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Everybody calls it what they want it to be. A phase, confusion, puppy love, delusion— Mutsumi doesn’t think of it like that at all. Regardless: it may have not been real: but it was real to Mutsumi, it was real because when their hands were both interlocked, Sakiko’s hand was warm, it was warm, and there was the weight of it all and it was real to her, it was real to her when she watched Sakiko outside of the practice room window get into that taxi in middle school. Could she even afford the drive? Could she even afford to leave the rest of them behind? It was only middle school but it was the first time someone had left, and it was the first time Mutsumi; privileged, foolish, blinded, had watched it, so she did what she could, she followed, followed, followed. She still does— but she doesn’t, because she’s changed, she’s growing, but still, instinctively, she’s always ready to put the mask back on and join her: her backbone, her sword, her shield, her something.
Only because it felt right, only because Sakiko felt right. She loves her. It’s because loving Sakiko comes naturally but it’s heavy. It hurts, all the time, mostly. Sometimes she watches Sakiko put on the mask and become nobody, and it’s scary, because when she puts on the mask, it’s the opposite: she’s someone with the mask. But they don’t get how Mutsumi sees Sakiko. They see a violent animal waiting to kill, to slaughter, but Mutsumi just sees Sakiko. Not the rich girl that fell off, not Oblivionis, she just sees Sakiko.
☯︎
“That’s why I hate you,” Sakiko says, “you see me. Too well, and it scares me. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Hate is a strong word,” Mutsumi says, and then puts her head down on Sakiko’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“But there is. You don’t understand. You’re nothing like me.”
Sakiko is confusing. Sakiko makes her head hurt, makes her heart ache, but still, she wants all these things if it means she can keep wanting Sakiko, keep having her like this, in a twisted form of love.
“But I want you. All of you,” Mutsumi says.
Until two becomes one, until we are both whole again, until, until, until.
It’s not fair, it isn’t fair that nobody sees them as them. It’s unfair that her love isn’t strong enough to be recognized as love. Would it be different if she were a man? A rich, wealthy man, ready to sweep Sakiko, the princess, off her feet? Would it be better? The world only sees them as two foolish, exploitable girls. Would they see them differently? Does Sakiko want to be seen differently? What does Sakiko want? What does she, herself, want?
(She’s going to love Sakiko for a long time. She doesn’t know it, or maybe she does, but it’s a feeling that will sink her heart down for many, many years.)
Sakiko looks at her funny. “No,” she says, “no, you don’t.”
Mutsumi kisses her anyway. She’s just sixteen but the yearning and heaviness in her chest is so real. She doesn’t know it gets better, doesn’t know the world becomes a better place yet, but the half–hearted kisses feel as if they open the world up, little by little. She’s going to love her so hard the world stops and smiles at them holding hands. They don’t know true love, they don’t know them. Mutsumi could wait forever. There’s nothing wrong with either of them. Mutsumi could wait as long as God needed for the two of them.
☯︎
Sometimes, the waiting hurts. She doesn’t tell Sakiko but sometimes the waiting does hurt. It hurts, and she can’t say anyone, can’t say anything. It’s like a battlefield, Sakiko, her, and the world against each other, a waiting game: who will push away first? Who will grovel like a dog asking for love? Who will burn first, just like the feeling of biting into a tangerine slice too hard, when the citrus stings as it gets into your eyes.
(Sakiko makes her want to cry in a good way.)
It feels raw, sometimes, the way she loves. Sakiko can’t say she’s in love because, you know. Mutsumi does know. It’s like that. It’s complicated. It’s so complicated, and sometimes, it makes her feel like some false girl: girls don’t keep these kinds of secrets, girls have boyfriends that they soft launch on their SNS, girls have boyfriends that play terrible piano covers of their favorite songs, girls don’t lock themselves into practice room after practice room, spending time thinking about piano, guitar, Togawa Sakiko, and Pastel*Palletes. Sometimes, it feels like all her friends had received some “normal girl: guide to being a functioning human” book before they were even born. It’s like she’s missing out on some sort of secret. No one loves the way she does, even aside from sexuality, her view of love: it’s not the same.
☯︎
Mutsumi feels like the antithesis of her good friend Soyo, sometimes. She hasn’t seen her in a while but she knows Soyo and her are similar, down to the same vein. The only difference is Soyo hides this better than her. All Mutsumi does is stare. She stares at taxis in the rain and thinks of CRYCHIC, even though it’s already been a couple years since… that. Sometimes she sits alone and thinks of her sins. Sometimes she remembers the cool floor when she used to pray, and sometimes she wonders: who is taking care of Sakiko right now, if not me? Sometimes it’s hard, because Mutsumi is so devoted sometimes. It’s hard because these things aren’t hers. Outside of the house she lives in, what does she have? She has the school garden, but still, it traces back to her parents: couldn’t give her cucumbers without the shopping bag from the designer brand, after all. Maybe that’s what pisses everyone around her so badly: her incorrect social skills. Maybe it’s the lack of her emotions. You can’t blame her: she’s had nothing to call home: at least, she hasn’t, for a while.
☯︎
Mutsumi is a changed person. She’s a changed person: so when she stares at the two, very sad looking texts on her screen, she tells herself, “I am a changed person,” and takes a breath.
Then: she thinks about it, for a second. She thinks very, very hard. Then she puts down her phone, lets herself feel a little bad about herself and the situation, and then goes to sleep. There is nothing a nap cannot fix.
☯︎
Mutsumi ends up taking up Sakiko’s request. Every time Sakiko texts her for something, it’s always for something that isn’t tangible. First it was joining Sakiko, then joining CRYCHIC, then it was scarring CRYCHIC out of everyone’s mind, and then it was Ave Mujica: but the last two are practically the same. Then after that, it was staying in Ave Mujica, and a little later, it was joining Sakiko again. They have come full circle, retrograding like the galaxy. All planets orbit around the sun in the same direction. Sakiko’s eyes have always looked like the sun when her head was titled a little, when Mutsumi’s lips were against hers, when both of them would keep their eyes open when kissing to remember it, devour it in, because seeing is believing and neither of them are magicians. Sakiko believes in the untried, not the impossible, and Mutsumi believes in hard proof and evidence.
☯︎
Sakiko could do anything she put her mind to, but Mutsumi isn’t strong enough to act like Sakiko.
Does she follow Sakiko across the world for Ave Mujica? The problem isn’t the commitment, it’s the foundation. She would go anywhere Sakiko went, but is that what Sakiko wants? Once upon a time, in their first year of highschool, she had followed but Sakiko had tried so hard to let go of her coattails of the past. She wonders if dolls are capable of feeling love, too.
She has time to think about it.
Mutsumi doesn’t want anything but Sakiko, and maybe that’s the real problem. She hides cowardice and says she’ll go where Sakiko goes, but it’s because in reality, she’s lost otherwise. She follows the flow, but it’s an excuse to pretend she’d watch earth and time regress back to her last year of junior high.
☯︎
Mutsumi puts her left shoe on and stands in front of Sakiko’s door. She looks back towards Sakiko’s bedroom, and then slips her right shoe on. She walks out. “I’m done waiting for you,” she says to no one in particular. This is her song for no one but herself.