i.
"That was really good, nyaa! Maki-chan's piano playing is the best!"
Maki hides her startled expression, relaxes her tense shoulders, sits up straighter, and gives Rin – who's standing in the doorway leaning against the doorjamb with a too-wide grin that radiates summer and innocence and affections – a side-glance. A pause, long and thought-provoking, then,
"Thanks,"
Rin skips closer to her, footsteps light and feathery; Maki stretches, shoving her hands to the front, and makes an accident contact with the piano sheets seated in front, which sends the papers to the ground, which results in her staring all dumbfounded at the sheets strewn across the floor. Mentally cursing at herself, she stands up from her seat, and is about to crouch down when—
"I'll get it for you," Rin says, and Maki takes a seat back – she huffs, but the sound is fond, since Rin just saved her from crouching down which would probably make her joints protest from staying in one position for too long, and she mutters a mumbled 'thanks' when Rin sets the dust-kissed sheets back to its throne, "don't push yourself too hard."
"I'm not." She shoots back a little too quickly. She opens her mouth for a follow-up retort, but promptly stops when she hears a rustling behind her, getting increasingly louder and closer by seconds, and realizes that Rin is leaning over her back, Rin's hands on her shoulder – sweaty, rough from the constant workout, warm – and Maki feels warmth bursting, spreading across her back.
Rin seems to be eager to move onto another topic, "So, so! What kind of song are you making, Maki-chan?"
When Rin leans over closer, trying to get a better look on the unfinished score with pencil scribbles in every of its bars, when the distance between them is nearly clamped shut, when Maki can feel Rin's heartbeat – allegretto – with her own – allegro, so fast she's turning a question over and over in her head whyamifeelingsostrangesoso –
"For now, it's called… Beat in Angel. Though I don't know whether I'm going to stick with it or not. Also, ugh, stop it! You're getting too close…! Ugh, stop breathing already!"
"If Rin's not breathing then Rin would be dead, nyaa!"
"Don't talk! You're too close – your breath is tickling me!"
"Huh? Oh, Rin's sorry!"
"I said. Stop talking already!"
Maki hopes that Rin doesn't catch her with the corners of her lips flickering upwards, and the way her hand halts for just a fraction of second, hovering above the sleek white key, and imagines what it would be like to hold Rin's sweaty, rough, and larger hand, and she closes her eyes and lets her mind wander and leaves Rin totally oblivious.
ii.
They graduate, smile, cry, exchange tight hugs with each other, trying hundred tricks to stop Hanayo from sobbing, reassure her that the three of them will always be bound together by some funny twist of fate, more crying, and the rest are mostly smiles and hearty laughs and a last tour around the school with the three linked in hands.
And then,
"Keep it for me, Maki-chan," Rin says, plucks out a button in her uniform, second from top, and lightly tosses it at the dumbfounded her, who fumbles a bit but manages to barely catch it anyway. Maki, in return, stares at Rin, all quizzical and hoping. It's a button. Second from top. In graduation day. It's the button closest to the heart.
"You know," Maki chokes out even when her eyes absently glaze over the button - played and twirled by her hand, and it radiates spring and beginning, "only boys do this. Giving the button of their uniform to the girl they," they what? Maki pauses, gulps, steers her eyes somewhere far from the button and Rin, so she doesn't have to fluster so embarrassingly childish as if she's a middle-schooler in love, "to the girl they, they, they like."
"It's alright. It doesn't have to be the person Rin wants to date! At least it's not going to a waste," Maki tries hard not to look up, but she gives in last minute. "I'm giving it to an angel, after all."
Rin grins, teeth-bared, and Maki looks at her like she's the sun, like she hung the moon, like she's everything. Then she averts her eyes, looks elsewhere, anywhere, and doesn't bother to pursue whatever truth is behind Rin's sunshine grin, because she won't allow herself to fall in love.
iii.
She tucks in the biology encyclopedias she borrowed from the public library, pushes away the thought of assignments and deadlines and sunshine smiles and a button of a dull blue uniform, second from top. Her producer gives her a set of instructions, and she obliges, blinking away drowsiness and exhaustion and an insatiable yearning for spring and cherry blossoms and unspoken 'I like you's.
