Falling objects were ruled by gravity. Hiyori had learned a lot about gravity in school and saw it in action every day of her life. It could trap objects and bind them together like a planet orbiting the sun. And when you dropped something, gravity would pull it down to the ground in freefall. And if nothing caught it…
Last week, Hiyori had been baking in the kitchen when her grip slipped and she dropped an egg. It had fallen through the air and smashed all over the tile. The white ran across the floor, the yolk broke and bright yellow oozed into the clear slime, and the shell shattered like little porcelain shards. She had sopped up the mess and collected each piece of shell and thrown all of it into the trash. Some things couldn't be saved when they hit the ground. Some things broke too completely.
Hiyori was falling, plunging through the air in gravity's clutches, and she didn't know if there would be anyone to catch her before she hit the ground. She hoped so. She didn't like to imagine her body in a broken heap, the happiness and hope oozing out of her, her heart shattered like porcelain. Freefalling could be exhilarating with the wind in your hair and the adrenaline pumping through your body, but it was also terrifying.
"Hiyoriii. Why are you staring at me like that? Is there something on my face? Ahhh, get it off!"
Hiyori started out of her thoughts with a small jolt of surprise and found herself staring at Yato. He had begun rubbing at his face vigorously in a vain attempt to clean off some nonexistent blemish.
Hiyori wanted to die of embarrassment. "N-no," she stuttered. "There's nothing on your face. Sorry, I think I was zoning out."
Yato dropped his hands and scowled as he tramped through the grass beside her. "Zoning out? Were you listening to anything I was saying?"
"S-sorry…"
He stopped suddenly and rocked forward, eyes narrowing as they studied her face. Hiyori came to an abrupt halt, and her breath caught in her throat as Yato leaned in until their noses were nearly touching. He was so close, breath warm on her face and eyes focused on her like she was the only person in the world.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked, pressing a hand to her forehead. "You're all red, and you feel kind of warm. Are you getting sick?"
His eyes were so blue. It seemed like beautiful eyes were a gift bestowed on many of the gods, but none were quite as entrancing as Yato's. They were so expressive, and as changeable as the weather. They could be softer than a kitten's eyes, sharper than steel, brighter than the sun, colder than ice. They could be cheerful or cloaked in secrets, soft with melancholy or warm with love, frighteningly dangerous or fiercely protective. But always, they were bluer than the sky and utterly captivating.
"Maybe I should take you home." Yato's brows creased in worry, and it hit Hiyori that she had been staring like a blushing schoolgirl again instead of responding.
"I'm fine," she squeaked, batting his hand away and stepping back to put some distance between them. "Just a little hot. It's starting to get warm."
Yato nodded to himself, even though the day was pleasantly warm and not hot by any stretch of the imagination. "You're right. Why don't we head back to Kofuku's? Get you out of the heat. And I bet Yukine's just about done working in the shop, so you can give him his lesson!"
Half of Hiyori wanted to seize the opportunity to escape back to her other friends' company, and half of her wanted to stay out here walking with Yato in the park forever, just the two of them. It was a confusing jumble of conflicting desires and baffling feelings, but it seemed easier to go along with the suggested plan.
"Okay," she mumbled.
Yato perked up again and started back for the shrine, blithely cheerful as he chatted away without a care in the world. Hiyori was quieter and paid only minimal attention as she followed along. She had plenty of cares to worry about.
She had begun noticing the stirrings of…strange feelings around Yato recently. She told herself that it didn't make any sense. Yato was obnoxious and childish and lazy and, lest she forget, a god. So what if he was kind of cute and had saved her life a bunch of times and cut a striking figure as a warrior and was fiercely protective of his friends and had hidden depths buried beneath his smile and myriad secrets?
Okay, so she might have developed an itty bitty crush. Nothing serious, really. Even if he had a heart of gold and beautiful eyes and a smile that lit up the world, he was still the most frustrating person in existence. And a god. Not a terribly important god, but a god nonetheless.
He was the absolute worst person to be crushing on, but Hiyori had already tried telling her heart that to no avail.
Yato seemed unperturbed by her pensive silence, and filled the dead space with chatter and jokes until he managed to coax a smile out of her. His eyes sparkled as her lips quirked upward, and his pleased grin made Hiyori fall for him a little more. It was sweet how he was always trying to make her laugh or smile even when she was feeling down. Even when he was feeling down.
They met Yukine in Kofuku's kitchen, searching for a snack in the fridge as he pulled his apron off.
"Finally decided to come back?" he grumbled, casting a disapproving gaze over Yato.
The god just grinned. "We wouldn't want you to feel too left ooout! Anyway, the heat was starting to get to Hiyori."
Hiyori was grateful for the distraction. "It's time for today's lesson."
Yukine groaned and pulled a face. "Come on, I just got off work."
"Which means you have time to learn some math now."
"You're such a strict teacher," Yukine said with a sheepish smile. His eyes shone with resigned but fond amusement as he followed her upstairs to the attic and began pulling out textbooks and homework papers.
"Ugh, can't we do something more fun?" Yato complained.
Hiyori shot him a look. "School is important. Anyway, weren't you the one saying that I should give Yukine his lesson now?"
