Work Text:
Hitoka Yachi was 6 years old when a girl kissed her cheek.
She was playing with her best friend in a park. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and they were bustling into laughter as they kept throwing a ball for her friend’s dog to catch. Hitoka threw the ball again and it ended near a spot with some flowers. She didn’t know the name of those flowers, but she thought it was pretty, and her friend was pretty. She didn’t think too much of the act of plucking one out of the ground and giving it to the other girl, who smiled so fondly at her as Hitoka said she loved her, and then she retributed with a smooch on the cheek.
Shortly after that, her mother pushed her aside, saying it was time to go home to get dinner ready. She apologized to her friend’s mom, both had nervous smiles, and she almost dragged Hitoka out of the park. After they were out, her mom asked why she gave the flower, saying that’s not something friends do, and that she shouldn’t use the word ‘love’ with another girl, because it meant something else. Hitoka vaguely remembers her answer being something like ‘but I really do love her’ , not being able to catch what her mother meant. She clearly remembers the disgusted look in her mom’s face as she looked down on her, though, it infested the entire memory. The friend’s face or her mom’s name or what the flower looked like were a blur in her head, she could only see her mom’s face as she said Hitoka couldn’t embarrass her like that again.
Hitoka Yachi was 10 years old when she started to understand she was different.
Her entire life she had been surrounded by love. It was in her family, in her parent’s marriage and her grandparent’s marriage. It was in her old neighbor who would spoil Hitoka once in a while, and sometimes cried saying life had never been the same after her husband passed away. It was in the songs she listened to, the books and mangas she read. It was in the way the adults looked funny at her when she complained about boys teasing her. It was in her teacher being the happiest she had ever seen, announcing her boyfriend asked her hand in marriage.
Someone once said something to her about people who are so devoted to religion they renounce all sorts of things in life to be devoted, including marriage, and Hitoka wondered if god existed and was calling her, because she couldn’t relate to the love she had seen her entire life.
Hitoka Yachi was 15 years old when she fell in love for the first time.
Over the years, she realized some of the girls in her class were pretty, too much pretty. She held their arms for a second too long sometimes, she offered to tie their hairs to gently caress their heads and when she was caught staring as they changed for P.E. class she would say she envied their boobs were bigger than hers and everyone laughed. It worked fine, and she thought she could live her life like this. She realized it wasn’t normal to wish you were the boy in romance stories, but she kept those feelings in her head. Hitoka could excuse not having a boy she liked in middle school saying it was too embarrassing to think about that, being so young, and now in high school she could say she was too busy studying since ‘well you see I’m in the advanced class so- ’.
Until one day the prettiest woman she saw in her entire life started to talk to her about something volleyball team something manager . Hitoka didn’t really listen. The girl in front of her tucked her hair behind her ear and oh . Her hair. Her face. The mole near her mouth was sexy. Her hands that reached to grab hers. Yachi didn’t really listen, so she had just a vague idea that she had agreed to something related to the boys volleyball team. She didn’t even know the school had a volleyball team and what would she even do on the boys team?
Despite it all, she stayed and she had fun. Sometimes Hitoka couldn’t believe how much effort she was putting on learning a sport she would never even play herself and how much she cared and cheered for that team, how fond she had become of them. And all this time, she was there. Shimizu-senpai was there, and Hitoka wanted to stay by her side. So she did. She couldn’t get enough of the trust her senpai put on her, how much she smiled more around her, how she would say she was the one she trusted the most, how she shared volleyball facts and Kiyoko facts with her.
Shimizu kissed her for the first time on the day Hitoka called her scars badges of honor. They had a room just for them, after all, away from whatever mess was going in the boys room next door. Another Kiyoko Shimizu secret only for her. A first kiss in a dark room far away from home, with just the faintest light coming by the window they forgot to close. If it’s a secret, no one would judge them, there was no reason to feel shame or guilt. So Hitoka indulged in the pleasure of soft lips against her own, savoring every millimeter of it, letting her hands go into that hair she loved so much and trying to burn the sensation in her skin so she could never forget.
Surprisingly, it happened a few more times. In brief moments where they were alone, Shimizu would lean down and kiss her. It was exciting to have a side of her senpai that was hers alone, that none of the boys knew about. No one besides Hitoka Yachi knew how those lips felt and how her scars looked. She realized she was in a car going overspeed and the crash would be awful but she wanted, just for once, to not be anxious and miss doing something she wanted to. No one knew about it, not even the other first years on the team that she grew closer to every day, so it was easy to tame the growing shame in her heart into being a well behaved dog, putting a leash on it written in big bold letters SECRET. With some effort it was possible to even reason with her anxiety to not explode over something everyone else wouldn’t even imagine was happening, and so she went on like that. Once she heard that those who eat quietly keep eating forever, and she hoped to whatever god was up in the sky for it to be true.
It wasn’t true but, even more surprisingly, she found herself with some peace in her heart the day Shimizu-senpai graduated. Hitoka understood it was the end of whatever marvelous thing they had, but she was glad that Shimizu-senpai gave her the chance to love and to be loved, even if it was for brief moments in empty rooms and quiet whispers and unsaid words that could be felt in the heavy air between their lips. It was a special year for her, that she would cherish forever, hopefully a pleasant memory. She grew so much as a person by joining the volleyball team, and Hitoka knew she owed that to her senpai, so she didn’t allow herself to dwell on sadness, at least for that moment.
With a smile on her face, Hitoka Yachi gave a farewell to her first love.
Hitoka Yachi was 21 years old when she was invited to Shimizu, no, Tanaka wedding.
