I'm Glad I Made You My Girlfriend

Kaede,

My sweet Kaede, 

I love cheesy shit like this. For as long as I could remember, I fantasized about my future love giving me a letter just like this. One that called me sweet and doted on me about all the things they love about me. 

That’s not gonna be this letter, though. 

This is gonna be everything I can’t bear to tell you face-to-face because I’m a stupid coward. 

Even so, I wanted to start this with something that isn’t selfish for once. Something that’s cute. I can’t help but wanna start this way, because it’s the perfect opener for a cute, sweet, wonderful person and girlfriend like you. 

It’s honest. Simple. Fits you to a damn “T” and I’ll slap you if you even try disagreeing with my assessment. 

Because you, Akino Kaede, ARE sweet. And you’re mine. 

“Fuck.”

“Fuck, fuck.” 

^Right there, my gut reaction. This cringe-as-hell opening, cheesy and lame, right? Most people would cringe right back: ‘How childish. I’m embarrassed for her girlfriend,’ they’d think. ‘What a cliche—is that dumb bitch still in grade school?’ 

Sorry. I have a lot to be sorry for, but for this specifically, I’m sorry I went off on another self-hating tangent here. Right off the bat, even. To be honest, this isn’t something I planned or wrote drafts for (that’s an obvious lie, I went through two papers and four sides mustering up the balls to “be honest,” as Momoko told me). I guess, when you look at it in that context, my first instinct is to knock myself down a peg or five. 

To hate myself and praise you. You hate it when I do that, and you’re the same damn thing as me, hating the self while praising each other for reasons we ourselves are too fucked up and depressed to accept as fact. 

You and I deny our quality. Constantly. We CONSTANTLY deny our self-worth. Not out qualities, the existence of them, no. We deny our QUALITY as people. 

That’s just it. That’s what we do, Kaede, that’s what we’ve always done the very moment you and I say something good about each other. 

And I know it isn’t because we don’t believe in them, because, well, we’ve been a couple for two years now, and we can’t deny the facts right in front of us. It’d be stupid to seriously turn a blind eye to the things that have kept us together, that built the bedrock of our initial friendship. 

No. Like I said, it’s not that we don’t believe the existence of these things. 

Rather…

It’s that we disagree about our quality as people. We disagree that our worth outweighs our faults. 

Kaede, we disagree—and neither of us had ever breathed life into this very obvious feeling we both got—--but the two of us absolutely, vehemently disagree that you and I are good for each other. 

Right now you might be having a gut reaction yourself: ‘Rena-chan, no!’ you probably cried aloud, ya big baby. I love you for that, though. 

Fuck, I love you. 

And yet, you don’t think that’s a big deal. That your quote-unquote, ‘obsession,’ matters in the long run because you still haven’t managed to crack the inner walls of my heart. I know that, because you actually confessed to feeling this way. Oh, I’ve done that, too, you’re probably thinking, and I’ll get to that. 

You confessed all that to me, Kaede. More than once. And I’ve told you back that I don’t think I’m worth all your time and love. I told you everything I could: that I’m scum and I hate myself because I have a shitty personality because I had a dumb lonely life because I’m anxious and weird because I don’t know what to say ever and that causes me to blurt out mean shit in order to hide that and it just makes people hate me and then I hate myself because it’s a cycle I’m trapped in and there’s nothing I could ever do to fix it. 

But you know all of this already. 

You’ve also figured out, most likely, that I was never totally honest with you in these times, either. You never pressed, though, and at the very least I know it’s because you don’t want to put me on the spot and make me uncomfortable. 

That’s what my brain thinks, anyway. And my brain does most of the talking in these times. 

My heart, though, it’s a completely different story. And that’s the point of this letter. 

This stupid letter with that cheesy, cringey opening line. ‘My sweet Kaede.’ Pfft. 

I’m not saying that most people would think of it that way on the spot. But they would feel it. They’d cringe right back, like I said. Heck, you probably winced, all embarrassed, when you first read that, thinking gruff Rena-chan has finally snapped. And that’s what I’ve always been afraid of, Kaede—not exactly what people’d think of me, and not what they would make fun of me for. 

