Date night.

We've been together for three years now, but Natsuki still likes to try and fight me when I cook, sometimes. It's because of her that I decided to go to culinary school; where she used to tease me that she was the better chef, now she tries to convince me that I'm working unpaid. "Of course it's not unpaid," starts my usual response. "It makes you happy, right?"

There's more to it than that, though… I know. We usually cook together, or if one of us goes it alone, I let her more often not. Even though we normally turn it into a friendly competition, it's one of the few things that she really gets into, something that helps her de-stress and lets her mind go somewhere else. It's impressive, honestly. No matter how mechanical my movements get after doing the same thing dozens of times, no matter how committed to muscle memory I get a specific dish, I still find myself occasionally panicking- "shit that egg's been on too long, it's gonna be all rubbery and gross," "ohgodthatsteakwassupposedtoberareandIforgotandnowit'sshoeleatherffffff."

I'm a little jealous of her, to be honest.

But it's been years now, through the end of high school and into culinary school. We both moved a few hours away from where we grew up to go here. Well… Natsuki did, and then I transferred after my first semester of "real" college. It seemed like a foolish move at first -and boy did I hear just how foolish it was from damn near everyone- but I'm happy here, and not just because we share an apartment. The school we're at isn't as big, as NEW AND EXCITING AND HI-TECH as the one about an hour from home, but I kind of like that. It's not as overwhelming- or full of people who take themselves so seriously.

Tonight, I'm making curry rice with chicken and veggie skewers. I told Natsuki we'd probably just go somewhere after she got off work -I was able to get the day off, which… doesn't really matter that much, since she couldn't- or whatever, "we'll figure it out when you get home." That's the only way I can really surprise her, if she hasn't already figured it out by now. At least not having to work into the early evening let me drop by the store and pick everything I needed up today, so it wouldn't be in the fridge all week and tip her off as to what I'm planning.

This isn't the first time I've surprised Natsuki with a meal after work, though… so I think the cake will be the real surprise- strawberry and vanilla swirl with strawberry cream-cheese icing and crushed cookies on top. It's far more ambitious than the usual box-mix cupcakes or cookies I make, and if I'm being honest with myself, might turn out as well as I hope it does. To tell the truth, I'm not really into baking… that's always been more of Natsuki's thing. Tonight is our anniversary, though, and I felt… different, I guess. Like I should do something really special.

I have a few minutes between prep and when I need to start cooking dinner. The cake itself is almost done, and I can decorate it once everything else gets going. I wash a layer of flour and chicken-skin slime off my hands, then check my phone. Still plenty of time before Natsuki's supposed to be home.

Today is Sayori's birthday, too. I called her this morning, but I wonder how many of our other friends did. It seems like the further we get from high school graduation, the more reclusive she becomes, and it breaks my heart. Sometimes I feel a little bad about leaving home, first to go to university, then out here with Natsuki, because I'm that much further from Sayori. Monika and Yuri both went even further out than we did, hell, Monika's in America on foreign-exchange right now, but they aren't so… so… dependant. The five of us are still as close as we were in the Literature Club, but it just feels so different now, now that all of us but one have moved on.

We were supposed to go back home this weekend and spend it with Sayori, but she told me she thought she was getting sick and not to come. Pretty sure that was a bullshit excuse, but the last time I tried to argue with her, she ended up not talking to me for three weeks. I haven't mentioned it to Natsuki, yet, but I think the least we can do is make her a cake and take the train back home. If she actually is sick, we could pick up some food for her so she doesn't have to cook… it's not great, but it's better than nothing.

Five minutes have passed with me staring at a phone that isn't even lit up anymore. I make myself shake it off, setting the phone back on the counter… gotta get back to work if I want this to be timed right.

It's a little before nine. The apartment still faintly smells of smoke from my first attempt at the rice… overextended myself, tried to do too many thing at once. Luckily, I had more than enough to make a second pot, although having to actually cook that second pot means I didn't have as much time to decorate the cake as I would have liked.

I hear the the lock turning on the other side of the half-wall dividing the entrance and our little kitchen, but the timer I set on the oven dings right then- not going to ruin the rice again. I turn from the cake on the counter to the range as Natsuki opens the door, turning the burner off and moving the pot to one I didn't use. "Smells good in here… I thought we were going out, though?"

