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Speaking realistically, it’s An’s fault. Speaking unrealistically, it’s Akito’s.
Sitting around the Shinonome coffee table with the rest of the group, Kohane can’t really believe she’s saying this, because Akito’s unfortunate tendency of becoming a scapegoat is entirely thanks to An and only An. A year ago, Kohane would have taken responsibility like the aged and mature high schooler she thought she was, even if it would have resulted in her own downfall. Clearly, An has rubbed off on her too much. Does that make this An’s fault after all?
It happens like this: they’re gathered for their monthly ‘team meeting’ to finalize the setlist for their newest performance, an upcoming event in downtown Shibuya. By that, she means Touya is. The rest of them are more focused on finalizing what they’ll order for dinner, which is in about three hours, or finalizing what channel to set the television on, which was turned on solely for background noise. Between the already-forgotten food delivery app on An’s cell phone and An and Akito throwing the remote around, the cartoonish kids’ show on the screen is interrupted by an advertisement. A very cheerful, colourful advertisement. For a divorce lawyer.
“My god,” An says, ignoring how the remote’s batteries fall out of their compartment. “That is a terrible advertisement.”
An is right, Kohane thinks, although she isn’t sure what’s more unfortunate: the fact that it’s being played on a kids’ channel or that its big bubble fonts look like they belong on a kids’ channel.
Across from them, Akito snorts, rubbing at his nose as he squints at the television. “Because kids are their target audience, apparently,” he says, voice dripping with so much sarcasm that instead of sounding sarcastic, he sounds British. “Might as well show a funeral home next.”
“That isn’t the problem,” An says. “Do you see those colours? Abysmal.”
An, in general, is rather unserious. This is why Kohane chooses to sacrifice her nice, comfortable spot in An’s lap to turn around and look her in the eye. Just to be sure. The first thing she notices is that An has very beautiful eyes. The second thing she notices is that An is unfortunately being very serious.
“An,” Akito begins. His mouth snaps shut and then slowly drops open, like a fish, if fish were ginger and insufferable. “An. It’s a— it’s a kids’ show. They’re airing divorce commercials on childrens’ media sources. In what world would that be a normal thing to do?”
Kohane feels a squeeze of An’s arms around her waist, which is indicative of when An is feeling happy, or sad, or upset, or bored, or any emotion at all, now that Kohane thinks about it. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with divorce,” she argues, rolling her eyes with every extraocular muscle in her body. “Divorce can be the path to finding new love. At the end of the day, we as humans value love more than anything else, whether that’s from other people or ourselves.”
“And you learned all that from?”
“My aunt’s girlfriend. She’s a divorce attorney.”
“Uhm,” Touya says.
The conversation is getting out of hand. Maybe it should have never been placed in their hands in the first place. Kohane’s just thought of a song she wants to add to their setlist, but it’s kind of not the right time to mention it. “Damn,” Akito replies, swirling his drink around like it’s wine (it’s strawberry milk). “So do you get a family discount or anything? Fifty percent off your first divorce? File for ten divorces, get one free?”
“Don’t be stupid.” In a display of what Kohane can only assume to be aggression, An rolls her sleeves up to her shoulders, unsubtly flexing them as she does so. As if she’s saying Hey Akito, you’re wrong, and you’ve got skinny boy arms. “What would I ever need that for?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Akito says, and Kohane can’t see him because she’s staring at An’s arms but she can hear him, “a divorce?”
An has been getting buffer, Kohane notices. It must be because of the basketball team. “Never getting one,” An says casually, arms shifting around Kohane’s waist. The next basketball game is sometime soon, between Kamikou and Miyajou. “Why would I?” She’ll watch it with Minori, since Haruka will be playing too. Did they buy tickets? “Once I marry Kohane, I’ll be spending the rest of my life with her.” They should check if they—
It actually happens like this: the uncontrollable surge of inexplicable affection that makes its way through Kohane’s fucking circulatory system renders her speechless, because oh, An just said she would marry her . During that single second, a thousand different images occupy Kohane’s mind, of flowers and blue hair and a certain laugh she likes, and then it’s all replaced by the thought of I love her. She wants to marry me. Oh my gosh I love her. Her head feels light in the best way, like it’s grown itself wings and flown off into the sunset. And on top of everything, she sees An’s face, looking at her with that same warm smile, sweet voice, golden eyes that look at her with an expression morphing from love to confusion to concern. Have her facial features always moved so slowly? Has the world always been spinning this quickly?
Kohane is so overwhelmed that her body goes limp and her words fly away. Her eyelids are so unbearably heavy that she considers letting them close… That would be fine, wouldn’t it? If she were to just shut her eyes…
The world is shaking and Kohane can’t feel her body.
Actually, that’s wrong. She can feel something on top of her body, resting its entire weight on her chest. Is she dreaming? That would explain the white lines squirming around behind her eyelids, or the constant sense of floating she can’t chase off, or why she feels fur brush against her chin. It reminds her a little bit of Samo-chan, and it reminds her a lot of An-chan. Maybe she really is asleep and An is lounging on top of her. Gosh, in front of Touya and Akito?
That’s the thought she needs to shake herself awake. Starting from her fingertips, she tries to wiggle around, blood slowly finding its way back into her veins and arteries and whatever else connects her mind to her muscles. Blearily, she forces her eyes open, and oh. It’s much darker than she remembers. Save for the faint stream of light trickling in from the corner, the room is almost pitch black.
Wait. Whose room is this?
The weight on top of her moves again. The fur tickling her skin also shifts before it’s gone entirely, and suddenly, Kohane doesn’t think it’s An. Frankly, she doesn’t think at all— especially not when the fuzziness in her vision fades away and she looks around and oh my god , where is she.
Dancing along the wind, the curtains are blown to the side in waves, revealing the half-open window framing a full moon. It’s pure and bright and blinding, filling the room with a temporary flash of blue-white. There’s a sharp throb of pain right between her brows and an incessant itching at the back of her head as if her brain is telling her to remember. The full moon, and the fur, and…
“An-chan,” she blurts out. The thing on top of her twitches.
It’s only then, when the moonlight spills into the room to highlight the sides of her surroundings, that Kohane realises the thing is An herself. Slowly drawing her face up from where it was buried in Kohane’s neck, An yawns and rubs at her cheeks with the back of her hand, locks of hair tangled over her shoulders. “What time is it?” she mumbles drowsily, eyelids drooping through her struggle.
Kohane’s first thought is that they must have had one hell of a nap.
Her second thought is that while An is definitely An, she doesn’t look like An. Her hair is shorter and choppier, cut to rest a few centimetres below her shoulders, and both darker and ashier than the deep blue she could recognise in a heartbeat. Next is her face— each time her eyes flutter open, Kohane catches glimpses of glinting gold, almost abnormally reflective. There are crinkles in the corners of her eyes and a stark sense of roughness about her features that make her look older. Her lashes are thick and sharp, lips bloody red from the middle, and when she yawns again, they catch on a single fanged tooth.
She also has wolf ears on her head.
They’re pointy and covered in matte strands of fur and explain a lot of things: for example, what the strange tickling by Kohane’s chin was. Unfortunately, they create more problems than they solve: for example, why does An have wolf ears. Why is An on top of Kohane wearing a ratty old shirt and pyjamas that are definitely too small for her, rolling around in the sheets like an actual puppy. And why, considering everything at hand, does Kohane… not really care?
The scratch at the back of her head tones itself down into a strange sensation of normalcy. She wants to ask a lot of things, she wants to scramble up and get herself the hell out of here, she wants to shake An by her shoulders and see if they’re both dreaming. But all of those urges are suppressed by a single sentence:
“An-chan,” she repeats, unable to control her own lips, “we need to brush your ears.”
An’s reaction is immediate. She whines in her classic freshly-awoken crabbiness, eyebrows furrowed together in worry as she folds her ears back and places her hands over them protectively. “Now?” she says, pressing her lips together in a pout. The combination of her piercing gaze and rounded cheeks places her expression somewhere between cute and downright terrifying. “They aren’t that bad, are they? We brushed them last time, Kohane…”
“They aren’t too bad, but…” She reaches out for An’s ears on instinct, exposing just the back of her hand. Despite An’s previous reluctance, she tilts her head forward and lets her ears stick up straight for Kohane to touch. “We could give them a quick comb through tomorrow morning. Don’t you like it when they’re fluffy?”
Huffing, An scrunches her nose. “ You like it when they’re fluffy,” she sighs, gathering the blanket together around her body, “but okay. If you say so, Kohane.”
Kohane agrees. Now that she’s properly petting An’s ears, they’re much nicer than she’d originally thought, but they could do with a bit of extra love and care. She still doesn’t know where she is, and she still doesn’t really have any real control over her own body (in both action and words, which should scare her much more than it does), but maybe this is a very convincing, elaborate dream. In which An is a werewolf.
In the background, she hears a rumbling sound start to collect, and it’s only half a minute later of An nuzzling against her hand when she registers that it’s An growling— or purring— in content. Her eyes close, deep hums reverberating in her throat with each scratch of Kohane’s nails, baring her fangs every once in a while. There’s a chance Kohane is incredibly weird for having a dream of this, but if it’s for An, then so be it. She tangles both her hands in An’s hair and rubs at her scalp, watching how An’s smile stretches wider and wider across her face, seeing how the shine of her ring disappears and reappears from behind An’s ears—
She freezes. So does her ring, wrapped around her finger in clean gold. This is new. This is very new.
“Why’d you stop?” Still caught up in her feigned fit of frustration, An paws at Kohane’s face, gently patting her cheek in quick succession. “Come on, Kohane. I’m your wife. Be nice to me.”
There it is again: the ‘W’ word, loud and proud where it rolls off of An’s tongue, not to be confused with other ‘W’ words like werewolf or welfare economics or what the fuck is going on. The brain itch explodes into a full blown wave of shock that starts from her head and ends at the tips of her fingers, rendering her stationary in her spot in the bed. Their bed. That they have because they’re married, and An has wolf ears, and she married a girl with wolf ears.
Everything feels real for a second, until it doesn’t. Briefly, Kohane imagines that this is what lucid dreaming must be like. She’s slipping out of her consciousness again, falling deeper and deeper into the blankets surrounding her— An is starting to look worried, but it’ll be fine. She’s a bit sleepy, is all.
