Chapter Text
When she was young, Aoi Akane had liked the funny-shaped, imperfect sugar cookies best of all. She and her friend — though he’d always been something difficult to place for her, hadn’t he? Her favorite person, but no one could make her sigh and shake her head quite like he could, either — Akane Aoi used to form the misshapen cookie pieces her mom made into new unearthly designs, slathered together with frosting and candy pearls, rainbow sprinkles and mashed up peppermints. Stuff like that. “Imperfect” meant possibility and laughter, back then; “imperfect” meant ordinary conversations with Akane, without him reminding her how flawless and irreproachable she surely, inevitably was.
Nowadays, Aoi found herself bundling all the imperfect cookies up and unceremoniously dumping them in the trash can under the sink. She wiped the crumbs off her hands, and straightened her pale lavender lacy apron in the dark window. Self-conscious. Practicing a calm, sweet smile when she met her own eyes. It was the middle of the night, with snow falling softly — who was Aoi even dressing up for? Couldn’t she be sloppy... even just by herself... anymore? Her hair was still pinned in thoughtful loops, curled in a way that was supposed to look effortless. Modest. Like she didn’t realize she was beautiful. When Aoi tried to imagine Akane, just now, she saw him with a hand in his own sticking-up hair, frowning down at a textbook, glasses slipping off his nose. He’d started wearing glasses around the same time he’d started fading away from her, looking back on things.
But even so... cute. Akane was cute, even if Aoi tried to tell herself he wasn’t. He was cute, even as he was infuriating, even as he felt so far away all the time now. Far away and eternally present, tugging on Aoi’s arm, kneeling at her feet like he didn’t mind getting mud on his uniform pants. Akane should get to bed, too, of course. Aoi knew he listened to informative podcasts, trying to fall asleep – distracting himself long enough to let his guard down and drift away. Aoi knew he’d texted her “Goodnight, Ao-chan! You’re the best, you know that?” at a “reasonable” bedtime, but that was definitely never when he went to sleep, himself. It was when he expected her to sleep, though, and so Aoi hadn’t let on that he’d gotten her schedule completely wrong, yet. So many people expected things from Aoi – and if she didn’t meet those expectations, would anyone even like what was left of her? People expected good grades and profound romantic advice; people expected carefully-wrapped plates of intricately-frosted sugar cookies in the morning, because Aoi had been nominated for a bake sale. “She’ll make something delicious – and beautiful, too,” Aoi’d overheard somebody saying. “As expected, from the most popular girl in class!”
Great.
That was great.
Aoi had been trying to learn her lines – learn what she was “supposed” to do, to be the person everyone seemed to like so much – for a long time, now. She was supposed to make cookies that looked store-bought, tonight. She was supposed to believe in the love people handed her, even if it didn’t feel possible, or like it was meant for the actual Aoi Akane at all. The love confessions Akane gave all the time, for instance… again and again, no matter how many times Aoi felt her voice go airy and distant, telling him “No”… felt like a tauntingly glittering ring made all of ice that she was supposed to trust wouldn’t melt in the sun.
Aoi decorated her cookies with smiling snowmen and twirly-ribboned gift boxes; she pulled up pictures of mistletoe on her phone so she could get the frosting designs somewhat accurate. She knew she’d barely sleep, if she wanted to finish all of these in time, but she could hide the circles under her eyes with makeup if she needed to. Aoi hid a lot of things, from day to day to day. She didn’t used to. There had been a time — though it was weird to think about now, obviously — when the idea of hiding something from Akane might’ve made her wrinkle her nose. When Akane’d protected her from bullies, waving a bat around like he was going to grow up to be a high school delinquent instead of Student Council Vice-President; when they’d read books together, and drawn pictures in sidewalk chalk along the edges of the street. Entire worlds, completely theirs. Entire worlds, in scribbles on the pavement.
