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“H-hey, Yuri.”
Tomoko waved, but Yuri didn’t see; She was facing away, looking over the balcony. The music from inside could be heard, but it was muffled and felt distant.
“Hey,” Yuri responded.
Looking everywhere but at her, Tomoko rubbed her arm before taking a step toward her.
“The party is really something.” She pointed. “I’m sure everyone is missing you in there.”
The party Tomoko was referring to was the raging college bash that didn’t belong to either Yuri or Tomoko’s college. The party, however, did belong to a few of Tomoko’s former high school classmates that were really ‘raising the roof’ as Nemo said.
“You sure they’re missing me in there?” Yuri’s voice was steady.
“Yeah, pretty sure.” Tomoko moved closer. “You’re their friend too.”
“Hm.”
Yuri was in a mood; Tomoko could sense it.
God, Yuri could sometimes be such a bother.
“Yeah, friend.” Tomoko moved closer.
The light from the crescent moon was dim, but still, it reflected the elegant simple beauty of Yuri’s white blouse lightly covered by a warm jean jacket. Yuri’s face radiated the aura of a poised, budding young woman. This young woman, at the moment, had an unlit cigarette in her mouth as she gazed out at something unseen in the distance.
It had been too long since Tomoko had seen her.
“Hm.” Yuri dismissed her again.
“I never really took you for a smoker.” Tomoko tilted her head. “Oh, actually maybe I did. Yeah, you totally gave that vibe of a cool smoker chick back in high school.”
“I’m not a—” The cigarette fell out of Yuri’s mouth and over the balcony.
Yuri sighed and reached into her jacket where she produced a cheap pack of cigarettes and popped one out.
“You should really learn how to talk with it in your mouth. Makes you look way cooler. I bet the guys dig it.”
“Would you like that? If guys found me attractive?”
Tomoko clasped her fingers together, nervously.
“Well, er, no. I meant you looked a little cool to me… just now.”
Yuri’s lips twitched.
“I’m not a smoker.” Yuri held the cigarette between her fingers. “I just like something in my mouth when I’m stressed.”
“Ah, so if it’s not a cigarette then you’d be sucking a guy’s di—kg” Tomoko was abruptly cut off when Yuri launched her fist against Tomoko’s chest. “Ghaa. My boobs.”
Back in high school Yuri only punched her arm.
College has really made Yuri grizzled and jaded.
“Don’t say stupid things.” Yuri took out another cigarette and handed it to Tomoko.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Again, I don’t either.” Yuri didn’t retract her hand.
Tomoko thought of declining, but realized better of it. She took and put the piece in her mouth. It tasted papery.
“Why aren’t you inside?” Yuri didn’t look at Tomoko.
“I could ask the same of you,” Tomoko raised her eyebrow.
This wasn’t met with a response. Yuri could be really stubborn like that.
“It’s because,” Tomoko relented. “You’re out here mopping about. You really bring down the mood even when you’re not around, you know?”
“I’m sure they miss you in there, especially Asuka. She couldn’t keep her hands off of you.”
“Aha,” As she spoke, the cigarette fell from Tomoko’s mouth. She didn’t make an attempt to grab it. “Well, I admit she is a rather touchy-feely person, and I didn’t really resist, but that’s just her personality, ya know?” Tomoko was getting flustered thinking about it.
“Yet, when I took, your hand, you pulled away.”
“Ah, yeah, that was… on impulse.”
“Everyone knows we’re dating already,” Yuri said. “Or are you still embarrassed?”
“No! No, it’s just, things have been a bit weird lately, and seeing you…” Tomoko clenched and unclenched her hands, trying to control her thoughts. “It’s complicated.”
“I missed you, Tomoko.” Yuri turned to face her. The way she flowed was unparalleled. “What’s complicated about that?”
“Nothing. I… I missed you too.”
Yuri tilted her head as if assessing if this was actually the truth.
“I do.” Tomoko reaffirmed.
“Then why don’t you visit?”
“Well,” Tomoko scratched her cheek. “You know, it's ‘cause we’re in different colleges on the other side of the country.”
“You visit Yoshida and Mako.”
“That’s because that Yankee just shows up and drags me along whenever she feels like it. You know the thug life never rests.”
“No, I don’t” Yuri turned away.
Tomoko let out a sigh.
“How long are you gonna stay out here brooding?” Tomoko rested her elbows on the railing.
“I’m not brooding.”
You so are.
But Tomoko didn’t say that. Instead, she turned to look out into the dark beyond with Yuri, silent. The cool wind blew a nice breeze with the sounds of distant cicadas.
“Are you making a lot of new friends?” Yuri asked.
“What’s with that mom question?” Tomoko joked, but Yuri didn’t bite. “I-I wouldn’t really say much; None actually. It’s… Classes take more time than I would’ve expected.”
“That’s because Tomoko is stupid.”
“You’re acting like we didn’t have the same average grades back in high school.”
“Mine were a little higher.”
Tomoko clicked her tongue.
“And how about you?”
Yuri just shrugged her shoulders. Tomoko knew what this meant.
A grin crossed Tomoko’s lips.
“Ah, come on, I bet you have all the guys and gals digging your gloomy I don’t give a shit kuudere attitude schtick. I mean, if you have it flaunt it, I guess. I mean, if I were a college guy, I’d have trouble keeping my schlong down if I saw you in class.”
Yuri’s cigarette fell from her lips. She turned away, hiding her face.
“Ah, is that a smile? Did I make you laugh?”
“N-no,” Yuri said with shaking breath.
“I totally did. Let me see your face.”
“Please.”
“I want that rare Yuri smile screencap.” Tomoko grabbed Yuri’s arms. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen…”
When Tomoko turned Yuri to face her, Yuri wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were watering and her lips were quivering.
