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The thing about trying to escape from your demons instead of defeating them is that whether you like it or not, they sometimes catch up to you.
It's not something Chisato's proud of. But on some days it's just a little harder to get out of bed than on others, is all. She always ends up dragging herself out and she thinks she hides it well but Takina pays a little too much attention to her, lately. Chisato thinks it's because she's still scared that one day the new heart will give out on her. Which, it eventually will but she probably has a few years before that, is all.
She never wanted her to know about it—about any of her problems. But Takina's attentive and she cares so much and on some mornings she comes into her room and brings her breakfast and braids her hair and it's always those mornings, like she can sense beforehand that Chisato's going to have one of those days.
But Chisato pays attention too. On Takina's bad days she gets restless, more irritable and she puts in extra effort to keep everything in control, giving out orders left and right. Usually, Chisato would hold onto her hand and drag her towards the sea when it got real bad and it helps. Whether they'd swim or run around, splashing water at each other or just stare at the water, Takina would end up with her head on Chisato's shoulder, breathing out, finally.
It really was just a matter of time until they had their bad days coincided.
The good thing about Takina's bad days being like the exact opposite of Chisato's bad days is that she apparently prepares for it. And well, Chisato sort of hates what she has planned but it's hard to say no to Takina when she gets like this so, to the mountains they go.
She'd honestly much rather spend the day in bed and play video games or something but Takina would probably go crazy if she had to do that. And Chisato would feel bad about making her feel worse when she's already struggling so she doesn't voice this and instead lets her pack everything they could need into two backpacks and choose a hike-appropriate outfit for Chisato from her wardrobe. It honestly tires Chisato just to watch her do all of those things and she thinks about hiding under her covers or maybe doing something stupid enough to distract Takina, like maybe kissing her senseless. But she can't do that, she doesn't think. She can't become any more of a burden on Takina.
Wishing to make her feel better, Chisato forces herself out of bed to bring the two of them the breakfast she knows Takina had already had asked Mika to prepare for them, most likely. He smiles at her when she takes the plates and puts them on a tray and Chisato smiles back and hates how dishonest it feels on her lips.
"We were supposed to eat outside," Takina says when Chisato comes back with their food.
"Just sit with me a little. Please?" she pleads, crossing her legs after plopping down on her bed. Takina watches her for a bit before huffing and sitting down to take her plate.
"Thank you for the meal," she murmurs and then they both dig in.
It's their day off. Which is probably why Takina has planned this; why she knew it'd be a bad day for her—she doesn't do well with days off. It's like she can't sit still for a single day which is kind of cute, if Chisato's honest with herself.
She's always found Takina cute, really. She's possibly the cutest girl Chisato has ever met. But she has some quirks—like this one, with her looking at her list about all the things one most consider for a good hiking experience—that Chisato finds make her even cuter. Like, making her want to squeal and pinch Takina's cheeks level of cute. She ends up doing that and Takina swats her hand away but Chisato only laughs, following after her towards Mizuki's car.
The mountain they want to climb is a bit farther away so she offered to take them. Well, okay maybe she didn't offer exactly but she is taking them there, which is like the fifth step on Takina's carefully curated list written for today.
"Are you excited?" Chisato turns to Takina who's staring out the window with her head propped up in her hand. She nods once but doesn't turn towards her, likely mentally still going through what all they need for the optional hiking experience. "I'm excited too! Do you think we'll run into a bear?"
"God, I hope not," Mizuki's the one to answer. "Poor bear."
Chisato laughs, turning to Takina, hoping to see a smile on her face too. "Don't worry, you just have to make yourself look big and shout at it and it'll go away!"
"There aren't any bears in this area. I've looked it up," Takina shakes her head.
"Of course, you did," Chisato sighs but she knows her smile is too fond to fool anyone.
Takina hesitates a little before finally turning Chisato's way with furrowed eyebrows. "I'm not…I'm not taking the fun out of it for you, am I?"
"No, no, no, no, no!" Chisato waves her hands in front of her face, quick to reassure her. "I promise you're not. But I'm sure your plan is already great so maybe we could…talk, while we're in the car?"
Takina nods stiffly and then stares at her, waiting for Chisato to be the one to offer a conversation topic. Chisato bites back a smile. Some things never change.
It is not an easy trail but it's at least clearly marked throughout. Whenever it gets too narrow, Takina leads the way and Chisato thinks about turning back around before concluding that it would probably be more work at this point.
Besides, it's not that bad to be able to watch her when she's too busy to notice. Her eyebrows furrow a little in concentration whenever there's a shallower climb and she takes a second to assess how to continue. Chisato kind of wants to kiss the space between them. Maybe it's mean of her but she hopes Takina will have wrinkles, once she grows old—on her forehead from all the eyebrow furrowing and hopefully, around her mouth too from smiling and laughing too much. Chisato just wishes she could be around to see it.
Later, she will deny what got her distracted when she inevitably has to retell the story of her tripping and almost falling. Good vision or not, she may have been a bit too focused on Takina. Oops.
Thankfully, she reacts quickly as soon as she hears Chisato's shoes slip on the stone and catches her before she could fall behind too much but she still gets a scratch on her palm. Takina sighs, before looking around for a shallower area so they can both sit down.