The full moon is awfully bright, Kohane thinks. It’s the last thing she sees before her eyes fall closed.
Her headache, perhaps regrettably, has been replaced by a dull pain in her back.
Whatever she’s sleeping on is rigid and cold and wholly uncomfortable. She would give anything to be back in the warmth of her bed, or the Shinonome family couch, or An’s lap, whether or not she has wolf ears. Trying to ease the pain, she wiggles around, working herself up to open her eyes—
A pinch on her waist, through the thick fabric of her clothes. She squeaks, which is unbearably embarrassing, and then she wakes up, which might be worse.
This is not a bed. It isn’t even a bedroom. She isn’t even lying down.
The good news is that her back hurts for a reason, and the bad news is that this reason is the pillared wall she’s standing against. It’s painted beige and accented with white pillars and gold trim, looking far fancier than anything else she’s had the opportunity (pleasure?) to nap on. The even worse news doesn’t have to do with the wall at all. She’s wearing a uniform, made of pristine white leather that clothes her in belts and studs, paired with high boots and a cape on her shoulders and a sword. There is a sword hanging off of her hips.
She feels very faint seeing all of this. Looking up in hopes of distraction, she becomes considerably fainter.
Objectively, the room she’s standing in is gorgeous, though she assumes it’s closer to a hall than a room. In the middle of the glossy marble floor is a plush red carpet that extends from one end— a grand set of double doors— to the other, which hosts a set of stairs that lead up to a platformed throne. The design is all but majestic, fit for royalty, worth millions from the chandelier to the excessive decoration to the very air of the place.
Subjectively, she doesn’t care about any of that, because there are only two people on the entire platform: Touya, who stands on the right, and Akito, who sits right in the middle of the throne.
“I’m going crazy,” she whispers, breathy and faint. “I really think I’m going crazy.”
“Right?” comes An’s voice from beside her. “I can’t believe them. Flirting in public is our thing, Kohane.”
Apparently, no matter which deluded fantasy world Kohane finds herself in, the only constant variable that makes its way into her mind is An and how unfair she is. Kohane hates it; she hates that when she turns around to face her, all her thoughts are stopped with a single hitched breath. She hates that she’s starting to lose control over her actions just like she did before, unable to stop herself as her cheeks flame up in pulses of warmth. She hates that An, no matter what she wears and no matter how different she looks, is the same as she always is: too much.
Today’s version of too much is made up of how her hand plays with the handle of her sword, how her hair is tied up in a crooked ponytail, how she doesn’t necessarily look older but instead mature. Her posture is perfect, head fixed to face where Akito sits on his throne, but the way she glances over every so often is anything but unnoticed. “You okay?” she says, volume carefully toned down, giving Kohane a gentle nudge on her arm. “We’ll be done in fifteen. Akito’s taking an unreasonably long time, but that’s about what you would expect from him.”
Looking again, they aren’t the only people in the room; while she and An are presumably the only knights lining the hall, there are citizens standing in the middle of the throne room, seemingly there to seek guidance or advice. Akito himself chooses his words sparingly, and more often than not, takes more time to quietly consult with Touya before saying anything at all. Kohane hadn’t considered imagining him as any sort of royalty before, but he’s surprisingly suited for the role, even if only because this is all one big figment of her imagination. What is he, a prince? Does that mean Touya is something like an advisor?
There’s no point in wondering when she’ll wake up and forget all about it (though her memories of werewolf An are still very present). “I’m fine,” she offers peacefully, squaring her shoulders in mimicry of An’s poise. “I’m a little sore, but it’s okay.”
“Is this still about training?” An suddenly pouts, taking a clean turn from cool and composed to the human version of a whiny puppy. “Come on, Kohane, I said I was sorry. You know how I feel about skipping arm day.”
“I do, I do,” Kohane replies with a laugh, because despite the fact that she doesn’t know, the words bubble up and out of her throat of their own volition anyway. “But maybe we should stick to lifting normal weights. I don’t want to collapse on you.”
“You know I wouldn’t mind,” An teases. “It would be an honour to hold you.”
They get a few seconds of giggling to themselves before Touya throws a sharp look their way, saying nothing and everything at the same time. Kohane stops, but An doesn’t, and it takes all the strength in her body to keep her lips shut (the smile, she decides, can stay). She distracts herself from An’s occasional graze against her hand by keeping her eyes straight ahead, fixed on where Akito finally settles and dismisses his visitor. Touya keeps his expression painfully neutral. Akito, looking up at him as if waiting for praise, doesn’t.
It happens again: An’s hand touches hers, fingertips gently tracing the curve of her knuckles. She feels her press over her fingers, mapping out every callous and scar she’s collected over the years, both old and new, until she stops right in the middle of her palm.
She strums along the width like it’s an instrument. “You aren’t wearing it here,” and as if she’s telling a secret, her tone falls quieter and deeper, “So around your neck instead?”
The truth is that, admittedly, Kohane had noticed it earlier. There’s a chain hanging in thin strands of metal, hooked on the back of her uniform collar so the silver band it strings through rests in the middle of her chest, close to her heart. She wasn’t sure what it meant and still doesn’t; the longer she spends drifting in and out of realities, the less she understands.
Or maybe that’s what she wants to think. Touya had told them not to make a fuss (though Touya’s been much more lenient since he got married too). An does anyways, with a flicker of her gaze and an indent of her nail, pulling Kohane’s hand up to let it fall against the outline of an identical necklace.
“Tomorrow,” says An, “let’s wear them properly.”
The pain in her back is accompanied by a feverish surge of heat. She’s slipping again, except this time, it’s faster, like the waves she’d once been floating on are beginning to crash over her. It’s wrong— she doesn’t want to, because she isn’t ready to leave, not when all she’s seen is barely a scratch on the surface of this life— but it happens anyways, even as she clings desperately to An’s hand. Who is she here? Who is she to An?
Her head feels heavy. Her limbs fall limp. Her vision goes blurry at the edges, and she’s sinking by the second, farther and farther down into her head, taken to wherever else she’s expected to see, to understand, to love. It’s all swept from beneath her feet, and she falls.
The difference this time is that An keeps smiling. Her eyes are distant, and she mouths a word that might be goodbye. Kohane doesn’t have the chance to reply.
She appears somewhere else in less than a blink. The expensive carpets and draped curtains suddenly morph into a much more modest hardwood flooring, coloured a deep orange-brown and matted with what looks like scattered spots of flour. In front of her is a counter with a glass display on one side and a cash register on the other; as she draws herself out of her daze, she’s hit with the rich smell of baked goods and butter, and when she looks down at herself she’s wearing a patterned beige apron around her torso.
It’s a bakery, she realises belatedly, browsing through the assortment of pastries put on display for customers to see. Strawberry danishes, roll cakes, fruit tarts. And she’s working here. Outside the window, made of a few panels of glass that stretch across the entire width of the front, the drifting snow dots the deep blue of the night.
Kohane shivers at the sight. She can’t remember what winters without An are like, but even the thought of it is enough to have her subconsciously chasing that familiar warmth once more.
An. Is she here? They aren’t hosting any customers— maybe because there’s snow piled up on streets all across the city and a cold, unforgiving air about the night that evokes the urge to stay inside. Besides that, the shop is empty save for herself and the lights and the half-finished cup of steaming coffee, tucked away to the side—
— and someone behind her. Looking over her shoulder, Kohane sees Touya emerge from the kitchen, wearing a matching apron and nametag. “Azusawa,” he greets idly, making a beeline for his coffee. “Good work today.”
“Oh—” As soon as he says it, Kohane’s hands start tingling in exhaustion, like they’re molding to the story as she reads it. “— you too, Aoyagi-kun. Was everything fine for you?”
He shrugs, peeling his gloves off and folding them together neatly. “Not bad,” he replies, picking his mug up and taking a long, long sip. The only person she knows who’s crazy enough to have that much caffeine this late at night is Touya; An doesn’t count because she drinks it out of spite instead of desire. Which may not be much better. “I’m going shopping tomorrow. I’d like to pick up some more fruits. Is there anything else we’re out of?”
“Cinnamon.” She glances at the chalkboard menu hung up on the wall, space filled to the brim by an unassuming list of drink items and an assuming amount of scribbled drawings. There’s one line left in the very middle, though, and the longer she stares, the more it feels like it’s staring back. “Chocolate chips too, please. And candy canes. If that’s okay.”
“Sure.” The amount of coffee left in his cup doesn’t look like it’s changed at all. He lingers by the counter, fully absorbed by the display until his eyes dart up and out the door and then right at Kohane, and three alternate realities later, Kohane still can’t decipher what he’s thinking. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to. “What do you need them for?”
Her hand reaches to the pocket of her apron; instinctively, automatically, following what feels right. Hooked to its hem is a peppermint candy cane, forgotten until now, where Kohane takes it from its place and cups it with her hands. “I don’t really know,” she murmurs, lost in the red and white of its pattern. Arguably, the second most frustrating aspect of entering an entirely different universe (the first being the fact that she’s here in the first place) is the constant sense of loss that chases after her. Beyond being forgetful, there’s something missing, permanently out of reach. Maybe that’s what she’s chasing: the constant and, also— “But if you don’t mind buying them anyways—”
The door swings open, decorative bell hanging above it ringing out loud as it’s pushed forward. The sound is paired with the swinging of the front sign, now conveniently flipped to CLOSED by the wind spilling into the room; and behind that all is An, gripping onto the doorframe with one hand and weakly rubbing at her arm with the other. “It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold,” she mutters through gritted teeth, waddling in awkwardly. “Cold. It’s so cold— Kohane!”
She wouldn’t be so cold if she were wearing more than a hoodie and basketball shorts, Kohane thinks, but the chance to tell her exactly that is gone because all of An’s previous courtesy is replaced by what seems to be the innate, uncontrollable urge to squeeze Kohane unconscious. An all but bounds towards her and pulls her half over the counter in a bone crushing hug, arms boldly locked around her torso. “It’s too cold, Kohane,” she whines, burying her face in the crook of Kohane’s neck. “Thank god you’re so warm. Thank god you’re mine.”
“An-chan, I can’t breathe—” She wiggles her hands and wrists to no avail. An really doesn’t have to grip onto her so tightly; nobody’s going to take her from her. All she manages to do is press the back of her hand to An’s cheek, hissing at how cold her skin is to the touch. “Why didn’t you put your coat on?”