Her fingers punched the notes, and all the tiredness evaporates from her eyes, and the memories of the grin she once awed to again forgotten.
iv.
The first recording was the hardest, but it's worth the pain. Maki inhales, gives the large billboard – her and a grandiose piano and a silk white dress that cuts down to there, just barely touching her knee – a long, hard stare. She doesn't break into a smile.
v.
She meets up with her friends from time to time. Lunches with Eri and Kotori, late-night dinners plus bonus mind games with Nozomi, movie nights with Niko and Hanayo (usually sappy romance dramas – though Niko enjoys thriller from time to time, her on the other hand, silently squirms in the dark of her living room), visits from Umi and a bag of sweets she's very thankful of, but the hardest, and the most frequent, (and the one she waits and dreads the most,) is Honoka's surprise visit.
Rin's stuck in a camp for soon-to-be newbie athletes thing, so.
So. She opens her door, and fights the urge to slam it back shut.
"Hope I'm not disturbing you, Maki-chan," Honoka says, shirtsleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned, tie loose, and vaguely Maki can make out her collarbones, thin and bony and plain unhealthy, "I'm feeling rather lonesome, tonight, ya know… works has been a pain! Plus, Kotori-chan's out," Maki's gaze hovers from the collarbones down to the plastic bag hung halfheartedly with two fingers and she arches a questioning eyebrow.
"What's with the shirt. And tie. You run a sweet shop."
Before Maki could ask her about the suspicious plastic bag, Honoka had already invited herself in, and flops down to the cream-colored sofa in the middle of the room, legs crossed and plastic bag placed roughly at the coffee table in front. Maki has another struggle with her inner desire to grab a pitchfork and shoo the girl out of her safe haven.
Honoka notices the sickly glare Maki gives her. "Aww, Maki-chan, you're going to be a real diva in no time, at least let's spend some time together before your manager cooped you up from us – fans!"
"I'm not going anywhere, gee!"
"You never know. And by then, it'll be too late." Honoka says in a mocking falsetto. "Maki-chan we all love will be taken away from us!"
"I'm kicking you out."
"C'mooonnn Maki-chan, home is somewhere far away, like, I dunno, five miles from here?" She makes a gesture, right hand stretched wide, told in the scale of make-believe. "Akihabara to Cairo? Probably Abu Dhabi. Where's that, again? India? Geography's no friend of mine, sorry,"
"Are you… drunk?" Maki questions, and Honoka suspiciously splutters something incoherent. She can tell that Honoka isn't, though, but the question isn't one to be taken too literally.
"No, no, no no no, can't, mustn't." Honoka's hands fall to her sides, like someone just ticked the off button on her backside. Like a puppet having its strings cut off. "Eri-chan will get mad. You know, those kinds of lectures that are actually just one point rehashed all over again so that it'll be paragraph long, long enough for it to be printed and placed on the best seller for the smartasses rack? Yeah." A pause. "Kotori-chan won't have it, too. The call from her will be an hour longer than usual, of reassuring words that everything will be alright, and her voice will sound like a sob, and I'll feel bad about it." Another pause, and this time, it's longer.
"What about Umi?"
And that's where everything falls apart,
"Umi-chan, she – she's getting married, with this guy who's… a hundred times cooler than me, and I can't – I just. I don't even care whether the marriage is arranged, or the guy is her one true love, or crap, I don't know anything anymore. Time flies so fast I actually forgot that I'm running out of time, and before I knew it, it's already too late – all those years, all those grand love confessions I swallowed every time, and – and it's like, yesterday she's still there beside me, getting mad for every little thing, and the next day she's taken a flight without even a goodbye, and suddenly she's in Cairo while I'm still stuck here in Akiba. That's – that's Bangladesh and Japan."
Honoka erupts into messy sobs, then a chain of frustrated groans, more waterworks, and finally settles with noiseless wails. Maki wraps an arm around her, pulling her into a half hug, plants her chin on Honoka's bony shoulder (when did she become this thin?), and whispers a futile I'm sorry.
