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The bright rays of summer sun shone through the windows of the Kaname family’s house into the living room, where one pink-haired girl sat, leaned forwards with her elbows on her knees, on the edge of the couch. She had not moved from that spot for the past half hour, but it would be inaccurate to say she had not moved at all; she was a restless ball of nervousness, alternating between bouncing a leg, fidgeting with her hands, and rubbing one tail of her bright red hair ribbons between her fingers. Her eyes constantly darted from the door in view down the hall, to the window right beside it, to her unlit phone on the coffee table in front of her, to the clock hanging on the opposite wall, then back to the door again.
She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous this time. Being childhood friends, she and Sayaka had gone on plenty of outings together before. It wasn’t so different this time, either; Sayaka had just mentioned a couple days ago, as they were gathering their notes back into their schoolbags, about the meteor shower appearing every 167 years that was scheduled to happen soon – tonight! – and if Madoka wanted to check out the festival around this rare cosmic event. Madoka had also noticed the festival being within walking distance of an aquarium Sayaka had been dying to visit, and so they had arranged to keep their Saturdays clear of any other events.
Absent-mindedly, Madoka flipped one of the straps of the backpack in her lap between her fingers. Sayaka was supposed to meet her at her house ten minutes from now, so that they could walk to the bus stop together, but Madoka had been waiting on her couch way before that. For some odd reason, she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else but sit nervously and fret about if it was going to rain later, if she had enough cash for the aquarium tickets, if she looked alright, if the festival was actually tomorrow, and other worries of that sort.
She glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time. Nine minutes until Sayaka arrives. Every tick of the second hand added another thread to the yarn ball of anxiousness in Madoka’s belly, bouncing around inside her.
She had a feeling she knew what was putting her so on edge today, but every time her mind drifted even slightly towards that train of thought, an automatic wall of darkness appeared in her head to crush that feeling back down into her chest.
The chime of the doorbell caught her so off guard, she almost jumped out of her skin. Hurriedly, she rose to her feet – grabbing her backpack as she did – and ran to open the door.
Sayaka was leaning cross-armed against the doorframe when Madoka opened the door, smiling widely. She was wearing a white t-shirt that faded into blue waves at the bottom, with a mermaid tail poking out between two of them, and an indigo crossbody bag slung across her chest. She had dark blue jeans crisscrossed with lighter lines on, and sandals to boot.
Sayaka took in Madoka’s ruffled appearance, her pink blouse patterned with yellow flowers and her white skirt stopping just before her knees, messy from her dash to the door. There was a giant smirk on her face. “I could hear your squeal from all of the way over here! Didya forget about our thing today, or what?”
“I- I wasn’t expecting you this early, is all,” Madoka stammered, looking away to fix the pigtail she had loosened from tugging on the ribbon in surprise. Something in her chest was writhing, making it hard for her to look directly at Sayaka.
“Couldn’t wait. Come on, we’re going to miss the bus!” Sayaka reached out to grab Madoka’s wrist, practically dragging her out the door.
“B-but the bus isn’t in fifteen minutes!” Madoka protested, trying to free the hand Sayaka had captured as they bumbled down the steps. “At least let me fix my hair!”
“You can do that when we’re at the stop! Come on, come on!” Sayaka bounced happily down the sidewalk, her blue hair and warm skin practically glowing from the afternoon sun.
Despite Madoka’s protesting, she couldn’t help but smile as well. The tightness in her chest loosened into something a little warmer as she ran with Sayaka, down the sidewalk framed in bright yellow dandelions.
They got to the aquarium with time to spare, having arrived at the bus stop early enough to catch the extremely late previous bus. Madoka tilted her raised hand to shield the sun from her eyes, taking in the entrance to the aquarium as Sayaka checked her pouch for cash.
“Aw, dang,” Sayaka cursed under her breath, the clinking of coins almost drowning her mutter out. “Really thought I had more than just change in here. Not sure if I have enough for my ticket.”
“That’s fine!” Madoka checked her own money pouch; she had made sure to bring more cash than she needed. “I have enough for the both of us. Though…” She scrunched her face up at Sayaka. “You still need to pay me back for the ramen.”
Sayaka waved her off with one hand, still rummaging. “The ramen was trash anyways. Not sure why you took us to that place.”
“It was not! That ramen was delicious! And expensive, too!” Madoka crossed her arms and pouted at her.
