Chapter Text
It is one of the rare occasions when Sakiko arrives back home later than Hatsune. Even with managing all the implications and responsibilities that her standing as a Togawa heir brings with it, Hatsune always somehow manages to have a tighter schedule than her. Sakiko does not envy her — being both a national idol and the face of a widely successful band sounds like an absurd amount of work, yet Hatsune reassured her that she got it all under wraps.
The warm light from the living room greets her as she enters, faintly glowing through the translucent window of the door beyond. She knows Hatsune is already home because the blonde has already texted her about it. The lack of any sound from the apartment — any cheerful greeting, any hurried approaching footsteps, or even any clanking of pots or pans that might signal a late night meal — therefore, strikes her as odd. Hatsune tends to catch onto the very first sign of her arrival back to their shared apartment pretty fast — and is often ready to regale her with a “Good work today, Saki-chan!” by the time she finishes taking off her shoes.
A cold, little twinge of something worms its way into her heart. Sakiko recognises, belatedly, that it’s disappointment. She shakes her head to clear herself of the silly feeling.
The answer to her question becomes clear as she steps into the living room proper. A blonde bob of hair can be seen peeking out just above the counter, dropping low over the table behind it. A few more steps further confirms her suspicion: Hatsune’s eyes are closed, her arms folded into makeshift pillows in front of her, her hair falling over her peaceful expression. Soft breathing fills the room, barely audible over the ambience.
Sakiko feels herself letting out a breath. Then, a few seconds later, she realises her lips are instinctively curved into a small smile.
Hatsune’s laptop is open on the table before her. A quick glance informs Sakiko that her lyricist has been working — the raw, scattered lines of a new song typed hesitantly into a Notepad. Her usual mug of coffee is missing. Strange. Sakiko might ask her about it when she wakes.
Instead of waking Hatsune right away, though, Sakiko lets the moment linger. The silence steadies her after a long day. The moments of solitude she gets between her coming home and Hatsune arriving back are few and far between and precious. They give her dried out lungs some air, before she dives back into the muddy water that is their relationship.
They hug, they kiss, they live together. They even have sex. Yet it’s far too simple to call Hatsune her girlfriend or her lover. Hatsune’s love for her is unmistakable, yet the outcast child of the Togawa family is seemingly content with this ambiguity between them. Sakiko’s feelings about her supposed aunt are, in contrast, yet decided — confusing, exhilarating and anxiety-inducing in equal measures.
Her eyes survey Hatsune’s exhausted form, before drifting to the half-written lyrics again. She’s familiar with the undertones in them now, easily picking out the seeds of a forbidden love sowed in between, doomed to only bloom in songs.
Hatsune said that all she’d done — becoming an idol, becoming Ave Mujica’s frontwoman, succumbing to living under her father’s thumb — was in service of growing closer to Sakiko. Sakiko wonders if she can ever understand it — the full depth of Hatsune’s feelings. Maybe one day, with time. Maybe never. Right now, it’s all too big for her eighteen-year-old, university-freshman-slash-Togawa-Group-CEO-in-training self to understand, so she tries not to think about it too much.
They will have to face it eventually, though.
The clock ticks. Sakiko’s feet are starting to grow numb from standing in place. She exhales.
She gently lays a hand on Hatsune’s shoulder and shakes. “Hatsune,” she says, “wake up.”
No response. Goodness, is she that tired? Sakiko makes a mental note not to let her drink coffee tonight. “Hatsune, you can’t sleep here.” Sakiko shakes her a little more firmly, with both hands this time. Hatsune finally stirs, her arms shifting under her and mumbling intelligibly, but she looks on the verge of falling back asleep.
Some more of those golden strands fall off her neck, revealing the smooth, fair skin underneath. Sakiko pauses.
An urge rises. Before she can stamp down on it, she presses her cold hand against Hatsune’s nape.
Hatsune shivers, her eyelids fluttering, a moan escaping her lips.
Sakiko recoils, startled. Meanwhile, Hatsune continues to mumble, now with a little more coherency, brows furrowed at something only she can see.
“Please… stop…”
Sakiko’s shock turns into concern. Was she having a nightmare?
She tries shaking Hatsune again. “Hatsune, wake up.”
Finally, Hatsune’s eyes open — half-lidded, but they stay open. Purple eyes lift to meet hers.
