Archive of Our Own ^beta

Summer. 

At the end of a small cul-de-sac stood two houses, side by side, each bearing beige siding and terracotta shingles. From afar, they seemed identical; twin white fences decorated the exteriors, matching lamps flickered beside the doorways in the evening, and if one were to peer through the front windows, they would discover that the interiors were mirror images of one another. The sole difference resided not in the architecture or furnishings, but in the residents themselves—more importantly, the small daughter belonging to each family.

But of course, when two little girls were neighbors, it was only a matter of time before a lifelong friendship formed. For Nakano Monika and Kojima Natsuki, that couldn’t have been truer.

Sort of.

“W-Wait!” Natsuki yelped. She scrambled forward, wobbling slightly on stubby legs as the stuffed bunny she’d been punting around the yard sailed up, up, up into the air and landed on the other side of the grass-and-mud-stained picket fence. She grasped a wooden post in her fist, leveraging herself off the ground. 

Sure enough, there sat the beloved Fluffy, woefully out of reach and flopped over in a patch of dirt. As the prized possession of a soon-to-be kindergartener, he was a far cry from the appearance his name would suggest. Well-loved, Natsuki’s mother had said once before. Ratty old thing, her father had replied. Either way, whether he was well-loved or a ratty old thing, Natsuki couldn’t get him back no matter how hard she strained. She wasn’t strong enough to pull herself over the fence, and her arms didn’t seem to want to stretch any further. Her face screwed up. 

Big girls don’t cry, Natsuki told herself. She’d cried plenty of times before, over green peppers and wholly unfair timeouts and other important sorts of things, but this was different! She’d only ever lost Fluffy in places she could get him back. Couches could be crawled under, and the space between her bed and the wall was only so big. The other backyard went on and on for miles. One strong gust of wind and dear old Mr. Fluff would be lost forever and ever. 

Natsuki glanced away, a pout on her lips as hot tears welled in her eyes. She released the fence from her grip and landed less than gracefully on her side of the grass. It was stupid to stand here doing nothing. She wasn’t supposed to cry! What was she going to do now, tell her parents? Her mama was the one who gave her Fluffy, and her papa would be glad to see him go. As she regretfully made it to the porch, she heard the slam of a door in the distance. It sounded just like… Natsuki furrowed a brow at the door in front of her, to her own house, which she had most certainly not slammed. If not hers, then…?

“Hey! Hey, your rabbit!” Someone called out, with a gentle voice that sounded like music—like the windchimes people put up in the spring. But the summer was beginning to wind down at that point, and most everyone had packed theirs up. 

When Natsuki turned back, she discovered the matted, off-pink head of Fluffy poking up from behind the posts. She sprinted toward it, momentarily believing that by some magical princess powers, she’d brought him to life and they were destined to become best friends. Real ones. She’d seen it before, in cartoons! 

Upon closer inspection though, Natsuki also discovered the silhouette of somebody standing behind the fence. She hauled herself up to peek over it again, and sure enough there was a girl back there holding Fluffy. Not willing to let him get away again, Natsuki snatched her friend from the girl’s outstretched hand and cradled him to her chest. The girl just peered up at her, still slightly panting and green eyes wide. After a moment of silence, Natsuki narrowed her gray pair. She’d never seen anyone with reddish hair like that, or eyes that color. It was all very strange. 

“He is not a wuh-abbit,” Natsuki explained, pursing her lips together extra hard, yet still failing to get the ‘r’ sound to come out properly. How had the girl gotten something as easy as that mixed up? “Fluffy’s a bunny.” 

The girl glanced at the toy and then back to Natsuki, a curious smile playing on her lips. “He’s cute,” she chirped after a moment of contemplation. She got onto her tiptoes, balancing with one hand pressed against the fencepost. “Let me pet him, let me pet him! I saw a ra- a bunny once, and it didn’t run away from me even when I got so-o-o close… I thought it was gonna, but it didn’t. So you can trust me.”

Natsuki thought about it for a moment. This was a whole lot of… talking. Should she let the girl touch Fluffy again? She had saved him, to be fair. After a pause, Natsuki nodded to herself, which visibly gave the girl hope. Then she said ‘no, thank you’ like her mother taught her, hopped off the fence, and skipped back into the house, leaving the funny girl with hair of fire to her own side of the fence. 

If you asked Natsuki about that day in more recent times, she wouldn’t be able to tell you much.

After all, forgetting things as simple as the blabbermouth girl next door was relatively easy. They were never guaranteed to cross paths in the backyard—the moment Natsuki trudged inside for a glass of juice, the other girl might decide to go out and play. Then when Natsuki got back out, the girl might’ve been gone already. Natsuki’s life was a never ending stream of new things, fun activities, toys, crayons, games—name it and she was already ten steps ahead. What time did she have for things that weren’t directly impacting her?

Still, Natsuki could’ve sworn she started hearing windchimes more after that day. Something soft and sweet and high-pitched, gentle tinkling sounds that lulled her to sleep like the plunking of raindrops on a tin roof.

“Suki, who’s this?” Her mother asked one golden afternoon, pulling Natsuki’s attention away from the pink crayon clenched in her fist. She turned the sheet of construction paper around, revealing the drawing she’d been looking at: a girl with green eyes and red hair, and a giant circle for a mouth. “Ooh, I know… Is she a princess?”

Nothing in the world suggested that, so Natsuki shook her head vigorously. “No, mama,” she said, “princesses have crowns.”

“Ah, pr-incesses do have cr-owns,” her mother echoed with a hum. Natsuki studied her lips, frustrated at the quick, crisp syllables that she could never quite mimic. “You’re right, sweetheart, what was I thinking?”

Secretly, Natsuki wondered if her mother was the one who’d been right. She knew everything, after all, like what made cars go and which animals made what sounds. Maybe not all princesses wore crowns, then. Maybe some wore frilly green dresses and knee-high socks. 

The first time Natsuki truly met the girl next door was on the worst day of a kid’s life: the first day of school. She got all dressed up with a pretty little outfit and two tidy braids, holding onto both backpack straps like her life depended on it. Then she smiled for the picture she was forced to take, blissfully unaware of the twelve miserable years to come. My darling, you’re so grown up, her mother said. You’re going to miss the bus, her father interrupted. 

So they walked Natsuki to the deceitfully cheerful yellow folding doors, and waved goodbye from the sidewalk. The smears of blue and purple chalk beneath their feet were reminders of yet another summer that had slipped through Natsuki’s clutches. 

She squished her nose against the glass, watching the blurs of her parents disappear far into the background. The sole comfort she had in that trying time was Fluffy, stuffed somewhere beneath her lunchbox and above her pack of tissues. But even he was unreachable from her current position, so she settled for twirling the end of her braids until the hair fuzzed out around the elastic. 

Natsuki adjusted herself pointlessly in the foreign bench-ish seat, which was too stiff to be like a couch and too cushy to be like a stool. How was she to know that school would eventually be something she dreaded and avoided? How was she, sitting there with her too-big backpack still on, supposed to know that eventually, morning would be the one of the worst parts of her day, second only to coming back home? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t have known. That’s the issue with looking back on old memories. 

When Natsuki opened her eyes, at last unable to pretend that the incessant rumbling of the smelly bus motor didn’t exist, she found someone standing in the aisle beside her couch stool. It was that girl. The princess next door. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes darted between Natsuki and the space beside her. Natsuki shrugged, the girl sat, and the rest was history. 

For real this time!

“My name’s Monika.” Monika grinned at Natsuki, hand outstretched and fingers splayed. 

“I’m Natsuki.” Natsuki took Monika’s hand and jiggled it up and down. A friend? She started to smile, and soon she was grinning uncontrollably and still shaking her hand because she’d never had a friend before, a real friend! How hadn’t she considered making this girl a friend? All the princesses in cartoons have friends in their kingdoms, she should’ve thought of it!

Inseparable was the right word for the pair of them. They sat side by side in their little classroom, followed each other around in the cafeteria, even had side-by-side cubbies. Recess was the best, though, a pocket of freedom glowing amidst the storm of ABCs and shakily traced numbers. Recess felt the same as Natsuki’s big backyard. She spent her time running around in circles, usually chasing after the billow of red that spilled behind Monika as she twirled. 

