The day after Usagi's visit, Kawahira showed up. Knowing him, he had timed it precisely that way to avoid meeting Usagi.

"Flowers?" he queried, as she washed and put away the dishes. Granny had gone to the local bath house, and Hotaru had volunteered to stay and clean up. She wasn't surprised Kawahira had showed up randomly – he always did – but his question was random and didn't really make sense.

Hotaru blinked before it clicked. The flowers, for Ameyuri's funeral. "How did you even know? You haven't been in Namimori since you told me."

"That you know of," Kawahira countered.

Hotaru lifted one eyebrow, because he was just being difficult now. "Were you?"

"I might have been," he eluded. "I don't always drop by home when I come back to Namimori."

Finished with the dishes, Hotaru wiped her hands on her apron and took it off. "Did you do that this time?"

He wasn't in the mood to be deliberately obfuscating today apparently, at least not for too long.

"Not this time," Kawahira admitted easily enough, and really, was that so hard? "I was busy in Italy."

She made a noise of sympathy. "What did you do in Italy?"

"Oh, this and that. Check on some precious stones, monitor past and ongoing investments, scout out future choices, look at new flowers. Speaking of flowers – flowers?"

It wasn't one of his best evasions. He really must not have wanted to talk about it.

"Flowers," she confirmed. Sympathy and condolences and a bit of guilt. Respect for the dead was hard to express in words, and so Hotaru had chosen the language of flowers. "Stargazer lilies."

"Huh," Kawahira mused. "I guess we were seeing opposite things."

His eyes looked old and not-quite mortal again.

"You never did tell me how you knew," she pointed out quietly, voice barely raised above a murmur. He could ignore it if he wanted to, pretend he hadn't heard. She got ready to leave, thinking he wouldn't say anything.

He didn't. "I was the priest of funeral rites in Elysion, the one to wash the bodies so they would be cleaned and purged of their sins from life, and leave for the Underworld healed, not punished."

His words were heavy with a longing affection and deep sorrow. Saudade, as Michiru might have said to describe it. In that moment he was held by the ghost of his memories, and like a sailor being pulled into the depths of the ocean's waters by sirens he didn't resist their lull.

In that moment Hotaru saw more of Acheron, and the old melancholy deposited over all his years than she had ever seen before, even more than the time he had told her a 'story' of how he and a few others had survived her annihilation.

The moment shattered when Kawahira caught her eye and grinned, as if her wide-eyed look of surprise was enough to snap him out of whatever memories had enraptured him.

"I know when funerals are coming around," he said, a simple way of answering her question, one she was less curious about now. "Habits left over from old jobs."

Kawahira ruffled her hair. Any trace of Acheron was gone – covered up, hidden, tucked away out of sight by the untidy mortal man with a love for ramen. "Good choice, with the flowers."

He turned around and left, before she could consider apologizing or asking if he was okay.

Takeshi grieved, as he should, and he moved on in his own time. To Hotaru's pleasant surprise, he didn't push her away after. Like Ameyuri had thought, he did let her in. She just wished it hadn't taken the woman's death for this to happen.

Slowly, they figured out a routine. He still had school and other things in life, unlike her, so she adjusted her schedule to fit his. At least once a week, usually on the weekend in the afternoon when the restaurant wasn't busy, she dropped by for dinner there. Sometimes Granny came along, but sometimes she just asked for takeout.

Takeshi left her alone for a moment to go wash his hands, and his father, dressed in the white of a sushi chef, peered at her over the counter. They had been introduced – by Ameyuri, back when she had been alive, and again by Takeshi when she came back to see him – but he looked at her now, with the face of a man who had something to say.

"You've been looking out for him," he started.

Hotaru nodded, but under her calm façade she did sweat a little. Did he want her to leave his son alone? Maybe he didn't approve, or –

The man's face crumpled a little, lips twisting with grief and creasing the corners of his mouth, as if he was stifling a sob.

"Thank you," he said, his voice rough with unshed tears.

Oh. Oh.

She probably should have expected that, from Takeshi's father and Ameyuri's husband. Not a 'stay away from my son' or 'get away from our family' or 'why couldn't you save her'.

"He's," Takeshi's father paused, and turned his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. Hotaru didn't press and waited for him to compose himself. "He's been better about it, thanks to you."

