Archive of Our Own

There’s a notebook at the foot of my bed. The cover is pretty and pink—but dirtied with age, worn around the edges.

I’m staring at it like it’s that one faulty firework at the end of a festival. A half-dead roach that I can’t trust won’t suddenly lunge at my face.
I cup my face in my hands, groaning into my soft palms.

My hands have not grown much since childhood.
Their fingers are still embarrassingly stumpy. I don’t usually like holding hands. I worry too much that I have the grip of an elementary schooler, still.
Don’t mangaka usually have strained and powerful hands, anyway? Slender and smooth, yet rippling with subtle muscle and vein?

I don’t resemble the kind of girl who just spent an hour feverishly scrawling into her childhood notebook.
Right, I’ve had this since I was, what? Eight?
What would eight-year-old Mio think of me? Would she even recognize me?

I anxiously flit my fingers through the pages, sifting through their uncomfortably private scrawlings — until I find where the dark, graphite edgings cut into smooth fields of untouched paper.

My eyes flit over what I drew, and I grimace. Hard. Disgustingly chiseled abs. Huffs of steam intricately dotting every empty space. The.. meticulously thought out onomatopoeia. I wanna die. I wanna burn it all and kill myself and go to hell and die forever. Childish, nonsensical rambles of self-deprecating threats bloom through my head the longer I let myself stare at it.
I feel physically ill. My face is still feverish and my stomach is sore from the stress. The heat inside me boils and rises to my cheeks and it stays there for hours and it burns me out. My head is a steamer and my brain is the miserably soggy bun that no one is eager to eat.
The heat is gone from my body and now I’m left to bask in the uneasy weariness it left behind, burnt out from letting myself get so worked up. I want to scream and rip out all of the pages and set them on fire and eat them and shit them out. But, I glance again, at the weakening spine from the mountains of pages I’ve torn out of this notebook in a panic already. It looks.. significantly scrawnier than I remember it being.

My thumb runs over the weakening plush cover, and I sigh.

What have I done to you?

Little slivers of soft, pink faux fur flutter onto my bedsheets.

To me?

I sigh, decidedly closing the ill-fated notebook. I’ll leave those drawings to stun the Mio that returns from school tomorrow.

School. Tomorrow.

My eyes wander over to the clock on my desk.

It’s 2.

The nausea in my stomach quells and my heart sinks a little deeper. How deranged do you have to be to lose yourself for three hours past bedtime?
I nudge those too-familiar remnants of a ruined childhood away with my foot and toss myself back, landing sprawled out on my back on the bed. My chest rises and sinks with a heavy sigh, and I let myself sink into the baby blue, polka-dotted sheets.

My room, like me, hasn’t changed much since childhood either. On the outside, at least. My friends always comment on how well-put together and fit for a bona fide artist it is. But, really, who doesn’t tear their entire room apart when you know you’re expecting visitors? The desk I had worked so diligently at with them before is now cluttered, more risque pages strewn across its face — and I cringe at the sight of some wads of waste dotting the floor around it. I remember working so relentlessly to make my room look orderly — not because it was messy, but because it flawlessly reflected the image of a thoroughly rotten high-school girl.

This room is like me. It puts on a cutesy, responsible façade in front of everyone to hide how disgusting and degenerate it actually is.
My eyes wander down to the stuffed rabbit at the foot of my bed, its cheery face judging me blankly.

Whatever. I know. I’m scum.

I want to apologize, almost, for all the times I neglected to turn you to face the wall while I holed myself up in my room, feverishly working at doujins or raunchy one shots. Or worse...

Maybe if I had taken care of myself — protected myself better, I wouldn’t be like this.
I think, every child thinks they’re ‘special’ and ‘mature’ because they found out about the ins and outs of sex before all the other kids in their class did. Because they continue to meander deeper and deeper down that rabbit hole, consuming that forbidden fruit until the ichor makes them so sick that their intestines burst.

I mean, not EVERY child, rather…

Every child stupid enough to be Naganohara Mio.

