a/n: capping off my bizarre long weekend of endless kumirei with this, but i want to keep writing. i can't promise i will ever post six fics in a day again, but i'm not gonna stop writing.
It was a small house on the outside, somewhat larger on the inside and furnished with tasteful wood beams and fancy chairs everywhere. According to Midori, her family used it every winter vacation.
It was most decidedly not winter now - indeed, it was the middle of summer - but she'd lent it to Kumiko and Reina with a wink and a pair of keys, so here they stood in a vacation home where practically everything was carpeted.
"It's . . . nice," Kumiko managed out. Reina nodded in agreement. "Kinda fancy, though."
"The Kawashimas seem to prefer that sort of thing." Reina touched a stone wall gingerly, shivering at its coldness. "From what you've told me about them, anyway."
"W-well, I think Midori-chan wanted to make you happy." Kumiko sat down on one of the couches that felt like it could absorb her. "Both of us," she amended a second later. There were things said in the brass section that did not, on principle, go beyond the brass section room. "Plus, it's not like anyone's using this place right now."
"Clearly." Reina blew dust off a table. "I've never understood the appeal of vacation homes, to be honest. Why not just stay at a hotel?"
"Maybe it's, like, escaping. Being another person." Kumiko turned a lamp on and off. The sun streaming through the giant windows gave enough light, anyway. "Midori-chan . . . she went to a school for 'proper young ladies' before Kitauji, y'know that?"
"No."
"She talks about it a lot. Apparently they had a really good music program, b-but she just decided to leave."
"I think I remember now." Reina sat down beside her, the nature of the couch meaning that the both of them were now all but leaning against each other. "Seira Girls' School, right?"
"Yeah." Kumiko rested her head on Reina's shoulder. "I don't think she liked it that much. Her little sister's going to be there in a few years, and she wants to protect her."
"You talk to her a lot, don't you?" Reina looked to the ceiling, where a fan spun around and around. Kumiko shrugged.
"Her and Hazuki both. The three of us are all in the, uh, the same class, so really it just feels natural."
"Right." Reina rested her hands in her lap, fingers always moving. This was something Kumiko had started to notice - Reina twitched when she was nervous. "It was nice of her to lend this to us for the weekend."
"Yeah, really nice." It was quiet - very quiet - in the house, and this was something both of them acknowledged but said nothing about. It made the gaps in their conversation even more obvious, after all, and nobody wants to call attention to that.
There was not a lot to do in the country, Kumiko and Reina soon found, aside from enjoy each other's company and watch TV in the guest bedroom.
"Did you ever see that movie?" Kumiko asked, snuggled up against Reina like the two of them were a married couple, which she supposed they almost were. The remote was heavy in her hand. Reina shook her head.
"I meant to, but I could never find the time."
"I guess we're in luck, then." Kumiko set down the remote. "I saw it once, with Natsuki. She's a total movie buff, y'know."
"I'm aware." The sky was starting to darken outside - slowly, as it often did at the start of summer - but the light of the television bathed them in its glow, so that Kumiko could see every angle of Reina's face.
"I think she was mad that Yuuko, uh, fell asleep when they saw it."
"I see." Reina sank further into the covers. They were soft, incredibly so, and Kumiko thought that she wouldn't mind staying in this bed forever. "Are they still together?"
"Who knows?" Kumiko paused. The characters sat around a table on the screen, swapping lightning-quick jokes. "D'you really want to finish this movie?"
"I don't care much either way. Why?"
"I heard the stars are beautiful out here. Wanna go outside in twenty minutes or s-something?" Reina didn't respond for a moment, then she nodded - a tiny gesture that would've been so, so easy to miss.
Twenty minutes passed, and it really was a very nice movie, but Kumiko figured they'd play it again eventually. There was a reason why streaming sites existed, anyway.
"Do you still want to go and see the stars?" she whispered to Reina, and in lieu of a response she pushed away the covers and got out of bed. Kumiko followed her lead. The two of them walked through the winding, grand hallways of the house until they reached a door, revealing a wide span of dark green grass.
"It's like Mt. Daikichi," Reina whispered, damn near breathless. It was still somewhat early - Kumiko doubted these were all the stars the sky had to offer - but even now it was so much more vibrant than Uji's skyline. Reina grabbed Kumiko's hand and ran through the grass, her eyes alight with something Kumiko couldn't exactly make out. A few minutes later, she lay down on the grass, and Kumiko joined her.
"Do you know a lot about astrology?" Kumiko asked.
"Not really." Reina looked up at the stars with a faraway expression, wishing for something Kumiko didn't entirely understand. "Most of the myths are depressing, anyways. Someone dies or gets kidnapped and then they're immortalized as stars."
"I guess it's good we're not constellations, then."
"Yeah."
"God, you're beautiful," Kumiko murmured, turning to face her. She noticed for the first time that the grass was damp, but in all honesty she did not care.
"You say that every time," Reina whispered, with a voice that could hold constellations in its breath. "It's terrible, truly."
"And you say that every time." Kumiko closed the distance and kissed her, the both of them smiling into it. "Routine's not bad, is it?"
"Nothing about this is really routine, if you think about it." Reina rolled over onto her back. "Us, staying at your friend's family's vacation home out in the country, watching more stars than we could even imagine in Uji. It's unpredictable." Reina leaned over again, her hair falling in her face. Kumiko wanted to stay here, like this, forever, but she knew that was impossible. "Thank you," Reina added.
It was impossible, but that did not stop her from wishing on the thousands of stars laid out above them.
a/n: god, i want to cry. i love these two so much.