fairytale dreams.

she’s crying again, which is — … it just makes sense. their parting wasn’t anything good, hanako left a mess of things and the last thing he wanted was to say goodbye. his end goal was to make sure she could live, even if it meant living without him, even if he had to live without her. adjustment periods are always difficult anyway, but he knows he could do it. he did try to speed it along a little bit by making her forget him, but… he’s kind of glad that she didn’t?

but she admits it - that she’s miserable. it’s something he knows already, but it doesn’t make him feel any less guilty. he presses his lips together while he thinks. she mentions ‘that place’ and he wonders if she’s the one that stopped the train. it would also make sense, just given how she is. it’s very like her to figure out a way to get to him again, and he wouldn’t deny that he’s happy to see her. he really is.

“No, it’s not, I guess. I didn’t want to say goodbye at all, but… it was the only option I had. I had to fulfill your wish, you know? … Yashiro, you’re different from me. I think you probably forget that sometimes, but it’s not a bad thing. You stopped the train, right?” he wants to reach out for her again, but he doesn’t feel like that’s something he can do. he wants to build up so many walls that she can’t see over them, that maybe she’ll give up and that’ll be it. but he knows she wouldn’t, not on him. she’s one of the only people that keeps giving him chances.

“I wish I could’ve seen you after that. You went through all that trouble! … But… I get to see you now, so maybe that counts for something. I…” ultimately, he ends up reaching back out for her after all. when he pulls her into a hug, it’s tight. he doesn’t really want to let go of her; if he had the choice, he wouldn’t let go at all. she’s warm. yashiro’s always been warm.

“I’m not sorry that I did it, but I am sorry. I just wanted… I wanted you to live. I guess in this kind of place, you’ll be okay, so… even if you don’t forgive me, do you want to have a life here with me? I want to see you every day again. We don’t have to worry about the things we used to, so—”

even if her being in this kind of state is hard, he likes this side of her, too. the part that wears her heart on her sleeve, the part that lets him know that she cares about him. he doesn’t want to be out of reach anymore. he may not want to make up for what he did either ❪ he still just doesn’t regret it, ❫ but he wants to try to fix things as they are. he loosens the hug a bit, mostly to pull back and press his forehead to hers.

“Maybe if we have to say goodbye again, it’ll be a better one. But I don’t want to just yet. So, please?” he has stuff that he wants to catch her up on on his end, too. he wants to know what happened with her while he was gone. “Anything happen while I was away? Apart from the obvious — you getting into Supernatural means of reaching that boundary. I wanna know how you did that, too.”

  is this all my fault?

  it’s for her, after all. to make sure she could live until she was 90 or more, to see the world far longer than what her book predicted for her. yet here, with the cost of that wish hanging over her and spreading out to hurt others, was it...

  was it ever going to be worth it? was living that long going to be worth it if kou could never see mitsuba again, if hanako-kun vanished from her life forever, if aoi was lost to the gardens of the afterlife without another word between them?

  nene doesn’t know. she doesn’t want to know.

  a sob comes out of her throat when she’s enveloped in the hug, strangled and hurting and so so sad that nene’s almost surprised by how capable of sorrow she is. it’s strange, this difference between learning she had almost no time left versus confronting the fact she was forcibly given her best friend’s remaining lifespan.

  ( aoi would have lived a long life. would she have been happy? would she be stronger than nene is right now if their positions swapped within the next year? )

  ... she can’t think about that right now. aoi isn’t here. hanako is and he’s the one he’s the one she’s held by at the moment, crying into his shoulder and repressing any too-loud wails. nene sniffles and tries to calm herself down, wanting to find her footing again. it becomes infinitely harder when they’re face to face and so close to an almost embarrassing extent, her trembling mouth and watery eyes and running nose all the more obvious when settled like this.

  there’s too much to talk about and all the time in the world suddenly. it’s completely overwhelming and despite the questions hanako asks, all nene can provide is a shake of her head and reaching out to hold onto his wrists. her head moves to his shoulder, pushing her forehead into it. she breathes in, out, slow inhales and exhales until her voice returns to her.

  “ c... can we sit down? i’ll tell you in a minute, okay? my legs... just really hurt... ” 

@protectheart​.

Mitsuba hates surprises.

Well, no. That’s not true. Mitsuba likes surprises, as long as they’re good ones, but the fact of the matter seems to be that Mitsuba draws a whole lot of negativity to him rather than positivity. Any time he’s been surprised, it hasn’t been… great?

