The Love Letter Lovelies
by Glee-chan
35.
Friday afternoon was the night everyone had agreed upon for the Love Letter Lovelies' Official Sleep-over. Normally Kaede would hold a bonus Kendo Club meeting which only Yui and a few dedicated members would show up too, but today she and Shiho wanted to go home first and prepare the guest rooms for visitors. Tagging along with them was Emiko, who had brought her night things to school with her, and wanted to come over early help with the preparations. Kaede had been curious about her for a while now, and accepted her offer to help them.
After the walk home, they got down to work preparing two extra guest bedrooms. Shiho left them after the heavily lifting to clean up her room and maybe put a dent in Kaede's. She had taken it upon herself to be a neat freak of late, and had forced Kaede to be more organized. When she departed this left Kaede alone with the mystery girl. They worked in silence for a while but soon it was apparent that Emiko had an ulterior motive for wanting to come over early. When Shiho left the room she looked disappointed.
"I can't say I know what's troubling you, but I can try and help…" Kaede said after a while.
"You noticed, huh?" Emiko stood up and rubbed her lower back from dragging a futon into place. "I wanted to talk to Shiho-chan about… about Yui-chan."
Kaede gestured for Emiko to sit down on the futon, then joined her. "You can trust me."
"I guess I can… I mean everyone else does…"
Feeling a bit embarrassed by that, Kaede turned away, pretending it didn't bother her to be flattered.
"Well, there's no easy way to say it. I have feelings for Yui-chan." Emiko admitted.
Returning her gaze to Emiko, Kaede raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"
"I know!" Emiko gave a wild laugh and flopped down on the futon. "It's crazy, right? I mean… It wasn't that long ago I was… I was with Maria"
"Are you positive that your affections for Maria weren't transposed onto Yui-chan?"
"That's the thing." Emiko sat up. "I don't know! I mean, I never really did figure out what my true feelings were for Maria. I just knew I liked her and wanted to give this lesbian business a shot. She died the very day I decided that. I was going to take things slow."
"I sympathize for you on how things turned out."
"Thanks." Emiko flopped over again. "When she died I thought of her, and what our relationship was mostly about. The weird thing was 80% of it was talking about Yui-chan. I got to know her and love her through Maria's love. A lot of the time I was with her, I was comforting her about Yui-chan being sick. It was only later did we start doing other things. When Maria died, I had to meet with Yui-chan… I wanted her to know how much Maria cared for her, and that… that I did what I could to make her happy before she died."
Kaede listened to her, adsorbing it in. "That's when Yui-chan attached herself to you?"
Emiko nodded from her sprawled out position, her skirt seemed slightly more raised than it should. "I guess I was the only person Yui-chan could talk to who knew about Maria's romantic side. I figured out that Yui-chan had feelings for Maria pretty quick. She was hungry to know everything… even the embarrassing stuff."
"And so, the more time you spent with Yui-chan talking about emotional topics your heart opened to her." Kaede concluded. "Along with Maria's stories about Yui-chan, and Yui-chan herself, she became attractive to you."
"I guess that's one way of putting it. The annoying thing is I'm still not sure about this whole girl/girl thing. I know I have feelings for Yui-chan… but it's so complicated. Even if the Maria thing isn't hanging over us, what if… if I confess to her and she says yes, then I realized I can't handle it? It'll kill her."
"If you hold that much concerned over her, I don't think that's the problem. You wouldn't confess to her if you had any doubt in your mind." Kaede told her. "Girl or not, it's obvious you care for Yui-chan."
"So… So I should just go for it?" Emiko sat up again. Kaede was finding it hard to talk to her with her flopping around so much. "But what about Maria? I used to date her and Yui-chan loved her. Won't that make things weird?"
"Perhaps." Kaede considered it. "But it is my belief that Maria would have wanted the both of you to be happy. What better way for Yui-chan to be taken care of than by someone who Maria picked out herself?"
