#wakei

Not a bad job if I do say so myself, she praised internally, putting her vacuum back into her storage closet.

Keiko checked the time, looking to see how long she had until they came.

Looks like I finished in good timing.

She had about thirty minutes to spare, but quite honestly, she had been pretty anxious all day. As time crept closer, she grew more tense.

It’s not that it was because the girls were coming over, because they’ve done this hundred of times in the years they’ve known each other. It was the fact that it had been several weeks since she saw her soprano co-singer outside of a work setting, and she was very nervous on how the night was going to play out. 

All day, Keiko ran through different conversations she could bring up with Wakana when she saw her to try to ease up the tension between them. As she waited, she began to think about things to say again, but before she could get very far, the sound of her cell phone ringing echoed through the house. She walked over to her mobile and read the caller ID on the screen.

“Hikaru”

Wondering if everything was okay, Keiko picked up the phone.

“What’s up, Hi-chan?”

A very queasy-sounding Hikaru replied back through the speaker.

“Errr… Keiko… I’m really sorry… but I think I got a bit of food poisoning from the dinner I had tonight… The stuff I put down has been coming back up for an hour now.”

Keiko heard a few coughs, and then some other unpleasant noises accompanying the hacking.

“Hi-chan!! Are you okay?! Well, alright, obviously not, but is there anything I can do?? I can bring you some medicine or anything else right now.”

After a couple more coughs, Hikaru managed another response. “No, don’t waste your time coming here! I’ll be okay, but I’m gonna have to skip out on the movie this time.” 

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t mind coming over at all,” Keiko offered again.

“It’s really fine! Besides, I haven’t told Wakana, so she will probably be there soon.”

At this sudden realization, Keiko’s eyes widened. If Hikaru isn’t coming, that means… 

“Oh, that’s right,” Keiko commented. “Well I hope you get better soon. Drink LOTS of water.”

Some more miserable-sounding noises resonated through the small device.

“Yes, I will. I’m really sorry again!!”

“Don’t worry about it, Hikaru. I’ll see you later.”

Keiko hung up the phone, and leaned back against the wall, putting her hands behind her back. She looked at the clock again, which now read 7:28. Her heart began to race faster.

She’s going to be here any minute now.

The anxious woman walked around her apartment once more and did a quick scan to make sure everything looked normal. She looked at the clock again. 7:30.

Maybe I should just call her and tell her before she gets here… 

Keiko brought out her phone again and began looking through her contact list to find Wakana’s name. She dialed the phone number, but after a few seconds of the outgoing ring, the familiar sound of Wakana’s “My Neighbor Totoro” ringtone resonated from outside her door.

The younger woman abruptly turned her head upon hearing this, and looked back at her phone which was still ringing.

Too late, I guess, she thought, ending the call.

Keiko walked toward her front door and looked through the peephole to see if her friend was actually standing outside. Sure enough, she saw Wakana’s sweet, but now confused face there.

Keiko took a deep breath, readying herself for this meeting. She reached for the door handle, and then slowly opened it to greet her co-singer.

“Hi.”

Wakana quickly looked up, surprised by the sudden appearance of her friend.

“Uhh, Keiko! Hello… did you just call me?”

Wakana glanced inside Keiko’s apartment, looking around for her other band member. 

“Is Hi-chan here?” she questioned further. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late…”

Even after several weeks, the tension between the two women still lingered in the air. Since they hadn’t really talked in awhile, their words came out slowly, both trying to be cautious of what they were saying.

Keiko’s hand gripped the door handle, her heart still pounding in her chest. Wakana was very anxious as well, her hands growing sweatier by the second.

Keiko smiled sheepishly.  “Actually, that’s what I was just calling you about… She called earlier and was nearly throwing up her entire body weight. The poor girl got some bad food poisoning from something she ate tonight. Anyways… she’s not going to make it here…”

Wakana blushed, understanding the situation she was in now. “Ehh!! Well I hope she’s going to be okay!! We can reschedule for another time! I wish someone told me that so I didn’t come all the way here and bother you!!” 

