Work Text:
English class wasn't always the most interesting of subjects. It could be challenging at times, but the lessons could be often dry. A lot of focus was placed on grammar, spelling, and pronunciation, so Mafuyu noticed many of her classmates getting bored with it very easily. She didn't blame them, but then she couldn't hate any of her classes. They were simply teaching her things she had to learn and that was it. She never let her classmates copy her English homework mostly because she knew it would be obvious they had copied; she had a very distinct writing style according to her teacher and that was in some ways a good thing and in others a curse.
Her teacher this year, however, had decided that he wanted to make English more interesting for them. Group projects, cultural research, a little less reliance on textbooks, and a strict English-only speaking rule. (Several people got around that by passing notes.) Mafuyu didn't care much about the changes though her entire class seemed to love them. She'd even heard a girl saying that she would've paid more attention in every class if this teacher had been teaching it, and though she didn't share that sentiment, she was glad that her classmates were enjoying it. They bothered her a little less because of it, but that meant they were understanding the material.
No one could've really anticipated this next assignment, though.
"So," he began (in English, that was how everyone knew to pay attention because they usually understood half the words), "as part of the listening criteria, you're meant to listen to some English songs and do a lyrical analysis. However, I don't want to mark thirty papers that are all the same. I've provided you with a list of famous English pop singers as a starting point. Pick at least three songs that relate to someone in your life – this could be your best friend, your parents, or a romantic partner if you have one, and write at least five hundred words connecting that song to your chosen individual. I would prefer that these songs remain free from profanity, but a censored version of a song is fine. Any questions?"
Several people raised their hands, mostly to ask for clarification on something they'd misheard. One person asked if they could do the assignment for multiple people, which was given a no.
Mafuyu looked down at her paper. She could recognize some of the names, but others eluded her. Most of the music she listened to was Kanade's anyway, and the artists she did recognize were either insanely popular to the point that the entire school knew they existed, or Mizuki's older sister had seen them in concert in Paris, enjoyed going, and then told Mizuki about it, so of course that meant Nightcord had to know too. Laufey fell into that category. Mafuyu sort of liked her music, if that was what her inability to find any issues with it meant.
Who was this one direction group? Why were there girls whispering about them behind her?
They were allowed to use their personal laptops for this, so Mafuyu brought hers out of her schoolbag and looked the group up. They were a boy band, it seemed, and they hadn't made any music for several years. Mafuyu clicked on an album cover, scrolled through the titles, and found one that seemed interesting. I want to write you a song. A very Kanade-esque title. Maybe she could do her assignment on Kanade but simply list her as 'close friend'? This song could be a good starting point. She'd already decided that she was going to write an analysis of four or five different songs, and though this one might not end up being one of them, it would be good to stop deliberating.
It wasn't as warm as Kanade's songs, but it made her smile nonetheless. It was soft, she found, and it was the sort of tune Kanade would write a lullaby to. And though Mafuyu did not think she could build a boat by herself, the sentiments in the song were similar to her own regarding Kanade. She hated to see Kanade overwork herself, hated to see that look in her eyes that meant she hadn't been taking care of herself, hated to hear the strain in her voice when she said welcome home. Mafuyu received so much warmth from her; why should she not want to return it?
... okay, maybe the song fit. Maybe it fit a little too well. She created a playlist (her third one ever, the others were dedicated to 'vocal covers' and 'Kanade's songs') and added the song. It requested a title, so she wrote school project and left it at that.
Now all she needed was to find four more.
Mafuyu took another look at the list. She dismissed a few singers known for being popular despite valid criticisms of their work, then decided against including some of the ones she knew to be good because she'd listened to enough of their work to know that it wouldn't fit Kanade all that well. Then she reached the part of the list defined by older musicians and realized she'd actually have to do a decent amount of research. None of the names were familiar, except for maybe the Beatles and Queen, but she'd learned about those from Mizuki. So she began with the names she knew, looking through albums and crossing out songs about bicycles, walruses, submarines, and gardens planted by octopi.
Amidst all the music, she found one song that was short but whose title called to her. I want to hold your hand.
