"I though an angel had fallen from the sky," Fujitaka said with a warm smile on his kind face, as Nadeshiko stood dusted her skirt down self-consciously beside him.
That sentence had marked the beginning of the 10 long years of happiness for Nadeshiko. True, there had been times when she had regretted her rash decision to marry Fujitaka. It was not that Fujitaka had not been a good man. Lord knew he had tried to make her as happy as possible, waking up half and hour earlier than she did to prepare her lunchbox, smiling warmly at her in the corridors despite the disapproving looks that the other teachers gave him, staying back at the tiny apartment that was their home on days that she was sick. He had even allowed Nadeshiko to redo his entire apartment, despite knowing that she would forget where she put important papers when asked.
But she did often wonder what she would have done had she merely dismissed Fujitaka as just another one of those men who flattered her day and night. She often wondered what her future would have been like. Of course she would have been without the joy that children often give to young women like her, but perhaps she would have been a more successful model, appearing in magazines that circulated the entire country, instead of just in the small city that Tomoeda was. Perhaps, given her hardworking nature and her eagerness to please people, she would have been able to secure herself a job that paid more.
One thing she knew was that she most definitely would have been able to spend more time with Sonomi, her cousin and her best friend since as far back as she could remember, and perhaps even deepen their relationship to a more intimate one.
She never knew what Sonomi had felt (she had acted just like an older sister would around her), but she knew that the tied-up confused feeling that she got whenever she looked at Sonomi or heard her voice was more than what a mere friend and cousin should feel. Whenever she was apart from Sonomi, she would wonder about her, and would think about Sonomi's kind face and even kinder voice. A smile on Sonomi's face would more often than not cause her own lips to twitch and curve into a sweet beautiful smile.
She had spent years wondering about these feelings, ever since she first noticed them in 6th Grade. The two of them had been at the lake, having a picnic, when Nadeshiko had caught sight of an extremely beautiful butterfly hovering near where they were seated. Being the enthusiastic child that she was, she had chased after it, wanting to look at it closely and memorise its rare beauty. Just as she was about to reach it, she stumbled on a rock and fell headlong into the cold lake. The water had soaked her clothes and had pulled at her, trying its best to bring her down unto its soft bed, where it had hoped she would spend her eternity. She had struggled, flayed, desperately trying to keep her head above the surface, and all the while getting weaker. When at last her energy had been spent, she had sunk slowly, weeping at the prospect of not being able to see her grandfather anymore. Her last conscious thought before blacking out had been a depressing one, as she thought of all the ones she loved and cared deeply about. Unknown to her, Sonomi had dived in after her and, being a much better swimmer, had managed to pull both Nadeshiko and herself up onto the grass.
Nadeshiko had awoken with the feeling of someone holding her hand and had been shocked to see Sonomi's shivering body seated beside her bed.
"Sonomi-chan," Nadeshiko had whispered. Sonomi had opened her eyes and, on seeing that Nadeshiko was awake and seemingly fine, she had drawn Nadeshiko into a tight embrace, with one hand encircling her slender waist and another stroking her lush black hair. Nadeshiko had been stiff with shock at the action, but had slowly relaxed into Sonomi's body, forgetting to breathe completely as the nearness of Sonomi fogged her mind. She had been surprised to find that her heart had begun to speed up as well. It was then that Nadeshiko first became aware of her deeper feelings for Sonomi.
She had never told Sonomi of her feelings, for being the timid girl that she was, she was afraid that Sonomi would reject her immediately. She was afraid that Sonomi would look upon her with a look of utmost disgust and abandon her for less strange people. However, with each passing day, her feelings for Sonomi only strengthened to a point that she found herself wishing she could feel Sonomi's warm lips brush against her own or once again be able to have Sonomi lovingly stroking her hair…
There had been a time in 8th Grade when, not quite feeling like the usual timid Nadeshiko, she had grasped Sonomi's chin lightly with her fingers and had stared into Sonomi's shocked eyes, willing herself to kiss her. She had gotten closer and closer, until she could literally count Sonomi's eyelashes, when suddenly, she became completely aware of what she was doing and had let go of Sonomi's face as quickly as though she had been scalded by an invisible flame. Thankfully, Sonomi, being the sensitive girl that she was, had not spoken of that incident at all in the days that followed.
There were times when, looking up from her homework, she saw Sonomi looking upon her with eyes unusually shiny and cheeks unusually pink. But just as she began to draw hope into her heart, hope that perhaps Sonomi felt as she did, Sonomi would blink and look upon her with her usual motherly expression, all traces of her blush gone.
And then came the fateful day when she had plummeted down from a tree branch on onto Kinomoto-sensei, after which he had muttered those words. She soon married him after, despite pleas from both her grandfather and Sonomi to reconsider. And soon after she graduated, her first child had come along. A boy, with thick black hair and eyes so blue, that one could drown in them. And she knew at that moment that there was no way she could leave Fujitaka at all, no way that she could fulfil her wish of being with the one whom she truly loved.