Work Text:
In the first week or so after Nana moves back into apartment 707, they don’t speak much—if anything at all. It isn’t just Nana, but Hachi has also been through a lot that probably can’t be properly conveyed verbally just yet. And it’s no wonder: here they are, alone again after what feels like an eternity of spending time with significant others. It’s a big change, it’s a lot to try and get used to again. And oh, does it feel strange to get used to living here again like they used to before everything went to hell.
Nana was the first one to move back, but it took Hachi just another two days, and then they were both back in the apartment, back to where it all began. Of course, it wasn’t as if it came as a surprise to Nana, because Hachi had let her know via a very short text message that she was moving back. She didn’t mention anything about the breakup, but it wasn’t as if she had to. Similarly, Nana hasn’t really said it outright to Hachi that she and Ren broke up, but she knows that Hachi understands that much, as well.
After coming back from work one Thursday evening, Nana sits on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by boxes she has yet to unpack, feeling like she sits in the crater left behind by the explosion that was her breakup with Ren. The last breakup. There’s no coming back from this, no matter what happens, no matter what they do or say. This was their final stop, and the road splits in two from here on out. This is what Nana wanted so long ago, this is why she didn’t follow Ren to Tokyo. She wanted to follow her dream, and she did. Her dream brought her to Tokyo, and it just so happened that it also brought her back to Ren.
Was it worth it, after everything they went through? Nana still can’t say; perhaps because it’s still too soon after their breakup. Again, the final breakup. Now more than ever is Nana determined to make sure that this is it, that her chapters with Ren are completed with no chance of going back to change anything. Or add, for that matter. This is for the best. Nana can’t chase her dreams while she’s with Ren, and Ren can’t chase his when he’s almost literally chained to Nana.
She’d let him keep the necklace, in the end. Nana gave Ren the key to the padlock, as well as the keys to the abandoned warehouse they had turned into a home. Now, Nana has nothing materialistic left that reminds her of Ren… all she’s really got left are all of these memories, the music, and that damned tattoo on her shoulder. She could get rid of that, too, but it isn’t as easy as giving Ren back his keys, or throwing other stuff out that reminds Nana of him.
And maybe a part of her still wants to keep the tattoo as a memory, a memento of what once was.
Nana pulls her knees up under her chin and wraps her arms around her legs. She rests her chin on her kneecaps, and sighs. It’s going to take time to get used to this, but again, this is for the best. Breaking up with Ren this time hadn’t been as loud and angry as it has been in the past, nor did they cry as much as they did that first time when Ren left her and Blast for Tokyo. And maybe it doesn’t hurt as much this time, either—but Nana fully expects it to happen at some point. Someday soon, when it’s properly hit her that this was it.
A light knock on her door still manages to make Nana flinch. “Yeah?”
“I didn’t know you were home,” Hachi says on the other side of the door. A beat of silence passes before she speaks again. “Have you eaten dinner yet?”
Nana lifts her head, her shoulders sinking with an exhale. “No. Have you?”
“No… I was thinking we could order takeout? Pizza?”
A little smile graces Nana’s lips. “Pizza sounds good.”
She gets up from the floor, heading for the door. When she opens, Hachi stands on the other side, and immediately looks up at Nana with an almost sheepish smile.
“Sorry, I should’ve called out when I came home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nana says, lazily waving a hand in a dismissive manner. “It’s no big deal.”
Upon a closer look at Hachi, Nana feels almost bad for the weird state she’d been in until just moments ago. Dark circles shadow Hachi’s eyes, and maybe Nana is imagining it—but it looks like Hachi has lost weight, too. Given her circumstances, maybe that wouldn’t be too strange. But it still makes Nana’s heart ache, seeing her friend like this. This time, she knows she can’t be too angry with Takumi, because at least it’s over. At least Hachi doesn’t have to be with that jackass anymore.
What’s a little strange, though, is how they managed to break up with their partners around the same time. If this had happened a year ago, Hachi would’ve said that it’s the work of the demon king. But Nana knows Hachi wouldn’t say that now, even if Nana doesn’t know what Hachi would say in response to that. Thinking about it, though, Nana can see that their breakups were both inevitable. At some point, they were going to end up here no matter what. It just so happened that it was now, and that it happened merely days apart.
The two women sit down across from each other at their table by the window, and they start looking through pizza delivery menus that they’ve collected since moving here. Eventually, they decide on and order two pizzas to share, and while they’re waiting for food to arrive, Nana heads into the kitchen to fetch them two cans of beer.
“How are, uh… Junko and Kyousuke, by the way?” Nana asks, having to do a quick search through her brain for the names of Hachi’s friends. It’s not that Nana hasn’t cared to commit their names to memory—she’s just very bad at remembering names and faces in general.
“They’re doing well,” Hachi responds. “They’re moving into a new apartment soon, and I offered to help them move. It’s in Setagaya.”
Nana lets out a low whistle as she sits down again, offering a beer to Hachi. “That’s quite the move. I can help out, if they need more hands.”
“Oh Nana, that’s so nice of you! I’ll let them know,” Hachi says with a wide smile, and Nana swallows hard, diverting her gaze. Despite Hachi’s run-down look after her very recent breakup, she still somehow manages to smile and look as if she doesn’t have a single worry on the mind. Meanwhile, Nana feels like it’s still been merely days since she moved out of Ren’s even though it’s been almost three weeks now. She definitely feels like it’s only been days, too.
“Good. I could do with some exercise; it’s been a while.”
Hachi hums. “That’s a good idea, even if we’re going to be sore the next day. It’s still probably a good workout.”
“If you remember to lift with your arms and legs, and not your back,” Nana teases, and Hachi immediately pouts.
“I was inexperienced, okay? I’ve learnt from my mistakes.”
Nana gets ample time to ponder Hachi’s words then, since their doorbell rings and Hachi offers to go get their pizzas. Nana definitely knows and has noticed over time that Hachi learns from her mistakes. Most of them, at least. She remembers the cheerful and naïve Hachi she met that fateful day on the train, and it feels so strange to think that the Hachi whom Nana lives with now is the same person as the Hachi whom Nana met on the train to Tokyo.
Has Nana herself changed? She can’t tell, can’t remember what she was like when they met. Maybe she’s a little less jaded, but that’s all thanks to Hachi. Overall, Nana still thinks Hachi learnt the most from her experiences in the time that they’ve known each other, but that’s also probably because Hachi really experienced way more things, both in her friendships and relationships, than Nana did. And there’s good and bad in that: Nana feels like she’s gotten lucky in some regards in comparison to Hachi, because Nana only stuck to the same guy for so long and never experienced the stuff Hachi did, like getting to know someone new and falling for them, maybe also falling out of love.