"It's-" to say 'nothing' would have been wrong. "The least I could do."

And it wasn't a lie. She didn't have her powers, and even if Saturn had been present, she couldn't save everyone. She could not stop death, only ensure room for hope and rebirth afterwards.

(But Ameyuri had been a Capricorn, technically under her protection, and Tomoe Hotaru by herself could have done nothing to help her – )

(It was only a question of just which planet would influence her, nothing to do with her directly, but still – )

(So really, it was the least she could do.)

The older Yamamoto turned his head from the cutting board in front of him and cleared his throat a few times.

"Come over any time," he said, smiling with a kind of fondness that was genuine in its own gruff way. "I think the least I could do is get you something on the house."

Hotaru thought, as Takeshi returned to take his seat next to her, that the young boy could have probably recovered well enough on his own even if she hadn't been there, with a father like him.

Takeshi beamed at her. "The tuna is the best one," he said with the confidence of an expert in the field. She cracked a smile as well, because in a way, she supposed he would be the expert.

TakeSushi became a part of her schedule after that, because how could it not?

Other days they met at the park, less to play and more for him to enjoy a sense of freedom. He had realized too early that he was now the only family his father had left, and he couldn't make himself be a child to him, no matter what Hotaru said about him actually being a child.

It wasn't that Takeshi was cruel or rude in nature, but rather that he sometimes found people stifling. Clever as he was, he had realized that being different meant risking isolation or shunning, and camouflaged himself into a smiling, happy-go-lucky boy. It wasn't hard for him – his nature was close to that – but he pushed parts of himself back, covered it with a smile and let that be all the world saw of him.

As Ameyuri had said, he was someone that didn't truly let anyone get close to him. Fooled by his smiling demeanor, most of his peers would think themselves to be friends of his, while Takeshi didn't consider them as his.

That he could differentiate in social interactions like this at such a young age was testament to his high intelligence. He might not have enjoyed or liked the school subjects – and Hotaru, who found herself helping him through his homework more often than not, knew that best – but he was intuitive and sharp, and if it weren't for the magic Kawahira had cast to hide her, she knew he would have noticed her frozen time and figured that something was wrong with her.

But that intelligence also meant he was isolating himself. Mature didn't necessarily mean good. He was still a child, he shouldn't have had to think or worry about this.

"I have Dad," Takeshi said with a shrug when she asked who he was close to. "And you."

He said it like it was obvious that the two of them were all he needed in life.

And, well, it was very flattering, and Hotaru couldn't make herself push him to make more friends when he said very firmly that she and his father were enough for him. She could only hope that eventually he'd find someone else he could call a friend as well, because one day, she would have to leave.

So that became Hotaru's life. Study at home, practice the violin, help Granny, talk with her parents and the other sailor soldiers over the phone, occasionally break the comfortable silence between her and Kawahira when he showed up, and spend time with Takeshi. Time went by for everyone except her, and she measured it by the passing seasons and the growing height of her friend. The only thing that she disliked about this arrangement was how Takeshi seemed adamant on her drinking milk.

"I don't like milk," Hotaru had said bluntly, after the fifth offer. At this point she didn't even make an effort made to turn him down gently. Gentle didn't work. He needed the force of a sledgehammer to get the point, and maybe even then it wouldn't get across.

"It's good for you," Takeshi insisted. He had brought different flavors, thinking that might be the problem when the root cause of her refusal to drink was her dislike of milk itself. She didn't mind things made from milk, but milk? No. "It'll help you grow taller."

It really wouldn't. But she couldn't very well tell him the reason for that.

"Milk is good for you because it has calcium," Hotaru tried to explain. "I take supplements and eat things that have calcium. I really don't like milk."

Takeshi considered her words, and then beamed brightly. "You should still drink milk!"

This, Hotaru knew with the dreaded feeling of the unavoidable approaching, would be something she would have to bear with for as long as she knew him. She was, unfortunately, proven correct on this. Kawahira found it utterly hilarious, as did her parents.

Over two years after her arrival in Namimori, nearing three years of having stayed in the town with Kawahira and Granny, Hotaru found her life's routine shaken up once more when she came home to witness what appeared to be a candidate for a roommate being interviewed.

