Chapter 7

Learning Each Other

The rest of winter break passed in a strange duality. During the day, around their parents, Rin and Kiko maintained their usual dynamic—sisterly, comfortable, nothing out of the ordinary. They helped with dinner, watched movies with the family, endured their mother’s enthusiastic planning for a spring break trip they were all supposed to take together.

But at night, in the loft, they became something else entirely.

It started innocently enough. That first night, they’d just held hands in the darkness. The second night, Kiko had migrated from her sleeping bag to Rin’s, and they’d fallen asleep wrapped around each other. By the third night, they’d given up all pretense and just shared one sleeping bag, bodies intertwined, whispering in the dark about everything and nothing.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Kiko said one night, her fingers tracing idle patterns on Rin’s arm.

Rin thought about it. They’d lived together for six years—what could Kiko possibly not know? But then she realized that there were things she’d never said out loud, things she’d kept private not because they were secrets but because she’d never had a reason to share them.

“I’m terrified of being ordinary,” Rin admitted. “Everyone thinks I have it all figured out—good grades, clear career path, everything planned. But sometimes I lie awake at night worried that I’m just ... going through the motions. That I’ll wake up at forty and realize I’ve lived someone else’s idea of a successful life instead of actually living.”

Kiko was quiet for a moment, then pressed a kiss to Rin’s temple. “You could never be ordinary. Even when you’re trying to be.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve watched you for six years. The way your mind works, the way you see connections other people miss, the way you care about things deeply even when you pretend you don’t.” Kiko shifted to look at Rin in the dim light filtering through the loft windows. “You’re extraordinary, Rin. You just don’t let yourself believe it.”

Rin felt her throat tighten with emotion. “Your turn. Tell me something.”

“I’m scared I’m not good enough,” Kiko said softly. “Not good enough at art, not good enough for you, not good enough to deserve this. Sometimes I think this is all a dream and I’m going to wake up and you’ll realize you made a mistake.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually.” Rin rolled to face her fully. “Because I’ve spent six years trying to convince myself that what I felt for you was anything other than love. Six years of dating other people, of lying to myself, of trying to make myself feel for someone else what I’ve always felt for you. And it never worked. It was always you, Kiko. It’s always been you.”

Kiko kissed her then, soft and sweet, and Rin felt that now-familiar electricity spark between them. They were still learning the language of this—when a kiss was just a kiss and when it was the start of something more—but Rin loved the learning. Loved discovering what made Kiko sigh, what made her laugh, what made her pull Rin closer like she couldn’t bear any distance between them.