Evening turns into night, and the two women spend most of that night talking about anything and everything that comes to mind. It feels almost like it did when they’d first started to really become friends—but it’s also very different. They’re different. Despite all that has happened, they still came back to apartment 707, and they’re still here, together. They’ve had their arguments, fights, and the falling out, but none of that matters now. Perhaps Nana’s biggest takeaway from this is that romantic love comes and goes, but friendships are what will be there for you and save you in the end.
Hachi sleeps in Nana’s bed whenever they decide it’s finally time to sleep in the early morning hours. The sun is rising over the buildings across from theirs, and Nana goes to draw the curtains before she, too, heads off to bed.
It takes more than Nana is willing to admit to not pull Hachi close and keep her there.
○
Work is a good way for Nana to keep herself busy, and the best part about it is that she doesn’t always stick to the same place, either. Hachi has yet to get back into job hunting, but thanks to her divorce settlement with Takumi, Nana assumes Hachi won’t need to work anytime soon. Maybe she doesn’t want to, either, but Nana couldn’t blame her if that was the case. Instead, Hachi spends a lot of her time at Junko’s, at the gym—which is a new thing since the divorce—or she’s at home. Cleaning, cooking elaborate meals hours before they usually have dinner… at least she knows how to stay busy in healthier ways than her roommate.
[Hachi: nana ❤️ will you be home for dinner?]
Nana swallows hard while she briefly closes her eyes. She gets off the train, standing off to the side while she deliberates her response to Hachi, none of her ideas coming off as a believable lie. She can’t lie. She knows Hachi will realise that she is lying, and Nana doesn’t want that on her conscience. So instead, she needs to come up with something else.
And it usually leads to Yasu.
[You: sorry, gonna be at yasu’s tonight. pray that his cooking doesn’t kill me.]
[Hachi: that’s mean; he’s a great cook! tell yasu i said hi 😊]
Now that she’s said this much, there’s not much else Nana can do other than to show up unannounced on Yasu’s doorstep—but of course, this isn’t the first time she does. Maybe someday she’ll stop using him like this, too; that’d be a nice change.
○
The first time Nana met Shouji, a bad feeling had settled in the back of her mind, like she knew he wasn’t going to be faithful to Hachi forever. And forever is what they both made it out to be, what they were both stubbornly telling not only others but themselves, that they were going to aim for. Nana knows better than that: nothing lasts forever. Nothing.
And sadly, she was proven to be right that fateful evening when they had witnessed the results of Shouji’s recent mysterious and suspicious behaviour, him chasing a woman who wasn’t Hachi. Him taking another woman into his arms, and then boldly claiming her to be his girlfriend when confronted.
Weeks after the fact, Hachi had told Nana how appreciative she was for the fact that Nana was with her that night, that Hachi could fall asleep in Nana’s arms knowing that at least someone cared for her. Nana, on the other hand, was furious that that person wasn’t Shouji, that Shouji had to end up being a cheating piece of shit instead of the one who was supposed to take care of and cherish his girlfriend.
But instead he threw her away. And Nana was more than willing to pick up those pieces to try and make Hachi whole again, even if she wasn’t meant to be that person.
It was proven to her time and time again, with Hachi still desperately seeking love in the men she met. Nana had wanted Hachi and Nobu to work out, not just because it would keep Hachi with them, with Blast, but it would keep Hachi with her. But she also just seemed the happiest with Nobu, happier than she did before shit went down with Shouji, obviously lightyears happier than she ever was with Takumi.
But Nana soon came to realise that what she really wanted, was to be the source of Hachi’s happiness herself. To make Hachi happy, when no one else seemingly knew how to.
And that was where it went downhill, after that realisation. After that, it’s just been a series of events where Nana was watching Hachi seek happiness in everyone but her. Hell, there was even a brief moment in time where Hachi had a crush on Yasu, and Nana is glad it didn’t last, because she still doesn’t know how she feels about Hachi having thought about Yasu that way.
How Hachi never thought of Nana that way.
There are ugly feelings festering inside of Nana, like monsters threatening to break free from their confinements. She’s never bound herself to anything, never labelled herself, but she knows very well that Hachi would never look her way, no matter how many men break her heart, no matter how desperate Hachi gets in her search for happiness.
It’s never going to be Nana, and that’s what hurts the most.
○
Nana isn’t surprised nor really offended by the unimpressed look Yasu gives her when she does indeed appear on his doorstep. What also doesn’t surprise her is that he lets her in, and almost immediately, wordlessly, heads into the kitchen. She often says that Yasu is an awful cook, but it’s far from the truth—and he also makes really good coffee. Soon enough, she’ll have a cup in front of her, and it might just be one of the things she really needs right now.
“How was work?”
Nana hates smalltalk, and Yasu knows that. And that’s probably why he still, after all these years, still insists on it, as if to force Nana to get better at handling smalltalk.
“Fine, the usual,” she practically mutters in response. “You?”
Yasu shrugs, his back still turned to her as he’s busy with the coffee maker. When Nana hears a click of the pot being placed down, Yasu turns around to face her. “Why are you here?”
“What, are you implying we can’t hang out like friends? We always have, despite everything.”
She leaves out what that ‘everything’ implies, both because she doesn’t want to say it out loud, but she also knows that Yasu is very well aware of what it means.
“We can absolutely hang out like friends,” Yasu says. “But I know you, Nana. That’s not why you’re here.”
“Oh yeah?” Nana says with a snort. “If you’re so confident that you know me, why am I here?”
Yasu sighs. “Do you want me to go there?”
“If I didn’t, I would’ve said so. Dumbass.”
”You’re lonely, aren’t you?”
Yasu’s words oftentimes hit Nana like a dagger into the chest, and it’s always difficult to pretend like they don’t hurt. But Nana also doesn’t want Yasu to sugar-coat his words; she wants people to be honest with her and get straight to the point instead of walking around on eggshells around the subject.
… but damn does she hate how he’s always right.
“I’m not lonely.”
“Nana.”
”Fine! Yeah, I am!” Nana snaps at Yasu. ”So fucking lonely I can’t stand it. There. Happy?”
Yasu huffs. ”I’m not the one who should be relieved about you finally admitting the truth.”
Nana gets up from her chair, sighing exasperatedly. ”If you’re here to mock me, I’m leaving. I keep making the same mistake of thinking I can come to you for comfort—”
”You still can,” Yasu interrupts. ”But you can’t expect me to not be honest with you.”
He has always been far too honest, this despicable yet loveable man Nana has the luxury to call her closest friend. A man who can freely admit his affection and undying love for Nana without seeking to act upon said feelings shouldn’t be able to exist, and yet he does. Right here, in Tokyo, in Blast, in Nana’s life. How did she ever get so lucky? People have come and gone over the years—even Ren—but Yasu entered Nana’s life once and never left.
