A/N: Written for the Another Mega Prompts Challenge, writing prompts #26 - drabble that is 251-350 words
Sister and Friend
It took Kumiko almost the entire reason to work out why Tanaka Asuka made her so uncomfortable. It had nothing to do with the euphonium after all. In fact, she might've put it together faster if she played the trumpet instead, like Mamiko.
But she didn't. She played the euphonium and that was like Kumiko, except her playing was so much more beautiful than Kumiko. And it wasn't that she was jealous – though she was, a little, and she freely admitted it because everyone was jealous of Tanaka Asuka – but there was something else. The way she always smiled and joked around but never took the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was a sectional leader and the vice president of the club to boot but all the weighty decisions she simply handed over to the president and Haruka bucked under the weight.
Asuka was capable. She simply didn't do it. And that was frustrating.
And it was only when she stopped showing up for club and Mamiko screamed at home that Kumiko managed to put it all together.
They reminded her of each other: Mamiko and Asuka. And Mamiko left the band on their mother's say-so and she lived to regret it and now it was too late, far too late, to do anything about it. And now Asuka was doing the same. Leaving the band because her mother told her to do so and she was smiling and saying it wouldn't matter but Kumiko could see it now: that ugly desperate rage on her face when she realises she's let the thing she truly loved slip away for some useless adult thing…
Asuka is not an adult. Mamiko is an adult and maybe it is too late for her, but it's not too late for Asuka.
And Kumiko had done nothing for Mamiko because she hadn't understood, but she could do something for Asuka.