When did she not want to hold Kanade's hand? Even though Kanade usually had a lower body temperature and her hands could get quite cold, when they held hands, it was as if a fire spread through Mafuyu. Extremely warm, though she was never at any risk of getting burned. Kanade's hands were just that little bit smaller than hers, too, and she sometimes wondered how she'd never noticed that before. Holding Kanade's hand made her feel safe, made her feel loved, and there was no universe in which Mafuyu would want to give that up. The look on Kanade's face, the cute oh she'd mutter sometimes when Mafuyu would take her hand in her own, was priceless, too.
Fine. It was getting added to the playlist.
She listened to it as she continued to search, and she could almost imagine Kanade sitting next to her as she did so, humming a melody that Mafuyu had no choice but to listen to because her voice was so beautiful and it sometimes felt like she was denying herself the simplest of smiles when she didn't. Most of the time, Kanade would be humming something that had already been written, rarely her own work. If she was stuck on her current demo, though, she'd hum the melody over and over again until she hit a breakthrough.
Almost every artist she checked after that had nothing Mafuyu could link to Kanade all that well. Rick Astley was on the list for some strange reason, and she avoided looking him up like the plague because Mizuki thought they were funny and had sent Mafuyu the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up several times as a joke, and then when Mafuyu had memorized the link so she couldn't be fooled again, they pivoted to sending her the Miku version. After that, Mafuyu hadn't watched any video Mizuki had sent her unless they swore that it wasn't Rick Astley.
The last one on the list was Frank Sinatra. Mafuyu didn't expect anything to show up when she searched him up; after all, nothing else had struck a chord with her so far. She listened to a few of his songs while scanning his discography, and then a collaborative piece stuck out to her: I'll never smile again.
Interesting, yes, but did that pertain to Kanade?
Mafuyu let the melody fill her ears and paid close attention to the lyrics as she listened. She had an urge to tap her pencil against her desk in time with the beat sometimes and she needed to suppress it rather often when it came up.
'I'll never smile again until I smile at you.'
... Ah.
Well, perhaps listening to this song had been a good idea. She allowed it to finish, noting how the instrumental could be likened to a music box just in case she needed additional things to write about in her analysis. It did have a particularly romantic connotation, but that didn't matter because most of the lyrics related to how she felt about Kanade, and that was the most important part. Her classmates would surely tease her about it if they had to peer edit, but Mafuyu could cope with that. They hadn't ever met Kanade as far as she knew, so they wouldn't understand how close the two of them were nor how decidedly platonic their relationship was.
Mafuyu added it to the playlist. She still wanted to add two more, but this assignment wasn't due for another week, so she would have enough time to find them. Now, it would be a good idea to start her rough draft of her first three analyses. She took out a piece of paper, divided it into three sections, and wrote one of the song titles per section. Beginning with the first, she listed everything she could possibly link back to Kanade.
"Asahina-san, who's your playlist about?" Nemoto Fusako, one of the girls in the tea ceremony club if Mafuyu remembered correctly, had come over to her desk. "Ooh, is this- do you have a boyfriend?" she asked, eyes sparkling with the sort of glee Mafuyu associated with Mizuki and realizing that they could tease Ena about something. "What school does he go to?"
"My friend is enrolled in a program focused on remote learning," Mafuyu answered. "I'm not sure which school she attends."
"Maybe you should add Can't help falling in love by- Wait, friend?" She looked at Mafuyu with a very annoyed expression. "There's no way you said 'friend'."
"Kanade and I aren't dating," Mafuyu insisted. This interaction was starting to remind her of Mizuki even more. They also had a habit of believing that Mafuyu and Kanade were romantically involved, and they didn't always seem to appreciate being corrected. Maybe that had something to do with the money they may or may not have owed Ena. "We're very close friends."
"Uh-huh, close friends in the same way that Tenma-san from Class 2-B is close friends with her bandmates," Fusako said in the most sarcastic tone Mafuyu had heard from anyone save maybe Ena. "Was that sweater you wore the other day Kanade-san's?"
