Flux
"And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."
-Libba Bray
1.
At first, she has trouble adjusting to living with Tsumugu and his grandfather. For the first few weeks she tucks herself inwards, tries to occupy as little space as possible to minimize their burden. She washes the dishes and is careful not to ask for anything.
But Tsumugu catches her one night in her moment of weakness. She has gotten hungry and tiptoes down to the cupboard in search of a snack. The bottom cabinets don't have anything to her liking. When she rummages in the top ones, she spots the olives peeking out from behind the other jars but can't manage to reach them. Tsumugu sneaks up behind her, and before she knows it the jar of olives has been extended to her, gleaming in the dim light. She takes it hesitantly. "Thanks," she says, averting her eyes.
"There's no need to be so quiet," Tsumugu states plainly, studying her with those dark eyes of his. "You're a part of this household now."
"I know," she whispers, bringing a hand up to rub her arm, "but I still…I don't feel like it." She widens her eyes in a hurry to retract her statement, hand flying outward, fingers waving, "I mean—that's not what I mean! I'm grateful, you don't know how much, just…" She squeezes her eyes shut and hangs her head, hand coming to rest at her side in a fist.
After a beat, Tsumugu says, "Come with me."
He takes her out to the shed that holds the fishing supplies. Among the carefully kept nets and fish-hooks, she sees a picture of him.
"I came here to stay with Grandpa when I was nine."
Chisaki studies him. His eyes are fixed on the photograph, but, sensing her gaze, he turns towards her. "What I'm saying is, I know it can be lonely to be in a new house at first. But you'll figure it out."
Chisaki swallows, then nods slowly.
2.
In her dreams, there is always someone falling, swallowed by the Sea God. Sometimes it's Manaka, sometimes it's Hikari; other times it's Tsumugu, Kaname, or Akari. In her dreams, she dives after them, desperate to help, but the ocean freezes beneath her and she always ends up hitting hard ice, the breath knocked out of her.
"Chisaki…? Chisaki, wake up."
Chisaki blinks slowly, Tsumugu's worried features filling her vision. She sits up groggily and feels a soreness in her shoulder. Looking around, she realizes that she's fallen off the bed again—the hard surface beneath her is the floor, not the ice of her nightmares. Her legs are tangled in the blankets, and she tries to struggle out of them before giving up and clutching her knees to her chest, curling on her side.
"Are you okay?" Tsumugu asks.
She nods numbly, too drained to speak. She doesn't want to crawl back into bed because she always seems to end up back on the floor, and she is tired of falling, tired of sleepless nights, tired of being alone.
She doesn't notice Tsumugu has left the room until another blanket is dropped on top of her. She sits up, surprised, watching as Tsumugu drags in some more pillows and blankets and arranges them in a makeshift nest around her.
"Maybe you should just sleep on the floor," he suggests, handing her a pillow. She accepts it wordlessly, helping him organize the space around her to her liking. When they finish, Tsumugu stands up, his task complete.
Chisaki wants to tell him to stay because, despite her new cozy nest on the floor, she still doesn't trust herself to sleep peacefully and would rather talk to someone, but she can't muster the words. Tsumugu opens the screen door, ready to step out. Right at the threshold, he pauses, as if deciding something, and turns back to her.
As he slides the screen door shut and sits down, he says, "Tell me your favorite thing about Shioshishio."
3.
The house is lonely without Tsumugu and Grandfather. Chisaki takes to organizing things in her spare time when she isn't doing her nurse duties. She cleans and cooks and tidies Tsumugu's room, intent on the fact that it'll be spotless whenever he visits.
"How are your studies?" she asks one evening as she warms a pot of tea. Tsumugu is back in town, crosslegged at the table and working diligently through his bowl of rice, a stack of notes and diagrams beside him.
"They're going well. I think we could be on to something," Tsumugu answers. He meets her eyes as she hands him a cup of tea. "The closer we get to understanding what happened, the closer we get to finding them."
Chisaki stills. "I…I have faith in you," she declares after a pause, looking up from her plate.
It's silent before Tsumugu asks, "How's Grandpa doing?"
"He's well. Will you visit him before you head back?"
"Mhmm," assures Tsumugu, sipping his tea. "What about you? Are you okay here?"
Chisaki smiles. "No need to worry about me. I bump into Sayama-kun a lot since he's working at Saya Mart, and I visit Akari and the kids. Between that and my nurse training…I'm a busy girl!"
"You're lonely."
Chisaki reddens. "Am not!" she protests. She chews on the inside of her mouth and manages to ignore Tsumugu's slightly raised eyebrow for thirty seconds before she cracks. "Maybe a little," she relents. "But it's okay. You're off doing big things with your research and I'm really happy for you."
"I'll write."
"What?" falters Chisaki.
"I'll write to you," clarifies Tsumugu.
"There's no need," says Chisaki hurriedly. "I mean, you're not that far away…I don't want you to take time away from your studies…"
"Chisaki," says Tsumugu. "I'm writing to you."
Chisaki sighs, giving up, but her eyes soften as she studies him. Letter-writing is a fitting mode of communication for Tsumugu, she thinks, who isn't inclined to many words but makes them count. She's tempted to bring up that it would be faster and cheaper for them to communicate via telephone, but she likes the thought of having something waiting in the mail for her, something she can open and curl up in bed to read late at night.
"I'd like that," she tells him.
4.
Chisaki thinks her heart must be a seashell, forever echoing the ocean and a distant past. When Hikari and Manaka resurface, the painful melody in her ribs starts up again. She shouldn't feel like this, she tells herself; after all, she is now a fully-grown woman, and Hikari, is, well, Hikari, blue-eyed and bold-voiced and a painful reminder of everything she has lost. When he tells her she hasn't changed, it's a reassurance, like maybe they can go back to how they were before. Maybe this whole time they've been two waves, frozen in motion, and now that all of them—Kaname, Manaka, Hikari and her—have been reunited, they can move forward in a beautiful collision of salty sea spray.