Rather, it’s the people I love reacting this way, and then lying through their fucking teeth about it. Already, even, Rena’s primed to reject everything you’re gonna tell me the next time we meet. 

Everybody else, I couldn’t give less of a shit about what they think (probably because I’m used to no one liking me). Not tryna make this into a ‘woe is me’ letter, that’s honestly how it is. Can’t lie to you about that, though, so of course, it still bothers me. 

That ‘bother,’ though, doesn’t come close to the suffocating feeling I’m getting when I think of you cringing to that opening line. Or the rest of this letter. 

Fuck fuck I’m fucking keeping it this needs to be said dammit: wanna know the other times I can’t breathe, Kaede? 

I’ll give you a hint or two. You’re gonna love this and just love me more, I can already tell.

For one, when we’re fighting a Witch. Because I’m scared of you getting hurt. Always have, always will. Specifically, when I myself am in the heat of battle—because what if, I think to myself, what if this is it? ‘The final fight?’ The one where I lose everything because I’m not strong enough to win? 

Or worse, too weak to get my mind off of you? To trust you, even as you prove yourself nine times out of ten these days to be a powerful, competent magical girl? 

And then I feel like shit after. Because I always cuff you on the noggin for some silly mistake that I always top the moment I blame you for my own weakness. 

I’m such a jackass. You know this, you tell me it, you stick with me despite it and you’re the most amazing girlfriend I don’t deserve for a second—but that doesn’t erase the fact that my glowing characteristic can be summed up as “jackass.” 

Let’s move on before I start pitying myself in circles. 

Here’s a pretty terrible one: I can’t breathe when we’re with Momoko. Yeah, stupid, huh? The most chill, supportive, kindest fucking person I ever had the privilege of knowing, not to mention call my friend, and I’m afraid of her. 

The worst part is it’s nothing that can be explained away, or logic’d around, because I know for a FACT that Momoko is genuinely a chill, supportive, kind fucking person at heart. 

But Minami Rena is, at heart, a paranoid broken little girl too afraid to trust anybody. 

Not even her own girlfriend. Pretty messed up, huh? 

And that’s another time I can’t breathe—whenever I’m with you. 

Yeah.

Yeah. 

You can throw this away now and delete me from your contacts. It’s all downhill from here. 

Why? 

Why, Kaede?

Why can’t I trust you and Momoko? 

In my head I know I can. And despite what I feel, I still do. But my heart, it just disagrees. It gets tight and hard to breathe at the dumbest, littlest things, and infects my brain with thoughts I can’t get rid of:

Like, ‘why did Momoko’s smile die immediately when she looked away from us that one time? Is she only pretending to be happy for us? Is she jealous, does she think we’re gross?’ 

And it doesn’t stop with her, like I said: ‘Is Kaede only staying with me because she pities me, and she doesn’t want me killing myself?’ 

‘How annoyed does Kaede get with my self-pitying?’ 

‘With the lies that I’m fine to avoid this?’ 

‘The lies that I trust her?’ 

‘The apparent lie that I find her stupidly sexy, even though I’m hardly if ever the one to initiate that stuff?’ 

‘Does Kaede only like me for my body?’ Which leads to the stupid feeling, ‘I’m gonna sag if we get older. She’ll probably wanna stop touching me, even if we ARE still together by then.’ 

These feelings haunt me, Kaede. They CURSE me! I can’t logic around them, I can’t convince myself that they’re all stupid and ridiculous, because I’m ME and I just CAN’T because I’m so FUCKING TERRIFIED of being caught off guard in the chance that any of them become real and we end the same way all of my relationships had in the past! 

That’s why I will never stop thinking that you’d be happier in the long run if we broke up. 

With all the love in my heart, 

Akino Kaede

P.S.

I hope that this didn’t offend you, Rena-chan. 

I hope that, instead of getting riled up and denying all that I’ve gleaned from our time together, the conversations we’ve had, that you come to accept my acceptance of these hidden sentiments, and that I truly do love you. 

