Work Text:
## Threadbare
Ena had tied the ribbon too tightly.
She realized it the moment Kanade tried to open the folder.
“Wait,” Ena said.
Kanade’s fingers stopped.
The ribbon lay across her lap, a thin strip of red wound twice around the dark-blue portfolio folder. It was not even a particularly nice ribbon. One side had faded where it had sat too long in the sun at the shop window, and the edges were already beginning to fray.
Ena had bought it anyway.
It had been the exact color of the last light in Kanade’s new song.
“I can get it,” Ena said, reaching forward.
Kanade did not let go of the folder. “It’s okay.”
“It’s tied badly.”
“It’s pretty.”
Ena looked away before Kanade could see her face.
Kanade’s room was nearly dark except for the lamp beside her bed and the pale glow of her computer monitor. Empty cups stood in uneven rows on the desk. Cables curled beneath it like roots. On the screen, the same music software Ena had seen a hundred times was open, the timeline crowded with tracks and fragments and little colored blocks that Kanade could probably identify at a glance.
The song had been playing when Ena arrived.
It had stopped halfway through.
“You were working,” Ena said.
Kanade’s voice was quiet. “I can work later.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
Kanade stared at her for a second. Then she looked toward the computer, as if it might answer for her.
Ena crossed her arms. “You did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize like that.” The words came out sharper than she meant. “You don’t have to apologize for existing in your own apartment.”
Kanade lowered her eyes to the folder in her lap.
Ena exhaled through her nose. “Just open it already.”
Kanade nodded.
She slid one finger beneath the ribbon and pulled.
The knot did not loosen.
Ena watched her try again. Kanade’s hands were careful, almost painfully gentle. She pinched the small loop between two fingers and tugged at the end, brow creasing in concentration.
It should have been easy. Ena had only tied it to make the folder look less like something she had shoved into a bag at the last minute.
Which, admittedly, it was.
Kanade pulled a little harder.
The ribbon snapped.
The sound was so small that, for a moment, neither of them moved.
One half of it fell onto Kanade’s blanket. The other remained beneath her thumb, its torn end pale and feathery.
Ena felt something hot rise into her throat.
“Sorry,” Kanade said immediately.
“It’s fine.”
“I pulled too hard.”
“It’s a ribbon.”
“I can fix it.”
“Kanade.”
Kanade had already reached for the two ends. She held them close together, trying to align the torn fibers as if the ribbon had only come untied.
Ena’s chest hurt.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said.
Kanade looked up. “But you tied it.”
“So?”
“So I shouldn’t have broken it.”
Ena laughed once. It was not a nice sound.
“You didn’t break it. It was cheap.”
Kanade’s hands stilled.
The room became too quiet. Even the computer had gone to sleep, its pale screen fading darker until Ena could see the vague reflection of herself standing there, shoulders tense, mouth pulled thin.
Kanade was still holding the torn ribbon.
Ena hated that she had brought it. Hated that she had stood in front of a shelf for ten minutes comparing colors like an idiot. Hated that Kanade had said it was pretty in that soft, sincere way that made every stupid thing feel important.
“It was supposed to match the song,” she said before she could stop herself.
Kanade blinked.
Ena wished the floor would open and swallow her whole.
“The one you sent me,” she added. “The demo. The—whatever. It had that sound. Near the end.”
“The strings?”
“I don’t know what you call it.”
“The violin sample?”
“Maybe.” Ena folded her arms tighter. “It sounded red.”
Kanade’s expression changed. Not much. It never did, with Kanade. But something in her face softened as if she had been holding her breath and had only just remembered how to let it out.
“I wanted to know what you thought,” she said.
“I made the illustration, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Kanade shook her head slightly. “No. I mean… what you felt.”
Ena looked at the folder.
The knot had come apart with the ribbon. Now it lay open across Kanade’s lap, the edge of the illustration visible inside. Ena had painted the sky first: bruised purples and dull oranges bleeding into each other, colors heated until they had almost become one. Underneath, there were two figures, barely more than silhouettes.
She had not meant for them to look like anyone.
She had meant for one of them to look alone.
Kanade lifted the folder carefully, opening it the rest of the way.
Ena looked away.
“I like it,” Kanade said.
“Obviously. You haven’t even looked at it.”
“I can tell.”
“That’s not how looking works.”
“I like it already.”
Ena pressed her lips together.
Kanade studied the illustration in silence. She always did that. She never filled quiet space just because it was there. Sometimes Ena thought that was the reason being around her felt so dangerous. Kanade gave silence room to become meaningful.
Finally, Kanade spoke.
“The two people,” she said. “Are they holding hands?”
Ena’s face went hot. “No.”
“They’re close.”
“It’s composition.”
“Ena.”
“Oh my god, just say what you mean.”
Kanade’s fingers tightened around the edge of the paper.
“I thought the song was about someone who keeps trying,” she said. “Even when they’re hurt. Even when they think nobody can see them anymore.”
Ena said nothing.
Kanade continued, slowly. “I thought maybe they were angry because they wanted someone to notice. Not because they wanted attention. Just… because they didn’t want to disappear.”
The heat in Ena’s chest sharpened.
“You always make it sound so simple,” she said.
Kanade looked at her. “Is that bad?”
“Yes.” Ena laughed, and this time it came out shaky. “Because you say things like you’ve figured people out. Like you can put them in a song and suddenly it all makes sense.”
“I don’t think I’ve figured you out.”
“No, you just write things that sound exactly like me.”
Kanade went still.
Ena saw it happen—the way Kanade folded inward, as if the words had struck harder than Ena intended. She hated herself immediately.
