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"You're what?" Nijika asked, nearly dropping her phone.
"I'm doomed," Bocchi said, lying face-down on the studio couch. "They're setting me up on a blind date. At the family reunion. A real one. With real humans. And one of them might try to touch my hand."
Ryo, who was tuning her bass in the corner, raised an eyebrow. "That's horrifying."
"Right?" Bocchi groaned into the cushion. "They think now that I'm in a band and 'stable'—whatever that means—I should start 'thinking about the future.' What future?! I can’t even make eye contact with cashiers."
"Wait, is this the same reunion where your second cousin tried to make you sing karaoke in front of your entire extended family?" Kita asked, peeking around the studio doorway with a plastic bag of snacks.
Bocchi raised a trembling hand. "He still texts me YouTube videos of 'confidence-building tips.'"
Kita walked in and tossed her a bag of marshmallows. “Then there’s only one option.”
“Faking my death?” Bocchi asked hopefully.
“No,” Kita said cheerfully. “You need a fake girlfriend.”
Bocchi sat bolt upright, almost choking on air. “A what?!”
Kita shrugged, plopping down next to her on the couch and cracking open a soda. “It’s perfect! You show up with someone you like—well, someone you trust—and your family will back off because they’ll think you’re taken.”
“Taken,” Bocchi repeated in a daze, her cheeks going full tomato. “Like...like being in a real relationship. With…with someone.”
“Someone like me,” Kita said to her casually, taking a sip.
Silence.
Ryo dropped her pick.
Nijika blinked.
Bocchi short-circuited. “W—w—w—w—what?!”
Kita waved her hand quickly. “I mean, just as a fake thing! You trust me, right? And I could use the cover too, honestly. Since we’ve started getting more attention, some of the guys I’ve had to work with are really pushy. Having a ‘girlfriend’ could make them back off. Or at least make them look twice.”
“…You want to fake date me?” Bocchi squeaked, staring at her own knees like they were ancient runes she could decipher her way out of this conversation with.
“Well, yeah,” Kita said. “You’re sweet, and I know you wouldn’t make it weird. Plus, we already spend tons of time together anyway. It’s kind of perfect, if you think about it!”
Bocchi was not thinking about it. She was having a mild existential meltdown. Somewhere in her brain, a tiny version of herself was running in circles, screaming, “THE CRUSH IS REAL, RETREAT!!”
“I mean,” Bocchi said slowly, “it’s not like I don’t want to, because that would be rude, and I don’t want to be rude, and you’re really nice and cool and—”
“—you can just say yes,” Kita said, laughing.
“...yes.” Bocchi blinked. “Wait. Did I just agree?”
“You did.” Kita gave her a playful wink.
Ryo, who had been watching this whole exchange in amused silence, finally spoke. “Just make sure you two remember which parts are fake.”
“Y—yeah,” Bocchi said, her eyes wide and glassy.
Kita smiled, but her eyes flickered for just a second. “Yeah… just the fake parts.”
-
-
They were backstage at a live event—a small, swanky rooftop industry party that someone’s manager thought was a good “networking opportunity” for the up-and-coming Kessoku Band.
To Hitori, it was a people maze of doom.
She was doing her best to blend into the potted plant beside the catering table when she heard Kita’s voice, bright but tense.
"Ahaha, yes, thank you! But I’m actually already seeing someone."
The man—some slick-haired executive’s intern with an expensive watch and a smile two sizes too big—tilted his head. “Really? You’re too cute to be locked down already.”
Kita’s smile didn’t falter, but it strained at the corners. “I’m very locked down.”
Hitori peeked out from behind the plant, alarm bells going off in her head.
She turned toward them just as the guy tried again, lowering his voice. “Come on, no one needs to know. What’s one drink?”
That’s when Kita’s eyes met Hitori’s across the room.
Help me, they screamed.
Bocchi's fight-or-flight reflex flipped a coin, and apparently it landed on fight, because the next thing she knew, she was crossing the room on trembling legs.
“I—I’m her girlfriend,” she blurted, sliding her hand into Kita’s like it was a scripted stage move.
