Shizuma x Nagisa

Getting the Message

I hope all my days will be lit by your face
I hope all the years will hold tight our promises
I don't wanna be old and sleep alone
An empty house is not a home
Keane

As she stared at Shizuma's sleeping face, Nagisa found herself making a wish.

She wasn't normally in the habit of doing that- life took her where it did and she knew that there was not a lot that she could do to change the course of fate, but tonight, in the darkness of this anonymous room, she found herself compelled to do so.

It would not be anonymous for too long, of course, for this was where Shizuma would live whilst she was at university, a fourth floor apartment that her family owned (for it seemed that her family had property wherever it was deemed fortuitous) in the city not too far from where Nagisa was still at school. It was spacious without being large, and its walls and tastefully (professionally) chosen furniture were in shades of white, pale blue and a deep, soothing navy, but it still had the feel of a hotel, as Shizuma had only been living there for three days, and her suitcases still littered the bedroom.

Soon, she was sure, the walls of the bedroom would be re-painted, for Shizuma had already denounced the thought of having a blue bedroom when she had picked out beautiful bed linen in a dark red, and sure as well that in a few days that paintings would be hung on walls, lamps artfully put on tables, all the bric-a-brac of a life half-lived would be on display through-out, and, soon enough, it would begin to feel like something real, something permanent.

But, for now, the only decoration in the house was a photo-frame on the desk in the little alcove that would pass as a study, the photo-frame that she had seen out of the corner of her eye and had not gone to look at, for she already knew that it would be the one of Shizuma and Kaori on their election day, and she did not need to see those happy smiles again.

She knew them well enough. She saw them both in her dreams.

Sometimes in her nightmares.

Nagisa rolled over on her back, and thought of her wish.

But to make a wish would give her too much hope, she knew, and it would only be a hope unfounded. Since Shizuma had burst into the Cathedral, only three weeks ago- but oh! how it felt like years now, and at the same time only minutes- they had not spoken of feelings, or of the future, or of anything. All Nagisa knew was those words, in her ear, over and over, those three words and her name, mixed in until they were nothing but incomprehensible sounds, just noise and softness and feeling. And she had said them back, she knew that, had said them over and over with the same gravity of feeling, had meant them too, and still did, she knew.

But that was all she knew.

She rolled over in the warmth of the bed, onto her front.

They loved each other.

What else?

And it was that thought, as she lay in the apartment that felt like a hotel, that plagued her.

What more?

And she wished, how she wished, that one day a photograph of the two of them would stand in its place. Not next to the other frame, not as something equal or as a substitute, but something more. She wanted- and she found herself blushing at her own selfishness- for Shizuma to one day look at that picture, smile ruefully, and put it in a drawer, and put one of her and Nagisa in its place.

She closed her eyes.

She wrangled the cover in her hands.

She could see it now.

The picture.

The one of the two of them that had been taken after the Etoile selection had been interrupted, much later on, when they had been walking, hand-in-hand, back to the school. Nagisa's hair was ruffled and the top of Shizuma's dress hadn't been done up properly, but they had been laughing and looking into each other's eyes and were so obviously unaware that the photo was being taken, for Nagisa's eyes were crinkled up and Shizuma's had had that hungry look in them that she normally didn't let anyone see in public, and it had been so obviously private.

So obviously private, in fact, that the school reporter who had taken it had put it in the school newspaper. Not, to their relief, the front page (that was a large glossy shot of Hikari in Amane's arms) but in the second page, where the article on their interruption had been. Tsubomi had cut it out and stuck it on the door to Nagisa and Tamao's room, as a joke, but Nagisa had seen Yaya pull it off just as she did so, rolling her eyes and telling the younger student not to be so insensitive.

Nagisa kept the photo though; she'd gone right to the Newspaper Club's room and asked for a print, because to her, that picture was perfect.

