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Sendai-san’s hair is tucked back behind her ears today, and my birthstone catches the light whenever she moves.
That’s the only reason I can’t help looking her way – the blue glint coming off her is just too bothersome to ignore, and too distracting to pay attention to anything else.
Of course, that means people aside from me also can’t help their inquisitive glances, their snarky little comments.
“Maika-chan, did Hazuki tell you she bought the earrings herself? But they were clearly a gift from her boyfriend.”
I usually like the visible reminder that she’s mine, and though it annoys me that others can look at her, I mind it a lot less when they can also see my mark of ownership over her. But today, the sight of it annoys me to no end.
“For the last time, Mio – there is no boyfriend,” Sendai-san just says, which, while true, only ends up bothering me even more. I don’t think anything she could say would ever actually convince Mio-san, who’s been pestering her about some non-existent boyfriend since the day they met, but I still feel like she should try a little harder to deny it. When I try to reach for the words I would like her to say, though, I always come up short.
“Mio-san, if Sendai-san says there’s no boyfriend, maybe there really isn’t,” Maika cuts in, reasonable as ever. “I don’t think she’d lie about that.”
“But you see, she told me Shiori-chan bought them for her.”
“Shiori did?” Maika echoes, and I can feel her gaze on me for a moment as Mio-san rambles on:
“She always blames Shiori-chan for things her boyfriend actually did. Like last summer, with the hickeys,” Mio-san snickers, bringing up a night I’d desperately tried to wipe from my mind. If I hadn’t succeeded, maybe the four of us wouldn’t be sitting around again, talking about the very same boring things. “Honestly, Hazuki, you could at least keep your versions straight.”
“This conversation is going nowhere,” Sendai-san mutters, and she shoots up to her feet like she's about to storm out of the room, which, by all accounts, would be a petty response, tantamount to an admission of guilt – but when Sendai-san does it, it takes on some grand significance, the last stand of a poor soul against an unjust world. I’m not sure Maika and Mio-san would feel the same way, though, so I grab Sendai-san’s hand before she can get too far away from me and get her to turn around.
And then Sendai-san looks back at me, like I’ve wanted her to all night.
It’s not like I hold it against her that she didn’t. Her glancing my way too often would have been troublesome, especially given the matter at hand, and I’d voiced my displeasure at her staring too much even when we were alone. But I simply do not have the same choice. Whether I like it or not, my eyes naturally drift to her, so she should properly return my gaze every time, and she shouldn’t attempt to get away without my permission. I don’t necessarily want to push her in Maika and Mio-san’s vicinity, but if that's where I am, then it’s also where Sendai-san needs to be.
Yet she makes no move to return to her spot on the floor, and I don’t drop the hand holding her in place. She just keeps looking at me expectantly, as if waiting on my directions, and I know then that she’ll say anything I tell her to. I can get her to lie, even make up a boyfriend, if I want – or I can let everyone know that I’m the one who’s doing it all to Sendai-san, that whenever a new hickey or piece of jewellery shows up on her body it’s because I’ve intentionally put it there – that Sendai-san can never have a boyfriend, because there’s no way I would let her and, besides, because she belongs to me.
So she swore, at least.
But Sendai-san has a long history of breaking promises.
Our earrings may not have been originally intended that way, but at some point they ended up marking our promises to each other. Sendai-san cannot break any promises made to my earrings, and though I’ve always kept my word to her either way, her own earrings remind me of my responsibilities towards her – not just promises, but my claim to her as well. So if I wanted to bind her to me completely, and make sure she was well and truly mine, all I’d have to ask her to do would be to swear on my ears, and kiss them softly like she always does – and maybe then I wouldn’t be so worried anymore.
Promises made to the earrings are supposed to be unbreakable.
That is why I can’t allow Sendai-san to swear something that important.
She swore, once, that she wouldn’t belong to anyone but me, and I was perfectly happy – well, more or less – to think of it as just one of those promises she’d do her best to keep, but that were ultimately outside of her control. But when she tried to swear it to my earrings, I marked her promise on her with my teeth instead. The only reason swearing to my earrings means anything is that Sendai-san knows, if she were to fall short, my trust in her would break irreparably, and our relationship with it – but if she stopped being mine, then she wouldn’t care about breaking her promise either way. So there’s no need to make her swear, as it would only lead to disappointment.