Reluctantly, An peeks up at her. “I forgot it at home,” she says cheekily, muffled by Kohane’s apron.
“Oh,” she replies, taking the chance to poke at An’s ice-cold cheek instead. It’s retaliation for how often An does it to her. However, and perhaps unfortunately, the distraction of An’s face and its strange resemblance to ice cream mochi isn’t enough to suppress the memory of this morning— which Kohane somehow remembers without having even experienced— wherein Kohane had given An her lunch box and had very explicitly seen her leave with her coat. Somebody here is lying, and judging by An’s sudden inability to look her in the eye, Kohane thinks she knows who it is. “Even though I told you not to. What a coincidence, An-chan. Did you really forget it?”
“Of course she didn’t.” Coming through the doors with a much more temperature-appropriate outfit, Akito shuffles in just as awkwardly, unable to properly move his legs through the multiple layers of jackets and coats. “She left it at the cafe. I went back to get it for her, but would you fucking believe it, she starts running. Sprinting down the street in shorts—”
“Time spent apart from Kohane is time poorly spent,” An interjects.
“— like she’s crazy.” Akito scowls and drops An’s coat on the closest chair, slowly beginning to undo his own clothes, starting from the outermost of the two scarves around his neck. “I don’t know how you put up with her, Kohane.”
“I could say the same for you. You’re wearing way too much,” An argues, tutting. “Kohane puts up with me because she loves me.”
But the thing is that there isn’t anything to put up with in the first place. Being with An is effortless, and loving her even more so. An is pouting now, if only so she has more of an excuse to curl up into Kohane’s uniform, but Kohane indulges her anyways and pats her on the head, brushing flakes of snow off of her bangs. She was at Weekend Garage, she muses to herself, eyes travelling to the ID card in her lanyard. Does that mean she owns the place…?
Like always, Touya has the solution. He escapes from behind the counter to meet with Akito in the middle of the bakery, reaching to help with a stubborn zipper. “You bundled up,” he hums, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Good.”
“Well, you told me to.” The closer Touya gets to him, the harder it is for Akito to look him in the eye, averting his gaze down to what must be the incredibly intricate patterning of his shoelaces. The speed with which he goes from confident to just barely collected in the face of Touya is always surprising but never unexpected (like how poorly he can contain his blush, or how obviously skittish he’s trying not to be). “I didn’t want to be cold anyways.”
That much is, at the very least, a good point. Kohane returns her attention to An, clinging onto her without so much as a hint to ever letting go. “What about you?” she teases, pinching the tip of An’s nose. “If I asked you to dress properly, would you do it for me?”
“Yes,” An says in a heartbeat. Then she furrows her brows and sniffles. “I would try. Probably.” Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she laughs dryly. “Maybe. I’d definitely, uh, consider it.”
“An-chan.”
“I don’t need a coat when I have you, Kohane,” she says, and out of nowhere, she’s coming onto her full force with the blinking and the widest roundest I-have-done-no-wrong-in-the-world eyes and the most deceivingly innocent gaze she’s ever worn in her life. Kohane can hear the angels singing. “Haven’t I told you before? You’re like a heater… A very cute, very perfect heater…”
Kohane raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
“Of course not,” An replies, proudly beaming up at her. “And you’re my wife.”
As much as Kohane hates to say it, the world would be much more peaceful if An shut up forever. She’s sure Akito would agree, but that’s more because he’s been trying to get her to shut up for years, unlike her own reasoning, which is because every time An opens her mouth it sends Kohane’s brain into overdrive. She doesn’t even know how to feasibly reply— or process it, even— and so she doesn’t, instead choosing to go still and let An hold onto her as she pleases.
At this point, she’s far beyond caring what Touya and Akito think. They’re lost in their own world too, if her experience is anything to go by— they’re two pairs stuck together in a half-lit bakery on a winter evening. They’re losers. Kohane is fine with that. She’s fine with anything as long as An keeps nuzzling into her, squeezing her waist, surrounding her with warmth on both the outside and inside.
“I guess that’s fine,” she settles on saying.
They’ll have to go home soon— she and Touya will finish inventory first while An and Akito help with cleanup, and then they’ll pack up whatever’s leftover to take home. She’s craving cake and hot chocolate and the crackle of the fireplace. Marshmallows, whipped cream, gingerbread cookies. Something along the lines of that.
When her eyes flutter shut this time, she finds a piece of herself wanting to stay.
“She’s dead,” Akito announces impassively, leisuring around with a drink in his hand and a set of mismatched socks. “This is your fault, An. She’s gone.”
Huffing, An glares at him, curling her fingers tighter around Kohane’s limp arms. “I don’t even know what I did!” she refutes, rocking back and forth in her seat. Kohane, who has been unconscious for the better of the past three minutes, is still nesting in her lap like one cuddly, oversized teddy bear. “Maybe it was your fault, for being so wrong that she couldn’t take it anymore and decided to stop hearing you forever. Weirdo. Loser.”
“Shut up,” Akito says. “Your girlfriend literally passed out.”
“I’ll make sure your boyfriend passes out next. Sorry, Touya.”
Touya blinks. “What?”
An doesn’t even know what. Bad Dogs this, Bad Dogs that. How about just Bad. Because they’re terrible and An hates them. She also hates herself a little bit, just in case it really is her fault that Kohane fainted, but ultimately, true self-love overpowers all. “Don’t worry, Kohane,” she whispers, shaking her from side to side with carefully moderated strength. “You can do this. I believe in you.”
“She can’t hear you,” Akito says.
For the second time, An repeats, “Shut up. Kohane, you can hear me right? Are you okay? Are you going to…”
“...up, babe. Hey. Kohane. I, uh, have breakfast—”
Kohane’s stomach growls before she’s even conscious at the very mention of food: apparently, dimension hopping is tiring work. The smell of toast and freshly made eggs wafts under her nose, wrapping her in a blanket of curiosity and sudden hunger. She can make out other good things: like pancakes, or juice.
But as soon as she opens her mouth to take a metaphorical bite, her stomach shuts itself up into silence. Because oh, An has breakfast.
Oh. Oh no.
“An-chan.” Her eyes shoot open to the sight of An hovering above her on their bed, wearing nothing but a ratty shirt from high school and jeans. She’s a jeans person, oh god, Kohane married someone that wears jeans at home. Jeans to bed. And on the left side of the bed (where An normally sleeps, if the An-shaped indent is anything to go by) is a wooden tray complete with an ill-assorted arrangement of miscellaneous glassware Kohane didn’t even know they owned. “You cooked.”
Innocently, An blinks, perfectly emanating the oblivious nature of a newborn. If newborns were evil and subjected kitchens to severe danger a minimum of two times a month. “I cooked,” she says proudly, surging forward on her hands to press a sweet kiss to Kohane’s forehead. “Happy one year anniversary, baby.”
It isn’t actually their anniversary. Kohane has a feeling— a bit of a tingle, a Shiraishi Sense if one will— that it’s supposed to be tomorrow, and with a quick peek at her phone on the nightstand, she’s proven right. She debates on saying something about it, but An beats her to it with a courteous, “Don’t say it, Kohane.” She flips the phone over. “I know it’s tomorrow, but I thought that you’d definitely have something planned for tomorrow, and I still wanted to surprise you! Which brings us here. Were you surprised? I had to get up extra early too, since I knew you wouldn’t let me into the kitchen if you knew—”
“An-chan,” Kohane says sweetly, pressing a finger to her lips. “Shh.”
An visibly goes motionless. “Yup,” she says, popping her ‘p’. “Shutting up now.”
In her defense, the breakfast looks edible. Don’t get Kohane wrong— An’s food is never lacking in the visual aspect. Everything she makes looks phenomenal, encompassing anything from drinks to meals to whatever is in between. The problem is actually trying to consume it, which is terrible, considering that’s generally what food is meant for. It’s a stark contrast from Kohane’s own An at home, who can do both with an annoying amount of ease.
Or maybe it isn’t. This An smiles at her sheepishly and Kohane feels her heart swell all over again.
Taking a good look at the spread, the effort that An has put in is clear. A majority of the largest plate is occupied by two slices of toast piled with scrambled eggs, and with what’s left of it, there are a handful of mini pancakes thrown on top of each other. Beside that is a bowl of cut fruits, another bowl of cereal, and a little side dish of yogurt with oats. It’s a filling breakfast, and notably lacking meat, which Kohane refuses to eat before lunchtime.
She doesn’t know where to start, but as if reading her mind, An sits herself down properly on the bed and lifts the tray onto her lap. The cereal is this close to spilling. “Breakfast served a la carte by yours truly,” she introduces, waving a hand in front of their meal. “Featuring eggs with a two-to-one ratio of whites-to-yolk, toast made on setting four of our toaster, and all the fruits in the fridge that are cutting it close to their best before date. Also, we ran out of oat milk, so I used almond milk. Sorry.”
“Ah, uhm—”
“We also ran out of strawberries. And orange juice, which is fine to me because you know I like watermelon juice more. And we don’t have any more maple syrup which is weird because you’re Canadian—”
“Wasn’t it your turn to do the shopping this week?”
“Yes,” An says quietly, eyes dropping down to what must be a very captivating patch of the blanket. “But you’ve been busy, and you know I don’t like going alone…”
“An-chan.” Kohane sighs, but all of the exasperation she’s trying to convey is lost when An sniffles and manages an entire full-fledged apology through the look in her eyes alone. Lifting her arms up, she invites her into a hug. “Come here.”
Without wasting a second, An puts the tray down again and launches herself forward. Her hair tangles itself up right on top of Kohane’s mouth, which is gross, okay, but it’s happened to her before and it’s always good to know that even when it smells like vanilla, it doesn’t taste like vanilla. “We can go tomorrow?” An offers meekly. “I kinda just want to stay in today…”
“Hmm,” she replies, patting An on the head in gentle swipes of her palm. “You want to stay in? I would have never heard that from you when we first met. You’ve always been the extroverted one.”
“To be fair,” An says, “the only reason I was going out so much was to see you. Akito and Mizuki probably hate me for having dragged them out so often, but it would have been awkward if it was just me. God, you probably thought I was a weirdo. Did you?”
