a/n: the entire reason i did this chapter naming scheme was for this one
also! recap movie! not as exciting as a third season or a rikka spinoff but, y'know, still cool
Kumiko and Natsuki rode in silence a few hours later, the backseat's emptiness seeming to hang over both their heads.
"Katou was a pretty good kisser," Natsuki finally said, propping her elbow up on the dashboard. "I wasn't expecting that."
"Yeah."
"Hey, is everything okay? Kousaka just . . . disappeared right after that stupid-ass bottle landed on her."
"I t-think she was just surprised."
"Well, it's a dumb game, anyway. I wouldn't have bothered with it if it hadn't been for the heat of the moment."
"You looked like you were having fun, though."
"I was. That doesn't change how stupid of a game it is."
"Right." A quiet piano ballad played from the radio. "I'm glad you had fun."
"Hey, it's not like we can be sad forever about stuff. My girlfriend and I broke up, yeah, and it sucks, but I'm . . . managing. I chopped off my hair, she buried herself in her work, we've all got our methods, and it's all for the best. It wasn't working out. It's like . . . ripping off a band-aid, I guess. The party, weird as it was, helped ease that a little bit." Kumiko let out a chuckle. "What's so funny?"
"It's just that you're a lot wiser than people give you credit for." Natsuki smirked, but it was far softer than the smirks Kumiko had seen before.
"Now, don't go trying to flatter me, it won't get ya anywhere."
"I'm not!" Kumiko yelped. "It's true!"
"Eh, believe that if ya want to. You've got Kousaka already in love with you, it's not a great idea to form a harem."
"She's not."
"What?"
"She's not in love with me. At least, I don't think she is. She told me that she'd g-give me answers when we got back from break, but I don't know what that means. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it."
"Do any of us know what to do when it comes to love, really?"
"I guess you've got a point." Kumiko poked the pair of fuzzy dice that dangled above the truck's mirror.
"Still, you two have something the rest of us can really only daydream about. Don't waste that, okay?"
"I'll try." The truck slowed to a stop.
"We're here. Do you need me to walk you up there?"
"I'm fine. Thanks, though." Kumiko started to get out of the truck, her feet making contact with the pavement.
"Don't mention it."
"Oh, and Natsuki?"
"Yeah?"
"You're pretty great yourself, y'know. I hope you know that." Natsuki blinked.
"Of course I know that," she scoffed, her voice wavering. "See ya, Kumiko!" The truck whirred away, and for just a moment, Kumiko forgot all about Reina's terrified expression in the face of that stupid bottle.
She slept in until noon the next day. Her bedsheets were all too cozy for her to do anything else, too inviting and too wonderful. It wasn't like she'd have been able to handle seeing her messages to Reina left unread, anyway. She watched the hours tick by, knowing that with each passing second she got just a little bit closer to practice resuming, to Kansai, to seeing Reina again.
"Maybe I should've gone after her," she murmured to her cacti sitting across the room from her. "I could've asked her about it right there and then." No response. "I c-could've done something, right?" The silence of the room deafened her, and she wriggled back beneath the covers to hide.
Kansai drew closer and closer, though the reality of it didn't quite hit Kumiko until her alarm jostled her awake on the day the band was set to resume practices. She dragged herself out of bed, gathering her things, and took a deep breath as she stepped out the door.
"I'm going to be okay," she muttered to herself. "We're going to play in the Kansai competition, I'm going to talk to Reina, it'll all be good."
She caught sight of Reina stepping onto the train just seconds before it wailed away down the tunnels. It was futile, Kumiko knew, to call after her, to chase down the train or yell her name like the protagonists did in movies. Her legs couldn't go that fast, and Reina wouldn't hear her anyway.
"Guess I'll just wait," she said to nobody in particular, plopping down on a rickety bench. The next train seemed to take hours to arrive, but Kumiko was the first to get on when it did.
The campus seemed desolate, unfriendly, and Kumiko took a shuddering breath as she walked through the front doors. Reina was the first to greet her, though her expression was enough to tell Kumiko that she wouldn't talk until later.
"Did you get the key to the storage room?" Reina asked, not even bothering with pleasantries. Kumiko held up her euphonium case in response.