I know this.
But there’s a part of me that would like to play pretend a little longer.
If I ask her to promise, even in front of other people, she will.
I open my mouth with no idea what will come out, only to be interrupted by Maika’s voice.
“If Sendai-san really has a boyfriend, then she’ll tell us when the time is right, don’t you think, Mio-san?”
I hear Mio’s pout rather than see it, because I’m not looking at either of them. “Hazuki will never tell me anything. She’s no fun,” she whines, but it’s dejected enough that she, at the very least, seems to drop the matter, and the conversation shifts from significant others to Mio-san’s own recountering of her adventures over the last week down to the most embarrassing detail, as if to provide a contrast to Sendai-san’s pointless secrecy.
Before that, though, Sendai-san, who’s taken back her spot by my side, adds in for one last time: “I really don’t have a boyfriend.”
“I believe you,” Maika replies, and to my relief, as Mio-san just chuckles some more, she at least sounds sincere.
“Sendai-san, do you like sex that much?”
I realize this might be quite an indelicate question, and depending on who you asked, they might even take offense to whatever they thought you were implying – but it just slipped off my tongue when Sendai-san, cheeks still red with exertion, didn’t even wait for her heart rate to come back down before suggesting, in a roughened up whisper: “Let’s do it again.”
Now, it's not like I take particular pride in my performance, nor am I full of myself enough to take any flukes personally – but this time, specifically, I think I’ve been more than thorough with Sendai-san, so it is a bit disheartening for her to act like nothing I did even made a dent in her.
Sendai-san, however, seems to still be in that floaty space where shame has no name, because she pulls me against her sweaty skin and murmurs: “I like sex with you,” which is such a disconcerting answer it does nothing to prepare me for its follow-up: “So, call me Hazuki more, Shiori.”
There’s a reason why we tend not to use first names much among us, except for moments such as these. But the flip side is that those names, when pronounced outside of those specific moments, go on to have devastating effects. My name out of her mouth never fails to make me feel faint, and I’m sure she knows it, too, or she wouldn’t whisper it so alluringly, or trail her hands all over my body, or –
I thought Sendai-san would be satisfied with what we just did, but whenever I give in to one of her demands, she just asks for more – meaning that if I so much as kiss her, she’ll start begging me for marks like some weird pain addict, and if I have sex with her once, she’ll just ask for it twice. But if I listen to her all the time, she’ll grow spoiled, and she’ll end up hacking away at my resistance little by little – so I can’t let it happen too often.
Never mind that I was the one to jump her the moment I got her alone.
“You’re not the one making the rules, Sendai-san.”
I can hardly believe she’s convinced, but she seems to let the matter drop, so I decide not to push my luck any further. I try to get off of her quietly, like slipping away from someone without waking them up, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me back again, eyes focused on me.
“Then put a collar on me.”
“ Eh ?”
I’m so taken aback I end up losing my balance and falling over her, leaning on the pillow for balance and to keep her from being crushed in the process.
Since Sendai-san does nothing, except wrap her arm around me to steady me, I’m forced to ask for clarification.
“Where did that come from?”
Sendai-san tries to lay her head on my shoulder, or to nuzzle me, but I flinch back, startled. She makes a whiny sound in the back of her throat in response, which overlines even her next words.
“How am I supposed to know I belong to you if you won’t even mark me? The least you could do is collar me.”
“I wasn’t aware you needed the reminder,” I grunt, tightening my grip on her.
“Mh, I keep trying to make the rules myself, so maybe I do.”
“Well, that’s what this is for.”
And, considering this discussion over and done with, I bend down to kiss the leaf necklace that graces her pretty neck.
Even in high school, I used to kiss Sendai-san’s necklace a lot. But it was a different necklace then – this one’s other half, combined together to make Sendai-san’s name – and I always took care to only kiss the cold metal, rather than the warm skin underneath.
