It was still cold, the first hints of spring just starting to show through the cracks in winter's brittle hold, when Tsuruko showed up at Anaru's door without warning. Delicate flowers and greening grass cropped up past the melting snow, yet a bone chilling wind still swept through the town. As much as the weather felt strange and ambivalent, so did Tsuruko's visit. Everyone was closer after they could finally properly say goodbye to Menma, but it was still out of the ordinary for Tsuruko, steely and blunt and ever so perceptive, to visit without so much as a call.
Caught with her hair undone, curly and frizzy, her thick framed glasses on, and wearing an old pair of knit shorts and a Sailor Moon hoodie, Anaru felt just like she had all those years ago. She was back to being the little girl who hated who she was but didn't know how to change while everyone around her shone and sparkled and left her behind in the dust. And Tsuruko, as she always did, looked neat and put together. Her hair was a little longer now, grown out to a sleek bob, but still had the same pink clip pinning her bangs in place. And that made Anaru feel just a little better. At least some small lpart of Tsuruko still clung to the past the same way Anaru did.
Inviting Tsuruko in, the two girls headed up to Anaru's room. Lacy camisoles and low cut dresses spilled out of her closet and nail polish and magazines littered to floor. Yet, her old, beaten game boy was the thing that sat open and in use on her unmade bed. As much of a front as she tried to build up, Anaru always felt like a fake. That game boy, the manga stuffed in the back of her closet, and the anime discs she cried a little over when she told her mom to donate them years ago still showed her true self. And she just couldn't bring herself to change that, no matter how much she may have wanted to.
Sweeping aside the clutter of makeup brushes and tubes of tinted lip gloss, Anaru cleared off one side of the table that sat in the center of the room. She took a seat across from Tsuruko, folding her hands in her lap. Before Anaru had a chance to ask about why she had come or what she had wanted, Tsuruko met her gaze, the silence between them suddenly growing heavier.
"Why don't you ever move on from Jintan?" Tsuruko asked pointedly, skipping past the pleasantries and flowery conversation that, really, neither of them cared for anyway. Tsuruko viewed it as unnecessary and a waste of time and it always made Anaru feel out of depth, like she was making missteps at every turn. Despite what her friends and classmates would believe now, socializing didn't come easily to her. It never had.
In any case, the sudden question caught Anaru off guard. Absently biting her bottom lip, Anaru tried to sort her tangled thoughts into something reasonable and logical, something Tsuruko could appreciate. Still, the one thing she could pick out above everything else was the pang of hurt, buried deep in her chest, that surfaced at the words. In truth, it came down to the fact that she just couldn't move on.
It wasn't a matter of why did she or did she not move past her crush of over a decade, because it wasn't even a choice to begin with. It was just a lot of messy feelings and emotions that she couldn't put into words, like the way she lost her breath when he smiled or felt her cheeks go red when he looked her way for just a beat too long. She had handed her heart over years ago to someone who didn't even want it, and no matter how she tried, she couldn't get it back. Her heart would always belong to Jintan, even if he crushed it a little more with every bit of rebuffed affection and every ignored confession.
"He's the only thing I know. For me, he's home, and I don't want anything else," Anaru finally answered, hating the way her voice wavered and broke in the quiet statement. Heat was already starting to bloom behind her eyes and her throat felt tight with emotion and Anaru hated it all. Tsuruko had hardly been there five minutes and Anaru was already fighting back the urge to go cry on her shoulder. But, that's always how she got whenever her unrequited crush on Jintan came up. Her eyes would get watery and her voice would start to tremble and the same, persistent ache in her chest would throb with hurt and wanting and every painful thing left unsaid.
"So, you'd rather make yourself miserable than go find some other descent guy to settle for?" Tsuruko asked, tone flat and even, though something flickered in her eyes for just a beat before she could carefully tuck it behind the mask she always wore. Anaru couldn't quite pick it out though, and wished, for a moment, that she was as sharp as Tsuruko.
"I guess so," Anaru replied quietly, the air around them heavy and serious. "I don't think I could do it. The thought of dating someone else makes me sick," she answered, thinking back on the guys Haruna and Aki had tried to set her up with over the years. They ranged anywhere from borderline harassers to relatively nice guys, but thinking about even casually dating any of them made Anaru's skin crawl. It just felt wrong on some level, and she couldn't get over it.
Tsuruko just sighed, tapping her nails against the table in a purposeful rhythm. "That's pitiful, and way too self righteous," Tsuruko replied shortly, some quiet sort of loathing slipping into her tone. After a beat, she turned to look out the window, watching misty rain collect on the glass. Her nails stilled against the table. "It hurts to admit I can empathize with that sentiment," she muttered under her breath, so quiet Anaru had to strain to hear her.
For a moment, Anaru just sat and stared, stunned. Tsuruko was the type who never hid her feelings, who was always blunt and straight and honest. Still, she had a way of circling around her emotions and thoughts. She always seemed so open, but when it really came down to it, even those close to her would find they knew next to nothing about her. She could talk for hours and make someone feel so close, yet when they walked away, they realized they knew nothing more about her than the moment that had sat down.
So a blunt admission of empathy, of understanding the heartache that always plagued Anaru, had caught her off guard. Implications whirled around in her mind, but they all seemed to settle on one question. "What happened with Yukiatsu?" Anaru asked quietly. Tsuruko wouldn't have come to talk unless something had happened. She didn't gossip and chat like the other girls, and she certainly wasn't interested in Anaru's love life, at least, once she had cleared up that she had no intentions of ever going out with Yukiatsu.
"He decided it was time to make my position in his life clear," Tsuruko replied, somehow revealing so much and skirting the question all at once. Still, the bitter hurt in her tone was more telling than any words she could say. Anaru knew that feeling too well to miss it.
