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“This is shit.” Ena proclaimed.
She stared down at her wrist, wrapped in a brace, and then back up at Mizuki, who was busy cutting Ena’s dinner up.
Because she’d somehow managed to sprain the wrist connecting to her dominant hand.
Mizuki giggled slightly, but Ena didn’t miss the slight look of sympathy her girlfriend shot her way. In lieu of replying, she handed the artist a fork, before stepping away from the table and taking her own seat across from the brunette. Ena thanked her quietly, before attempting to stab her pancakes with the cutlery she was wielding in her left hand.
It didn’t work.
Ena scoffed, fumbling about with the fork for a couple seconds more before tossing it onto her plate. It clattered loudly against the ceramic, before bouncing off onto the table. Ena watched as it spun slightly, before eventually stilling in front of her. Mizuki, who had jolted slightly at her girlfriend’s sudden display of frustration, leaned across the table and retrieved the discarded silverware.
The artist waited in suspense, anxiously anticipating a scold that never came. Instead, she heard the scrape of Mizuki’s chair against the hardwood floor, before the sound of cutlery clattering into the sink followed. Curiously, Ena looked up across the kitchen, eyes peering through her fringe at her girlfriend, who was returning to the table empty handed.
“Use your fingers, Ena.” Mizuki spoke, gripping the edge of the table to pull her chair forward, “I will too. I bet loads of people eat pancakes this way anyway.” She declared, pinching a carefully cut square of pancake between her thumb and index finger before popping it in her mouth. When she realised her girlfriend still hadn’t moved, she stopped, raising an eyebrow and motioning at the full plate.
The artist huffed, her fringe rustling at the sudden shock of air. Whilst the fact that Mizuki had sacrificed her own cutlery had secretly warmed Ena’s heart, she’d still much rather be eating her dinner with a fork. Preferably fully mobile.
Hesitantly, Ena reached forward with her left hand, pinching a piece of pancake between her fingers. Butter crawled down her index finger as she did so, leaving a tear-track of grease along her hand. She shivered, slightly regretting the fact she’d allowed Mizuki to pile so much butter on, before placing the food onto her tongue.
It was good.
The fluffy pancake melted in her mouth, and she could taste the ever-so-slightly salty tang that the butter was responsible for. Mizuki had mixed chocolate chips into the batter too, and one was currently in the process of dissolving on her tongue.
It was almost enough for her to crack a smile. Almost.
She reached for another piece, deciding she was still in much too foul a mood to offer Mizuki any praise for her cooking, before popping that one in her mouth too and frowning as she felt another drop of butter slide down her finger. She sighed, looking up at her girlfriend who was watching her with the most infuriating smirk she’d ever seen plastered onto her face.
“I need a tissue.” She demanded, waving her greasy hand in front of Mizuki’s face. Mizuki rolled her eyes, although she was giggling as she did so, before traipsing over to the counter and ripping off a couple squares of kitchen roll. Eagerly, Ena’s mobile arm reached out, attempting to grasp the tissue dangling in front of her.
“Nuh uh, what’s the magic word?” Mizuki cooed, holding the kitchen roll just out of reach. Ena resisted the urge to flip the table over, instead opting to leap at her girlfriend and pry the tissue from her grasp. Immediately, she wiped her hand, hastily removing every smear of butter still haunting her skin. Mizuki laughed, dropping down onto her chair before speaking, mouth full.
“You’re such a princess, Enanan. I can’t believe you can’t wait until you’ve finished to wipe your hands.” She mocked. Ena practically growled, leaning forwards as she retorted.
“Well, usually I eat all my meals with cutlery, so I’m not used to having greasy hands. You, however, practically dive into your fries with your hands whenever we go out to eat, no wonder you’ve built up a tolerance. And don’t talk with your mouth full. I don’t want to see your half chewed pancake pieces when I'm eating my own.” She rambled, before eagerly reaching for her next helping. Mizuki only giggled, winking at Ena before they returned to eating in silence.
Ena eventually did complement Mizuki’s cooking, even if it took the animator half an hour of begging for her to open up.
~
All in all, dinner had significantly improved Ena’s mood, and she’d been able to forget about her sprained wrist for a good couple hours afterwards - Mizuki had wasted no time in dragging her to the couch to watch some new magical girl anime she’d heard about.
The next issue was imminent, however, and came at the start of Ena’s nighttime routine.
Tying her hair.
Usually, this wasn’t something she often thought about. Sure, sometimes she’d have to rummage through all her drawers to find a bobble (and if that proved futile, Mizuki’s drawers were sure to find themselves ransacked too) but she’d never had to actually think about the mere action of twisting her hair into a ponytail. She’d been doing it since she was five, for goodness sake. Tying her hair came as naturally as breathing.
Apparently though, Ena had never tried pulling her hair up into a ponytail one handed.
And it was just as difficult as it sounded.
