"Late again?!" Haruna scowled and crossed her arms, eyes flashing.
"Now, now, Haruna," Miyu reached out cautiously for her companion, but for once, Haruna wasn't having it. She shook her head.
"No, Miyu, that's the third time in a row! And she promised she would be on time this time!"
Miyu winced, sighing and shaking her head. She could not deny that Haruna had a point. Miyu may not have viewed Kurumi quite as harshly, but she understood that part of Haruna's harshness came from disappointment. She trusted Kurumi, wanted to believe that Kurumi was a girl of her word! But how could she do that when Kurumi kept breaking all of her promises?
For once, Miyu did not have an answer for Haruna. All around them, the rest of their peers whispered and worried. Some looked like Haruna, shaking their heads in disapproval. Others looked worried, wondering if Haruna's temper would break and affect them as well. Others still hid chuckles and smirks behind their hands. Maybe they wouldn't say it, but not every girl at Arisugawa held the resident prankster in such intense contempt. Some of them were quite amused and delighted by her daring and mischief. Kurumi caused the trouble so that they didn't have to!
But Haruna was on a roll today, hands on her hips as she thought back to all of Kurumi's many other infractions. "She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee! Her dress has got a tear!" This happened only a few days prior. Just like always, despite Haruna's admonishments, Kurumi thought it would be a good idea to climb some of the trees in the academy garden. Predictably, she hurt herself, and it was up to Haruna to escort her to the hospital so that they could treat the wound and make sure it wasn't infected by bacteria.
There was a bit of nostalgia in it, for that was exactly how the two of them became friends in the first place, in a similar incident years ago, but Haruna was not as happy today. Years ago… I can understand when we were still in elementary school, but high school?! Kurumi's uniform was rumpled and filthy as well, and although Kurumi was one of the best seamstresses any of them had ever seen, her laziness won out and she still had yet to fix her tattered dress.
"She waltzes on her way to Mass and whistles on the stairs!" One of the other students chimed in, although it was hard to tell if her tone was fond or disapproving.
"And underneath her wimple, she keeps her bows in her hair!" Another girl added. Unlike the former, her amusement was a little more evident.
"I even heard her singing in the abbey!" Yet another girl remarked. She, contrasting the other two, did sound a little more irritated, a little more like Haruna. Even though Lyrical Lily was popular with all of the Arisugawa students, there was still a time and place for everything, and singing songs like "I Shall Be a Cat" in the middle of the chapel during morning prayers was hardly appropriate.
"She's always late for chapel!" Haruna nodded at the third girl. Part of the reason both of them felt so strongly about Kurumi's misbehavior was because they were both on the Disciplinary Committee, meaning that they saw Kurumi in their office a lot. Haruna may have been one of Kurumi's very best friends in the whole wide world, but Haruna never spared the rod.
"I hope you did not befriend me solely because you hoped that I would make exceptions for you," she warned Kurumi. That was years ago, when they were still fairly new to one another.
"But her penitence is real," Miyu finally spoke up again, sensing that Haruna was only going to make herself angry. Haruna had confided in her early on about her concerns that Kurumi was only using her, but as they'd both come to know, Kurumi wasn't like that.
"She's always late for everything!" The other member of the Disciplinary Committee was less softhearted than Miyu and Haruna.
"Except for every meal," Miiko chimed in, chuckling slightly. That was the wrong thing to say, and Haruna's eyes narrowed again.
"I hate to have to say it," she said, not sounding very repentant at all, "but I very firmly feel…"
With one accord, several of the other students chimed in, "Kurumi's not an asset to the abbey!" Not all of them were on the Disciplinary Committee, but from their matching expressions, hands on hips, it certainly looked that way. Miyu bit her lip. She knew Kurumi had some enemies at Arisugawa, but it was another thing entirely to see so many of them in one place, all expressing their distaste for the resident prankster in unison.
"I'd like to say a word on her behalf!" Miiko chimed in again, breaking the tense and awkward silence.
"Ah, yes, please, Miiko, do tell us," Miyu sighed in relief while several of the others, Haruna included, cast her a wary glance.
"Kurumi… makes me… laugh!" She giggled, and some of the other girls who were more sympathetic to Kurumi and Miiko also hid chuckles and snickers behind their hands again. It was a mix of memory and expectation, memory of all the amusing things Kurumi had ever done at Arisugawa, and expectation of watching Miiko get chewed out for bringing it up. Haruna certainly looked seconds away from a lecture.
