Archive of Our Own

Perhaps Yoisaki Kanade should be watching what songs she listened to as she lived her day to day life. Music was the sort of every-day fascination, available to everyone. It was as easy-of-access as breathing, at least for a girl like her, and it was as sought after as breathing as well. For some, music was a lifeline. It was the same for her, and for her… Roommate? Stray cat? Stow-away?

Regardless, Kanade knew what music was. It was paramount to magic.

Music was magic; it invoked feelings in human beings that they couldn’t get otherwise. Music invoked catharsis; it invoked sadness; it invoked happiness; it invoked memories, of better times, of simpler times. It called upon emotion; some might say it was emotion. Music was a method that, Kanade found, humans could use to fly. That music could, at least, make humans feel as if they were flying.

At the very least, music made Kanade feel as if she was flying. Fueled off of the memories and the thoughts of those important to her, music was her own version of flight- the very idea of being whisked away to somewhere else, with no burdens to tie her down. With no gravity to pull her back down to the heart-crushing guilt she called survival, with nothing for her to grasp so she could never accidentally trigger any sort of flashback or fear and to never even think of why, why she lived, why she wasn’t in a coma and her father, her lovely, blameless father, could be here instead. When she listened to music, there was nothing to slip in between her fingers, and everything was entirely new. When she listened to music, she was unconfined by reality.

It was paramount to magic; something she knew. 

An invisible, unknowable power that welled things within her that took her as close to flight as possible. She chased that euphoria, again and again, chasing it to re-experience it, to taste flight as a wingless living being.

Music was her escape, but so too was it her curse. Her parents, too, loved music. The three of them listened to the same songs, the same soundwaves airing from their car stereo. They crowded together around her father, listening to the sounds produced from his laptop- something that she barely, if at all, understood at the time-. Kanade could vividly remember being praised for the accuracy and the peacefulness when she would hum her dad’s themes, when she would hum to herself as she watched her neighbors pass her by, sitting by the window on her mother’s lap.

She remembered forging a song for her father, and how it all went…

That was close.

Perhaps Yoisaki Kanade should be watching what songs she listened to on a day-to-day basis. Songs, and their topics, often invoked corresponding feelings within her. Pulling off her headset, feeling some of her long, unkempt, barely-cared-for hair get caught on part of it and stick to the sweat on her earmuffs, she sighed. THere were some songs that were an absolute no-go for her, because they, their topics, and what they brought out in her were all things she wanted to avoid at all costs.

“Comedy, by Gen Hoshino.” The ending song to an anime she watched, was it… Spy Family? Something like that. Between Gen’s warm vocals, the funky beat, and it’s overall bright tone, it was a song that, on paper, should have invoked some sort of happiness of comfort within her. On paper, everything it needed was perfectly conveyed, and clearly through Gen Hoshino’s intent, that would be clear. It was a song about a formerly lonely person going through their day-to-day motions, shopping for groceries, singing about the home that’s waiting for them, about the lovely family that he now had.

About the comedy that he would be living in from then on.

"While listening to the completed song,” Gen Hoshino once said, in an interview that Kanade read when she was falling down a rabbit hole, “I feel that the song is very suitable for the coming warm season when trees are lush and flowers are blooming."

That, as Kanade believed, was very much true. It was a song with a sweet guitar, especially when paired with Gen Hoshino’s voice in the chorus, with which was higher in pitch, warm and sweet, like those of the family that she was supposed to have. Going to see the freshly blooming Carnations, just in time for the coming warm season… That was what Kanade was supposed to be entitled to.

What everyone was supposed to be entitled to. Even though they were, it was never a universal truth that they would receive it. Kanade knew that very intimately. For that reason, as unreasonable as it was, perhaps Yoisaki Kanade should be watching what songs she listened to.

***

Perhaps Asahina Mafuyu should be watching what songs she listened to as she suffered in her day-to-day life.

Or, perhaps, media in general. Even in the numbness of her life, she was capable of bringing about misery within herself. Asahina Mafuyu had certain sweet spots… and perhaps family was one of them.

No, family had to be one of them. Because she loved media about family, stories of people coming together to escape the darkness of their lives with nothing else but each other. She loved the anime Spy Family, recommended to her by her warm and lovely band-member Amia, and everything that it represented. The idea of three people, lonely and ostracized, reaching out to grasp hands with each other regardless of circumstance- no, because of circumstance, and to forget about whatever burdens they carry to simply be a family…

It reminded Asahina Mafuyu, a lot, of Nightcord at 25:00. Where she and Kanade met. Where, in a life with her tears run dry, where the only place she could ever escape to was her dreams, her shadows, the darkness that formed the SEKAI, she had found herself grasping for something. Grasping for anything.  

Mafuyu had met Kanade when she had no choice but to spill out her guts, everything she stored in her viscera knowing it had nowhere to go, every single sob she couldn’t shed, every single tear she couldn’t produce, every single violent shake that she had to still inside herself and every single emotion, potent and poignant as they were, was swallowed.

Asahina Mafuyu had to pretend to be normal.