What if it had been him instead? What if it hadn’t been Ren, what if Nana hadn’t met and moved in with Hachi, what if she’d never ended up here? What if it had always been Yasu?
Nana’s grip on the back of her chair hardens, but her legs give out and she collapses onto the floor, on her knees. A shaky sigh leaves her, and Nana stares down at her lap, shaking her head.
”Why her, Yasu? Why Hachi?”
”You’re the only one who can and should know that, Nana.”
”I know!” Nana barks. ”I know, but I don’t know. Shit. I can’t go back to that apartment. Not like this.”
Yasu, too, gets up from his chair, and he approaches Nana on the other side of the table where she still sits on the floor. ”You’re not staying here, either.”
”Why not? It’s just for tonight.”
”It won’t just be tonight, and you know that,” Yasu replies with a gentle tone that somehow still conveys a hint of strictness. “You can’t run away from her forever. 707 is still your home, you know. Hers, too.”
No matter how much Nana loves Yasu, she has always hated—and always will—that Yasu always seems to know what to say, he’s always the winner of any and all arguments and discussions they have. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he became a lawyer, because he knows he’s got all of those good qualities to him.
Nana huffs through her nostrils, rolling her eyes. “If Nobu could run away from Hachi, then maybe I can, too.”
“Nana.”
She can’t help but wince at his harsh tone. Yasu rarely yells, but he doesn’t have to, because his voice carries enough power at a normal speaking volume. She can’t leave; not because Yasu is going to physically stop her, but because he doesn’t have to. God, she hates that about him.
“You don’t mean that,” Yasu continues.
Nana just barely manages to not hang her head in shame of what she’d let slip past her lips. She doesn’t completely mean it, but there’s still a part of her that does. Maybe it would be easier to run, to leave Tokyo, forget all about what happened here. Would Nana be happier if she could go back to a time where she never met Hachi? No. Would she be in a better place if she had never met Hachi to begin with? That’s also a no. But she desperately wants to tell herself the opposite, because it would be so much easier if she could say that she’s better off without Hachi.
The truth is that Nana is better off than she ever has been, and she owes most of that, without the shadow of a doubt, to Hachi. It was a coincidence, a ridiculous coincidence, that placed those twenty-year old women with the same first name next to each other on the train to Tokyo that snowy day in March years ago. But that’s the best coincidence that has ever happened to Nana, and she would be a liar if she said otherwise.
“No, I don’t,” Nana confesses through a whisper. “But I can’t go back, or I’ll end up doing something I might regret.”
Yasu huffs a soft laugh. “You might, but you don’t know for sure until you try. And I’m not gonna let you use my place as a hideout just because you’re too scared to face your own feelings. I’ve done that before and I’m not doing it again.”
“Gee, thanks,” Nana replies, far too tired now to argue, to raise her voice, to fight Yasu when she knows she can never win against him, anyway.
At some point, Nana is lifted up off the floor and onto Yasu’s couch, pulled into his comforting embrace. It’s where she feels the most safe, but Yasu isn’t where she feels at home. Home is her apartment labelled with 707 above the door, the apartment she shares with the one woman Nana has ever felt this comfortable around, the one woman who wanted to be Nana’s friend without ulterior motives. The only woman Nana has ever met who made her feel like she was worth something.
“You have to go back home, Nana.”
Nana nods, clutching the fabric of Yasu’s sweater in her fist. “I know.”
“Don’t run away like you always do. If she doesn’t feel the same way, then you’ll know, and then you can decide on where to go from there.”
“Can I come live with you if she rejects me?”
Yasu chuckles into Nana’s hair before he kisses her atop the head. “No. You know you can’t.”
“Yeah, I know. Always gotta try, though.”
She’s being incredibly mean to him; Nana knows this much, and Yasu knows that she knows. And yet he lets her do this, time and time again, all because he loves her more than anything else in the world. It’s something Nana still has to come to terms with and get used to knowing, because it still doesn’t feel like Yasu is talking about her when he says these things.
But maybe it’s about time Nana finally acknowledges this and lets herself be cared for and loved like she apparently is. She owes Yasu this much, and maybe she does the same to Hachi, too.
Albeit not having a lot of newfound resolve, there’s still a sliver that wasn’t there when Nana first entered Yasu’s apartment, now that she leaves. Whatever she faces when she comes back home, so be it. If Hachi finds the idea disgusting, Nana will have to live with it. In fact, maybe this is what Nana needs in order to fall out of love with her roommate. Maybe she needs a rejection to set her straight and let Nana begin her healing process. And as scary as it is to think that this might be the end of her friendship with Hachi, Nana knows that she’s come too far to turn back now.
Despite heading back home, Nana takes any and all detours she can find on her way. She convinces herself to swing by a grocery store on the way back just in case she realises by the time she gets there that there’s something they need back at home, but Nana never actually walks inside. She walks through the park instead of turning right before the street that leads up to it, just because a bit of a longer walk can do her good in terms of clearing her head.
It doesn’t help.
The door to Hachi’s room is closed when Nana comes back, which means Nana succeeded in stalling for time, but despite her ‘victory’, it doesn’t make her feel better. What makes it worse is seeing the tupperware container with leftovers in the fridge, which makes Nana think that maybe Hachi didn’t believe she would actually have dinner at Yasu’s.
Nana doesn’t have the heart to touch the food Hachi clearly left for her. Instead, she goes to bed on an empty stomach and with a heart heavy to the point Nana feels like she might drown in her sleep. Maybe that’s also what she hopes for.
○
Sometimes, Nana tries telling herself that she’s just like a little duckling who imprinted on the first person who ever treated her like a human, and that’s why she’s in this mess to begin with. Ren loved her for the wrong reasons, Hachi’s love has always been unconditional. Hachi and Ren are from completely different worlds, and initially, Nana had thought that she and Hachi were from completely different worlds, too. But after everything they’ve been through, Nana can now say that her first impression of Hachi couldn’t have been more erroneous.
There’s a thought that comes back to Nana every now and then, one she shouldn’t be allowing to enter her mind as often as it does. She thinks about maybe seeking release for and from her sexual and touch-starved frustrations elsewhere, anywhere, just so she doesn’t have to risk ruining what she’s got with Hachi. Yasu is, sadly, out of the question; Nana couldn’t convince him no matter how hard she tried, because he’s dead-set on not letting himself cross that line with Nana due to his own feelings.
She gets it, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating for satisfying her own selfish desires. Yasu would have been the perfect person to go to, because he knows what Nana wants and needs more than probably anyone else does. And he’s closed himself off to that opportunity years ago, years, because Nana and Yasu aren’t supposed to happen. How has he dealt with his feelings for so long? It has probably crossed his mind several times, but he’s never done anything about it because Nana was always Ren’s woman. And Yasu has always, mostly, been a man of principles and rules.