I hope that, instead of thinking this was me taking potshots at you and venting over our fruitless discussions, you can ignore the protests of your soul and trust that I always have—and always will—accept these faults of yours. Even if they never get better. 

I hope that, when I tell you this was a desperate bid as a result of said frustrations, that you focus less on the ‘frustrations’ and more on the ‘desperate bid.’ 

I hope that, despite my selfishness in claiming this to be a ‘desperate bid (to make Rena-chan realize I truly love her, warts and all),’ you see past that exasperated label and see the intent behind my effort. 

Most hopefully of all, I hope that my desperate bid finally gets past the walls of your inner heart. I hope it penetrates your soul and it in turn accepts my feelings, at last. All of them. I hope your soul doesn’t writhe in protest and doubt me for protection’s sake, and instead, calms. 

I hope your heart calms after these sixteen painful years of living. 

I hope you start feeling calm when you’re with me. 

And I hope this calm perpetuates when I say, ‘I love you.’ 

‘Will you marry me, Rena-chan?’ 

The silver band crowned with a ruby clattered on the floor, shrank-shrank-shrank to a twinkling speck until it couldn’t shrink no more, until Rena’s back slammed unto the wall so hard that her little brother knocked back. 

Such a puny thing from afar, yet even so it still felt like the biggest, most horrifying Witch that ever lived. 

It was just a dumb piece of cheesy jewelry her girlfriend had comissioned—a gesture that in of itself made Rena’s heart skip a beat. 

Wait, what does this mean? thought that oft-mentioned ‘inner heart’ behind the ‘inner walls’ of Rena’s soul. An answer came and it terrified. 

It warmed the soul. 

It warmed beyond the walls so suddenly it was pushed right back out, only for the warmth to force its way back in, penetrating her walls, stabbing her in the eyes. 

It wasn’t Kaede’s soul gem. 

It isn’t Kaede’s soul gem. I thought she was nearby ready to jump out but it’s not. I shoulda known this but I thought the lack of magic meant she somehow dampened it. 

So it wasn’t one of her playful little games. 

And it wasn’t the result of Rena thinking she completely erased her memory, Tamaki Ui-style, of this embarrassing tirade, penned in ink. This tirade that was addressed to her girlfriend, spoke with Rena’s voice, uttered Rena’s darkest, most shameful thoughts, and ended with her girlfriend’s fluffy signature. 

It might be a forgery though. Mitama, maybe—she saw everything, only she could know a girl so intimately. It might be a forgery, then, this signature. This signature which blurred and melted together and stung to look upon, to think about, to even exist knowing and seeing and thinking about. 

Her phone was in the same boat, but the screen clearly read Akino Kaede, and the speakers rang a dull, monotonous beat until cutting off abruptly, quickly, too quickly. 

“Moshi-moshi, Rena-chan?” she greeted all innocent-like. 

How dare she. How fucking dare she. Fuck you, Kaede! Just fuck you! Something within Rena couldn’t put this to words, instead expelling the emotion of it in a single, long sound. 

“R-Rena?! Rena, I—! I’m sorry, I was completely wrong, wasn’t I?!” 

That did it. She knew damn-well that she was right: “Fuck you, Kaede!” Rena wailed. 

“Wha—?” 

“Who the hell do you think you are, takin’ me down a peg or five and then scooping me up when I’m a mess with this stupid proposal?! You couldn’t even bring yourself to do it in person, huh?!” 

“No.” Rena jerked feeling slapped by her word. The… the succinctness of it. The lightness in her tone, yet the tightness in her utterance—“I’m a fucking mess, Rena-chan.” 

Cussing so vilely, so Rena-like out of nowh—“I think so little of myself that I never had the confidence to approach you about all these worrying signs I’ve noticed over the years.” 

“Kaede!” Rena blubbered, all she could say: a plea, a heartbroken demand for her to stop even though she’d never, ever given Kaede the same courtesy. 

“But you gave me that confidence, Rena. Not just in life and in battle, but for us, too. You’re too important to me to wanna roll up in a ball and shield myself from our pain forever.” 

