Work Text:
Hinomori-san's hair smelled distinctly of the sea, winter, and delicate notes of flowers. Inhaling this aroma in her silky blue hair, in which he had buried a little earlier, Toya mentally thanked fate that this girl allowed him to hug her and breathe her smell in her hair. Almost for the first time in all the time he was on this sea coast, Aoyagi called quietly and very softly: "Shizuku."
At the sound of his voice, she flinched slightly, turned around, smiled at him in a way that took his breath away with admiration for a couple of seconds, and pressed herself tighter against his chest as if she wanted to protect him from something. In turn, Toya allowed his feelings, which were burning his soul at the moment, to come out a little: he carefully put his chin on the top of the lady's head, before kissing her lightly there, then said some words and hugged her very gently. Shizuku whispered the same words in response, asked her to raise her head and raised hers, and then reached for Toya's face and kissed her.
With a slight start, Toya opened his eyes and looked around. The blue walls of his room served him as a rather sharp and painful reminder that all these pleasant moments were only a dream. The clock next to the bed read 4:46 in the morning. The guy sighed, sat up in bed and tiredly buried his hand in his hair. How much longer will this last? No, of course, the dreams, as well as the thoughts of Hinomori-san in general, were very cute, but they began too abruptly, just a day after the Valentine's Day photo contest. At the same time, he and Kohane became accidental rivals against her.
Sighing, Toya forced himself to get out of bed and go to the kitchen to drink a glass of water, trying to focus on reflecting on what had happened on the way. Thoughts about this dream just did not want to leave my head. Why did he calmly allow himself to call Hinomori-san just by his first name? What were they talking about? On which specific beach where they located? Toya simply didn't have the answers to these questions, so he just drank the water, remembered that there was a rehearsal at the MEIKO-san café at noon, and went back to bed.
***
"Stop," MEIKO-san appeared as if out of nowhere, making everyone present shudder. — "You have been singing for 4 hours without a break. Here's at least lemonade for you, so as not to overload the ligaments. Less sweet for Toya."
"Thank you very much, MEIKO-san," An accepted the glass with a smile and landed on the ground like a sack. Akito lightly poked at her, but in exactly the same way he took the drink and flopped, pressing his side against her, not noticing that Kohane had landed next to her with grace. Toya allowed himself to snort merrily, but remained standing, sipping his lemonade.
A pleasant citrus taste quickly spread in the mouth, a light mint note added even more freshness. Only now did Toya notice that the glass was empty, and only a few pieces of ice and a sprig of mint remained floating at the bottom.
He hardly listened to what his friends were talking about, just enjoying their presence nearby. Suddenly the thought flashed through his mind that Toya would not mind at all if Hinomori-san sat here and chatted merrily with everyone. This sudden idea made him feel embarrassed and shake his head a little in order to put his thoughts in order. This is not the time or place to think about her.
"Aoyagi-kun, are you okay?" Kohane's sudden question made me shudder. Toya turned his head and vaguely noticed to himself that his friends were looking at him with incomprehensible concern. It seemed a little uncomfortable for them to keep their heads up all the time.
"Yes. What happened? " He brushed the fallen bangs from his eyes and bent down so that he could see their faces better and also so that they didn't have to lift their heads.
"It's just that you've been kind of strange for the past few days. It seems to be normal, normal, and then, all of a sudden, you freeze for a couple of seconds or minutes with a slight blush on your cheeks, and then you pretend that nothing happened," An replied to him, squinting her eyes suspiciously.
"And your bags under your eyes have become bigger," Akito commented to himself under his breath (to which Aoyagi tactfully preferred to pretend not to hear anything).
Toya looked at An in surprise, then at all of them separately, and then raised the corners of his lips a little sadly. He did not want to make his dear friends worry, especially about such a trivial matter, but he knew that he could no longer cope without help. Before he realized what he was doing and how, he landed on the ground in front of them, his legs tucked under him, and, taking a short breath (thereby gathering his scattered thoughts together and relaxing a little), he spoke: "I'm sorry to make you worry. Initially, I wanted to figure it out myself, but now I understand that I can't do without your advice. Do you mind? And after waiting for the nods, he continued. "In recent days, I have been thinking and dreaming about a girl.
