Chapter Text
Four years of Makoto’s life sit neatly in two medium-sized boxes.
It had been odd, clearing her things and turning in her badge to her superintendent. She felt no joy seeing it, not since the conclusion of the drug ring case—the chief of the police department being one of its lead proprietors, and a list of beat cops involved in transferring the illegal goods and framing innocent citizens for the crimes at any sign of being found out.
It hasn’t been Makoto’s case, but she’d aided in procuring evidence; and while that had been her only involvement, she had felt the betrayal deep in her bones, that after weeks of turmoil thinking about the rigid and terrible things that had come out of the police system’s impunity, she had turned in her resignation much to everyone’s surprise.
She carries both boxes in her arms as she makes her way out of the PD main building, and the trip is without much fanfare, save for a few new kids Makoto had trained wishing her well and her now ex-partner, Mariko, shedding a few tears.
“What will you do now, Mako-chan?” Mariko asks, wiping at her eyes. She’d been a good partner, supportive of her decision despite deciding to stay with the PD.
For the first time in Makoto’s life, she doesn’t know how to answer the question.
-
If losing her routine hadn’t been bad enough, Sae awkwardly hovering makes the whole ordeal of leaving the path that she’d set for herself for as long as she could remember much, much worse.
Still, Makoto appreciates it. Sae had been actively trying to be there for Makoto emotionally even if Makoto never asked, which is no easy feat considering the years they spent keeping these things to themselves.
Yet despite the fact that she does appreciate Sae taking steps to heal their previously dysfunctional relationship, it doesn’t make it any less unpleasant. Whenever Sae had her awkward-big-sister face on, Makoto knows she’s up for the most uncomfortable minutes of her life.
(It's funny how she would do anything to make Sae happy, having done so for as long as she could remember, but moments of vulnerability like this felt like pulling teeth.)
Sae catches Makoto as she brews coffee, and sits her down, clunkily asking how she feels.
“Terrible,” Makoto replies honestly. It’s only fair, since Sae is trying. It takes two to mend their relationship. “I feel like I have no purpose and the only connection I have left to dad is gone.”
Sae sighs. “You may feel that way but it isn’t the only way to connect with him. You… we aren’t responsible for the things he wasn’t able to do. Not especially for something like reforming the police system. That’s a big feat for anyone, maybe even impossible.”
“I thought I could change it,” Makoto taps her fingernail on her cup. It’s half empty. Her heart feels the grief more profoundly tonight, and the familiar ache still feels new, even after twelve years. “I thought I could make him proud by finishing what he couldn’t.”
Once upon a time, Sae had thought the same too, and when she stopped believing that she could, the rift between them was created. “Systems like that aren’t easily changed. I don’t blame you for being discouraged. He wouldn’t, either.”
She feels so lost, aimlessly floating in the liminal space of their home. Makoto hadn’t ever felt this way, with her one-track mind in achieving everything she thought she wanted. And to deal with moving away from the path she’d set for herself is foreign, unpleasant. “What do I do, sis?”
Sae looks up, her brows furrowed, worried. “I… I can’t tell you what to do, Makoto. Those days are over.” It’s a sobering reminder that Sae doesn’t know everything. She’d grown up thinking her sister could do no wrong, and the rough patches of their relationship started when she’d realized that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Still, it’s an easy habit to fall into, even at her age.
But Sae will always find a way. That’s something Makoto can always depend on. “Actually. Let me give you something,” she excuses herself, leaving Makoto alone for a few minutes, the house silent except for the coffee maker brewing some for Sae’s late night. Then, Sae comes back and slides something across the table.
They’re keys. Attached to them is a Buchimaru-kun charm Makoto had given Sae when she asked if she had any spare keychains, years ago.
“What’s this?”
“The keys to our old vacation home, in Biei, if you remember it.” Makoto does, but it’s been almost a decade since her last visit. She hasn’t really gone back because it reminded her too much of her father and how things were before all of it had happened. “I was so close to selling it, but I couldn’t find it in myself to. And that time I left you with Tae… that’s where I was, taking up pro-bono cases.”
Sae hadn’t spoken much about what she’d done at that time after leaving her post in the Prosecutor’s office, but Makoto had stayed for two or three months with Dr. Takemi, and Sae returned with an almost unrecognizable aura—except Makoto did eventually recognize it: the Sae she’d known before everything that had happened was there, and not only as a shadow, but as something that had always been there and changed within her. Tae had told her just as much, back then.
