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A mighty strike from the knight,
and the dragon fell amidst the bloodied edelweiss,
its head engulfed by the flowers,
beheaded body still convulsing seconds after its life was snuffed.
The white knight turned their back on their now dead foe,
facing a raven-haired princess with eyes like orange stars—--
"Mashiro-chan?"
"UAAAAAAAGH!"
A pen flew across the room, zooming right past the intruder who had just dared to open the lair's door.
Mashiro had instinctively thrown herself over her desk, in a desperate attempt to cover the notebook filled up to the brim with her chicken scratches of a story in which similarities to any living, closely related person to her was absolutely, undefyingly, purely coincidental.
"It's time for bed, dearie." Completely unfazed by any of the events that had just transpired, Mashiro's mom had opened her mouth once more.
Easing herself upon the reveal that the voice that startled her out of her reverie seconds ago was simply her mother, Mashiro sat back on her chair in shame and closed the notebook in one swift movement.
"Oh. Ok…"
A much milder and less suspicious reaction. It could almost count as a conversation.
She should probably learn to master the conversation part lest she be mistaken for a screeching banshee in the outside world.
Her mom approached her, eyes obviously glued to the notebook sitting on the desk in front of her, blissfully unaware of prying eyes.
Mashiro felt like each step she heard getting closer, her cheeks were getting redder.
"Were you writing-"
"NOTHING!"
Mashiro stopped her dead in her tracks. She messed up, her mom would definitely guess she was writing something different this time, there was no getting out of that, maybe she was going to read it in secret and silently judge her for the rest of her life-
"… something for your band again?"
Surprised, Mashiro stayed silent for a moment. After a beat passed, she looked off to the side and provided eloquently: "Oh… uh… yeah…"
Her mom's eyes lit up. "Really? You've never admitted to that so easily before. You must be writing something else, then?"
Ah. Mashiro guessed wrong. What set her off was actually admitting she was writing lyrics, which meant that she wasn't.
"Can I go to sleep?"
She cut her off. A smooth sailing way of indicating she wanted to end this conversation, and start the next day with a new mindset.
"Okay. Goodnight." Her mom pecked her on the cheek, and that was that.
Door closed, curtains drawn, lights off; all that was left was Mashiro, her wandering thoughts, and her marshmallow rabbit plushies. And her notebook.
Skimming the words she wrote last as best she could, Mashiro dreamed herself up in place of a dragon-slaying white knight whisking away a short princess with pigtails and a smile that could melt the sun.
•
"Good morning, Mashiro-chan!"
A chipper voice greeted her as she entered the classroom with dark circles under her eyes. It was not a good morning.
"G-good morning, Tsukushi-chan…"
She could barely hold a conversation with said Tsukushi-chan without stammering these days, after all the totally well concealed princess stories she wrote about her - let alone look at her face. But she still wanted to be near her, so Mashiro simply towered awkwardly next to Tsukushi while avoiding her gaze. Which was a harder task than one would think because as it so happened, Mashiro was constantly looking down at her feet and Tsukushi was small enough that her eyes were always in her line of sight.
"You don't look so good… What's wrong? Didn't get enough sleep last night?"
"Uh-huh… I couldn't sleep a wink. I was just. Uhhhh….. Too busy writing lyrics for our next song." Not seeing through her lie at all, Tsukushi brightened up immediately, a big smile spreading across her face. She held up one of Mashiro's hands between both of hers, seemingly very excited. Mashiro stared at her feet harder in case she'd be blinded.
"Really? That's wonderful! Let me see them, please! Ah- Ahem, but as this class’ president and Morfonica’s band leader, I have to remind you that a good night's sleep is very important, and that… w-wait, what was i supposed to say after that again…" Tsukushi started trailing off, rummaging through her pockets frantically for a reason that Mashiro could not grasp.
A piece of paper escaped from one of her pockets, slowly fluttering its way down to the ground.
Seeing this as the perfect excuse to avoid looking at Tsukushi's stupid pretty face, Mashiro bent down, grabbing the small crinkled sheet.
Something was scribbled on it in ink pen, half-covered by her own thumb. For the split second that God (read: Tsukushi) allowed her to look at it, she managed to make out the words: ‘GL Today!!! Tell Mashiro-chan that I li
“Aaaah! No! Don’t read that!” Snatching the paper out of Mashiro’s hands as fast as humanly possible, Tsukushi was positively trembling from head to toe. Out of sheer stupor, Mashiro finally met her gaze. “Huh? Was it something you needed to tell me? What was it, Tsukushi-chan?”