But Nana isn’t Ren’s woman anymore. That giant barrier is gone, erased, obliterated—so now would be easier than ever for Nana to seek comfort in Yasu, now would be easier than ever for him to give into his desires. But he won’t. He won’t, because he knows Nana’s heart still belongs to someone else. Not to Ren, but to Hachi. And maybe it always has. Maybe that’s just been another nail in the coffin and a stab in the heart for Yasu, that Nana not only belonged to Ren all those years, but when she met Hachi, Yasu had, impossibly, less of a chance.
She’s always been cruel to him for this, but somehow, Yasu still sticks around for reasons Nana will never understand.
Nana even thought about reaching out to Misato despite how wrong that would be on so many levels, mostly because Nana knows how easy that would be. She can handle wrestling with her romantic feelings as long as she gets the physical part satisfied, but no one attempting to help Nana with her problem would be Hachi, of course, and that’s the problem. Nana doesn’t want it to be anyone else but Hachi, but she might soon be left with no choice other than to look elsewhere because she’s too afraid to potentially jeopardise what they have.
Why couldn’t it just have been Yasu from the start?
She’s tired of running. So, so tired of running. But it has become part of who Nana is—she knows she’ll always find herself in a situation at some point where she’ll run away, and nine times out of ten she will absolutely run to Yasu. Yasu, who will always take her into his open arms without so much as a question, and she knows that’s the bad thing about it. She’s too dependent on him, and he’s being too kind to her. It’s always been like this, and Nana wants to break out of it as much as she wants things to stay exactly the same way, for as long as she can make it happen.
“Do you want beef or chicken in the stir-fry, Nana?”
She’s sitting by the window, holding her cigarette outside so that as little smoke as possible enters their apartment. The ideal thing would be to go outside, but Nana has probably never walked down seven entire floors to smoke, and she isn’t about to start now. The sound of Hachi moving about in the kitchen is almost soothing: light clattering of kitchen utensils, plates, bowls; the rhythmic chopping of vegetables, a knife softly but firmly hammering against a wooden chopping board. Only as of late has Nana taken note of the small things, the things that remind her of the domesticity of her and Hachi’s living situation.
Nana hates it as much as she loves it.
“Nana?”
She tears her gaze from whatever it was her eyes had landed on outside, instead trying to focus on Hachi. “Huh?”
“Beef or chicken? For the stir fry.”
“Oh. Uh… you pick. I don’t mind.”
Hachi tilts her head to the side, very much reminiscent of a confused puppy. No matter how long it’s been or whatever has happened in their lives, there are still plenty of moments where Nana is reminded of why she nicknames the other Nana ‘Hachi’. In the beginning, it was confusing and maybe Nana found it childish. But she’s grown to find it endearing over time, and now it’s one of those things she can’t stand about Hachi as much as it makes her love Hachi that much more. Somehow, impossibly, Nana still finds ways to love Hachi even more, which shouldn’t be feasible at this point.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not a picky eater, Hachi. Anything you make is more than edible, you know.”
Hachi visibly pouts, putting a hand on her hip. “I want it to be more than edible. Good would be a start.”
“It is good,” Nana sighs. “Fine, let’s do chicken.”
The pout turns into a bright smile, and Nana averts her gaze. “Okay!”
“You know, I’ve been thinking this for a while…”
“Hm?”
A long pause; Nana almost wonders if Nobu has decided to not develop that thought further, at least verbally. But then he does.
“Hachi’s really good at cooking, isn’t she?”
“Yeah? I think it’s normal.”
Nana opens an eye to peek over at Nobu across from the low table, and as she’d expected, he’s blushing as he looks down at his plate containing small portions from each of the food containers Nana had brought over that morning.
She can’t help but smile. It’s nice to see Nobu like this, in love. He and Hachi would make a great couple.
“I’ll leave the leftovers here, so have Yasu and Shin come over to help you finish it.”
“Don’t you think it’d be nicer if we all had it together tonight when Hachi’s with us, too?”
“Do as you wish,” Nana says. “I’ve gotta work tonight, so I’m at least having a slice of this cake now before I leave.”
“Wait, it’d be a shame to cut it! At least take a photo!”
Nana grins, pulling a photo of said cake out of her bag. “Already did.”
“Can I have that?!”
She looks down at her bowl of chicken stir-fry, and a lump forms in Nana’s throat when she realises that she’s mirroring Nobu from back then, not just in her movements but in her emotions, too. God, how she misses him. How she understands him and his feelings from back then: latching onto every single detail about Hachi and praising it to the skies, being unable to stop talking about how great Hachi is.
Nana wants to be that brave, wants to be like Nobu and talk non-stop about Hachi the way Nobu used to. The way he used to, before his illusion was shattered. Much like how Ren idealised Nana, so too did Nobu idealise Hachi, and in Nobu’s case, that turned out to be one of the bigger mistakes he’d ever made.
Nana, however, never idealised Hachi that way. Not until now when she knows Hachi, when she’s seen all of the sides to Hachi that makes her who she is. Her strengths, her flaws, mistakes, successes, failures, the lessons she’s learnt. Maybe it makes more sense for Nana to be in Nobu’s shoes now, because of everything she knows that Nobu never took the time to.
Maybe it was a good thing they didn’t work out, then.
Nana heads into the bathroom to get ready for bed before Hachi is willing to tear herself off their couch and do the same. She washes up and brushes her teeth to the sound of the TV out in the living room, and when Nana emerges from the bathroom, Hachi has yet to turn off said TV. Nana has, to her own confusion, always felt a little bad about going to bed before Hachi, but each and every time she’s voiced this thought out loud, Hachi has told her that it really isn’t a big deal.
But now feels more like a big deal than ever before, for some reason. Some reason Nana is fairly certain about, though she’s still trying hard to deny it.
She crawls in under her duvet with a quiet sigh, turning off her bedside lamp. Engulfed in complete darkness, Nana closes her eyes and attempts to sleep, and it doesn’t feel like she’s been at it for too long before there’s a quiet knock on her door.
“Yeah?” she says.
“Can I sleep in your bed?” comes Hachi’s voice on the other side of the door, making Nana’s breath hitch in her throat. “You know, like old times? I had a nightmare.”
Apparently, Nana has been trying to sleep for a while, then, if Hachi has had time to fall asleep and even have a nightmare until now. Nana closes her eyes again, exhaling a deep, shaky breath. There was a time when this was no big deal. She remembers the night they had caught Shouji with a new woman, and how Hachi had slept in Nana’s arms that night, in Hachi’s bed. Thinking back on it now, Nana wonders how the hell she didn’t feel anything like this in that situation. She isn’t a good enough person to be able to willingly shove her feelings and greed aside even during such circumstances, so that was definitely not it.