A filthy child has become a filthy teenager and will go on to lead a life as a filthy adult. And I can’t stand filthy adults. I shiver, wondering back about all of the older men who have catcalled me despite my seifuku. At the uncles dawdling in the magazine section at the conbi near the train station. I want to die.

Clearly, I am the only teenager to ever experience such turmoil, such despair. I am a wretched and ugly and rotten girl and I should be ashamed of myself. Maybe I could benefit from burning all of these journals.

I know I’ll just buy a new one, though.
I’ll doodle something crude in the corner of my classwork.
And then I’ll feverishly erase it, trying to leave no trace of its faint lines or indents into the soft paper.
And then I’ll realize the test is peer-graded, and I’ll get sick to my stomach, and I’ll be walked to the nurse.
There is no fixing me.

I am beyond help.

I notice a sheet of white amidst the dim room and my eyes meander to a stray drawing that seemed to have billowed out of the notebook.

The glasses tell me everything I need to know. I toss over in bed, greeting my wall with a hefty sigh.

It’s him.

Well — it’s NOT him. It’s not. It’s a totally fictitious character. It only happens to look like him, with that same pompous attitude.

Right?

Well… sure. They look very similar. They behave identically.

The lines are even beginning to blur in my head.

Is this why Sasahara doesn’t notice me?

What, does he smell the filth on me?

Does he know I’m secretly a huge pervert with nothing to contribute to this world besides my deranged musings?

I wonder, often, what he must think of me — but what I failed to do was reflect on the girl I’ve become. Panic grips at my throat.

He knew me when we were younger, I remember.

I thought of him even when I was small.

Small and pure and untouched.

I followed him to Tokisadame High, even.

He probably even watched me blossom into this sick, self-destructive mess, an excuse for a teenage girl.

Oh. There are tears.

My face is hot again, but not with fervor this time,

and tears singe my peach-colored cheeks as I start to sob.

I cry into the collar of my shirt, ugly and agonizing.
It’s soft, baby blue, and smells vaguely of my youth. And I ruin it as I muffle my choked sobs into it, like I ruin everything else. I shake, forcing back a trickle of snot.

That’s okay.
He didn’t deserve me, anyways.
If I were any self-respecting man, I’d probably choose my gunslinging, brutish classmate over some used-goods perv kouhai, too.

Aren’t girls like this only ever brides to the worst types of otaku, anyway?

I’ll never even get married, will I?

My stomach plummets.
I cry, harder, into my pillow this time.
I gasp and sob, trembling,
and my stomach turns with disgust.

Girls like me are filth,
nothing but waste, I know.

And maybe it is selfish of me to wish I was something other than this.

I tremble and try to silence my cries, forcing myself to focus on my breathing, the volume of the panicked breaths leaving me. God, the last thing I want to do right now is wake up my mom and sister.
I slide my arms beneath my pillow, and my small hands find purchase on something rectangular.
I choke back snot as I retrieve it, trying to make out its shape in my bleary vision.

Ah,
my DSi.

It is small and blue and dotted with cute stickers.

I open it, and I’m not sure why I do,
because the contents are definitely just as upsetting as everything else in my room.

I turn it on.

The boot-up and the menu that follow are a blinding, white, indistinct haze beneath my tears. But I know where to go, anyway. My thumbs move on their own.

I open Flipnote, and orange envelops my vision.

It’s supposed to be a tool for artists, creators, animators, to create and share and exist in unity.
But I know I’ve probably corrupted that, too.

I sniff back my tears, hard, and start browsing my works.

I’ve been using this app since it released a few years ago… almost every day, actually.
Sometimes I find my small fingers work nimbly on such a tiny device.
My earlier works are innocent enough. They aren’t good, by any means… but they’re so full of curiosity and passion that is almost childlike in nature.
I’m kind of terrible at animating, still… but my art has improved a lot in just two years.

In two years, my mind has been sullied a lot, too.