The enormity of Kaede’s courage made Rena gasp. The familiarity of her feelings and the comparative failure of Rena choked her simultaneously. Coughing, hacking so hard she saw red spotting her vision, brought Kaede to cast a life preserve in the distant coos of, “I love you, Rena. I know you so well by this point and I still love you.” 

“IDIOT!” tore loose from Rena’s soul. “What makes you think that’s making me cry?! You could be wrong! I could be embarrassed! You-y-y-you fucking idiot, Kaede! You’re a complete and utter moron!” 

Calmly, before regret could send Rena’s thumb rocketing into the ‘End Call’ button, Kaede asked, “Did I read you wrong after all these years, Rena-chan?” 

“Shut up, you already know the answer to that!” 

“Then why am I a fucking idiot, Rena?” 

“YOU KNOW THAT, TOO!” 

“I don’t.” 

“YES, YOU DO!” 

“Onee-chan,” the wall behind her cried, “quit screamin’ and yellin’!” 

“FUCK YOU, KAZUMA! I’M TALKING TO MY GIRLFRIEND!” 

“I wanna hear you say it, though, Rena.” 

“Because—!” Rejection. Confirmation. Heartbreak. Rena choked on the inner walls of her heart. 

And her soul cried at the shittiness of who she was. 

“It’s okay, Rena-chan. Your heart is in chaos right now, but soon it will accept that my love for you is real.” 

Fuck her. Fuck her for being right, for knowing Rena so well, for being with her despite this stupid personality disorder. 

“It’s because you love me, you stupid idiot,” she croaked at last. Across the room, Sayuki smiled down on her, fist pumping mid-leap—as if encouraging her to be true to herself, as if knowing Kaede would always accept that truth with open heart and arms. “Even if you’re wrong, you are crazy-desperate to wanna spend the… the…” She winced, cringed, blushed even. “Even though you wanna marry me,” she powered through, “you got no idea if I’ll ever get over my stupid issues! How naive can you be, to dive into such a painful commitment and play with my heart like that?!” 

“But we’re not engaged, Rena-chan.” 

A sniffle on the other end ripped Rena’s heart in two. 

“Relationships are a two-way street from beginning to end. So, we’re not engaged until you say ‘yes.’” 

This bitch. Always making Rena look like an idiot. God, she loved her. She loved her so much that a chuckle wheezed out of Rena. “You’re betting alotta faith in me. That I won’t run away and put it off ‘til we’re wrinkly and grey.” 

“So we’re gonna be together forever regardless?” Weak laughter rattled through the speaker, within Rena’s heart. “I’d still like to make it official, though. In America, obviously, a-and, obviously, we’d come back home! But I was thinking we’d save and save and save until you and I could have the wedding of our dreams. Even though we and all our friends won’t be in Kamihama, I doubt anybody would be at risk of Witching out on such a happy day.” 

Rena snuffled, gasping a laugh. “Dammit, Kaede,” she rasped. She was so damn good at making a serious conversation light again without ever making Rena feel awkward. Kaede felt obligated, not to erase the negativity in the air, but bring out the positivity in Rena, always by being her sunny little self. 

Oh, God, Rena was just so horrible. “Dammit, Kaede!” 

“Rena-chan?!”  

“I wanna say it.” The silence’s heaviness pressed hot against her cheeks. “I… I wanna see you.” 

“Eh?! R-right now?!” 

Not just upon her face, the silence now strangled Rena’s heart. “W-we don’t have to. You could say ‘no,’ s’not like we won’t see each other tomorrow.” 

“No!” cracked Rena’s phone speaker. The quiet that followed made her heart skip a beat, because dammit, Kaede was just too genuine to ever distrust, at least not fully. “Um, I mean… no, we shouldn’t put this off. I should’ve been prepared to talk about this face to face, but I honestly didn’t account for Rena-chan to be so courageous after this.” 

That was snort-worthy. “Fuck you.” 

“Don’t tease me~” Laughter soft as a cloud fluttered forth as Rena’s entire body broke into a sweat—she couldn’t deny that her subconscious, having not writhed in protest, had already presumed tonight would end in such things. “I’m joking, sorry, this is serious.” 