"Ah…" She comes around the corner before I can move the hide the cake, and it's like I'm not even here. "Surprise?" As she looks from it to me, back to the cake, back to me, a smile starts to form on her lips. "No smart-ass comments tonight?"

The grin turns into something more mischievous. "There's frosting in your hair. How'd you manage that?"

I reach up to check my hair, only to realize exactly how I might have gotten frosting in it as a blob of pink passes my right eye. I frown as I pick out both the new clump and the old with my other hand, but it quickly turns into a smirk. "Alright, you got me, but the joke's on you… I made that cake without your help, and it came out fine. Like you."

Natsuki blushes and looks away, trying to hide the redness of her face or her ever-widening smile, I'm not sure. "Sh-shut up… I'm all sticky and sweaty from work. I'm not fine, or anything like it."

"Well, go clean yourself up then." I put a lid on the pot of rice to keep the heat in, then double-check that everything is turned off. "Don't want to look unpresentable to the food or anything, right?"

She sticks her tongue out at me, but I see the grin return right before she disappears into our bedroom. "Why don't you come with me? Looks like you got more than frosting on you without noticing."

"Hard as that is to pass up… I worked really hard to make sure this lined up with when you got home, more or less. Might have accidentally burned the rice the first time, but I still managed- I don't want everything to get cold, after all that…"

"Hm… I can wait, then. Just let me get out of my work clothes… spilled vegetable oil all over myself first thing…" I hear her throw something across the room, hitting the wall closest to me with a light thhp. "Burned my hand, got ice cream in my hair…" There's another thhp, and she comes back into the living room in a white shirt that's about three years too worn to leave the house in and a pair of pink fleece sleep-pants. "Glad you did this… I don't think I could handle being around anyone else right now…"

Natsuki marches into the kitchen and then into me, intentionally smacking into me and putting me off balance so that I'm forced to fall back against the counter. She straddles my legs and presses against me, her head on my chest. "Happy anniversary, MC."

"Aw… I wanted to say it first." I kiss the top of her head; she looks up, then pulls herself closer so that our lips can meet. "You're off tomorrow, right?"

"Mhmm…" I watch her eyes move from mine to something past me, and for a long few seconds, I can't figure out why. Then it hits me- the cake is a little to my left. "Why?"

"Well, I'm off the rest of the week, and Sunday, too… if you want, we could just pretend our anniversary is tomorrow. If you're too worn out, I mean. I'd hate to…"

Natsuki reaches around me, swipes a finger through the cake's icing, and sticks it in my mouth. "Maybe. I'm starving, though, so you'll have to wait and see~"

I gently nibble on her finger until she pulls her hand back, and then she steps to one side so I can stand up fully. As I turn to the sink and wash my hands for what feels like the fiftieth time, she busies herself grabbing plates from one of the small cabinets above the counter. She sets them down beside me, moves to another cabinet, and stops with a quiet "oh" before returning the plates to where she found them. "You really thought of everything, didn't you?"

"Didn't want you to have to worry about anything." I wipe my hands on a mostly-damp towel beside the sink, then brush past her to retrieve the plates I set on the table. "Lemonade in the fridge, should be cold by now."

Natsuki cuts a squeal short; by the time I reach the table and turn around, she's tipping the pitcher back, cutting out the middleman of a glass. She freezes for a second, a thin trail of pale, clearish-yellow running down from one corner of her mouth. I just smile and shake my head, setting one of the plates down and starting the process of plating food onto the other. "'s cute when you lose control like that."

"Shut up." She slams the pitcher beside me, wiping her mouth with the back of her other arm; close to a third of the lemonade is gone already, after that. "You did this, anyways… making all this stuff I- are those… mangoes?" She's pulled the cover off the tray I set the cooked skewers in to stay warm. I hold a plate full of curry rice out for her, but she doesn't seem to notice. "Why would… why would you go to all this trouble?"

"Wh- Natsuki, this is our third anniversary, and the first one since I moved in with you."

"W-well, yeah, but…" I nudge her arm with the plate. She jumps, looks at it, then quickly snatches it out of my hand, embarrassed she didn't see it sooner. "You must have spent all afternoon in this jail-cell of a kitchen to do this…"

"I did. Worth it to hear the happy noises you make… kinda like a cat, but cuter." I put a little less rice on my plate and take a single skewer to Natsuki's three. If she asks, I'll tell her why, otherwise… she doesn't need to know my worries about Sayori have effectively killed my appetite. Besides, she's right… I did go out of my way to make some of her favorite things.

