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The revelation hits Aimi between the third and fourth rounds of hotpot. Momose flags the waiter down to order 3 more plates of beef and Nami bends over the boiling pot of soup towards her.
“You’ve got a piece of rice on your face,” she says, pointing, and Aimi practically smacks herself in the face with the napkin trying to get it off.
“Where?” she asks frantically and Nami stares, amused, as she flicks the paper to and fro.
“Left, left, right, nope, hold still,” Nami says and then reaches for her cheek. When she gets closer, Aimi can smell her perfume–wait, perfume? Since when does Nami wear perfume? It smells nice though, floral and a little sweet and Aimi takes a second whiff before she can stop herself. Is it weird to smell your friends? Probably not, right?
“Almost,” Nami says, her finger brushing Aimi’s cheeks briefly as she picks the stray grain of rice off her face.
Ba-thump goes Aimi’s heart and she freezes. Ba-thump? That’s the sound it makes around people she likes which, admittedly, hasn’t happened since Kirio and that was years ago, back in high school. This isn’t Kirio though, it’s just Nami.
“Mission complete,” Nami says, flashing her a thumbs-up and the gesture hits Aimi like a shot to the heart. Nami tips her head back in a smile under the restaurant’s crappy lights and Aimi falls hook, line and sinker. She scrambles backwards in her seat, cheeks flushed red. “Are you okay, Aimi-chan? You look a little red.”
“Buh,” Aimi says instead of some sort of normal, coherent response. Aimi has no idea how she managed three years of normal conversation with Nami before this. “Urk.”
“You’re making no sense, Aimi-chan,” Nami says, scooting impossibly closer. She’s trying to check Aimi’s temperature with her palm but Aimi is trying to actively avoid going into cardiac arrest in the middle of the restaurant so she ducks the hand like it’s on fire. Across the table, Manda’s meat slips straight out of his chopsticks as he stares at the two of them blankly. “Are you sick?”
“I’mnotsick!” Aimi hollers, loud enough that all of the patrons in the surrounding 10-foot radius turn to gape at them. “M’fine.”
Nami backs up, cowed by her volume and settles back into the booth. Manda’s staring again at them, a bit of dread creeping onto his face.
“It’s just like Kirio-kun all over again,” he says quietly and Aimi’s gaze snaps to him like a laser. Sensing the impending doom, Manda swallows and averts his eyes back to his soup bowl while Kirio turns at the sound of his name.
“What about me?” Kirio asks, tilting his head to the side.
“N-Nothing,” Manda stammers out as Aimi compresses every single threat she can possibly think of and sends it in her gaze across the table to Manda, grinding her teeth together for extra effect. Manda’s practically sweating buckets now. “I said this food is, uh, curiously good!”
As Manda flinches and twitches, an idea strikes Aimi. Maybe this–this could be good. Manda’s only improved his spells since high school and while Aimi hasn’t gotten a chance to use any new ones due to the distance of their colleges, there’s no better time than the present.
Aimi stands up fast enough to rattle half of the table’s silverware and then grabs Manda by the wrist before he can scuttle under the table like a cockroach.
“Manda and I are going to the bathroom!” she hollers and Nami’s mouth drops open as she stares at them.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” she asks, her eyes wide. She looks a bit like a kicked puppy and the feeling makes Aimi’s stomach curdle. This crush is not good for her gastrointestinal system.
“Nope, we’re good!” Aimi says and wrenches Manda by the wrist before anyone else can protest.
“Miyoshi-san, this is the women's restroom–”
“Focus, Manda!” Aimi says, clapping her hands in front of his face to get him to focus on important matters instead of whatever else he’s babbling about. “Quick, teach me a spell that will make Nami think I’m awesome and cool and beautiful and smart!”
Manda stares at her blankly before pushing up his glasses, the light reflecting off the lenses like he’s some sort of anime villain.
“I don’t think there’s any spell in the world that can do that.”
“Huhhhh?!” Aimi roars. A teenage girl opens the bathroom door, sees the scene unfolding in front of her and closes the door again. “Looks like college made someone cheeky!”
Manda yelps and blocks his face with both of his hands.
“I-I just mean that Sometani-san has already seen you at your, err, lowest points. I think she already knows what type of person you are.”
“Urgh,” Aimi says because it’s true. It was awesome to have someone else to discuss which one of Kirio’s body fluids would be the best to put in a vending machine but it sucks when you’re trying to make yourself seem cool and presentable and dateable.
“Sometani-san hasn’t left yet,” Manda says. “She’s seen all the different parts of you and she still wants to be your friend–she wants to be your friend because of it.”
“Oh,” Aimi says.
“She told me once that the times spent chasing after Kirio with you–she wanted them to last forever.”
“Oh,” Aimi says again.
“So I don’t think you need to change anything about yourself, Miyoshi-san.”
Aimi takes a deep breath for courage, ignoring the flushing of a toilet from a nearby stall.
“Somtimes, you’re actually kinda helpful, Manda! So you’re saying that I just need to be myself and Nami will eventually think I’m cool and dateable and fall for me.”
Manda starts sweating, fumbling for his glasses nervously.
“Well, no, that’s not actually what I–”
“Okay,” Aimi huffs, puffing up her chest. “Let’s go back now before they think we’re pooping.”