Mafuyu could feel her face beginning to burn, though it was a little unpleasant. "It was. We hang out quite a bit outside of school, and I accidentally brought it home with me."
"Norika-chan, back me up on this! If Asahina-san is dedicating a playlist to someone whose sweater she once wore to school, and the songs in the playlist are all love songs, wouldn't that mean that she's in love with them?" Fusako was now breaking the English-only conversation rule, though everyone was now so invested that it didn't really matter.
Norika, who Mafuyu had thought would back her up on things like this because she understood the importance of doing her own homework, came over, looked at Mafuyu's computer screen, looked at Mafuyu's face, and then said, "Yeah, that's really not a platonic thing to do. Is Kanade a girl?"
"... maybe." Mafuyu didn't know if anyone had heard, but then Norika repeated the word much louder.
Someone in the back of the room yelled, "I always knew Asahina-san seemed to be gay!" which set off a whole round of discussion about that exact topic.
"I was the one who told you I thought that, Yui!"
"Ah, but if Asahina-san likes Kanade-san, does that mean I can't ship her with Hinomori-san?"
"Which Hinomori were you shipping her with, Riona-chan?"
"Hinomori Shizuku!"
"Wouldn't Shiho-san have made more sense?"
"How would that have made any sense? They hardly speak! At least Shizuku-san is in a club with her and is friends with her!"
Mafuyu looked at Fusako. "Has everyone been betting on this?"
"We got a little bored that day when you were absent mysteriously," she chirped. "I believe Yui-chan turned in a creative writing assignment that was an entirely fictional account of your dynamic with Mochizuki-san with the only change being your names last week."
"I assume the entire school knows about this?" she asked. Objectively, this was embarrassing. Though it was weirdly warm.
"We did our best to keep it between everyone in the room. Though, if you've noticed Momoi-san being a little angry at you recently, that would be why."
Mafuyu remembered a strange message from Ena asking if she had ever had any romantic interest in Shizuku 'for a friend' and connected the dots back to Airi. "We have a mutual friend, so I think she understands that I'm not interested in Hinomori-san romantically."
"Riona-chan, bad news for your fanfiction!" Fusako yelled over the chatter.
"It's not bad news! Kanade-san is very lucky!" Riona yelled back.
Their teacher came up to Mafuyu's desk and said, in a tone that suggested he was doing his best not to laugh, "Just so you know, Asahina-san, I do support you if you are indeed gay."
Fusako stole Kazumi's chair from her desk and sat down next to Mafuyu. "I do believe you about Kanade-san. But... have you ever considered liking her? Kissing her, even? Because that's not something people who are just friends would think about each other."
"I think it would be nice to kiss her," Mafuyu said.
Fusako stood up, climbed on top of the chair and said, "Everyone who thought Asahina-san was lying about the person she's closest to not being a boy is wrong!"
"Wait, not everyone was on board with this?" Mafuyu asked, but Fusako was grinning like she'd just won the lottery.
"Some people thought you were straight, Asahina-san," Yui piped up from two desks to the side. "I knew they were wrong. Even if you didn't know you liked Kanade-san up until now! What's she like? Is she in our grade? Have you ever slept over at her house?"
"Stop writing fanfiction, Yui," Fusako muttered as she sat back down on the chair. "Asahina-san, don't answer her if it's too personal."
Mafuyu shrugged. "She's in our grade, but she's pretty short, and her hair goes down to her knees. She's quiet and doesn't leave the house much. She's in our grade age-wise, but academically I believe she's in second year. And yes, we've had sleepovers, and no, nothing has happened at those sleepovers, even if we did share the bed a few times." Yui did not need to know that Mafuyu slept at Kanade's house every night and had been doing so for a month now; nor did she need to know that before she'd attempted to move back to her parents' house, she'd been at Kanade's for about five months.
Yui squealed. "Have you ever kissed her?"
"No. Well, I did kiss her hand once, but that wasn't in a romantic context."
"Yeah, right," Fusako muttered. She was sitting cross-legged on the chair now.
"I had only been dancing with her for about an hour!" Mafuyu protested.
