Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You Are My Sunshine

DAY 1

Atsuko Kagari was a nuisance.

This was, of course, Diana Cavendish’s wholly impartial and objective observation.

She knew that on the face of it, it hardly seemed accurate to state that said observation was impartial and objective. However, she very much prided herself on being as factually based and logical as was possible. If she felt particularly emotional about something, she would take the time to process said emotions, remove them from the equation, and view the conundrum through an objective lens.

She was also not alone in making that observation.

Mm. Wait. No, she needed to be honest about this. There were not too many others who shared that observation and opinion of the young Japanese lady. For the most part, the opinions were worse. Professor Finnelan, Chairperson of her Department, regularly referred to Miss Kagari as a menace. This was an opinion shared by many of the faculty at the Luna Nova Musical Academy for Ladies. There were three professors that Diana could name who had warmer opinions towards Miss Kagari: Professor Callistis, Miss Kagari’s academic advisor (“I’ve never seen anyone with her spirit”), Professor Nelson, head of Physical Education (“What can I say? The girl’s got spunk”) and Professor Pisces of the philosophy department (“She has applied the lessons that I teach to her daily living”), though the last might be biased. Something about rescuing Pisces’ prized fish? That was a story that somehow ended up in the local newspaper after Miss Kagari somehow discovered and broke up an illegal fish smuggling ring, which was something that Diana hadn’t even known was a thing to exist. Unfortunately, there was a lot of speculation and suppositions within the newspaper article and both Miss Kagari and Professor Pisces were keeping mum about it. It was immensely frustrating, to say the least.

Besides those three professors, though, the rest of the faculty were less than enthused about Miss Kagari’s continued enrollment at the school. Even Headmistress Holbrooke got this odd little pinched smile on her face whenever the subject of one of Miss Kagari’s many misadventures came up in conversation. It was a smile that very clearly indicated that Headmistress Holbrooke was striving to remain diplomatic. Headmistress Holbrooke was a very kind soul, so when she stated ‘all students who attend this fine academy have room to grow… some of them have far more to grow than others’ it might as well have been a scathing rebuke.

Unfortunately, like a great many other things, the true meaning behind those words flew well over Miss Kagari’s head.

Perhaps the entire situation wouldn’t be as bad as it was if Miss Kagari were popular with her peers. The staff and faculty thought she was a menace. Some of the more popular cliques thought that she was a terror. The worst part about that was that it was Hannah and Barbara who were the worst offenders. Diana had had words with them, of course. It didn’t matter that Diana thought that Miss Kagari was a nuisance, that was no excuse for bullying. There was a rumor that spoke of utter vitriol during Miss Kagari’s first meeting with Hannah, Barbara, and Avery, but none of them would admit anything to Diana, instead insisting that it was ‘water under the bridge’ and ‘beneath your notice.’

Normally, Diana would be inclined to agree. She was here to become a better musician and focus on her studies, not get involved in student drama. She held herself above such things. Even with people like that fool Chloé Simoneau, who insisted that she was Diana’s rival for some absurd bloody reason… it was preposterous and ridiculous and Diana steadfastly ignored her.

So why couldn’t she ignore Miss Kagari?

Why did her thoughts keep returning to the plucky and cheeky brunette?

She was just a nuisance, so why couldn’t Diana get her out of her head?

Diana didn’t have an answer for those questions as she headed towards the main rehearsal hall during a chill October early evening. She had reserved her favorite room, just as she always had, the one with the Steinway & Sons grand piano. It was also tucked a bit out of the way from the main stretch of rehearsal rooms and was smaller, more intimate. Yes, she had her keyboard - a rather expensive Yamaha model - in her room, but that wasn’t the same as playing on a real grand piano. Her violin and cello were easy enough to move around and both had been passed down through the family for generations. But she couldn’t very easily strap the family’s piano onto her back and lug that around. Hence the keyboard.

That noted, she still reserved that room for several hours a night, Monday through Friday. That was her time away from everything else. From the at times waspish drama that Hannah and Barbara sometimes brought into their dorm room, from the issues back home with Aunt Daryl, from the petty theatrics of Simoneau, from the frankly exhausting adulation from her peers and faculty… her rehearsal time was sacred to her because it was her escape from all of it.

Imagine her surprise when she entered the majestic building, made her way through the halls while sipping on her tea, and drew close to her room, only to hear the sound of a guitar playing from within.

Her lips pursed and she let out an aggrieved sigh from her nose. She had reserved the room. She knew she had. There shouldn’t be anyone invading her space like this, especially since she had been reserving this particular room for years now. It wasn’t a new development, it was her routine, and one that was well-known across the entire school by now! Annoyance crackled through her, and her hand tightened on her travel mug of tea as she opened up the door to her room. She felt ready to light into the other person, tell them off for invading Diana’s space, order them to bugger off in the most waspish voice she could muster… but then she realized two things in quick succession.

Firstly, the music was deeply melancholic, which wasn’t in itself odd. When it was paired with the second thing Diana realized, though, things immediately didn’t add up.

The person invading her space with Atsuko Kagari.

Atsuko Kagari, who was militantly chipper, who faced every challenge and moment of adversity with boundless enthusiasm and panache.

Why was Atsuko Kagari playing such solemn and sad music?

Diana was thrown off enough by the unexpected development that she lingered in the doorway without saying anything. She could have said anything at any moment. Could have asked Miss Kagari to leave in a far more polite tone than she was originally planning on using, but instead she just stood there and listened.

It took her a moment to recognize the song. Keep Me in Your Heart by Warren Zevon. She was familiar with the works of that eclectic artist and she knew that this song was the last song on the last album that Mister Zevon made before his death. Much like David Bowie, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the song was a farewell because he knew he was dying.

Hearing Atsuko play this song sent a chill through her. She had only ever heard Atsuko play pop music before, bouncy and energetic songs that made the foot want to tap and the fingers to snap. Diana… felt uncomfortably surprised to discover that Atsuko had the range to play this… this death song. She had arrived just as Atsuko had started, apparently, for she softly crooned out the lyrics in her throaty voice:

Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath;

Keep me in your heart for a while.

If I leave you, it doesn’t mean I love you any less,

Keep me in your heart for a while.

Another chill ran through Diana as thoughts of her mother took her. She had to clench her jaw in order to keep silent, in order to keep the tears that started prickling at her eyes in. She was Diana Cavendish, and she would not lose control. Not because of a song played by Atsuko Kagari of all people.

She blinked as she realized that Atsuko had gotten further along in the song.

Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house;

Maybe you’ll think of me and smile.

You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse,

Keep me in your heart for a while.

How many times had she done or seen something in the manor and remembered her mother? Inasmuch as she was loath to interrupt a heartfelt performance like this, she couldn’t bear to hear the next lines. She firmly cleared her throat.

The song ended in a badly struck chord, the guitar strings twanging their protest at the rough treatment as Atsuko whirled around to stare at Diana with wide eyes. “Oh! Uh! Diana! Um… what… what are you doing here?” she asked. She looked like she had been crying.

