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There’s six more minutes until the bell rings, and your heart is in your throat.
Across the classroom, your best friend Izumi meets your gaze and mimes looking at an invisible wristwatch. It takes all your effort not to flip her off because dammit, you will not let her win.
You covertly turn your phone back on, escaping your teacher’s eyes as she rattles off a few final announcements before class is over for the day. Your limited edition My Melody phone charm glistens as it catches the light.
There are no new messages. Not even a read receipt.
“Five minutes left,” whispers Hiro, your best friend’s stupid boyfriend. He sits beside you, and as you’ve imagined, has happily picked up on your panic. It’s obvious he’s getting a kick out of this situation even if he doesn’t really know what’s going on.
“Shut up,” you snap, fidgeting with the pink diamond bracelet around your wrist. You had gotten so cute and dressed up for today and you were not about to have your plans ruined because of a few measly minutes.
The last thing you want is to join the couple (and some of his other stupid guy friends) for karaoke, but you’ve blown Izumi off one too many times without explanation. And now, she’d posed an ultimatum: get proof.
Your teacher leaves the classroom, giving you the last few minutes of reprieve. Before you can even suck in your breath, Izumi has found her way over to your desk, drumming on it with a happy and gleeful smile. “Karaoke, karaoke!” she chants. “You’re mine today.”
“No! Here’s how I can still win this!” you shout in protest, but your words fall on deaf ears because she’s started to do a stupid jig with Hiro.
“There’s four minutes left, I’d love to see that happen!”
You groan and bury your head in your hands.
These were the rules you agreed to. Get the text back and get out of plans with Izumi. No text, no way out. When you made the bet at lunch, you were completely confident that you’d prevail, but you’d failed to take into account who the bet was hinging on.
Your classmate Miyo who sits in front of you turns around and gives your best friend a strange look. “Why are you guys being so mean to (Y/n)? What’s she waiting on anyway?”
“A very important text,” you snap and try to hide your phone from all of them. You’ve taken the necessary precautions to hide the identity of who you’re texting, including removing the name they were first saved under. No one can ever get the best of you like this.
Your pastel pink case matches your nails, and for some reason you feel like you’re being mocked by the perfect coordination. Your hair is cute, your outfit is cute, but you don’t feel much like a winner right now.
“Is this for a job interview or something?” asks Miyo. She twirls her hair around her finger and you can see her nail is painted with the bright pink polish you loaned her last month. Damn, you really ought to ask for it back.
Hiro perks up. “If you’re leaving the konbini, let me know and I’ll—”
“I’m not quitting my job,” you interject. You can feel yourself breaking out into a cold sweat because time is going. “Find your own.”
“Touchy… Three more minutes, by the way.”
You glare at him hard enough to sting. He sighs and mutters something to Izumi about you being cranky.
“So what are you waiting for?” asks Miyo. “Because you look like you’re about to pass out.”
Izumi grins. “(Y/n) has a mysterious new crush she won’t tell me about. Says he’s the coolest guy she’s ever met.”
“Yes! He sure is! So this is very important to me and I’d appreciate it if—” You shut up mid-sentence when your message suddenly goes from ‘Delivered’ to ‘Seen’. “Oh, god.”
“If he doesn’t text back, then she has to hang out with us at karaoke. She’s been avoiding me for like two weeks now,” continues Izumi, oblivious to why your tone suddenly changed.
You’re frozen in shock, staring at your screen. The ‘Typing’ icon pops up. Two goddamn minutes left.
Izumi huffs. “Some cute guy beat up a creepy drunk for her at the konbini, so now she’s in love.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa there,” you say incredulously, head snapping up from staring into your phone. “Who said anything about love?”
“I literally don’t see how I can be wrong about this,” she replies flippantly. “Every time you talk about him, you blush like crazy. Look at your ears.”
Dammit, she’s right. You can feel the heat rising to the tips of your ears. With a certain level of urgency, you tap your nails against your screen. Come on, come on.
