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“Goood morning!!! My name is Takashima Yuuna and I’m here to sa–"
A hand lazily slapped at a terminal laying on the bedside dresser, eventually managing to silence the custom-set alarm after a few haphazard swipes. One Suzu Yokote groggily sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes before peering out the window. The sun wasn’t up yet, but she could see one side of the sky starting to shift to a telltale pale blue. Time to get moving, then.
Suzu stretched her arms above her head and exhaled while peering out at the field outside her window. The scent of the rain that peppered the countryside last night still lingered pleasantly in the air, making the summer morning a little nicer than usual. “I’m taking a break from club activities after this one...”
Even as she said this, she knew she didn’t mean it. As it was already, Suzu found it difficult to stay away for any amount of time once she had gotten used to that peculiar duo’s company, day to day. Over time, the long daily journey from Ehime to Kagawa became less boredom and more anticipation. She might not go so far as to say excitement, but it was undeniable that she had warmed to the two, at least a bit. Her eccentricity and entirely healthy obsession made it a bit difficult to keep friends, so having not only one, but two, people who seemed determined to keep her by their side was new, refreshing, and maybe even a little scary.
This current string of early mornings that Suzu found herself enduring was credit to Lily’s insatiable early morning plans that had spanned the last few days, which had, for some reason, required her participation.
Not five minutes after her alarm had gone off, Suzu heard the sound of vibration on wood as her phone lit up with a call, interrupting her thoughts. Just as the pattern of early mornings persisted, so too did the early morning calls. She didn’t have to look at the caller ID as she picked up. She heard not a greeting, but a dramatic gasp, followed by a panicked “Yokote!!”
“Good morning, Lily.”
“It’s terrible! Awful! Incomprehensibly catastrophic!”
Suzu had become wise to Lily’s dramatics ever since being warned of such by Yuzuki. That made addressing her panic-stricken friend a little bit easier every time she answered the phone like this.
“What’s the matter? I haven’t forgotten, I’ll be on my way soon, just lemme get outta bed first.” Suzu half-complained in a sleepy voice. No matter how much pep others might perceive her to have, she was never a morning person.
“No! Yokote, the flowers we made are ruined!”
That got her attention. “What?”
The flowers in question were ones made not of real stems and petals, but paper, made two days ago by the two Hero Club members on the phone. Those handfuls of flowers were the product of several hours’ work as the two girls pored over tutorial videos 5 seconds at a time, constantly rewinding and rewatching when the expert on screen moved their hands a little too deftly for the two origami amateurs. While their work ended up nowhere near as neat and nice as the example shown, they had still grown attached to them through the crafting process.
“When we finished them, I figured they would look better if I put glue on the stems and made it into a bouquet, like we talked about, so I put them outside to let the glue dry, but then it stormed out of nowhere, and, and…”
The girl was talking a mile a minute. At the very least, Yuzu could now confirm that this instance of panic was not fabricated. If Yuzu didn’t interject, she could envision the run-on sentence that Lily was spouting stretch into the distance.
“Wait, wait, Lily. Take a breath.” Yuzu could hear Lily oblige as she rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes while getting dressed. “What were the flowers doing outside anyways? It doesn’t take glue two whole days to dry, does it?”
“Well, no…” Lily admitted. “But we were so busy running around all over town yesterday that I completely forgot all about them until it was time to bring everything together today.”
Suzu grimaced. That was certainly a setback, and she was none too happy about having lost all that work. But, if there’s one thing that Takashima Yuuna taught her, it’s that no matter what, you must keep trying, and do whatever you can! She bolstered her attitude and made ready to respond.
“Lily. You want tonight to go well, right?” At that, Lily made a weak noise of affirmation. “Well then, we have to keep moving forwards, and do what we still can!”
Yuzu wasn’t sure if her spiel made a dent in her anxiety or not, but she didn’t give Lily a chance to deny or confirm. “I’ll see you soon, okay? I’m leaving for your place now, so hang in there, and make sure we have everything we need.” With that, she hung up the phone and stuffed it in her pocket. Coat, keys, wallet, bag… Yep. Everything was accounted for. As she made for the door, she ruminated on Lily’s distress. This was definitely abnormal for her to be so high-strung, but this was something she knew was important to Lily. These last 4 days had been packed with meticulously planned activities, and it was clear to see that Lily was putting in a higher-than-normal effort towards realizing her scheme. Even though Suzu had been roped into it under the guise of ‘club activities for the greater good’, she didn’t mind helping out.