The entire class went silent and stared at her. Kazumi, who was now sitting on top of her desk, cleared her throat. "Asahina-san, forgive me if this seems rather out of place, but dancing with someone for an hour outside of a class context isn't something 'just friends' do." She leaned over and glanced at Mafuyu's playlist. "Next thing we know there'll be some girl in red on there..."
"Who's girl in red?" she asked.
The staring continued.
Riona came over to Mafuyu's desk and typed the name into her laptop, selected a song about falling in love with girls, and let it play through the room. As it did, Mafuyu looked through the rest of her discography and found other songs about depression and being unable to sleep and decided that she really should listen to it all. The titles sort of reminded her of Kanade's music even if the lyrics didn't really fit.
She stole my heart and ran away...
Then, the bell rang, and unfortunately it was lunchtime and not time for their next class, so Mafuyu had little to no way of escaping her classmates' interest in her thus far non-existent love life. She'd forgotten to pack a lunch this morning because Kanade had had a nightmare at five in the morning and asked if they could share the bed for a few hours and Mafuyu had said yes. Kanade had been shaking, almost paralyzed from her fear and Mafuyu knew what it was to search for warmth in a frozen world so she had let Kanade in, had let her curl up in her arms and rest her head on her shoulder and had not complained when she'd nearly been late for school because Kanade woke up at seven-fifty.
She went down with Fusako and Yui to the school store and bought herself a meal that appeared to be edible, then prepared herself to face even more questions at the hands of girls who she'd really needed to get to know better before all of this happened. She knew their names, their faces, but not their appetite to learn more about her and perhaps that was why she was in this situation now. They were all close to each other; she excelled in her studies but rarely spoke to any of her classmates outside of learning hours. She wasn't even in their shared group chat, though given the whole betting-on-her-sexuality thing, she wasn't sure she wanted to be.
"So, Asahina-san," Norika began as she sat down, "can we see a picture of Kanade-san?"
Mafuyu glared at her for a second. "Will anyone let me off the hook?"
No one spoke up.
"I'll have to find a good one," she said, opening her laptop and clicking on Nightcord. She sent a message to Ena and Mizuki asking if either of them had pictures of Kanade, and Mizuki immediately responded with a picture Mafuyu had never seen before of Kanade. In it, she was taking a picture of herself in the mirror. She wore a fancy cardigan over a blouse, and the caption read, how do I look? not even sure if I want to go out, this is going to suck
What on earth? Well, Kanade did look striking in that outfit, and Mafuyu's mind conjured up an image of herself in a similarly nice one standing next to her, which in a sudden but probably foreseeable shutdown of her higher neurological processes for about ten seconds. But- Kanade was dressing up for something she didn't even want to go to? That made no sense. Kanade rarely left the house as it was, though... Mafuyu hadn't always lived with Kanade, and her mother had-
Kanade was dressed up for her mother in that picture. Trying to make a good impression though she was fighting an uphill battle that she had lost. (Ena would have added that Kanade had 'won the war', though Mafuyu didn't know what war Kanade could possibly fight in given her lack of exercise.)
"Well," Yui began, "she's definitely cute. This picture is doing things to you, Asahina-san."
The rest of the pictures were mostly of Kanade at the cafe, usually wearing her usual sweats or another casual outfit. Mafuyu had seen her in those outfits before, though, so they didn't surprise her.
Her entire class crowded around the screen. Someone said that Kanade looked like she needed to leave the house more often; another said that hikikomori were cute, but the main sentiment she could hear was that she and Kanade were lucky. To have each other, to love each other, and to hold each other close.
Funnily enough, the more they teased her, the more Riona insisted there would be a wedding regardless of whether it was legal and everyone in the room would be there, the more she felt as if they weren't wrong about Kanade after all. That they'd been right to suspect that she liked- no, loved Kanade, with every ounce of her soul she could muster, and that it was in some ways fate (or choice or circumstance or desperation) that had tied them together and there was nothing Mafuyu wanted to do to change that. She was connected to Kanade. In a non-platonic sense. And all it had taken for her to realize that was a stupid English assignment.