He’s all but clinging to Nene like she’s a lifeline, besides.

“Daikon-senpai,” – and it’s not quite a whine, but it’s not not one. Mitsuba’s better off here than Nene is, he knows, so even though he’s basically wrapped himself around her, he understands that any protection is going to have to come from him. Mitsuba doesn’t… expect the best from situations like this, though.

He still remembers, for instance, having to – well, having to run from… himself. The Mitsuba that existed before, Sousuke, his rumour corrupted and his form barely recognizable. Mitsuba doesn’t trust when things happen. He didn’t want to show up anywhere in the middle of a thing happening.

… like the laugh, taunting and ever-familiar, drifting out of the fog towards them.

“D-D-Daikon-senpai,” he stutters, like he doesn’t want to be sure of himself – and, admittedly, he doesn’t. “Please tell me that doesn’t sound like Tsukasa-kun. Lie to me if you have to. I-it’s just Number Seven being a nuisance, right? Right?”

“I-it’s not Tsukasa-kun out there in the fog, is it?”

  nene’s still taking a moment to breathe and figure out if this mitsuba is even real while he’s clinging to her. she’s holding him up well enough so they don’t entirely collapse to the floor, but the haze in her mind that could easily reflect the fog rolling near them doesn’t help much. mitsuba feels real enough, a weight on her that’s whining and sounding ready to break into tears if she ruins whatever fantasy he’s attempting to build.

  ... even hanako wouldn’t stoop to a level of fooling around like this.

  “ n... no, it can’t be hanako-kun, ” she gets out through a stammer of her own. “ ... b - but it’s not tsukasa either! ”

  it’s not reassuring, especially when nene herself isn’t entirely sure of what’s going on. she purses her lips and moves back away from the source of the laughter.

“You’re…” Rui trails off for a moment to try to gather his thoughts again, because he still feels terribly out of his element. He’s tempted to prompt that he’s sorry, but Hanako’s only ever called her Yashiro, but her first name doesn’t matter one way or another because Rui’s certain he’ll just call her Yashiro-san one way or another. So he shakes his head, and opts to not finish that sentence the way he’d planned. “… it’s nice to properly meet you, Yashiro-san.”

She… probably doesn’t even know about Rui’s closeness to Hanako. Right? Why would she? So Rui stays silent about it.

“… mm. We made… too many. So I’m alright with sharing.”

“Follow me.” Rui’s aware it probably seems – well, he’s less than friendly-looking, but she either seems alright with that or trusts him anyway, so Rui won’t comment on that, either. He does lift a hand to motion for her to follow him and awkwardly first leads her to his cabin and then lets them both in. Himari immediately books it not for Rui but for Nene, rubbing against her legs and purring all the while as she learns all about whoever this new friend Rui’s brought over is.

“… er… that’s Himari. I can hold her, if she’s being a bother. The – the donuts are in the kitchen. You can help yourself, I’m… not hungry.”

  despite all the awkwardness from rui, nene offers a smile in return. “ it’s nice to properly meet you too, rui! ” she returns. it feels like far too kind of a gesture to give food to a near stranger, but if rui (and his housemates?) have made enough of them that he’s willing, then she wouldn’t say no to lending a hand and gaining some delicious donuts out of it.

  nene follows behind rui, making sure her steps don’t overtake his own. there’s plenty of... less than “normal” encounters that she’s had, but it’s the nature of rui’s words and stance that make her feel a bit more safe than she normally would. entering a boundary when danger was afoot is one risk, but here in a new world with a face that comes off as even remotely familiar eases her nerves enough to go along with him without much concern.

  the cat, of all creatures, does manage to jump scare her solely from how fast himari approaches her. nene visibly flinches, but calms down instantly with all the loving purrs and nudges against her legs. 

he doesn’t expect her to be, not at all, but she really doesn’t look happy. it makes sense, given everything that hanako did, and when he last saw her she had been on the brink of tears. he can still see it so vividly, like the image just played on loop, and he doesn’t pretend to know the steps to comfort her. he doesn’t regret what he did. but that doesn’t make the aftermath of it any less painful.

“…” well — saying anything would be better than saying nothing, so he opens his mouth to begin, but still ends up pausing again. he doesn’t know how to deal with this, either.