"It was already open. I guess someone already started practicing." As if on cue, she started to hear the familiar sound of Nozomi's flute drifting down the staircases, joined by a familiar oboe. "Oh."
"They both sound beautiful." Reina's eyes were closed, her head tilted upwards, looking to be at peace. "It's a shame that they won't both be playing together again in front of a crowd, not unless they go to the same college."
"Y-yeah." The thought depressed Kumiko for reasons she didn't quite understand. "I guess we should head up to the music room." Reina opened her eyes.
"I suppose so."
Taki walked to the conductor's stand with a tiredness in his step that Kumiko wasn't familiar with. Some members of the band whispered amongst themselves, while others stayed focused on tuning their instruments. Natsuki looked straight ahead.
"As you all know, the Kansai competition is in two weeks."
"Why does he always start important stuff with 'as you all know?'" Momo whispered. Kumiko shrugged, hardly even paying attention. She couldn't see Reina's expression from where she sat, and it was worrying her more than she'd have liked to admit.
"This will not be an easy period of time. There won't be many breaks, and please expect practices to last beyond the usual end time. If this is a problem for any reason, please take it up with me after class."
"Well, duh." Natsuki smoothed out her skirt, rolling her eyes. "We're so close to the competition that it'd be kinda weird for him to not push us harder, right?"
"Not to mention that he's leaving next year, so this is his last-" Kumiko covered her mouth as she realized what she was saying and hoped that nobody could see her shaking. Momo's glasses dropped to the edge of her nose.
"Taki-sensei's . . . leaving?" she breathed. Natsuki looked to Kumiko and then to Taki and then to Momo, nervousness clear as daylight in her eyes the whole way through.
"Hey, Momo, Kumiko's not really in the mood to talk about this, so-"
"He's leaving? Who's going to take us to Nationals next year? And the year after that?" Kumiko tried to draw upon old breathing exercises, tried to slow her heart rate, but to no avail. Taki looked up from his stand to see the ruckus.
"Is everything alright, euphs?" he asked. Kumiko nodded quickly, trying to ignore how she felt like throwing up. Her head was throbbing, Momo was staring at her, she'd just revealed a secret, and there was nothing she could do about any of it.
"Well, then, let's-"
"A-actually, I feel kinda sick, is it okay if I lie down in the nurse's office for a bit?"
"You can go. I'll send someone to get you when practice is over." Kumiko mumbled a shaky thank you and stood up, staggering over to reach the door. Reina shot her a sympathetic look.
Kumiko was regaled with thoughts of every kind while she laid in the stiff school bed, tossing and turning as her skull pounded against the sides of her head.
I'm letting them down right now by not practicing. I told Momo something she shouldn't know. I'm an idiot. The nurse - a kindly woman with soft gray eyes and a hunched back - shuffled to and for, asking Kumiko if she needed painkillers or water or anything of that sort. She said no to each one. I'm such an idiot.
Time didn't seem to pass normally - she'd try to sleep for what felt like hours and look at the clock to see that only two minutes had passed, or she'd close her eyes for half a second and the light of the window would've changed.
"Your friends are here," the nurse said, after a period of time she couldn't begin to guess at. "I'll head out for a moment - I wouldn't want to intrude, hoo! Yell if you need anything." She pushed open the door and walked out, and in her place stood Hazuki, Midori, and Reina.
"Are you feeling better?" Midori asked.
"Are you going to make it to Kansai?" Hazuki whimpered. "You're not gonna die, right?" Kumiko let out a hoarse laugh.
"I'm fine," she chuckled. "Really, I'm fine." Reina hadn't budged from the doorway.
"You nearly passed out!" Midori sped over to the bed and hovered over Kumiko like a doctor watching her patient. "What happened?" Kumiko flipped over to the other side of the pillow, avoiding Midori's gaze.
"I just got sick, that's it." She gripped the thin sheets, still knowing that Midori would want to know more, still knowing that she couldn't really give her an answer. "I'm feeling better now."
"Are you sure?" Hazuki pressed.
"I'm sure."
"It's better to take a break instead of just overworking yourself all the time, you kn-"
"I know, I know!" Somehow, Kumiko couldn't bring herself to be annoyed at the two of them. Reina finally took a step forward.