That was, perhaps, the worst of it. She had to smile in the face of others, swallow when they spoke, and allow them to sit onto her blank canvas. She allowed them to tarnish her because it was the wish of her mother, what she was supposed to do. She had mutilated herself, long ago, so that she could grasp onto others in the manner that was useful to them.

She had long since given up searching for a place to belong. Because if her own home, where she grew up, where she learned domesticity, where she loved as family, where she was loved as family, where her mother dressed her in clothes she didn’t want, fed her food she couldn’t taste, and cast onto her duties that she never wanted to do, was a place that she could not genuinely deem as a place she belonged, then where could she find it?
Most certainly not at school, where she spent every waking moment of every day doing nothing but assisting others, smiling in their faces, straining the muscles in her cheeks until they had become permanently deformed in that glistening facade Mafuyu called friendship and every-day life. Most certainly not there, a place long since connotated with misery just as everywhere else was, because all she could do there was simply sit and suffer while having to pretend that she was normal to everyone who lived the blessed life that Asahina Mafuyu was simply not allowed.

It was, perhaps, for that reason, that Asahina Mafuyu fancied the concept of marriage, and family in that regard. For her to prefer the concept of a bond that had no basis in blood, for promises that were made between people, with consent from the other. What she, perhaps, longed for the most, was for love and duty that was not forced onto her like everything else.

Perhaps, what Mafuyu wanted most of all was to simply hold hands with someone else and to head home. Perhaps what she wanted was to ask, or be asked, about what they should eat tonight, and answer truthfully with the bottom of her heart. She wanted to answer that she wanted a sort of food and not lie about it’s taste or what preference lied in her heart. She didn’t even want to be able to taste whatever she was eating, or to have a sort of preference on what it was or not.

Perhaps, what she wanted, most of all, was simply the consent in having it provided, though whether or not it was a tragedy that she didn’t have and never had such a thing was lost on her.

She wanted to tell someone about what happened to her that day without having it be pried out of her. She wanted to simply tell someone for the sake of telling someone, to discuss it because it pleased her instead of pleasing her mother. 

She wanted to have a conversation for the sake of pleasing herself, and not pleasing anyone and everyone else. Perhaps, what she wanted, was to simply live life as a comedy, a comedy for herself and not for everyone else. When she smiled, she smiled for others. When she laughed, she laughed for others. When others laughed, it was because she wanted them to. When others enjoyed her presence, it was not out of the bottom of her heart or even because it made her happy that they did. It was simply because she feared what could happen if her presence was anything but pleasant and pleasurable.

Yeah. Perhaps Asahina Mafuyu really should be watching what sort of songs she put on; because that sort of comedy could never really be ascertained by someone like her, right? That sort of peaceful, domestic, civil life that came hand-in-hand with an anime and manga and work of art like Spy Family.

Three people, who were ostracized by circumstance, forming a family by complete coincidence. To escape isolation, with the cover of circumstance of a ‘mission’, for three people who, under any other circumstance, would’ve never even thought of defending the other, to become family. Had she met Kanade under any other circumstance, would they be any different? She was sure that Kanade would have promised to save her with her song, just as the girl did for everyone , but would Mafuyu have given her the time of day? Would she, if she had met them under any other circumstance, given any of them the time of day?

Certainly not Ena, who was as prissy as a princess could be, or Mizuki, who was as slippery and enigmatic as mystery itself. If Mafuyu had known Ena at school, she was sure that she would have resented the girl just as she did the rest of her classmates, and would have avoided Mizuki for being too confusing.

Mafuyu did know that, in this life, she very much did give them the time of day. She also knew that, when she was around them, she was only slightly, but still slightly, less lonely. She, at least with a little bit of confidence, thought that the same went for them, because why else would they ever get on Nightcord at 25:00 every single night together?

Perhaps… Perhaps Asahina Mafuyu really did have something. Even if it was as unconventional and flimsy as it was…

They still got together every single day. They still escaped their lonely lives by being together. They still got convened, having a ball together on that late-night stage that was reserved, exclusively, for them. They bantered together, complained about their days, gossipped, traded secrets only they knew, said words and knew jokes that only the four of them could understand. 

They had fun. They were living… something of a comedy, actually, after spending so many years in tragedy. 

Perhaps… Perhaps she really did have something.

***

Perhaps Yoisaki Kanade truly did have redeemable qualities. She had qualities that, at least, she failed to see in most people or everyone else, except for her house-keeper Mochizuki Honami, and which seemed to be a highly redeemable or sought-after quality online. 

It was that she presented herself as an adult, or at the very least, a leader. For some reason, Yoisaki Kanade seemed to take the helm of every task they required. She was the one who started their band, recruited their members, spearheaded their songs- she was the one who showed initiative, who had the most desire, whose flame was unyielding and forever stoked even when it was possible that it was not the best choice for someone like her.