It makes sense, looking back, that Sae spent some time in a place that reminded them of the things that mattered.
The separation had been difficult, but Sae kept as much contact as she could, and Tae—despite her aloof exterior—had taken care of her well, to the point that Makoto frequently visits her for her examinations, and has lunch with her at Leblanc whenever she can.
“It gave me a space to just… be, and to think. Maybe that’s what you need,” Sae tells her. “And while I can’t give you all the answers, you can find them yourself.”
-
“Heading somewhere?” Sojiro asks, as soon as she and Sae step into Leblanc. He would usually ask whenever Makoto was in her full gear for riding, but today she only dons her riding jacket. Perhaps he’d heard Sae’s car in the parking lot around the block.
Futaba sits where and how she usually does, perched like a gargoyle, throwing her and Sae a peace sign without looking away from her screen. Sae pats her head gently, but Makoto ruffles her hair. She seems to be working on something incomprehensible and illegal. Makoto resists the urge to berate her for it.
“Just me,” Makoto says, taking the seat across from Tae. Sae greets the doctor with a kiss to her hair, and Tae hums in acknowledgement as she sorts through the papers in a folder while sipping from her coffee. “I need some time away from the city.”
“A Nijima sabbatical, I see,” Tae teases, setting her cup down. She always went on about how Makoto and Sae are cut from the same cloth. “How are you holding up, little one?”
She can barely count as little - being twenty four, and almost a head taller than the doctor, but Makoto had always appreciated that Tae treated her with the same kindness that Sae didn’t, in the years lost between them.
“Not well, if I’m being honest, but I’ll be fine. I think.”
Makoto had always seen past her aloof exterior, and the concern and fondness in Tae’s eyes is as bright as day. “I’m sure you will be. You two are tough as nails. We’ll be here when you come back.”
By the time they have to leave for the station, Tae reaches up to ruffle Makoto’s hair, the same way Makoto had done to Futaba. Sojiro hands her a bag of her preferred coffee grinds.
“Be careful or else you’ll never hear the end of it from me!” Futaba calls out, and Makoto laughs. It had been hard, getting the girl to warm up to her, but over the years she’d gotten much better with her social anxiety thanks to Sojiro and his nephew who’d come to visit for a few months, some years back.
Makoto doesn’t doubt having a place to return to; not even for a moment.
The car ride to the Shinkansen station is mostly spent in silence, and Sae stands awkwardly after they’re done unloading Makoto’s sparse luggage.
“Be careful out there,” Sae says gruffly, and Makoto can’t help but feel like laughing. It must have shown in her face because her sister frowns. “What?”
Makoto shakes her head. There’s too many people around them to go in for a hug, so she bows instead. “I’ll see you—”
In Aikido, Sae has always been the faster one between them, and it shows when Sae suddenly pulls her into an embrace. Awkward, since Makoto can’t remember the last time they’ve hugged—yet this is the first time they’ll be separated since Sae had gone off to Biei herself, and Makoto doesn’t know how long she’ll be away.
It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that Sae will miss her too.
“I mean it,” Sae murmurs, then the embrace is over. “Don’t cause too much trouble.”
Makoto doesn’t realize she’s tearing up until a warm streak crosses her cheek. “I won’t, I promise.”
-
Biei is the same as Makoto had left it, and she doesn’t know if she appreciates the lack of change since a stable environment is what she needs or laments the grief that creeps up on her.
She remembers alighting the Shinkansen with one hand in her father’s, the other in Sae’s.
An impending headache looms above her head. Makoto trudges on to find the bus that’ll take her to their vacation home.
“Thanks for the ride,” Makoto calls out, bowing lowly before the elderly couple who had volunteered to bring her to her destination since they were going the same way. She vaguely remembers how nice people here were, and the sense of community in rural areas that the city never had.
They live a few ways off and surprisingly remember her from her childhood. Sae, too, from her visit. They knew about her father, too, and offered their condolences. Makoto could only nod in thanks, eyes focused watching the scenery unfold. She never really figured out how to respond when people did that.
The couple drives off down the road, and Makoto faces the house she hasn’t seen in more than a decade.
Everything is the same, only weary to some degree, with due credit to the person Sae hires to maintain the place at least twice a year. It’s a small minka-inspired structure, with a somewhat makeshift garage at the side, sticking out like a sore thumb. Without even realizing, Makoto walks towards it and lifts the metal rollup door to reveal their old car, a Mitsubishi Lancer from the late 1980s, wrapped haphazardly with an old car cover—her father’s pet project finished around the time Makoto was ten.
