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it’s early. too early, maybe, but kurumi doesn’t say anything or do so much as to mention it.
they meet before dawn. naoi insists on leaving early, and kurumi, for once, doesn’t argue. the train ride is the kind of long, sleepy commute that eats up time and conversations. the city thins, the houses smear into fields, and the windows reflect everything back at them like water droplets.
kurumi presses her forehead to the glass and counts the stations with the small, precise movements she always makes when she’s trying not to think about the things that press at her chest. naoi sits across, feet splayed, arms folded, like she’s claiming the air itself. she chews on the inside of her cheek and watches kurumi from beneath lowered lashes.
“you didn’t have to come. you can still back out if you want,” kurumi murmurs after the third stop, as if she’s testing a rope to see whether it will hold. the words are small but steady.
naoi snorts, the sound thin and oddly soft for her. “don’t be an idiot. i promised, remember?”
“but you didn’t have to,” kurumi says again, because there are things she thinks will evaporate if she says them out loud and this is one of them. she doesn’t say that kokoro hasn’t returned her messages, claiming to be too busy with school and work stuff, that her mother is a careful silence on the other side of her bedroom door—that the idea of doing anything small and ordinary with someone who didn’t expect anything in return is terrifying.
naoi gives her a look that’s almost a smile. almost. “shut up,” she says, flat and blunt, and kurumi lets herself breathe.
the moment they step off at the carnival station, the air is already warming. it smells like frying oil and sugar and something metallic—another kind of sweetness that makes kurumi’s palms sweat. there are families and teenagers and old couples with creased smiles; the lights are still waking, a scatter of tiny suns in the early haze.
naoi moves as if she’s in her element, one part annoyed at the crowd and three parts watchful, like she’s cataloguing the world and deciding which pieces are worth keeping.
they don’t take the biggest rollercoaster first. naoi can’t be bothered with long lines so she drags kurumi toward the smaller rides: the carousel with chipped horses, the tilt-a-whirl that makes kurumi’s insides dangle unpleasantly and the shooting gallery where naoi pretends she doesn’t care about the prizes, only to make sure the stuffed bear kurumi points at is knocked down by the last shot. kurumi laughs when it thumps into her lap, surprised and bright—an honest, uncomplicated sound—and naoi’s jaw tightens for a second before she grunts and shoves the bear into kurumi’s hands like it’s something dangerous.
“you got it for me,” kurumi says, eyes soft. the bear is warm where she holds it, like the rest of her is beginning to heat up from the inside.
“you technically got something for me, too." naoi’s voice is half-mocking, half-firm. she tosses a small paper ticket onto the stall’s counter—a silly, haphazard exchange. “don’t look so grateful. it’s annoying.”
kurumi smiles in spite of the warning. she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear with the same delicate movement as every other time she had done it before. naoi watches that motion as if it’s a photograph, stuck in time, that she’s slowly memorising. when she finally speaks, it’s quiet.
“you look pretty,” she says, and the word lands between them, awkward but sincere. the way she says it is not something that belongs to her usual vocabulary—naoi’s compliments are rough-hewn and rare, like someone forging something in a foundry.
“naoi—” kurumi starts, face flushing, and then covers the sputter with a small cough, “shut up.”
“okay, then. i’ll make sure to never compliment you ever again." naoi pretends to scowl, but her shoulders slouch in a way that looks less hostile and more relieved.
they share a funnel cake and walk. the heat of the day folds into them and the sun finally stands high enough to make the lights on the rides glitter. kurumi tells small, careful stories about school-life before naoi ‘destroyed’ it all—facts left in the past that could only be recited now, like syllabi—and naoi answers with the kind of commentary that is mostly sarcastic but carries a thread of something that isn’t sarcasm at all and instead her pure, uncut attention.
she notices the way kurumi narrows her eyes at a cloud that looks like a smudged heart and notices how she pulls her jacket tighter when the shade cuts across them. naoi keeps score of banalities like these—the things that show up only when someone is truly looking.
it takes a few minutes of locating, but they finally find, and go, to a fortune-teller booth because naoi drags her, hand-in-hand, with a look that screams, “tonight will be terrible if we don’t do at least one stupid, uncool thing.”
the woman inside the curtain is older than either of them feels right to be, with eyes like paper lanterns and pupils sharp like shards of glass. kurumi insists on sitting to the left; naoi stubbornly takes the right. the fortune-teller’s voice is slow, almost soothing in a way that makes kurumi’s heart hammer and naoi’s jaw twitch.
“you and her are… not the same soil, are you?” the woman says, a slip of humor and curiosity.
“what?” kurumi remarks, baffled.
