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As quickly as it happened, a year passes by with Mafuyu living with Kanade.
Not… a lot has changed if Kanade was going to be truthful about it. A year ago, she would’ve been anxious about it. Was Mafuyu not growing healthily with her? Was she somehow trapping Mafuyu further? These kinds of thoughts would’ve run rampant inside her mind if the Kanade back then would find out that not a lot has changed. Now, Kanade chalks it up to how used the both of them are with living with each other.
Besides, with how Mafuyu looks right now, her face resting on a soft expression as she mindlessly peels apples—that’s not an expression one would make if they feel trapped. At least, Kanade hopes.
“K?” Mafuyu calls out to her, breaking out of her thoughts. Kande properly focuses on her. Mafuyu tilts her head, asking a question.
“No, I’m fine.” Kanade replies. She stretches underneath the kotatsu, relishing in the warmth it gives off in the cold winter of December. Honami was right to take it out of the storage the last time she came around. “Just thinking.”
“Thinking, huh.” Mafuyu repeats but doesn’t deign to follow up, leaving Kanade alone in her thoughts. She resumes peeling the apples, and Kanade sinks inside further in the kotatsu, placing her head on the table.
Sleep takes her quickly, almost as if paying her back for the all nighters she did the past week in an effort to catch and run after a melody playing in her head. How does it go again? It goes something like—
When Kanade wakes up, it is to Mafuyu gently shaking her awake.
Kanade’s brain takes a moment before realizing what this could mean. Her mother, someone’s come to take Mafuyu away, her father, Mafuyu in danger—
Panic must be evident in Kanade’s face even before she could clarify what’s happening because Mafuyu beats her to the point.
“Calm down.” Mafuyu says, placating her. “You worry too much, K.”
Kanade turns red at her words. “Well, I have a good reason to.”
Mafuyu stares at her with those words, almost as if calculating what Kanade means by those words. Mafuyu has that way of looking at someone like she knows them immediately to the deepest parts of their bones. With the way that she’s lived, always on edge, Kanade’s not surprised she has that kind of ability.
“Is there anything wrong, Mafuyu?” Kanade gently breaks the silence. It has to be something important if Mafuyu decided to wake up Kanade to ask for something. It’s rare that Mafuyu’s ever asked for anything from her so—rare for her to be this eager, so well, Kanade’s internally basking.
“Well,” Mafuyu starts. Her expression doesn’t change, but Kanade can read the micromovements on Mafuyu’s face. Her eyes look to the left for a split second, and her hands are closer to herself. Mafuyu’s unsure. Not a lot of things leave her unsure so Kanade inches a little bit closer, wanting to know what on earth has gotten her Mafuyu in this kind of way. “There’s no hot water in the bath.”
Ah.
Kanade looks at the cold water on the bathtub, Mafuyu towers behind her, peering over.
“It’s cold.” Kanade says, frowning as places a hand on her chin, trying to think of reasons as to why it might be cold.
“Did you pay the water bill on time?” Mafuyu asks tonelessly, and Kanade almost takes offense but that does sound like something that she might end up doing.
Kanade thinks for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I put all of my bills on autopay the last time I missed the electricity bill. It’s linked to a different account that my grandmother deposits the money for utilities for that month too.”
“Hm.” Mafuyu considers this.
Kanade thinks again, to a conversation that might have happened a week ago the last time that Mochizuki was here. Something about the water heater of their part of the neighborhood being under repairs… But that was weird! How would they repair the water heater without going inside the house?
Kanade turns to look at Mafuyu. “I think it’s the water heater maintenance Mochizuki-san told me a week ago.” She informs the other girl which also makes her frown in contemplation. “It’s strange though,”
“How are they going to do maintenance if they’re not in the house?” Mafuyu points out.
Kanade nods. “That’s what I told her as well, but… Well, we have no hot water for the night. I suppose we’ll have to take a bath when the maintenance is over.”
Mafuyu sighs, “It’s no big deal, K.”
“Hm?”
“I can take a bath with the cold water.” Mafuyu begins taking off her shirt as she does so, leaving Kanade in shock. “It’s not that cold.”
“N-not that cold!?” Kanade stutters out as she darts forward to stop Mafuyu from taking a bath in cold water in the dead cold winter. “It’s snowing outside!”
Mafuyu simply looks at her like she’s grown a second head.
“You’ll get sick, Mafuyu!” Kanade tries this time, “I don’t have very good heating in this house, so you’ll definitely end up with a cold by the time tomorrow comes around.”
“Tsk.” Mafuyu only replies.
Kanade sighs and holds out one hand, the other hand rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Look, Mochizuki-san left me with some vouchers for the bathhouse near us. Honestly, she probably saw this coming so…”
“So?”
“We’ll go to the bathhouse together.” Kanade decides for both of them. “Wait– you’ve been to a bathhouse before, right?”
Mafuyu merely blinks at her owlishly.
