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Kanade presses her hands against the cold bars. The echo of steel hums in her bones—too clean, too quiet. But with vibrant scrapes that just looks that it got clawed by a cat all over. Like even sound isn't allowed here. Just color. Something feral had been here once, maybe still is. It almost makes Kanade wish she could scratch them deeper.
The floor is scattered with flowers—too bright, too alive for this place. Or maybe just wrong in their perfection. Reds that burn like anger, purples that whisper secrets, blues that feel like the kind of sadness Kanade doesn't admit out loud. They don't wilt. They don't move. Mizuki would probably call them fake, and then wax poetic about plastic feelings.
In the corner, propped against the wall, sits the mirror. Or—whatever it is. Fragile-looking, like the glass could snap with a breath. Inside it: a single flower, stiff and eternal, and a pair of artificial butterflies posed like they’re about to take off but never will. Separated by thin panes, locked in a tableau that never changes. A memory? A lie? Kanade doesn't know. She just hates that it's pretty. Pretty.. pretty like—
Pretty like Mafuyu when she pretended things were fine. Kanade looks away first.
That's when she hears it.
Steps. Familiar, taunting, and almost rehearsed.
God, of course it was her. That teasing little fuck.
"God, this place is dramatic," Mizuki announces as if the room itself has offended her. Her boots crunch a stray petal. She do it deliberately. "Is this your trauma chamber, or just a temporary aesthetic?"
Kanade doesn’t respond. Her jaw tightens.
Mizuki grins, stepping closer with theatrical reverence. "Kanadeee! Little compoooser.... Enthusiast of aggressively staring at things instead of processing emotionssss.. Hellooo? Earth to Kanaadee!"
“Are you done?” Kanade mutters, not turning.
“Not even remotely,” Mizuki says, gliding to her side like their presence isn't a personal crisis. “I came to be insufferable. You're welcome.”
She finally looks at them. “I don’t need you here.”
“That’s why I came,” Mizuki replies brightly, plucking a purple petal and examining it like it holds some secrets. “To remind you that need is irrelevant when I’m bored.”
Kanade eyes them like she’s trying to erase them with glare alone. “Mafuyu's mom is ruining her,”
Mizuki shrugs like she didn't care. “Yeeah, she tends to do that.”
“No—she’s slipping. Disappearing. Piece by piece.” Kanade's voice cracks around the edges.
Mizuki says nothing for a moment. Her grin softens just a hair, like the script skipped a line.
“You still writing for her?” She asks.
Kanade nods, once. “It’s all I can do.”
Mizuki sits cross-legged in the center of unnatural blooms, like she belongs there. “Then make it ugly. Make it messy. Make it sound like you.”
“I don’t want her to hate it.”
“Art isn't made to be liked. It’s made to be felt. If she can’t hear you, punch the sound through glass. Plus, she can't even feel! How will she even hate?”
Kanade stares at the mirror again, its butterflies poised forever mid-flight. Then back at Mizuki, who looks born to ruin things and somehow makes ruin look holy.
“…Why do you even care?”
Mizuki grins, savage and bright. “I don’t.”
But she stays.
Kanade sits beside them, petals pressing into her palms, silence growing louder. For once, neither of them speaks.
The silence stretched. Not awkward, but not peaceful either. The kind that wraps around your ribs and quietly squeezes—like it's waiting for someone to snap first.
Petals crumpled in Kanade’s hand. Purple ones. That reminded her of...Mafuyu. Mizuki glanced down and muttered, “Murdering metaphors now?”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed ahead, somewhere past the mirror, through the bars. As if something outside all this falseness could explain why she still gave a damn.
Mizuki shifted, plucking a bright red flower from the floor and spinning it between their fingers. “You know what these remind me of?”
“Don’t,” Kanade said.
“Dead hope.”
They looked far too smug about it. Kanade rolled her eyes, fingers tightening. “You think you’re funny.”
“I know I am. You should try it sometime. Humor—it’s very therapeutic.”
Kanade exhaled sharply. “I’m not here to play therapist with someone who treats pain like a party favor.”
“Ouch,” Mizuki cooed, placing the flower dramatically over her heart. “Sharp tongue, sharper frown. You're kind of beautiful when you're furious.”
Kanade turned toward her then. Not fast. Not dramatic. Just deliberate. “Don’t say that to me.”
“Why not?” She said with a grin, blinking innocently. “You don’t actually want honesty?”
Kanade looked at Mizuki like she was looking at a fire she didn’t want to touch anymore. “Because it doesn’t mean anything when you say it.”
Mizuki’s grin faltered. For half a second, their confidence cracked like glass behind their eyes. Then they blinked it away and smirked, sharp and poisonous.
“That’s the point,” they said.
Neither of them spoke after that.
The mirror caught their reflections: two people too stubborn to heal, framed in vibrant decay. Mizuki sat lazily among the flowers like they were meant to ruin them. Kanade sat rigid, hands curled like she could hold everything together if she gripped hard enough.
“I read that message,” Mizuki said after a while, quiet now. “The one she sent.”
Kanade’s breath hitched, barely. “What did it say?”
Mizuki tilted their head, gaze heavy. “I won't tell ya. Not enough to be comforting.”
Kanade was annoyed just already by her presence if it wasn't obvious. “...She’s trying.” Kanade’s voice was defensive, but it trembled like it knew better.