He’d bought it from a secondhand store and patiently explained to them that the Lancers were used in Rally cups, and back in his day, they were one of the coolest cars anyone could own. Makoto listened to every word, and while Sae tried to do the same, she’d always end up falling asleep whenever he talked about them.
Images of her handing her father tools on a warm summer afternoon, watching him poke and prod and explain parts of the car as Sae loitered somewhere around the house, reading a book.
Then suddenly Makoto is taken back to the present, with tears in her eyes, in front of a rusted and broken down vehicle.
-
The house is smaller than what Makoto remembers, but she attributes it to being twice her size now. It’s mostly the same—enough for her to feel as if she’d traveled back to her memories—save for the photos being rearranged in a way she doesn’t remember, as if they’d been removed and put back. She suspects Sae had something to do with that and elects to ask about it when she heads back.
Makoto runs her hand through the wooden frames, smiling. Her and Sae playing in the snow, Makoto seated in the driver’s seat with shades on even if she can barely hold the steering wheel, Sae sipping from a juice box in an inflatable pool, which would rather be an unthinkable sight to anyone that’s not Makoto and Tae.
Makoto did think so, years ago, but rather bitterly and inversely; how unthinkable that the sister I grew up with turned out like this. Now, it’s easier to reconcile the images of her sister before her and the one she left behind in Tokyo, with Sae joining book clubs, learning pottery, free-climbing, and competing in local Aikido tournaments.
She takes a photo, intending to send it to her sister on Yahoo!Messenger when she has better reception.
There’s a grocery a short distance away from the house, and Makoto makes her way there to shop for the week’s worth of food and toiletries. It’s a quiet affair, and she almost expects nothing out of it, but at the shampoo aisle where she picks her favorite three-in-one lather from the shelf, she is proven wrong.
“Makoto?”
She turns to be faced with Takamaki Ann, a face she hasn’t seen in person in years. Magazines, billboards, ads on the internet, sure, but Makoto hadn’t been back in ages, and she expected Ann to live in the high rise buildings in Milan or New York, not a small town in rural Japan.
Her hair is longer, and her face devoid of the adolescent acne she had before, and still with striking blue eyes that are sharper than what most people realize or give her credit for.
“Oh my god, it is you,” She throws her arms around Makoto, and suddenly she’s enveloped in a crushing hug. She’s stronger than she looks. “Jeez, it’s been years! I can’t believe we didn’t even get to exchange IM IDs.” Ann gives her a once-over, seeing the three-in-one lather in her hand, and squeezing her shoulders. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Ann,” she manages to say, a little overwhelmed seeing a familiar face, perhaps starstruck that her childhood playmate is a pretty famous model these days—but more than happy to run into her, too. “You look well. I didn’t know you were still in Biei.”
“I just arrived a few weeks ago, actually,” she says, the mirth in her eyes fading a bit. “My girlfriend got into an accident so I’m here to support her, even if she hates it.”
Makoto tilts her head. “Why would she? It’s hard to be away from your significant other when they need you.”
Ann shrugs, her expression exasperated but fond. “Shiho says I shouldn’t put my entire career on the line just for her. But I’ve probably made us enough to last us until we’re forty. So…”
Makoto laughs, missing how candid Ann truly is. She had a lot of things to say about everything, which had honestly gotten Ann and Ryuji (and Makoto, too, by extension and against her will) into a lot of trouble.
“What brings you here? You didn’t come back after that one summer. We were all so worried.”
Makoto has been through enough revisiting of her grief for today and she considers not telling Ann, but it’s been too long, and she’s weary from pushing people away. “My father passed away a few months after we came back, so it was just me and sis back home making ends meet,” she says, as lightly as she can, which isn’t light enough if the way Ann’s face crumples with concern. “Things were rough, but we managed. I came here to just… clear my head.”
“I’m sorry, I wish we could have been there for you,” Ann tells her, a hand on her shoulder. It would have been nice, Makoto thinks, if she’d had her friends to help her through it. Maybe things would have been different, though there’s no point in lingering on what could have been. Ann seems to think so, too. “It can’t have been easy, but you made it.”
Ann somehow always knew what to say. They chat for a short while, and Makoto finds out Ryuji is working at a car repair shop a few minutes away from the town proper and has a boyfriend that goes to a fancy art school. Ann claims he would be happy and a little terrified to see Makoto again.