“Saki-chan? Is that you?”
Sakiko lets out a discrete sigh of relief before answering. “Yes, I’m home.”
A warm, sleepy smile blooms on the idol’s face. Even tired and half-awake, strands of golden hair sticking to the corner of her mouth, Hatsune’s beauty is one worthy of a fashion magazine's cover. “I’m glad.” Her words slur as she says. “I feel like I just woke up from a very long dream…”
“Was it a bad dream?”
Hatsune shakes her head. “No… Well, it’s a little scary… but if it’s you, I don’t mind being…”
Sakiko’s eyebrow rises. “Being…?”
Hatsune goes quiet. Her mind seems to have become lucid enough to catch up with her mouth. She’s wearing that guilty expression she has whenever Sakiko intentionally or accidentally pokes at one of her myriad of “shameful” secrets, so tightly locked inside her heart that they have become one with its walls. Her eyes have dropped from Sakiko’s face.
Eventually, she says, sitting up and making Sakiko’s hands slide off her in the process. “It’s nothing.”
She’s staring pointedly at the table, not meeting Sakiko’s gaze. On a different occasion, Sakiko would prod. But it’s late, she just came home, they’re both tired, and no matter how much good an honest conversation has always done them, Sakiko realises ambushing her partner of ambiguous relationship with emotional vulnerability just as she wakes up from a bad dream is not a sensible thing to do right now.
So instead she says. “Did you make dinner?”
At that, Hatsune brightens up, and looks at her again. “I did! You said you’d like curry, right?”
———
Even with work squeezing the living daylight out of both of them, they still manage to spare some time together most evenings. This time more often than not is spent on more work for Ave Mujica, ironically enough, but it’s the thought that counts. Occasionally, Hatsune would manage to convince Sakiko to do something else — like watching some new TV show Taki recommended to her, or baking a treat together, which Hatsune’d wrap with her lunch box the next day.
Sakiko doesn’t think she needs this necessarily. She’s not starved for companionship. But Hatsune is, has been since birth — and no matter how many “girls’ day out”s she has with Taki (or Nyamu when she needs someone to bully) or how many planetarium dates Sakiko encourages her to go on with Tomori, at the end of the day there will always be a small, Sakiko-shaped hole left in her heart.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. Sometimes, when Sakiko really allows herself to feel vulnerable — when she allows her tired head to fall in the middle of a movie and trusts that it’ll find a warm, solid resting place right by her side — she can almost imagine what it’d have been like in another life where she were just a normal girl. Not God, not the heir to a giant conglomerate, not the saviour of a band of four broken girls — just a normal girl in college, staying up late on the weekend before finals, falling asleep to trashy romance movies on her lover’s shoulder.
She wakes with a small start. The room is dark. So is the computer they were watching the movie from, though it stays perched with the screen up on the small bed table in front of her.
She’s still leaning on Hatsune. The blonde has also not moved at all, her chest rising and falling rhythmically under Sakiko. A dim, blue light in front, slightly to Sakiko’s left, informs her that Hatsune’s on her phone. She gives no reaction to Sakiko waking up, engrossed in whatever is on her screen.
For some reason, Sakiko feels compelled to stay still, to keep being “asleep”. She doesn’t remember the last time she felt this relaxed. Hatsune is soft and comfortable underneath her, and the blanket draped over their stomachs is warm. Her mind is in a fuzzy, pleasant state of emptiness and oblivion, achieved only within the first few minutes of awakening when awareness has yet to be burdened by thoughts. It makes her want to roll over and curl up and prolong this moment for eternity, like a cat under a sunlit spot, if only it didn’t mean that Hatsune would notice.
And to that end, what is her dog-like partner so occupied with? More lyrics? No, she’s scrolling rather than tapping, at an even, gradual pace that suggests reading rather than typing. Gripped by an innocent curiosity, Sakiko’s eyes blearily blink at the slightly tilted away screen, squinting through the brightness to— oh my god she’s reading porn.
Sakiko feels like she shouldn’t be seeing this, but she’s unable to tear her eyes away. The image sears her retina — the absurdly well endowed breasts of the characters, the comically exaggerated expression of pleasure of the girl chained against the wall, the wicked intent evident in the eyes of the girl with demon horns as she—
Wait, is this nonco—
“Saki-chan?”