Smiling, Kohane reaches towards the tray to take a blueberry in her fingers and press it between An’s lips. “Not really,” she says amicably. “If anything, you’re weirder now than before.”
“Thanks. You’re weird too.”
“Me?”
“You’re lactose intolerant. You have bad eyesight. You’re, like, two grapes tall. And—”
“Hey,” Kohane interrupts.
“— you’re married to me.” Taking another cube of fruit and popping it into her mouth, An chews obnoxiously loud, the insufferable way Kohane hates. “You married someone who skateboards. Huge red flag. Worst mistake of your life, if I might add.”
Unfortunately, An is right this time. An image of her flashes in Kohane’s mind— of oversized flannels and equally baggy pants, of unbearable flirting and lingering stares, and of An’s cheeks burning red with a skateboard under her arm as she hands her a slip of paper. “You say that like I regret it,” Kohane replies. She tucks a messy strand of An’s bangs behind her ears, watching as they slip and fall again immediately. “Do you think so?”
“Of course not,” An laughs. “Even if you did, tough luck. You’re the one who agreed to be mine: you’re stuck with me forever.”
The conversation more or less ends when An decides to stuff an entire mini pancake in Kohane’s mouth mid-sentence. Like anybody else would, Kohane sputters, getting crumbs of the crispy edges all over their nice blankets. The taste is surprisingly average (which, in this case, is more than Kohane could ask for) and she gets through a good portion of them before An insists on having her try something else. Like the eggs. Or the lactose free milk-and-cereal. Or the setting four toast.
An feeds everything to her happily, quoting it as a ‘wife’s duty’ to do so. She also cuddles up against her and wraps her weird, long skater limbs around her body and refuses to move until Kohane is done eating, which is also apparently a ‘wife’s duty’. Kohane thinks her own personal wife’s duty might have to do something with the poorly wrapped skateboard currently underneath their floorboards waiting to see the light of day.
Or maybe all she has to do is be stuck with An forever, as she’d so graciously said. With a mouthful of yogurt and her eyes closed, Kohane chases the flashback she’d seen, of when they were teenagers here in this universe, of words she can feel but can’t quite remember. She chases and chases and chases, deeper into the depths of her own mind, reaching out for a hand that’s fading away into darkness.
Someone turns the lights on.
Kohane wakes up to a faceful of illegible pen scrawls covering a thin roll of fabric, spanning across the entire table. Smudged below her cheek is a haphazardly drawn spaceship landing on what she assumes is a planet, given the multiple rings circling it and the bolded exclamation marks gracing its surroundings. “Oh,” she murmurs to herself, struggling to lift her head up with its sudden unexpected weight. A drop of drool is dried against the cloth. “Oh— that’s…”
Embarrassing, she wants to say. And despite how deep of a sleep she must have fallen into, she’s still thoroughly exhausted. How late did this version of her go to bed?
Or go to the table, technically, having been using her sore arms as a makeshift pillow. They hurt like hell, although she’s starting to learn that at least some part of her will hurt every time she jumps from one world to another. Such are the logistics of dimension-hopping; she doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that she’s an expert. It would be great if she knew exactly why this was happening, or where in the world she is now, but alas—
There’s a window on the wall across from her made of thick bubbled silica. Outside is space. As in outer space, with scattered stars and swirling galaxies and the deepest, thickest shade of nothingness she’s seen in her life.
As it turns out, she isn’t in the world at all.
Her eyes follow splotches of blurry white swimming in her vision— the light is fluorescent yellow, flickering uncomfortably every so often— her ear twitches and she hears footsteps heading her way, ghosts of a tap on the flooring—
Touya, now standing beside her, looks down at her with a flat gaze. He wears a white lab coat and baggy nylon pants. “Azusawa,” he says softly, squinting down at her— her hands, she realises, which are covered in smears of ink. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”
“There’s no such thing as late,” she manages to reply, slurring over her words in apparent sleep deprivation. Restlessly, her fingers tap against the table, jittering back and forth over the plans she’d scraped together only a few hours ago. “We’re landing tomorrow. In eighteen hours. The planet we’re going to— I want to check the estimated conditions, and then our inventory—”
“In your words, there would be no such thing as tomorrow.” Touya balances himself against the back of a chair but doesn’t sit, instead choosing to loom over her, unmoving. “I understand why you want to be safe, Azusawa, but you need rest.” Eyeing the blueprint of Kohane’s scratched out drawings, his expression is critical. “You shouldn’t push yourself to finish a draft on your own. We’re here so—”
“An-chan trusted me to,” she blurts out.
“Shiraishi wanted you to try because you’d never done it before and she thought you would enjoy it,” he finishes coolly. “She’s the most worried of all of us.”
The buzzing in her chest quickly flames up into a burning sense of guilt, eating her up from the inside. Somewhere buried beneath her excess of thoughts, products of overthinking, is the acknowledgement that Touya is right; that he’s always been, ever since they first met as children back on Earth. And further below is disappointment in herself. For being unable to accomplish such an easy task, for not meeting expectations, for creating those expectations herself and pretending that they were imposed on her by someone else.
She’s using An as an excuse— the An who deserves nothing less than the universe.
They met years ago, when An had taken her hand and promised her the stars. She showed her the world and everything beyond it and loved her endlessly, floating in space like two leaves picked up by the wind. They aren’t a couple, aren’t in a relationship, but rather something closer than that. Her eyes hurt when she blinks, pulsing with needle-thin pricks.
Commitment doesn’t exist for explorers like them who dedicate themselves to temporary worlds, constantly fleeing from one home to the next. Even so, she and An are partners. She and An are the closest kind of relationship there is.
Standing up with aching legs, Kohane pushes her chair behind her, hands fumbling to grab the edge of the table. “Where’s An-chan?”
Touya doesn’t do so much as flinch (Kohane wouldn’t put it past him to have expected a reaction like that anyways). “The engine room,” he answers. Go get her.
Running isn’t quite possible in the halls of the ship, but Kohane manages to do so anyway, pulling herself forward with the straps and handles lining the upper walls. All the pressure that had gathered in her shoulders is lost in every step, all the stress she’d felt pooling out to make room for An, An, An. The ship’s navigation is convoluted, no doubt designed so that the four of them— and only the four of them— could ever possibly belong there. She turns left and right and up and down, lost in the tiled floor, swimming forward until she reaches the door and hits her thumb against the fingerpad and—
An, wearing a grease-stained boilersuit and tilted goggles, looks over her shoulder.
For the first time since she was whisked away from her reality, Kohane feels complete control over her own body. Her fingers buzz with electricity, spiking up her arms and into her heart where it pulses in a melody of staggered rhythms. She feels her clothes graze against her skin, the press of her heels into the ground, the echo of the breath that An exhales as she meets Kohane’s eyes.
She jumps and An catches her.
“Kohane,” comes An’s voice in her ear, shallow and out of breath from her work. She smells of oil, unpleasantly sticky and suffocating— even more so in her arms— but all that does is draw Kohane in more, further, closer. Her heartstrings tug at the seams. “Kohane. Hey.” An is unbearably warm, exaggerated by the gears and pipes forever moving around them. Grease smudges against Kohane’s front. Her hands are shaking.
Tightly, An squeezes her, and all her strength leaves her body. If An were a star, Kohane thinks she’d be a comet.
Kohane licks her lips and tastes the tangy metallic of iron. She really hopes that there isn't oil around her mouth. As much as she’s willing to tolerate the smell of it, she’d really rather not have to, you know, eat it. Consume it. Subject her digestive system to it. That’s all for the ship to do, not her—
Her nose twitches. What ship?
It takes two more swipes of her tongue to, by the love of all things justified in the world, say for certain that whatever’s all over her mouth isn’t oil. Unfortunately, it doesn’t leave her with many other options: beneath the overwhelming taste of iron is an undercurrent of tangy sweetness, as if she were having a glass of juice. It sticks to her teeth as she drinks more, lips closed over nothing at all— but in that case, why is she stuck? Why can’t she stop?
Eventually, the flow of liquid tapers off into nothing more than a thin trickle. Kohane breathes in through her mouth, gasping at the cool air, teeth aching at the retraction. She wiggles her fingers, pressing them against whatever it is she’s holding, and little by little, she brings herself back to consciousness.
“Thank god,” An laughs airily. “I thought you’d never stop drinking.”
Kohane notices multiple things at once. The first happens when she opens her eyes and sees An sitting beside her, smiling at her with rounded cheeks and crinkled eyes. She isn’t only older, but also distinctly different, in the way all the other Ans were. Her hair is much shorter— cut roughly to meet her shoulders— and a shade paler, as if it were maturing along with her. The sparkle Kohane is used to seeing in her eyes is mellowed out, faded into a gentle shine that glints ever so slightly when she tilts her head in curiosity, settled perfectly into the rest of her facial features and their subtle changes. “You okay?” An says, and it’s only then that Kohane works out that An has a hand petting the top of her head, “Need more? Want some water?”
More of what? Kohane wonders, drowsily blinking up at her. More of her warmth, always. More of her voice, because she could never hear enough. More of her… her…
The second happens when she looks down at An’s arm, which she’s apparently been holding the entire time, and sees blood.
Okay. An’s arm is injured, there’s a bit of dried blood smeared around two thin, punctured holes in her skin. That’s— that’s fine! An doesn’t look like she’s in pain at all, and it must be because Kohane is treating her. Right. She’s treating her because she’s a good partner, so what she should do right now is—
Her conscience decides to lick it.
She’s going crazy. Every other time, it had been An who was different, whether as a werewolf or an astronaut or whatever else she can’t remember anymore. So this time maybe Kohane is just going crazy and isn’t it always her turn to not know what’s going on, why she’s licking at what has to be bite marks on An’s arm, why her blood tastes less like blood and more like fruit punch with every passing second—
“You’re good then?” An smiles at her, and every single thought she’s ever had melts away. “Come on, my dear vampire. Let’s get this cleaned up.”
Kohane is going to explode.
Finally, it’s at this moment that her brain decides she’s had enough control over her own body. Her mouth is opening before she knows it, licking up the little blood that remains over An’s wound, carefully going over it to help it heal. “I’m okay, An-chan,” she murmurs first, tasting the leftover iron on the roof of her mouth. “What about you? Do you feel dizzy?”