“Yuri?”
“You left me,” Yuri said with shaking breaths. “You left me. You left me!” She broke her arms free and punched Tomoko over and over; Although it wasn’t hard, Tomoko's heart pelted.
“Yuri, I-I didn’t want to. We just went to different school—”
“Liar!” Yuri screamed. “Why didn’t you call? You never visit! You don’t send letters! I don’t get anything back from you but silence!” Yuri pulled back, gripping her wrist against her chest.
Tomoko was trembling at hearing Yuri’s words. Her hands were twitching as her throat was choking on her words.
“Y-yuri.”
“I love you, Tomoko. I fucking love you, but you just forgot about me! And now, you’re acting like… I can’t do this.” Yuri banged her fist against the wooden railing, turning away. “Are you just bored with me; Is that it? Tomoko, do you hate me?”
“Yuri!”
Tomoko’s voice cut through the night air like a knife.
Suddenly, Yuri felt a pair of arms wrap around her, pulling her in. When Yuri saw Tomoko’s face, she realized she was crying.
“Tomoko?”
“Look in my eyes, Yuri. You think I don’t think about you every day, wishing I could talk and laugh with you? That at the end of every shitty class, I don’t wish you were there to smack some sense into me? That at night, I don’t wish I was by your side?” Tomoko shook her head as if to dispel the thoughts. “No, it’s too painful.”
“What is?”
“Being with you but not getting to be with you. I can’t stand hearing your voice or seeing your face without being able to touch you or even feel your rough punches against my side. It’s too… I can’t.”
Tomoko took painful breaths as she expelled every thought and agony she had been holding in the night. She thought tonight would be a relief, being able to see Yuri and all her friends, but it only made the pain of what was to come even worse.
“I never want to leave you, Yuri. I never want to let you go.”
Yuri wanted to respond, saying the same words to Tomoko with the same passion and the same tears, but the words never came. Choked up, Yuri returned Tomoko’s tight embrace, communicating the same feelings of sadness and longing.
For a moment, the two women who hadn’t seen each other for so long, embraced and kissed. It was a moment both wished could last an eternity, but both knew the grasp of reality was tighter.
“Three more years,” Yuri said.
“Yeah,” Tomoko echoed. “Three years.”
“I’m… I ruined the mood, didn’t I?”
“Um, well, I wouldn’t say that.” Tomoko rubbed Yuri’s back. “I mean, you’re right. It’s just…”
“It’ll feel longer than it really is.”
“Yeah, but It’ll be worth it. Once we get there.”
“I’ll miss you,” Yuri said.
When Yuri made that face, something primal erupted in Tomoko that made her want to pin Yuri to the floor right then and there, but she held back.
She had missed her so much.
“I’ll miss you more than you know,” Tomoko said.
“Then once a week.”
“What?”
“Call me once a week. No more, no less.” Yuri said.
“Yuri.”
“This distance between us is hard, almost unbearable, but we can make it; I know it. It’ll be too much if we tried calling every day, so this is my compromise.” Yuri gripped Tomoko tight. “Swear to me you’ll call and I won’t ask for more.”
“I will.” There was no hesitation in Tomoko’s voice. “I swear.”
“Good.” Yuri loosened her grip ever so slightly. “I want you, but I also want you happy. I don’t want you brooding and pent up over someone like me for the next three years.”
“Talk about calling the kettle black! You were just brooding all alone a few minutes ago.” Tomoko couldn’t believe this, but at the same time, she should have already expected this from Yuri. “Okay, only on one condition.” Tomoko raised a finger.
“Are you going to ask me to do something lewd?”
“N-no!”
“Because I will, if it’s for you, Tomoko.”
A light sparked in Tomoko, but she wouldn’t change what she was going to say.
“I want you to make friends at your college.”
“Platonic?”
“Of—of course platonic. I mean, unless you find someone who’d be interested in a three... no, no just platonic.”
“Why do you want me making friends?”
“Because I want you to do things now you’ll be happy you did in the future.” Tomoko’s voice was steady. “We only get to be young once, I don’t want us to have regrets; Either of us.”
Yuri stared at Tomoko, eyes glittering, until a small, almost unnoticeable smile crept along Yuri’s lips. She let out a small chuckle.
“You’ve been writing too many Young Adult books.”
At this, Tomoko blushed.
“Well, not a lot. I only have two manuscripts… wait, how do you know what genre I’ve been writing?”
“Mako gives me copies.” Yuri betrayed her friend.
“That goddamn lesbo.” Tomoko muttered to herself. “Told her not to show it to anyone else.”
“Would you say I’m ‘anyone’ then?”
Tomoko took a long look at Yuri, then smiled.
“No, Yuri, there’s no one else like you.” She caressed Yuri’s hair. “In this whole world, there’s no one else I’d rather be with.”
Tomoko could feel how fast and hard Yuri’s heart was beating; She knew Yuri could feel hers too.
“Tomoko.”
“Y-yeah.” Tomoko could feel Yuri’s hands moving lower and lower.
“I want to go back inside, to have fun with everyone, but before that… I want to ask for something from you.”
“Oh?”
“Something to hold me over.”
“Heh, it almost sounds like you’re gonna ask for something lewd.” Tomoko chuckled.
Yuri didn’t respond, only blushed.
Tomoko was sweating as she looked toward the door she had come from. The latch was up, indicating it had been locked, but she didn’t do that. Looking at Yuri, she didn’t see a smile, but a mischievous grin that Tomoko had come to both love and fear.
“Please be gentle.” Tomoko choked.
“No promises.”
Without pause, Yuri kissed and took Tomoko under the glow and gaze of the crescent moon.