"I changed my mind," Yato grumbled, throwing himself down on the floor a few feet across the room. "I'm bored already."
Hiyori ignored him. Or tried to. Instead, she checked over Yukine's homework and corrected a handful of errors and helped him work through the ones that still left him confused. Then she launched into the lesson on the next topic in the book.
It would be much easier to do if she didn't keep finding her gaze and mind wandering back to the god lounging on the other side of the room. Yato seemed to have his own gravitational pull that drew Hiyori's attention like a magnet, until she felt like she was always circling around him, a planet orbiting the sun.
He was doing a good impression of being asleep, but his mouth was turned upward at the corners and his fingers were lightly caressing the tiny shrine he'd pulled around. Hiyori's heart fluttered in a funny way when she remembered his expression when she'd first given him that shrine. She had thought it was just a silly little unimportant gesture at the time, but the way his eyes filled with tears had told her it was something much deeper than that.
"Uh… Hiyori?"
"Hm?" She shook herself out of her reverie and finally noticed what Yukine already saw: she had come up with the wrong answer to the example problem and none of the math was matching up. She flushed with embarrassment and scanned her work in a hurry, looking for the mistake and only growing more flustered when she couldn't find it. This was what she got for being so distracted and not paying attention. "Sorry, sorry. Where did I go wrong…? Ah, I don't know. Maybe I should start over."
"You're doing it wrong," said a voice from behind her, and she went stiff as a board as Yato crouched down and pulled the pencil from her fingers. He leaned over, his shoulder brushing against hers, and Hiyori's heart began pounding wildly in her chest at his close proximity. "Calm down, Hiyori. It's not that hard. It'll come easier if you relax."
He wrote a series of equations below her own failed attempt and worked through them with ease. He was explaining each step as he went and it really should make sense, but Hiyori couldn't think straight with him pressed against her and his intoxicating scent filling her head.
"I can't believe you know math," Yukine said, his voice muffled past the thumping in Hiyori's ears.
"Please," Yato said with a snort as he dropped the pencil and leaned back. "I've lived for centuries. I can do way harder math than this kiddie stuff."
"Oh, whatever."
"Hiyori?" Yato tilted his head and leaned back in, brows drawn together in a frown again. "Are you sure you're feeling alright? You're all red again, and it's not hot in here."
It took a moment to remember how to breathe and rip her gaze away from the bright blue eyes peering at her, but then Hiyori shoved Yato away with her usual vigor. "You know, maybe you're right," she managed. "I think I'll go home and get some rest."
"Ow," Yato moaned, rubbing at his face gingerly as he picked himself back up off the floor. "Why are you always so violent? Okay, I'll walk you home."
"No, that's okay!" she said quickly, jumping to her feet and across the room. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!"
She hurried downstairs and out the door, leaving Yato and Yukine blinking after her. She hastened the whole way home, hands pressed to her burning cheeks.
Hiyori was falling hard, falling faster than gravity, and she was afraid of what would happen when she hit the ground.
Hiyori held up a short blue dress and a red shirt with a white skirt in front of her as she considered her options in the mirror. She was going to a festival with Yato and Yukine in forty minutes, and had already spent a ridiculous amount of time agonizing over what to wear and which hairstyle looked best and how to get ready.
She liked blue as a rule, perhaps because it reminded her of Yato, but the fabric was dull in comparison to the vibrant blue of his eyes. She sighed and shook her head. This was ridiculous. She had spent more time worried about her appearance in the past month than she had in her entire life. This was Yato she was trying to impress. He probably didn't even notice what she wore. And even if he did, what did it really matter?
Hiyori had never considered herself a silly girl, but she had just spent five minutes comparing a dress to someone's eyes. And here she had thought it was a myth that love melted your brain.
"I'd say go with the dress, but everyone says that my fashion sense sucks, so you'd probably better stick with the opposite."
Hiyori jumped a foot in the air and whipped around to find Yato lounging on her bed, lying on his stomach with his chin propped on his hands as he watched her with half-lidded eyes. Hiyori's first instinct was to kick the living daylights out of him, but she resisted the temptation with great difficulty. She figured it was probably a bad idea to keep throwing amateur wrestling moves at the person you might be in love with.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded, throwing the clothes onto her chair and silently rejoicing that she was at least dressed in casual clothes from running out to the store in the morning. It would have been utterly humiliating if Yato had barged in here while she was naked. Even the thought brought more heat to her cheeks. "I thought I told you to stop teleporting in here!"
"I wanted to talk to you. Privately." Yato's eyes were serious, lacking their normal cheerful spark.
Hiyori swallowed nervously. "About what?"
"You've been acting weird for a while."
She froze, her breath stuttering in her throat. Had she really been that obvious?
Of course she had, gawking all the time like an idiot. But she had been hoping that Yato, being notoriously oblivious, wouldn't notice. Even that had been a stupid hope, though. For all Yato's naïveté and childishness, his sharp eyes missed very little when he was actually paying attention. He was bound to notice sooner or later. That was what Hiyori got for forgetting he was a god with centuries of life experience behind him.