Passively, An shrugs, combing her hair back with her fingers. “I’m not too bad myself,” she replies, rolling the shoulder of the arm that Kohane had bitten. Looking to the coffee table— they’re on the living room couch, Kohane notes— with drooping eyes, she points to the Gatorade bottle courteously left out. “Could you pass me that?”
Kohane reaches for it immediately. She takes a second to survey the rest of what’s spread out on the table, which includes a handful of granola bars and disinfectant wipes, and gathers those too.
As soon as it’s within distance, An takes the Gatorade and pours it down her throat. “Oh, An-chan,” Kohane mumbles, unwrapping the granola bar, “how much did I drink?”
She only gets an answer a few seconds later, after An has had a good half of the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, despite the fact that her weariness is very much something to worry about. “I’m good. I won’t faint or anything— I’m just like, you know. Processing.”
It was too much; that’s all Kohane knows and cares about. If she hadn’t literally gone from one dimension to another in the middle of feeding, maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but the fact is that it did and she has to handle it. “You should have more,” she says, gently pushing the bottle in An’s hands closer towards her again. “And the granola bar too— I’m sorry, I drank too much—”
“Hey, hey. I thought we agreed not to say that.” An doesn’t drink any more, but she does accept the granola bar, biting into it between her words. She doesn’t close her mouth to chew, but Kohane doesn’t have it in her to care right now. “You can’t control how much you need. It’s been a while since you last fed anyway, so I was sort of expecting this.”
“But still, it wasn’t—”
“Kohane. Love.” All it takes is one word for Kohane to go still. “Light of my life. Dearest. Angel.” An takes her hand, clasps it between her own with a feathery-light touch. “Our promise. Do you remember it? Do you remember what we said?”
Which one? Kohane is dying to ask. Is it the one that An had made to protect her, or to love her, or to chase their future together? Is it the one where An said that she’d be with her day and night? What about the one where An said she could go anywhere in the world so long as it was with her?
“That you’d take care of me,” Kohane says, “twice as much as I’d take care of you.”
An has always been unfair. Her words are unfair, her logic is unfair, her everything is unfair. She’s unfair now when she grins and ruffles her hair affectionately, leaning forward so that their foreheads are pressed together. “And then you pouted and said you didn’t agree and made me promise to never make that promise again, and then we got married a year later, and I promised it again anyways.”
“Because you have no reason, An-chan.”
“No,” An objects. “Because no matter how much I give you, it’ll never be as much as I receive.”
Their wedding was in winter. It had snowed the day before, piling up along the aisle they’d prepared in the garden. The trees were bare down to the bark, flowers long since buried beneath the weight of the cold air, wind icy to the slightest touch. They’d word coats over their suits, and An had called them trendsetters— with the trend being freezing to death as they recite their vows, apparently. They’d both wanted an outdoor wedding. Kohane’s skin is sensitive, and An would take any reason to force Akito into the most uncomfortable best man speech ever to be conceived.
And there, An had held her in her arms, kissed over her fangs, told her she was hers.
Nothing has changed. Kohane meets An’s eyes and sees the wedding she never experienced but remembers anyway. An meets her eyes and keeps meeting them, like they’ve been locked together and can’t be torn apart.
It doesn’t break even when Kohane falls forward and buries her face in the crook of An’s neck, mind relaxed and sated from her meal. “I want ice cream,” she murmurs quietly. It’s never a question with An, the same way An’s proposal wasn’t, the same way every time Kohane asks if she can bite her isn’t.
“Then I’ll get you some,” An agrees easily. “Strawberry flavoured. Lactose free. Whatever you want, I’ll get for you.”
“I told her she shouldn’t have had milk,” An mutters to herself, rocking from side to side in a miserable attempt to calm her nerves. “She shouldn’t have had that cake, either. Or maybe it was the chips— something was in the chips, probably— or maybe the honey flavoured cookies. There isn’t any actual honey in it but what if her body thought there was so it shut itself down and now she’s trapped in there—”
The speed and accuracy with which Akito throws one of his house slippers at An’s head is terrifying. However, the proficiency with which An dodges them, by the grace of the Gods and all things holy, is record-breaking. That’s where years of practice gets you. “She’s not dead, idiot,” he says for the tenth time, “and she isn’t in a coma, or astral projecting, or whatever else you’ve suggested in the past five minutes.”
“Then why don’t you explain what’s going on,” An replies snarkily. Normally, she only lets Akito get to her half the time (arguably less, although that would be more believable if Touya stopped keeping count), but matters concerning Kohane are matters worth dying over. Or killing over. She isn’t picky. “As far as we know, she’s gone, Akito. Her soul could be off in fucking Narnia or wherever else. She could be frolicking around with Dorothy and her little dog guy and the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Are you serious— that’s Arkansas, are you seriously saying these words to me—”
Touya, finishing their setlist on his own, whispers under his breath. “No it isn’t.”
“Even if she’s just asleep, maybe she’s having a nightmare.” In contrast to the panic laced in her voice, her touch is gentle, petting over Kohane’s head delicately. This is symbolism for the fact that An is crazy. “She was gritting her teeth a second ago. Vampires— she’s fighting vampires, or werewolves—”
“Grow up.”
“— or you, I hope,” An scoffs. “I hope she’s really beating you up in there. Kohane, if you can hear me, get him good. Go for the stomach—”
“— Babe, your stomach, you’ll get cold—”
She is cold. Kohane’s eyes fly open, waking up in icy sweat to the painfully-orange fluorescent light taunting her from above, every single limb of her body in a state of persistent, unspeakably painful soreness. God, what universe is this one? Is she a victim of murder? Has she been abducted?
The ceiling light is replaced by an upside-down view of An’s face, and consequently, strands of her hair that have escaped her ponytail dangling just above her nose. “Baby,” An says again, eyebrows furrowed in worry, “are you, uh— like… good?”
An, who is beautiful even upside-down, is uncomfortably shiny. With sweat. Her headband stretched across her forehead, and she’s wearing nothing but a compression shirt and basketball shorts. She’s very gross right now, Kohane thinks, and also very beautiful. Very, very beautiful.
“Your protein shake,” Kohane mumbles, line of sight slowly drifting to the plastic bottle in An’s hand, cap untwisted and pointed towards the floor. “It’s spilling.”
Rather disgustingly, An’s horrid mixture of bananas, spinach, and whatever mixed nuts she could scrounge up in the cupboards goops up onto the floor. “Oh— shit,” An curses, recoiling from the spillage which only makes it spill more, “Sorry! My bad. Fuck, it keeps spilling— how do I, uhm—”
“Close the lid,” Kohane offers soothingly.
An shuts up and closes the lid. Miraculously (by their standards, anyways), it stops spilling.
The whole, uh, situation gives Kohane the opportunity to sit up, fighting against every single nerve in her body telling her to not move and lie back down and rot in her varied muscle pain. She’s sitting on what looks like a flat workout bench, good for crunches or weight lifting or other gym jargon, and is also wearing gym clothes: like An’s outfit if it were flipped around into a baggy tee and leggings. Speaking of An’s outfit, her eyes flit back to An’s compression shirt and how it wraps around every bulge of An’s biceps. Seriously, which universe is this?
Sheepishly, An smiles at her as she looks just about anywhere in the gym— empty except for them, which Kohane assumes is nice— but her. “Sorry,” she half-laughs awkwardly, scratching her head on instinct. Her ponytail slowly falls out of place. “I’m, uh, almost done with this set. And then we can go home?”
Kohane nods, even if only to placate An for the time being. This An, even while being as forward (and honestly, charmingly embarrassing) as she’s used to, looks more like a worrywart; anxious, too, judging from her inability to stay still. “Take your time, An-chan,” she replies. “I’m sorry. How long did I sleep for?”
“Oh, not long!” An chirps. “Well, you were awake at least twenty minutes ago. And I did hear some snoring coming from you, but that totally could have been your, like, workout grind. But I finished a few sets of shoulder presses, and then I…”
While An drones on with her gym junkie vocabulary, Kohane looks around. Assesses her situation. Observes her surroundings, pointedly trying to ignore An’s bulky arms and compression shirt. Her first conclusion is that they were working out together, which is more or less obvious— it’s just a bit unbelievable, because An is only mildly committed to her basketball team and Kohane possesses the strength of an amicable squirrel. Her second is that An works here, because Kohane can’t imagine any other reason An would have access to the gym at two in the morning like the clock on the wall reads. And finally, her third is that maybe An owns the gym. The plaque on the wall with her certifications would make a lot of sense. As would the fact she’s at the gym at two o’clock. Kohane really wants to go to bed.
“...and I’m really happy you stayed to work out with me, baby,” An admits, atypically nervous with the way she twiddles her fingers, and fuck the bed, fuck sleep, Kohane would stay holed up in the gym for an entire week if it made An happy. “I’m really proud of you too, for trying your new routine out. Let me know if it’s too much, okay? I can always make adjustments for you, and I don’t think I’m all that great at it either, but I need the practice, right? So if you feel like there’s room for improvement, tell me so I can—”
“An-chan,” Kohane says. She grabs An’s hand between her own and An’s jaw snaps shut in record time. “Thank you too. I’m— I think I couldn’t quite keep up today, but I want to try again.”
“Uhm,” An replies smartly.
Kohane looks down at her sneakers. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Yes.” The eagerness in An’s voice, taking on the form of a few extra sparkles in her eyes, isn’t too far off from that of a puppy. Kohane briefly sees an image of An with wolf ears— where is that from? “Anytime, seriously, Kohane. I’ll always have time for you. Especially because—”
That’s where she cuts herself off, visibly biting down on her tongue to keep herself from talking. She’s overexcited, hypothetical tail wagging nonstop behind her, shifting her weight from her left leg to her right leg to her left again. She dangles her protein shake with her free hand and slowly curls her other up from where it’s been resting in Kohane’s hold. Carefully, Kohane lets go, untangling their fingers slowly to reveal what An’s been so restless about.
The answer, Kohane thinks, is the same as it’s always been: a ring nestled on her fourth finger, barely peeking out of a sleek silicone covering that protects its band.
“Because we’re married now,” An finishes quietly. Her face is rosy pink. “So you’re my wife— well, I’m your wife too, so I guess that— uh— but you know what I’m trying to say, right?”
“I think I can figure it out,” she replies, gently thumbing over her own ring, sitting so comfortably on her finger that she’d forgotten it was there (though she’d never really forget, because when it comes to An, how could she?).
