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Love

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 21:48:57 -0300

A cool breeze blew over the grass on the levee, leaving the air unsettled, filled with the sort of latent, electric energy one can only feel as summer draws to a close. It felt as if at any moment it might let the water trapped within it burst out all at once, soaking the dirt and the concrete. A final act of catharsis after months of shouldering its burden.

It was enough to make anyone’s heart race.

taste

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 21:25:00 +0000

It was a Friday evening.
The autumn sun cut through the clouds. Bathing the city in an otherworldly glow.
I went straight home from school.
We weren’t practicing this week.
Soyo was sick. She had a cold. Ano-chan said she was going to see her.
Since we didn’t practice, Taki-chan wasn’t walking home with me.
When I reached the bridge we normally part ways at, I pulled out my phone and sent her a sticker. A Gentoo penguin. Waving.
She replied before I even managed to put my phone away, with a panda, waving back.
I smiled.

Butterflies

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 20:13:37 -0300

It’s finally spring.

Nearly every morning now the ground is wet with dew and the remnants of overnight showers. It makes me wonder if the earth itself has been crying itself to sleep.

In my favorite park, across the railway tracks from home, there’s a cedar tree I’ve grown really fond of.

It’s easy to miss. It’s not especially big, and it’s out of the way, off the beaten path near a little pond. Its trunk has a unique, crooked shape. It calms me down whenever I see it. I hope it appreciates my company, too.

disinfection

Sat, 24 May 2025 23:41:00 +0000

The clock on my bedside ticked away, and my consciousness swayed and blurred into a muddy focus.
It was dark. I could see traces of my bedroom, faintly outlined by moonlight. My bed, and my desk. The window, and the city outside it. The waning crescent moon.
…How much time had passed?
I looked at the clock. It read eight. An hour.
I must have fallen asleep.
Or maybe I just… lost track of time.

Crossing

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0300

“Tomori. Over here.”

Raana slid down the hill and beckoned. Mottles of sunlight danced on her white hair as it streamed in through the canopy above, then vanished as she left the shadows. She hopped off the small cliff at the edge of the clearing.

Tomori followed gingerly down the incline, holding onto the trees as she did. She couldn’t trust her own body to move how she wanted it to; she had plenty of faded old scars, and gashes on her childhood clothes (which she refused to throw away) to remind her of this.

piercing

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 02:15:00 +0000

I don’t know Raana.
I’m not sure
that I know anyone,
but I know I don’t know her.
Maybe nobody does.
But I think

she knows me.
The way she looks at me. The way she speaks to me. The way she smiles when our music intertwines.
She knows something about me that I don’t know myself.

We live in the sixth floor of a cramped apartment building, not in a house. So our bathroom is really, really small. It’s way below average.
It’s barely big enough for two people to stand and use the shower in, let alone for them to sit in the tiny bathtub together.
It was obviously an absurd request. I know that. Even I know that.
But tonight, I felt something, growing inside of me. It was a feeling. A squirming writhing tugging burning feeling in my chest. A feeling that pulled me towards her, and made me want to know, to let go and jump in, so I could know.

American

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0300

“Excuse me. Do you know the way to the station?”

Late October brought three things to Tokyo without fail: biting winds, dazzling autumn colors, and tourists. So many tourists.

There were always some, of course, but for a week or two as November grew closer one could hardly turn a corner without tripping over a foreigner, even in Toshima’s least-trafficked residential zones.

Tomori was used to it by now, but still she never quite managed to navigate the encounters. She was supposed to know a little English—she studied it in school multiple times a week, after all!—but the words just wouldn’t come naturally to her. And if she tried to force them out through rote memorization, the sounds felt unsteady and indistinct in her lips, permanently, barely out of reach.

salt

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 14:39:18 -0300

I dreamed.
I don’t remember what about, I never really do. But I did dream.
I can tell. When I wake up, I’m still half-drowning in the murky waters of my mind; my head is heavy with a lingering feeling, and it feels like something has its clutches around me, trying to drag me back in.
I must have been holding something in my arms, in that dream. It wasn’t there anymore, and it hurt like a long-lost limb.

Maiden

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0300

Her armor creaked as she knelt before the throne. It was half-covered by a cloak made of ragged old cloth, frayed at the edges.

