Work Text:
"I didn’t realise we were performing a play of Santa,” Kaoruko laughed as Junna shook all the letters from her bag onto the kitchen table. “What’s with the letters Junna han?”
“This— ” Junna sighed as she slumped down next to Nana on the couch. Nana offered her a sympathetic smile as she kissed Junna on the temple to soothe her. “This is your fault,” Junna continued after a slight breather, pointing directly at Maya and Claudine who entered the room due to the noise. “Both of you.”
Claudine blinked, “I’m sorry?”
Hikari leaned forward, grabbed the closest one next to her and snorted. “I didn’t realise we missed Christmas for Valentines.”
Kaoruko cackled as Maya and Claudine walked closer waving a stray letter around in her hand. “Oh my god you guys got love letters.”
Maya blinked, taking the letter Kaoruko was waving around and read the contents. To her surprise, Kaoruko was speaking the truth. “This early?”
Karen snickered into her hand. “I bet half of them will be like ‘meet me at this spot’ and right above them would be a mistletoe.”
“It can’t all be just us two though right?” Claudine asked as she started to look at the number of letters that Mahiru and Futaba started shifting through into different piles. “Also why now of all times?”
“Well according to this letter from a lovely girl in Rinmeikan it’s because they couldn’t wait for valentines since most of them would be busy,” Maya explained with a small smile. “This one was a letter of admiration opposed to a confession by the way.”
“Awww how sweet of the other schools.” Nana smiled as she watched the piles for Maya and Claudine start to grow. “I wonder if anyone else got one too.”
“Yeah,” Karen sighed as she leaned into her palm, her elbow resting on the side of the couch. “I don’t want to sound jealous but I wonder what it’s like to get a love letter.”
“Please,” Kaoruko said with an eye roll as she glanced at both Hikari and Karen. “Didn’t you send letters to Hikari when she was in England?”
“Yeah but she never replied!”
Instantly Hikari felt all eyes on her, it was enough to make her shrink into her jacket. “In my defence, she said I didn’t need to reply.”
“But you still haven’t written your girlfriend a love letter?” Kaoruko gasped, a hand on her chest for exaggeration, “For shame Hikari han, for shame.”
It was a fortunate thing for Hikari that the attention from her was instantly derailed. The second Mahiru yelped in surprise, cheeks going a tinge of red. Apparently, she had a letter of admiration, from seigfeld of all places.
However, Kaoruko’s comment still remained in Hikari’s mind as the day went on, even when there were more humorous antics around the dorm. For example, trying to get Mahiru to spill who the letter admirer was from since it was another stage girl who sent it.
Hikari really was dumbfounded at how she never wrote anything for Karen. When she compared it to the number of letters that Karen managed to send to her over the years…. It was clear that something needed to change. The problem was that she never wrote a letter before, at least not a love letter. She was never good with words, which wasn’t much of a problem when it came to Karen. Karen can read her so easily, sometimes she can understand Hikari better than Hikari herself.
Karen was… Karen was the star she would catch in one hand, she would be the small happiness Hikari would obtain and cherish. She was the fortune she caught her own large star- the kind that Disney would steal and make franchises out of. The one that’s recounted fondly as a fairy tale to young children. Then in the moments where she would hold Karen fondly in her arms, Karen would be her eternal wish. She was always her eternal wish.
One that she’s grateful that came true.
That being said, Hikari never wanted to tell Karen that. She doesn’t want to plagiarize Starlight for her, Karen was so much more than just Starlight. Starlight was a tragedy. Karen saved her from her own tragedy.
Karen could not be compared to a play that would change with each cast and each rendition. Karen was not a story that would be only loved once when it’s performed and would never be appreciated again in the same way. Karen was the tug in her chest, the light in her smile. She was her possibility of change and the nostalgia of youth. The past present and future all intertwined in her love.
Hikari had so many things to say. So many emotions to express in a method she has never done before. Hikari was never good with words, she was never good with expressing things. But for Karen? She would try her best.
Karen was a curious person, she was also a respectable person. So when Hikari showed signs of hiding something she did her best to respect that. She knew Hikari enough to know that Hikari wasn’t the best of hiding and what she would be trying to hide probably wasn’t anything malicious.
However, when Hikari kept staring at her when they hung out, more so than usual with murmurs under her breath, Karen couldn’t contain her curiosity. She did try her hardest though. Even telling Mahiru to keep an eye on her in case her curiosity was becoming too much. But those stares meant one thing. Hikari was hiding something *for her* instead of *from her*.
So in all fairness, if Hikari were to ever catch her snooping, she should give her a reward for being able to hold out for this long. It’s not like Hikari really tried to hide it anyways. She was always writing in her notebook of all places and she never owned a notebook before! At least not leisurely. Apparently, it was to make notes for Shakespeare plays since she’s discussing things with Junna but when Karen brought it up with Junna, Junna never saw that notebook with Hikari.
So when Karen stumbled upon the notebook whilst Hikari was practising and Mahiru was out shopping, she had to take a peek at it. Just a little bit. But the second Karen peeked at the notebook she couldn’t help but groan.
The words were in English not Japanese. So much for the quick peek plan. Karen could read English but she needed to think a lot to read it. It would be quicker to understand if she could translate it to Japanese like what she did with the Starlight Gatherer. Unfortunately, Karen didn’t have the time to translate it properly so she translated what she could in her own head.