The reaction to these words was different: Kohane opened her eyes in surprise, An, licking her lips, stretched her face forward with interest, and Akito thoughtfully interlaced his fingers under his chin. At the same time, all three of them, with their meaningful silence, asked to continue telling. Toya stopped for a second, sighed, first looked at his friends, and then lowered his eyes to the floor and spoke again: "I often think what she would like, how she would have fun with us, and so on. In our dreams, we sit on some seashore, talk a little, and I can never make out the words, and then," Aoyagi turned away, feeling a slight blush and embarrassment begin to appear on his cheeks, coughed, and finally added in a quieter voice, "we kiss."
At these words, the trio looked at each other, and Toya almost intuitively realized that Akito at that moment said something similar to "Uwa, maji ka yo!?"
Suddenly, An very briskly broke away from her seat, thereby slightly frightening Kohane and making her current neighbor swear at her, flew up to Aoyagi and shook him slightly by the shoulders from the surging emotions: "Oh my God, I want to make this day a public holiday. Aoyagi Toya fell in love. I urgently demand all the details! And most importantly, I am very happy for you!"
Toya stared at his friend in surprise, gradually comprehending her words. He? Fell? It can't be! Yes, Shizuku was beautiful, smart, kind. Yes, she dreamed often. Maybe it's just interest. But falling in love? Unlikely.
"Wait, wait, Shiraishi. I think you're wrong," he hesitated, but still managed to answer her politely. Toya didn't want anyone on the team to know what a storm had risen over An's words.
His friend finally pulled away and looked at him with a sly smile, incomprehensibly caused by something. Her gaze seemed to burn through Aoyagi's soul.
"Am I mistaken?" She snorted cheerfully at this phrase. "Toya, your cheeks can now compete with the color of sakura-ebi. At least tell me the name of the girl with whom you allegedly "did not fall in love".
"An," Akito snapped at her, but when he met the ostentatious and pleading gaze, he sighed and turned his gaze to his partner. "But she's right. Answer," he hesitated for a moment, obviously choosing his words, "who is this?"
Toya felt the ground slip from under his feet. Akito is also against him? It was definitely a conspiracy.
"I—" Aoyagi's voice trembled slightly. He looked at their waiting faces—a beaming An, a skeptical but interested Akito, and Kohane listening intently somewhere behind them—and realized that there was nowhere to retreat. "Shizuku," he gasped, almost silently, looking down at the floor, as if a name spoken out loud would burn him. "Her name is Hinomori Shizuku."
An and Kohane gasped in surprise, and Akito's eyes widened.
Their startled silence dragged on a little, and Toya was beginning to worry a little that it wasn't worth talking about, but suddenly Azusawa spoke. "Aoyagi-kun, when exactly did you start thinking about Shizuku-senpai?" It's just," she was distracted to adjust her cap, but then continued, "More more jump has a lot of work to do right now, and you haven't crossed paths so often."
Toya was about to say something, but a sharp "Kuso" from the side made him shudder. The eyes of the girls and Aoyagi abruptly shifted to Akito, who was looking at his phone with a disgruntled look. The redhead, noticing the increased attention, said with a quiet exhalation: "Ena told me to go home urgently. Allegedly, our "dear" dad wanted to take us tomorrow to some artistic thing. So we'll deal with you, man," he suddenly poked a finger at Toya's chest, "we'll deal with it later, but now let's go home.
***
Another tab with an article about the signs of falling in love closed with a loud click and an irritated exhalation. Google seemed to be deliberately proving that Toya had fallen in love. He still didn't want to believe in it, and the abundance of articles with the same texts and memories of the team's words infuriated. Aoyagi leaned back in his chair, peering up at the ceiling.That awkward warmth in my chest at the very thought of Shizuku, those intrusive dreams and thoughts that suddenly became "about them"—aren't they symptoms of some strange illness rather than a great feeling?
With a slight displeasure, he ran his hand over his face, as if trying to erase the obsessive image. Logic told me that I needed to weigh and analyze everything, but my brain refused to work, giving out only fragments of yesterday's dream and her smile.
The most unbearable thing was that this thought — the thought of it — did not seem alien. It didn't flash or go out like a random spark. No, rather, it was like a smooth, warm glow, which had already become the background, a new basic state of his consciousness. And this quiet, persistent occupation of his inner space frightened far more than any storm. After all, you can hide from the storm, but you can't hide from your own, suddenly transformed world.