Nagisa wanted Shizuma to look at that picture everyday, to remember that moment, and to hope, just as she did, that they would have a thousand more moments like that, a thousand moments of unadulterated joy and simplicity, a thousand moments of the two of them, just the two of them.

Nagisa wanted Shizuma to wish, too.

She realised that she was not going to sleep anytime soon, and she realised too that she was properly going to wake Shizuma up if she was not careful, for she was tossing and turning and Shizuma only slept lightly, as if all those years of staying up late into the night had made her need sleep less than the rest of them. She slipped silently out of bed, and crept out into the hall.

There were boxes stacked around the living room, and in her flurry when she arrived on the late train- only three hours ago, she realised as she looked at the clock- she had not seen just how many there were. She glanced past them to the desk, and saw once again that ominous, threatening photo. Not wanting to, she walked towards it, and found herself picking it up. She did not want to see who was in that frame, but at the same time felt compelled to do so.

She took a deep breath, and lifted it to her eyes.

The picture…

The picture was not of her.

The picture was not of Kaori, either.

Instead, the picture was of a much younger Shizuma with a woman with the same smile and man with the same hair, who must, the bemused Nagisa realised, be-

"My parents."

Nagisa nearly dropped the frame in shock.

"I… did I wake you? I'm sorry. I couldn't slee-"

A cool finger to her lips stopped her talking, and Shizuma took the frame off her, staring at it with a critical eye whilst leaning on the embarrassed Nagisa's shoulders.

"I have her smile, don't I? I didn't notice that before."

She showed the picture to Nagisa, who was, by now, blushing.

"Yes… you both have a lovely smile."

Shizuma tilted her head to one side.

"What?"

Nagisa bit her lip.

"Nothing."

The older woman watched her for a moment, before light dawned and the arm across her shoulders pulled her towards her into an embrace.

"Did you think it would be a picture of you?"

"No."

Nagisa's response, but it caught in her throat, and she found her chest was tightening inexplicably. Shizuma sighed, her mouth on Nagisa's hair.

"Did you think it would be of Kaori?"

Her only response was silence, and she knew that she had guessed right. She held Nagisa to her for a moment longer, before she pulled away, and moved towards one of the many boxes stacked haphazardly in the room. Nagisa found herself shaking a little, more emotional than she had expected herself to be, and missing the warmth of the others' body. She watched Shizuma check in a box, before finding what she was looking for in the second. She beckoned Nagisa to her, and pushed her into an armchair.

Shizuma knelt in front of her, with a photo-album on her lap. The gold-embossed word across the front read 'Memories'.

She opened it, and started leafing through pages. Between her fingers, Nagisa saw cast pictures from plays, class photographs and ones of Shizuma and Miyuki at various ages.

She stopped about halfway through, and turned the book around to show Nagisa a picture, the one of Shizuma leaning over the back of Kaori's chair, their matching necklaces catching the light.

"This picture?"

Nagisa nodded, and Shizuma turned it back to herself. She stared at it for a moment, before closing the book with a snap.

"Memories."

"Memories?"

"Beautiful memories."

Nagisa nodded, and Shizuma put the book down. She reached back in, and pulled out a large photograph frame, the kind to hang on the wall. Nagisa caught sight of the red dress, the ruffled hair, the messed up uniform, their pale limbs, and felt her eyes begin to well up despite of herself. She let her head hang against her chest, and tried to get control of herself.

Shizuma's chin titled her unresisting head up with the tip of her finger, and smiled into damp eyes.

"It'll match the red in my bedroom, wont it?"

Nagisa found herself nodding, and, as if she were satisfied with this, Shizuma leant the frame against the armchair, kissed Nagisa's cheek, and pulled the other girl back to bed. When Nagisa fell back against the pillows, Shizuma's hand holding hers, she fell to sleep without a murmur.

Next to her, Shizuma sighed, and buried herself deeper into the lingering warmth of the duvet.

She hoped Nagisa had got the message.