"R-really?" She laughed, but it rose to a squeaky pitch and wavered. "Funny, I didn't even notice."
Yato's eyes narrowed in skepticism and he straightened up to sit cross-legged on the end of her bed. "If I'm doing something to make you uncomfortable, I'd rather you just tell me so that I can tone it down."
Hiyori stared. "What?"
"You keep acting like you're uncomfortable with me. You aren't doing it to Yukine or Kofuku or Daikoku or anyone else, so I have to assume that it's something about me. I know I can be…annoying and kind of…abrasive sometimes, but if I'm doing something to bother you that much…"
"It's not like that!" Hiyori said, kicking herself for how her intentions could be so easily misconstrued. She hurried to smooth out hurt feelings and relieve the doubt misting Yato's eyes. "You didn't do anything wrong, really. I've just been, um, trying to work out some issues and things. Sorry if I was being a little weird."
Yato did not look reassured. In fact, his expression didn't change at all.
"I'd rather you just tell me," he said again. "There's a reason I tell Yukine to talk to me when something is wrong."
"Nothing is wrong. And it's not like you talk to us most of the time when something is wrong. Just… It's fine."
"You want to know that badly?" Yato's lips tightened, and his eyes were glassy as his gaze finally left Hiyori's face to slide off to the side. "I'm afraid that if I'm doing something wrong and you don't tell me what it is so that I can fix it, you're going to keep drifting farther and farther away until you forget me."
Hiyori stared at him open-mouthed, the gears in her brain grinding to a halt for a heartbeat that might as well have lasted an eternity. Not only had her behavior been noticeable, but it had seriously made Yato question himself to this degree? Guilt twisted her heart. Given that half the time she couldn't even make proper eye contact and alternated between wanting to be as close to him as possible and making sure they were never alone together so that she could keep some distance between them, she couldn't even blame him for his concern. In a way, she was drifting farther away, even as she circled ever closer.
"I won't forget you!" she burst out. She rushed across the room to lean down and take his hands in her own. Yato's eyes snapped to her face, wide and startled, and she searched them fervently. "I promised that I wouldn't, and I won't. It's really not like that. You haven't done anything wrong, and I'm not planning on forgetting."
"Then what is wrong?" he asked quietly. "If I'm misunderstanding, then tell me why."
Hiyori opened her mouth but couldn't come up with any words. She stared into his earnest, solemn eyes for a few more seconds before pulling her hands out of his and turning to sit down on the bed beside him with her feet brushing lightly along the floor. She frowned at the ground.
What should she do? Make up an excuse? There was no way she could tell him the truth, but she just knew that he would be able to see right through her dissembling. Even while worried and uncertain, Yato's eyes seemed to slice right into her mind and heart, peeling back the layers until he dug out what lay buried underneath. If he looked at her too long, he might be able to discern her thoughts without her saying anything at all.
There was no way she could tell him, because it was so ridiculous. He was a god, and she was just a silly human girl. There was no way he would be interested in her like that, and it would never work. All spilling her secrets would do was make things awkward between them.
Then again, Yato was going to find out the truth sooner or later. He might be a bit oblivious at times, but eventually he was going to figure out what all those blushes and furtive glances and other odd behaviors meant. Especially now that he was really looking and searching for an explanation. His first assumption might have been colored by his insecurities, but he wasn't stupid by any means and he was too stubborn to give up without getting his answers.
And…there might be some small hope dwelling within Hiyori's heart, no matter how unlikely it seemed. Yato devoted so much time and attention to her that it was impossible not to hope at least a little, and his overly affectionate behavior had led more than one person to joke about him being somewhat in love with her himself. It was possible, but he would never tell her himself even if it was true, because he had far too much baggage.
"I love you," she whispered into the expectant silence before she could talk herself out of it. She kept her head bowed and eyes fixed on the floor as the blush crept over her face again.
"…I love you too," Yato said slowly, and Hiyori's heart jumped. "But it's making me nervous that you're starting it off that way."
Of course.
"No, I mean…in love." Hiyori hunched her shoulders and wished she could sink through the floor. "I think I might be falling in love with you."
The pause was so long, the silence so heavy, that she half-thought Yato had panicked and teleported away.
"O-oh…" the god mumbled finally. He still sounded stunned, but Hiyori could detect a note of regret peeking out from underneath and instantly knew that she had made a mistake. "I didn't realize…"
Hiyori huffed out a quivering laugh and tried to surreptitiously swipe at the tears gathering in her eyes. "You see me as a kid, don't you? Like Yukine."
"I…" Yato sighed and the sound lingered in the air, heavy and laden with regret. "It's not that I think you're a child, just… I've lived for over a thousand years, so humans seem young to me as a rule. It's not even that, just… You're a wonderful friend and I care about you a lot, don't get me wrong, but…I've never really understood that kind of love and attraction, to be honest. I don't think I've ever felt it before, and I'm not sure that I even could."
Hiyori should have anticipated that. Yato took great pride in Yukine as his 'kid', and Yukine wasn't all that much younger than Hiyori herself. Only a couple of years, maybe. They were practically children even by human standards, and to someone who had lived for centuries… Really, what hope did Hiyori have of understanding Yato and his life?