Such a fact was fine with her, because she, genuine as she is, truly did want to take such initiative. She wanted to write songs, after all. She wanted to save people after all, most of which Asahina Mafuyu. It wasn’t just her, though- it seemed that most people around her came to seek her aid. Shinome Ena, as “confident” or headstrong or brash or temperish or obsessed with her craft as she was, sought praise from Kanade on a regular basis. This was never restricted to just their music videos, but all canvases that Ena laid her paint on, all things that could seek Kanade’s facet.

Even Mizuki, from time to time, sought Kanade for assistance. It was her nature. She wanted to help people, wanted to care for them, wanted to shelter them, wanted to protect them. This was her nature, and though it was exhausting, she was very well cared for. She knew all of Nightcord loved her, she knew that Honami cared for her, and she knew that they needed her. For all intents and purposes, Yoisaki Kanade was special, specially cherished.

And yet, she still wanted to cry. 

There was a reason why Yoisaki Kanade took action when her fellows didn’t, why she was the effective head of their band, why she praised so readily and smiled so easily when it was for the sake of others. There was a reason, plain and simple and effective and written into her soul, why Mafuyu knew to take refuge in her home, why Ena sought her words, why everything and everything sought her.

They wanted help; she’d give it. They needed refuge, Kanade opened up her home to provide it. They needed a smile, a place to speak, a moment of calm, some love and some affection, and she readily gave it all. Kanade was ready to give up everything and anything of hers to provide her close comrades- or, well, anyone, really- with this gift that they sought, because what other use would she have if not to shed blood in order to mend the wounds of others? 

She had long since mutilated her own self-image, prying her arms so that people could run into them, as if drilling hinges into her own ribcage so that people could have direct access to her hearth. She hoped that others would ignore how readily she bled when she offered herself up to them; though, part of her knew that those that sought her were so wounded that they couldn’t have possibly done so.

Her arms were open, never closed, capturing any strays that ran to her. Yoisaki Kanade was a human being so that others could take refuge with her, even though she knew that in reality she was fully incapable of protecting or doing anything. She knew that she had no permanent solutions to any crisis, no definitive or decisive actions that could do more than the little she already did. Her hands were as open as they were feeble, and her voice was as defective as it was soothing, smooth, and sought after. 

She could not definitely solve anyone’s issues; she couldn’t even solve her own. Her music could not bring people back from the dead or rouse her father from slumber; her music could not wipe away the stains painted into Ena’s thin shoulders or purge the filth or maggots that Mizuki believed peppered their frame. Her music did almost as less as her words, because both were ultimately futile when put under the heat of being a solution.

She, with her weak and feeble sounds that had no physical shape or consistency, at the very least never once wanted anyone else to be as trapped as she was, as powerless and unable to face their own respective music. She didn’t want anyone else to have the same sort of deep internal suffering that could not be let out anywhere or that caged them in their own homes. She didn’t want people to have to store every single little thing within their viscera to the point that it was close to bulging out and emptying whatever made up a person onto the floor.

She didn’t want people to, after storing their feelings for so long because they had nowhere to go and no one to say them to, decide that the only way for them to release those feelings was to release their brain at the same time. She didn’t want, no, couldn’t stomach the idea of turning away someone whose life was so constricting that it strangled them far, far tighter than any rope strung to a ceiling ever could. She knew emotions could hurt far, far more than any sort of overdose or side effect of a pill swallowed a thousand times could ever hope to.

Kanade wanted to be the one people loved, someone they laughed with, someone to purge loneliness- because she spent so many years cooped up in her room alone that such an idea had become as foreign to her as the love of her own two parents. It had become as far from her as her mothers touch, which had been swept out by time for as long as she could recall, and her mother’s fragrance, which had once been preserved in her household only to be lost when those things, much like everything, had to be cleaned and replaced.

In the same manner music could be recorded, preserved, and shared, all she had were the recordings of her mother that she had never played, never could look at, and though her father was alive and deserved to be here, all she had was recordings of him, too.

She had spent so many years apart from such things that she wanted them so, and now that she had them, she refused to let them go, even if she was too defective to properly grasp them, and she wanted to offer it to all in her reach, even if she was too feeble to appreciate those things. 

Yoisaki Kanade felt some sort of pride for what she had been able to accomplish in her heart, but it was only ever replaced with the need to scream.

***

Everything Asahina Mafuyu ever did caused anything she ever felt to be replaced with the need to scream. All she wanted to do was run away, to flee. All she had ever asked for was to have two loving parents, and yet she was born into one of the many few hellholes that she knew existed, and, unlike any other, she felt destined to approach and nestle herself in the flames that burned from them.

She never asked to be part of this family; she longed to be in a different one; she thought that, if it could simply be her and her music for the rest of her life, she would have been okay with that. She didn’t need any of the damage to her undone or the motherly love that wrapped around her in the same manner a tender, soft blanket filled her with warmth. She didn’t need the good grades she earned for no reason or the smile of her mother that she had long since begun to regret earning after being at the mercy of it and the mercy of her fear of it for as long as she could remember. She didn’t need the approval of her peers, hell, perhaps she didn’t even need Ena, and their bickering, and her constant honesty that hurt and made Mafuyu feel seen a t the same time. Perhaps she didn’t even need Mizuki and their evasive teasing, their presence which was almost guaranteed to be given out to her, any of the advice that sometimes Mafuyu found that she could need or even that, for some reason, she felt kinship with them, which was a unique comfort that she could could not be replicated anywhere else.