Dizzy, Monika toppled into a stretch of green grass. Natsuki wasn’t dizzy but she laid down as well, grateful for a moment of pause. When she turned her head, she found a pink blossom resting beside her temple. Natsuki took the little flower into her hand and pulled herself upright. It was beautiful, not like pretty pictures or her mother’s best dress, but like something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was beautiful like… like windchimes. Natsuki squealed to herself at the thought and tossed the flower away from her suddenly, and when it landed smack in the middle of Monika’s face, she burst into a storm of laughter.

When Natsuki got home that afternoon, she announced for all the world to hear, “I’m gonna marry her!” The girl next door, the princess in knee-high socks with a whole kingdom on the other side of the fence. That sounds wonderful, sweetheart, her mother said, but— Her father walked in. He glanced from Natsuki to her mother then back again, eyebrows low. What did she say? Her mother shook her head and herded Natsuki toward her bedroom. Nothing, darling. Never you mind.

Once Natsuki and Monika became Natsuki-and-Monika, things began to make sense. Monika discovered that the chalk drawings magically appearing outside of her house had come from Natsuki, which explained the copious amount of pink, and Natsuki found out that the ‘windchimes’ were Monika plunking away at her little toy kalimba. She said was going to be ‘famous someday, famous!’, a statement she punctuated with a flourish of her chubby little hands, and Natsuki had to say she agreed. Anyone would’ve. When Monika spoke, you just… trusted her. 

“Ooh, ooh, do that one song again!” Natsuki exclaimed, looking up from the elaborate map of chalk spreading wide beneath her stained fingertips. She was six, so of course her art was much better than last year. (Your stuff is gonna be in a gallery! Monika informed her matter-of-factly. A gall-er-what? Natsuki had asked, face screwed up. You know, Monika explained. A great big house for good art to live.) “The…” Natsuki struggled for words, waving the mint green stick of chalk as she thought. She glared at Fluffy, who sat on the concrete beside her, as if he’d telepathically send her the answer. “The—The one with the cool twinkly part in the middle!”

After a pause and a raised eyebrow, Monika plinked out a melody experimentally. “This one?”

“Yeah!” Natsuki grinned. She liked the balance they’d agreed on; Natsuki decorating the neighborhood, Monika filling it with music. As long as Natsuki got to make requests and Monika got to choose colors. “Who’s it by?”

Monika grinned wide, her freckled, sun kissed face glowing despite the waning daylight. She jabbed a thumb proudly into her chest. “Me!”

Time seemed to speed up with each birthday candle Natsuki blew out. The days slipped through her fingers like water, straining past cupped hands despite her best efforts to keep them cradled safely in her palms. One moment the number on her cake was seven, and the next, ten. Double digits. Chalk became amateur art sets, and that toy kalimba became a real adult piano that Monika and Natsuki both adored. Fluffy took up residence on Natsuki’s bed; she no longer needed him by her side at all times, nor stuffed in her bookbag. Of course, that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. He was her first friend, and he brought her her best friend. She would always love him. 

As Natsuki sat hunched over at her big girl desk for hours, working tirelessly at whatever painting was in front of her, she listened to the melodies pouring from the open windows of Monika’s house. Relished in them, really. It still amazed her how Monika could make those sorts of sounds… She’d certainly been right, back when she said she’d be famous one day. She was always right. 

Certain other things were the same, as well. Natsuki surveyed her finished painting: Although the girl’s hair was now darker, closer to cinnamon than fire, the eyes were unmistakable. Those didn’t change. It was still the princess next door, though now Natsuki knew her name. (In hindsight, it was easy to fall for Monika. Natsuki would only realize this much later, at a much less fortunate time. For the time being, she knew that the only thing her brush seemed to know how to paint was Monika’s face. She knew that cherry blossoms reminded her of gently tinkling music. She knew a lot of things, just not the ones that seemed to matter.) Natsuki shook her head at the painting, sliding it into her desk drawer. How could she show Monika the paintings of her when they weren’t perfect, when they never would be? Nothing could come close to the real thing. She’d just have to practice.

Life was good for a while. It tried its best to outrun Natsuki, but she fought hard to catch up. She was getting taller, smarter, more nimble on her feet. Her mind was sharp and she knew how to keep her wits when bullies came knocking—that was, if Monika didn’t step in first. The point was, Natsuki finally saw potential in herself. Soon she might’ve even begun to fill those big shoes placed before her; to do something, be someone, achieve incredible things. Her world was laid out for her and all she had to do was read out and grab it.

Then time came to a standstill. 

Winter, grade seven. Twelve years old. Who could have known that Natsuki’s mother was sick, when even she had no clue? Who could have prevented her heart from stopping? Natsuki didn’t know, and she didn’t care, because either way it didn’t change a thing. Art didn’t help for the first time, nor did the girl next door. She had to wonder if her own heart had beaten since. 

Monika attended the funeral, with eyes of glass and a porcelain expression that seemed much too fragile to last more than an afternoon. Natsuki couldn’t bear to look her in the face; so they didn’t speak, not a word. That was the first time that had happened. But when Natsuki returned to her mother’s grave after the service had concluded and the small handful of guests had trickled out, she found a small pink flower resting on the freshly disturbed dirt. 

Cherry blossoms didn’t bloom in the winter. They must’ve been a real pain to get a hold of. 

(It wasn’t that Monika left her alone after that, but Natsuki found that it hurt less to exist when she didn’t have a pitying stare piercing into her at all times. So no; Monika didn’t abandon Natsuki.)

“I told you,” Natsuki spat from beneath the covers, more bitter than she’d ever been in all her life, “I don’t want to talk.” It left an awful taste burning in the back of her throat, like spicy foods and tart berries. For the first time—although not the last—she decided that she hated herself. Monika was on the other side of her bedroom door, fist probably halfway raised from knocking. 

(Natsuki abandoned Monika.)

Still, despite her own request, she expected another knock. She’d seen the ending before, she knew how it played out. It wasn’t anything new. But that time, only silence followed the echoing of her own voice. I told you, I told you. Natsuki buried her head under her pillow, freezing cold with a nose stuffed up so bad that she couldn’t even breathe right. I don’t want to talk. She clutched Fluffy to her chest, willing herself to stop crying, because big girls didn’t cry—or maybe they did, but again, who cared? Who cared about anything when she couldn’t ask her mom to be sure? When Fluffy couldn’t help and Natsuki couldn’t draw and Monika couldn’t come inside, something was wrong. 

Who cared?

Natsuki shoved her paintbrushes into a drawer and her life’s worth of art into the recycling. She couldn’t paint anymore, not when the only thing she could hope to create was the face of the one she’d stabbed clean through the heart. She didn’t want love or hope, she didn’t want to create beautiful things when her whole body throbbed with a sharp, sore feeling that hadn’t gone away since she’d gotten the news. All she could do was ice the world out, hoping to numb the ache of suddenly being so alone. 

Still, one thought permeated the ice. Her mother may have abandoned her, but she couldn’t have prevented it. Natsuki, on the other hand? She’d had a choice in the matter when she did the same Monika. 

“Papa,” Natsuki murmured at some absurd hour of the morning, shaken awake from another nightmare. She crept toward the living room. It was childish to go running to him for comfort, as if he’d ever offered it, but something pulled her closer. “Papa, what’s…?” Natsuki wrinkled her nose, stopped mid-sentence. She wiped her face on her sleeve, wincing from something other than the rawness of her tear-stricken face. “What’s that smell?”

That wasn’t a question Natsuki would ever need to ask again. Alcohol became her father’s mistress, and she found herself with less and less desire to keep trudging along in a life that seemed pretty adamant to make everything bad that could happen, happen. That was when Natsuki decided she had no reason to try. Monika was… out of the question. Every time Natsuki saw her, she was reminded of everything she wanted to forget. The pink bunny, from her mama. The paintings, from the art set her mama had worked so hard to buy her. The firm confidence her mama had always had in her, that Monika oh-so-blatantly shared (used to). Her mother was dead, but everywhere she turned she seemed to find traces of her mama—so much so that Natsuki almost believed she would still be there, waiting at the bus stop for her to come home. 

Unfortunately, avoiding Monika like the plague didn’t make her give up, even after everything that had happened. Natsuki could see it plain as day, the way she’d wave at her in the hallway, sit beside her, try to start a conversation about anything. The weather. Homework. Television shows. Anything. Natsuki saw the way Monika held onto their disintegrating friendship, how she maintained it alone for over a year. How she fought so hard to water a plant that wanted nothing more than to wither away into nothingness. She saw it. And she offered nothing in return.