Tsukushi seemed to calm down a bit upon hearing Mashiro’s words. Mashiro felt kinda proud of that. “Nothing of importance! It’s for… later today. Y-yeah, during practice! AndDon’tBeLateThankYouBye!”
She stormed off as fast as she uttered that last sentence, plopping down at her assigned seat and not daring to look back at Mashiro. Nevermind, then. Guess she didn’t need a masters degree in gaze avoidance anymore.
She spent the rest of first period staring at the clock on the wall instead.
•
Their usual band lunch meetup during recess went by like usual, if you ignore the part where every time Mashiro caught Tsukushi staring at her inadvertently, she suddenly became very invested in looking down at her bento.
Was this how Tsukushi felt whenever Mashiro looked away from her? Didn’t it make her feel sad? In any event, she could not picture what could make Tsukushi so anxious that she’d suddenly start acting like her. Afterall, Tsukushi always acted confident, and even when she didn’t, she did. Or so Mashiro thought.
She’d probably word it better in lyric form.
What was for certain is that nothing could ever properly convey how Mashiro felt when this ray of sunshine first appeared before her in the Tsukinomori hallway on an early spring day, and she couldn’t even remember her name.
Or that time Tsukushi comforted her as she cried by the riverbank. And that other time Tsukushi comforted her as she cried by the riverbank.
…It’s weird that it happened twice, now that she thinks about it. Hopefully it wouldn’t happen a third time, it’d be pretty embarrassing at that point.
•
The school day was finally over, which meant all of Morfonica gathered at Nanami’s atelier for band practice.
And as band practice usually went, they started it off by not practicing and having snacks instead.
“Dvou gwiwls thwink thad neft skewl yea-”
“Kirigaya-san, please finish swallowing what you are eating before running your mouth.”
“Dafm u, Wui!” She swallowed. “I meant, damn you, Rui!"
“... I would have preferred you simply kept your mouth shut this time.”
“Now now, you two~.” Nanami chimed in, “Rui-rui, isn’t it time you complain about us needing to start practice instead~?”
Said Rui eyed as discreetly as she could some red bean pastries scattered on the table in front of them. “Yes, but it would be a waste of food not to finish what we’ve bought. Let’s hurry on eating.”
“Hahaha, if you say so, Rui-rui~.”
Mashiro was observing them silently while munching away on a chocolate bar, inadvertently focused on the sound of the ballpoint pen Tsukushi was using to furiously scribble away at a score sheet - which she was not-so-carefully hiding with her arm. Mashiro took a peek at her own bag in the corner of the room, thinking about her own scribbles hidden away just mere feet away.
Noticing their vocalist’s lack of involvement, Nanami decided to open her way into the conversation in a totally normal manner. “Shiro-chan, were you working on some new lyrics recently? Maybe even writing something else?”
What? Nanami must have had some otherworldly sixth sense, there was no other way. Starting a conversation like that was way too abrupt.
Tsukushi perked up from across the table, visibly interested in the topic. As she was desperately searching for a way out, Mashiro grasped at the first straw that presented itself to her and gathered up the courage to ask Tsukushi what had been nagging her the whole day instead: “Ah, T-Tsukushi-chan, wasn’t there something you had to t-tell me today? …During practice?”
At those words, Tsukushi turned beet red. Mashiro learnt today that Tsukushi must be very good at setting inhumane records, because she’s never seen anyone look that red before in her life. An awkward silence settled in the atelier as they all stared at Tsukushi with a straight face, awaiting her answer. A beat too late, Tsukushi finally decided to say something, albeit lacking in grammatical correctness. “Um! Lyrics, Mashiro-chan asked show!”
“You wrote… lyrics?” Mashiro wasn’t sure she understood that correctly.
“No! You!...” She seemed to consider it for a second longer. “A-actually, yes, and… and I wanted your advice on it, Mashiro-chan, that’s why.”
Her advice. Tsukushi needed her advice, her help. A proof of change.
“No way, I didn’t expect you to try your hand at lyrics again after last time, Fusuke.”
The latter took quite an offense to that. “What?! Yours were much worse! At least I tried to focus on the band as a whole, not just guitar!”
“Could we get back to the topic at hand?” Rui interjected. “Futaba-san, it seems irrelevant to bring up your unfinished lyrics during our practice time. If you need to discuss them with Kurata-san, please do so after practice.”