Aoi imagined telling Akane that melodramatic thing she’d thought earlier, about how his love felt like a frost-ring melting to nothing on her finger – a promise that would disappear as soon as he saw who she actually was – and shook her head. No, that was the sort of thing Akane couldn’t hear. He kept his own secrets nowadays, after all. Wherever it was he disappeared off to, lately, for starters; however completely he’d been changing, just out the corner of her eye. If Aoi could’ve frozen time back when they knew each other impossibly well... back when she trusted her oldest, closest friend... maybe she would’ve done it. Friendship in a snow globe, dizzy drifting sequins in the air. The two of them, happy inside a painted miniature house, building misshapen winged giraffe-beasts out of crumbly imperfect cookie parts. It felt both like that sort of thing had happened in another life, and like Akane might come knocking at the door any second now, ready to do it all over again.
How had things gotten so strange?
Sometimes, Aoi looked Akane in his steel-sure, hopeful eyes and wanted to take his face in both her hands. Wanted to say, “You don’t see me anymore, do you? I miss you. I miss you so much I want to scream at you until your jaw falls open, and you don’t ever look at me like I’m perfect again. But at the same time, we both know if I’m not perfect... I mean, if I ruin this person I’m supposed to be...”
A ring carved out of ice, dripping down her finger and leaving her cold. It was easier to say they couldn’t be together because of the funny way their names swapped — Akane Aoi and Aoi Akane — even though someone else might have said that made them sound like characters in a nursery rhyme. Something funny and soft, whispered sing-song at night to help a person get to sleep. That’d never had to be a bad thing, and even if, you know... if they actually got married, someday... Aoi wouldn’t have to change her name, necessarily. Aw, she was probably just tired. That must’ve been why her eyes were burning, now. Aoi threw away most of the cookies that didn’t come out prettily – perfectly – when she’d tried to frost them. There was one she had a hard time tossing, though. She’d tried something new, with that one – nothing special. A pair of differently-sized gloves, like she and Akane might’ve worn if they went to the zoo together in weather like this. That had felt wintry enough, and the smaller glove had a bow on it like a certain pair Aoi already owned, but the ribbon was bulky and lopsided and wrong, and –
And the imperfect cookie shook for a second in Aoi’s hand before she set it down in a paper towel on the counter. Turned away. Kept working. The room smelled so sugar cookie-sweet, and she knew she’d carry that smell with her to school in the morning. She’d make sure to leave calm and dainty footprints in the snow, and think of something warm to say to Nene Yashiro if she was still having boy troubles. She would walk, and walk and walk and walk, and imagine herself traveling far away from here… before scolding herself to focus on Nene’s romantic life, of course. Aoi couldn’t go backwards in time — no one could go backwards in time, or freeze it, or anything else handy like that, now could they? — but she could leave this version of herself behind. Probably.
Aoi pulled the trash can out from under the sink, for just a second, and looked at the unworthy cookie parts there. Some frosted, some not. All that rejected sweetness; all the silly games and frosting smeared playfully across Akane’s cheek that hadn’t come to be. She told herself, “Akane-kun and I will never be the people we used to be again,” and so far as she knew that was even true.
Just wait, okay? Although snow was falling still, seeds held onto life under frozen earth all the time.
Someday, Aoi would wear a ring looking all like tenderly-carved frost that never melted — it would be clear polished crystal and diamond, sure, but Akane had designed it to prove a point. To say, “I’m not going anywhere,” and to say, “I see you, I really do, I promise.” To say, “See? This is why we’ve been doing so many of our date nights at home. I told you I had a reason.”
Yes, they would coordinate date nights by then. So much could change, in a handful of years. Ice staying solid and trusting under the sun; seeds stirring awake beneath frozen earth and taking a chance on the sky.
For now, though, Aoi Akane sealed the cookie she should’ve thrown away – but didn’t – in a completely unfancy plastic bag. She got the “real” cookies nice and presentable for tomorrow morning. She almost texted Akane, “Okay, now I’m really going to bed – and you should, too, okay? If you’re still awake,” but her finger hovered over the “Send” button for a long time and she never quite reached it.
