Work Text:
Kanon's pen grinds to a halt.
The writing just won't come. Something about it isn't ringing true anymore. Like she's banging on a door that just won't open.
At first, the whole point had been to create something she wished she could have had when she first lost her hearing - but then Tomita —
Kanon had been able to help her, a bit, hadn't she? Not with writing, but simply by being there. By talking and understanding, as straightforward as that. Through direct interpersonal connection, even friendship, not through whatever amateur novelisation of her experience she could summon up. It hadn't even come up.
Perhaps it was at that point that the story had lost steam.
She's managed to scratch out a few sentences since, barely. Simple things with no subtlety to them, too direct and lacking anything poetic to them. Any rhythm, flow, melody. Frustrating to realise she's still listening, trying to sound out the words and feel the song caught in them. Kanji strung together like chords. It's impossible to escape it.
These last few sentences feel like a child picking out notes with one unsteady finger.
One night, it was dark outside. She bumped into a girl. The girl hurt her hand, so she gave her a band-aid. The girl was
The embarrassing simplicity aside, the other roadblock is obvious enough.
She has asked, of course, what the other club members do when they're struggling like this. Advice was mixed, and mostly useless - Tanabe had spoken for half an hour on weird exercises that just confused Kanon further. Writing the same thing but differently made no sense - and writing something completely different wouldn't help with this problem.
Because the problem isnt with Kanon's ability to write. It's with Kanon's ability to write about Saki.
How could she begin to explain Saki? Saki, who had changed everything. Saki, who took her hand. Saki, who stubbornly unraveled Kanon.
Just thinking about it is almost too much: her hands fly to her cheeks as if they could cool the heat rising in her face. It's all she can do to squeeze her eyes shut, as if blocking out another sense will let her hide away from these feelings, lock them back away somewhere she doesn't have to look at them.
Whatever they are. She hasn't yet been able to put a name to it.
That's the real issue, she has to admit to herself. If she can't put a name to this feeling, then she can't write about Saki. If she can't write about Saki, then she can't continue her story, because Saki permeates all of the rest of it. A constant, vital presence in her life. An inescapable truth of the world.
Kanon barely knows anything about her.
That's not true: she knows everything about how she talks, how she moves, how her expressions shift with her thoughts. The way her lips press together when she's thinking hard about something. The feeling of her voice brushing against Kanon's ear. The shine in her eyes when she's excited.
But little of her life, her world, her perspective. It's almost unfair, but Kanon can't decide if its herself or Saki being the unfair one here. Should she have asked? Should Saki provide that information? What's normal in a friendship is lost to her by now, even with more forming as she lets herself fumble her way out into the world.
(— if she had asked about Ayano's home life, would things have turned out differently?)
The thought sinks into her heavy and cold, a rock never finding the bottom of a frozen-over lake.
She can't let that happen again. She has to - has to - her heart thuds in her chest, so hard she imagines anyone in the room could hear it.
It's late at night. She can't unravel Saki right now. Not directly.
But this feeling - this one thing, she needs to understand. She has to wrench it in her hands and pin it down and examine every inch of it until she knows its name. She needs to unlock whatever secrets are hidden there inside her own head. And if she can't do it directly — Tanabe's garbled advice finally crystallises.
In a flurry of motion that startles even herself, Kanon picks up her pen and finds a new, blank sheet of writing paper.
A long time ago, a princess lost the use of her voice. This was no curse or haunting, but an inevitability of her fate, and so it was inescapable. She would never speak again, and a princess with no voice could never give orders or make demands, could never bargain for peace or beg for mercy for her people.
The King and Queen wished she might remain heir despite this, but she knew better: all she could do was shut herself away in a tower, like so many princesses before her, and hope to be forgotten.
Her parents posted no bounty, offered no reward for some intrepid adventurer to scale the Tower of the Voiceless and return her to the castle. Perhaps they understood that their daughter would not return; perhaps they were able to come to teems with their second-born being plenty capable of inheriting the throne in her stead. Supplies were sent occasionally, letters with empty platitudes of missing her presence in the Court.
But without a voice, what presence could she truly have?
And so she whiled away the hours in her tower reading, thick tomes about great deeds and perilous adventures, hand-written essays on magic and spellcasting, letters from her family, and, unmoved by any of these, she sat in her many-layered skirts to watch out of the window at the very top of the Tower of the Voiceless, silently waiting out her life.
Her hair reached her feet by the time the Prince arrived.
Not much of a Prince; she saw him thrown from his horse on the path up to her tower, running and stumbling in a desperate attempt to escape some monster chasing after him from the forest - the trees shook, leaves sent flurrying as it thundered, unseen, towards him.
The door was left open: what use does a Princess have for privacy?
He threw himself into the tower, slamming it behind him and drawing the bolt, turning the great iron key in the lock.
