(In response to the anon. review from 'Marie' - I'm not sure why Echizen's doesn't include mention of his adult life. Perhaps I had more to talk about in different time periods; perhaps I hadn't considered going that far into their lives yet. It was the first chapter, after all, though I'm a bit curious myself as to why I did it that way. Regardless, your comment has affected me and, Sakuno-chan at least, doesn't go past high school. Interesting...)
Ryuuzaki Sakuno
1. She had always wanted to dance ballet.
Call it a childish whim, call it craving to peer pressure because all of the other girls in elementary school did it, but there was a strong part of Sakuno that had always wanted to. She had gotten the offer, once, too, but as it turned out she was absolutely atrocious and though the desire stayed for years to come Sakuno gave up the notion almost instantly.
2. She was well aware of how odd people though she and Tomo were as friends.
And Sakuno was quite aware of the odd pair they must have made when they hung out. Tomo-chan was, by nature, controlling and loud and a bit overbearing at times, whereas Sakuno was more quiet and passive. This came out, even in public, as Tomo-chan half dragged her to buy clothes or see a new movie or scope out guys at the mall. But when they were all alone, door locked as the clock struck two and the credits whatever chick flick they had finished watching rolling by, Tomo-chan listened and Sakuno talked and suddenly, suddenly, they didn't seem quite so odd of a pair.
3. She adored children.
Part of the reason being an only child killed her. Sakuno had such a fondness for children that most people, if they knew it, would have raised both eyebrows in surprise. Sure, people liked children, but Sakuno liked them all of the time. Even when they were sticky or crying or whining, and while she wasn't the biggest fan when they were stinky their little giggles and their bright, shining faces made every bump along the way, every scrape and bruise she needed to kiss and every monster in the closet she needed to scare off worth it.
4. She was jealous of Tomo-chan for having brothers.
Sakuno knew how petty it was, but the fact remained that she liked children but was an only child. Tomo-chan, on the other hand, had two absolutely adorable young brothers whom she didn't appreciate at all. Sakuno understood Tomo-chan's point of view, and understood her own perspective was in the minority, but it didn't decrease the feelings of want at all. Then again, people always wanted most what they couldn't have, and so though Sakuno was almost desperate for siblings she made up for it by surrounding herself with friends and making the best of an otherwise bleak situation.
5. She played the piano because her grandmother had never been able to.
Admittedly, Sakuno wasn't really a musical person, and had no real talent in the area. Despite this, upon coming to live with her grandmother Sakuno had found the piano sitting in her living room fascinating. She'd asked her grandmother to play once but the old woman had shook her head and frowned, internalized, before admitting she had no idea why she kept the damn instrument there because it had never done anything but spite her. Though Sakuno had kept a straight face at the time, she giggled about it later and immediately set to work learning it. The result was fluency in both the language of music and the art of piano, at least to some degree above mediocre, but the time she graduated high school.
6. She took up tennis, finally, because of Kikumaru-senpai, not Ryoma-kun.
Sakuno had always meant to do it, but her grandmother's pressuring had made her a bit reluctant. While she was sure it was a fun sport, had always enjoyed watching it, there was a large part of Sakuno that feared failure, and she knew that if she was as useless at tennis as she was at most sports she wouldn't be able to face her grandmother. When she finally entered junior high, though, she meat not only Ryoma-kun and a whole gaggle of new friends her age, but she also met the players – students, children – her grandmother talked about with that competitive, caring gleam in her eye and talked to one Kikumaru Eiji in particular. Before he even introduced himself she knew who he was from all of the stories her grandmother told, and even though everyone else had been pressuring her it had been Kikumaru-senpai who had taken the first step in her actually joining and slipped a club application into her bag one day.
7. She liked Tomo-chan because the other girl actually bothered to talk to her.
Other people smiled and waved and sometimes said a customary "hello" or "goodbye" in the hall, but Tomo-chan had been the first person to ever confirm that her opinion mattered. It had been something silly, too, an assigned group of students collaborating on a project, but before they had made their decision on what the project topic was going to be Tomo-chan had turned to her and asked, quite forcefully, if she was all right with the decision. Sakuno had shrugged and said it didn't really matter, which was true, and though Tomo-chan had let it go for the most part, that moment shared between the two of them marked a new chapter in Sakuno's book of life, one titled – in bold – Osakada Tomoka and on that included more than a few public speaking roles. In her mind, at least.
8. She wished they hadn't drifted apart.
Looking back later in life, Sakuno supposed it was bound to happen. Tomo-chan had always been a free spirit, flitting from activity to activity every other week and juggling more than should have been humanely possible. She came at life with the force of a thousand dinosaur-killing Tezuka Zones, and between junior high and high school had more than twenty boyfriends. Though Sakuno disliked that it had happened, their objectives in life were different, and filling in the last words on the pages of their relationship had been difficult Sakuno understood more than most that it had to be done. But that didn't mean she liked it.
9. She kept her hair long as a rebellion.
Sakuno was a quite person by nature, but that didn't mean she was always passive. The braids had traveled with her through elementary school, and though her grandmother had suggested cutting them and styling her hair as a fresh start for junior high Sakuno had politely declined. She was well aware that they were a good four inches longer than the school dress code permitted, and by her third year of junior high had been asked to cut them more times than she could count, but she never did – at least, not until she decided she wanted to during summer break of her first year of high school. It was a small rebellion, sure, but it was her rebellion, and that was what mattered.
10. She didn't regret losing her parents.
Sure, she missed them. She was always going to miss them, and she knew she was always going to miss them because suddenly losing the two most important figures in your life, in the blink of an eye, was a terrible, traumatic experience. But she never, ever regretted it, because regret implied that she hated what had happened after and, on the contrary, she loved it. She loved the relationship she had with her grandmother, loved the friends she made, loved the experiences she had, and though it had taken more than a few drastic pitfalls to get there Sakuno never regretted what her life ended up being.