After exchanging IM usernames with a stern ”Nijima, you are not getting away that easily again!”, they part ways, agreeing to see more of each other when Ann isn’t working at the boutique and Makoto isn’t busy doing… well, anything. She surprisingly hasn’t thought that far yet, but she leaves that for later.
On her walk home, Makoto notices there’s a wide field that Makoto remembers to have been an open area but is now fenced up. In the distance, she sees someone in a light shade of lavender mounted on a horse, galloping and then easily jumping past obstacles.
If the spectacle had been closer, she would have stayed to watch. But the sun is starting to set, and Makoto would rather not get caught by sundown.
She thinks of nothing of it, then makes her way back.
-
xx_queen_xx
Sis, look at this
[photo attached]
Nijima Sae (Work)
Hahaha. That inflatable pool was our most prized possession.
Settling in nicely?
Tae has been asking about you every day.
xx_queen_xx
Doing fine. Saw Ann again, which is nice
I’ll be okay.
Don’t worry.
-
For a car that’s more than twenty years old and left unused for the most part of the decade, the Lancer’s engine could still be salvageable with several intense tune-ups. The same goes for its faded maroon exterior, which would need a serious paint job and replacements of rusted parts. Makoto can’t say the same for the interiors, visibly suffering the brunt of aging.
Sae had told her she’d used it to get around, but something was always breaking down—its A/C, heater, or just wouldn’t start at all. That couldn’t have been safe, Makoto thinks, though she knows Sae could take care of herself back then despite being deeply troubled by many things.
I couldn’t even think of selling it to a junk shop, Sae had told her a few days ago, with the scrap of signal Makoto gets on the doorstep of the house. It was his project, you know? A piece of him that you knew better than I did. Whenever it broke down, I always thought that you would have a field day tinkering around with it.
Makoto remembers warm summers in the passenger seat, or cold nights in the backseat with her head on Sae’s shoulder. He completed the restoration a few summers before he passed, and while it had considerable mileage, it hadn’t been enough. It never will be enough.
“It’s my turn now, old girl,” Makoto says to no one, her hand on the dusty roof of the car. “Sorry it took so long. But I’ll take good care of you.”
-
Ryuji all but tackles her to the ground when he sees her, and while Makoto wouldn’t have allowed it on any other day, she did truly miss him and laments not being able to stay in touch the past years.
He practically begs her to throw him over her shoulder, like the good old days, and since it seems to be a slow day at the Sakamoto Motors with no one around, Makoto relents—takes Ryuji by the arm, pushes her weight upwards, until his body makes a solid thud on the ground.
“How’s that?” Makoto asks, peering over at him and his stupidly pleased grin. He hasn’t changed a bit. “Still a clean throw?”
“Hell yeah, brother,” Ryuji says, reaching out to take the hand Makoto offers him.
“A Lancer, huh?” He says, placing a can of orange soda in front of Makoto. She appreciates that he remembers that she would rather eat glass than drink the purple abomination he likes. “You know, I think I remember that old thing in your garage. Your dad would take us to the aquarium or some shit. Didn’t really think he was a speed demon.”
Makoto laughs. He couldn’t be further from that. “No, he just liked his cars. Dad found it being sold for a couple of thousand yen and learned to refurbish it himself whenever we’re in town.” The fizz of the soda is refreshing in the humid car shop. “Do you think you can get the parts for me? If it’s too much of a hassle, I’d rather not burden you.”
Ryuji beats his chest. “Sure can! Sakamoto motors is pumped to help you restore your old man’s car.” He gives her a small, sympathetic smile—so different from his brazen, wide grin. “He was a good guy. I’m sure he’d be happy you’re saving the Lancer.”
Surprisingly, Ryuji didn’t ask questions about what happened to her father. Even so, he was careful talking about it with her, picking up on the past tense and the way Makoto talks about him. She quietly appreciates the gesture. “I’ll give this to my uncle and see what we can do.”
They chat for a bit, until a customer comes to deposit his bike—an old CT100, Makoto recognizes—and Ryuji tells him to leave it out in the back.
“We have some old bikes for sale,” he says to Makoto, and before he can offer to check it out, Makoto is on her feet already.
Sakamoto Motors have a small, but good collection of vintage bikes for sale. Makoto recognizes some models, but they’re not enough to catch her attention until they stop in front of a C110 Sports Cub from the early 1970s, in great condition and with a navy blue and silver body.