Toya slowly got up from his chair and walked to the window. His forehead touched the cool glass, but this did not cool the chaos burning inside. He suddenly wanted to be outside, to run on the asphalt wet with night moisture until his breath clenched his chest, until his legs were numb with fatigue. Perhaps then he will be able to escape from this obsessive feeling, which has taken root in him in spite of all the arguments of reason.
Suddenly, hearing a noise from a cat that was now somewhere in the area of his parents' room, Toya could not stand it. He gripped the handle on the window with such force that his knuckles turned white. A short, goose-like shiver passed through his body, not from fear, but from suppressed rage, which had no outlet and no addressee. He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling slowly, intermittently. It was at this moment that he realized with frightening clarity the depth of his loss of control. He, who had always kept his emotions in an iron bridle, was now ready to explode because of the cat, because of articles on the Internet, because of his own thoughts. It seemed that a little more - and the fragile metal would not withstand, succumbing to the force of his despair. This insignificant sound was the very last straw that overflowed the cup of patience. It was not the cat's fault. The silence that he had broken was to blame, the same silence in which Shizuku's name sounded so clearly and hauntingly now.
Abruptly pushing off the windowsill, he strode away in the direction of the kitchen. He needed water. Or just a change of scenery. To do anything to break this vicious circle, where even a harmless pet became an accomplice in his mental turmoil.
The cold water did not bring relief. It only burned her throat, but could not extinguish the internal fire. Leaning against the tabletop, Toya stared at the white surface, trying to clear his mind with willpower. Devastated, he just stood in the middle of the dark kitchen, listening to his own breathing. The rage evaporated, leaving behind only a bitter aftertaste and fatigue.
Aoyagi's thoughts drifted back to An's words. For some reason, the anger at them passed as quickly as it began, smoothly transforming into something like: "Maybe I didn't fall in love after all?"
The question hung in silence, seductive and deceptive as a mirage in the desert. And immediately the mind, yearning for at least some kind of control, grabbed it and rushed forward, building a whole system of justifications.
"Yes, that's right," the first thought came to mind. "What if it's just a strong sympathy?" Or interest? Hinomori-san and I spoke only three times. The longest was when I helped Azusawa win a photo contest."
The guy was relieved to seize on this statistic. Three times. Ridiculously little for something serious! This means that all this is just an obsession, an exaggeration. His brain, accustomed to systematizing everything, immediately began to build a new, convenient reality.
"Exactly," Toya told himself, "I was just interested in her as a person. Her devotion to her group, her quiet but firm determination... It's just respect. No more than that." He deliberately avoided remembering how his breath stopped when he, Akito, and the girls watched the More more jump streams a few days ago, or how his gaze arbitrarily found her in all the photos from that contest. These moments were dismissed by the tired mind as inconsequential, just random physiological reactions.
However, the body refused to accept the rules of this convenient game. Memory helpfully slipped not statistics, but sensations: the warmth that spread through her chest at the sound of her laughter that evening; a strange emptiness when the stream ended and her voice stopped. Aoyagi tried to convince himself of "simple respect", but respect doesn't smell like perfume with a mixture of sea, winter and floral notes that he somehow remembered, and doesn't force him to watch the video again just to hear her shine next to her loved ones.
And at that very moment, the flimsy house of cards of his self-deception collapsed. Not with a crash, but with a quiet, deafening click inside. Toya stood leaning against the tabletop, breathing as if he had just run a marathon. All his "what ifs", "only" and "just" crumbled to dust in front of a simple, indisputable fact that he no longer had the strength to deny.
It wasn't respect. It was... Absorption. He remembered the smell, looked for her smile, longed for the sound of her voice.
A bitter, strange smile touched his lips. The surrender brought not pain, but almost unbearable relief. And through this relief, clearly and inexorably, a new, final thought sounded, marking the transition to the next stage, depression or acceptance: "It's much worse. I wasn't just interested. I...."
The phrase hung in the air, unspoken, but for the first time - honest.
"Mou dame da," Toya breathed out this phrase quietly and very tiredly, not even thinking about the etiquette that his father had carved out in him since childhood.
The words hung in silence, and after them came an emptiness, thick, heavy, and indifferent. All resistance was gone, leaving behind only a bitter aftertaste of truth. He slowly slid down the front of the kitchen cabinet and sat down on the floor, his back against the cold metal. His head tilted back, his eyes stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing.
