Work Text:
there's this poem daniela remembers reading back in high school, during freshman year english when for several weeks too long they were forced to research and write about haikus, for some reason. she doesn't remember it exactly. just that it goes something like: on the plum tree // clinging, one blossom worth // of warmth. or something.
it's eight-am and next to her megan's passed out in the five minutes it took for the train to leave the station. there's no one else on board their compartment, and out of the whole two carriage train daniela thinks she saw maybe three other people, total. it's too early, really. beneath her feet she can feel the rickety train knock against the rails.
when they pull out past the station outskirts and surface into what suddenly feels like rural countryside, daniela watches the soft exhale of morning light through the window, the stream of it across the floor, the way it haloes the black of megan's hair golden.
it's early spring in japan, if she recalls correctly. she thinks she remembers reading something about it being plum season.
it's stupid, daniela thinks absently to herself. she's in japan, and instead of doing anything interesting she's busy following an overeager megan at some random temple, of all things.
to be clear: this wasn't her idea. if daniela had a choice in the matter she would still be in kyoto with google maps open and one of the thirty clothes stores she'd ripped off of tiktok tapped into the search bar. but after a poorly timed joke to a sensitive megan back in LA and a firm sophia hot on her heels to just make it right, dani, jesus left her scrambling, she'd scraped an apology out from the back of her throat and agreed to do anything megan wanted for a day in japan, fully financed by one daniela avanzini's card.
"listen," she starts now, hiking her jeans up around her hips for the third time in ten minutes. she should've worn something less—fashionable. or at least a belt. "when i said anything, i really didn't mean, like, a day out in the middle of fucking nowhere."
"we're not in the middle of nowhere," megan says with a wave of her hand, like it makes any difference. they're at the base of a mountain and not in the city—to daniela it's basically the same damn thing.
"okay. so, where are we exactly?"
"kurama-dera," is the answer megan chirps back, again, like that means anything to her. it's fine. as they stroll up and through the sleepy town towards the first set of large stairs, megan tells her all about it, anyway. "a friend of my mom's was the one who recommended it," she says, pausing to shade her eyes and peer into the dark window of some storefront. "look—those keychains are cute. anyway, it's not really a mountain, and we're not that far from kyoto. it's more like a big hill. apparently it's supposed to be, like, really pretty."
"and old," daniela mutters.
megan pulls herself back from the window to slap her lightly on the shoulder. says, "it's a temple, dani, what did you expect?" which, yeah, okay. fair enough.
to her credit, megan's not wrong. it really is pretty.
when they finally stop getting distracted by all the little trinkets displayed in the closed stores, because nothing in japan seems to open before ten-am, and make it to the first of what ends up being several entrance-ways, daniela finds herself stopping at the lantern-lined stair pathway just to peer up into the distance.
there's something about the scale of it that makes her skin prickle. the red of the lanterns, the looming tangle of the forest, the characters she can't read etched into ancient wood hundreds of times over.
or maybe it's just megan coming to a stop behind her, the heavy press of her presence the most prominent of all.
"there's a lot of stairs," daniela says flatly.
megan scratches above her ear. "yeah. you ready?"
"i guess," daniela grunts. gestures in front of her with a hand. "lead the way, skiendiel."
after the first set is when daniela crouches to run her eyes over one of the several concrete posts following them up the mountain and ask, "do you know what's on these? like the writing."
megan hums, bending over to stare at the one beside her. she's taller than daniela, has to rest her hands on her knees as she does so, and daniela watches as one sleeve of her hoodie slips down her shoulder in the process. "no. names, i think? most of them have, what, like, three or four characters? that's the standard in chinese. i guess it's the same here."