Kita’s eyes went wide in real surprise—but she gripped back instantly. Her palm was warm. Comforting. Kind of soft. (Focus!)
The man blinked. “Huh?”
Hitori turned an alarming shade of pink. “We’re dating. As in. Dating. Each other.”
Kita took over immediately, slipping her arm around Hitori’s waist like it was nothing. “Yup! Super taken. You know how it is—industry’s full of lovely people, but it’s really rare to meet someone who’s… genuine.” She smiled at Hitori, and it was like watching the sun fake-flirt. “Hitori-chan’s my rock.”
Hitori made a small meep noise but nodded bravely. “Y-yeah. We… rock.”
The man awkwardly raised his drink. “Right. Well. Good luck, you two.”
As he finally walked away, Kita dropped her head to Hitori’s shoulder and giggled into her neck.
“You’re amazing,” she whispered. “That was so smooth.”
Bocchi’s brain was melting.
“I thought I was going to pass out,” she mumbled.
“Still,” Kita said, squeezing her hand, “you were so brave. Like—cool. I really, really appreciate you being here.”
Behind a pillar, Nijika watched the whole thing unfold like a drama series.
“She giggled into her neck,” she whispered urgently to Ryo, who was sipping a melon soda like a bored villain in a spy movie. “Did you see that?! They’re holding hands. This is actual girlfriend behavior.”
“Mm. I give it three days,” Ryo murmured. “Maybe four. Five if they keep short-circuiting every time they make eye contact.”
“Do we sabotage them or help them?” Nijika asked.
“Neither. We observe. Like naturalists in the wild.”
“I want to meddle so bad.”
“You always want to meddle.”
Meanwhile, Hitori was still quietly dying.
Her hand was still in Kita’s.
And now Kita was holding it with both hands.
“Thank you,” Kita said again, her voice softer now, more real. “I know it was fake, but… it felt nice.”
“…it did,” Hitori whispered. “Feel nice.”
Kita looked at her. “Want to fake hold hands a bit longer?”
Hitori blinked at her.
Then nodded, very seriously.
“Yes. For… credibility.”
-
-
The Gotou family reunion was being held at a large traditional inn just outside Tokyo, complete with tatami floors, fancy bento boxes, and way too many relatives who still thought Hitori was twelve.
Hitori stood just outside the inn’s entrance, clutching her phone like a talisman.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
Kita, beside her in a cream blouse and neatly pressed slacks, leaned in and squeezed her hand. “Yes, you can. You have a fake girlfriend now, remember?”
“That’s exactly why I can’t do this.”
Kita blinked. “Wait. What?”
“You’re too… you,” Hitori said helplessly. “My relatives are going to take one look at you and think I used a dating app filter and also Photoshop and also possibly an entire lie.”
“Perfect,” Kita chirped. “Then they’ll believe you’re so in love that even the gods intervened.”
“That’s not how gods work—”
“Shh. Let me handle everything.”
Hitori didn’t have time to panic any further, because the front door slid open and her aunt called cheerily, “Hitori-chan! Oh my goodness, is that your girlfriend?”
Kita smiled brilliantly and stepped forward. “Hello! I’m Ikuyo Kita. It’s lovely to meet you! Hitori-chan’s told me so much about all of you.”
(She hasn’t, Hitori’s brain whispered. She’s making this up. This is fake. This is all fake.)
Kita took off her shoes with practiced grace, bowed politely, and laced her fingers into Hitori’s like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A ripple went through the room. Hitori saw it in slow motion—her cousins whispering, her uncle raising an impressed eyebrow, her grandmother lighting up like it was Christmas.
Then came the tsunami of questions.
“So, how did you two meet?”
“How long have you been dating?”
“When’s the wedding?”
“Can I see your matching keychains?”
“Hitori, I told you piano club would never work out—you needed a redhead!”
Kita, cool as ever, wove a beautiful lie like it was a well-rehearsed script.
“Oh, we met through music! She’s so talented, I was instantly drawn to her.”
“Hitori-chan was so shy, it was adorable—I had to confess first.”
“She blushes every time I call her cute. Like this—watch.”