“Yashiro. It’s funny seeing you here! This isn’t where either of us should be, is it?” even when he was at that one other place, running into her there was… better, admittedly. the circumstances were, at least. but he’s trying not to just put up more walls, isolate in on himself as it’s so natural to do. it’s easy enough to just try to put some distance between the both of them and pretend that nothing’s wrong at all, because he’s done it time and time again. he’s not one for breaking patterns, but he does sometimes with her anyway. he could try.

“You look miserable, you know? Sound it, too. I guess I get it.” hanako does end up moving closer to her, placing his hand on top of her head, the other to her cheek so he can pat and squish at her face. he doesn’t think he really deserves the chance to try to make it better, so if she wants to shrug him off, she can.

but there’s something about her looking this upset that makes him instinctively want to comfort her, somehow. hanako still wishes he could have had something of a normal life with her, but he knows that’s not possible. yashiro’s always been out of his reach.

“If you want to yell at me, you can. I’m not gonna blame you for that. I don’t think you’d be happy with any kind of explanation I could give you, so I’m not sure that I can. Uh…” he moves his hands away, unsure what to do with them now. “So, lay it on me. I know you. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

  nene wholeheartedly expects hanako to walk this back, pretend the circumstances are better than they really are, ignore the elephant in the room even for another moment. she wants to do it herself almost, to give into that frail beckoning to let her rage settle and her tears dry up because what is she crying for?

  one of her friends is here already. aoi certainly would follow soon if she hopes and prays enough.

  there’s nothing to be hurt about. there’s nothing, there’s nothing because... because...

  hanako’s hands are on her face and the tears start falling before nene can force herself to be strong again. it’s ugly, snot out of her nose and her vision blurring to the point where hanako appears shapeless, a smudge of black and a hint of red and crescent moon eyes. she hiccups, chest heaving and heavy. these hands are warm despite it all, a comforting feeling nene has missed.

  for all that her anger is worth, her heart is a soft, messy thing. she can’t be strong in the face of someone she missed dearly, not at this moment.

  her own arms move from her sides to reach for a hug, nearly encircling hanako’s back. he pulls away too fast, drifting out of reach (like before, far away from her and he’s disappearing into shapes that glisten in the moon, some horrible bit of irony that makes her throat raw), leaving nene to let one arm drop heavily against her side and the other to aggressively scrub at her eyes.

  everything hurts and heaves. her eyes, her legs, her hands, her throat-- 

  it’s her chest that stings the most.

  a comfort; she wants comfort and it feels selfish to ask for that. hanako has his own regrets over this too, doesn’t he? is that why he’s so willing to hear her out now after almost trying to erase her memories? did he want her to forget all of this for her own safety? she sniffles, finally able to put the world into focus enough to look at hanako again, take in his words, and nod.

  “ o... of course i’m miserable...!  of course i want to yell at you!! but... but... how am i supposed to do that when i was scared i’d never see you again?! if kou-kun and minamoto-senpai and akane-kun didn’t all help with figuring out how to get back into that place, we would’ve... ”

  lost you forever.

Admittedly, the fact that she might not be the same – the one that he’d met before – hadn’t crossed his mind until now. Rui opens his mouth a beat too late, ready to apologize and say he’d really thought she was someone else… but, no, she’s… talking to him like she recognizes him. Rui releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“… it’s… Rui.”

“… er… do you want to… come inside?” That’s probably considerably better than standing alone in the dark like this, but Rui also looks eerie enough that it isn’t as if he’ll be able to blame Nene if she disagrees to the offer. He feels… bad, mostly, bad because she’s been wrapped up into something she wasn’t expecting. Bad because she seems like she’s out of her element, and it’s not exactly like Rui can do anything to help.

“We – you can say no. But there’s donuts, if you’d… want some?”

Which is… Rui feels like that’s a very solid giveaway that Hanako’s here, too. He doesn’t know if… if Hanako’s told her about his birthday, so Rui doesn’t mention the occasion, but he feels maybe like… had Hanako ever told her about donuts? Rui doesn’t know. It would make sense. If Rui knows Hanako likes donuts – well, maybe not? Rui’s dating Hanako? Rui doesn’t know a damn thing about what she’d know?

He catches himself making a face.

“… they’re recent?”

  “ rui... ”

  a soft repeat, one that nene nods to and decidedly commits to memory. it wouldn’t do to forget someone she’s known before in a situation like this. in fact, it makes for a comforting feeling despite how little she truly knows of him. a familiar face is hardly anything to scoff at though and by god will nene not look a gift horse in the mouth!

  the offer comes as a bit of a surprise to nene. rui’s politeness comes off as... awkward more than an intentional way of speaking and it provides a bit more light-heartedness to all the confusion here. he’s trying and that’s what matters the most.