“Wait, so who is the mystery guy?” asks Miyo, pinning you with a curious look.
“Huh? You wouldn’t know him, he goes to another school,” you say flippantly. It’s technically half-true, but it's also half not. Not that it’s anyone’s business but your own.
Hiro bursts into laughter. “I’m sure he does!”
You almost want to reach out and throw something at him, but then your phone dings, and suddenly you’re having an out-of-body experience.
[3:29 P.M.] Unknown: ya i’m down
“Holy shit. I win!!” you shout in victory, all but throwing your phone at Izumi to show her the text. “I win!!”
She clicks her tongue at you, soured by your sudden borderline-impossible victory. “Fine. Ditch me. You won’t be so lucky next time.”
“I know,” you chirp. “Enjoy karaoke!”
The bell rings seconds later, and you start throwing your things into your bag. Midway through, you give Izumi a look, realising that this isn’t exactly a good way to treat your best friend. You’ve been blowing her off a lot… and replying to messages late, and not telling her things...
In hindsight, you’ve been really shitty, but there are a lot of things you just aren’t ready to talk about yet. Things you can’t tell anyone yet.
Right now, you need to go to the bathroom before catching the bus because you have a date.
In a matter of a few minutes, you’ve cleared out of your school and caught the bus to bring you to the meeting spot. The skies seem brighter; the clouds seem fluffier. You’re nervous, but so, so excited.
The heartbeat pounding in your ears starts to supersede the sounds of the outside world. You’re almost there.
“Thank you,” you say to the driver when the bus rolls to a stop, just to hear the nervous tremor of your own voice. Your hand gravitates to your hair. The new barrette you’d bought sits neatly against the side of your head. You hope all the effort you put into being this cute gets acknowledged.
It doesn’t take you any time at all to find your friend. You would recognize them anywhere, from the shape of their strong back, their toned legs, the confident and powerful way they carry themself. You break out into a run, an impossible smile rising up to your face.
“Maki!!” you exclaim.
You would know her anywhere.
She turns and her eyes quickly rake over your body, over the length of your uniform skirt and the rise and fall of your chest. Her sharp eyes make you feel like she can see right through you. The heat crawling up the back of your neck returns with a terrible passion.
This is something your friends just wouldn’t understand.
It takes all your self-restraint not to throw yourself into her once you’re near. You end up just close enough to hug her, but keep your hands firmly to yourself. “Thanks for waiting,” you say.
Maki peers at you and then calmly reaches over to brush something out of your hair. “Dandelion fluff. Someone was excited to see me, huh?”
You flush because, god, she has no idea the lengths you had to go through to make this work. Her hand is close enough to touch your barrette and your pulse quickens. You hope she says something, anything even.
Instead, Maki drops her hand and gestures to the street nearby. “Hungry?”
“Oh, um, are you?”
She ponders your question. “I ate before I got here, but I could go for something small.”
“How about crêpes?” you ask excitedly. You’d seen this in an otome game once. It could be so romantic if you say the right thing.
Maki nods. “Yeah, you know a place?”
A quick internet search is all it takes to find a nearby crêperie. Within minutes, you’re both in a booth with pastel-coloured menus and cutlery and decorations. The ambience is nice too. Everything feels nice and bubbly, even if your heart is trembling.
Maki picks up a pink fork and waves it teasingly. “You must be loving this.”
“I mean… it’s cute, isn’t it?” you mumble. It’s hard to look directly at her sometimes, but you always want to.
“Yeah, you fit right in,” she responds.
Your heart bursts into a flurry of motion. What does that mean? Was she calling you cute? Her face gives nothing away, so you settle for looking down at the menu to quickly pick out a crêpe. “I think I’ll probably get the—”
“Strawberry?”
“Maki! Not everything I eat is pink!” you say in exasperation, ignoring the fact that you were definitely going to order the strawberry deluxe. “I’m getting the matcha tiramisu pancake.”
