Work Text:
Now that she’s actually (technically) on her own, Touko’s realizing that what she thought was independence from her father before was actually a diet coke version of the concept.
Again, she’s less “on her own” than she is just out of the family house and beginning something new that doesn’t involve Dad (at least, not involving him directly, because she’s certain he’ll manage to weasel his way into it one way or the other, probably financially by gifting her the furniture they don’t have yet). People around her still call it “independence” and she understands why that is – moving out is a big thing, especially when you’re not a student anymore.
Dad made sure she would be fine once she’d be on her own, though, and she owes him a lot for that alone, she obviously can’t deny that. It, however, doesn’t mean she isn’t glad to be out of his hair and able to live her life entirely as she wants to and that includes choosing who she wants to live with.
She can’t really pinpoint when she started finding she’d rather live with the annoying Osakan girl she met during one weird tour throughout Japan because the latter fell in love with some dude on the soccer team they were on at the same time – but, strangely for her fourteen-year-old self, Touko doesn’t regret proposing Rika to move in with her.
She could have pretended it was just because, while they both had to study in the Tokyo Prefecture (Touko wanted to spend more days with her old comrades from middle and high school, Rika wanted to spread the good word of Osaka in its biggest rival’s area and enjoy a life where she could be known as Urabe Rika and not Urabe Momoko’s Only and Precious Daughter), she didn’t want to suddenly feel all alone. It was, admittedly, at least partially true: she was afraid of feeling lonely and isolated because she had grown up surrounded by Dad’s personnel, then had lived and commanded the SP Fixers for so long that she had forgotten she was also just a teenager with teenage wishes and teenage problems.
Rika was the one to remind her of all of that because she, on the other hand, wasn’t the daughter of the Prime Minister of Japan nor part of an important figure’s bodyguard team who just so happened to be trained to play professional-level soccer. She was someone who had always had the freedom to be who she wanted: even if she was mostly known around her area as the only child of crêpe shop owner Urabe Momoko, she still had the liberty to found an all-female team and become their captain. Even now, she decided to found one in Inazuma – not because she felt forced to, but because she felt like she could do something great and bring something new to the table.
And, well, Touko was envious of that – of this thing she had never had, of this ability to do whatever she wanted without being afraid of disappointing her father.
Still, it’s not all there is to it. Touko isn’t the sort to befriend someone so they can advance her in life (she’s felt bad about having the literal Prime Minister’s support for such a long while, she could never do that without wanting to melt herself into a dumpster): instead, she’s the sort of people who will go after those who pull her towards them, following the sort of natural gravity that they have on her. Endou was part of them, Raimon as a whole was part of them, and Rika absolutely is someone she ended up gravitating towards down the line.
It started with being the two only girls playing on the same team (the other girls around were the managers and, aside from Aki, didn’t have soccer experience – playing and practicing with Aki was a pretty cool experience, though, and seeing her become a player in her own right in high school was awesome to see), then it became a genuine friendship by the time Touko was picked for the Japanese national team and Rika became one of their biggest supporters (unlike what Touko had feared, Rika didn’t display much envy, instead looking disappointed, then trying to hide it with a big smile and supportive words). They didn’t always agree, but at the end of the day, they enjoyed each other’s presence enough to counterbalance the snappy remarks.
Rika was, to be frank, Touko’s first and only choice for a flatmate. Would have Rika chosen to do something other than attend university in the prefecture – do her studies in Osaka, choose to instead work in the family business, anything else really – Touko would have preferred to be alone. She’s very much a believer in “better alone than ill-accompanied” and didn’t feel comfortable with a lot of her former teammates, even if she had never minded being around guys.
In fact, she was so close to the guys during junior and high school that she’d have gone as far as to say she thought of herself as a guy, at some point. However, eventually, it became clear to her that she just didn’t conform to the traditional definition of a woman and, in fact, was still a girl, just one with fairly masculine tastes. It just fit her better and her love for practical clothes brought her to accept the fancy dresses and hairdos expected from a government official’s daughter less and less, instead craving for pants and less makeup.
In fact, it’s surprising ever her that she doesn’t mind her long hair: she’s wondered about cutting it, even tried having a shaved side at some point to see how it’d look (a shaded side she’d hide in front of her father, of the journalists and national audiences)... but it never fit her and, instead, she found herself liking her reflection in the mirror with her longer hair more, even experimenting with it, on her own or with Rika.
There are so many things she owes to her flatmate, the girl whose hand she’s now holding as they go upstairs to unlock the door to the flat. One of them was her first crush to have reciprocate feelings: it’s not always easy being a woman who’s into other women and one of them is being incompatible with a lot of dating pool. While Touko knows Endou Mamoru will stop loving soccer before she’ll start being interested in men for anything other than friendship and perhaps sibling-like camaraderie (like with the aforementioned Endou), she also knew it from the moment she put herself out there.
As such, she had never expected her crush on Rika (who, at some point, was obsessed with a guy to the point she joined a soccer team fighting off against teenagers their age who had been manipulated into committing acts of terrorism just so she could be in the same team as he was, leaving her natal Osaka just for that) to be anything other than another one-sided story that’d end as soon as they’d end up separated again after the end of the FFI.
Nope, instead, Touko was Rika’s bisexual awakening and the rest is history.
And it’s because they’ve both shared so much that they’re now taking their first flight all on their own into the world. They both know it can be a terrible place, at times, to be yourself in a world that would very much like to conform to a pre-established mould that will probably never fit you, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t good to be enjoyed, and Touko very much knows this: if they’ve been able to develop friendships during times such as the Aliea Academy attacks on Japan, they can survive some petty remarks and indiscreet eyes.
Plus, really, if people want to hate on them or attack them, they’re not ready for Touko’s penchant for kicking asses. She was a bodyguard and if she has to fight for her independence, then so be it.