An’s laugh is nervous, and more importantly, adorably bashful. Kohane finds that she’s enjoying this kind of An more than she expected to: it feels like the tables have turned, even if An has always had a streak of hidden awkwardness within her. Despite the sweat and gross protein shake and general gym bro-esque air she gives off, she’s devastatingly cute. God, Kohane is lucky. So, so lucky.
That’s all she can think about as she looks up at her, still loosened up from her workout but stiff as a board at the same time, standing in front of Kohane with her pupils dilated and lips parted. “Hey,” she says, breathy and airy like she’s making a wish, “can I tell you I love you?”
Kohane’s chest twists in coils of swelling adoration. “Only if you let me say it back.”
She’s scooped up within the second. Somewhere in the back of her head, she hears An’s bottle hit the floor and she knows it’ll be another mess to clean up later, but everything is clouded by the feeling of connection and home and the space inside An’s arms she takes up. The force almost pushes her off of the bench, but she stays stuck to her spot even with An all over her, holding onto the edge of the glossy material.
The clock keeps ticking. Her arms are sore. “We can try again tomorrow,” she offers. “I can do something lighter—”
“Tomorrow?”
An doesn’t move, but the way she freezes is more than obvious, suddenly heavy on her lap with uncertainty. The tightness in Kohane’s chest starts to twist into too much, uncomfortably rigid as it weighs her down. “Is— tomorrow not okay?” she asks cautiously— did she have something planned? Was it something important? She has too many questions for too little answers.
The ache in Kohane’s muscles builds up into the threat of a migraine. This isn’t the reaction she was expecting. Words bubble up in her throat but disappear as soon as they reach the tip of her tongue. “No, it’s okay,” An murmurs. She leans back, pushing herself away an inch at a time, until Kohane can see her face; confused gaze, thin lips. “Tomorrow— tomorrow is a Friday.”
Kohane’s moving on instincts alone. She runs through her memories, whatever she can scrape together from this universe in particular, pieces them together to make up the story of her and An. She remembers being a teenager and finding An in the gym and late nights running through the halls of their residences. She remembers texts and frantic calls and the assurance of having An by her side no matter what or when. What’s missing? She can’t find it. What’s going wrong?
The bottle is on the floor. The clock goes forward. You’re tired, she hears An’s voice echo from far, far away, like she’s been submerged into her own drowsiness. It comes from nowhere; the sudden urge to fall asleep, this life slipping away from her as easily as it appeared. Tomorrow is a Friday. An’s face is starting to lose its definition.
Fridays aren’t gym days, Kohane thinks. And right afterwards, she’s gone.
Kohane isn’t necessarily used to being swept into alternate universes; it’s simply that she doesn’t have a choice in the matter, and so sometimes, it’s easier to accept it and move on. An has wolf ears, An is wearing a knight’s uniform, An is her wife of four years and counting. Sure. Kohane’s imagination isn’t the most creative, but it must be somewhere out there for it to keep coming up with these sorts of scenarios. Or she’s lost her mind.
Probably the latter, given the fact that she is currently being carried midair.
Midair as in quite literally in the middle of the air. She wakes up to the peak of an entire mountain hurtling towards her at an alarming rate, kind of like if it were sentient and hated her guts. The thin clouds of fog that shroud its outline dissipate as it grows closer and closer, looking very much like rocks and ice and wow, this mountain might really kill me if I don’t move —
She moves. Or more accurately, she is moved.
She flies through the tiniest, most minuscule tunnel tucked into the thinnest, most annoyingly terrifying crevice on the face of the mountain. The wind whips past her face, blowing hair into her eyes, mouth, everywhere it really shouldn’t be— exiting from the other end is a whole other problem, because all of a sudden the nothingness is replaced by everything. She’s lost in the clouds, feet dangling hundreds of metres above forests, fields, streams, the world as it exists. And amidst it all, Kohane is here, fighting for her sanity, arms tightly wrapped around—
It shouldn’t even be a question. Who else but An?
Who else but this version of An, who has sharp eyes and a burning hot stare and wings , scaled from the base to the tips, extended out from her back in symmetrically broken frames. Her hair is cut to three different lengths, jagged ends touching her shoulders and pooling over her back and fanning out into the air when she drops, comes back up, toys around with Kohane in her arms.
Protruding from her head are a pair of muddy horns. Poking at her lips are a pair of stubby fangs. Looking, watching, staring are a pair of bright gold eyes. “Morning, princess,” An says, slowing her pace as they drift through the sky, “How was your nap?”
Gathering her thoughts, Kohane blinks her tears away (whether they were from her sleep or the conditions she’s currently being subjected to, she doesn’t know), squirming around with her arms looped around An’s neck, using it as an anchor. “It would have been better with my sword,” she hears herself say, like it’s natural, “but it was alright. But I…” She interrupts herself with a prolonged yawn. “I think I’ll have to sleep again once we’re home.”
“You treat that sword like a blanket.” There’s no real bite to the tease— there’s nothing but affection, really. There never is. “Akito’s been going on about his weighted blanket, day and night. Went to check it out and it was a fur with some rocks on it. You going to be like him?”
Kohane scrunches her nose up. “No,” she says, tucking herself into An’s torso. “Maybe it’s one of his spirit things. Being one with the mountain and all.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” An snorts. With a flap of her wings, she slowly begins to bring them down, descending in gentle increments. “But I’ve seen Touya with it, and he likes it. Are you telling me that it’s a human thing too?”
“I like to hold onto you,” Kohane replies, “so maybe it is.”
They fly through a dense patch of fog, wispy coils of blue-gray settling around them, clinging at the fabric of their clothes. The ground becomes harder to see, but An cuts through the air anyways, with all the practice of having flown for years. Kohane, who’s much less dragon and much more fearful of the horrors of the world, still finds herself at peace; she trusts An, no matter in what situation or which version of her.
Memories flash in her mind, leaving as quickly as they come, painting pictures of clear skies and afternoon stars and the village she’d come from years ago. She had trusted An when she first found her lying injured on the forest floor. She kept trusting her when she brought her to her den, healed her, and helped her recover despite the fact that she was there to kill her. She kept trusting her when An left to find Akito and returned bruised up and bloodied. She kept trusting her when, somewhere in between it all, she fell in love.
And An, who’s shown her the world and even more, trusts her too. That’s all Kohane’s heart needs to soar.
Even after how long it’s been, being in a relationship with a dragon isn’t easy. Sure, they’ve overcome the hardest parts, albeit a bit dramatically— like overcoming the fact that Kohane is human by becoming soulmates and granting her eternal life— but there are still the little things, like dragon diet, and dragon houses, and dragon lifestyle. It helps that An heavily prefers her human form and is more than willing to let Kohane do the cooking (because even seeing An feast on uncooked meat is enough to induce a stomachache), and it really helps that they live in a cute, proper cottage back home in the mountains, but they aren’t at home and An is still a dragon who is kind of gross and out here, there’s very little Kohane can do about it.
Coming to a landing, An brings them down to a warmly lit cave carved out at the base of a summit, which happens to be the place they’re calling home for the month. She’s delicate in her arrival— her right foot first, left second, slowly resting her weight down onto the rocky surface as she folds her wings behind her. Kohane, suspended in her arms, doesn’t feel so much as a waver. “We’re here, princess,” An says proudly, smiling at their makeshift accommodation. “Hope you enjoyed your flight.”
An is closer to a princess than Kohane will ever be, but Kohane doesn’t have the confidence nor shamelessness to say so. She lets the blush on her face do the talking. “An-chan,” she says in a feigned complaint, but then when she tries to wiggle her way out of An’s hold she realises she can’t and then it becomes a very real complaint. “An-chan, let me go— you can’t keep me here forever.”
“Who says I can’t?” An laughs, although she ends up bending down to let Kohane off anyways. “In some ways, I already have, you know.”
Kohane knows— the brooch in An’s hair and the flower encapsulated in her own glass necklace is proof of it. Arguing with An is meaningless when they’re on the same side. She stretches her arms up and above her, leaning left and right to collect whatever sense she hasn’t lost yet, and finally, lets her hand dangle by her side. An takes it in a heartbeat.
The cave’s entrance is punctuated by spikes of rigid rock, but its inside is much more welcoming; kind of like if they were making their way into the toothy mouth of a particularly benevolent whale, except the whale is a cave, which would be exactly what it’s like. The opening expands into a wider space lined with smooth walls and faint lines of protruding stone— on one side is where they’ve stocked their food for the upcoming week, and on the other is an indent that leads to a smaller ‘room’ where they’ve laid out their furs for the night. The place is rugged but comfortable, not too different from camping. If they really wanted to, they could afford to stay in the nearby town’s inn— being dragonkin, An has multiple lifetime’s worth of riches to throw around— but they wouldn’t necessarily take well to both An and Akito being nonhumans, and all the fun would be lost anyway.
While An drifts towards the impromptu bedroom, Kohane first drops her robes on the floor and kneels down to fold them into a neat square, tucking them into her section of their inventory pile. Within an arm’s reach is a basket of fresh fruit, chosen by Akito a few days ago and enchanted by Touya only yesterday. She indulges herself in a handful of berries native to the region— northern berries are crisp on the outside and forever-fresh on the inside, full of rich, swirling flavour. She can’t stop herself from taking a few more, half under the guise that she’ll give them to An and half admitting of the fact that they’ll be gone before she knows it.
Kohane finds An standing by the opening to the bedroom— she tugs at her sleeves and opens her mouth to speak, but An looks over her shoulder before she can, finger pressed to her lips. “Look,” she whispers, nodding her head to the side. “That’s what I meant.”
She isn’t entirely sure of what An wants her to look at until her eyes scan the floor and land on Akito and Touya curled up under a bundle of thick furs. It isn’t a rare sight, even when considering how secretive the two of them naturally are, but then she sees the literal boulders spread across the blanket. There are five or six, each about the size of a melon, each one equally questionable as the last.
“Oh,” Kohane says, nails scratching at the back of her neck. “I don’t think it’s a spirit thing.”
Behind her, An’s wings rustle and wrap around her, curling around her arm to keep her close. “But honestly, I’m a little jealous,” she admits reluctantly, yawning through her words. “We’ve been too busy to sleep properly.”