“You can’t just—just disappear, and blame it on your mother! That’s not f-fair!” Monika had shouted from her backyard, up at the moon, up at Natsuki. Finally at her last wit. Snapping. Took her long enough. “Natsuki, please, just… please! She wouldn’t want this. You know she wouldn’t.”

Every hair on Natsuki’s neck stood up. She knew she was in the wrong (when wasn’t she) and she knew Monika was right (when wasn’t she). She knew her mother wouldn’t want this. She knew she couldn’t hold onto her grief as a safety net forever. But she also knew that life at home meant beer stains and dirty laundry, an empty fridge and a sink piled with dishes she didn’t recognize anymore. She knew that if she let Monika anywhere near her, she could kiss her life goodbye. She’d call the cops so fast her head would spin. That’s what type of friend Monika was: a good one. 

So Natsuki slammed her bedroom window without a response, even though all she wanted to say was never speak about my mother again. Partially because she would have burst into tears if she had to look at Monika for one more second, and partially because she knew that if she let herself talk, she’d be asking for her best friend back. 

The spring passed. So did the summer. By the end of it, the roof over Natsuki’s head was no longer shingled terracotta, the walls encasing her were not beige. Her backyard was smaller. There was no white fence, no light on in the evening, no next-door neighbor. No colorful sidewalks, nor windchimes to fill the air.

“A new start,” her father said gruffly, one arm locked over Natsuki’s shoulder, the other a case of beer. On sale, half-off.

On Natsuki’s first day of high school, nobody walked with her up to those great big double doors. Her lunch was not packed and her hair was not neatly brushed into twin plaits. She didn’t look over and find a familiar face standing beside her. No—no, everything was different, everything that could’ve changed did. The hallways were longer and more crowded, the food was worse, the people were meaner. She kept her head ducked and her arms folded as she searched for class after class, until the last bell rang. Where to next? Home? Never.

So she discovered the library. She didn’t actually read at first, choosing instead to crouch down on a stool in the quietest aisle and brood, but eventually, the titles began to call out to her. Nobody ever looked at those books—poor lonely things—but after she slid one open and read the title, she realized why. Manga. Cutesy, frilly, embarrassing manga. No wonder it was so peaceful there. Natsuki put it back. But she pulled another volume, then another, because it wasn’t like she had any friends to make fun of her in the first place. She was a nobody. 

She sifted through title after title, searching for something she could tolerate, until she landed on one with smiling girls standing proudly on the cover just below the title. The girl in the front of the group, with the biggest grin of them all, had short hair of bubblegum pink. A truly offensive color. Hair dye rots your brain, her dad once told her, his tone scolding although Natsuki’s hair had never been anything other than black. Stuff’s for crazies. That book. That one was perfect. On her way home, Natsuki bought a big bottle of cheap bleach and the first box of hair dye she saw.

Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer. 

Fall. 

On Natsuki’s third-first-day of high school, she’d hardly made it into the building before plowing down the person in front of her. She spit out the stray strands of hair that had made it into her mouth, scowling as twin friction burns seared against her palms. But as the bitter words bloomed on her tongue, angry and accusatory and entirely unfair, the wide, green eyes staring back at her stopped her in her tracks. Without a sound, she stormed off in the opposite direction. The world was unfair, she decided. The world was unfair, and Monika was destined to torment her forever, just like memories of sweet music and painful Decembers. 

But that was only the beginning. 

“Literature club,” Natsuki muttered, eyeing the brightly colored—yet crudely drawn—flier that had been tacked on top of the lunch schedule for that week. There had never been a literature club before, and she couldn’t imagine why they’d need one then, but maybe it would finally give her a real reason to stay after school. The library was starting to get stale. So Natsuki shrugged. Literature club, huh? Okay nerds. I’ll bite. If there were ever a group of people who had no right to judge her recent taste in books, it was whoever wanted to join that club.

She passed several other in-progress club meetings on her way to the literature club that afternoon, and took the opportunity to peek into different rooms just to see what they had to offer. Board games, anime, debating. She avoided the room with music flowing from the partially ajar door and turned away from the room that smelled of acrylics and oil pastels. Whoever was in the music club, she did not want to see. And the art club? Hah. Natsuki could not have been farther from an artist. 

Finally she found the door she was looking for. No fancy decorations or banners, just a plain door, sealed firmly shut. Natsuki peered through the window, getting the distinct feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be there. She should just leave—obviously no one was coming. Maybe that was her excuse to give up without really trying, or maybe she really didn’t think anyone was there. It didn’t matter either way; the universe tended to have its own plans. 

“Oh!” A muffled voice exclaimed. Moments later the door swung open, and standing behind it was a girl with short peachy hair and eyes that shone with the sort of excitement usually reserved for extra-special birthday gifts or juicy secrets. Her mouth made a small ‘o’. “Guys! A potential new member!” She waved at Natsuki, far too friendly far too fast. “I’m Sayori by the way, and the purple-y girl back there is Yuri,” she gestured to the back corner of the club, “and hiding over there is Monika! She’s our president, you know, ehe.”

Natsuki did not know. If she had, she would’ve stayed in her cramped, dusty corner of the library. Because Monika was a musician, not a writer or a reader, so she shouldn’t have been there to begin with. She looked at Monika, with those same green eyes (though she now donned a ponytail of mellowed brown rather than fire, rather than cinnamon; how Natsuki hadn't noticed earlier, she didn’t know). And, with eyes raised to a God she didn’t believe in, she prayed she’d leave her be. 

After a beat, Monika straightened up. Her face, once an open book, was wiped clean of anything familiar. She smiled at Natsuki; she hadn’t done that in a very long time. “Nice to meet you,” Monika said. Natsuki’s blood went cold, her heart skipped. Her prayer had been answered. “What’s your name?”

And again, the world froze. Winter, grade seven; fall, grade eleven. 

“Kojima Natsuki.”

Natsuki went along with Monika’s lie for a little while, but it was only a matter of time before the truth peeked through the cracks in her steadily crumbling mask. How long could she pretend, after all, not to know that Monika loved the smell of vanilla because they’d spent countless winter nights together baking cupcakes with her mother?  How could details as important as second favorite colors and recurring nightmares be thrown away like old trash? Natsuki wasn’t Monika’s friend anyone, she’d made that abundantly clear, but she’d rather be an enemy than a nothing. Being nothing to Monika was a fate worse than death. Maybe that was why, after four long years, Natsuki picked up a paintbrush when she went home and dipped it into a near-empty well of emerald green. 

It wasn’t as easy to finish a portrait anymore. She spent longer than she’d done when all she’d had was a box of broken crayons and sun-bleached construction paper. But after a few days of (what she convinced herself was) hate-fueled hard work, Natsuki had artwork to show for herself. Something real and tangible. And without sparing a moment to be proud of herself, without thinking I’m going to be in a gallery someday, she ripped it down the center right between two eyes of piercing green. Such a soothing color turned irritating and obnoxious. A waste. Her father had always hated her art anyway. 

“Manga?” 

Natsuki’s head snapped toward the voice and her grip tightened on the volume in hand. She narrowed her eyes, peering over the top of the pages to glare at the club president. Not Monika anymore, clearly, because they didn’t know each other. 

“Got a problem with that?” 

Monika shook her head. 

Natsuki didn’t understand. There wasn’t any sign of anger or malice from what she could tell, so why was Monika doing this? And why, when Natsuki so flagrantly disrespected her, did she just stand there and take it? It didn’t make sense how she could wipe their slate clean without so much as a moment’s hesitation. Didn’t she know how badly Natsuki—

—wished she could take it all back. 

Not that she’d ever tell anyone. This thought unraveled itself into several sketches and paintings that Natsuki shoved beneath her bed and left to be clothed in swaths of dust which spread across the surface like fuzzy mold.

The club carried on like usual—or what Natsuki assumed was like usual—for a few weeks. Book reading, poetry writing. The like. She kept to herself mostly, choosing one of the desks farthest from the front, avoiding everyone else as much as possible. After she eventually discovered the supply closet (turned book storage room) in the back, it was like she’d never joined at all; she only came out after the club had ended or for mandatory meetings. Thankfully, nobody bothered her there. Usually.

“Hey,” a bright voice said from above Natsuki’s head as a strip of bright yellow light pierced through the dim closet ambiance. Damn it. “Space for two?”