“Pancakes at a crêpe restaurant? Really, (Y/n)?”
“Quiet you. It’s on the menu for a reason.”
Maki laughs and scans the menu for it. “Uh-huh. The one topped with strawberries.”
“There’s a little bit of pink, but it can’t qualify as pink!”
She laughs again, and this time you laugh too, ‘cause dammit, she really knows how to tease you… but you like it a lot. A waitress comes over and you place your orders. Maki gets a mango crêpe. While you wait, you drink water from a glass shaped like an upside down bear. It’s only after your third nervous sip that you realise she’s been looking at you.
“What?” you say.
"Nothin’, just thinking,” says Maki. “So what have you been up to?”
Waiting for you to text me, you want to say, because it’s true. You’ve been just… consumed with thoughts of her—your new friend—and you don’t get it. You don’t understand why. “Just working,” you reply. “Wish I had something more interesting to tell you.”
“What’s that saying? Uhh… right, no news is good news,” she shrugs. “No one’s given you any more trouble at the konbini, then?”
“Nah, it’s… it’s been quiet.” You shake your head. “Thanks.”
Two weeks and four days ago, you met Maki for the first time at the small convenience store where you worked. To this day, you aren’t sure why she was there so late at night, but you’re so glad she was.
A salaryman had gotten too drunk on his way over for cigarettes and harassed you over the counter in a way you were loath to remember. Before the situation could escalate, Maki had whipped out a staff—an entire 3 ft. long weapon—and ‘escorted’ him out with a few good whacks.
What was it she said, again? Oh, right—“Let’s go settle this peacefully with some violence, ossan.”
Was there some violence? Definitely. Could you have handled it on your own? Eh.
Did you catch feelings for Maki after that?
…Well.
The next night, she reappeared at the konbini to make sure you were okay. She even walked you home after your shift just to be sure.
Maki was like the male lead of a shoujo manga, and it made your heart full to bursting.
“What are you doing in this part of the city, though?” you inquire to distract yourself from the thoughts rolling in your head. Across the crêperie, you see the waitress approaching with your food.
“Visiting for some volunteer work. I finished early, though.” Maki stops talking as the waitress places your orders down. You watch as the most mouth-watering dessert ends up in front of you, a smatter of pretty colours and powdered sugar.
Maki’s is bright yellow, but there are a handful of strawberries decorating the plate. She gives you a grin and says nothing, but you know she’s gonna tease you in a minute.
The waitress leaves and Maki immediately props her hand under her chin. “So, jealous of how pink my food is?”
“We have the same amount of strawberries,” you retort and then take your phone out. “I want to take a pic, hands off the table.”
She reclines into the booth, the definition of easygoing. “Right, forgot. Phone eats first.”
“Phone eats first,” you echo, turning on your camera. “And don’t you forget it.”
When you point your camera over your pancake, you can see part of Maki on screen. To think, it would be so easy to angle your phone up and just… get her in the frame and just have a picture with her. But that would require asking, and… you aren’t sure you’re ready for a step that big.
A text notification from Izumi interrupts your careful camerawork, made extra difficult by the phone charm swinging on the side. You snap the photo and it makes a little shutter noise.
Maki reaches out to flick the phone charm. “You could blind an airplane with how shiny this thing is.”
“Hey, be nice. That was special,” you say.
“This lil’ guy? How?”
“I won it in this crane game at an exhibition in Ikebukuro,” you reply proudly. “You know how bad my depth perception is? It was a labour of love for My Melody.”
She gives you a funny look and squeezes the charm between her fingers. “Looks like you. With those big ears and all.”
“I do not have big ears!” you gasp, feigning offence. Your phone goes off with another notification from Izumi, this time with a video attachment. You scowl and turn the ringer off before setting your phone aside.
“You’re popular today, huh? Avoiding someone?” wonders Maki, eying the mango chunks in her crêpe.