Will she be able to do so now? If Hachi sleeps in Nana’s bed, will Nana be able to keep her hands to herself, will she be able to keep that emotional distance when keeping a physical distance will be practically impossible?
This shouldn’t be as difficult as Nana thinks it is. And yet.
“Yeah… sure,” Nana says despite herself and despite every cell of her body yelling at her not to.
She’s on pins and needles while Hachi opens the door and subsequently tiptoes into the room, and when the mattress dips with the added weight, Nana holds her breath. She listens to the way the duvet rustles as Hachi crawls in under, and then Nana’s heart stops beating for a good few seconds when Hachi snakes an arm around Nana’s middle, huddling up close. Like this, there’s no way Hachi won’t feel Nana’s heartbeat, but Nana wonders if Hachi will comment on or ask about it.
“Do you dream anything about Ren, Nana?”
Nana turns her head ever so slightly. “No. I don’t know, maybe.” She pauses. “Takumi?”
“Yeah. I should’ve listened to you way back, when you’d warned me about him.”
“You couldn’t have known what was going to happen, Hachi.”
“I could have, though,” Hachi insists. “It was exactly as you told me, but also worse. Part of me was dumb enough to think that… maybe I could change him.”
Nana shrugs with one shoulder. “Love makes people dumb. Look at me, all those times Ren and I returned to each other over the years. That first break-up should’ve been the last, but that was far from it.”
And yet, Nana knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that, if she and Hachi had a friendship or relationship akin to what they had with those men, Nana would come crawling back to Hachi over and over. Because, again, Hachi is the first person to enter Nana’s life who treated her like a human being, who didn’t treat her as if she was fragile like Yasu often does, who didn’t see her for superficial reasons like Ren mostly did. It really shouldn’t be surprising to Nana how and why she would fall for Hachi, in the end.
Hachi hums, not sounding too convinced. “Yeah, I suppose. I guess it’s always easier to say what you should have done before anything happened, rather than the opposite. Now that we know the outcome, I mean.”
“Mmm.”
Nana nearly jumps out of her skin when Hachi wraps her arms around Nana from behind. “Thanks, Nana. I’m glad I still have you after everything.”
“Yeah,” Nana manages despite her still racing heartbeat. “Anytime.”
By some sort of miracle, Nana manages to wake up before Hachi. She takes the opportunity to quietly crawl out of bed and get into a tank top and a pair of sweatpants before she heads out the door for a very early morning jog to clear her head of the thoughts that definitely didn’t leave her head overnight.
○
Nana is tired. She wants to get this all over with as soon as she can, get rejected so she can hopefully fall out of love and move on. But Nana also wants to stubbornly cling onto that last shred of hope she still, somehow, possesses—because she has yet to be rejected. That one time Nana kissed Hachi right on the lips on the way home from the studio, that day they first met Shin, Hachi didn’t really push Nana away. She had panicked, sure, but she hadn’t loudly objected other than saying that she already had a boyfriend.
Back then, Nana hadn’t thought much of it. She’d thought it was funny, and that was it. But looking back, today’s Nana wishes she’d lingered a bit longer in that kiss if it was still going to have the same outcome. She has so much to lose, and that’s what’s kept Nana from coming clean to Hachi all this time. That’s what made Nana get out of bed early in the morning that time Hachi came to sleep in her bed, that’s what’s made Nana try her hardest to keep somewhat of an emotional distance to Hachi since the two of them moved back into the apartment.
She has so much to lose, but… maybe that’s the risk she needs to take so she can move on.
Nana stands with her forehead resting against her bedroom door. On the other side of it, she hears Hachi’s voice, muffled but cheerful as she talks on the phone. Probably with Junko. Sometimes, Nana finds herself violently jealous of Junko, because Hachi always sounds and looks so bright and happy when just talking about Junko. Nana wishes she could be in that position, that she could be the reason why Hachi looks and sounds that happy. She remembers proclaiming loudly once that men are useless and that she would make Hachi happy.
That hasn’t happened yet.
But is Nana really someone who can make Hachi happy? Does she have what Hachi wants and needs? If not, could she obtain it? It’s not a matter of being pessimistic or even optimistic—rather, Nana tries to be realistic. And it’s another reason to add onto the list of why she’s still dragging her feet. If she’s going into this, she’s giving a hundred percent and nothing less. She swore she would make Hachi happier than any man could ever dream of, and that’s the intention. But whether or not she’s capable of even suitable for the role is still up in the air. Then again, she won’t know if she doesn’t try to find out.
With an impatient huff, Nana tears herself away from her door to walk over to her bedroom window instead. After opening it and letting in the cool evening air, Nana fishes a cigarette out of her soon-to-be-empty box. She lowers her eyebrows and clicks her tongue when she can’t light her cigarette without her fingers trembling, but somehow, she still manages to get the end of the cigarette lit after a few tries. She tells herself that she’ll go out there and get this over and done with when she stubs out the cigarette, but a part of Nana also kind of hopes that Hachi’s phone call lasts just a little while longer than that. Maybe long enough for Nana to finish a second cigarette.
But when Nana is just over halfway done with what becomes her first and last cigarette before talking to Hachi, her flatmate hangs up her phone call, and the apartment is silent once more. Nana inhales slowly, blowing smoke out the window before she puts out her cigarette. This did little to nothing to help calm her nerves, but she probably shouldn’t have hoped for anything since Hachi is literally on the other side of that door. She once again thinks about Nobu, about that Tanabata evening when Nobu had a chance to seize Hachi for himself, but ultimately chose not to. How he had literally been on one side of the door and Hachi the other, just like Nana and Hachi are now, but Nobu had ultimately backed out.
Nana won’t make Nobu’s mistake. Even if she wanted to back out now, she can’t. This will never end if she keeps procrastinating, and Nana will continue to suffer for as long as she doesn’t tell Hachi how she really feels. The tricky part is knowing how to do it, because Nana has never confessed to anyone before. Ren was her first real boyfriend, and neither of them had to confess their feelings since they already knew how the other person felt. Nana doesn’t think Hachi is an idiot, but there’s no way Hachi knows. Which is why Nana has to confess.
With an exasperated sigh, Nana cards her fingers through her hair once before she opens her door and immediately sees Hachi sitting by their kitchen table with her phone still in her hand. She looks up when Nana’s door opens, and as always, as always, greets Nana with a smile that makes her heart ache.
“You didn’t have to hide while I was on the phone,” Hachi jokes. “It was just Junko.”
Nana huffs, rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t hiding.” She was absolutely hiding. “Are you, uh… busy?”
“No, not at all. Something on your mind?”
God, she’s so expressive. She can go from all smiles to showing concern within a heartbeat, and none of it is ever faked. Hachi doesn’t do that, she’s too honest of a person. Nana doesn’t know if she envies that part about Hachi, but she definitely loves the hell out of Hachi for being the way she is. It takes a certain kind of bravery to be so open and honest with one’s emotions, a kind which Nana could only ever dream of achieving.
