Seventh

Tamao leans back against her favorite tree, pen in one hand, paper in the other. Beside her, Miyuki sleeps quietly, her head slightly resting on the younger girl's shoulder. The older woman had been busy the past several days, in line with the upcoming transition of the Student Council to a new set of leaders. It was a sign of her exhaustion that she had let her guard down enough to actually doze off while sitting with Tamao by the lakeside. Earlier on, they were discussing one of Tamao's older poems.

Glancing at the older woman's sleeping face; Tamao feels an unusual twinge of both tenderness and affection. Asleep and deprived of her usual severity, Miyuki looked years younger, with her vulnerability exposed. After weeks of close company with her mentor, Tamao knows that the older woman's unfriendliness is merely a front for her fragile psyche. She has caught enough glimpses of a smiling, laughing Miyuki to believe otherwise.

"It was inevitable, I suppose." Tamao thinks sadly. Not even the happy, carefree Nagisa had been able to withstand the onslaught of Shizuma's presence. There was time that the redhead herself retreated into gloom and melancholy. Being by her side most of the time, Tamao is a living witness to that. To think that Nagisa had only known Shizuma for less than a year…how much more for the delicate, withdrawn Miyuki, who had stomached the silver-haired's uncaring and platonic indifference for six?

"I've really had it much easier," Tamao sighs. Whatever her burden had been, at least Nagisa had done her best to ease it. Tamao suspects that Shizuma had not done the same for Miyuki. The silver-haired woman was a force of nature. Similar to storms and typhoons, she brings destruction, pain and joy in equal measure. It was up to her victims to heal themselves from the damages.

Miyuki awakens with a start. She is surprised to find her head leaning on the younger girl's shoulder, and her surprise elevated with how comfortable it feels. She leans up suddenly; her instinctive reaction is to berate herself for showing a weakness like exhaustion. But something else pesters her, with her attention being diverted from her own self-dismay.

"Are you feeling better now, Rokujou-sama?"

Miyuki glances up at the younger girl, with her mouth open for an automatic apology. The look of care and understanding in Tamao's eyes suddenly cuts her off. After a moment, she just nods and smiles gratefully.

"Much better, Tamao-san."

Tamao heart skips a beat when she saw the smile on Miyuki's lips. "There it goes again," the younger girl thinks. Back in the day, whenever she gets to wake Nagisa up to prepare for school, the blue-haired girl would always feel an unexplainable joy. With her infatuation for the redhead soon blossoming into love, Tamao's heart would skip a beat and her thoughts would be in sheer ecstasy. "Could it be…?" The younger woman couldn't understand.

As she continues her gaze at the older girl, it dawns on her again that her mentor is a beautiful woman—what most people would consider to be a delicate Japanese beauty. She wonders if Miyuki is even aware of it, or if she had ever gotten the chance to be aware of it for that matter. This thought causes a strange ache in her chest. For the first time in weeks, words come unbidden to her mind. A pair of marveled gray eyes looks into wondering brown ones. After a long moment, Miyuki speaks.

"We should be getting back, Tamao-san. It seems to have gotten quite late."

Tamao nods and smiles at her. As they walked down the path towards the dorms, their steps felt unusually lighter.

Later that night, Miyuki finally recognizes that unnamed and unfamiliar emotion that plagued her since waking up beside Tamao.

"Safe. She…makes me feel safe." Before closing her eyes to sleep, a final thought escapes Miyuki's mind. "So that's what it feels like…"

On another floor in the Strawberry Dorms, Nagisa comes in to find her blue-haired friend asleep at her desk, with a smile on her face. As she looks around, she comes to find sheets of paper with a budding poem. Nagisa smiles with a feeling of relief and pain at the same time. She covers her sleeping friend with a blanket.