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If there was anything she was used to, it was space.
Not the kind of space filled with glimmering stars and great, spiraling orbs of stone and earth that revolved around a point of magnificent light. No, no; her relation to space was something far less splendid, far less beautiful.
Her name was Takane Enomoto, and she was used to emptiness.
Since she was young, it was a constant companion. Empty bedrooms, empty kitchens, empty nooks and crannies where most families would have photographs or souvenirs or various knickknacks tucked away like sacred treasures, and all she had was expired plane passports or else…nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
And when a girl grew up with a single grandparent in a house that was too big yet so small, filled with ancient things that had worn themselves down to gaps and cracks, holes in old socks and tears in hand-sewn sweaters, what was she supposed to do but…come to embrace it?
Except not really.
Don’t touch it. It wasn’t there. All that empty space was exactly that—it offered her an opportunity to breathe. When the nights dragged on and on and she could only dream of sleeping, she could stretch her weary body out and touch nothing at all.
When she wanted to pace back and forth with a particularly difficult math problem on her mind, she didn’t have to worry about hitting anything; there was nothing in her way. No one. Peace and quiet might even entice some sleep to come to her when she actually needed it for once. Who knew?
She didn’t.
And it didn’t matter.
The silence and emptiness meant she could sigh all she wanted and not care who heard. She could sing to obscure artists that reverberated through her headphones. She could stay up all night and there would be no one around to judge her. She could make a mistake in a game for once and not have to worry about her reputation coming apart at the seams.
She could breathe.
She could breathe.
(And she could cry, without fear; that was, perhaps, the best part some nights.)
Keeping everything and everyone at arm’s length promised she wouldn’t have to worry about who she was or how she acted. If no one cared, then she didn’t have to care either.
It was simple.
Takane Enomoto and empty space.
…
But then, of course, he came.
Through space, through gaps, through cracks and nooks and crannies and the voids between old floorboards, he came.
Haruka, with his stupid, sweet smiles that radiated light and warmth, he became the big bang that ripped through her world and made something from nothing—planets! Planets. Orbiting, spinning, turning around him. Constantly. Always. The center of her universe, the something in her nothing, in the space she put up around herself, he wandered in and decided to stay.
Haruka Kokonose and a stretch of stars.
(In the end, she made space for him.)