a/n: got this prompt from my friend ioucos on twitter! i love haznat and had a lot of fun with it
"Camping," Natsuki said in disbelief.
"Camping!" Hazuki echoed, smiling so brightly it almost made Natsuki cry. "I used to love going out into the wilderness when I was younger, so I figured why not do the same now that I've got a . . . a g-girl . . ."
"Take your time."
"Girlfriend!" Hazuki burst out, cheeks flushed a deep red. "You have a pickup and I have a tent and a place to stay in the woods, it'll be perfect!" Natsuki scratched the back of her neck.
"I guess that wouldn't be too bad," she said. "This weekend?"
"This weekend." Hazuki rested her fist in her open palm, nodding determinedly. "Definitely."
"Which apartment are you in again?"
"114," Natsuki said, pressing her head against her shoulder in an attempt to keep the phone in place and feeling something like an overworked businesswoman in an early 2000s romcom. In truth, the reason why she was in this position had more to do with the tent she was trying to wrangle into its constraints. "How didya get this over here, anyway?"
"Oh, the tent? You opened it?"
"Should I . . . not have done that?"
"It's, like, almost impossible to get back in the bag. I'll show you how when I get- oh, here it is!" There was a knocking at the door, and Natsuki dropped the tent to open it. Hazuki stood in front of her, hoisting a comically large backpack. She was surprised she didn't fall down from the sheer weight of it. "I probably shouldn't have lent you this for our first trip, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess not." Natsuki looked at the mess of fabric and poles in front of her. "Next time, you bring the tent." Hazuki's eyes widened.
"Next time?"
"We'll see how this one goes."
It was days like this that made Natsuki realize she really needed to fix up her truck, with Hazuki frustratedly trying to jam the seatbelt into its lock.
"Maybe I should just sit in the trunk," she said, furrowing her brow as she failed to lock the seatbelt for the twelfth time that minute. "I can hold on." Natsuki shook her head.
"Nope. Absolutely not. No way."
"I'd be fine."
"Even if I was gonna say sure, risk your life, there's no room. We packed it with the tent and everything, remember?"
"Right." Hazuki pressed her hand down one more time. "There! I'll just hold it there until we get to the campground." Natsuki couldn't hold back a laugh.
"You're a clever one, Katou," she chuckled, and kicked the pickup into gear.
"Why do you use cassette tapes?" Hazuki flipped through Natsuki's selection, intrigued. "Why not CDs or something?"
"I just like 'em." Natsuki took one hand off the wheel to pick a tape up, feeling the familiar sensation of the plastic between her fingers. "Put this one in, would ya? It's one of my favorites."
"Okay!" The tape started up, and Natsuki grinned at the opening notes she knew by heart. "You really like this singer a lot, huh?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
"I've never heard her stuff."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that."
"Is that how you're going to answer all of my questions?"
"Probably." Natsuki paused for a moment. "You're okay with this, right? With me? I'm not U-Hauling your ass out to the woods for nothing?"
"Of course I am!" Hazuki nodded solemnly. "I'm excited for this."
"I'm glad."
The highway was blissfully empty, Natsuki realized soon enough. She could open the window and stick her arm out without worrying about losing a hand, could belt along with her favorite tapes without getting dirty looks from other drivers.
"It kinda feels like a ghost town," Hazuki said, a few hours into the drive. She'd folded herself into a ball, legs pressed against her chest. "Like, this is what you'd see after the end of the world."
"Wouldn't have pinned ya as someone who thinks about the end of the world a lot." An old singer's raspy voice wafted through the speakers. Hazuki winked.
"I'm full of surprises," she retorted, smirking in a way that might've looked devious on someone else. The truck kept bumping along the highway, sun glowing in her face, and she looked like something out of a movie. Natsuki was breathless.
"So, what's it look like to ya? The end of the world, I mean." Hazuki furrowed her brow.
"Not totally different. Like, not all covered in fire and everything." She pressed a hand to her forehead. "Midori-chan reads books about it, I guess she's kinda rubbed off on me."
"Mm-hmm."
"So, anyway, it's just little things like this. A bunch of people-less places that should be filled with people, weird emptiness." Hazuki looked down. "Just really lonely."
"That's . . . dark." Natsuki tipped her head back - the highway was empty enough that she didn't really need to look. It was because of this, too, that she turned to face Hazuki. "Hey, it's not totally lonely, though. You've still got me." The song slipped into the end. "Two gals at the end of the world. Not an awful thought."