"Asahina-san," Norika piped up, "how's your playlist? I have a few suggestions," she said with the most devious grin on her face, and Mafuyu responded with the same expression. "Oh, excellent. Have you ever heard of Hozier?"
Forty minutes, six songs, two artists, and ten different side conversations later, Mafuyu had two new songs to add to the list. And that was all. She wasn't going to subject herself to any more, she decided. Five was plenty enough to keep her occupied trying to write down how much she loved Kanade in song. That, and if she added any more, she'd only get teased more. It made her feel warm, but after so long it could get annoying. One could only be subjected to the phrase 'I always knew you seemed like you were a lesbian' so many times before the very concept became irritating.
She was in the class Nightcord server, too, which everyone had insisted on, saying that it would be really nice to have her in it and they wouldn't bother her too much for the answers to the homework. (Somehow, she doubted that, but maybe being bothered wouldn't be so awful.)
Though she seemed to not have access to one of the channels that everyone else did, which made her suspect that that was the one where the speculating over her sexuality was. Really this sort of thing wasn't appropriate given that they were high schoolers, and her mother would be furious if she learned about it, but...
Mafuyu didn't care. In fact the whole situation had made her closer to her classmates, and they seemed to not care that her mask had cracked, so all was well.
'Work song' and 'I will'. One by the artist Norika had been raving about and one by Mitski, who Mafuyu had been introduced to by Yui. She already had plans to listen to more of both their discographies later, even if it was just because her classmates had made her call Mizuki in the middle of their conversation to get an opinion and they had recommended Mafuyu listen to a song called Your best American girl though none of them were American.
Both songs fit Kanade, fit her relationship with Kanade, and Mafuyu could listen to them forever, she thought. Especially if Kanade was singing them. What would she turn the lyrics into? Kanade had always been a little self-conscious about singing, saying her voice wasn't as strong, and in the beginning when they had first sung covers as a group, that had been true, but now her voice was blossoming into honey. So sweet Mafuyu thought she would die from the sugar alone and when she hit the low notes, it was as if an angel had come down from Heaven. Whenever Kanade finished one take, she'd ask if there was anything to improve, or she'd mention a section where she felt she needed to practice a little more and ask for Mafuyu's advice, and eventually she'd be able to respond but her first instinct was always to say Kanade, you sounded perfect. Usually she was just a little off-pitch, too, so subtle that only a professional would have known.
Kanade's voice was the sweetest addiction and Mafuyu thought she could never quit.
... where was she?
Oh. Right. Science class.
She really needed to focus on her notes.
"Welcome home," Kanade said as Mafuyu walked through the door. "How was school?" She was reading a book on the couch, which felt like very out-of-character behaviour. Mafuyu took off her shoes, hung her bag on the back of one of the chairs at the table, and came to sit down next to her. "My screen was giving me a headache," Kanade mumbled.
"If you opened the curtains in your room, that wouldn't happen as much," Mafuyu pointed out. "School was fine. Though my class did interrogate me during our English class. Speaking of which, I have five different reflections I need to write this week."
Kanade winced, either in sympathy or from her headache. "Your classmates interrogated you?" She bookmarked the page she was on and set the book on the coffee table. "About what?"
"Our assignment was to select a person, pick songs in English, and analyse and reflect on how the songs connect to that person. I chose you, Kanade, and apparently the songs I picked were 'too romantic' for them."
She blushed. "Ah."
Mafuyu glanced at her phone for a second before looking back at Kanade. "I could show them to you. Personally, I don't feel they were overly romantic, but-"
Kanade put up a hand. "I'd like to listen to them." Mafuyu noted the slightly pained look in her eyes and decided it would be best if she lowered her volume a little bit; Kanade's headaches were usually made worse by noise. Especially cars.
She pulled up the playlist on her phone and set the output to the lowest volume possible. Kanade wasn't the greatest with English, but she was much better than Ena, and that would probably help her quite a bit. After the first song, she turned the volume up by one. Mafuyu wondered sometimes why her mind thought it was okay to allow Kanade to touch her phone, to take it, even; she trusted Kanade with it and yet if Mizuki took it to look at a picture, she tensed up just a little until they returned it.