“Wha–”
Aimi drags Manda back out of the restroom by the wrist and practically flings him back into his seat before crawling back into the booth.
“Everything okay?” Nami asks, peering up at her. Aimi inhales deeply, repeating Manda’s words like a mantra in her head. She needs to play it cool. Cool.
“I’m in love with you,” Aimi blurts out and all conversation at the table comes to a screeching halt.
Satsuki, who has been guzzling water for the past half-hour after accidentally eating a chili pepper whole, actually puts down her glass of water. Momose, who has been passing her napkins for the same half-hour, drops the napkin in his hand straight onto the floor. Manda looks like he is trying to become one with his seat. Kirio looks the exact same. And Nami–
Aimi can’t even bring herself to look at the face that Nami’s making. She stands up and bolts out of the restaurant without a word.
It’s fine. Aimi can just change her legal name, leave the city and all civilized society and start a farm in the countryside like they always talked about. They’re going to plant tomatoes, cabbage and beans in a 3-year garden crop rotational program and have a giant dancing squash as the mascot of their farm.
Except, Aimi realizes, her thoughts coming to a grinding halt, she made those plans with Nami. It was never a one-person farm, it was always meant for two and Aimi knows she can’t run a farm on her own. It was the backup-backup-backup plan they made in case things with Kirio didn’t work out–it involved getting their squash mascot big enough that it would be plastered on billboards in Tokyo and Kirio would see one while staring out his window at college and think of them.
Now there’s no dancing squash and no Nami and Aimi drops into a crouch in some random alleyway, burying her head in her arms.
“There you are,” someone says and Aimi glances up to find Nami peering down at her. She doesn’t look half as horrified or shocked as she should be, her mouth curled into a smile of all things.
“Um, I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Aimi tries but Nami just frowns at that, reaching for her arm. Aimi ducks and tries to scramble out of the alley past her but Nami latches onto her wrist and they’re caught in a tug-of-war all over again. Aimi’s always been the stronger one of the two of them though and even though she feels her shoulder practically pop out of her socket, she can tell that Nami’s grip is slipping–
“Don’t you want to hear my answer?” Nami yells and Aimi’s body goes slack at that, head turning slowly to her like it’s on a swivel. Nami laughs, rubbing at her cheeks that have turned red in the cold. “Every time I think I’m over you, you pull something crazy like this.”
Aimi blinks at her. She runs the words through her brain but her neurons sputter like a malfunctioning machine, the whole thing returning one giant error.
“What?” she asks, cocking her head to the side.
“Hey, Aimi-chan,” Nami says instead, squatting beside her. “I have a secret to tell you. One that I’ve been keeping for far longer than you have. Wanna hear it?”
Aimi nods her head mutely, still half in shock.
“I like girls,” she says, staring straight at her and Aimi’s heart does a pitiful flip-flop in her chest.
“And guys,” Aimi supplies nervously. “Like Kirio.”
“Bzzt!” Nami says, crossing her fingers in an X. “I lied about that. I’m sorry.”
“You lied,” Aimi echoes weakly. “About liking Kirio. Why would you lie about that?”
“I told you that my crush started in my first year of high school. That part was true. Do you want to hear about what made me fall in love with them?”
Aimi nods again and Nami closes her eyes wistfully, like the memory is unfolding on the backs of her eyelids.
“I was there for the high school entrance exams and I was stressed beyond belief. My stomach was in knots and I kept thinking about how much of a waste of time this was because I’d probably end up just bombing out anyway. And then my crush leaned over and took my hand and showed me where the pressure point to relieve diarrhea was and I was so confused that my stomach ache left instantly. And the more she talked, the more I realized how kind and special and weird she was and I knew that I needed to get into that school no matter what so that I could see her again.”
“But I was the one who showed you the diarrhea pressure point,” Aimi says, pointing one finger in disbelief at herself. “I was your crush?”
“Ding ding ding!” Nami says, clapping her hands together. “100 points to Aimi-chan.”
Aimi splutters nervously because Nami is cool and popular and smart and funny and Aimi, well she’s just herself.
“I don’t get it,” Aimi says. She feels like steam is pouring out of her ears from her brain working overtime. “What do you even like about me?”
“Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair bones, stomach, lungs, hearts, liver, kidneys, pancreas, the list goes on forever,” Nami sings and Aimi stares. It’s been years since they wrote the Licky Love song song and Nami still remembers the tune, remembers the words. It is the perfect answer to her question and Aimi feels her heart melt down to goop before she scrapes it off the sides of her ribcage and refreezes it into the mold of a heart.
Nami really does understand her. She has seen every part of her and still she wants to stick by her side, flaws and weird bits and bobs and all.
“Can I put your bodily fluids in a vending machine?” Aimi asks.
“Only if I can put yours in bottles to store in the freezer,” Nami says, her eyes lighting up. Aimi wonders how long she’s waited to hear that. How she could stand by the side listening to Aimi talk about other things for days and months and years.
“Hey, Nami,” Aimi says as Nami stands. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize.”
“That’s okay,” Nami says, holding her open palm out to her. “It was worth the wait.”
Aimi feels a grin split across her face as she takes her hand.
“Miyoshi-san and Sometani-san haven’t been dating since high school?”
“Uh, no, Kirio-kun.”