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It’s never the big things in life that surprise Hitori the most.
That isn’t to say the big things don’t surprise her at all, though. Being dragged into a band, behind a drink counter, and onto a stage was surprising. Finding friends, success, and just a little bit more of herself was surprising. The whole band getting together was surprising, and difficult, and awkward, but they did it. Every single milestone has left Hitori both awed and indescribably happy.
Every single milestone seems blown away by the simple act of sitting on Ryo’s couch, Nijika and Kita leaning their heads on Hitori’s shoulders, Ryo draped languidly across all three of their legs.
The surround-sound system Nijika and Hitori had been harassed into setting up is blaring the band's shared playlist on shuffle. She recognizes the song currently playing distantly, in that way you do those popular hits that snake their way across your ears when a car across the street has its window open, blasting the local radio station.
“Anyone know which one this is?” Hitori murmurs, resting her head against the back of the fake leather couch. A crick in her neck pops.
“Wasurerarenaino,” Kita’s voice rumbles against Hitori’s side. She’s been falling asleep for the last ten minutes, her fingers tangled in Ryo’s hair. Hitori’s chest tightens a bit at the fact that she has fought so valiantly to stay awake, just to answer her question.
“Sakanaction?” Nijika asks, raising an eyebrow. Her face is covered in inky, flickering shadows, the light from her phone shining blue and bright from below her. It sinks the dimple on her cheek deeper, a smile pulling at her lips. “That’s a Kita addition.”
“They’re mainstream, sue me,” Kita whines, sleepy, as she burrows her nose deeper into Hitori’s neck. “And ’Tori’s the one asking for the name anyways.”
“Wh-huh?” Hitori stammers, stiffening. She looks down at Kita, and manages to fight past the urge to lose herself in waves of trailing red, or the way her eyelashes curl against her cheeks. “What was that?”
Kita doesn’t answer. Nijika snorts a little, only barely holding back her laughter, “It fits, you know? I could see you as a bird.”
Hitori groans, sinking into the couch. “I don’t see it."
“No, no, I definitely do.” Nijika rests her chin on Hitori’s shoulder. Her eyes are half-lidded coals, glowing with warm humor and warmer love. Hitori’s heartbeat quickens, and Nijika’s smile widens as it thrums against her chin. “You’re like a hummingbird. Always nervous but totally adorable because of it.”
Hitori whines, minding the way Ryo and Kita twitch in their sleep. Nijika’s arm snakes over Hitori’s shoulders, wrapping her in a hug and carding a hand through Kita’s hair. Her fingernails drag against Kita’s scalp, smooth, soothing. Hitori would know.
“I doubt she’ll even remember she called me that when she wakes up,” Hitori whispers.
Nijika hums, “Are you hoping she forgets?”
“Kinda.”
“Do you want me to?”
A pause. A bassline shooting across her bones and the slide of a mark tree across her skin. Hitori meets Nijika’s gaze, heat lancing across her cheeks and prickling at her neck.
“...Not really.”
Nijika smiles, dragging herself up to place a kiss against Hitori’s flushed cheeks. “It’ll be our little secret then, birdie.”
Malls have always been hard.
Something about the heat of a thousand people in a room. Something about the dull roar of a dozen conversations in Hitori’s ears. It’s like all the worst parts of standing on stage without any of the good—all sound and no music. Hitori’s heart thrashes against her ribs. Her lungs seize. Sweat pools around the high collar of her tracksuit.
Ryo’s lips kiss the breath back into her, and malls become just a little bit easier.
Unsurprisingly, Ryo’s kisses are always lined with a certain hunger. It’s in the way she curls her hand around the back of Hitori’s neck. It’s in the way her fingers circle around Kita’s waist. It’s in the way her teeth drag against Nijika’s bottom lip. Always, there is a hunger—a pull—to Yamada Ryo’s love.
Ryo’s kisses are also painfully gentle, sometimes.
It’s in the way her hands slide up, almost reverently, against Kita’s sides. It’s in the way her eyes shine against the ruby red of Nijika’s, drowning in something so sweet it almost cloys. It’s in the way she wipes the sweat from Hitori’s throat with soft-fingered strokes. It’s in the way she leads Hitori away from the crowds and into a lonely hallway lit in fluorescent white. It’s in the way her eyes shine a glowing comfort through the harsh shadows cast by the flickering light overhead.
It’s in the way she cares, so deeply, for Hitori. It’s still a wonder to her, sometimes.
“Feelin’ a little better?” Ryo asks, quiet, a low rumble in her chest. Hitori nods, eyes catching on the blurry silhouettes of what she assumes to be other people walking past the two of them.
