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“...You like her.”
Mizuki froze stone-still, staring blankly at the screen in front of her. Was she really saying that? Of all people, how would she know? She opened her mouth, only to choke on silence. Words weren’t quite coming to her.
“Ehhhh? What are you talking about?!” The tension in her voice was masked perfectly…wasn’t it? Surely at least well enough that Mafuyu of all people couldn’t possibly suspect anything.
“I just thought that was how you sounded.” As long as Mafuyu had had her computer open, the window with her lyrics for the new song in focus, she hadn’t made a single keystroke’s worth of progress. Mizuki was such a distraction. She knew she shouldn’t be having this conversation, she had to get her work done so she could study before meeting up with the others on Nightcord. Still, every time she tried to redouble her focus on writing those lyrics, Mizuki’s voice distracted her again.
“S-seriously?! C’mon, Yuki, what gave you that idea?”
“I don’t know.” Mafuyu made no effort to back up her undeniably outlandish assertion, only knit her brows in thought and cast her eyes down to her keyboard.
Mizuki’s face was more than red enough for her to find herself thankful that Mafuyu was halfway across town in her own room rather than looking at her eye to eye. What she wasn’t thankful for was the embarrassed vocalizations she found herself sputtering out in feeble protest. It never took her this long to recover from one little sentence like that. And Mafuyu, being Mafuyu, didn’t have the merciful decency to wait for her to put a proper response together.
“You talk about her the way some of the girls at school talk about me. Shizuku told me another girl was asking questions like you were just now, and when I asked why, she said it was probably because she liked me. I didn’t really understand, but just now you sounded like—”
Elbows on her desk, Mizuki thrust her forehead into her hands, sending a soft thump echoing through her headset’s microphone. “Okay! Weren’t you gonna work on the lyrics for K’s song? I thiiink we’re getting a bit—”
“Do you like her?” This time, there was an unexpected hint of curiosity behind Mafuyu’s voice, if Mizuki wasn’t imagining it. (She wasn’t. She rarely was.)
“No! It — no! It doesn’t matter, anyway, I was just curious about—”
“Her shampoo?”
“That wasn’t the point! Seriously, Yuki, why are you so—”
“Amia…” Mafuyu cut her off again. She paused, but Mizuki didn’t make a sound, leaving the call silent. Mizuki swallowed. “…Do you like her?”
This time, it wasn’t curiosity that colored Mafuyu’s voice, but whatever it was, neither of them could quite put their finger on it. Whatever it was was something more urgent, more earnest than before. Maybe whatever it was was still curiosity in some form, only a different one from before. Whatever it was was definitely softer than she expected of Mafuyu’s icy demeanor, some bit of warmth melting its way through. Whatever it was, Mizuki, for one reason or another, wanted to answer it honestly.
“...Yeah. I like her a lot, okay?”
If she answered any quieter, the words wouldn’t have even traveled far enough to reach her mic. She was only just loud enough to spare herself the indignity of repeating her confession.
“...I see.” Something bubbled up in Mafuyu’s chest. Some kind of warmth rushed to her throat. Not the increasingly-familiar warmth she’d only recently begun to identify as companionship; something that burned and tore her voice to shreds just as she finished speaking.
“Wh… th—that’s it?! ‘I see’? Geez, what’s it matter, anyway?” Mizuki stammered out an indignant response, near to choking on her words. Her heart hammered in her chest. On the other side of the line, Mafuyu sat in silent — futile — contemplation.
“I don’t really know…” She, too, choked out her response, much closer to silence than Mizuki’s shock. “I think I wanted to know, but I don’t know why…”
All Mafuyu could manage was an empty stare toward the ground, her thoughts in a formless cloud. Any attempt to grasp onto one emotion or another was useless. The one thing she could tell was that she didn’t like it. Her breath out was a quiet groan through Mizuki’s headset.
“…Mafuyu?”
Mafuyu mumbled an acknowledgement — wordless, perfectly neutral.
“…Do you like her?”
Mafuyu blinked, tilted her head askew. Even if Mizuki couldn’t see her body language, subtle variations in her tone gave a precise impression. “…Do I?”
“I don’t know! I — you were telling me all those little things and you started sounding kind of…” Mizuki paused for a moment, one finger bouncing the gentle curls of her hair. “Bright? So I wondered if you—”
“How do you know?” Much to Mizuki’s relief, Mafuyu cut her off with characteristic bluntness. Much to her chagrin, Mafuyu cut her off with a request to explain her intuition.
“That you like her? I don’t know! I mean, I don’t know if you do, I can’t—”
“No… How do you know you like her?”
“I mean…” Then it was, evidently, Mizuki’s turn to stare blankly forward. She’d never really considered that part; she just… knew. She had for months now. “Haah, Yukiiiii, that’s such a hard question! Mm… I guess if I was going to put it into words…”
Mizuki paused, drumming her fingers silently against her desk. Mafuyu only waited in rapt attention, watching the still image of her computer screen expectantly — as if Mizuki could see. (Somehow, she picked up on the meaning of the silence regardless.)
