Madoka opens her eyes. Nearly sealed shut from tiredness. It's dark, almost pitch-black. She looks over to her alarm clock: a few hours before it's supposed to go off. But she doesn't even give thought to what might have woken her up at such an odd time; the only thing consuming her thoughts is an immense hunger. Her stomach growling tells her as much. She groggily stands up and slides into her slippers, stumbling through the dark and into the hallway, where she smells something very appetizing coming from below in the kitchen. She follows her nose, slowly going down the steps and expecting to find her father for some reason making breakfast in the middle of the night.
Though the lights are dimmed, they're still enough to make her recoil slightly and rub her eyes before spying what is possibly the least expected thing she could have imagined being in her kitchen at four or five in the morning: Homura. Hair in braids, wearing a cheery pink apron, cooking pancakes almost as large as the plate they're stacked on top of, and covered in fruits and whipped cream and all sorts of amazing drizzles.
She turns to Madoka, revealing a pair of bright red glasses and cheerfully greets her, "Ah! Madoka, come sit down, breakfast is almost ready!"
Idly, Madoka sits at the table as if nothing were wrong with this scenario. And about as quickly as she sits, the food is done and sitting in front of her, with Homura standing right by her side. Madoka makes a stupid grin on her face from the sheer, overpowering aroma of the food, and decides to dig in immediately.
But something is wrong. Despite all of the sweets stacked on top of them, and despite the wonderful smell, every bite she takes is bland and tasteless. As if sensing her dissatisfaction, Homura bends down and asks, her voice high and squeaky, "Is something wrong? Is it not sweet enough?"
Madoka hums and shakes her head lightly. In response, Homura leans over the table and soon lies atop it, the pancakes now gone. She spreads herself out as she asks, "Then, how about...this?"
It's then that Madoka realizes she's not just wearing an apron. She's only wearing an apron. And now that she looks closer, it's not even an apron; it's a layer of cream made to LOOK like an apron! Her eyes go wide from their tired state as she blushes madly, "H-Homura..."
"Dig in~" Homura slurs. And so she does. Inch-by-inch, from toe to head, all while the girl beneath her is moaning. "Is it sweet?" she asks.
"Yeah..." Madoka answers and continues.
Slowly, Homura's voice starts to ascend into a crescendo until she's finally screaming, SCREAMING into her ear, and it just KEEPS GETTING LOUDER. AND LOUDER. AND...!
She looks up. There's a blaring sound resounding through her head. Homura's head is now a trumpet. The oven explodes into glitter.
Madoka wakes up again, her entire body overheated despite having kicked the covers off in her sleep. Looking to her left reveals the culprit of the interruption: Her alarm clock blaring into her ear. She looks to her right, noting her stuffed rabbit is damp with presumably saliva. She grumbles, smacks the alarm clock frustratedly, and goes to wake her mother up for work with the least enthusiastic expression she can muster. It's a pretty upsetting start to the day, to be sure.
By the time she's made it to her usual path to school and meets up with Sayaka, Kyouko, Hitomi, and Kyousuke, she's still not managed to wipe the tired frown off of her face. Sayaka addresses this, "Hey, hey, what's up? You look like your breakfast came out burnt!" she throws an arm around Madoka's shoulder.
But Madoka just groans grumpily, "No... Just had a weird dream." And right now, she's hyper-aware of Sayaka's chest pushing up against her arm, thus pushing back and coming off as slightly hostile.
"Whoa," Sayaka says, backing up "bad mood. Got it." She looks back at Kyouko and yells out, "Hey! Ya got any Pocky left!?"
"Why!?" Kyouko yells back, chewing on a stick.
"She's havin' a bad morning!"
"Oh!" Kyouko nods, falls back a bit, then hands her a pocky stick, which she then hands to Madoka. She takes it, but still doesn't look like it helped much. Like the pancakes in the dream, the normally sweet chocolate tastes bland. She sighs and chews it up quickly.
Sayaka looks at Kyouko for what to do. Kyouko shrugs and keeps walking. Sayaka rolls her eyes and reassures her friend, "Hey, maybe reading another one of those letters will get you back up?" Madoka groans, though the idea is more appealing than just a sweet snack. Sayaka isn't satisfied, though, "Hey, what's up with you?" She jumps in front and stops her, "Hey, it's your best friend Sayaka. You can tell me anything, so what's wrong?"