Now, I kiss Sendai-san so much that being picky about it no longer makes sense. I kiss the leaf pendant, and the curve of her neck where it always rests, right where I can see it, and I kiss her collarbone too, the wet trail my tongue left in its haste glaring embarrassingly up at me – yet Sendai-san stops me from going any lower, cupping my face in her hands and dragging it up towards her again.
“To remind others, then.”
“Others?”
Other people did not fit in our relationship – much like the rest of the world outside our four walls, they were a hindrance, only peeking in through our window to cause trouble. Sendai-san suddenly bringing them up now made even less sense to me than her original request.
“I told everyone you gave me the necklace, but that doesn’t mean anything to them. They don’t know I’m yours.” She’s pulling me closer, whispering, luring. “Collar me, and everyone will know, Miyagi.”
Back in high school, not letting others know about us was the most important rule we established, and even when our connection became known in college, not revealing everything we did behind closed doors was a foregone conclusion. I might have occasionally left marks on her so that, if people were to look closer than I’d feel comfortable with, I could at least ward them off, and I might have wished, sometimes, that they knew it was me and no one else doing that to her – but there’s no way they wouldn't misunderstand the nature of our relationship then, and trying to explain it to them when I couldn’t make sense of it myself was probably a loss of time and energy. So biting her all over her body, while soothing in the moment, never did make me feel any better in the long run, and would only leave bruises on Sendai-san that mocked me with their uselessness for days.
The necklace, like her earrings, were always meant to mark her as mine in a way that wouldn't gradually just fade over, even if we were the only ones who knew what they meant.
But that doesn’t seem to be enough for Sendai-san anymore, and I’d be lying if I said, in full seriousness, that it was ever enough for me – so I sidestep the matter.
“Sendai-san, you’re always asking me to buy you stuff. I’m not made of money, you know.”
“I mean, I feel like buying my own collar would defeat the purpose, but I’m not opposed.”
“Are you stupid? Don’t answer that,” I immediately say, seeing how she’s about to open her mouth. The idea of not having any say over what was supposed to be a proof of ownership cuts me so deep I want to promise her, right here and now, that I’ll give her what she wants, lest she devalue this ownership ritual for both of us. Besides, if Sendai-san wants a collar, I should just get it for her. I always ask so much of her, and she asks for so little, so it’s only fair.
But its implications weigh too heavy on my mind.
“Then, you’ll get it for me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Why? What are you afraid of?” Her hot breath keeps hitting the side of my face in a way I assume to be intentional, because Sendai-san then wraps her arms and legs around me, trapping me in her embrace like some weird starfish, and whispers into my ear: “Collar me, Shiori. Collar me, collar me-”
“Don’t call me that,” I grit out through my teeth, though despite the attempted peremptoriness, it feels more like pleading, “and I might consider it.”
“Promise me, then. I’ll do anything you want.”
I may not be as sex-crazed as Sendai-san is, and I usually don’t even have anything specific I want her to do when she throws herself at me like this – but I’d be lying if I said, given the circumstances, that I wasn’t somewhat morbidly curious about certain things.
Specifically, what would happen if Sendai-san were pushed to some specific limits of her endurance.
“Anything?”
“Anything. So you can see the collar will be put to good use.”
She was the one to ask for a second round.
“Don’t take it back,” I say, and I immediately push her down.
Sendai-san did not take it back.
I wouldn’t call her easy by any stretch of the imagination, though I would call her a pervert, but even I was surprised at how sensitive she was to my touch. Simply put, my body gave up long before hers did, but she still kept shaking to whatever light touch I could manage, even through teary eyes and pleas that she couldn’t do it anymore, simply because I asked her to do it for me one more time.
It’s not something I necessarily like about her, but Sendai-san never has it in her to disappoint me.
I think a collar would look good on her.
I trace the shape of it on her neck, slightly above the pendant’s chain, and try to imagine what it would look like on her. The color would need to compliment her, that’s for sure – something blue, maybe, like her earrings – and engravings would also be nice.
I feel her breath quicken from where she lies beside me, spent, when my fingers rest on her neck like that – so I quickly move them down to the rest of her body, taking care to skip over all the sensitive parts, attempting soothing motions. I trail them over her collarbones, stroke her sides, smooth over her belly.