“you two fit,” the woman says more firmly. “like two broken pieces that were never meant for anyone else—don’t you worry.” she taps the tea leaves with a fingertip. “one of you loves storms. the other loves the quiet after.”
on the way out, kurumi squeezed naoi’s hand without thinking—a small, thoughtless touch that came as instinct. naoi doesn’t yank her hand back. she doesn’t squeeze back, either, but her thumb circles—once, then twice—over the back of kurumi’s hand in a rhythm that could be determined as either ownership or comfort. though, kurumi wasn’t entirely sure which it was.
the afternoon drifts into early evening and they watch a parade of lights go by—floats with garish dancers and scripted smiles. naoi munches on a caramel apple and says nothing until a marching band passes, perfectly on cue.
“you look dumb when you just stare endlessly, y’know,” she says, voice sharp as a blade, and kurumi turns to find a smile on her own face. the remark is mean, the tone is meaner, but kurumi knows the hint of affection buried under the roughness. sometimes naoi is blunt and behind it is something intimate and awkward, like a person trying to say ‘i like you’ without admitting that’s what they’re trying to say.
they stand infront of one of those stalls where you toss rings at bottles, usually the scammy, rigged kind. naoi allows herself to look competitive for once, despite the obvious rigs here and there, because even though the prizes seem meaningless, they’re all but that when they’re for kurumi.
she wins a little pink octopus that flops around with a stitched smile. kurumi names it on the way back to the food stalls. she calls it ‘sage’; naoi only grumbles in response but pockets the octopus with a sheepishness she’d rather omit than admit.
as darkness sets in, they queue for the ferris wheel. the evening breeze is cool and their carriage creaks as it begins to climb. the city lights open up beneath them, a spread of constellations. kurumi’s breath fogs the glass a little with a timid warmth; naoi leans one elbow on the railing, the other arm across her knees.
“you nervous?” naoi asks, a question that’s not for her own curiosity but for the shape of the silence between them.
“a little,” kurumi confesses. “i’m not the best with heights.”
“i know,” naoi’s eyes are on her now, dark and steady. “i’ll make sure you don’t fall.”
kurumi smiles, small and lopsided. the wheel climbs and the city grows tiny, and they look at each other like two people who have been rehearsing this moment without realising it. when the ferris wheel reaches its peak, the world holds for a breath, and kurumi, impulsive as ever, reaches for naoi’s hand again. naoi doesn’t pull away; instead, she turns her fingers to weave with kurumi’s. their hands are different—naoi’s larger by only a centimeter or two, with calluses and a faint line of an old scar; kurumi’s pale and soft, nails bitten neat. contact feels like a chord struck.
after the ferris wheel, as the stars begin to claim the sky, they settle into one of those cheap booths that plays old movies on a projector. naoi grumbles about the poor selection—the film is quiet, about two people who don’t say everything they mean. it’s kind of shitty, so shitty she doesn’t care to remember the name—but she watches with a kind of careful attention she never gives strangers.
kurumi’s head eventually falls to the side and rests on naoi’s shoulder. naoi freezes for a second and then, with an audible sigh, allows it to and does nothing to shove her off. after all, it's understandable that the former fell asleep after such a long day. the movie’s words are playing in the background, and the light from the screen makes brief shadows on their faces.
kurumi sleeps like a person who has rehearsed being awake for years—eyes closed, lip bitten time to time, fingers splayed; she looks a lot more… normal like this, softer, almost—no perfect girl, no perfect daughter, no perfect student, just kurumi. naoi looks at her and the expression that crosses her face is a flicker of almost tenderness and then almost anger at said tenderness, all at once.
she brushes all feelings of turmoil aside and reaches up. she tucks a stray hair strand behind kurumi’s ear—it's a small action she can do without needing to say anything. kurumi’s eyelids flutter in response and the smallest, unconscious smile appears. she can’t help but let her fingers linger for a moment too long.
they leave the cinema late. the city is different in the later hours—more honest, somehow. shops draw their curtains and neon signs wink out one by one. the ride home is quieter than their way there; both are heavy with sugar and the day’s small victories and the particular exhaustion that comes from being pleased and afraid at once.
back at kurumi’s house, the entrance-room light hums. kurumi fumbles with her keys and naoi watches like a sentinel. kurumi’s mother’s absence hung low and loud, but the house is theirs for the night, and maybe that’s okay.
“do you want tea?” kurumi asks automatically, because it’s the thing she does when she’s nervous—offer hospitality, fix things in the most normal way she knows, especially with naoi, who she doesn’t particularly know how to please. naoi shakes her head.
