Note: For clarification, Kana and Manami are Yuzu's two older friends who are seen in chapters 1 and 23. Kana had the longer, dark hair; and Manami had the shorter, lighter hair. Chapter 23 in particular is important in regards to understanding this chapter. :)

"Kana just broke up with him last week."

"But you two were together for nearly a year!" Yuzu exclaimed, hands slapping the table in exasperation. The drinks on the table rattled at the dramatic display, but all three girls ignored it in place for their gossip.

"I'm honestly not that upset about it," Kana placated. "I was overlooking all of his flaws. Not intentionally, but I loved him, so I always tried to see the best in him."

"Kana..."

"It's okay, really. Once Manami pointed it out to me, I realized I was better without him."

Yuzu leaned forward to take a sip of her drink (fumbling a bit, as it had rattled an inch or so out of her reach from where she had originally left it) and nodded, not necessarily in agreeance, but in show that she was following along.

"There is actually this really sweet guy who likes Kana," Manami continued. "He didn't say anything before because Kana was in a relationship, but now—Yuzu is that a wedding ring?!"

And like that, Yuzu choked on her drink, coughing and gagging and pounding at her chest—meanwhile her two friends pulled her hand closer to peer at the band on her finger, entirely undeterred by Yuzu's racket and subsequent suffocation.

"Oh my gosh, why didn't you tell us?!" Kana exclaimed.

The two girls kept prodding at her hand, turning her palm up and down, raising it and spreading Yuzu's fingers apart—anything to see the ring better without taking it off or actually touching it.

"W-Well, we're engaged, but the wedding isn't even planned yet," Yuzu explained, and she fumbled about the table with her free hand for a napkin to wipe her mouth of the liquidy mess she had made.

"But you're that serious?" Kana asked. She finally pried her eyes from the ring to meet Yuzu's gaze.

Yuzu, however, refused to meet hers. Eyes glued on the ring, her voice took on a sweeter, more sincere tone. "I've never been more serious about anything before."

"Wow..." Manami sighed.

"When can we meet him?"

Instantly, Yuzu froze. Her hands clenched after a full beat of absolute nothingness, fingers slowly curling into a fist; and with Manami still trying to get a better look at the ring, the dopey, lovey-dovey air that had clouded her eyes was replaced with something a little thicker and uncertain at the action.

"I-I don't know."

"Come on, let's plan something then!" Kana urged. "I want to meet him before the wedding, at least."

"Yuzu..?" Manami interrupted. Yuzu pulled back her hands together and began rubbing, gently, the ring in between her pointer finger and thumb.

"Ah, I don't think that's a good idea." Yuzu laughed, but it was clearly forced. (Last time the staged laughter had worked, so there was no reason it shouldn't have worked this time, as well.)

"What? Why not?"

"I, um... T-That just doesn't seem like a good idea..." Yuzu stuttered.

Kana made some kind of irritated sound, something between a terse sigh and a groan of frustration. She leaned back in her seat, and the furrow to her brows alluded to her irritation and doubt. "Are you sure you really love this—"

"Yes!" Yuzu shouted, and both Kana and Manami recoiled at the abruptly overwhelming fire in her voice. "I love her more than anything in the world!"

She paused; a beat, then two.

And all at once, Yuzu's face paled, whiter than a sheet.

She'd let it slip.

That her fiancée, her soon-to-be wife...

They weren't... They weren't supposed to know, but this whole thing had come up so suddenly, and there had been no time to prepare. She didn't have any per-conceived excuses or some fabricated story written up (and if she were honest, she probably wouldn't have been able to go through with a lie like that anyway because she loved Mei way too much to purposefully hide it.)

Her eyes sickeningly slowly dropped to the table. She couldn't face their disgust again. Once was enough, more than enough. They had made her question her love for Mei. And the thought alone, that she had been convinced—if only for a second—that she shouldn't be in love with Mei, made her nauseated.

Yuzu reached for her phone on the table and shoved it fitfully into her purse.

Her hands shook, and her fingers prattled restlessly with the zipper to get it back closed.

Neither of her friends were saying anything, and the silence was more suffocating than the orange cream soda she had choked on not five minutes earlier.

It shouldn't have mattered. Mei was her everything, and nothing would make her doubt that again. She was losing two friends in the process, though; and regardless of the reason, it still stung. And it stung that she knew she wasn't accepted—that Mei wasn't accepted.

Her eyes prickled something bitter and warm. She tried to ignore the way her voice cracked when she spoke.

"E-Excuse me, I need to go."