All Mafuyu wanted to do was run away, but unfortunately, that was not how things worked. Even if she fled, she still cared; even if she found a way to escape, she’d be tortured imagining what would happen to her poor, poor mother, her comrades that fought tooth and nail to keep her on this Earth, and still, her music, that she had yet to unleash upon the world.

Asahina Mafuyu was not in control of her own life. 

It was because other people still loved her.

***

Kanade felt the need to love other people, to give them a reason to stay and to give them a reason to hold on so they could not let go. She extended her own hand to those who retracted theirs, hoping that they would take it. With Kanade ensuring that her hands could never retract, Mafuyu jumped right in. As someone who needed to save someone- for herself just as much as she needed to save everyone else- the fact that Mafuyu so readily took to her meant that Kanade could never , under any circumstance, retract her offer- though, she found that she never wanted to. No matter how much stress it placed on her or how much she wanted to run away or die, she wanted to keep her hand open at all times, just in case Mafuyu took it. 

Kanade, also, found that she thought of Mafuyu’s hand much more than initially, much more than the thought. Much more than anyone else’s hand, and much more than she would like to admit. Kanade thought about that hand, about if it were to retract, and how it would feel if it were to be taken on her own. She thought of if they would be tender and warm, in the same manner that she instinctively knew Mafuyu craved to emulate, or if they would be bony, forceful, craven, just as scars often made people appear on the inside.

“Mafuyu,” she called out, Kanade heading from her kitchen to her room. 

The evening light shined through her window, crossing brightness from the sink into the room as a whole. Orange glow peered in, illuminating the room in such a color that blinded Kanade, though she knew that every and any bright color blinded her. Kanade crossed, making her attempt to exit that sort of brightness and waltz into the familiar darkness of a room with no light, to sit on a bed or chair with no shine. 

It was then, seeing Mafuyu sit on her bed, that she thought that darkness was a shield, of sorts. In darkness, Kanade felt comfortable- she felt as if she was not there, as if the world itself wasn’t there. It helped her focus, helped her center, helped her see only the things in front of her; the things she wanted to see. Kanade selectively chose light that she could tolerate, memories that she could tolerate, and with a headset that blocked out all ambient noise and a life that eliminated all ambient struggle- with the exception, of course, of school- she picked and chose her environment.

She picked and chose what she decided she needed to live. She shielded herself from the light, which she had found all the way back then and even now, was too bright for someone like her, who didn’t deserve to see it.

The second thing was that she found Mafuyu sitting on her bed to feel just right , that the scenery felt just right. Kanade, for a moment, wanted to put her finger to her chin, to ponder as to why, to sit there and look and take in the moment, but she had more important things to do. Calling the girl’s name, Kanade sought to shield her once more. To find answers on how to shield her better, shield her to her preference.

***

There were times, too, where Mafuyu sought to shield herself from light. She found that everything in her old home was sickeningly illuminated- it was to her mother’s preference. There was no adjustable light, as there was in the Yoisaki household, and there was no variation. Where she ate, where she studied, when she walked in and when she showered, it all had the same level of light, same level of heat that illustrated what sort of failure Mafuyu was as a daughter. Underneath those lights, Mafuyu felt exposed, and it was for that reason that she found darkness to be something of a shield, something of a protector.

She very much enjoyed how dark Kanade’s room and house could get. Some may refer to her feelings as edgy, but Mafuyu had found that she felt just right in darkness. In the same manner she aligned herself with an empty aquarium, with a doll, and with suffering and music, Asahina Mafuyu aligned herself with darkness.

She aligned herself with darkness, basking in it, and sitting in it. She found that laying or sitting in darkness felt just right, and it was then she wondered why.

She was sitting on the bed of a person who basked themself in darkness, looking aloft, from afar, at a windowsill locked behind the girl’s synthesizer- no, even before that, the light was locked simply behind curtains that never opened. 

In the first place that Asahina Mafuyu felt safe, in the first place she could call home in so long, she lived in a place that never got any sunlight, as if it was only ever overcast with shelter. Shelter from the storm, shelter from any sort of love, shelter from everything and anything that hurts. 

Oh, the girl thought. Darkness was a signal, a sign, it was shelter from her mother, who brought a different shade of darkness- no, it was shelter from everything and everyone that pestered or bothered her. At night, Mafuyu lived and breathed, knowing that the sort of times that were nothing but dark were times that no one could ever take away from her.

Darkness definitely played a hand in why, but it was only half of the equation. Mafuyu had found that sitting on Kanade’s bed felt just right-no, being in her home. There was something about her bed, stiff and worn out as it was, that made Mafuyu feel at home, and there was something about Kanade’s home that made her feel similar. Sitting on it as she pondered, Mafuyu racked her brain as to why.

