Work Text:
Mafuyu sweeps her hair in a loose hand.
Today, Ena watches the tendons in her hand flex lightly as Mafuyu gathers her locks up into a slack grip. The purple is so dark it shines faintly iridescent, transfixes Ena’s eyes, moth to a flame. The hair tie loops, snaps in place. The sun is unforgiving on Mafuyu’s pale skin.
They’re in the hot midsummer outback. Mafuyu kicks up beige sand as she drills a booted foot to the ground, twists and turns it into the sand. Ena’s palm sweats on the bow handle as Mafuyu brings her own up, up, pale hand tight and steady on the handle. The wind is a heatwave, but it plays with Mafuyu’s fringe, her side bangs. Her left hand pulls back the arrow, slender, precise.
Her eyelashes are purple and long.
And they are focused.
Ena swipes at the short hair attempting to brush her eyes. She backhands the sweat on her brow, the spot above her Cupid’s bow.
Mafuyu’s arrow points right towards bullseye. It does not waver. (She’s a winner. She’s precision, focus, calm, and attraction all rolled into a gorgeous, grace-laced girl.)
(She is winter. Yuki, snow. Pretty, delicate, rare. Ena thinks anyone who looks at her would fall in love, too.)
Mafuyu squints, razored, and then a split second later—
Fires. The arrow rips from where her fingers slip from the string, straight and true. It arcs, and then twang—
Bullseye.
The arrowhead buries its tip in the red centre.
Ena tries very, very hard to seem unimpressed. She thinks her lips parted slightly. A fail in that attempt.
Mafuyu herself surveys her work, stalks closer to the target. Her fingers twist the feathered end of the arrow, almost contemplating, almost a caress.
“Good?” Suddenly, Mafuyu addresses Ena, all without turning to face her in the slightest. Ena swallows.
There is sweat running down her face. The sun is unforgiving today.
“Um. Yeah. Good job, Mafuyu, I guess.”
“Thanks.” Mafuyu says. Mafuyu grasps the arrow and dislodges it with a firm crack. The tendons in her arms flex. The sweat glistens her skin into a slightly reflective silver.
Ena steps up next. Mafuyu backs away, her fingers still irritatingly– distractingly playing with the feather of the arrow, the slender body wrapped up in her fingers. Her own high-cut boots dive into the marks Mafuyu left not a minute ago. She exhales, then pulls the arrow and bow up. The drawstring draws tight under her crooked finger, a trembling string of an instrument.
Her own breath trembles underneath, a soft rumble of rocks. Mafuyu simply observes. Her eyes are ocean-deep and blank, an indigo sheen.
Goddamn you, Mafuyu.
She fires.
The arrow rips downwards, off course, and of course. She hits the target, but only barely. The arrow sticks itself in the outermost ring, its feather wavering in the heatwave, a little bit like its embarrassed.
“Literally what the fuck,” is what Ena says, right after. Mafuyu does not say a word.
“It’s literally not fair,” she whines, stalking over to the target. The mark of Mafuyu’s straight-and-true arrow still has its indent on the bullseye, kinda mocks her. She yanks out the misfired arrow, a frown folding on her forehead.
“You didn’t even aim properly, of course its not going to hit the target accurately.”
“Oh, you’re gonna lecture me now, are you, Mafuyu?” Ena grumbles.
“I’m stating it how it is.” Mafuyu blinks. She walks closer, her boots leaving light prints. She looks down at Ena.
“It’s not my fault you’re a natural at everything, Mafuyu.” Ena looks offendedly at the arrow. It quivers as Ena breaths.
“... I do not know how to answer that.”
“Good! Goddamn.” Ena pouts. She's so fucking aware she's throwing a temper tantrum. But she can’t not. She also stomps for foot a little for good measure. The sand bellows from her weird little stomps.
Mafuyu seems distracted.
“Hello? Mafuyu? I swear—”
“Shhhh.” Ena balks as a pale hand snakes up from behind her and promptly covers her mouth. “Be still.”
“Mmmmhmm—!” Embarrassment and something else flares from her pores. She grips onto Mafuyu’s wrist, tries to pull it away, but goddamn that girl is strong.
“Rattlesnake.” Mafuyu says, or rather mumbles, quiet and deadly. Right beside her ear.
Ena can not even think about the very real rattlesnake right at their feet, slithering through the sand, when Mafuyu just did– did that.
Her cheeks heat instantly. Mafuyu’s fingertips are lightly calloused, and they grate satisfyingly on Ena’s skin, and her hand is long, slender, perfectly manicured, painted pastel pink only because Mizuki begged her. The skin on skin contact is— is—
Ena thinks she must be, quite literally, the shade of tomatoes.