She was a little less sure what to make of the other admission. Either he was just trying to be nice or gods had a different approach to romance in general. Or, possibly, everything he had been through with his father had skewed his views on that as well as everything else.
Whatever the case, Hiyori was utterly embarrassed and her chest hurt and she was afraid that she might burst into tears at any moment.
"It's okay," she said, trying to put a brave face on it and retrace her steps a little. "It's not really a big deal. Just like…a little crush or something. I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough. I know it's silly. I mean, you're a god, and I'm just some random human."
"…Yes, but not the way you're thinking," Yato said tiredly. "You have your own world, Hiyori. You fit nicely into ours, but at the end of the day you go home. You're the one who can jump between worlds—I can't. I don't belong in your world, and you'd have to give up too much."
Hiyori finally looked up at him despite herself. He was still sitting cross-legged facing her, but his eyes had dulled with exhaustion and regret.
She swallowed hard. "What do you mean?" she whispered.
A tired smile pulled at Yato's lips as he watched her. "You're still young, Hiyori. You have time to figure yourself out and find someone to love. You're growing up. I'm not. Unless I die or disappear, I'll continue to live for centuries exactly like this, unchanging, long after you've lived out your life and died. You would be sucked further and further into our world, torn between us and your human life. You could introduce me to your family a hundred times and they would forget me as soon as I left the room. We could walk down the street and everyone would think you were alone.
"You've got plenty of time to find a nice human boy. Find someone who you can grow up with, who you can introduce to your family, who you could marry and have children with someday, who you could grow old with. You deserve better, Hiyori."
Hiyori's lips trembled and fresh tears filled her eyes. She had thought of those things. She knew there would be difficulties. She just…didn't care.
"I know," she said, scrubbing at her face with her sleeves. "I don't care."
"You will, someday," Yato said gently. "You don't want to look back at the end of your life and have regrets. You can do a lot better. Father's already targeting you because of your connection to me, and you'd be in even more danger if you got any closer. I'm annoying and I have blood on my hands and I'm too broken to love you the way you deserve. I'm sorry, but it really is best for you to find another human to love, one who isn't so messed up and won't bring you so much misfortune. I want you to be happy, and your best chance is with someone else."
"I know," Hiyori said again, her voice cracking. She buried her face in her hands and her tears leaked from between her fingers. "But you're also loyal and protective and kind and try so hard to make everyone happy, and I want you anyway."
"Hiyori…"
"Can–can I kiss you, just once?" Hiyori flinched, imagining the look on Yato's face and wishing she could snatch the words back out of the air. He had just said he didn't love her, and that was what she asked? "S-sorry," she said quickly, her words falling over themselves in her haste to fix the damage she had done. "Never mind. That's really selfish. I'm sorry, I–"
"Don't apologize." Yato reached out to pull her hands away from her face. He cupped her face in his hands to gently tilt her head towards him as he brushed away her tears with his thumbs. Hiyori's vision wavered and blurred through her tears, but when it cleared she found herself looking directly into his blue, blue eyes. They were soft now, melancholy but gentle. "You shouldn't have to feel sorry for the way you feel, just… Be careful what you ask of me, Hiyori. You are special to me, and I would do anything for you. I would do anything if you wished it, so be careful that it's something you've really thought through."
Wishes. Of course. Hiyori had the sudden insight that she could hand him five yen and ask him to enter into a relationship with her and he would probably do it, right up until the point he was sure that her happiness no longer outweighed the costs. She could have skipped all the embarrassing confessions and the rejection and gotten what she wanted anyway by taking advantage of his loyalty and duty as a god. She could essentially turn him into a slave, just like hundreds of other humans with their cheap wishes and his own father with his sick games.
He would do it, and it broke her heart to know that. She knew instinctively that her wishes counted for more than anyone else's and that he would grant just about anything she asked because of it. She could manipulate him, twist him around, break him, and he would take it with a smile. And she thought that maybe he was wrong and it wasn't him who didn't deserve her.
"I just think it would help me let go," she whispered. "Maybe I wouldn't think about it so much and it would lose the magic if I didn't have to wonder."
"Or it could make it worse."
"It could, but… Maybe just once…"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," she breathed.
There was a handful of five yen coins in the pocket of her shorts. She always kept a few on her just in case, even though she very rarely made official wishes with them. But now she slipped one out of her pocket and lifted her hand to slip it between Yato's fingers.
She closed her eyes and leaned in and pressed her lips to his before she could convince herself that it was a bad idea.
And that was the moment that she knew she was the one who didn't deserve him.
After a brief pause, he kissed her back. It tasted of regret and ashes and goodbyes, because there was a wish that sat between his fingers like blood money. It was a kiss paid for by his freedom, and Hiyori was the one who had bought it and shackled him.
It seemed like a crime to enjoy it, but there was something beautiful about it despite everything. His lips were warm and soft, and his hands were gentle on her face like he was trying to cradle her heart and hold the broken pieces together. For a moment, Hiyori forgot about gravity and hung suspended midair as her heart leaped and flipped.
And then she finally leaned back, and the spell was broken.