Madoka stops for only a brief moment before walking around her, but she still answers, "...Well, I've just been having a lot of weird thoughts lately."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Mmm..." Madoka hums, recounting something embarrassing enough to make her blush. Not even the dream she had that morning, which she can't quite get out of her head despite the horrifying interruption at the end. "Well, like, I can't stop thinking about..." she stops herself right there before she says "Homura". One mention of the girl will have Sayaka just as grumpy as her. Instead, she says, "...other girls. Like, you, and Kyouko, and Mami, and Homura..."
"That doesn't sound weird at all." Sayaka points out.
Madoka scoffs and pouts unintentionally, "I mean— not like that! Like..."
Sayaka waits while she struggles to describe it.
"I don't know! It's hard to explain." she finally yells.
Sayaka puts a finger to her chin in mock thought, "Hmm. Well, what did your mom say?"
"I haven't told her. Didn't know how to say it."
"Oh. Uh... I guess if you do figure it out, just speak up! Alright?"
Madoka nods, "Alright."
Sayaka pauses for a moment before realizing they're just standing there silently like idiots, "...Yeah. Sorry, let's get going." And off they go.
Finally arriving at school, they all convene around Madoka at the lockers and wait for her to open today's letter, which falls out easily when she opens hers up. Madoka narrates, "You are beautiful just the way you are. Don't let anyone tell you what to be."
Sayaka chokes up, "O-Oh my god, that's so cheesy! Who keeps writing these things? I mean god, that sounds like it's from an anime!"
The girls all start giggling. Except for Madoka. She looks at it, smiles faintly, and puts it away before returning to her previous attitude and just walking away to class without the others, leaving them concerned and confused.
Kyouko asks Sayaka, "Oi, what's up with her? You two talked, right?"
"Yeah," Sayaka answers "said she was getting some weird thoughts about us, lately. I mean, I know she's been pretty distracted the past few days, but never like this."
"...Weird thoughts?" Kyouko asks with a suspicious amount of curiosity.
"Yeah."
"Like?"
"Exactly."
"What?"
Sayaka explains, "She didn't know how to describe it. Just kept lookin' away and getting all embarrassed."
"Embarrassed?"Kyouko accentuates.
"Yeah."
"Thinking about us?"
Sayaka gets a bit angry, "Yes, do I need to repeat myself!?"
"No, no, just..." Kyouko waves her off. She goes into a sudden deep thought; looks at where Madoka ran off to, then back at Sayaka, then up at the ceiling. "Oh. Oh, I get it." she says with a smirk.
"What?" Sayaka asks, but Kyouko doesn't answer. She just smiles at her knowingly. "What!?" Sayaka gets louder.
Kyouko just laughs at her, "Haha! Nothing. Forget it. We'll see what happens."
Kyouko walks away, leaving Sayaka and Hitomi more confused than before.
Madoka has a problem. Well, the same problem as before: Distraction. It's the middle of class, but she can't quite seem to keep her eyes on the board. Instead, they are keenly affixed to the back of Homura's head as she stares out the glass walls of the classroom. Although most of it is gone to memory, she can still vaguely recall enough of her dream that it nags at the back of her head incessantly. So much that the only way to alleviate it is to just...stare. Her primary thought being that Homura is really, really pretty with her perfect, shiny hair and skin so pale that it's like a doll's; a traditional beauty who looks so damned good in black that it's almost criminal. God, she needs to see her in a tuxedo. But the version she saw in her dream was absolutely adorable, instead. It's just something about the glasses that just says "please protect and spoil me" that she can't shake. It hits her to her core, as if it were a genetically predisposed fetish of some kind. She starts to imagine this Homura like she was in that dream, and all of the extended fantasy ways she wishes it would have gone, and unknowingly starts to grin about it.
Of course, Madoka doesn't know that Homura knows that she's staring at her, because Homura is ALSO staring at her through the reflection in the glass wall she's staring at. (Well, that and the conga line of clara dolls walking around outside that everyone seems to just be ignoring.) And she's mildly sweating, finding it hard to keep her composure. She can't help but think, "Is... Is that what it looks like when I stare at people? She's just staring and...smiling!? It's...creepy! What the hell, me? And what the hell is that smile!? What on earth could she be thinking? Geez... It's a good thing nobody knows I'm looking at them. Should I turn around? No? No."