“Mm. I mean, yeah… there is something,” Nana says. “Something I have to tell you.”
She looks at the chair across from Hachi, her chair, which isn’t really ‘hers’ but it’s become her chair over the time they’ve lived here. There are so many things they share, that they’ve experienced together, so many things Nana are risking simply by being in love with Nana Komatsu, and even more so now that she’s decided on finally laying her cards out on the table… quite literally.
Nana contemplates sitting down across from Hachi, but thinks better of it. She feels safer standing up; her leg can’t start bouncing up and down if she doesn’t sit down, for one, and she’s also just in general more flexible this way. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing of Nana wanting an easier way to flee should she really want to.
“Sorry I just up and left the other day,” she says. “Since you came to… my room and all.”
Hachi shrugs, smiles a little. “It’s okay, no big deal. You tend to get up earlier than me, anyway.”
“That’s—that’s not… why I did that. I did the same thing a few weeks ago; I lied and said I was going to have dinner at Yasu’s. But I kind of just showed up on his doorstep.”
“Okay,” Hachi replies slowly. She gets up from her chair to take a few steps closer to Nana. “Is something wrong? Did I do something to upset you?”
Nana shakes her head, and she’s tempted to widen the distance between them, but stays put no matter how much every cell in her body yells at her to take a step to the side. “No, definitely not.”
She pauses, sighs, tries to ignore the way her fingers tremble at her sides. It’s hard to get the words out when she knows there’s so much at stake, but then again—this has gone on for too long for Nana to ignore it and hope it goes away. She knows by now that it won’t, and there’s only one other option left.
“You remember that one time I kissed you? When we walked home from the studio after meeting Shin?”
Hachi furrows her brow a little, tilting her head to the side. “I do. That was very unexpected; I still remember how shocked I was.”
“Did you dislike it?”
Hachi blinks. “What? I mean… no? It’s you, of course I wouldn’t dislike it. It was just unexpected, is all. You’d told me before that you weren’t into women.”
“I wasn’t,” Nana replies. “Not then.”
“But now?”
Nana feels like she’s standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down into the abyss stretching out below. She has no idea what awaits down there, how far she’ll fall before she hits bottom, and most of all how much it would hurt. There’s a saying, ‘the higher you fly, the harder you fall’, and Nana feels like it very much applies to her. Like some sort of Icarus syndrome, where she’s been flying close to the sun for so long and it’s been nice and warm all along. But then she got greedy and wanted to see how close she can get before it burns.
It doesn’t burn, not yet. She’s scared of what it’ll feel like, but… she’s already committed this far, so she might as well see what it feels like. Just so she knows if this experience will tell her to try again or to give up right here and now.
“Yeah,” she says. “Kind of.”
Hachi swallows visibly, and Nana barely dares herself to breathe when Hachi takes a step closer. Nana is absolutely imagining this, because it isn’t happening. Can’t be. “Kind of?”
Nana holds back making a face and groaning with frustration. She doesn’t know if Hachi is really obtuse or if Nana herself just needs to spell it out. That was the thing she was aiming to do, but it’s proving to be more complicated than she originally thought—and she already thought it was going to be difficult.
“So you didn’t dislike it when I kissed you back then?”
“Like I said,” Hachi says, “no. I was surprised, of course—and I was dating Shouji at the time, so that made it a little strange. But I didn’t dislike it.”
Nana closes the distance between them; as a test, mostly, to see if Hachi would back away and let Nana know that what she’s doing isn’t welcomed. Maybe Hachi still doesn’t understand what it is Nana is trying to get at—maybe Nana needs to be more direct. She knows she can’t use words the way she would like to, because no words can really explain just how Nana feels and thinks. Not when it’s about Hachi. Words have never been enough to describe them, even before Nana realised that her feelings for Hachi were more than friendly.
But for someone like Hachi, words are often a necessary supplement to actions. It’s always been very different to how Nana goes about life, but that’s just one of the many things that set them apart, alongside all of those things that made them so similar.
“What if I told you I’d wanna kiss you right now because I’m in love with you and I probably always have been?”
Hachi’s gaze doesn’t waver, her facial expression doesn’t falter. Maybe she looks determined, Nana can’t tell. She can’t think of much right now, can barely hear anything over her heartbeat thundering loudly in her ears and hammering painfully hard against her ribcage.
“You… you have?”
Nana swallows hard, and she nods once. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know. Sorry. It’s probably disgusting.”
She had expected silence to fall over them after her confession, like a wet blanket: uncomfortable, heavy, unbearable. But there’s no silence. Hachi doesn’t move away, doesn’t look disgusted. She looks confused, maybe surprised, but that’s to be expected. She probably didn’t think that her flatmate would fall in love with her, especially since Nana once told Hachi that she wasn’t into women. That she isn’t. And maybe she still isn’t, maybe it’s just Hachi. Not much of this makes sense, but it never has, not since Nana met Hachi.
And at the same time, things have made a lot more sense since Nana met Hachi than they did before.
“I don’t think it’s disgusting. I’m… a little surprised, though,” Hachi confesses. “I didn’t think you saw me that way.”
Nana huffs a quiet, dry laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t foresee myself in this situation either, but here I am.”
Hachi closes the distance between them, and Nana feels like her soul leaves her body when she sees the way Hachi bites on her lower lip. Nana has no idea what the hell it means, but the tiny gesture is causing all sorts of reactions within Nana, akin to a thunderstorm. This is the sort of effect Hachi has on her; she’s always had this sort of effect on Nana, but it’s only as of late been amplified by Nana’s more-than-friendly feelings.
“What if… what if I told you I wouldn’t mind if you kissed me, because I’ve more than once thought about kissing you again after that night?”
Nana’s breath hitches in her throat. A switch flips within her as if someone turned on the light, and she finally decides to leave her doubts behind. She surges forward and captures Hachi’s lips with her own, backing Hachi up against the wall near Nana’s bedroom door. Hachi’s hands move up along Nana’s back, pulling her tank top as they travel further north. She gasps against Nana’s lips before diving back in, nibbling at Nana’s lower lip and making Nana groan in response.
“Sure you’ve never been with a woman before?” Nana asks against Hachi’s lips. Hachi huffs a giggle.
“No. I’m just doing what I think you’d like. And what I would like.”
“So I should take notes here, is what you’re saying.”
“Maybe that is what I’m inferring, yes.”
○
Nana moves right back in to kiss Hachi again, flitting her tongue against Hachi’s lips which part almost immediately for her. Nana’s skin tingles with excitement and the sense of surrealism that comes with making out with her flatmate turned best friend turned crush. How the hell this all happened is beyond her, but now that she’s in this situation with Hachi pinned up against a wall, she definitely isn’t complaining.