Diana was suddenly even more glad that she hadn’t come in yelling like she had originally been planning on doing. Still… “I reserved this room,” she said. “If you wish to use a rehearsal room, you have to reserve it for the time block.”

Atsuko gave a watery smile as she sniffled and wiped at her cheeks. “I know how the reservation system works, Diana. I’m not that useless and clueless.”

Diana felt supremely awkward as she started to make her way over to the waiting piano. “I never said you were.”

Atsuko stared at her, and the sense of awkwardness intensified until Atsuko coughed into her fist. “I, um… I guess I lost track of time. Sorry for cutting into your reservation time.”

Ah. So that’s what it was. “No worries,” Diana said as she placed her satchel on the floor by the piano bench and her tea on the small table next to the piano. No food or drink on top of the piano itself. That was absolutely forbidden, and woe betide anyone who did so while Diana was around to see.

She was not expecting Atsuko’s next words: “You know, you’re a lot nicer than I was expecting.”

Diana paused, halfway to sitting down. “Pardon?” she asked.

“You. You’re nicer than I expected.”

Diana couldn’t help but blink at that. What was that supposed to mean? She might have been curt with Atsuko before, but she had never been mean. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Atsuko was beginning to pack her things up. Hm. That was a Little Martin LXM guitar. Good for travel and the shorter frets were more suitable for those with smaller hands, but it was also just a very solid instrument for good sounds. It was impressive that Atsuko had it. “You’re friends with Hannah and Barbara, right?” Atsuko asked, and there was definitely a bitter note in her voice. One that… well, it was well deserved, wasn’t it?

Diana had the good grace to wince. “Yes. I am. And I’ve reprimanded them for their behavior. If they continue bothering you, I can-”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Atsuko said, cutting her off. “I can fight my own battles. I always have.” She started heading for the door.

For some reason, Diana felt a jolt of distress at that. “Wait!” she called out. “I…” She what? What was she going to say? “Atsuko… why are you here?”

Atsuko gave her a confused look. “I was rehearsing?” she asked.

“No, I mean… why are you here at Luna Nova?”

Atsuko blinked in surprise. Then her expression turned almost sad. “I wanted to be a popstar like Chariot du Nord, but then… well, some dreams are just that: dreams.” She sighed wistfully. “I’m not pretty like Avery or beautiful like Marjolaine or Chariot. I’m just Akko.”

Diana had to bite her tongue to keep her sharp retort at bay: ‘Just Akko’ has got all the school in an uproar! Instead she pressed on. “So why are you still here?”

Atsuko gave her a tired, almost defeated look. “Are you trying to get rid of me, too?”

That look and those words were like a kick in the gut. Other people were trying to get rid of Akko? “N-no!” Diana stammered. “I just… I guess I’m trying to understand.”

“Why?” Atsuko asked before she shook her head. “No, nevermind. Not important. I’m still here so that I can be the best musician I can be. I’m still working hard to be a popstar, but I have plans if that doesn’t work out.” She flashed a brilliant grin. “What do you think? I’d be a good music teacher, ne?”

Diana felt herself blushing a bit at the force of that grin. “I think you’d be a smashing teacher,” she heard herself say. Her blush deepened. “Certainly the most energetic and memorable teacher any future students will have had.”

Atsuko laughed. “Well, thanks for the compliment, I think.” Then her laugh died out and her grin faded away. “I’m also here because we all have room to grow.” Her expression fell. “And some of us have far more to grow than others.”

Another kick to the gut and Diana felt her breath catch in her throat. Perhaps Atsuko was far more aware of things than Diana gave her credit for. “Atsuko…” she whispered.

Then Atsuko sighed and shook her head. “Anyway. Sorry for taking up your rehearsal time. I know how important it is to you,” she said, and Diana felt a flutter of surprise. Atsuko did? She… was paying attention to Diana? Then Atsuko gave a short bob of a bow and turned towards the door once again. “I’ll get out of your hair, now.” Again, that strange sense of panic gripped Diana. Atsuko was leaving and Diana didn’t want her to. In her panic, Diana found that she couldn’t find the words to say, and so she turned to the one thing she knew most of all: music. She almost desperately started playing the opening notes of Heart and Soul. Atsuko paused, her hand on the door handle, and she turned her head to give Diana a perplexed look. “This isn’t classical music,” she called out.

Diana shook her head. “It isn’t.”

Atsuko turned away from the door and cocked her head. “Why?”

Again, Diana spoke before her mind caught up to the words: “Perhaps I want to play with someone.” The song was simple enough, as well, and it was joyful and lively. It felt important to Diana that she help chase Atsuko’s melancholy away.

Atsuko, for her part, gave her a rather queer little look before she started walking towards Diana and the piano. “I’m the only person in here.”

“You are,” Diana acknowledged.

“So you want to play with me?” Atsuko asked even as she shrugged her guitar’s case off her shoulder.

Diana felt a little thrill at that. Goodness, this evening was just an emotional rollercoaster! “If you’re up for it,” she quietly replied.

Atsuko hummed as she pulled her guitar out of its case. “This is a love song,” she pointed out.

Diana didn’t need a mirror to know that a heavy blush was growing on her face. This was a love song, but… “That’s not why I chose it,” she protested as Atsuko sat down on one of the stools near the piano. She was sitting in a shaft of sunlight from one of the windows, Diana noticed. It felt fitting for Akko. She deserved to be in the light. “It’s… happy. Bouncy. It’s like you.”

Atsuko laughed as she began strumming her guitar. “This song makes you think of me?” she asked.

Diana grinned. “Yes. After all,” she said before she began to sing:

Heart and soul,

Applied to everything

That you do,

The way a star would do, grandly!

She didn’t continue singing, mostly because she couldn’t improvise the lyrics quickly enough. But it made Atsuko smile and laugh, and that made it worth it. They were well and truly playing together, now, and as they headed into the next verse, Atsuko rolled her eyes and sang back: 

Grace and poise,

That’s what you’re known for is

Grace and poise,

And oh the brains on you, it’s genius!

Because you’re oh so smart,

Giving answers that’re always right,

Grace and poise.

Diana threw her head back and laughed. Funny how the compliments didn’t bother her the way that they always did when they were spoken. Maybe it was because of the slightly teasing gleam in Atsuko’s eyes and the wry grin that touched her lips. It was obvious they were having fun, and that, too, made it worth it.

They continued playing together, improvising lyrics at points but mostly just having fun. In fact, Diana couldn’t remember the last time that she had had this much fun just playing music. She enjoyed playing music, but it wasn’t fun very often. This… was a very nice change of pace. 

Their impromptu performance lasted right up until Hannah and Barbara burst into the rehearsal room, matching expressions of derision and disgust on their faces. “What are you doing here?” Hannah spat at Atsuko.

“This is Diana’s time,” Barbara continued.

“She doesn’t need a weirdo like you pestering her,” Hannah said.

“Sod off, would you?” Barbara sneered.