"What are you being sorry for, Maki-chan?" Honoka says, sounding harsher than she intended it to be, and the laugh that followed after a little too bitter.
"I'm not in love." She pauses, shoos away the thought of sunshine smile and a button with its golden gleam faded by time. "I won't allow myself to." Because I'm too afraid.
vi.
When time slips into 7 PM, the world comes at its peak. It's also when Maki hears the thing she dreads the most.
"Rin-chan is back in the town," Hanayo says, quiet, solemn, in contrast to the busy hour of the bar, the noises of people chattering nonsense, the off-tune band playing obscure rock in the background. Suprisingly, Hanayo handles alcohol well.
"She's a proper athlete now, huh."
"Yup!" Hanayo beams up. "I really miss her. She's gotten taller, surpassed me, even…"
Maki nods, trying her hardest to fight off cocktail and the thick scent of escapism. She wants to forget everything, but not now. No more troubling Hanayo with her passing out at the local bar. "Say, Hanayo…"
"Hm?"
"Do you like Rin?"
Hanayo breaks into a chortle, melodious, totally sane and composed. "Yup."
"Let me correct myself," she says to her glass, "do you love Rin?"
She expected it. She knows the answer all along anyway. "I do."
"Then why – "
"I love Maki-chan too." Hanayo says, and then Maki breaks, because even a good dose of alcohol can't beat the fear of reality pounding in her veins, because it's about time she crumples and mouths I'm sorry to Hanayo's shoulder. In her mind, she self-destructs, I'm no angel, please stop please—
vii.
Another day, another time, when work is something she really want to push to the back of her mind and her manager is being an even more asshole than he already is, she seeks comfort to the world of 7 PM, the same bar she frequents with Hanayo, the same sickeningly loud music thumping off-beat, the same thick scent of alcohol. But there's something off.
There's someone sitting in the seat where Hanayo usually is, back facing her, hunched and relaxed. As Maki walks to the empty seat beside the stranger's – her usual – she notes how even with their hunched back, the stranger's rather tall. She can't make out their face with the blue hoodie pulled up high, but the stature looks like that of a young man, or at the very least, a well-built woman.
But she didn't come here to creep on a total stranger. She orders the usual, gulps the strong taste, feeling her inside throb, tries a little bit too hard to forget. Everything's the same. But routines are bound to come to an end.
"Hey," she drunks enough to greet the stranger beside her, she lies to herself, "sometimes my mind wanders into things I don't want to think about. Like work. And what to do with my career – singing or furthering my neurology study. And some little bits of high school memories." The stranger turns to her, putting their empty glass on the marble counter. "And the fine line between like and love,"
She hears a light hum from the stranger beside her. "So. Okay. I think I'm in… love with this person. But it's like – it's like, when I realize it all along, it's already… too late. There's no way I can face her. I don't want her to face me. At the same time, I'd like to see her just one more time before… maybe, fleeing on the spot. She's fast though, so she'll probably pull my wrist. You know what's worse? She comes back to the town recently and I'm at my worst right now and I have enough in my platter already and I'm so – I'm so in love with her it's ridiculous."
Maki frowns at her drink, then frowns at the stranger who's now facing forward, then frowns to the other end of the bar. "I don't want to fall in love. I don't want to hear her answer after she knew about it. I don't want to get hurt."
And then the stranger says, "Well, Rin feels the same," and she pulls down her hoodie, and she sits up straighter than ever before, and she turns to Maki with the same grin from years ago, "and I think if it's Maki-chan, you can be a doctor and a diva at the same time."
Maybe she's drunk enough to the point she begins to hallucinate on top of her wavering sanity. Maybe. Or maybe she already passed out and this is just a dream. Maki takes a long look at the woman beside her, memorizing every of the nook and cranny of her baby face. The years spent with dusts and the smell of sweats mingling with the couch's harsh shouts did nothing to her childlike innocence of her features. She's taller now, sure, and probably well-toned under that baggy sorry excuse for a hoodie, but she's still the same Hoshizora Rin who radiates summer even in the middle of winter, who bothered her like a hobby, who gave her button, second from top, to her and only. She's the same Hoshizora Rin who called her an angel.