Makoto doesn’t even say anything, only spends a considerable time admiring the bike, until Ryuji tosses the keys and a helmet to her with a wide, boyish grin. She doesn’t have to be told twice—she sits astride the bike and lets the engine roar to life, feeling the vibration deep in her bones and loving the way her blood feels warmer from the adrenaline already.
“You didn’t tell me you were the speed demon, Nijima,” he says, amused. “Got a bike back home?”
“Honda Magna,” she says, shutting off the engine. Ryuji whistles lowly and nods in approval, reaching over to give her a fist bump. “I’ll take this Sports Cub, by the way.”
“Fuck yeah,” he replies, leading her to the counter already.
-
After a few weeks, a routine settles in for Makoto, and she feels more comfortable than she did in the early days of her stay in Biei. In the morning, she makes breakfast and goes for a run, and tidies up the garage until noon. Afterwards, she goes to town to meet Ann and Ryuji, who sometimes brings his boyfriend to lunch. Sometimes she runs errands for people she meets or recognizes, bringing moderately heavy packages on the back of her bike to destinations whose directions are typed haphazardly in her phone’s notes. In the evening, she picks up a book she’d found in the living room—ones on law, from Sae and her father, and ones on social thought she’s unsure who owned. Sae, Tae, or Futaba call on some days, when the signal is good, and they chat for a few minutes before her phone dies out.
It’s vastly different from her old life—wake up, eat, work, sleep—but Makoto welcomes the change anyway.
Though a brief disruption to that routine finds her when she sorts through the mail, finding an apricot-colored envelope addressed to Sae amongst the utility bills and ads, a sobering reminder that she’d been here for a month already.
Sae picks up on the first ring, and tells Makoto it’s fine to open the fancy envelope.
It’s an invitation to a party—a masquerade party, no less, to be held a few days from now. “From the Okumuras?”
Her sister hums, over the line, and there’s paper rustling in the background. She must be working. “They may be under the impression I’m the one staying in,” she says. While Makoto would be concerned why people knew someone was living in the house, the town is small and word gets around pretty quickly. “They’re the family living a few ways off, with the massive lawn. I did some legal work for them while I was there, but not for long. I wasn’t comfortable practicing for big corporations.”
Makoto thinks back to the fenced up area, and the girl in purple on horseback, from a distance.
“The president has a kid your age. It’s hard to imagine a man like him would have such a sweet daughter,” Sae comments and before Makoto can ask her what had happened, she continues. “I see no harm in going. Are you allowed to bring someone? Perhaps Ann would like to go.”
Makoto flips the plum card and finds no details for a plus one. “Sadly, no. But I think I’ll reach out to her for what to wear.”
“That sounds nice. You should have fun.”
It’s odd hearing Sae talk about things like relaxing and having fun after years of her only ever telling Makoto to do well in school, for her future. But here they are, years later, with career changes for both of them. It’s a future neither of them foresaw, but it’s one that Makoto accepts wholly.
Makoto chuckles, which Sae hears. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“You think I don’t know what fun is?”
Sae says, but Makoto can hear the smile in her voice. She vaguely hears Tae in the background, and Sae shushing her.
“I’ll need to drop off. Tae says hello. Take care, Makoto.”
“So this is a reference to a Romeo and Juliet adaptation in 1996,” Makoto says as she inspects the outfit in front of Ann’s full-length mirror. It’s a classy, gray suit with chainmail hanging from her shoulders—fashionable, not something Makoto would usually wear, but she trusts Ann’s styling more than her own.
“Yes! I wanted to look like young Leo back then, maybe that told me many things I needed to know about myself,” Ann says, fitting the steel mask against Makoto’s face. She claims to have found it in a box of costumes at home, but Makoto likes how… strong it looks.
Makoto reluctantly allows Ann to paint her lips, letting herself get pulled to the dresser like a doll. Only then Makoto finds out that the Okumuras move in shortly after they leave, and that the president only comes every few months and throws some parties, and the town knows since that’s when more people turn up at Biei only to leave the next day.
It’s an exclusive event, Ann tells her when Makoto asks why she’s never been invited, and Makoto hums. They must have wanted Sae to work with them, which is obviously not an option for her sister.
“There’s lots of rumors about the company, beyond unfair wages and union busting at the chains they have here. Lots of underhanded deals with shady businesses, and can’t get rid of the politico,” Ann says, applying lipstick on Makoto. A deep, natural pink that makes Makoto’s lips feel odd. Matte, most likely. “You look good. How do you feel?”