Hannah’s gaze swept up and down Atsuko’s seated form, and she scoffed. “While we’re at it, why don’t you go and get a recorder to play? That seems more your speed.” A cruel glint appeared in her eyes. “Or maybe a kazoo.”

It was so rapid fire and so unexpected that Diana could only stare in shock. She felt violated, the unwelcome intrusion jarring her and ruining what had otherwise been a perfectly pleasant moment. Atsuko, too, was stunned. A year or two ago, she might have snapped back. Now, she just wilted as the shock wore off. Her head bowed and she slowly stood. “Sorry. I’ll leave.”

Enough was enough.

Anger roared through Diana and she shot to her feet as she pounded her fists on the keys of the piano, the discordant notes ringing through the rehearsal room. “That is enough!” she shouted. “Never in all my years at Luna Nova have I been so rudely interrupted whilst rehearsing!”

“Exactly, Diana, we’re trying to get rid of this nuisance for you,” Hannah replied with a flippant wave of her hand. Atsuko was staring at Diana with wide eyes.

“I’m not talking about her, I’m talking about you!” Diana all but snarled. “What gives you the right to barge in here like that while we’re playing? What gives you the right to interrupt our performance?!”

Barbara looked utterly shocked at Diana’s outburst. “But-”

“No, just… shut up!” Diana snapped. “Shut! Up! I am so bloody tired of hearing the two of you whinging about Atsuko! It’s like you cannot even see all her improvements and how hard she’s working!” She was stalking towards the two of them, her feet pounding against the short stage the piano was set upon. “She has earned her place in Luna Nova! I’d even wager that she’s put more effort in being here than the two of you, who seem content to ride on my coattails than to actually put forth the effort to be proper musicians in your own right and I’m sick of it!”

The other three were dead silent, all of them watching her. Atsuko’s expression was awed. Hannah and Barbara were shocked and afraid.

Diana wasn’t done. “Here’s what’s going to happen: you both are going to shake hands with Atsuko and apologize for all the torment you’ve put her through. Then this childish nonsense is going to cease! If I hear so much as a hint of a rumor that you’ve said or done anything to antagonize Atsuko, then that’s it. I’m cutting you off and out. No more coming with me to parties, no more hanging out with me, no more anything. This. Ends. Here!”

The room was silent and still before first Barbara and then Hannah shook hands with Atsuko and mumbled their apologies. Atsuko accepted both with a numb expression. Once they were done, Diana took a deep breath. “Now. Go away. Atsuko and I are going to be performing together and you are eating into valuable rehearsal time.”

Hannah and Barbara jolted. “Wait, what?” they both said in unison.

“We are?” Atsuko asked, a surprised and almost panicked look on her face.

Oh. Oh, dear. Well, ehm… so that’s what one’s foot tasted like. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound. Diana stood straighter. “Yes. We are. So absent-minded of you to forget, Miss Kagari. We are… compatible, and a duet is considered a large chunk of our grade.” She narrowed her eyes at Hannah and Barbara. “So if you’ll excuse us…”

Hannah and Barbara scampered off, already whispering to themselves, the sibilant hiss cutting off as the door to the rehearsal room closed behind them with their hasty retreat.

Diana watched them go with a deeply annoyed grimace. She waited a beat or two after the door closed before she let out a sigh. “Maybe a kazoo indeed!” she muttered in disgust. “You’d think that they were seven, not seventeen! Why, I have half a mind to take two kazoos and stuff them right up their-!” Her tirade was cut off as she noticed the way that Atsuko was staring at her. “What?”

Atsuko nervously wet her lips. “This isn’t a bit, is it?” she asked in a small voice.

Diana stared as dread pooled in her stomach. “A bit?” she asked.

“Y-yeah. A bit. Like, oh, the most popular girl in school befriends the weirdo from a different country and then does something really bad to her when it would hurt the most because, ya know, funny.” Atsuko hugged herself. “Please don’t do that,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t know if I could make it if you did.”

Diana had to take a few steadying breaths as horror gripped her. That was… that was horrible! Who would even do such a thing?

As soon as she thought that, she knew the answer. Hannah and Barbara almost certainly would. And as Atsuko pointed out before, Diana was friends with Hannah and Barbara. It really didn’t take too large of a leap of logic to see the potential for just that in this entire scenario. “Atsuko, I… no. Absolutely not. That… goddess, anyone who would do such a thing is vile. Just the thought of that happening…” She swallowed thickly. “I would never.” Yet she was surrounded by people who would. Hannah and Barbara. Aunt Daryl. Her cousins. She was surrounded by a sea of cruelty.

And just look at the way that Atsuko was hugging herself! Where was the spunky girl who had dominated the last two years of school? Diana took another deep breath and wet her lips. “Atsuko… are you alright?” she asked in a tender voice. “You… well, you remind me of myself shortly after my mother passed.”

Atsuko flinched and looked up at her before she grimaced and sighed. “I’m just tired, Diana. These past two years… like…” She hesitated, her shoulders slumping. “I almost didn’t come back to school.”

Diana genuinely wasn’t certain how to take that. The thought of Atsuko just quitting like that seemed inconceivable. “May I ask why?” she said.

Atsuko let out a breath as she slumped back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. “Would you want to go back to a place where almost everyone hates you?” she asked.

Diana winced. That was actually a very good point. “I suppose not,” she admitted.

Atsuko absently plucked at the strings of her guitar in a mindless melody. “You know what really sucks?” she asked. It felt rhetorical, so Diana didn’t answer, and Atsuko continued talking. “Not belonging in your own culture. I’m… well, I’m Akko. I don’t fit into any box that my parents wanted me to fit in. Didn’t have many friends growing up. Always tried to look on the bright side of things and be optimistic, but… it’s hard. And then Shiny Chariot took the stage. ‘A believing heart is your magic!’ Like, how powerful is that? Believe in yourself and you can make magic. It was like a breath of fresh air! It was okay if I was always the weird one at school because I believed in myself.”

Diana felt herself hesitating before she cleared her throat. “I actually had a chance to see her in concert. Believe it or not, it was in Tokyo.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It was shortly before Shiny Chariot quit show business.” She could feel her throat tightening. “It was also the last show that Shiny Chariot put on before Mother passed away. She wanted to go with me but she wasn’t well enough.”

Atsuko was staring at her with incredulous eyes. “Wait, the Tokyo ‘07 show?” she gasped.

Diana leaned slightly back at the enthusiasm in Atsuko’s voice. “Um… yes?”

“Oh, wow, I went to that show, too!” She grinned at Diana. “Heh. I guess you aren’t so bad after all.”

“Oh, well, thank you, I sup- hey, wait!” Diana protested. “What do you mean, ‘after all’?!” she asked, and Atsuko laughed. After a moment, Diana was able to force herself to smile and laugh as well, but she felt troubled. Atsuko might be passing it off as a joke, but a lot of jokes were born of truth. Had she really been that bad towards Atsuko? That didn’t sit right with her, not at all. She resolved, then, to do and be better from that moment forward.

“Anyway,” Atsuko said after her moment of mirth passed, “thanks for telling them off like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that emotional.”