"If we're done here, I'd like to-"
"W-wait!" Kumiko sat right up in the bed, reaching out to Reina as if she could pull her back. "You said we'd . . . talk, today. About everything." Reina hugged herself, though Kumiko had a feeling it had nothing at all to do with the chilled air conditioning of the nurse's office. The stare she gave Kumiko could've ripped the room apart.
"Kawashima-san?" Reina finally said, slowly, deliberately, exhaling with each syllable. "Katou-san?"
"Yes?" they both squeaked nervously.
"I think Taki-sensei needs some more help putting away the instruments."
"Yes, ma'am!" The duo skittered out, and Kumiko and Reina were left alone together.
"So?" Kumiko murmured quietly. Reina sat at her bedside, eyes downcast.
"So, what do you need to know?" Her voice had softened considerably.
"Why're you . . . acting like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like we're dating, but we're not." Kumiko felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders as soon as she said those six words. Reina took a deep breath, her dark hair rustling in the powerful breeze of the various fans scattered around the room.
"I never quite knew what people were talking about, when they brought up romance. It was a lovely concept, sure, something to daydream, about, to consider as a thing for the future. I never really felt it."
"Not until Taki-sensei, right?" Reina shifted her haunches.
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" Kumiko echoed in confusion.
"I wouldn't call it that special click that's supposed to happen, but it seemed close enough. We had similar ideals - he was the one who made me want to become special, to follow my ambitions and refuse to let what anyone said get in my way. I wasn't doing it for him, obviously - that would've been excessive - but I always thought that if I could just catch up to him, if I could just be mature enough for him to stop seeing me as a child, we'd be equals and I'd have someone to walk this road with."
"Oh." Kumiko didn't know what she'd been expecting, but more gushing about the man who was twice Reina's age wasn't it. She waited for Reina to finish, after that.
"That seemed like it fit the idea of love, didn't it? A handsome man, talented and mysterious, perfect if only I'd been born a few years earlier. It's not like I'd ever heard of any other kind of love. I didn't have anything to compare this to, so of course it was romantic. It had to be. I had never felt anything that strong before."
"Then what?" Reina exhaled a deep sigh, pulling her knees close to her chest.
"I focused on my studies, my trumpet, everything that was concrete and real and simple. It worked, for a while, and I made myself think that what I felt for Taki-sensei was everything a young woman could feel. It wasn't like there was anything else I could've felt, no others options I'd heard of." Reina blinked quickly, violet eyes hidden behind gray shutters. "Then you came along."
"Me?!" Kumiko yelped.
"Yes, you." Reina paused for a moment. "I wasn't lying, you know, when I said that it was a confession of love on that mountain, but I thought that it would pass. I didn't know what any of this meant, but it wasn't like I could simply ask you to explain it and then come along with me on some journey of self-discovery. I just let it sit there for a while, if we're being honest, testing the waters, waiting for something, running back to whatever those feelings for Taki-sensei were whenever things became too intense."
"He was safe," Kumiko realized. "H-he was familiar."
"Exactly." Reina breathed again, her leg jiggling. "I couldn't give any of this a name, so I just pretended it wasn't happening while I held your hand and danced around it all. Terrible, right?"
"You're not-"
"I didn't want to be the villain, Kumiko. I didn't want to be the outsider more than I already was. I saw what the president and vice president had and lost and how everyone - myself included - reacted to it, and I knew that I couldn't say anything about this. Not to your two friends, not to Taki-sensei, not to anyone." The room was silent for a moment, the whirring of five fans at once as the only sound. "I'm so-" Reina didn't finish speaking before Kumiko rested her head on her shoulder.
"It's okay," she whispered, gripping Reina's hand tightly in her own. "You don't need to be sorry." Reina seemed to lose the tense air she'd had about her and leaned against Kumiko.
"It really shouldn't have taken that long to talk about it," she said.
"We have time, Reina."
"I suppose we do."
They walked home hand-in-hand, kissing their goodbyes, and as Reina walked away, Kumiko knew that something had changed.