Mafuyu is gently warm. She's a cup of warm water in a glass on an autumn day, gratifying. Their bodies mould together, pieces of a puzzle.
Shhhhhhh. The rattlesnake’s tail chimes.
Mafuyu’s other hand slides and envelops her waist.
Her waist.
(Do you know what you do to me?)
Mafuyu’s arm rests on Ena’s hip, like it was meant to be there, and Mafuyu reacts slowly, pulls Ena gradually backwards via small tugs on her waist, pushing on the hand still on her mouth.
The rattlesnake goes, shhhhhhh. A secret.
Shhhh. Mafuyu’s hand on her mouth. Stop talking.
They inch backwards to their truck, away from an unaware rattlesnake looking for prey that isn’t them.
Mafuyu jerks a little bit when her back hits the truck’s body. Her hand slips from their spot on Ena’s mouth, her arm slips from her waist.
“Come on.” Mafuyu says, right beside her ear again before she slips from her grasp– her voice is low and silky. Ena finds herself embarrassingly, irritatingly missing Mafuyu’s gentle warmth.
Mafuyu slips into the truck, smooth. She takes shotgun, undoubtedly. The only ones who know how to drive are Mizuki and Ena. (Kanade claimed she knew, but her hands trembled on the wheel and almost killed Ena in the shotgun seat. She wrote a sticky note– Warning: Don’t let Kanade drive. Ever.)
“Let’s go back.” Mafuyu tells Ena when she enters the truck, pulls the door shut.
“Okay. What about the target?”
“We leave it. We could always get it tomorrow.” Mafuyu leans back.
“O-kay. Right.” Ena turns on the ignition, revvs it.
They make it back to their little shack in the middle of nowhere. Mizuki is sitting out in the porch having some sort of a beverage and a foldable tent , and visibly perks up when Mafuyu and Ena drop from their “Niigo Truck” (as Mizuki proudly proclaims it).
“Yo! What’s up? I thought y’all were doing a little bit of shooting.” Mizuki grins. They tilt backwards and swing a leg over the other. The strange dark beverage in their hands is in direct danger of spilling over in Mizuki’s distracted hands.
“Rattlesnake,” Mafuyu says, monotone, and before Ena can yell it. Ena casts a dirty look, which Mafuyu either doesn’t notice or simply ignores.
“Aw man,” Mizuki says. “Must have been a downer.”
Not really. I got skin on skin contact with Mafuyu, so who’s really winning here, the rattlesnake or me?
“Ena, You wanna complain ‘bout it or something? You look like you’re going to burst.” Mizuki says. They know way too much about Ena.
“You know it. That crazy thing was on the ground like, one feet away! ”
“It was five—”
“Ahem. And then it shook its freaky little tail at me! The gall of that creature! I hope it looks at itself in the mirror and dies from how hideous it is!”
“Oh, Ena, that’s a little mean, isn't it? Mister Rattlesnake didn't do anything to you, did he?”
“Yes. The snake just slithered around for a little while. Shook its tail for a while. Thought it was searching for food. We’re not food. Too big, anyway.” Mafuyu shrugs.
Mizuki smirks. “Man, seems like the Esteemed Guest Mister Rattlesnake really just was ringing for his butler, Enanan. I don’t know why you’re freaking out this much.”
“You’re— you’re fucking annoying, Mizuki Akiyama! You… both!” Mafuyu’s eyebrows raise a little. She looks, for a second, a little shocked. Her face returns back to its unreadableness almost instantly after, dead stare, deep stare.
“I’m not quite sure why you’re mad at me, Ena.”
“Because—! Whatever.” Ena flushes.
Mizuki tilts their head and deep laughs, their pink hair spilling past the chair’s backing, their drink tilting even more— and then Mafuyu saves it, a finger to the cup to tilt it back upright. Lightning reflexes of their golden girl.
Mafuyu looks both focused and disinterested. She's so damn hard to read.
Mafuyu’s deepset eyes play their gaze on Ena, and if possible Ena blushes even harder. Then the moment passes and Mafuyu’s eyes zero on Mizuki’s drink.
“Mizuki. Drink.”
“Yeah, yeah. I won’t spill it.”
“You almost did.” Mafuyu says flatly.
“Well, maybe you saw wrong, Mafuyu.” Mizuki arches an eyebrow, sits upright. They all know Mizuki’s bullshitting for fun.
“Whatever!” Ena says, as an attempt to bring their attention back on her. “Crazy people all around me. I'm going in.”
Both of them watch Ena stalk in.
For a moment Mafuyu stares after Ena’s back. Mizuki shifts their gaze onto Mafuyu. There’s a little inkling somewhere.
Mafuyu glances down one last time, and leaves Mizuki by the porch as she follows Ena into the house.
Mizuki looks back and twists their lips.