By the third song, Kanade's head was resting on Mafuyu's shoulder, and one of her hands was also tangled with Mafuyu's. They'd gotten used to this sort of physical contact recently, so much so that Mafuyu found herself wondering why they'd never done much of it before. It was normal now for her arms to linger on Kanade's shoulders when trying to get her to eat something for lunch or dinner, and whenever they walked to the grocery store, their hands found each other like there was no other place they fit.
Mafuyu wrapped her arm around Kanade's shoulders and resisted a sudden urge to kiss her on the top of her head. She could hear Kanade humming along with the songs despite her likely not having listened to any of them before, and she wanted to join in, but she didn't know if that would aggravate Kanade's headache.
This was warm. So warm, Mafuyu didn't know if the correct adjective existed to describe the amount of warmth she was currently experiencing.
It was beautiful. It was nothing yet it was everything. The world would surely look down on her depiction of it as perfect yet there were no words to describe this.
The playlist finished, and Kanade paused the advertisment that tried to insert itself into their moment. She set Mafuyu's phone on the coffee table next to her book and leaned back into her arms. "I liked those songs," she said. "Maybe I should try composing something similar?"
If she did, Mafuyu would likely die from warmth. "Maybe," she repeated. "I've never written lyrics of the sort."
"I don't think it'd be too hard for you," Kanade mumbled. She moved a little closer, her free hand taking Mafuyu's.
"Did you sleep last night?" Mafuyu asked. She knew Kanade had been working when she'd left, but she'd also slept four hours without making sure that Kanade had also gone to bed.
"... no," Kanade admitted. "I made a breakthrough with the harmony."
"Dinner can wait a bit. You should rest." Mafuyu stood up, helping Kanade get to her feet. "Take my bed. It's better if you're not with all the screens."
Kanade yawned. Mafuyu guided her to her own room. Kanade lay down on the bed and Mafuyu pulled the blankets up over her. She was about to leave to begin cutting vegetables for dinner when she heard Kanade speaking to her. "Can you stay?"
Food prep could wait. Mafuyu closed the door and lay down next to Kanade. The bed wasn't really made for two people to sleep in it comfortably, but they made it work; Kanade was basically on top of her, but Mafuyu had long since lost the ability to truly sense weight, and it didn't bother her.
Kanade fell asleep as Mafuyu tried to sing the lyrics to the songs she'd just discovered, and Mafuyu decided that this was better than simply holding her as they listened to music or watched a movie together. In fact, if she could sleep like this every night, she thought she'd never have nightmares ever again.
.... damnit, her classmates really had been right about her, hadn't they?
She really was in love with Kanade. Who had given so, so much for her, and who deserved much more than Mafuyu would ever be able to return. Who always seemed to be there for her though she was in so much pain, and who pushed herself too far because she had a duty and it mattered to her more than anything else, more than sleep, more than food, more than her own life.
Kanade, who was sleeping now, still clinging to Mafuyu's hand even in dreams. A part of her likely thought that this was a waste of time, that rest was useless as it saved no one, and Mafuyu would one day manage to show her that such a declaration was simply wrong, that she deserved the whole world and everything in it and that that included naps.
Mafuyu tucked Kanade's hair behind her ears and allowed herself to kiss the top of her head. She needed to do her homework, she needed to make dinner, she needed to study for next week's Classical Japanese test, but she didn't want to do any of those things while Kanade was catching up on some much-needed rest.
So she sent a text to her father saying they'd need to postpone their weekly meeting to tomorrow, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to sleep as well.
Her dreams were surprisingly pleasant; she spent them laughing and smiling like the world was about to end with Mizuki, Ena, and Kanade, and it all felt so warm that she wished it was reality, running down a beach chasing a runaway volleyball in sandals a size too big as Mizuki cheered her on from fifty meters behind, Ena scolded them for yelling in public, and Kanade, who'd just gotten out of the water, asked what was happening.
A perfect dream indeed.