Disclaimer: I'm not an owner, I'm just a random shipper.
Like Mushrooms
Lotte approached the door and raised her hand to knock, but no sooner than she touched the wood the door was flung open and she was enveloped in a bone crushing hug.
"Lotte! It's been so long, I'm so happy to see you! Come in, come in, come in!" Middle age had not dulled Akko's exuberance in the slightest. If anything, she was even more boisterous now than when they were in school together. Lotte entered the house shared by her two best friends with a smile that threatened to split her face, pulled along by the inexorable tide that was Akko.
"Is Sucy home?" Lotte glanced around the living room. It had been a few years since she'd been there. A busy few years for her. She was looking forward to catching up with her two oldest friends in the world, who had managed to find happiness together.
"No, she'll be at work for a couple more hours. I get you all to myself til then! Oh, drinks!" Akko said with a smack to her forehead. "How silly of me! I'll be right back."
While Akko rummaged around in the kitchen, Lotte continued to examine the living room. Pictures adorned the walls, many of the happy couple, but most including all three of them. Lotte walked over to the fireplace mantle and picked up the centerpiece feature, a graduation photo of the trio in a group hug. Akko and Lotte were crying, while Sucy was putting up with it with a long-suffering grimace. That girl had walls a mile high. Figures it would take someone as bullheaded as Akko to break them down.
"Nothing like a glass of sake after a hard day." Akko said, reentering the room with two wine glasses and two bottles. She and Lotte took seats across from each other, a coffee table between them, and Akko poured the drinks. "You still prefer sweet sake, right?"
"Yes, thank you. Alcohol and I don't mix very well." Lotte replied, doing her best not to remember the few times she'd gotten hammered. If only selective memory were among her skills, she thought ruefully.
Akko took a long sip of her own drink. "Aaaahhhh. Well, more for me. Sucy doesn't really drink very much either, so this bottle is aaaallllll mine tonight." She set down her drink momentarily. "So, how is work? You finally have some free time because you finished the movie adaptations, right? Did they turn out well?"
Lotte caught Akko up her life, explaining some of the ins and outs of movie production and life in Hollywood, a subject which she had become intimately familiar with working on the Nightfall trilogy. When she was approached with the idea of turning Nightfall into a movie series, she was over the moon. No way she would've turned it down at the time. Now, three years later, knowing all the work it took to make it happen and the way it took over her life, leaving her with minutes of free time per day, she would definitely have said no.
Akko had plenty to tell as well, explaining about Sucy's mushroom research and the progression and growth of the robotics company Constanze started with Amanda and Jazminka, the retirement of the headmistress and her replacement by Ursula, now the youngest headmistress in the school's history at a mere forty three years old. Plenty of gossip and squealing over Ursula's not-so-secret secret relationship with a certain mysterious and elusive magical researcher who seemed to pop in and out of hiding with the whimsy of the wind.
As Akko consumed more and more of her chosen beverage, she became more uninhibited, impossible as that seemed, and her topics of conversation narrowed down to one: Sucy. She alternated seamlessly between gushing over and complaining about her girlfriend/domestic partner. It was a subject she could discuss endlessly from both positive and negative perspectives. Lotte got to hear in gory detail all about what it was like to live in the same house, same room, same bed as Sucy Manbavaran.
"But If there's one thing I could complain about," Akko said, following a lot more than one thing she had already complained about, "It's that she always tastes like mushrooms. Always! Now, I like mushrooms as much as the next person, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, you know? Every day! Every time! Over and over! Mushrooms!"
Lotte shifted uncomfortably not especially happy with where the conversation had gone. She was very happy for her two friends and their relationship, but she firmly believed that things like kissing were meant to be private, shared between the two people involved and no one else. Unless, of course, the two people were a hot vampire and his chiseled Alpha werewolf boyfriend. Those kisses, she believed equally as firmly, were meant to be shared by all the women of the world. It was an inalienable right, as vital as breathing. But real life romances were different.
However, she did not have to change the subject, because Akko got a call on her cell. "Hello? Oh, hi Diana! No, I'm sorry, but I'm not going out drinking tonight. I'm entertaining. Hey, shutup, I am NOT a clown! I meant Lotte is here. Yes, I know! Yes. Yes. Okay, goodbye."
As she hung up, Lotte raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "You still talk to Diana? I'm surprised Sucy lets you, after..."
"After she confessed to me?" Akko shook her head with a fond smile. "Sucy is a real sweetheart about stuff like that. She knows how important my friendships are to me. Besides, she's not the jealous type."
Both of Lotte's eyebrows shot up at that. That didn't jive with what she knew of her friend at all. "Really?" She said incredulously.
"Yeah! We had a long talk about it, and she was so great. She said, 'I trust you, Akko. I know you would never do anything to hurt me. You wouldn't even think of it, you're too innocent. I'm not going to force you to stop being friends with Diana just because she's had a hopeless crush on you for fifteen years and finally got the gumption to say something about it.'"
"Well. That's...mature of her." Lotte said uncertainly.
"Yeah." Akko agreed. Then she giggled. "Oh, yeah, and then she said, 'And if Diana ever does anything I don't like, I'll just use her as a test subject for my latest batch of deadly spores.' Isn't that funny? Sucy can be a real crackup sometimes!" Akko slapped her knee in mirth.
"Yeah...funny." Lotte laughed uneasily. Please be careful, Diana. She sent up a series of fervent prayers for Diana's soul just in case.
Just then, the woman herself burst in the door. "Akko?" Sucy said. Her eyes were unfocused, and her strides were not what could be called steady.
"Oh, no. Were you using yourself as a live test subject again?" Akko said in resignation, not bothering to get out of her seat.
"No." Said Sucy unconvincingly. She was having trouble with the difficult task of standing still in the middle of the room.
"You promised you wouldn't do that anymore!"
"I won't. Didn't. Not really. Just a little bit." Sucy swayed, looking from Lotte to Akko and back. "Two Akko's? For me? Don't mind if I do." She weaved toward Lotte, managing to drop next to her on the couch, the back of her head landing in Lotte's lap.
"No, Sucy." Akko said wearily. "That's Lotte. She was coming over today, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Lotte was coming over. When does she get here?" Sucy asked, looking up at Lotte's face. "And when did your hair turn blonde, Akko? I do like those glasses on you, though. Very cute."
Akko sighed. "No, like I said, that's not-"
Before Lotte could react, Sucy grabbed her by the head and yanked her down to kissing range, forcing her tongue deep into Lotte's mouth for one agonizing moment before finally collapsing back into Lotte's lap unconscious.
Lotte was paralyzed with shock, but Akko was only irritated. "Aaaaand she falls asleep. Perfect. Could you give me a hand with her, Lotte? We should get her in bed. I don't think she'll be waking up any time soon." Lotte mechanically took Sucy's arms while Akko grabbed her legs. "Try not to bang her head on anything. Though she would deserve it if you did! Sorry about all this." Akko said with an apologetic afterthought.
When they got Sucy on the bed and returned to the living room, Lotte came out of her stupor. "Um, actually I feel like I should be the one apologising to you..."
"Nonsense! That wasn't your fault. The one that needs to apologize is her. Stupid Sucy and her stupid mushrooms." Akko griped.
"That reminds me," An incongruous thought popped into Lotte's head. "That didn't really taste like mushrooms. I thought you said her mouth always tastes like mushrooms?"
Akko blushed furiously and mumbled something under her breath.
"What was that?" Lotte leaned in closer. "I couldn't quite hear you."
"I SAID," Akko crossed her arms defiantly and turned her head, jutting her chin out, "I never said anything about her mouth."