She found Kanade to be as distant and detached from others as she was, and that neither of them really knew how to function as family- not that, in their situation, they were much of one- they were more similar than they were different. It was exactly for that reason- that neither of them really knew a home- that Mafuyu found she could trust Yoisaki Kanade, why she sought her out beyond that promise to be saved. If Ena’s household was warm and familial, then Kanade’s was isolated, the lack of light making it almost cold. But she didn’t mind that. She thought it was more welcome and familiar than anything she had ever had before.

Home, perhaps, was something Mafuyu had found. Mafuyu found that home in the same near-monotone, almost certainly exhausted, low but soft, soothing tone that promised to save her. Mafuyu found that she had something of a, for lack of a better word, fetish, for Kanade’s voice, as every time she heard it, it meant that Asahina Mafuyu had someone who sought to save her, someone that she knew wanted to. Her voice was a reminder that someone truly did, and that brought peace to her tempestual heart.  

Thought process incomplete, she also found that the sound of her name, “Mafuyu,” came out from the doorway. In the same manner that light shone in their room of darkness, Asahina Mafuyu found that it was not this location that made her feel at home, but the girl that lived in it. 

***

Sitting beside her, Kanade knew that she always had a home here- she was born and lived here, after all, but when she was alone it wasn’t so homely. It was empty and large, far larger for her own meager hands. She found that the only times where it felt like home was when her housekeeper and trusted friend, Mochizuki Honami, was there to care for her.

Neither of them understood why the other decided to sit with them, in a house meant for them, encapsulated in domestic life that, they found, never suited each other or the other. All the other knew was that they had songs to sing, for themselves, for the other.

Knowing that was true, Kanade spoke, “Are you okay?” and “How are you finding things?” escaping from her throat.

In that similar tone, Kanade extended words. It had been a long time before she had lived with another person before- Honami didn’t count, because, truthfully, sometimes it felt like Honami was the real person who lived inside their house, and Kanade was the invader. Honami cleaned; she did all the chores; she cooked; she kept Kanade company. Actually, oftentimes, Honami knew where things were, and Kanade was the one grasping at straws in order to sort herself out. 

Kanade sat beside Mafuyu, as close as she could be without getting too close. Her hands were in her lap, hair splayed out across the bed. There was something familiar about being at Mafuyu’s side- as if, each night when they called and made music and stood together amidst the darkness that embodied the isolation of their lives, there was no distance at all. 

Sitting by her side, standing by her side, conversing by her side, making music by her side, Kanade found that it all felt just right to her, just familiar to her. As if each and every call they ever had simulated their current distance, Kanade felt the need to smirk, the want to breathe it in and take it for what it was. 

Perhaps she should have asked if it was alright for her to sit so close, but it was so casual that she didn’t even feel the need to ask. She felt as if she was right to do so, that Mafuyu would not have minded. Kanade felt as if she knew Mafuyu, that she could tell what the girl did like, didn’t like- what Kanade was allowed to do, or not to do. Kanade, then, wondered why such a thing stirred in her heart, because they had never really had conversation on such things.

They simply acted upon such things, as if they had been partners for life. She wondered why they simply knew what to do, and if her feelings were kept strictly to her side.

***

Mafuyu, at first, was surprised by how readily Kanade took to her side, and she had wracked her mind somewhat as to why, but she readily found that she did not mind. There were those in school that felt as if they knew Mafuyu more than they really did; there were the sorts of girls who would buddy up readily, hook their arms around her shoulder, lean in really close, whisper things or touch her things as if they were their own. 

She found that, with them, she forced a smile, forced herself to simply tolerate it. She was being feasted on endlessly of course. She could not say no, and therefore could not set the boundaries she wanted to set. She hated that she handed parts of herself away on a silver platter, but it was all Mafuyu could do.

Those same feelings, then, did not apply to Yoisaki Kanade. Those feelings never once found themselves adhering to Kanade’s presence, and Mafuyu found that she , too, came right up to Kanade’s side. There was no distance at all, it seemed, between the two of them.

Mafuyu had been told, once, that she could not completely understand another person, and she agreed; she didn’t even understand herself , truth be told, and she rarely, if ever, understood other people. That was still true, but yet, she found Kanade being the closest she had ever gotten to understanding someone.

Her blues, her sorrows, her sullen atmosphere, the way she never turned on the lights, the way she adhered to music as a form of communication, the emptiness of her household and the touch of her hand, Mafuyu had found that she knew all of it; she felt all of it, on her lonesome, in her bosom, in her beating heart and her not-as-lovely soul.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Mafuyu spoke, recycling Kanade’s tenderness with as much as she could muster. The result of which was next-to-nothing monotoneness, and yet not only could Mafuyu not be bothered to bring up any more, she knew that she would not be admonished for it. She knew that things were not the same as with her mother, and that Kanade could accept that monotoneness, that darkness, just as she had always longed for from her mother.

“I find that things are quite pleasant,” Mafuyu spoke, “though I’m not sure as to why.”