She’d heard of the Okumuras, but not much, back in her police days. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time big corporations acted that way, and maybe she can find out some more information at the party tonight with some casual eavesdropping or conversations with attendees. Makoto pays attention to the way the clothes fit her body and make her feel. “Good. I like it.”
Ann looks over the moon, as if she isn’t used to being complimented for her style, even if Makoto assumes she gets enough of that at work.
Expectedly, Makoto feels out of place when she arrives. The house is packed, and is the busiest Makoto has ever seen the town. She supposes people traveled long distances to get here, if the cars and helicopters lining up the parking area tells her anything.
It strangely reminds her of those parties from a novel she’d read for basic English literature, with the millionaire who threw lavish parties to meet the woman he was in love with for years.
She remains mainly invisible, so she takes advantage of that to see more of the mansion with high ceilings and walls lined with opulent art and expensive ornaments, weaving her way through crowds. There’s the guest hall, a garden with a gazebo, and a field with obstacles for horseback with a stable situated right next to it. Makoto tries to remember, then, what the place used to be before they moved in within the last decade, and only remembers an open field where she, Ann, and Ryuji used to play.
Makoto takes a champagne flute at one point, wandering into a hall illuminated by blue light from its aquariums, away from people chattering about—wealthy people flaunting their wealth, evidently the kind of company the Okumuras kept.
Few people are in the room with music drowned out, a small reprieve as Makoto admires the freshwater fish swimming about. She almost doesn’t notice someone materializing beside her, and Makoto turns to find a girl in a white dress, with a deep pink mask hiding half of her face, not unlike Makoto and everyone else in the party. Her strawberry blonde hair tied up in a high ponytail, falling in short, pretty curls behind her. On her shoulders are straps holding cream-feathered angel wings that sprout from her back, and the aquarium paints an ethereal glow of blue on her, the lights passing through the water dancing on her face.
Makoto doesn’t mean to stare, and she almost doesn’t notice until the girl turns, her brows raised—as if caught off-guard that Makoto had seen her, noticed her in the first place.
She gives Makoto an appreciative once over, and heat rises to the back of Makoto’s neck.
“I see I’ve met my match,” she says, her voice sweet, even if Makoto has no idea what she means. It must show on her face, because the girl hides her chuckle behind her hand. “You’re dressed as Romeo, right? This is your Juliet.” She gives Makoto a small spin, her dress flowing with the movement.
“O-oh,” Makoto replies, thankful the beads of sweat are hid by her fringe. “My friend dressed me tonight. She did mention it referenced to that. I don’t watch a lot of western movies.”
The girl laughs again, and Makoto wonders if she’s said something funny. Either way, she has a pretty smile so Makoto lets it slide. “That’s okay. She did a great job. You look dashing, and the mask is a nice touch.”
Makoto flushes, looking away. She should thank the girl, but she’s too paralyzed by the compliment to formulate a coherent response, but thankfully the girl saves her from further embarrassment. “Do you know anyone at the party?” She asks, and Makoto shakes her head in response. “Me neither. Maybe we can stick together to get through it?”
When Makoto agrees, the girl takes her by the hand and leads her outside, weaving through crowds of people. Makoto realizes she doesn’t know her name, or what to call her, and decides to remedy that.
“What should I call you?” She asks, as they take a sharp turn and end up in a small plaza with trimmed hedges, with a marble fountain situated in the middle.
The girl thinks, for a moment, then: “Noir. My name is Noir. You?”
Makoto considers giving her real name, but if the girl hadn’t, then perhaps she shouldn’t. “Queen. Do you come to these parties often?”
Noir gives her a thoughtful look as she takes a seat on the fountain. She looks ethereal, Makoto realizes, even more so under the warm lights illuminating the garden. “You can say that,” she pats beside her for Makoto to take, and Makoto can only follow suit. “Do you think the Okumuras throw too many of these?”
“I wouldn’t be able to say, it’s my first time. I’m not from here, you see,” Makoto tells her, though she ducks her head in embarrassment. “And I wouldn’t say I fit in with this crowd.”
“You and me both, though you get a pass—I’ve been doing this for years, but sometimes I appreciate the way it makes me feel,” Noir tells her with a smile. “Being invisible because I need to, for one night? I look forward to it.”
