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The crowd is alive tonight.
The fans are screaming their names, waving their lightsticks, and fawning over every look sent out in their vague direction. The sun is setting just beyond them, the last rays of daylight illuminating the grins on the faces of their most fervent supporters before dipping below the horizon. It’s a sight that Chisato has grown very familiar with over the years with Pastel*Palettes; she’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss it, sometimes. Perhaps that is why she dreams about it so often.
The dreams aren’t always the same, but she seems to constantly find herself on the stage nevertheless. After a lifetime spent under the spotlight, her mind has made a habit of reliving those days even in her quietest hours of rest. Some things never change.
Yet, suddenly, Chisato finds herself wide awake. One moment, shining under the warmth of eternal adoration, the next, roused from those dreams of the past by… well, she’s not exactly sure what. Her brain, sluggish from being pulled so rapidly to its senses, takes a few seconds to process this swift change, a few astonishingly prolonged seconds before she realizes— Aya.
Aya is shaking next to her in their bed, and before Chisato’s still half-asleep brain can even fully analyze the situation, her arms are reaching out to embrace her, to bring her close. Even in her confused and drowsy state, Chisato longs for her, longs to protect the woman who sleeps in her bed next to her every night. After all, Aya is the woman she gave it all up for, the life in the spotlight and the adoring fans and jumping from one screen to another, always in the public eye. She gave up the veneration of Shirasagi Chisato for the privilege of loving Aya, her Aya, for the rest of her life, and given the opportunity, she would always choose to do so over and over again.
Aya melts right into her, as always, and in Chisato’s arms, Aya seems to relax just the slightest bit; Chisato still feels her trembling against her own body, though, still unsettled by whatever seems to have gotten her in this state to begin with. “It’s okay, Aya,” she murmurs into her wife’s ear, rubbing her back gently. “What happened–?”
Almost as if on cue, as if Chisato is once again a puppet on one of the many stages she grew up on, thunder roars. Multiple things happen all at once; Aya cries out in shock, Chisato grimaces as her nails dig slightly into her back, realizing exactly what it was that woke her up, and later, she’ll swear their house shook just the slightest bit from the sheer loudness of the sound descending from the skies.
“S-so loud,” Aya stammers, relinquishing her hold on Chisato’s back only slightly. “It’s so loud, Chisato.”
Lightning flashes, illuminating their room in their house that belongs to them and them alone; Chisato can feel Aya tense in anticipation, in the knowledge that another crack of thunder is only seconds away. “I know, baby,” Chisato whispers, holding Aya impossibly closer, despite the fact that their bodies have been flush together since the moment Chisato awakened. She can’t help it, can’t resist the urge to hold Aya as if it would physically pain her to have to let go.
Another habit, she thinks, from years of holding Aya in dark rooms and secret corners, as if it would be her last time doing so. They never knew when the last time would be, after all. Those years feel as if they were just yesterday, those days filled with regret and hurt and, above all, fear; fear that one day, her Aya would be torn away from her, fear that their agency and the public eye would wisen up to what had been under their noses the entire time, fear that they would be broken apart for the rest of eternity.
They’ve both been through a hell of a lot more than one ferocious thunderstorm to get here, Chisato thinks. Not that it makes it any less terrifying. Aya’s always been the more easily frightened one out of the two of them, but Chisato would be lying if she said she wasn’t scared at all of the storm raging just outside. If she needed to put on a brave face for Aya, though, that’s just what she would do.
“Hey, look at me,” Chisato directs softly, leaning back slightly to gaze up at her beloved. Aya stares back down at her, glossy eyes and trembling lips and even now, Chisato thinks that she’s never been more in love. “We’ve been through worse, haven’t we? And we made it through alright, right?”
Aya nods once, a little breathlessly. “We… we have.”
“We have,” Chisato repeats, kissing the crown of Aya’s head softly. “I love you very much, Aya.” Another kiss, this time delicately placed on her forehead. “I promise, I won’t let anything hurt you, especially not this.”
It’s woefully cheesy, not at all anything the Chisato of the past would have ever dreamed of uttering. Thankfully, the Chisato of the present is far from the person she used to be, the little girl who let fear and hesitation rule over her so completely, the girl who would have never imagined that she would spend her happiest days in the presence of another.
The thunder rolls again, but it’s softer this time around. Soft enough that Aya doesn’t cry out, merely burying her head back into the crook of Chisato’s neck at the sound. “Chisato…”
“Yes?”
“After all these years… you’re still my knight in shining armor, aren’t you?” Aya murmurs sleepily; Chisato doesn’t have to see her face to know that the fear there has been warded off, replaced by a warm blush and a cheeky grin.
“Hmm?” Chisato feigns ignorance, reaching a hand up to idly play with long strands of Aya’s pink hair. She still remembers the first time Aya called her that, so many years ago; and, although time had passed, the same fluttering in her chest has still remained.
“Hmm?” Aya mimics, giggling against Chisato’s skin. “My knight in shining armor… my Chisato. Thank you...”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Chisato smiles, closing her eyes and tightening her hold on Aya. This, she thinks, is pure heaven. She has everything she could ever want right here, in her arms. “I love you.” She says it again, just because she can. Just because she remembers, a bit too vividly, what life was like when she was unsure when she would be able to say it again.
“I love you, too.”
“Always.”
“Always.”