“…M-my lord. I would offer my services to your court.” Her voice was tinged with the traces of a worn-down innocence.

“And why should I want to accept them, young knight?”

The viscount of the Kaname domain was a well-built man, around forty. His striking golden eyes peered down from on high onto the kneeling figure below. He seemed unimpressed.

teardrop

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:04:57 -0300

The pain blossomed outwards from the nape of my neck as her teeth sank into my skin. I closed my eyes and caught a breath of the dusty, stale air, letting the fresh oxygen blunt its edge. Its bitter sting turned into a sugary-sweet and comforting blanket that laid itself in gentle, stuttering steps over my nerves, forcing desperate whispered whimpers out of me as it went.

I reached around and under her clothes and pulled her towards me, begging her with my hands to keep going. My fingernails dug into her back and immediately I felt her listen and respond and shift her weight forwards, pushing me into the wall behind me. The rough texture of the granite dug into my back and caught itself in the fabric of my hoodie. And then she kissed me with her teeth again, and again, and somehow, she knew how to make it hurt just as much every time, like she knew my body better than she knew her own.

Jam

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:53:56 -0300

She doesn’t know what a “dominant chord” is. Let alone a “diminished” one.

Major and minor, she’s a little more familiar with. She’s heard them often enough. But she still couldn’t describe them if you asked.

The most she could say, if she thought really really hard, is that major chords make her heart flutter, and minor ones make it shiver.

She doesn’t even really know the names of all the notes. Certainly, A, B and C are some of them… but where does it stop? And why are some of them “sharp” or “flat”? What could that mean?

Fly

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0300

One afternoon, as the band filtered out of the studio at the close of an early practice session, Raana took Tomori’s hand and led her, surreptitiously, away from the group.

“Something I wanna show you,” she told her.

Tomori didn’t even think to resist. Raana had shown her so many lovely things already, after all.

Raana led her through the bustling surroundings of Ikebukuro station, dodging past herds of balding salarymen and throngs of absent-minded shoppers, and finally cutting through an avenue into the quieter, older commercial-residential area of the first chōme.

Clear

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:00 -0300

Takamatsu Tomori has her coping mechanisms.

She is perfectly aware of “the way that she is”. To the untrained eye, she may come off as guileless, even completely oblivious. But she really does know, in her own way.

And it is precisely because she knows that she has stitched her life together with these band-aids, sutures and patches, with an arsenal of little habits and tricks. She uses them like so much putty and glue, to fit herself into all the little gaps and crevices of the world which she was born too strange and crooked for.

Sparkle

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 13:57:00 +0000

At the edge of a creek, under a bridge in a park in southern Ikebukuro, sat four oddly-shaped, translucent rocks.

They were tinted a subtle violet, and were surprisingly pure. You could almost see clean through them.

Tomori was utterly taken by their sight. They glistened so beautifully in the sun, reflecting the clear winter sky, the flowing water of the little rivulet beside it. She crouched by them and simply looked, looked in abject fascination as she could at all the crystalline patterns, at all the odd jutting shapes and crevices.

Renegade

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 01:20:00 +0000

It took a week’s worth of travel to the east to reach neutral territory. They cut through dark forests and tenebrous bogs, avoiding any settlement that fell under the Kaname family’s demesne. Only when they reached the coastal headlands, where the grass turned a vibrant green and the wind took on a different smell, did they finally dare to step foot into a village.

As the sun rose over the ocean, the two of them sat themselves down near a pier in the local port. The place reeked of salted cod; the din from the stalls around them was incessant. Still, Tomori felt a great relief, being around people again. She took a deep breath of the briny sea air.

Revelation

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 23:41:07 -0300

“Um… Okay. H-here goes.”

Tomori turned over a page on the magazine. She stared fixedly, nervously at the words printed on the glossy paper, enough to burn a hole straight through it; as if the letters would slide right off if she did not keep them pinned right there with her eyes.

“…First… first question.”

This had all been Anon’s fault.

After foisting the latest personality test from one of her teeny-bopper publications on Soyo (unsuccessfully), and then on Taki, she’d finally set her sights on Tomori. Tomori, for her part, found the concept of a quarterly magazine peering into one’s soul and divining fate itself a little scary, but could not find it in herself to turn Anon down. She ended up finding it strangely entertaining.