"Love you, MC." She's already at the table by the time I start to pour a glass of lemonade. Like the table setting, she seems to have missed the two glasses I set out.

"You too, Suki." I hear the chair scrape- she must have realized it, now. "Two steps ahead of you." I switch the glass to my left hand and hold it out, over my right arm, so that I can pour a second glass for myself. Natsuki takes both the glass and my nearby plate, heading back to the table. "Well, go on, don't wait for me."

"Wait, aren't you going to eat now, too?"

"In a minute. Phone's flashing," which isn't a lie. Lemonade in one hand, I unlock it with the other as I slowly make my way to the table. A text from Sayori- no, a picture. Faint smile, pale skin, tired eyes; the attached message reads "Happy Anniversary, guys! In case MC is doubting me, I'm really sick, so don't come this weekend. 3"

"Sayori's-"

"Yeah, I got it too." I put the glass down on the table, but linger beside the chair. "Guess she knew I would worry."

"You always do." Natsuki's picked at her food -shifted some of the rice, eaten a piece of the chicken at the wrong end of the skewer- but when I look up from my phone, she's watching me intently. "She's lucky to have you as a friend, MC. Not as lucky as me, but…"

"You think she's okay, though? I mean, she didn't sound great when I talked to her this morning, but… Sayori hasn't sounded great for a while, now. I don't think I worry about her without reason… do I?"

Natsuki sighs, slumping against one arm propped on the table. "No, I don't think so. Always sort of figured Yuri would be the one to…"

"Least that turned out to be less… life-threatening." I sink into the chair across from her, suddenly exhausted. Natsuki doesn't exactly seem uninterested in this conversation, but it's obviously one she doesn't want to have at the moment. "Neither of us are gonna be right for the rest of the night, are we?"

"We have each other, Sayori's… is she the only one of our friends that stuck around?"

"No, I think Saki's still there, or maybe like an hour away. Monika's talked about sticking close to home, once she's done with school. Ah…" I make myself eat, knowing if I don't, I'll regret it later. "Guess that's not exactly the height of popularity."

"Wanna make a bunch of food and take it to her this weekend?" Natsuki looks about as tired as Sayori did in the picture she sent us, but there's no mistaking the sudden spark in her eyes. I'm reminded of the fierce, often-shouting ball of nerves Natsuki used to be, the time she broke into tears because I accidentally creased a page in a volume of manga.

"I'll do most of the work, but… yeah. That would…" She's come a long way since then… I should tell her how proud of her I am, sometime that isn't now.

"MC?" I must have made a face when I trailed off.

"Sorry, just… tearing up a little. When we were younger, Sayori never told anyone about what the bad days were like for her, and even I didn't know until-" She tried to- "That day. It's just… even if we all moved on after school except her, it's nice to see that somebody besides me still cares about her. Sometimes I worry that I'm the only one…"

Natsuki suddenly sits up, reaching across the table and threading her fingers through mine. "Don't say that. I don't ever want to hear you say that again. All of us care about her, MC. Did you forget-" She stops, head catching up with mouth, but I know where she was going- she was about to mention the time Sayori ran away from home. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't…"

"Nah, we're already there, anyways. Just… thanks, for caring about her. Sorry to ruin things like this." My appetite is completely gone now. Food'll be fine tomorrow, though, so it's not a total loss. "On today, of all days."

Natsuki sighs again, pulling her hand back. She drags her fork around the plate in front of her, but doesn't move to actually eat any of the rice. "I've always felt a little guilty, that we… well… that it's today, since… mmm…" She scrapes the fork against the plate, then drops it, presumably to avoid doing it again; the sudden noise makes us both jump. "It's just bad timing, right? We aren't… bad friends, are we?"

"I don't know if I have an answer to that, Suki… that's a heavy question. If you count that day you made lunch, when I skipped school cause she was missing, we probably should have made it a different day… it just kind of worked out this way, though, didn't it? It was Sayori's birthday when me and her had that fight, and you came over because I was so upset… that was the day I knew, at least." Natsuki looks away, face flushing, hiding a small smile behind one hand. "She'll just get upset if we try to change it, try to blame herself… and she'll notice if we just do it without saying anything, too. Small stuff like that really bothers her… some of the conversations we had after we found her at the beach town…" The language center of my brain experiences a sudden power failure, and my ability to use words is temporarily lost. I play with the food on my plate a little, like Natsuki is doing, but I can't seem to grasp what I was about to say. "Maybe we could talk to her about… fuck, that's a weird sentence. That might be the best way to approach it, though. We make a bunch of food and take the train down this weekend, if she's okay- just sick, I mean, not… if she's okay, we could say something about it to her, like we've realized it's kind of unfair to celebrate it on her birthday, or something."