Ryo leans against the wall next to Hitori, lacing their fingers together and gripping tight. Their hands are bony and thin, their knuckles clack together awkwardly, but it’s exactly the kind of awkward, jagged sensation that Hitori needs right now, so she squeezes back.
Her breath slows, her skin cools, her head clears, and Hitori is at once beset with a small, needling shame. It prickles at the back of her throat, incessant, until she wheezes, “I’m sorry.”
Ryo stares. A stray lock of blue hair blows against the bridge of her nose.
“I-I just. I’m supposed to be better, by now.” Hitori fumbles with the edge of her sleeves. She notices a few loops of thread coming undone, and realizes it’s probably because of how often she picks at them. Her hands freeze. “Things like the mall aren’t supposed to scare me anymore. I mean, I play in front of crowds semi-regularly, and-and I’ve managed to somehow start dating all of you, which, like, I’d think is a few spots higher on the list of things that should cause me some kind of discomfort because, I mean, c’mon have you all seen yourselves—”
“Hey.”
“And like. Um. That’s what it’s always like in the movies and the success stories, right? Love is this-this great force that drives you forward and makes you better because. I don’t know? So you can feel worthy? Be worthy?”
“Bocchi.”
“But I... I haven’t—changed, or become worthy, I think. I still play a little worse because of stage jitters, and I-I'm supposed to like. To understand? Why you’re all still with me, I mean, by now. And I’m not supposed to get this worked up over going to the mall of all things, because that’s stupid , and—”
“Listen to me , ‘Tori.”
Hitori’s mouth clacks shut. Her neck locks into place, gaze fixed on a chipped spot of paint on the far wall of the hallway. Ryo’s hand tightens around hers just a little more. Her nails trail grooves into the skin of Hitori’s palm.
Silence. Half-silence, really. The dull roar of an overfull mall plaza still echoes across the now-empty hallway. Ryo sucks a breath in, trailing her thumb over a stretch of nail-pressed skin.
“It’s not fair of you to use the fact that we all love you as a weapon against yourself,” Ryo murmurs, something halfway to reproach in her voice. “It’s kinda mean, actually.”
“Sorry.”
Ryo waves her free hand lazily, “Water under the bridge.”
“You shouldn’t forgive me so easily,” Hitori argues, shaky, choked. She tries, weakly, to shake her hand from Ryo’s grip.
“I forgive you that easily because I love you,” Ryo says, squeezing Hitori’s hand and bringing it up to her lips. Hitori notes, through the rush of blood in her ears, the clear film of smudged lip balm on the back of her hand. Hitori's tongue darts out, tasting pineapple and coconut on the corner of her lips. “I also don’t hold something as small as being nervous at a mall against you. Because I love you.”
“Ok, but... you just admitted to it being a small thing, didn’t you?”
Ryo nods.
“So... so shouldn’t it... not. Bother. Me?”
Ryo blows a stray bang away from her eyes. “Well, I never said that.”
“...What?”
Ryo stares, deadpan. “Would you blame Kita for not being able to keep up with you on the guitar, even with how hard she’s been working?”
“What? No!” Hitori waves her hands in front of her. “That’d be un... fair. Uh.”
“Mhm.”
“Huh.”
“Yep,” Ryo sighs, popping the ‘p’ through pursed lips.
Hitori lets out a breath, burying her face in her hands. “Oh my God.”
“Love you, ‘Tori.”
Another, deeper groan from Hitori. “Please stop calling me that. How do you even know about that nickname?”
Ryo waves her hand dismissively. “Nijika is terrible at keeping secrets. You were bound to find out eventually, so just be glad it happened with something cute as your first time.”
“I really don’t think it fits.”
Ryo laughs. “No, I agree with Nijika. It really does.”
“How?” Hitori pushes herself off the wall, and Ryo follows. The crowds feel thinner. Her skin feels cooler. She wants out of the sickly, pale light of this random hallway.
“Well, we had to force you ‘out of your shell,’ for one,” Ryo counts off on her fingers. “Then we had to raise you to get used to playing in crowds. Now we’re in the ‘throw you out of a tree for your own good’ phase of the bird parenting process.”
“Is that... a thing birds actually do?” Hitori asks, a hint of fear in her voice.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ryo sidesteps coolly, meaning it’s probably not. “What’s important is the name fits and I happen to be an expert in presenting a totally cool exterior. So, whaddya say? Wanna let mama-bird teach you how to fly?”
Hitori shudders. “Please stop referring to yourself as my mother in any capacity. You kissed me in the middle of a hallway five minutes ago.”
“...Hm. Point.” Ryo cranes her neck, staring past the throng of mallgoers filling the central plaza. “...Where are we, by the way? Better question: Where are Nijika and Ikuyo?”
One beat.
Two.