Yato's hands dropped away from her face. He studied her with solemn eyes. She wanted to kiss him again, kiss him forever, but there was a five yen coin sitting in his palm like an accusation and she was too ashamed to ever make that kind of wish again. So they just stared at each other in silence for a long time, neither sure what to do next.
Finally, Hiyori cleared her throat and looked away. "I think I might skip the festival today. Sorry, I think I just need a minute."
"That's okay," Yato said quietly. "I'll tell Yukine you aren't feeling well. Take whatever time you need."
"Thanks."
"Just… You can still come by whenever. Everyone would miss you if you stopped coming. I would too."
Her lips quivered, and she pressed them into a trembling line as she stared down at her rumpled covers through a film of tears. "I'll come back," she mumbled. "I'm not going to just run away."
"Okay." A pause. "It's going to be okay. I want you to be happy. Whatever you need from me, just ask. I know you'll figure it out. I'm sorry, Hiyori."
Warm fingers gently flipped her hand over and unfurled her fingers, and cool metal pressed into her palm. Hiyori's head jerked up, but Yato was already gone. Her bed was empty except for her, like no one had ever been there at all.
But the five yen coin sparkled in her palm, and she closed her fingers around it and curled over until her forehead pressed against the mattress and finally began sobbing into the silence as she slammed into the ground and her heart shattered like glass.
Hiyori hid for two days before slinking back to Kofuku's shrine. She had to be sure that she wouldn't burst into tears again the second she opened her mouth or saw Yato. Her heart ached, and she was embarrassed by the gentle rejection and even more ashamed of her own behavior. She was going to have to pick up all the pieces of her broken heart and get back on her feet to face everyone with a smile, but she needed a couple days to grieve in peace and sort out her feelings.
Yukine was the first to spot her when she walked back in the door, and his eyes lit up. "Hiyori! Are you feeling better? Yato said you weren't feeling well. I wanted to check on you, but he said to let you rest."
Despite the tension tightening her muscles and the nauseous feeling churning in her stomach, Hiyori couldn't help but smile. Yukine was special like Yato and held a fond spot in her heart. She had missed him too.
"I'm alright," she said. "But it's sure nice to be back!"
"For sure. It's been boring without you, and Yato's being even more of a pain than usual."
Hiyori wondered what that meant, but didn't have time to ask before soft footfalls on the stairs heralded Yato's arrival. The god paused on the bottom step and tilted his head almost imperceptibly as he met Hiyori's gaze. His eyes were that searing blue again, but they held a brief flicker of surprise and uncertainty and sadness.
Hiyori herself was tongue-tied and realized, quite suddenly, that she was nowhere near ready for this. Shame and elation and grief and affection tangled together in an impossible web. Something about Yato made her forget how to breathe, made her heart forget how to beat, and she realized that he had been right. Kissing him had only made things worse. She wanted him so badly that it ached, wanted to kiss and touch and hold and love. But he had been haunting her dreams as of late, and that was the only place where she could have him.
Then Yato's face lit up in a wide grin, and the spell that had settled between the two of them was broken.
"Hiyori!" he said. "Yay, you're back! And just in time, too. Yukine is getting kind of stupid without you here to give him lessons."
"H-hey!" Yukine sputtered, turning red from either embarrassment or anger.
Yato gave Hiyori a conspiratorial grin. "No, but seriously. We went on a job yesterday, and this kid had a total moment…"
He launched into a story about the job, hands waving excitedly in the air while Yukine tried to drown him out with flustered protestations, and it was almost like everything was back to normal. Almost. It couldn't be the same when Hiyori continually alternated between wanting to run away and kiss him senseless, but she did her best to disguise both her feelings and her awkwardness.
Yato did a much better job of slipping back into normalcy like nothing had happened at all, but even he couldn't keep it up all the time. Hiyori began noticing subtle changes as they settled into a new, tentative normal. Yato had toned back his affectionate gestures and teasing. He had always seemed to completely disregard the concept of personal space, but now he didn't touch Hiyori nearly as often or tease her about anything that could be even remotely connected to love or come off as flirtatious. It was a little hurtful at first, but it occurred to Hiyori that he had realized how his behavior could be misconstrued and was dialing it back accordingly and trying not to make her more uncomfortable. Still, however annoying it might have been sometimes, she missed his arm flung around her shoulders and his sly jokes.
Occasionally he would seem awkward or nervous when Hiyori's own mask was slipping or they found themselves alone, but he never brought up her faux pas. He still did his best to make her laugh, especially when her mood was taking a darker turn, and was just as kind and cheery as ever.
Hiyori had a harder time maintaining the front. It still hurt, the wound was still too raw, and she didn't have centuries of experience burying and hiding her emotions like Yato did. She thought she did a pretty good job of being normal when she was with the others, but sometimes she still caught herself blushing or sneaking sidelong glances at Yato or found herself tongue-tied.
The biggest change was that she spent less time at Kofuku's now. She still went over every few days, but not every single day anymore. It was too hard, and seeing Yato was as painful as it was wonderful. He had suggested she make sure to focus on her own world too, and it hit her exactly how much she had been neglecting her 'normal' life in favor of visiting with gods. She told herself that she was just reconnecting with her family and friends and everyday life, not running away.
