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A gentle breeze shook the trees, dislodging a handful of autumn leaves from their longtime homes. B-ko traced one of the leaves with her eyes. It danced up and around, crossed between the two clouds in her eye line, and then came to a halt as the breeze dissipated. The pull of gravity started to take hold, and it drifted slowly, ever so slowly toward her face. Then the breeze picked up again, and carried it away forever.
She sighed, and pulled her jacket a little tighter around her. The park was beautiful at this time of year, and she always loved coming here with her family, lying on this hill away from the bustle of the playground and the walking paths, and watching the world unravel. And now that she was a super grown up high schooler, she liked coming here with someone else. She was having fun, she really was.
“You’re beautiful, B-ko-chan,” D-ne said, and B-ko shivered through the lining of her jacket.
She looked to her right to see her girlfriend lying with her on the blanket they’d brought, fully on her side so she could watch B-ko rather than the sky. It was so like her, B-ko thought, so very D-ne of her, the way she parted her hair before putting her head down to make sure it didn’t get messed up, the way she’d clearly stopped at home after school to swap out the uniform she’d been wearing all day with a different one that looked fresh and dry cleaned.
The way she wore her ribbon over her right ear, to mirror B-ko, not copy her.
The way she could still smile even when it was dark.
“You’re very sweet,” B-ko replied. “Really, you’re too kind. I’m jealous of that, sometimes.”
D-ne’s grin flickered. “What?”
“Yeah, um.” Instant regret. She should just change the subject now, but... “It’s just that I spend all day being nice to people and trying to be cool, but on the inside I get so mad and it makes me want to scream. I…”
It was still a smile, but it wasn’t. It was like someone had turned down the brightness on a phone screen. “I… But I’m not…” D-ne’s eyes darted around, breaking contact with B-ko for the first time. B-ko hadn’t considered before the weight someone’s gaze could put on you.
“But, I love that dual nature of yours,” D-ne said finally. “It’s what makes you so unique.”
“Unique.” She fiddled with the zipper on her jacket. If she pulled the tab up, the teeth locked together in perfect harmony, supporting each other against the harsh elements of the outside world. If she pulled it back down, they were torn apart, and the only difference was that she would be a little bit colder. The decision was hers to make.
“Yeah. Unique. There’s no one else like you.”
B-ko didn’t want to be cold. About halfway up, though, the zipper snagged. She’d pulled it too quickly. Now there was a hole beneath it where the teeth didn’t line up.
“No one as smart, as brave, as interesting.”
She tried forcing them together with her fingers, but that just made more of the teeth unlock. Now the only way to fix things would be to unzip like she should’ve done to begin with. All she’d done was make it harder.
“There’s something remarkable about you. Everyone can see it.”
“Fake is more like it,” B-ko said.
“Fake?” D-ne reached her hand out and laid it on the hand B-ko was still trying to use to fix her jacket. “But you can’t be fake. You’re right here, in front of me. I know about your school personality, and your secret personality. Seeing the whole you just makes you that much more special.”
She threaded her fingers between B-ko’s, like the teeth of the zipper.
“Besides, you’re nothing like m-... You’re real.”
B-ko stared into D-ne’s eyes. She looked so sincere. It hurt, a little, to not know how to reciprocate that feeling.
Another gust of wind blew through, making B-ko shiver again. D-ne frowned, and started to move closer to her, maybe to combine their body heat. But before she could, another leaf floated by, and dropped down between them.
“It’s really autumn, huh,” B-ko said. She removed her hand from D-ne’s and picked the leaf up. “Everything’s changing.”
“Some things don’t change,” D-ne replied.
B-ko screwed her face up. “I- I know. But we can still change if we want to. Hey, that’s actually something I’ve been thinking about. Do you have any plans for this school year? Anything you want to do different?”
The other girl looked off to the side and tapped a finger on her chin cartoonishly. “I don’t think so, B-ko-chan! I like things the way they are.”