"You make it sound so easy." Emiko sighed and leaned on her side this time, propping her head up with her hand. "I can't just ask her out so soon after Maria's death…"
"The other day Yui-chan was lamenting my girlfriend issues by declaring that at least I had one. I have no doubt that Yui-chan is ready for a girlfriend of her own." Kaede reminded her. "And if I remember correctly, you were watching her the whole time. Now that I know what I do, it seems like you were thinking even then of asking her out."
"Yeah…" Emiko sighed. "It'd be so much easier if she asked me out."
"You can't expect for that to happen." Kaede told her. "She's very shy."
Emiko groaned and flopped over again. "She asked Mako-chan out once… why not me?"
Kaede didn't have the answer to that. In truth, now that she knew Yui, she was frankly surprised a girl like her had the guts to even attempt to ask someone like Makoto out the first day of school. Maybe Shiho knew better on that issue. Trying not to look up Emiko's skirt, which by now was over her upper thighs from all the bouncing around she was doing, Kaede considered the issue further.
"Just ask her to do something with you. Don't call it a date. Have fun, flirt a little, and try and make it light. You can see how things go from there. At the end of it, then you'll know if you can ask her out or not."
"Hmm… That's a good idea." Emiko sat up again. "Thanks Kaede-chan."
Kaede nodded, then reached over and pulled down Emiko's skirt on her own.
"You know, you're pretty sweet." Emiko blushed at Kaede's motherly gesture. "I can see why everyone looks up to you."
"No they don't." Kaede gave a small smile.
Emiko ignored that. "When your girlfriend shows up, I want to thank her for giving Yui-chan a make-over. She's really become pretty, don't you think?"
"I hadn't noticed." Kaede told her, being honest. She did realize that Yui looked different from the surgery, and that she looked healthy and wore make-up now, but she was just another girl to Kaede. She might have a fleeting glance at an attractive girl every now and then, but Makoto was her life.
"You're always putting on that face, but even you got to admit your girl has an eye for fashion. Not that Yui-chan was ugly or anything, but she really brought the best side out of her, you know?"
Kaede didn't. That type of thing she didn't understand. If things were pretty, they were pretty. But Emiko was fishing for something so Kaede gave a small nod of the head.
"Kaede! There's a piece of pizza under your dresser, did you know that?" Shiho came storming in, furious. She dropped using honorifics whenever she was mad at her. "No wonder it stinks in there."
"I forgot it was there." Kaede said simply.
"You forgot… that pizza was UNDER your dresser. Why was it there in the first place?"
"I don't recall."
"That's so gross!" Shiho wrinkled up her nose.
"I apologize."
"Don't apologize, help me clean up that sty!" Shiho narrowed her eyes. "You too, Emi."
"O-Okay."
The two of them were dragged into Kaede's room, which looked fine to her. Shiho only yelled at her some more when she pointed this out. Not wanting to fall under her wrath anymore she did as she was told. Within an hour the room looked as spotless as one of the Inn rooms. Kaede looked at it with disappointment. It lost character and she didn't know how long it would take her to find anything after the sleep-over was over.
"What's this?" Emiko was looking in Kaede's closet. Hanging on the wall was a shrine of various rosaries Kaede collected.
"Oh, that's just her collection." Shiho waved it away. "I know, she's an odd duck."
"It's not odd." Kaede lowered her eyebrows. She hated when Shiho made fun of her religion. "I like the pretty beads."
Shiho gave a shrug and a kind smile, as if she was indulging a child.
Before Kaede could get too upset, Makoto and Nori walked into the room. Her mother must of let them in, either that or Makoto just let herself in the house on her own again. On seeing Makoto, Kaede forgot about being annoyed at Shiho. She looked so pretty. Nori was looking around, as if she felt out of place.
"Sorry for the intrusion." The sister was saying, as Makoto walked over to Kaede and gave her a big kiss. "Geez, Mako-chan, didn't you just see her a few hours ago?"
