Work Text:
Yeah, maybe it’s overdone, but I literally hate Mondays.
I remained slumped in my bed for a good ten minutes hoping that maybe the sound of the alarm going off was just some sort of new soundtrack my dreams had cooked up. Eventually, I figured that even my subconscious couldn’t come up with a cacophony as god-awful as that, and I rolled out of my sheets to confirm my worst fears through my half-open eyes.
Yup. It’s 6:54 a.m., all right.
I dragged myself to the bathroom as I tried to convince myself that I didn’t really need to brush my teeth. I could use that two minutes to sleep a little longer. Ugh. What a heavenly two minutes those would be.
Then I gasped. But what if a new client came into work today, and caught one glimpse of my disheveled, halitosis-riddled gremlin self, and decided, Oh, fuck no? And it turns out they were looking to raise Series C funding for an IPO that would eventually culminate in a 500 billion trillion quadrillion yen valuation, and I was the reason they skedaddled out of the office and lost our investors the opportunity to get their mega-yachts? I would get ultra fired. They would have to invent a new word for how fired I was going to be. I didn’t want to become an Investopedia article.
So I resigned myself to my fate of brushing my teeth, and kissed my two-minute power nap dreams good-bye.
Either I was still dreaming, or my toothpaste was tasting kind of different today. And, wait, was my toothbrush always this cool, austere ice blue? And did I always have another, much more stupid-looking Hello Koala one with matching kids’ toothpaste just as decor for my counter…?
A horrific realization crossed my mind, and I practically spit my entire mouth out into the sink.
What the hell? This wasn’t my freaking toothbrush at all! I stared, mortified, at the mysterious object in my hand, and it struck me right then whose entire being I had just utterly violated. I backed away, suddenly afraid.
What were Satsuki’s things doing in my bathroom?
My brain had already returned to its natural state of debilitated mush as I staggered back into my room. This one keynote revelation would require an entire day of contemplation to resolve. I grabbed my phone and called my boss up, and I nearly broke into tears as I apologized for all the yachts I would be costing the shareholders and the quadrillions in market cap I was blowing, but I really, really needed to take the day off today.
My boss seemed fairly distraught. “Uh, I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about, Amaori,” she said, “but, um, it definitely sounds like you’re feeling pretty unwell right now, so, uh… feel free to take all the PTO you need.”
With that matter settled, I hustled into the kitchen to get my mind working again. Coffee. I need coffee. I flung a pod into the machine and whipped open the cabinet door to reach for my usual chipped, battered, glued-together war veteran of a mug. But instead I found myself face-to-face with a brand-spanking-new drinkware set I had never seen before. The two matching mugs sat nestled together in complementary pastel tones, one with a little drawing of a cat on it, and the other a picture of a lovely animal that rhymes with… with, uh… well, whatever rhymes with “koala.”
I blinked a good couple dozen times. Holy shit, they were cute. No freaking way. Did Satsuki get these… for us? Something fluttered in my stomach as I reached out and wrapped my hands gingerly around my mug, moving in slow steps as I stared at it all the while like it was some sacred relic. I didn’t even want to drink out of it. I just wanted to hold it, look at it, become one with it.
I ended up using my crapper mug for my coffee anyway. I felt a little guilty about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to tarnish that beautiful vessel with stinking bean juice. And, as I continued to nurse my coffee, I slowly began to situate myself. I mean, how weird was this? Satsuki and I were… something, to be sure. But my apartment was still my apartment. How did it end up becoming a Koto Satsuki expansion project?
Little by little, I started to find new evidences of her attrition mode of warfare. My shampoo bottle had been shoved aside to make room for something that smelled like distilled Satsuki and looked like it cost fifty of mine. My sock drawer seemed a little too neat to be the handiwork of someone named Amaori Renako. A second pair of slippers had appeared by the door. And to demolish any inkling I still had that maybe I had just gotten utterly blackout drunk and bought a million new things and organized shit I had never once organized before, I discovered inside my dresser a bra that could never, ever even hope to fit someone as well-endowed as I.
Hmm. Well, you never know. I was reaching to take off my shirt and try it on, just to make sure, when there came a loud knock at my apartment door.
I jumped. Oh, heck no. I couldn’t be caught like this. I hurled the bra back into the dresser and rushed over to the door, fearing that the undergarment pervert police had finally gotten the reasonable cause they needed to come and arrest me. I checked the peephole. It seemed the policeman might have sky blue hair.
