner of her closet.
“Yeah,” she said. “I haven’t played in a while, though.”
“You should play it again,” Ichika said. Saki was reluctant to; she actually hadn’t played since she had broken up with Ichika, over a year ago. Ichika had kept in practice with her own instrument, she knew, and she was sure she would be shown up. It was a little embarrassing.
But more than that, Ichika’s eyes were a little too eager, and Saki found her defense crumbling against them.
“I’m gonna be rusty, okay?” Saki said as she plugged in the keyboard, brushing a bit of dust off of its stand. “I’m not out doing street performances like you, Icchan.”
Ichika gave her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
Saki’s fingers hovered over the keys, uneasy. But Ichika’s words and Ichika’s smile fueled her, filling her with a newfound drive.
She played one note, then another, letting muscle memory guide her into one of the songs she had played countless times. It was something they had played together as Leo/need what felt like an eternity ago, back when they were all first years, when being together and breaking up and being together again had been nothing but the future, something foretold yet blissfully unknown to Ichika, to Saki. She forgot a few notes, and tripped over the keys. It was a sloppy performance. Shiho would have been furious, she thought with a small smile.
Ichika clapped at the end, though, a quiet applause that mixed with the sound of the rain. And that was enough of a reward for her. More than enough.