Reina greeted her at the station the next morning bright-eyed, pulling Kumiko into a tight embrace as soon as she got close enough.
"I guess we're on the same page now?" Kumiko chuckled, still dancing around the word dating. She'd waited long enough, so what problem was there with waiting a bit more? Reina smiled.
"I suppose we are," she said, already on her way to step onto the train. There was an airiness to her voice that Kumiko wasn't used to. "We don't need to give it a name, though."
"Right."
Kumiko felt like she was walking atop the clouds for the rest of the train ride - she was certain that there would be little cartoon hears dancing around her head if anyone looked her way - and Reina seemed similarly carefree. Any reservation - nothing that there had been much in the first place - was cast aside to the wind, and the two of them all but spooned until they reached the school. Reina broke off to speak with Taki about her studies, and Kumiko was surprised by how little she worried about that. Skipping to the music room, she was greeted by Hazuki and Midori hunched over boxes, craning their necks to look back at her.
"You look happy," Hazuki said. Kumiko didn't know how something like that could sound accusing, but it did.
"You're not going to spare us the details, right?" Midori said, in a similarly intimidating tone. Hazuki flipped over in one smooth movement and sat on the flimsy box, ignoring how it creaked under her weight. Midori bounded over to her in two steps, and anything that might've seemed somehow menacing about the two of them disappeared under the fluorescent lighting that seemed to register the presence of the trio when Midori passed it.
"You've gotta tell us everything!"
"You're a sweet, young maiden in love!"
"Tell us what happened after we left!" Kumiko shifted from one foot to the other as Hazuki and Midori awaited her response. She pulled out one of the boxes and sat on it after a moment, putting her chin in her hands.
"We . . . talked about some stuff, and realized some stuff, and now we're closer than we were before." Hazuki furrowed her brow.
"That's the vaguest thing you could've said!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air and promptly sending the box she was sitting on toppling back. "Ow."
"Hazuki-chan!" Midori yelped. She looked like a terrified chick, hopping up and down as she tried to help Hazuki up from her spot on the floor.
"What're these for, anyway?" Kumiko jabbed a finger in the direction of the boxes.
"Oh, they're cupcakes!"
"Is it someone's birthday?" Kumiko tried to run through all the birthdays of people she could remember in her mind, but none of them came up as today.
"Nah, they're goodbye presents!"
"F-for who?" Hazuki tilted her head to the side curiously,
"You didn't know? I thought you were the one who told Momo."
Oh my god. "How'd you hear about it?"
"Oh, well, word got around, and Tsubame - she's sort of an old friend from the Monaka days - told me that Taki-sensei was quitting, so I asked her where she'd gotten that info, and she said that it was Rie who'd told her, and that Hiyoko had told her, telling everyone she knew, because you know how she's crazy about Taki-sensei, right?"
"Hazuki, I've talked to maybe two of these people."
"And Hiyoko heard it from Momo!" Hazuki finished. "Man, those clarinets are chatty! I guess it was Momo who started it, though, you should really talk to-"
"None of you were supposed to know about that!" Kumiko blurted out. Hazuki froze.
"You mean . . . he's not quitting?" she asked. Midori had started to fix up the boxes, shoving crumpled plastic containers back inside them.
"His contract's running out, at least that's what Reina told me. She w-wanted it to stay a secret, she doesn't know the whole story, none of us do."
"Oh."
"Reina's gonna think I told everyone," Kumiko muttered shakily, breathlessly, the lightness she'd felt just minutes before all but vanished. "She's never going to be able to trust me again. We won't ever be able to talk to each other, she's just going to think I'm stupid and dishonest and-"
"It's fine, it's fine!" Hazuki violently patted Kumiko on the back in what was probably her version of a comforting gesture. "Kousaka-san's a . . . sweetheart. She won't get mad at you for this!"
"You paused before 'sweetheart,'" Midori pointed out dryly. Then, to Kumiko, she fell to her knees. "We're so sorry for this! We might've broken your red string of fate! We might've just snapped it, cut it in half, like this!" Midori mimicked a snipping motion with her fingers. "The cupcakes were my idea! I'll take the blame!" Kumiko had never seen Midori in hysterics like this before.