I opened the door a crack.
I was jumpscared by none other than the face and voice of Koyanagi Kaho. “Oh, hey, Renacchiiin!” she exclaimed. “How’s it going?”
“I wasn’t trying on Satsuki-san’s bra or anything,” I blurted.
Kaho stopped mid-wave. She blinked at me a moment. “Um, okay.”
“J-just so you know.”
“Cool. Now I do.” She rocked on her feet for a little bit, before apparently deciding it was better not to pry. “Anyway, what’s up? I didn’t think you’d be here.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, me neither,” I said, about to explain my newest PTO fiasco. Then I paused. “Uh, wait. If you didn’t think I’d be here, why did you stop by?”
Kaho screwed up her face, looking at me like she was trying to figure out if it was a trick question. “Um, to see Satsuki? Duh? I had something for her.”
She must have already tried Satsuki’s place. “Well,” I mused, “if she’s not at home, I guess she must be at the office.”
“I guess so.” Kaho sighed. “Here I was hoping she might be working from home today.” She glanced over my shoulder as though suspecting I was hiding her somewhere.
I felt like something was being lost in communication here. “Uh, quick question, Kaho,” I ventured. “You do realize this is my apartment, right?”
The frown on her face told me she had not, in fact, realized this at all. “It is?”
“Um… yeah? You’ve been here before? To see me?”
“Oh. Okay. So you live here? Huh. And they let you?” She scratched her head. “Uh… could you give me a second?” Kaho suddenly whipped around and dashed down the hall. I could hear her footsteps crashing down the flights of stairs, dwindling for a moment, and then returning. She reappeared an instant later and leaned against the doorway, out of breath.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Kaho gasped. “I just had to check if the sign said Gay Loser Psych Ward.”
“Huh?” I stared at her, affronted. “This is my normal apartment in my normal apartment building!” I cried. “For normal apartment-dwelling people!”
The silence after my adamant remark stretched for a moment too long. I fidgeted, my eyes darting from side to side. My voice dropped to a whisper. “Um, so did it?”
Kaho shook her head. “Nope.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Phew. “Okay,” I said. “Great. Well, that’s a lot of mysteries solved today. But as you can see, Satsuki-san is not here. If you want, I can hold onto whatever it is for you, and give it to her if she shows up around here.”
“Sure, I guess,” Kaho murmured. “That’s so weird. Your apartment, you say. She said this was her place.”
That’s pretty despotic of her. “You should ask her who’s paying rent,” I grumbled. Why would she even tell Kaho that? It’s not like she was even here that often… was she? “Er, well, anyway, what is it you had to drop off?”
“Oh, this?” Kaho held up a sleek folder. “It’s a little pitch deck I drew up. I founded a little media startup with my cosplay business money, don’tcha know? I was hoping to be able to sell it to Satsuki’s investment firm, get me some proper seed money.”
My mouth went agape. I suddenly had flashbacks to my morning misery about my missed client and investor prospects. Aw, man. This could have been my client, and I just lost her to a competitor? And that competitor was none other than…
“No freaking way,” I said. “Satsuki is in investment banking too?”
Kaho had been about to toss the folder onto the counter, but then she stopped and turned to look at me. She raised a brow. “Uh, you okay there, Renacchin? What do you mean, ‘too’?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean, what do I mean, ‘too’? As in, both her and I? You never heard of a girlboss before?”
“Uh, well, yeah, I have,” she said. “What I mean is… don’t you work as a librarian?”
I nearly scoffed. “A librarian? Why, I would never…”
Wait.
Wait, yes. Yes, I did work as a librarian.
Hold the damn phone. I’d never worked a day in investment banking my whole freaking life! I just sat at a desk all day telling people, no, I don’t know what book you’re talking about, but it might be easier if you had any other description besides “it was green.”
Oh, god. I remembered the phone call I had made to my boss earlier. All the blood drained from my face. Either my boss had finally confirmed her suspicions that I was a total nutcase, or else she would be waiting for me to turn up with her mega-yacht.
“I’m dead, Kaho,” I whispered. “I’m so freaking dead.”
“You’re telling me.” Kaho shook her head. “How do you forget your breadwinner girlfriend’s day job like that?”
“I called my boss this morning acting like I was an investment banker,” I groaned. “Oh, my god. Oh, my goooooood. How did I even get that into my head?”
