It Doesn't Matter
The sun shone. In fact it shone down brightly as it had done all June.
And of course, tomorrow it would shine as well. Though, tomorrow it
would be the last day for some of the students to see its bright gleam
being cast down on the campus.
Natsuki lazed on her favourite spot of Fuuka Academy, a hill a little
aside from the rest of the life on the campus as it was shielded by the
forest. Here, where there were no students bustling about and no
teachers telling you to do your homework and study, it was quiet. Yes,
quiet and tranquil, and that's why Natsuki liked to be here. Whenever
her heart had been in turmoil, which had been the fact quite often in
her school years, she had come to a place like this. She hadn't been
looking for a special place, but rather a special atmosphere. A
tranquillity to surround her, to engulf her and to render serenity to
her troubled heart. On the academy grounds she had found such a place
right here and today she had visited it one more time.
While she had been sitting in the soft grass, staring off into the
distance, the sun had turned from pure white to warm yellow to the
colour of melted gold, now basking the scenery and its sole inhabitant
in a warm glow.
'Tomorrow is the last day.'
The thought had popped up every so often in her mind that afternoon and
every time she had brushed it aside as quickly as it had appeared. She
didn't want to think of tomorrow, she'd come here to forget about it.
For a while at least.
Natsuki closed her eyes and held her face directly into the rays of the
sinking sun, allowing the warmth to grace her features.
A soft voice announced the presence of another person behind her.
"Shouldn't you be in your room preparing yourself for tomorrow?", the
voice behind her back asked with mild curiosity.
Natsuki didn't move nor open her eyes to the intruder in her little
peaceful idyll.
"Well, you seem to have expected me here, otherwise you wouldn't have
come," she simply retorted.
"What tells you that I haven't been running around the whole school,
looking anxiously for you everywhere before and getting more and nervous
about you?" the voice asked with hurt and reproach.
Natsuki smiled to herself. She knew it was only faked.
"Because I know you know me, Shizuru, and I'm not falling for those
little games anymore." Natsuki pointed out. 'At least, not as easily as
I did in former times.' she added in her head.
"Well, then it seems my Natsuki has known me for too long, if I start to
bore her." Shizuru replied, forging disappointment.
"Don't say such a thing!" Natsuki got a little harsh. No matter for how
long she knew her friend and those games and teasing of her, up to now
she hadn't been able to build up an immunity against them. But maybe,
she mused, it didn't matter because it was one of the pillars her
relationship had been constructed on.
"Come here already and stop it, Shizuru." she said in a commanding tone.
"Whatever Natsuki wishes," Shizuru answered lightly, approaching her
friend and sitting down right next to her in one graceful, fluent
motion.
She regarded her love's face. It had indeed changed a lot over the past
years at university, she thought. The ever present frown of the teenage
girl she had met ages ago was gone. The young women beside her, enjoying
the sunshine on her face, was comfortable with herself. Her eyes were
still closed and her muscles slack, no tension or anxiety anywhere in
her features. She didn't flinch or move when Shizuru trailed a hand up
her back and caught a few lose strands of her black hair. All Natsuki
did was tilt her head a little, leaning it against Shizuru's shoulder,
as the woman kept playing with her hair, twisting it around her fingers.
"Did you learn your speech?" Shizuru asked after a while, stirring her
love out of the drowsiness invading her mind and body.
"Yeah, yeah, I know it by heart. Satisfied?" she mumbled, unwilling to
change the slightest thing about the cosiness of the situation right
now.
"Are you sure? It would be very embarrassing if the chosen speaker for
the graduation ceremony messed up, you know." Shizuru couldn't help but
to tease a bit and tipped her index finger on Natsuki's nose. The girl
just gave a grunt as a reply and cringed her nose at the contact.
Creaking one eye open to get a vision, she playfully snapped at the
finger, eliciting a giggle from her friend. Natsuki nuzzled a bit closer
and Shizuru in return placed her arm round her waist to hold her close.
"You've changed." Natsuki said. "In the past you would have never
giggled."
Shizuru's lips spread to a smile at that comment. It presented yet
another great opportunity to tease her friend, but she decided to keep
it serious for once in a while. Instead of some perky remark, she
answered, "I was thinking that same of you earlier."
They both went silent again.
What use was it to dig up the old stories?
They both had known each other for years; they knew what troubles they
had gone through, the troubles they had to overcome before they ended up
together as well as the little annoyances their relationship had had to
face along the years.
There would have been no meaning in telling them all over. They had made
it this far and according to their future plans it was to continue.
Maybe a year, maybe five years, maybe even more. At best they could hope
for a lifetime.
Right at the moment they were here, with each other and content. How
they got there was not of much importance.
"Guess I should say thank you." Natsuki's voice broke the silence.