Diana shrugged. “It was the right thing to do, and I really am tired of listening to them be bullies.”

Atsuko watched her for a moment before she looked down at the floor. “So Japan isn’t the only place that I don’t feel like I belong,” she admitted. “I don’t belong here, either.” She smiled sadly. “Sometimes it feels like I don’t belong anywhere.”

Diana frowned with indignation. “Atsuko, no, you do belong here. You’ve earned the right to be here, and we just have this one last year before we graduate. You have this. I believe in you.” She paused as she felt her cheeks grow warm. “I believe in your believing heart, and I apologize for ever making you feel like you don’t belong.”

Atsuko was staring at her with wide eyes once again. Then she blinked several times and huffed. “Akko,” she said.

Now it was Diana’s turn to blink. “Pardon?”

“My friends call me Akko, not Atsuko. Whenever someone calls me Atsuko I feel like I’m just about to get scolded.”

“Oh.” Diana blinked again before she hummed and straightened, her shoulders rolling slightly. “Come now. We’re wasting rehearsal time.”

Akko’s eyebrows shot up. “Eh? You were being serious about that?!”

Diana nodded. “Yes. I was.”

“But you could have anyone in the school be your duet partner! I could screw this up for you!”

Diana’s lips pursed as she gave Akko a stern look. “That’s the point of practice, so that neither of us screw this up. And I don’t care if I could have anyone. I want you.”

Akko’s eyebrows shot still higher. “Eh?! Why?!”

Diana’s gaze was firm. “Because you’ve earned it.”

“O-oh.”

Diana nodded and rested her hands on the keys. “That’s the last I want to hear of it. Now. Akko. Shall we begin?” she asked. Akko stared at her for a moment before her hands resettled on her guitar. Diana nodded again, pleased. She cleared her throat. “Heart and Soul, from the top. Five-six-seven-eight.”

They began to play.

The trajectory of Diana’s life at Luna Nova changed once she became Akko’s friend. It was odd, honestly. That first rehearsal, that odd day where Akko got lost in her own music and ran over her rehearsal time and into Diana’s might as well have been the start of a new calendar. Common Era, Before Common Era. Before Akko, After Akko.  That was how absolute that change was, though Diana didn’t realize it at first.

Granted, it didn’t take her very long to figure it out. After the rehearsal ended, Diana and Akko exchanged numbers and parted ways and that was that for the evening. Dinner was silent and lonely, but that was fairly standard. The flat was rather frosty, and it was obvious that Hannah and Barbara weren’t certain how to proceed and that their feathers were ruffled and their feelings hurt. Still, Diana made sure to wish both of them a good night in a tone of voice that she hoped conveyed a sense that everything was going to be alright. Barbara shyly smiled. Hannah merely looked troubled. Better troubled than angry, though.

Diana retired for the evening after that, did her nighttime routine, and did some light reading before going to bed. As she relaxed in the darkness of her room, she thought about options for her duet with Akko. It couldn’t be so basic that its simplicity detract from their grade, but it also couldn’t be so complex that Akko couldn’t play it on her guitar. Diana had some ideas, but she’d have to float them to Akko tomorrow.

When she woke up the next morning, however, it was to discover that Akko had apparently gotten up before her. How did she know that? Because she had a text waiting for her from the newly saved ‘A. Kagari’ contact: ‘What do you call a cow with no legs?’

Diana would be lying if she said that she wasn’t completely stumped by the text. It was the first that she had gotten from Akko. Not even a ‘good morning’ or a ‘how do you do?’ Diana blinked at her phone’s glowing screen in utter bewilderment as she brushed the strands of hair that had escaped her sleeping braid out of her face. A cow with no legs? Goodness, that would be horrible. She wasn’t one for animal cruelty, but in this situation it might be a mercy to put the cow down. Had Akko seen an article about this cow? Diana wiped some of the sleep from her eyes before she sent a very brief reply:‘?’ Normally, she’d take the time for a longer reply, but right now she needed to use the loo and that took all priority. Putting the thoughts of legless cows out of her head, she got out of bed and began her day.

Unfortunately for her, Akko didn’t immediately reply. It would actually be more than two hours later and after breakfast that Diana’s phone buzzed. She was walking to her first class of the day, now, and at a good clip. She almost absently pulled out her phone and read the push notification from A. Kagari: ‘ground beef.’

By that point, she had completely forgotten about the first text, and so stared at her phone, baffled. Was… was Akko sending her part of her shopping list? It took her opening the text messages themselves for the connection to finally be made. A cow with no legs. Ground beef. A bark of laughter escaped her, despite herself.

“Oh, bloody hell, Akko,” she murmured as she sent her reply. ‘Har. Har.’

This time the reply came quickly. ‘Yay, I made you laugh!’

Diana rolled her eyes. ‘You made me something, at least. Are you on your way to class? Don’t be late.’

A moment later came the answering buzz: ‘Aye aye boss lady!’

Diana felt her eyes widen and her cheeks grow warm as she stared at her phone. Boss lady? Where did that come from? It… hm. It didn’t feel like the adulation that she got from Hannah and Barbara and the others. It was more… teasing? Tongue in cheek? Hard to say over text where it was so hard to really capture emotion, but… Diana hummed as she slipped her phone back into her back pocket as she resumed her journey across campus.

Surely her flushed cheeks were only the result of the crisp October weather and nothing else.

Right?

Right.

Diana’s next surprise came at lunch, where she got her usual salad in the school dining hall. However, as she walked over to her usual table, she heard someone excitingly calling her name. She turned her head towards the voice, only to see Akko energetically waving her arm over her head while she watched Diana with a big grin on her face. Diana blinked before she changed course to head over to the table where Akko was sitting with her friends Lotte Jansson and Sucy Manbavaran. Once Diana drew close, she offered a small smile. “Good afternoon, Akko. Did you need something?”

Akko nodded. She was having a hamburger with french fries for lunch, Diana noticed. She also noticed that Akko had taken out the romaine lettuce and the tomatoes. Hm. “Yeah! We were wondering if you wanted to have lunch with us!” Akko said.

Diana’s eyebrows shot up a bit at that. “You were?” she asked. “All three of you?” She wasn’t blind nor deaf. She knew for a fact that Miss Manbavaran did not like her in the slightest.

Case in point, Miss Manbavaran gave her a flat and rather baleful look. To Diana’s surprise, Manbavaran’s expression softened ever-so-slightly. “Rumor has it,” she said in a low and throaty voice, “that you told off the wonder twins. Even more than that, you actually yelled at them.”

Diana’s lips pursed. She hadn’t set down her tray yet. “Don’t call them that,” she said. “Yes, I know that their behavior leaves a lot to be desired-” Miss Manbavaran snorted at that but Diana didn’t comment on it in the interest of not starting a fight “-but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to insult them in turn.” She paused. “But yes, I did reprimand them. Loudly. I was upset.” She turned her gaze to Akko, who blinked a few times before she shook her hands in front of her.

“No no! I didn’t tell anyone! I swear!”