Every Flipnote that I know has even a trace of anything suggestive — I erase without a second thought.
Some of them remind me, briefly, of the others I’ve met online.

They’re just as bad as I am, sometimes.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s them who ruined me, but, that’s such a selfish thought. I’m old enough to be responsible for myself, aren’t I? I’m not a little kid anymore.

I could just log off if I were seriously being groomed.
This is all my own doing.

My thumbs are sore from sifting through Flipnotes.
There are plenty of projects that are likely just huge, personal sketch dumps…
but I don’t care to sort through them.

This is urgent, after all.

I tap, erase, tap, and move on — and it’s monotonous,

but also increasingly frantic

but I don’t care,

oh my god.

I need it all gone.

I need to fix this.

My chest hurts. Tears are burning down my cheeks again.

I don’t deserve to salvage anything.

Not after I’ve ruined something so precious.

I need to purge everything.

Now. Now. Now.

My door opens.

I yank the lid of my DSi down, instinctively.

Anxiety ignites in my stomach, instinctively.

“Who are you talking to?” she asks casually, used to it.

It is my sister.

“No one,” I say, but it’s the truth this time.

“Really?”

I feel my bed bounce as she plops down beside me.
“What happened?” she asks, and I can’t tell if it’s concern or curiosity in her voice.

I close my DS completely once I realize it’s only illuminating my snotty, pink face. She’s tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
She was always really meticulous about it, using a nail to fix it behind my lobe. It was a sensation I always hated as a younger kid. The unwanted touches, the weird, sensory unease of having my face more visible than I wanted it to be… but I miss it these days. And I want to cry harder when she runs her fingers through my hair.

“I heard you crying,” she says, lowering her voice. “I bet you’re glad you woke me up instead of mom, huh?”
“Not really.” I say dryly, half-kidding.
“So meaaan!” she says dramatically — and I grunt as the weight of her entire back collides with mine. She’s laying on top of me now, and I can feel the fuse starting to spark back to life in my overstimulated little brain. I sigh and shove my DS under my pillow with one rough gesture before crossing my arms, burying my face in the nook they create.

My sister sits upright, and I feel her inch closer.

“You aren’t cutting again, are you?”

“No!”
It tumbles out of my mouth, incredulous, offended.
“I haven’t in a while…” I say, and it’s true. All that’s left on my thighs and arms are faint, milky-white scars, and I’d like to keep it that way, especially considering the uniform switch coming up so soon…

I don’t want to, anyway. I want to do better.

But,

I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind.

“Good.”

The room is crushingly silent for a few moments.
Her hand glides over my head again in slow, gentle movements.

“Hey,” she says, “what’s up?”

I blank.

What am I supposed to tell her?

I don’t want to tell her anything.

But I have to,
I know.

I don’t respond, and she rubs my back.

I lift my face somewhat, and a pathetic, stuffy sigh leaves me.
“Do you think I’m filthy?”

“Eh? Why would I think that?” Her voice quivers with laughter.

“Because I’m a fucking pervert!!!” I scream into a choked whisper. I’m hysterical. The tears are coming again and my chest is heaving. So so hard.

I can’t make out her expression in the dark of my room. Not that it matters. She’s caressing my back and hushing me like a mom settling a baby.

“Hey, hey, shh…”

I can’t stop crying.

“I’m just confused, Mio…”

Confusion twists in my throat. She’s confused?! How?! She knows me!!

I can’t verbalize my astonishment - my frustration. I’m embarrassed. I’m choking my sobs into my pillow again, trying to be quiet while my sister rubs my back.

“Did someone say that about you?”

I freeze, if only for a moment.

No…?

I don’t think I’ve ever been called that — not by anyone other than myself.

I hesitate. I shake my head. Slowly.

“Then where’s this coming from?” she half-laughs, and I almost want to kick her out of my bed.

“I just…” I manage, “I—I’m so tired…! I’m so tired of having su-uch a fffilthy head all the time!!!” I clutch my sheets, sobbing.
“Huh?” she says. “You mean the yaoi stuff?”
I explode into hysterical sobs.
“Oh,” she pats my back. “Mio… You’re a teenage girl…”

So what?

