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“Can I join you?”
Y/N shoved her feet into the ground to slow her down as she gripped the chains of the swing set she sat on.
“Oh, hey Nanami. Please do.”
He took a seat on the one next to hers, using his heels to rock himself slowly forwards and backwards. The night was warm, but not as unbearably so as it had been that day. Y/N had a jacket laying across her legs, like she hoped it would get cold enough for her to have need of it.
They didn’t speak for a bit, happy to stay silent and stare up at the sky, glowing with the moon yet devoid of stars.
“Had a rough day today,” Y/N said, almost like she could hear Nanami wondering what she was doing on a playground by herself. Nanami gave a low hum in acknowledgement, still swinging gently with her. Their bodies passed by each other, and no matter how many times Nanami stuck the toes of his shoes into the ground to match Y/N’s pace, he just kept missing it. Like she was trying to match his rhythm as well, leaving them misaligned, like alternating pendulums side by side.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, staring at the way her skin glowed and the shadow of the trees blended across her features. She looked ethereal.
“Not really. I think I just don’t want to be alone anymore tonight.” She smiled at him and it felt like fresh blankets from the dryer or the smell of the fall air that blew in through the window left open in the kitchen.
“Do you want to go into the city?” Nanami asked.
“For as long as we can stand?”
“Of course.”
That’s how the two found themselves in the middle of Tokyo until 3 in the morning, through restaurants, shops, arcades, and parks, spending what little money they had on whatever called to them. Nanami laughed harder with her than he had in months and Y/N completely forgot about her worries that sparked their impromptu spending spree.
This wasn’t uncommon. Y/N and Nanami had become close friends ever since they started at Tokyo Jujutsu High, but the death of their beloved peer only drove them further into each other’s company. If they weren’t taking time for themselves, they were studying together in an empty room or hanging out in one of their dorms.
Y/N hoped someday they would be more, but Nanami had been dating his long term girlfriend since he began high school. Y/N, however, couldn’t imagine someone better for her. While Nanami’s demeanor tended to be uptight, following a strict code, he’d learned to loosen up around her. He really understood Y/N, and was the only one who consistently showed up for her, especially after Haibar’s death. He knew better than anyone that grief doesn’t stop once the cards and calls do. Nanami kept showing up.
By the time the two were finishing up their third year of high school, Y/N had become accustomed to the feeling. It wasn’t painful anymore, but the ever present hope that one day Nanami would confess to her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life as hers killed her slowly.
Eventually, she repressed the little bit of hope she had and jumped into a relationship with the first prospect she deemed fit. It wasn't really fair to the guy, but it worked. With him, Y/N had fun and was able to let go of her crush on Nanami. They still remained close friends, studying together and spending most of their free days around the school. But they stopped going to each other at night when all they could think of was Haibara. Y/N went to her boyfriend when she couldn’t stop hearing his voice, and Nanami went to his girlfriend when the nightmares got too much. Their partners were supportive, but they never truly grasped what was going on beneath the surface.
It must’ve gotten too much for Y/N’s boyfriend because he left one day, saying she needed to get help for this ghost that followed her no matter what she did. Y/N cried on the subway ride home, desperate and unsure of how to proceed. Despite the voice in her mind telling her to deal with it herself, Y/N found herself at Nanami’s door. He opened it, his hair tousled and his shirt wrinkled.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Y/N sniffled, trying to articulate that she’d been dumped, only managing to get a few words out at a time between breaths. Nanami’s eyes opened wide despite his clear sleep deprivation. He grabbed her hand gently and walked her into her room next door, seating her on the edge of her bed and closing the door.
Y/N hugged around his middle as he stood in front of her, burying her face into his stomach, openly weeping. She knew deep down it was for the best, and he wasn’t the one, but it didn’t make the rejection any less painful. Nanami’s phone rang, but he pulled it from his pocket and quickly silenced it, dropping it onto the nearby desk. Y/N looked up from where her tears stained his shirt.
“Who was that?” she asked, sniffling loudly and wiping the tears from her face.
“My girlfriend.”
“You should answer her call, I’m fine.”
Nanami tilted his head in disappointment.
“You’re clearly not fine, and she’s not doing anything. You’re my priority right now.”
Ugh. There he went, being kind and caring, just like he always was. Y/N hoped his girlfriend appreciated that about him and wasn’t taking advantage of it. Nanami’s phone rang again, vibrating loudly against the wooden desk.