Did she make a move? A sound? It’s hard to tell, because suddenly there are all sorts of sounds and movements — a hard tap of a finger against the screen, the light fizzling out, the abrupt twist of Hatsune’s arm under her head as she hurriedly jerks the phone away.
“Are you awake?”
Sakiko’s cheeks feel like they’re burning a hole through the fabric of Hatsune’s shirt. She swallows, before cursing herself because Hatsune might have been able to feel that. She lifts herself off her shoulder — regretting the loss of warmth as she does. “Yes, I am.”
At least the cool air feels nice against her flaming cheeks. The good thing about Hatsune’s knee-jerk reaction to turn her phone off is that in the dark, the blonde can’t see Sakiko blushing either. Probably. The blue-haired girl sure hopes so.
She hears Hatsune audibly hesitate beside her in the silence that follows. “Sorry I didn’t wake you up for the ending, you looked really comfortable.”
Sakiko shakes her head. “It’s alright, I didn’t much care for the movie anyway.”
“A-Ah, I see. I guessed as much, you fell asleep pretty fast, haha.”
“Mhm.”
An awkward pause. Sakiko curses herself again. This is stupid, she thinks. It’s normal for adults of age to engage with pornographic materials. There’s no reason either she or Hatsune should feel awkward about the other doing it (even if she doesn't normally). Hell, they have an active sex life! They have even engaged in some deviant aspects (“It’s called kinks, Miss Rich Girl,” the Nyamu in her head helpfully supplies) of such a life themselves!
“Are you going back to your room tonight?”
Sakiko whirls around and blinks. That phrasing is rare. Hatsune almost never says that — she prefers to say “are you staying here tonight?”. The only times she says that are when she’s ashamed of something, when the ‘light’ of Sakiko’s ‘divinity’ is too much for her to be near.
It’s hard to tell Hatsune’s expression in the dark, but other gestures betray her. Her abnormal stillness. The tension in her shoulders. Her fists, curled unconsciously on top of the blanket.
Sakiko wants to ask if she’s that embarrassed about being caught reading porn when they’ve already had their hands in less holy places on each other’s body. But then she thinks again, and realises she doesn’t know how to start this conversation either. For one thing, Hatsune might just deny having been reading porn, and it’s not like Sakiko is about to make her show her phone to prove it — what is she, her mom? For another — in the case that Hatsune doesn’t deny it — it might lead them to a point where Hatsune is forced to admit some… things, things she isn't ready to admit to yet.
The very first time Hatsune gave such a confession, it was forced out of her. It’s hard for Sakiko to forget that day — her aching feet, battered and bruised; the cool touch of the furniture underneath her, in a mansion occupied only by ghosts; Hatsune, familiar and foreign all at the same time, the afternoon sunlight painting her outline a deep red.
Sakiko tries to give her that now — the choice to come forward with her sorrow, piece by piece. Giving Sakiko her life and heart, little by little, so that each tear can heal before the next time the wound is picked at again.
Sakiko thinks her choices over. “I think I might just stay here.” She doesn’t want to let Hatsune think she is upset with her or ‘punishing’ her in some way. “I’m quite tired. Is that okay with you?”
There’s a quiet gasp. She thinks she sees Hatsune’s eyes widen minutely through what little light the moon gives through the curtain. “Of course!” Pause. “Uh, let me go to the bathroom first, though. I’ll be right out.”
Sakiko nods. “Take your time.”
Despite Sakiko's words, Hatsune all but bolts out of bed and across the room to the door. She takes a long time in the bathroom itself.
Sakiko chooses not to comment on any of it when she comes back.
Hatsune seems unnerved by this ‘leniency’ Sakiko’s displaying, if the way she hesitantly shuffles back to her side of the bed — in her own room — is any indication. She gingerly lifts the blanket like it’s made of thorns. As she slides under it — trying her best not to jostle the mattress too much — Sakiko notices she’s wearing a different set of pants.
“Do you need to use the bathroom, Saki-chan?”
“I’m fine.” Sakiko shakes her head. Hatsune’s pensiveness doesn't abate.
