Title: things you said you wish you hadn't
Characters: Mio Akiyama, Ritsu Tainaka
Pairing: Mio/Ritsu
Genre: Angst, Romance (kinda)
Word Count: 1513
Warnings: n/a
Notes: ups to andrew, aka tumblr use spywi, for sending me this prompt and not specifying a pairing THUS giving me free reign to write about my favorite pair of homodachis
They were fighting again.
It seems like a routine by now, daily chore almost.
It starts before classes, as a group of their college light music club gathers in a class gap in the morning at their favorite local cafe. Their friends can only sigh and roll their eyes as they come in spewing frustrations at one another.
"And if you hadn't had waited until the last minute to get up, neither of us would've been late for our classes and I wouldn't have gotten that 10% cut on my paper for turning it in 15 minutes after class started!"
"Ya know maybe if you weren't such a stick in the mud and took a chill pill on your classes this wouldn't even be a problem in the first place, huh?!"
"God, you're impossible; I'm not even going to be nice and wait for you next time you're on your own."
Petty arguments may occur frequently throughout the day, but both girls know at this point, the other is just looking out and being protective over her girlfriend; they know there's still a connotation of love hidden in their spiteful words.
As the days wear on and turn into weeks, eventually a good month, the arguments are losing the caring touch to them and are turning into less than trivial things as a vicious cycle of verbal onslaught and frustration builds up.
Neither can even recall the words they say to one another. Both have become jaded to what the other says and responds mindlessly. Every aspect in their relationship turns into a way to dispel their respective chagrins and negative emotions on the other. In the bedroom, neither would even describe their acts of intimacy as 'making love,' like they used to. Lips fiercely bite down, hands grope impatiently, the only words muttered are "faster, harder," and it's over as soon as they both quickly reach their releases. They roll on their sides, facing opposite walls, and go to sleep, only for the next day to follow the ongoing circle.
Contrary to the way they negatively act towards one another, their relationship took too much work to throw away ten years of friendship, another couple years of desire for more, and seven months they've officially spent as a couple. That fact alone keeps them both on this never-ending ride on the same routine day after day.
There's a break one day, stopping the orbit from completing its usual circle.
Drum beats from a stack of magazines and unplugged bass lines fill the room, dwindling down to the final notes before the bassists comments that the drums are still rushing. They go through this every week during these one-on-one practices, to tune up the rhythm section of their band. The younger feels as though she says the same exact thing every time to the drummer, as if she's reading off a script, and weeks of the same thing has just left her, both of them, so goddamn tired.
The drummer scoffs and rolls her eyes as she flops down on her back, starring up at the ceiling.
And they argue. Again. Acting the same parts and lines as they always do. The bassist then starts reading off the script, stopping the cycle:
"God, Ritsu. I swear we go over this each week and nothing has changed. Are you even trying?! I love our band, and we all put in all this effort, Mugi's composing, I'm writing lyrics, Yui's constantly improving on the guitar, and Azusa is always fine tuning our songs, and what is our president even doing other than playing around and not even taking her position seriously! Why–Why do I even try anymore, Ritsu? It's been this way since we were in middle school; it's like nothing has even changed for you! Do you even care? God, Ritsu. Why have I wasted so much of my time on you? Why did I even become friends with such an unmotivated, immature, irresponsible person like you?!"
Ritsu immediately sits up, hands slamming on the table in front of her as she leans forward.
"Oh, Oh! Oh, like you're so perfect yourself, Mio! Who even brought you to the light music club in the first place? You woulda been stuck with boring 'ol nerds with their noses buried in their damn books about how fast snails crawl if it weren't for me! And ya know what, now I'm starting to think that would've been a better fit for you!"
The frustration built up starts to turn into anger, and Ritsu isn't even able to process what she says until it comes out of her mouth.
"All these years I drag you out of your boring shell to give you something you obviously don't understand: fun. You think gettin' perfect grades, turning in all your papers on time, being this 'perfect' girl in the eyes of everyone will matter in the end? You want to remember all the times you were holed up in your room studying? Or the times you spent enjoying your youth?!"
Mio holds her ground and glares holes into Ritsu's amber eyes as the drummer chuckles to herself.
"Ya know, Mio, you ask yourself why you've wasted so much of your precious time on me? Aren't you forgetting something? You think it was your idea to be friends with me? Do you even remember how you were before we were friends? You sat in your desk all goddamn day reading books by yourself in the classroom while the rest of our class had fun with one another. You think you're such a saint for spending all your time with a loser like me? Well do I have some fucking shocking news for you–"
Long fingers grip the neckline of the drummers shirt and faces are inches away from each other.
"Don't you dare finish that thought," Mio growls out. Ritsu just smirks in response.
"I felt sorry for your lonely ass, Mio. we're not friends because you're this high and mighty good Samaritan; we're friends because of me, because you had no one else–"
A sting of hand hitting cheek stops the words and the two are left in a deafening silence as Mio extracts her hand from Ritsu's collar as she kneels and curls into herself.
Almost immediately after the slap, Ritsu realizes what she said and guilt overwhelms her body.
"Hol-holy shit… Oh my god, holy fuck. I… I'm–oh shit," Ritsu's hand covers her forehead in disbelief, "Mio, I'm so sorry, oh fuck. Mio, I didn't mean that I love you so much oh my god I just… God I fucked up, please, Mio-"
Tough hands reach out to the bassists shoulder, but are slapped away before they make contact.
"Don't touch me," Mio croaks out, voice raw with sobs stuck in the back of her throat, "I don't need your fucking sympathy anymore, Ritsu."
The drummer knows Mio does curse, but she's never heard Mio utter 'fuck' before, knowing in full this is not going to turn out like the rest of their jaded arguments before this.
It takes an hour for either girl to move from their spots; Mio stayed hunched over her knees, Ritsu stared at the ground, hands lagging on her sides.
When Mio sits up, tears stain her cheeks, her eyes red and puffy. Ritsu starts slow, looking into the grey orbs full of hurt, and takes her time to apologize, counting her blessings that Mio didn't run away.
They talk. They talk for a long time. Before either realizes it, it's nearly 1AM, a good five hours from when their first started their rhythm practice session. They talk about what just happened, they talk about the past month, they talk about when they first became friends, they talk about how they became a couple, they talk about how they've been as a couple, they talk about how they both agree their relationship is unhealthy right now, they talk about where they see this relationship going.
They talk about how they both agree they can't be a couple, for right now, at least.
As Mio walks out of Ritsu's room at the end of the night (a weird feeling since they'd been sleeping in the same room most nights,) Ritsu stops Mio before she's out the door and grabs onto the bassist's wrist.
"I still really do care about you and love you. Nothing will change that. I know I said some pretty shitty things to you, not just tonight but all these years, and I will always love you Even if after this break we decide not to get back together, I will always love you as my best friend, Mio."
Much like their first kiss, Mio catches her off guard and kisses Ritsu's left cheek, lingering there a moment afterward and lets out a whimper.
"Me too, I love you too, always."
She twists her wrist out of Ritsu's grasp, retreats back to her own room, and both girls fail to get any sleep that night, yet finally free from the cycle.
Notes: i love ritsu/mio but real talk, i do think that if they ever got together, there's a lot of aspects of their relationship that are unhealthy. but it gives me an excuse to write angsty shit so i digress