“Yo, check it!” Kaho chirped, ignoring me entirely. She pointed to the living room, where an array of fancy, leather folders lay strewn across the coffee table. “Ha! She’s using your place as a bougie garbage dump.”
I had forgotten those were there. I frowned as I wandered over to the pile, bending to take a closer look. The folders were all fat with documents, with stately gold lettering stamped across the covers. Tsukiori Advisory, LLC.
I gasped. Now I remembered. Girlboss Satsuki was a founding partner at Tsukiori, Tokyo’s newest boutique investment firm! And these were her important documents she’d left at my apartment for whatever reason. I had spent the entire previous night snooping through literally all of them because it said “Confidential” at the top. Jeez. No wonder I had woken up all out of whack.
I was going to need some time to process this. Thankfully, Kaho caught the girlfail look in my eye and took the hint. “Well, okay then, Renacchin,” she said, stretching herself out. “Wifey’s gotta get back to work. Thanks for holding onto this. Give Satsuki a big kiss for me when she gets home.”
“Satsuki-san’s probably gonna go to her place,” I reminded her.
Kaho nodded. “Yup. That she will.” She winked at me.
I held my tongue as I walked her out and shut the door behind her.
I whipped up some instant ramen for lunch and mulled everything over at the table. I had been through something like this before, I remembered, though it had been in an altogether different realm. It was before we had become an item, when I first became aware of the way little pieces of Satsuki were beginning to take up residence in my mind. It started with little thoughts of her throughout the day, wondering if she was thinking of me, and then warm memories of the time we spent together lingering in my head, playing on repeat, and on and on until it felt like all I could ever think about was her.
My home seemed to be caught in that very same cycle.
I opened the cupboard again just to stare at the matching mugs Satsuki had gotten for us. Hers was a pretty, pale blue, with a little black cat all curled up and snoozing softly. Beside it was mine, gleaming in pastel pink, sporting a silly koala sitting wide awake and looking about as dumb as a rock. A small smile touched my face. Maybe that was how Satsuki saw us.
I didn’t really feel like drinking anything at the moment. Maybe some morning when we’re both here… I reached out just to push the mugs a little closer together, bringing them into a cuddle with a soft clink. I stopped to admire my handiwork for a moment, and then I closed the cupboard.
The last of the sun was setting through the blinds by the time I finally got the idea I should start making my dinner. I pulled out something or another from my freezer and scurried about with the stove and the microwave. A soft sigh left my mouth. It was always the evenings when I started to feel the most lonely.
I went to grab a plate from the cabinet, and somehow I came away with two.
The clock ticked and ticked. I stood in the kitchen, glancing at the door, watching the steam dwindle away as the food grew cold on the stove. At times my eyes wandered to ascertain if those were really Satsuki’s slippers in the entrance, or if they were really her files on the coffee table, or if she had really left her things in my bathroom. As the time dragged on, I could not even bring myself to be sure anymore. And when the clock finally struck eight, and the last thought of whatever it was I was waiting for trickled out of me, I hung my head and went to fill my plate with my cold dinner.
I was just about to put the second plate back in the cupboard when I heard the lock turning.
I froze, clutching the plate to my chest. A hundred heartbeats passed in the time it took for the door to open. And then she was there.
Satsuki’s eyes fell on me the moment she walked through the doorway. There was a whump as she tossed her briefcase aside, a hand moving to unbutton her suit jacket, and then the clickity-clack of her heels as she cleared the distance between us in an instant. Her hand graced my shoulder, and she nudged me gently against the counter before swooping down to touch her lips to mine.
When she pulled away, there was a smile across her face. “Honey, I’m home,” she whispered.
My heart shot to my throat. I must have pushed her away, hiding my face with one arm and wielding the plate like a shield as I grew hot enough to explode. “W-w-w-what’s g-g-gotten into y-you?” I sputtered.
Like a mask falling from her face, Satsuki’s demeanor instantly reverted back to her usual, stoic self. She shook her head as the smile disappeared into thin air. “You know, Amaori,” she said with a sigh, “it really took a lot out of me to be able to do that. The least you could do is pretend to enjoy it.”
“W-wait!” I cried. “No, wait, it’s not like that, I just… I just wasn’t expecting it! I didn’t know you were… H-hold on, I’m ready now, I’m ready.” I put the plate aside and clasped my hands together, chest pounding. “Can you please do it again?”
Satsuki turned away with a swish of her hair. “No.”