“... cupcake,” naoi says instead. “i brought you a cupcake. a dumb, stupid cupcake.”
kurumi blinks. “you… what?”
naoi pulls a small paper bag from her jacket in the way she pulls things out as if they might explode. inside is a single cupcake, clumsy and leaning, candles thrust into the frosting like little flags. the frosting is a pale pink, probably far too much sugar, with a sprinkle of glitter that catches the dimmed light.
kurumi steps closer, eyes wide like a child’s and crestfallen in the most honest way. she hadn’t expected anyone to remember properly, especially not naoi. naoi’s face is unreadable. there is a moment where it could be a joke—an insult, a trap—but naoi is not laughing.
“i don’t do birthdays,” she says, voice small as if addressing someone else. “but you’re making me do something dumb. it’s your fault for being born.”
the way she says it makes kurumi laugh, an airy sound that shakes something open. she reaches for the cupcake as if it’s fragile, delicate and easily breakable—and that’s because to her, it is. whoever she was as a daughter, as a schoolgirl, as the model student—those versions of herself had been hollowed out one day at a time.
now she’s holding onto something that smells like another person’s effort.
they sit on the couch with knees barely touching. naoi fishes a lighter from her wallet with a finger that trembles a fraction. the flame makes her eyes bright in the darkness. kurumi watches the smallness of the light reflected in naoi’s pupils and it looks like everything she can’t say.
“you could’ve just bought one from the shop,” kurumi says, voice hesitant and small. “you didn’t have to—”
“shut up,” naoi snaps, a reflexive shield. “i wanted to, jesus. stop making it sound like you’re some charity case.” her words are rough and fast, but the way she says them is not cruel but rather, protective.
“happy birthday, yoshizawa-san.”
the candles shimmer. naoi flicks the lighter once and the wax catches, little flames lurching like tiny living creatures. she lights them slowly, as if this progression is ceremonious. kurumi can’t seem to look away. the candles seem exaggerated on something as small as a cupcake, as if the whole world has been condensed into wax and sugar and the tilt of naoi’s hand.
“make a wish,” naoi says, half-barking the instruction and half-breathing the possibility.
kurumi closes her eyes. she thinks of many things—her mother’s ignorance, kokoro’s distance, the desk she’d carved into, the nights she muffled frustrated screams into her pillow. she thinks of the fortune-teller’s prediction, the ferris wheel, naoi’s thumb flicking across her knuckles earlier. she thinks of the way naoi stands at the edge of being tender and steps back because that’s all she knows—to step back and show no signs of vulnerability.
the candlelight trembles and kurumi blows, hard enough that one of the tiny flames gutters out and then the rest follow like obedient soldiers. the frosting is slightly hard where the flame licked it, but the cupcake is warm and sweet in her mouth. naoi watches her with an expression that never quite turns into softness but sits on its border like a bird on a wire.
“thank you,” kurumi whispers when she swallows, and the words are feather-light. she looks at naoi for a long time. her eyes are wet from laughing earlier, from the day and from living in a body that rarely gets to be uncomplicatedly content.
“don’t thank me,” naoi says, but it’s quieter than usual. “you’re a pain in the ass.”
kurumi smiles, small and shy, and leans back. the living room is small and tidy, but tonight it feels vast, not in a cold, sparse way but in the kind of way that feels warm and comfortable.
they don’t move to anything complicated. they watch random meaningless quips on the tv until their eyelids drag and the glow makes their skin look like vellum. naoi’s jacket is on the arm of the couch and kurumi pulls it around herself because it smells like her—like city dust and cheap, leather smoke. naoi notices and at first bristles, then shrugs and slides off her shoes.
“don’t get used to it,” she says, but the way she says it is a tether.
when it’s late and they’re both exhausted beyond words, naoi walks kurumi up the staircase and to her room. in her room, however, naoi insists that kurumi take the bed and naoi simply sleeps on the floor. kurumi argues, like she always does, that she’ll be fine on the floor mattress that hadn’t even been set up yet. naoi is stubborn and wants to be difficult, but then, suddenly, to kurumi’s surprise, she says, “... maybe your bed’ll be big enough to fit two.”
they make a quiet, clumsy attempt at a routine. pajamas, turning off any and all lights, a soft nightlight left in a plug. kurumi’s bed is narrow, the sheets creased plainly with no patterns or stains in sight. she arranges her ruffled pillow neatly, positioning it in the perfect center. naoi sits on the edge of the bed first, then guides kurumi onto it with a steadiness that’s almost gentle. they lie apart as planned, only a few inches of width between them, the space deliberate, safe and slightly aching. kurumi can feel the mattress dip where naoi sat. the house is silent except for the hum of the radiator and the distance sighing in contention.
