A/N: Thank you for reading!
She never thought her heart would have survived the beating. She never thought her lungs would have stopped burning from the months she cried over a girl who she knew could do no wrong. Nevertheless, after a long time of sulking, Yumi had finally, little by little, taken a hold of herself again. She was, at last, putting back the weight she had lost in the months, days and hours which followed the last words spoken by her once Onee-sama.
Taking a semester off after graduating from high school was needed in order for the brunette to put herself back together; still, summer was almost over and the deferred-attendance requests sent to the five universities she had been accepted to, had not been addressed yet. Yumi did have plans of going back to school sometime soon, but she was sure that decision wasn't going to be made right away.
It was Friday night. Yumi knew it because Yuuki's favorite show was on; from her bedroom she could hear the T.V. blasting and Yuuki's sparse but unmistakable giggles. The boy held a special place in the girl's heart, which allowed him to annoy her without retaliation – blood is thicker than water, after all.
When Yumi came down the stairs, hair free from her trademark pigtails, wearing –a very flattering– pink sundress, and started to put on her shoes, Yuuki raised an eyebrow but refrained from any comments which could have made Yumi change her mind about finally leaving her house. Instead, he watched the girl fiddle with her sandals for a quick second before she walked to the living room, "I'm gonna try to surprise Sei tonight. I'll see you in the morning." And into the warm summer night she went.
She drew in a deep breath, allowing her lungs to expand and feel alive once more. She had thought that all of the crying she had done in the past few months had rendered the organ unequipped – the shallow breathing that came with weeping did nothing but weaken and delay Yumi's attempts of recovery, being able to inhale deeply once again was a feat Yumi was proud of, and she was starting to believe what many people had been telling her: time heals all wounds.
The train station looked exactly the same as Yumi remembered it. Absolutely nothing had changed, the bright lights, small shops and the raft of people coming and going made the brunette realize that though her life had come to a complete halt, the world kept on going, rotating on its own axis like it had always done.
When Yumi exited the north-bound train she had taken, Tokyo, much like an old friend she hadn't seen in years, welcomed her with open arms. The agitation and amalgamation of voices inside bars and restaurants she walked by, the loud electronic noises escaping from arcades, the thumps and cracklings of soda machines, things Yumi had taken for granted before, were accepted one by one by the girl, soaked in like it was the first time Yumi had ever seen and heard and felt that chaos.
The dim lights on the inside of the bar Yumi entered made the girl's eyes complain as they adjusted from the brightness of the streets. The music was loud, the dance floor packed; people look like they were enjoying themselves, and as the brunette approached the back, she spotted her friends: first Shimako, then Youko and finally Sei, sitting at the bar.
"Ah! Yumi!" Youko's eyes glimmered at the sight of her dear friend, a mixture of relief and happiness laced in her voice.
"Yumi-chan, Yumi-chan!" Sei stood up and walked toward her friend "It's good to see that you have come back from the dead." She hugged Yumi tightly, "Come, come sit by us!"
Bringing Yumi into the most tender of embraces, Shimako was all the more careful with her friend's body, "it's been too long, Yumi-san."
"I apologize for disappearing." She, somehow, in the midst of a packed bar, found room to bow deeply.
Bringing Yumi to a straightened position once again, Youko spoke, "Apologizing will get you nowhere." She hugged Yumi, "Just don't leave us again."
Yumi thanked Maria-sama for being fortunate enough to have friends like the ones standing in front of her. Girls who were as human as Yumi, who had fought battles of their own, with all of their might, and who had tried to hold on to love with nails and teeth, and much like Yumi, had lost some of those battles, yet, surviving to tell the tales of forgotten love and broken hearts to whoever had ears to listen to them. Yumi knew she was at home amongst the broken, even so, she felt embarrassed for taking so long to reach out to those girls who wanted nothing but to see her happy again.
"Do you still drink beer?" Sei asked while raising her hand to get the barkeep's attention. Yumi nodded and Sei proceeded to order her friend a drink.
The girls sat and talked for a long time. Yumi silently listened to the girls go back and forth between school stories and plans they had for the future. Yumi felt as if she was never absent but at the same time, she knew she had missed out on the small things, like Shimako's courageously owning her feelings toward Noriko and preparing to confess the day her petite soeur graduated from Lillian. As well as Youko and Sei's new apartment in Shibuya, and the delightful process of adjusting to living with one another. It had only been a few months, but Yumi could see her friends maturing, growing beautifully into their own skin – all of it, so refreshing and hope-filled, Yumi wanted to feel that, too; she wanted to grow side-by-side with those girls. She didn't want to be left behind.