"Sure…" Natsuki looks down at the plate like it's waving a gun in her face. "Do… do you just want to cuddle for a while after I take a shower? I'm not really hungry anymore… sorry, it's not anything wrong, it's…"

"No, that's okay, I- I know exactly what you mean, Natsuki. That sounds good you go ahead, I'll clean up. Can I cut you a piece of cake before I put it up, at least?"

Her smile lights up the room, even though she tries to keep me from seeing it by suddenly getting up, so quickly that she knocks her chair over. By the time she's stood it up again, she's managed to force her lips into a more neutral expression, but it's too late, I already saw it; the damage is done. "You know I'll eat it if it's there, MC."

"Okay." I smile back as she quickly disappears into the bedroom. Although I take my time getting back into the kitchen, it doesn't take too long to clean up, covering the dishes we barely touched with clingwrap, transferring the remainder of the rice in the pot to a glass container, putting everything but the cake in the fridge; that's the last thing to go, after I cut a piece making up possibly a sixth of the cake and slide it onto a plate.

It's about that time that Natsuki reappears, wearing the same clothes, still toweling the water out of her hair. We share a look that lasts too long before she blushes and looks away, a game we end up playing fairly often. I nod at it before filling the pot with water and detergent to soak, setting it aside in order to scrub the skewer tray in the sink. "Well?"

"'s good." She's managed to put an impressive amount of the cake down in the first few bites, pink frosting lining her lips. "Really good."

"Good." Drying my hands for hopefully the last time tonight, I tuck the towel under one arm and drop the lid of the cake-box over the bottom bit the cake sits on. We barely have room in the fridge for the gigantic box, but something tells me it won't be in there for long; assuming we go to see Sayori Saturday -assuming nothing changes, assuming we do go see her- the piece Natsuki will almost undoubtedly save for her will be the last of it.

"You not gonna try it?" Natsuki leans against the counter, legs across the narrow space, keeping me from easily getting past her. I know where this going.

"I'll try it tomorrow, Suki… not really hungry, and I don't always have room for sweets, like you."

"Aw, c'mon… you put all the work in… at least take a bite of my piece…" She sections off a part of the bottom, the part with the least amount of icing, and holds it out towards me. I sigh and reluctantly bite down on the fork, knowing if I don't, the cake will likely end up somewhere on my face or clothes. "Well?"

"It's… okay, a little too sweet for me."

"Like me?"

"No… you're just sweet enough." Natsuki nearly drops the plate, fumbling to catch it. It lands on the counter -barely- with a clatter, but the fork falls to the floor. I get to it before her, scooping it up mid-stride and tossing it into the sink. "I'm gonna go take a quick shower, and then you can fall asleep in my arms. Sound good?"

"Sounds great… maybe Friday afternoon, we could go to the bookstore? There's a sequel series to Parfait Girls that's supposed to come out today or tomorrow…"

"Preordered it months ago. We'll go somewhere nice for dinner and pick it up on the way home?"

"E-eh… I didn't even get you anything because I was planning on cooking this weekend… I thought maybe you might find something you wanted if we went out…"

I'm already in the bedroom, my shirt halfway over my head. "Can't think of anything I want, at the moment. Wasn't that what I said when you asked me last week, too? And the week before that… sometime before that…"

"Well, yeah, but… like you said, it's our third anniversary, I should've- I should've done something…"

"It's fine, really. Being with you is a pretty great gift on its own, Suki."

"Shut up."

The conversation ends there; I head into the bathroom while Natsuki presumably finishes her piece of cake. After I shower, I step into our bedroom to find Natsuki already asleep, sprawled almost completely sideways across the bed. She wakes up when I climb onto it next to her, just long enough to snuggle up against me, and I end up going to bed earlier than anticipated because I don't want to accidentally wake her up a second time.

Despite the nagging worry about Sayori in the back of my head, sleep still manages to find me quickly. In the last moments before I lose consciousness, the worry melts away, and for the last few seconds I'm aware of the world around me, everything is okay.