"So your mom wants to leave and your dad wants her to leave. What do you want?" Granny asked her guest, a girl a little younger than Hotaru's fixed age.

"Haru doesn't want to go back home!" cried the young girl with chestnut hair braided on both sides of her head. "Haru's parents hate each other!"

Granny, the person most likely responsible for bringing her to the office, was as blunt as always. "Then don't."

'Haru' cried harder. Granny let her, and Hotaru followed her lead by letting the younger girl cry while she made herself useful. She retrieved a few cups from the kitchen, boiled hot water and set a few snacks – fruit jellies were the available option today, courtesy of Makoto as per usual – on the tray before bringing it in. Haru's sobbing was decreased by the time she had returned, reduced to hiccoughs and sniffles.

With an inhale of breath that Hotaru had learned to recognize as the beginning of a speech, Granny shuffled forwards. "Listen up, Haru-kun."

The brusque order left little room for argument, Hotaru knew from having been on the receiving end of one a few times over the course of her stay in the Kawahira residence. She silently brought out her handkerchief and tucked it into the younger girl's hand in exchange for the one she had been using, a flowery pink-patterned one she recognized as Granny's that was already dampened and limp with tears.

"Hahi?" she squeaked, and the handkerchief Hotaru tucked into her hand was left unused.

"I don't know what's going on with your parents," Granny said, matter-of-factly. She did have a habit of not really paying attention to what went on around her. Kawahira had confided in Hotaru that the only reason she was able to keep the realtor business open despite the very few customers they had gotten over the years was because of investments he had made, not because of her lacking business sense. "But if you don't like it and you want to run away from home, that's your choice."

Namimori was a wonder, as were its residents and the common sense they preached. Hotaru waited for her to explain her reasoning, because that way it made more sense and saved a lot of trouble.

"That being said it's dangerous for a child to just run away from home," Granny continued like she hadn't just said something most would consider a terrible piece of advice. "Children should be protected and given safe spots where they don't have to deal with adult stupidity. If you want to run away, you come here."

That was more like what she expected from Granny – offering an escape, no strings attached.

Haru sniffled.

"You can blow your nose if you'd like," Hotaru offered quietly when the girl aborted a movement to use the handkerchief.

"Haru couldn't," she mumbled. "Come here, that is." She blew her nose on the handkerchief, with a loud sound that felt unclogging simply to hear.

"Thank you," she added, voice much less nasally than before. "Haru will wash it before she returns it."

"Of course you can," Granny said in the 'don't-argue-with-me' voice she did so well. A kind-hearted dictator, Hotaru thought fondly as she pushed the jelly – brightly colored, with pieces of fruit suspended inside like gems – towards Haru. "I have room to spare. Why couldn't you?"

"But," Haru mumbled. "Haru doesn't want to be a bother."

"Every girl should leave their home at least once in their life," Granny said, passing on advice Hotaru had never heard before. Maybe because she was already doing it when they first met and had already fulfilled the life quota as said by Granny. "You might as well do it safely, while you're at it. Eat some jelly."

Hotaru scooped up a spoonful of the strawberry-flavored jelly into Haru's mouth when she opened it to protest.

"They're good," she assured the younger girl over her muffled sound of surprise. Anything made by Kino Makoto was good, to be honest, and while it was her first time trying her hand at jelly-making, the tall woman had created culinary masterpieces once again. "And you wouldn't be a bother. She took me in, too."

Haru was distracted from the jelly. "You ran away too?"

Hotaru shook her head. "I was sick so I had to leave home. It's not contagious," she added to reassure her as she set the yellow jelly with the honeyed lemon on top in front of Granny. The old woman loved sour things, and Makoto always made sure to throw in at least one sour thing in everything she sent to Hotaru.

"Taking in kids is no bother," Granny said, rough but reassuring. "Safety is what's important."

Haru looked reluctant, eyes flitting from Hotaru to Granny.

"If you want to go home," Hotaru offered, fully aware that Granny and her habit of strong-arming people could be a bit much on the uninitiated. "That's okay too. Granny just wants you to have a choice."

