The Last Nineteen Years
Seven
After the shock of Mami the Stripper had settled into all of our psyches, we had sat around the small table with a little bit of breakfast I had ordered. "We didn't get much catching up done yesterday, did we?" Sayaka mused, sipping her milk. "Akemi-san, you seem to be a little more energetic then I remember. Why don't you start? Tell us a story from the last twenty years." I thought for a moment, the nodded.
"I'll start off by telling a story from a time I'm not proud of..."
-A London Tavern, Fifteen Years Ago-
Five years after I left Mitakihara, I found myself broke and depressed inside some watering hole I've not been in since. I had spent whole supply of money on alcohol, and had nothing save a splitting headache to show for it. There I was, eighteen and friendless. I had gotten so good at hunting Witches, there was no fear of dying from them... so what kept me going? There was no thrill any longer, so why did I keep getting up in the morning?
So there I was, barely able to stay on the stool, swaying like a leaf in the wind. I sense someone come up behind me. "Get up, lass." He says to me, a gruff sort of tone to go with his build. I turned around to see this beast of a man standing behind me, arms crossed and a look most sour upon his face. He was a Scot, no idea what he was doin' there. I shake my head at him.
"Why?" I respond, the man staying stoic like a guardian. I'm gonna do the accent, people seem to like the accent.
"I've been watching yah, lass. Been here after a few hours now. Woman drink that much and doesn't eat, she is going to die." I won't make any illusions. I was depressed at this time. I had nothing to look forward to.
"When?" I asked casually and with a shrug. The man's sour expression turned even more so.
"Yer eyes." He said, sitting next to me. "Your eyes are something I've not seen in a long time. You have to look of a warrior, a fire like none other burning within you. So what are you doing here?"
"Waiting for someone strong enough to take me."
"Death is never the answer, lass. Don't you have some friends I could call table come pick you up?" I looked at him like a kicked puppy.
"No." I said. "Any friends I had before are too far away to matter... besides, I threw them away because they didn't need me anymore." The Scot scoffed at this.
"Auch, don't be silly, lassy. Friends you pick up at a bar may leave yah pecker to the wind, but real friends? Best friends? You can drug 'em, skin 'em, throw 'em under a lorry, run 'em over six ways to Sunday, and you can bet yer arse right as rain, that'll be at your door first thing Saturday evenin' with a twelve pack'a Coors to watch Doctor Who with ya." I'll freely admit I did have an image of doing that to Mami.
What's a lorry?
It's a flat bed truck, stop interrupting, Miki. Where was I? Right. So I look at him straight, like I've not looked at him since, and said "I don't know what to do." He puffed up and nodded.
"Yah shape up. Yah get yer life back tae normal, an' yah see 'em again." He offered me his hand which I took. "An' part'ae shaping' up, is never findin' yerself inna predicament like this again. Aye, lassy?" I agreed with him, and paid my tab... funny thing is, I never saw him since. Never got his name, or why he had such an interest in me... he just... slapped me upside the head with his words, told me I was being selfish, and convinced me to move on... and I haven't had a chance to thank him.
"What I took from him is... I can't crawl into a bottle whenever something happens that doesn't go according to my plan. So I crawled out of the bottle, purified my soul gem and started looking for a new life. Found one in the military."
"Impressive." Tomoe responded.
"I also learned... though it took me a while, that the day I left? I was nothing but a jealous little girl who couldn't face the truth." I paused. "Speaking of which, hope this isn't digging up sour memories but... it's a question that's been bugging me for years..." A beat. "What the hell were you two doing? And why couldn't you tell me."
"Useless to hide it now." Madoka mused, shrugging. "Mami-san was teaching me how to bake. I wanted to bake you a nice cake for your birthday that year... but I wanted it to be a secret." I bowed my head, embarrassed.
"Well, I feel dumb now..."