If I had the power to change her body forever just by my touch, marking her as mine for everyone to see, I would have done it already. But I don’t have that kind of power, and so I’m left to rely on jewelry and bite marks until something better comes along.
She looks so beautiful shrouded in shadows. She looks beautiful in the light, too.
“Hazuki,” I call, half-expecting her not to answer. But whether awake or asleep, it is a natural instinct for Sendai-san to respond to me whenever I call her name. So she opens her eyes and looks at me. “Why is this so important to you?”
Her reply comes so quickly, and so orderly even through the ragged breaths, that it’s like she’s practised this and was only waiting for me to ask.
“Because I don’t know what will happen to us after graduation.”
“What do you mean? You’re planning on staying here, right?”
Sendai-san stays quiet and just stares at me, carefully keeping a blank expression the whole time. I don’t want to press her too hard, considering the ordeal I’ve just put her through, but if she’s just having trouble understanding what I said, then I’d appreciate her asking for clarification, instead of letting me believe I put too much weight on her words – there were promises hanging on those words, and my own sense of security – that while Sendai-san may very well leave me, she won’t leave the place she so loves, even with me in it. So when she just tries to get close to me without answering, as if to sidestep the question, I swat at her, irritated.
“Sendai-san, you said this place was important to you.”
“It is important to me. I’m going to keep living here no matter what.”
“Then that’s it, isn’t it? What does that have to do with me?”
“Are you planning to stay here, too, Miyagi?”
I don't like thinking about my future, just as I don't like thinking about my past. But no matter how painful, my past has already happened, and there’s nothing I can do to stop something as easy as recollection. My future, though, still needs to be created - so if I refuse to give it shape, there’s only so much it can do to me. I’ve already promised Sendai-san next year and the year after, and I won’t go back on my word, but everything after that is completely blank. I won’t deny that, since I’ve only ever contemplated a future with Sendai-san in it, I’ve found myself wishing for even more years with her – but that’s just habit at work, and ultimately, what I want doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. So I refuse to look too far ahead, lest the future hurt me before it even comes to pass.
“I don’t know yet.”
I utter my lack of resolution into her neck, and she just cradles me, tutting a single sound of affirmation like my answer was entirely predictable.
“ That is why”, Sendai-san says, like it’s supposed to make perfect sense, until she continues: “I know you’ve already marked promises on me, but those will only last two more years. That’s okay. I’m not asking you to extend them. But my promise has no expiration date.”
“Your promise?”
I try to pull ever so slightly away from her to look at her, but she just lays her forehead on my collarbone, so that I can’t see her face.
“I don’t need you to be mine,” she whispers into me, “but I am yours.”
“Stop. Stop saying stupid things.”
“Why? I’m being serious.”
It’s not about being serious.
I’m sure Sendai-san believes in what she's saying, or at least wants to believe it really bad. But no one can say for certain what will happen or how Sendai-san will feel in two years, and pretending otherwise is just irresponsible.
That is why I can only take it one step at a time. On our birthdays, we promise each other one more year, because any more would be pushing it. Even I don’t know how I’ll feel in two, or five, or ten years – but I do know if the rest of my days could be as happy as my current everyday, I wouldn’t ask for anything more, and though there are no true and tested spells to make wishes come true, the human urge to make up your own is indomitable – a spell to pass exams, vows to fight off impermanence, and marks to correct forgetfulness.
So, even if I don’t get to choose, either, I think I do understand Sendai-san, after all.
“It doesn’t have to be a collar,” Sendai-san concedes, “but I want something to mark my promise. Please, Miyagi.”
I don’t have the strength to refute her.
She did everything I asked, and she only asked for this one thing in return. My comfort shouldn’t always be her priority.
“Alright,” I whisper, hugging her to me. It is far too late for me to carry her back to her room, and throwing her out after everything that happened would be unkind, both to her and myself – so it can’t be helped that she’ll stay here. “Go to sleep now.”
Silence falls for a few seconds – long enough that I start to think Sendai-san’s fallen asleep already, worn out as she was. But suddenly, just as I’m dancing on the edge between wakefulness and dream, I hear her voice piping up again:
“Wait, I want to touch you too.”