The blue-haired girl abandoned her search for money to reach out a finger and repeatedly poke her companion’s cheek. “Was too! There was way too much soup and not enough noodles. You have terrible taste in ramen places.” She emphasized her words with increasingly hard pokes to the face.
“Mama said it was the best place in Mitakihara! I need my money back! H-hey!” Giggling, Madoka took revenge by smushing Sayaka’s face around with both hands.
“Oh, what does it matter anyways?” Sayaka grabbed both of Madoka’s hands with her own and pulled her close, ticking her sides and under her ribcage. “You’re going to be my future wife, so we’re gonna share our money anyways! My debts to you will be null and gone! Water under the bridge!”
Subject to Sayaka’s merciless tickling, Madoka couldn’t form a retort between her struggling and giggling. Under her tears of laughter, she was glad Sayaka couldn’t see her face from behind her, because she knew it was bright red.
She had never really taken Sayaka’s marriage jokes seriously, but, ever since that tightness in her chest had appeared, a wave of emotions she would quickly stifle would hit her every time Sayaka would joke about marrying her in the future, or making Madoka her wife. And, to Sayaka… Could it be more than just a joke…?
She forcefully smothered that thought with her mental blanket and tried to focus on escaping Sayaka’s iron grip.
Eventually, worn out by Sayaka’s vicious barrage of attacks, Madoka collapsed against Sayaka, panting and holding her sides. Sayaka lowered her slowly to the ground, still giggling. “You’re soooo ticklish, Madoka,” she laughed as her victim clung to her arm and gasped for breath. “It’s just too cute!”
“Don’t we… have… an aquarium… to go to?” Madoka managed between her breaths, leaning her head against Sayaka’s arm to hide her blushing face again. It wasn’t uncommon that Sayaka would call her cute, but it would always startle her and make her heart jump a little.
“Oh, yeah!” Sayaka laughed again and patted Madoka’s head. “Sorry, got too caught up in your adorableness.”
Madoka groaned in protest, still breathless, and added another wall to the weight crushing the flutter in her chest.
Some time later, after Madoka had recovered and (grudgingly) bought tickets for both of them, the two found themselves in a dark glass tunnel surrounded by water. The sun trickled through the shifting waves above, throwing deep shades of blue and green onto their bodies as they wandered down the tunnel. Alongside them, behind the glass, sharks meandered slowly past them, and trailing sea plants waved in the water.
Sayaka ran to one of the dimly illuminated signs beside the tunnel, dragging Madoka along with their interlocked hands. They had been holding hands ever since Madoka had clung fearfully to Sayaka's arm in the dark room with the hanging skeletons, and Madoka had been trying very hard not to think about the warmth feeling in her chest Sayaka's grip gave her.
“Ooh, cool! Madoka, those sharks are called sand tiger sharks!” Sayaka pulled Madoka so that they were arm-to-arm, reading the sign together.
“It says that they’re critically endangered,” Madoka noted as well. She looked back up at the sharks swimming placidly by, a small frown on her face.
Sayaka skimmed down the sign, then gasped and tugged on Madoka’s hand. “Ooooh, look! It says here that sand tiger sharks eat their siblings in the womb! That’s so badass!”
Madoka clung to Sayaka’s arm with her other hand. “Ew! Scary!”
“But so cool! Can you imagine eating Tatsuya in the womb? Then you could grow up even stronger!”
Madoka stared at Sayaka in shock. She couldn’t imagine even laying a finger on her sweet little brother, and the thought of eating him before he could even be born for her own benefit, even just as a shallow imagination, scared her a little.
The grin slowly slipped from Sayaka’s face as she observed Madoka’s. The pink-haired girl quickly tried to replace her smile, but it was too late.
Sayaka slowly detached her arm from Madoka, the shadow of the ripples covering her face. Her other hand was clutched around her arm, nails digging in. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Of course you wouldn’t hurt Tatsuya.”
“Sayaka, no…” Madoka reached out to grab Sayaka’s hand as it pulled away. “It’s okay. Really. I was just being sensitive.” Sayaka's joke hadn't even really scared her that much, just surprised her.
Sayaka’s other hand came up to cup the back of Madoka’s. “Don’t say that,” she said with surprising ferocity. “You’re not sensitive. I… I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have said that.”