"What for? For writing your speech?" the brunette chuckled. "I couldn't
let you embarrass yourself in front of everyone." Shizuru knew that it
wasn't what her love had meant. If it had been something that simple she
wouldn't have mumbled it with averted eyes.
"No, baka!" the girl in her arms retorted, jerking her head up.
"No," she continued more calmly, this time looking Shizuru straight into
the face. "I mean thanks for...for everything, I guess." Natsuki cursed
herself inwardly. That had sounded pretty lame to her own ears, though
Shizuru didn't seem to mind as she was still smiling fondly at her.
Natsuki drew in another breath and averted her eyes again, locking them
on the next best thing, which came to be their hands. Unconsciously she
had entwined one of her hands with one of Shizuru's, playing with their
fingers. Shizuru knew her blue haired beauty well. Actions such as these
were always a sign of insecurity. She lifted her hand from her love's
hip and stroked her head as if calming down an upset child. Meanwhile
Natsuki wrestled with herself, or rather her tongue. After years of
being lovers she should have no problem at all talking about her
feelings, she scolded herself, yet she did. It wasn't that she was
embarrassed or uncomfortable with loving the woman holding her. She
loved her with all her heart. But she never found quite the right words
to voice it. Of course, she contemplated, Shizuru knew for what she had
wanted to thank her even if she did not elaborate it, but the fact was
she wanted to. Skimming through her university years this afternoon had
also been reviewing her relationship with Shizuru and to her dislike she
had detected that far too often for her personal liking she had avoided
telling her love what she still was: her most important person.
Not that Shizuru would demand it from her, she' never done it once, but
sometimes even the emotionally-dense Natsuki caught a glimpse of longing
in her eyes, which she was determined not to seal away with a kiss
today.
The hand stroking her hair helped, sort of. It indicated safety,
provided by their own little world surrounding them right now. They were
alone. No matter how mushy, cheesy and stuttered her words might be,
only Shizuru would hear them.
Natsuki placed a kiss on their fingers, reassuring herself that the
proper words would come out of her mouth.
"Thanks for becoming my friend when I had none, for not giving up trying
no matter how harsh I was. Thanks for helping me through high school and
getting me into university, for sacrificing your own study time to help
me with my exams. Thanks for covering for me whenever I skipped and for
stopping me skipping. Thanks for nursing me when I was sick, for
watching over me getting healthy food, washing my clothes, helping me to
keep our apartment clean. Thanks for believing in me all the time, even
when I would give up on myself.
Thank you for loving me, Shizuru."
Once she had opened her mouth the words had spilled forward. Bottled up
for a long time, what she had always felt and never quite said had come
forth, without a pause or a particular order. An onslaught of sentences
finally breaking the barrage, flowing on and on undamped for as long as
her breath lasted. Now that the flood had ceased, she shuffled around in
the woman's arms so that she came to lie facing her and looked up.
Shizuru stared down at her, her eyes locked on her princess, tears
streaming freely down her face, over her cheeks, and along her jaw line
to drip down in her lap. Her make-up, otherwise indiscernible, ran over
her face along with the tears, leaving tracks on her otherwise flawless
cheeks.
It wasn't the picture Natsuki had expected to see. And though she would
have deemed it corny to say Shizuru had never looked more beautiful, to
Natsuki she was gorgeous at that moment.
It didn't matter that her make-up was being washed away, or that the
tears stained her cheeks, all Natsuki could see was the smile blooming
on Shizuru's face. While the droplets were spilling forth, her eyes were
shining and her lips spreading in a smile. It was open and unguarded, a
rare expression on the Fujino face that offered a polite smile to
everyone. And it was sincere and therefore genuine to Natsuki.
After she had marvelled at the sight for some time, she tentatively
brought a finger up to her beloved's face to brush away the tears.
Instead of her intention though, the blue haired woman found herself
tracing along the lines they had left. "Shizuru," she whispered softly.
When she brought her lips up to Shizuru's she could taste the salt on
her lips. The pair of arms around her back was pressing her into
Shizuru, digging the fingers into the fabric of her shirt. It was an
intense embrace, almost furious. For the first time, Natsuki realized,
Shizuru was clinging to her and she the one holding her. Shizuru was
begging for her words to be true and Natsuki was reassuring her that she
meant them.
Mentally, though, she kicked herself. If she had known how happy she
could make her love with those simple words, and simple they had been
after all, she thought, then she would have said them way earlier.
As their kiss ended Natsuki looked into Shizuru's eyes. "Will you help
getting me through whatever job I'm going to pick, too?" she asked in a
whisper.
"I will." Shizuru answered, again with that smile gracing her features.
"Then it's a promise." She said, pulling Shizuru in a tight embrace.
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