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twilight
The beginning of the rest of your life begins like this:
There are stars in her eyes as she places a crown atop your head. It is a fragile little thing, weaved from clovers and thumb-sized flowers that have been plucked from the hills in the east—but it might as well be gold with the way her fingers tremor as she straightens it, brushes a few stray locks of hair away from your forehead.
“It’s not much,” she says, bashfully looking away. You hadn’t noticed you had been staring at her intently, and the thought of it brings embarrassment that burns like fire in your throat. “But I wanted to give you something before the snow settles in.”
You are careful not to shake your head too vehemently—your stare is stern as you cradle her gift as if it is adorned with precious jewels. The beginning of the harvest season is always incredibly busy, even more so for Yashiro’s family. But she had taken time out of her long days to carefully pick every blossom that sits on your head, and you think that no amount of words will be able to truly communicate how warm you feel from your ears to your toes.
“Yashiro.” Your mouth is dry from the restraint it takes to not utter her first name, “I’m going to marry you someday.”
“Y-You shouldn’t just say things like that—”
And perhaps she has a point. A boy of eight summers has no business proposing to pretty girls from the next village over. Not when your heart is too young to understand a love beyond your mother’s feather kisses and the secure feeling of your brother’s hand intertwined with yours.
Yet there is something different about this. Something that simmers within your bones, and no phrase comes to your tongue when you attempt to name it but you know that this is right. She is right, you decide as Yashiro bids you goodnight with a peck on the cheek that brands you to your soul.
Under the silver-streaked heavens, you pray to whoever is listening. You vow to become someone she can come to rely on. Someone who can protect her, someone she can learn to love.
(That night, you dream of Yashiro’s shy smile and the clicking sound of a turning lock, and that can only be an omen.)
words that water flowers
You realize, with a heart-stopping jolt of panic, that you are not prepared to handle women on the verge of tears.
Especially not when said woman is about to wail in the middle of the palace gardens. Not sure of what else to do, you grasp her wrist and take her to mother’s hidden veranda. You hope that the thick roses and peonies are enough privacy. For her or for yourself, you can no longer discern—it’d be mortifying for anyone to witness just how flushed your face is.
“I-I just—” Nene says between sniffles, hugging a leather-bound notebook to her chest, “You really didn’t have to get anything for me, your highness. This is too much!”
She gasps against your shoulder as you pull her in for an embrace. She smells of sunshine and earth, and something deep within you resonates with recognition. “Nonsense. You deserve to have a journal worthy of your tales,” you tell her. “In return, I’d like to hear more of them.”
“How did you know that I like to write?” Nene asks before frowning at the floor. “Kou...”
Kou had indeed told you that a certain gardener aspires to become an author someday, but it was your idea to gift her a book crafted by your own hands.
You are a prince, not a leatherworker, and there are little rips and misshapen ties along the edges you had been concerned about. It’s the thought that counts, Kou had told you, and it’s nearly impossible to make eye contact as you ask, “Well? Do you like it?”
“I love it!” She blurts out, cheeks and ears as cherry red as the flowers that surround them. “I must give you something in return…”
“That’s not necessary—”
“But it is!”
You tell her that you have no need of anything; not when you are meant to take the throne and this entire kingdom in less than a month’s time. But that doesn’t stop her from leaving a vase of camellias in your study, along with a little note where she had doodled the two of you in a field of flowers.
You have no idea how to properly care for them—everything you had planted in the gardens yourself tends to die—but you want to prove to Nene that you are capable of nurturing even the smallest of things.
star showers
At fifteen, you are old enough to understand the difference between success and failure.
You know that your dream involves a little more hard work than simply hopping on a rocket, and you know that the next few years will determine whether you get to set off for the stars or remain here, feet strapped firmly to the ground you so desperately wish to escape.
But you have also come to realize that there will be other matters that will nag at your mind, splitting your attention because you’re fifteen and unfamiliar with the way your stomach flutters around your best friend.
You don’t quite remember when it happened, only know that it’s there, squirming and growing with each passing day. You always think this will get easier, except it never does—she could be minding her own business, chewing on the end of her pencil as she reads, and you’d still ask yourself why the sun comes out when Nene steps into the room.
This, whatever it is—it’s new and very, very warm.
And you are afraid.