Madoka’s heart twisted a little, and she pulled Sayaka in for an embrace, wrapping her arms tightly around her friend. “I’m alright, Sayaka,” she whispered. “I know you didn’t mean it like that. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Sayaka clung to Madoka’s shirt, half in comfort, half in shock. Many times at home, when she said something rash and thoughtless, she would be reprimanded harshly and sent to her room. Even with Madoka, when she said something that hurt her, something she didn’t really mean, she would just apologize, Madoka would hide her hurt, and they would move on. Never had Madoka… spoken to her like this. So openly, like she understood.
Small tears started to form at the corner of Sayaka’s eyes as she shifted her head to rest on Madoka’s shoulder, silently cursing herself for tearing up over something so small. Sensing the wetness on her shirt, Madoka pulled away slightly to wipe the tears off Sayaka’s face with her sleeve.
Their eyes locked in a moment of stillness. Their arms were wrapped around each other, sharing their warmth. Their faces were close enough to feel each other’s breaths on their skin. Madoka felt a blush forming on her cheeks as she looked into Sayaka’s blue eyes, which gazed back with open emotion. The ripples of the water enveloped their faces in shifting trails of light.
The warm light in her heart fought viciously against the layers of walls suffocating it, trying desperately to jump out of her chest and into Sayaka's. She couldn't move, afraid to, as the two of them stared at each other in this little bubble of silence.
After a couple seconds, Sayaka sniffed and pulled away to hide her face in her arm, breaking the spell. Madoka felt a small piece of her heart leave with the warmth of Sayaka’s body. Terrifyingly, she could feel the light in her chest stronger than she had ever before, and she worked extra hard to add a couple more walls as Sayaka fished a tissue from her pouch and hastily wiped her face.
“...So, do you want to check out the rest of this place?” Sayaka said after a moment, crumpling the tissue in one fist, and offering the other to Madoka. Even in the dark lighting, Madoka could see her slightly red eyes, but there was a small smile on her face.
Unable to form any response that would properly express the turmoil of emotions in her heart, Madoka gently took her hand and let Sayaka lead her, the sharks slowly following them down the tunnel, and the flickering patterns of light weaving around their bodies.
After they had their filling of the aquarium, they decided to stop at a bubble tea shop along the way to the festival, which wasn’t supposed to start until an hour later. After some debate, they both decided to each pick a summer seasonal drink they had never tried before. (Thankfully, Sayaka had enough pocket change for a drink.) Madoka ordered a pink boba fruit tea that swirled with golden shimmers near the top, and Sayaka got a weirdly textured blue-and-red drink with lychee jelly that they had both never seen before. As part of the seasonal drink special, they both got little umbrellas they could also stick into their drinks (which Sayaka laughed about donating to the bugs for rain protection).
“What do the bugs even do when it rains?” Sayaka wondered between sips of her drink. “Imagine raindrops bigger than yourself, falling from the sky all around you!” She waved her arms in a circle to emphasize the size of the hypothetical raindrops.
Madoka made a noise of sympathy, still in the middle of a long sip. “Maybe we should give the bugs our umbrellas, then,” she said with a frown. “I can’t imagine how tough that must be to go through so often… Being a bug must be hard.” She stared pensively out the glass walls of the tea shop, at two ants making their way down the sidewalk.
“Madoka, they’re bugs,” Sayaka said with a playful eyeroll. “They don’t care if you care about them. They probably won’t even know what to do with the umbrellas.”
“Yeah, but…” Madoka sank down her seat a little, face propped up by her palms, a small pout on her lips. “Even if they don’t care about me… It’s still sad to see their struggles. I wish I could help them all.”
Watching her best friend empathize so much with meaningless insects, Sayaka felt a light start to bloom in her chest. The remnants of what she felt briefly in the dark tunnel, something she buried deep inside her long ago, was starting to reappear, like a flickering star in the night sky. Madoka was always one to be moved by little things; this was nothing new. But after what had happened in the aquarium, she had curiously started to feel a little different about the things Madoka said, the way Madoka acted. A different feeling, and yet, it was familiar.
Without thought – as most of her actions of this sort were – Sayaka reached out to grab Madoka’s shoulder, and, pulling her close, planted a playful kiss on Madoka’s cheek.