Makoto wonders what kind of life Noir leads to wish for a night to be invisible, and assumes she may be an important person who has her entire life under the scrutiny of something, of someone, and understands. Perhaps before, Makoto would have wanted the same thing, to hide from all expectations placed on her shoulders. Though how anyone can think of her as invisible escapes Makoto completely. “But I saw you,” Makoto replies, thinking back to seeing Noir beside her, in front of the aquarium, face painted a pretty shade of blue.
Noir’s lips part in surprise, but the expression passes quickly. “You did,” she smiles, tucking an errant curl behind her ear.
The urge to apologize overcomes her and Makoto doesn’t fight it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, if you didn’t want to be seen.”
The laugh that Noir lets out is sweet, and bright, like chimes. Makoto wants to hear it again. “Just because I needed to do it doesn’t mean it’s what I wanted. I’m glad you did, Queen,” she says, meeting Makoto’s eyes. “Did you? I can leave, if you want to be alone tonight.”
Makoto has spent the better part of the month alone, and while it had been what she needed to clear her mind, she craved the company of others. Ann and Ryuji were wonderful to reconnect with, and try as she might to think otherwise, they reminded Makoto of the Biei before her father died.
Tonight, being invisible meant that Makoto is granted provisional access to the world people like Noir live in—as an imposter, bystander, someone who will never reach it—and being seen means being found out that she isn’t the Nijima the Okumuras wanted in their ranks, or that she isn’t from the high society all of them live in.
From the way Noir looks at her, despite knowing this isn’t the place Makoto frequents or will ever frequent, Makoto finds none of that.
“I don’t mind,” Makoto replies, and she sees relief in Noir’s expressive eyes, her lips curling up, pleased by her answer. A blush crawls up Makoto’s neck, but with it comes a surge of confidence from a semblance of anonymity. “We can be invisible together.”
“Oh,” Noir murmurs, rose pink dusting what Makoto can see of the skin not hidden by her mask. “I’d like that very much.”
From there, it’s easy to make conversation. Noir is pleasing company, and while Makoto can attribute it to the requirements of high society, she can’t help but fall into it—thoroughly charmed and enamored by Noir. Agreeable, sweet, and unsurprisingly different from the people Makoto has been around all her life. Their hands stay close to each other, their pinkies touching through their gloves, and while she’s had her fair share of touch with Ann and Ryuji, this one sets her skin on fire even through the materials covering her skin.
That’s when Makoto sees the ring on Noir’s left hand, a band with a diamond sitting atop it, begging to be looked at.
Oh, Makoto thinks, frowning to herself but careful not to show the other girl. Why was she disappointed? She’d just met Noir. Still, Noir has asked many questions about Makoto’s life, and she supposes it’s only right to ask about hers—despite her coy, almost roundabout answers that leave Makoto guilty for wanting more. “Are you married?”
It’s as if the light had gone from Noir’s eyes, but she’s quick to hide it. She shakes her head, even as she twists the band on her ring finger. “It’s complicated,” she says, more closed off than she’s ever been the entire time they’ve known each other. Makoto doesn’t want to pry, though she’d expected people to be excited about things like marriage or engagement. “I hope you don’t mind, I’d like to keep talking about happy things.”
Makoto isn’t the best person for that either, but seeing the way the walls are erected around Noir at the mention of the ring, it’s not an option to push further. She’d like to hear Noir laugh again, even if she isn’t sure how to make it happen again, but Makoto would like to try.
She hears it again, when Makoto feels the tips of her ears warm when Noir compliments her, again when Makoto talks about what Ann and Ryuji had been up to last week, and again when Makoto recounts some of her less painful childhood memories. Noir, too, tells her about hers—of home school, of home, of her pets. She didn’t mention any friends, and while Makoto’s not one to talk, perhaps that’s what she’d meant about being invisible outside of the masquerade.
“How long will you be here, Queen?” Noir asks, swinging her legs from where they hang. There’s a small distance between her white shoes and the ground, where Makoto’s are firmly planted on it. She did notice, earlier, that she has a few inches on Noir.
“I can’t tell yet,” Makoto says, honestly. Almost a month has passed and she hasn’t felt better yet; the thought of returning to the city from where she is, emotionally, makes her a little sick. Then there’s the car, and Ryuji has been working hard procuring the items. Perhaps restoring the Lancer would buy her some time to figure things out. “A while, maybe, but not forever.”