“No! Don’t be silly,” Keiko said, waving her hands back and forth trying to brush off Wakana’s distress. “If you don’t have anything else going on, please come in. She just called about ten minutes ago so I didn’t have enough time to tell you before you got here.”

“Oh, well that’s okay! But if she’s not here, then I should probably go back. I don’t want to-” Wakana started, trying to choose what to do.

Keiko interrupted her thought. “Are you sure? It would be nice if you came in even for just a little…”

The air grew heavy again, and Wakana tried to decide if going in and being alone with Keiko would be the best thing to do. In normal circumstances, she would have gladly accompanied her friend. 

The older woman’s cheeks were still flushed with a noticeable shade of pink. “I don’t know… I really think I should come again when Hikaru is well…”

Keiko saw how flustered Wakana was, and she felt bad about how uncomfortable their friendship was at the moment.

In what seemed to be the first time in forever, Keiko looked straight into her best friend’s eyes, a pleading look on her face. Knowing that they had to confront their situation at some point, she asked her again, imploringly. 

“Wakana… please. I think we should talk.” 

Upon hearing the urgency in Keiko’s voice, Wakana’s heart skipped a beat. The one person she could hardly say no to was Keiko, and she especially couldn’t listening to how desperate she sounded in that moment. 

Knowing that she was right, and remembering how much she missed her best friend, Wakana agreed to her request. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” the younger woman replied softly.

The older girl cautiously made her way into the wide apartment as Keiko moved out of the way to let her in. She set her bag down in the corner while Keiko closed the door behind them.

“I’ll be right back,” Keiko noted, walking away into another room.

Wakana looked around Keiko’s apartment, taking in the familiar place she knew so well. It was a home she’s visited more times than she could count on all of her fingers and toes combined.

She saw the TV the three of them in Kalafina had so many marathons on, the couch they had sat and cried together on numerous times for many different things, the pictures of them and Keiko’s family surrounding the walls. She even saw the little dinosaur stuffed animal she once gave to Keiko as a gift for her birthday.

Wakana laughed. Perhaps that was more well-suited for me…

All of these little things brought back fond memories of their times with each other to Wakana. It had been nearly a month since the older girl had been inside the apartment, and she got a little teary-eyed thinking about all the fun memories her, Keiko, and Hikaru have made together over the years. She loved the two girls more than anything, and she couldn’t stand any longer putting off her friendship with Keiko over a little jealousy and argument.

Keiko walked back in the room, a few DVDs in her hand. She held one out.

“Well this is the movie we were supposed to watch with Hikaru, but we shouldn’t watch it without her. We can-”

After thinking about the past several years together, how terrible the past few weeks have been, and wanting to fix their situation as soon as possible, Wakana cut Keiko off mid-sentence.  

“Keiko, I’m sorry!!!” she exclaimed.

Surprised by the sudden outburst, Keiko looked up at the older girl, who looked genuinely apologetic, a guilt covering her face as well.

“Wakana…” Keiko began.  

Wakana didn’t let her continue. “I shouldn’t have said any of the stuff I said after that interview!! I was just upset at the time and the words wouldn’t stop!!! I didn’t mean any of it! Everything has completely been my fault!”

The tears were already starting to form again, but Wakana held them back, not wanting to seem like a weak child in front of Keiko this time. Keiko listened to the apologetic woman, hating that she was taking all the blame. 

“Please forgive me!” the older girl finished.

Keiko put down the DVDs and walked over to Wakana, grabbing the woman’s shoulders with both of her hands. In all seriousness, she spoke to her friend.

“Wakana, stop. I should be the one apologizing. I never should have brought up… that time with you. It was one of the worst things I probably could have said, but it just slipped out in the moment. You know I would never intentionally say anything to hurt you… I’m the one that’s sorry.”

As she talked, Keiko’s grip became tighter, as if she was trying to convey her regret through her body as well.

“But I’m the one who started accusing you of ridiculous things first! In the end, this wasted month was because of me..” Wakana concluded, looking down at the floor out of shame. 

Keiko jerked Wakana a little closer, forcing her to look up.