Madoka froze in shock, eyes still staring out the window, as her face slowly changed color. Sayaka froze, too, startled by her own rashness. Tickling was one thing, a common joke between them, and so were the marriage jokes, but… they hadn’t kissed each other on the cheek since they were little. And now, with Sayaka’s newly reemerging feelings…
(Was she really was serious when she said she wanted to marry Ma–)
Sayaka quickly replaced the frozen surprise on her face with what she thought was a playful grin as Madoka turned to face her, still beet red. She hoped her own face wasn’t blushing as well, though the warmth on her cheeks said otherwise. “Come on, lighten up, Madoka!” She tried her best to sound cheery and not fumble her words. “I’m sure there’s other great parts about being a bug. Like… sleeping on flowers! Wouldn’t it be great to have a bed as a flo– um, a flower as a bed?” Damn it.
After a slight pause that felt like eternity, Madoka slowly turned back to her drink, carefully avoiding looking at her friend. The redness on her face wasn’t fading. Why was she so flustered anyways? It can’t be that out of the ordinary to kiss a childhood friend on the cheek. Unless she—
“I… I guess,” Madoka said hesitantly, then took a long sip from her drink. “I mean… I think sleeping on a dandelion would be nice.”
“Maybe next time we’re at the warehouse, we can find a giant dandelion beanbag to sleep on!” Sayaka laughed; it felt forced to her, but Madoka giggled with her, some of the tension releasing from her shoulders.
They then engrossed themselves in a debate on which flowers would be the comfiest to sleep on, which Sayaka was happy to partake in. Though, the blush never truly faded from Madoka’s cheeks, and she had to consciously stop herself from touching the place where Sayaka kissed.
The sun was slowly making its way below the horizon when the girls left the bubble tea shop and made their way towards the festival grounds, a park clearing on higher ground than the rest of the city. The streets leading to the park were packed with street food vendors and minigames, and the pair of them had fun trying different spicy foods (surprisingly, Sayaka had a lower tolerance for spice than Madoka), shooting targets with star-shaped water guns (Sayaka ‘missed’ once near the end and sprayed Madoka with a faceful of water), and just running around, enjoying the lights.
Neither of them noticed the sneaking glances they shot at each other; the look in Madoka’s eyes as Sayaka stuck her tongue in a glass of milk in desperation; the way Sayaka watched Madoka complain and wring her hair out with a napkin a vendor donated. However, they did notice each second their hands were interlocked, their warmth shared, and the smiles on their faces, directed towards the other. As the sky grew darker and darker, and the lantern lights cast the pair in warm light, two hearts, intertwined with each other, were slowly blooming, like a pair of binary stars slowly orbiting each other. Their lights were growing brighter and brighter as they each came to a realization.
And, inevitably, with that realization came fear, an overwhelming fear that led both to squash their feelings down in the first place. But here, with the lights and food and all the fun they were having together, it wasn’t as scary. It was bearable. Maybe even overcomable.
They just needed a little more time.
By the time the meteor shower was due to arrive, the two of them were beyond exhausted. The place they had arranged to watch the skies was located up a hill that reached above the skyline, so the pair took turns dragging each other up the steep incline of the streets, stairs, and eventually grass, until they reached the very top. The hill conquered, both of them starfished into the dandelion-populated grass, panting heavily, flinging their bags to the side.
After a couple minutes of gasping, Sayaka rolled over on one side to peer at Madoka. “My mouth is still burning from that damn lamb skewer.”
“Yeah, and my hair is still wet from that shot you accidentally sprayed at me,” Madoka retorted, rolling her head over to glare right back. She had a habit of getting sassy when she was worn out, Sayaka noted with amusement. “I would’ve hit that target if you hadn’t distracted me, dummy.”
“Yeah, when pigs fly.” Sayaka heaved one last sigh, mostly recovered from their trek up the hill. “So… every 167 years, huh?”
“Yeah.” Madoka turned her head back to look up at the sky. Further from the lights of the city, they could see a couple stars shining down on them. “...Pretty crazy, isn’t it?”
Sayaka had rolled back over on her back to follow her gaze, but at this, she shot Madoka a side glance. “What is?”
Strangely, a blush was starting to form on Madoka’s cheeks. “Well… I guess... That we, of all people, get to see the shower. There’s... a lot of people that miss out on this. Just ‘cause they weren’t lucky enough for their lifespans to intersect with the meteors.”
“Mm.” The wind brushed softly against Sayaka’s hair as she thought about this.