If only she knew. “Sort of. Let’s eat.”
“Finally, I thought I was gonna die,” she jokes.
“Hey, you said you ate before you came here.”
“I can always eat more.”
You eat carefully, starting with a strawberry and then spearing into the fluffy pancakes. It’s a stack of two but you eat them both at the same time like a very sweet sandwich. The matcha and white chocolate pairs really nicely with the soft pancake.
Maki is eating pretty casually too, but there’s a certain level of grace in how she handles her knife that you can’t figure out. It’s like it’s way too easy for her, and all too indicative of a rich upbringing.
“My friends invited me to karaoke, but I really don’t want to go,” you admit. “Which is why I’m glad you agreed.” Regardless of getting out of plans with your classmates, you’d be happy to go out with Maki. If you were to rank your priorities right now, she’d be at the top.
“Oh, yeah? Did something happen?”
You shake your head. “It’s more like… My best friend has a boyfriend, so when they go out somewhere, they either invite just me to third-wheel, or all of his friends plus me. It always ends up feeling like a weird mixer, so I’m uncomfortable.”
“Mixers…” she echoes, whistling. “That sounds rough. Have you told her you’re uncomfortable?”
“No. It’s… hard,” you admit, though you know it’s partially because you’re afraid to say the wrong thing and have everyone know your secret. “I dunno how to verbalize that I don’t like any of those guys, and that for all I talk about being kissed, I don’t want any of them to try.”
She raises a brow. “So what I’m hearing is that you do want to be kissed?”
Your face flushes because this isn’t exactly a topic you would have liked to broach with her like this, but it slipped out before you realized. “I mean… doesn’t everyone?”
Silence falls across the table. When you look up, she seems to be debating how to reply. Maki lifts her glass of water. “Never thought about it,” she said, eyes locked firmly to yours. “But I guess so.”
“E-Enough about me,” you squeak, desperate to change the topic. “You said you were doing volunteer work in the area? What was it like?”
She ponders the question. “I guess conflict resolution? There was a school giving trouble so we stepped in to help.”
There’s not a lot you know about Maki but the things you know are as followed:
- She’s a second-year student like you, but goes to a fancy religious school with dorms on the outskirts of Tokyo. The night you met her, she was just in your area for a visit much like this one.
- She doesn’t talk to her family, and she alluded to being from an old money clan. Those two points appeared to be directly correlated.
- Her friends are apparently very weird, and she hangs out with guys more often than not. When you jokingly asked to meet them, she made the most horrified expression you’d ever seen, and said she would never subject you to that sort of psychological torture.
- Maki is taller than you, stronger than you, she has beautiful eyes, and she always indulges you in little visits whenever she’s around.
- You’re in love with Maki.
The last point is, arguably, the most important, and the one you’d been grappling with the most.
You’d come to realize it one night, your veins swelling to burst. The thought of kissing Maki was something profound, and you were startled by how desperately you wanted it. Between your stomach and sternum, a feeling unlike any other had taken up residence. It was kind of love.
Each time you saw her, it took every ounce of your restraint to not tell her. You couldn’t. Not yet. Even now, just watching her speak, you long to reach out, touch her hand and bare your soul.
“It was nothing I couldn't handle. A little tedious, though, y’know,” she continues to fill the silence left in the wake of your feelings devouring you. “A classmate came too, but he went back home already.”
To think, she was out doing things for the world and you were irritated with not getting a text back. You have no idea what Maki’s schedule or life is like, and yet you still want to fit inside it. “Why’d you stay?”
She levels you with a confused look. “Because I wanted to see you, obviously.”
The throbbing in your chest gets worse. Does she know how deep your feelings run for her? You can’t stop the nagging sensation reminding you that, well, what if it’s not that deep to her? What if it can’t be? What if you’re bothering her with these feelings—
You blink in surprise as a strawberry touches your lip. Maki is feeding you a strawberry from her plate, grinning as you try to process it all.