Thriller

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 18:34:00 +0000

My name is Yamigahara Sachiho.

I am fourteen years old. My birthday is on the 23rd of October and my blood type is O negative. I attend Kamikichou Municipal Junior High in the third grade, class 3-C. My grades are slightly above average. I live in a small detached house on a hill fifteen minutes’ walk away from school with my mother; my father is dead. I’m an only child. My hair is a muddy, desaturated brown and my eyes are a dull hazel. I’m nearsighted and have to wear glasses. I enjoy reading books both fiction and nonfiction and watching birds and taking walks in the forest and my favorite food is mild curry rice with softboiled eggs.

Smile

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:21:00 +0000

“Raana-chan. This… This is really bad.”

“Hm?”

Tomori clutched her notebook in her hands. She was leaning towards Raana and speaking in hushed whispers, her voice laced with worry. “I-it’s… Taki-chan.”

Raana looked past Tomori and behind the cafe counter on the other side of the room. And there Taki was, washing a cup plate while the Gaggia machine beside her dutifully churned out a double shot of espresso.

“Seems fine,” Raana said, having finished her assessment.

Reunion

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:50:26 -0300

The prep room backstage was cold, dusty, and dark; the lights overhead and around the mirrors were all switched off. No more acts were booked for the night, and without the usual din bleeding in from the stage out front, it was so completely silent you could hear the two of them breathe.

Tomori sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning back into Raana. Raana herself was propped up against the south wall, her arms casually wrapped around Tomori’s waist.

Orbit

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 23:38:54 -0300

“Heads up. Camp-out time at eight hours, five minutes and thirteen seconds. Supplementary prebreathing complete. …Vitals confirmed, nitrogen blood content sitting at 1mL/L. Propulsion unit functional. Dr. Takamatsu, you are cleared for extravehicular activity. Check your suit and prepare the tether. Over.”

I opened my eyes.

I was floating inside a narrow cylindrical room made of plastic and metal. In my right hand, at the end of a long, winding tube, was a mask, which I was holding firmly against my nose and mouth. For the past five minutes it had been feeding pure oxygen into my lungs, to acclimate my body to the low pressure outside.

Tabloid

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 22:53:52 -0300

“Oh my god, guys.” Anon briskly ran up to the café counter with a suspicious object in hand. “You have to see this.”

Unfazed, Taki poured some Oolong into a cup and placed it on a saucer, then slid it forwards. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“Thanks, Taki-chan.” Soyo took her tea and glared at Anon. “I’m also not interested, in case you were getting any ideas.”

“No, listen! Ikebukuro Weekly printed a story on MyGO!” Anon waved the magazine in her hand around. Indeed, some very small text on the cover read ‘Exclusive! Local band MyGO’s Secrets Revealed!’.

Woodwind

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 14:01:00 +0000

Tomori sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of RiNG’s Studio 1, peering down at her smartphone. As she read through the group chat logs, a wave of melancholy washed over her.

“Sorry, Tomori,” Taki had just written. “Think I caught something too.” Hours earlier, Anon and Soyo had mentioned running a fever.

It wasn’t just that they’d be missing practice, that she wouldn’t get to see Taki and Anon and Soyo, though that certainly did tug cruelly at her heart. It was more than that. Today was meant to be… special.

Mirror

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Human beings… are a little bit like mirrors.

When two of them come face to face–when they look into each others’ eyes, trade words, gestures and expressions–they begin to reflect one another, to adapt and adjust in tiny, imperceptible steps until finally their rhythms match. Give it enough time and one’s colors start to bleed into the other’s; a certain harmony develops, a recursive loop of reflections upon reflections. You could stare into it for eternity and never find an origin point; just an endless tunnel where light itself goes to die.

Dangerous

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 20:58:25 -0300

“R…Raana-chan, I don’t know about this…”

“It’ll be fine. C’mere.”

She reached out towards me, a picture-perfect smile on her face.

At her feet, a pebble tumbled down and landed on the floor several meters below.

Just this morning Raana had shown up unannounced at my house and asked me to come with her, saying there was something she wanted to show me. It was a Sunday and I hadn’t made any plans, so after mulling it over and asking Dad for permission, I agreed.

