Thirteenth
They lean back against their favorite tree, looking for the entire world like a devoted senpai-kouhai couple. Tamao is reading one of her latest fictional works, a play. Up to this time she has not shown Miyuki any of her new poetry. If the older woman has noticed the exclusion, she refrains from passing any comment. Miyuki's eyes are closed, following the flow of Tamao's work through her voice. She would ask a question once in a while. Tamao has rapidly grown as a writer that there's little useful criticism that Miyuki can offer these days. Nonetheless, the roles of writer and private reader / editor suit them perfectly. It is one more intimacy they share in a growing list of intimacies. This also serves as a public foil to the true nature of their relationship, which they both have chosen to conceal. It's not embarrassment that keeps them silent – just a desire for privacy. By this point, they have become such public figures in Astraea Hill that any trivial act or word on their part leads to mere speculations.
And for a while, there had been a great deal of conjecture. Both women had previously spent most of their time in the Strawberry Dorms either alone or with their respective roommates, so the sudden intimacy seen in them the last few weeks had sparked rumors. But the absence of any public displays of affection, coupled with frequent demonstrations of what was so obviously a mentor-protégé relationship, had eventually quelled all speculation. And then lastly, if not importantly, both women had a growing body of ardent admirers who fervently declared their apparent if somewhat aloof availability.
Miyuki, in particular, had been puzzled by her sudden popularity. Years of living in Shizuma's shadow, dazzled and out-dazzled by her magnetic friend, had rendered her permanently incapable of appreciating her own appeal. It's one of the things Tamao loved most about the older woman.
As for Tamao herself, her growing independence from Nagisa coupled with the demands of presidency had molded her into a quietly confident and assertive young woman. In the frequent absence of her roommate who had been her most vocal supporter, Tamao had learned to fight her own battles eventually. The passive and timid creature had grown into a poised and self-assured young woman. She would, Miyuki had once thought with regret, have made a splendid Etoile, even all by herself.
The disruption, when it comes, comes in a form of a letter. Tamao has been searching for Miyuki, and finds her mentor inside her room. The older woman holds a sheet, and passes it wordlessly to Tamao with a pale and shaking hand.
It is the draft of an invitation to Miyuki's wedding.
Somehow, in the hermetic joy and peace of their past few weeks, they had both forgotten one salient fact: that Miyuki was engaged to be married shortly after graduation, to a fiancé betrothed to her since birth. Tamao had heard of it from the older students, but she and Miyuki had never discussed it.
If only they had.
Now, grief-stricken brown eyes look into tormented gray ones. They reach for each other in silence and for once, neither finds solace nor comfort at the prospect of fulfilling their duty.