There was something so painfully earnest about the way she said that that had Diana huffing softly. “I believe you.” She hesitated as she looked at the open seat next to Akko. “If I do this, I want to have a nice and peaceful meal. Is that alright?”

Miss Manbavaran rolled her eyes. “I’ll be nice, but peaceful might be asking for too much. We are eating with Akko, after all.”

“Hey!”

Diana ignored the banter as she gracefully sat down. She glanced again at Akko’s tray before she picked up her apple and placed it in front of Akko. “Here.”

Akko cut off mid quip, and she looked down at the offering with puzzled eyes. “Huh?”

“Eating your fruits and vegetables are important, Akko,” Diana primly said as she put her dressing on her salad and began mixing it. “If you aren’t going to eat your lettuce and tomatoes, at least have an apple.”

Akko’s cheeks pinked. Miss Jansson looked about ready to swoon and Miss Manbavaran was giving Akko a sharkish grin. “Oh. Okay. Thanks, Diana.”

“Of course.”

Akko took a big bite of her hamburger, chewed, and swallowed. “Hey, Diana? Did you actually laugh this morning?”

It took Diana a moment to connect the dots. “I did, yes,” she replied. “Mind you, it was only a single bark of laughter, but I did laugh.”

“Yes!” Akko shouted loud enough that Diana jumped in surprise and other students seated at surrounding tables turned to look. Their gazes lingered longer than they should have, Diana noticed. She didn’t think Akko did, given the way that Akko turned towards Miss Manbavaran. “See! I told you it was a good idea.”

Miss Manbavaran hummed. “Well. Color me surprised. You actually have a sense of humor. Guess I was proven wrong.”

Diana quirked an eyebrow at the other girl. “I don’t suppose that this is you being nice, then?” she asked, her tone just shy of waspish.

To her surprise, Miss Manbavaran paused, thought that over, and nodded. “You’re right. I can be better. Sorry.” She poked at her marinated mushrooms for a moment. “May I be honest?”

It was Diana’s turn to think for a moment or two, and she was aware of how Akko and Miss Jansson were looking between the two of them. “I suppose I can appreciate honesty,” Diana finally settled on saying. “Better truth that hurts now than a falsehood that hurts later.”

Miss Manbavaran grunted. “I don’t like you. Like… at all. Your elitist attitude and casual disdain for Akko made the last two years miserable for her. I can play nice and be polite, but figured you’d want to know that I actually can’t stand you.”

That felt like a kick to the gut, and Diana’s hand tightened on her fork. “I…” she started before stopping just as quickly. She looked down at her salad as hot shame crept up the back of her neck. “I have no excuse,” she said in a small voice.

The table was now very quiet, the distant conversations from the other students around them wafting in as background noise. Akko looked miserable, and that, too, was a kick to the gut. It was actually Miss Jansson who spoke first. “You don’t have an excuse, but is there a reason?” she asked in a soft voice that carried an accent with it.

It took Diana a moment to remember how to breathe. “May I be honest?” she whispered in a strained voice. Sure, she was parroting Miss Manbavaran’s words back to her, but she wasn’t sure what else to do.

Miss Manbavaran looked disinterested. It was Akko who nodded emphatically. “Yes! Of course! No judgment here! Right, girls?” she asked, and the other two agreed, if not a bit begrudgingly in Miss Manbavaran’s case.

Diana took a deep breath as her heart began to beat harder in her chest. She also felt sick to her stomach. “I… am aware of how lucky I am,” she said after a moment. “Other girls like me… usually do not reach the top of the social pyramid the way that I have. I suspect that a lot of it has to do with my family’s wealth and prestige, and the fact that Hannah and Barbara look up to me the way that they do. They…” She swallowed. “For all their flaws, they are much better at being social than I am, and I admit that I’ve been more passive in responding to some of their crueler tendencies than I should have been. That is wholly my fault. If it weren’t for my family name, if it weren’t for them helping to pave my way to the top, then I imagine that I’d have far more in common with you than not, Akko.” She rolled her jaw, her head still bowed. “I try to hold myself apart from social situations. I have scripts that I follow when I must, but I’ve found that being aloof has provided me with… mm, a sort of shield, I suppose.” She took another deep breath and lifted her head to meet Akko’s gaze, ignoring the small flutter of discomfort that always came with doing so. “I am so, so sorry that I ever made you feel like I felt disdainful about you. And…” Were her eyes burning? God, not like this! “I don’t… I don’t mean to act like I’m better than anyone. I just… I love music so bloody much and it’s like… why don’t other people treat it with the reverence that it deserves?! Music is so important and I put my all into it and it’s just like I don’t… I don’t understand how other people don’t?! We’re in a musical academy, for heaven’s sake, and if people would just bloody well act like it and acknowledge just how hard you’ve been working to get where you are then maybe this world would be a better place!” 

She was getting loud, now, and more people were staring, but she didn’t care, not when her thoughts were so loud, not when her heart was pounding like this, not when she could see the answer to everything so clearly that she couldn’t comprehend how other people couldn’t see it, too! “Okay, yes, I thought you were a nuisance and gosh I feel awful about that because I was wrong about it, wrong about so many things, but you’ve been working so hard to get as good as you are and it – it makes me so angry when people are dismissive towards all that effort! God, I think I’m angriest towards myself because if I had just opened my eyes to see, then maybe I would have been able to put a stop to it, and I-!”

She was almost shouting when Akko rested her hand on Diana’s upper arm. Diana froze, her tirade ending just as quickly as if it had been cut off by a guillotine. “Diana,” Akko said in a soft voice, “are you… are you neurodivergent, too?”

Diana abruptly deflated. “I… what?”

Akko nervously wet her lips. “Are you neurodivergent, too?” she repeated in a quieter voice.

”Pardon?” Diana asked after a shocked beat.

”Well, just… some of what you’re saying… it sounds like you're autistic.”

It felt like ants were crawling all over Diana’s body. “How… how did you know?” she hoarsely whispered.

Akko fidgeted, looking uncomfortable. “I… kinda had suspicions for a while now?” she murmured. “Like… Diana, you know more about music than anyone here, teachers included. And… well… Scripts for social situations? Girls like you?” she asked. “When you use language like that, it… well, it kind of checks off a few blocks, you know?”

“Oh.” It was hard to breathe. She knew how the world treated autistic people. Was she a coward? Was she a coward for riding on the coattails of Hannah and Barbara, using them to mask who and what she was? Oh, god. Akko wouldn’t say anything. Diana knew she wouldn’t. But Manbavaran?

To her horror, Manbavaran gave a thoughtful hum. Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh god! “So… none of it was really intentional?” Manbavaran said. The words were so unexpected, so far off of the trajectory that Diana had reflexively been calculating in her head that she couldn’t do anything but stare. “Being mean to Akko. It wasn’t actually intentional,” Manbavaran said, obviously in an attempt to clarify.