So fucking what?!

“S-ssooh what?” I manage to choke out between sobs. I’d never seen a single girl at our school give into such perversions. Not like I have. It’s like Yuuko always says — we’re supposed to be good, dainty, high school girls, innocent enough to make a flower blush.

And I am doing so fucking bad.

“What do you mean, ‘so what’?” says my sister. She can’t contain her nervous (and likely a little genuine, knowing her) giggles. The way she’s rubbing my back starts to put me at ease, though. I don’t have an answer for her.
“Teenagers are hoooorny,” she says in an exaggerated voice, and it catches me off guard.
“Ew! Don’t say that!!” I shriek as I jolt upright. My cheeks are hot again. I don’t care how true it is — Yoshino is the last person I need to hear it from. It’s like bugs are wriggling just beneath my skin. I’m angry and disgusted and confused and the cogs won’t stop turning.
“What? It’s true,” she says. “Especially in high school? Everyone’s hormones are all over the place…”

It’s reassuring, but also excruciatingly awkward to hear. I hate getting this talk from her. Hate. Hate. Hate.

“That’s not true.”
“Well, it is. You’re not special! Sorry, sis!”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Yeah. Whatever. It’s probably true. But to have her speak from experience is more awkward than what I’m prepared to even consider tonight, and so, I shut it down immediately.

She shrugs. “I know you probably don’t want to hear that,”
“I don’t.”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. She hesitates, then snorts as she chokes back a giggle.
“I-I know you’re trying to hu-help, but I really don’t want to have a talk about that with you.” I say, and I try to sound precise and even, but the tears warble my voice and I can hear my sister forcing back more giggles.
“That’s fair. But give it a think sometime, okay? You can’t avoid the truth…” she says, and I get the vague impression that she’s wiggling her fingers in front of me in the dark of my bedroom.

It doesn’t get a laugh out of me. My head hurts.

There’s an awkward silence punctuated by only my sniffles and the hum of my fan.

“Are you okay, Mio?”

My blood runs cold.

I mean, no. Obviously, in this very moment, I am not okay.
But I can hear it in the way she says it — the way she stresses each syllable, the way her voice suddenly becomes grave.

She knows I’m hurting. And, yeah — maybe I should be glad she’s showing genuine concern instead of tip-toeing around it. But I feel nauseous. Cold. Exposed. Like I’m splayed out naked on a surgical table.

“I… huh?”

“Like… did you see something bad online? Is someone being weird to you?”

I’m not crying again. Not audibly, anyway. But my eyes are wide and welling up with tears. I nod my head, hard. It’s my fault. And I’m sick. And dirty. And there’s no one to blame but me.

“Mio…”

I collapse into her chest before I explode into sobs, and I hold her like I’ve found something precious I’ve lost for years.

I did lose something precious. For years.

My face is hot as I choke back screaming sobs. She holds me close and rubs my back. It feels like Mom. She sounds like mom, even, hushing me gently like I’m a fussy baby. We stay intertwined like that for a long while. My tiny fists cling to her like she’s all I have left.

“Who hurt you?”

“Everything,” I retort so fast it shakes her. I can feel it in the way her muscles twitch around me. “everyone did.”

She’s eerily tense for a moment. Her hand doesn’t move — and uneasily begins to stroke my back again.

She caught me.

She knows now. The actual scale of my depravity.

Why am I crying to her, then?

Bawling into her shirt over my own perverted behavior?

I’m pathetic.

“I’m sorry,” I sputter.
“I’ve been really bad, I know,” and the words won’t stop coming, “please don’t tell mom. Puhlease,”

“What?! Mio! Shut up!” Yoshino snaps with such sternness that it catches my breath in my throat. My lip is still trembling, but I do. I shut up. “You’re not in trouble, oh my god! No!! My sweet baby sister,” something between a sob and an incredulous laugh leaves her, “Noo… no… of course not.”