Natsuki shrugged. She knew it didn’t matter what she said, and as expected, Sayori was soon wiggling herself into the small space left on the closet’s floor. She gave Natsuki an unreadable expression. Though her gaze darted to the manga momentarily, she didn’t say a word.

“Did you… Did you want something?” Natsuki asked, irritated. 

“Are you comfortable in our club?” Sayori replied with another question after a brief, contemplative silence. Her eyebrows knit and her fingertips twirled in her lap. “You stay in here during every meeting, and I mean—you have every right to do what you want in the club! But I’m the vice prez and all, so I wanted to make sure you actually like being here. You, uh.. You do, don’t you?”

Shifting, Natsuki debated how to answer this. She was plenty comfortable sitting in a dark closet by herself squinting at a book she didn’t care much about, she was less than stoked about having to pretend Monika was a stranger to her. It was easier to hide away and avoid that mess than to go out in the open where she’d have to lie through her teeth every other sentence.

“I’m sorry. If you don’t want to be here, I mean.” Sayori idly filled the silence, still fidgeting. “I know literature isn’t everyone’s thing. I just can’t help but wonder if, you know, if there’s something else that—”

Maybe it was the rambling, or maybe it was the way Sayori seemed to see right through her, but there was something that Natsuki couldn’t take anymore. So she shook her head, interrupted quickly with a ‘nope, everything’s fine’ , and shoved Sayori out of the closet. When Natsuki peeped through the keyhole to make sure she was well out of earshot, she carefully slid her bookmark in place, set her book down, and cried into her hands until the meeting had long since ended. 

I hate her. Natsuki fell in and out of a restless sleep, tormented by dreams of princesses long forgotten and music who’s rhythm she could no longer recall. I hate her and the way she won’t leave me be. At every turn she found Monika, Monika, Monika. Monika in the trees, in the paint beneath Natsuki’s fingernails, in the wind, in every scrap and shred of Natsuki’s life. I hate her eyes. She couldn’t sleep. I hate how she acts like she doesn’t know me anymore. But she couldn’t stay awake. I hate how she let me leave. She could do nothing but wander through life, half-awake and half-asleep, strung out between two realities, both of which wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. You’re a mess, look at you, her father told her. I know, she replied. Mentally, she added, I’m my fathers daughter. 

Yet in the back of her mind, Natsuki knew that not all of what she said was true. Monika may have created the stage play where they’d never known each other, but that didn’t make her a good actor. There were a few too many times where the mask slipped and the illusion wavered. Natsuki kept a careful tally of each time, adding a mental note for each glance Monika snuck, each pursed lip and furrowed brow in response to Natsuki’s presence, each vending machine snack she’d ‘accidentally’ dropped near Natsuki. Oh, I’m sorry, she said, I can be so clumsy. But when Natsuki held the protein bar or yogurt cup out to her, she’d shake her head. You know what, I’m not really feeling vanilla today, she’d say, then she’d laugh with a tap of her forehead. Even if it was a lie. 

What was Monika trying to say, Natsuki wondered—that she needed charity? What would she know about that? It was true enough that papa had a nasty habit of sleeping when he should’ve been grocery shopping, or nursing a hangover rather than asking Natsuki about her day, but Monika didn’t know a thing about that.

They danced around each other, a pair of ice skaters on a frozen lake. No matter how far apart they moved, the lake always reached an end; they always had to turn back toward the center. There would forever be a barrier that prevented them from truly leaving. Natsuki had to wonder whether that was a good thing. Her and Monika, forever caught in an awkward dance that neither truly wanted to be a part of. First next-door neighbors, then classmates, then clubmates. Coincidence after coincidence pushed them closer, despite Natsuki’s best efforts to sever whatever thread connected her life to Monika’s. 

And as the skater was destined to circle the ice, round and round, forever and ever, Natsuki was destined to chase fire. I’m trying to get her to leave me be, Natsuki justified time and time again as she took careful note of Monika. I’m just getting close enough to cut the tie. I have to get close first before I can leave. But the closer she got, the more difficult it became to pull away. Just one more day. Just one more meeting. Just one more, Natsuki promised herself, then she would quit the club once and for all. (In hindsight, again, it was obvious why Natsuki hadn’t left sooner. But at the time it made perfect sense. You had to observe your enemies to pick up on their weaknesses, after all.)

It was a rainy day when Natsuki and Monika finally exchanged words as old friends rather than new strangers. The pair had wound up standing at the school’s exit, both having forgotten to bring an umbrella. Natsuki looked at Monika, then to the rain pouring just outside the glass doors. She stared into the mist, watching droplets pelt the sidewalk until it turned four shades darker.

“So, you don’t know me, huh?” Natsuki muttered. Her vocal cords felt tense from the effort, like they hadn’t been used in a very long time. In a way they hadn’t. The words left her mouth before they’d had the opportunity to get approval from her brain, which was generally not the way to talk to people. That wasn’t to say she regretted it, just that she could’ve been a little more tactful with her approach. It was only a matter of time before someone said something.

Or maybe if Natsuki had stayed silent that day, they would have remained strangers forever. Maybe that was why her lips decided to move of their own accord.

“I panicked,” Monika confessed. Her voice finally sounded the way it did in old memories, with a warmness to it rather than the hollowness it’d had lately—as if she were talking into an empty apartment. She turned toward Natsuki, who kept watching the rain. “I didn’t expect you there. I barely recognized you.”

Natsuki scoffed. “Whatever. You didn’t have to keep pretending.”

Quietly, Monika turned her face away. Natsuki couldn’t tell whether she was shielding her eyes from the sun or hiding her expression. She wasn’t supposed to care about that anymore. Then, after what felt much longer than a few seconds, Monika spoke again. “And if I hadn’t?”

“What?” 

“If I hadn’t,” Monika repeated. “Would you have stayed? Last time I checked, you wanted nothing to do with me.”

I still don’t. Natsuki knew it wasn’t true. She shifted, tightening her grip on the strap of her bag. “So? I didn’t expect you to be in that stupid club. You’re a pianist. A musician.”

Monika made a strained noise, stuck between a laugh and a scoff. “No. I’m no musician. You think you’re so different now—well, I’m different, too. We’re better off like this.” She looked out into the rain too, watching the sky turn gray, and that was when Natsuki finally looked at her. She was different, just not as much as she wanted it to seem. Her face held more tension, her eyes were restless. She talked less. And for someone who was once the most persuasive person she’d ever met, there was something about the way Monika had just spoken that left Natsuki unconvinced. 

So Natsuki left, braving the storm rather than spending one more second in the school’s pleasantly warm foyer. She thought about the ‘different’ Monika when she got home. Maybe she was right; after all, Natsuki had never met a girl with cloudy eyes and a doubtful voice. At first glance, she believed the old Monika had returned. But now she wasn’t so sure.

With a great deal of hesitation, Natsuki decided to be daring and take some of her art supplies into school to use during the club meeting. She had a task for herself, one that would require lots of time and patience: She wanted to paint an exact portrait of Monika, her Monika, to get rid of her once and for all. Then she could rest. She could let all of it go. So she packed up several tubes and a few brushes, a pad of thick paper, and slid them into her bag. Her final stand, her last painting, then she could be free of all this.

Safely in the closet where nobody would bother her, Natsuki pulled out her supplies. Maybe she was jumping the gun a little by bringing everything at once, because all she really needed at the moment was a sheet of paper and a pencil. She allowed her hand to move loosely, unburdened by the tension in her mind. It dragged along the paper into a smooth gray circle, a base from which she could etch out her piece. With precision and a great deal of care, Natsuki carved away at the sketch. Monika was all sharp lines and edges, save for the curves of her eyes and ears. Emerald green in the eyes. Golden brown and burnt umber in her hair, although it had once been crimson and sienna. Once, even longer ago, it had been firetruck red. An oversimplification if she was being honest, but hey, it was kind of a hallmark of being a grade-schooler.

(Natsuki hated how her brush managed to remember what she’d tried so hard to forget for so many years. How could she expect to leave her old self behind when all she did was crawl back to the past?)

After a few days of work, Natsuki could have called it quits. After a week and a half, she was certainly past her usual point of completion. After three weeks, she had to wonder why she hadn’t called the painting done and left the club already, reveling in the feeling of freedom. Because it can never really be finished. That’s why I started it. Natsuki clenched her teeth at the thought, still sitting on the closet floor with the painting in her lap. Because I thought it could never be finished. It was then, as the final bell rang and her clubmates trickled out of the building, that Natsuki decided she’d been wrong— the painting wasn’t done, it wasn’t good enough to ever be completed. 