My stomach sank, but I pushed through it to put on my very best puppy-dog eyes. “Pleeeeeeaaaaase?”
She caught herself too late to keep from glancing back at me. She fidgeted, and then cleared her throat. “Maybe,” she said quietly. “But not now. What’s for dinner?”
There was a soaring feeling in my chest. “Um, something, I think!” I exclaimed. Ouuuuugh, I love you, Satsuki-san! “I was… I was waiting for you! Let me just heat it up!”
Something about us just sitting at the table like that, eating a largely mundane dinner with no plans at all, made me feel so very, very happy. It was a glimpse into a life where this was just another typical evening. How special it would be, I thought, for it to not be anything special at all.
“So how was work today?” I asked, admiring the way Satsuki looked with her sleeves rolled up.
She gave me a look as though she were suddenly considering rolling them back down again. Fortunately, she just shrugged it off. “It was all right,” she said. “A new client came in today. Their company looks like it might really take off, maybe a good couple trillion yen some years from now. Seems like a good investment. We could get ourselves a yacht one day.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, wow. That’s awesome.” Something about that thought seemed kind of familiar, but I was more focused on the way she had said “we.”
“How about you? Did the library treat you okay?”
“Uh…” My eyes darted away sheepishly. “Actually, I didn’t go to work today.”
“I see.” Something that just might have been concern flickered through Satsuki’s face. “Are you feeling all right?”
There was no possible way I could explain why I had needed a day off. So instead, I just smiled. “Well, I am now.”
“Cool. I suppose you must have just called in ‘loser’ to work, then.”
I didn’t even have a defense for that one. You might be more right than you know, Satsuki-san.
“Oh, I just remembered,” Satsuki said. “I got the mail on the way in.” She reached for her jacket to find where she’d stuffed it.
“You just have the keys to everything of mine, don’t you?” I asked. “How do you even get your hands on them?”
Satsuki ignored the question as she came back out with some wrinkled envelopes. She flipped through the stack of them, split it, and tossed half my way. “These ones are yours.”
I looked at the envelopes, and then I looked back up at her. “Uh… what do you mean these ones are mine?”
“I mean these ones aren’t.” She waved the other half in my face.
“Okay? But they were in my mailbox?”
Satsuki rolled her eyes. “Goodness, Amaori,” she said. “I know you’re a little stupid, but do try and use at least some part of your brain.” To cement what was apparently the most obvious thing in the world, she slid one of the envelopes my way.
I picked it up to read the name. Then I frowned and read it again. On my fifth attempt, after realizing the words were not going to change, I brought my gaze back to Satsuki with my mouth hanging open.
“Why…” I whispered, “why does it say your name on it?”
She shrugged. “It might have something to do with me changing my address.”
“You changed your address?” I gasped. “To my apartment?”
“Yes.” She said it so matter-of-factly.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I pinched myself a few times. Satsuki was still there, and so were the envelopes. “You… you… What? How? When? Why?” It all came out in a single breath.
Satsuki let out a yawn. “I don’t have the capacity to answer all of that right now, Amaori.” She got up from her seat and stretched. “Just use your imagination for the time being, okay?”
“I…” I croaked, “I thought I’d been imagining it the whole time.” I took a deep breath, feeling my voice beginning to tremble. “If y-you… being here was real, if all this stuff was really yours, if… i-if my place was ever… if it could ever be your place, too… I…” There was too much going on in my head, too much to put into words. Urgh. I couldn’t embarrass myself by crying now.
My mind stopped short as I felt the warm touch of Satsuki’s hand on my face. I looked up, hearing the step of her slippered feet beside me, smelling the fragrance of her hair that was the same as the new shampoo in my shower. Gazing warmly down at me was the very person who had put all of those there. “S-Satsuki-san…” I sniffled.
She gave me a gentle shh. “You don’t have to worry,” she said. “I want this to be my home.” Her finger brushed away my tear. “I want this to be ours.”
And she bent down and covered my lips with hers.
Her hand was the last thing to leave my face. I wiped my eyes, feeling the warmth of her lingering on my body even as she stepped away. Maybe, just maybe, it would never have to leave at all.
Satsuki let out another yawn. “I’m beat,” she said. “I think I’m going to brew up some tea or something.” She glanced my way. “Do you want any, Amaori?”
I watched as she opened up the cupboard. The one in which our mugs sat nestled side-by-side.
I cleared the envelopes to make room on the table, and put them all into a single stack.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I think I’d like that very much.”