“Rena-chan… I don’t want you rushing into this promise. I will see you tonight, though, and I am willing to talk about this forever for as long as it takes until you believe me.” Rena already had, dammit. “But the last thing I want is for you to accept my ring out of fear. I promise you, Rena, I don’t plan on ending our relationship anytime soon, even if you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of me committing myself to you.” 

It hurt. It hurt so bad that the back of Rena’s head thunked against the wall, that her blackened vision glowed as it turned towards the light, all in a desperate bid to breathe through the wild throbbing in her chest. 

She admitted aloud, for Kaede, “Of course you’d figure it’s because of that.” That she wasn’t afraid of commitment, or of hurting Kaede at some random time in their adult years, but rather, the notion of her girlfriend shackling herself to Rena in momentous matrimony. 

The very thing every human with a soul fantasized of. 

That Rena imagined herself standing across from Kaede, both of them in white, exchanging engagement rings that were actually their soul gems. Because, yeah, it was a cringey and sappy idea, but in the afterglow of lovemaking, when they couldn’t bear to break physical contact from one another, Rena always fancied the childish dream of being so close together at all times that they could wear one another’s soul gems without ever taking them off. 

Not only was Kaede just as sappy and cringey as her, she went ahead and commissioned a gesture with all the meaning as the real thing. 

How dare Rena drop it? How dare she?! Some madness in Rena’s heart screamed, ushering her in a spillage of diving and slapping the silver band as though it would’ve vanished if she were a second too late. 

“Rena-chan? Are you still there?” Anxiety subtly but suddenly colored her words, wobbled them gently between the feelings of, ‘Did I make her mad?’ and ‘Did I say something dumb?’ 

This consistently occurred whenever Rena spaced out like she had just now. 

“Sorry, did you say something?” The ruby twinkled beneath her fingers—Kaede’s soul, symbolically but equally as precious. 

“Oh,” came with a soft laugh, “you were in thought again.” What first sounded teasing was immediately laced with Kaede’s rambling adoration: “I love that about you, Whether it’s good or bad, it instantly tells me that you’re giving serious thought to what we’re talking about.” 

Was there anything this girl didn’t know about Rena?! This was starting to become scary, but it didn’t feel that way—if anything, any fear she felt was because Minami Rena had just been asked to marry Akino Kaede, who saw right through her and still loved what she’d seen. 

Rena couldn’t help but be selfish, and a little bit devilish: “What of it?” she prompted 

Kaede hummed, so exaggerated that it was obvious she didn’t need to think. “If I had to guess, your mind is still reeling from being entrusted with my heart. Which, if I had to be frank, is kinda ridiculous, Rena-chan. After all, you trusted me with yours years ago! It’s only fair that I offer you the same courtesy.” 

“And that’s basically what I said before. Basically, at least.” 

“Huh? Stop talking in metaphors or whatever!” 

A giggle. “Basically,” Kaede said pointedly, “after you so rapturously noticed your girlfriend’s courteous intuition, I said, ‘Rena-chan, of course you wouldn’t be all over the idea of me consigning my heart to yours. Even though I’m just a clingy, self-loathing little crybaby, I’m just too good for the clingy, self-loathing little crybaby named Minami Rena.’” 

Deep down Rena knew, for all her admiration, that Kaede was just as pathetic as she. Perhaps it’s why they made great marriage material for none but each other. Deep down, Rena knew. Had known. Always known. 

Rena knew so well that she couldn’t bring herself to agree, disagree, or even acknowledge that fact aloud. She could only joke: “You really said all of that in such a short amount of time?” She could only run. 

“Basically, like I said. You didn’t even tell me to shut up, which means you’ve acknowledged and accepted that we’re not so different from each other.” 

Damn it all. Rena had to laugh. Kaede knew her so well, knew just what to say to cut into Rena’s walls. 

A sob burst forth, too, because despite everything—despite all her problems—Kaede knew Rena so well that her heart’s inner walls had opened the pearly gates for this wimpy, clingy, crybaby magical girl. 