“We have time for a nap.” She brings her hands to her front and clasps them together, looking up to find An’s eyes. “At least half an hour.”
She doesn’t find them: instead, all she’s met with is an uncomfortable ambiguity painted across An’s face, a stark change from the glow she’d been giving off just a few moments ago. “Yeah.” An narrows her eyes, suddenly distraught. “Let’s take a nap.”
Their own temporary bed is on the other side of the space, shaped with An’s largest robes from home and newer fleece blankets bought from the markets. Kohane throws herself into them, losing all strength in her body as soon as she hits the sheets, burying herself in the softness of the furs. They’re just as comfortable as a real bed, and it only gets better once An falls down on top of her, wings unfolded to cover the flicker of the bedside candle.
Kohane turns herself around, coming face to face with An. Her hair is tousled up against her cheek. “We’ll keep looking tomorrow,” she says, shuffling closer, little by little. “We can prepare tonight, after we get up. And then we can—”
“Kohane.” An purses her lips together, face unnaturally pale under the poor lighting of the cave. Kohane’s heart stills— her words die in her throat, left to disappear against An’s solemn expression. “Don’t worry about it. I think you should take the time to sleep. We have enough time to waste.”
She doesn’t get it. Frowning, she pulls her legs up to her chest, curled up into herself. “What?”
And honestly, she can’t say she’s surprised when An reaches up to the pin in her hair, feeling over it with her fingers in ghostly sequence. “You sound like you need rest,” she explains coldly, words cut sharply by her tongue. “We can talk about it tomorrow. You should go to bed.”
“An-chan,” Kohane murmurs. Her head is spinning, scrambling to put together the pieces of An’s thoughts; she tries to find meaning in her stare and drowns in pallid gold instead. “I don’t understand. You don’t make sense—”
“No,” An says disappointedly, glancing down at Kohane’s necklace. “ You don’t make sense. You aren’t yourself today. I should have noticed earlier.” Her features start to morph into each other no matter how hard Kohane tries to distinguish them— the red of her lips is faint, the lines of her eyes blurry, and oh, it’s Kohane’s sight that’s really starting to leave her.
This dream she’s been living, indulging herself in for what’s felt like hours, is starting to take hold of her. The stare this An gives her is nightmarish. “Wait,” Kohane pleads, even though her own voice is starting to sound distant too, “An-chan, if you— I can’t—”
And then An holds her hand. “Sleep,” she says.
The effects are immediate. Kohane’s eyelids shut on their own accord, pulled down by the weight of her lashes. She opens her mouth to say nothing at all, replaced by the rush of air in her lungs. The last thing she sees is the worry in An’s eyes, and the last thing she feels is a softness against her palm, tracing meaningless shapes and unintelligible words.
She’s lost, somewhere. She wishes An were here; the real one.
Coffee, made the way she likes it. Topped with frothed milk, mixed with hints of chocolate, garnished with whipped cream and overly-sweet peppermint. It’s Weekend Garage’s seasonal winter drink, otherwise known as the Shiraishi Special, other-otherwise known as the ‘ This one is for you, Kohane! ’ Her nose twitches at the wafting smell of roasting coffee beans and marshmallows and sugary snacks. She reaches out in search of her mug— the cup she knows is waiting for her somewhere here— feeling around the wooden surface of the table until finally, her fingers meet smooth ceramic, grasping the handle.
The warmth of the mug buzzes against her skin, and then the warmth of something else covers her palm. A spark of heat flashes from the contact up her arm and to the rest of her body, gentle flame burning in her chest. It reminds her of coming home to the fireplace, to a cup of hot chocolate and a thick fleece blanket and love to receive.
Slowly, the cloud of lethargy fades away into a comfortable hum in the back of her head. With her head buried in her arms, she opens her eyes to see An standing behind the counter of Weekend Garage with her golden eyes and soft smile and cafe apron, and oh, this is what coming home really feels like.
An looks at her with the universe in her eyes and Kohane is sure of it.
She drags herself up and off of the counter, slipping her hand away to stretch her arms out in front of her. Her senses snap back into place with every passing second— compared to how distant she’d felt from her body before, it’s as if the opposite is happening now, like all the control she’d lost is coming back to her with every pull of her muscles, touch on her skin. She wiggles her fingers, rolls her neck, and maybe the best of it all is when she talks.
Her voice comes easily, slipping off of her tongue. “Good morning,” she says, melting into the calm orange of the cafe lights, “An-chan.”
With a crinkle of her eyes, a few lines just by the corners of her lashes, An smiles. “Morning, Kohane,” she murmurs, quiet enough that Kohane can still hear the whirring of the aircon, the traffic outside, the unspoken words left to be lost. “Glad you’re finally here.”
Here. Weekend Garage, completely empty save for the two of them, is a safe haven amidst the winter season. Outside on Vivid Street, the glow of the streetlights barely peeks out from above the piles and piles of crisp, white snow, dotted along the night sky like a constellation. When cars pass by on the main road just around the corner, their headlights shine against the graffitied walls, momentarily bursting with saturated colour. There’s one window left open by the corner booth where the cold seeps in, because no matter the weather, An has always liked fresh air, whether here or at home.
If there’s a difference, she means. If home is where the heart is, then Kohane’s heart is with An, carried around in the tone of her voice, the tilt of her head, the familiar kind of look that settles on her features. An slides her the drink by its coaster, glass clinking against the thin metal spoon resting on the edge of its rim. “For you,” she says, brushing the back of her hand against Kohane’s jawline. Softly. Affectionate. “Give it a try.”
The perpetual problem with drinks as extravagantly complicated as these is that Kohane never knows how to approach them. She could ask for a straw at the risk of missing out on all of the toppings and having An tease her. She could try to sip at a spoonful at the risk of spilling over the table and having An tease her. In the end, she tries it the normal way: bringing it up to her lips, careful of the cream piled on top, tasting everything all at once like the way it was meant to be.
In the end, An teases her anyways. She puts the cup down back only to see An holding back a laugh, sharp cheekbones rounded when her lips pull up. Kohane wiggles her nose and feels whipped cream all across her upper lip— “An-chan,” she whines, pulling a napkin out to wipe her mouth. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” An replies, entirely unconvincing with the giggles that spill out from between her words. Suddenly, Kohane thinks she wouldn’t mind being teased at all if An could always glow like this. “You— hey, you missed a spot. Here.”
Leaning over the counter, An wobbles forward into pressing a kiss to the corner of Kohane’s lips. She’s holding onto the counter edge on her side, and the unsteady balance pushes Kohane back too, barely saving herself from falling off of the stool. “An-chan, don’t—” Another kiss, planted right in the middle of her lips— “— at least let me wipe it properly—”
“No need,” and An leans back, grinning too wide and too ridiculously attractive for Kohane to handle. “I think I got it all.”
There’s little more Kohane can do than swat at her arm, without any real strength or meaning behind it. An lets her land a few before she steps to the side and spoons more of her drink together, raising it to Kohane’s mouth— Kohane drops her arms and lets her. It tastes good— like winter, or rather the warmth that saves her from it. The crunch of sprinkles. The rich chocolate. The undercurrent of smooth, bitter coffee. She can taste it all, sift through each layer as it pools into its flavour. She’s hyper aware of her surroundings, of where she is and who she’s with, and it’s like she’s gained a part of herself back. The most important part.
For once, An is the same old An she knows, and she herself is the same old Kohane. This is where she’s supposed to be: back home. Wherever she’d been before doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about being anywhere else so long as she can stay here, lost in the season that lasts forever, drowning in the dull lights of An’s cafe.
Holding onto the handle of the mug, she looks down at the ring on her finger, silver band wrapped around the faint scars that stretch from her knuckle. Her hands are small but calloused, packed with dense muscles in her palm. Her ring, in comparison, is spotless, glistening like a star of its own nature. She frowns, tasting the remnants of caffeine on the roof of her mouth. Looking closer, she has marks of all kinds on her skin, ranging from thin to faded to sharp—
In the blink of an eye, An is holding onto her hand with her own, thumbing past each and every blemish. “Kohane,” she says, definitively. Forward.
Kohane’s eyes snap up, thoughts blending together in a flurry. She’s shaken up. The cafe doesn’t feel nearly as warm as it did a minute before. “W-What?”
She tries to search for reason in An’s body language, the way she always does when she needs some sort of assurance, a message of what passes through An’s mind. She’s been readable from the beginning; compared to someone like Akito, who tries to keep his deepest concerns to himself, or Touya, whose calm demeanour has become his own brand of emotion, Kohane knows An like she’s a part of her. The back of her hand. The focus of her attention.
That’s why it’s so shocking to look up and find nothing.
The way An studies her is foggy, full of clouded dubiety that forces shivers up Kohane’s spine. An retracts her hand like she’s been burnt (she has, maybe, because that would explain the feverish chill Kohane’s starting to develop) and pats it down against her apron. “Nothing,” she finally murmurs monotonously. Wearily, she forces her lips into a feigned smile. “You should wear more. It’s getting cold.”
Kohane chews on her cheek. She waits for something to say— anything, whatever would make An stop looking at her this way— but it doesn’t come, and she’s left speechless, mouth full of smooth chocolate and empty words.
The overhead lamps flicker, hesitant in nature as they eventually go out and cast the cafe in darkness. A second later, they’re back in full power, brighter than they were before. An is wiping a plate down with a hand towel, pointedly refusing to look anywhere but down at the dishes that are already clean. A strand of her hair, tucked behind her ear, falls to frame the side of her jawline. Kohane touches her own pigtails out of instinct to ensure they’re in place and finds that they’re uneven— the one on her right is tied higher than her left.
It reminds her of something from a long time ago, and she hates more than anything that imaginary faces and obscured words are all that come to her mind. She considers fixing them, but doesn’t. Her hands fold themselves on the edge of the counter.
She’s picking at her fingers again. The skin around her nail beds is dry, and on the corner of her ring finger, a tiny drop of blood is beading. “An-chan,” she asks, voice shallow, staring down at her nails, “do you have any bandaids?”
An smiles like she’s trying not to cry. “Yeah,” she replies, pulling a box out from underneath the counter and sliding it towards her. “Of course I do.”