The great monster - she could see it now, many-legged and hairy and bristling with teeth - thudded against the door once, twice, thrice, rattling the hinges, before giving up, circling the tower a few times, and ambling back into the forest.
Despite his newfound safety, the Prince did not leave immediately.
Instead, he made his way up all of the stairs to the room where the Princess had decided to spend the rest of her days, and, after knocking politely, opened the door and
No good. No good!
Saki is princely. Kanon has long acknowledged this in her heart already. Making her an actual prince just muddies the waters and confuses her more. She's too bogged down with narrative tropes to use a format so straightforward as a fairytale.
The arc is too easy to see, too fictionalised to reflect real life: the Prince takes the Princess on adventures to experience the joys of life; she learns ways that being silent is advantageous while learning to communicate with him alone; they defeat a great evil and return triumphant to her home so she can take her rightful place as heir; they get m—
Well, anyway, it just won't do. Best to make sure they're both girls, whatever the allegory, and that way the expected thing won't be… well— it'll be less confusing to explore her actual thoughts and feelings rather than following the usual story fed to children through fantasy and fairy tale.
Besides, every time something like that comes up, Saki gets upset.
At first it had just been funny - a flustering that made her tomato-red. Kanon has noticed it more and more, though. Saki gets upset at the mention of anything like that: romance, intimacy, whatever. It's not something Kanon knows how to breach, so she's been trying to push it only when she really can't help it.
She has her own hangups, after all, when it comes to how people view her interactions with boys. She's under no illusions that other people, even warm, open, generous Saki, might have their own feelings about that kind of thing.
Either way, if she just writes about girls, then she can get to the root of things.
Kanon begins a new draft.
When the clock-maker brought in a new apprentice, his daughter expected to be envious. After all, it had been some time now since her trembling, unsteady hands had last been deemed worthy of the work.
But this new girl's, spied through the keyhole of her bedroom door, had hair the colour of the brass they used to make each tiny gear, and her eyes shone in the candlelight as she was shown into the workshop and its endless ticking rhythm, every timepiece in perfect chorus with one another. That passion - that enthusiasm, pure and bright - was one the clock-maker's daughter recognised. She had felt it herself, and instead of panging her heart with hurt, she found herself fixated on that sunny, sweet smile, even hidden on the stairs to watch in secret.
This new apprentice so clearly loved
Kanon doesn't know that that's true, really. She screws this paper into a ball and throws it at the wall. Never mind that the thought is just an excuse to stop writing this one — it's something she really ought to consider.
After all, Saki kept playing piano into high school, but it hadn't seemed to be out of real passion for playing. Hadn't she said something, early on, about it just being a convenient thing to stick to? Or...something.
So she doesn't know how Saki feels about piano. Not really. She's never asked.
That one, she can forgive herself for. It's difficult, facing the joy others can have for piano. It's something she has to take slowly, carefully.
Rather, it was, until recently.
If she's honest with herself, she could have asked, before now, it's just — at this point, it would feel so out of the blue, wouldn't it? As if she's never cared up until now, which wouldn't be fair to either of them. And Saki doesn't exactly make it easy for anyone to ask questions about herself: it had been enough of a hurdle to ask what treat to make for her.
That's just how Saki is. It's not a bad thing. Rather, Kanon thinks, it'll be nice to uncover parts of her over the years, won't it?
Her face falls into her hands, warm from nose to ears. As if they're going to spend their whole lives together! Like some kind of — some kind of —
Like Saki had suggested, and then backpedaled on, as if she was afraid of something.
When she and Ayano had been close, people had joked that —
She can't do this in her head. Paper, paper — if she writes it down, it might stop bouncing around in her skull.
This time, it comes out strange. Stranger than anything she'd usually read. Certainly stranger than anything she's written before.
In the cold place, there is a DOOR.
It stands locked and lonely,
frost riming its edges.Even unlocked, the frost couldn't melt enough to open, imprisoned by the creeping fingers of this cold place:
even melted, the wood of the DOOR and the frame and the metal of the latch and hinges would stick from the snowmelt,keeping it closed // shut // sealed.
Beyond the DOOR is THE END OF THE WORLD,
and its name is THE TRUTH.Loud and harsh and bright.
Obscured and blurred and hidden.
It is an unwanted TRUTH,
something that cannot be ignored or forgotten once seen.It is an unacknowledged TRUTH,
something that cannot exist without changing the world.It is an unheard TRUTH.
It is an unspoken TRUTH.It is THE END OF THE WORLD.
The DOOR was built in such a cold place
and locked shut
and frozento keep THE END OF THE WORLD from ever being seen. Before it was ever born.
The cold place is impossible to reach;
impossible to traverse, besides.