This state of affairs lasted nearly three weeks before Yukine finally commented on it.
"Is everything alright?" he asked in the middle of their lesson one day while Yato was out running errands. He twirled the pencil between his fingers and frowned across the table at Hiyori.
"Of course."
"You don't come by as often anymore, and you're kind of weird with Yato sometimes." Yukine gnawed on the inside of his cheek, eyes bright with concern. "Did he do something? I know he's an idiot, but…"
"No, no, he didn't," Hiyori said quickly. Her heart beat a little too fast at the prospect of being caught out.
"You don't have to defend him, you know. I can totally beat him up for you."
She coughed out a breathy laugh, half amused and half mortified. "No, it's nothing like that. I've just been really busy. Exams are coming up!"
She couldn't tell whether Yukine was really mollified or still convinced that Yato had done something to scare her off, but he dropped the subject.
Yato himself insisted on walking her home a couple days later, despite her flustered protestations.
"How are you doing?" he asked after they'd walked halfway there in awkward silence. The laughter was gone from his eyes now, and they were glossy with worry. Even in the dark, they shone bluer than the sky, deeper than the ocean.
"Fine," Hiyori mumbled. She tore her gaze away as she realized she'd been staring sidelong again and stared at the ground instead.
There was a short pause before Yato said, "Are you sure? You've been pretty distant lately. If you need me to do anything, or not do something…"
He was kind enough to skirt around the issue with some modicum of tact, either to spare her feelings or out of his own embarrassment and distaste for dealing with complicated emotional situations. But Hiyori knew what he meant, and her cheeks burned hot in the dark as she counted the steps home.
"No, that's fine," she said, fighting to keep the strain out of her voice. "I've just been busy. Exams are coming up, and I've been doing a lot of studying."
Yato might have nodded, but Hiyori was too busy watching her feet to notice one way or the other. He stayed quiet up until they reached her house.
"It's okay to need some space for a while," he said finally. "If you need some time, take it. But let me know if…"
Hiyori hurried up her front steps and turned to flash him a smile before escaping into her house. "No problem. Goodnight, Yato."
She rushed right past her mother to shut herself in her room and throw herself down on her bed. Her hands were trembling and her face was flushed, and all she wanted to do was bury herself beneath the covers and dream of a world where a boy with eyes bluer than the sky belonged to her.
She valued Yato's friendship and trust and affection more than anything, and she didn't want to jeopardize it by always running away and trying to put distance between them. But it was hard, because she wanted his love too and she couldn't have that.
She lifted her trembling fingers to her lips and relived their one stolen kiss. It was both the most beautiful thing she had ever experienced and the most shameful.
Her fingers slipped under her collar to pull out the string tucked beneath her shirt. She caught the five yen coin in her palm and stared down at it. She wore it now, kept it close to her heart. Both as a reminder not to take advantage of Yato again and as a reminder of Yato himself and what they had shared.
Her fingers closed about it tightly, and she squeezed her eyes shut and cried.
It was the next night that her mother found her watching television after dinner and sat down next to her on the couch.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"
"Fine," Hiyori said with a wan smile. She watched the commercial dance across the screen listlessly and realized that she wasn't sure what show she was even watching.
"I see…" Her mother sighed. "You've been out of sorts lately. You have the air of heartbreak hanging over you."
Hiyori started in surprise, and the blood drained from her face as she whipped around to stare. "How did you…?"
Her mother smiled tiredly. "I've seen enough of it in my time. Is there a boy we don't know about?"
"N-not like that! I would never date someone without telling you." Although that might be almost a lie, because Hiyori wasn't sure if she would have told her parents anything at all if things had worked out differently.
"Just a confession, then?"
Hiyori turned red and mumbled some inarticulate noises that could have been words if she'd had any idea what to say. Her mother had that all-knowing, too-understanding look that seemed to be a staple of motherhood, and Hiyori braced herself for a lecture or any of the trite, expected sentiments that went along with heartbreak. But her mother didn't say that Hiyori was too good for her mysterious crush or deserved better or would get over it or that of course it hurt but it would get better.
"Do you have a chance?" she asked instead.
After a moment of surprise at the unexpected approach, Hiyori smiled a wobbly smile and shook her head as she blinked back tears. "No," she whispered. "Not at all."
She was, after all, in love with a god.
There was another short pause before her mother asked, "Is he worth it?"
Yato's bright smile and carefree laugh and blue, blue eyes flashed through Hiyori's mind. His loyalty and protectiveness, pride and joy, quiet melancholy and seriousness. The way he got excited over the most random things and always tried to make everyone smile and fought the most impossible odds for the people he loved.
"Yes," she said softly. "Yes, he very much is."
"In that case, forgive him," her mother advised, her brown eyes gentle.
"Wh-what?" Hiyori shook her head, blindsided. "It's not his fault! Really, he's been so nice about it. I was the one who sprung it on him. He didn't do anything wrong."