“Sendai-san, shut up.”
“A gift for Sendai-san?” Maika asks next to me.
This wasn’t at all what I intended when I asked Maika to come shopping with me, and I never meant to drag Sendai-san – especially gifts that revealed too much about my private relationship with her – into our friendship hangout. But I was so constantly distracted, so immersed in the displays of every shop we passed by, that it was immediately apparent to Maika that there was something on my mind, and I had to warp the truth ever so slightly just to be able to tell her what was going on.
“Uh, yeah. She said she’d like something specific, but I’d rather still weigh my options.”
“Why? Is what she wants really expensive?”
“I mean, no, I don’t think so.” Truthfully, I hadn't really looked into collar prices, but given that, worst came to worst, any decent pet shop would have them, they couldn’t cost that much.
“Then you should just get her what she asked for. She’ll be really happy, and if it turns out to be more expensive than you expected, you can just pick up more shifts at the café, right?”
“What are you saying?”
“You worked there last summer so you could buy her a necklace, right?”
I could have denied it – pretended like I just suddenly came to the realization that a part time job would be good for my future, because I would have had to be a responsible adult someday with her own hard-earned money, and so I’d better start now rather than getting to the end of my college years unprepared and with no work experience whatsoever – but I don’t particularly feel like lying to Maika more than I already do, and definitely not if it would make me look better than I really am.
“...Yeah. How did you know?”
Turns out, I didn’t need to worry at all, because Maika already had me figured out. “Mm, because no one but Sendai-san could get you to do something you hate, Shiori.”
It would have been entirely normal, and maybe even expected, for Maika to sound even the tiniest bit bitter, or even resentful – after all, she’s suggested we work together several times and I’ve always refused, on account of me taking death by fire over being employed in customer service for just one day. But when it comes to Sendai-san, none of the rules I’ve set for myself apply anymore – and Maika’s just smiling about it like it’s nothing.
Truth is, despite claiming over and over that I’d never work again in my life, I think if it allowed me to continue my life with Sendai-san undisturbed, then I could probably do it. It’s not that Sendai-san would ever need my help, but I’d feel rotten to the core if I just kept living off her like some leech – plus, there’s always a chance her parents will cut off her financial support early, and if that ever happens, I need to be ready to support Sendai-san myself. But I’d never do this for anyone but Sendai-san, and once she leaves, my resolve will also leave with her.
But I can't tell Maika that. All I can say is: “It wasn't that bad,” and Maika's smile just grows even more.
“What about her earrings? How did you afford real sapphires?”
“I never said I was the one to buy her earrings.”
“So it really wasn’t you?”
Somehow, when Maika asks me directly, I can’t find it in me to outright lie. “...No, it was.” And I mean to add something on top of it to soften the blow, or at the very least not make it look like Sendai-san’s just using me for money, or like I’m being bribed by her, or something equally ridiculous that Ami probably could have come up with – but I end up just shooting myself further in the foot: “She picked mine, so I was just trying to return the favor.”
“You’ve changed, Shiori.”
I know exactly what she means without her having to say it.
Wearing earrings, in the first place, was something totally unlike high school me, who never had any particular interest in jewelry and was also terribly afraid of pain. They started out as a way to punish Sendai-san, to always remind her of the pain she caused me by breaking her promise – but by piercing my ears, she also left a mark on me that would stay on my body forever. She offered me her ears as proof that she belongs to me, but she also took my ears for herself, and I’m not sure how I can keep insisting that it’s not the same thing.
But it’s not just the earrings. In fact, the face looking back at me from the window of a shop is so unfamiliar – yet, because Sendai-san was the one to create it, it is also inexplicably dear to me. She was the one to do my hair today, braiding it the way she likes even though my hair is not nearly as long as hers is, and her hands in my hair felt so good that I just let her. The make-up, too, was entirely her doing – except for the lipstick, which was smudged and reapplied as many times as Sendai-san kissed me, then left alone to become a glaring absence.