Wordlessly, you open your mouth and accept it. “I do have my own strawberries, as you can tell,” you say once you’re finished chewing.
“Are you gonna turn down another?” she asks, withdrawing her pink fork.
“...No,” you say, relenting, and then point at another one from her plate. “Can I try it with the mango sauce?”
“Ooh, making demands.”
“Sorry, I meant please! If it’s not a bother—”
She shakes her head. “I’m playing. You can be as selfish as you want around me, (Y/n).”
These outings with Maki, though fleeting and emotionally exhausting, are among your favourite parts of the day. These are memories you want to hang onto, even if it ends with you crying every night for one more chance. Once more to see her. One more, one more, one more.
[11:23 A.M.] Maki: in the area
It’s hard, sometimes, to get a text from her and act completely normal about it. It’s Saturday when you get this one, and you’re running errands for your parents, but as soon as you get the notification, you dive into a corner of the street just to read it. On weekends, you allow yourself the pleasure of changing her name in your contacts. It’s tedious to change back every Monday, sure, but it’s for your peace of mind.
[11:25 A.M.] You: Do you want to hang out? (o^▽^o)
She always texts you so casually and you always put in 110% in response.
Next to you, the storefront’s radio is droning on about the anniversary of a tragic murder-suicide that occurred not too far from here. Four people of the same family were taken out like it was nothing. Time soothed all wounds, but that house remained empty even now. Maybe it always would be.
[11:26 A.M.] Maki: yeah
She texts the way she acts. One of the many things you like about her. You quickly update her to tell her you’re almost done doing something for your parents, but you’ll meet her at the usual spot soon. She sends you a picture of the local park instead.
[11:27 A.M.] Maki: let’s go on a walk
After dropping the groceries off at your house and swapping your shoes for something easier to walk in, you hurry to the park. It’s within walking distance; you used to go over there to feed the ducks when you were little.
She’s waiting at the entrance in a purple tracksuit that matches her glasses, carrying a long opaque plastic bag in her hand.
You call out her name when you get closer, and she gives you a salute. “Yo.”
“Did you wait long?”
She grins. “Yeah, so long that my arm’s tired. Hold this.”
Maki gives you the plastic bag and when you look inside, there are two sealed cups of boba milk tea. One taro and one strawberry. The packaged straws also match the tea. “Did you colour-coordinate this based on our clothes?”
“Huh, how would I have known that? Unless I made a totally random guess about the colour (Y/n) might be wearing… and then gotten it right somehow,” she teases, reaching in for the matching straws.
“Hmm, I’m sure it was really hard to guess what I’d be wearing,” you retort, playing along.
She laughs. “Yeah. One of the wonders of the world. Come on, let’s drink and walk.” Instead of piercing her lid with the purple straw, she uses the pink one. “Cute, right?”
“Yes,” you say, an unreasonable flush crawling up your neck again.
The walk itself is very pleasant. Your heart hammers away in your chest, soothed only by the sweet boba she got you. “What are you doing out here on a Saturday?”
“Conflict resolution,” she says, then takes a sip of her taro, “for a family, this time.”
“Jeez, this is like unpaid labour at this point.”
“Nah, we get paid.”
Your brows furrow. “You said it was voluntary.”
Maki hums. “Hmm… Paid internship.”
Religious schools were up to all sorts of things these days. Maybe there were tax breaks involved. “How many people were there?”
“Eh, let me think… Four.”
You nod. “Ooh, so did you pray for them? Is that how you handle fights in religious school?”
She laughs. “Come on, do I look like the type? It’s just standard stuff.” Maki suddenly points at an abandoned frisbee on the ground. “Wanna play?”
“No, but I’ll watch you throw it as far as you can and then go ‘wowwww!’ after.”
Maki squints at you and then dips her head to take a sip of your tea.
“Hey—!”