"T-thanks?" Kumiko stuttered. Midori climbed to her feet.
"I'm not going to let anything we did get in the way of what you two have," she said.
"Yeah!" Hazuki chimed in. "You're gay soulmates!"
"You really don't have to say-"
"I kissed Natsuki-senpai at my party, does that count for something?"
She's flipping the conversation on its head. "Hazuki, I know you mean well, but this really isn't about you or Natsuki or the red string of fate or anything other than these cupcakes." Kumiko gestured aggressively to the damnable confections still peeking out of the boxes. "How many did you make?"
"About two hundred," Midori replied proudly. "I bought them, actually, but it was late at night and I could hardly see anything! I was carrying a grocery bag bigger than myself."
"What do we do with them?" Kumiko tried to kick one of the containers under a table, but it became even more glaringly obvious when it skidded there.
"The closet!" Hazuki blurted out. "Taki-sensei won't think to look there! We'll just cram 'em all in there and then pick them up after school! Foolproof!" Kumiko let out a sigh of defeat.
"It seems like the best idea we have right now," she said, and just as the three of them got to work, a certain trumpeter stepped into the room. Kumiko nearly dropped the container she was currently trying to force behind a set of pencils.
"What are you doing?" Reina asked. Kumiko could feel sweat dripping down her forehead, her neck, staining her uniform, coating her, and she just barely forced out an answer.
"We were . . . uh . . . going to celebrate Hazuki's birthday!" she lied. Reina raised an eyebrow.
"I thought her birthday was in February."
"It is, but, uh, we're celebrating it kinda late!"
"Six months late?"
"Y-yep!" Kumiko flashed a fake grin and bolted for the hallway. Reina, ever the fastest person there, caught up to her with ease.
"Kumiko, what are you doing?" Kumiko took a deep breath in, already feeling the tears start to prick her eyelids.
"I think the band knows about Taki-sensei," she admitted with shoulders hunched and her back to Reina.
"About my . . . feelings? Of course they know, I confessed to him in an auditorium with everyone I've ever known packed in there." Kumiko rubbed her temples.
"No, not that, not that," she muttered. "About his . . . quitting. His contract running out. Whatever."
"Oh." Kumiko gritted her teeth and clenched her muscles as if bracing for impact. "You told someone, then."
"I blurted it out to Momo! I didn't know it'd go beyond the euphs." Reina didn't speak. "I'm s-sorry, Reina."
"It's not really anything to worry about," Reina said simply, though there was a hint of sharpness to her tone. "We should head back in there. They'll need help with those cupcakes for Katou-san's late birthday, after all."
Kumiko tried to push the cupcakes from her mind, tried to focus on the way Reina circled her thumb around her palm when they held hands on the way home, but Kumiko feared that she was already a million miles away by the time they took that one parting step on the way to her apartment.
She arrived home to a darkened room and a box sitting squarely in the doorway. She nearly tripped over it after stepping inside.
"Mom?" she called nervously. "Are you here?"
"Keep it down, will you?" Kumiko felt chills down her spine at the familiar voice. "I come home for once, and I can't even get some sleep on our own couch?"
"Mamiko!"
"Who else would it be?" Mamiko flicked on the light switch and sat up, ruffling Kumiko's hair affectionately. "I was going to call you, but your cell was off."
"Why're you here?" Mamiko snorted at the question.
"Blunt as ever, I see. We had a couple of days off. I wanted to see my family for a little while, but I guess Mom and Dad are busy with something? Anyway, here I am. How's the band going?"
"The band? Oh, it's . . ." Kumiko thought of Natsuki and Yuuko's fight, of Reina and the myriad of feelings she caused, of Hazuki's odd brokenness and of Nozomi and Mizore's seemingly unbreakable bond that refused to adhere to the band's rules. She thought, soon afterward, of that wonderful feeling of playing in an ensemble, of Momo's eager expression when things went right, of Natsuki's bursts of enthusiasm and of the lightness she'd felt while kissing Reina.
"Kumiko?" Mamiko, rather rudely, snapped her perfectly manicured fingers in front of Kumiko's face. "The band?"
"R-right! Yeah, I think it's going okay." The box still sat in the entrance, toppled from Kumiko's less-than-graceful tumble over it. "It's going okay."