She might not have been the one to dress me or to even buy these clothes for me, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pick them with her specifically in mind. Long skirts only started appearing in my wardrobe ‘cause Sendai-san liked them so much on me, and while it’s not like I dressed to earn her praise, I didn’t dislike her thinking of me as pretty, and I didn’t dislike her fawning over me through my weak protestations before I left.
Sendai-san hasn’t merely changed me – she’s remade me. I’m not so different that I don’t recognize myself anymore, but in the past few years, so much of what I thought was unacceptable became not just acceptable, but desirable, and rules that I lived my life according to – things that made me who I was – were discarded with as little as a second thought, no longer needed. I don’t necessarily want to go back, and I don’t think I owe the people around me to stay forever the same – but I feel like Maika, at least, deserves some sort of explanation, or apology, for what I let happen to me while she wasn’t looking.
For some reason, a sense of guilt overcomes me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a good thing. You look so much happier now that you’re rooming with Sendai-san.”
I make a conscious effort to style my face into my usual expression. “I don’t think I’ve been smiling any more than usual.”
“It’s not really about how often you smile. In fact, when Sendai-san is around, you probably smile a lot less. You just look so much more at peace, like all the tension in your body has just disappeared.”
It’s true enough that I can’t deny it, yet in other ways, it’s also wrong. With the prospect of happiness also comes the fear of loss, so that said happiness can never really be enjoyed to the fullest.
It’s not that I don’t know loneliness – I’ve been lonely my whole life. But ever since meeting Sendai-san, I’ve had someone to cook and eat with, and have talks around the dinner table, and share all of my birthdays and all of my round cakes with, making the memory of my old life feel more and more like a bad dream. If I were to ever go back to a world without Sendai-san, that kind of loneliness would be unbearable.
I try to picture myself removed from her, and the rest of the world falls away like cheap cardboard cutouts.
“Now I know you’re lying. Dealing with Sendai-san can be a real migraine.”
“Well, I’m sure she’d say the same about you, Shiori,” she knocks her shoulder into me jokingly, and all I can think is Betrayal , “so it looks like you’re perfect for each other.”
I keep feeling her eyes on me even as I avert my own towards seemingly endless window displays, leading me to believe she’s expecting some sort of response from me, and I just need to find the one that shuts this conversation down. Thinking about how much Sendai-san has come to mean to me despite my best efforts is honestly depressing, and while I’m certain, if I were to tell Maika that, she’d back off immediately, I’m honestly not sure how I’d explain it to her in the first place.
The truth is, if possible, I would like Maika to not talk about Sendai-san at all. Even just her name out of Maika’s mouth is a reminder that she doesn’t exist for me alone, and just the thought of others being able to see her, talk to her, experience versions of her that I don’t necessarily know – maybe even touch her – is enough today to plunge me into hopelessness.
Suddenly, I want to run home. I want to see my Sendai-san, make sure she’s still there, and be able to breathe again.
Instead, suddenly overcome by agony, my mouth says words my brain has no time to compute.
“Do you like her?”
“Of course. I wish we could be even closer.”
My hand seems to close in a fist on its own, but my voice remains level-headed – nearly blank, actually. “I’m sure Sendai-san already considers you a pretty close friend.”
“Well, we do get along fine, and she even said I could call her by her first name, if I wanted, but I figured she was just being nice. Besides, it can’t be helped that I’d wait, out of respect for – Shiori?”
I don’t even realize I’ve stopped in the middle of the sidewalk until Maika bumps into me, and even that seems to happen on a whole other plane of reality than the one I’m on right now. Sight and sounds only reach me as if from some faraway place.
“Don’t call her that.”
For the first time since starting this conversation, Maika actually looks taken aback. “Don’t call her what?”
“Hazuki.”
There’s almost a sense of pride, a thrill of satisfaction in speaking a name that not only belongs to me, but that I gave meaning to. Even if I’d promised myself not to use it in front of others, even if I can’t stop others from using it in turn, they have to know my “Hazuki” and their “Hazuki” are fundamentally different, even when pronounced exactly the same way.
It is only trumped by the humiliating feeling of pleading like a child.
“Does Sendai-san not like it?”
“I don’t know how she feels about it, but she’s mine. So, don’t call her that.”
If you have to beg for something not to be taken from you, is it even yours to begin with?
