Chapter Text
Aoi is not the good, lovely girl people refer to her as. She is bitter and she is jealous, enough so that she would use others to get Nene to look her way. A childish cry for attention that basically screams: Look at me! Look at what you’re missing!
She knows it to be despicable and egoistical but, truthfully? She doesn't care. That's just who Akane Aoi is at her core. A selfish, bitter, envious and childish girl who cannot stand not to get things her way despite it being how things have went her entire life.
She wants Nene to look at her the way she looks at those douchebags she has the misfortune of falling for every other day, she wants her to talk of her like she does of the boys she has fallen for. Aoi Akane wants Yashiro Nene to love her. To look at her and see her.
But she is also scared of it. Of Nene looking at her, seeing her for what she is—a despicable friend who lusts over her best friend whilst she's none the wiser—and recoiling. Putting distance between them. Stopping being her friend.
Aoi knows Nene wouldn't do that—she's far too nice to do it without a reason, and Aoi doubts that her love for her, regardless of how dirty and unromantic it is, could ever become a reason given how high Nene seems to regard love despite how many times it has been the source of her sorrows.
If there is anyone that knows how much love has injured Nene other than herself, it's Aoi. She's been there every single time. By her side. Comforting her late at night. Telling her that all the bad things boys said about her body weren't true and that they were just signs of their immaturity. The inability to look past the physical body and into what really mattered—Nene's wonderful way of being. Holding herself back from showering her with praises and comments on how beautiful Aoi thinks Nene is because, even if unlikely, she fears Nene would distance herself.
So, on top of being despicable, selfish, egoistical, childish, and bitter, she's also a coward.
She doesn't understand it. How come it's her and not Nene that gets all the popularity? She doesn't deserve it. Nene does. Nene deserves the world, and even then it wouldn't be enough. Nene is a ray of sunshine given life.
Nene has been her friend for a few years now and those years have been the best out of her entire life so far—she feels as though she's only lived since Nene arrived in her life.
And yet, for all her bitterness, Aoi still reaches for the sun.
She still walks beside Nene every day, laughs at her silly jokes, listens to her endless rambling about this or that boy, all the while swallowing the bitterness like syrup—sweet on the tongue, sickening in the gut. She lets Nene link arms with her, lean against her during lunch, play with her hair, all those little things that feel like offerings from a goddess and torment from a devil at the same time.
She’s selfish. She wants more.
Wants Nene to lean in and kiss her. Wants Nene to cry on her shoulder not just because of a boy but because she might leave. Wants Nene to cling to her with the desperation of a lover, not the comfort of a friend.
But she can’t ask for it. Because she knows that to ask is to risk. And she’s not brave like Nene.
Nene, who dives into love like it’s a lake, who surfaces sputtering and cold but ready to jump in again. Who believes, despite everything, that love is beautiful. That people are worth the risk. That Aoi is good.
Aoi doesn’t believe in much. Not really. But she believes in Nene.
So she watches. She waits. She stands by her like a shadow—close, ever-present, and unseen.
But shadows stretch, don’t they? At some point they grow too long, too dark.
Maybe one day, Aoi thinks, her feelings will rot inside her and spill out. Maybe one day she'll whisper something too soft to be heard or say something too loud to be taken back.
And maybe Nene will look at her—really look—and finally, finally see her.
But until then, Aoi stays where she always is. At Nene’s side.
A coward. A friend. A girl in love.
But it isn't enough. It isn't, it never will, and it never was. She just told herself she'd be fine as long as she could get to see Nene being happy, even if she wasn't the object of her affection—or some sappy crap she likely heard in one of those bad romance movies she watched with Nene at night during sleepovers and defaulted to regurgitate when she spiraled.
How could it ever be enough for anyone? Maybe for someone out there in the world it could, but it can't be for Aoi.
She wants more.
She needs more.
But she's far too afraid of what could happen. Of the consequences.
Sure, the potential gains are big, but the potential losses are even bigger. And she can't risk that. Maybe if she were a better person she could, but she isn't and so she won't say the words that her heart aches to spill.
She doesn't have the courage to just spit it out, those three damned words she's heard Nene say countless times to people that aren't her. It makes her disgusted with herself.
How can she be deserving of Nene's love if she can't even bring herself to be out and honest with it?
It's pathetic, she knows that.
But, then again, is Akane Aoi really anything more than that?
But that’s the thing about cowards—they don’t stop loving.
They just get better at hiding it.
So Aoi folds up her feelings into neat little boxes. Boxes she keeps locked in her chest with labels like “Not Now,” and “Maybe Later,” and “Never, Actually.” And every time Nene smiles at her, laughs with her, tells her “You’re my favorite person in the world, Aoi-chan,” another box gets sealed shut just a little tighter.
Maybe one day she’ll break. Maybe one day she won’t be able to help it. The love will pour out, messy and sharp, and it’ll ruin everything.
But not today.
Today, Aoi smiles back. Nods at whatever Nene is saying. Says something clever. Gets a laugh. Feels that flicker of joy like a match in the dark.
And she takes it.
She takes it and holds it close and tells herself that this—this almost-love, this beautiful, aching halfway—is enough—
“—Aoi?” A voice calls her out.
—Even if it isn’t.
She doesn’t respond at first. The voice is distant, almost underwater, like everything else in her head. Just the sound of Nene’s name looping in her mind, soft and sad, like the chorus of a love song she’s too ashamed to sing aloud.
“Aoi.” The voice calls out again.
This time it’s firmer, laced with concern. Aoi blinks.
“You good?” Nene asks, tilting her head. “You’ve been staring at that fence for, like, thirty minutes. I was gonna see if I could wave something in front of your face before calling the exorcists.”
Aoi blinks again, a beat too slow. “Oh. Sorry. I was just…” She trails off, realizing there’s no excuse in the world that doesn’t sound stupid. Thinking about how desperately in love with you I am? Yeah, sure. That’d go over great.
Nene smiles, softening. “You okay? You seem kinda… not here.”
“I’m fine,” Aoi says automatically. Too fast, too practiced. She clears her throat. “Just… zoning out. Y’know how I get.”
Nene nods, but doesn’t look convinced. “I do. Which is why I brought this.”
She pulls a drink from her bag—Aoi’s favorite, of course. Just enough sweetness to be comforting, not enough to be cloying.
Aoi takes it with a small, guilty smile. “Thanks.”
Nene shrugs, but her gaze lingers, searching. “Don’t thank me yet. You’re not off the hook. If you’re sad or something, you should talk to me. That’s, like, Friend Rule #2.”
Aoi raises an eyebrow. “There’s a list?”
“Of course.” Nene grins. “Rule #1 is ‘Don’t steal each other’s partner.’”
“I would never, y'know that.” Aoi says, and of course she means it. Mainly because Nene's exes are guys, and Aoi has never liked a guy, but still.
“I know, I know.” Nene tells her. “I just meant, like, in general. But honestly, emotional honesty is a close second.”
Aoi huffs a laugh. It’s shaky, but it’s real. “Noted.”
There’s a silence, then. Not heavy, not awkward—just filled with all the things Aoi will never say.
Nene swings her legs where she sits on the bench beside her, leaning just a little closer. “You sure you’re okay?”
No.
“Yes.”
Nene sighs, long-suffering and fond. “Fine. Be that way." She pouts.
'Cute' Aoi thinks. Then realises the eye contact is doing things to her and looks away, feeling as her cheeks begin to get warm.
Aoi hums, sipping her drink, anything to avoid Nene’s eyes. Because if she looks too long, she might say something she can’t take back.
And she’s not ready for that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.