She’d tried every technique she could think of, even snapping an innocent bobble in the process, but nothing had worked. Ena sighed in defeat as she lowered her arm after her fifth try, strands of hair hanging limp around her face as she looked down. An unwelcome pool of tears began to fill her eyes, as her lip began to quiver, and Ena immediately blinked them back and wedged her teeth into her bottom lip.
She was not going to cry because she couldn’t tie her hair.
At that moment, Mizuki pushed open the bedroom door and stepped in, a fluffy, pink headband holding her rosy locks in place as she entered. There was a slightly glossy sheen over her skin, causing it to sparkle as she turned and caught the dim slivers of light radiating from the bedroom lamp. Her face was noticeably devoid of makeup (yet still as undeniably ethereal as ever) which brought Ena to an incredibly frustrating realisation.
In the time it had taken for Ena to attempt to tie her hair up, Mizuki had basically completed her whole nighttime routine.
She wanted to scream.
Across the room, the animator had obviously sensed the thick tension lingering in the air, and opened her mouth to implore. However, she immediately stopped when her eyes landed on the bobble cradled in Ena’s left hand, and then the loose, slightly messy strands of hair framing her face. The issue was clear as day.
Ena couldn’t figure out how to tie her hair up.
And she was undoubtedly quite upset about it.
Immediately, Mizuki crossed the room, coming to a halt in front of her girlfriend. From closer up, she could see the unnatural shine in her girlfriend’s eyes, and the tiny, scarlet beads of blood pooling on her lip where her teeth pressed too hard. A wave of sympathy overcame her, but she didn’t make it known. Ena hated being pitied.
Instead, she pried the fluffy, distinctly Mizuki-coloured headband away from her forehead and placed it in Ena’s left hand.
“Use this. I’m done with it anyways. And it’ll make you look super duper cute!” Mizuki exclaimed, gently taking the bobble from Ena’s hand as she did so. Ena nodded slowly, clearly not trusting her voice, before pulling the headband over her own head with minimal struggle.
“Enanan’s almost as cute as I am!” The animator exclaimed as she caught sight of Ena peering at herself in the mirror of the dressing table. The artist huffed, turning to her girlfriend with a small, amused smile on her face and finally speaking.
“Sure. I’m the cutest and you know it.” She responded. Her voice was smaller than usual, devoid of its usual confident flair, but she didn’t sound on the verge of tears like she had been a couple minutes before, so Mizuki silently declared it a win.
With that, Ena shuffled out of the room, and Mizuki heard the distinct click of the bathroom door as her girlfriend began her nighttime routine.
It didn’t take long for the animator to notice the snapped bobble discarded on the floor next to the bed. Or the fact that she’d been gone thirty minutes and Ena hadn’t even managed to tie her hair up.
“Silly Enanan.” She whispered, dropping the bobble into the plastic bin under Ena’s desk. “You could’ve just asked me for help.”
~
Ena’s final straw came not long after she’d clambered into bed.
She’d managed to struggle her way through her skincare routine. Mizuki, like the absolute angel she was (not that Ena would ever admit it), had made sure to unscrew all the lids of the products she knew Ena used every night, which made her evening a whole lot easier and much less rage-filled. It had been hard to squeeze the product out onto her better hand, but she’d figured out her fingers still had some mobility, so her solution came in the form of setting the bottles at the edge of the countertop and pressing with her bad hand. She’d dropped a tube here and there, and accidentally applied too much pressure at one point, sending a stream of moisturiser flying across the bathroom, but other than that her skincare escapade had gone smoothly.
She’d breathed a sigh of relief when she walked into the bedroom. Finally, her day of torture was over. She could climb into bed beside her girlfriend and forget about her stupid sprain until tomorrow.
Except, Ena’s night wasn’t going exactly to plan.
Ena had heard before that with minor sprains, a brace was usually fine to take off during the night. However, her ridiculously atrocious luck had played its hand when she’d injured herself, and it turned out her sprain was quite severe, so her doctor had told her to wear the brace to bed.
She hadn’t even thought twice about it at the time, being much more concerned with the fact she wouldn’t be able to draw for a few weeks (Mizuki had spent hours calming her down after that realisation came to a head; she’d mostly been trying not to think about it ever since) so it hadn’t really seemed that important to her.
However, her inability to get comfortable begged to differ.
Ena was sure she was keeping Mizuki awake with all the tossing and turning she was doing, but she couldn’t help it. Every time she turned and settled into a new position, her stupid, bulky brace got in the way and prevented her from truly relaxing. She could feel hot, angry tears swarming her eyes as she struggled; a violent, dangerous pool of frustration bubbling in her gut. She’d barely been able to do anything today. All she wanted was sleep. And still, her stupid, useless wrist was preventing even that.
Embarrassment washed over the artist as she realised the tears that had been gathering in her eyes had finally spilled over, and she sat up in bed, back against the headboard, as she finally gave up on sleep.