“Wa-chan… I don’t even care what was said anymore, because we both know neither of us meant it. I just want to be able to talk to my best friend again…” Keiko trailed off, her eyes and mind wandering somewhere else. 

Wakana nearly missed what Keiko was saying, her concentration taken by Keiko’s face who was now only inches away from her own. It wasn’t until after about 30 seconds that Wakana realized she had been holding her breath while Keiko talked. She froze and stared at her co-singer’s face, afraid something would happen if she moved. 

“Yes… me too…” the older girl said absentmindedly.

After a few more seconds, Wakana snapped out of her daze, her brain now focusing back into the world. As they stood there, she saw that Keiko’s eyes were fixated on something on her face, and her pulse began to quicken thinking about what could be going through her co-singer’s mind.

Not wanting to reveal this funny feeling that was starting to stir inside of her, Wakana began to pull out of the stronger woman’s grip, who suddenly came back to reality too.

Just now realizing how close she was to her band member, Keiko quickly let go and took a step back.

“Right. Well then, let’s promise never to be that stupid again,” Keiko commented, her cheeks flushing slightly from the previous moment.

Wakana smiled shyly. “Yes, that’s a good idea.”

Wanting to change the scene, Keiko turned and grabbed the DVDs she went to get a few moments ago.

“Well we can watch a movie, if you still want to do that? I looked for a few I thought you would enjoy,” she offered, waving the discs around in the air. “Or we can do something else… whatever you want.”

Before Wakana could open her mouth, her stomach spoke for her. It growled loudly, telling it’s owner what it wanted her to do.

Wakana laughed and rubbed the back of her head. I was so nervous about coming here I forgot to have dinner…

“Could we maybe eat…?” the older girl requested, realizing how hungry she was.

Keiko chuckled. This was the Wakana she had been missing.

“I guess I can cook something up,” she said with a wink.

  Half an hour later, the girls were hard at work in the kitchen, cooking up a meal with all the food Keiko always had stocked up. They had decided to keep it simple, and just make some soup for two.

Keiko grabbed some vegetables from her fridge and set them down on the counter. She turned toward Wakana and pointed to one of the drawers to her right. 

“The knives are over there,” she said, smirking.

Wakana flipped her hair playfully and began to walk toward the cutting board. “You know me so well.”

“We all know how much chopping the food means to you, Wakana. Even the fans know,” Keiko teased.

Wakana opened the knife drawer and pulled out a medium-sized cutting knife. She took some carrots out of the bag and began chopping, laughing while doing so.

“Oh, that’s right. I guess we did talk about it on Kalafina Club once… What was it about again?”

Keiko thought back to that time, digging through her cabinets for a pot. “It was about us having our own cooking show or being on a cooking show or something like that, wasn’t it?”

Wakana momentarily stopped cutting the vegetables and looked down at Keiko, remembering that part of the episode they had.

“Ahh, yes! We assigned ourselves roles. I said chopping was relaxing so I was in charge of preparations, you would do the cooking, and Hikaru said she didn’t really enjoy either so she was in charge of decorations. 

Keiko slowly emerged from her search with a big pot. She walked over to the sink and filled it with water.

“Well, you were pretty adamant about doing the preparations, if I remember correctly,” she noted humorously. 

“I love it! Just call me Wakana the Chopper,” the older girl joked.

Keiko rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You’re a dork.”

The two girls continued to get the food, finally working in comfortable silence for once. Keiko prepared the seasonings and stirred them into the soup while Wakana stayed true to her job and kept on cutting up the vegetables. She was working on slicing tomatoes now, happily.

The mention of the Kalafina Club that was so old made Wakana start reminiscing about the past, thinking all the way back to when Kalafina first became a group. She remembered how awkward and quiet they were back then, especially Hikaru who talked even less than she did now.

Wakana giggled to herself. We’ve come a long way since then…

Finishing up one tomato, she shoved it to the side and began chopping another one. 