She should have been fine, she saw it coming after all. And yet she felt a weird numbness in her heart, the world falling apart as the walls around her stayed firm on solid ground.
Even after graduating, Shimizu-senpai talked to her every once in a while. They exchanged texts about how their life was going, who the team was playing against that week, how the new job was going. It was fine, she was still the person Shimizu trusted the most. Until she said she was dating Ryunosuke Tanaka. At this point, he had also graduated, Hitoka was already a third year, and it was supposed to be fine but she felt 15 years old again and anxious and a blush mess at the mere thought of the person she liked.
Still, she put smiling emojis in her texts, desperate to maintain the status of Shimizu, fuck, no, Kiyoko Tanaka best friend. She never asked if he knew about them, she never asked about anything afraid of losing even more. Hitoka felt 6 years old again realizing what the look at her mom’s face meant. So she never brought it up, contenting herself with listening about them dating and thinking that if she lied enough about being happy for her friend, it would become true at some point.
On the day of the wedding, Hitoka called her Shimizu-senpai one last time.
Oh please, Hitoka-chan , she said laughing, we aren’t in high school anymore, you can call me Kiyoko, that’s one thing that’s never going to change.
Hitoka Yachi was 26 years old when she saw her first love again.
Kiyoko had moved to Tokyo, because the store she had been working for a few years opened a new branch, and she was promoted to be the new manager. Her left hand seemed to move much more easily without the weight of her wedding ring on it. We ended on good terms, she tried to explain, but I realized I couldn’t love him the way he loved me and that wasn’t fair for both of us.
Maybe Kiyoko could see it, in the way her hands were shaking, in how wide her eyes were, in how desperate her voice sounded. Let me in again, Hitoka wanted to beg on her knees, but the sane part of her brain knew that was not the appropriate thing to think after hearing your supposed best friend got divorced from her high school sweetheart. Hitoka felt the shame go through her body with every loud beat of her heart, unable to stop it. She knew she would die if her heart stopped beating, but it felt like each beat was a stab in her chest. If she was going to be killed anyway, perhaps it would be better to go without all this pain.
Being with you is like being on solid ground, Hitoka-chan. I’m glad you are still willing to be my friend, she said, perhaps unaware of how her words sounded, of what it meant. It was the complete opposite for Hitoka. Being with Kiyoko was like floating on the water. Most of the time, it was peaceful, the sun on her skin was warm and the sensation of the water moving through her body as she floated was soothing. However, sometimes, it felt like drowning. A cold wind making her shiver as the clouds covered the sun, and a storm pouding down, making her lose balance. As she went down, the water got colder and colder, and invaded her lungs and suffocated every cell in her body. She pushed those thoughts aside and swam back to the surface again.
Despite any rational thought she had, she stayed. Hitoka easily felt in place by Kiyoko’s side, as they once walked side by side in school corridors and gyms. She helped with unpacking and assembling furniture. She explained the train lines, places she should avoid and the grocery stores that had the best prices. They complained about their jobs and celebrated when things went right in the best restaurants Hitoka knew. She took care of Kiyoko when she got sick because of all the stress, even as she claimed it was a mere cold. They still watched all the games their high school friends played, sometimes watched in person, and she pretended to not notice the pity looks they gave at Kiyoko’s left hand.
It was pleasant, that sense of normality as if nothing had changed, and yet, just the mere fact that they were now standing on the same ground made their friendship completely different. Hitoka almost wished she could get kicked down and go back to being an underclassman. For the first time she truly realized that there were no barriers between them anymore. She thought she had long overcome the anxiety of taking the reins of her own life, but thinking about taking the reins of her friendship with Kiyoko made her feel as if the acid in her stomach was spilling all over her insides.
The difference between medicine and poison is the dosage, Hitoka vaguely remembers hearing it at some point, and Kiyoko sometimes felt exactly like that. How could the same person that made her feel so sick also feel like the exact cure for all her pain? And despite the many years that they barely kept in touch, the love was still addicting. Hitoka wondered if she would develop resistance to it if she got drunk enough times on the feeling.
Kiyoko Shimizu. Used for the treatment of loneliness in teenagers and adults. Common side effects include nausea, loss of appetite, trembling hands, insomnia, heartbreak and loneliness. It’s quite funny how common it is for medicine to have as a side effect the exact symptom it's supposed to treat.
Maybe all they needed was time. Enough time for the bad side effects to disappear. Enough time to remember how to swim in the sea, until reaching solid ground. Enough time to adjust the dosage. Enough time to take down their walls, brick by brick, and build a bridge instead. Enough time to know each other outside the shared school halls and the shared manager duties that they still clinged as if it was the only thing connecting them.
More than a decade had passed when Hitoka decided to finally stop looking at the woman in front of her as the immutable angelic figure she put on a pedestal in high school. When she truly looked at her eyes, it was like looking in a mirror. The same fears, the same desires.
Hitoka Yachi was 28 years old when she finally allowed herself to love and to be loved again.
She always thought time was cruel to her, until she finally had the time to learn how to be herself by Kiyoko’s side. As the months passed and the seasons came and went, Kiyoko brushed all her worries aside until all that was left was the undeniable feeling of love. So she loved and loved and loved. She threw the leash away and without shame she confessed her love, finally letting the secret break free, and Kiyoko loved and loved and loved her back in the same way.
Any chance of this being a fleeting feeling long gone. She made the conscious choice of firmly holding Kiyoko with her own hands, and would keep choosing the same thing for as long as she would be allowed too. Everyday Hitoka kept choosing to create those opportunities to be allowed to love, determined to show Kiyoko it would be worth it to also choose them.
With a smile on her face, Hitoka Yachi embraced the love of her life, and never let go.