“And, um…” Madoka gave herself a second to gather her courage before continuing. “I guess, also… I feel really lucky that my life intersected with yours.” That was a normal thing for friends to say to each other, right? (Although maybe it was alright if it wasn’t.)
Sayaka turned her head again to look at her companion carefully. The blush was growing even wider on Madoka’s face, cushioned by the softly waving dandelions.
“Yeah…” Sayaka breathed, looking back at the sky and letting herself smile. “I feel the same.”
They stayed silent for a couple seconds, each gathering their thoughts, before Madoka gasped and sat up quickly, pointing at the sky. “Sayaka, look!”
The stars were falling.
One by one, like the first drops of rain hitting the sidewalk, streaks of golden light flashed across the sky, so brief that if they blinked, they would miss several of them. Nothing in the sky ever moved quickly; the sun made her daily trek at an agonizingly slow pace, the moon took half a month just to turn on her lights, and the stars floated as slowly as the seasons did. The astonishing speed of the meteors, blazing through the sky as quickly as the beating of the two hearts watching, took their breaths away a second time.
Madoka slowly shifted over to wrap her arms around Sayaka’s chest, and Sayaka welcomed the warmth. They leaned their heads against each other, a warm light blooming ever-brightly in their hearts to have experienced this cosmic wonder together. The shimmering of the falling stars reflected in their eyes.
“Sayaka…” One soft voice gently interrupted the silence that had settled around them.
“Yeah?” The other replied, just as soft.
“I… I think I like you,” the first said, a little shaky, but stabilized by their shared warmth.
“In what way?” The second said, keeping her eyes on the sky.
“In a… ‘I want to be your wife’ way,” the first said sheepishly.
The smile was audible in the second one’s voice. “Well, I think I want to be your wife, too.”
The first turned her head to look at the second, who, sensing the movement, turned as well. The stars were falling in each of their hearts as well. Slowly, the distance between their faces closed, as their lips met.
It wasn’t a good kiss by any means; neither of them had kissed anyone on the lips before. Really, they just pressed their faces together for the better part of ten seconds. But that didn’t matter to them. In this moment, nothing else mattered except the blinding light in their hearts, each reflecting off each other, making them brighter. Two stars in the night sky, falling together, falling for each other, together.
Sayaka pulled Madoka down into the grass, and, wrapped in each other’s embrace, they watched the last of the stars finish their descent.
The bus was filled with lots of giggling and whispering, courtesy of the two girls sitting at the very back of the vehicle. They told each other the parts of their lives previously tucked away carefully in their memories; the moment Sayaka first fell, the moment Madoka first fell, what one thought when the other did this romantic gesture, and what made them make up their minds. Each sentence was punctuated with a flurry of giggles, neither of them used to the warm, tingly feeling in their chest, like the sparklers that the children outside waved and ran about with in their little hands.
Soon, Madoka found herself sitting on the steps of her house, Sayaka’s head tucked in the crook between her head and shoulder, each cupping a mug filled with tea that Madoka’s mother made for them. Though the meteor shower had passed, the sky was still full of stars, shimmering down at them. Each felt a warmth in their chests as comforting as the tea in their hands and the cool night air around them.
After a period of time neither of them kept track of, Sayaka sighed and rested the mug on the step beside her. “I should get going.”
“Okay,” the other said, her heart falling a little. Today had felt like such a surreal dream to her that she almost believed it would disappear the next morning, as brief as the meteor shower.
Sayaka looked at Madoka’s face, taking in her sadness and uncertainty. More confidently this time, she placed a hand on one side of Madoka’s face and planted her lips on the other side, making sure to savor the stillness. She pulled back and watched with satisfaction the color change in Madoka’s face. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Dazed, Madoka placed her hand where Sayaka had kissed her. “...Okay,” she said breathlessly.
Two steps down the stairway, Sayaka turned back to look at the pink-haired girl sitting at the top, backlit by the light streaming from the door’s window. She was sitting with her knees together, one hand holding the opposite arm, the other still cupped at her cheek. The wind brushed her form, drifting her twin pigtails and red ribbons up a little. She was looking down on her with a smile Sayaka had never seen before.
She felt so lucky to be the one to bring it out of Madoka.
“I love you,” Sayaka called out, in the silence of the night, her own smile brightened by the warm light.
Impossibly, Madoka’s smile grew even brighter. She had never felt happier.
“I love you, too,” she called back.
With one last grin, Sayaka descended the rest of the steps, and disappeared into the night.