You’ve been friends for pretty much forever, so there’s no way she’d leave you in the dust if your feelings ever came to light. But it’s hard to ignore the prickling in your gut, the anxiety that lives in the darkest recesses of your mind, and you wonder without wanting to. Wonder if this “crush” will be too much of a distraction, or if things will change between you if it turns out she doesn’t feel the same way.
Even now, as you’re sitting on your rooftop and gazing at the stars, you can hear the whispers in your ears, bouncing around your skull. But then Nene turns, almost as if she can feel the tension rolling off of you in waves, and she smiles.
It’s sunlight on a winter day, and you try to find the strength to breathe. It’ll be okay, you tell yourself as you scoot a little closer, if only to play off the fact that she’d caught you off-guard. It’ll be okay because you’re inseparable and Nene is kind, and because you promise yourself to someday garner the courage to finally tell her just how much she means to you.
You always tell yourself later and next time, and sometimes you wonder when that time will come.
to love what is mortal
That’s the thing.
Destiny is hardly a one-way track to happiness—there are dips, turns, occasionally a jolting stop along the way.
Luck is a part of the equation you tend to ignore as much as you can because nothing and no one will get in the way of meeting Nene. But there will be times when fortune does not work in your favor.
Times when you come across a girl with sunset eyes and a bouquet of flowers in her arms during your morning commute to work. Unfortunately, you are not on the same train—you barely manage to spot her a few rows down, and it takes everything in you to not purchase a different ticket just for a chance to see her, to ask for her name, to figure out what exactly this aching familiarity in your chest is.
For now, this is enough. You tell yourself that if it is truly meant to be, she’ll be at this station at this time tomorrow. Taking the scenic route to school will be worth it as long as you can see her again. Maybe you’ll have the courage to ask if she’d be interested in some coffee. Or is she more of a tea person? Maybe you could take her to the cafe just a few blocks down; the one that sells your favorite donuts—
There is the chime of the incoming train, the sound of shocked gasps. You wonder why you are falling, falling. You wonder why you feel gravel pricking at your palms, dirtying your slacks, and suddenly you wonder no more as your vision fades to black.
It seems as if an eternity has passed before you wake up. When you open your eyes, you are greeted by an unblemished, blinding white all around you. You cannot see your hands when you attempt to feel for them, and that is when you realize—
Ah. I’m dead again.
If you had a heart, you think it’d be sinking into your stomach by now. Freed from the trappings of a mortal body and mind, your soul remembers everything it had been forced to suppress. Memories of countless Amanes and Nenes crossing paths over and over and over, and it is not often that one of you perishes so early on, but it is a possibility that you’ve come to accept.
(That doesn’t make it any less painful. You ache at the thought of this Nene living her life without you. Growing old, finding happiness with someone else.)
Yet you know that everything is going to be alright, deep inside. Out of a million lifetimes, you would gladly take one that ends happily in exchange for a few that do not. You will let her go in this one, because you know that you will still fall in love with Nene in every timeline, in every universe.
Thus, you succumb to a deep slumber with a smile, and wait for dawn to come.
dawn
“Amane? Amane, wake up!”
A bright flash of light startles you awake. Nene is trembling in front of you, stifling a giggle behind one hand, holding her phone in the other.
“Be careful! You can’t drop Asami-chan on her first Christmas!” She scolds lightly as she takes the warm bundle from your arms. Brain still addled from sleep, it takes a moment for you to read the bright red numbers on your bedside clock. It is a minute past midnight, and Nene is much too energetic at this time.
“We can take pictures later,” you say, groaning into your pillow. You hear her huff before setting down something light beside you. Tiny hands grasp at the hem of your sleeve, and your chest feels like it’s being stretched from the affection that swells from within.
“Fine, fine.” Nene sighs, and the infant coos as she throws her arm over to hug them both. “But you have to promise we’ll take pictures at your parents’ house. Oh, wouldn’t that be cute? You’re going to love your uncle.”
If you had a bit of coffee, you’d tell her that leaving Tsukasa with a year-old baby isn’t necessarily the best idea. Instead, you manage a quiet, “Yeah, mhm.”
“Aren’t you excited to go home, Amane?”
You take a moment to listen to the sound of your daughter’s slow breathing, the sound of rustling sheets as Nene snuggles closer to the two of you. You stretch to plant a kiss atop Nene’s forehead, on the tip of her nose, and on her lips before you say, “I already am home.”