A wail crescendoed because despite everything—despite all her own problems—-so too did the inner walls of Rena’s heart open for Kaede. Her sweet Kaede. 

She knew this for a fact; for the first time in her life, Rena’s heart did beat steady. 

Steady did it beat as she said, “Kaede?” 

“Yeah, Rena? What is it?” Her smile was audible. Genuine. Not at all laced with ridicule or exasperation. 

Rena couldn’t even see it, and yet it was adorable. “I’m glad I made you my girlfriend,” she said. 

And then Kaede hung up. 

Kaede hung u—! Bang-bang-bang! 

Writhing with such emotion, Rena lashed her body towards the window, only for all feeling to grind and then burst in full at the druidess sitting criss-cross atop a vine like she was Jack the beanstalk climber. 

Rena threw her window open, flooding her ears with an army’s march of crickets and nose with the damp scent of night and Kaede’s earthy, fruity smell. “Were you seriously waiting nearby?” 

A gasp shuddered forth. “I ran the moment I saw you calling me.” And there was only time to catch damp tracks gleaming down Kaede’s face as she let her precious staff fall in favor of lunging both hands forth. 

Rena braced herself for something, no time to think of what. 

But it wasn’t to be yanked like a doll by Kaede’s magical girl strength, nor to be thrown from the coolness of her bedroom into the cool of night; nor the heat of her girlfriend’s stomach to cradle that of Rena’s thighs and tickle her further north. 

Barely any of this was processed as electricity tingled upwards, from loins to belly, from lips to brain as they were sucked on, bitten, breathed raggedly against and whimpered into. 

“Me too,” Kaede whispered, Rena’s cheeks filling her rough, soil-scented gloves, drunkening them both with so many memories. 

It intoxicated Rena so that she scooped up Kaede’s bottom lip, ground it gently between her teeth back and forth, to and fro, sucked so hard she smacked sharply before diving in again, gumming it, massaging Kaede’s lip like her tongue would a lollipop, desperate to melt it into sugar. 

Kaede pulled back with a cry. No, a moan—her thighs quaked beneath Rena’s cotton-clad rump. 

“I’m so glad I made you my girlfriend, Rena!” she moaned with hooded eyes, lips glistening and ruddy. 

She was so fucking cute. So damn sweet. Rena threw herself around this angel, pressing herself fully into Kaede’s self as though trying to become one with her. Maybe she was. She wanted to. Maybe. 

Skinny arms squeezed tight around Rena, trapping Rena, ensuring for all time that Rena couldn’t escape, even when physically apart and free. She would always be in Kaede’s arms, and Rena… 

“I’ll never let you go,” she said. On impulse Rena turned, planted a kiss in Kaede’s ear; she tittered, shying away as the kiss turned to nibbling, then a pleased little moan as Rena smooched her cheek once, twice, three times. “Never, I’ll never let go of you.” 

“Rena-chan,” Kaede moaned. 

“So we… we might as well agree since, you know, there’s no point in putting it off.” 

“Eh?!” Kaede yanked away, clasping Rena by the shoulders, who held back twice as fiercely, for gravity was trying to rip them apart. 

But if common sense couldn’t split them up, there’s no way something as grounded in logic as physics would have a chance: “Don’t make me say it out loud!” 

Kaede smirked. “I won’t know unless you do~” 

Rena yanked herself up and Kaede forth, only for her breasts to buck Kaede away with a yelp. “Fuck you, marry me!” Rena said as she gathered the howling redhead into a gentler hug. 

Kaede gasped between laughs. “Yes!” she cackled, her arms pinned between one another’s bosoms, hands squeezing Rena’s shoulders. “Yes, yes, of course!” 

It was obvious why she was laughing, and Rena hated it. She hated that she could barely suppress her own smirk. “Quit laughing at me, jerk!” 

“I heard an actual ‘boing,’ though!” 

“Shut the fuck up!” Rena laughed. Kaede challenged her to do so, which she accepted hands-free. 

As far as the families of Kaede and Rena knew, they spent their weekend together at Momoko’s house, informed of this by the blonde’s very mouth. 

That same mouth then checked two “adults” into a love hotel for three days and nights.