Here it is. The sentence that Toya passed on himself. No bargaining, no "what ifs". Only quiet, hopeless chaos inside and chilling calm outside. He lost. Himself. Some stupid, uncontrollable feeling. And now he had to live with this knowledge. Now that he stopped denying, he finally allowed himself to feel everything that he had so diligently blocked.
He remembered her smile, and it was no longer angry, but almost physically painful—a sharp, sweet desire to see her again. He realized that all this time, building his barricades out of logic, he was actually just... missed her. A woman he hardly knew. And this was all the horror and all the absurdity of his position.
After an excruciatingly long amount of time, the guy slowly forced himself to get up, went to the sink and washed himself with ice water. Drops ran down my face, but there was no fire inside. There was cold, indifferent ashes. He looked at his reflection in the dark window. The same Toya Aoyagi. But this was a different person. A man who knew the truth and now had to decide what to do with it. The first, timid step towards acceptance was made.
He wiped his face with his sleeve and walked slowly into his room. His eyes fell on the piano against the wall, then on the violin case leaning against a chair, and then on his own open laptop with a song he had started for a concert superior to RAD WEEKEND. Only an hour ago, the very thought of music seemed blasphemous against the background of inner turmoil. Now he took the instrument out of its case and ran the bow over the strings, not to play loudly and furiously, but to extract a few quiet, interrogative notes.
The melody was not born. Silence was born, filled with awareness. Yes, he had lost the battle. But perhaps this capitulation was the only possible victory. Toya no longer tried to uproot this feeling. It was a part of him—strange, uncomfortable, frightening, but his. And since he had to live with it, he had to learn to negotiate. Not with feeling, but with yourself.
The corners of his lips twitched in a faint, barely perceptible movement, too tired to be a smile, but too bitter to be just a grimace. There was a long way to go, but for the first time in the evening, not panic smoldered in his chest, under a layer of ashes, but a strange, anxious calm. The calm of hopelessness. The fact was recognized, the battle was lost. Now all that remained was to bear this burden, and this thought did not hurt, but emptiness. Empty, heavy, and very, very quiet.
***
She sat in the shade of a cherry blossom and read something aloud, and Toya lay on her lap and just listened. The voices of mutual friends looking for them throughout the garden resounded somewhere in the distance like background noise, and the cats surrounding the couple everywhere created a semblance of a large, multi-colored, purring blanket.
And Shizuku plunged her fingers into his hair with a graceful movement. For that brief moment, Aoyagi felt like a big cat being stroked on the back of the neck. The guy opened his eyes, smiled slightly at Hinomori, and only now noticed how the haze in the garden began to swallow her. He stretched out his hand, touching his companion's wrist, but she was almost completely gone. Only his fingers and neck retained memories in the form of a smell.
Toya slowly opened his eyes, lifting his head from the pillow and looking around with dream-blurred eyes. Realizing that he was in his room, he relaxed a little and looked at his watch. 3:09 a.m. It had only been an hour since he had finally fallen asleep.
The dream finally dissolved like a mist in the garden, but it left behind not pain, but something else. The ghostly sensation of her fingers in her hair. And this "something else" finally found a name inside. It was not panic, not obsession, not illness. It was... tenderness. The one that made Aoyagi smile in her sleep. And now, in the silence of the night, he let her just be. It filled the room like moonlight, requiring nothing more than to breathe deeply. So that's how it is," he thought with a slight amazement. And this realization was enough.
Toya slowly ran his own hand through the same strands, trying to catch the echo of that touch. There was no echo. But there was something better – a quiet, clear intention. The guy reached for the phone. The bright screen blinded in the dark, but he did not hesitate to find the right contact. The message was short, but behind it was the entire distance traveled: "Good morning, Azusawa. I apologize for being so early. Could you send me Hinomori-san's number?"
The answer came surprisingly quickly. Not only was the number lit up on the screen, but also a new message from Azusawa: "Good morning. Of course. Is everything okay?" Toya replied with a slight smile: "Yes. Better than ever." He copied the number and added it to the contacts.
He sighed, walked to the kitchen to drink water. He returned again and, despite his trembling hands, sent the following message: "Good morning, Hinomori-san. This is Aoyagi Toya. Are you free this Saturday? Maybe we should go somewhere together?"