"No! No, no, no, Homura-chan!" Madoka called, reaching over and hugging me. "Don't feel dumb! It was a mistake on both our parts. More on mine..." I couldn't help but watch Sakura look down, a little dejected.
"May I?" She spike simply, lifting her head up. We all looked to her and nodded. She took a deep breath and turned to Miki, closing her eyes. Standing, she reached into her pocket and retrieved a well-worn leather wallet. "Sayaka... I know it's too late but... I've been holding onto something I wanted you to have for the past twenty years." Opening her wallet, she withdrew a pair of old... no... ancient tickets from the bill fold. She handed one to Sayaka. The bluenette picked up the ticket from the table and blinked at it.
"What's this?" She turned it over, careful not to tear the tattered paper.
"It's time I stopped hiding this. Sayaka... I am, and have been for about twenty years now, madly in love with you." Miki's cheeks matched Sakura's hair for a moment.
"Wha-wha-WHAT?!" She belted, Sakura remaining unmoving.
"I have no shame, and my inability to come clean with my feelings have cause us all enough undue grief. The last you heard of me, Sayaka, I had called you that day to invite you out for a date... I had spent... well, I won't give a number, but I spent a small sum on those tickets, and I thought you'd like to go see it with me. I wanted you to smile for a change... your dad was riding you pretty hard those last few weeks and I thought... Sayaka'd like to go see this. Of course... stupid me didn't tell you to take time off or reserve the day."
"S..." Miki began, looking woefully to the paper in her hands. "Sakura...san..." If I wasn't mistaken, it appeared as if she were going to cry. Sakura said nothing, just settled to look to the side.
"I... uh... kinda freaked out when you just blew me off without even hearing me out..." Miki blinked slowly, as if trying to work something out of her eyes.
"Les Mis..." She mused, seeming to be lost for a time in thought. "Did you know, Sakura-san... that Les Mis is my favorite play?" Sakura nodded a little.
"Heard you and Maddy talking about it." She answered with a nod. "It's why I needed to take you to see it... to show you that... that I do listen to you." Tears could be seen in Miki's eyes as she continued to stare at the tickets.
"Sakura-san... why didn't you tell me that... you had these feelings..." Sakura laughed at her question, shrugging uselessly.
"Plain and simple, Sayaka. I was an idiot. I didn't act when I should have, and I spent the last twenty years regretting it. When things fell through with Kamijo, I should have been there for you but... I wasn't, and nothing I can say or do now can change the fact." She paused to inhale for once, catching her breath. "Suppose this is my way of apologizing." Silence fell across them both as Miki looked at the tickets, overcome with emotion, and Sakura just watched in silence, either unable to or refusing to say much of anything. The rest of us stayed quiet, I was too surprised to say much of anything. It would appear that everyone was gay in our group of friends, except the one I had accused of being so... and even then she was 'straight' along the same lines as Raidy was.
The silence and tension was eventually broken by lingering carbonation from last night surfacing from my stomach in the form of a rather unexpected belch. "Purple." I drowned out of habit, Miki and Sakura laughing at the outburst.
"Akemi-san, that's gross." Tomoe chastised me, to which I shrugged.
"You're wearing Miki's clothes." I rebutted instantly, causing Tomoe to look down in embarrassment. It didn't take one long to figure out she was, either. One look at her and you knew her clothes were not made to fit that frame. Puffing up like a child who didn't get her way, Tomoe went to her small suitcase she had brought and fished out more clothes to go change. "Seriously, though... this has been liberating. I'm so glad I can just... talk to you guys again... considering how I treated you when we last spoke."
"We're friends, Homura-chan. Distance, time, dimensions... It doesn't matter. We'll always be friends." I couldn't help but smile. Madoka... our own eternal optimist was at it again. We spent the rest of the day talking as old friends should. Technically, our lives had more or less just begun... but for old pros like us, we'd seen more in our short thirty years, then most see in a lifetime. We had glimpsed death, and despite Kyubey's best efforts, had spat in the face of Destiny.
