Linger.

But we don't have to talk about it.

Past Lives.

How does one deal with the absence of someone they were born knowing? Akari doesn't have an answer. She would love to have one, to know how she is supposed to deal with the sudden loss of the one person she's shared her entire existence with. It's always been Akari and Keiko, Akari and Keiko-and it's particularly ironic that her twin sister's name was always heard second, because though she was the second one to come into this world, she was the first to go.

Someone always has to leave first. Both times Akari is left behind, it's because Keiko left first. The first time is when they're seventeen, a day after their birthday; she wakes up only to find a strawberry-scented note on her nightstand explaining what she always suspected; that Keiko no longer fit in that house like her sister did. Having grabbed some money on the way out, Keiko leaves Tokyo and takes the train to move to a coastal city to "find herself". (Her self-discovery comes in the form of joining a rock band and moving in a cramped little apartment with her roommate, Nana.)

The second and final time, Akari gets no goodbye notes or even an explanation, though it comes just as unexpectedly. Keiko takes her own life, having decided that she no longer fits in that world like her sister does and once again, leaves Akari behind to deal with the chaos that comes with grief. Her hand tremors, the ones she's convinced have destroyed her life and ruined any form of potential she might have ever had, become worse. She's now sharing her blood with a corpse. Her boss hates her, her cat hates her, she's certain her mother hates her as well and the only person that doesn't seem to hate her is the tip of the iceberg in more ways than one.

Enter:    Ren Honjo-her sister's ex bandmate, now bassist in the ever-growing rock band, Trapnest. He sneaks up on her out of nowhere and soon enough, she sees him everywhere she turns; flyers, posters, magazines, her phone, her kitchen, her bathroom, her bedroom, her bed. He's a walking liability, a weakness that she has to kill before it kills her. An inevitability. And because Akari has more sense than trying to drown herself in alcohol or drugs to come to peace with her grief, she drowns herself in Ren.

But if there is one thing that she's learnt from her sister-her other half, her gaping wound-it's that someone always has to leave first and Akari was born to be left behind.

as described / akari yoshiwara

as described / ren honjo

🪷

I love water but I cannot swim.
What a tragic way to say;
I love you, but I cannot survive you.

AUTHOR'S NOTES. did someone order a nana fic in the year of our lord 2024? no. but bare with me cause this fic has been my new hyperfixation for at least 2 months now. there's just something about these two people who don't know how to form healthy attachments falling in love that just gets me. for our main character we have akari (for the sake of graphics i use yukari from paradise kiss as a faceclaim, but feel free to imagine her more like how i describe her in the book) who is a goddamn mess—and that's what i love the most about her. she's just a twenty year old going through loneliness and unimaginable grief and trauma that she doesn't know how to cope through, all while having the typical young adult problems like "what the fuck am i doing with my life?". and it only becomes worse (or maybe better?) when ren comes along cause if there's one word to use about him, it'd be intense, sth that a bitch w intense abandonment and attachment issues like akari doesn't really know how to handle.

now some more disclaimers: obviously all rights go to ai yazawa and i own nothing but my original characters. i haven't read the manga, so this fic will mostly follow the show—with a few creative liberties of course (act one happens before the show starts, act two is when it does) and exploring my own interpretations of the characters, which means yours might be different than mine. the characters in nana are all basically flawed in one way or the other (going from ✨️simply being idiots✨️ to ✨️committing literal crimes✨️) so i feel like this is obvious but i don't agree with all the behaviors depicted in this fic. however, akari is quite the unreliable narrator and is flawed as well, so... take that into account while reading.

this fic is much more than just the relationship between akari and ren, though their (questionable in terms of healthiness) relationship is a big part of it. i hesitate to call it a coming-of-age story but it might as well be and the themes of grief are the core. its one thing to lose a sibling and its another thing to lose a twin—that's what i imagine, at least. keiko will be haunting the narrative all throughout bc what else is she supposed to do? she's been dead since the beginning.

two more disclaimers; this story takes place in japan and im from greece, so obviously im trying and ill be doing my research but in case i mess sth up, like perhaps names, locations or culture-related stuff, im open to discussion so i can correct it! same thing goes for my depiction of hand tremors as a result of a physical injury and trauma—while i am close to someone who has a similar issue, i still might get something wrong but i hope you'll be lenient on me.

content warnings: this story contains themes of substance abuse, suicide, ptsd and trauma both physical and mental. i'd advise you to look up content warnings for nana in general, but there are also themes of S.A, grooming and underage prostitution that the manga goes in more details about, although i'm not sure the extent they'll be depicted to in this fic. in general, this is your reminder that most nana characters are a bit messed up.

please don't be ghostreaders yada yada, im pretty sure this fic will flop bc who even writes about nana in 2024 but lemme alone. i hope you enjoy akari and her story as much as i do <3