naoi faces the ceiling, hands tucked under her head, and the distant streetlights paints her cheekbones in a line of harsh light. she says nothing for a while. kurumi watches the way naoi’s chest rises and falls like a metronome tuned to a strange tempo from the corner of her eye. she thinks about the day—the ferris wheel, the fortune-teller, the cupcake. she thinks about the raw places naoi refused to talk about—the overbearing ‘friend’, the absence, the unbearable guilt. she wants to put words like bandages on the edges, but then she remembers naoi’s wariness of words that require softness.
instead, kurumi turns on her side, facing naoi. she studies the angles of her face in the dim light like someone trying to learn handwriting. the air between them is cool and intimate. she notices something small: naoi’s eyelashes are uneven where she plucked them down, intentional or not, a pale line where a smile would make a crease and cheeks that only flush rosy when she’s sheepish, cold, or warm. she notes every small detail as if it’s the last time she’ll be able to see naoi this up-close.
naoi catches her looking. the dark turns soft at the edges. for a breath, her eyes soften just a twinge. then, her mouth quirks.
“what?” she asks, guard up even in low voice.
kurumi tilts her head, searching for the right shape of honesty. it’s small, brave and takes a lot more courage than it should’ve. “i was going to say… thank you. for today, i mean.”
naoi snorts, a reflexive shield. “you just said—”
“this is different,” kurumi murmurs, and the words catch on the edges. “i mean—this. you remembering. you being here.” she looks away for a second, her cheeks heating up slightly. “... even the stupid cupcake.”
naoi turns her head to meet kurumi’s and the room narrows to the space between their faces. “don’t make me cry,” she says quickly, and it’s ridiculous because naoi can’t picture herself weeping over anything at all, especially not something so sappy. her voice cracks at the last syllable and she curses under her breath.
kurumi can see it then: the strain behind naoi’s usual bravado, the half-hidden cracks. she reaches a hand across the small distance and rests it lightly on naoi’s forearm—no more than a question. naoi presses back a fraction, stiff with a kind of startled warmth, and then relaxes like a body that has been given permission to steady.
“you’re…” kurumi says, genuinely thinking about it. “i don’t know the right word for you.”
“good,” naoi says, and it sounds like she expects kurumi to mean ‘bad’ and ‘overly protective’ and ‘bitchy’ all at once. “don’t try to label me. it’ll ruin everything.”
kurumi smiles, a small smile that trembles at the edges. she turns the rest of her face toward naoi, the movement so soft that naoi might not have noticed if she hadn’t been watching every little thing all day. kurumi’s head tilts until her cheek is almost parallel to naoi’s. she studies naoi’s face carefully—the tip of her nose, the shadows under her eyebags, and the way her lips set when she’s annoyed. for a few long seconds she just looks, not speaking. it’s a simple examination, just like the one before, just a little less thorough.
then, she smiles again, her eyes crinkling around the creases.
“thank you,” she whispers, so softly naoi has to lean in to hear it.
naoi’s expression melts, a thing that happens rarely and feels more like her genuine self. she reaches up with a careful hand—the one that can be rough, the one that has been rough—and tucks a strand of kurumi’s hair behind her ear, mirroring the motion she’d made earlier in the day. up close, kurumi’s skin smells faintly of sugar, her vanilla body mist and the faintest tang of the city. naoi’s fingers linger against her cheek, light as fairy dust.
naoi sees kurumi’s mouth open just slightly and senses she’s about to say something. “don’t mess it up now,” naoi whispers, “go to sleep. i’ll be here.”
kurumi nods, eyelids heavy. she closes her eyes with the image of naoi’s palm against her cheek, the touch unusually soft and weirdly gentle.
they lie there with the radiator clicking and the outside world breathing deeply. kurumi’s head turns, almost imperceptibly, and she tilts it further to the side until the tip of her nose is nearly brushing naoi’s shoulder. she opens one eye and studies naoi’s face a final time as if she might tuck it away and carry it with her. she smiles that same tiny smile again and in a voice no louder than a thought, she says, “thank you.”
naoi makes a noise that might be a laugh or might be a sigh, kurumi can’t really tell. she reaches over and brushes the back of kurumi’s hand with the pad of her thumb—a small, delicate gesture. it’s small and doesn’t declare everything, or even anything at all, but it says enough.
“sleep then,” she mutters, and the words fall into the hush.
kurumi closes her eyes with naoi’s thumb still warm against her knuckles. tears that had been withheld far too long spilled from kurumi’s lashline and naoi wiped them softly. kurumi let out a shaky breath and bit back any form of pathetic cries that were choked in the back of her throat.
naoi didn’t know what to say or how to comfort. she whispered something that kurumi couldn’t decipher in her state of exhaustion, slowly drifting off, before naoi murmured a half-clear, “goodnight, yoshizawa-san.”
naoi wasn’t good at comforting or giving soothing words. what she was good at, though, was staying.
and for kurumi, that was enough.