In the middle of Yumi's second prayer to Maria-sama, Sei suggested the friends moved on to their next spot. Yumi finished her silent plea as she walked out of the bar. And breathing deeply again, she followed her friends down the strip.
From door to door, the girls drank, and little by little Yumi saw that Lillian had nothing on them any longer. They were free to disturb the pleads of their skirts and to drink like true adults. A beer at each bar, trailed by giggles and burps and the onset of slurred words, Yumi felt life being injected into her veins.
"You can't just skip a bar, Youko-sama! Sei-sama, do something about this! Look, look, look, Youko-sama, Rosa Chinensis!" Yumi turned toward the street and pointed at each bar they had visited and had a drink at. "We've been to one, two, t-three, four bars already. You can't break the chain now!"
"This place is too nice, though."
"But…"
Sei interjected, "You're too nice, Youko. I say let's do it!" And toward the entrance the blonde went, holding the door open and bowing as Yumi and Shimako walked in. Youko's eye-roll didn't go unnoticed by Sei who just smirked at the brunette's annoyance.
"Sei-sama, can you get me a beer?" Yumi shouted and walked toward the restroom sign pointing at it before disappearing into a dark hallway.
"Don't even bother with Yumi's beer." Youko said flatly, reaching for the food menu. At Sei's eyebrow-raise, Youko flipped the menu over to show Sei who owned the bar.
"That doesn't mean anything!" The blonde shrugged after seeing the Ogasawara logo on the back of the menu.
"She's here."
"How can you be so sure?" Sei's smile deflated after Youko glared at the blonde.
"Fuck."
As the three friends decided on what to order, Yumi walked out of the restroom and headed back toward the bar. Though even before she had left the dark hallway which connected the dining area to the restrooms, she heard her name being called from behind her.
And that voice, the same one which once made the brunette melt into a puddle of adoration, made her freeze into place.
"Please, don't run away."
"Sachiko-sama…" Yumi brought her hand to her chest, holding on to the fabric of her dress tightly as if that way her heart could be appeased.
"Please." Came the request in the sweetest of whispers.
Head down, Yumi turned around slowly trying not to hyperventilate in the process. All of the alcohol she had had that night seemed to have had gone straight to her head the moment she heard her name being called by the heiress. Her face, already flushed, felt ten times warmer while her fingers felt cold; Ogasawara Sachiko had that effect on the brunette.
The clammy hands and the lightheadedness, and the palpitation and the chaotic ringing in her ears that wouldn't go away had become almost unbearable after Yumi had realized that her intentions toward the heiress were more than sisterly. To think that Sachiko would have been the one to take the leap, kissing Yumi in the living room of the Fukuzawa's home –sitting at a kotastu on a Tuesday afternoon, half-way through explaining first derivative of functions in different equations– was something Yumi had never dreamed of happening. Only when Sachiko had leaned in for the second time did Yumi return the favor; tears on her face, the younger girl kissed Sachiko with fervor, like she needed the heiress' lips on hers in order to survive, like if they parted, Yumi's heart would stop beating.
The feeling of Sachiko's lips kindly landing on Yumi's for the first time had been carved deeply through the layers of Yumi's heart. When Sachiko continued to steal kisses, first in the most discrete of ways, then later with much less precaution regarding where they were or who was watching, Yumi did nothing but oblige. Little by little, the connection between the two Red Roses had grown in strength and for a moment Yumi thought that was it – Sachiko was the woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
"Do you mind if we talk? I haven't seen you since…"
"I'm with S—"
"They can wait. My staff will take care of them and my driver will get them home if need be. There's no need to worry."
"H-hai…" Yumi was trying to be civil.
Thinking they were just going to go into the office Sachiko had walked out of, Yumi took a step toward the heiress, allowing Sachiko all of the room she needed to reach for Yumi's hand, "We should go upstairs," she said and proceeded to lead Yumi in a quest across the dining room, through another small and dark hallway, until they reached the steps which led them to the second floor.
Sachiko's hand was warm, and though it was still soft, Yumi was quick to notice the callouses; even with the distraction, that heat reverberated through Yumi's body like the two girls were extensions of one another. Step by step Yumi watched Sachiko lead the way like she had done so many other times at Lillian. Yumi watched the heiress' hips as they swayed with each step she took –the tight slacks leaving nothing to Yumi's imagination.
"We rent this area out for meetings and private parties." Sachiko mentioned when she walked into the room and flipped the lights on. "It wasn't reserved tonight."