Cherry

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:31:00 +0000

Tomori sat alone in the RiNG prep room. One hour from now, she would be on stage. But at this moment her mind was occupied with something else entirely.

Between her fingers she held a small, cylindrical object, and she was staring at it like a woman possessed. She squinted and turned it over, utterly fascinated. She looked at it from afar, from up close, and–

“Whatcha doing?”

“O-oh! Raana-chan.” Tomori turned to the girl looking over her shoulder.

Carousel

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

“…Tomori-chan, is it?” Shifune sat back on her lounge chair. “Nice to finally see you up close. Have fun up there. But don’t let Raana lead you around too much.”

Even in her old age, as she sank into the leather, the legendary Shisen of MiraculouScarlet exuded a dazzlingly radiant aura. Tomori wondered, for a moment, if this is what people meant when they talked about “star power.”

Tomori gave a frantic little bow. “U-um! Thank you very much! I’ll… be in your care.”

Goddess

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 15:37:01 -0300

They stumbled through the night, arm in arm, reeking of food and ale. Tomori could hardly see straight.

“M-my lady–”

“–Raana.”

“I… I believe I’ve had too much to drink.”

“Hehe.” Raana hiccuped. “Me too.”

“You made q-quite a stir. I was… not prepared to be bought so many rounds.”

“‘Twas fun,” Raana whispered. In her free hand, she held the lute they’d bought just this morning.

“When… pray tell, did you learn to play with such… dexterity?”

Voyage

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:43:21 -0300

Around them, wood creaked and bowed, and outside the ocean water sloshed.

They were in a cramped cabin inside a sailboat, bound westward.

“Did we really hafta leave?” Raana laid on a bed, kicking her legs as she flipped a gold coin in her hands. “I liked that town. Innkeep was nice.”

Tomori sat opposite her, arms crossed, and a somber look on her face. Her armor and sword were neatly laid out at the foot of her bed.

Porcelain

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 23:27:48 -0300

The Tsukinomori Girls’ Academy tea room sat in a quiet nook behind the main school building, concealed by cherry trees at the end of a meandering stone path. Inside, the four-and-a-half tatami room was exquisitely designed in the chashitsu style. In an alcove set into the wall, a hanging scroll read [One Seed, Bountiful Harvest]{一粒万倍} in a flowing cursive.

Past the window, petals danced in the air. It was spring.

Dark

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 12:30:00 +0000

One by one, the auxiliary lights dimmed, and the planetarium drowned in pitch black.

The screen above them came to life, with millions of stars filling it from the outside in; and behind them, the glow of the nebula.

Normally the gentle darkness of the planetarium, and the warm resonance of its sound system, were enough to quell any anxiety stirring within Tomori. But this time they were not enough. Her heart was pounding.

Omokage

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 19:33:07 -0300

A high-pitched trill from my alarm clock pulls me into consciousness. Five thirty in the morning, it says.

The other side of the bed is empty, but it’s still warm. It’s still rich with Raana’s scent. She must have left in the middle of the night.

She never leaves any notes, but I don’t mind it anymore.

I climb out of bed and stand under the water from our cramped shower, and I wait for my body to feel like my own again. I switch the tap to cold to hurry it along.

City

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 23:02:04 -0300

At four in the morning, she rouses and slips out of bed, making sure not to wake the girl sleeping beside her. She slips her clothes on: ripped tights under a pair of short shorts, an oversized sweater that hangs down nearly to her knees, and a long military-style hooded jacket that she picked up at a thrift store in Kabukicho. Finally she throws on her gig bag and picks up a duffel bag stuffed with her mirrorless camera and portable amplifier.

Witch

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 12:26:00 +0000

The cauldron violently bubbled and churned, its dubious contents melting into a purple steam and floating away.

Outside, in the deep woods, the crows cawed away.

“Tomori,” Raana whispered. “Eye of newt.”

Raana’s newly-minted assistant stood at attention, a leather-bound book clutched tightly in her arms. “O-okay,” she said, and scurried over to the shelves by the entrance, where a dozen jars of various shapes, sizes, and colors were arrayed side-by-side in no particular order.

Lantern

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 23:09:00 +0000

“Tomori. Look.”

Raana tugged on the sleeve of Tomori’s yukata and pointed ahead, just past the row of orange paper lanterns framing the street.