Diana realized that she needed to breathe to speak, and she greedily sucked in air to aching lungs that burned with the relief of it. She couldn’t play the saint. She needed them to see the sinner that she was. “I didn’t hide my annoyance,” she croaked. “And I didn’t stop Hannah and Barbara when I should have and-”

Manbavaran turned to Akko. “So she’s like Constanze.”

Diana twitched. What? “What?”

“Constanze with the million last names. German girl. Friends with Amanda O’Neill and Jasminka Antonenko? She’s autistic, too,” Manbavaran said.

“Yeah! And she can be prickly!” Akko said. She paused and gave Sucy a very firm look. “And as I recall, you were kinda mean to me, too.”

Manbavaran heaved a sigh. “Yes, yes, and we can all tell that Little Miss Perfect was being sincere just now.” She gazed steadily at Diana. “If you intentionally hurt Akko? If you bully her? I will end you. Otherwise?” She shrugged. “You can call me Sucy.”

Wait. What?

Then Miss Jansson smiled, and it was warm and pure and good. “And you can call me Lotte! Oh, have you read the Night Fall books? I just know that some of them are about music, and-” 

Just like that, and without any particular effort done on her part, Diana had two new friends.

Huh.

It felt odd. Having friends that you didn’t really have to wear a mask for? Diana hadn’t ever experienced that before. For that matter, even at home, she needed to have her mask on at all times when she was anywhere near where Aunt Daryl might find her. Poised, refined, calm, cool, collected, demure, the picture of serenity. In short, Little Miss Perfect. She couldn’t gush about her favorite pieces of music, couldn’t seclude herself so that she could listen to her favorite vinyls in peace, couldn’t complain when Maril and Merrill’s voices grated on her nerves, couldn’t be herself.

Even with Hannah and Barbara… despite their less than stellar traits, she really was fond of them. Besides, most of their waspishness was oriented around protecting her, and…

Diana blinked as the realization hit her, her stride faltering as she headed towards Akko’s dorm building a few evenings after that first lunch. Akko had invited her to come over and chill, and Diana had decided to take her up on the offer, if only because she hadn’t really done that yet. Not ever. Not the best place to have an epiphany, she supposed, but, well… she frowned as she stepped to the side of the pavement and leaned against the campus Arts Centre as her mind raced.

Hannah and Barbara… protected her.

They could tell when she was having a bad day. They knew when they had to keep people at a distance. They knew when Diana really didn’t want to be bothered. They knew how to guide the conversation when Diana faltered.

For all their flaws and for all the fact that yes, they did take it too far… Hannah and Barbara had actually been doing a lot to pander to Diana’s actual needs over the years and Diana hadn’t ever really realized it.

She needed to sit down and talk to them. Like, really talk. She wanted to see how this chill session went, but so far Akko’s friends had been wholly accepting and Diana wanted to be friends with them because there was just something about them that made her feel comfortable. If this evening went well, then she would be able to say for a certainty that she wanted to continue being friends with all of them. If she knew that for a certainty, she would be able to sit down with the girls and let them know how she felt and her intentions going forward. She wanted to be friends with Hannah and Barbara. They had been through too much together to want anything less than that. But she was also pretty certain that she wanted to be friends with Akko, Lotte, Sucy, Constanze, Jasminka, and Amanda astonishingly enough, and yes, she was just as surprised about it as anyone else. They were a rowdy bunch, but kind-hearted and good. Hannah and Barbara were going to have to accept that fact.

Diana would prefer if they all got along, of course, but she wasn’t foolish enough to hope for miracles. All she wanted was for Hannah and Barbara to accept that Diana wanted to have more friends. Was that really too much to ask for?

With those thoughts in mind, she continued to head through the darkening evening to Akko’s dorm. Shortly before arriving, she sent a text to Akko, and by the time that she reached said dorm building, Akko was waiting at the door. “Hey, there she is!” Akko said with a big grin. Diana felt a bit shocked by the exuberant greeting, but still managed to offer a far more timid smile in reply as she stepped into the warmth of the building.

“Here I am,” she softly replied as she looked around the entryway with its cork board and community messages. There was laughter coming from down the hall to the right. She guessed that that was where the recreation room was. To her surprise, Akko didn’t lead her that way. Instead she headed for the stairs. Diana blinked in surprise as she followed after. “Akko?”

“Hm?”

“We’re not going to the recreation room?”

Akko glanced over her shoulder down at her. “Do you want to go there?”

Diana didn’t have to think about that for very long. “Not particularly, no.”

“Kinda figured. Nah, we’ll chill out in my room.”

Diana felt her eyebrows shoot up a little bit at that. “Your room?” She hadn’t been expecting that, and something about the concept of their second time hanging out alone being in Akko’s room left Diana feeling flustered, though she couldn’t say precisely why that was.

Akko hummed her acknowledgment as they stepped out onto the second floor. “Yeah. It’ll be a lot quieter.” She gave Diana another glance, and must have seen some of Diana’s worry in her expression, for she gave a reassuring grin. “Hey, no, don’t worry, Sucy won’t be there. She’s got some sort of big project she’s helping the Chemistry Department with. She probably won’t be back until hours after you leave.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure she’s very excited about that,” Diana replied. Part of her was relieved that Akko misunderstood her expression. Another part of her wanted to correct Akko. She carefully ignored that second urge.

“Yeah, she is! She talks about it a bunch, but I think it’s mostly to just talk about it? Lord knows that the level she’s at is way beyond what I’m capable of and I don’t understand, like, ninety-nine percent of what she’s saying. Still nice to voice your thoughts out loud. Sometimes just saying stuff lets your brain catch any errors or problems better’n just staring at a book, ya know?” she said as she stopped at a door and unlocked it. “Lotte, we’re back!” she called out.

And as Lotte’s head popped up into view up on the top bunk of the bunkbeds on the left side of the room, Diana felt a bit silly. Akko had just said that they’d be chilling in her room, not that they’d be alone. It made perfect sense that Lotte would be in, as well, given the hour.

So… why did she feel a little disappointed?

“Hello, Diana,” Lotte said in a warm voice, and Diana mentally waved away the disappointment. Lotte was a very sweet girl and Diana was glad they were friends now.

“Hello, Lotte.” Greeting complete, Diana told herself, now make a kind statement about a current activity or state of being. “You look quite comfortable,” Diana said. “That jumper looks incredibly soft.”

Lotte’s smile grew warmer. “It is. It’s angora wool,” she said before a look of worry crossed her features. “Harvested humanely, of course!” she quickly reassured Diana. “My family makes sure to only shop from reputable sources. The farm the wool came from is actually just down the road from my house. The farmers are lovely people.”

Diana nodded with a polite smile. “Of course.” Now show interest in a way that promises future interactions about the subject. “Perhaps I’d be able to purchase a jumper from them myself? Do they have an online shop?”

“Oh, um… no. But if you’d like, I can maybe have my Papa go down and take some pictures of jumpers they have available, and if you’re interested in any of them, you can give me the money and I can buy it for you over the winter holidays?”

Diana thought for a moment before she nodded. “That sounds agreeable. We’ll discuss it in further detail later?”