“Too bad,” she interrupts and then throws the frisbee effortlessly. It goes sailing over the trees, making a perfect curve, and then drops into the net… of a basketball hoop.
“What the hell?” you say instead. “How did you even—What kind of aim do you have?”
“Godlike,” she says and flexes. “Come on, keep going.”
“You’re just gonna do something like that and then say ‘keep going’?!”
“Yep.”
Maki is an enigma, but you like it. You like every part of her that she’s let you see.
“Anything planned for the weekend?” she asks.
“I have a test on Monday, so I’m studying with a friend tomorrow,” you say. Izumi had offered to come today but you hadn’t given her the go ahead. Now that you were here with Maki, you would leave it for tomorrow as planned.
“Same friend who invited you to karaoke and you ditched her?”
“Um, I had a valid reason.”
“And that is?”
In a leap of confidence, you lean forward, say “you,” and then take a sip of her taro. She looks down at her straw and snorts with laughter.
Your walk takes you through the park and out the other end where there’s a fountain with an inscription for a deceased benefactor. By then, you’ve both finished your drinks, and you half-wish you hadn’t just so you could sit by the fountain and drink there together.
Regardless, this little area makes for a very nice photo op and you find yourself taking out your phone. No sooner than you've done that is Maki reaching out for your wrist. You let yourself be pulled in by her, brows furrowed in confusion.
She gestures to your phone. “I swear you had a charm on this.”
“I do, it’s—”
When you look down at your phone, the My Melody phone charm is gone. All your words die on your tongue. Suddenly, you can’t remember if you had it before you met her today or if it’s been gone this whole time.
“Maki…” you say pitifully. “I lost my charm…”
“Okay, don’t panic,” she says, casting an inquisitive look down the pathway you’d both walked. “I’ll double back. Maybe it’s over there.”
“No, I don’t even remember if I had it before I came to meet you,” you reply. It warms your heart that she wants to try, but you have no intention to put her through the trouble of a useless endeavour. “Forget about it… I’ll just have to get a new one.”
The trouble with limited edition things is in the name. They’re limited. There’s no way you’ll get the same one again, but you can shoot for a similar My Melody. No choice in the matter, really.
“Somehow,” you mutter.
Maki reaches out and pats the top of your head. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
“‘S not your fault,” you mumble, wishing she would keep her hand there. “Anyway… do you wanna take a picture with me here? It’s pretty.”
She looks thoughtful. “Come to think of it, we don’t have any pictures together.”
You smile, waving your phone at her. “Exactly.”
Maki slots herself into your space as you angle the phone to catch both of you in the frame. She makes a peace sign and you follow suit, but the angle’s a bit awkward and part of her head gets cut off.
“Your arm’s way too short,” she teases. “Lemme see that.”
“Maki!” you protest but it ends in laughter when she wraps her hand around yours and your phone, and lifts it a little higher. The movement causes the two of you to squeeze a little closer and the warmth from her fingers shoots all the way through your arm.
She grins. “Better, right?” Now both of your heads are in the frame. Maki leans in, and a tendril of her hair falls against your shoulder. She smells so nice.
You snap the photo, too scared of what you’ll end up doing if the moment persists any longer. She leans her head against yours to look at the finished product. “Not bad. You look cute.”
The urge to confess rears its head again. You stash your phone into your pocket and link arms with her, fueled by how much touching she’d been doing until now. You can do it too, and walk away from it unscathed to boot.
“I’m always cute,” you say nonchalantly, “but thank you.”
Maki snorts out a laugh and guides you away from the fountain and through the rest of the park. You stay pressed up against her side, wishing it would last. If only you could take a snapshot of this.
You'd wrung your heart out like a sock hundreds of times trying to find love in places it simply wasn’t.
The right boy will come along. You’d told yourself that too many times to count. You’ll get together with a handsome man with a chiselled jaw, get married, and then everything will be okay. You’ll be okay.