But the anger was already there. It had been there since she heard the demo for the first time, headphones pressed too tightly over her ears, Kanade’s voice buried beneath the melody.
A person who keeps making herself smaller, the song had seemed to say.
A person who paints over every wound before someone can see it.
A person who deserves to be saved.
“You can’t do that,” Ena said.
“Do what?”
“You can’t write about me like you know me, and then act like you don’t matter.” Her hands were shaking. She shoved them into the pockets of her hoodie. “You can’t sit here until you look like you’re going to fall over because you’re trying to make some perfect song for everyone else. You can’t—”
Her voice broke.
Kanade’s eyes widened.
Ena turned away.
“You’re always saying you want to save people,” she said, quieter now. “But you talk about yourself like you’re not one of them.”
Behind her, the bed creaked softly.
Kanade had stood up.
Ena heard her take one step, then another. Not close enough to touch. Kanade was never close enough to touch without asking, even when she did not ask with words.
“I don’t know how,” Kanade said.
Ena shut her eyes.
“I don’t know how to make songs for myself,” Kanade went on. “When I try, it feels selfish. And when I stop… I feel like I’m leaving someone alone.”
The words were quiet. They still landed with all the weight of something Kanade had been carrying for years.
Ena turned around.
Kanade stood beside the bed, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. The torn ribbon was looped around one of her fingers.
“You don’t leave people alone,” Ena said. “You just don’t let anyone stay with you.”
Kanade looked down at the red strip against her hand.
For a moment, Ena thought she had gone too far. That Kanade would apologize, retreat, say she needed to work. That Ena would leave with her stupid illustration and her stupid ribbon and nothing would change.
Instead, Kanade stepped closer.
“Can I?” she asked.
Ena did not understand at first.
Then Kanade lifted the ribbon.
There was not much left of it. Two uneven lengths, connected only by the thinest stubborn thread of fabric. It should have gone into the trash.
Ena held out her hand before she could think better of it.
Kanade wrapped one end around Ena’s wrist.
Her fingers were warm. That was the first thing Ena noticed. The second was how carefully Kanade moved, winding the ribbon once, then twice—not tight enough to hurt, not tight enough to trap. The red sat against Ena’s skin like a mark.
When she finished, Kanade held the other end in her palm.
Ena swallowed. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Kanade admitted.
“That’s reassuring.”
“I thought…” Kanade paused. Her gaze stayed on the ribbon. “I thought if I tied it to you, then maybe you would tell me when I’m doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Leaving.”
Ena’s breath caught.
Kanade finally looked up.
Her eyes were tired. They were always tired. But there was something else in them now—something fragile and direct enough that Ena could not pretend not to see it.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Kanade said.
The room seemed suddenly too small for the sound of her voice.
Ena looked down at her wrist.
“You’re not tying it,” she said, because if she did not say something, she was going to say the wrong thing.
Kanade blinked. “Oh.”
“No, I mean—you tied it around me, but not you.”
Kanade’s cheeks colored faintly.
“I thought you might not want—”
“Give it here.”
Kanade held out the ribbon.
Ena took it, trying very hard to ignore how unsteady her hands were. She caught Kanade’s wrist and pulled it closer.
Kanade did not resist.
Ena wrapped the remaining length around her wrist, looping it once over the pale skin there. The ribbon was too short to make a real knot. She could only tie the two frayed ends together between them, a messy little twist that looked like it might come undone if either of them moved too quickly.
There.
Two wrists connected by a torn red line.
It was stupid.
It was embarrassingly sentimental.
It was not enough to fix anything.
Ena’s heart had not become whole because Kanade let her tie a ribbon around her wrist. Kanade’s grief had not lifted from her shoulders. The computer was still waiting behind them, full of unfinished songs. Ena still had an illustration she was not sure was good enough. Tomorrow, they would both wake up with the same fears they had carried into tonight.
But Kanade was looking at the ribbon like it was something worth keeping.
“It’s torn,” Ena said.
“I know.”
“Don’t act like this makes it not torn.”
“I won’t.”
Ena waited.
Kanade’s fingers curled slightly, careful not to pull the ribbon taut.
“I don’t want it to be the same,” she said. “I want it to stay.”
The words were so quiet that Ena might have imagined them if Kanade had not been staring directly at her.
Ena felt heat climb up her neck.
“Don’t say stuff like that so seriously.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
Kanade’s mouth moved, almost becoming a smile. “Okay.”
Ena looked away.
The ribbon shifted between them when Kanade breathed.
Kanade saved the file.
Not because the song was finished. It wasn’t. The last chorus still broke apart halfway through, the strings too thin to hold the melody up.
She only pressed save because Ena was watching.
Then she shut the laptop. The click sounded louder than it should have.
Ena sat beside her on the bed, leaving a careful strip of space between them. The ribbon ran over the blanket, from Ena’s wrist to Kanade’s, red against the dark fabric. The knot in the middle had already begun to loosen.
“It’ll come undone,” Ena said.
Kanade looked at it. “Probably.”
“You could tie it properly.”
“You could.”
Ena frowned. “I’m not doing everything for you.”
Kanade’s mouth shifted—not quite a smile. “I know.”
Neither of them moved.
The ribbon slipped another fraction of an inch between them.
If Ena lifted her hand, it would tighten.
If Kanade pulled away, the knot would give.
It was too thin to hold either of them for long.
Kanade placed her hand on the blanket, palm-up, close enough that Ena could see the faint red indentation where the ribbon crossed her wrist.
Ena looked at it for a long time.
Then she moved her hand closer.
Not enough to take Kanade’s.
Not enough to save the knot.
Just enough that, if the ribbon came apart, their fingers might still touch.