"You need to be more careful," she tells her while she dumps a moderate amount of water from a clear bottle on her palm. Chisato hisses and complains to which Takina only rolls her eyes. "There's a steeper part, right before the peak. I don't want you to be hurt."
"I'm fine," Chisato tells her, rolling around her wrist. "See?"
"Let me put antiseptic on it."
"It's just a scratch!"
"We're in the woods, anything could get in it. This is exactly why I brought along a small first aid kit."
"Always so prepared," Chisato teases with a sigh but she can tell it comes out slightly wistful. Takina raises her hand in front of Chisato's face and though, she knows exactly what's happening, she lets her flick her forehead anyway. "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" She covers it with her hands, rubbing at the spot.
Takina doesn't answer. She cleans the scratches and puts a small bandage on them before patting Chisato's shoulder.
"Are you okay to go on?"
"Of course!" Chisato beams. Takina smiles back, albeit a bit hesitantly.
But that isn't even the worst part of the hike. Chisato would take a thousand more miles of steep rock climbing over the bushwhacking—which is the official term for it by hikers, according to Takina—they have to do at one point. The weeds are so overgrown and the trees are so close to the trail with huge crowns and long branches that every step they take, they have to push something out of their way. That definitely gets them more scratches than Chisato's teeny tiny fall that probably can't even really be called a fall just a little trip. But they don't stop for that, Takina keeps pushing through until they reach a clearer area.
"Do you want to take a small break?" she asks, leaning against a tree.
Chisato walks closer, reaching behind Takina for her backpack where she knows she keeps the first aid kit. She hears Takina's breath hitch and she looks back at her, her gaze trailing over her eyes—almost getting caught up in deciding if they look more blue or purple in the current lighting—,her slightly parted lips and her cheeks that are flushed from exhaustion as she gets the backpack off her shoulders.
"We should clean your scratches too."
"They're nothing," Takina argues after a beat of silence. Chisato doesn't listen. "We should eat something, though. We've been going for a while now. Chisato, let go of my arm."
"Just let me bandage the bigger ones."
Takina sighs but lets her. Not wanting to waste too much water with cleaning them, Chisato gets out a tissue to wipe them with which is probably bad practice but Takina doesn't say anything so she's probably fine.
"How much is left?" Chisato asks while they eat their sandwiches.
"We're more than halfway through," Takina answers which is vague enough that Chisato can tell that they're probably almost exactly halfway through. Which means that around as much is left as they've come so far.
She groans, tilting her head back. It makes Takina stare at her and then smile softly so Chisato keeps her neck craned for longer than necessary before going back to eating her sandwich.
It's all worth it in the end.
Sure, every complaint Chisato made was mostly dramatics in the first place—it's not like a little hike surpasses her capabilities. She just…wasn't particularly in the mood for it, is all.
She changes her mind once they reach the top.
"Woah," it stumbles out of her involuntarily.
Takina was ahead of her, since the last part of the trail was too narrow for the two of them to walk side by side. She turns back when she hears Chisato arrive and she grins the widest grin Chisato's ever seen on her face. Her heart skips a beat. Maybe she'll smile enough with Chisato around that those few years will already leave a mark on her skin in laugh lines.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asks. "I've seen the pictures when I was trying to find the best hiking trail we could go on but…they don't live up to the reality."
"No kidding," Chisato murmurs, taking a few steps closer to Takina before dropping down on the ground.
To say that the view is breath-taking would quite frankly be an understatement. They're so high up, it's like Chisato can see the whole world laid out in front of her, just a tinier version of it.
"How far can we see from here?" Chisato asks. There's a beat of silence and she turns her head up to look at Takina, who is scrunching her nose the way she does when she doesn't know the answer and is embarrassed by that. Chisato could make her feel better by simply making a ridiculous guess at it but Takina's so cute like this so, "You don't know? I thought you read up on everything about this hike!"
"It didn't say anywhere," Takina grumbles and Chisato laughs before clasping Takina's hand and dragging her down next to herself. "What are you doing?"
Instead of answering, Chisato rests her head on Takina's shoulder and closes her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on her skin. She sighs contentedly when she feels Takina relax next to her.
"You did a good job planning this. It really is beautiful," she compliments, squeezing Takina's hand which she's still holding.
"Thank you," Takina whispers. Chisato opens her eyes so she can take in the view again, her gaze trailing over the fields, the houses, the sea and the woods all underneath them.
She feels Takina's breath against her skin as she huffs before she declares, "You're sweaty."
"Wah—So are you!" Takina chuckles softly, resting her head against Chisato's. "Takina!" Chisato whines, elongating the last syllable of her name. "We're only gonna be sweatier like this."
"That's fine," Takina says softly. "I don't mind."
Chisato sighs. Takina can still be so confusing after all this time. But then again, in a way, Chisato does get it. She'd rather be drenched in sweat than pull away from her right now.
"We should go on other hike trails," Chisato offers. "There's a lot on this island, isn't there?"
Takina hums. "I'd like that."
They stay there at the peak for around an hour before heading back down. As Chisato watches Takina confidently lead them to the starting point of the hike, she concludes that in the end this really was a nice way to spend their day off.
Maybe even better than staying in bed and lazing around, if she's feeling generous.