All of this will pass. You kept telling yourself that.
How many years has it been now?
It’s Sunday, and Izumi comes over to your place to study. Unfortunately, neither of you get much done—she goes off on a tangent about her boyfriend and his friends and the next trip they were planning as a group and that you have to come too or else it won’t be any fun.
And you stare at the picture of Maki on your phone until your eyes swim. It’s a burden to carry these feelings: ones you aren’t sure she even reciprocates, but the thought of telling someone is worse. And your best is right there.
It’s just so scary.
“So… I keep saying stupid shit to see if you’re gonna interrupt me and tell me what’s been going on,” she says absently, twirling a pencil between her fingers. “Because I know you so I know there is.”
You open your mouth to protest, but you don’t trust your own voice to serve you any good right now, so you keep quiet.
“Is it the guy you’re crushing on? Did he never text you back or something? If he did, I’ll beat him up, I promise, and he’ll wish he never messed with m—”
“I like girls.”
It’s quiet now. So quiet you can hear your heart hold its breath for you.
After a lull, Izumi speaks. “Oh.” She pauses. “So the person you’re seeing—”
“A girl,” you reply hoarsely, feeling the rush of tears begin to slip down your face.
“Okay.” she says. “Okay.”
Izumi moves. She shifts closer until her shoulder brushes against yours.
It reminds you of all the times you’ve shared secrets before, two giggling children in the schoolyard, comparing and swapping conspiracies. The tears feel like molten lava pouring from your eyes.
“Tell me about her,” she says softly.
You dissolve into tears again, but this time it’s borne from something else you haven’t felt in a long, long time: release.
Things get quiet for a while.
Your head no longer feels quite so full; there are a million things less to consider or cry over.
Maki goes MIA for a week at, coincidentally, the same time… so you’re bored instead of apprehensive for a change. It’s the slowest you’ve ever felt in a long time.
While restocking the plastic bags under the counter at work, your mind wanders through exaggerated fantasies of what she might be busy with. Exams? Cramming for exams? Elaborate old money family drama?
Izumi had tentatively asked if you’d gotten ghosted, but the idea hadn’t even crossed your mind because Maki is just a busy girl. It’s how she’s always been, and you’re working towards understanding the extent of what that entails.
It didn’t feel like she’d ghost you, but what do you know anyway, right? You’d clung to the faith you have regardless.
You huff, fumbling with a plastic bag that won’t pierce through the bag stand. “Stupid thing—”
“Damn. That looks like torture.”
“Yeah, it sure is,” you scoff and then your whole body freezes up. Was that…?
You jolt back up to your feet, nearly slamming the top of your head against the register in your haste.
There before your very eyes is Maki at your konbini, leaning across the counter with a grin. There’s something dangling off her finger, glinting under the fluorescent light in a way that almost blinds you.
You open your mouth to jokingly call her a stranger and ask where the hell she’s been this week, but then you really look at what she’s holding.
It’s a thin pink phone strap with the strangest clay creature hanging from the bottom that you’ve ever seen. The critter looks like a pumpkin crossed with a little imp, and it’s glaringly orange. Its enormous resin eyes shine almost as brightly as Maki’s while she waits for you to speak.
“Maki…” you begin hesitantly, because you’re not sure how to ask her what the fuck that is.
“(Y/n),” she echoes, her voice ending on a pleasant lilt. Maki motions with her head to the phone strap. “It’s a gift. I saw it in a crane machine and had to get it—those things are rigged to hell and back, y’know, because my depth perception’s incredible and it took me like thirty tries to get this one.”
Maybe it’s because you’ve been working under harsh lights and your head is starting to hurt and it’s almost midnight on a Friday, but… tears blur the edge of your vision and you feel powerless to keep them at bay.
“Can you, uh, give me a second to take my break?” you ask before flagging down the only other coworker in the store to swap places with you. He gives you a questioning look but relents.