“It’s… Just talking to her… geez, just thinking about her, it always feels so warm. And… light? Haah, I can’t believe I’m actually saying this… so, you know, of course I wanted to know more about her! And you got to spend the night at her house! Of course I was gonna ask all those questions… It’s embarrassing, honestly, the way learning anything new about her like that just makes me feel all fuzzy. Like, you told me she wouldn’t let her use your shampoo and all I could think was ‘That’s so Enanan!’ and it actually made even something like that seem really cute. It’s dumb! It’s so dumb. You got to learn all those little things about her and you got to be right there and just hearing about it made me happy. Just… just learning about her like that! I mean, I’m jealous, but—”
Mizuki’s ramblings were finally interrupted by the voice in her headset.
“…Jealous?”
Oh. She admitted that.
“N—Not like… I mean…”
Mizuki gulped, let out a quiet sigh of a breath, pressed her forehead into her palm.
“You… stayed over at her house all night. I can’t do something like that. I just…”
“You can’t…?”
“Yeah.” Mizuki’s voice dropped to a whisper, breathing out a single, flat word.
“You probably can if you want to. Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
As badly as she wanted it, the very idea of something like that set Mizuki’s heart racing with dread. Being so close to someone — let alone to Ena — was just hitting fast-forward on what was already a ticking time bomb. Hell, even if it was Mafuyu, just talking about it was already getting too close. The time Ena met her classmates, too close. Her confrontation on the rooftop — too close, too close, too close too close too close . Keeping a secret like hers while staying overnight … all but unthinkable.
“—ia?”
“Huh? Oh! Sorry, sorry.” Mizuki rolled her shoulders back, forcing the upbeat lilt back into her voice. “Must’ve spaced out a bit. Don’t — don’t worry about that, okay? That’s — ahah — that’s how I know I like her, I guess.”
“I see…” Mafuyu paused; Mizuki allowed the moment of lingering silence. “I think I understand.” Mafuyu nodded, and for Mafuyu , it was a swift and decisive gesture.
“…Yeah?”
“Yes… It’s… a warm feeling like that… When I spend time with her, or when I think about how she’s always caring for me, even when she’s angry at me… or about how determined she is about what she likes and what she wants…” Somehow, Mafuyu knew her description was missing something — or several somethings — but for the moment, it was all she could put her finger on.
“Ehehe. Yep, that’s our Enanan, isn’t it? So… You like her?” Mizuki’s heart soared and sank all at once. Seeing Mafuyu like this was sweet in its own right, and knowing Mafuyu saw the same things in Ena that she herself did brought a wistful smile to her face. At the same time, though, she couldn’t help but be jealous, and that bitter envy wrapped itself around the all-too-familiar resentment against everything she was and desperately wished she wasn’t and strangled her with it.
“I think so… I felt something warm when we were together, and again when we were talking about it just now. But…”
“Huh?”
“Before that, even when I was just talking to you about what our rooms are like…”
No way. No way she’s going to —
“I think I like you, too.”
Mizuki threw her head backward in shock, sending her headset clattering to the floor behind her chair. “Shit—”
Ena tucked her hair behind her ears, stretched her arms out in front of her, clicked her way to her Nightcord window — hah! 00:55! Five minutes early! Nobody could poke at her being late tonight! Headset: on. Call: joined. Looked like Amia and Yuki were already online… A chime rang out on three pairs of headsets, heralding her arrival. Two people heard it.
“Ah, Enanan.” A flat voice greeted her, followed by a gentle rustling from the call’s other participant.
“Mm, evening—”
“Sorry, sorry, my headset fell off, I…” Another voice cut her off, just shy of frantic. “Seriously, Yuki, did I hear that right? Did you—”
“Amia…” The characteristic quiet of Mafuyu’s voice would tonight prove Mizuki’s most tragic undoing. Had she spoken as brashly as Ena might, Mizuki may not have continued. Alas.
“—ously just say you like both of us ?”
“Ehhh?! ” Ena sat straight up in her chair, slamming an open palm against the desk in front of her. Mizuki yelped in surprise, nearly sending her headphones on another floor-bound journey. (Mafuyu, for her part, only blinked and breathed out deep through her nose.)
“E— Enanan?!”
“What the hell, Amia? Is this some kind of stupid prank?”
“No! I mean… yes? I — dammit, Enanan, don’t ask me , I don’t — Yuki’s the one who…!”
“Yuki?”
“Ah…” Something bubbled up in Mafuyu’s chest. Some kind of warmth rushed to her face, gently turning the corners of her lips upward. Something more than the increasingly-familiar warmth she’d only recently begun to identify as companionship; something new that brought a gentle flutter to her heart.