a/n: we never learned about how often reina goes up to that one hill to Scream. literally nobody asked for this but here i am to deliver anyway.
She stood there, sometimes, Kumiko knew. She'd known it even before her relationship with Reina had become something more that curt, awkward greetings. It was easy to see her standing there, really, her trumpet gleaming silver against the greens and browns of the trees and grass behind her.
Kumiko supposed it was a kind of sanctuary for her, and so she never pried - never asked to go up there with her and perform a duet as they overlooked the school.
She wanted to, though, wanted to stand there alongside Reina like rulers overlooking their kingdom on that dumb little hill.
It was this train of thought that most likely led her to take the long way around the campus to get back home, instead of cutting through the hallways as usual.
"Reina?" she called out, keeping her grip on the bag slung over her shoulder. It was windy, and she didn't fancy the idea of chasing it down. "Reina, do you want to, uh, walk home together?" No response. "Okay. C-call me when you get home, though. It's really windy out here." As if to prove her point, a branch from a nearby tree snapped off and flew right by, nearly smacking her in the face.
"I'm up here!" Reina yelled back, and it was only then when Kumiko saw her. Standing at the top of the hill, her hair blowing behind her like it had a mind of its own, her trumpet still glistening, she looked to be some kind of warrior queen. "There're some stairs off to the side if you don't want to climb right up!"
"Really?"
"You can see them, can't you?" The wind was making the conversation sound far more dramatic than it really was.
"Yeah, I can see them! That wasn't what I meant!"
"What did you mean, then?"
"I d-didn't know if I should climb up there to join you!"
"Of course you can, Kumiko!" Reina's breath sounded stolen by the wind - whether or not this was a result of the yelling, or her trumpet playing, or just the loudness of the weather, Kumiko didn't know. She didn't really know, exactly, what came over her as she started charging up the stairs nonetheless, but she suspected it was something good, something a little bit powerful.
"You come up here every day, huh?" she panted, once she'd reached the top. Reina shrugged.
"More or less. I don't come up here as much anymore." Reina sat down on the bench, and she was not a queen or a warrior lord atop her mountain in that moment - she was a girl. She was a teenage girl with a shiny trumpet, sitting on a hill right before what looked like a big thunderstorm, and so Kumiko could do nothing but sit beside her.
"Why not?"
"It's too lonely. We all need a bit of solitude sometimes, but I suppose there's a limit to how much of that we can have before we go insane. Nowadays, I just go here to clear my head."
"I get it." Kumiko picked at a blade of grass, pulling it apart until she had two thin little green strings. "I yell at my cactus a lot when I c-can't handle the rest of my thoughts and stuff. It's like a safe little thing where I can . . . I dunno, put out the worst parts of me without anyone having to see it."
"I don't just play the trumpet here."
"What else do you do?" Kumiko looked up at the clouds, gray and tapering off at the edges like linty cloth.
"I yell." Reina said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, with a shrug of her shoulders and a glassy expression in her eyes. "I just let everything that's been grating on me build up until I can't do anything but scream, and I do. I let it all go, I let the wind take care of it until I can't really breathe anymore. It's comforting."
"Like this?" Kumiko let out a weak "aaah" that elicited a chuckle from Reina.
"Something a little bit louder than that, maybe." Taking a deep breath, Reina bunched her hands to her sides and screamed at the top of her lungs. Birds flew from the trees in a flurry, the very ground seemed to shake, and Kumiko would've been lying if she'd said that she wasn't, at the very least, a little bit intimidated.
"Okay, okay, I'll try again." Kumiko stood up, cleared her throat, and let her thoughts pile up, one on top of the other, and then she yelled. It was so windy that the howls of it nearly covered up her noises, but it seemed Reina could still hear her, and she smiled.
"Just like that," she said, sidling just a little bit closer. Kumiko sat back down on the creaky bench. Rain started to trickle down - just a few droplets at first, but soon the clouds broke open and let loose the pounding water, turning everything just a little bit grayer.
"We should go," Kumiko said, so quiet that she doubted Reina would be able to hear her. She didn't want to leave, not really, but the clouds were growing darker and the raindrops were growing faster.
"Yeah." Reina stood, offering Kumiko her rain-soaked hand, and Kumiko took it. "Did you bring an umbrella?"
"Nope."
"You're terrible."
"H-hey, neither did you!"
"I like the rain." Reina didn't move for a moment. "You'll probably end up with a cold."
"We'll see about that, Kousaka-san." Kumiko accented every syllable of Reina's name with a teasing lilt, earning her an elbow to the side. "Really, though, we should, uh, get going pretty soon. It might start storming soon."
"Perhaps you're right about that." Reina walked just a few paces ahead, trumpet case held at her side, and Kumiko took a deep breath.
"Reina?"
"Hmm?"
"Uh, t-thank you. For showing me this, I mean." Reina regarded her curiously for a moment, something twinkling in her deep violet eyes, before she smiled.
"It's not a problem," she finally said, taking Kumiko's hand, and with that, they ran down the hill, away from the school, just a little closer than they'd been before.
a/n: i'm just feeling. really pumped.