"huh." daniela straightens. "cool."
they're quiet while they walk, the only real sound the crunch of gravel underfoot, the trickle of water over rocks. daniela spends most of her time flicking between craning her neck upwards to glance at the stretch of trees, and peering her eyes down at the running creek next to them.
hiking is not really her thing. it's not really any of their things, except maybe lara and megan, but even then, as far as daniela knows, it's not exactly their first choice in hobbies. lara had a phase over their break at the end of 2024 where she'd stomped her way through as many day hikes as los angeles could possibly provide with one of her many friends, or a guy she was seeing, or something. megan's from hawaii, and so is obligated to like nature. daniela had a boyfriend a while ago who was into all the outdoorsy stuff. fishing and camping and the likes. that's about it.
it hadn't lasted very long, and daniela doesn't really think about him. he'd asked her once, though, why she didn't seem all that interested in the things he did; remembers bringing this back up during their breakup, citing incompatibility, saying they were just too different, really.
in front of her megan pauses. glances back at daniela before pointing vaguely in front of her. "look," she says. "there's like, a building with little souvenirs or something you can get."
"my legs hurt," daniela responds. "do you want something?"
"maybe," megan says, bringing her thumb to her mouth briefly to chew on the side of her nail. "let's see first."
megan sets off again, this time towards the little building and the shrine next to it. daniela's aware megan only really brought her here because she knows daniela doesn't like the whole hiking thing, and not because she has any sort of vested interest in japanese temples, but still. daniela trails behind her, content to watch the expanse of her back, the excited wring of her hands, as she pulls out her wallet and wonders if she has any cash.
"they do fortunes," megan points out, knocking on a plastic bowl filled with little red—goblins? daniela doesn't know what they are—with the knuckle of her forefinger. there's a small roll of pink paper sticking out the bottom of each. neither of them can read japanese, obviously, but daniela's eyes are working well enough to read the fat 200 yen sign sitting in front of the bowl.
"i don't really have any coins left," daniela grumbles, but she digs around for enough to make up 400 and dumps them in the metal coinbox.
the goblins jingle when daniela digs around the bowl for one that, like, speaks to her or whatever, and she realises she's going to get very annoyed at the bell inside when she finally pulls one out.
"i don't know what we expected," daniela says when she cracks it open to complete japanese.
"that's what phones are for, dani," megan shoots back. and, like, okay. daniela thinks there's definitely going to be something lost in translation that way, but she's spent a whole three dollars now so, whatever works.
for a few minutes daniela stands there watching megan tap away at her phone in mute amusement, eventually pulling her own phone out to snap a photo of megan when her tongue ends up poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration.
"you looked cute," daniela justifies when megan frowns up at her.
"whatever, just don't like, post it."
daniela hums, rocking back and forth on her heels. "next year. for your birth—oh my god, wait, ew. pause. you're going to be twenty-one."
"okay, first of all," megan says, eyes wide and her expression scandalised, "you are going to be twenty-three, which is like, so much worse, so i don't know what you're so weirded out about. and second, surely you have better photos to post."
daniela just motions at megan's phone. "have you figured it out yet?"
turns out she's right about the translation part, because she's fairly sure temples aren't writing things like, saddle horse is a mutual business expense, on people’s fortunes, but she is given a two minute crash course on omikuji's as well as a list of possible luck results, so it's fine. for the better half of the time they're standing there daniela spends it squinting between megan's phone and her fortune slip playing match the characters.
"like," she eventually says, "middle blessing, i think. the second one. i am not going to try and pronounce that. is that good?"
megan shrugs. "i think so. it's the second best option there."
they tie the fortunes up on a little fence nearby, because megan says it's good to and because daniela doesn't really have any need for something she can't read.
"it's supposed to be that, like, the tree helps make your wish come true, or something," megan reiterates, tugging her fortune's knot tight. "the spirit of the tree. you tie it on these little fences so that the tree doesn't get damaged, though."
