Tsubomi x Yaya
Recovery
I tried my best to be somebody you'd be close to
hand in hand like lovers are supposed to, supposed to be
Dire Straits
Theirs was a story of rejection, of being left alone together in sleepless nights, those nights when she was not with them. Those nights brought them, somehow closer, even though very few words were ever spoken, very few looks were ever exchanged between the two of them. It was nothing more, really, than simple companionship.
To begin with, at least.
Tsubomi, whose crush on Hikari had begun to fade a while ago, was content to sit there and watch the varying stages of agony on her friend's face, watched the tears and the rage and the exhaustion; watched, as the days slipped away, those emotions become gradually less.
Those nights were inexplicable- when she was asked by her own room-mate where she was so much of the time, she simply shrugged, and pulled a face, and said that she was with friends, which, she supposed, was almost true. She was glad that she and her room-mate harboured no close bond- when she told her this, the girl had grinned, for she too spent many nights away from the room in illegal sleepovers and midnight feasts.
As it was, Tsubomi could not understand why she spent so many nights with Yaya, for she was hardly good company. It was just an urge, an inexplicable urge to do so, and now that Hikari spent so many nights in Amane's room, it was more than likely that if she went up there, then Yaya would open the door to her as she always did, and they would spend the night in silence.
When Nagisa and Tamao had tea-parties now, they did not invite 'Yaya-and-Hikari'. Now they invited 'Hikari' and 'Yaya-and-Tsubomi', and although that was slightly discomforting at first, after a while the sound of the two of them pushed together made her feel… strange. Like something was coiled in her chest that she could not pull out.
Did not want to pull out.
And so it could have continued, for week after week, month after month, year after year, with neither of them doing anything but sit in silence and wait for the patter of footsteps in the corridor that meant that Hikari was coming back that night, although so often it never emerged.
But something changed that. One day Tsubomi received a package from home, and as she pulled the new summer dress out of it and over her young, bony shoulders, she wondered what it would look like on, and, more importantly, she wondered whether or not Yaya would like it.
And then she took a step back from the mirror in shock, because all it took was that quick thought for her to realise just what it meant.
Yaya.
Inconsolable, silent Yaya?
No, that was not quite right.
What it was was the memory of Yaya- the girl before Hikari met Amane. The girl that she still would be if Hikari had not stood next to the riding grounds that day and had begun to sing to the empty, disconsolate air.
Loud and brash. The girl that made her laugh and made her scowl. The girl that mocked her and ruffled her hair and brought strange teas that Tsubomi had never tasted before.
The girl that, Tsubomi realised, she was waiting to come back.
And from then on their nights took a different turn, and they began to talk, and as soon as they did so, it was like a dam had been broken, and every fear and worry and piece of guilt and jealousy that had been keeping Yaya silent spilled out, fell out in a crescendo that almost made the other girl reel. Night after night, she would talk for hours and hours, whilst Tsubomi sat their and listened. She became a confidante, an advisor, a friend for real in just the first few moments, and as the days passed, Yaya began to smile more and more often.
A spring was back in her step, and, as Nagisa whispered to Tamao, she seemed more like her old self again.
Happier, healthier.
And although they credited all of this to Tsubomi, the younger girl knew that, in reality, it was not anything to do with her personally. Yaya needed to talk, and it could have been any of them who could have started her off. Tsubomi had just broken the awkward silence that surrounded their friend first; really, it was nothing to do with her, although a secret part of her wished that it was.
Their friends exchanged smiling glances at that, because although Tsubomi could not see the truth of the matter they could, and they stood by and continued to invite 'Tsubomi-and-Yaya', in the hope that one day soon, they would take the hint.
And the recovery time was long. It took many weeks of long nights of listening until one day, when Yaya opened the door, she smiled down at her friend, and made her some sweet-smelling tea, and did not immediately start talking.
They sat in a mutual silence as they sipped at their steaming cups, and then Yaya looked over at her, and turned her head to one side.
"You know, I've never asked. Is there anything you want to talk about, Tsubomi?"
Tsubomi put down her cup, crossed her legs, and stared levelly across the room.
"Are you feeling better now?"
Yaya blinked.
"You know what? I think I am."
She looked down at herself, sitting on Hikari's bed, which she had crept into so many nights when it became clear that she was not going to be coming back that night, and she shook her head at herself.
She got up, put her cup on the side, and went to sit next to Tsubomi, on her own bed.
"I think, I think that I finally am better."
And she rested her head on Tsubomi's shoulder and asked again what was going on in her life, and Tsubomi just smiled, and started to talk, and absentmindedly starting plaiting the long dark hair that had fallen into her lap. She knew that somewhere, down this road to recovery, Yaya would feel for someone else, and she could only hope, as she wound that hair around her hands, that it would be sooner, rather than later.