Impossible to navigate alone.The DOOR stands locked and lonely,
and impossible to reach.
Is it alright, for Kanon to write something like this? It's not elegant. There's no clear allegory for herself or for Saki, nothing she can align her heartbeat with.
Clunky and weird and against all the formatting she's ever considered: certainly it doesn't count as poetry, but she can't exactly call it prose. It's not a narrative, or a story, it's not telling anyone anything, it's just —
She pushes the storm of thoughts aside, forces it to the tip of her pen, instead.
The cold place numbs the body.
It holds fingers still and stiff,
unmoving and unusable.It freezes breath in the throat,
voice shattering on the tongue.It tangles eyelashes and closes lids,
leaving only darkness.A silent, still world of absolute darkness.
G — G — E —— D - E - D —— C - D - C - E — C —— B - C - B ——
Only the moon hangs above,
hazy and unclear through cloud.
— there is motion,
fingers, smoothly // precisely // calmly.— there is a greeting,
voice distant // quietened // dampened.— there is a gaze,
eyes bright // clear // fixed.A - B - A - D - A - G - A - G — F - G - F - E ——
Something bright.
Something that cannot be stopped.
The wind howls in silence, beats at that bright thing.
Something that cannot be turned away.
The clouds obscure the moonlight, but it is a bright thing.
Something that carries its own TRUTH.
(its own END OF THE WORLD)
The frost claws at it, and cannot reveal its heart.
(the cold place is terribly greedy. the cold place did not choose to contain the DOOR. the cold place is nothing but a cold place.)
(helpless against THE END OF THE WORLD.)
(helpless against something bright.)
(the cold place wants to welcome it in.)
E - F - E - A - E - D - E - D —— C - D - C — B —
The DOOR will not open for something bright,
or something warm,
or something kind //patient // thoughtful.(clumsy // foolish // tongue-tied)
THE END OF THE WORLD awaits.
The DOOR will not open —
from the outside.THE END OF THE WORLD —-
unwanted // unacknowledged // unheard
— awaits.
The cold place — the DOOR — something bright —
In silent, still darkness, something bright shivers.
THE END OF THE WORLD claws at the wood,
throws itself at the latch and the hinges,
burns hot and fierce against the cold place.
(the cold place is terribly greedy; THE END OF THE WORLD more so)
The moon shines clear and bright.
The ███ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ██████
Kanon wakes up the next morning with ink smudged on her cheek, blurring the last sentence of that strange thing she'd been near-possessed to write as she fell asleep. She can't remember what it said, exactly.
(liar. liar. liar. she knows exactly what she wrote.)
She folds the papers she wrote on in half once, twice, three times, and hides it at the back of a drawer. It's not the kind of writing she wants to share with anyone. That had been just for her.
It's Sunday - no school. She won't see Saki framed against the sun streaming through their classroom window. They won't walk home together with Saki carefully positioning herself for Kanon to understand as clearly as possible. They won't part where the road forks, waving goodbye.
No excuses to hold hands or lean in closer or push something out of her view of Saki's soft mouth.
Kanon emerges from her room for lunch, and returns to it. She has a stack of light novels from last week's outing to the bookstore to get through, after all. It's easy to focus on that instead.
The sun drops low in the sky, the light through Kanon's little window reddening.
A shadow passes by it.
Something she'd not considered, somehow: she gave Saki a key.
Kanon doesn't hear the key turn in the lock, or the handle turning the latch, or the soft squeak of the hinges.
Unheard, the door opens.
(the door opens)
Tap-tap — two fingers on her left shoulder, drawing her back into the world. Saki collapses over the back of the couch, blissfully normal and unaware of Kanon's all-night turmoil.
Her clothes are wet. Her hair sticks to the back of her neck, an estuary.
"Caught in the rain?" Kanon asks, and can't help but smile at the wail that Saki lets out.
"It was sunny when I left the house!"
So: no umbrella. So: her wet hair clings to her skin.
Her shirt is white. Wet, it's translucent.
Kanon ought to behave herself. She can feel her face practically steaming - Saki notices too, flushing and covering her chest with her arms.
"Ah! I'm sorry!"
As if she's the one who has to apologise for Kanon looking.
Surely she has a towel somewhere in here.
The cupboard is jammed shut. Kanon has to yank on it to get it open. A bunch of spare clothes and miscellaneous cleaning rags fall on her, as if they'd just been waiting to burst free.
Saki laughs. It's hard to hear it: the look on her face is clear as a bell, though.
Kanon's chest aches. She wants to hear Saki laugh.
Looking will sate that desire for now, though, at least.
"Here," she holds out the rumpled selection. "It's not a towel or anything, but you can dry off, and —" she feels her cheeks reddening. Oh, god, is this really happening? "And change into something dry."
