Chapter Text
She leaned against bars connected to the railing of her balcony, her small stubby hands gripping the bars like her life depended on it. Nene couldn't believe her eyes. Before her, a small boy, younger, maybe about 4 or 5, floated there in the sky. Small golden particles radiating from where he smiled down at her, his bright amber eyes glowing to match the warm yellow hues swirling around his form. Suddenly, his face twitched before breaking into a giggle fit, deeply amused by her stunned reaction. She wondered where he came from.
"Hey, do you wanna come with me? The stars are best viewed up close!" The kid offered, lowering himself down close enough to extend a hand out to the girl he hadn't even met until now. She blinked once, twice, and shook her head before taking a few steps back from the railing.
"I'll fall.. Mummy says I'm too clumsy to go outside by myself for too long." She explained, directing her previous grip on the bars to her hamster shirt, tugging it down anxiously.
Despite having never seen him before, she didn't feel scared of him, despite what her parents tried to tell her about the other boys on the playground being too mean and rough with girls like her, despite it all, she thought she could handle herself, not that he looked mean.
"Oh," he started, retracting his hand back. "I can bring you a star here if you want. I'm allowed to go anywhere." He was quick to beem another wide smile at the little girl, who at hearing his offer perked up. She met his warm gaze again before nodding. "I do– i want to see the pretty stars like you!" A complimentary light shade of red spread across his cheeks hearing her response. His face almost hurt from smiling so hard, a sweet excitement bursting in his eyes.
"I'll bring you all the stars in the world!!" he exclaimed, the particles around him sparklingly brighter as he threw his arms up excitedly. His joy was infectious, Nene concluded, as she also threw her arms up to match. "Yaayy!! Heheheha!" She began to jump up and down with her growing giggles, like she was cheering for the promise of stars.
After a few laughs, they began to calm down from the excitement, allowing their thoughts to catch up more clearly. With a new warmth in her expression, Nene finally decided to ask what had nagged her mind the moment she saw the boy. Besides how he was essentially levitating. "Hey, what's your name? You're so pretty.."
"Me?" He paused, his smile faltering for surprise at the compliment, quickly concealing it by bringing an arm up to hide the lower half of his face, eyes drifting to anything but her. "I'm Amane. You?" His shy demeanor seemed to go right over Nene's head as she pointed at herself. "Nene!" she proudly announced, watching for his reaction until he finally turned to meet her deep magenta gaze again. "Nene... Nene-oneesan." Amane muttered against his sleeve, memorizing the name into his vocabulary. He lowered his arm and smiled again. "Nene-oneesan is so cute when she's happy."
"Nene..."
"Nene–"
"Nene‐chan!"
"Earth to Yashiro-san!!" Suddenly, a sharp clap erupted in her ears, causing her eyes to shoot open, Nene jumped up in shock to whip her head around. "Huh? Huh??" When her head finally locked directly in front of her, she was met with a worried purple gaze. "Oh, Nene-chan, you're finally awake!" Aoi sighed in relief before leaning back from her face to sit back down, folding her knees under the kotatsu's blanket. Akane, to the right of Nene across from Aoi, appeared more unimpressed than anything. It was very likely he was the one who clapped.
"Seriously, this is the third time you passed out while studying." He commented, Nene was quick to bring her hands up like a defense mechanism as she apologized. "I'm– I'm so sorry, Akane-kun! Really, i just... i didn't get a good sleep last night, is all." Her hands returned down to the surface of the table, peering below she could see her paper work was barely filled out, messy and unevenly spread due to her head having been rested atop the sheets for an undetermined amount of time.
"Nene-chan, we're worried about you. You've fallen behind in class, and you're sleeping all the time. Did something happen?" Aoi's brows creased in uncertainty, not disbelieving of Nene's statement, but of the fact she knew that couldn't possibly be the entire truth. Nene sighed and began to reorganize her papers onto a neat pile, refusing to look directly at either of her mismatched named friends. "I've been having weird dreams about some boy..."
"Of course.." Akane interjected. "Yashiro-san being boy-crazy, what's new?" He leaned his face into his propped up hand, elbow pressed to the surface of the kotatsu safely beside his already neat stack of work and notes. She was quick to jump to her own defense. "No! Not like that! He was little, very little, and he could fly in the air and stuff.. it's weird. Every time i have dreams of him, they feel so real... like– like i could just reach out and touch him." Her movements slowed as she finished sorting the paper. Imagining his hand extended out towards her, offering, tempting, hopeful, but she could never convince herself completely to take it into hers.
Every time she woke up, no matter how real the dreams felt, Nene could never remember his face, memories becoming foggy and obscured, besides his eyes or his little voice when he laughed. He looked so kind, she thought. Aoi placed her hand atop Nene's as she smiled. "Well atleast it's not nightmares this time... if you want you can sleep over at my place tonight, since it's just next door to Akane-kun's home it wouldn't be an issue. I have an extra futon from the last sleepover!" She considered the invite from her purple haired friend.
It was a nice offer, and maybe it would help her sleep better, but simultaneously a feeling of guilt bubbled in her stomach at the thought of worrying her friend so much. Maybe she'd reconsider if it became a consistent issue in the future. "It's alright Aoi," she began. "I think I'll be okay for tonight.. maybe I'll just go home early, we can try studying again tomorrow."
Nene to stood up, brushing the strands of her messy beige-to-teal hair away from her eyes as they framed her head correctly. The other girl, still sitting there, drooped Not out of rejection, but out of that barely filtered worry towards her best friend. Akane, on the other hand, didn't seem as bothered, he did care, of course, but not to nearly the same degree of expressing it like Aoi.
He stood up aswell, picking up her school bag before she could reach for it herself, he shuffled her stack of work sheets, putting them neetly in between some text books.
"Thank you, Akane-kun, Ao-chan." She offered a small smile of gratitude. Aoi and Nene exchanged their goodbyes and plans to meet up early in class tomorrow before Akane led her to the door. She gave her last farewells to him too before she left the Aoi residence, going straight home so she could get cozy in her bed and feed Black Canyon.
Maybe she'd write down a little bit of the conversation from her dream in her journal, she's been trying to remember as much of it as possible, the recurrence of that boy made her curiousity grow to seemingly no end. Almost as much as her thoughts of hot guys whisking her away to a far away land.
"His name... what was his name again?" She pondered aloud to herself shortly until she reached her apartment building. Her thoughts cleared before she made her way up the steps, letting herself in with ease, as usual. She kicked her shoes off and neatly put them beside eachother near the front door before making her way down the short hall to her bedroom. Despite how late it was, it seemed her mom wasn't home yet, not an uncommon occurrence, however.
Knowing that, she decided to focus her attention on changing out of her school uniform and talking to her dear pet hamster about her oh so eventful day with school. The pining over a new crush, and studing at Akane's house seemed to be the least boring bits. She wrote down her experiences in time with her talking to herself. She recalled everything in detail like Black Canyon was actually listening.
She didn't remember when, but at some point she had fallen asleep, sprawled over her bed with a video about hot idol men dancing playing in her hand, hair messied and spread out in strands like a splattered octopus. Once again, Nene had another dream about that little boy who brought promise of stars and adventure, and just as usual had awoken with a foggy memory of exchanged words, child innocence, and a joyful laugh that could make her heart feel light and free.
His name slipped her mind as she got ready for school the next day.