"Sachiko-sa—"
"Would you care for a beer?" The heiress walked behind the bar in a corner of the room. "I can make you something, too," she reached for the shaker.
"Beer is fine."
"Got it." The heiress turned around and grabbed a beer for Yumi, twisting it open and handing it to the brunette. She proceeded to retrieve a mixing glass and poured gin and vermouth into it. She then tossed a couple of ice cubes inside the glass and stirred it. Reaching into the freezer, she claimed a martini glass, then strained the mixture into it. Finishing up, she took a lemon to the cutting board, chopping it into six pieces and taking one of the parts and running it across the rim before dropping it into the drink. Sachiko walked to a leather couch which rested behind a large window with a view to the city. She sat down and asked Yumi to accompany her.
"I didn't know you could mix drinks."
"When you work at a bar, you learn to do a bit of everything."
"You work here?"
"Why are you so surprised?"
"You…"
"Don't need to?"
"…"
"It's amazing what a few months of washing dishes will do to someone like me."
"Washing dishes?"
"I learn to mix drinks after hours… Although I'd love to help at the bar, being an Ogasawara would draw too much attention to myself. Plus," She took a sip of her martini, "I like the back of the house."
"Sachiko-sama…"
"What's the matter?"
"Why?"
"Why? Because I was going insane."
"…"
"You never answered my calls."
"I—"
"You ignored my text messages and e-mails. You told Yuuki to tell me you weren't home when I knew you were."
"…I... Sachiko-sama… I… couldn't bear to see you." Yumi spoke from her heart, the knot in her throat making her voice crack, and that was enough to fill Sachiko's eyes with tears, "So you decided on your own that we couldn't even be friends anymore?"
"Friends?!" Yumi raised her voice.
"Can we not be friends? We were friends befo—"
"Before you kissed me?"
"... You kissed me back, Yumi. Don't make me the bad guy here."
"I did kiss you back..."
Yumi knew she was as responsible as Sachiko for their relationship. Had she not been completely head-over-heels for Sachiko, she could've just told her Onee-sama that their first kiss was a simple, honest mistake, and they could have shared that blame and then moved on with their soeurship like that episode had never happened. Nevertheless, Yumi wanted the kiss as much –or perhaps even more – than Sachiko wanted it. She wanted all of the stolen kisses that came after the first one, she wanted the warmth of Sachiko's hands on her shoulders even when her uniform looked perfectly into place. She wanted day-long dates and late-night phone calls that lasted way too long, she longed for the good-night texts and had become used to being the one sending the good-morning ones – Sachiko was Sachiko and hated mornings, after all.
"Why did you hide from me?"
A deep breath and Yumi was on her feet. Perhaps more than air, the girl had drawn in all of the courage she could muster at that moment. She watched Sachiko stand up as well, in fear the brunette would just walk out. But instead of a reprise of the last time they saw one another, Yumi answered the questions posed by Sachiko, "I couldn't bear to look at you and not touch you, and not kiss you, and not want to have you all for myself like a selfish child!"
"Yumi." Sachiko stood in front of the brunette, "Then why did you leave me?"
Sachiko knew Yumi had always adored her. The heiress was as confused as she was broken hearted by Yumi's decision to let her go. However, Sachiko had never realized that the love which burned inside Yumi's chest like a wildfire in the heart of summer was only overshadowed by her deepest insecurities. Sachiko was an Ogasawara; the heiress of one of the largest Companies in Japan, a princess who had been reared with the utmost finesse and decorum by the most qualified instructors; the girl was destined to become a queen. Yumi knew how capable the raven-haired girl was and wanted nothing but to be supportive. However, in order to allow Sachiko to reach for the stars, Yumi knew she needed to let the girl fly solo. She knew that if Sachiko were to have a partner, such person needed to be as apt as the heiress, and unfortunately, as much as Yumi wanted to be that person, in her heart, she knew that it was just wishful thinking. How could a middle-class, ordinary girl with ordinary features have such outlandish hopes? A Fukuzawa belonged in the middle of the proletariat, blending in like the good plebeians they had always been. Sachiko deserved more, and with that in mind, Yumi had severed ties with the heiress.
What had been planned to be a simple and clean breakup, a burden being finally lifted off of Sachiko's shoulders, had turned into a painful goodbye concluded with the return of the rosary that had been an extension of Yumi for almost three full years.
"Sachiko-sama. I can't do this again…"
Yumi berated herself for selfishly holding Sachiko back for three year! She was ashamed of her thoughtlessness. Because she was blinded by Sachiko's light, she turned into a horrid parasite, holding on to the heiress for dear life.