  ... oh. donuts.

  those sound... really nice, actually. nene can’t quite read what rui could possibly be making that expression about, but it does draw a small laugh out of her. which turns into a hand slapping against her mouth and an apologetic look.

  oh. 

  somehow, despite how close the confrontation had been at home, this feels far too soon. nene’s heart pounds and pounds against her ribcage, a harsh hammer beat the makes her breath catch. fingers curl around her brooch, dig into the fabric, and nene wills her body to cooperate with her once in this moment.

  the train is stopped by her hands. aoi and hanako are so close by. she could touch them again, hug them gently and know they’re there and yet that passionate fire that wants to sob and pull grass out of the earth itself over the injustice dashes those feelings ever-so-briefly.

  all nene does for now is stare.

  she wants to yell at him, stomp her feet, throw a tantrum so big that the birds themselves would flee the trees around them. instead, she focuses on swallowing her trembling breaths and straightens her back. nene can do better than that; she can talk to hanako because he’s her friend above all else and he has to have an explanation for all of this.

  ... right?

@protectheart​.

Rui recognizes her. Kind of. He recognizes her in that he’s seen her before, briefly, but he hadn’t been able to put a name to her then. Moreso, he recognizes her in that he can hear Hanako’s voice so clearly echoing in his head – ‘she has radish legs! radish legs!’ – which hadn’t made any sense to him at the time, but putting two and two together has Rui’s gaze drift down to her ankles, and. Is that what he’d meant?

The two of them had talked about Hanako briefly, hadn’t they? So, was that…? Is this – his assistant? The – Yashiro, hadn’t he called her?

… by now, she’s probably noticed Rui staring at her, one way or another. It’s not exactly friendly, to have a pale-white boy staring at you in the dark of evening, barely any light left on the horizon. Only the dim light from the cabins is illuminating him, really. He looks like a terrifying creature, and he’s just staring at her.

“… h–…uh… hello.”

“… are… you Yashiro?”

Rui feels terribly, terribly guilty over things she can’t possibly know (he can still hear the jealousy in his own voice, demanding to know if Hanako was in love with her), and it takes a lot more than he’d like for his voice to stay steady.

“… so… you’re here, too?”

  nene doesn’t know his name.

  it’s not from lack of remembering him; the fear ebbs away when the distinct appearance makes a connection to past memories and her shoulders drop from her ears. there’s a certain shame that wells up in her stomach when he knows her name, like courtesy that shouldn’t be offered since she can’t afford the same.   she shuffles in place, uncomfortable once more for an entirely different reason.

  “ um... y - yeah, i’m yashiro. i didn’t expect to suddenly show up like this anywhere again... ”

  he’s friends with hanako as far as she’s aware. nene feels the questions bubble up in her throat and she swallows them down in favor of offering a shaky smile. definitely not the best she can give, but certainly not the worst.

girl help it’s time for a 

that’s.. okay. fair. that’s fair. he’ll start it now!

yashiro’s really obvious, huh… she almost looks like she could double over on the spot just by thinking about the place, or something. and it almost sounds like she’s making excuses, which is possible, but hanako doesn’t want to let up immediately.

“Hmm, but I kinda don’t care if it’s messy, though~” and b.. black canyon? is that a new hamster? or the one she mentioned awhile back? he never got its name before. “Theeen I’ll go with you! Getting supplies could be much more fun if we do it together.” he can actually come with now!!

  “ but i do! ” she returns with a bit of a huff. jeez, it’s her room, after all. still... the least that she can do is hang out with hanako and do something small like a supply run with him. even if nene is a touch frustrated with what she heard out of mitsuba, it’s not like nene dislikes hanako! far from it, really.

  “ okay, okay, we can go get black canyon’s stuff together. that doesn’t mean i’ll let you into my room when we get back though, so don’t get your hopes up, ” she warns. in the end, it’s all a surface level face; there’s no chance nene would lock hanako out of her place for some petty reason like a slightly messy room.

He just… lets himself cry for a while. And it feels kinda relieving, honestly, because it means someone is finally here for him again, and as much as Mitsuba is, Nene’s good to him. And he likes her. And she likes him, he thinks. He’d like to think. He knows she won’t judge him, even when a lot of other people would. So Mitsuba cries. And cries.