Yuzu pulled out her chair, and she could vaguely feel her legs wobble beneath her. She would look like a complete fool if she went to stand and collapsed on herself, but what else was she supposed to do? She was done here; they were done with her.

Tears swam in her eyes, and she needed to blink to clear her vision, but suddenly something was holding her wrist in place.

"Yuzu, wait!"

Yuzu grit her teeth, squinting her eyes shut to try and contain the stupid tears.

"Wait. Please." This time, Manami's voice was soft. It was... soft, and pained. "We... We said some nasty things the last time we hung out, didn't we?"

And it was in Yuzu's nature to want to console her friends, to alleviate the guilt ("Of course not! Don't worry about it!"), but she couldn't. Their comments made her doubt her love for Mei, and something of a sob wrangled past her lips before she could manage to cover her mouth.

She nodded, and the grip on her wrist tightened.

A second chair was yanked back, its metal feet scraping angrily against the cobbled ground, and Yuzu flinched at the sound.

"We support you!"

Her head jerked up towards Kana. Her hands were planted into the table to lean across towards Yuzu; and her cheeks were flushed a dark red, although whether from embarrassment or her sudden burst of vigor, Yuzu didn't know.

"W-What?" Yuzu muttered, a hiccup punctuating her question.

"You're our friend, Yuzu. We said some lousy things before, and we're sorry." Kana looked down at Manami, who nodded eagerly in agreement. "We... We can't make that up to you, but we support you now—however we can. You're important to us."

"If you plan on marrying her, she must be amazing, Yuzu," Manami added in, and her voice held that same lovey-dovey air from earlier.

And suddenly, Yuzu's eyes were alight—by hearts or stars: one of the two, Kana and Manami decided.

"She is! Mei is wonderful!"

If it weren't for the tear tracks staining her cheeks, neither girl would have ever guessed that their blonde friend had just been crying.

"She's incredibly smart and hardworking. Her dedication to her family is unlike anything I've ever seen, and I respect her so much for it. She..."

Without so much of a precursor, Yuzu's speech slowed down as she became entirely lost in her own thoughts. She wasn't even looking at her two friends any longer, and her lips were turning up, slowly, hesitantly at first as she became more confident in voicing all of this (but who was she kidding, when it came to Mei, it didn't take long for her mind to take off on that one-way track, and it was near impossible to derail it once that engine got to rolling). It took but a handful of seconds before a smile had overtaken her face. It was, without a doubt in their minds, the brightest they had ever seen Yuzu—and honestly? If they hadn't been preoccupied with this whole new revelation, they would have questioned if Yuzu had ever truly been in love before because this? Her face? It was absolute bliss, if bliss could be personified.

"She's gorgeous, and it's hard to get through her tough exterior, but it's so rewarding to see all her other sides. Her face softens when she gets happy, and her laugh is the sweetest sound in the world. She talks in her sleep, especially when she's tired, and it's the cutest thing ever. Maybe even cuter than the way she blushes when she's embarrassed. She acts like she doesn't like hugs, which is also cute, but she loves them, and I love them, too, so it's a... a, ergh..."

Her eyes met Manami's own: wide and bright and focused entirely, solely, completely on her.

Yuzu's face flushed red, a deep, deep red, but her eyes darted between her two friends, desperate for one of them to break the silence, but they were both just staring at her.

Manami was the one to finally do the honor.

"I totally get what you meant last time..." She mumbled. Yuzu fixated on her, and she was surprised to find stars lighting her short-haired friend's eyes.

"What?" Kana asked, turning to her brunette friend. There, too, within her eyes, were stars.

"You know! The two girls were acting like they were in their own world, kissing and hugging and all that, and Yuzu had said that they just might really be that in love with each other."

"Oh my gosh..." Kana whispered, and she slumped back down into her seat. "Yuzu, that's how you are..."

"Yuzu's got it baaaaaad."

Yuzu couldn't deny it. She did have it bad; but she wouldn't have it any other way. Mei was her whole world, and she was head over heels over head over heels over—over and over again in love with her.

And she would get to spend the rest of her life with Mei. (Her heart skipped a beat then and there at the thought.)

So what if she was obsessed with her single greatest source of happiness?

"So..." Kana began, a renewed vigor in her voice. "When can we meet her?"

Yuzu blinked.

This... hadn't been how she had expected this to go.

She had imagined, on a few short occasions, how it would have played out, had Kana and Manami discovered her relationship with Mei. Every time, the scenario ended with her having two fewer friends, always in tears and always with that sickeningly deep, nauseated churning in her stomach in reminder of her momentary doubt.

The prospect of them supporting her, and now them wanting to meet Mei...