Mafuyu looks around at the interior of the bathhouse in rapt curiosity while clutching a small tub with soap, shampoo and towel. Kanade quickly gives the person at the entrance their vouchers before pushing Mafuyu inside the women’s only bath. Mafuyu looks a bit disgruntled but follows along wordlessly.
There’s not a lot of people inside the bathhouse, which makes sense. It’s winter break for a lot of people and a lot of them would opt to go to Kyoto for the natural hot springs or go abroad to escape into a more warm paradise than the winter hell in Tokyo right now.
“Here’s your locker key.” Kanade gives Mafuyu a key which she then stares at. “Your locker is right beside mine, so don’t worry.”
“I’m not a child, K.” Mafuyu murmurs before wearing the bracelet the key is attached to.
“I know, I know.” Kanade replies, “It’s just–it’s your first time here right? It can be a lot.”
It’s also not a surprise to hear that it’s Mafuyu’s first time at a communal bathhouse. She’s rich and her mother doesn’t seem like the type to let her go in these kinds of places. Kanade knows that Mafuyu isn’t at all that conservative when it comes to nudity as seen by her stripping in front of Kanade a while ago, but well–Kanade remembers the first time she came to the communal bathhouse alone without her grandmother and it still gives her the chills.
“Besides,” Kanade murmurs in a small voice, “It’s really more for me.”
Mafuyu stares at her again. “Are you… scared, K?”
“I’m not!” Kanade reassures the other girl. There’s not a lot of people in the bathhouse so that general feeling of anxiety isn’t there but, well. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here.”
They take off their clothes and take care to lock their cubicles. Finally, they make their way to the shower section of the bathhouse.
The water is warm and Kanade takes good care to avoid looking at the other girl, to give her a semblance of privacy in this pretty public place. She lathers on soap on to herself and scrub away the dirt and the grime that’s accumulated over the day. She’s gotten better at her own personal hygiene ever since Mafuyu’s moved in, but some old habits die hard.
Someone taps her shoulder which makes Kanade shriek.
“Calm down,” Mafuyu’s voice breaks through her anxiety. Kanade looks behind her to see Mafuyu with a sponge. “Do you want me to wash your back?”
Kanade takes a deep breath, feeling relieved it was just Mafuyu and not anyone else. She considers Mafuyu’s offer before nodding in acceptance.
“If you would,” Kanade replies, offering her back to the other girl, “I’ll scrub your back next then.”
After rinsing off the suds, the pair make their way to the actual bath part of the bathhouse.
It’s big. Bigger than what Kanade remembers from the last time she was here, but maybe it’s bigger now because of the lack of people in it.
There’s a slight lavender scent that’s coming off from the water. The air feels hot which is a great contrast to the cool air that Mafuyu and Kanade were in just some minutes ago as they braved the Tokyo snow just to take a bath tonight. Their effort was fruitful, at the very least.
“Wow, we really lucked out by coming today.” Kanade says.
Mafuyu only nods before entering the bath. Kanade soon follows suit, releasing a relieved sigh as she feels the hot water soothe her aching bones and joints that she didn’t even know she had until today.
The water is the right temperature and Kanade rests her neck by the edge of the bath. She takes a quick look at Mafuyu who’s doing the same thing, seemingly enjoying the whole experience. It’s nice that she’s enjoying her first experience in the bathhouse. Kanade feels happy at the thought.
“We should do this again,” Kanade breaks the silence. “In an actual proper onsen.”
Mafuyu makes a humming noise in agreement. “We’ll bring Mizuki and Ena too.”
Kanade’s heart softens at the mention of the other two in their small little group. “Yeah, we’ll bring them too.”
Finally, after some time, the pair gets out of the bath so as to not get lightheaded. They dry off with the towels they brought from home, make their way to the changing room to dress in their pajamas.
When they step out of the bathhouse and into the cool winter air of Tokyo, Kanade shivers and realizes that it was maybe shortsighted of them to come without their thick winter coats. Mafuyu sneezes and Kanade changes the maybe in her thoughts to a definitely.
“We’ll be back home in no time, Mafuyu.” Kanade tells her as they instinctively huddle together as they walk home in order to conserve body heat. “Then we’ll turn on the kotatsu and live there for the rest of the winter break.”
“Mm.” Mafuyu just says in reply.
They walk together in silence after that. Their shared body warmth is not enough and there is a non-zero chance that the both of them will wake up with a cold tomorrow but it was all worth it, at the very least.
"Hey, K?" Mafuyu mumbles so soft that Kanade has to strain her ears to hear it.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for..." Mafuyu voice trails out and Kanade doesn't know how she'll end that sentence. "Thank you for the year." is what Mafuyu decides on.
A small smile makes its way on Kanade's voice. "Thank you for the year as well, Mafuyu."
Inside Mafuyu’s pocket, a phone vibrates signaling a text from someone named: MOM.