“Mom! I’m going to go see Lily and Yuzuki today!” Yuzu hollered through the house as she slipped her shoes on at the front door. She had no apprehensions about making such a racket so early in the morning. Unlike her, Suzu’s mother was very much so an early riser. She always said that making her illustrations came easier in the mornings. Locking the door behind her, Suzu set out into the fresh air just as the slightest sunbeams hit the tops of the trees.
---===---===---===---
Beep. The line went dead, and Lily lowered her terminal from her face. She was pacing back and forth, thinking about what could possibly be done now. Everything else was still in order, but those flowers were important. Lily went back to the patio, where the flowers made of dark red paper sat, ruined. Lily had come back to look at them a few times now, as if they would be any less soaked and ruined if she just went back and checked enough times. No such luck. They were still doubled over and flattened against the cup they were stood up in to look like a bouquet. Okay, okay… This was still salvageable, right? Surely, if Lily was delicate enough, and just tried to prop up the petals… The wet petal breaks off in her hand. Maybe the flowers were a lost cause, after all. Lily groaned at this harsh reality and returned to pacing.
“This is fine!” She reasoned to no one. “As long as nothing else goes wrong, tonight will still be great. Yes. Yes!” It was obvious who she was trying to reassure. At times like these, her automatic reaction would be to turn to Yuzuki and bounce ideas off her before she gets scolded for saying something stupid. She wished that could be the case here. Lily walked into the kitchen to get things ready for Yokote’s arrival, even though she knew for certain that they had already done all the requisite shopping the day prior.
She stepped into the kitchen, and her phone rang once more. Figuring Yokote had forgotten to mention something, she fished it out of her pocket, and checked the screen. It wasn’t Yokote…
“Hello?”
“Hi, Fuyou. Listen, I’m really sorry to change plans on you, but I won’t be able to make it tonight, the basketball team and I need to—”
She did have a reason for cancelling, but Lily didn’t hear it. She was too busy running through backup plans in her head.
“Oh, okay. For sure, don’t worry about it. Thanks for letting me know.” Lily’s response was on autopilot.
“I’ll be sure to give my thoughts to Yuzuki in person when I see her in class. Thanks for understanding, Fuyou.”
The call disconnected. Lily dramatically threw her head back and looked up at the ceiling. This world really was a cruel one.
“Yuzukiiiii…” Lily groaned. “I need you…”
---===---===---===---
The train rumbled along peacefully as Suzu looked down and checked the time. It’d soon be 9:00, and to get to Lily’s place on foot would probably be another thirty or forty minutes. She was using this time to try and think up a remedy to Lily’s origami flower woes. The fact that Lily had asked for such a specific flower was their reason for taking the route of papercraft in the first place, so it wouldn’t be any easier to find Chocolate Cosmoses now than it was when they first searched for them. That means that wandering around Kagawa for random flower shops was out. What else was there? Maybe she should get real chocolate and act like it was a clever pun the whole time. She shook the silly plot from her mind. Maybe it’d just have to be a loss. Nothing can go perfectly, after all.