All of this resolved by a simple slip of the tongue...

Yuzu laughed. She dragged a hand back up to to cover her face because there were tears falling reignited on top of the bubbles of joy and relief that were pushing past her lips.

"Yuzu..?" Kana spoke, tentatively. "Did we say something wrong?"

And Yuzu shook her head, pushing the words out over her embarrassing blubbering mess. "N-No, I'm-I'm relieved."

There was a pause, and Kana and Manami exchanged a look between one another.

With her elbow propped up against the table, Kana rested her chin within the palm of her hand. "She's really special, isn't she?" Her tone was warm and gentle, and Yuzu nodded into her hands.

"She's... She's more than special," Yuzu gushed, a light dusting of pink coloring her cheeks. "I want to make her happy. Forever."

Yuzu's mind was already dropping off into that endless realm of Mei, and she jumped in her seat to the sudden sound of her phone's ringtone blaring from her purse.

She fumbled to collect the device, and her finger was poised over the "Decline" button, intent on continuing the conversation with her two friends when she noticed who was actually calling her.

Yuzu's head shot up towards the two, a look between sheepish and frantic etched on her features. "I need to take this."

Kana laughed lightly, "No problem," while Manami waved her hand to dismiss the concern entirely.

"Thanks," Yuzu whispered, just as she accepted the call.

"Hello?"

A pause, as presumably the person on the other side spoke.

"Hey, Mei!"

And instantly, both Kana and Manami were leaning forward, attention riled and rooted on their blonde friend.

"What? No, no, don't worry about it! I'll be home in time to cook dinner!"

"So cute..." Manami whispered.

"If we need groceries, then I'll stop by the store before I come home."

A pause.

Yuzu gasped, clutching the phone closer to her ear.

"Mm-mm, that's no problem at all! I'll meet you at the train station in thirty minutes then and we can go together?"

"Agreed," Kana replied.

There was another pause, this one a bit longer than the others, and then, the warmest, most gentle smile imaginable bloomed across Yuzu's cheeks. "I love you, too, Mei. See you soon."

Yuzu pulled the phone from her ear and stared at the screen, waiting for Mei to end the call. A handful of seconds passed before the "Call Ended" note displayed itself on her screen.

With a small sigh, she replace her phone in her purse—and then returned her attention to Kana and Manami, both who had just watched the entire exchange.

"Yuzu," Kana started. She leaned closer and clasped a hand over Yuzu's, right atop the cell phone where Mei's name was still displayed. "That was literally the sweetest thing ever."

Manami leaned forward herself, an awestruck look to her face. "Can we walk with you to the train station?!"

"Eh?!"

"I promise, we won't intrude on your time to shop together! But I want to meet Mei!"

Kana gasped, and her grip tightened in excitement. "Can we?!"

"I... I guess?" Yuzu relented, and Kana and Manami promptly shrieked.

They began collecting their stuff from the table, rushing to their feet to make their way to the train station; and Yuzu couldn't tell which was better: the gigantic weight that had just been lifted off her chest, or the wonderful swell of joy taking that weight's place.

And when Mei finally walked up, exactly thirty minutes after the phone call had ended, introductions were exceptionally short because they were far more excited to gush about the couple. And when Kana and Manami started pouring out compliments like there was no tomorrow, about Mei's beauty and how adorable Yuzu was (especially when she herself started gushing about Mei) and how lucky the two of them were to be together, well, Yuzu struggled between rampant embarrassment and the incessant need to agree to every single wonderful thing they said about Mei.

She settled on silently sidling up to her fiancée, slipping her hand within Mei's own and squeezing. She offered up a gentle smile, and, like she expected, her heart all but burst when Mei returned a soft smile of her own.

Yuzu did not, however, expect either Kana or Manami to be attentive enough to notice the small exchange (not with how engrossed they were with their incessant and unending praise).

That rampant embarrassment took hold as the two girls cooed and shrieked over how adorable the two were together.

And Yuzu honestly didn't know how she lucked out with these two, even with the blush furiously painting her face. (It was more than worth it to see that same blush capture every square inch of Mei's own adorably embarrassed face).

Author's Note: Thank you for reading my fic!

This will be a small collection of one-shots that all revolve around the same premise: Yuzu (unintentionally) having everyone come to love her relationship with Mei. The second chapter is about 99% complete and should be posted in two week. After that, I hope to update the next chapter more quickly!

As for this chapter in particular, how I characterized Kana and Manami was influenced by the bonus Wedding Invitation. How Manami was looking at Mitsuko was quite influential, lmbo.

Anyway, I hope that you have enjoyed reading! :)