And then there are no tears anymore, and he sniffles, and it almost hurts, so he pulls back and lets himself wipe at his eyes as best as he can without rubbing them raw.

“… I’m glad you’re back, Daikon-senpai.”

For a while, there really had been no one. And Nene had seen so much. With him.

He’s grateful. Even if he isn’t always the best at showing it.

“… do… you want to go get anything to eat? Or – something? Just… um… to catch up?” That’s what friends do, right? “I–I can pay. I still, um, have my job. So just name a place!”

  that is likely one of the nicest thing that mitsuba has ever said within earshot. nene smiles a little while he tries to get rid of the stray tears, folding her hands and fidgeting ever-so slightly and rubbing her face on her shoulder.

  oh, shoot, nene forgot having a job would be essential. there’s a bit of guilt in the idea of letting her junior pay for even the smallest of treats, but turning mitsuba down would feel rude and uncalled for. 

hanako compleeetely pretends he didn’t see the expression. if he doesn’t acknowledge it then maybe it’ll be left alone! probably not, but maybe! 

“Fibonacci… I see, I see! It must feel right at home, then.” he knows it absolutely doesn’t, but.. well. “I was put in Golden. But, I don’t go there very much. I don’t need to sleep~ And I kind of like the freedom of being to go wherever I want to.” he wanders around rather often, mostly whenever he gets bored of being in one other place for too long. “So, show me! We can go right now.” 

  absolutely not! your days are numbered, hanako, so you better start counting.

  nene gives a weak smile as a means of appreciation for the gesture, but if spirale doesn’t have all the little details of her home, then... it’ll never be the same as far as she’s concerned. staying here long enough for it to feel like that almost grips her with fear, so nene pushes the thoughts back. instead, she focuses on listening to hanako talk and nods along.

  “ hang on, hanako-kun! y - you can’t just invite yourself over to my room! it’s all messy still and i need to go get supplies for black canyon first anyways, so-- ”

what he was doing could have been called threatening him. he - wasn’t exactly nice. so it’s not like he wasn’t telling the truth, but hanako doesn’t like it. he doesn’t like mitsuba or this. and yashiro seems to let up a little bit, then she starts fidgeting, because he can tell she wants to believe him, and he feels bad. 

.. he skirts around the truth a lot to begin with, so this probably isn’t any different. 

“I was just reminding him of something. It’s kind of.. mystery business?” argument wise, he’s not sure how to answer that without implicating himself. so instead he tries to change the topic, lifting himself up into his normal floating position and moving over to hold onto her. “Yashirooo, where do you live?” 

  ugh. it feels like an excuse and nene tries to make it as clear as possible in her expression that this isn’t the end of the conversation. yet, the warm familiarity of him latching onto her a bit makes a bit more of her frustration melt away, so nene frantically stores it in a little box in her heart so she can corner hanako on this later.

oh! okay—well. there is a good explanation for that. not that he’s going to say what it is right off the bat and completely spill everything he said, because he doesn’t know what it is number 3 even said. he does nothing to resist her squishing his cheeks whatsoever, except for placing his hands to the back of hers.

“Was I being mean…? What’d he tell you, Yashiro?” unless she knew about it through other ways. hanako is a little annoyed, though, to be honest. number 3, number 3, what did you say? “I ooonly talked with him a bit! I didn’t do anything else, so..” 

  is he playing with her? maybe. nene puffs out her cheeks a bit since there’s no way hanako doesn’t know what he did, but then again... mitsuba is mitsuba sometimes. she shakes her head to clear her thoughts, giving hanako’s cheeks a final squish before slipping them out of his grasp and folding them in front of her.

feeling warmth around his wrist and a tug is enough to get him to stop moving, so when he turns to see who it is and hears her voice, his entire face lights up and he turns his entire body to wholly face her, immediately embracing her way too eagerly. 

“YASHIRO!” he.. says a little too loudly, but his expression softens when he pulls away just a bit so he can look at her again, “I didn’t think you were gonna show up.” he didn’t have very much faith on that. he’s glad to see that he was wrong. “Did you miiiss me?”

  those are her eardrums, hanako!

  despite the absolute rattling from his voice and the hug she’s wrapped in, nene manages to keep a steady look on her face. she lets him talk, nodding along with some understanding. frankly, she didn’t think she would reappear here either, but life works in mysterious ways!