They think.
——
They have food inside. Kanade pulls up and pretends she can cook. Mizuki tries to save the food as it chars unpleasantly on the stove. It doesn’t work. They all pretend the food is good. Kanade smiles wanly. (Ena pinches Mafuyu under the table when Mafuyu opens her mouth to, undoubtedly, give an upsetting blunt opinion of Kanade’s food. Mafuyu gets the memo.)
Mizuki invites Ena out for a little drive ‘round the area.
“Really?” Ena asks.
“Yeah. Why the doubt?” Mizuki smacks their lips together.
“No reason.” Mizuki arches an eyebrow. “Well, one reason.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Hell no.”
“I figured. Anyway, I would prefer if you accepted my little invitation, Enanan.”
“I guess so. Can’t avoid you for the life of me.”
“Don’t think you wanna avoid me at all, to be honest. I know you, Ena. Remember that.” They wink. Ena fake vomits.
“Ergh. Disgusting. Do not do that again in my proximity ever again.”
“You love me.”
So now they’re in the truck together. Ena’s at the wheel again. She's starting to think she’s being exploited.
They cruise the bumpy, poorly made road for a while. There are tumbleweeds, and cacti, and in the distance the sun is red and casts the landscape into the golden hour.
They don’t speak for a while.
“What’s up, Mizuki? What on earth did you want to talk to me privately for?”
“Who said I wanted to talk to you privately?” Mizuki laughs.
“You—”
“Kidding. Of course I did want to do that.” Mizuki turns their head to the front.
“Well…” Mizuki gazes over to the far distance, contemplating.
Ena is surprised. Mizuki never contemplates. Mizuki is all act first think later. Mizuki is excitement and spontaneity and not hesitant at all when it comes to fun things.
“When are you going to tell her?”
Her?
How’d they know?
Ena thinks of Mafuyu and her grace and her bluntness and her touch and her heavy, heavy gaze. Her wrist lies on the ring of the wheel. The wind runs through their hair and jostles with all these thoughts in Ena’s brain.
“I— I’m not sure what you mean.” Ena stares ahead.
“Really? I’m sure you do.” Mizuki’s hand rests on their sunglasses, perched on their forehead. Their hair streams from its hair tie, windswept.
“...If this is about Mafuyu, drop it.” Ena decides on that. Her hand taps a rhythm on the wheel. A tumbleweed rolls weirdly close to their truck.
“Ena…” Ena has never heard Mizuki this subdued, this serious. Mizuki stares at Ena with a gaze so unwavering it almost feels like Mafuyu’s stares, which does not at all help with Ena’s situation. Mizuki’s rose irises stares Ena down.
“...You feel for her, no?” Mizuki says. The air is thick. Ena swallows, and it feels like she forced a snake into her gullet. (No thinking about snakes again, Ena Shinonome. Rattlesnakes. Shhhh. Shhhh. Keep quiet, Ena. Be quiet. Her hand on her mouth, her arm on her hip.)
“Just sayin’. You like her, don'tcha? Like like her. Admit it.” Mizuki says.
I can’t. She’ll hate me. She’ll despise me.
Ena does not say any of that out loud.
“There you go again, spouting all that nonsense. Ugh, Mizuki.” Pretend till you make it.
“Ena, you like her. You’ve gotta do something.”
“I don’t ‘have’ to do anything.” Ena spits.
“Ena…” Mizuki’s face is like a cloud had fallen across it. They look mournful. “Ena, what if she likes you too?
“Tell her.”
“I don’t have to tell her anything.”
“Well…” Mizuki looks away, gives Ena respite from that mournful, strange, unwavering stare. “If you wanna be like that.
“But I’d advise you…” Mizuki breaths it into the air, the wind stealing their words, throwing them around and around until Ena has to confront them.
“Tell her.”
Tell her.
The wind echoes. It passes through her hair, their hair, playing. It makes her eyes dry. She blinks.
“I…”
“...Yeah? Don’t fumble it. You would regret it like, eternally.” Mizuki says.
Ena huffs. “You’ve got experience, huh?”
Mizuki pauses. It's weighted. Ena doesn't know what it means.
“You could say that.” And it’s heavy, sad. Mizuki’s eyes are lowered. It masks something Ena doesn’t know. Something Ena doesn’t know about Mizuki.
…What?
Before she can dive into Mizuki’s strangely heartfelt sentence, Mizuki grins and breaks out of that weird haze, and goes, “Atta girl.”
“Weirdo!” shrieks Ena, and Mizuki just laughs and laughs and laughs, their heart earrings swaying in the childish wind.
——
Ena spends some time in her bed, thinking.
Her hand twists a brown lock, around and around. She purses her lips and thinks and thinks some more.