Beside her, Mizuki stirred, her body instantly reacting to the slight loss of warmth. Ena watched as she turned groggily, eyes fluttering under the warm glow of the fairy lights strung around the room. They widened a little as they locked onto Ena’s trembling form, and the artist could almost catch a glimpse of her girlfriend’s rosy irises through her tears. Mizuki rolled over, bringing herself up on her elbows as she swiped away the sleep in her eyes.
“Ena?” She mumbled, voice husky with sleep in a way that tugged at the artist’s heartstrings, “What’s wrong?”
Ena shook her head, slyly wiping away her stubborn tears as she spoke,
“N-nothing. G-go back to sleep, ‘Zuki.” She muttered, attempting to keep her voice as steady as possible. She couldn’t help but give in to the guilt crawling into her chest at the fact she’d woken Mizuki up. The girl who had spent the whole day pandering to Ena’s needs. The girl who had literally done double the work all day. The girl who was probably just as, if not more, exhausted as the artist herself.
Mizuki didn’t budge though, Ena could tell she was skeptical.
“Okay. If it’s ‘nothing’ then why are you crying?” She asked, eyes tracing the shimmering tear tracks printed on Ena’s cheeks. The artist sighed, sagging immediately and closing her eyes in a futile attempt to stop more tears from escaping them.
She heard the slight rustle of fabric, before feeling the warmth of her girlfriend hovering next to her. Soon after, two warm hands found their way to Ena’s cheeks, thumbs gently wiping away the moisture gliding down the artist’s face.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Ena.”
The artist had always been weak to the animator’s words.
So she did.
It was messy. Tears flowed from Ena’s eyes just as easily as sobs did from her mouth, a whole day’s worth of pent up frustration bubbling to the surface at once. Mizuki leaned in, close enough to comfort but never overwhelm, and pressed her hands against Ena’s shoulders.
“It’s too much!” Ena sobbed, both mortified and relieved by her sudden outburst, “I c-can’t do anything! I can’t c-cut my food or tie my h-hair or even s-sleep and it’s too much! I c-can’t draw so I’ll be h-holding you all back for literal fucking w-weeks and I h-hate it! I’m so f-fucking useless and I’m s-so tired a-and I just want to sleep!”
For a moment, the room was silent, deafeningly so, and regret pooled in Ena’s stomach. What if Mizuki thought she was shouting at her? She’d spent a whole day coddling her girlfriend, and this was how Ena chose to repay her? She tried desperately to form a coherent sentence, to let Mizuki know that she wasn’t mad at her, that she really, really appreciated her help, but the words wouldn’t come out.
And then all of a sudden she was in Mizuki’s arms. And Mizuki’s breath was in her ear, telling her to “Shhh.” And for the first time that night, her brace wasn’t the first thing on her mind.
She settled into her girlfriend’s arms, breath still erratic but slowly returning to normal with every rise of Mizuki’s chest against her ear. She could feel Mizuki’s chin resting on her head, her fingers absentmindedly twirling locks of the artist’s hair. She could smell the remnants of Mizuki’s perfume and the tangy, sweet scent of her moisturiser. But most importantly, she could hear the words being muttered into the cosy bedroom air.
“You are not useless, Ena. You’re human. These things happen. And I can promise you neither Kanade, Mafuyu nor I would ever judge you or be mad at you for something out of your control. You don’t need to struggle by yourself, Ena. I don’t pity you, I care about you, so you don’t need to feel bad about asking me for things that I can so easily do. I love you, Ena. Working wrist or not. You’re still you.”
A small, undignified squeak made its way out of the artist’s mouth before she could stop it, followed by a fresh wave of tears. She buried her face further into her girlfriend’s chest, inhaling the familiar scent of her fabric softener as she cried against her. Mizuki’s hand carded through her hair, and she felt a soft pair of lips planting themselves firmly on her scalp.
Eventually, her eyes began to droop, heavy with exhaustion and emotion. The fingers of her left hand subconsciously curled towards each other, trapping the soft, velvet material of Mizuki’s pyjamas in her grasp. Her breathing began to even out, short gasps becoming relaxed puffs of air against Mizuki’s chest.
Above her, Mizuki shifted, slowly moving herself and her girlfriend down to rest against the pillows. Tentatively, she reached down beside her, pulling the duvet up to Ena’s shoulders in order to protect them both from the slight chill of the night air. Ena melted into the warmth, completely relaxing against her girlfriend as the blanket fell over her.
Mizuki caught a glimpse of Ena’s brace through lidded eyes as she settled down to sleep herself. She knew tomorrow would likely bring the same challenges; it would be a while before Ena got used to the uncomfortable fabric wrapped around her wrist, but she’d adapt, Mizuki was sure of it. No matter how many emotional nights it took, she’d be there every step of the way.
“I love you, Ena.” She whispered, index finger tracing patterns on the brace.
Subconsciously, Ena smiled.