"okay," daniela says simply. she doesn't really have any wishes to make, not any she's brave enough to confront and ask for at nine-am in the morning, anyway.
megan turns to start up the next set of slopes. daniela watches the pink dance of all the fortunes in the light breeze, before tugging her jeans back up and following after her.
it really was a stupid joke, is the thing. a bad one that daniela never meant a word of.
over the last year she'd been on a horrifying run of them; after korea she'd been so insecure in her own self-perception it'd spilled over into places it shouldn't have, interviews and weverse lives and the corridors of their own house. there'd been a particularly bad instance leading up to the release of beautiful chaos where even manon had felt the need to corner her later, moments after they'd stepped into their new apartment, turning on her heel to ask really, what the fuck did you mean by that?
the blunt press of manon's nail in her sternum. the low hiss of her voice telling her to be careful, for god's sake, dani. have some tact. you know better. i know you do.
and she'd spent days after that trying to make it up to her bandmates. trying to convey how sorry she was, that cracked privilege had a way of making her a fool.
it'd been fine, for a while. no bad blood, not that there really was any to begin with.
but then there was the tour, and atlanta, and the rush of a hometown concert thrumming through her nervous system, her nerves crackling like open ended wires—then there'd been the afterparty, and daniela's home, and megan—
and megan, in her childhood bedroom, pressed against the door that she never managed to convince her parents to put a lock on, lips on lips and hands on skin and the heady feel of want intertwining with that rush, and the tangled mess of everything since.
until they reach the main temple at the top, there's nothing else that interesting along the way.
megan's started singing at some point, little lines and melodies from whatever song she can think of, and when she's not paying attention daniela tugs her phone back out to film her.
someone save me, she says, sending it to the groupchat. my thighs hurt
LOLLLL is the only response she gets. from sophia, which is to be expected; daniela doesn't think the other members have even cracked open their eyes yet. in front of her, megan spins around to poke her tongue out, before raising her voice to sing slightly louder.
daniela rolls her eyes. says, "dude, you're gonna, like, disturb the ghosts of buddhism past, or something."
"i'm a popstar, dani. i'm culturing them."
"so am i?" daniela points out, but it's a lost cause and megan's gone back to riffing off of moonbeam ice cream anyway, even though no one's cared about that song in months.
to her side, as they round the corner of the millionth path up the hill, it's suddenly feels as if they've surfaced through water. daniela feels the burn of her muscles working as the tips of the trees fall away to a view of the surrounding ocean of green, and it's everywhere. there's another mountain in the distance she can see. the rolling slope of a second one behind that. she can see everything. the frightening endless, cloudless stretch of blue sky, the roof of the little shrine they passed on the way, the benches of the rest stop below them.
"huh." daniela slows to a stop, midway up the trail. megan pauses as well, blinking at her.
"what's up?"
"nothing," daniela says, shaking her head lightly. "just, you were right. it is pretty."
the view is better from the top, obviously. after daniela spends five minutes on the first bench she sees with her eyes shut and the low, rhythmic pulse of her sore calves, she walks over to the center of the red fence lining the outskirts of the main temple, leans onto it with her forearms to gaze back out into all the green.
for a moment there's finally quiet. megan joins her, something contemplative washing over her face as she crosses her arms and gazes out much in the same way as daniela.
they stay that way for a little while, before daniela opens her camera again to take photos of the landscape, the bright red pervasiveness of the temple's main hall, the paper lanterns. megan, next to her, because she can. because it's easy.
after atlanta had been texas, and arizona, and san francisco, and at all three stops daniela had found a way to kick manon out of their room all for the express purpose of being able to kiss megan against any surface available. it was a—weird fucking feeling, like now after any performance she needed that secondary buzz, or else she was left keyed up and on edge like a bad comedown.
megan hadn't said anything about it, just let daniela find her after each show, willing and hungry. this was the first problem, in hindsight. daniela should've known better. this was megan she was messing with, after all, and there was always going to be something cruel about that. the second problem was daniela. their members weren't stupid, least of all manon, and it's not like it's hard to put two and two together.
but daniela was a coward, at the end of the day. she was never going to address it.
in los angeles, at the second last stop of their tour, daniela couldn't bring herself to keep going. this wasn't going to be another hotel room rendezvous. this was their home. there was something numbingly real about it, a line she couldn't cross.
she'd still caved, though. just a little bit. remembers what it was like to curl her hand around megan's jaw in the hallway outside her apartment, the soft flush of her cheeks, the light post-show muss of her hair. what it was like to raise herself up onto her tiptoes just to press her mouth against megan's, something gentle, lingering.