Rin laughs the same way she does years ago, "Do you know, Maki-chan? Today is the 4th of October."
Maki stays quiet. She doesn't have the consciousness left to form a single sentence.
"… Maki-chan?"
"H, huh? Sorry,"
"Anyway, today's the 4th of October."
"…what about it?"
Rin leans in close, reeking of alcohol and escapism, they're both facing forward. Their shoulders touch. "I met someone in the camp. She spent a good six years of her childhood in South Korea. Pretty cool, huh? She's really pretty, too! She kinda looks like you."
"And your point being?"
"Oh! Sorry, sorry. Anyway, she told me that 1004 – 4th of October – written in hangul, read as cheon sa, meaning angel. Thus, today's Angel Day. This reunion is totally the work of fate, don'tcha think, Maki-chan?"
viii.
Maki wakes up to an unfamiliar ceiling and an even more unfamiliar squishiness of the bed she's lying on. Fortunately, the faint smell lingering on the pillow is sort of familiar, but her mind is too hazy to make out what's what.
The ceiling is a little too low with yellow cracks, lacking in polish and refinement and actual caring. Peeling floorboards with worn clothes strewn on the floor, a shirt and a black skirt that look hauntingly familiar. When she's awake enough to notice an edible smell coming from the small kitchen on the corner of the room, she realizes the clothes are hers and under the blanket, she's in her underwear and nothing else.
She rises, halfway to sitting position with her elbow propped and her joints creaking and a headache hammering her head from the inside. She quickly spots Rin looking as messy with a bowl in hand, skipping towards her. "Careful, Maki-chan! Don't worry, you're safe with Rin-Rin."
"Seriously, what happened."
Rin places the bowl on her nightstand. The scent of porridge tickles her dry throat, but the dull pain in her head blinds her appetite. Now that Rin's sitting on the bed beside her, up close and smile brighter than the sunshine seeping through the small window by the bed, Maki hurriedly pulls the blanket to in a vain attempt to cover herself only to be stopped by Rin's laughter. "Maki-chan, you know that I've seen more than that…"
Maki pauses. Her grips on the blanket tightening, she might tear the stretching skin of her knuckles. "Did we…?" She eyes Rin who's smiling bashfully.
"So Maki-chan doesn't remember," it sounds more like a statement than a question, but there's the way Rin's eyes glide down the height of her sitting posture but avoids her eyes, the way Rin's smile quivers just a little bit –
"Tell me."
"Huh?"
"I can't remember a thing. Jog up my memories."
"Um, it's kind of embarrassing…"
"Give me the whole recap." Maki inhales. Time stands on it toes. Rin still won't meet her eyes. "Do it to me one more time. Make me remember."
She knows Rin knows about the twinkle of amusement evident in her eyes. Rin knows she knows that she won't be able to resist the Nishikino Maki who recently starred as supporting role in a cash cow soap opera. Maki moves to her left, taking half of the bed while giving the other half space to Rin, patting the vacancy beside her while flashing Rin a small smile. Rin accepts, although hesitant. And then the two of them plop themselves to the bed, lying facing each other, shoulders touching, red strands intersecting orange strands, legs teasing one another under the blanket. Well, sure, Maki has an appointment with her manager in a few hours, but that can wait. She'll make up an excuse.
"Where should I start… ah. You passed out, so I brought Maki-chan here since it's closer!"
"Sorry, I don't handle alcohol very well."
"No worries! You're kind of heavy though."
"Rin!" Feigning anger, she gives Rin's cheek a light pinch. Rin mewls.
"Sowwie, sowwie!" Maki lets go, Rin frowns, then continues, "Anyway, you were really drunk, and you know that with you, I don't know how to say no…"
"Okay,"
"D-do you really want me to tell you the juicy stuffs too…?"
"Rin."
"Okay. So,"
And Rin really tells her everything. How she was pushed by Maki to the bed, loose and full of wants. How Maki undressed her, then undressed herself, all the while she stayed quiet and gulped around nervously and tried to shake off the thought of simply enjoying the moment. How she succumbed to the temptation. And then they were somehow on the bed, in minimal clothing, blanket kicked to the floor.
