Chapter Text
(August 21st)
Today is just a day (or a few hours in this case) before Nene’s birthday.
Aoi has prepared a nice surprise and present for her. Aoi herself doesn’t like surprises, no matter if it’s good or bad, but she knows that Nene likes a little surprise. She recalls Nene saying something about how romantic getting surprises on birthdays are (so she prepared a birthday surprise).
She bought her a lot of cute things that she’d think Nene would like and made a few handmade things. She just needs to add one more thing– a letter for her.
‘Dear Nene-chan, It’s been so long since I’ve had a friend like you-...”
No, that's too… vulnerable.
‘Dear Nene-chan, I love being your friend <3! You’re so fun to hang out with and it’s so nice being in the gardening club with you. You’re a really good friend, you’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for.’
She bites her lip, tapping the pen against her chin, deep in thought. What does she say? She has so much to say yet she just can’t bring herself to say it. She doesn't want to reveal too much– but she does. She really wants to get it off her chest.
‘I really like you.’
Is that too much? She bites her lip and keeps writing, maybe she can write it off as platonic and Nene wouldn’t notice.
‘Because you’re really bubbly and bright! You light up any conversation you join,’
Well that’s probably because she only really enjoys talking to like three people– Nene being one on the list. Any time she talks to anyone other than those three she forces every smile and laugh, but when Nene joins her that fakeness dims a little.
‘You always make me so happy. I mean it when I say you’re the brightest person ever. Do you remember when we went to the beach with a few others during summer? It was really fun. I went out just for you. . . I only ever hang out with you, Nene-chan. I didn’t want the others there. I only wanted to be with you.”
Now she just doesn’t care about what she’s writing.
‘It was nice being with you at the beach, it was fun when we played beach volleyball until the others joined. . . and you let them because you’re nice. Nicer than I’ll ever be, but after we got away from them to get ice cream it was nice! I’m sorry that I didn’t bring enough money to buy my own ice cream so we had to share yours but I enjoyed it. Strawberry is my favorite flavor too.’
(Lies. She likes chocolate but people say it’s overrated so she tells everyone it’s vanilla.)
‘When we first met I thought you were like the others. I thought you only saw me for my face, I didn’t like you. The more I got to know you, though, I’ve grown to start liking you. You really are such an angel. . . even if you don’t know how horrible I truly am, I love you. I love you so much.”
Near the end she presses the pen on the paper a little too hard out of frustration and the ink spills out.
She stares at the letter and huffs, it’s a mess, it’s not organized well. She grabs a new sheet of paper. She’ll tone down on her big feelings and make it sound more platonic (hopefully). It sounded too obsessive anyways, and she hates that.
‘Dear Nene-chan, happy birthday! I can’t believe you’re sixteen now, it’s so crazy how fast time goes. We’ve been friends for so long and I am so happy that we’ve been friends for so long. You know, many people can’t keep friendships for long so I’m proud to say we’ve been friends since middle school. You’re kind, funny, and smart, and you need to stop doubting yourself so much! You are the best friend I could ever ask for, and you’ll be my best friend forever! Over the years that we’ve grown closer it's been nice getting to know you, like how your favorite flowers are sunflowers,’
(She got Nene sunflowers.)
‘and how you like to eat your ramen. Those little facts just make me love everything about you even more, and it’s so fun talking to you about stories and. . . guys.’
(She does not like talking about guys with her, she just likes talking to her.)
‘To be honest. . . I get quite frustrated when you talk about guys and your crushes. All the guys you talk about sound so similar to me yet so different. Your recent crush- Minamoto-senpai sounds too similar to me, I don’t like it. I don’t like him. In fact, I hate him. Why can’t you look at me? If you like those guys so much why can’t you just look at me? Why can’t you love me? I have all the same qualities they do. Just look at me, please. I love you, Nene-chan.’
She stares at the paper, and she’s done it again. She ruined the perfectly fine letter with her feelings. She huffs and crumples the paper up in frustration.
She’ll just stop by the convenience store and pick up a letter and write down generic platonic words.
The walk to the convenience store is agonizing considering how hot it is outside and she decided to not change and just go out in her winter pajamas. It’s literally midnight and it’s still so hot.
She walks in the store with a relieved sigh, her body instantly relaxing at the cool air. She just needs to get a cute card and maybe she’ll find a few other cute touches to the birthday present and leave.
She walks around until she finds the small sad little corner where the store keeps holiday cards. Despite how often she goes out at midnight she doesn’t go to the convenience store much (because there's always some creep working at the counter trying to hit on her), so she doesn’t come here much.
She browses through the cards until she finds something cute enough that she’s sure Nene will like, it’s a card in the shape of a heart with cute hamsters on the sides. It’s perfect, she grabs it and starts heading to the counter until something catches her eyes– it’s a small hamster plushie. This is absolutely even more perfect than the card. She immediately grabs it and actually heads to the counter.
Now this is the worst part. She really hopes it’s not some creep working tonight. She keeps her head down and glued on her feet as she sets the stuff down on the counter.
“Is that all?”
A familiar voice says in a bored tone, clearly the person who’s working did not want her to be here either. She looks up because she thinks it’s safe to and she sees that it’s her classmate Fuji.
She didn’t know he worked here, she doesn’t quite like Fuji especially because he always dumps work on Nene, but she’s a little relieved that it’s just him and not a weirdo. She puts on a small, polite, (and fake) smile.
“Yes, I didn’t know you worked here Fuji-kun.”
She says with that fake sweet voice. He puts on a fake smile too and nods.
“Yeah, my mom nee- wants me to have experience..”
He fumbles his words a little and it makes her raise an eyebrow, but she doesn’t press further. She wonders if this is why he always dumps work on everyone, on Nene. She wonders if this is why he’s always so lazy.
“It does seem tiring to work so late.”
She says with a small polite smile. Despite how much they both hate small talk, it just comes as a reflex for her to start it.
“Yeah it is but I don’t mind.”
He says almost softly as he scans her items. Sleep deprivation makes a lot of weird things happen.
“The total is nine hundred yen.”
She nods and pays with cash. She had just enough. She smiles at him politely and takes her bag.
“If you don’t mind me asking- what’s all this for? I don’t recall there being a national hamster day.”
He chuckles at his own joke, it’s very clear that he’s sleep deprived and surviving on energy drinks and coffee.
“Ah no… It’s for Nene-chan. Her birthday is tomorrow.”
Her expression melts and softens a little at the mention of Nene.
“Ah I see. Then I’ll make sure to wish her a happy birthday tomorrow."
He hums and gives her a small smile. She hopes he doesn’t dump work on Nene tomorrow. She nods and gives him a small wave before turning to leave.
“Goodnight Fuji-kun, I’ll see you tommorow.”
She spends the rest of her night trying to make a tame platonic card where she doesn’t just dump her feelings onto it, and it was actually way harder than she thought it would be. It took her three agonizing hours of trying to write her thoughts without pouring her heart out onto the card. She had to google card examples and look through pinterest for aesthetic card pictures. Five whole hours.
She did it, though, but the thing is now she’ll only get like three hours of sleep. She’s lucky school starts at nine, but she’ll be cranky and hell. She really hopes her sleep deprivation doesn’t ruin Nene’s birthday.