"Change into… into Kanon's clothes?" Saki looks like her mouth is as dry as Kanon's right now. She's harder to hear - pitching higher in her discomfort?
Or, not discomfort, Kanon thinks, watching Saki grab the clothes out of her hands.
She's been thinking about it all night, of course.
Her fairy tale, dropped because Saki gets uncomfortable with romance.
But that's not it - Saki gets scared when Kanon gets close to something like intimate with her, but Kanon suspects that it might not be because of discomfort. She lets herself relax into it sometimes. When they're in private, or if there's a reason that's helpful to Kanon. They can hold hands — Saki will allow herself to hold Kanon's hand — when it's making herself useful to Kanon. They can talk about how much they like each other until a certain point, or until someone notices how it sounds. Kanon can sit close, and Saki will let it happen, if Kanon needs it, to hear her voice.
Saki uses an old, oversized shirt to dry her hair a little. Her own shirt raises up just enough to show the thinnest line of bare skin.
Her historical drama, stopped before she could even set the scene, because Saki doesn't talk about herself, and avoids questions.
But it's not that she's hiding anything — Kanon has always known that. There's something about herself that she's uncomfortable with, something she's locked away inside herself, that she won't let herself get close to, let alone anyone else.
Kanon knows about that, at least. Spent all night dreaming of it. That cold place.
(THE END OF THE WORLD throws itself bodily against the door, desperate to be seen, heard, felt.)
Saki laughs again, this time forced, awkward.
"Hey, can you turn around? So I can…" she trails off, gestures at her wet clothes.
Kanon feels like she can barely control her own body. She steps forward, and again, as close to Saki as she can get.
It's more than a hunch, but she's not sure. It's a risk.
She can't open the door unless she's willing to freeze to death, though.
Her fingers lace into Saki's, nigh unbidden, gripping tight when Saki's breath catches and she tries to pull away.
"Saki," Kanon says, and there's a tremble in her own voice, too, that she's not known in years. It's scary. She gets it, why Saki wouldn't want to let it be seen.
"Wh-wha—"
"Saki," she says again, interrupting. She's gotten a lot of practice in, interrupting. Easy when people know you can't hear. They'll shut right up - like Saki is, mouth slamming closed, eyes wide. "I don't know if you do, but I like girls."
She doesn't know how better to put it. She doesn't let herself consider boys. Maybe someday she'll open that door, too. This much, at least, is true.
Saki has gone very still, and very pale.
"I like girls," Kanon says again, in case Saki pretends she didn't hear it. "And I really, really like you."
She sees the way Saki's throat moves as she swallows. A bead of rain slides down it, under the neckline of her shirt.
Saki's eyes dart around like she's trying to solve a difficult question on a test, or calculating a risk. Or like she's searching for an exit.
God, maybe Kanon was wrong, and this is going to end everything.
No: Saki's too kind for that. She'll stay an arms-reach friend. Which is worse.
"Oh," Saki manages, which isn't an answer at all.
Kanon's heartbeat rings in her head.
"You don't have to do anything about it, but I wanted you to kn—"
She's cut off by Saki's mouth on her own.
Warm, and soft like she'd thought it would be. A little clumsy. Inelegant.
Just about the best thing she's ever felt.
The rain is still cool, half-wrung-out hair falling against Kanon's face. Enough that she can feel the difference between that and the heat of Saki's tears as they spill down her cheeks and onto Kanon's.
She breaks the kiss — her first kiss! their first kiss! a kiss, something she'd thought she couldn't even consider, now! — in a hurry, worried she's misstepped, or hurt her, but Saki is smiling, wide and bright even as she hiccups, tears streaming down her face.
"I— I thought—"
Kanon doesn't know what she thought, because her head falls to Kanon's shoulder, where she shakes and sobs, her hands grasping aimlessly at the sleeves of Kanon's jacket, at her hands, at her hair.
"I like you so much, Kanon!" The vibrations of her voice travel through Kanon loud and clear.
She's cute like this. Kanon tries not to think it too loudly.
"It's scary, huh," she says, instead. "It's scary to feel this way."
Saki draws back, sniffling, nodding. Kanon reaches up to wipe her tears away with her thumb.
"But it feels really good, too," Saki agrees. "Liking you is a really scary and good feeling."
Kanon can't keep the smile off of her face.
That night, it was dark outside. She'd lost all hope, all desire to keep living like that. She went into the dark thinking she might never return to her life — what use was it, when she couldn't live it the way she'd once thought she would?
In the dark, at the worst moment, when fear clawed its way into her heart, and she thought her body would finally give in, she met the girl who would become the shining light to guide her back out of that hopeless place. A light was struck in her heart that night, burning slowly until it blazed brighter than anything she could have imagined on that dark night.
It still needs some revising, Kanon thinks.
She'll get there.