"it's called, um, kongoshou," megan is saying. they're still at the top of the mountain, in front of the main temple, except now megan's wrangling daniela into position on top of a small triangular decal carved into the stone in the center of everything.
"okay," daniela replies. "and what does that mean?"
"okay, so. it's like." megan walks over to curl her hand around daniela's bicep to tug her back a few steps. "it's a six pointed star. um. 'the six points represent the six ways we sense and connect with the world in buddhism: the eyes, the ears, the nose, mouth, body, and heart.'"
daniela glances down at her shoes, before trailing her eyes outward at the star pattern surrounding her. "right," she says. "what am i doing?"
megan shrugs. knocks at daniela's shoulder lightly with an elbow. "close your eyes, i guess. apparently you're supposed to feel energy, or something. realise your innate power."
"my innate power," daniela repeats, raising an eyebrow. megan only shrugs again, so daniela rolls her eyes and closes them regardless.
okay, so. daniela doesn't feel shit, which is unsurprising and expected. her legs ache still, the most prominent feeling, followed by the chapped skin of her lips, which she darts a tongue out to wet. then the slight sway of her body now that she's been standing in the dark for long enough her balance is starting to go off-kilter. there's megan hovering behind her, again, the prickle of proximity dancing across her skin. and then—
"you didn't mean it, did you?" megan asks quietly, out of the blue. daniela snaps her eyes open and is met with the bright red flash of the temple pillars imprinting into her vision. "what you said."
"what?" daniela says first. then, "no, megs. if it's about—no."
megan's quiet for a beat. "but you said it."
"yeah," daniela says quietly, still staring at the main hall. "i did. and i'm still sorry. you're—it wasn't just fun. that was stupid. i don't know why i said that."
"you were drunk," megan points out.
"and scared. i was trying to, i don't know, like, not make it sound so heavy."
there are cicadas, in the distance. they never seem to shut up here. somewhere below them there are voices floating up, and megan nudges daniela so they're facing, again.
"i'm not, like, asking you to be in love with me," megan says, blunt. sometimes she's like that. at first it always threw daniela off, how someone who seemed so fundamentally emotional could really be so in tune, rational when the moment called for it.
daniela tugs on her bottom lip, chewing into it. says, "i know."
megan's got this way of looking at her, brown eyes boring over her skin like she could piece everything together just from her body language alone. bisecting and probing at her. "so?"
there's a lot daniela could say here. but she's still scared, really, and for some reason all she can think of is that stupid plum blossom poem. that, and whatever it was megan said before she'd been forced to shut her eyes five minutes ago and open up her senses. mouth, body, heart. megan's got all of it, regardless. daniela's been running her mind over it for weeks—months now, all the grooves of that night at the beginning of the year where they'd gone out to celebrate the successful end to the tour and she'd panicked at manon and sophia's sudden confrontation. the painful after, the rewiring of herself.
"i can't kiss you up here," is what she settles on, and hopes megan understands what she's getting at.
the train is busier on their way back. still small, still rickety underneath daniela's legs, which she keeps having to shift to force some feeling back into.
across from them is what looks like a group of teenagers from one of the surrounding villages, and it's the weekend, so daniela can guess at where it is they're going. kurama to kyoto. this train line only really has two destinations. one of them is standing, holding onto one of the swinging handles dangling from the ceiling, and daniela tilts her head at the float of laughter as the train stutters to a halt at one of the stations and he's sent stumbling down the compartment.
next to her, megan's kept herself awake, this time. her head nestled into the crook of daniela's neck.
lightly she taps daniela's hand, the one resting on her knee. pries it apart so it lies flat and open.
"what," daniela murmurs. megan doesn't say anything, just lightly presses a finger into her palm, traces a small shape out into her skin. daniela only huffs, "you know i don't know what that means. why do you only know chinese when it's convenient?"
megan only giggles to herself, the ridiculous fuck. and then it's the sun again, beaming into the carriage in slats, long and bright and golden. spilt yolk. daniela turns to press a smile into the crown of megan's hair, soft and telling. something like an answer.
梅一輪
一輪ほどの
暖かさ
- 服部嵐雪