Falling in love with Sachiko was easy, who in their right mind wouldn't have melted at the girl's stares and soft touches? Sachiko was a princess, after all. Since she was the one who accepted Sachiko's advances to begin with, Yumi had felt responsible for terminating that absurd fairy tale she had created for herself. Sachiko could finally be free.
"But how can I move on when all you've told me was that you can't be with me? Then you go on to say we can't be friends anymore. How do you think I feel after losing the love of my life and my best friend all at once?"
Yumi lifted her eyes to meet Sachiko's, perhaps recognizing that if she didn't explain herself properly, Sachiko would never really understand what Yumi had tried to say before. Sachiko had always asked Yumi to be clear when she spoke, so she did as she was once taught, "You deserve so much more than me. You deserve smart, funny, proper and articulate. You deserve so much more than this." Yumi pointed at herself with both hands. "I have nothing to offer you, no inheritance of any sort, no last name, no future."
"Yumi." Sachiko started, taking a step closer to the girl in front of her, "I never felt as if I was missing out on propriety by having you by my side. You're intelligent, funny, and you have a heart that is more valuable than all of the money, fame and last names I can think of. I couldn't care less about where we come from. All I care about is you. I'd be happy working here for the rest of my life if I could have you as a partner."
"Sachiko-sama…"
"My parents have known about us ever since the day I came back home after kissing you for the first time. The agreement we had with Suguru-san was revoked by my father after he asked me to prove to him I could lead the Company on my own. He told me I had six months to do to so, gave me options on what responsibilities I could take within the Ogasawara Company and I chose to work here." Even when Yumi had decided to leave Sachiko, the heiress stuck around to complete her assignment, freeing herself from the burden of having to marry Kashiwagi. "That was almost a year-and-a-half ago. Even after gaining his approval I stuck around and when you left, working here was what kept me sane."
"…"
"Yumi. I wanted to finish school and go to work. I wanted to buy a house with my own money so I could ask you to marry me – I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, because you are worth it, even though you don't think you are. I think you are worth so much more than I could ever give you, though that didn't keep me from wanting to work hard so I could at least try… so I could at least touch the surface of all of the amazing things you deserve. I wanted so badly to just love you, because my heart overflows with feelings for you… But that doesn't even matter anymore. Right now all I ask from you is that you don't disappear from my life, that you don't forsake my heart's desire to see you, even if it is for a half-hour once in a while. If I can't have your heart, then at least let me keep you as a friend. You don't even need to take the rosary back, just text me sometimes to tell me Yuuki is too loud, or that Touko is too meddlesome. Let me be part of your life again, because without you and your smile and your voice and your heart, my life is a complete mess."
Frozen in place, Yumi tried to soak in every word that came out of Sachiko's mouth. She went further to dissect every pause, every intonation within that speech. Yumi couldn't find one millisecond where Sachiko wasn't pouring out her heart in the most humbled and sincere way Yumi had ever heard the heiress speak. "You wanted to marry me?" The question left Yumi's lips shyly.
"More than anything I ever wanted in my life."
"You wanted to spend the rest of my life with me?"
"Hai."
"You'd wash dishes for a living so you could be with me?"
"Hai."
Those answers, short as they might have been, quiet as they might have sounded, were enough to make whatever was left of Yumi's heart swell up with all of the love Sachiko was pouring out of her own chest. Yumi thought that by not being around Sachiko, she would be allowing the heiress to move forward, what she didn't expect was that Sachiko didn't want to take another step in any direction without Yumi.
"Okay." Yumi said, eyes full of tears which rolled down the girls face freely and unabashedly.
"Okay?"
"Yes."
"So, you'll call me sometimes?"
"Hmm uhmm."
"And you'll let me see you once in a while?"
"Yes."
"I'm so glad." Sachiko brought both hands to Yumi's shoulders, straightening up an imaginary sailor collar. Then she brought Yumi into a tight hug.
"Sachiko-sama." Yumi ceased the embrace so she could look at the older girl. "I–I'm not done answering your questions…" she said.
"You're not d—" Then understanding dawned upon Sachiko, "So… you'll take the rosary back?"
"Yes. I will."
"And…" Sachiko hesitated, but needed to ask, even if it killed her to hear a negative answer, "And you'll allow me to prove to you that you are worth being by my side?" At Yumi's nod of agreement, Sachiko continued, timidly, "And you'll let me love you again?"
"Yes. I will."
"… and you'll marry me?"
"In a heart beat."
A/N: What? Sachiko is actually not the bad guy for a change? ;)
What did you guys think?
A/N #2: 12/17/2016 - edited typos... -.-