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Ten years ago, Shiho Suzui wanted to die. And when she woke up in hospital, she cursed the universe for making her live.
Today, however, Shiho was glad she survived. Because her life was so much better now than that terrified teenage girl could have ever expected it to turn out. And that was mostly because of Ann.
Well, not entirely. Her parents were marvellously supportive, and she knew she could only walk again because of surgeons and the physical therapy team at the hospital. It wasn’t just Ann who helped her. But Ann was still the most important person in her life back then, her best friend and her crush and her rock in that horrifying time, and the literal reason Kamoshida confessed everything and ended up in prison, something she never dreamed would happen—
(Sometimes, Shiho still couldn’t believe the truth. That Ann and her friends had powers and when Shiho was in a coma, and they went into a… cognitive world (was that what Ann called it?) and changed his heart until he felt the urge to tell the world what awful things he did. It seemed ridiculous, like some stupid sci-fi story, but Ann had no reason to lie. Besides, when she woke up, she kept hearing about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts on the news. She just couldn’t believe Ann was one of them. Except she could, because she knew what Ann was like when she got angry. And an Ann reeling from Shiho stepping off the school roof and ending up comatose… yeah, Shiho could totally believe Ann would want to set things right. When Ann told her, there was the suggestion that Shiho could join. But Shiho couldn’t walk properly without ankle braces and got shooting nerve pain through her feet whenever she walked, and she suspected this wouldn’t go away in this Metaverse place—something unfortunately confirmed when Ann and her friends took Shiho to the subway’s weird counterpart. In another world, she would’ve loved to be a Phantom Thief. But in this world, it wasn’t to be.)
—and now, ten years later, Ann was still always there for her. Except now, Ann was her girlfriend. And Shiho was still so happy that her best friend, the girl who painted her nails when Shiho was laid up in an ugly hospital bed and cheered for Shiho as she relearned how to walk, had become the love of her life.
(Part of her had been terrified that Ann would never have wanted her now she knew what Kamoshida had done to her, that Ann wouldn’t want to kiss her after what that bastard had made her do with her mouth (sometimes, if she caught a whiff of the cologne Kamoshida wore to work that day on men who passed her in the street, Shiho was brought back to kneeling on the hard floor and sobbing as his hands reached for his waistband), but Ann shut down all those self-hating thoughts and told Shiho how much she loved her and kissed her gently and softly and wiped away Shiho’s tears.)
She honestly didn’t know what her life would be like today without Ann.
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One Sunday morning, Shiho woke up first, having not been plagued by nightmares last night (they were constant when she was sixteen; at twenty-six, she only got them a few times a month), and rolled over to find Ann still dozing next to her. She looked so cute in her sleep, her hair fanning all over the pillow and her hand flopped out on the bed as though reaching for Shiho in her sleep.
(Whenever she watched Ann sleep, Shiho wondered if she looked like this when she was in the coma. Probably not, considering she must have been covered in wires and tubes, but did she look peaceful? Or did she look dead? Did Ann watch the rise and fall of her chest as she clutched Shiho’s limp hand, desperate for any and all signs of life? She’d never asked Ann this, because it seemed pointless to dredge up the past. But it still came to mind whenever she saw Ann sleeping.)
When Ann woke up, she stared at Shiho with bleary eyes and smiled groggily. “Mornin’…” she mumbled through a yawn.
Shiho smiled too, covering Ann’s hand with her own and squeezing. “Morning. Did you sleep well?”
(When she stood on the school roof, ready to die, she never could have dreamed that in ten years time, she would get to experience something so gentle and loving and domestic.)
“Pretty good, yeah,” Ann said, sitting up and stretching her arms above her head. But then she flopped back down and gave Shiho a kiss (and Shiho didn’t even mind the morning breath). “How ‘bout you? Any bullshit?”
That was Ann’s code for ‘did you dream about that bastard?’ and hearing it phrased so casually always made Shiho chuckle. “I slept great, thanks. And none of that.”
Ann smiled. “Awesome.”
When it finally came to getting out of bed, Shiho swung her legs over the side and sat there with her feet dangling, waiting for what Ann always did—for her girlfriend to kneel on the floor and carefully help Shiho into her socks and ankle braces.
“You don’t have to,” Shiho said the first time they were in this position—perhaps seven years earlier. “I can do it myself.”
“It’s no problem,” Ann had said. “I’d just like to help. I-If you’d rather do if yourself, that’s—”
“It’s not that. I just… isn’t it kinda boring?”
“What d’you mean?”
Shiho shrugged, trying and failing to supress that self-deprecating part of her, the part that told her she was broken and unlovable and Ann could be better off without her. “You… you could be jetting all over the world doing photoshoots right now, but instead—”
“I’m looking after my girlfriend because I love her,” Ann said. “And I’ll do this every day for the rest of my life if you’ll let me.”
Shiho smiled, her eyes stinging, and nodded her head. And watched Ann get to work.
She used to feel so awkward about this, but now it came as naturally as breathing.
(She also used to struggle with Ann looking at her feet overall, because of the scars from the many surgeries on her feet and ankles. But now she didn’t care. Because Ann had gently traced those scars enough times to show Shiho that she loved everything about her. Shiho felt the same way about a scar on Ann’s upper arm obtained by falling off her bike when she was little, loving every detail of Ann’s body, even the ‘imperfections’.)
With her braces on, Shiho stood up, grimacing as pain tingled from her ankles to her toes as though her nerves were on fire. It used to make her cry, but now she was used to it. From the expression on Ann’s face as her girlfriend got to her feet, Ann hated that Shiho was used to such pain. But it was much better than it used to be—and when it got too much, she had painkillers.
“Thank you, Ann,” she said, giving Ann a kiss.
Ann smiled. “No problem.”
And Shiho smiled back and headed to the bathroom, getting ready for a comfortable, cozy weekend with her girlfriend, something that traumatised teenage girl couldn’t have ever dreamed of. But it was very real. And Shiho was so happy.