you don't shower at two in the morning for nothing
Happy Birthday @pinkglitterpuke let's pretend you and riki are the same age here
The first time Nishimura Riki told you he loved you, you were sixteen, high in the bathroom at a house party, knees tucked to your chest beside the bathtub while people screamed lyrics outside the door, as if the world were ending beautifully.
You remember laughing at him.
Because who the hell looked at a girl like you and saw something worth loving?
Your mascara was running down your face. Your hands shook so hard you could barely hold the lighter. You’d disappeared for three days before that, phone dead, sleeping on random couches with people whose names you barely remembered. Your mother had cried when you came home. Your father stopped speaking to you altogether.
But Ni-ki crouched in front of you anyway.
Not disgusted.
Not angry.
Just… worried.
“You look cold,” he whispered.
And you hated him immediately for being kind.
Because kindness made people stay long enough to leave.
Back then, loving you was ugly.
You screamed when you got scared.
You pushed when people got close.
You vanished whenever things felt too real.
There were nights your mind became static, thick, black storm clouds swallowing every logical thought whole, and you would tear through him like a hurricane. Accusing him of abandoning you before he even had the chance. Calling him names. Crying so hard you’d throw up into his sink while he held your hair back with trembling hands because he was just a teenage boy too.
A teenage boy who should’ve left.
But he never did.
Not once.
Even when your own parents gave up on understanding you.
Even when you scratched your nails down his arm during an argument and burst into tears five seconds later because you didn’t know why you were so angry all the time.
Even when you relapsed.
Even when you lied.
Even when you disappeared.
He stayed.
And maybe that’s what ruined you in the end.
Because he taught you what being loved felt like before teaching you what losing it felt like.
Years later, you got better.
That was the cruel part.
You got better.
You stopped running away.
Stopped needing chaos to feel alive.
Started going to work. Paying bills. Studying for exams. Answering texts. Sleeping normal hours.
You became the kind of woman people could build futures with.
The kind of woman he used to dream about marrying.
A beach wedding in Japan.
Black tuxedo.
Red flowers.
Two kids, exactly two years later, because he said he wanted your daughter to have your smile and giggles.
You built entire lifetimes together over late-night calls.
And now?
Now you sat alone in your apartment staring at your ceiling at 3:12 a.m., wondering why he could love you at your absolute worst but not at your best.
That was the part nobody understood.
If he had left when you were a mess, maybe this would’ve made sense.
But he didn’t.
He loved the broken version of you so completely that you began to believe love meant permanence.
And maybe that’s why this felt like dying.
The distance started quietly.
That’s how grief always begins.
Quietly.
Missed calls.
Shorter replies.
“I’m tired.”
“Sorry, baby.”
“Work’s been insane.”
You told yourself adulthood was hard.
You were both busy now.
Life wasn’t a teenage romance anymore.
There were responsibilities, time zones, exhaustion, and loneliness.
Still…
Something felt wrong.
Not dramatically wrong.
Not movie wrong.
Just tiny wrongs piling up like bodies.
Then came that night.
He got home from some party while you were on FaceTime with him.
1:47 a.m.
Hair is damp with sweat.
Breathing uneven.
Eyes avoiding the camera.
“Did you drink?” you asked softly.
“Little bit.”
Then he laughed nervously and disappeared into the bathroom.
You listened to him brushing his teeth aggressively through the speaker. So hard it sounded violent. Then the shower started immediately after.
At nearly two in the morning.
Your stomach dropped so fast it physically hurt.
Because girls know.
Girls always know.
And suddenly every delayed text, every weird silence, every I fell asleep came back like shards of glass rearranging themselves into a horrible picture.
You stared at your own reflection in the dark phone screen while the shower water ran.
What could be worse than what you used to put him through?
What changed?
You wanted to ask him:
Was long distance harder than loving a mentally unstable fifteen-year-old who disappeared for days?
Harder than holding her together while she bled grief onto everything she touched?
Because he survived that.
He survived you.
So why not this?
The worst part was that he still sounded like himself.
Still called you baby.
I still remember your coffee order.
Still told you to eat when you forgot.
Still said I love you in that sleepy voice that used to make your chest ache with happiness.
That’s what destroyed you.
Because cheaters in movies become monsters.
But real life?
Real life lets them stay soft.
And you hated him for that.
Hated how gentle he still was.
Hated how you still melted at the sound of his voice.
Hated how your heart refused to villainize the boy who practically raised you emotionally.
Sometimes you wondered if maybe he didn’t cheat at all.
Maybe you were spiralling.
Maybe your fear poisoned everything beautiful again.
But then why did he look guilty?
Why did he start showering after parties?
Why did he suddenly protect his phone screen when, years ago, he used to hand it to you carelessly?
Why did love suddenly feel like something fragile instead of something certain?
“I would’ve told you,” he said once during an argument.
And you believed him.
That was the tragedy.
You believed him because he had always been honest before.
So now you live trapped between two unbearable possibilities:
Either he cheated;
Or the love between you had decayed so badly that you no longer recognized each other.
Both felt fatal.
People kept telling you:
“You’re young.”
“People change.”
“You’ll find someone else.”
But they didn’t understand.
You didn’t want someone else.
You wanted the boy who sat on dirty bathroom tiles, telling a broken girl she deserved to stay alive.
You wanted the teenager who loved you through violence and fear and addiction and ugly crying and panic attacks.
You wanted the boy who promised you Japan.
And maybe that was pathetic.
Maybe adulthood was realizing promises are pretty lies people mean at the time.
Still...
Some nights, you lie in bed imagining him next to another girl and physically curl into yourself from the pain of it.
Because you knew how he loved.
Tenderly.
Patiently.
Like devotion was instinctive.
And the thought of someone else receiving that version of him made you feel sick.
At 4 a.m., your phone buzzed.
Ni-ki:
you awake?
You stared at the message so long your vision blurred.
Then another text appeared.
Ni-ki:
I miss you
Your chest cracked open.
Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He could miss you.
Love you.
Maybe even still choose you.
And still betray you anyway.
Love apparently wasn't the same as loyalty.
Nobody tells you that when you’re sixteen.
At sixteen, love feels red and black and poetic and forever.
Nobody warns you that sometimes forever ends quietly through a phone screen while you sit alone in an apartment meant for a future that never arrived.
Copyright 2026 - present © hazelira all rights reserved. All writing here is fiction & not in any association with characters mentioned.
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