As Uika poured the coffee, a thought sprung into her mind.
She didn’t say it back.
Though it sounded like a whisper from the dark, a sound fit for a scream within her quiet apartment, it didn’t make her flinch. These sorts of thoughts came often. She sometimes thought of it as her shadow, whispering things to her in a voice that sounded like her own. A particularly annoying sort of house guest, one that might quiet down if you raised your voice or lay crying in bed for long enough, but would never really leave.
This thought, however, was merely giving voice to the feeling in her chest, like hearing an echo just before it faded entirely. You knew it came from somewhere; this time she knew it came from her, and her shadow was merely the cave in which she’d screamed it.
Did that make sense? Probably not. But it gave her comfort to pretend anyway.
Though she’d felt such joy the past few hours, it was all still… new. The shape of her and Sakiko’s relationship was unfamiliar. Better, most likely. But how did she navigate it?
Uika had lied to Sakiko, saying all of her memories were of her sister, and not her. Sakiko had seen right through her. Uika had then lied again, bringing her to the Togawa home as though she were Sakiko’s friend, helping her to escape the Togawas. Sakiko hadn’t flinched under Sadaharu’s firm gaze, not even when the lie was revealed.
Sakiko said she wanted to throw it all out—all the fetters of the past. To move forward simply without caring about all that. Even now, thinking about it, Uika felt that familiar yearning within her heart. Saki-chan is so incredible. She meant it. She meant it. Yes, twice; she had to assert it to herself to give no room for her shadow to slither in.
Regrettable, then, that shadows could slip in anywhere.
Their entire relationship was based on a lie. All of it lies. She kept on lying, even after Sakiko said she was done with them.
She didn’t say it back.
How could she say it back, when all Sakiko knew about her was that she was a liar? That she was her own aunt, even? Disgusting. Vile. Familiar words slipping in, like one would comfortable shoes. After all, she was a tragic heroine of her own making, why wouldn’t she find excuses to make herself feel horrible? She could never be happy. She could never let herself be happy. That would mean she was truly, actually disgusting in a way that no one could forgive. That no one could love.
But she didn’t say it back.
She had not said it back.
She didn’t love her.
She couldn’t love her.
How could she love her?
She knew you loved the stars.
The spoon stirring the sugar into the white mug paused. Uika blinked. She looked up, as if expecting to find some stranger in her kitchen. But there was no one.
Uika drew in a breath. She let it out, unable to suppress an accompanying shudder. She put away the spoon, then took the gold mug up the ladder to the loft. She found Sakiko there, her eyes, the color of the sun, staring up through the skylight. Uika stilled a moment, admiring from afar, not wanting to break the spell of life’s pause.
Then Sakiko turned her head. Locked eyes with her. And smiled at her, as radiant as ever.
Maybe she hadn’t said it back.
But maybe that didn’t have to mean she wouldn’t ever say it back.
Their relationship was built on lies. But going forward, maybe it didn’t have to be.
Uika smiled back to Sakiko, letting the warmth of her bloom in her chest. She finished climbing up, crawled towards Sakiko, and offered her the mug. Sakiko sat up, taking the mug. There was the mildest twinge of regret in her eyes.
Because now she has to look at you and the reality of it all, it said.
“No… I don’t think that’s it…”
“Pardon?” said Sakiko.
Uika blinked. “Did I say something?”
At that, Sakiko laughed. “And here you’re the one who told me to sleep more. Didn’t you make a coffee for the both of us?”
Uika looked down at her empty hands. Thought of the white mug, the sugar she’d mixed in her coffee. Then she smiled again, and sat down next to Sakiko.
“You’re all I need, Saki-chan.”
Sakiko didn’t say it back.
She lay on the floor of the loft in Uika’s apartment, the smell of coffee pervading. For the brief time that Uika allowed her to doze, her thoughts drifted, inevitably seizing on those words spoken but seconds ago.
Before she learned who Uika was, she had a growing awareness of the other girl’s feelings for her. Uika’s gaze always lingered. Or strayed, when she thought Sakiko wasn’t looking. Her presence was just a little too close than was proper. But even without those, Uika was not very… subtle, with her affections.
“I’ll do anything you ask, Saki-chan!" A hint.
“I’m fine because my dream of being with you forever came true, Saki-chan.” All but an open declaration of love.
“You know I want, I want, I want, I want you so, I want…” Hm, yes.
Togawa Sakiko was not a fool, but even if she was, those lyrics had been a scream from the heart that no one could’ve ignored.
What did she make of those emotions, though? She couldn’t be sure. No one had loved her in a romantic sense before. Or at least was much more subtle about it than Uika was. But Sakiko wanted to fully process what she felt, and give an honest response.
That’s what she wanted to do, anyway.
“Even though I loved, and loved again, never could I love enough. Nor was I ever loved.”
Writing the scripts for Ave Mujica performances fell to Sakiko, always. The words had simply fallen out of her without her thinking of them. At the time, she had felt such a sense of dread, the chains of her own making drawing her down, that she couldn’t be bothered to erase what felt, in a small way she didn’t want to acknowledge, like a scream from her own heart.
“I want to give you all of my life… if you’ll have it.”
An implied question. Not demanding, but still seeking. Sakiko hadn’t had the opportunity to sort out her emotions, and shortly thereafter things had gotten... hectic. But even at the time, despite the embarrassment she felt when the song was performed, she’d felt something. Now, thinking about it, she thought she could give words to that feeling.
It wasn’t…
It wasn’t unpleasant.
At the same time, she couldn’t fathom it.
Uika—the “real” Uika, the girl she met one summer… She had barely known that Uika. Moreover, her Uika, the one making coffee for her now, she had known only a single day. What stoked that passion? What drove that love?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Uika climbed the stairs to the loft. Sakiko opened her eyes, waiting. When Uika didn’t call out, she let out a quiet laugh through her nose, imagining those purple eyes gazing at her fondly over the edge of the loft’s floor.
Even if she couldn’t understand, it was not unpleasant. While that didn’t feel like an answer, or at least not answer enough, she felt like it would suffice enough for now.
Sakiko turned her head and smiled at Uika. Uika’s eyes, ever so expressive, widened at first as if surprised. Then she smiled back with all the gentleness of the night sky.
The coffee Uika made for her had no sugar, but even so, Sakiko thought it tasted sweet.