And then Maki started to remember, everything, top to bottom. She remembered talking about piano with Rin, and Rin said she had someone on the camp taught her basic piano with a dusty clavinova model in the dorm. Then Rin hummed, her debut song, lazy and most of it off-tune, while her fingers drummed a pianissimo to her forearm. An andante all the way to her bare shoulder. An allegretto, trailing to her collarbone. Estinto, feeling Rin's fingers ghosting just above her neck. A fortissimo to her chin.
"A sforzando to your lips," Rin says, a finger lightly placed on Maki's lips.
"You idiot." She laughs. Rin raises an eyebrow. "Stronger."
They kiss. Every time, a tad longer than the kiss before. As if they're running out of time. As if both of them know all along that this is just a checkpoint, a phase, and when they dress themselves back and part ways and ready themselves for another day, today will be something to look back to but will never have.
And Maki begs for the seconds to stay a little bit longer, just enough to burn every piece of Hoshizora Rin onto her, to make sure she'll remember everything, because there's no telling there will be another 1004 in the future, because she doesn't know whether there's a goodbye slipped somewhere between the kisses and gasps.
.
"Maki-chan?"
"Hm?" Maki replies without turning over to Rin, who's sitting on the other end of the bed. Their backs are facing each other. Maki continues buttoning her shirt slowly, one button at a time, like she's trying to cling to early October 5th.
"I've sent you letters from the camp… but you never replied!"
"H, huh…?"
"I know that you're busy with work and your study and all… but at least a word or two won't hurt, dontcha think? Rin's reaaally worried!"
"Wait…"
"Huh?"
She finds herself standing, facing Rin, feeling her own lips trembling. Rin blinks at her reluctantly. "Hold on, Rin. I didn't receive any letter."
"Huh? Rin's really sure about the address, though…"
"Something isn't right," Maki mutters, more to herself than the confused Rin before her, repeating it again and again under her breath, until it becomes one with her breathing. When she pulls herself together, bids Rin a quick farewell, (ignoring Rin who's calling out to her, telling her to at least eat the porridge and fill herself and stop being so, so—) and dashes to the nearest bus stop, something isn't right, something isn't right, God, please, something isn't ri—
.
"Care to explain?" Maki asks, half-banging into the table, and she's sure her face is contorted enough if her manager's scrunched forehead is any indication. Even with her pulse thick and her head dizzy, she doesn't feel like taking it easy. Not when Rin's involved. And whatever left of her privacy, however little. The man simply sighs, sharp and trying a bit too hard to look polite, and takes a sip of his noon coffee. Maki can't stand it. "I am talking to you."
But he remains calm, placing the cup back to the glass table, crossing his leg over another. Maki glares knives at him until he finally complies with a sneer. "Nishikino Maki, what I'm doing is simply supporting every of your actions, backing you up, keeping you intact, protecting you from the shadow. It's part of being a manager – "
"And what does that have anything to do with letters my friend sent?!"
"Oh." He shrugs, and Maki is so sick, her grip on her skirt tightens, crumpling the fabric even further. She's not going to like it later. "So she's a friend. Seriously? Those letters? I'd say, they're rather… how to word it? Ah. Overly-familiar. Creepy."
"…what?"
"And you know what, tell your friend that you're not interested in her. Seriously, sending love letters to the Nishikino Maki?"
When the mischievous glint in his pupils turns sadistic, enough to soak Maki with rage and fury and the feeling of helplessness, when all she hears is his stale laugh echoing amidst the café in its busy hour, when she pulls his collar, when the glass on the table is pushed off by her elbow, shattered in a deafening crash, noon coffee painting the sleek white floor black, the rushing footsteps of the waitresses, Nishikino Maki exhales, lashes out, breaks, shatters, sinks into the memory of a button, second from top, now in black and white, days long gone.
And he says, between gasps of air and trying to shake off the girl's fingers gripping around his million yen collar, "You know that I'll do anything to make sure the creep doesn't do anything to you, don't you?"
And that's all it takes to break Nishikino Maki completely.
ix.