“I think your girlfriend–”
Nanami grabbed her face to force her to look at him rather than his phone, shaking his head silently. “Don’t worry about that,” he said.
“She seems worried about you.” Y/N pried.
“Yeah, she’s not too happy that I’m here.”
Y/N thought it was a strange thing to say. She didn’t have the mental capacity to question his motivation to say it and wasn’t going to ask why. But Y/N couldn’t help but wonder if she was jealous. She could understand that. She also wouldn’t want her boyfriend to run off to help another girl, but at the end of the day, he was Y/N’s best friend after they started dating.
There wasn’t a reason for his girlfriend to be jealous as Y/N had given up her pointless crush a while ago and would never do anything to get between them. Unfortunately, Nanami’s tenderness made those feelings come right back up.
“Thanks for coming,” Y/N said in a small voice, her tears finally drying on her cheeks. Nanami smiled.
“Anything for you.”
After that night, Nanami seemed to be more deliberate about the time he spent with Y/N on the nights he wasn’t with his girlfriend. It was purposeful, a reminder that he was there for her. The craving ache wasn’t any easier, but Y/N had accepted it. It wasn’t glaringly loud. It was more of a hum under the surface. She was comfortable with it. She had also become familiar with the idea that it could never happen. If the day came where she gave up hope, she was ready to smile and be happy for Nanami as he continued to live an authentic and happy life with someone else.
Besides, graduation was coming up soon and Y/N had to decide whether to teach at Tokyo Jujutsu High, or transfer to Kyoto. When she told Nanami her plans, she felt good about it. They acknowledged how sad it would be to move away from each other, but understood how big a step in life it was.
“You’ll love Kyoto,” Nanami said.
“Yeah,” Y/N said, mirroring the same nostalgic smile as Nanami. “I think I’ve learned all I could from Tokyo for now.”
The last few weeks of the school year, Nanami’s eye bags got darker, and his mood worse. When Y/N asked about it, he brushed it off gently blaming it on graduation nerves, but she knew better. She’d heard his girlfriend openly berating him over the phone through the wall between their rooms. Maybe he really didn’t know that Y/N could hear his arguments, but he tried to keep her uninvolved nonetheless.
A few days before Y/N was to move out, there was a knock at her dorm door.
That’s strange.
Everyone else had already moved out and Nanami was out on a date, leaving her to spend her last night before graduation alone. She was excited about transferring to Kyoto. It would be a new perspective for her life in a world that she had become all too familiar with. And in the worst case scenario, if everything crashed and burned, she could always beg Masamichi to let her transfer back.
She pulled a t-shirt over her head, letting the hem fall low over her shorts and opened the door.
“Nanami?”
“Hey,” he said. His blonde hair was ruffled, like he’d run his hands through it, gripping at the strands with all his might. And his usual demeanor was more troubled than before, like he was exhausted. When he caught Y/N’s concerned look, he forced a smile, but he didn’t keep it up as long as he usually did.
“She ended things,” he said. Y/N put a hand up to her mouth in shock.
“Oh my God. Are you okay?”
Nanami nodded slowly, his eyes anywhere but her for a few seconds until even that was too draining. He hung his head and started crying silently.
“Kento…” Y/N said, pulling him by his hands into her room where she could close the door and take him into her arms, his forehead resting on her shoulder.
It killed her to feel his back shake as he cried, a hand rubbing gently down his spine, the other holding the back of his head.
It killed her to know that she was leaving in a few days and couldn’t be a support for him through this grief.
It killed her that there was a part of her that felt hope that he could finally be hers.
But she was leaving. It was too late not to, and Y/N had promised herself that she would go through with it. That she had to do what was best for her, even if it meant moving away from all she knew. Nanami took a deep breath and lifted his head. Y/N held his face in her hands, wiping at his tears with her thumbs. It was gentle, more so than they usually had been with each other.
"Is it bad that I feel relieved?"
“Not at all. Do you want to talk about it?”
Nanami shook his head gently, chuckling a bit when he realized Y/N was still holding him. He slid his hands up her arms, holding her wrists, almost pressing his face into her hands. His eyes met Y/N’s.
He gave a pained smile.
“I’d rather do anything else if that’s alright.”