I don’t get it.

“Baby.. You’re a young girl. Sometimes you get curious and see things you shouldn’t. And sometimes you meet people you shouldn’t. You’re just a kid; y’know?”
“That’s not an excuse.” It isn’t. I’m graduating in only a few years. I should know better.
“You’re 16, Mio!” she scoffs. “You’re a growing girl and you’re full of hormones.. there’s a lot you haven’t learned yet,” she pulls away from me, gripping my shoulders and forcing me to look her in the eyes through the inky black.

I don’t meet her gaze. She keeps talking anyway.

“I’m not saying that to patronize you or anything.. You’re growing up. People are going to take advantage of that, Mio. Why would I blame you for that? You didn’t know any better.”

I can’t speak. A whine crackles in my throat.

“That’s not your fault… It isn’t. You’re not a pervert or an improper girl or whatever the hell it is you’re telling yourself, Mio… You’re just a kid. And even if you weren’t — even if you were working an office job and fretting over your mortgage — how is that your fault? Huh? Why should I blame you for hurting like that?”

She’s quiet, now. She wants me to answer. I sniffle; swallowing my tears, dabbing my eyes with the sleeve of my pajamas.

“Do you seriously see me working an office job?”
My sister doesn’t find that nearly as funny. She flicks my nose, and I choke out a giggle. “Mio!!! Shut up!!!” she whispers with playful harshness.
“That’s not the point,” she says, and her voice becomes serious again.

“The point is that you’re a victim.”

The air is still again.

I knit my brows, searching for the words,

and I cannot find them.

Does she not understand?

I must’ve left something out.

Seriously. Does she not realize?

Does she actually have any idea how much of this is self-inflicted?

“I’m not —“
“YES you are.”

She doesn’t let me finish.

There’s a strange feeling in my chest.
I swear, she’s mocking me, or lying to spare my feelings,
but then, why are my eyes welling up again?

I collapse into her arms again.
My tears won’t stop, and I almost feel a little guilty.

I can’t seriously deserve this, can I?

“They hurt you, Mio. You’re upset because you’re hurt.”
She’s stroking my hair again.
I don’t have it in me to sob, really. I almost don’t want to cry. Because she’s wrong. She’s lying. This feeling is guilt, right? It has to be. It has to.

“It’s not your fault. You literally couldn’t convince me that it is.”
A big, shaky sigh of resignation leaves me.
"I know, it hurts a lot, I know… I wish you never had to have gone through any of this. But I need you to do something for me.”

I don’t answer. Because I don’t want to acknowledge her. Is she being serious?

Her grip on my shoulder shifts and I know she’s looking for my acknowledgement.

“Whuht,” I sigh through my snotty nose.

“I need you to stop blaming yourself. I need you to stop thinking this happened because you’re some kind of perverted, defective teenage girl. You’re not broken, okay? And if you’re gonna think that, then whatever, but I WON’T let you blame yourself.”
Yoshino’s voice is steady and unyielding. My resolve is waning.
“That’s my little sister you’re talking about, y’know!”
I sigh. She sounds more like herself now, doesn’t she?

“Okay,” my head raises, if only a little, like I’m a bunny tentatively easing my way out of my burrow. “I’ll try.”
“No, you’re gonna.” she retorts. “Look, I’m gonna leave some money downstairs for you t’morrow, m’kay? I want you to go out shopping with your friends and be the cutest high school girl you can be. You’ve always been that to me — even with all the yaoi drawings.”

I shoot her a pointed look.

“I’m serious!!!” she’s giggling, patting my back. “Y’know, there were girls in my class who were super into that kind of stuff when I was your age. Told’ya you aren’t special…”
“Really?” It’s easy to tell when she’s making things up — and I can tell she’s not. And it’s confusing. It makes me briefly think of my own classmates — Haruna is pretty likeminded, I guess… I’m starting to wonder if there are others among our ranks.
“Well, yeah. Duh.” she scoffs, and it annoys me. Clearly it isn’t a ‘duh’ if I’m just realizing now what a skewed perception of what constitutes a high school girl I have. “Anyways, go buy yourself some cute stationary, clothes, stuffed animals — whatever! I need you to realize that this idea of yourself you have in your head is totally wrong.”

