a/n: i have decided to attempt publishing a new fic every day this month for femslash february, let's see how it goes

i've never built furniture from ikea so idk how accurate all of this is

"The instructions are in Swedish." Kumiko and Reina were, at the moment, staring down at a mismatched pile of polished wooden boards, nails and screws, and discarded pieces of bubble wrap. Reina peered at the instructions in confusion. "They're in Swedish, Kumiko."

"Here, let me see that." Kumiko took the now-crumpled paper from Reina's hands and stared at the words. "Yep, they're in Swedish, all right."

"Do we know anyone who speaks Swedish?"

"Asuka, maybe."

"We're not calling Asuka."

"Fine, then, we're not calling Asuka. What do we do now?"

"We don't give up." Reina picked up a board - Kumiko vaguely recognized it as a leg - and started slamming it against the bed frame.

"Uh, R-Reina?" Kumiko mumbled.

"Yes?"

"I don't think that'll work. See, there's a couple of drawings here." Kumiko pointed to a series of images. Reina looked over Kumiko's shoulder at the pictures - poorly drawn stick figures holding up power tools and putting together the bed with more ease than they really should have been able to.

"The stick figure represents us, then?"

"I guess. It looks pretty dumb, though." The blank-faced person was shown next to the directions - presumably explaining what each piece was, but nobody in the room knew Swedish.

"We need tools," Reina commented. "If that graphic on the left is any indication, at least, we'll need a screwdriver, a hammer, and whatever that is."

"I might have those lying around in a desk somewhere."

"Why do you think you have power tools?"

"Freakin' Shuichi dumps his crap here all the time. I don't know why, honestly, but at least it'll spare me the experience of talking to the guy."

"It works in our favor, then?"

"Yeah. Crap, where'd he leave that?" Kumiko scooted away from the near-perfect circle of assorted building supplies, leaving Reina to puzzle over the instructions.

An hour later, Kumiko had managed to dig up a hammer, a screwdriver, and at least five boards that definitely hadn't been there in the beginning. Reina had gone back to repeatedly slamming the leg against the bed frame. Both girls were just as confused as they had been at the beginning.

"The thing I have to wonder," Reina began, still slamming the leg, "-is why they won't just assemble these before sending them to us."

"Mm-hmm." Kumiko had started trying to find a website to translate the text, but so far the only thing she had come up with was hammer in the third round Gotsume, whatever that meant.

"I mean-" thwack "-it really would-" thwack "-make things easier for everyone-" thwack. "Regardless of the payoff one might achieve in the end, it really isn't worth it."

"Yep." Kumiko was about ready to just drape a blanket over a few of the boards and call it a day, but Reina remained determined. Kumiko admired that about her, the way she carried herself with such high regard for both herself and others, the way she didn't give up on something that was important to her. She was amazing, Kumiko thought, even when she was trying (and failing) to put together an Ikea bed, and she really was failing.

"It's honestly ridiculous." Reina crawled inside the bed frame and looked around. "The instructions, they're unbelievably vague, but I won't give up. You won't either, right?"

"Y-yeah, I won't," Kumiko mumbled. Truth be told, she had been considering calling someone to assemble the bed for them, but Reina seemed so insistent on finishing it that she just couldn't bear to rain on her parade. Or her bed, as things turned out. "Do you want me to join you in there?"

"I don't see why not." Kumiko flashed a sharp grin as she abruptly pounced on Reina among the boards and nails and screws, laughing as the other girl grabbed her hands and the two started kissing, the mess of an in-progress bed forgotten for the moment. Kumiko would've gladly stopped the furniture assembly right then and there, but Reina had already pulled away and was holding the screwdriver upside down, trying to shove it into one of the slots.

"R-Reina?"

"Yes?"

"I think you have to put the screw in first." Reina turned beet-red. Kumiko couldn't help but be a bit surprised - she didn't know that Reina could even be embarrassed by something that didn't involve a band advisor. Right, he existed. "Hey, remember when you had a crush on Taki-sensei?" Kumiko lightly teased, prodding Reina with her elbow.

"I'm pretty sure that you remember that more than I do," Reina huffed, finally making progress on one of the legs.

"Y-yeah, you're right about that," Kumiko admitted. "It was just a legitimate thing I was worried about, y'know? Here was the girl of my dreams, here she was confiding in me, here she was creating a real friendship, maybe even something more, and then . . ." Kumiko's voice lowered, twiddling her thumbs nervously as Reina finished twisting in the last screw. ". . . Then here she was, telling me that she was in love with the teacher. You could've imagined my disappointment."

"That's not important now, though," Reina muttered. "We're together, here, right now, attempting to build a bed. Attempting is the key word here, but we're still together. That's what matters, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Kumiko murmured. "A-anyway, I guess we should focus on this bed now."

"I agree."

"Y'know, they really need to just make the numbers bigger," Kumiko grumbled, hammering in what she hoped to be the last nail. "That would've made all of this a lot easier. Or, I don't know, actually had the instructions written in a language other than Swedish."

"Patience, Kumiko." Reina had finally managed to find a place for the leg, which she gave a small, affectionate pat before condemning it to an eternal fate supporting the two girls during all hours of the night while crammed in a corner of the tiny apartment they currently inhabited. "In any case, it looks like we're finally done." Kumiko stood back to admire the handiwork.

"It's nothing pretty," she began, dusting herself off. "But it's still pretty cool, huh?"

"We made it. There's something special in that." Reina smiled. Kumiko wrapped an arm around her, relishing in the other girl's warmth.

"You know, we'll need to go back."

"Why?"

"We need mattresses." Kumiko, at least, didn't favor the idea of sleeping on hard wooden boards.

"Will they expect us to sew them ourselves?" Reina retorted, a hint of playful sharpness lingering on her tongue.

"I don't really know."

Three hours, seven website checks, and one trip back to Ikea later, a simple white mattress sat precariously balanced on the bed.

"Aren't you afraid of, I dunno, the bed collapsing?" Kumiko inquired as Reina flopped down on the mattress and nestled underneath the soft blanket that Kumiko had dug out from an old box. Reina looked back up and shrugged.

"It seems fairly stable, at least when it's supporting one person. I can't say I'm sure it'll stay up with two, though."

"I guess we'll just have to see, then." Kumiko jumped and flung herself onto the bed with a laugh. Reina smiled, and the two girls leaned in for a kiss just as one of the legs cracked and the bed was sent falling to the floor.

"I suppose I shouldn't have slammed that leg against the frame as much," Reina mused.

"Why did the instructions have to be in Swedish?" Kumiko sighed.

a/n: the thing kumiko translated was actually what happened when i put a generic instruction into several layers of google translate. the internet is a wonderful thing.