"So, he turned you down?" Anaru asked, nervously knitting her hands together in her lap.
"Emphatically," Tsuruko answered with a soft sigh. "I'll admit I pushed him into it, and I already knew how he felt about me, but it still hurt," she said quietly, voice breaking off at the end. Her gentle gaze, now misty with tears, turned down to the worn floorboards, avoiding Anaru's eyes. Despite the pain drawn across her expression, clear and sharp, a light flush dusted across her features. Shame and vulnerability brought the color to her cheeks, cutting through the cool mask she wore.
"I just wanted to stay by his side. He didn't have to love me, even if he just used me, I would have been happy," Tsuruko murmured, voice sounding small and broken. She pulled in a shaky breath and held it, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat.
Before Anaru even noticed it, her own tears were rolling down her cheeks. It was only when they dripped from her chin and onto her hands that she realized she was crying. Hurriedly reaching up and swiping at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, Anaru sniffled and tried to regain some semblance of composure. It was a lost hope, though, when she realized Tsuruko had started crying too, albeit much more discreetly than herself.
"Tsuruko," Anaru cried, shuffling around to the other side of the table to throw her arms around the taller girl's shoulders. "I'm so sorry," she murmured through the tears, the words coming out shaky.
Burying her face in the crook of Tsuruko's neck, Anaru tried to quiet her cries and force her breaths to come slow and even. She felt ridiculous, crying over problems that weren't even her own. But Tsuruko's pain throbbed in her heart with every beat. Plus, the knowledge that the one being rejected could just as easily have been her weighed heavily on her mind. And that was probably the way it would turn out one day, once she finally worked up the courage to confess, forward and direct, without having to hide her feelings behind layers of insecurity and doubt. At least, now, she had a sympathetic shoulder to cry on in Tsuruko. It felt so much better than having to bury her head in her pillow, bite down on her lip, and try to choke back the sobs like she had been doing for so long.
Just thinking back to those lonely nights, after jolting awake from nightmares of Menma's death or days spent missing the company and comfort of her former friends, made Anaru's heart clench. The hollow despair that had carved out a pit deep in her chest, aching and intense, still haunted her from time to time, creeping up on her from the shadows after a long day when she was trying to sleep. Sometimes, that same crushing loneliness tangled in her lungs and coiled in her insides, despite the fact that she knew she had friends that cared and were just a call away. But that fear of isolation had become ingrained and proved tough to uproot.
"Anaru, are you okay? Your nails..." Tsuruko said gently, her voice still tight with emotion but sounding less broken than before.
The words pulling Anaru out of her head and back into the moment, she realized she'd tightened her grip on Tsuruko's shoulders and had dug her nails into the pale skin just above the neckline of her sweater. Flinching back, Anaru pulled her hands away to wipe at her eyes again. Guilt squirmed in her stomach when she saw the row of red crescent marks she had left behind.
"Sorry, I just got a little caught up in..." Anaru apologized quietly, struggling to find the right words. "In everything," she finished, easing back away from Tsuruko. Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her hoodie, Anaru tried to collect herself. She felt like little kid again and remembered her mom's horror at her using her sleeve like a tissue in public, but couldn't really bring herself to care. It was an old habit and somehow made her feel a little better.
To her surprise, a soft, gentle laugh sounded in the room, her watery eyes darting back up to meet Tsuruko's. The ghost of a smile touched her lips and the pain that swam deep in her irises was gone, even if it was just for a moment. Seeming to catch Anaru's confusion, Tsuruko spoke up to explain. "Before, I felt like everything was starting to fall apart around me. It's reassuring to see that you haven't changed a bit," Tsuruko said, offering a soft smile.
"How so?" Anaru asked.
"Well, if you're still the same girl who wears glasses, cries over boys, and wipes her nose all over her shirt, then I'm sure I can find a way to stay myself without chasing after Yukiatsu anymore," Tsuruko said, pulling her glasses off for a moment to wipe her eyes.
"I'm glad you can take comfort in all the ways I embarrass myself," Anaru huffed, though there was no malice in her tone. In truth, she was just glad she could, in any way, help Tsuruko feel better. The Super Peace Busters had already been through enough without messy romance and broken hearts. And even in there relationships weren't quite the same as when they were kids, Anaru was determined not to let them wear away this time. She wouldn't run away and she would be there for her friends, just like they would be there for her.
"I didn't mean them as bad things. I like it when you're you, instead of trying to be someone you're not. Fake nails, fake eyelashes, and fake confidence don't suit you. You really don't wear lies well," Tsuruko said, paying attention to keep her tone kind.
"I'll keep that in mind," Anaru replied with a weak laugh. For a moment, silence settled heavily in the air, though it wasn't uncomfortable. Weighty and serious, but still companionable and warm despite the spring chill in the air. Though, Anaru shifted where she sat, reaching up to brush back a stray lock of hair. "You're going to be okay, right?" she asked Tsuruko quietly, worries still clinging in the corners of her mind.
"I think I have more crying to do first," Tsuruko admitted with a shaky note of bitterness in her voice, "but I can accept that I'm not good enough for him. I've known that was a likely possibility for years, though it's a little different actually hearing it out loud." Hurt flashed across Tsuruko's expression, but it faded in a moment, replaced by something akin to resignation.
"If you ever want talk again, I'm here," Anaru offered.
Tsuruko just nodded, a small, grateful smile on her lips. And this time, unlike when they were younger, Anaru actually believed they would all be okay. Even if their little group was kind of dysfunctional, and even if they hurt each other from time to time, their bonds were stronger now. Just like she always did, Menma had brought them back together and made them all smile again, and Anaru couldn't have been more grateful for it.