“Hey...! I’m the leader here! And… I decided that you’re right. M-Mashiro-chan, do you mind if we stay behind afterwards so we can discuss it? Nanami-chan, I hope that’s okay with you.”
“No problemo~!”
Wait, wasn’t Tsukushi supposed to believe that Mashiro was the one who wrote lyrics? Or was she actually trying to save her out of this embarrassing situation, thinking Mashiro wasn’t confident enough in her lyrics yet to show it to the rest of the band…?
Mashiro felt extremely confused.
Curious to find out what was up and mostly not to seem completely unreliable, Mashiro agreed, plastering on the biggest smile she could muster. “Okay. I can help you, Tsukushi-chan.”
It felt a bit like that time Rui said she admired her, except this time it was Tsukushi and she wasn’t even sure she really needed her help.
•
Mashiro may or may have not have been distracted enough to forget some lyrics during her singing, staring at a certain drummer from the corner of her eye the whole of their performances.
Absolutely no one could tell.
Now that practice had finally ended, they were all packing up, and Mashiro was getting the jitters like she was about to go on stage.
Toko and Rui bid them goodbye, not forgetting to pick up their bickering before going. Nanami, on the other hand, lingered a bit longer. After making sure everything was in order, she smiled at them both, hands clasped behind her back. “You know where to find me if you need anything~. Now, try to understand each other’s writings, okay?”
She waved at them and left the atelier, leaving both Mashiro and Tsukushi to their own devices. Neither of them were looking at the other, unchanging from how the day has been going so far really.
Tsukushi cleared her throat, apparently more determined to break the silence than Mashiro was. “So… Well… About those lyrics…” “Yeah…” “Do you… want to show yours first?” Tsukushi suggested.
Mashiro’s eyes darted everywhere in the room yet still missed target Tsukushi. “A-actually, I think I forgot my notebook at home.” There was no way she was showing Tsukushi any kind of notebook that had her very obviously described as a helpless nameless princess.
“Oh.”
Lock-on target Tsukushi. She was wide-eyed and sweating. Not a good sign. Try being helpful.
“What about yours, Tsukushi-chan?”
“... Aaah, Mashiro-chan, I’m so sorry! I don’t actually have any lyrics to show you.. You see, I…” She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Let’s just say, I wanted to help you out! You seemed out of it today, so I figured maybe you wanted some more time to think about the lyrics before showing the rest of the band, and that maybe I could help you out and-” Mashiro’s face crumbled. Tsukushi immediately cut herself short the second she noticed.
“So you didn’t actually need my help then…?” Mashiro complains in a quiet voice.
“What?”
“I don’t need you to look after me like that all the time…!” She furrowed her brows. It was too late now, once she was gone, she was gone. “I can stand up for myself now! I’ve changed! You told me so!” Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Mashiro-chan…!”
“What’s the point of changing if I still can’t do anything right! I can’t even be useful…!”
Mashiro darted for the door, leaving Tsukushi behind.
“Jeez, wait!”
She ran as fast as she could, not bothering to check where her legs were taking her, nor whether or not Tsukushi was following her.
Before she knew it, she was sitting in the grass by the riverbank, watching the sun set over the horizon through glassy eyes.
A butterfly passed by, yet she could only focus on the sound of water.
Until it gets cut by ragged breathing, and a loud thump as a familiar bag falls right next to her. She chances a glance upwards.
“H-hey… Mashiro…-chan…” Tsukushi sits down next to her with a sheepish smile, catching her breath.
“You, ah… forgot your bag back at the atelier. I figured bringing it back to you was the least I could do.”
Now Mashiro knows that she has pale skin, but with how livid she must look right now she might as well have become a ghost.
“Wait! What are you looking at me like that for? I didn’t peep!” Mashiro's about to breathe a sigh of relief, but Tsukushi’s not done, apparently. “Or, well, that is to say, I didn’t mean to…”
The sigh of relief gets caught up in her throat and now Mashiro’s having a coughing fit. Rollercoasters have nothing on the emotional turmoil she's going through right now.
“Woah! Don’t die on me now!” Tsukushi starts to rub her back as violently as one Tsukushi can manage, saving her once again.
“Ow. Thanks…” Mashiro fidgets, unsure what to say next.
“Well,” Tsukushi starts, “I may have read a bit by accident, but that was because I fell on the way here and your notebook kind of flew out of the bag…”
Mashiro starts to pick at some blades of grass on her right. Everything was fine. Everything was normal. This is fine.
