Chapter Text
I think my bangs might be glued to my face.
Honestly, everything is probably glued to me with all this sweat. I think my ring is permanently fused to my finger.
My co-worker’s saying something, I think. I honestly don’t remember her name.
“Don’t you think, Asahina-san?”
“Mm.”
That’s all I've got. I feel like I’m melting. I probably am. Clawing off my skin would be preferable at this point.
The door chimes again. I fight the urge to bash my head into the counter.
My co-worker straightens up beside me, watching the customer stumble to the back. He’s probably just here to warm up. It’s freezing out, not that my body cares. I’m melting like it’s the middle of August.
I should get up. My manager will chew me out if I spend my shift turning his counter into a puddle.
My arms peel off the counter with an ugly, sticky sound, and I lean back to take in the customer properly.
He’s hunched over his phone by the drinks, his face all red and blotchy. Kid’s probably on his way back from school, judging by the uniform.
My mind drifts back to those days, winter wind biting at my cheeks on the way home.
No, that’s not right.
I couldn’t even feel the cold back then.
I watch the kid press something on his headphones. I swear they make his head look five times too small.
He looks so tiny and winded, like he's two seconds from passing out.
I fiddle with my ring.
He almost looks like...
My stomach twists. I leave the counter and walk to the back.
I stop thinking for a while.
— — —
The door chimes again. The kid must be on his way out. I wipe the cold sweat off my face and stumble back to the counter.
“Asahina-san?”
Her tone is really toeing the line between polite and pissed off.
“Sorry. Sick.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You said that last shift.”
I really don’t have the energy to deal with this right now. I’m running on thirty minutes of sleep and a migraine that’s just dying to pop off.
“Look, I’m really sticking my neck out for you. I know you’re— you know.” she gestures vaguely. “But like, I can’t always cover for you. Not getting paid enough to work two jobs, you know?”
I’m dizzy, I’m sweaty, my bangs are sticking to my face, and my bad leg’s acting up again.
I can’t stop thinking about that kid with the flushed cheeks and his stupidly large headphones. I think of who he reminds me of. I think of our life together.
I think of my life, how I ended up making pennies at Family Mart of all places.
I hop over the counter.
“I quit.”
“You—”
“I quit.”
She’s right. I’m not really working here, anyways. Might as well make it official.
I’m out the door before she can get another word in. I can figure out the details later. If my manager needs to track me down, then so be it. I don’t care anymore. Fuck this place. Fuck it all.
The night air hits me like a slap to the face, sweat clawing at my skin with an unwelcome chill.
I’m so sensitive to temperature these days. I almost miss when I couldn’t feel it at all. It’s like my body’s making up for lost time by jumping from extreme to extreme.
I go to button up my coat and realise I didn’t grab it on the way out. I’m in a fucking t-shirt. In early February.
I weigh the pros and cons of dipping back in to grab it, but it’s really not worth the trouble. So what if I get a little frostbite? I probably deserve it, anyways.
I shove my hands under my pits, grasping for any semblance of warmth, and begin the long, shameful walk back to her place.
Our place.
I wish it didn’t feel so wrong to call it that.
— — —
Kanade’s fighting with a sweater when I come home. She can’t seem to find the neck hole. If I wasn’t about to pass out, I’d probably find it cute.
“Ichika?” Her voice squeaks. “I thought we were meeting—”
She turns to face me, but I’m already at her side, hands reaching up to tug the sweater over her head. She jumps back — right, my hands are probably freezing — and gapes up at me.
“Mafuyu?”
I hate seeing her face fall just from realising it’s me. Fair enough, I suppose. I probably look like a mess.
“I’m home.” My voice is barely a mumble.
She steps back into my space, hands reaching out for a moment, then settling back at her side. I hate that we’re like this. I hate that it’s my fault, always tiptoeing around me like I’m about to break.
“You’re freezing.”
“Long walk.”
“Your jacket?”
I shrug. “Left it.”
“At work?” She looks confused. “What happened?”
“Quit.”
Oh, she’s really worried now. I don’t want to see her like that.
I limp past her towards her— our room, and flop down on the bed.
God, that feels good. That walk absolutely destroyed my leg. I press my face into the covers. The sheets smell clean, so I just know I’m about to ruin them with all my sweat. Figures.
She follows after me a moment later, tentatively peeking past the door frame. I pretend I don’t see her.
I'm the worst.
I wish she’d spare us both the pain and not bother with my situation right now. I both love and hate knowing she’s too kind for that.
She breathes in, then enters, footsteps light and cautious. She sits down on the bed, barely making a dent in the mattress.
“We don’t have to talk about it right now.”
She’s not looking at me yet, but I can feel her hand creeping across the covers, searching for mine.
I feel her twitch when she finally finds it. It’s freezing and sweaty and undeniably very unpleasant to hold, but she holds it anyways, our rings pressed tight together.
We’re both quiet for a while after that. I rest my eyes on the back of her head. Her hair looks washed and brushed— a rare sight, but not as rare as it used to be. She must’ve been planning to go out tonight.
I mean, she did think I was Hoshino-san. Ah… her band was playing tonight.
My stomach twists with guilt.
“The concert… you’ll be late.” My lips barely move as I speak. “You should go.”
She finally turns around to look at me, face unsure. “I don’t know if—”
“We can just… talk later. Like you said.”
She doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t have to go, they’ll understand.”
“Kanade, just let me sleep it off.” My voice softens the way it only seems to for her. I squeeze her hand back. “Please.”
She eyes me a moment longer, but relents. “The show goes past midnight… you’ll be okay until then?”
I nod.
She still looks hesitant. I want to tell her that I’m too tired to do anything stupid anyways, but I guess I’m too tired for talking now, too. I close my eyes and hope that gets my point across.