It was mid-evening by the time they reached the campground, if it could be called that. The only sign of civilization was a vaguely rectangular arrangement of logs that had probably hosted a fire some decades ago.
"We're here!" Hazuki cheered, and Natsuki could've sworn that her eyes actually lit up. "Isn't it nice?"
"Eh, yeah."
"C'mon, I'll show you the best place for the tent!" Hazuki all but ripped her seatbelt in half before hopping out of the pickup and circling around to grab the tent. Natsuki let out a chuckle.
"Ya come here a lot?" She must have, to even know about this place. It wasn't exactly a tourist trap.
"I've been coming with my family since I was a baby!" Hazuki started dragging the tent to an empty spot. Most of the area was an empty spot, really. "Me, my mom and dad, and my little brothers."
"You have brothers?" She'd never mentioned it - Natsuki had gotten it into her head that Hazuki was an only child.
"Yeah." Hazuki gestured with her free hand for Natsuki to help set up the tent. "Two of 'em. They're in elementary school."
"Huh."
"Do you have any siblings?"
"Nope." Natsuki flashed a grin and jabbed a thumb at her chest. "It's just me, myself, and I at the Nakagawa household. Apartment. Whatever."
"Oh."
"Now, this peg goes here, right?" Neither of them were very well-versed in the art of building a tent, it seemed - Hazuki explained with five pegs in her hand that this was usually her parents' job - and the end result looked more like a haphazard lump than anything else. Regardless, the pair could fit into it if they squeezed enough, and so Hazuki raced back to the truck as the sun went down. "What're ya getting now?" Natsuki called after her. Hazuki triumphantly held up a bag of marshmallows in response.
"That's our other tradition!" she yelled back. "Roasting 'em!"
"Great!"
It was dark outside by the time Hazuki and Natsuki were able to set up the campfire, marshmallows sticking out in front of them as the fire crackled.
"This is nice," Hazuki murmured, leaning into Natsuki's shoulder. "Don't you think?"
"Yeah." Natsuki let out a long sigh, looking upwards. A few stars were beginning to twinkle. "Y'know, I don't get outside much. I'm more of a homebody - movies're easier to handle than the weather, and it's not like there's a huge expanse of campgrounds in Uji."
"Do you like it?" Hazuki's voice sounded so quiet, so uneasy. Natsuki wondered if she thought of her as another Tsukamoto - ready to spring at any moment, uninterested, just playing along. "Like, really like it, or are you just being nice?"
"I like it, Katou." Natsuki bumped Hazuki with her shoulder, and she caught a whiff of her shampoo. Something with lemons, she thought, and something sweet. "Alright? I'm not exactly the world's most sensitive person. If I didn't like it, I'd tell ya."
"Thanks." Hazuki snuggled in closer, marshmallows all but forgotten. Natsuki's heart thumped, thumped, thumped, until she couldn't feel it thumping anymore and instead settled into a comfortable warmth.
This is nice, she thought, yawning and wrapping her arm around Hazuki. It was the oldest trick in the book, but something about that girl just made her want to be sentimental.
It was nice.
"Not a stargazer, huh?" Hazuki was referring, of course, to the way Natsuki's face was smushed directly into her pillow.
"Nope," she replied, muffled. "They're pretty and crap, but I don't need to see 'em while I sleep. Little flaming bastards. Watching me sleep like some kinda creep."
"You've never taken a girl to the back of your truck and watched them from there? Maybe worn a bunch of cozy blankets with stars on them or something? I read about that in a book once."
"Did you, now?" Natsuki lifted her head to see Hazuki wriggling in closer. The lack of room for an extra sleeping bag hadn't bothered either of them, really. "I'll have to read that one."
"Ha! I finally found something gay that you don't know about!" Hazuki beamed. She was like living sunshine, that girl. Love and warmth incarnate. It made Natsuki's insides feel like they'd burst.
She loved it.
"So ya did, Kat- Hazuki." Then, because they were inches apart already and Hazuki's hair fell in her face in that unfairly cute way when she didn't keep it pinned back, because Natsuki could feel heat coming off her in waves and they were squished together in a mangled version of a tent, because goddammit she was in love, she kissed her.
It was soft, and sweet, and clumsy - Hazuki wasn't experienced, at all, but she was eager and smiling all the while and that meant Natsuki was just about to explode.
"Love you," she murmured, half-hoping that Hazuki wouldn't hear. She did.
"You too," she whispered back, pulling Natsuki in for more, and she was happier than she'd ever been.
a/n: the book hazuki is referring to is starting from here by lisa jenn bigelow, which was the first queer book i read after i came out. highly recommend it!