Mamiko, as it turned out, was doing quite well - "I guess it took me long enough to figure it all out, maybe the universe is giving me a second chance," she had joked - and had settled into her new life without much difficulty. Kumiko had to admit that she was a bit jealous.
"It's not all frills, though, there's a lot of stuff you'll wish you'd never grown to learn about - taxes, for one - but it's pretty neat rigt now. There're some guys at the local cafes who make moony eyes whenever I walk by, it's kind of sad, really." A grin spread across Mamiko's face. "How about you, then?"
"Eh?"
"Anyone special in your life?" Kumiko wanted to turn the lights off so that her sister wouldn( see her face turning red.
"W-well, there is this girl . . . we're sort of dating? I don't really know, but she's amazing. She's always driven by her ambitions, she doesn't let anything or anyone get in the way of what she wants, b-but she still really cares a lot. She's beautiful, Mamiko. She's l-like . . . a snow spirit, or something like that. I used to think she couldn't be from this world, she was too incredible for that, b-but I've started to realize that she's just as human as I am. That doesn't make her any less extraordinary, though. She's still one of the most amazing people I've ever met." Mamiko laughed.
"You've got it bad, don't you?"
"Shut up." Kumiko smacked Mamiko with the pillow closest to her.
"You think that you've still got the same touch you had when we were kids?" Mamiko flung two pillows at her in quick succession.
"I've gotten better, actually." Kumiko quietly snuck one of the pillows from the ground and hid it until Mamiko started to restock her fluffy ammo, bringing it down on her head at the soonest chance. Both of them fell off of the couch.
"I haven't done that in years!" Mamiko exclaimed. Kumiko spit out a feather.
"T-this was great, Sis, but I should probably go to sleep now. It's late, and I've got practice tomorrow, and I think I might've inhaled more feathers than any person should."
"I'll be sleeping in my old room, then!" Mamiko waved her off, and Kumiko headed for her room with the thoughts of the day all but forgotten.
Kumiko could hear her sister's snoring all the way from where she sat, ad she chuckled at the sound. The box now sat on her carpet, wrapped in pale blue paper this time - the caretaker seemed to have a thing for blues - and she waited until she knew that Mamiko was fast asleep to open it.
There's no point in trying to explain this to her, too, she thought, tentatively tearing off the beginnings of the wrapping paper. She opened the box, half-expecting it to start glowing, but instead it was simply the usual tissue paper and note.
To the fool in love-
Well, it's happened. You're thinking a lot about this, aren't you?
Kumiko had given up on thinking anything about these had been a coincidence.
You're lost, confused, scared.
"Why aren't you happy?" you say to yourself. "Why aren't you dancing among the stars? Why aren't you floating so high that nothing can drag you back down to reality? Isn't this what you've always wanted?"
Oh, but the mind is a fickle thing. I can't say I have much experience on the subject, but I've seen movies. I know how you're feeling. Life has a way of pretending that it's a kiddie ride until you're flipped onto a rollercoaster, you know. I can't promise you that everything's going to be alright. I think you know that.
Kumiko looked out the window at the full moon shining brilliantly through the trees.
The thing about rollercoasters, though, is that they have ups and downs. Things will balance themselves out in the end.
Kumiko set down the letter for a moment, watching the stars twinkle.
I don't know when I'll have another chance to send one of these, so here's something to keep you occupied until then.
~someone who's been through the wringer a few times
There, nestled among the mass of tissue paper, was a book of euphonium songs.
Mamiko was gone the next morning, leaving nothing but a note with a winky face drawn on it, but somehow Kumiko couldn't find it in her to be sad.
"I hope you're doing well, Sis," she murmured on her way out the door, bag slung over her shoulder. "I hope you end up happy."
Kumiko was reminded of the cupcake fiasco as soon as she reached the train station. Reina stood, eyes focused on the empty railroad tracks with half-empty cans of energy drinks and a very sad-looking baseball cap scattered across them.
"Hey, Reina?" Kumiko said tentatively. Reina didn't move, didn't even blink. "We're s-still on the same page, right?" Reina nodded slowly.
