@varentines ─── ‘ taichi, look! ’ the grin she’s wearing (and has been wearing for the past half hour) is nothing short of self-congratulatory. ‘ i found the other half! ’ it’s one of those dreadful (just horrendously cliche) friendship necklaces. ‘ now we can match! ’ is she proud of herself? absolutely.
he’s lost count of how many times this has happened. he used to keep count. he used to treasure every memory of her when he thought they were finite.
when taichi was six and holding tightly onto the beginnings of a crush, the jealous small flame both stifled and fanned by arata’s presence, he remembers her dragging them to the nearest karuta association. “ taichi, arata, look ! i found it ! ” it started with arata. back then, it always started with arata -- her dream, their connection. he’d thought it finite back then, knew he couldn’t keep up with arata and chihaya the way they wanted him to, not if he had to go down the path his mother laid out for him.
when taichi was thirteen and rekindling the dead flame of mizusawa’s karuta club -- for her, because of her, always her -- he remembers her dragging him to oe, to komano, to nishida -- “ taichi, look ! ” she’d said then too, “ i found them ! ” and she had, and they’d built something together. a championship. a reputation. and like everything else, he holds onto it loosely, always ready to let go. and like an inevitability, he lets go.
he’s eighteen, and he’s gone further than he thought he would. in their friendship, and in karuta. in some ways, he thinks it’s always been intertwined, those two aspects of his life. he remembers keeping chihaya and arata at a distance, because the only way people like him can hold something dear is by holding it far, far away. the distance persists until they meet at the meijin qualifiers. then, as if distance means nothing, chihaya comes up to him -- “ taichi, look ! ” -- and he does.
now, he thinks, fingers wrapping around the necklace he’d looped twice around his wrist, maybe they were always meant to be infinite.