But if her heart is a seashell, Hikari's is a tide—a powerful surge of emotion, and always moving towards Manaka. She knows that, but it doesn't stop her chest from hurting twice a day as she watches him hover by Manaka's side.
She comes home a bit late that night, still in her nurse's uniform, and finds Tsumugu sitting at the table poring over a map.
"Where's Kaname?" she asks as she takes off her nurse's cap and pulls the screen door closed behind her.
"He was tired so he went to sleep," answers Tsumugu. He glances at her outfit. "Manaka still hasn't woken up."
It isn't a question, but Chisaki answers anyways. "No," she says, shaking her head. "Hikari watches her day in and day out. That boy." She smiles to herself.
"Do you still like him?"
The question hits her out of nowhere, like a bucket of cold water to the face. Chisaki stares at Tsumugu, who meets her gaze unflinchingly.
"W-what sort of question is that?" she dodges, trying to disguise the flush creeping up her neck. "We're not fourteen-year-olds anymore, you know."
"Be honest, Chisaki."
Something about Tsumugu's tone of voice pulls at her, unravels her. "Yes," she finally admits.
"You shouldn't."
"What?" Her head snaps towards him.
"It's been five years. We're different, now."
"I…I don't understand," stammers Chisaki. This isn't right. Tsumugu is supposed to be someone to rely on, someone who listens. Disappointment and anger rise in equal measure from her gut, a dark wave. Silly her, for ever believing that Tsumugu understood her, because he doesn't understand this, this one truth about her that is the only thing that hasn't changed all these years—she is in love with Hikari, she loves Hikari—it cycles like a mantra through her head…
"It's time to move on," Tsumugu explains, and how can he be so blunt? Chisaki wonders. Can't he tell he's hurting her, that this isn't what she wants to hear?
"I can't move on! These are my feelings!"
They're both standing now, and Chisaki takes a step backwards, her hands clenching into fists. Her throat is tight, her cheeks red. Tsumugu's eyes look slightly pained, but she can't figure out why when he's the one saying all these hurtful things.
"It's unhealthy," he continues. "Chisaki, listen—"
"Why are you being like this?" she demands. "Why are you saying these things? I thought you were my friend!"
"I want you to be happy, Chisaki, and that isn't going to happen while you're hung up over Hikari." Tsumugu moves his arm, as if to reach for her, and Chisaki stumbles backwards, putting her hands over her ears. It's childish, maybe, but there is too much rushing at her at once, too much blind emotion. She manages to get the door open and runs away—away from the truth and its many painful, glittering teeth.
Tsumugu doesn't come after her.
She almost hates him for it.
5.
She swims to Shioshishio on her own. The light of the moon guides her to the current, and once she is enveloped in it she swims from there to the playground where she remembers swinging side by side with Kaname. Her body is a little big for the seat; it creaks under her weight as she sits, hands wrapped around the chains on either side of her, wishing she could see a way forward through the mess of her life.
How did the others do it? Discard their inhibitions, be true to themselves? She thinks of that day in the classroom, when Kaname raised his hand and asked the fatal question—How do you feel about Manaka? She had been angry at him, then, for stirring up the waters, but it had led to a lot of revelations that night—Hikari's confession, her own confession to Hikari—and, looking back, those things had needed to be said.
Be honest, Chisaki.
A school of fish darts by and Chisaki is struck by a sudden pang of loneliness. Does she even belong here anymore? Her friends are all at the surface, her family asleep. There is nothing left for her but fond memories, but under the moonlight they seem faded, gray.
She begins to work her legs back and forth, gathering momentum on the swing. Then she jumps off. Up, up, up—she stretches her hands out as high as she can—and then she lands back in the sand with a gentle poof. She looks back at the swing, slowly settling back into its natural position. There's a sense of closure; she knows the swing will be here whenever she returns, but she doesn't plan on coming back for a while.
As Chisaki kicks her way back up to the surface, she reflects on her younger days. All those times, she'd told herself she should be more honest like Manaka, or more protective like Hikari, but maybe what she should have been saying was, "I should be more like me." True to herself, whatever that means, but at least she, Chisaki, is someone worth being true to.
Someone had seen that, she realizes. Someone had looked beyond her fragile exterior and saw a strong Chisaki, one who could take the truth, one worthy of being cared for—because that was what it had been, Chisaki sees now. Care, outlined in the set of Tsumugu's shoulders, the quirk of his slight smiles, the corners of his eyes.
When she trudges back home that night, she is astonished to see a dark figure sitting on the porch. As it gets to its feet, Chisaki sees it's Tsumugu. His expression is cautious, his eyes searching, questioning. Chisaki's feet take on a mind of their own. She stumbles—forwards, this time—like the sea pulled to the moon, up the steps, her head bumping against Tsumugu's chest, her body shaking.
She is afraid to look up at him but forces herself to say, for his benefit, so he knows, so he understands: "I was wrong." She murmurs this into the warmth of his chest, the fabric of his sweater. She doesn't look up at him when his arms circle around her gently, cautiously. She doesn't look up at him when his breath stirs her hair as he murmurs, "I'm glad you came back, Chisaki."
She doesn't look up at him because she doesn't need to. Everything she needs to know is right there, pressed against her ear: his heartbeat—not a seashell, not a tide, but a drum—solid, steady, sure.
A/N: First time writing for this fandom; I hope I did the characters justice. Tsumugu is up next in my companion piece called "Stasis." :)