And she ripped it in two.

From there, things were fine. They were decent, better than before if Natsuki had to make the comparison. But she still wasn’t free of the club, nor of Monika. This fact was solidified when, whilst walking through the hall on her way to a club meeting, Natsuki thought she heard windchimes. That couldn’t be right—she was indoors during the dead of winter, for Christ’s sake. It went as soon as it had come, so she continued down the hall without bothering to explore. Wherever it led, she had no business being. 

The portrait had been a bust, so Natsuki tried to find new avenues for her artwork. Her brush instinctively found emerald green; she painted a landscape. Burnt sienna; she painted a house. Slowly she broke free from the confines of a single face, able at last to create images that didn’t make her want to curl up into a sad little ball and die. Pink cherry blossoms. Abstract streaks of blue and purple. Characters from her manga. Anything but Monika, anything but green and brown. Art didn’t have to be of Monika. (So why did it feel so empty without her?)

Then Natsuki heard windchimes again. And she swore—she swore— she wouldn’t investigate, but she broke promises like her father changed television stations. Erratically and without warning. 

She crept down the hall, realizing quickly that she was walking toward one of the music practice rooms. Her heart leapt into her throat. It couldn’t have been Monika, but a part of her still ached at the thought. No. I’m no musician. She shook off the thought and continued to approach slowly, careful not to disturb whoever was inside. When she made it to the door, part of her wanted to look through the window, and part of her wanted to sprint in the other direction. However, she knew there wasn’t much of an option; she needed to know what was really the cause of the sound, because if not, she would spend a lifetime hoping in vain that Monika hadn’t been serious with what she said. Because if Monika wasn’t a musician, if she really had given up on music, then she was doing the world a disservice.

So, when the opportunity arose, she crouched behind the door and peered up through the small glass pane. There was no mistaking the flash of brown moving gently as the person inside swayed back and forth. She knew the color too well to delude herself into thinking otherwise: Her intuition had been right. Monika was one again the instrumentalist of the song perpetually looping through her mind. As always, Monika was stuck in her head. Frustrated, Natsuki retreated through the hallway. She blew off the club and spent the rest of her day in the park, shooting the breeze and pretending not to hear music in the wind.

“Natsuki,” Yuri said tentatively, approaching her a while later. She spoke like each word had the potential to invoke Natsuki’s wrath, which, to be fair, wasn’t improbable. “May I ask you something?”

Natsuki looked up. It was one of the rare occasions she’d decided to sit at a desk and read manga rather than hole up in the closet—so much for being antisocial. She hoped this wasn’t ‘Sayori’ part two. How many times could she tell them that everything was fine? They didn’t seem to believe her anyway. “Hm?”

Thankfully, Yuri didn’t sit down beside her or pull up a chair the way Sayori most certainly would have in that situation. She didn’t seem to be staying very long. “Why did you join this club? Forgive me, but it, ah, seems as though you might prefer the art club.” Yuri fidgeted with a strand of her long hair, avoiding Natsuki’s gaze. Good. Natsuki wasn’t in the mood for intense eye contact. But how did she know—? “Apologies if your hobby is private. I was tasked with organizing the shelves in the closet, and… happened to see a piece that I believe may have been yours.”

“You—” Natsuki began, humiliation welling up in her chest. The only time she’d had art in the classroom had been during her attempt to paint the ‘perfect Monika’, so there was no question as to which piece she’d seen. Natsuki wanted to erase that memory from Yuri’s mind—or move cities again—but something about the look on Yuri’s face gave her pause for what might’ve been the first time in her life.

“You do not have to explain if you do not want to,” Yuri said quietly. She looked at Natsuki intensely, eyebrows knit and lips pursed. “I was simply wondering.”

Natsuki’s gaze darted from the front of the class to the back. Monika was nowhere to be seen, probably in the stupid music room, and Sayori was napping at another desk on the opposite side of the room. She finally faced Yuri again.

“I knew her,” Natsuki stated flatly. “We were friends, we were—I don’t know. We were kids together. I mean, I joined the club by accident. I stayed because…” Her heart clenched in her chest. The answer formed on her lips although she’d never asked herself the question in earnest before. “I miss her.”

Yuri nodded. Then she walked away without another word, and Natsuki had to wonder why the hell she’d opened her mouth and said something so stupid to a near-stranger. But it was true. She missed Monika more than words could express. The day she lost her mother, she’d lost her best friend as well. And that was entirely her fault. 

It was difficult to pretend like everything was the same going forward. Natsuki couldn’t look at Monika without thinking about how she’d lied about not being a musician anymore, how Natsuki had lied about hating her. Those weren’t exactly comparable, per se, but still. They were just a pair of rotten old liars pretending not to know better. Who was Monika, then? Why did she care? The thoughts plagued her more and more following her admission of want. Her confession. I miss her.  

Of course, Natsuki could never have more than a second to catch her breath before another wrench was thrown into the system. This time, the wrench wore a red bow and a huge smile. The wrench was also brandishing a piece of chalk. 

“Poetry!” Sayori announced to the club, catching Natsuki at the door before she could retreat to her closet. Monika, who was actually present for once and had also been roped into whatever Sayori was brewing, wore a matching look of hesitation. Sayori underlined the word ‘poems’ on the chalkboard, written in big bubble letters. “We’ll each write a poem tonight, then come back tomorrow and share out. I figured things were getting a little slow—and especially being a newer club and all, we should be full of fun activities!”

Natsuki went home without the slightest idea of what to write. The only thing she could think of was the expression on Monika’s face. If she’d been looking a fraction of an inch closer to the doorway, they could’ve met eyes, could’ve shared a look. Could’ve shared something. She tried to shake the delusion from her mind and write something passable, but her artform wasn’t writing, just as Monika’s wasn’t. How were a pianist and a painter meant to write anything near what a poet could? She wrote down about four sentences, hated every line, and returned to Sayori empty-handed. 

“Aw, nothing?” Sayori asked with a pout. 

“Sorry.” But as Natsuki spoke, an idea—an oh-so-tantalizing idea—emerged in the back of her brain. “I’m sure the president has something to show for herself, though,” she added, dripping with insincerity. 

If she knew Monika, she’d brushed off the student-made ‘assignment’ entirely in favor of other work. And she wasn’t quite sure why, but something about seeing Monika flounder, something about making her see that they were on the same level after all, sent a thrill through her. They weren’t different. Natsuki hadn’t changed for the worst while Monika changed for the better. (Not that Monika had said that, but she might as well have. She’d implied it—and insinuations could be just as bad as blatancy.)

“Wouldn’t want to set a bad example for the rest of us, you know?” Natsuki continued as she turned toward Monika, who was frozen with her hand clutching a marbled journal. A test. Well? Make your choice. 

In response, Monika blinked and shook herself a bit, opening her journal and peering down at the page like she’d never seen it before in her life. The book was angled inward to her body, shielding the inside from view. 

“Aha… Um, alright,” she murmured, glancing at the faces of her club mates. She cleared her throat softly before beginning with uncertainty. “It could have been worse. The chill of winter… is always followed by the spring’s relief. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.” Her index finger traced along the paper slowly, arcing across its surface. “Once pink and beautiful, the trees are empty now. So a cherry blossom in the wind… is how I will know. When the flowers return, I’ll know the wait was worth it.” Monika bit her lip, eyes glazed. “I’ll wait with—with palms to the sky. But… But are they guaranteed? Are they certain?” With an edge of urgency in her voice, Monika shook her head and gripped her journal tighter. The movement was just enough for Natsuki to catch a glimpse of the blank page beneath her fingertips. “No. But I’ll wait like a fool, palms to the sky. Hoping my winter is followed by a spring.”

The words hung in the space over their heads, and the new thickness of the air made Natsuki struggle for breath. Her lungs burned and her stomach twisted into a knot as she failed to make sense of how on earth Monika had created that from nothing. Was she trying to one-up Natsuki by showing off? So what if she could come up with purple prose on the fly.

“Oh! Monika, that was wonder—” Sayori began.

“Hang on, I have a poem,” Natsuki interrupted quickly, yanking out her folded up page and praying that it wasn’t quite as awful as she remembered. Her face felt hot beneath the lowly buzzing fluorescent lights, or maybe it was just the three pairs of eyes locked on her; not that it mattered. She had already grabbed the shovel and marked out her grave, so, resigning herself to her fate, she shrugged nonchalantly. “I forgot I wrote it. That’s all.”