That was not to imply that Kanade’s household was so poorish that it inflicted worry or discomfort onto anyone, no, it was quite well-taken care of. Kanade’s care-taker, Honami, made the place quite lovely. She fluffed each and every cushion (even if Mafuyu could not care less if they were fluffy), made warm meals (even if Mafuyu could never taste it), sorted everything out (that, actually, was something Mafuyu appreciated and found lovely from Honami, as it made living much easier when things were sorted out and Kanade could not replicate that for the life of her), and kept everything from breaking.

Mafuyu, and perhaps by proxy Kanade, were not nearly as good at that as she was. It was after thinking of that, that Mafuyu had made a slight realization- that her thoughts began rolling, that her hypotheses began making a modicum of sense. 

“I find that things here, in your home, are…”

Things in Kanade’s home were simply and barely not broken. Everything in this house was used time and time again- she found that nothing was simply haphazardly replaced and everything was of age. Those chairs in the dining room that they pulled out every day, the bedframe that was currently supporting their weight, the table that Kanade nearly worshipped, everything was well-used, well-worn out. 

They had withstood the test of time, used by human beings, touched and saddled by burdens, and yet they were not broken. If something was even slightly out of place, Mafuyu’s mother would have replaced it without a second thought. Everything there was perfect, in place, slotted exactly where her mother believed they should have been, but here, things were different.

Mafuyu had found that she liked that. Of course, that term couldn’t apply to everything, and she didn’t even nearly do enough research or looking to say that everything was so, and yet she had found that she was satisfied with the term.

She found that she could apply it to the household, too. It seemed that Kanade was the last of her family to live here, and that, if Kanade were to be gone, then this house would no longer have its residents, no longer would be a home. The very definition that it abided by was hanging on thinly, by a tiny and fragile stretch.

Much like Kanade. Much like Mafuyu. The two of them, expressly, were…

“Just barely not broken.”

***

When Kanade heard that, to such a barely-not-broken girl such as Mafuyu, things were pleasant, she found herself relieved, though endlessly curious as to why. While Mafuyu continued her verbal line of thought, and wracked her brain as to why, Kanade couldn’t be helped but watch Mafuyu think.

She watched her eyelashes as they raised up and down every now and then, Mafuyu’s blinks registering in her peripheral. She watched Mafuyu’s hair fall from her scalp and neck, hang in a ponytail and drape beneath the girl’s shoulders. She watched Mafuyu think, a slight skew in her eyebrows.

Kanade found that she had no qualms, whatsoever, about being there, here , just barely able to register Mafuyu’s body warmth, barely able to hear her soft breaths, fully capable of looking and seeing and witnessing and processing the girl live. There had been no greater physical pleasure, as of this year, no greater sight, than to watch Asahina Mafuyu live inside the girl’s own household. Apologies to the Carnation flower field that her mother loved so much, and that she had seen with Mizuki, but there was simply no contest.

That was a pleasure of her mother’s, and yet Asahina Mafuyu was a pleasure of Yoisaki Kanade , a valuable something born of the girl’s own heart. It was something that she longed to hog to herself, that she longed to cage in their current domesticity for longer, so much longer, and the begrudging promise of return to the Asahina Household made something in Kanade wither, something she had never felt before.

On second thought, there was something that Kanade had qualms about, an issue she had with their current dynamic. It was with their distance. She found that being on these edges, that having all of these barely’s , that being so close and not closing the distance was truly awful. She found that, in her heart of hearts, more than any song and, perhaps, even greater than her desire to grasp the hands of others and take them in to her hearth, that she wanted Mafuyu to claim it all.

Kanade wanted Mafuyu’s fingers to fill the gaps in between her own, and she wondered why, because they had not known each other for nearly long enough. A beat or so after she had thought that, the answer lied in front of her.

“I find that things here, in your home, are… barely not broken.”

It was then, that, for some reason, Kanade’s head moved on her own.

***

For some reason, other people loved them. Other people chose to love and appreciate them, even though the two of them were puny and frail in their own special ways.

For some reason, people chose to spend time with each of them, as if they were something great and amazing, as if they were something competent and that they could do something with those hands of theirs that weren’t enough to keep their respective families around.

For some reason, people chose to seek one or the other of them out, choosing them over other people.

For some reason, people sought out Asahina Mafuyu and Yoisaki Kanade, giving them reasons to live through the darkness that emptied them of joyous days and weightless smiles.

Truthfully, both of them wanted to say that they hated it, even though, for some reason, part of them didn’t. On good days, none of themselves did, though those were far and few in between, and most days a burning majority of their minds despised it.

She, Yoisaki Kanade, could never understand why people like Asahina Mafuyu spent time with her.

The aforementioned Asahina Mafuyu, then, could never understand why Kanade chose to offer up everything, chose to house an inadequate and clumsy runaway.

In that instant, when Mafuyu put her feelings into words- not in lyrics or in the instruments of song, but in words, human words, Kanade understood why. Not because she had analyzed a sheet or had some sort of emotion conveyed to her through some medium, but because, in words, Kanade’s feelings had come to light.

Things were similar. For both of them.