Such cyclical thoughts pulled her consciousness this way and that, as Suzu felt the rocking motion of the train do the same to her body. Come to think of it, how much had she slept last night? She was up late giving her fan page its weekly update, which is obviously something that couldn’t be skipped. If she wasn’t there to remind the world of the amazing reality that was Takashima Yuuna’s existence, there was always the terrifying possibility that the world might forget, and that could never be allowed to happen, regardless of circumstance. With all that in mind, along with such an early rise, maybe just… 10 minutes of shut eye was deserved. That way, she’d get off on her stop all the more refreshed and ready to meet Lily’s Hero Club activities with full force. Yeah. Just… 10 minutes…
---===---===---===---
The Tennis Club was one that didn’t have much reason to talk to Yuzuki very often. She was by no means a Tennis star, but she was athletic. That much was public knowledge thanks to her performance in the basketball club. So, when the Tennis Club president asked for some assistance, it didn’t come as a huge shock. She had her normal gym clothes on for early morning practice after someone’s partner had gone home sick. As luck would have it, this had been the second club that had asked her for assistance today. First it was the relay race team, who needed a fill-in for their second runner position to avoid skipping the practice day, only to be followed by another club with a conspicuously absent member, in need of a fill-in. It seemed to Yuzuki that there was some oddly busy vibe buzzing in the air today. Like everyone but her had somewhere to be, something to do. She was shocked that she hadn’t heard from Lily at all today, calling with her signature dramatic flair about whatever random flavor-of-the-day activity she had thought up.
Yuzuki was content to simply take the day as it came, as she often did. She had no issue with volunteering some of her time to help her classmates in their time of need. Once upon a time she would’ve asked for a little compensation for her time on their club teams, but that time had long since passed thanks to the interference and persuasion of one pint-sized Yuuna that had come crashing into her life what feels like so long ago.
She took a moment to reflect on all the time that had since come and gone. Her life was busier now than it ever had been. She had school, Lily’s Hero Club on top of Lily’s general shenanigans that seemed to occupy an ambiguous, but constant timeslot in her day-to-day life. It was hectic. Though, even then… She couldn’t say she hated it. As frustrating and hardheaded as Lily could be, Yuzuki couldn’t help but think about her and feel something like---
“Yuzuki!!”
A ball flew past her head by a handful of centimeters, pulling the handbrake on her train of thought on the way by. She had completely spaced out on the field, letting the other duo score on her watch. A hint of frustration flared in the back of her head, her competitive spirit rising to the forefront in a split second.
“Sorry!” Yuzuki jogged over to the offending ball and went to put it back into play. She didn’t have any stake in the Tennis Club, but she still wouldn’t let anyone get one over on her that easily. Before she could serve, her partner piped up.
“Will you be alright for the next match, too, Suzuki?”
“Next Match?” Suzuki asked.
“This is our mock tournament, we’re in the first bracket right now, with two matches ahead of us.” Suzuki seemed shocked, but she took it in stride. Looks like she’ll be here for a little while longer than expected.
---===---===---===---
“Lily! I.. I made it!” Suzu burst through the door to Lily’s apartment, gasping and out of breath. She looked around the classy apartment where Lily lived alone, several hours late. It was a modest place, and it betrayed the real amount of money that Suzu knew Lily must have had from her acting years.
“Lily?” Suzu called out.
It was then she heard a groan coming from the other room. Suzu followed the noise, and arrived in a kitchen, where she saw a blonde mop of hair laid flat against the counter, surrounded by pots, pans, and other cooking implements arranged in an orderly fashion.
“Suzuuuu…” moaned the living mop sitting on a stool. “It’s over. Hopeless. Irreparably shattered.”
This again. Suzu moved to comfort her friend, and maybe get her forehead off the counter at least. “It’s not over, I know I’m late, and I am sorry for that, but didn’t we want to get started early anyways? So long as we start now, we can still make it, maybe barely with time to spare.” Suzu had to try hard to keep Lily from falling back into dramatics. She rubbed her shoulder in an attempt at comfort, and Lily slowly raised her head. She allowed Suzu to pull her butterfly hair tie from her wrist, and she began working Lily’s pink-highlighted hair back into the signature ponytail that she always wore. “Let’s get to it, okay? It'll all work out, even if we’re a little later than we planned.”
Lily sighed. “That’s not it, Suzu. We've been abandoned by our classmates. It’s just us, now. I’ve been getting calls nonstop from everyone we invited saying they can’t make it.”
Suzu looked down. Absolutely no one? That was a major blow to their plans. If anything, it wouldn’t be nearly as grand as they would have hoped. But with little time left, they didn’t have the privilege of worry. Even if it came out half-baked, metaphorically or literally, she couldn’t let all their efforts be for naught. She patted her cheeks and took a breath.
“So what? We can totally work with this. We’ll have plenty more opportunities to show her how much everyone appreciates her.