Someday, Aoi would be glad she and Akane hadn’t been tucked away in a metaphorical – or literal – raging-heartbroken-child snow globe world, lingering as they used to be for all time. She would play music loud in their kitchen, and dance across the cold tile floor in big fuzzy socks. Baking with Akane in the dark, let’s say, in the middle of the night, when really they both should be sleeping because of course they worked tomorrow. Or, of course they worked tomorrow if businesses didn’t shut down under the weight of so much still-falling snow…? It was too early to know, but the snow kept shivering down, and Aoi had always liked the funny-shaped, imperfect sugar cookies best of all. She and her friend – her husband, maybe, by then, her partner, her favorite person in the world even if sometimes she still thought she couldn’t understand him – formed those abandoned pieces into something new, every now and then. Sealed into funny shapes with frosting and candy flowers. Reborn again and better, somehow, because they were messy, because they hadn’t been supposed to exist at all. The world expected so much from Aoi, all the time, but maybe she could believe Akane had never wanted her to be anyone but herself.
The snow would look different to Aoi, between the quiet, yawning now and that future life. She sighed out the window, and picked some nice leggings and a classy button-up jacket to wear to school. She decided she would bring the gloves-themed cookie with her in that coat pocket, if she worked up the nerve. She would slip it into Akane’s locker without saying it was from her, maybe; she would hand it to him and announce that it was the best cookie in the batch, staring him down, daring him to tell her different. Aoi had heard Akane tell people his favorite food would’ve been whatever she cooked for him, except that she’d never cooked him anything at all. He didn’t know, though. Maybe she just never gave him anything she made... maybe she would eat that cookie herself, discreetly, walking home from school after a particularly cold and lonely Gardening Club meeting where all the plants outside were buried under a ton of snow and Nene didn’t show up… again… for some reason she simply wasn’t willing to say. Aoi might’ve just been whispering her frustrations down to the potted flowers in their classrooms, for a while there, keeping her voice soft, keeping her words gentle. None of this was the flowers’ faults, after all. If Akane had tapped her on the back at just the right second, she might have folded herself exhaustedly into his arms. Might’ve said, “Do you think I’ll ever feel close to you again, Akane-kun? Do you think I’m the kind of person who gets to feel close to anyone at all?”
That “right second” wasn’t fated to come, yet, though. If there happened to be some sort of mystic book around, keeping track of Aoi’s future – all her winding, imperfect history – it would say that, for sure. But a book like that couldn’t possibly exist, could it? When this one biology teacher, Tsuchigomori-sensei, asked if Aoi was doing okay… if she’d like tea in a Home Ec Room thermos for the road… Aoi told him she was doing great, don’t worry at all.
Thank you so much, Sensei.
Please get home safe!
Someday, Aoi would know all the podcasts Akane liked to listen to before bed by name. She would request her favorite ones, and tell him super-honestly when she didn’t like a movie they watched for date night, and keep her crystal-and-diamond, unmelting-frost ring in a saucer by the sink when she cooked. Someday, Akane would kiss her neck from behind, moving carefully so his glasses didn’t get caught in her hair. That had happened before, sure. It was funny, in retrospect. Sloppy and embarrassing – not the sort of thing Aoi would’ve scripted out, when she was still mimicking perfection all the time, reciting what she thought her lines might’ve possibly been, wearing exhaustion hidden behind carefully blended makeup – but funny and safe, too. Akane had kissed her neck again, even while he was fiddling with his glasses. Untangling them from her hair. When he tugged at her scalp a little and she winced, he’d looked so guilty she ended up telling him it didn’t matter if her hair was perfect. He may as well go ahead and get the scissors, just for the little bit that was caught, just this time. It was fine, if Akane knew Aoi’s haircut was slightly crooked for now; it was fine if Akane knew her pride and her coldness, her distrust and her aching hopes.
It was fine. They were fine.
Or, you know. They would be fine. It might take a while to get there – the Far Shore itself might stand in the way, uncanny and laughing, always just out of sight – but let’s give it a little while, all the same.
Aoi Akane couldn’t realize what future was coming for her, yet. Seeds, holding on under frozen earth, might not realize what sort of flowering vines they’d grow into when the world thawed. Between here and there, the snow fell, and fell, and fell.