Lotte’s smile turned into a grin. “Yes, of course!”

Feeling rather accomplished about all that, Diana turned to Akko. “So… what’s the actual plan?”

Akko’s head cocked, and it was Diana’s professional opinion that Akko had no right looking that cute doing so. “Hang out. Chill. Why?”

Diana hummed. “Okay, yes, hang out and chill, but what does that mean?” She recalled previous conversations between Akko and her friends that she had listened to more than participated in, talking about the things that they liked to do. “Video games? I’ve never really been very into those, so I can’t promise that I’ll be any good.”

Akko’s head cocked the other way. “Would you have fun playing video games?”

“I… don’t know,” Diana admitted. “The few times that I have played have been immensely frustrating.”

Akko’s mouth quirked to the side. Lotte had already returned to her book, Diana noticed. “Well, what do you want to do, Diana?” Akko asked.

Diana felt a bit frustrated by the question. “I don’t know. That’s why I was asking.”

“Ah, okay, let me rephrase. What do you like to do when you’re relaxing on your own?”

That was certainly easy enough to answer. “Read and listen to music,” Diana said. “But that’s hardly the sort of activity that makes for good company, and… what are you doing?”

Akko had walked over to the bottom bunk and was rummaging through the haphazardly piled comforter and sheet and pillows and stuffed animals. After a moment, she perked up and grabbed something. Turning back around she presented Diana with a pair of wireless headphones. “Ta-daa!” she triumphantly said, only to pause and quickly check the interiors of the earmuffs. “Okay, good, they are clean,” she said with obvious relief.

Diana, on the other hand, was very much confused. “I don’t understand.”

Akko jiggled the headphones. “Noise-canceling,” she said. “That way my video games won’t disturb you. Do you have a book or a tablet or something to read?”

“I… well, yes, but…” Diana couldn’t help but shake her head. “Akko, are you saying I should read?”

“Uh, yeah. Duh.”

“Akko, I would feel like a terrible guest if I did that.”

To her surprise and exasperation, Akko adamantly shook her head. “Nope. See, I didn’t ask you to come over specifically to watch a movie or play a video game or a board game or anything. I invited you to come over and chill. You’ve been working super hard and have definitely earned a break. You like listening to music and reading, I like playing video games. I’ll set up the bean bag chairs, we’ll get comfy, and chill.” She gave a million-watt grin. “We don’t have to actively be doing stuff together to enjoy ourselves. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and what’s important is that we’re chilling out. Together.”

Diana felt her cheeks grow warm. “Are… are you sure?” she heard herself ask. Besides Hannah and Barbara in the comfort of their own dorm room, no one had ever given her permission to just relax like that. Social gatherings were just that, gatherings that were meant for social activities. They weren’t meant to be relaxing, per se. Diana knew that when she agreed to hang out with Akko, had even made the mental preparations first to be down in the somewhat rowdy recreation room and then to play video games or something. 

This was… new. Hm.

Akko nodded in response to her question even as she was dragging two bean bag chairs in front of their small television set. “Did you want snacks?” she asked.

“Um… yes, please and thank you.”

A few minutes later and Diana was snuggly nestled into one of the bean bag chairs, the sound canceling headphones on over her ears and playing Mozart as she worked on loading up one of the novels she was in the process of reading on her phone. There was a plate of crackers and cheese and pepperoni slices between her and Akko, who was booting up her Nintendo Switch. Diana was listening to good music, had snacks and her juice at hand, and was about to have some ‘her time.’

It was such a novel experience that she wasn’t quite certain what to make of it.

Akko wanted to do something that she wanted. Diana wanted to do something else.

Somehow… they both got what they wanted?

And without any fighting?

Akko wasn’t stubbornly telling Diana that she had to do what Akko wanted?

They could just… each do their own thing and yet still be hanging out?

Huh.

Well, Diana certainly wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She settled in, opened her book on her phone, and started reading. So began what would end up being one of the best experiences that Diana had ever had just hanging out with a friend, and it was all because Akko genuinely cared about Diana’s wants and needs and interests, and not just in what she could get from Diana. Diana didn’t have to wear a mask in front of Akko, not like she had to with everybody else.

She really wasn’t sure how to process how that made her feel.

The evening after her chill session with Akko and Lotte, Diana made it a point to sit down and talk with Hannah and Barbara. The both of them looked nervous as they sat down on the sofa opposite the overstuffed chair that Diana favored. Diana gave them a fond if not slightly exasperated look. “Don’t worry, girls, no one is in trouble,” she said, and it was a challenge not to giggle as they both visibly relaxed. “My goodness, am I really that scary?” Diana teased, and she did giggle at the looks of astonishment that they both gave her.

“You’re different,” Hannah said, her eyebrows gathering together. “Happier. Lighter.”

Diana grinned, shy but so, so happy that she suddenly found it hard to contain. “I am.”

“Because of Kagari?” Barbara asked.

“Yes.” Diana took a moment to organize her thoughts. “She… hanging out with her last night was really nice. Girls, I… I could be myself. She played video games and I read and listened to music and it was lovely.” She gazed pleadingly at them. “I could be myself.”

The girls shared a look, and Hannah huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Diana, you’ve spent literal years complaining about her and saying that she’s a nuisance.

A lead in! Perfect! “Yes, and the two of you… you’ve been protecting me.” The shocked looks she got had her smiling. She really did love the two of them. “Hannah, Barbara, thank you. I’m sorry that I haven’t said it before, but the two of you really have been amazing. I really only have two things I want you to improve on.”

Barbara cocked her head, suddenly looking uneasy. “And those are?” she asked in a tone of voice that suggested she knew what at least one of those things were.

And Diana chose to be gentle. She had already been cross. That wasn’t needed, not again. “Please don’t take things as far as you have?” she asked. “For me?”

The girls stared at her with wide eyes for a moment before they both sighed and nodded. “Fine,” Hannah muttered. “What was the other thing?”

Diana gave her a tender look. “Don’t put me on a pedestal anymore?” she asked before she got up and walked around the coffee table to kneel in front of them. She took their hands in hers. “What I want most of all right now is to be your friend. You’ve been amazing cheerleaders and bodyguards up ‘til now. May we please be more than that, now?”

They continued staring at her. Then, finally, Hannah sighed. “I don’t suppose that that means we have to be friends with them, as well?” she muttered, a bitter note to her words.

“I’d settle for civil,” Diana admitted. “That said… girls, I really don’t think that becoming friends is that outlandish an idea. They might have more in common with you than you’d think.”

“Oh?” Hannah asked in a tone of voice that made it very clear that she didn’t believe Diana. 

Thankfully, Diana came with receipts. “Yes. For example, Lotte Jansson is an avid reader of Night Fall,” she announced. Barbara immediately perked up, looking excited even as Hannah rolled her eyes. Diana gave her an exasperated look. “And Jasminka likes cooking, Constanze loves video games, and I have it on good authority that someone might be crushing on… on, how did you put it, Han, the tall, gorgeous, and reckless Amanda O’Neill?” she quipped. 