She’s not making sense again.
I want to crush the part of me that sees some truth in her words — and I can’t.

Shopping does sound nice…

“Seriously. If you come home from school on-time, I’ll put beetles in your hair!” she says cheerily.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I snap, and she breaks down into hysterical giggles. I strike her — she doesn’t budge. “GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!”

“Say you love me!” Her hands form a heart.
“OUT!”
“Say, ‘goodnight, dearest big sister, I adore you!’”

I’m pushing her out of my bed. She staggers to her feet, but doesn’t relent. “Mimi!!! Say ‘thank you for your wisdom, Yoshino-sama! How can I ever repay you?”

“OUT!! OUT!!!” I grip my stuffed rabbit with both hands and swing it over my head, striking her with its huge ears with obscene force.

“M’kay, I love you! Byeee!”

Before I know it she’s squeezed out between the tiny slit where my bedroom door was open, slinking back off to her room.

What a jerk.

I let out a hefty sigh as I collapse back unto my bed, my limbs slack beside me. I’m tired…

I don’t feel so bad, though. My heart won’t stop pounding. I’m a little sweaty — I didn’t even realize. I hadn’t noticed at all how anxious that whole ordeal had made me.
To be so vulnerable, so completely transparent — my body must have gone into total survival mode…
I want to kick my legs, thrash all over my bed, run a couple of laps until the tension leaves me; but the exhaustion is winning.

I don’t feel so bad.

I pull my limbs close to me, curling on my side and tugging my stuffed rabbit close to me.
I settle my chin on her head, stroking her fur with my thumb, listening to the thrum of my own heart in my pillowcase.

I’m just a girl,
I guess.

I nuzzle my face into the fabric of my rabbit. She smells like.. my room; a weird, nondescript amalgamation of all the things that feel like home.
The room is eerily quiet again, but I start to feel a little more at ease without the laughs of my sister — the crickets outside and the rumble of my fan keep me company.

My eyelids are getting heavy, and my brain is starting to become hyperactive with vague inklings of future plans — the stores I want to go to tomorrow, what I’ll wear, what we’ll see…

I don’t want to admit she’s right. I don’t.


But those bad feelings are waning.

Today was really long…
It was nice, though.

The sun bathes the inside of the train car amber as we board. My legs ache, but it’s nice. We went to the shops after school and walked and spoke and played way more than I anticipated. I’ll most definitely crash later. My exhaustion is mounting… but I can’t feel it. I don’t really care.

Meanwhile, Yuuko is stumbling down the aisle in front of me with exaggerated, loose movements, her head craned back while she complains about how sore her legs are and how heavy her bags are.
“My back huuurts,” she whines like a kid. She’s always been so overt about what she’s feeling, even when it comes out all cartoonish and dramatic like this. “My shoulders are gonna kill me tomorrow!”
“I’M gonna kill you right now if you don’t pick a seat.” I tease, and she makes a startled ‘gyah!’ and stumbles into a seat, tumbling like she weighs a ton. I sit next to her, and Mai sits across from us — she’s already plugging in her earbuds and gazing out the window although the train isn’t in motion yet.
Some of the only bits of normalcy I ever get out of Mai are when she’s tired… You wouldn’t really guess it, though. You have to look for it, on days like these. I can tell her social battery has run dry when she stops engaging and tunes out like this; Yuuko and I always leave her be. It’s a wordless exchange, a mutual agreement that goes three ways.

