Chapter Text
haruko didn't know him well, aside from the few times they'd met for coffee at mana's request or the occasional collaboration. still, the dry, desperate kisses she pressed to his lips a few months after the funeral felt like second nature. when they went out, he'd still order his latte too sweet while she'd take hers too bitter, but there was no perfect bridge there anymore to fill in the gaps.
they'd only met up this time because of saegusa-san's improvised business trip out of town. he'd said that he needed to get some air, but everyone at hoshimi productions knew that he wasn't coping well with the loss of their top star; and who could blame him? with just haruko left to make the money, they were just barely keeping the place above water. she was a trashy act at best, and everyone knew the only reason she even had any fans was because of what mana did while she was still there.
still, it felt almost nostalgic, to be sitting side by side like this in one of the office's many unused meeting rooms. almost like it had before mana's birthday live, back when she'd linked her pinky finger through the looped form of the other girl's mirrored gesture, promising with a stifled giggle and a stifled scream that she'd stay at a reasonable distance from her manager during their brief swap.
even back when she was there, it was always makino this, or makino that. not that she herself was any better.
haruko found herself rolling mana's name over her tongue more often than she'd like to admit.
nowhere anyone could hear her, of course. sometimes alone in her bedroom, sometimes against the back of her teeth amidst a casual conversation with makino.
it wasn't fair, how much he could remind haruko of her. the man was saying something about her schedule for next month, pointing out a character on the blackboard that she had to squint to read under the meeting room's fluorescent lights. everything blurred pale against her tired, sallow eyelids, washing the room in hospital-room tones that made her want to vomit and cry and gouge her eyes out.
when he smiled at haruko, she nearly looked away. the blue-black hair now curling up against the nape of his neck had grown out since the funeral; haruko remembered mana carding her fingers through it, laughing as she'd tuck it away behind his ear, ruffling it whenever he annoyed her too much. even now, he pushed it back the same exact way, hooking the looser strands behind the earpiece of his glasses absentmindedly.
haruko wondered if he'd realized that he had the same smile as her, or if he, too, had tried to become her so as to not forget her.
"haruko-san?"
she jerked herself out of her stupor, forcing a bright expression onto her face. if she'd been onstage, she'd have already failed. even here, she'd already failed.
her throat tightened, bile rising up it, acidic and stinging, at the sight of makino's slight concerned, gentle head tilt. she could almost see her face over his, if she squinted hard enough, so why did it hurt so much to know she wasn't there?
"sorry," she murmured automatically, "i was lost in thought."
when makino was too well-behaved to make fun of her for it, the sinking feeling of resemblance in her stomach seemed to evaporate, leaving her alone with an unavoidable emptiness inside, instead.
for one awful second, it felt like mana had been ripped away from her all over again. haruko wanted to cry.
she watched his mouth move with an uneasy fascination: not the words (she couldn’t follow those anymore, not with the way the overhead lights hummed and flickered just enough to make everything feel a half-second delayed) but the shape of them. the careful, measured cadence. the way he paused just slightly before saying haruko's name, like he was still weighing how it should sound in his mouth.
they used to say it differently.
“—and the rehearsal got pushed back to thursday,” makino was saying, tapping the board lightly with the end of the marker, “so if we adjust the recording to—”
haruko nodded back at him, and he faltered. just a little.
it was small enough that anyone else might’ve missed it, but she couldn't. the way his gaze flickered not away from her, but through her, like he was checking for something that wasn’t there.
her stomach twisted.
there it was again.
that awful, quiet feeling of being measured against something she couldn’t see.
“…does that work for you?” he finished.
haruko blinked.
“thursday,” she echoed, because it was the last word she’d heard clearly. her voice came out lighter than she felt, practiced and hollow. “yeah. that’s fine.”
makino nodded, relief passing over his face too quickly to linger, and he smiled, and there it was.
not identical (it couldn't ever be) but close enough that her breath caught anyway. the corners of his eyes softened first, then his mouth, like the expression had to move through him in stages before it settled. mana used to smile all at once, bright and immediate, like a star surfacing over the edge of the hoshimi pier as you waited on the docks.
makino’s was slower, dimmer. a reflection in a telescope instead of the thing itself, and haruko's fingers still twitched desperately in her lap at the familiar pang in her chest.
she remembered, distantly, sitting in this same room with mana. the table cluttered with half-empty cups, mana leaning too far back in her chair, laughing at something makino had said from across the room. haruko had watched the two of them then, too, the easy rhythm between them, the way they spoke like they’d already agreed on everything before the conversation even started.
why did she ever look away?
makino capped the marker and set it down with a soft click. for a moment, neither of them moved.
...
haruko stood abruptly.
“i need a break,” she said, already reaching for the door before he could respond. “the air in here’s—”
stale? suffocating? wrong?
she didn’t finish the sentence.
the hallway outside wasn’t much better, but it was quieter. the hum of the lights was softer out here, less insistent, and the walls didn’t seem to be closing in quite as fast.
haruko pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes. if anything, it served to make it worse, the afterimage burned there, stubborn and bright. blue-black hair, the curve of a smile, the ghost of a voice that wasn’t theirs and neveralwaysnever had been.
her throat tightened. this was ridiculous, pathetic, even. she let out a sharp breath, forcing her hands back down to her sides.
get it together.
she’d been doing fine. she’d been fine. smiling when she needed to, performing when she had to, letting the days blur together until they stopped meaning anything at all.
so why—
the door clicked softly behind her.
“haruko-san.”
she didn’t turn around.
footsteps approached, timid and careful, stopping just short of her shoulder. the moon instead of a star, and still so close to what she'd yearned for. makino had learned that, or maybe he’d always known.
“are you feeling unwell?” he asked, voice melodic. god, he should've been the idol, not haruko.
haruko, with her complexes and urges and, wow, there was that tone again, quiet and concerned and edged with a want to not lose people again.
she could understand not wanting to lose anyone else ever again. haruko let out a small laugh, but it didn't really mean anything.
“i’m fine,” she said, because that was what she wanted to hear.
a pause.
“…you don’t look fine.”
she squeezed her eyes shut.
for a second, just a second, the words overlapped with something else. brighter. teasing. accompanied by a light push to her shoulder, a laugh that demanded a reaction.
nee, ha~ru~ko~chan, you're terrible at lying.
her chest ached.
“sorry,” she said again, softer this time. “i just—”
her voice caught. she didn’t know how to finish that sentence, but makino didn’t push; of course he didn’t. he just stood there, waiting, as haruko stared at him.
at the way his hair curled slightly at the ends now, longer than it used to be. at the way he held himself, shoulders just a little too straight, like he was compensating for something that had been taken out of him.
at the way he was looking at her.
like he was trying to see—
her breath hitched, and, before she could stop herself, she reached out. her fingers caught lightly at his the fluffy fabric of his sleeve, just above his wrist.
neither of them spoke.
haruko’s grip tightened, just slightly.
it would be easy. it would be so easy, and that was the worst part.
it'd be impossibly convenient to just.. what? step closer? to close the distance? to pretend, just for a moment, that the shape in front of her could line up with the memory in her head if she just looked hard enough?
her gaze flicked up to his face. the angle was right, even though the light hit him wrong. there was a highlight on his adam's apple coming through the room's windows, and his cheekbones were sharper than she remembered, and his expression softened in that familiar, almost-dreamlike way, and there she was.
haruko inhaled sharply, before impulsively crashing her lips into makino's for a kiss.