And then she notices Mafuyu standing by her door.
Oh. Ena forgot to close it.
“Oh, hey.” Ena says awkwardly, because she’d been thinking about Mafuyu just a second prior.
“Hi.” Mafuyu says. She stands by the door. It’s almost awkward.
Wait. It’s awkward.
Now, she's not all grace and pale skin and golden goodness and accuracy. She’s– She’s human. Humanely awkward, ungainly, and uncertain.
Mafuyu is— Mafuyu. She’s just Mafuyu.
Just Mafuyu.
Ena looks at Mafuyu– what Mafuyu is, from her gorgeous messy purple locks in a high ponytail, to her messily cut bangs, to her ocean-deep indigo eyes, to the bare expanse of Mafuyu’s neck, her casual white tee, her maroon basketball shorts. The scratch on a knuckle that Ena’s never noticed.
Still though—
Still beautiful. So, so beautiful. Ena forgets to breathe.
“Hi,” says Mafuyu again, and Ena realises. Realises so much.
“Did you wanna come in?”
“I…” Mafuyu looks at her. She looks so very lost, even as her expression lies flat.
“Well, come in,” huffs Ena.
Mafuyu hesitates. And then steps in, two, three. Stops right in front of the foot of Ena’s bed.
Ena rises from her position on the bed, scooting over to where Mafuyu is standing, still seated.
“Sit,” says Ena. Mafuyu sits.
Ena notices their very, very significant height difference. Mafuyu looks down at Ena, even when they’re both seated.
“Well, why were you standing outside my bedroom, Mafuyu?” Ena asks.
“I…” Mafuyu’s gaze drifts. Ena has never seen her gaze drift aimlessly like that. “I’m not quite sure.”
And then Ena’s blood thumps in her veins. Bad-dum, bad-dum, loud and clear. Runs hot, high. She looks at Mafuyu. The open window casts dying sun rays into the room, over Mafuyu’s body, backlights her. She’s made even more beautiful under this spilling sunlight. Ena shifts ever so closer. There are freckles on Mafuyu’s skin, not as porcelain as she thought. Sun freckles, splattered across Mafuyu’s cheekbones, her nose bridge. Her eyes are still so, so deep.
Ena’s blood thumps and she knows not where this sudden courage came from as she leans forward, hand tracing upwards, touching the areas Mafuyu’s freckles dusted over with a reverent thumb, her cheekbone, and then gliding up to the nose bridge, and down again. Mafuyu looks down at her like–
Like she hangs the stars. Like she’s responsible for their spot in the night sky.
“You don’t have to be sure, Mafuyu,” she murmurs, quiet, quiet. “You just need to—”
Ena’s thumb pushes over Mafuyu’s cheekbone again, and it makes a deathly quiet shhh. Skin on skin. Shhhh. Be still.
“Be still.”
Mafuyu’s eyes are wide and so deep that Ena's drowning in them.
“Be still.”
And then Ena pushes forward, her entire hand following her thumb, cupping Mafuyu’s jaw and cheek so gently it's as though she could break in her hands, and she chances closer, sharing breaths. Mafuyu breaths, quicker ever so slightly, and Ena cups her cheek and pulls her closer, down, down, her other hand draping on the back of Mafuyu’s neck as—
She kisses Mafuyu, and there’s an explosion. Colour and life and sunlight spilled across the floor and into their kiss and their lips meld as Ena’s eyes slip shut. Mafuyu’s eyes are still open, her eyelids drooping a little, and Ena kisses sunlight and oceans and snow and the hot summer and tumbleweeds and golden colour into Mafuyu and locks her hand into Mafuyu’s locks, pulling out the hair tie, her hair heavy and unbridled and Ena pushes her hand into her lock messy locks and breathes and kisses Mafuyu so hard they both can’t do anything else—
And they eventually have to part. Ena moves away first, opens her eyes slowly. Mafuyu looks down at Ena, eyes wide, expression so free that Ena can’t even begin to believe it, and her face is saying, oh my god. Her face is saying, do it again. Ena caresses Mafuyu’s cheek, gentle, quiet, and it's so, so lovely.
“Did’cha like that?” Ena whispers. They trade breaths. Mafuyu licks her red-tinted lips.
“... Yes. Yeah— Yes.” Mafuyu stumbles over her words. (She said ‘yeah’. She said, ‘yeah’. Oh my god.)
“Do you want me to do it again…?” Ena mumbles, silent in the dying sunlight. Mafuyu stares, transfixed, and her hand unexpectedly floats up to cup Ena’s head, supports it.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Ena kisses Mafuyu chastely, and then again, and then again. “Okay.”
And then they kiss again, and their lips meet and fireworks erupt as the sunlight casts them in golden light, gentle, and so, so warm.