A few weekends of sketches and they'd saved enough for a deposit on an apartment - tiny and noisy, but secure, pet-friendly, and close to both parks and the coffeehouse.

Between regularly scheduled shifts at work they developed a rhythm. When there was an outdoor festival or event, they set up a series of displays, showing off full color animations of Kanade's work and soon had a line of eager customers. (Kanade worked mostly alone, not wanting to draw attention to two women who might even now be recognized as the #SistersKissing.)

Afterwards, they reviewed what people responded to, and what took the most time for Kanade to do so Yukino could expand and refine the software. At night Kanade practiced her drawing with a passion thought she'd left behind in college, and across the table Yukino coded. They lost some of the closeness they'd had living in the shelter, with only the barista jobs to worry about, but actually collaborating with each other had its own pleasures: looking up to share a quick smile, and exchanging the occasional kiss, before diving back in.

Kanade was only vaguely aware of what Yukino was talking about when she said she'd started a GitHub project for the animation software, but she did notice it started taking more and more of Yukino's time.

"But it's ok, Kana," Yukino said when she asked her about it. "I'm actually getting more out of it than I'm putting in - there's a lot of people out there who have graphics skills that I don't, and they're helping both of us for free! The hair-blowing-in-the-breeze effect? That was done by an Estonian student at CMU in America!"

"Well... if you're sure..."

"I am, I am, trust me! This is all optimized for real-time content creators, and it turns out there's a huge demand for that!"

Kanade shook her head, again only roughly understanding what Yukino was saying. "Ok, ok! I'll be quiet about it, as long as you're ok with it."

"I am, Kana, I promise," Yukino said, leaning over the table to kiss her quickly and then leaning back in to her work.

Kanade's style became well-known enough that she was able to start her own website and sell artwork online - all through a pseudonym, of course, to keep dodging the #SistersKissing attention - but there was slightly more time to enjoy weekends on their own terms, rather than as an endless succession of events to work.

She was still somewhat surprised when she got a text from Yukino to meet her at a restaurant near their apartment; it wasn't that they never ate out at restaurants, but it usually required an event of some sort, like a birthday. Today was just a Thursday, as far as she could tell.

And she almost turned back when she saw what kind of restaurant it was - French, with uniformed waiters and tablecloths, wine and desert trolleys. She had just started to turn around when she became aware of Yukino behind her, taking her arm and walking her forward to the maitre d' to claim their reservation.

"Yuki... we can't afford this..." she whispered as they were led into the back of the restaurant, approaching a central table underneath the chandelier.

"Yes, we can, Kana, trust me," she whispered back.

"But..."

"Kana." Yukino stopped them in the middle of the restaurant and turned to face her, arms on shoulders. The maitre d' walked a few more steps before noticing they weren't following and stopped, waiting patiently.

"Kana, we can afford this. _Trust me._"

Kanade took a deep breath, nodded, and walked the rest of the way to their seats.

Yukino ordered for them, and leaned back in her seat, legs crossed, taking a long drink from a tall water glass before speaking again.

"I... we... received two really interesting offers today, based on the animation software. The first is a full time job offer, for me, in California, to work for Adobe. They make Photoshop and a bunch of other stuff, and they're working on a project that's really similar to what we've been doing, but with a lot more resources behind it. And the money... they'd pay nearly ten times what we're making now."

She took another sip from her water glass.

A few seconds went by before Kanade realized her mouth had literally fallen open; she closed it and swallowed. "Yuki... Yuki-chan, that's amazing." She laughed out loud. "That's _amazing_! How would... when would... how does it...?"

Yuki looked down and gave a small, wry smile. "Well... that's the catch. They're willing to pay relocation expenses and get me overseas in about a month. They'd pay for a spouse or domestic partner to come over as well... if I had one."

"If you had... oh," she said, realizing what Yukino was saying. "Even... even in America, they wouldn't see us as..."

"No." Yukino shook her head. "I mean, I didn't ask, but I didn't even want to bring up the subject, especially with the video out there. Now, once I went over there and got settled, maybe started the citizenship process, other family who wanted to join me would get priority in their applications, but that could take years."

"Years..." Kanade looked down at her plate, upon which an elegant gold-trimmed soup bowl had been placed, full of a peppery orange bisque. She swallowed again. "It... it's so much money, and such a good opportunity, Yuki. If you really wanted..."

"Of course not, Kana, don't be silly." Yuki took a spoonful of soup, smiled at the taste, and took another. "We decided we're together forever, no matter what. I was just pleased to be asked."

"Then... can we really afford this, Yuki-chan?" Kanade asked, confused. "I think we have enough in our account to cover it, but..."

Yukino smiled again, this time more broadly. "Ah, but there's a second offer on the table. It's... very interesting."

Kanade took advantage of the pause to taste some of her soup, which was indeed wonderfully rich and spicy. Unable to stop herself, she had a few more spoonfuls in quick succession, then looked up again to see Yukino grinning at her.

"Good, isn't it?"

Kanade guiltily wiped her mouth, and nodded. "So, what about the second offer?"

"It's a fellowship, actually. I'd just keep doing what I'm doing right now, creating and managing projects, contributing to various open source efforts, and they'd pay me about double what we're earning now. The fellowship would last five years, with five year re-evaluation periods that could be extended indefinitely."

"Wow, that's..."

"It's just about perfect, actually." Yukino reached across the table and took both Kanade's hands in hers. "The money's not much, but if we're careful with it, and don't change our current spending too much, we'll be able to build up an actual retirement fund in ten or twenty years. And they're only interested in my professional output, so no real chance of people investigating or recognizing us. We can be together without anyone bothering us."

Tears came to her eyes as she realized what Yukino was saying. "So... that's it? All of the wandering, all of the rejection, if we take this, it's just... over? We stay in our little apartment, and the world more or less leaves us alone?"

Yukino nodded. "That's why I thought it was worthy of celebration. Excuse me!" She turned and called over a waiter. "May we have a bottle of champagne?"

As they waited for the champagne to arrive - and started on their main course, splitting a perfectly cooked rack of lamb - Yukino paused. "There's one other thing I meant to say. The fellowship... the name of the fellowship is the Kamiyama Industries Support for Japanese Open Source Development."

Kanade paused, the fork halfway to her mouth. "Kamiyama... do you think that Sakuya had anything to do with it? Or Shinji?"

Yukino shrugged. "It's possible, but they actually gave the fellowship to my pseudonym, not even my real name. And it's hard to see how this would be any kind of punishment, or control, so... probably not Shinji. Maybe Sakuya-chan is doing it by way of apology, or maybe it's just a fluke. Either way we're saving up the money, and if they decide to cut it off, we've lost nothing."

She laughed, and lifted her champagne flute. "Sooo... to Kamiyama Industries!"

Kanade lifted her flute, but shook her head. "No. To us, Yuki. Forever."

Yukino reached across to tap glasses, and nodded. "To us, Kana. Forever."

They finished their main course and followed it with an overwhelmingly rich piece of chocolate cake before leaving the restaurant, slightly tipsy, walking arm in arm through a soft summer night rain.

But they saved the kisses for home, once they were behind locked doors and drawn shades, alone together at last.