"We should get on," she said. The train hadn't arrived yet.
"Y-yeah." Kumiko waited with as much stillness as she could, hardly even twitching, until the train came like a metallic angel sent straight from above to deliver her from this hellish platform.
The ride was silent.
The next week and a half was spent on nothing but preparation for Kansai. Kumiko hardly ever found time for breaks, hardly ever even had time to breathe, all while Reina refused to address the breach of trust the two of the, had encountered.
"Aren't you going home with Kousaka-san?" Hazuki asked curiously one nervous Tuesday, when the competition was just three days away and Kumiko was as nervous as she'd ever been.
"She's staying behind." Kumiko hugged herself so tightly that she could feel her fingernails digging into her own arm. "I asked her already, she said that she had to g-get ready for Nationals." The evening sky had started to darken the city outside, waking up the lights of the buildings along the skyline. "Not even Kansai. Just Nationals."
"I really don't get you." Hazuki looked up, as if the hanging lights would provide her some sort of answer. "I don't understand you or Kousaka-san. You're both so driven to do what you want and you both love each other a whole lot, so why is it always so tough for you to get along?" Kumiko felt her breath hitch when Hazuki said the word love. "I've watched you stumble around your feelings for almost two years, Kumiko. I'm getting impatient, here!" Hazuki comically stomped her foot, and Kumiko chuckled softly.
"I'm trying, Hazuki." Hazuki promptly elbowed her in the ribs. "What was that for?!"
"Try harder! Tell her before it's too late, dummy!"
"T-tell her what?"
An audition, a supporter and a villain with their faces just inches away from each other, a confession of love on both their lips. The room had shaken, she wondered if Reina had even heard her, she wondered what it meant.
She'd shown her resolve in that quiet clapping, she'd made eye contact, but they never did talk about what it meant. It was left as an encouragement, so,etching never to be brought up again. Now, Kumiko wished she'd said something else. Already, she knew that the strings were starting to unravel and all she could do was remember that single day where they had known everything about each other, just two weeks ago.
"Kumiko?" Hazuki stomped her foot again. "Geez, you've been spacing out a lot lately. Is everything okay?"
"I'm f-fine," Kumiko mumbled, staggering forward. Hazuki looked down at the ground before tightening her grip on one of the straps of her rainbow backpack and reaching out to grab Kumiko by the arm.
"Hey!" she snapped. Kumiko was yanked back, twirled around to face her.
That's going to leave a mark, she thought, rubbing her sore arm. "How'd you get so strong?"
"I've been working out, and I used to take karate when I was a little kid- that's not what this is about! Kumiko, you're obviously not okay, so why don't you say something about it?"
"I'm stressed." Hazuki leaned in.
"And?"
"Kansai is in three days."
"And?" Hazuki leaned in closer until Kumiko had to back away.
'"I'm scared, okay?!"' She threw her arms up in exasperation. "I don't know why Reina's acting like this, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, every time I get more answers things just get weirder, and it's all just . . . it's too big."
"Too . . . big?" Hazuki echoed.
"You remember when Asuka-senpai left the band for a few weeks, right?"
"Yeah, of course. It was because of her mom, I think? Or her grades. I heard both."
"Well, I ended up begging her to come back. I saw parts of her that I didn't really want to see. I think everyone still sees her as a kind of old deity, someone to remember as perfect, b-but she wasn't. She wasn't, and I had to see that firsthand. I loved her, Hazuki - not in a romantic sense, but the way you love a sister, you get that, right?" Hazuki was stunned into silence, for once. "If someone as strong as Asuka-senpai could've been broken so easily, what's there to say for the rest of us? I d-don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know why everything seems to be happening at once, but I just want it to stop." Hazuki started to pat her on the shoulder before awkwardly wrapping her in a hug.
"Hey, hey, you'll be okay. It'll all be okay, don't worry."
"Thanks, Hazuki."
Kumiko walked alone that night.
Two days, she thought on her way to the train station the next morning. Just two days, and then we'll be at the Kansai competition and we'll hopefully make it to Nationals, and then maybe things will go back to normal.
"You're here early," Reina noted. Kumiko looked at her watch.