Maika, barely taking a moment to reassess, proceeds to ask something even more outrageous:
“Are you two actually lovers, then?”
“We’re not,” I say. Noto-senpai is probably off somewhere laughing at me. “But she’s mine.”
I’m expecting Maika to have even more questions and, by extension, getting ready to sidestep nearly all of them. But after sighing and rubbing her forehead, as if feeling an oncoming migraine, Maika only asks one: “What are you doing , Shiori?”
Maybe because it was a question I didn’t expect, I don’t have a good, reasonable answer prepared.
So I just tell her everything.
Sendai-san pokes her head out of her room the moment my key – the one hanging from a dog keychain, to always remind me of who I’d be coming home to – turns into the lock.
But that’s to be expected, since I texted her hours ago saying I had something for her and refused to tell her what it was.
To be honest, I thought long and hard about where I should do it, and even considered, for a moment, asking her to come out and meet me somewhere, or even build a whole outing around it – maybe to the aquarium again, or to that one day trip Sendai-san has always been begging me for, and that I’ve always refused to organize – but in the end, I don’t think any place would be more fitting for us than our own home, where all of our stuff is and where all of our other promises were made. It was only right that this, too, would occur in our important place, even if it only added to the already tremendous weight it bore on my life.
“Did you get it?” Sendai-san asks, and though I'm looking straight at her, I’m almost expecting to see a tongue lolling out and a tail lashing wildly.
I hang my jacket up and walk further into the common space. “Your collar will be coming in next week.”
“Next week?” Sendai-san’s face falls into that of a kicked puppy, and I have to remind myself to trust the process I set out for myself. “What’s it taking so long for?”
“Just figured you’d like it better if it was customized.”
It’s not the only reason, but it’s definitely not a lie. Part of me also thought the collar, which Sendai-san expressly requested, would overshadow what I am about to give her, and so thought it best to give it to her on a separate occasion.
“Well, I guess that’s fine, but – you told me you had something for me today.”
“Sendai-san, just let me in.”
I’m now standing in front of her door, and I can still only see her up to her neck, which is quite aggravating, if you ask me. When she realizes our current predicament, she immediately moves to open the door, and the rest of her appears, dressed in a cute camisole I’ve never seen on her before and one of her long skirts.
She wasn't dressed like this in the morning, and the fact her hair isn't done up and that she isn't wearing any make-up lets me think she wasn't just out, either. I'm not sure if that means she dressed up for this, specifically, but I allow myself one moment just to take her in – and for a moment, thrown by the weight of what I’m about to do, I feel all out of balance.
“Miyagi?”
Sendai-san’s blinking at me owlishly, and I don't want to worry her so much that she starts asking weird questions, so I snap out of it quickly and take a few steps in, closing the door behind me.
Sendai-san makes no move to follow me and seems stuck on her spot by the door instead, only following me with her eyes, so I sit at the foot of her bed alone, tucking my knees down under me.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to put some distance between us, but I also can’t help but wish that she was beside me.
“I didn’t think a collar would be fitting for you to swear on,” I start out, digging into my pocket, “so I got you something else.”
I produce a small, square package, and Sendai-san finally approaches, although carefully.
“What is it?”
“Just – open it.”
I know, in these cases, etiquette probably commands I open it for her, but I don’t want to give it any more weight than it needs to, and besides, there’s this weird pit in my stomach that lets me know trying to open it myself won’t end well for me.
Besides, this is like a gift, so it tracks that she should be the one to unpack it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Maika's calling me a coward in my head. It’s undoubtedly what she’d do if she knew I was doing this, but she’s not in my shoes right now, so I don’t think she has any right to talk.
So, I hand over the package to Sendai-san and she opens it in front of me, though the top popping open hides her from me momentarily.
Unending seconds tick by before she speaks again.
“Miyagi,” she says, voice and face inscrutable, “is this an engagement ring?”
She only says stupid things.
“It’s proof that you’re mine.”
“So, yes?”
“Sendai-san, you asked for something like this. If you’re just going to get weird ideas, I’ll take it back.”
