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Ever since she was young, Rin had always kept a diary. It was always some sort of thick, medium sized notebook, and whenever she had the option, she always bought it in yellow.
Her diary had always been her outlet. It contained small doodles that she had drawn in class in the margins of her school notebooks that she had later cut out and taped in because she couldn't part with them, lyrics from songs she was currently obsessed with, ideas for her own original music and, of course, all of her emotions - the good ones, and the bad ones. Mostly the bad ones. Life was hard a lot of the time.
But amidst all of Rin's inner turmoil and self-loathing throughout the years, there was one person who made it all easier to push through. Of course, her parents, Meiko and Kaito, were always super supportive, and Len tried his best to do whatever he could, despite having difficulty expressing his sympathy in words. But there was one person who always made her feel safe, who she knew would take care of her in all the right ways.
Miku. That person was Miku.
The two girls had been best friends ever since they were little children and, unlike many childhood friendships, theirs didn't fizzle out in the slightest once they got older. They were over at each other's houses all the time, were always together in and out of school and they confided in each other about each and every one of their hopes, dreams and worries.
To Rin, throughout most of it, it was just a regular, deep friendship. It was normal to want to be with your best friend constantly and think of them a lot throughout the day.
But once her teen years rolled around, Rin felt something more. She didn't know what it was at first, but when she did find out, she bottled it up and ignored its presence for a long time.
She still vividly remembered the day that it hit her. It was such a simple epiphany, and yet it was one she couldn't stomach.
It was during lunch time at school once. Rin, Len and Miku were all in the same class. Fortunately or not so fortunately, there was a virus going around their grade and Miku and Len got sick and were absent, but Rin was unscathed, so she was eating lunch and talking with some of her classmates.
The topic of crushes inevitably came up. Her classmates were giggling and teasing each other, and while Rin did join in on some of the banter, she just teased them and didn't feel any embarassment or anything herself. 'I don't have a crush', she thought.
But, of course, her turn to confess came. "So, Rin, who do you like?" one of her classmates asked her.
"Oh, um," she chuckled. "I don't think I like anyone."
That made the others pout jokingly and roll their eyes. "Oh, come on, you must like *someone*. We won't judge, promise!" one girl said.
Rin looked confused.
"Gosh, Rin, don't you have someone that you get butterflies around and stuff? Like, talking to them makes you super happy even when you're upset and you're constantly thinking about them and how you want to spend time with them? And time just flies when you two hang out?" another said.
"Woah, that was one poetic and detailed way to put it. You haven't confessed yet, yet the way you talk about crushes is super telling. Who is it??" the others nudged the girl's shoulder, having seemingly forgotten about Rin.
Rin, however, had stopped eating her food. The way the girl described having a crush. It was... exactly how she felt about Miku. One to one. Even before this conversation started, she had been thinking about how she'd immidietaly text her best friend once she was on her way home from school and how they would immidietaly hang out once she felt better. Way too quickly for her comfort, all of the other signs started clicking, gears started turning in her head.
"I'm feeling a little ill, I need to go to the bathroom." was all she could hastily say before she made her way out of the classroom. It earned her a few weird looks, but she was quickly forgotten about and the students moved on.
Once she was out of the classroom and there was no one nearby, Rin bolted for the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She washed her now noticeably paler face with cold water and gripped the edges of the sink.
The butterflies, the time spent together, the trust. There was no other way to describe it - Rin had a crush. It wasn't this that bothered her the most, it was the question of how she would cope with it because, in her mind, there was no way she could tell Miku. Rin had abandonement issues and was deathly afraid of the fact that there was a possibility that if she told her, Miku would be appalled or offended in some way and would ultimately leave her and their friendship to burn. Knowing Miku, it sounded unlikely, but Rin was deathly afraid of the possibility. There were few things she was afraid of more than losing the people she loved most.
All of these thoughts were racing in her head and it was like she couldn't hear or see anything else besides that dreaded image of Miku leaving, forever. She started sniffling, which very quickly escalated to sobbing, but she washed her face again, choked back her cries and returned to the classroom, where class was almost starting. 'This is not the time to think about this.' she thought.
And yet that was all she could think about throughout the entire remainder of the day. She couldn't focus at all in class. Once she got home, she dropped her backpack on the floor and crashed onto the bed, sobbing. She tried doing her homework, but quickly burst into tears again and returned to her bed. That night at dinner, she barely ate, and when her parents asked her what was wrong, she merely said that she felt unwell, that Len had probably finally managed to get her sick after all. It was a believable excuse, so they weren't very concerned and just told her to take some pills and get a good night's rest. That good night's rest took the form of her crying herself to sleep.
She decided to bottle it up, keep it hidden until, if, it went away. So she hid it the next day. And the day after that. Finally, Miku wasn't sick anymore, so she came back to school - Rin hid it that day as well, and many more days, weeks, months after that.
However, it wasn't so easy to keep it hidden all the time, so Rin turned to her diary to spill her emotions. Her entries contained and talked about various things, but as time went on, they started all being mostly about Miku. They were mostly filled with remorse and fear of anyone finding out, a lot of the pages were tear-stained. But sometimes she had the courage to doodle Miku's likeness and draw hearts all around it.