Looking pleased, if not a little confused, Sayori smiled crookedly at her. After all, it wasn’t every day that Natsuki participated.

“Roses are red and violets are blue,” Natsuki cringed internally, “this poem is dumb, and you know it, too. Dirt is brown and trees are green, but they don’t make good poetry. Funny how that works.” When nobody responded despite her awkward coughing sound, Natsuki crumpled her paper back up and tossed it across the room into the trash can. Buckets. “The end, if you can’t tell. Look—I’m sorry I’m not Monika, okay, I’m not—not all fancy with my words, but I can’t help it! I’m not a writer!” Was that what Monika was now? A writer? 

It occurred to Natsuki after she’d left, embarrassed and red-face, that that had been the first time she’d spoken Monika’s name aloud since they were fourteen. Somehow it still felt the same, each syllable melting over her tongue like a mouthful of soft serve vanilla ice cream on a hot summer afternoon. She could almost feel the chalk dust coating her palms, the sting of a peeling sunburn across the bridge of her nose. She could almost see Monika there, all of five feet tall, freckled and gangly as could be, with the biggest smile in the world spread across her equally burnt face. Things were almost the same as they had been; there was music in the air and paint splattered on most of Natsuki’s things all over again. So why had Natsuki set Monika up for humiliation, childishly trying to get a rise out of her? Why had Monika intentionally upstaged her with that stupid poem? At least Natsuki put in effort into hers.

“D’ya get into a fight, or something?” Natsuki’s dad asked her when she got home, still a bent up mess of humiliation. He grunted and shifted in his chair. “Looks like you lost.”

Yeah. I lost, alright.

With that, the ice broke beneath her feet. What had once been solid ground became a deep well of uncertainty and fear; what happened when never again became a what if? Head under water, Natsuki didn’t know what to think, what to say, how to approach her own feelings. She couldn’t see far enough through the haze of murky water to tell whether or not Monika had fallen, as well. Which was worse? Sinking alone, or dragging someone beneath with her? Without a doubt, it had been Natsuki’s misstep that delivered the final blow to the ice’s surface, whether or not there had been cracks in it earlier.

Natsuki began to notice something odd following what—unfortunately—became known as the ‘poem incident’. (Sayori didn’t make many assignments after that.) When she was getting close to the end of a particular volume of manga, she found the next one waiting for her on the closet bookshelf. They appeared out of thin air, as if having teleported right from the library, and seemed to be multiplying at a rapid rate. Sure the closet had held books previously, but its intended purpose was general classroom storage for whatever courses generally took place in the room; tape, scissors, lined paper. There were a few select classics or thrillers shoved here and there, most likely by Yuri, but certainly nothing Natsuki would’ve been interested in. 

“Sayori, are you putting new books in the closet?” Natsuki asked finally, after finding an upcoming volume for the third time. She’d already had Yuri investigate to confirm that the storage room wasn’t haunted, since she had an evident penchant for novels about that sort of thing. Sci-fi, horror—the like. 

Tilting her head, Sayori frowned. She peeked over Natsuki’s head toward the back of the room. Her eyes widened. “Ooh… Do you think it’s a—?”

“Not a ghost.” Natsuki shook her head. “Yuri checked.”

“Darn it!” Sayori pouted and poked her index fingers together. Why someone would want a haunted classroom, Natsuki did not know. “Well…” Sayori trailed off, biting her lip and struggling to make eye contact like a kid admitting to some great sin, like snagging an extra cookie or staying up past their bedtime. Right when Natsuki thought she was going to say something useful, her usual bright expression returned and she giggled bashfully. “Ehe, sorry—I guess I’m no help. The books have to be coming from somewhere though, right? I’m sure you’ll figure it out!”

Cryptic behavior aside, Natsuki had to agree with her. It was only a matter of time before she got to the bottom of the situation, but until then, she would just appreciate not having to make extra trips to the library. It was all well and good. Mysteries weren’t always meant to be solved.

That was, until Natsuki made it to the finale of her series, and found yet another manga sitting on the shelf waiting for her. She scrutinized the title, suspicion creasing the space between her eyebrows. It looked similar enough to the series she’d just wrapped up, and it was definitely something she could’ve theoretically chosen herself, but that was the final straw. With one suspect remaining, Natsuki tucked the book carefully into her bag and stomped down the hallway toward the telltale sound of windchimes. (She knew what they really were, of course, but the little five-year-old in her heart wouldn’t let her stop affectionately referring to them as that. Sue her.)

Was her next move brave? In a way. Was it incredibly stupid? Most certainly. Thus, she did what she had to do.

“What the hell,” Natsuki began, brandishing the book as she stormed into the practice room, “do you think this is?”

Monika paused with her fingertips hovering over a row of black piano keys. She glanced between Natsuki and the book sheepishly, all but confirming Natsuki’s suspicions without uttering a single word. That was how it was with the two of them, and apparently how it always would be. Sometimes Natsuki wished that she wasn't a mind reader.

“A peace offering?” Monika suggested, removing the sheet music she’d had up on the piano and clasping her hands over it. “I… was wondering, if…”

Hoping against hope itself, Natsuki clung onto the sound of Monika’s voice with baited breath. I… was wondering, if… It echoed, stretching to fill the silence that was quickly growing between them. Then again, their last ‘silence’ had lasted three years. I told you. I don’t want to talk. Natsuki could wait a few minutes.

Finally, Monika released a gentle sigh that Natsuki could practically feel escaping her own lungs. “If we could… start again?” 

The cul-de-sac. That old white picket fence. Fluffy the bunny-slash-rabbit, soaring face first into the dirt. Matching houses, matching door slams. Vanilla cupcakes in the winter and pink flowers in the spring. Chalk hopscotch and kalimba sing-alongs. Graveyards. Neighbors, classmates, best friends, strangers. All of that, all of that and a hundred times more, and Monika wanted to throw it all away? She wanted to wipe clean the story they’d written together, starting from scratch just to give the both of them another chance to ruin a good thing? But Natsuki knew that she had to make a choice, and sometimes, there was no choice to be made. Not really.

“Yeah,” Natsuki said shakily. Funny that their new beginning should be founded on such a bold-faced lie. Something stuck in her throat. “I’d like that.”

Friendship with Monika was nothing new to Natsuki. To be honest, not being friends with her had been a much harder transition. Living with something you’d never had was a relatively easy task, but adjusting to the loss of something you’d always had was trickier. Not impossible, just… definitely not easy. What most people didn’t know, however, was that a third option existed in between the first two: because, as Natsuki was rapidly finding out, it was borderline impossible to erase the memory of something you’d always had, and pretend to have never had it in the first place. She felt split down the middle, caught between the overly-saturated, sugary sweet memories of her childhood and the dull reality of her current life. 

But things weren’t all bad. No—with Monika back, even just in a small way, how could they be?

“I thought you ‘weren’t a musician’,” Natsuki commented to Monika during a particularly slow club meeting, placing heavy air quotes around the phrase. She’d been hovering over the teacher’s desk with the sole purpose of being a nuisance, and the corner of a page of sheet music had attracted her attention. “So… why do I keep catching you with music?”

Monika shrugged, not looking up from her paperwork. It was important information regarding the club, or something along those lines. She didn’t seem bothered much by the question, in any case. “I wasn’t a musician, for a while,” Monika responded. She idly penciled a few words onto the paper. “Then you joined my club.”

Unsure of how to take that, Natsuki tried to forget the conversation entirely. Still, whether she wanted to believe that Monika was affecting her or not, she couldn’t deny certain things. Her paintings gained life and color, and although she hadn’t returned to portraits quite yet, there was something more fluid about the way her brush danced its way across canvases and notebooks, empty cardboard boxes and old exam papers. Anything she could paint, she did. There were other changes too, though, aside from her artistic endeavors. You seem happier, Yuri and Sayori remarked. Something funny, smartass? her father asked. That was just his version of saying virtually the same thing. 

Fresh start, huh? Natsuki shook her head. She was taking up residence at a desk more often those days, although she admittedly did like the atmosphere in the old closet. On top of that, Monika talked more openly about her music again—rather than disappearing or not showing up entirely, she’d explain her ‘new’ hobby. Everything is just like before, Natsuki ached to tell somebody, but she found time and time again that she had nobody to tell. Nobody who wanted to hear it, at least. Nothing has changed, she just doesn’t want to admit it. Why?