She doesn’t make a move until Sakiko has settled down first, at which point she follows suit, facing away from Sakiko and keeping a considerable distance between them. Sakiko almost lets out a huff. She can’t decide if it’s an offended huff or an amused one — Hatsune does get terribly ridiculous at times with her self-inflicted punishments.
She keeps it to herself. She knows she’s not one to talk.
Sakiko slides closer. Hatsune is tense as she touches her arm lightly.
“Is this okay?” She makes sure to ask. Maybe her forgiveness really is too much for Hatsune tonight. Maybe Sakiko is only hurting her by staying.
Hesitation. Then, a nod. “...mhm.”
Sakiko wraps her arm around Hatsune’s midsection, pulling them together, back to front. Hatsune’s bigger, but they’ve done this enough times for Sakiko to know where to rest her forehead between her shoulder blades and how to mold the shape of her body around the curve of her back. It’s familiar, and Sakiko can tell it helps — Hatsune takes a while to relax, but she does eventually, her breaths evening out.
She smells freshly of her strawberry shower gel.
It takes even longer for Sakiko to fall asleep herself.
———
“You really ought to be more careful in public. You’re a celebrity.”
“So are you, Saki-chan!” Hatsune cheerfully replies, unlocking the front door and admitting them both into the house.
“I’m serious.” Sakiko frowns at Hatsune’s leading back. “You should refrain from public transport as much as possible.”
It could have been worse. They were lucky that the most attention they got when that one fan who recognised “Uika” and loudly exclaimed to the whole carriage were some stares and whispers. Even the fan had quickly apologised afterwards. Sakiko shudders to think of an alternative scenario where the people around them hadn’t been as courteous.
“But I want to go home with you, Saki-chan.” Hatsune's voice softens, though still with that undercurrent of joy. Sakiko recognises that “Uika” is gone, now that they’re behind closed doors. It’s just Hatsune left — Hatsune and her bleeding, earnest love, a black hole that can only be fulfilled by Sakiko's attention.
Sakiko sighs. She’s slightly annoyed to find that she doesn't have much of a will to reproach Hatsune, not when she's like this. “Then you have to have a better disguise.”
“I can start wearing face masks.” Hatsune offers.
“I’m surprised you haven't yet.”
“My disguise so far has worked fine. I got recognised only once or twice, but nothing serious has happened yet.”
Sakiko’s frown deepens. “You shouldn't wait until something serious happens to take caution. What if that one or two fans who recognised you had tried to do something unsavoury?”
Something shifts. Hatsune’s eyes look strange. She chuckles, devoid of her previous humour. “And what if they did?”
Sakiko’s eyes widen. Hatsune seems to realise her mistake, for her eyes also widen in response.
“Nothing bad really happened! I saw a suspicious figure trying to follow me once, but I was able to shake them off.” She says by way of an explanation, hands waving frantically, panicked as if she’s somehow at fault. “I mostly travel by the agency’s car these days anyway, it was just a one-time occurrence. It won’t happen again.”
Sakiko knows that this is just how Hatsune is, but she can’t help her irritation. “What do you mean ‘nothing bad really happened’? Someone literally tried to stalk you and you’re acting like it’s nothing?!”
Hatsune flinches, and Sakiko realises she has misdirected her anger, again. The scene before her is a familiar one — Hatsune’s stricken gaze lowering to the floor, her left hand instinctively reaching for her other arm as she withdraws into herself and simply goes silent at Sakiko’s outrage.
Sakiko heaves a heavy sigh, regret settling in where frustration has been.
“Hatsune, come here.”
Purple eyes peek out timidly from under blonde, messy bangs, as if unsure they’re allowed to look. When they see that Sakiko’s arms are spread out in a simple invitation, the shadow over them clears; and Hatsune willingly and obediently steps forward.
Sakiko’s arms fall into place around her waist. Hatsune’s head falls into place on her shoulder. It’s a familiar ritual of theirs — of mutual confession and absolution.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have blown up at you.” Sakiko says. “I just wish you could see my worry.”
“I do, Saki-chan,” Hatsune responds. “I’m sorry as well. It concerns you too, doesn’t it? If my publicity endangers me, and you're dragged into it—”
“This is not about me.” Sakiko withdraws her arms, only to cup Hatsune's face into her hands. Golden eyes, gentle and firm at the same time, gaze into sorrowful purple ones. “This is about you. You are,” she rolls over a few different words, “ important to me. I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I don’t want to see you downplay such an awful experience that happened to you.”