"Maybe not, but he still broke your heart, didn't he? He hurt you, whether he wanted to or not, and some part of you is still holding on to that. If he wasn't worth the heartbreak, then I'd tell you to forget about him. But if he is, then he should be worth forgiving. That doesn't mean he's done anything wrong, just that you were hurt and you're letting go of that. I think you'll find that it's easier to move on once you acknowledge that hurt and forgive it, both for you and for him."
Hiyori lay awake all night, thinking over her mother's unexpected advice. Yato hadn't done anything wrong and had only ever been nice about this whole thing, but it was true that he had hurt her anyway. Did some part of her resent that and hold it over his head?
Either way, she had been dwelling on the heartbreak way too much. If she could let go of that pain, maybe by forgiving Yato for his part and herself for her own actions, then maybe it would be easier to move forward. If she could move past that, she would be a better friend again and could at least enjoy Yato's friendship fully instead of straining their relationship with all this baggage.
She pulled out the five yen coin around her neck again and fingered the cool metal in the darkness as she frowned up at the ceiling. Maybe this was a token of Yato's forgiveness. He had given the coin back as if to say that the kiss needn't have been a wish, that Hiyori hadn't forced him into it and robbed him of his free will. In a way, it was absolving her of her bad judgment. She had made a mistake, but maybe Yato was saying that it was okay and he forgave her for it anyway.
Maybe she owed him at least that much.
She went to Kofuku's shrine the next day. While Yukine finished up his shift in the shop, Hiyori marched upstairs and cornered Yato in his attic room. He eyed her uncertainly as she marched up to him and took a deep breath.
"It's okay," she said. She smiled and met his gaze squarely for the first time in weeks. "Everything is okay."
Maybe Yato sensed something in her voice, something beneath the words she was saying, because something like hope crept into his eyes. Hiyori hadn't realized how much his eyes had dulled over the past weeks until the moment when the clouds cleared and they shone bluer than the bluest sky again.
The shrine was perched on the windowsill beside him, and he reached out absently to run his fingers over the little roof. He smiled at her then, a little shyly but with genuine warmth.
Something in Hiyori's shattered heart knitted itself back together, just one little corner, and it lifted in hope, like she could defy gravity and fly again.
Exam season was upon them, and Hiyori threw herself into preparations wholeheartedly. Thanks to her mysterious and frequent bouts of narcolepsy over the past months, she had missed out on a great deal of school and had plenty of catching up to do. She studied religiously, read every textbook cover to cover, and did every practice problem and test she could get her hands on. She was still a bit apprehensive of the looming exams, but she was going to be as well-prepared as possible.
"She shouldn't have let him off so easily!" Yama complained as the three friends walked to school, referring to some new tidbit of juicy gossip about a classmate's love troubles. "Honestly, that's something you should hold a grudge for!"
"You're so high-strung," Ami said placidly. She shook her head as she removed her glasses to clean them carefully on her shirt. "Not everything has to be turned into drama. Forgive and forget is the way to go."
"And just let him get away with it? No way!" Yama turned on Hiyori, who had offered no opinion since she barely knew the girl in question and wasn't sure they should really be gossiping about her love life. "Come on, Hiyori! Back me up! What do you think?"
"Ah…" Hiyori smiled sheepishly. "Holding a grudge isn't always a good thing, but neither is forgiving someone by forgetting. It seems kind of sad, doesn't it? To forget someone?"
"You were supposed to agree with me," Yama muttered.
Even Ami rolled her eyes. "It's not about forgetting someone. Where would you even get that idea? You're forgetting about the things they did. Or, perhaps more accurately, letting go of those things and not always bringing them up. It's not that easy to just forget."
Hiyori flushed and laughed awkwardly. "Of course. I just meant that everything you do helps define you and your relationships, so totally ignoring some of those things is changing everything. Even our mistakes can help our relationships grow, both by what we've done and how we handle the aftermath, so why try to forget them?"
Her friends blinked at her for a moment and then laughed.
"Our Hiyori, the great philosopher and relationship guru!" Yama grinned. "You've grown wise now that you aren't falling asleep every ten minutes."
"It's been a while since your last snooze attack," Ami mused. "I hope you don't get one in the middle of the exam."
Hiyori fervently hoped so as well. It had been weeks since her strange narcolepsy had last struck and she was feeling cautiously optimistic that the problem might finally be resolving itself, but it would be just her luck to be proven wrong in the middle of an exam.
Ami and Yama continued chatting, but Hiyori frowned up at the sky as she followed them up to the school. The sky always seemed washed out and dull to her now, and she kept searching for the vibrant blue she thought should belong there. The world itself had been a bit drab and gray lately, so maybe it was just a symptom of that.
The conversation had left her with an uncomfortable itch. Something about forgetting, maybe. She had been getting the feeling that she was forgetting something lately. Her heart felt cracked and broken with an empty hole scooped out where something should be, but she had forgotten what had made it that way.
The five yen coin hanging on a string around her neck seemed to burn against her chest. She didn't remember where she had gotten that either, but she rarely took it off. There was something about it that made her want to both smile and cry, like a reminder of something she had loved and lost.
All she could figure was that the constant 'snooze attacks' over the past months had eaten holes into her memory. She had missed out on so much of her life sleeping, and there were hazy patches in her memories.