(In hindsight, it was easy to pretend she didn’t know. Natsuki had always had a knack for denying what was right in front of her. Cherry blossoms didn’t bloom in the winter, and manga didn’t appear from out of thin air. Windchimes didn’t play at summer’s end. Yet, somehow, these natural phenomena continued to follow Natsuki; who, of course, refused to acknowledge the common denominator amongst them all.)

Occasional conversations became exchanging numbers, which became learning new addresses, which became walking together between classes. Monika asked Natsuki what she wanted from the vending machine rather than scattering snacks by her shoes, and Natsuki popped into the practice room before meetings to let Monika know she was going to be late. And as slowly and gently as the first falling of snow, Natsuki and Monika became Natsuki-and-Monika for the second time. The same girls on the surface. Still, Natsuki couldn’t shake the feeling that Monika hadn’t quite detached from her past as much as she’d like to pretend. 

Winter. 

“Hi mama,” Natsuki whispered into the cool, still air of the cemetery, standing by the gates. It had been a long time since she’d visited. 

The regret began to gnaw at her as she walked past rows of overgrown gravestones. That cemetery was somewhat neglected compared to others, left to its own devices with scarcely the luxury of a biannual lawn-mowing. She remembered how her father had maintained the headstone, trimming the grass around it and removing any particularly gnarly weeds. (Although she had never watched him do it, she noticed the unusual cleanliness of her mother’s area compared to the others. That was probably what he did when he disappeared every so often; that was what she told herself. And, under that assumption, was the one thing he’d ever done that she admired.)

As she approached the familiar plot of land, shaded by the emptied branches of a maple tree, she couldn’t help noticing how even then, it seemed somewhat neater than elsewhere. The yellowed grass may have crept past what Natsuki would seem a civilized height, but there was neither moss to be scraped off nor weeds to be pulled. She couldn’t make sense of it, so she let it be. 

“I miss you,” Natsuki murmured, sitting down beside the stone with a palm pressed against the engraving. Kojima Yuuka. It was nothing more than an indentation below her fingertips, yet she could swear she could still feel her mother there, sitting beside her in the grass. She longed for one more moment with her. What she wouldn’t give to be five again, when her biggest problem was pronouncing the letter ‘r’ and her mother would gently correct her until her lips finally formed the right sound. Natsuki leaned forward, letting her forehead meet the cool stone surface. “I just wish you were here. Bye, mama. I’ll be back next year, I promise.”

As Natsuki left, she passed a single cherry blossom fluttering limply in a patch of grass, caught by a crisp winter breeze. 

The world carried on, as it always did, whether Natsuki was standing in a cemetery or a classroom. All she could do was begin to walk with it, rather than fighting against nature itself. Monika had always walked with it. (She made that expression up. Maybe she was a writer, after all.) Natsuki had done nothing but run in the opposite direction, toward the wind, against the current. In the end, she’d been swept up in it; it seemed she was doomed to fight losing battles, one after another after another. A war against rationality was not one that most sane people chose to wage. 

“I like this one,” Natsuki said, eyes shut as she sat beside Monika on the piano bench listening to the song. She could not prevent her body from swaying slightly to the tempo, but she made certain not to brush against Monika’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew it was wrong. Look, don’t touch. Never touch. With a soft sigh, she opened her eyes as the final notes rang out. “What is it?”

Monika raised her eyebrows, her hands still pressing down on the keys. The notes remained in the air, sustained until they were nothing more than a whisper, the memory of a chord. “The song?” Monika asked. She looked away before Natsuki could confirm the ghost of a blush crossing her face. “I wrote it.”

It was then that Natsuki decided she couldn’t take it any longer. Every word Monika said made her heart ache with nostalgia. She could no longer separate who she was supposed to be, the new Natsuki, from who she used to be. Who both of them used to be. Because in her mind, she was drawing pictures in chalk and Monika had a kalimba in her hand. But that wasn’t part of their story anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be, at least. 

“I don’t know if I…” Natsuki began. It was her turn to trail off, and Monika’s turn to wait with baited breath. “Sorry. Just keep thinking about—about, you know. Everything from before.”

With a mournful expression, Monika nodded. 

“Can we…?” But the question wouldn’t come to her. Could they what? Go back to how it was before—when they didn’t speak? How it was before—when they weren’t friends? How it was before—when they were still little? Natsuki forced the words out. “Be us again? The same?”

“No,” Monika answered, but her voice was one again not quite hers. It was too unsure to belong to her fully. 

“Why?”

“Because,” Monika began, her hands wringing in her lap, “then I’d…” She shut her eyes. “I would ruin everything. Again.”

You didn’t ruin anything the first time, Natsuki wanted to protest. She knew better than to try to argue, though, so she settled for silence. 

“I understand,” Natsuki said after another moment had passed. Her hand, resting beside Monika’s leg on the piano bench, twitched with the sudden impulse to reach out. She couldn’t. It remained where it was. 

“You don’t understand.” Monika didn’t explain further. Natsuki left it be. 

It was a cold day when Natsuki began to learn the truth about what Monika had meant. She watched the clouds pass by through the window, as captivated as she’d been watching them the very first time. There was something different about the clouds when the winter was ending, though. They held the first droplets of spring. She could almost smell the season changing. With a final exhale, Natsuki gathered her things and stood to leave; once again, last to go. But when she opened the clubroom door, she found Monika standing behind it with her lips parted as though she’d been speaking to someone. It was soon evident that she wasn’t speaking, but merely out of breath. 

“Monika?” Natsuki blinked. “What are you—I thought you left.”

Monika shook her head wordlessly with a smile on her face, as bright as the ones Natsuki remembered from so many springtimes ago. She took Natsuki’s hand in her own and led her down the hall, past the foyer, through the glass doors, out onto the sidewalk in front of the school. They walked toward a tree, which seemed wholly unremarkable to Natsuki. But Monika stepped closer, and as her finger stretched toward the branch, her hand tightened on Natsuki’s and sent a ripple of electricity through her palm. She found she no longer cared much about the tree. 

“Look,” Monika reached toward a small green bud, “look, Natsuki.”

We can’t be the same… Natsuki observed the buds. She had to admit they were something special, the first of their kind. So why are you looking at me like that? Why are you making me feel this way, if we can’t be the same?

When Natsuki got home, she uncapped her paints and let the electricity from Monika’s touch flow through her brush. She knew then how to properly paint Monika, exactly as she was. It didn’t have to be a perfect portrait. It just had to be Monika. She worked until the sun had long since gone down and her hands were stained every color imaginable. But her painting was complete, and she needed to find closure once and for all. 

It was Yuri she went to first. 

“Do you think it’s okay?” Natsuki asked, suddenly embarrassed of her artwork. She’d had a plan set in place and everything, but she was second guessing it the moment she stepped foot into the clubroom. The longer Yuri stayed quiet, the more Natsuki wished she’d left it home. “I mean—I mean for starters, what do you think at all?”

Again, Yuri was quiet for a few seconds, contemplating her words as carefully—slowly—as she always did. “She… looks exceptional. You’ve captured Monika beyond anything I could’ve hoped to have written about her. As if you see something the rest of the world does not.” Yuri turned to the painting, allowing her eyes to drink in the image. With a final purse of her lips, she turned back. “You are truly an artist, Natsuki.”

Natsuki shrugged, flipping the painting around and trying to act nonchalant upon noticing that Sayori had just walked in. Unfortunately, she’d been a millisecond too late and Sayori was already squealing at a frequency few people—and most bats—could hear. 

“Ooh! Natsuki, I didn’t know you were so talented!” Sayori exclaimed, prompting Natsuki to relent and show her the picture. She studied it more intently than Natsuki would’ve expected, with her eyebrows furrowed and a hand on her chin. “You paint her like you love her,” she said simply. Like it was the easiest conclusion in the world. 

Despite herself and despite everything she’d tried so hard to avoid, Natsuki spoke without thinking and with no hesitation. “I do love her.” That was how she knew what Monika was trying to say. I would ruin everything. Again. That was how she knew that, when the barrier of ice between them had shattered, she wasn’t the only one to take a plunge. Natsuki blinked, placing the painting down and running a hand through her hair. “I—I have to go,” she announced, breaking into a jog toward the hallway. “Don’t wait up!”

