Chapter Text
Natsume squinted back and forth between the cursor blinking on her screen and the clock ticking on the wall. Cursor, clock, cursor, clock and on and on - her vision felt oddly fuzzy, no matter how much she blinked it was as though someone had placed a filter over her eyes. Her bones were resting heavy, like a built in paperweight…were people moving in slow motion? Briefly in a moment of clarity, she thought maybe getting a total of four sporadic hours of sleep in three days was not the best course of action.
She clenched her fists resting against the keyboard - her nails were bitten down to the beds, she took a deep breath in and out, groaning and curling forward a little bit. On the table her phone began buzzing, or had been buzzing for a while, she had just attributed it to the general sounds of the other coffee shop patrons. Natsume swiped her phone open, and a tired smile spread across her face as she read the group chat messages, currently named ‘castaways, we are castaways’ . It had been a hub of activity lately with holidays rolling around the corner, and this instance was no different.
castaways, we are castaways
reina it in: so is everyone showing up this week? aside from <3 juri <3
taishmanian devil: YESS!S!!
reina it in: is everyone who isn’t taishi showing up this week
taishmanian devil: HURT AND OFFENDED WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN 2 ME?
juri’s out: She doesn’t mean it, Taishi 💖
reina it in : uh yes i do?
taishmanian devil has left the group chat
juri’s out added taishmaniandevil to the group chat
yuzuru (not hanyuu): My schedule is looking okay :) I should be there a day late if anything.
reina it in : fantastic stunning - kumagaya? natsume? i can see you reading my messages g u y s.
taishmanian devil: HEY YUZU CAN U PICK ME UP?
yuzuru (not hanyuu): Sure! But why are you yelling?
taishmanian devil: I AM NOT MY PHONE IS STUCK I AM ALSO EXCITED
reina it in: 🙄 🙄 🙄
juri’s out: Taishi, try switching your phone off and on again. That should help.
reina it in: it wont help you cant fix stupid lol.
juri’s out : Reina.
reina it in …sorry taishi.
taishmanian devil : DIDNT CANT SWITCH IT OFF WONT WORK IT IS FINE SEE YOU GUYS SOON
reina it in: im … letting this one slide.
reina it in: natsume? kumagaya?
Natsume chewed her lip, thumb hovering over her keyboard as she began composing a reply with her standard and definitely wearing thin excuse. She loved her friends, but the truth was she had little time these days for anything not involving her very strenuous degree. When not keeping up with her university workload, she was busy during her placements at the hospital. When she was neither at the university or the hospital she was catching up on the little sleep that she could afford. Just as Natsume was ready to hit send, a new notification pinged on her phone. She blinked in surprise, was the lack of sleep now making her hallucinate?
kosuke kugayama : u going home this weekend?
natsume touchi : uhhhh hi kosuke nice to hear from you too?
kosuke kugayama: everyone misses u natsu u’ve been buried in work for ages now
Hmm. She didn’t miss how he immediately dodged her sarcasm but didn’t have the energy to push it, plus the three dots kept appearing on their chat.
kosuke kugayama: come on its one week
natsume touchi : i really don’t know, maybe? I’ve been swamped as hell this past week :(
natsume touchi: i have placements! and assignments due, and club activities…
natsume touchi: i’m fine! really, there’s always next time!
kosuke kugayama : stop do not im fine me placements ended last week, u can work on ur assignments at home and clubs are closed this week - theres no one there natsume we take care of each other and if that means threatening you with the crushing force that is reina hama its ur funeral
natsume touchi: …how do you know my schedule! kosuke ? what witchcraft is this?
kosuke kumagaya: its called the unfortunate fate of knowing u for our whole lives
kosuke kumagaya : come or i will tell reina what actually happened during her fifteenth bday party 😈
Natsume snorted loud enough that the people at the surrounding tables spared her a momentary glance. She closed her eyes and pictured Kosuke, with his quiet determination and slight frown, he was the only one who could immediately tear down a defence she had been building up for the whole year in less than 100 characters. She waited a beat just staring at her phone, decisively she hit send, closed her laptop and forced herself to move out of the position she had been sitting in for an embarrassingly long amount of time.
castaways, we are castaways
natsudon: yeah! i’ll be there ^_^
taishanian devil: AAAAAAA NATSUME !!!SKJFCN!!
juri’s out : Aw, yay, Natsume 🥰
yuzuru (not hanyuu) : Natsumeeeee!
kosuke: see u guys then
reina it in: ladies and gentlemen we have a full! house!
