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Kaguya's first day back with a body was about as draining as expected. She bounced off the walls with a renewed conviction that hadn't been seen of her since the time she had first tried a pancake.
Their time is spent, ultimately and predictably, together, running around, holding hands in something that they don't yet bother to define. For now, the simple fact of presence is exciting enough to satisfy the both of them.
Unfortunately, for a woman who has waited eight thousand years to reunite with her best friend (and, frankly, probably her something else too), one day just isn't nearly as much as you want it to be. So, eventually, the day becomes night, and the sky taunts them with the home Kaguya so happily left behind, a moon full and bright sat proudly just above the skyline.
“I don't think I can spend another second away from you!” Kaguya had whined at the mention of settling down for bed. “Won't you please, please, please sleep with me tonight?”
Truthfully, that was the assumed arrangement, but Iroha still made a show of denying such just to see the girl beg and pout until she gave in.
Her bedroom is about as painfully abysmal a sight as it was when Kaguya last saw it; true mad scientist duties are seldom fulfilled on a full eight hours of sleep. There is hardly any decoration, unless the heart attack-inducing amount of energy drinks still lining her desk like trophies count as aesthetically pleasing. The single, lonely futon hasn't changed place, but time has had its way with its eggshell white surface. It puffs just a little less and there are some mystery stains hiding under the clean sheets from when Iroha would haphazardly toss empty instant noodle containers there.
No matter, though. At least Kaguya doesn't seem to mind. In fact, as soon as Iroha lays down on her side, Kaguya is wiggling into her hold and then out cold in a matter of minutes.
The same woman who, mere hours ago, was so eagerly rediscovering a world she hadn't felt in centuries is now curled so sweetly in Iroha's arms. Her breaths are steady and warm, her head tucked between pillow and chest, so, so unbearably close. That much Iroha has herself to curse for; she made sure this model was as close to human as possible, after all, simulated bodily functions included. She just didn't expect her to look this tantalizing even in sleep.
Maybe it's the years and years of yearning talking, but it feels like a part of her has clicked back into place. Where once there was a phantom, now exists real, tangible proof of Kaguya, of her life and her love and everything else that came crashing down with it in a bamboo shoot all that time ago.
“Kaguya,” she whispers, more like a prayer than a calling. “I don't think I can spend another second away from you either. And I'm sorry I never said it back when you were still here. While we were both still young and you looked at me like I hung the stars around you.”
She feels tears fall. Kaguya doesn't so much as stir.
“I love you, Kaguya. More than I will ever be brave enough to tell you.”
For the first time in a while, Iroha cries. She's not sure if she cries of joy or regret or some other emotion muddled in with the rest. She just feels and that seems to be enough.
In all her haze, she doesn't realize how tight she's been squeezing Kaguya until the girl blinks awake with a small, confused sound. Her eyes adjust to the moonlight beaming at them through the window, and she smiles softly when their eyes meet.
“Hi,” is all Kaguya says, brushing a hand across Iroha's cheeks, collecting the tears there with a knuckle.
On some kind of instinct, Iroha pushes herself forward, as close as she can get until the hollow, off-putting metal clang of Kaguya's mechanized interior rings in her ears. Even with their foreheads pressed together, she longs to be closer, closer, closer.
“You—” Iroha starts, not without her voice breaking. “You won't go again, will you?”
Kaguya takes her hand and brings it to her chest, holding it just above where her heart should be beating. There is no pulse. It is cold. It is artificial. But it is physical. It is real.
“Wahh. I just got here! They'll have to pry me away this time around, I swear!” Her speech is slurred, disoriented still by sleep.
Iroha laughs, but it's empty. She tenses at the sound of “this time around,” at the idea of something threatening their union. Kaguya rubs her hand with a thumb, soothing her.
“Really. I'm here to stay, Iroha. And I'm yours. As long as the sun shines upon the moon.”
As she talks, her words slowly become nasally, and when Iroha blinks the tears from her own eyes, she sees more fall down Kaguya’s cheeks.
“...You totally took that line from one of the animes where the guy dies in the end.”
Just like that, Kaguya is fully awake. She shoots up on the futon, rubbing at her puffy eyes, face glowing red. “Wh—You know what? I am a Moon Princess! That's my thing, anyway, not theirs!”
“Nuh-uh, none of this,” Iroha grumbles, still sniffling, tugging the other girl back down by the sleeve. “It is 2 AM. Back to sleep.”
“Hmph! Fine. But you provoked me.”
Kaguya’s cheeks puff, and her lips pucker in childish defeat. Iroha isn’t at all apologetic about the way she breaks out in laughter at the sight. She expects some kind of pushback from the other girl, but then she's laughing too.
At that moment, Iroha recognizes just how much she'd longed to hear that sound again, clear as day, smooth as silk. For once, she understands—really understands—why Kaguya's feat of weathering thousands of years of solitude could be in any sense worth the trouble.
Because in front of her is her own girl worth waiting for.
Not just that, even. Kaguya is worth every fight. Every night spent staring at a full moon from her laboratory, wondering if science really was the answer to a question posed by magic. Every day spent sleepless, tirelessly working towards something she couldn’t be sure she could ever reach. All the time, money, effort spent on a girl who grabbed Iroha’s life by the horns and had it tamed, complacent in a span of months.
Now that she’s here, laughing with her, breathing her same air (more or less), Iroha is sure that she’d live it all over again too, just to come back to her.
And, by the look of it, Kaguya looks to be thinking something similar.
She’s always looked at Iroha like this. The fondness remains but with it comes a note of something new. Perhaps age has taken her eyes and matured them like a fine wine. A love which does not fade by time, but simply changes taste.
”I don’t remember you staring so much when we were kids,” Kaguya remarks earnestly.
”You haven’t seen me like this in eight thousand years and now all you want to do is jab at me,” Iroha sighs, turning to face away from Kaguya. “You know, if you really don’t want me looking, I can go sleep somewhere else—“
”Nooooo! I’ll miss you forever and ever and ever!”
She hears scrambling from behind and then Kaguya is pressed against her back, wrapping her arms and legs around the whole of her body like a baby koala. The embrace is one of jest, but Iroha melts so easily into her grasp, it's almost embarrassing.
She doesn't argue anymore. She doesn't even speak. She just guides Kaguya's hands beneath her sleep shirt and places them there, against her stomach. She savors the weight of another person behind her, around her, a warmth that is not literal but is felt anyway.
They don't say love. Not tonight. Calm as the air is, it is fragile. One wrong word—one that is too heavy—will shatter the twilight haze like glass. So, sleep takes them without much of a struggle. The two go easy, lulled asleep by the promise of a beautiful dawn.