Work Text:
The fingers of her left hand pressed firmly against the frets on the acoustic guitar’s fingerboard, while her right hand glided lightly, almost hesitantly, across the strings. A clear, quiet chord rang out through the room, slowly fading into the warm evening air. Jirou sighed. An open notebook lay on her lap, its pages wildly scribbled with crossed-out words, arrows, and question marks. Writing songs had never been easy for her, but this time it was different. Harder.
This wasn’t supposed to be just another energetic rock anthem that she and the guys would scream out on stage. The lyrics in front of her were raw. It was the first time she’d openly projected her true feelings for another girl into the lines, without any allegories or metaphors. A girl who had the blackest hair, the kindest eyes, and whose laughter always, without fail, turned her stomach inside out. She swallowed. Her throat was completely dry as she looked at the chorus again.
She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. She decided to try singing it out loud, just to herself, to see how the words fit the melody. She plucked the strings again. Her voice was quiet at first, slightly muffled by nervousness, but with each successive note it grew more confident.
As soon as the first verse left her lips, memories began to flash before her eyes, one after another, vivid and painfully beautiful.
She remembered the long evenings leading up to the Cultural Festival. Back then, Yaoyorozu would sit at the keyboard, a tiny furrow of intense concentration on her forehead as she desperately tried to hit the right rhythm. It was then that Jirou first realized how easily this brilliant, wealthy girl could shed her perfect facade and be, in front of her, just an ordinary, hardworking, and adorable girl.
Immediately, she recalled a lazy Sunday afternoon in the common room. Jirou had lent her one of her headphones back then to introduce her to her favorite indie band. They’d been sitting next to each other on the couch, so close that their shoulders kept brushing against one another. Yaoyorozu had her eyes closed, bobbing her head to the beat, while Jirou wasn’t even paying attention to the music at all. All she could feel was the warmth of her skin and that gentle, soothing scent of jasmine shampoo, which had been etched into her memory forever.
The music picked up speed, and with it came a much darker memory. It was right after the war. Yaoyorozu was sitting on a bombed-out street, her face dirty with dust and blood, exhausted to the point of collapse. Yet she tried to smile, to organize aid, to keep everyone together. But when the others stepped away for a second, her shoulders slumped, and she allowed herself to shed a few quiet, desperate tears in front of Jirou. It was then that Jirou realized that her heart no longer longed merely for admiration. She longed to be her shield, her safe haven, where Yaoyorozu would never have to be strong again.
She also thought of all those agonizing evenings spent poring over textbooks. Yaoyorozu had explained the complex physics equations of heroic flights to her with endless patience—for the thousandth time. That gentle, proud smile she gave her every time Jirou finally understood, and the fleeting, encouraging pat on the back that followed, always set her ablaze more than fire.
And finally, there was that very last memory. The one that had compelled her last night to grab her guitar, lock herself in her room, and start writing. It was just a fleeting exchange of glances across the noisy dining hall. Yaoyorozu had been laughing at something Ashido had said, but then she turned her head and looked directly at her. Her smile suddenly softened, became tender, and for that one brief second, was meant solely and exclusively for Jirou.
That’s when it hit her like a bolt of lightning. She realized that she loved her. That she no longer wanted to be just a friend who listened to music with her, but wanted to be the one for whom that smile would shine every morning.
She sang about all of it. She sang about what it’s like to lose herself in someone’s presence, what it’s like to long for the touch of a hand that can create anything in the world, yet is most precious when it’s simply lying next to hers.
She closed her eyes. The music engulfed her, washing away all her fear, leaving only the pure, sincere rhythm of her own heart.
The last note of the song faded away, and an absolute, almost sacred silence fell over the room. Jirou remained seated for a moment with her hand resting on the strings, her head bowed toward the floor. Her heart was pounding as if she’d just shouted those lyrics in front of a packed stadium, rather than in the safety of her dorm room at UA.
A quiet, cautious knock on the wood made her jerk her head up sharply. Her eyes widened in shock. The door to her room wasn’t completely closed—there was a narrow, barely noticeable crack left open.
And standing in that crack was her. Yaoyorozu.
Jirou immediately blushed all the way to her ears, the guitar nearly slipped from her hands. “Y-Yaomomo!” she blurted out, instinctively trying to cover the open notebook on her lap with her elbow, which only made the situation more awkward. “How l-long… have you been standing there?”
Yaoyorozu looked at her with an incredibly gentle, weary, yet utterly radiant smile. She gently pushed open the door and stepped inside. She was wearing loose loungewear, her hair down, and she held two mugs in her hands from which the scent of chamomile tea wafted. “Long enough to hear the whole chorus,” she admitted quietly, taking a few steps toward the bed.
Jirou felt as if she were about to sink into the ground right there. Her inner monologue at that moment consisted solely of a panicked scream. She’d heard it. She’d fucking heard it. The lyrics were so specific that there was no way to mistake them. Yaoyorozu had to know who the song was about.
Yaoyorozu carefully set both mugs on the nightstand and then sat down on the edge of the mattress, right next to Jirou. The mattress sagged slightly under her weight, and Jirou caught that familiar, soothing scent of jasmine. She looked at her, ready to start stammering out apologies, making excuses that it was just an exercise, that the lyrics didn’t mean anything—when she noticed her eyes. They were shiny, deep, and held a look that Yaoyorozu had never given her before.
“Those were the most beautiful notes I’ve ever heard, Jirou-san,” Yaoyorozu whispered, her voice trembling imperceptibly. She reached out and lightly, timidly touched her wrist—which still rested on the body of the guitar—with the pads of her fingers. That fleeting contact sent an electric shock through Jirou’s entire body.
“R-Really?” she whispered, barely audibly, her senses focused solely on her warm, gentle touch.
Yaoyorozu nodded, and her smile widened just a little more. “I’d love to hear it one more time. Could you play it again?” She gently stroked the skin on her hand. “Just for me?” she added.
Jirou gazed at her for a long moment. Her heart, which had been pounding with panic just a moment ago, now nearly leapt out of her chest. “O-Okay.” She wanted to slap herself for sounding so nervous in front of her. That wasn’t cool at all!
She loosened her grip on her shoulders, adjusted the position of the guitar on her lap slightly, and began to sing. Yaoyorozu didn’t take her eyes off her and quietly absorbed every note of the song she knew belonged to her.