Natsume packed up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, she scrubbed a hand over her face and finally registered the time - 8:02 AM. She cringed internally thinking of the gentle concern from Yuzuru and Juri, the downright irritation from Kosuke if they knew she had been pushing herself like this. She thanked the shop's staff and headed towards her little flat that would no doubt need a lot of maintenance after the week she had put it through.
The campus around her was slowly coming to life, the students began to file in, laughing and waving - cups of iced coffee in tow, the weather had slowly shifted to the balmy humidity of summer that most people tended to loathe. Not Natsume - to Natsume it reminded her of her childhood, of what her brain would try to tell her was only a dream, conjured up by her grief and loneliness. Her old apartment complex floating on a vast open sea? With six children on board no less - they had been gone for what they estimated to be two weeks of drifting aimlessly across the endless waters, salvaging snacks and drink that Natsume stocked up on. Yet, by the time they had gotten home they were told that they had only been missing for the afternoon. Natsume would have believed it, if not for the scars - on her knee from the glass, on her palm from the rebar, on the side of her stomach from her own clumsiness. They were the reminders of what had ultimately healed her and Kosuke, and what held the group together. Of Noppo.
Her heart felt a pang as it always did when her thoughts strayed to Noppo. Kind, caring Noppo, who watched over the two of them, who wanted nothing more than Natsume and Kosuke to be happy. And they were … or they tried to be, she supposed. Some days were more difficult than others, growing up meant ultimately facing that they would all have to face their own paths - but she did know that her friends would always have each other’s backs, and that always counted for something. As if on cue her phone buzzed.
castaways, we are castaways
juri’s out: VID_04933.mp4
juri’s out : Noppo says ‘Don’t forget to hydrate friends! Summer is here!’ ☀️
Natsume felt warmth in her chest that was not from the sun, in the video the leafy spider plant that Juri had been taking care of for almost ten years now waved lazily in the summer breeze. She remembered when Juri had bought it, the last week of summer before they started middle school - Juri set it up on her windowsill, next to a small glass jar with a bit of rubble collected from the almost completely ruined facade of that old apartment complex. Natsume had held tightly to her shoulders while Reina had a fierce grip on Juri’s hand, Juri’s glasses completely fogged up from the tears. The boys stood behind them, Taishi sniffling, Yuzuru in the middle with an arm around both Taishi and Kosuke. Kosuke with unshed tears and tightly clenched fists. The six of them mourned, quietly, in their own ways, the memories of their experience fresh and raw. Juri named the plant Noppo and had been its steadfast caretaker no matter how busy life got.
Before she realised it, Natsume had already reached her flat, she loosened the grip on her phone leaving slight red marks on her skin. Unlocking the door to her neglected flat she set about clearing three days worth of piled up chores, her body losing some of its perpetual stress as she cleared out the dishes, vacuumed the carpet, switched out the sheets. With the stress bleeding out of her body it only left room for anticipation, she had not been able to see her friends for a while now, at least not all together for almost two years. She crashed onto her clean bed and scrolled through her phone gallery.
The photos over the years of the six of them as they grew, at festivals, football games, Christmas and New Years, blurry pictures snapped when they were all laughing so hard no one could hold a camera straight. Group shots of the girls going shopping together trailing quietly after Reina, the boys and Natsume in their football kits with Reina and Juri in supportive team face paint. Reina held a snack bag high up out of Taishi’s reach as Juri and Yuzuru attempted to placate them, Kosuke snapping a photo of them on the camera she had given him. Kosuke was always snapping photos of them, she swiped and paused over the next photo she had taken studying it closely.
Kosuke held the camera up pointing towards something beyond her phone's screen, poised and patiently waiting for the picture to line up correctly - he practically glowed in the sun. He always was a summer kid, he would get tanner, his dark hair wavier and messier than at any other point in the year, the epitome of the season. Natsume turned to her side, still considering the picture, she missed him - Kosuke kept busier, busier than even Natsume, she hadn’t been able to see him for the longest time despite the on and off updates they would send each other, and even that wasn’t a given. She was nothing short of ecstatic that she would see them soon…see him soon…would they feel the same?