For some reason, this only seems to make the cloud over Hatsune's head darken. She stares down from Sakiko's gaze as she says. “Even though I did the same thing to you?”
Sakiko takes half a second longer than she’d like to find something to reply to that. “You’ve atoned,” she finally says. “I’ve forgiven you for that.”
Hatsune’s gaze returns to hers with something like a plea. Her god answers it, drawing her in until their lips meet.
It’s deep and sweet. Hatsune’s arms tighten around Sakiko, greedily accepting her forgiveness. Sakiko drinks Hatsune’s guilt from her until she becomes dizzy with the immensity of it, and then some more. She’s the one who breaks for air.
Hatsune’s expression has lightened. It’s not quite a relaxed smile, but it also doesn’t seem as if a storm is about to sweep her away anymore.
Sakiko lets her bury her head in her shoulder again. Her grip on Sakiko’s waist isn’t quite as crushing anymore, though she keeps it there, keeps their bodies close. “I’m really fine with it, you know.” Hatsune’s weak mumble comes from just behind her ears. “I know it’s not okay, but I’ve long accepted it. If it’s for the sake of being with you, I’d accept any risk. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t…”
Sakiko stays silent, waiting for Hatsune to continue.
“I…” She feels Hatsune swallow. “I…”
Then she sighs.
“Nevermind.”
Sakiko frowns. “Hatsune?”
She feels Hatsune swallow once more. She can’t see her face from here. “O-One day. One day, I’ll tell you. I promise.” She sounds like she’s making a promise to herself more than anything. “J-Just— I’m not ready yet. And I don’t think you are, either.”
It’s Sakiko’s turn to tighten her grip on Hatsune’s shirt — a reminder. “Hatsune, don’t you dare underestimate me.”
Hatsune pushes away to show Sakiko the honest nervousness in her gaze. “I-I’m not! I know you, Saki-chan. I know you’re the kindest person on Earth. But—” She falters. “I’m not ready. I’m just not. It’s all so weird and messed up… I’m sorry, Saki-chan, I’m so sorry that I’m like this, it’s such a messed up thing to want but I can't help it—”
Sakiko cuts her off with a finger to her lips. Hatsune blinks down at it, confused, a little like a puppy. Sakiko bites down the urge to comment on how cute that is.
“It’s okay, Hatsune. One day,” she whispers, pressing in until the only thing separating them is that finger. Sakiko has already promised her ‘forever’ — she’ll create that forever if she has to. “I’ll wait.”
It’s a promise.
———
“...and he just totally disregarded her wish! Ugh, I don’t understand how people can like that kind of novel so much.”
Hatsune laughs. “Then why did you read it?”
Sakiko blushes. She wonders if Hatsune can feel it. “I want to learn what kind of book Mutsumi likes. I feel like I’m always recommending to her something I read, so it’s time I return the favour by reading something from her, you know?”
“Mhm, I get that.” Hatsune hums, easy and content to simply listen. The sound resonates through Sakiko’s body, sharing with her its warmth. As it fades, Hatsune’s heartbeats return underneath, a slow, peaceful thrum. Sakiko feels her own heartbeats slowing to match.
This is nice. In the warm, dreamlike afterglow of a good lovemaking, it feels like nothing can touch them. Her grandfather, her responsibilities, the outside world… none of it is even remotely close to the edge of Sakiko's mind right now. Hatsune is a melted puddle of relaxation under her, her right arm loosely wrapped around Sakiko's shoulder. Sakiko is snuggled as close as it is physically possible for her to be to Hatsune — head nestled in the crook of her neck, arm thrown over her rising and falling belly, legs entangled in such a way that Sakiko’s hazy, love-drunk brain cannot even begin to fathom how they were ever separated.
This must be what she loves most about living with Hatsune — if not most, then a close second. Not sex — though that is certainly something she has come to enjoy — but the moment after. Hatsune feels so close, in more ways than simply physical — her heart shines, gently, like a moon in a clear pond, where all Sakiko needs to do is dip her finger in and touch it.