She leaned over and whispered, “You’re adorable,” and Bocchi visibly combusted.
Laughter erupted. Someone clapped. Her grandmother started crying happy tears into a tissue.
They were now legendary.
Hitori spent most of the dinner frozen in a state of social shock. The only thing grounding her was Kita’s hand under the table, resting on her knee gently—supportively. And also fake. Definitely fake.
Probably.
As the meal wound down, her dad pulled Kita aside for a moment.
Hitori, suspicious, tried to eavesdrop, but could only catch the tail end:
“…never seen her this happy. Thank you.”
Kita gave him a sincere smile. “She makes me happy too.”
Back in their shared guest room (because of course the family insisted—they’re dating!), Hitori sat on the futon in a daze.
“That went… suspiciously well,” she mumbled.
Kita, brushing her hair at the vanity, smiled at her reflection. “Your family’s sweet. I can see where you get it.”
“They actually believed it.”
“Well,” Kita said, turning around slowly, “we were kind of believable.”
“…because you’re good at acting.”
“Sure.” Kita paused. “Or maybe because there’s… a little truth in it.”
Silence fell like a snowdrift.
Hitori looked up. Her heart was suddenly loud in her ears.
“…what part?”
Kita sat beside her. Their knees touched. Her voice was quieter now, unsure but earnest.
“The part where I like being close to you,” she said. “The part where holding your hand feels real. Even when it’s not supposed to.”
Hitori’s breath caught.
“I… I don’t know what’s fake anymore,” she whispered. “My heart doesn’t.”
Kita reached over and took her hand again, slower this time.
“Then maybe we stop pretending,” she said. “Not now. Just… when you’re ready.”
Hitori stared at their joined hands.
And for once in her life—
She wasn’t afraid of being seen.
-
-
“So,” Nijika said casually over lunch, stabbing her omurice like it had personally wronged her, “you went to a family reunion. With Kita. As your fake girlfriend.”
Hitori, mid-bite, froze. “How did you—”
“You sent us a photo of you two holding hands under a paper lantern that said ‘Love Blossoms Here,’” Ryo said, not looking up from her manga. “With heart emojis. Multiple.”
“That wasn’t me,” Hitori lied. Badly.
“You used your main account.”
“Bocchi,” Nijika said slowly, like she was explaining gravity to a pigeon, “you’re so fake dating you looped around and became real dating.”
“No!” Hitori flailed. “It’s just for convenience. And safety. And family. And—Kita has this thing with creeps and I have this thing with panic and it all—spiraled.”
“You’re spiraling right now,” Ryo noted.
Nijika slammed her hands down on the table with a wild gleam in her eyes.
“We need a plan.”
“No!” Hitori panicked.
“Yes,” Ryo murmured.
“We need to lock this in,” Nijika declared. “Operation: Make It Official. Step One: Put them in a situation where they either kiss or die of tension.”
“That’s not a step, that’s a war crime—”
“Step Two: Emotional vulnerability. Public declarations. Ambiguous lighting.”
“Step Three,” Ryo added, “optional rain.”
“This is not necessary!” Hitori shrieked. “We are not dating!”
Nijika leaned in with the evilest grin.
“Then why are you wearing her scrunchie?”
Hitori looked down.
Paused.
“...oh no.”
-
Back in her room that night, Hitori curled into a ball beneath her blanket, phone on her chest, heart loud in her ears.
She was replaying the reunion. The hand holding. The shoulder leaning. The look Kita gave her when she said “maybe we stop pretending.”
It wasn’t fair.
Kita was bright and warm and effortlessly magnetic. Hitori was a bundle of shrieks and nervous hand-sweats. This was supposed to be fake. It was safe that way. Clean boundaries.
But now—
Now she found herself rereading Kita’s text messages at 1AM, smiling like an idiot because one said “sleep well, my rockstar girlfriend <3.”
And Hitori couldn’t stop thinking:
I want it to be real.
She groaned and smothered her face in a pillow.
“What if she is just pretending?” she mumbled into the fabric. “What if she’s just really good at being kind?”
