the spotless mind.
characters: mamura, shishio, suzume.
…
He kisses her at the end of her second year (or she kisses him or he grabs her and she kisses him and he kisses her back, knee-tremblingly good).
And she can't breathe—for seconds, minutes, lifetimes, light years—because he is desperate and foolish and still everything she wants, somewhere deep down. His glasses are mashed up against his eyelashes and he apologizes immediately, the aftertaste of their kiss whispering from his mouth.
"Suzume," he fumbles with her name, because he has never quite experienced the full effect of it, never truly tasted the syllables on his rushed lips. Something breaks over her features because his hands are on her shoulders and his eyes are in her eyes, lost.
Her body shakes and then she cries, or maybe it happens the other way around, but she is crying and shaking in a matter of minutes. "Why would you let me kiss you when my back is turned?!"
Because it is. He is contained within her heart, a comet burning her up from the inside of her skin, and it doesn't matter if her back is turned and she is facing someone else because her heart cannot cleanse him.
"I didn't know I would have to stop you," he rubs the back of his neck, his cheeks dark, his eyes clouded.
"I love you," she frowns, drags the backs of her hands across her tear-stained cheeks, "and I'm glad you kissed me, finally. But that's all."
His hands are like sunshine on her cheeks, drying her tears, warming her face. He smiles and it is sad, but it is full of love and acceptance and happiness, all at once. "And that's okay," he says immediately after, "that's all I could ever hope to have."
Shishio smiles, and it no longer makes her heart clench.
…
They hold hands at graduation.
And for her, it is a twinkle in the night sky, a whisper of activity on the radar between them. But she thinks it is special, because it is. Her fingertips fit in the spaces between his knuckles like breaths and heartbeats, like the tightly woven threads of fate that they are. There is no angry, crimson flush because she is smiling with tears rolling off of her lashes and he is smiling, something genuine, gossamer-thin and it is bittersweet.
"I guess we can't really study together anymore," he says when he is ready to let go of her hand, but what it means is I love you, I love you, no matter what, I always will and he wonders if she can see that, if she can see through that.
See through him.
Suzume smiles and it is weak, and it is perfect, too. "What a relief for you," is her response, "maybe I'll get smarter in my own ways." One day, one day, I will cherish you in a way that makes the sun look like a star.
Mamura lets go of her hand, and she is okay.
…
notes: god i'm still not used to writing for this fandom i just want suzume to love them in her own special way and be alone is that too much? for her to cherish shishio for what he brought to her life, that fresh new face that opened her up to miraculous shooting stars and love mamura as a friend, love him for the way he supported her and chose to love her even though he only stood to lose? i have lots of feels this came out wrong.