“There’s nothing in there you should ever feel ashamed about, Mashiro-chan. Your lyrics have always inspired me.”
Her heart does a somersault. Now she starts to pick at her fingernails. Tsukushi looks at her expectantly, eyebrows raised in the air.
Mashiro’s eyes start to prickle again, and she can't help herself from throwing her arms around Tsukushi and crying on her shoulder.
“Tsukushi-chan, I’m so sooorryyy~! Please don’t hate meee~!”
“Come on, you don’t have to exaggerate that much… You only wanted to help me, right?”
“Y-yeah… But I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that… I just can’t change that part of me, can I…?”
Tsukushi grabs her by the shoulders, gently pushing her off her. “Why don’t you take your notebook out, Mashiro-chan? I want to see what you’ve written, even if you don’t need my help.”
“Um… Alright…” Mashiro opens her bag, grabbing her notebook, now returned to its rightful owner. “Tsukushi-chan… What was it you saw in my notebook earlier, exactly?” “Hm? Some lyrics you made about the sea… why?”
Skimming through the pages as quickly as she can, Mashiro stops at the page of doom. Looking away, she hands over her notebook. “Actually, I think I’d like help with that one…”
“Really? Okay then, let me check it out.”
Tsukushi takes her sweet time reading the entire thing, probably over and over, thinking there must be something she’s misunderstanding. Or that there’s something wrong with Mashiro, which, frankly, wouldn’t be recent news.
The flowers budding a few feet away from her look lovely, really.
Mashiro thinks Tsukushi might as well be playing the drums of her heart, because her heartbeat is getting louder and louder.
“It’s incredible! This is like a fantasy story!”
“Yeah…”
“But you’ve yet to write the ending, haven’t you?”
“Hm-hm…”
“Why? Is there something wrong with it? Do you not like it?”
No, she definitely likes it a lot.
“I…”
“What was that?”
“I like you...”
Tsukushi looks too stunned to speak.
It feels like nature takes her turn to speak instead, the both of them listening to the running water and the chirping of the birds if only for a moment.
Tsukushi finally cuts it off. “Is the princess in the story… me?”
Mashiro nods, words failing her.
A smile spreads on Tsukushi’s face. “It’s okay. I got something to show you too.”
She reaches for her own bag, pulling out the paper she was scribbling on earlier before practice, as well as the crumpled paper Mashiro was blessed to have read half the content of just this morning.
Tsukushi takes in a deep breath, holding out the scribbled score sheet in front of her. “Okay, okay I got this. Here we go then…
‘M-mashiro is really pretty…
Like a butterfly dancing above the sea
And umm… When she smiles I feel my heart fluttering
rhythmically to the sound of her singing…’ ”
Tsukushi’s cheeks got very red by now, like she realized her poem was maybe a bit too big of a confession.
“Y-you know what, just take this.”
She stuffs the other small crumpled paper in Mashiro’s hands, as if she wasn't able to guess what was written on it by now. Except Mashiro probably couldn't, because it felt like she was living in a dream and the words appearing before her eyes were not real.
‘GL Today!!! Tell Mashiro-chan that I like her!!!’
A small grin takes over Mashiro, and she feels the tears welling up once more. As she starts moving her hand to her eyes, Tsukushi beats her to it; cupping her cheek and wiping off the tears with her thumb.
Finally, Mashiro is facing the raven-haired princess with eyes like orange stars, forming the asterism of her face.
“I got an idea,” the raven-haired princess says. “Why don’t we finish writing the story together?”
The knight mirrors the princess, cupping her cheek. “I think I’d like that.”
Mashiro inches her face closer, and Tsukushi closes the gap, joining their lips.
A mighty strike from the knight,
and the dragon fell amidst the bloodied edelweiss,
its head engulfed by the flowers,
beheaded body still convulsing seconds after its life was snuffed.
The white knight turned their back on their now dead foe,
facing a raven-haired princess with eyes like orange stars.
The princess removes the white knight’s helmet,
her shoulder-length white hair drifting under the sun.
“I wanted to save you from the dragon like you had me,” said the knight,
“And I you from hiding from yourself,” said the princess,
holding out the helmet in front of the knight much like a mirror.
The knight was struck by how alike yet different they looked.
“I love you,” said the knight.
“I love you too,” said the princess.
“By the way, Tsukushi-chan… How’d you know I was gonna go at the riverbank…?”
“Fufu. I just had a feeling, that’s all. You really like the water, don’t you Mashiro-chan?”