“Oh,” Hitori breathes. “I think I remember why I was having a panic attack now.”
A third beat.
A fourth.
“Birds and trees, birdie,” Ryo breathes, pulling Hitori close. “Birds and trees.”
Hitori’s lungs seize, a choked laugh bursting from her lips as she wraps an arm tight around Ryo’s waist.
Hitori doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the climb to Enoshima Shrine.
“Girls,” Nijika gasps, pushing back against the metal railing at the shrine summit with a huff of exertion. “I love you all very dearly, but I think you're going to kill me at this rate.”
Kita, leaning on Nijika, stares up at Ryo, who is leaning on her, who stares up at Hitori, who is leaning on her.
All three of them blink owlishly at Nijika.
"...You’re very comfortable, love.” Kita breathes against Nijika’s neck, and it seems to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Nijika flushes a deep, beautiful red, and manages to squeeze herself out from under the three of them with an embarrassed harrumph.
“You do not get to sweet talk me this early in the morning.” She grabs Ryo by the collar of her sweater, dragging her towards the hum-buzz-glow of a vending machine. “I’m getting everyone water. Don’t die while I’m gone.”
Hitori, draped bonelessly over the same metal railing they had all been leaning against, lets out a whine that is only barely in the affirmative. Kita laughs, rubbing comforting circles against her back while Nijika and Ryo snark and banter the entire way to the vending machine. Truthfully, the morning chill baked into the metal railing felt pretty nice, even if Hitori’s ribs felt like they were starting to bruise from the uncomfortable position.
“’Tori?” Kita’s hand curves around the bare skin of Hitori’s neck. “You’re gonna hurt yourself, you know?”
Hitori groans again. “Oh my God.”
“I’m literally the one who gave you the nickname in the first place,” Kita manages past a giggle. “Surely you didn’t think I’d forget it?”
“I was hoping you would,” Hitori sighs, lifting herself up and resting her arms on the dew-damp railing. “I was kind of hoping all of you would, honestly.”
“I seem to remember Nijika being particularly smug about how you told her specifically not to forget.”
Heat travels up along the back of Hitori’s neck, burning all the way to the tips of her ears. “...The mood just. Got to me, okay?”
“The mood.” Kita waggles her eyebrows. God, Ryo is the absolute worst influence on every single one of them.
A gust of wind sends Hitori’s hair flying every which way, a couple strands landing in her mouth and leaving her a disheveled, sputtering mess. Kita laughs, pressing herself against Hitori’s side with a shiver. Hitori lifts an arm over her shoulders, managing to hesitate for only half a second instead of the usual several seconds.
Birds and trees, Ryo had said.
“I still don’t know why you all think it fits me so well. At least 'Bocchi' has some... justification.”
Kita’s hand folds itself atop Hitori’s, fingers lacing together and squeezing ever so slightly. “It’s quite simple, really.” Hitori raises a single, tentative eyebrow. Kita smiles up at her through wind-tussled waves of glossy venetian red. “It’s because you’re beautiful, ‘Tori.”
The breath rocks from Hitori’s lungs. The sun peeks over the horizon, and the weight of it seems to fold her chest in as it haloes Kita in gold. “Like a bird?” Hitori asks weakly, her voice barely anything more than a wheeze.
Kita turns her head towards the slow-rising dawn, light flickering lazily along slow seaside currents. “Like a bird,” she whispers, almost wistful, as her gaze locks with Hitori’s own. Hitori licks her lips.
“I don’t think... I’ve really done anything to earn that comparison, if I’m being honest,” Hitori whispers, feeling the way Kita’s grip on her hand tightens. She takes a deep breath, lets the mountain air fill her lungs with diamond-stud dew and New Years hope. “But I’ll try. For you. All of you.”
Kita smiles, rising on her tiptoes to place a kiss against Hitori’s lips. “I can’t wait to see you fly.”
And then, Nijika and Ryo are back, and Nijika is throwing her arms around Hitori’s waist, shoving her hands in her tracksuit pockets and nuzzling against her back, and Ryo is laying her head on top of Kita’s, placing a soft kiss against the crown of her head and softer hands around the cinch of her waist.
It’s never the big things in life that surprise Hitori the most. It is, indeed, always the smallest of things that vex her the most—nicknames and mall crowds and her own traitorous mind. But it is also these small moments, cowled in a warmth four bodies deep and four hearts wide, that always manage to make those small things feel... well, small. It is always this strange, complicated, beautiful love that makes her feel, even for just a moment, like something greater than the sum of her own flaws.
Cradled in this small moment, Hitori finally lets herself think that just maybe, her new nickname really does fit, heart soaring on waves of gold-filigree ecstasy as dawn breaks across the summit at Enoshima Shrine.