a/n: *throws more queer mentor figures at kumiko* stop being sad!

Kumiko didn't know much about Satomi Niiyama - she'd be the first to tell you that. She helped out the band sometimes, she was Mizore's mentor, and she'd been a college friend of Taki and Hashimoto, but beyond that she was a mystery, a background noise. Reina had been jealous of her, only for the fears to be quelled within a day. Kumiko thought of her rarely.

Which was why she was surprised when Niiyama started to talk to her as she helped put away desks for the evening, as easily as she might with an old friend.

"So, how are things going, Oumae-san?" she asked, pushing a desk into the wall with a final squeak against the floorboards.

"Eh?"

"Just, with your friends, your life. High school is a tumultuous time. I certainly don't miss it." Niiyama smiled, as if remembering something too precious to speak aloud.

"Oh, uh, things are fine, I guess?" Kumiko shrugged, her arms trembling with the effort to keep her desk from crashing. Niiyama hefted it up. "Just . . . weird. Tumultuous, like you said."

"And Kousaka-san?"

"What?!" Kumiko stumbled back, then, heat overtaking her face. "W-what about her?"

"You two seem close."

Kumiko weighed her options, then. Niiyama had never been anything other than friendly, and here she was offering an olive branch, a figure to confide in.

"Yeah," she finally said. "Yeah, we are."

"I figured as much." Niiyama gently nudged the last desk into place and stared off at the wall, a distant sort of look in her eye. "You remind me a little bit of myself, you know. At least in my college years."

"Really?" Kumiko sat on one of the desks, keeping her feet on the ground so it wouldn't wobble. Niiyama leaned on the one next to her. The sun had gone down early tonight, and the blue sky shone navy outdoors.

"I had feelings for someone, too."

"W-who was . . . who were they?" Kumiko didn't dare let the hope starting to blossom in her chest get out, didn't dare say anything else.

"Her name was Chihiro."

"Chihiro," Kumiko echoed, scrunching up her face as she tried to remember where she'd heard that name before. Chihiro. Then-

"Wait, you were in love with Taki-sensei's wife?!"

"Now, don't let the whole school hear," Niiyama laughed softly. Kumiko's head felt light.

"You- she- what?"

"We were like peas in a pod, all four of us, but I spent a lot of time around Chihiro-chan, right as I found out that I might not be as straight as I thought I was. Taki-kun fell first, though, and the two of them were so happy I was content just to watch from the sidelines. This was all around fifteen years ago, mind you. Times have changed since then."

"Uh, right."

"We stayed close, though, even after those two got engaged." Niiyama leaned over, then, a hand over her mouth as though she were telling a secret. "I was the maid of honor at their wedding, you know." She said it conspiratorially, then, like it was forbidden knowledge.

"D-did Taki-sensei ever . . . did he know?"

"Probably not." Niiyama laughed again, still quiet. "You know old Taki-kun, he's as dense as a rock. Wouldn't know affection if it hit him over the head, it's a wonder Chihiro-chan got through to him at all."

"Don't I know it," Kumiko muttered, thinking of Reina's varied screamed confessions, none of them hitting their mark.

"Hashimoto-kun did, though. Always gave me endless crap for it." Niiyama squared her shoulders and deepened her voice in a surprisingly accurate imitation of Hashimoto. "'Sato-chan, you're all caught up in a real love triangle! Quit pining over a married woman and get back in the dating scene already!' Like he was one to talk."

"What?"

"Oh, I really shouldn't go any further into all of this . . ." Niiyama smiled into her hand. "Let's just say I wasn't the only one who was a little jealous of the happy couple."

"Huh." Kumiko folded her hands, stared down at the slick floor, scuffed in places by her shoddy desk-carrying skills. "I, uh, I had no idea."

"Most people don't." Niiyama stood up, then. "But we're living in a different world now, Oumae-san. I'm sure you know that better than a lot of people. Don't be afraid, now, alright? I think things might work out a little better for you."

And then she left without another word, and Kumiko pulled out her phone in the darkness of the classroom, squinting against its brightness.

Kumiko: reina

Kumiko: want to hang out soon?

a/n: as soon as i read the translated short story about niiyama's past i hurried to write this and got it out in like two sittings