Nishikino Maki mastered the art of pushing people away a long time ago. It's just that, these days, she's easier to crack open. All you need to give yourself a way to Nishikino Maki's inner circle is a sunshine smile and sincere words and… that's probably it.
Life goes on. She doesn't meet up with others as much as she used to, and gradually she doesn't anymore, as works piled up into a Mount Everest and talkshows lined up into a Gangga River, and half of the time she doesn't even know whether she's still alive or she's just a mechanical talking idol who's asked the same line over and over again, answered with the same reply over and over again, donning the same diva smile over and over again, juggling music and neurology while trying to find a room for her to breathe in, breathe out, over and over again.
Sometimes she forgets what it's like to chat over sweets with Eri and Kotori. What it's like to marathon movies until dawn cracks with Niko and Rin. What it's like to have mind games she'll never win with Nozomi. What it's like to have a calming lunch with Umi. What it's like to have Honoka crashing into her place late at night, smelling of smoke and alcohol. What it's like to watch her tiredness wash away as she spend the 9 PM in a bar with Hanayo.
What it's like to have Rin beside her, in front of her, behind her, on top of her, nestling on her shoulder, in her arms, inside her.
Maybe a year has passed since she discarded everything in attempt of protecting what's dear to her, of her trying to forget days spent in a packed clubroom and a button, second from top, color faded by year. She's trying her best to forget. But there's an end to everything.
"Maki-ch—Nishikino-san, please, I just – I just want to interv—"
Hanayo spots her in one of the talk show she starred in, and it takes three bulky security guards to shake her off. Some people just don't change.
When she's back in her apartment, she finds Hanayo's number on her speed-dial, and frantically calls her. Hanayo picks up on the third ring.
"Hanayo, I… about back then, I'm sorry—"
And she apologizes. And again. So much, as if she's afraid she might not have the chance again. Like somewhere inside her still clings onto those days spent in packed clubroom, humidity trapped between the folding chairs, a button, second from top. And when Hanayo says, "I understand," even though it's over the phone she can picture Hanayo perfectly, her soft smile, like Hanayo is just before her, and she cries. It's been a while.
The next day, her eyes are so swollen and red and sad that her manager tells her to get a day off. She accepts wholeheartedly. She spends the night drinking herself off with Hanayo.
The next day, she goes out for a lunch with Eri, then the next day, with Kotori.
Some other day, she's back in Niko's apartment, he and Niko and zombie B-movies lined up.
Another day, she's out for a dinner with Umi.
When Honoka knocks on her door, she lets her in. She doesn't smell of smoke and alcohol, and she's dressed up not messy enough, like the way Maki remembers she used to be. Turns out that Umi cancelled the engagement, and since then Honoka's back to the upbeat idiot she was and now will ever be.
"Love is woooonderful," Honoka slurs. Maki shoves her slipper on the older girl's face.
She still can't face Rin; she has blocked the girl's phone number, refused every of her repeated attempts to meet her, doesn't even ask for her well-being, what she's up to now, or whether she's even still alive.
One day, she steels herself enough to pop the question, on the 9 PM where she isn't drunk enough for Hanayo to drag her to her apartment.
"H, how's Rin?"
And Hanayo smiles like usual. Smiles like she understands everything. She does. "She's alright. Rin-chan is a star athlete now, you know? She was on TV yesterday, dashing through the relay race, and I—"
"I see… good to know that," Maki says, cutting Hanayo off, dry-swallowing hundred questions threatening to be let loose, trying to tell herself that Rin doesn't deserve her, convincing herself that enough is enough and she had hurt Rin enough in the past and there's no need for her to carve another large gash on Rin, that Rin's too good for her. That you can love someone without having her.
"And she never stopped saying, I'll find her, no matter what, and since this is Rin, you're probably running out of time, Maki-chan…"
x.
She wakes up two hours later than usual, not to the ringing of the alarm set beforehand, three hours before and has been screaming out loud techno songs since three hours earlier. Eyes closed, she sees the universe in bird-eye view, witnesses the sun, the planets, and an awful lot of stars, gradually fading into stardust as she cracks open her eyelids. Her eyes are fully open, and the stars transform into warm linens. The black into the ceiling of her apartment, flawless cream white. The calendar reads 4th of October.