"This is when I usually get here." Reina blinked quickly, looking like she was trying to clear some thought from her mind.
"I'm focused on getting to-"
"Nationals, I know." The train arrived, and the two of them walked on in perfect sync. Reina clicked her tongue distastefully. "What's wrong?"
"The band's been out of focus," she said. "They're all putting too much pressure on themselves to do better because of the news about Taki-sensei, and it's making them sound forced and clunky."
"Isn't that what you're always doing?"
"What?"
"I mean, you always sound amazing, but aren't you usually playing for Taki-sensei? I thought that was what you wanted, to be special and all that, and h-he was the one who . . . inspired you, or whatever. You wanted a partner, right? I understand how that feels. He's leaving, it's scary. And you're always pushing yourself really hard anyway, it's kinda-"
"What do you know about what I want?" Reina's voice was sharpened steel, a blade pointed directly at Kumiko's throat and just starting to prick at the soft skin at its mercy. Nobody else was on the train.
"I wasn't . . . I just think you should m-maybe take a break or something, Kansai's two days away and everyone's doing pretty well, you'll be okay if you just take a few minutes to breathe or something like that."
"I'm breathing right now, aren't I?" Reina gripped the pole closest to her, refusing to sit down. Kumiko hadn't sat down either. "I told you that what I felt for Taki-sensei was something different altogether from what I felt for you, but that doesn't mean I don't still want to honor his wish."
"Right, right, you have to make it to Nationals." Kumiko tried to stop herself, tried to stop the words from bubbling in her throat and filling up the whole train car, but it was too late. "That's all you ever talk about, anyway. Nationals, Nationals, Taki-sensei, Nationals!" Kumiko's voice felt hoarse, pained, and she put her hands on her knees to stop herself from collapsing to the cold metal floor. Reina looked to be staring down at her, a queen with a traitor to her land presented on a silver platter.
"And what about you, then?"
"Eh?"
"It's not like you ever quite noticed." Reina's violet eyes blazed. "Always running after trouble, trying to make everyone else's problems your own. It's not a nice way to live, if we're really going to criticize each others lifestyle."
"Reina, I-"
"You wanted to know what was going on, why I was acting like I did before that day in the nurse's office, but you never thought to just talk to me about it."
"I did! I asked you and you made me wait for it, and it's not like I didn't have a good reason for waiting!"
"You were scared. That's not a reason, Kumiko, it's a motive. We're all scared." Reina's voice seemed to soften just a bit before the blade was pointed at Kumiko once again. "I was terrified. I still am. I'm not going to let that stand in my way."
"Maybe if you put down the trumpet for once and stopped letting your ambitions cloud everything, we could talk about it! And then you'd be less scared! Both of us would be!"
"I'm not letting anything stand in my way." Reina approached the doors as the train slowed to a halt. Kumiko could only walk in time with her in a painful sort of quietness, fearful and weary.
"The Kansai competition is in two days," Taki said at the end of practice that day as the band looked up at him with eager, sad expressions, like dogs begging for scraps. "I expect you all to do your best, and I truly do believe we can make it to Nationals."
"Make sure to get here early tomorrow," Yuuko chimed in.
"Yoshikawa-san, would you do the honors?" Taki asked. Yuuko blinked.
"What? Oh, right." She raised her fist halfheartedly, waiting for the rest of the band to do the same. "Kitauji, fighto!"
"Yeah!"
Kumiko's eyes were only on the empty seat in the trumpet section.
The next day passed in a blur, the band already as frenzied as they would've been on the day of the competition. Kumiko dully forced her way through the practices, her eyes on the clock. She still walked home with Reina, waiting and waiting and waiting for her to say something, but not a single word was passed between them.
Kumiko took out her phone the night before the competition and started to type out a message, the words swimming in front of her eyes.
Kumiko: hey
Kumiko: what do you do when you're not sure about anything?
a/n: the people hazuki mentions in the cupcake scene are all canon characters whose names are revealed in the booklets that come with the blurays, they all have really cute bios and yes this is me encouraging everyone to legally support the show and buy the blurays so that kyoani will have more of an incentive to make more hibike content
also there's gonna be some Prime Kumirei Angst™ next week so. yeah