She feels a hand cup one of her breasts, and while it’s at first surprising, Nana quickly starts craving more of Hachi’s touch, and feeling Hachi’s skin against her own. So she moves back a little so she can pull off Hachi’s top, which prompts Hachi to mirror her movements. Maybe they’re both learning from each other as they go—it’d certainly make sense if they are each other’s first in the sense of making out and possibly having sex with another woman.
The thought of having sex with Hachi makes Nana almost want to flee while it at the same time makes her want to speed things up. Hachi has always managed to elicit complicated feelings within Nana, though they weren’t romantic at first, they certainly turned that way at some point. But her feelings for Hachi have always been complicated no matter the nature, and maybe that’s just the effect Hachi has on her.
“Bedroom?” she asks when she practically can’t take standing like this in their living room anymore.
Hachi does nothing but nod in response, but Nana still takes the lead to practically drag Hachi inside her bedroom and subsequently push Hachi onto her bed. The last time they were on or in this bed together, things had been drastically different where Hachi had come in because she’d had a nightmare. It’s not exactly a night-and-day difference; it’s like comparing apples and pears where the fruits grow not only on different trees, but in completely different forests.
Nana leaves any and all inhibitions at the doorstep, the threshold between the living room and her bedroom which also in a way serves as a threshold between friendship and ‘something more’. Whatever that ‘something more’ is, is something they’ll definitely have to talk about at some point, but right now, Nana doesn’t care.
She scoots down to direct her kisses along Hachi’s collarbones, throat, and breasts, and when Hachi lets out a high-pitched gasp, Nana’s blood feels like it’s set on fire inside her veins. They haven’t established anything, so Nana doesn’t know what she can and shouldn’t do, what boundaries she shouldn’t cross. So she focuses on Hachi’s body language, on how Hachi reacts to her, if she tenses up anything at all—but there’s nothing like it happening. Not even when Nana pries Hachi’s bra off and starts giving Hachi’s breasts and nipples more attention with her tongue and teeth, which is where she definitely thought Hachi might have protested at this point.
“Tell me if it hurts,” Nana says with a nipple between her teeth. “I can get a little rough, I’ve heard.”
Hachi smiles down at Nana, placing a hand on Nana’s cheek. “I’m not as fragile as you might think, Nana.”
“Alright. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m excited,” Hachi replies. “Keep going.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice.”
With renewed fervour and confirmation of consent, Nana reaches a hand down south on Hachi, barely touching the cloth of her panties right by the clitoris. She reaches out with her index and middle fingers, very softly, almost carefully, caressing the knot of nerves, and Hachi makes an impatient noise while arching her back slightly.
“That impatient, huh?”
Hachi huffs. “Shut up, Nana.”
Nana smiles as she gives another bite at Hachi’s left nipple, making Hachi yelp before Nana scoots further down to replace her hand with her lips at Hachi’s lower region. She tongues at the spots she knows she likes attention directed at, and the fabric on Hachi’s panties slowly starts getting damp beneath the tip of her tongue wherever she moves. Nana feels Hachi’s fingers slowly tangle and twist in her hair, and it spurs Nana on even further to hook two fingers on the underwear rim at each side of Hachi’s hips to pull the panties down and off her completely.
When the offending piece of clothing is finally off and Nana gets to see Hachi in all of her completely naked glory, she inhales a shaky breath. The very scent of Hachi sends a chill down her spine like lightning. She looks up at Hachi, who in turn looks down at her with a very clearly expectant and impatient look, so Nana moves right in. She places her hands on Hachi’s thighs, gently prying them apart for easier access, and soon enough as she begins flitting, darting, and lapping her tongue against and inside Hachi, Hachi’s breathing gets louder and more laboured—not to mention how her grip on Nana’s hair gets ever so slightly more firm. Nana, of course, expects this to change the further she goes, and she doesn’t mind. Maybe she enjoys it, too.
“Oh my god,” Hachi moans as she starts bucking her hips up and down, her ass practically leaving the sheets when she thrusts upward into Nana’s mouth. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Nana hums, making Hachi jolt and let out another gasp, and as she goes, she uses some of her saliva and the wetness from Hachi herself, to lubricate her middle finger, which she slowly pushes inside of Hachi. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort before she can add another digit, and when she does, Hachi continues reacting to Nana in sound and in motion, all of which makes Nana continue going insane and desperately wanting to be touched and fucked, too.
This is the stuff not dreams but miracles are made of; Nana would have never in her wildest dreams thought that this would one day become a possibility. The way Nobu used to worship Hachi, Nana just couldn’t understand. Not until now. She used to think Nobu was just naïve, and while he did have a saviour complex and a need to become more mature and confident in himself, that wasn’t all of what made Nobu so devoted to Hachi until Takumi came and ruined everything.
She sees it now, clearly and vividly. This is what Nobu hadn’t fought hard enough for. This is what Takumi chose to neglect, this is whom Shouji chose to cheat on and underappreciate. Maybe Nana can be that person for Hachi, after all. She has the clear advantage of knowing what Hachi’s previous relationships entailed, and why and how they failed—that way, Nana knows what to avoid and in turn work towards. She can take the mistakes of all of Hachi’s previous men and turn them into her own advantage.
“Nana, Nana, I’m so close,” Hachi whimpers. “I’m gonna come.”
Nana doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, and hopes that Hachi takes the hint that she can and should come. And hopefully after she’s had her orgasm, Nana can get to receive, too. She’s aching at this point, very tempted to touch and finger herself while helping Hachi towards her orgasm, but she doesn’t. Knowing Hachi, she won’t let Nana walk away without Hachi getting to return the favour, so Nana doesn’t worry too much about it. Instead, she curls her fingers inside Hachi while sucking at the clit and moving with Hachi’s erratic rhythm to the best of her abilities as Hachi reaches and rides through her orgasm.
Hachi’s thighs tremble as Nana detaches herself, planting a kiss inside Hachi’s thigh before she rises to sit up properly, wiping her upper lip with the pad of her thumb.
“Wow, Nana,” Hachi exhales. “That was amazing.”
“Yeah?”
Hachi nods. “Mm-hmm. I can only hope to return half of what you just gave me. I’m going to try for a hundred and fifty percent, though.”
Nana laughs, but there’s something within her that comes to life at those words. Like a pair of beast eyes starting to glow in the dark, almost. “I like the sound of that.”
“Good,” Hachi says as she, too, sits up. She moves in to kiss Nana, and when she pulls apart, she makes a little grimace. “Weird to taste myself on your lips.”
“Why, is it bad?”
“No. Just weird, seeing how it’s… me. You know?”