It’s hard to imagine that she has ever known a different “Uika” anymore. In moments like these, Sakiko wonders how she ever mistook Hatsune for Uika all those years ago. Theoretically, she knows the answer — a child’s mind is hardly trained to notice all the minute differences that could have caught Hatsune out — but the stark contrast between the gentle girl she now knows and the spirited child she remembers is so obvious to her now. And with time, Uika becomes more and more mythologised in her mind — “idolised”, one might say — while this kind, soulful “Uika” becomes her truth, until it is all that is important anymore.
“From what I gather, she reads a lot of YA novels, and,” Sakiko frowns, “that genre tends to include a romance plot of some kind, I know that much. Classical romance does feature rather… unlikeable male protagonists, but I’m surprised to see that hasn’t changed much even in modern romance literature.”
“Maybe Mutsumi-chan just likes the worldbuilding aspect of it?”
“Perhaps,” Sakiko muses. “I will have to ask her about it the next time we hang out.”
Hatsune hums noncommittally.
Sakiko cranes her neck to look at her. This position is comfortable, but damn does it make it difficult for her to see Hatsune's face. “Speaking of, what kind of books do you read, Hatsune?”
“Me?” Hatsune sounds taken aback.
“Yes.” Sakiko never sees her with a book or an e-book reader. Whatever she reads, she must have done them all on her phone or laptop.
“Hmmm.” The reverberation tingles her palm. “I’m… honestly not that much of a reader. Sorry, Saki-chan. Not everyone is as smart and well educated as you.”
“You don't need to be smart and well educated to enjoy a book, Hatsune. You just need to know how to read.” Sakiko huffs in amusement. “Besides, I find it hard to believe you aren’t well-read. I chose you as our lyricist for a reason.”
“You simply have too much faith in me.”
“I do because you haven't disappointed me so far.”
Hatsune is quiet. Sakiko rolls herself out of Hatsune’s arm to prop herself up on her elbow and look at Hatsune better. The blonde seems deep in thoughts, glancing at Sakiko briefly before staring off with a frown on her face.
“I like… horror?” She says, hesitant. Shy.
“What kind?” Sakiko prods gently, genuinely curious.
Hatsune makes a face — like she’s resentful of being made to think and articulate right now, but it’s a light-hearted kind of exasperation. “Ehhh, I guess if I have to pin down a genre, it would be… psychological horror? Like… serial killers and psychos and such. I don’t much like supernatural horror, like ghosts and monsters.” She makes a vague hand gesture. “But I do watch it sometimes if it’s a movie, and other people have said it’s good.”
“What do you like about those kinds of stories?”
Here Hatsune appears mildly flustered. “Eh? Do we really need to go there?”
Sakiko tilts her head. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“No, it’s just—” Hatsune looks away, to the window. The curtain is drawn, with only a sliver of moonlight slipping through the gap. Her lips are pressed together, unknown thoughts piling behind them. “I’ve never really put it into words,” the ‘no one has ever cared to ask’ goes unspoken, “but I suppose I find those stories… comforting? It’s a strange thing to say about horror, I know—”
Sakiko doesn’t think that is so strange, but she doesn’t say anything.
“—but it’s just how I feel when reading those kinds of stories. The spiraling chain of events, the emotions, the series of thoughts that lead someone, even the most well-intentioned, to make such awful decisions… it feels so familiar. Almost like…” The moonlight grows dimmer. “I’m at home.”
Sakiko says before she can stop herself. “Do you identify with the characters in those stories?”
The pillow makes a soft, velvety sound as Hatsune’s head turns back towards her. She has a wry smile on her face. “Saki-chan, I tried not to say that.”
Sakiko isn’t fazed. She speaks, evenly, a truth she’s spoken many times. “You’ve given many parts of yourself to me, and I’ve accepted them all. I won’t condemn you for having the occasional dark, repugnant thoughts. Thoughts don’t make sins — but if the weight of your thoughts wears you down, I’m ready to bear it with you.”
Hatsune shakes her head. “But that’s the thing, Saki-chan. I don’t just have them sometimes, I revel in them.”
It’s Hatsune’s eyes as she said that — a dark hole akin to the void of space itself — that freezes Sakiko for a moment, taken aback. When she speaks again, her own calmness sounds strange to her ears.
“What do you mean?”
Silence. For a moment, Sakiko thinks that she has lost Hatsune — that the moon has once again retreated behind mountains, impossible to reach until the next time night falls.