She turns. There's a yellow sticky note standing out against her mostly maroon night stand. Scribbled hurriedly is an address and a time, a quarter hour from now. Ten minutes later, she's bent on her wardrobe trying to find something decent to wear. Fifteen minutes later, she's in the bus stop, out of breath, praying that she'll make it to the studio just in time. Her manager will have a fit.
Thirty minutes later, she's arrived on the scene in one piece. Although drenched in sweat.
"Nishikino-san," her manager starts, and she groans, trying to weasel her way out of this so she can change already, "you do know about today's agenda, right?"
"I, uh, I overslept."
"I've told you so many times already – "
"I get it. This will be the last teenage soap opera I'm going to star in before I get on my hiatus for my studies, so I better make this big."
"Good. Now go change."
She looks back one last time before making her way to the dressing room. "You know… this is a romance flick, right? So, you haven't told me who's my partner in this one?"
Her manager mocks gag. The sound isn't fond. "Heh. You'll see soon enough. I personally don't like the guy, but she's decent."
"W-wait, she?"
"Now, now, get going!" And then there's a sliver of smile, leaning a little bit to the left, but it looks sincere enough for Maki to return the smile. "And good luck, Nishikino."
.
She steps outside of the dressing room in something resembling a school uniform, color a deep shade of blue and the skirt too short for her liking. The story sets in, typically enough, a high school setting. It's a tale of budding romance and friendships and solving hardships with a magical first kiss. Teenagers these days feed from those kinds of stories.
"Who's doing the main character role, anyway?" She asks to her hair dresser. The woman behind her goes off quiet, and then lets out a small laugh.
"I don't know her name, but I think I've seen her on TV before… she familiar. She's a track-and-field athlete, though, not someone from the entertainment industry. But she's pretty good-looking! The handsome girl type."
"Oh… the script does involve quite an amount of sport sequences, I guess they want to find someone who knows how to do it for real."
And that's when, in the middle of the set, she meets with her partner in the play for the first time, in the school jersey with its zipper only halfway to the top, sleeves rolled up and hair too messy for her liking, standing tall, right foot tapping the floor nervously, she looks jittery. She looks adorable, even with her boyish stature.
"M-Maki-chan,"
And, hell, she's breathless beyond words. There's a lump of things to say but it just won't come out, stuck on the depth of her throat, and it feels like the noise of stage props setting into places and the shouts from the other crew are distant, faint, set to the nearly-minimum volume, and it's just her and Rin and the vast universe where they stand in nothing and everything at the same time, and she witnesses the moon and the sun and a lot of stars, gradually swerving into stardust as Rin walks closer to her. Maki clenches both of Rin's shoulders so hard as if letting go might result in her falling down to planet Earth below.
"Found you!"
"Seriously, Rin…" Maki says, holding her sobs, she doesn't want to burst into tears before she's even had any shots taken.
"See? No matter what, Rin will find you. And, and Maki-chan— stop running away, alright? Look at me,"
"Hey, stop it, it's… it's not in the script,"
The next thing she knows, she's in Rin's arms, pulled in close, her nose on the crook of Rin's neck, and in her mind there's only Rin, Rin, Rin… "Come back to me," Rin pleads, and her voice quivers so much she might be crying, but Maki can't see her. Maki wants to see her. Maki wants to see those tears and wipes them and maybe sips them away, dry them until all that's left is her sunshine smile, "please don't go far away from me…"
"Rin,"
"I'll—this is so selfish, but… a-an angel, an angel you are, and even though I don't deserve you—"
"It's alright, Rin," she says, voice hushed and small and gentle as if she's afraid that Rin might break, "I'm not going anywhere,"
.
("How am I supposed to live without you everyday?")
.
"Today's Angel Day, Maki-chan. I think our reunion is that fated. I think you're an angel for real."
"Shut up, idiot. It's not in the script."
Notes: [1] Inspirations from B.A.P's song Angel, RinMaki's ever catchy Beat In Angel, and rib's Yonjuunana (47).
[2] half of it was written sometime back in Sept '14 ^^; disjointed and rushed as it is, I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me your thoughts! \o/