Hitomi, being seated right next to Madoka, notices and waves a hand in front of her face. She can't quite say anything yet, but Madoka at least snaps out of it and tries to pay attention to the lesson again. Spoiler alert: That doesn't last long. By the time lessons are over, her friends all start gathering around again and chatting idly. Except for Homura, as usual. Madoka's a bit upset about that. But before she can start to inwardly rant about it, Sayaka hops onto her desk and asks, "Hey, what's up? Hitomi tells me you've been staring off into space all day."
Madoka looks down and doesn't quite answer.
"Or maybe you were staring at something else?"
Still nothing.
"Do I need to get the chu— I mean Homura over here?"
Madoka suddenly looks up, "No! No. I'm fine."
"Really?" Sayaka puts her hands on her hips. "You usually jump to go talk to her."
"I mean, I do, but..." Madoka trails off, now staring at Sayaka's chest.
Sayaka gives her a minute; a long, full minute of silence before speaking up, "Uh...Madoka? My eyes are up here."
She looks back up, panicked and embarrassed, then back down to her desk and around the room. She can't seem to quite look in any particular direction, and it ultimately drives her to the point of having an outburst: She slams her hands on her desk, shoots out of it, and yells, "I need to...! I..." She lowers her voice when she realizes that everyone glanced at her, "I need to go see the...nurse."
Sayaka looks concerned, "Alright... Seeya later, I guess?" She pats her on the back and goes back to fucking around with Hitomi and Kyouko.
Madoka isn't really one to lie. Often, anyways. But this is different. If they knew where she was really going, she would never hear the end of it. And as much as she cares for Sayaka, she can be REALLY overbearing at times. Nobody else can know, either; not until she's ready. Hitomi is a gossip machine, Kyouko will endlessly tease you about the slightest thing, and Homura...
Well, Homura would probably be the only one who acts respectfully. Whether she'd care is up to debate. And besides, her feelings are weird right now. By the end of her stressed-out pondering, she's made her way to a dark wooden door with a nameplate: "Masashi Yasui – School Counselor".
She takes a deep breath, swallows her pride, and knocks on the door before slowly opening it and inching in. "Uhh... Mr. Yasui?" she timidly calls out.
It doesn't look like anyone is in here, until the chair behind the counselor's desk spins around suddenly to reveal a middle-aged man in a brown suit, with glasses. "Hello?" he asks "Can I help you?"
"Uh..." Madoka tries to speak, entering the room completely but just standing there awkwardly.
Seeing she isn't about to answer anytime soon, he asks, "Your name?"
"Oh. Madoka Kaname." she answers, finding a seat in a nearby chair.
"Madoka Kaname, let me see..." he says, looking through something on his computer. After a minute, he says, "I'm not expecting you. Then again, I'm also not busy at the moment. So I guess I can spare some time. Now, what is it you're here for?"
Having had some time to think, Madoka explains briefly, "Well, it's just that I've been feeling really weird lately and didn't know what to think of it."
"Weird?" he asks "How? And feel free to sit on the couch, behind you."
She does so, "Well, I guess it's like...I don't think other people feel like I am. Like it's just different...or something."
The counselor chuckles as he takes a seat in the adjacent armchair, "Well, that's a very common thing to think. Sometimes they're right. But other times, what they think or feel is just completely normal and only feels strange because it's unfamiliar. But I can't really go into anything specific unless you want to tell me exactly what these 'feelings' you're having are."
Madoka grumbles for a moment, as if trying to decide exactly how open to be. In the end, her decision is fairly predictable, "I, uh... Lately I've just been noticing my friends a lot more. Noticing how much they're growing. Maybe they were always like that but I'm just now noticing, but I can't even focus with it all on my mind..."
He puts a pen to his chin, looks at his watch, then says, "It's affecting your grades? Well, the sooner we solve this the better, then. So when you say 'noticing', what do you mean?"
"I mean like..." she thinks for a second "...Well, any time I'm going to see Mami or Sayaka, I always just end up staring at them a lot, and can't speak normally. And with Homura... She's just so pretty that whenever I look at her or get near her or hear her, it feels like my heart's about to explode! I can't stop, and I couldn't even talk to her today because it was too embarrassing! And that stupid dream didn't help..."
"Dream?" he asks, suddenly very intrigued.
"Yeah. A weird dream."
"Mind elaborating?"