Then Hatsune turns to the ceiling, and takes a breath.
“Sometimes, I like to indulge in the fantasy that I’m a character in one of those horror stories.”
She doesn't follow that up until after a beat. “I know it’s weird. They don’t exactly have the best lives. Their lives are actually, almost universally rather terrible. But… it’s easy for me to identify with them. They try to rise above their fate, but in doing so, they become the villain in their own story. Or the victim. There really are two ways of looking at it. But regardless of how inexcusable their actions are, I understand deeply why they did it.”
“If I were them, I’d do the same thing. And imagining that makes me feel… validated. Like having the same struggles as them would validate all my thoughts and actions thus far. And that’s…”
Hatsune presses the heels of her palms against her eyes. “Pathetic, right? To wish to be traumatised in such a terrible way, just to have an excuse for all the immoral things I have felt and done to the other people around me. To wish that someone had done something truly horrible to me, so that I would be excused for wanting to violently fling someone down the stairs, or fling myself down the stairs. To wish that—”
She stutters off, her lips hanging open for a moment, before pressing together when the words refuse to form. As she watches her facial muscles slowly sag, Sakiko feels the moonlight sinking, the surface of the pond gradually icing over.
She reaches out before it can close off completely, placing a hand on Hatsune's bare arm. “Tell me, I want to hear it.”
She doesn’t try to take Hatsune’s hands off her eyes. Sometimes, a confession can only happen when there’s a physical divide between the confessing and the confessed-to.
It takes another beat. “I had a dream the other day. About you— violating me.”
Sakiko goes rigid.
The rest come out of Hatsune in a rush. “I want to say that it is not at all— it doesn't reflect how I think about you! You’re kind and noble and I know you would never do something like that. But a part of me — a disgusting part of me — wants you to do it. It wants you to do it to me so badly. And I’m so sorry—”
“Dreams don’t always mean something about yourself, Hatsune.” Sakiko cuts her off. She wants to feel bad about it, but— it’s to reassure Hatsune. If it reassures herself too, that’s a mere coincidence. “It’s a collection of random images your brain collates together when you sleep. They don’t necessarily reflect a hidden desire of yours to be—”
“But I know I want it, Saki-chan.” Hatsune's hands fly away to reveal her eyes. They’re wide with desperation. “I jerked off to it.”
Sakiko's mouth snaps shut. She has no idea what kind of expression she’s making anymore.
It doesn't seem like an expression Hatsune can take either, for she quickly averts her eyes again. “I read all these… sexy stories, where someone gets forced to… you know, against their will. And I’d imagine you doing that to me — just pin me against the wall and have your way with me despite my protests — and it’d get me every time. And I’d always feel bad about it after, for having such a dirty image of you in my head, but at that moment it’s all I can think about.”
Sakiko stays silent, waiting for Hatsune to continue. And she's rewarded for it — it seems like the dam has been thoroughly removed, and all that remains is for the water to run dry.
“And sometimes, back when I still lived here alone, I thought about those horror stories where a creepy stalker breaks into your house while you’re sleeping somehow despite all the security you have in place. And if I don’t stop there — if I let my mind wander — I’d start imagining waking up in the middle of the night to a knife against my neck — helpless to do anything but shake in fear as they toy with me and take me for all I have — and it’s so easy, Saki-chan. It’s so easy for that fear to tip over into arousal. And I thought… maybe if that had happened, I’d feel less guilty about all these ugly desires that I have for you all the time. Maybe if you stained your hands for me first, I wouldn't have to stain them myself! It’s nothing but cowardice!”
Hatsune sucks in a breath at the end of that, as if she’s finally remembered to breathe. As the blonde lies there, catching her breath, Sakiko feels her own turbulent thoughts and emotions quietly coalescing.
Eventually, Hatsune closes her eyes and breathes out — a long, drawn-out, if relieved sigh.
“It’s a messed up fantasy, Saki-chan, I know. I’m messed up, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
It’s the same thing, Sakiko realises. It’s the same thing Hatsune said when she admitted to liking being treated like a pet sometimes. It’s the same thing she said when she asked Sakiko to top for the first time, when she admitted to having dreamt of it since forever ago. It’s the same thing she said during the first couple of nights after they returned from the island, when she clung to Sakiko and begged for them to be together forever.