You lead Maki to the back of the store, and she spins the charm around her finger with a jaunty whistle until you both get there.
Back here, there’s almost no lighting save for a flickering street lamp, so you have to step closer to her to reach for the phone charm she’s still holding, and see her expectant face at the same time.
Yeah, now that you were holding the damn thing, you could say with certainty that it was the definition of ugly-cute. Just a little guy.
It was nothing at all like My Melody… but you love it so much that it causes a smile to split across your face every time its big eyes look at you.
“Hey, help me put it on,” you say.
Maki laughs and smoothly takes your phone when you offer it to her. She fiddles with the charm, brows knit. “Uh. Harder than it looks.”
“You’ll get it,” you reply, and sure enough she manages to successfully slide the charm into the slot.
Maki gives it a little shake to make sure it’s on tight before returning your cellphone. Although chunky and heavier than your original one, the charm fits just right when it knocks the side of your hand.
“I was pretty bummed about losing my old one,” you murmur.
“Uh-huh, I figured.”
“Yeah. But this one’s different.” You shake the charm, listening to the little sound it makes when it clunks against your phone. “It was a gift, so it’s automatically a hundred times more important.”
The silence between you suspends, but it isn’t uncomfortable.
On the contrary, fondness swells in your chest because she’s doing that thing. She’s looking right through you with those sharp eyes of hers.
Part of you worries she can see everything—all of the feelings you have towards her laid bare like cards on a table. A little voice in your head reminds you that this is a good thing.
If Maki could reach into your chest and retrieve all of the complicated emotions you feel towards her, then you would gladly encourage her to do so.
“Bet you think it looks like me, huh?” you joke to fill this vulnerable moment, to keep yourself from overthinking, from wondering if she knows.
You expect Maki to make some sort of witty remark in response, but she doesn’t. Instead, she leans into your personal space, tilting her head until her ponytail slips over her shoulder, and the long inky strands spill down like a waterfall.
Up close like this, you can see yourself reflected in the lenses of her glasses. Beneath that, her expression is soft, the edges of her lips turned up in an all-too-knowing smile.
“I knew something was different,” she remarks. “You talked to your friend, didn’t you?”
Your heart seizes painfully because you didn’t expect her to remember all the things you confided in her about at the crêperie. “Yeah, I did,” you say bashfully. “How could you tell?”
“I notice lots of things about you, (Y/n),” she replies, eyes shining with something akin to adoration.
“Well, that’s good because… I want to be the kind of person who says and does the things that are important to her,” you say, voice wavering with each new word.
You take a deep breath, and pull her in for a tight hug. You can feel her tense under you, but she doesn’t pull away. Her pulse is a staccato rhythm against your cheek, and her neck is achingly warm.
“Was that one of those things?” she inquires.
You nod and let go of her. The loss of her warmth affects you deeply. “One of them.”
“Oh, yeah? How many more are there?”
“For now? Just one.”
She looks at you searchingly. “Which is?”
“I… haven’t been kissed by who I want yet,” you say, steeling yourself for the next sentence. “So, I was wondering if she might like to do that?”
Maki doesn’t look put-off. More importantly, she doesn’t draw back from you. Her eyes widen, just a bit, from the unexpectedness of your words.
She cups your cheek; her smile is impossibly gentle as she drags her thumb across your bottom lip. “You sure?” she asks quietly, offering you one last chance to leave it all behind.
But there’s nothing you want more than this very moment.
“Please.”
With a shallow breath, Maki leans in and kisses you. Her lips are slightly chapped, but soft nonetheless.
And for all the times you’ve dreamt about this moment, nothing compared to the real thing.
“Was that okay?” she asks when she pulls back. Uncertainty swims in her eyes, and you want nothing more than to chase it away.
“No way,” you say, throwing your arms around her shoulders. “I need so, so much more, Maki.”
In the shadows behind the konbini, Maki kisses you over and over and over again, each one better than the last.