And she didn’t even get through the first paragraph without crying. Already knowing Hikari too well to know that what she stumbled on wasn’t notes. It was the first draft of a love letter.
Karen,
I’m not good with words. I’m not good with expressing my feelings but you know this already. You know a lot of things about me, things I never knew, things I forgot. You know this in the same way you know how much I love you.
I’m sorry that this is all in English, English is easier for me sometimes. It’s more direct. I’ll read it to you one day after I translate this to Japanese and after I give it to Hoishimi san and Mahiru to proofread. Like I said, I’m not good with words. I’m not good with expressing my thoughts and feelings. But I am good at loving you.
As always, you make the hard stuff easier for me.
I’m going to try and not reference Starlight so much. Starlight is important to us but you’re more important to me than Starlight. I would’ve fallen for you without Starlight. If I met you in England I would fall just as much as I did when we first met and became friends. In a world where neither of us became stage girls, that world would not be as bad when I have you with me.
But Starlight is important to us. So, I’ll say it once. You are my Flora to my Claire. You are the reason for my characterisation. In the darkness, in a land where I lost everything. You never abandoned me. ~~Even when I abandoned you to save you~~ You led me out of my tragedy with empty hands, you grabbed hold of what brilliance I had and stole it, just like you stole my heart.
Thank you.
For never giving up on me. For loving me. For waiting for me all this time and accepting me with all my flaws and all my lacking brilliance.
You changed my life.
I only hope to change your life again and again by being by your side until the very end.
I know people describe you as the sun with your happy smile and your energy but to me? You’re the moon. You’re the moon who lighted up my path in the darkness. You’re the moon because there are so many love songs about the moon... and there are so many reasons to love you. And all those love songs? They are there sung within the sound of my heartbeat. The lyrics spoken in the tiny actions I do for you because I am not good with words.
You’re not the sun because it’s not a tragedy to fall for you. I’m not Icarus, falling for you would never be a mistake. We’re not a tragedy.
We’re a dance, we’re the moon and the stars orbiting each other. We’re a constellation piece, we’re a story never discovered before. (As proof of the giraffe, sorry to mention him. Maybe I should cut this piece out in the Japanese version). We’re the moon and the tides of the ocean waves, love being our gravity. Distance was never an option for us, no matter how far apart we push and pull. We exist as one. One dream, one stage, one Starlight—”
“Karen?”
“Hikari!” Karen cried as she ran towards Hikari, engulfing her with a big hug as she sniffled into Hikari’s shirt. “You— you didn’t need to— You.” The words couldn’t leave her lips coherently. She couldn’t speak, not when Hikari stole all the breath in her lungs and filled instead with these emotions that overwhelmed her, suffocating her with love.
“You didn’t need to reply!” She got out in the end as she wept openly in Hikari’s arms. She buried her head closer to Hikari’s chest as she felt Hikari’s fingers sweep through her hair. She felt Hikari lean down and Karen expected a soft kiss on the head, something to comfort her.
“But I wanted to.”
She didn’t expect that. Karen didn’t expect anything that Hikari wrote. She avoided the amused chuckle of Hikari’s laugh in her ears by closing her eyes shut. Hoping the red in her face would fade away the longer she stayed there in Hikari’s embrace. They stayed there like that standing in front of the shut door of their room. Hikari held Karen close, allowing the love of her life to have a moment of peace before she broke it with a quiet question.
“Did you read all of it?”
Karen nodded her head before slowly shaking it. She looked up, a quiet sniffle on her nose. “I didn’t get everything you wrote in English but I know enough of what you’re trying to say. ”
‘Of course you would know what I’m trying to say without knowing the language entirely.' Was what Hikari wanted to say, so quietly in awe that Karen was able to even understand and get so strongly emotional at the ramblings she wrote in English. Instead, she asked a question, staring deep into Karen’s eyes wondering how many stars were in her irises. “When did you know how to read English?”
Karen smiled, pride evident in the grin. “Oh when I translated The Starlight Gatherer to find out where you were in the theatre!” Then her eyes widened and the flush of red coloured in embarrassment was layered on top of her flustered scarlet. “Oh— I’m also sorry for reading it before it was ready.”
Hikari shook her head. “It’s fine.” There was a pause and Hikari looked away, the sudden idea forcing the red to rise from her cheeks. “Do you— do you want me to read it out loud to you?”
“You’re going to read me your love letter?” Karen whimpered, the waterworks starting again.
Hikari tried her best to swallow the amalgamation of emotion stemming from the ' your' in that sentence. The pride, the embarrassment, the tenderness, the love. Your. That’s right, Hikari wrote a love letter to her. It’s her way of expressing her love for her Karen.
It’s funny how it took Hikari weeks and a lot of sentences to make Karen speechless yet all it took for Karen to do the same was one word.
“Ah wait— the letter is full of tear stains! I’m so sorry Hikari chan!”
Hikari wiped away the lingering tears of Karen’s eyes softly, contradicting the half-hearted frown that hid a quiet snort, “Bakaren.” ‘I love you.’
Somewhere in Hikari’s mind, she wondered when did ‘Bakaren’ meant I love you. She would have to remember to make a note of that. Maybe in the next letter to Karen, she can talk about that.