Miyu, meanwhile, sighed and shook her head ruefully, but there was still a small smile on her face as she looked back and forth between the two sides of the fight. She started to wonder out loud, "How do you solve a problem like Kurumi? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" Kurumi was a girl lost to her own little world, and sometimes it was charming, but other times, it did, admittedly, make things… difficult.
"How do you find a word that means Kurumi?" Miiko agreed. She was Kurumi's very best friend, but she wasn't unaware of how… unruly Kurumi was. Nor was she unaware of the impact it had on others.
"A flibbertigibbet!" One of the girls cried.
"A will-o'-the wisp!" Another added.
"A clown," Haruna's lip curled as she muttered darkly under her breath. Miyu placed a gentle hand on her arm and Haruna blinked in surprise, anger forgotten in a flash of surprise, and then flusterment when she realized that Miyu was touching her…
"Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her," the pink-haired girl said compassionately. "Many a thing she ought to understand…"
"But how do you make her stay and listen to all you say?!" Haruna pleaded. Miyu was just too good. Too kind and caring and patient. Only she would be able to look at Kurumi with any sort of understanding, and Haruna wished desperately that she could've been more like Miyu.
"How do you keep a wave upon the sand?" Miyu asked back, eyes twinkling. She did not consider herself any wiser than Haruna, but she did have a perspective that Haruna and some of the other students lacked. Yes, Kurumi could be a royal pain at times, and yes, correction was indeed necessary, but perhaps they were going about it in all the wrong ways.
Perhaps there was another way to get through to Kurumi, a way that was more her speed, a way she would actually understand. Continuing with the metaphor of a wave, perhaps the true key to getting Kurumi to listen was to go with the flow rather than trying to force something.
But, Miyu admitted to herself. I do not know how to do that either. I do not have the answers. Only conjectures and hypotheses… And therein lay the issue, taking them all back to the question that started the conversation in the first place: "Oh, how do you solve a problem like Kurumi?"
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
A silence settled over the group of schoolgirls again until one of them piped up softly. "When I'm with her I'm confused, out of focus and bemused, and I never know exactly where I am…" Even when Kurumi wasn't actively pranking someone, she was a mile-a-minute kind of gal, and it was hard to keep up with her. One could never say that life was boring when Kurumi was around!
"Unpredictable as weather, she's as flighty as a feather!" Several other students nodded in agreement, some smirking and some scowling.
"She's a darling!" said one, expression soft and sweet.
"She's a demon!" snapped another, snorting.
"She's a lamb!" a third protested fiercely.
"She'd out-pester any pest." One of the students cocked her head subtly at Haruna. "Drive a hornet from its nest!"
"She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl." The girl immediately beside her nodded. As all of them had noted before, Kurumi might've been unpredictable and wild, but if there was one thing they could always be certain of, there would never be a dull moment if she was in the area. She could be gentle and caring, she could be wild and crazy. She was a riddle, a mystery, always one step ahead of everyone else, leaving the rest of the academy to wonder what was going through her head at any given moment. And she loved nothing more than keeping them all on their toes! She would say it was the fun of the anticipation, and the surprise! Some of her classmates would beg to differ.
"She's a headache!" Haruna finally cried out.
"She's an angel!" Miiko pouted, protesting her best friend's innocence.
"She's a girl!" Miyu stepped between them, holding out her hands. She wasn't just trying to make peace between Miiko and Haruna, but between the two sides of the fight as a whole. It was important to remember that as loud and extreme as Kurumi could be, as confounding and infuriating as she could be, she was still just a child at the end of the day. Yes, she was a high schooler now, but she was still very young. That was not to excuse any of her misbehavior, but to remind them all that it would be unfair for them to expect too much of her.
She is one of us, after all, Miyu thought with a smile. She is a classmate, and more importantly, a friend, a family member…
But, if there was one thing that all of them knew about family, sometimes family was the most infuriating thing of all. Teachers and peers could be dealt with, but nobody could ever drive a person up the wall quite like a family member. Kurumi was the one with white hair, but Haruna swore up and down that hers would be even whiter if Kurumi's antics weren't scaled back by several notches.
Either that, or I'll have no hair at all because I'll have torn it all out! Haruna sighed to herself, and before she even knew what she was doing, she started to wonder out loud as well. "How do you solve a problem like Kurumi?"
"How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" Miyu added next. As she noted before, although she was sympathetic to Kurumi's plight, she was also sympathetic to Haruna's. The girl with white hair was like a white cloud or moonbeam, far above their heads, and chasing her down sometimes felt impossible. Then, even if they managed to catch her… How did one "pin her down"?