***

For both of them, words either failed them or were never offered for them to begin with. For both of them, words failed them, and even if they were to receive those words that they had been looking for, it wouldn’t fix anything. They were simply too broken, shattered inordinately, fractures tracing along the lines of their hearts like veins traced along their bodies.

They didn’t know, truly, what had broken the other, no matter how many dialogues, late nights, evenings spent together, or moments where they had run into the other’s arms occurred, and yet something in their minds, songs, and souls believed that the other was shattered, shards in similar shapes to the other’s.

There were times where Asahina Mafuyu wondered if another person in this world had the linguistic skills- assuming that reaching her heart with words required linguistic skill and not that it was a futile effort as a whole- to reach her heart and break the darkness encapsulating her soul. Kanade, however, knew that words failed her, just as most other things in her control did, and that, even if another person in this world had such abilities, it wasn’t in her hands, and thus it didn’t matter. 

To tell or convey to someone something in such strength, in such vivid detail that neither of them could ever forget it, to convey something so meaningful that it cut deeper than the monotony of their normal lives, and into their cores so as to mend whatever wounds they may have, was something that they both desperately wanted, but could not have. 

Part of Mafuyu’s extensive studying of her native language, and even of the English Language, was born from that yearning- so that she could understand most words, most things that people sought to say, so that she could comprehend meaning in them. To look for scattered emotions laced in between words that did or did not bear them, she studied, all in futile effort.

Songwriting, of course, required such skills, and so Kanade’s enamor with such things is so that she could feed other people them via song, via singing. To maximize her songwriting, she had to be as expressive as possible, even if it went far beyond how expressive she really was, and yet Kanade never once demanded that of other people. Perhaps that was where their similarities ended, dead in the sand, because Kanade always sought the duty of saving on herself and never expected anyone else to carry them.

She sang so that people who were fractured in similar ways as her could find commonality and sob freely, and yet it was here that she did not express her brokenness in song, but in meshing lips together.

***

They were similar in other ways, of course, because both of them had bleeding wounds that neither could truly close. Seeing the lack of purchase on Mafuyu’s lips as an open gash, Kanade sought to bandage it with her own. 

It was watching Mafuyu speak and watching her lips come together then open in speech and to express that Kanade had realized the manner in which she could convey everything that she wanted to. It was watching Mafuyu use her own words that made Kanade realize that words were always going to fail her, that no amount of music that she loved or clever lyrics that she dedicated hours to writing could come close to what she wanted to say. It wasn’t that it was too powerful to be expressed in words , but that she simply didn’t have words to it. She didn’t have a definition for it, a name to give it.

She simply had a craving, a desire, a primal want, an emotional need. It was the same reason why she always felt warmer when her parents hugged her instead of saying that they loved her, or that she felt happier (or perhaps healthier, considering her diet) when Honami would bake her a pain-stakingly effort-filled apple pie or construct her some stew. There were simply, sometimes, actions that conveyed far more than they could ever hope to, that there were simply things to do that fell far more in line.

Kanade had taken Mafuyu’s mouth in her own. Part of her hoped that Mafuyu wasn’t the sort of person to breathe through her mouth, because that was certainly occupied. Part of Kanade, after moving, considered that perhaps she should have asked or that she should have hesitated, but those sorts of thoughts gradually sizzled out. Different feelings coalesced inside of her mind and heart; the softness of Mafuyu’s own lips, the sort of deep cold breeze that wafted often through Kanade’s home- a soft waft of Mafuyu’s scent brushing past Kanade’s nostrils, which she found pleasant despite being literally what she used every day as well, and a nameless feeling that she was in no rush to label.

Mafuyu was right; that Kanade was just barely not broken. There were things to repair and bandages to lace tight, but above all, Kanade was alive. There were times where she thought it would be best to sit in the Sekai and wither away, just as Mafuyu longed to, and there were times where Kanade skipped meals or purposefully did risky or stupid things in hopes that it would be the last time she collapsed or winced out of pain. 

And yet, feeling Mafuyu’s nose poke her cheek as hers did to Mafuyu, Kanade felt those shattered shards of her psyche set aside. She felt warmth permeate the corners of her body that she loathed and that never would ever see the light of day. She felt that warmth permeated parts of herself that she liked, parts of herself that she didn’t like, parts of herself that she loathed feeling, parts of herself that she liked. She felt all of those stabilize in her core, emotions layering themselves behind her eyes as she looked into Mafuyu’s.

Retrospectively, Kanade might have found the view of Mafuyu’s close-up face hilarious, or at the very least something not even remotely romantic, but in the moment, no such things were in her mind. She was moreso focussed on the shift of her roommate’s lips, the exit of an exhale from her nose, and the expression written into her eyes. Kanade had seen, often, first kisses in fiction; romantic after offering roses, celebrations after certain victories or simply out of hunger, and she found that hers were unlike any of them.

***

Mafuyu’s first kiss was certainly unlike much of what she had been expecting. Mafuyu had heard often of tales of first kisses, and many times, she was free to take them. She had seen them in well-renowned literature, in shows, and at times between her school-mates, but she never found any interest in them. She was free to participate as well- she had been handed love letters or requests to meet behind school many times at this point. There had been times that she pondered what would happen if she said yes; if this emptiness would rid itself of her, and if kisses were simply as magical as she had heard. Perhaps some part of her craved them, she certainly didn’t think she did.