Y/N chuckled. “I’d love to.” Her hands dropped from his face, but not before wiping his cheek of one last tear.
“That’s why I did better than you in history,” he quipped, finding himself again. Y/N shoved his shoulder gently before settling on the edge of her bed, inviting him to sit with her.
“You did better than I did because I was on missions during half of the lectures.”
They stayed up that night doing whatever they felt called to do: watching movies, eating what was left of their snacks, roaming the halls, doing absolutely nothing at all. Hours passed until Nanami felt like he would be okay again and the two of them felt like they couldn’t stay up another minute.
Nanami stood, groaning slightly and bending at the waist to stretch his back after having sat slouched against the wall for so long. Y/N lay atop her covers, stretching out like a cat, an arm slung over her eyes to block out the lamp light from across the room. He shoved his feet in his slippers, shuffling to the door yawning, saying, “I’ll let you get to bed–”
“Stay.”
He paused, turning back to see her watching him, looking up with half lidded, tired eyes. Nanami looked into her eyes for what felt like an entire minute. Maybe it was the pleading look she gave, or maybe it was the fact that he knew this was one of his last few chances to see it for a while, but Nanami slipped his shoes back off and laid on the bed next to Y/N.
She threw the covers over him as well, turning on her side to face him. Under the blankets, Y/N curled her hands up to rest under her chin, watching as Nanami did the same, her heart pounding at the proximity. There was a tension between the two of them, one they’d danced around for years from being friends, to hoping for more, only for the timing to evade them every time. The feeling was oddly comforting, even as Y/N’s mind raced. It made her believe that this is what this was the most they were meant to be: not just friends, resigned to the dance, the push and pull of it, for eternity.
It was painful in the best way. Like she was on the way to the meal she’d been dreaming of the whole day, the craving roaring up inside her as what she wanted was finally in her reach. Or sitting down after being on her feet, walking miles and miles, finally giving her feet a break.
Nanami had become a part of her. There were so many parts of her life that were signs of him, his handprint on her existence. She started using the same slang he did, or would carry an extra pencil in her bag for him in case he needed it. He never did, but it was the same kind he’d always used. Y/N added extra herbs to her meals, the way she’d seen Nanami do dozens of times.
He kept a hair tie on his wrist for when hers inevitably broke. At the konbini, he’d grab an extra bar of chocolate to sate Y/N’s sweet tooth, knowing she’d eye his stash and never ask for what he would inevitably give over. The thought that Nanami would soon be a part of her past made Y/N’s stomach burn. She’d kept face while he was crying, but now she felt herself getting emotional.
“Don’t be sad. You’re not the one who got broken up with,” Nanami joked, now being the one to wipe a tear from her cheek.
“I’m just going to miss you,” Y/N said, smiling at him, shifting her head closer to his. When Nanami closed his eyes, Y/N watched his lashes brush against her pillowcase. She could feel his body heat radiate off his body onto hers. His lips moved, but he didn’t make any sound, like he was nervous and testing out the way words tasted before he said them.
And she couldn’t stop staring at them.
“I’m going to miss you too.”
There was that tension again. The feeling that they’d been fighting, when all they wanted to do was let it pull them in. Nanami looked her in the eye again, moving his face closer until his nose brushed hers. Y/N froze, hoping he’d close the gap, holding her breath, like if she breathed too hard she’d scare him off. His breath warmed her skin, giving Y/N the courage to lift a hand to his face again, her skin gently grazing his.
She wanted to kiss him. She wanted him to kiss her. It didn’t matter, she just wanted to be his.
But she was leaving. They’d finally aligned up, both of them single at the same time, both finally ready to give in to the pull, and she was taking off in a few days. He’d end up with someone else. Every part of her tingled, like she was going numb. Y/N thought he was going to kiss her…
Nanami pulled away. Maybe she was wrong and she misread his intentions entirely.
“You’re still going to Kyoto,” he whispered, somewhere between a statement and a question. Y/N nodded gently, listening to the brush of her face against the pillow as she did so. Briefly, Nanami nodded back, looking as sad and slightly disappointed as Y/N was.
“I have to. I can’t change my plans just because–” she didn’t finish her sentence. She felt horrible for even thinking about it.
“I never expected you to,” Nanami said. “This is a great opportunity for you.”