"How do you find a word that means Kurumi?" Miiko added her voice to the conversation again, repeating what she'd wondered earlier.
"A flibbertigibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!"
Many a thing they knew they wanted to tell her. Many a thing she ought to understand as an up and coming lady of Arisugawa Academy. But how did they make her stay and listen to all that they would say? They'd been trying to figure that one out for years and years, and from the most senior of nuns to the most novice of freshman, nobody had found an answer… yet. How do you keep a wild white wave upon the sand?
"How do you solve a problem like Kurumi—?"
Suddenly, there was a loud BANG, and all the girls jumped back and shrieked in alarm, whipping around to see the front doors of the academy shoved wide open. A breathless Kurumi stood in the threshold, uniform rumpled and covered in sweat. Her bows were skewed in her hair, and she was clutching her wimple in one hand as her other held open the doors.
I'm late! I'm late! I'mlateI'mlateI'm LATE! She'd spent the morning roaming the hills just beyond the city limits, wanting to get lost in nature and not have to worry about Mass and class, but, then she got a little too lost. With only music on her mind, the hours slipped by, and, before she knew it, she could hear a belltower chiming in the distance. Oh, shoot! Morning Mass! Oh, man… Chairman's gonna kill me!
She ran the entire way back, and after shouldering open the doors, she continued on in her mad dash to the chapel. None of the other girls even made a sound as she sprinted across the grounds. They were waiting until she finally noticed that they were all there, standing outside the chapel. Mass was long since over. Kurumi had just run past them when her eyes widened in a horrified realization. Oh, shoot…
She screeched to a halt and smiled awkwardly, sheepishly, at the gaggle of schoolgirls all gawking at her rather dramatic entrance. Haruna was seething, but Miyu touched her arm again, silently bidding her to save the lecture for later. Kurumi's shoulders slumped guiltily. Not a single word was exchanged, but none were needed. Head lowered in a display of genuine penitence, she slunk away quietly, no longer running, but fully accepting that she was in for a long detention later on…
Miyu heard Haruna exhale loudly beside her, and despite herself, she smiled slightly. I'm proud of you, Haruna… Her friend was getting better at keeping her temper. Oh, they both knew she would have a good go at Kurumi later, but not in front of everyone else. They continued to stand around in silence, looking after Kurumi long after she was out of sight, headed inside to get herself cleaned up and looking a little more presentable. Mass might've been over, but that was no excuse to spend the entire day looking like she'd been running from the Devil himself.
If anything, SHE'S the Devil, Haruna thought, shaking her head. Miiko and some of the others were a little gentler.
Awww, poor Kurumi, she means well! Miiko thought, staring affectionately after her friend.
Miyu's mind ran a similar track. It was as she noted before, as troublesome as Kurumi was (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not), her penitence was always real. The pink-haired girl made a mental note to have a private word with her later, after Haruna finished her private word.
Already, Miyu could see it clearly in her mind. Haruna would have her go at Kurumi until she'd blown off enough steam, then Miiko and Miyu would come in to patch things over. Miiko would make Kurumi laugh while Miyu would reassure her that as mad as Haruna was, Haruna didn't hate her, and Kurumi wasn't a bad person even if she was mischievous and absentminded.
Miyu still didn't have all the answers. She wasn't even sure she had one. But what she did know was that she wanted to try love. Love always seemed to be the key. Love and compassion and understanding and compromise. Imagining it now, Miiko was embracing Kurumi while Miyu took one of Haruna's hands and one of Kurumi's, joining them together with her own and Miiko's. That was how Miyu hoped she would be able to help her friends resolve their conflict. Of course, she had no guarantee it would work, but she was willing to try…
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
AN: TFW you suddenly realize that the dynamic between the nuns in the Sound of Music actually kind of mirrors LL…
Insert Doofenshmirtz meme here: "If I had a nickel for every time there was a group of nuns with one "bad" one, one angry one, and two chill ones, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."
Miyu's the Reverend Mother, Haruna's the nun that really disliked Maria, Miiko's the one that was amused by Maria, and of course, Kurumi is Maria herself.
And on that note, I headcanon that some of the nuns of Arisugawa actually mirror LL and are, in a way, like older versions of the LL girls. For example, the Headmistress always struck me as the Cool Old Lady, so she's like a future Miyu or Kurumi. Then there was that strict nun that WAS mad at LL for having those parties in the basement. She's future Haruna, LOL!
Anyway, this was just a random idea that came to me a few hours ago, so I decided to write it out, so I apologize if this story feels kinda messy. #NoBeta,WeWriteandDieLikeBakas, LOL!