For the past several minutes Tomori had been distracted by a particularly fascinating arrangement of rocks at the foot of a nearby tree; now, she was processing the shock of being so cruelly yanked back into reality. “W-what’s up, Raana-chan?,” she asked, still disoriented.

“They have ohagi.” Raana was now actively pulling Tomori along towards the tiny stall at the end of the street.

Hello!

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 15:37:00 +0000

With AO3’s momentary demise, I’ve finally become motivated enough to host a blog/homepage of my own. It’s a little plain, but I plan on spicing it up at a later date. In any case, please enjoy.

Penny For Your Thoughts

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:54:00 +0000

What was it, exactly?

Was it the way the light outside shone through the frost on the windowpane, past the wisps of her gently-curving bangs, and danced upon her supple skin?

Or the way the twilit sky’s dull blue glow mixed with the pink of her hair, tinting it that perfectly-purple hue?

Or maybe—the way her cheek rested on her palm, curving around it just so?

The way she’d let out a bored sigh every so often,

Strandline

Fri, 08 May 2026 18:36:00 +0000

An account of Kaname Raana’s past, present, and future; of her desperate search for belonging.

Precious Spring

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:55:00 +0000

“Takamatsu-san! I like you! Please go out with me!”

Tomori stood amid the drifting cherry blossoms, utterly dumbstruck.

On that mid-March morning, she’d found a letter slipped into her shoe locker, asking her to please wait somewhere in the school yard after class, saying that it’s important. She didn’t doubt that for a second when she read it. To her, a letter like this was a muffled cry from the heart. It couldn’t possibly even occur to her to ignore it.

Silent Whisper

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:55:00 +0000

It was a Tuesday evening in the studio at RiNG. The first studio, the one on the hallway to the left from the reception desk. The one whose soundproof door always makes the same little noise when it shuts, a quiet ping that flies through the air before fading into the acoustic foam on the walls. The studio we practice in the most.
There’s other studios here, of course, and we’ve been in all of them at this point, but this one is my favorite. I never feel quite right in any of the others, never as calm and present as I do in this one. Every time I find out we have to practice elsewhere, a dull weight drops in my stomach, as if I’m saying goodbye to a friend before they leave on a long, winding journey.
But not today. Today, I didn’t have to say goodbye.

Who You Are, What You Want

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 17:54:00 +0000

“The Atlantic puffin spends most of its life, every year from fall until late spring, living out in the open ocean, alone. In late May, however, it finds its way back to the colony where it was born, reunites with its mate, and returns to their nesting site. There they build a burrow together. Though they share responsibilities, the male spends most of his time guarding the nest, while the female spends it incubating her eggs and feeding her hatchlings. They remain there until August, when they part ways, returning to their solitary life at sea.”

Morinaga Jelly

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 17:26:00 +0000

“Dad. Could you… teach me how to cook?”

The instant that Takamatsu Tomori got home from band practice, she shut the front door behind her, walked in a brisk straight line from the apartment entryway, past a doorway, and into the kitchen, and posed her father a question, unadorned with greetings or pleasantries.

“…Welcome home, Tomori.”

Said father, full name Takamatsu Yoshiji, stood over the sink, washing a small load of dishes. He wore a worn beige apron that was stained with splashes of soapy water, and seemed not one bit surprised nor concerned by his daughter’s behavior. He turned to her and greeted her with a knowing smile.

Raana's Perfect Guitar Class

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:54:00 +0000

It was right after practice on a Wednesday evening. Taki had just called it good enough for the day, and since there were no administrative or logistical issues on the table that particular week, she immediately headed out of the studio to walk Tomori home. Soyo threw her gig bag around her shoulders and lagged behind them, waving everyone a perfunctory goodbye.

Raana always wants to leave the soonest, but her teardown takes by far the longest. After unplugging herself and wrapping the cable (over and under so they don’t kink, like she was taught) she has to slip her guitar into a bulky hard case, and since she refuses to use the amps provided by RiNG (they don’t let it sing right, she says - of course - there’s a certain warmth the vacuum tubes give it that you just can’t replicate with modern technology, that’s what Grandma told her when she complained) she has to disconnect her amp head and cab and her pedals from the wall, put them in a case and lift them onto her dolly, and tie everything down. She learned that last part the hard way; that’s where that little scuff on the headstock came from.