Lily moped and tried to sink back down before Suzu kept her upright. “I guess…”
“Great! A guess is enough for now. So, let’s get down to business, shall we?” Suzu picked up a nearby square pan and looked at it blankly.
“Alright, Lily. So how do we make a cake?”
Silence filled the empty room as Suzu gave her a blank stare. “Eh?” Lily could do nothing but return the stare. “I thought you knew.”
“Eh?”
This could turn into a problem.
---===---===---===---
Yuzuki walked along the sidewalk, accompanied by a sky slowly fading to orange. Rare were the days where she found cause to stay on campus for almost the entire day. But it was a free day for her. She had nothing else to do, and she wasn’t one to make a big fuss about how she spent her free time. In line with the principles of the newly formed Hero Club, maybe her actions today would even be considered noble. She smirked at that thought passing by. If it weren’t for Lily, she’d probably still be asking for $20 every time she assisted a club. It seemed a little silly now, after the fact; she almost looked back a little regretfully, having done so for such a long time.
A simple melody rang through the air. ‘Gone Home’ played throughout the neighborhood loudspeakers, as it always did upon curfew. Of course, Yuzuki had accumulated countless memories tied to this song throughout her childhood; it’d probably be safe to say that everyone did, and yet, only recently did one take precedence above all others. That evening, on the beach with Lily and Suzu. It was their parting tune on the night they revealed the contents of the diary that Lily’s mother kept. Even now, weeks later, she found that those words from the diary still echoed in her mind from time to time. Yuzuki looked out at the sun, the final shimmers of which were finally disappearing behind the treetops, painting the sky a gorgeous orange. Lily’s mother spoke of the faint glimmer that this bleak world was gifted after her daughter was born, and Yuzuki could swear, for only the smallest of moments, that she could almost see that shine made manifest. She found herself wondering if the sunset would be this pleasant without friends as warm, and as lively, as hers.
Yuzuki’s terminal rang, the default ringtone clashing with the serene melody. She looked at the caller ID. There it is. She knew there was no way Lily would last a full 24 hours without calling about something.
“Hello?” Silence followed. Nothing but subtle static from the other line. Yuzuki repeated herself. “Hello? Lily, are you there?”
Yuzuki heard some sort of mumble coming from the background that could vaguely be summarized as 'gimme that'.
“Yuzuki! It’s Suzu. Lily and I want you over before you head home tonight. It’s very official Hero Club business.”
That last part seemed a bit like improv...
Truth be told, Yuzuki could see this coming as soon as she picked up the call. She could say no. She was utterly exhausted after a full day of activity. Her arms ached, her legs fared no better, and the summer heat had been doing a number on her from the very start of the day.
She could say no…
But she probably wouldn’t.
---===---===---===---
Here we go, the promised moment. This is what Suzu and Lily had been building towards for the past 4 days. The sound of the door closing behind Yuzuki signaled the girls to get into ready position. Suzu positioned herself to one side of their efforts, and Lily positioned herself directly.. Behind… Suzu. Was she getting cold feet? Now of all times? With no time to argue or reposition the small girl herself, Suzu looked forward as Yuzuki rounded the corner.
“Surprise!!!” Suzu delivered with a raised flourish of her arms. She was alone in her cheering, Lily still seemed to still be taking cover behind her only-slightly-taller friend. Suzu glanced behind her and called out to Lily in a harsh whisper to come out. She refused.
As Yuzuki looked at the meager presentation laid out on the table, Suzu felt as though she were caught trying to hand in homework to the teacher that she had only begun completing at turn-in time. Though a name, date, and the first two answers of last night’s math homework might’ve been a more impressive display than whatever was going on here. It was hard to smile genuinely, with Lily very obviously hiding behind her, but she gave it her all.
Laid out before the confused-looking Yuzuki was a notebook paper sketch of several maroon flowers (and one bright red one (They ran out of black paint)), two small boxes wrapped in red paper, and to top it all off, a cake(?) topped with dark red frosting, which was fluffy, lopsided, and… was that a burn mark?
“Happy birthday, Yuzuki!”