Natsuki sprinted toward the music room, skidding when she came to a stop. It was silent inside. Was Monika there? She looked through the window with her heart in her throat. Thankfully Monika was in fact inside, hunched over slightly and writing something down. She mustn’t have heard the bell again. Natsuki wrenched the door open, no longer caring about whether she was being disruptive or loud or too much. If it hadn’t mattered to Monika before, it wouldn’t have started to then. 

“Oh, Natsuki!” Monika turned. “Aha… am I late again?” But before the sentence had even fully left her mouth, Natsuki was stepping closer than she’d ever dared to. 

“We can’t be best friends like we used to be. We can’t be friends at all, can we?” Natsuki felt a surge of emotions welling up in her that she couldn’t identify, maybe ones she’d never experienced before at all. Either way, the accumulation of everything she didn’t understand translated into the one thing she had lots of experience with: an outburst. “Because when you get too close to being my friend, you—you find a way to keep me at a distance, right, at arm’s length?” Natsuki began to pace, still gesturing wildly with her hands. “And I couldn’t figure it out. I thought I was the only one making this hard, but I wasn’t, because you… you… Ugh!”

Looking positively bewildered, Monika pushed back the piano bench with a loud screeching sound and stood up. “What… are you trying to say? We’re friends, we already talked about that.” Her words faded, perhaps drowned out by the buzz in Natsuki’s eardrums. 

“I’m just so, so—so frustrated, and no matter how hard I try, it’s always you. You’re in my head like a fucking ringing in my ear, and you won’t even admit it.” Natsuki had no idea how Monika could have begun to admit such a thing, but that didn’t matter in the moment. (Actually, most of her logic was somewhat… nonsense. But wasn’t that the nature of all arguments?) “The only thing I can think about is you, the only thing I can paint is you. I leave the entire city you lived in, and I’m still running into you! Do you know how crazy that is?”

Flowers, books, vending machines, music, colors. Everything combined into an overwhelming heap of Monika, something Natsuki did not know how to handle with any sort of tact. 

Mouth slightly open, Monika searched Natsuki’s eyes. “You… still paint? I assumed y-you weren’t into art anymore.”

“And I assumed you weren’t into music, but look where that’s got us,” Natsuki fired back, astonished that that’s what Monika had chosen to focus on. Still, it confused her enough to put a pin in her rant. 

After a tense, split second silence, Monika slowly lowered herself back down onto the piano bench and motioned for Natsuki to take the space beside her. Begrudgingly, she obliged. There wasn’t much else she could’ve said, and it didn’t seem possible to get more worked up than she already was. 

“I would like to understand where this is coming from,” Monika stated, patient, firm, and worried all at once. She did not berate Natsuki for yelling. She did not try to silence her. 

And yet, Natsuki wasn’t sure how to explain. She thought back to the whirlwind of events from the past few months, the painful rollercoaster of nostalgia she’d been on. But she wasn’t a writer. She wasn’t good at expressing herself through words. So she got up, retrieved her painting from the clubroom, and returned to the music room with it. That certainly wasn’t how she’d planned for the moment to go—she was hoping for something more ceremonious, or at least more sane—but alas, the world continued to do its own thing, even if that meant sending curveball after curveball. Sometimes you just had to walk with it. 

Natsuki handed Monika the painting. It wasn’t the most true to life depiction; it was less hyper realistic than she’d aimed for previously, and the shadow of tension that seemed to perpetually shade Monika’s face was nowhere in sight. In its place were the dimples of the girl next next door, the smile of her bus buddy, the freckles of a tiny musician with a kalimba and a dream. Her hair was tinged red, a reflection of the princess on the other side of the white picket fence, and a pink blossom rested delicately by her temple, tucked behind her ear. 

“I’m… sorry. For being such a pain. And for going nuts at you all the time.” Natsuki grimaced. She couldn’t watch when Monika finally looked at her artwork. “But I can’t be your friend, either, because I think—I think I’ll ruin it too. Sayori, she told me that…” Natsuki shut her eyes and set her jaw. She was always good at running her mouth, right? Why stop then? “I paint you like I love you.”

The hitch in Monika’s throat was audible. Falling through the ice, hitting the water, even sinking… that wasn’t the scariest part of skating with Monika, after all. The scariest part was making it back to shore. Taking the first breath of clean air after being suffocated for so long. It was bound to hurt, but it was also the only way to keep going. 

“And… Do you?” Monika whispered, a hand grazing the careful brushstrokes that made up her own face. Her voice wobbled as she spoke, like she was afraid to get the words out. 

Natsuki opened her eyes. Sitting beside her was the girl she had always known, even before that fateful late summer day. The one she’d fallen in love with somewhere between sidewalk chalk and crummy poetry. It didn’t matter how far she ran or who she became; her heart was Monika’s, and for as long as it should beat, she was destined to find her over and over again. Until she did things right. 

“Yeah,” Natsuki breathed. She allowed herself to touch Monika’s face with the back of her hand, as delicately as she would’ve handled a fresh painting. Except this time, the artwork was alive. She could feel the warmth burning beneath her knuckles. The electricity surged through her system once more, though that time it had nowhere to go. Natsuki allowed her hand to move the smallest bit further, so that she was holding Monika’s face in her palm. But I’ll wait like a fool, palms to the sky. “Do you?”

“I do. I always have,” Monika confessed, with a tear finally escaping and trailing down to her chin. It landed on the painting and smudged part of the corner; immediately, her expression crumpled and apologies began to spill from her mouth. 

But Natsuki didn’t need apologies, just as she didn’t need the painting. The flowers returned. She used her other hand to carefully bring Monika’s attention back to her. You were right to wait, after all. Every winter is followed by a spring. Then, once Natsuki had dried Monika’s face of tear stains, she brushed a stray lock of brown hair out of her eyes, leaned closer, and kissed her. 

Spring.

Epilogue

On the outskirts of a bustling city stood a small house belonging to a young couple; the name on the mailbox read ‘Nakano’. The porch bore a cushioned rocking chair and a wide assortment of potted flowers, all of which were well-maintained and bursting with green life. 

Frequently, one could spot a clothesline stretching from the railing to the opposing picket fence, decorated by various articles of clothing, all lengths and colors and types. And eventually, after the pair had lived there for many, many years, pastel onesies and tiny blankets joined the array of other clothes as they rippled in the soft breeze, and the windchimes tinkled their sweet song. As time carried on in its rhythmic, steady march, the house remained as beautiful as it had been the day the Nakano’s had bought it. To their delight, it was best known by the music that seemed to exist as part of the structure itself. Windchimes were rarely hung year-round.

“It’s getting dark out, firefly,” called a woman from inside the house—Nakano Natsuki. She placed a hand on her hip when she discovered her daughter tumbling through the grass, shrieking with delight as she hefted herself up, only to do it over again. What am I going to do with you? 

“Five more minutes, mama!” Hotaru wobbled, spun, then promptly collapsed back onto the ground. She clutched a plush pink toy to her chest as she caught her breath, laying there and looking up at the moon. 

Someone approached from behind, and Natsuki instantly softened, smiling as a warm hand found its place on the small of her back. Monika stood beside her, holding a steaming mug of coffee that was surely to blame for the heat spreading through Natsuki’s limbs. They watched together in quiet admiration as Hotaru barreled right along through the neatly manicured lawn. It was a sight to behold, witnessing childhood—a life, in its entirety —bloom right there in their own backyard.

“She’s just like you, you know,” Monika remarked. 

“Nah.” Natsuki shook her head, stealing a sip of coffee and making a face as the unpleasant bitter flavor washed over her tongue. (Monika raised an eyebrow that said, you know you don’t like it, so why do you do this every time?) “She’s got your eyes.”

“Mmm… but your smile.” 

“Your laugh,” Natsuki countered.

“There’s no denying it, then,” Monika stated, with an assured nod of her head. She held Natsuki closer to her, stirring the embers from the spark lit long ago. Natsuki had always been destined to chase fire. “She’s ours.”

Humming her agreement, Natsuki stole a kiss rather than a drink, and smiled against the soft curve of Monika’s lips. She could feel the expression mirrored back. There was no hesitance, no uncertainty. Nothing but two women, wise with the knowledge of several lifetimes lived, overcome by a love that few could hope to experience. The painter, the subject; the pianist, the muse. Inextricably intertwined.

“That she is, love. That she is.” Natuski chuckled, shaking her head as she watched Hotaru clamber to her feet and head toward the porch. She extended a hand, one to her daughter, one to her wife, and they entered the house. 

For again, as it had done so many times before, the summer came to an end.