Work Text:
Months bleed by before Hori realizes they had settled into another routine.
Another routine like taking the train to school every morning and the chase they play for club days; like the after school practices in the club room and the late night texts they share.
He abruptly realizes this when the cafe near the school closes for renovation; a polite sign hanging neatly in enviable penmanship, apologizing for the inconvenience and how they hope to reopen soon.
With the disappearance of the cafe, he suddenly realizes they had fallen into that comfortable sort of familiarity that feels natural again.
Natural with her.
When had they started meeting every week on Tuesdays after school at the Lilac cafe? Hori can’t quite remember. It could have been prior to their rendition of The Little Mermaid performance four months earlier when it had gotten too late and too dark outside and they hadn’t felt like going home to cold leftovers; and Kashima was in the mood for cake.
Too tired to fight with her for long, it had ended up being rather...enjoyable.
He had never stopped by the Lilac cafe before. He had been to others with her, had been to the one she worked at countless times and the one where she wanted to go to for White Day but that had been so long ago, before he realized he loved her; before he accepted it as easy as he could breathe. It was different then. It was different now.
The coffee had been hot and contrasted well with the cake she had insisted on. She had sipped on her own tea and cake. They had chatted and shared warm company.
That felt like eons ago.
Those were the days when club hours didn’t meet and it somehow became theirs.
Now, they find themselves standing outside the convenience store nearby sipping on warm strawberry milk and pre-packaged cakes.
The slight chill in the air is somewhere between the lingering raw scent of Winter and the young emergence of Spring. Their breaths come out in small warm wisps.
Kashima’s prattling on about Mikoshiba and Chiyo. They chat about the club; Mika-chan was perfect in her read-through of her lines and Arai-kun’s a bit stiff in his portrayal of the duke but the play isn’t for another month, so he has time to improve. The newest members are wide-eyed and impressionable and Hori halfheartedly scolds her for her bad habits he doesn’t want rubbing off on them. She grins nonchalantly.
Kashima’s got another perfect ranking in her class exams and Hori’s not on the top but he shrugs. It’s good enough. He’s proud of her, always.
There’s hardly anything they don’t talk about—or argue about, but Hori likes that too.
There’s only the hum of the vending machine nearby and the crinkling of their snack packages once they lapse into a comfortable silence.
There’s no fancy parfait or mille feuille but the company is the same and Hori feels content.
This was true friendship and love, he reflects.