The birthday girl in question looked at the table with an indecipherable expression. Maybe because the contents themselves were slightly indecipherable. It was obvious that it was meant for a birthday, but it didn’t exactly scream celebratory. In place of a verbal response, Yuzuki leaned to one side, as if she was making to see what Suzu was hiding behind her back. What followed was a too-long pause that made Suzu tense up as she was somehow made the center of attention in this situation. The only thing that broke through the silence was a small sniffle that emanated from behind Suzu.
Both girls felt a small jolt of surprise to hear the small sob coming from Lily. Suzu whirled around, and Yuzuki rounded the table to meet them.
“Lily?” Suzu was the first to speak up as she placed a hand on her shoulder as she faced the wall. “Lily, what’s wrong?” She gently pulled at Lily’s shoulder to turn her around and see the state of her. It didn’t take Yuzuki more than a second to be beside them. Lily was forced to come face to face with her friends who she had been trying her best to suppress this in front of.
Suzu looked her up and down as she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and knew instantly. These weren’t the tears of a drama prodigy. They were the frustrated tears of a young girl whose lofty and ambitious plans had soured once again.
“Yuzuki.. I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a lot more special than this.” Lily explained the best she could through her sniffles. “Everyone was supposed to be here. I wanted you to see how special you are, and how much everyone you help appreciates you. I invited a bunch of people, but everyone had things to do, so nothing worked out, and, and there was a rainstorm that ruined— “
“Thank you.”
In a move that perhaps not even Yuzuki herself had expected, Lily found herself wrapped in a hug from a girl much taller than her. Yuzuki had heard about ‘moving before one realized they were’ in books and movies, but she had never experienced anything like that until now. She didn’t even have time to consider whether it was a good move or not. Seeing Lily in tears was frighteningly reminiscent of the time that she had personally brought Lily to tears in her act of brash protectiveness. She couldn’t bring herself to regret that night on the beach, where she severed Lily’s homemade deathtrap of a boat in two to prevent her from another reckless voyage, but even back then, seeing Lily’s unfiltered sorrow hurt Yuzuki.
Lily’s breathing slowly stabilized bit by bit as Yuzuki held her tight. Sniffles came slower, and so did the hitching of her breath, so Yuzuki took this moment as a good time to turn things around. Her work for the day was not over yet. Yuuna Yuzuki would have one more person to help before she could look back on a day well spent.
The reasons for Lily’s plan going awry didn’t matter to Yuzuki. Whatever she and Suzu had been doing the last few days no longer mattered, either. If she knew they were going to make this big of a fuss about it, she might’ve done things a little differently. Her birthday was never supposed to be a big affair; she hadn’t so much as told Suzu or Lily about it. It was only going to be her and her parents having a little dinner together, and that was fine with her.
What did matter was that she had the power to do something about it right now. Yuzuki broke off the hug but kept hold of Lily at the shoulders. Without much more than a ‘come on’, the two were heading towards the doorway that she had entered through just minutes prior. ‘It’s already late’, Yuzuki thought, ‘but maybe if we rush, we can still make it in time before closing.’
Just as Suzu was coming down from her own emotional swell at having witnessed such a touching moment, she was tugged towards the same doorway that Lily was being dragged out of. She was still getting used to having such close friends herself, but she was alright with being on the receiving end of this kind of ‘voluntold’ participation that all three of the Hero Club members were fond of employing.
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The trio usually sat at a two-by-two table when they went to their usual meetup restaurant for Hero Club discussions. Today, Suzu insisted they take a longer table where the three could sit shoulder to shoulder. This is the way that Yuzuki came to be sandwiched in between her two friends. This was a good table too, she supposed. They didn’t order anything special, just their favorites that they got every time, though at this late hour, they were the only customers around. They sat shoulder to shoulder; enjoying the simple presence of each other.
It took Lily a few minutes to relax into the comfortable atmosphere that her two friends created with their simple silence and presence alone. Lily spoke up and said what she was too upset to say before. “Happy birthday, Yuzuki.”
Yuzuki exhaled and smiled a small smile. “This is all I need.”
Lily heard that and leaned into her friend’s left shoulder. Suzu did the same on her right. And all was right with the world, once more.