Beside me, Yuuko is rummaging through her bags, flitting through different compartments to make sure everything is in order — that nothing’s missing… I don’t often feel compelled to do the same; because I’m nowhere near as forgetful as Yuuko is. I’d bought a lot of things that made me feel really nice about myself today… Some shirts and a pair of jeans I thought were cute, a really darling (but equal parts genuinely high quality) set of stationary and writing utensils, lip balm in a peach-shaped container… oh — and a stuffed rabbit to hang off of my bag. I couldn’t help it… she’s wearing pink pajamas!
They aren’t things that make me a ‘proper girl’ by any means — not at all. I’m not sure I’d ever really WANT to be a stereotypical ‘girly girl’; I don’t especially value things like makeup and dressing in a way to appeal to boys. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like to dress cute sometimes. It makes me feel really nice…
Mai, I don’t think purchased much. She’s always just happy to be along for the ride, but I don’t think shopping is something that interests her very much. Her one big purchase was a haunted house decoration on clearance; it’s an undead dog with sloughing skin and a snarling face — the collar reads ‘Scabs’. She’s cradling it like it’s an actual dog. Its contorted, snarling face is eyeing me from a few feet away. The other, slightly more normal purchases she made, were when we visited a gachapon alley… I rolled for little figurines and keychains of characters I really like, Yuuko was fixated on a machine that gave her random animals (penguins, seals, tapirs, anteaters)… Mai, however, kept rolling on the same 3 machines. Again and again and again. I think that must’ve been where most of her money went, actually. She left with the pockets of her cargo shorts absolutely brimming with plastic capsules. It was kind of embarrassing.

When we stopped to eat, she showed me some of them.. they were all filled with giant beetles, little Buddha statues, and deep sea creatures.
The last of her hoard was a tiny, inconsequential piece of taffy I absolutely watched her pocket without paying without another word. She just… does that sometimes. And though I used to scold her when we first met, I’ve learned it benefits us both a lot more if I just keep quiet. She just ‘doesn’t feel like paying’. And… whatever. Just. Whatever. She hasn’t stolen anything that would warrant any serious trouble. Not yet, anyway.

And as for Yuuko… well, I’m not really sure. She had a lot of fun with the gacha machines, but I’m not actually sure what all she bought outside of that. We did lose track of her in the bookstore…

I’d only picked up a new volume of a josei series I was really into lately, and Mai left empty-handed… so I guess I didn’t think much of it when Yuuko met us outside the minutes too late... Curiosity starts to get the best of me.

I discreetly lean over, my eyes flitting over Yuuko’s shoulder and into the contents of her bag.
She skirts past some relatively uninteresting things. Some pads, her wallet, an obnoxious amount of gacha capsules…

And then I see the glitter of shrink-wrapped plastic.

There’s… a manga,

and there’s girls making out on the front of it.

My breath catches in my throat. I’m trying really hard not to laugh. To burst out into scream-laughs. Not because I think any less of her, but because I’m stunned. Absolutely flabbergasted. She’s literally the last person I would’ve expected this from!!

My head is reeling.

This isn’t even really the soft, safe-for-everyone kind of girl’s love. The girls on the cover are half-dressed and drooling over each other like starved animals. I’m sweating.

The real kicker?

This isn’t the first volume.

Yuuko briefly looks at me, does a double-take, then hurriedly slaps her bag shut.
She’s mortified, looking at me with the whale-eye of a guilty dog, no doubt trying to gauge whether or not I saw her book.

“What’d you ge—t?” I try to keep my voice even, but my eyes are still glued to the bag, and there’s a giggle forming in my chest.

“NOTHINGGG! NOTHING!!!!!” She’s burying her head in my shoulder, bringing her fist down on me with SUCH force OVER and over again. It hurts so bad — but I can’t stop laughing. It just won’t stop!! I don’t even mean to — I’m just so shocked. “SHUT UP! SHUT UPPP!” Her ears get so red, so fast.
“I-It’s okay, it’s okahahay…!” I gasp between giggles while she pummels me like a toddler. Mai hasn’t even looked at her, but I see her swallow a giggle and force back a smile. Yuuko’s still burying her head in the crook of my neck. She won’t look at me. Her face is so hot and clammy.
“It’s fine, I’m serious,” my fingers run through her hair while I try to shove her head off of me. “I mean it.”
“Nngguhhhhh,” she groans into the sleeve of my uniform. She’s acting like a child.