Madoka hesitates, rightfully. It takes a while, but she ultimately decides, "I...don't think that's a good idea. I mean, the details, anyways. It was just a really..."
He waits for her with intrigue.
"...really perverted dream. And I just don't know where it came from..."
"I see." he says, a bit deep in thought. Eventually, he makes the mistake of asking her about Homura. Madoka proceeds to go on a ten-minute ramble about how adorable she is, listing out all of the things they've done together since she transferred in. Not resting for a second, just going on and on and seemingly forgetting who she's even talking to or why she started rambling in the first place.
Fittingly, she eventually stops herself and asks, "...Wait, what was I doing, again?"
With a surprised smile on his face, the counselor reminds her, "We were talking about why you were having these feelings. And I believe I know what's happening."
"Really?" Madoka asks eagerly.
"Well..." he hesitates "have you ever had a crush on anyone before?"
"Yeah. I guess."
He pause for a moment, "I see, now..."
Madoka cocks her head to the side with suspicion.
"Madoka, what you're feeling is completely normal." he reassures her.
Madoka looks a bit surprised, but doesn't say anything.
He continues, "Girls your age tend to get a lot of crushes. And oftentimes, it ends up being on another girl. But don't worry, you're not weird. It's a phase that you were bound to go through at some point. It's okay to practice with what you're comfortable with before moving on to the 'real deal', so to speak."
Madoka has to think about that one for a moment. But no matter how much she wants to submit to that diagnosis, it awakens some primal feeling of discomfort that she cannot shake. Something compelling her to go further. But as she's realized so far with many adults, they're not exactly prone to changing their minds. So she stands up and dismisses herself suddenly, "...I'm sorry, I need to go, now."
"Are you sure?" he asks hesitantly. "I still have—"
"No, I..." she interrupts, but also hesitates for a moment while thinking up an excuse "...need to get back to class."
Without waiting for a response, she quickly walks out and rests herself on the wall beside the door. There, she thinks to herself, "That...that just can't be right. Not with her. I've never felt like this before, it can't just be temporary, can it? I can't just ignore this, can I? I... I need to talk to mama. She'll know what to do, she always does!"
With that, she slowly marches back to meet back up with everyone, but the rest of her day is spent in quiet, patient contemplation.
Instead of heading home right away after school, or spending time with her friends, Madoka opts to linger around the nearest park to her house and coming home a bit after her mother usually gets back from work. Around dinner, coincidentally.
Coming in, she announces herself quickly, "I'm home! Mama, where are you?"
Junko calls back from the kitchen, "Right here!"
Madoka can hear the sizzling of whatever's cooking, and the strong smell of curry tips off what it is. She walks in casually and tells her, "Mama, I need to ask you something."
"Well go ahead, I'm listening." she replies, in the midst of washing her hands with her back turned.
"In private." Madoka adds seriously.
Junko pauses, then turns off the sink. "Oh." she says, turning around to meet her with her own serious look. "Tomo, honey, just call us down when dinner's ready." He nods.
So they walk by, with Tatsuya in his high-chair cooing at them on the way, and then up to Madoka's room where they close the door to prevent any accidental eavesdropping.
"So," Junko asks as she sits on the edge of the bed "what's wrong?"
After a second or two of consideration, Madoka explains practically everything that happened that day from the dream, all the way to what the school counselor said about it all. And then she goes on rambling about Homura's finer qualities in the same way she did then, but in a bit more excruciating detail both to drive the point home and because it's a more comfortable situation.
After the extremely long-winded explanation, Junko stares at her daughter like a deer in headlights, utterly floored but somehow also not surprised. She grabs her by the shoulders gently and asks, "Madoka, who did you say your counselor was?"
"Uh..." Madoka thinks back "Masashi Yasui?"
Junko responds with mild contempt in her tone, "Well, I'm going to have to have a little talk with Mr. Yasui, this week. As for you..." She releases her grip, then goes into deep thought for another minute. In the end, she reassures her, "Madoka, don't listen to the old farts that say that sort of thing. It doesn't matter what you are, love is love. Remember when we were back in America and I introduced you to one of my coworkers? And her 'friend'?"
"Yeah?" Madoka responds carefully.
Junko just flat-out admits, "Honey, they aren't just friends. They're married."
"What?" Madoka asks, dumbfounded.
Again, junko tells it to her straight (lol), "They're gay. That sort of thing is legal, over there."
If she wasn't already, Madoka goes wide-eyed at the realization, "...Really?"