What if Hitori confessed and Kita smiled and said “aww, that’s sweet” and then gently rejected her with a shoulder pat and an offer to still be friends forever?
What if—
Her phone buzzed.
[Kita Ikuyo]: “Just remembered how you pretended to be cool in front of my creepy stalker. 10/10. Would fake date again.”
[Kita Ikuyo]: “Would real date too tho 👀 jk unless…?”
Hitori sat bolt upright in bed.
Her heart exploded.
Her hands were shaking.
Was that… was that serious?
She typed:
[Hitori]: “um. wait. what.”
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
[Kita Ikuyo]: “I mean, if you ever wanted to? We’re kind of already good at it. The dating part.”
Hitori stared at the screen for a long time.
And then, without letting herself think, she typed:
[Hitori]: “yeah. okay. maybe i do.”
Then dropped her phone, buried herself under her blanket, and screamed.
Silently.
For five solid minutes.
-
-
They didn’t call it a date.
Not officially.
Kita just messaged Hitori and said,
“Meet me on the rooftop after rehearsal? I’ll bring drinks.”
And Hitori, after 17 minutes of pacing and one near hyperventilation, responded with
“ok :)”
(She backspaced four hearts and one accidental marriage proposal before hitting send.)
The sun had already dipped low by the time she arrived, turning the sky a gentle orange-pink. The rooftop was quiet—faint echoes of city life below, summer air heavy with warmth and cicadas.
Kita was already there, leaning against the fence, two canned sodas in hand. She smiled when she saw her.
That smile. It always made Hitori’s stomach do something deeply concerning and potentially terminal.
“Hey,” Kita said softly, offering a can.
“Hey,” Hitori replied, taking it. Their fingers brushed.
They sat side by side, watching the sky.
For a while, neither spoke.
It wasn’t awkward. Just quiet. Safe.
Eventually, Kita turned to her, expression gentler than usual. “You looked really happy at the reunion.”
“I was mostly vibrating with panic.”
“Yeah,” Kita said, laughing lightly. “But also… you were smiling. More than usual.”
Hitori fidgeted with the tab on her can. “It was probably the pretending. That I had a girlfriend. Someone to deflect all the questions and expectations. Someone to… stand next to.”
Kita didn’t answer right away.
“It didn’t feel like pretending to me.”
Silence, then stillness, then a breathless flutter in Hitori’s chest.
“…What did it feel like?”
Kita looked down at her can, then up at the sky, as if the words might fall from the clouds if she waited long enough.
“It felt like something I’ve wanted for a long time,” she said. “But didn’t know how to ask for.”
Hitori blinked.
Kita went on, her voice quieter. “Backstage, after shows, guys would wait. They’d ignore what I said. Treat ‘no’ like a game. And no matter how polite or blunt I was, they’d laugh. Or push.”
She looked over at Hitori. Her eyes were soft. “But when you held my hand in front of them, just that once, they stopped.”
Hitori’s heart clenched. “That’s—horrible.”
“It’s just something that happens,” Kita said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “But having you next to me… I didn’t feel like I had to smile through it. I felt safe.”
A pause.
“Because I trusted you.”
Hitori felt like she was glowing and melting and freezing and dying all at once.
Kita shifted a little closer. “What about you?”
“…Me?”
“What did it feel like? To pretend.”
Hitori stared at her soda. The tab was half-pulled, trembling slightly.
“It felt like… like I was someone else. Someone braver. Someone who got to hold your hand without being terrified she’d ruin everything.” She let out a shaky breath. “And the worst part was… I didn’t want it to end.”
Kita’s expression softened even more.
“I don’t want it to end either.”
They looked at each other.
Nothing loud. Nothing forced. Just the quiet, overwhelming weight of the truth between them.
Kita reached out—slowly, gently—and took Hitori’s hand again.
Not for show.
Not for deflection.
Not for pretending.
Just to hold it.
And Hitori didn’t flinch.
Didn’t panic.
She smiled.
Soft. Small. Real.
Kita squeezed her hand.
“I like you,” she said. “Not fake. Not maybe. Just… really.”
Hitori’s reply was almost a whisper, but it shook the sky.
“Me too.”
.