“I do too,” B-ko replied. Her stomach was starting to hurt. “I dunno. I was sort of thinking of looking into the band club. I’ve never played an instrument before, but it might be fun to learn! I’d have to think about what to play, though; imagine me trying to play the tuba! I’d get crushed! Haha.”
“Oh, yes!” D-ne said, clapping her hands together. “I think I’d like to join that club too! I could learn how to play bassoon!”
“Y-yeah.” The autumn breeze was still flowing, and up above, the highway of clouds kept to its steady pace. “It doesn’t have to be band though. Maybe I’d like the literary magazine. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to submit stories under my own name, but I do have a lot of ideas for horror stories from talking to A-ya.”
A shadow crossed D-ne’s face for just a moment, but then it was gone. “That sounds lovely! I’m sure I would enjoy anything you wrote.”
“Okay…” B-ko felt like she knew where this was going, but something within her compelled her to push on. “But what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah… What do you want to do?”
D-ne’s smile brightened. “Anything you want to do, of course!”
“I don’t know what I want to do!” B-ko sat up and buried her face in her hands. “That stuff- that’s just stuff I came up with off of the top of my head. I’m so used to pretending to be someone else that I don’t know what the real me really wants. Our occult club was the first thing that really felt genuine to me, but I want more! I… You couldn’t understand.” She closed her eyes and hugged herself. “You don’t know what it’s like to be an imposter.”
“B-ko… I do understand. I want to help you.”
She looked up to see D-ne rolled onto her front, watching her with a concerned expression. “What do you mean? You don’t know what it’s like to spend your whole life trying to be someone else. You’re so… content. You’re more worried about me because you already have yourself figured out.”
D-ne looked like the position she was in was paining her. “That’s not true,” she said. “I’m not-- You don’t have to feel this way. You’re not fake. You just can’t see it right now.”
A cloud drifted in front of the sun, turning the world dark beneath it.
“You’re beautiful, B-ko-chan,” D-ne said again, and something in B-ko snapped.
“I’m not!” she spat. The floored look on D-ne’s face startled her a bit, so she pulled back the volume, but couldn’t stop the words. “I’m sorry, but is that all you can say about me? We’ve been dating for six months, we’ve eaten meals together, we’ve gone on walks, we’ve been the subject of numerous annoying rumors at school. Why don’t we have anything to talk about?”
D-ne never looked closer to crying before. Her words came out as fragments. “No, I- I do, I want, I mean… You-”
“Why is this so hard? Why are you so afraid of me? Is it my ‘dual nature’? Have I finally gone too far?”
“Y- you- Y-”
B-ko threw her hands up in exasperation. “What is it? What is it you want to say? Just say it! Please!”
The other girl went quiet again. Gears ground together in B-ko’s mind; she had so many emotions and didn’t know what to do with a single one of them. Was this really how things were supposed to be? She was just starting to feel mature, just starting to feel like the world was making sense to her, but now it felt like she knew less than ever. Was this really what happiness was? Alone, in a field, with an empty doll lying beside you?
“Do you remember the first time we kissed?” D-ne said, abruptly, in a tone B-ko had never heard before. She felt like she was hearing an entirely different person’s voice reach out of her girlfriend. “That day A-ya tried to summon a ghost or a monster or something, and you were so scared, and I said I’d protect you? Of course it didn’t work, but… Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if it did work? What if there really was some kind of demon after us? What would you have done?”
The cloud moved, and sunlight came streaming down.
“I don’t know,” B-ko breathed. The tornado of feelings in her chest froze in place. She fell back against the earth, and a small rock dug uncomfortably into her back. “I don’t know. I’d have died.”
“I would have protected you,” D-ne said. Her voice was so calm, but there was a sternness to it. A kind of disappointment. “I’d do it now, too. I would protect you, no matter what.”
Something heavy turned over in B-ko’s stomach. “But I don’t need protection.”
“Yeah.” The wind picked up again, and B-ko watched a little leaf skirt the tips of grass before taking off into the distance, just like all the others.
“I know.”