Which probably weren't helped by the fragments of half-remembered dreams. She had always dreamed during those naps, even when she rarely remembered her dreams upon waking each morning. They were blurred together and foggy in the way that dreams always were once reality shone its harsh light upon them and they began fading away, but she knew they had been fantastic and whimsical. A grand adventure. Occasionally, she would remember hazy snippets or find herself looking for someone who didn't exist.
She missed those dreams, even if she could hardly remember anything more than a vague feeling that they had made her happy. Maybe that was what she was forgetting, what made the world seem gray. But they had also detracted from her enjoyment of her world, so it was good that she wasn't so caught up in a fantasy world anymore. As much as she wanted to recapture those feelings, she had exams to take and a life to live.
Thankfully, she did make it through her exams without suddenly falling asleep in the middle. She was sure that her grades would be good after all the hard work she'd put into studying.
When the year turned, she threw out her old notebook planner. She had used to write in there a lot, pretty much every day, but she figured it had just been reminders for when her memory had been impaired by the constant snooze attacks. Now that she wasn't falling asleep at random times, she didn't need to write down all her homework or chores that needed to be done.
She wished that she had written reminders for more important things, like whatever had shattered her heart and turned it into an empty hole. But even that was becoming easier to ignore as long as she kept herself busy, and the chasm in her chest was slowly knitting itself back together day by day.
She was eating breakfast with her mother on Saturday morning when she realized that maybe there was something more to the story.
After exchanging the normal pleasantries about school and work, her mother asked, "How have you been feeling?"
"Fine. Glad exams are over."
"You've just…seemed a little down lately. Not as upset as before, but you aren't quite yourself. How are things with that boy?"
"Boy?" Hiyori put her fork back down with a frown. "What boy?"
"The one who broke your heart."
Hiyori knew no such boy. But, come to think of it, she did remember having a conversation with her mother one night about forgiving a boy. But what boy? She didn't want to admit that she didn't remember and worry everyone about possible memory loss from the narcolepsy. This was what she got for not paying attention and getting herself hit by a bus.
But now that she thought about it, she could almost catch glimpses of a boy with bright blue eyes in her imagination. Everything was hazy and all she could see were those bright, bright eyes, but… It must have been from one of her dreams. Had she really managed to fall in love with a dream and break her own heart over it? Mix up dreams with reality and carry figments of her imagination back into her real life? She had slipped between dreams and reality so often back then that sometimes the lines seemed blurred.
There was no way she was going to admit to her mother that she might have been in love with a literal boy of her dreams.
"Oh, it's all fine," she said instead. "We still get along, and I'm getting over it."
She escaped to her room as quickly as she could without arousing motherly concern and flopped onto her bed. Rubbing her forehead, she took a slow, deep breath and tried to calm her racing thoughts.
"What is wrong with you, Hiyori?" she whispered to the empty room.
She pulled out the five yen coin again and turned it over and over in her fingers, watching it glint in the sunlight streaming through the window. Where had it come from? What was it for? Was it a token for something she should remember, or perhaps for what she would rather forget?
The conversation had left her unsettled. How could she have been so convinced a dream was real that she had even talked to her mother as if it was? How had it been so real that she had fallen in love with a faceless boy with searing blue eyes, broken her own heart and left it in pieces even after the dream had faded?
She must be a strange kind of girl, with a strange kind of love. It seemed so tragic to forget someone you loved, even if they hadn't been real. Then again, if you really loved someone, how could you ever forget them? What kind of love was that?
A tragedy of loving too much, or maybe not enough.
She stood with a sigh and drifted over to the window. She had left it open. She usually did, these days.
It was a nice day, sunny and just almost warm, and the breeze felt nice as it danced through the window and twirled about the room. She played with the coin absently and stared out at the faded sky, searching for the bright blue of her memories hidden somewhere behind the wispy clouds.
If she had the choice, would she want to remember what she had forgotten or forget that she had ever remembered at all?
She stared right through the bright blue eyes of the boy perched on the windowsill, the blue she couldn't find in the sky beyond.
"That was a spiteful thing to do, Iki Hiyori," the god said to no one, the words falling on deaf ears. He slid off the sill and slipped around her to quietly pick up the scissors lying abandoned on the desk next to scattered pencils and erasers and markers. "But I hear your wish loud and clear."
The blades snipped through the thread in one swift motion, and the five yen coin went tumbling to the floor with a clatter. Hiyori yelped in surprise and bent to retrieve it, but the god scooped it up first before replacing the scissors where he had found them.
He rubbed the coin between his fingers and watched for a few seconds as Hiyori scrabbled around on the floor, searching along the walls and in the shadowy corners.
"Goodbye, Hiyori," the dream boy said softly. "I suppose forever is a long time. I release you from your promise, and I forgive you. May you have a long and happy human life."
And then he slipped out the window and disappeared like a long-forgotten dream, leaving Hiyori to search the floor for a coin she would never find but soon forget and the sky for a blue she would never find but always remember.
Note: I don't have anything against Yatori, really. It's cute enough, I guess, although it's nothing I get super excited about and I much prefer friendship. I just like angst better XD