“She’s gone,” Mizuki said. No venom, just fact. “Not dead. Not broken. Just not here. And nothing you write is gonna drag her back.”
Kanade didn’t flinch. She just breathed through the ache in her chest and whispered, “Then I’m still going to try.”
Mizuki scoffs, but it’s not cruel. Just tired in the way only someone who’s used boredom to survive can be. “Figures..”
Kanade flicks her eyes toward her. “What?”
“That you’d be the type to keep bleeding into a composition even when the person it’s for isn’t listening. Classic tortured artist.” Mizuki twists a flower stem between her fingers, then snaps it. “Is this the part where you crumble, or are you still on your ‘stoic and pissed’ phase?”
“Still pissed,” Kanade mutters.
“Cute.”
She doesn’t rise to it. Instead, she stands, dusts off petals like they’re distractions. Mizuki watches her with an expression that’s half amusement, half calculation.
Kanade walks toward the mirror again, eyes tracing every pretty fake thing trapped inside. The butterflies haven’t moved. The flower’s still perfect. It looks like grief wrapped in glass.
She knocks on the pane.
Mizuki’s voice cuts through the quiet. “You realize it’s not a vending machine for closure, right?”
Kanade leans her forehead against it. “I know. I just wanted it to break.”
“Oof. Dark.” Mizuki stretches lazily, tossing the broken stem aside. “Want me to break it for you? I’m great at ruining things.”
Kanade turns her head, not fully. “That’s the first true thing you’ve said today.”
“Please,” Mizuki says, standing. “I’ve been spitting nothing but truth and charm. You’re just immune to both.”
She steps up beside Kanade, the mirror between them. Their reflections look like a mistake. Kanade’s all edges, Mizuki all chaos. Together, they look like a threat.
“You know,” Mizuki says softly, “when you talk about her, your voice goes flat. Like you’re trying not to sound sad but failing really fucking hard.”
Kanade doesn’t answer.
“So I’m gonna say something that’ll make you mad, but that’s half the fun.” Mizuki smirks. “You’re not writing for Mafuyu anymore. You’re writing to mourn her. And you fucking hate that.”
Kanade’s jaw clenches. “You don’t know anything.”
“Sure I do. I know you keep pulling your hair behind your ear when you're about to lie. I know you freeze when someone actually says something real. And I know you're still composing at 3am even though the last four drafts sound like funeral hymns.”
A beat passes. Kanade’s eyes don’t move from the glass.
“Fuck off,” she says, voice like ice.
“Nope.”
They stand there, shoulder to shoulder, separated by a mirror filled with pretty dead things. The silence tries to creep back in, but Mizuki won’t allow it.
“Oh, and just so you know,” Mizuki murmurs. “You look attractive when you’re angry. I might have to piss you off more often.”
Kanade gives her a sharp sideways glance. “You never don’t piss me off.”
“Then I’m already winning.”
And the fucked-up part? She is.
Kanade didn’t move.
She stood stiff, chin tilted just enough to look unimpressed, but not enough to hide the spark flickering behind her eyes. Mizuki caught it—of course she did. If there was one thing Mizuki excelled at, it was sniffing out buried feelings and poking them with stilettos.
“You gonna punch something?” Mizuki asked, circling Kanade like the flowers were a runway. “Or just seethe attractively until your jaw locks?”
Kanade’s voice was cold enough to curdle coffee. “I’m debating which part of your face deserves it more.”
Mizuki gasped, hand to her heart. “Violence. And here I thought you liked me.”
“I tolerate you.”
“Mm. Flirting confirmed.”
Kanade didn’t dignify that with a response, choosing instead to inspect a nearby red bloom like it might give her patience. Mizuki watched her in the way someone watches a storm roll in—with excitement, and maybe a little thirst.
“Did you ever think,” Mizuki said lazily, “that Mafuyu wouldn’t even want the songs? Not because they suck—calm down—but because she doesn’t want to be remembered.”
Kanade's grip tightened around the stem she was holding. “She’s not dead.”
Mizuki leaned in. “No, but she’s halfway to ghosting reality, and you’re composing a fucking shrine.”
“Better than whatever nihilistic fanfiction you’re living,” Kanade snapped.
“Oof.” Mizuki clapped slowly. “And she bites. Incredible.”
Silence fell again. But it wasn’t empty. It buzzed. Crackled. Charged like static before lightning.
After a beat, Kanade spoke, voice low. “You think she won’t come back.”
Mizuki shrugged. “People don’t usually come back when they’re being managed like a disaster.”
Kanade closed her eyes. The words felt like chewing glass. She wanted to scream, cry, compose a symphony that tasted like blood, but none of those would help—not here. Not now.
Then Mizuki, because she clearly hated peace, leaned close and whispered against her ear, “But if she doesn’t… maybe I could be your muse instead.”
Kanade turned so fast her hair whipped. “Fuck off.”
“Still attractive when you say that.”
“God, you’re the worst.”
Mizuki winked. “And yet here you are, still not walking away.”
Kanade hated that she was right. But she hated more that Mizuki was smiling like she’d just won a game Kanade didn’t know she was playing.
Maybe she had.
dwlliziu Tue 12 Aug 2025 05:35PM UTC
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