She then thought about the very first time she met Keiko. Their company hosted a singing event at a restaurant and they introduced themselves to each other there. They didn’t talk much at the time, but she remembered feeling intimidated by how talented and beautiful her voice was. It seemed funny now, because although Keiko’s talent still intimidated Wakana to this day, the younger girl was one of the few people Wakana could truly be herself and was most comfortable around.

But to think things would become like this… Back then I never would have thought-

“Agh!” Wakana stopped cutting and looked down at her hand when she felt a sharp pain.

Keiko abruptly turned from the stove and looked over when she heard the yelp from her friend. “What happened? Are you okay?”

While cutting the tomatoes, Wakana had zoned out and momentarily stopped paying attention to where she was placing the knife. She put the the knife down and held her left hand, which she accidentally sliced a gash in and was now bleeding significantly.

“Ah, I accidentally cut my hand a little…” she said, examining the wound more closely.

“What?!” Keiko set her ladle down and rushed over to look at Wakana’s hand. “A little??? Wakana, this is a long cut!” 

Keiko quickly grabbed a clean cloth and wet it, and started to dab some of the blood away. Wakana winced a little at the touch.

“How did you do this??” the younger woman asked.

“I guess I just spaced out for a little and stopped paying attention,” Wakana said back.

Keiko stopped wiping and then rinsed out the cloth.

 “Well at least it doesn’t look like it’s very deep… I was afraid you would need stitches, but it should be okay if we clean it up a little,” she commented, looking at the injury again. “It’s still bleeding though, so we should try to stop the flow and then disinfect it and wrap it up.”

Wakana nodded. “Sorry, Keiko… I can do it myself so you don’t have to go through the trouble.”   

The other woman shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Come on, the first aid kit is in my bedroom.”

Keiko turned off the stove and then the girls walked over to Keiko’s room, sitting down on the bed. Keiko took out the first aid kit from her bedside table and tried to soak up some more of the blood that had come out.  

“There, the flow looks like it’s stopped.”

Wakana gently touched her hand, making sure it really was done bleeding.

“Thank you, Keiko,” she told her co-singer. “You’re too good of a friend to me sometimes.”

Keiko got out an antibiotic spray and pulled off the cap.

“Flattery won’t get you a higher quality band-aid, you know,” she teased, laughing. “Watch out, it’s gonna sting.” 

Wakana felt the spray on her, which burned, but she toughed out the pain. 

“I mean it! Even after all the stuff I said, you’re still kind enough to cook for me and care for my injury when I was being an idiot.”

“Hey now, we already said we would move past this,” the younger girl stated.

Keiko put the antibiotic spray back, and then finally got out some gauze to wrap up Wakana’s hand. She began to spin it around the wound.

“Yeah… but it still makes me sad to think about,” Wakana noted.

“We all say stuff we don’t mean… By the way, why were you so upset after the interview?” Keiko questioned, curiosity finally reaching her.

Wakana tensed up upon hearing the question, not knowing what to say.

I can’t tell her the real reason why… she thought to herself.

Keiko felt her stiffen up and looked up.

“Is it too tight?” she asked, concerned.

Wakana shook her head. “No, no, it’s fine!”

Well… I don’t have to lie completely.

“Anyways… I just started thinking about the future and how eventually we’ll have to start our own lives is all,” she replied, mixing up the story a little.  

Keiko sighed and finished up wrapping up Wakana’s hand. “It was because of that question they asked me, wasn’t it?”

Wakana looked away and mumbled. “Perhaps that was part of the reason…”

Keiko got a pair of scissors and then cut the end of the gauze. “Well, you don’t have to worry about me going any time soon. As for Hikaru, I’m not sure. I’m always convinced she has some kind of secret life going on,” Keiko joked, chuckling.

Wakana laughed as the younger girl dug around for a safety pin inside the first aid kit to hold the wrap together. She finally found one and finished up the treatment for the cut, pinning down the bandage.

“All done!” she said.

Wakana looked at her hand, admiring the great job done. Keiko had fixed it up so smoothly.

“Wow, someone will be really lucky to have you, Keiko. If I could, I would marry you myself!” Wakana teased, half-jokingly.