But I get it.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Yuuko…” I really didn’t. It just came out.

But these kind of reactions fostered the same kind of guilt in me that I can’t seem to unroot.

“It’s fine. I don’t actually care that much. It just surprised me,” I sigh, and it’s the truth, but I hate being sappy with her. She’s sensitive to rejection — and almost always needs me to butter her up and stroke her ego to get her to stop sulking. She’s very high maintenance… but that’s just Yuuko. “There’s nothing wrong with it…”

She lifts her head a little bit. She’s expecting something else.

“..And I’m in no position to judge you.” I drawl almost sarcastically.

“Ah… thank you, Mio-chan!!”

Yeah. There she is.

“I was gonna say — hey! Mio, you’re not any better, drawing Sasaha-“
“So, was that volume 4 I saw?” I cut in with a phony smile.

Her expression falls.

“And they didn’t card you for that? Really?”

“SHUT UP!!! SHUT UP!!!!”

She’s back to kicking and punching me — and I giggle, used to it.

I’m seriously baffled, still. It’s not that I think much differently of Yuuko; of course, something like this would change anyone’s view of anyone.. but not necessarily my opinion. I don’t have the selfishness in me to look down on her for it… I didn’t even know she liked girls. I guess it tracks — she’s made a point of being ‘proper girls’ tons of times before, but hasn’t ever seemed even remotely interested in any guy at school.

But… no matter how much I think of it — I can’t bring myself to think of her as a pervert, or some kind of deviant. There’s this part of her she’s been hiding away for who knows how long. Something she must be ashamed of if it caught me off guard this hard… I’ve just learned something new about her, that’s all.
She’s just a growing girl, experimenting, I guess.
We’re not really all that different.

Yuuko is still flustered and play-beating me, but I can’t stop giggling. Less so in a pointed way, and more so because I’m just.. happy. She won’t stop swinging at me, so I grip her wrists and hold them in my lap while I try to ease out of my gigglefit.

“It’s okay,” I wheeze, feeling her arms relax in my hands. “We’re okay.”

She sighs with such depth that you’d think she just defused a bomb strapped to her chest. “Don’t tease like that.”

“I know,” I murmur. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t realize it was.. more common than I realized, is all. You know I don’t see you any differently…”

“Even if I like…” Yuuko stops in the middle of her sentence, her eyes darting to her bag, and then back to me. “N-Not you though! Not you!! I’d never!!” she flusters, and I feel my heart sink. “That’d be totally sick…”

“No, it wouldn’t.” I correct her firmly, squeezing her wrists. The thought that she could potentially be interested me didn’t even cross my mind — it was such a nonissue that I don’t even think it would’ve for a long time. Does she seriously think she’s perverted just for being attracted to women…? “You’re literally just a teenage girl,” I sigh with a slight chuckle, and I’m still stunned she would think anything like that about herself. “I don’t think it’s that unheard of, and it definitely isn’t perverted. My sister says her classmates in high school were like that too..”

“No!” she says dramatically, though genuine shock laces her voice.

“Yes!! And some of her friends like girls too…”

She has that look in her eye — the cogs in her head are going.

“How…” she says, and I laugh.

“Because it’s normal!!”

“Oh,” she says. Her wrists slip out of my grip. “ohhh.”

There’s a silence between us that’s likely only awkward for Yuuko. I can hear the canned thrum of Mai’s heavy metal leak from her cheap earbuds.

It feels nice, being here… surrounded by my best friends, on the train home after an after-school hangout.

I’m warm and my muscles ache from chasing the train we were late for,

but I’m happy.

Yuuko’s head thumps atop my shoulder again.
“Thanks, Mio.”

I rub her back and remember how Yoshino did last night. I keep my movements slow and steady. “Mhm,” my chest sinks in a sigh.

“It’s really no big deal.”