It’s the same thing she says whenever she wants anything at all.
So what Sakiko needs to do in response hasn’t changed, either.
“Tell me more about your dream.”
Hatsune's eyes blink open. Befuddled. “Saki-chan?”
Sakiko rises and shifts, until her hands are bracing on either side of Hatsune’s head, hovering over her. Anxiety, shame, confusion — and even hope — all swirl in the mesmerising, bottomless purple depths before her, lethal to stare at for too long.
“Your dream the other day. What did I do in it?”
Understanding joins the mix, then bewilderment. “U-Um, you kinda— had me bent over a-and pressed face-down on the table outside—”
Well, that’s a bit of a problem. Sakiko suspects neither of them feels like moving right now. No matter. “Can you turn over for me?”
Hatsune hesitates, but eventually complies. Sakiko sits up a little to make space for her, but afterwards she has Hatsune splayed out under her, the dip of her spine softly visible under the warm, yellow light of the lamp on the bedside table. Sakiko traces her finger along it, and feels Hatsune’s breath stutter.
“Then what did I do next?”
“Um… you had a hand over my head to keep me down, and— oh gosh.” Hatsune makes an incoherent squeal and hides her face in the pillow. Sakiko can see the tip of her ears turning red, though. Her next words are slightly muffled. “In the dream I was just unable to move my hands somehow. You had me pinned down like that, one hand pushing my head down on the table, and the other…”
“Like this?” Sakiko places a hand on Hatsune’s silky, golden mane, and puts a little pressure behind it. “Can you breathe?”
The only response she gets is a muffled “nngh”, and then the head under her hand shifts to the side. “Y-Yeah, I can.” Hatsune says. She sounds slightly out of breath. “Um, Saki-chan?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?”
Sakiko halts.
She takes too long to answer. Her mind feels like it has gazed into the eyes of Medusa — and by the time the petrification fades, Hatsune has propped herself up, and is looking at her in worry. Her hand — the hand she put on Hatsune’s head — is in Hatsune’s hand.
Sakiko stares down at it, and thinks, really assesses how she feels. The noises in her brain only grow, encroaching on her already flimsy certainty, leaving her less sure with each passing second.
“It’s okay.” She feels Hatsune sit up fully. Her hand is released — then there are hands on her shoulders, drawing her in until she feels a gentle kiss between her brows. Her eyes close reflexively, and when she opens them back up, she feels the crease between her brows naturally smoothen out with it. “You don't have to do it.”
Sakiko lets out a sigh, half out of subtle relief, half disappointment. She pushes at Hatsune until she gets the hint and pulls them both down again, laying in each other’s arms, their tension expelled with the bounce of the mattress.
“We should talk about it properly, right?” Hatsune says, her chest rumbling soothingly as she hugs Sakiko closer to it. “That’s what you always say. Um, of course, if you’re just too grossed out by it, that’s fine, too. We don’t have to mention it again ever—”
“I haven’t said ‘no’ yet, Hatsune,” Sakiko says with a little exasperated sigh.
“I’m just saying! We don’t want another incident like with the plug last time, right?”
“I know,” Sakiko sighs again, suddenly feeling petulant. She hides her pout by burying her face deeper into the warm bosom of the woman beside her. “I guess I just— want to understand.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty out there.” Hatsune pats her hair. “Again, you don’t have to force yourself to like it or even think about it. I’m fine with what we’ve been doin—”
“Enough of that already.” Sakiko grumbles and pinches Hatsune’s side, making her jump and squeak like one of her chew toys. “You are not disgusting or immoral for having fantasies, no matter how unusual it is. I just need some time, that’s all.”
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry!” Hatsune’s apology has a hint of a laugh in it from being poked at her ticklish place. “Take all the time you need.”
The following lull in the conversation is long enough that Sakiko almost thinks they’re done with the whole sordid subject — until Hatsune’s voice sounds again, small and timid. “Saki-chan?”
“Hm?”
“I love you.” She sounds almost asleep. “No matter what you want, I’ll always love you.”
Sakiko feels her heart seize.
Unfair.
The four-word response is caught in her throat, struggling to come out. Say it, says a growing voice. Give her what she wants. It’s what you want too, isn’t it?
Hatsune falls asleep shortly after. She never expects a reply.