The box, made of translucent plastic, is packed with bandaids of every size. There are rolls of bandages tucked to one side— the ones you’d normally use for serious injuries or wounds— but what catches Kohane’s eyes first are the bundles of pastel bandaids, complete with pinks and blues and character-themed designs. She’s seen them before at grocery store vending machines, and when she was younger, in the doctor’s office. They’re silly and childish and cute. Kohane likes them.
From the corner of her eye, An watches Kohane as she uses one. Maybe An thinks Kohane can’t see the way her shoulders fall, but she can.
“Another papercut?” An asks her.
“No,” Kohane replies, shaking her head. The bandaid sits uneven on her skin, a little scratchy by the edges. “Only this—” She shows her hand off to An, who leans over to take a closer look. “— but I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt.”
An offers a muted hum. Her gaze softens— a little, barely noticeable, maybe not at all if it were anyone but Kohane. “That’s what I thought you’d say,” she murmurs. “It’s what you always do.”
You always do. An speaks as if she’s telling her rather than talking to her.
And then Kohane thinks that maybe this isn’t the An she knows.
Sure, the cafe is the same. Kohane can remember every booth they’ve sat at, every drink she’s had courtesy of An’s insistence. An’s face is the same too, albeit visibly matured: Kohane can see it through the chisel of her cheekbones, her mellowed eyes, the way she does her hair. To some level, An is still the same girl on the inside, too. She’s the center of the universe, a star swept away by the sea. Kohane loves her voice, her words, everything about her.
But something is different; not wrong, only different, like everything’s been shifted just a few centimetres to the side. Like a part of An is askew. Like Kohane herself is missing something, itching at the back of her mind. She doesn’t know what it is, can’t decipher the last piece of the puzzle that her dreams have been making up. Go back, she repeats to herself. Back to where — to when —
“What are you thinking about?” An asks.
Kohane exhales, airily thin, and her heartbeat settles. “When we first met.”
“When we— oh,” and An’s voice fades into a dot of a whisper, quiet like snowfall. “When we met. Back in high school?”
Nodding, Kohane tucks herself into the little space of the counter she’s made her own. She traces stars on her palm and thinks, as far back as she can, all the way to when she’d first stepped foot into the cafe. “I remember seeing you for the first time,” she admits. “You were— pretty. Really pretty.”
“Kohane,” An laughs, visibly happier. “God, I wish you could have seen what was going through my head when I saw you. You were crazy cute, you know. Like, crazy.”
“So you tell me a lot.”
She’s given a halfhearted shrug that does nothing for An’s cheekiness. “I guess I do,” she says nonchalantly. “But you really can’t blame me. It was around the beginning of the year, right? You know, I was pretty surprised to see you. I didn’t know what to expect—”
“I was surprised by you too, An-chan.” Kohane really can’t believe she’s saying all of this— hiding her face in her sleeves, she continues, “because you just talked to me, and then I—”
“— especially given your reputation—”
“— ran out of your cafe,” she finishes. She hears An suck her breath in. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, but I ended up here anyways.”
For a while, she hears nothing. An doesn’t reply, and all Kohane can feel is the fabric of her sweater on her face and the curling warmth of the heating and the sense of make-believe snow falling onto her skin. Her cheeks burn like a fireplace— soft, crackling beneath her skin, enveloping. Comforting.
“Here, huh,” An says. Kohane peeks at her from above her hands and sees the way her eyes close, fluttering shut. “Yeah.”
The piece she’s been looking for is still missing. She realises this when An smiles and looks at her again and doesn’t say a single thing. An is warm. Safe. Inside the cafe that feels like it’s about to collapse, An is the only thing she can trust.
“An-chan,” Kohane says. “I want to go home.”
An reaches out and presses the back of her hand to Kohane’s cheek, careful, sweet as chocolate, feeling over Kohane’s skin the same way she would hold glass. “Me too,” An replies. Her eyes are glossy. “It’s about time.”
She’s almost there. Kohane already has her coat in her hands, grabbed from the seat beside her. “Then let’s go—”
“Kohane.” The weight of her voice makes Kohane freeze. “Not us. Just you.”
Kohane blinks. “What?”
“You should go home,” An repeats, and all of a sudden her voice is echoing in Kohane’s head, washing over her in waves of— she doesn’t know anymore. “It’s been a while. I wish I could keep you here, but—”
“No, An-chan.” The headache from before comes back full force, pounding against her skull. “What are you— I don’t get it, An-chan. What do you mean?”
She wants to go. She wants to leave and crunch into the snow with her boots and hold An’s hand the entire time. But no matter how much she wants it, hopes for it, it doesn’t happen because An’s outline is starting to go fuzzy and she still won’t move. “You have people waiting for you,” An says. She reaches behind her head to undo her ponytail, letting her hair pool over her shoulders. “Well, one person. You should go find her.”
“Let’s go home,” Kohane pleads weakly. Is An leaving her? Or is she the one who’s leaving? “I don’t want to be here, An-chan. Can we—”
“And I’m waiting for someone too,” An says. Her gaze shifts from Kohane to behind her— to the door. Kohane can’t help but follow it, chasing after it like it’s all she has left, up to the window of the entrance that looks out to Vivid Street. She sees the snow first, in even larger piles than when she’d woken up, and then she sees the streetlights casting shadows across the ground, and then she sees one shadow that moves through it all, treks up the sidewalk and turns at the front— a silhouette against the flat of the sky—
She sees a little bit of herself.
“Get back safely,” she hears An say from behind her, some indistinguishable distance away, and then there’s the familiar strength of An’s arms as they wrap around her and the safety of An hugging her from behind. “I love you, Kohane. My darling. And I’m sure your person loves you too.”
The world around her morphs into one swirled spiral of pale colours and dull noise. She can barely make out the ring of the bell as the door swings open, and even that’s lost when her ears are drowned out. Her eyes are open but she can’t see. Her fingers grasp at the air. She’s lost in herself, victim to her own mind, and she’s this close to giving up and letting go when An does it. When An covers her hand and moves it to rest over her own pounding heart.
A lifetime’s worth of memories flood her mind— a dozen lifetimes’ worth, or a hundred, or a thousand. She sees herself and An a million times over in colour, black and white, images that exist only as concepts. And within it all is a boxed-in living room, four people sitting around a table, one person she can immediately recognise.
Oh, Kohane thinks. That’s what she’s been missing all along. My person.
And there, with her heart full of affection and the ring on An’s finger right beside her own, she falls asleep.
“— Maybe if we slap her she’ll wake up. That’s what I do with my phone when it breaks.”
“I’ll slap you into space if you don’t shut up, Akito—”
“If that’s the case, we could put her into a bag of rice. Akito, do you have any?”
“Of course I do. Although to be honest, Touya, that may not be the best idea—”
Kohane senses that something is wrong. As nice and floaty she feels right now, she isn’t sure dwelling in that comfort is worth being slapped. Or doused in rice. Between the two of them, she doesn’t know which one is worse. So with all the strength left in her body, she forces her blood to rush back into her muscles, wiggling her fingertips and squirming around, opening her eyes to a blast of white light.
The light fades into the perfect image of An’s face. To be accurate, it’s An’s upside down face from below her chin, which is admittedly not the most flattering angle, but Kohane really doesn’t care right now. An almost jumps at the sudden movement, knocking herself back against the couch—
And yeah, that’s her person. That’s her An.
“K-Kohane!” An yelps, hands scrambling to find purchase. Her legs twitch, knee knocking against the top of Kohane’s head. “You’re awake. Oh, thank god, you’re awake. I was this close to calling the paramedics, I’m so serious—”
“It’s been seven minutes,” Akito deadpans.
“And after they treated you, I would have had them treat Akito for what I’m going to do to him, like, right now,” An continues smoothly. She throws him a sharp glare before returning her attention back to Kohane, gently sliding her hand under her head to help her sit up and back on her lap. “Do you feel okay? Are you sick? Do you need anything?”
“I have a—” headache, she wants to say, but the fact is that she doesn’t. Nothing hurts at all. There’s a sort of numb pulse in her head, but it fades with every passing second until it’s barely even there, gone like a memory. She blinks it away. “I’m alright, An-chan. Sorry if I worried you.”
“No, no, don’t apologise,” An coos. She takes one look at Kohane’s face and then sniffles, wiping at the tears beginning to bead at the corners of her eyes. “You’re so cute. I can’t believe it. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“It was a crazy few minutes,” Akito says to her, splitting a bag of chips open. He offers them to Touya before he takes a single bite. “Glad you’re okay, Kohane.”
“But if you can,” Touya adds, biting half of his chip, “let us know when you feel lightheaded beforehand.”
Seven minutes. That’s how long she’s been out for. Looking at the clock, the times line up, but for some reason, Kohane still can’t shake the feeling of confusion that lingers. Or maybe it’s amnesia, or something else entirely— or maybe it doesn’t matter. “I’ll try my best,” she offers to Touya in reply, smiling softly.
An pouts, petulant. “Were you asleep after all?” she asks. “Were you dreaming? Is that why it was so hard to wake you up?”
Frowning, Kohane furrows her brows. Her thoughts are muddy. “I—” She cuts herself off with a bite against her tongue. “I can’t remember.”
“Oh,” An says.
And it’s true: Kohane can’t help but feel she’s forgetting something. No matter how hard she tries, it’s just out of reach, barely a centimetre away from her fingertips yet infinitely far away. But maybe the point is that she should let go and focus on what’s in front of her. The pinpoint of light is growing farther and farther away, but she doesn’t mind; it’s a single star among millions, and what really matters the most is the universe itself.
But there’s one thing she does remember. She looks at her An and, with a little smile and a lot of courage, tells her, “I think a winter wedding would be nice.”
An goes still. Her jaw falls agape, her eyes widen comically, and the blush on her cheeks grows tenfold, so cherry red that Kohane almost feels embarrassed for her. “K-Kohane,” An sputters, “you— wh—”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Kohane adds.
She’s swallowed in a hug before she knows it, entirely surrounded by the coziness of An’s love. An buries her face in the crook of Kohane’s neck and squeezes around her like she hasn’t seen her in years. “You’re so unfair,” An murmurs. Muffled against her shoulder. For her to hear, and only her.
If Kohane is unfair, then An is unbelievable. She wonders if she’s still dreaming, to be able to belong here in An’s arms, to be allowed to fall in love. An is beautiful, Kohane is selfish, An is dangerous, Kohane is falling—
An is hers, and Kohane is in love.