Hearing those words come out of Wakana’s mouth, Keiko’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She could instantly feel the heat rushing to her face.

Wakana continued on, laughing. “Then again, who would want to be with a klutz who can’t even chop vegetables correctly!”

The injured girl motioned with her wounded hand, waving it around.

To Keiko, everything her co-singer said after the first statement was a blur. She knew the words were nothing more than a joke, but her attraction for the woman in front of her kept growing with every second they were together, and that comment certainly did not help. 

The younger girl remained silent, and Wakana looked at her blank face, confused.

“Keiko?” Wakana waved her hand in front of the woman’s face. “Hello??”

Keiko gently stopped the older girl’s hand and held onto it. She wasn’t sure what to do, but she found herself leaning in closer to her co-singer, her body doing something different than what her mind was telling her. She couldn’t help but stare at the other woman’s lips that were soft and pink and looked so inviting. 

Stop, Keiko. You’re making a mistake, her brain was saying to herself.

 Wakana could feel the heat from Keiko’s hand and her heart began to race. She could feel her best friend getting closer, yet she didn’t do anything to stop it.

“Keiko… what are you doing?” she asked softly.

The younger girl continued to lean in, her face getting closer.

“I don’t know…” she answered, her breath airy.

Wakana gripped the bed with her free hand. She almost pinched herself, because she surely had to be dreaming. Never in a million years did she think she would find herself in this situation, especially not right after she just poured everything she held inside to Hikaru. She also knew, after everything that has happened, that Keiko could do better.

“You don’t want to do this… What about your dream guy?”

Keiko gently placed her other hand on Wakana’s shoulder, replying again, her mouth taking on a mind of its own. 

“Wakana... I have loved you since we met and every time that question comes up, the reason I always say looks don’t matter is because no one will ever be as beautiful to me as you are.”

Wakana’s cheeks flooded with a shade of bright pink hearing this declaration. By now, she wanted so badly to just let herself go, but she was still hesitant, her conscious still fighting her. The younger girl was now only inches away from her face. 

At this point, Wakana was so close that Keiko could feel her warm breath skate across her lips. It took everything inside of her to hold herself back and make sure this was what Wakana wanted also.

“Keiko…” the older girl started. “You shouldn’t… One day someone better will come along and steal your heart.”

Decreasing the small space between them, Keiko made her final assertion. 

“It’s already been stolen, Wakana.”

The tense girl finally gave in, her body finally letting down its guard. Feeling this, Keiko slowly closed the gap between the two, and gently pressed her lips against her best friend’s.

The heat of Keiko’s touch ran throughout all of Wakana’s body. The other woman’s lips felt warm and soft against her own, and she began to return the gesture.

Neither of the pair had ever felt this kind of static, both deepening the kiss a little further. Keiko grasped onto her co-singer, not wanting to let go. She had been waiting for this moment for years and wanted to take in every second she could.

Eventually the two broke apart, soaking in what they just experienced. Keiko let go of Wakana’s hand, and they stared at each other smiling, both at a loss for words.

After a few seconds, Wakana furrowed her eyebrows. “So if you weren’t flirting with that guy, why did you take his name card?”

Keiko tilted her head, confused. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“In Shanghai… the one you said was cool when you came into the dressing room.”

Keiko thought hard, trying to remember who her co-singer was talking about. The memory finally came back to her. “Oh! That wasn’t a name card silly… He came up to me after the interview and told me he knew that you loved sharks. He said he worked for this museum that has this awesome shark exhibit, so he gave me a pass. Then I told him how I’ve touched a shark before and how upset you got when you found out and we were both cracking up.”

“Wait, are you serious?!?! You really got a ticket?!” Wakana asked, disregarding any information about the man and only focusing on the stuff about the sharks.

“Yeah, but I’m thinking about going myself…” Keiko said. “It seems pretty cool.” 

“Kei-chan!!” Wakana exclaimed. This was not a matter she liked to mess around about.

Keiko laughed and tapped Wakana’s nose. “I’m joking!” 

The younger girl pulled out two passes from her bedside drawer and showed them to Wakana.