Her hand’s tensing and twitching on mine, and her breath’s doing that thing where it can’t seem to decide on a steady rhythm.
I’ve got her so freaked out. I’m literally the worst. Thank God I can’t see the look on her face. I’m too scared about what I might find there.
The bed creaks as she leans over me, and she kisses my cheek so lightly I almost don’t feel it at all. She’s kissing me like she doesn’t even know if she’s allowed to.
Has it really gotten that bad? Is she that scared I’ll break?
“I’ll be back around 25:00, alright?”
She slips off the bed and out the door.
25:00. 25:00. I almost laugh.
My life is a joke.
— — —
When I wake up, I notice two things. The bed is soaked, and Kanade isn’t home yet.
The former hits me first. I mean, it’s kind of hard to ignore. I worry for a moment that I pissed the bed, but I wasn’t drinking tonight, so that can’t be it.
Sweat, then. Ugh, it’s everywhere.
I never took off my uniform. I think it’s fused with the sheets at this point. Just one big heap of sweaty, sticky skin and fabric. Is there even time to wash up before Kanade gets home?
Kanade. Right. That was the second thing.
I crane my neck to look out the bedroom door. We don’t let much light in the house normally, but usually there’s something peeking through the curtains.
It’s pitch black right now, so it must be pretty late. She’s still out though, so it shouldn’t be past 25:00.
Unless something went wrong.
There’s a moment of panic while I shove my hand down my back pocket, grabbing at my phone. I’m starfished face-down across the bed, so the angle’s kinda awkward, but I eventually manage to get it in front of my face.
23:05. It’s only 23:05. Get a grip, Mafuyu.
It’s not like Hoshino-san would let anything happen to her, anyways. They’re a well-oiled machine with concerts at this point.
Kanade shows up early, hangs out quietly while they set up, then watches them play from backstage. That way, she doesn’t have to deal with the crowd. She can just enjoy the music.
I’m happy for her, really. She’s grown a lot. It’s not that she’s happier, exactly, but she’s living more. She’s outside of herself more.
I tuck my phone under the pillow and curl around the covers, but oh— yeah. No. Okay. I know I said I didn’t piss the bed, but I’m definitely about to if I don’t take care of that soon.
I shove my face into the pillow, hoping to ride it out a little longer. I do not want to get up right now, but I don’t need another reason to let Kanade down.
I slump to the floor, dragging the blankets down with me. Crawling to the bathroom with the sheets tangled in my legs certainly isn’t my proudest moment, but whatever. Beats the alternative.
— — —
God that’s cold.
I’m done my business, waiting at the sink. The water takes an eternity to go from ice-fucking-cold to normal-human-temperature, so I’m glaring at myself in the mirror while I wait.
Eyes.
Hair.
Ears.
Nose.
Mouth.
My features come back to me in a blur. I’m still pretty bleary from sleep and, you know, everything else, so my eyes take a moment to adjust.
As expected, my hair is a fucking travesty. My bangs are plastered to my face in a wet, greasy flop. I go to peel them off my forehead, but it just leaves me feeling stickier. Lovely.
The rest of it can’t seem to decide if it’s dry or wet. Just a short, choppy mess that’s somehow scratchy and greasy at the same time.
Even if it was clean, it’d probably still look like shit. That’s what I get for cutting my own hair, I suppose.
Kanade also keeps hers short, but she gets someone else to cut it, so even when she’s going full shut-in, it still looks neater than mine.
Tenma-san said she could cut mine too, but she knows to stop asking now. Doesn’t matter anyways. I usually try to make my shifts overlap with any house visits. Saves everyone the trouble.
Right. Shifts. Work.
Shit.
I have no idea how I’m going to explain that to Kanade. I don’t even know how to explain it to myself. I just had to get out of there. I had to.
How many times have I thought that over the years?
I lock eyes with myself in the mirror. Here I am, waiting for the tap to heat up, sweaty Family Mart uniform clinging to me like cling wrap.
Asahina Mafuyu, twenty-one years old, with nothing to show for it except a ring, a tattoo, and this stupid fucking limp.
Asahina Mafuyu, high-school dropout and permanent leech to my fiancé.
Asahina Mafuyu, now throwing away my last chance at productivity and officially becoming a NEET.
Asahina Mafuyu— I wonder if I can even call myself that anymore. My mother certainly wouldn’t.
Well, I always planned to take Kanade’s last name, anyways.
I shove my hands under the tap, wipe them dry on my pants, then get the fuck out of here.
I always think too much in front of a mirror. I almost miss when I could look in and not see anyone looking back.
Almost.
— — —
I don’t make it all the way back to the bed.
My legs give out somewhere between the bathroom door and mess of blankets in the hall.
My body does this sometimes, going all dead and limp when I’m feeling particularly low. Well my body’s also kind of destroyed in general right now, so you know.
It’s cold on the floor, but the blankets are soft. Could be worse. Could be last Thursday—passed out on the bathroom floor, freezing in my boxers, feeling too guilty to share the bed.
Or the couch.
Or anything that wasn’t the floor, apparently.
Drunk Mafuyu can be kind of stupid.
Thursday. Kanade’s birthday. What a mess that was.
We’ve had a few depressing birthdays lately, but hers was more ‘quietly getting drunk while she unsuccessfully tries to get me closer with her friends’ kind of depressing. My birthday was more, well...
I dig my nails into my palm.
I don’t want to think about birthdays right now.
— — —
I’m still awake when Kanade comes home, eyes glaring up at the ceiling, that song playing over and over again in my head.
‘A Future Written as Regret’
Yeah, you can say that again.