"Sorry sis." Makoto pulled away and stuck her tongue out at her. "Everyone, this is my big sister, Nori."
Shiho was staring at her. "That uniform…"
Unlike Makoto, Nori was still in her school uniform. Kaede guessed that Nori had a longer travel rate than Makoto did on the way home. No doubt Makoto had time to change and pack both of their bags for them. Nori must of got home only to drop off her school belongings and head out again.
Nori looked down at herself. "What about it?"
"My girlfriend has the same uniform. You must go to the same school." Shiho continued looking at it.
"I'm a grade higher than you lot, so if you're girlfriend is the same age, I probably don't know who she is." Nori looked slightly embarrassed by being put on the spot.
"She is. Do you know a Sora Ito?" Shiho asked.
Nori looked up to think. Kaede's heart skipped a beat. She looked just like her sister when she did that. The look wasn't lost on Shiho, who smiled almost the same time Kaede did. When Nori returned her gaze back down she noticed them looking at her with the same smile. "What?"
"Nothing." Shiho quickly said. "Do you know the name?"
"I think I do. There is this rich girl a grade lower than me that all the boys talk about. She's supposed to be some kind of beauty."
"That's her." Shiho smirked cocky smile, obviously proud of her girlfriends reputation.
"She's really pretty." Makoto gave a sour face. "Kinda makes me jealous."
"Like you're not pretty enough." Shiho rolled her eyes at Makoto.
After that, everyone else introduced themselves to Nori. Kaede felt bad for her having to be dragged along to hang out with other people's friends. She could only imagine the weekend she was giving up on to do these favors for her sister. Eventually Kaede was sure Nori would get tired of being so giving and refuse going out on these outings. As Shiho started putting Makoto and Emiko to work on something else, Kaede was able to disappear with Nori out of the clean freaks sight.
"I'm sorry you have to go through all this." She said once they were alone in the living room.
Nori gave a wary smile. "I know you are. I wish Mom would just leave it alone."
"Me to. Kaede admitted. "You have been more patient than I would. But giving up your weekend like this is asking a lot."
"To be honest, I was thinking about renting a room from your parents and just staying out of your way."
Kaede felt bad. She shook her head. "You leave us alone all the time. Since this is a group thing, more people is better. I don't like the idea of excluding you."
Nori gave a heavy sigh. Kaede knew exactly how she was feeling. "This can't continue on. Mom has to understand I got a life too. But if I say I won't come along, it'll make my sister upset because you'll never get to see her. But with me there, you're not really seeing each other anyway, you're just passing time together. I'm just a third wheel. I know it's driving me crazy, I can't imagine what it must be like for you not to be able to be alone with her."
"I've been on edge lately. Snapping at people." Kaede admitted before she had a chance to stop herself.
"Me too." Nori laughed a bit. "My friends at school say I'm playing the big sister role too literal. They say if Mako-chan cared for me like I do her, then she would let me go out sometimes and give up her dates. But they don't understand. They don't get that it's because I go out that she can too. If they had to go through all that they'd feel more sorry for Mako-chan over me."
Kaede grabbed Nori's hand, and looked into her Makoto-like eyes. "I'm deeply sorry. But we should confront your mother about this. It's not fair to either of you."
Nori blushed a bit, but squeezed Kaede's hand as well. "Yeah. You're right. If you were a boy I wouldn't have to come along. I should just tell Mom I'm not going to do it anymore. And I'm forcing Mako-chan to disobey Mom for once and just go out anyway. It'll be hard for her… but Dad won't let a punishment stick and Mom's got to learn that… that Mako-chan isn't straight."
Kaede hated that Makoto had to be put through all that, but there seemed no other way. They played by the rules as long as they could. "Thank you."
"No, thank you. You've put up with a lot just because of my Mom." Nori leaned forward and gave Kaede a small hug. "Thanks. for understanding and not dumping my loser sister."
Kaede felt her cheeks flush from the hug. She turned her gaze away unable to take the sister's similar features. "You two look too much alike."
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