The younger girl remained hesitant but then Granny began telling them both a story about the time she had decided to run away and ended up lost in the mountains near Namimori. The story involved walking in on a fight that started because of a love triangle, getting caught up in a plot to dress up as ghosts and haunt the cheating man, a bear, and the beginning of an urban legend about the lantern festival in Namimori.

"And that's why no one goes to the graveyard during the lantern festival," she finished with. "At least, they didn't while my generation was young. Who knows what they're doing there now."

Haru had tears in her eyes, though for a different reason than before. Hotaru, who had also been in stitches, couldn't blame her.

"Did you really dig a hole in the graveyard?" Haru wheezed. "And – and stay in it until people came by?"

"It was hard work," Granny said, far too prim for someone recounting the tale of digging a hole in a cemetery for the purpose of trying to give a person a heart attack. "I'm never digging my own grave again, fake or not. Cremate me, I say. Scatter my ashes to the winds so there's no digging involved for anyone."

It was a morbid joke, all things considered, but they were still on the wave of euphoria from the story. Haru caught Hotaru's eyes, and they both burst into giggles again.

Haru did eventually end up returning to her home. There was a choice offered to her now, somewhere she could go if she wanted to.

"Sometimes having that choice makes all the difference," Granny said, after they had walked Haru to her home. Her parents had been relieved, hugging Haru. They hadn't looked like people who hated each other, but they weren't people Hotaru knew, and it wasn't her place to make judgements on their character. Haru and what she felt was important.

Haru, who had looked like there was a weight off her shoulders now.

"That freedom makes it less entrapping, and easier to make better choices." The wrinkles on her face deepened.

The girl came by after that, to talk with Granny or with Hotaru. She didn't run away, but she came by as if to check if the invitation was still open to her, and they didn't prod rudely. Haru told them herself.

"Mommy and Daddy are working things out, and they promised they still love Haru," she said, looking light-hearted and freed now that everything seemed to have worked out. "But I still wanted to come visit."

"Good. You can go and play with her." Never one to let an opportunity pass, Granny sent Hotaru outside with Haru.

That had come out of the blue. Bewildered, Hotaru turned to look at Granny as she was pushed outside the door. "Granny?"

"You need more friends than just the Sushi Boy," the old woman claimed. Takeshi didn't mind when Granny called him that to his face, but Hotaru always reminded her that he had a name. "Go out and play."

"Takeshi, Granny." Hotaru had been friends with him since he was five. He was now eight years old. "His name is Takeshi."

Granny was an unmovable force who would not be budged from her ways. "Yes, Sushi Boy."

They were shooed out before Hotaru could even continue attempting the Sisyphean task of changing Granny's mind when she was set on something.

Naturally, the conversation's topic was about Granny Kawahira.

"Haru likes Granny," the younger girl said thoughtfully. "Haru wants to be like her when she's an old woman, too."

"She's very unique," agreed Hotaru. She really was. She could see why Kawahira worked to keep himself in her life.

"Mm-hm," Haru hummed, before she snatched up Hotaru's hand. "Alright, Hotaru-chan!"

The sudden jump took Hotaru off-guard for the second time in a few scant moments. "Huh?"

"Let's go play!" And off she ran, dragging Hotaru along to the playground at the park nearby. She led her to the swings, which, miracle of all miracles, weren't occupied.

Hotaru found herself on the swing, not quite competing but serving as a 'rival'.

"First person to reach the moon wins," Haru said seriously.

"What does the winner get?" Hotaru asked, because she wasn't going to be the one to tell Haru this wasn't how they went to the moon. Also, in terms of determination alone Haru was quite ready to reach the moon with her sheer swinging power.

Haru looked at her with wide eyes. "The moon, of course!"

Hotaru considered it. Usagi probably wouldn't mind. "Alright."

Neither of them reached the moon that day, but by the end of it she somehow found herself friends with Haru. Hotaru didn't find herself very surprised at this outcome.

AN: Since I ended up not doing that April Fools chapter, have an extra-long chapter with a time skip of roughly two years and the revelation of Hotaru's second friend in Namimori pre-KHR instead (readers: this person).

If you're interested in understanding what Kawahira means / figuring out why he's been out, the hint is that Stargazer lilies are white flowers, and Hotaru was at a funeral, which happens when a person dies.

Sweet Dreams~