Unlike Sae, there was no pressure for her to return—no little sister or then-ex-girlfriend waiting for her to pick up the pieces fast and come back, which only makes Makoto admire the effort Sae made to recalibrate her life and priorities even more, in the few months her sister was here in Biei.
“Oh,” Noir says, a pout forming on her pink lips—not that Makoto notices. “I do hope you enjoy your stay. It’s a beautiful town, with what I’ve seen.”
Makoto assumes, then, that Noir is a guest that frequents the Okumura estate here in Biei if she’d seen only some parts of it. While Makoto can scarcely qualify as a local, she knew enough of the town, and knew where to go. “I can bring you around, if you’re here and that’s what you want.”
The smile Noir gives her is bright, but shy, and Makoto likes seeing it on her.
People around them file in and out but don’t stay too long, heading back to the party after testing at the gardens. Though she and Noir stay where they are, sometimes walking around the fountain, feeding the koi in the water, laughing and talking and sharing looks that make Makoto feel seen , despite their masks.
It’s easy to forget where she is until she notices that most of the people have left, and that there is a quiet that settles over the manor that hasn’t been there before, telling them that most of the guests have gone or are sleeping. The sky is dark, still, but with a hesitant hue of orange, and while Makoto knows that she had been a guest as much as Noir is one, it feels as if she’s overstaying her welcome.
“I have to go,” Makoto says, though she makes no move to stand up and separate herself from the warmth of sitting beside Noir. “How are you getting home? I can take you, if you’re not far off from here.” Though admittedly, even if Noir said she lived on the other end of the country, Makoto would take her without question, especially after tonight, and if she felt impulsive enough for it.
“Don’t worry about me,” Noir replies, waving her off. She, too, makes no move to separate. “Is it wrong that I don't want you to go, Romeo?”
Makoto shakes her head, though she blushes at the nickname. She remembered that their costumes tonight had been a pair, a match made in heaven brought about by a chance meeting, though at one point Noir had taken off her angel wings to set it aside. It had left red marks on her skin for a few hours. “I liked being with you, too. But I’m not really supposed to be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Okumuras invited my sister, not me,” she says, feeling honest. It’s the exhaustion, and the way she feels like she’s known Noir all her life. “Though I doubt she would enjoy these things. I wouldn’t have, too, if it weren’t for you.”
Noir blinks, then looks at their hands, grasping the ledge and almost touching. The ring, again, makes itself known. “Then does it matter that you think you’re not supposed to be here?”
That makes Makoto pause, looking up to meet Noir’s eyes. She must not have run into any Okumura, who would have thrown her out—but instead, she enjoyed the party thanks to a pretty girl who happened to be a guest. “I suppose not.”
They sit in silence, unwilling to part, and perhaps it’s the lonelier parts of Makoto that wants to ask her to keep in touch—but the girl hadn’t asked, and Makoto doesn’t want to push her to do something she didn’t want to do, like hand over her contact details to a stranger, moreso as someone under a lot of scrutiny, from what Makoto can glean from Noir’s life.
“I have one last request,” Noir murmurs, their company only the chirping of the crickets, and the crisp, summer wind breezing through. “Will you let me see you?” She gestures to Makoto’s mask. Somehow, it feels more than just asking to see Makoto’s entire face.
She can’t explain it, but she can only comply with Noir’s gentle request. There would be nothing left to lose—Noir knows she wasn’t meant to be here, and that this wasn’t the life she lived—except her composure if she manages to embarrass herself in the process.
Makoto removes her mask then lets the steel fall to her lap. Stray hair sticks to her forehead, from the humidity of the party and the outdoors, despite the breeze. She runs a hand through her hair to fix her fringe, feeling strangely exposed.
When Makoto turns to face her, Noir parts her lips, and the look she gives Makoto, through her mask, is unreadable. It makes the heat rise up the back of Makoto’s neck, regardless.
“Will you let me see you, too?” Makoto says, a little eager and shy, embarrassed to ask. She wouldn’t mind if Noir denies her this—given that she’s been a little guarded about her life, or careful about her identity, but Noir raises a delicate hand to undo the strings of her mask, and the ring catches the light of early morning. Makoto thrums with excitement and something foreign, and before Noir can even take it off—
“Miss Okumura,” a voice calls out, and they jump apart. It’s only then Makoto realizes two things: first, is that they’re sitting incredibly close to each other on the ledge of the fountain; and second, is that the girl she’d spent the entire night with is the Okumura heiress.