Nana shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
While Hachi isn’t as assertive and rough as Nana thinks she comes off as, she still has an air of undeniable determination about her when she gestures for Nana to take her previous spot so Hachi can take hers. Nana lies down and tries to not let her heartbeat accelerate at the mere thought of Hachi eating her out, but it’s easier said than done. She helps Hachi in getting her clothes off, too, so that they’re both completely naked, and while it’s at first horrifying and makes Nana feel terribly vulnerable, she immediately forces herself to think of it in a different way than she has with other partners before Hachi. This is Hachi, after all, a woman who never once wanted anything in return from Nana for her love, devotion, affection, and respect.
“Something wrong?” Hachi asks, and Nana quickly shakes her head.
“Just… not used to this. The other person being a woman, seeing me like this. Naked, I mean.”
“Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“I don’t know. A little, maybe. But don’t take that as a sign that I wanna stop. I’m so horny I could die here, Hachi.”
Hachi laughs quietly. “I’ve never done this before, either, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Nana lies back down, and she tries to not look at Hachi while Hachi mentally prepares herself, because that would probably make it worse. They’re very different, Nana and Hachi, but they’re also very similar, even here. They say you learn something new every day, and Nana feels like she might soon reach her limit on how many things she can learn about Hachi in a single day. It’s interesting, for sure, especially considering how long they’ve known each other now, and how intimately they know each other.
Well, now there’s another layer of intimately knowing each other that they can add on top of what already exists between them.
Since Nana doesn’t look, she doesn’t know what Hachi is doing or when she’ll feel anything against her skin. But when she does, Nana feels Hachi’s lips against her, and she gasps with how surprising it is, and also how much she feels from a single, very soft peck.
“Want me to stop?”
“No,” Nana says. “Surprised me, that’s all.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Nana swallows hard and screws her eyes shut, and she feels a jolt buzz throughout her body when she feels Hachi getting bolder with her kisses. Soon enough, she adds a tongue that experimentally licks at Nana’s clitoris, and then Hachi gently pries Nana open with her fingers and lets her tongue flit in between the folds. Nana just about comes undone at this alone, but she brings a clenched fist to her mouth and bites down on a knuckle to suppress her voice and soften everything that she’s currently feeling.
While she was understandably hesitant at first, Nana soon can’t tell that this is Hachi’s first time eating another woman out. She’s very skilled with her tongue, and she clearly knows what she would want, which coincides very well with what Nana wants. And just because Hachi is somewhat mimicking what Nana had done for her earlier doesn’t mean that it’s bad—Nana only did what she would want to be done do her, after all. And it feels great to receive the same treatment, especially from someone like Hachi who knows how to be gentle while at the same time not being afraid to be assertive and maybe even a little rough. There’s different kinds of rough, and Nana loves the brand that Hachi is employing.
“Shit, Hachi,” Nana breathes, “that feels really fucking good. Oh my god.”
“Don’t stop?”
“Don’t you dare.”
Hachi gets back to it immediately, and only then does Nana dare herself to look down at Hachi, to see what Hachi looks like when going down on her. She brings a hand down to brush a few stray locks of hair away from Hachi’s face, and she then holds Hachi’s hair back for her in her hand. It’s strangely erotic, and Nana is very tempted to tug at it like this. If she keeps Hachi’s hair in her grip, she just might when she gets close to coming.
Nana hasn’t felt this good and gotten this much out of sex in a long time. She doesn’t know what it is about Hachi that makes her come not only once but twice before she has to wave the white flag, but she certainly isn’t complaining. Her thighs are quivering and her clitoris feels sore and very sensitive; so sensitive that she involuntarily twitches when she turns to lie on her side to face Hachi.
They don’t really say anything for a while. Hachi has grown a little bolder and perhaps more comfortable with the idea of kissing and having sex with women, because she moves up to press lazy kisses to Nana’s lips, which Nana is more than happy to reciprocate no matter how exhausted she still is. It’s nice. Peaceful, quiet. For the longest time, the two of them have both been enveloped in a raging storm that turned their worlds and entire lives upside down in not-so-different ways, but now that storm has passed, and they’re here. Together.
“Hey, Nana,” Hachi says. “I’m sorry for not… thinking about what I did, especially recently. I’m selfish, and I know that. And I think… especially after everything with Takumi, I’ve just wanted to feel close to someone. And you’ve always been there. I don’t want you to think that I’m taking you for granted, you know? But I’m sorry.”
Nana shrugs. “It’s okay. I mean, you didn’t know—which I’m kind of happy about. I had to sort shit out for a bit, too, because… it’s all so new to me. This. You. Well, not you, but… thinking of you this way.”
“Me too,” Hachi says, and she laughs a little. “But I think I’ve always had a little crush on you. Ever since that day we met on the train—I remember thinking of how beautiful you were, and I couldn’t stop staring at you.”
“That’s different,” Nana argues stubbornly. “You didn’t know me then.”
She knows that Hachi doesn’t mean it that way, that her way of seeing Nana when they first met is still different from how Ren looked at Nana when they first met, how anyone Nana has met, has seen her for any amount of time. Hachi is different from most people Nana has met, and it’s the good kind of different that Nana doesn’t want to let go of. But at this point, considering everything, she doesn’t think she can.
And that’s okay.
“No. But I know you now, and I still think I’ve probably had a crush on you for a while. Even when I was with others. I always gravitated back towards you, Nana.”
Nana huffs, smiling as she moves in for another kiss. “I always came back to you, too. You know, maybe there is something to this whole ‘fate’ business you’ve always talked about. Maybe this is something similar to that.”
“I think it is fate. Two women of the same age with the same name who both moved to Tokyo for similar reasons. And then we went through hell and we’re still living here together. I’d say that counts for something.”
“Yeah,” Nana says, still smiling. “Yeah, it does.”
Hachi exhales, and Nana feels Hachi’s chest slowly deflate. “So are we going to say that we’re dating? That we’re girlfriends?”
“If you want to. I wouldn’t mind that. Yasu would finally get off my case about it, too, if we went official.”
“Yasu? Why?”
Nana laughs. “You don’t think I’ve kept this all to myself all this time, do you? Yasu is always the first person I bitch about my problems to. He knows.”
“And… he’s okay with it?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? He knows you. This honestly doesn’t change a lot in terms of us with Yasu and… well, the others if we see them again, except for if you want to be gross in public.”
Hachi makes a noise through her nose. “No, I don’t.”
“Good. Then there’s literally no problems here.”
Hachi sighs with what sounds like contentment. Nana hasn’t seen or heard her this happy in a long time, and it means something knowing that she’s at least partially responsible for it.
“Okay. But just so you know, this means I’ll probably want to sleep in your bed a lot more often.”
Nana snorts. “Who says I’ll let you? You don’t get special treatment just because you’re my girlfriend, you know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Yeah, it is.”