Rin did this for so many months that it felt like routine. Go to school, talk to Miku, hang out with her after school ends, do homework, write in diary about her so you don't end up spilling your love for her one day by accident. Do it all on paper so there won't be any consequences.
Rin followed the rule, even though, as time went on, her love started gnawing and clawing at her insides, trying to tear its way up to freedom like a wild animal would. Or like a bird, desperately trying to break out of its cage.
Better to cherish and nurture an amazing, deep friendship rather than selfishly risk losing it all, even if it pained her more and more every day. Miku could never find out.
Until one day she did. She did find out. And it was like Rin's whole world was shattering before her.
It was like any other ordinary day. It was a Friday, so the girls decided that Rin should have Miku over. Rin typically always took great care to hide her diary, and up until this point, no one had ever found it. But this time she forgot to hide it, and it was lying on her desk as if it was just some regular notebook.
They had just stepped foot in her room and were setting down their backpacks. "We baked some cookies yesterday, I'll go get them from the kitchen. I'll be right back!" said Rin, trotting out of the door.
"Mkay!" Miku said after her excitedly. She set down her things on the floor beside the bed. Rin's room was messy and cluttered -- there were notebooks sticking out of every drawer, posters of singers she looked up to on the walls, hoodies and shirts slung carelessly over the backs of chairs, her favorite guitar propped up against a wall and god knows what else -- but Miku was so used to this being the atmosphere of the room that she didn't mind at all and in fact, liked it a lot. Plus, it wasn't like hers was much tidier anyway.
But amidst all of the chaos of the room, a thick yellow notebook on Rin's desk caught Miku's attention. There were notebooks everywhere in the room, so she thought it was just an ordinary one, maybe it was for school or maybe it was a sketchbook. Either way, Rin didn't mind Miku leafing through her sketchbooks or other personal items, so that's exactly what she did while she waited for her friend to come back. She flipped to a random page out of boredom and--
In the corner of it she saw a rough sketch of her face. With hearts surrounding it.
"Wait, what?" Miku chuckled, thinking it must have been some kind of joke. To check if that was the case, she started leafing through other pages quickly and... it was the same thing on a lot of them. Either her face, or her name, always surrounded by hearts and sometimes with little notes beside them.
Miku went pale.
Before she could stop herself, she was reading through the entries, and in so many of them Rin had confessed to liking her probably hundreds of times. She read about how Rin didn't know what to do, how powerless and weak she felt. She saw the tear stains on some of the pages.
This was... exactly what Miku did in the margins of her school notebooks. She would also write Rin's name and put hearts around it, she would also write about how much she loved her and how she didn't know how to tell her (unlike Rin, Miku was set on telling her one way or another -- she didn't really have abandonement issues and the fear that if she told her, she might end their friendship forever). She nearly gasped out loud multiple times.
She looked at the date from the entry where Rin had first started writing about her crush. It was almost a year ago.
They were pining for each other all this time.
"I'm back with the coo-"
Rin didn't finish the sentence.
Miku gasped and closed the notebook but didn't look away from Rin. "I.. I'm sorry for reading through your diary, it's just--"
Rin's knees wobbled and her eyes started rapidly filling with tears that she tried her best to blink away. Her hands were shaking. "You.. you saw.."
"Rin, listen, I-" Miku stood up and started approaching her. She was going to hug her and let her know that it was all okay, that she shared the feeli--
Rin quickly set down the cookie tray on the bed and took a couple of steps backwards. "Don't!--" tears finally started streaming down her face. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you weren't ever meant to find out--"
Miku bolted forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. "RIN! Listen to me!" she hugged her tightly, probably more tightly than she ever had. At this point, she was crying a little bit, too. "It's okay!" she took a deep breath. "Because.."
"I like you too!"
Alas, one of them had finally said it.
Rin looked up at her. "Wait, what? Really?"
"Yes, really! What you write about me in your diary is exactly what I write about you in my school notebooks! I've been wondering how to tell you for months now!" Miku looked sincerely into Rin's teary eyes.
It took a couple of seconds for it to register in Rin's mind, but once it did, she felt a surge of relief, like a huge weight that she had been carrying for far too long had finally been lifted from her shoulders. She buried her face into Miku's shirt and wept. Miku stroked her hair and allowed herself to cry, too.
They stayed like that for a couple of minutes before they both calmed down, wiped the tears from their eyes and sat next to each other on the bed.
"I never knew how to tell you. Actually, I didn't even want to tell you, because I was scared that you might be offended and just.. leave me." Rin chuckled nervously, looking away.
Miku laughed heartily and hugged Rin again. "I swear to god, you are insane! How could I ever do that?!" she kept laughing and Rin started to as well. They started finally reaching for the cookies that had been lying there for probably around 20 minutes.
"Let's talk to each other when we've got stuff going on from now on, okay?" Miku smiled, and Rin nodded. It was a promise.
After a few more cookies, Rin asked, "So, does this officially make us.. uh.. girlfriends?"
Miku chuckled again, smiling. "Of course it does, silly. We're dating now, finally." she entertwined their fingers and they both went a little red.
And to think that Rin had been crying herself to sleep over this matter for months. To think that she was so worried that Miku might leave her because of it, when in fact she had welcomed her with open arms and confessed that she had been dealing with the same feelings all this time.
It all suddenly seemed so hilariously stupid.
And they couldn't be happier.