a/n: the name for this doc on ffn's doc manager is "welcome to new york (it's been waiting for you)"

(also the school that reina is talking about is julliard, if you were wondering)

Reina sat on the bed, her fingers red from practice, and Kumiko wasn't quite sure what to do.

She had never been quite sure what to do, honestly - there was always a desire to go with whatever those who cared about her (those she cared about) decided to do, without much more to it than that. She loved the euphonium dearly, and that, at least, was something she had accomplished on her own, but she still didn't have the ambition that Reina did, perfecting her solos day and night, putting every single ounce of her soul into it, and it was this predicament that led her to the current position she was stuck in.

"Y-you're really leaving, huh?" Kumiko mumbled, sitting down on Reina's lush carpet. She had been in the room countless times before, and it still seemed to hold Reina's very essence - elegant, unflinching, but with some shards of a soul hidden beneath sheet music and college pamphlets, purple fairy lights strung above in a move that Reina claimed was put on by her mother to make the room seem more "cheery."

"I would be an idiot to turn this offer down, Kumiko." The words seemed weak, tentative, and Reina reached out a hand like the last person on a sinking ship, but Kumiko, for once, couldn't find it in her to hold it.

"New York, though." A pause, a curling and tightening of fingers around the carpet's fabric. "It's t-thousands of miles away, Reina."

"I'm well aware of that, Kumiko." It seemed like an intentional choice, to keep on repeating her name, and Kumiko was at least grateful for that. She was there, she was the one Reina was talking about, they had this moment. Reina slowly retracted her hand, carefully, as if she was still waiting for Kumiko to hold it. It idly occurred to Kumiko that they were in the same position as they had been so long ago, at that festival that had changed everything. Reina sat above her on the bed, still stunning even with her fingers blistered and her eyes unfocused, and Kumiko could only watch her in awe.

"Aren't there schools closer to here? There must be some in Japan, right?"

"There are. They aren't as well-regarded. I've talked with everyone - the rest of the band, my parents, Taki-sensei - and they've all agreed that it's the best possible option."

You'll leave. You'll be gone and you'll leave me behind. "Isn't it h-hard, though? What if it's too much for you?"

"I'll simply try harder," Reina calmly replied, drumming her fingers along the bedframe.

"What if they break you?" Kumiko clenched the fibers of the carpet as her hands trembled. Reina cocked an eyebrow, running a hand through her hair.

"You believe that it would be that easy to, as you say, 'break me?' You believe that I'm that brittle, that fragile?"

"Yes!" Kumiko nearly shouted. "Yes, Reina, because you're not an impenetrable fortress! You're not some soulless being that can't get hurt!" She swallowed down the uncertainty in her voice, keeping her grip on the carpet - it was the only thing keeping her from reaching for Reina and holding her close, because she knew that she might never let go if that happened. "You're a person, Reina, and m-maybe you're an amazing person, but you still have feelings. We're b-both still kids. I don't know what I'd do if you . . . if you . . ."

"If I what?"

"If you stopped trying to become special!" Kumiko practically screamed the words, her heart thudding in her chest.

"Explain." Reina was still retaining her calm façade, still looking at Kumiko expectantly, and she gulped.

"T-that's not why I fell in love with you," Kumiko began, loosening her hold on the pale feathers of the carpet's fabric as she propped herself on the bed next to Reina. "It wasn't your ambition that held my hand d-during the results of the first competition, y'know? It wasn't your ambition that promised me t-that things would be alright, even when you were the one who really should've been being comforted. It wasn't your ambition that made me feel lightheaded and lovesick the first time I kissed you and you waited a few seconds to kiss me back." Reina looked to the open window, lavender curtains blowing softly in the breeze.

"Why does it matter, then?"

"Because it's important to you, Reina. I'm n-not as strong-willed as you, okay? I know that. Still, it's important to you, and that means that it's important to me too. If you lost that spark . . . I don't really know how I'd help." A few crinkled leaves from the trees below drifted in through the window. "I d-don't really ever know how to help, to be honest."

"Kumiko." Reina placed a hand on her shoulder, firm and reassuring. "You've done plenty. I promise, I won't let it get to me. No matter what, I won't stop trying to become special."

"Promise?"

"What kind of person would I be if I didn't swear something like that on my life?" Kumiko smirked.

"A terrible one, probably."

"You really are skilled at ruining the heightened emotions of a moment like this, aren't you?"

"I guess that's, uh, what I do best."

"No." Reina pressed her hands to Kumiko's cheeks after taking a quick glance at the door. "What you do best, Kumiko, is trying your best to understand the things that would be better off unknown." Kumiko, for once, didn't feel any hesitation when she leaned in and the room might as well have become a million glowing lights, for how unbelievable (how comforting) the kiss still was.

They made it work the best they could.

Reina went to the music school, and Kumiko found herself attending a small college with just enough friendly faces to busy herself until the nightly videochats with Reina, an ever-present rock in her schedule that she wouldn't trade for the world. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't even great, but it worked. It worked, and Kumiko kept a tiny calendar next to her bed, checking off every day until the one circled in purple pen came.

The taxi ride was one that felt like an eternity, buildings and houses that had become somewhat familiar crawling along at an unbearably slow pace.

"Who're you visitin', anyway?" the taxi driver - a quiet-seeming elderly man - asked her about halfway through. "Family? Friends?"

"My girlfriend," Kumiko replied with a hint of pride in her voice.

"Hmm." The taxi driver didn't say anything for the duration of the ride. After what could've been a hundred years, they reached the busy din of the airport, and Kumiko gave the taxi driver a quick wave before running to the baggage claim, her heart thudding like a mallet on a well-used drum. She had always hated airports, and this one was no different - the clamor of chattering travelers and that dry, artificial airport smell all crowded Kumiko's senses, but she still continued on.

Reina's here somewhere. Reina's here somewhere. Reina's-

"Kumiko?" Kumiko's head shot up. Reina stood, nearly as poised as she had in high school, and it didn't even take Kumiko a second to dash over to her, dropping her bags and practically jumping into her arms. "You're late." Kumiko stepped back, bashfully scratching the back of her neck. She saw, now, that Reina looked quite a bit older than she had the last time Kumiko had seen her in person - she seemed sharper, somehow, though Kumiko didn't exactly know what it was that looked different.

"Yeah, well, there was a bunch of traffic and-"

"I missed you." Reina set down her trumpet case and pressed a quick kiss to Kumiko's lips. Nobody seemed to pay them any heed.

"I missed you too," Kumiko murmured, letting the airport fade to a blur of gray and white as she leaned against Reina.

"They haven't broken me yet."

"I'm glad, Reina."

"They won't ever take this away, no matter how difficult it becomes. We'll still have this."

"Are you sure?"

"I promise."