The necklace and the earrings were also proof she was mine in their own ways, and she’d never voiced thoughts this ludicrous before. Their symbolic value was the same – it didn’t take on a new one just because of a ring shape. That would have been ridiculous.
“Why are there two of them, then?”
As if I hadn’t already spent a good hour trying to decide on the exact model and had never seen them before, she turns the box on me, showing two identical silver rings adorned with a blue stone in the middle. The stone is in the shape of a drop which, when connected to the branchlike structure of its entwined silver bands, could almost resemble a leaf.
It's not like I ventured into the ring section of the store intending to buy anything. But when I saw it I was so drawn to it, it solidified my resolve.
“I also wanted something to swear on.”
“Swear what?”
“Sendai-san, you go first.”
She wanted this in the first place, so it’s only fair. She was the one to put that idea in my head – the least she could do was lead by example.
She doesn’t seem satisfied, probably because curiosity has gotten a hold of her – but she does take one of the twin rings out of the box and holds it in front of her, almost like she’s casting a spell on it.
Unexpectedly, she’s silent for a long while, as if figuring out the best way to put it. The sight of her so fully focused on just the small thing in her hand, eyebrows bunched up and a cute pout on her lips, is almost comical, until she finally opens her mouth.
“I swear myself to you, Shiori.”
Sendai-san drops to the floor to meet me where I am, and my blood seems to freeze all at once.
“I swear to always be with you, and never leave your side unless you ask me to.”
That’s not what we agreed upon.
It's not like Sendai-san is deviating too much from her original promise, but her swearing to be mine is not the same as her promising to never leave me.
I don’t know if I can believe that promise, and I’d never expect her to stand by it.
“Even if you do ask me to – even if you send me away, or never want to see me again, I’ll still belong only to you. And I’d like you to stay with me, too, and let me stand by you, but whether you do or not won’t affect my choice. I’ve made it. It’s done. So, even if you’re not mine, let me be yours, Shiori.”
And then, as if she hasn’t said something totally insane, she picks up the ring again and moves to slip it onto her finger.
My hand moves on its own to grab her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
Sendai-san looks at me, lost. “That was the idea, wasn’t it? This was so I could wear something to remind me of my promise.”
“Hazuki,” I call, and it stops her blabbering immediately, “give it to me.”
I was the one to poke holes into her ears, and the one to put on her necklace for her, and so it's only fair that I should put this ring on her finger, as well. There is no greater significance to it, and as if to highlight that, I unceremoniously pick up her right hand and slip the ring on its designated finger.
Then, I kiss it for good measure – sealing the promise.
I don’t dare hope for it to be kept, but at the very least, I owe it to Sendai-san to try.
I think, if Sendai-san could still be mine for many, many more years into the future – I don’t wish for eternity, which would be futile, but only ever for tomorrow – then that would be a very nice future indeed.
Still, I infuse something else into the ring, though I don’t speak it out loud.
I hope, if the day ever comes that I go too far and push Sendai-san away from me, that she's eventually able to forget about me.
I don’t think of myself as being so special that Sendai-san could never get over me, but my Sendai-san is stubborn, and not known to make sound decisions. That she chose me at all is proof of that.
“Shiori?” Sendai-san prompts, clearly confused by my silence.
“You’re mine,” I echo back to her. “I can’t just leave what's mine. So, of course I’ll stay.” And, seeing her still looking expectantly at me, I clarify: “That is my promise.”
Sendai-san rushes to pick up the second ring from the box and approaches me with trembling hands.
This was my idea, yet suddenly, for just one moment, I feel the urge to run. Run out of the room, of our house, of Sendai-san’s life entirely, never to be seen again.
But I still reach out to her, even steady her hand, and when the ring is on my finger, as well, our perfectly mirrored hands seem to fall together naturally, entwined with each other.
Spent as if I’d depleted my wells in one touch, I lean against her for support, forehead against forehead.
“Shiori,” a soft voice reaches my ears, “you do realize our promises are connected now, right?”
“Yeah.”
She stays silent for a few seconds, then seems to cuddle a bit more into me.
“Mine was not supposed to have a deadline.”
“I know,” I say.
I bring her hand up to my lips and kiss her ring one more time.