Junko sighs, and tries a bit of a different approach, "Madoka, have you every had a crush on a guy before?"
"Of course." Madoka answers almost scriptedly.
"And did you friends also crush on the same person?"
"Well...yeah."
"And you said 'of course'?"
"I... Yes." Madoka starts to sweat a little from the pressure.
"And why were you crushing on them?"
"Because..." Madoka tries to think of a reason, but keeps coming back to only one: "...they were. Isn't that...what you're supposed to do? "
By the concerned stare her mother is giving her, Madoka sees there's something wrong with what she just said. And then she pieces it all together, and only has one reaction: "Oh my god, I'm gay."
Junko nods, "That's right." She pats her on the head, "He's wrong. It's not a phase. That's just people trying to force you to be what they want you to be."
"So...what do I do?" Madoka asks.
"Well," Junko thinks "if you really like this girl, then just say it. Don't make the mistake I did and wait years."
"But..." Madoka starts to doubt "...what if she doesn't like me back? I mean, she's just so...attractive, I don't know how she could—"
Junko stops her with a pat on the back, "Madoka. I can tell you right now from experience that if it wasn't meant to be, then it won't be. And that probably won't change any time soon. But if you never try, you'll never know for sure, and you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't say something. I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I still wonder to this day how things would have played out if I confessed to my crush back in middle school before they got hitched with someone else. When I remember that, I can't help but think that even if they rejected me, I would still prefer it over just never knowing. I'm still grateful for meeting your father instead, but it's just the kind of thing that eats away at the back of your head."
Throughout that entire speech, she had to resist the urge to just bluntly say, "That girl is crushing on you harder than a steamrolling crushing pavement." or some similarly cheesy simile. Just a moment after she finishes the speech, Tomohisa yells from downstairs that the food is ready, but they both ignore it for the moment.
Madoka can only sit there and listen, unsure of what she's actually feeling. Some mixture of guilt for having seriously considered never speaking up, sadness on behalf of her mother's past, and surprise that she actually had those feelings. Then, she gets the idea to ask, "Did you ever have feelings for another girl?"
Junko laughs it off, "Ha! Did I? I went out with two before I met your father! After that little experience, I resolved myself to never hold back again. Had a lot of failed romances after that. But it all ended well, so those two I don't regret like the first. I got you out of it, didn't I?"
Madoka smiles at that, all of her previously negative feelings coming back around to a mild sense of pride and admiration. "Thanks." she says briefly.
"Feel better?" Junko asks.
"Yeah."
"Good. Now let's get downstairs and eat something." Junko gets up and leaves without any protest from Madoka, who just sits there, lost in thought for a little while before following. She would have to pick the right time to say something. Not tomorrow, but definitely in the next week.
She grins just imagining how it could go.
...
Later that night, Junko and Tomohisa are finally settling down, in bed together, just lying back in silence since they had just finished putting Tatsuya to bed. Silent until Junko decides to call out to him, "Hey honey?"
"Yeah?"
"It looks like our little girl is finally becoming a woman." she semi-bluntly puts it.
And yet, Tomohisa still doesn't quite get it. Or perhaps he doesn't want to believe it. "What?" he asks.
Junko explains further, "When she brought me upstairs earlier, we got to talking. She spent five full minutes telling me about a wet dream she had about one of her friends in graphic detail. She's growing up."
He sits up at that moment and just sort of...stares at the wall. Perhaps in disbelief, perhaps in shock. Or both. Maybe that was just too much information. He doesn't quite say as much, "So... she's starting to think about that sort of thing, huh?"
Junko nods.
"I guess we need to start buying those things then, right?"
Junko nods again.
"And she'll start talking more about people she likes."
Junko continues to nod.
"And bringing home guys..." he starts to sound plainly shaken, but calmly continues "I'll have to test them. Each and every one, just as your father did to me."
At this point, Junko wants to tell him. To alleviate those fears, although they may be replaced with confusion instead. She really wants to. But she ALSO really wants to see the priceless reaction when Madoka inevitably brings home a girl instead of a guy. Or even better, if she reveals that her and that Homura girl are dating, if that becomes a thing.
The temptation is too powerful. She needs to see what he does. She keeps quiet the rest of the night and pretends to go to sleep while her husband goes on calmly ranting about his assumed fatherly duties and anxieties. She almost feels bad for him.