That was the sort of surprise that had overtaken her mind, that had shown itself in her eyes, the sort of surprise that had spread the lids of her eyes wide. The sort of surprise that made her take in as much ambient information as she could see, though her mind was as full of her kisser as her lips were. 

Part of Mafuyu had always been curious if her emptiness would be erased had she said yes to those love letters, had she accepted another person’s love for the first time. As their lips melted, Mafuyu had found her answer.

No. Absolutely not. Terribly not so.

Because no one else in the world was as similar to her as Yoisaki Kanade. In that moment, the lips that pressed to hers spoke words completely different from her, sounded completely different from her, and yet they called her name in such a mind-enrichening manner, and yet they held back sobs that were simply so similar to her.

Kanade was like darkness, in that she was a shield from everything that Mafuyu hated. Kanade was like her house, in that she could identify with everything that was barely not broken. 

But living with her also made Mafuyu realize that Kanade was also just like her- in that neither of them knew anything of family or intimacy. Any sort of pure, joyous, genuine love shared between Mafuyu and her mother had been lost long ago, and while part of Mafuyu’s heart panged because Kanade was in a similar situation, everything else about her enjoyed that fact.

Mafuyu, herself, enjoyed that fact, and it was for that reason that her eyes gradually softened, that her lips began to melt back, that without even realizing, she reached out with one hand to grasp Kanade’s own.

***

Kanade’s ponders about whether she should have asked, waited, or not grasped Mafuyu’s lips with her own at all fell to the wayside when Mafuyu grasped Kanade’s hands with her own. It was then that her earlier question about Mafuyu was answered, and that it was a mix.

On one hand, Mafuyu’s fingers were felt soft and tender, they reached timidly, hesitantly. Kanade wondered why Mafuyu was so hesitant, why her hand moved as if it was something shameful, why it moved as if it was afraid of being swatted away, because Kanade knew she would have never done such a thing.

Kanade believed she was simply incapable of swatting away the hands of someone so similar to her. Once, Kanade had reached out simply because Mafuyu was hurt and Kanade wanted to be the bandage, but now, she reached out because she simply wanted to be with the person that made her feel so comfortable. 

Her ponders were erased, then, when Mafuyu’s hands finally made contact with hers, and she was free to take them in. Preferably, they would have been betwixt fingers, interlocked in an unbreakable manner, but for now she could accept the awkward way that their hands intersected- because at least she was feeling Mafuyu.
Her ponders were erased, then, when Mafuyu’s eyes softened, her pupils shrinking as her eyelids readied themselves to close. Kanade’s own eyes shrank, somewhat, the flush on her cheeks growing even larger when she realized that Mafuyu reciprocated whatever they had. A subtle exhale escaped Kanade’s nose, something almost glad shining in her iris. Neither of them closed their eyes as they should have, their lips separating some sort of unquantifiable moment later.

***

They also moved back an unquantifiable distance, though it wasn’t very far. Their noses were still crossed, eyes still full of each other’s faces. Their hairs ruffled in proximity, colors messing together. Mafuyu wasn’t worried if it would become tangled, her head full of the other and nothing at the same time. 

The bandage of Kanade’s lips rung on Asahina’s own wounded ones, some sort of mix between an after-glow and replaying the sensation throbbing. Mafuyu failed to smile, even though something close to happiness rung in her heart, and she wondered if it was the same for Kanade. Some time during their kiss, Mafuyu’s hands had grasped Kanade’s own, which surprised the girl even though she had made the motion and felt the longing to have Kanade’s fingers touching her own. Just the sensation of their mixed palms and fingertips was enough, just as the feeling of their lips crossed was also enough.

They stayed wordless for however long, nothing but inhales and exhales passing between the two of them. Kanade’s blush grew, but Mafuyu’s grew even bolder as she whispered first.

“One…”

Once, Mafuyu had been afraid to speak her mind. She had been silenced many times over- when she was before her mother, unable to speak and unable to disappoint her, when she was before her classmates, unable to break the mold that she had constructed and unable to deny any request to feed on her bare marrow and bones. 

It was for that reason that, when exposed to her fellow bandmates, she never took the chance to censor herself. Mafuyu had simply let go of her hinges; it was why she spoke down to Ena so much, why they bickered, and why she loved all three of them so dearly.

“One more time.”

She had never been afraid of the backlash of her thoughts before her group, and yet here it was all she could think about. It was what was on her mind the most , almost as prevalent as the potent desire for one more touch. Mafuyu had never once been more afraid of what Kanade had to say, and yet her desire for more overcame everything else, and she was the first to whisper once more.

Mafuyu began leaning in before even finishing her sentence, because just as Kanade knew that Mafuyu would kiss back, Mafuyu knew that Kanade would let her make the next one. 

Mafuyu pondered, endlessly, What am I allowed to do to you?