a/n: took a brief break from my hibike sabbatical to write this entire thing after dreaming about s3

It's the middle of Kumiko's third year, and she's approaching a house painted dark blue with her backpack slung awkwardly across one shoulder and her finger wavering on the doorbell, when Nozomi Kasaki flings open the door for her.

"Hey!" she beams, and she looks so old and so tired that Kumiko has to remind herself that she's only about nine months older. "I, well, I didn't think you'd come."

"Ah, now, w-why would I lie about something like that?" Kumiko fake-curtsies and curses herself immediately for doing it.

"Come on in, I made snacks." Nozomi waves her in, her arm an arc, a wing if you're tired enough to see things in other things. Which Kumiko is, unfortunately. Being wildly unqualified for your band position will do that to a person.

"You couldn't stay away, huh, euphonium girl?" The way Nozomi says it is soft, melodic almost - none of Asuka's sharp-edged taunts or even Natsuki's gentle teasing. Just a statement of fact. Kumiko sits down, unsettled.

"I didn't know you'd stayed in town." This is true. She also hasn't thought much about Nozomi either way, but, well, that's rude to say. Nozomi shrugs.

"It's easier to commute. Since I don't really know what I want to…"

"Ah." A pause. Kumiko fiddles with her fingers in her lap. "Have you, uh, have you been talking with Mizore-senpai?"

"Mizore-senpai?" Nozomi repeats the phrase with surprise, like it's a name she hasn't heard in years. Kumiko's heart falls a few stories in her chest, setting somewhere above her stomach. Then Nozomi laughs, light, soft. "Oh, sorry. It's just still a little weird to hear anyone call her that. It was weird when you called me that - I'm just a kid."

"So am I." This distinction feels very important somehow. Kumiko wants to crawl out of her skin. "I was surprised when you wrote to me, that's all."

"Your reputation precedes you."

"My reputation for what?"

"Being a person to talk to. A- well, how do I say this politely? An advice-giver."

"You're older than me," Kumiko repeats. Nozomi's gaze drops to the floor. Kumiko feels a flare of anger come to the surface, this thing that she's been feeling more and more lately, this thing that she knows will one day leave her full force. "W-whatever happened between you and Mizore-senpai was maybe the only time anyone in the band had a problem that I didn't get involved in."

"Tea?" Nozomi says, instead of answering. Then Kumiko meets her gaze, and they are both weary. "I'm sorry. I know Mizore is probably tired of me poaching her friends - did you know that she actually met Natsuki before I did? Not by a long while but they…they were acquainted, at least. Earlier."

"I didn't." This is true, also. Kumiko may be many things (unfortunately blunt, afraid of confrontation, clinically anxious) but she isn't a liar, usually.

"Well. Now you do." Nozomi is very prim when she speaks, which doesn't match the relaxed demeanor Kumiko had pinned for her a lifetime ago, when she first saw her in the hall, when she'd greeted her brightly. Brightly, and not warmly, because she does know that there's a difference now. Brightly, because it brings to mind Nozomi's feather-light touches across Kumiko's shoulder that she's certain were the things that drove Mizore to do everything for her.

Brightly, because she is brilliant, even though right now she's sad for reasons Kumiko doesn't entirely understand and - this is the most important part - really doesn't want to understand.

"So, uh. What is it, then?"

"A lack of direction?" Nozomi's voice lilts like it's a question, but she's just saying it. Explaining it in that whistled tone she always uses.

"I'm not a counselor." The words come out before Kumiko can bite them into submission. Nozomi raises her eyebrows, amused.

"I know you're not, euphonium girl. But you're interesting, and you…well, you're not as involved in the delicate little square that I have with Natsuki and Yuuko and-" and she stumbles a little, fingers clenching almost imperceptibly around the arm of her chair.

"Yeah," Kumiko says, to give her an out.

"An impartial party."

"I think I'm maybe the most- the most partial person ever." Kumiko laughs a little bit at herself, and straightens her back, and waits for Nozomi to continue.

"So you are," she just says. "I just see everyone with such a clear idea of what they want - Natsuki and Yuuko in their band, Kousaka-san en route to New York - tell her I said congratulations, by the way."

"I will."

"Mizore, doing so well at music college even in her first year. It does raise the question of what's there - what's left for me." Nozomi twirls a shorter strand of ink-black hair around her finger. Kumiko does not have a solution for her, and she says as such, because she isn't a liar.

"You know I can't help everyone, right?" The words come out shaky and not nearly as confident as they should be. "I can't be the whole band's support."

"But you are," Nozomi says, not unkindly. "You totally are, euphonium girl. It's a little sad." The sun is going down, and it's golden hour. Cinematic as anything, and Kumiko thinks about the time Reina brought her pudding and waited by her bed for who knows how long just to say hello. "Mizore always thought she was doing everything for me. I was the one doing it all for her and we figured that out all too late."

"I know." Natsuki gave her enough of the details.

"You do understand me, in the way that I think a lot of the band understands each other. In a way that the world at large…doesn't, not really." Nozomi looks directly at her and Kumiko knows that she's talking about that longing which has a name which she can only speak aloud in whispers.

"I'm, uh." Kumiko looks at the single lamp Nozomi has on. It's one of those lamps you buy at a container store - practical, with a bendy wire for a neck, like you could use it for interrogations if you need. For now it's bent over some homework that Kumiko thinks will probably give her a headache if she looks at it for too long. "Yeah. I'm really just kind of tired, Nozomi-senpai. I'm sorry."

"Don't you apologize, eu- Kumiko." Nozomi smiles, settles into herself. Kumiko thinks she has never seen anyone sadder. "You don't deserve to be dragged down into my own issues. You have your own life to live, don't you?"

If Asuka had said that, it would've been a joking question with only one answer, that answer being no. The way Nozomi is saying it, her expression so open, so gray, Kumiko thinks she's really asking her.

"I- yeah." Kumiko blinks back tears. Nozomi's expression softens.

"Of course you do. I really meant it, you know. Tell Kousaka-san congratulations - and if you have anything else to say to her…"

"I will. I will."

And she means it. Looking at her old pseudo-acquaintance telling her off in the kindest way possible, feeling something strange and familiar bubbling in her chest, she means it.

a/n: for more gay people and queerbaiting, check out glee (2009)