When they looked at each other again, they smiled softly, silently learning to accept the reality they would soon have to face. Separately. But he grabbed her hand, and they fell asleep that way, their faces close together so their breath mingled in the space between them. The next morning they woke up with Nanami’s arm over her waist, his nose tucked against the back of her neck, pressed up against each other. He woke up, let himself enjoy it for a minute more, imagining what could’ve been, then climbed around her to get out of bed, and let himself out.
True to her word, Y/N left. After a nightmare of a week packing and dozens of tearful goodbyes, she moved to Kyoto and started working as a teacher. She loved her job, and loved her new city even more, though it would never feel the way Tokyo did to her. Y/N made new friends and missed her old ones.
She kept in contact with Shoko, and while she still texted Nanami, they stuck to small pleasantries, major life updates, and eventually faded into barely speaking at all. Y/N didn’t know where their friendship stood, nor how much space was acceptable for whatever it was, so she decided to let it run its natural course. Over the years, they’d meet up for coffee whenever the other was nearby for missions, and it felt like nothing had changed at all.
Those were the moments where she’d wonder what would’ve happened if she had just kissed him, maybe he would’ve kissed her back. He’d move to Kyoto with her, or they’d spend a few months long distance so she could beg to be transferred back. Or maybe she kissed him and he would’ve pulled away, said she misunderstood and they never spoke again. There were an infinite number of possibilities. Who knows what would’ve happened.
And she’d never know.
She didn’t lose sleep over it until she got a phone call from Shoko one day.
“Hey what’s up? I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Y/N said, her phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she unpacked her bag from the day.
“I’m so sorry…” Shoko started and Y/N froze.
“Shoko, what happened?”
“There was an incident here in Shibuya, and Nanami–”
“Nanami what?” Y/N asked, her chest squeezing everything inside of her together. Shoko was silent on the other side of the line.
Y/N was on the first bullet train to Tokyo, spending the whole ride looking through old photos, crying, trying not to cry, and doing whatever she could to distract from the grief inside her. By 10 pm, she’d made it back to her old campus at Jujutsu Tech, clutching the envelope Shoko had given her.
“What’s this?” she asked, looking it over as if the outside would clue her in.
“Read it when you find him,” she said.
If she were there for a happier occasion, Y/N would’ve let her nostalgia take her through each of her memories as she walked along. But she found herself staring at the newly dug graves, hoping there was a mistake and she wouldn’t find his name. When she did, her heart sank all over again.
Y/N sat there in the dark, unsure of what to say.
“I missed you.”
As soon as she said it, she started crying again, her tears cold against her hot skin from the night air. They dripped off her chin into the newly turned dirt beneath her. She opened the letter, using her phone as a flashlight to read, sitting next to the freezing tombstone. Y/N was worried he was too cold.
The letter was addressed to her, in Nanami’s handwriting, the shape of his characters familiar and comforting. A piece of him. The last one other than the memories flooding through Y/N’s mind as she read.
Dear Y/N,
If you are reading this, it means I am no longer with you. As I write this, I am preparing to enter a situation I do not anticipate walking out of. Many of our students and younger sorcerers are already engaged in the conflict, and I will never forgive myself if I live to see the next day and they don’t. I’ll stop at nothing to keep them safe.
Knowing that, there are so many things I have left to say to you, and not nearly enough time to express it.
When I think back on high school, I am greeted with a haze of memories, a few more lucid than others–some good, some bad—but most clearly, I see you. I have loved you so dearly since we became friends and spent 8 years selfishly rueing the day I didn’t pack up and follow you to Kyoto. From what you’ve told me, your experiences have been worthwhile and fulfilling, but it doesn’t change the fact that I wish I could’ve been a part of them as well. Even to this day, I consider you the best friend I’ve ever had.
I don’t regret how I lived, and I won’t regret how I die. To do so, I must confess that my one remorse in this life is not kissing you that night in your room before you left. We never got the timing right, and when we did, it wasn’t convenient. But I can’t change the past. I can only leave you this for the future.
In the next life, we’ll surely find each other again. And when we do, I won’t be afraid to ruin the friendship.
All my love,
Nanami Kento
An hour later, Y/N pulled herself from the ground, her voice ruined from crying, and found her way back to the nearby playground. She sat on the swing, letting herself rock back and forth as she looked over at the other swing. A gust of wind picked up, swinging it to the same tempo as hers.