Hannah blushed before looking away, a pained look in her eyes. “Please, that bridge was burned a long time ago. It’s hardly likely that she’d ever be interested in me right now.”

Diana squeezed Hannah’s hand. “And you won’t know unless you try. After all, didn’t Amanda and Akko butt heads in the worst way the first few semesters? Now they’re close friends,” she said, and after a moment, Hannah squeezed back. Diana smiled softly. “I’m certainly not saying that it’s going to be easy. But… I might have tested the waters a little bit and brought you both up in casual conversation, mostly about how your day was going. Girls, they didn’t seem bothered or angry. I really think that if you apologize again and mean it, then it will go really well.”

Hannah’s lips pursed. “You really want us to?” 

“Is it so unusual that I want my friends to be friends?” Diana replied. “Especially since…” She wet her lips before starting again. “Especially since I think it’s my fault that there’s so much animosity between all of you to begin with.”

Hannah and Barbara gave her shocked and confused looks at that. “What? No! That’s preposterous, Diana! How could it be your fault?!”

Diana smiled sadly. “Because I was the one who kept calling her a nuisance. She bothered me and as a result I didn’t want her to be near me and you knew that so you went overboard with antagonizing her.”

“Hey, now!” Barbara protested. “Before you ever even met her Avery, Hannah, and I teased her when we first met!”

Diana gave her a flat look. “You tease a lot of people, and like I said, that’s something that I want you to work on. That stated… Hannah, Barbara, please be honest with me and yourselves: if I didn’t care so much about Akko, if she didn’t agitate me the way that she did, would you have honestly continued interacting with her as much as you did?”

They both wanted to protest. She could see it in their eyes. She had asked them to be honest, though, and so they would be. She was proud of them for that, proud of how they worked through their discomfort, proud of how they looked at each other, silently communicating for a few moments before their shoulders slumped. “No,” Barbara admitted. “I suppose not,” Hannah finished. 

Diana nodded and squeezed both their hands. “See? And the way that all of us can get past that is by fairly admitting our past faults and work to correct them, right?” she asked, and they both nodded. Diana smiled warmly at them. “Let’s do that together. All three of us. Friends now and forever, Luna Nova’s Three Musketeers.”

Hannah and Barbara blushed but nodded, and Diana felt such a strong surge of warmth and fondness for the two of them. It wasn’t going to be easy for them, but they were going to get through it together. Diana felt another wave of gratitude towards Akko lift her up. Without Akko, would Diana have worked up the courage to actually say all of this? Or would she have continued to bury her head in the proverbial sand, continued to ignore what was going on right in front of her? She couldn’t say one way or the other for certain, but she did know without a shadow of doubt that Akko and her friendship helped to spur her on to finally act. Yet another thing to add to her ever growing debt of gratitude to her new friend.

As it so turned out, Hannah and Barbara chose to act sooner rather than later in mending those burnt bridges. The day after Diana’s talk with them, the two of them approached the table being used by Akko and her friends to eat their lunches. It was Amanda who noticed their approach first, and she straightened with a small frown as they drew close. Diana glanced around at the others before she smiled welcomingly. “Hullo Hannah, Barbara,” she called out.

Akko looked at her for a moment before she focused on Hannah and Barbara. “Looking for some seats?” she asked in an amiable voice. “We have some extras.” At her offer, Sucy sucked air between her teeth with a disgusted look, and Amanda’s frown deepened.

Hannah and Barbara faltered for a moment. Barbara even stepped slightly closer to Hannah, seeking comfort and protection. “Not…” Hannah started, the word slightly wavering before she cleared her throat and started again. “Not if we’d be intruding. We don’t want to be a bother.”

“Then why are you bothering us?” Sucy drawled, a baleful gleam in her eye.

Barbara and Hannah wilted a bit under that hard stare, and they fidgeted for a moment. “We’ve previously apologized to Kagari,” Barbara started.

“And realized that we owe all of you our apology,” Hannah continued. “We… haven’t been the nicest.” She paused, wincing at Amanda’s almost derisive snort. “Actually, no. I won’t sugarcoat this. We were horrid.”

“Absolutely wretched,” Barbara added. “Ak- er, Kagari didn’t deserve the way we treated her, and none of you did, either.”

“We were trying to protect someone we hold close in our hearts,” Hannah said. “And we went about it absolutely the wrong way and we’re going to work really hard to not be such horrid little beasts from now on.”

Barbara nodded insistently. “Yes! We will! And to show that, we’re going to treat you all to a movie this weekend!”

“What, like… the cinema?” Akko asked in some surprise, and she looked at Diana.

Diana shrugged. “I don’t know anything about this, this is all them.”

“Oh.”

Hannah rolled her eyes and forged on ahead. “Yes, well, it seems as though the only thing that looks decent right now is Jojo Rabbit. Personally, I think that any movie that makes fun of Nazis is a good movie, so…”

Amanda huffed as she crossed her arms. “So. Taking us to the movies, huh?” she asked with a smirk. “What is this, a date?”

Hannah’s eyebrows twitched and her nostrils flared slightly before she schooled her features and steadily met Amanda’s almost mocking gaze. “Do you want it to be?” she asked.

Diana felt her eyebrows shoot up nearly to her hairline as Amanda choked and spluttered. Well! That was forward! Amanda quickly composed herself and stared incredulously at Hannah. “What did y’all say?”

“You asked if this is a date, I asked you if you wanted it to be,” Hannah replied, her voice smooth. She had a white-knuckle grip on her tray, though, and a fine tremor was running through her body.

“I was just being-!”

Hannah cut her off. “Mocking? A jerk? Trying to get back at us for all the bad things we’ve done?” she asked, and now her voice was trembling as well. “Look, I… I get it, right? We were terrible and we regret it. But… hey, you brought it up first. I think you’re gorgeous and quick-witted and clever and sassy in a way that… that really works for me a-and god I am just spilling my guts out here and I’d probably deserve it if you repeated all this everywhere to socially crush me but I’m tired of hiding behind disdain and derision. Tired of feeling this aching disgust with myself because I totally blew this over the last two years, but Diana isn’t hiding anymore so I’m not, either. You have every right to hate me, yeah? And I bloody hate that I totally ruined my chance at…” Hannah drew off, looking miserable, and her eyes started to glisten. “I’m sorry, I should go.” She turned on her heel and started to head off, hunching in on herself. Her shoulders were also starting to shake.

Silence gripped the table for a moment before Sucy scoffed. “Well, go get her, you idiot!” she snapped at Amanda.

It was comical the way that Amanda threw herself out of her chair so abruptly that she literally fell on the floor. She scrambled to her feet and then took off after Hannah, catching up to her in no time. She threw her arm around Hannah’s shoulders and turned her back around and started leading her back to the table. Hannah was actually crying now, her face screwed up tight as tears rolled down her cheeks. Amanda was murmuring something in Hannah’s ear as she rubbed Hannah’s upper arm soothingly. They returned to the table, and Amanda plonked Hannah down in the empty seat that was to Amanda’s immediate right. “S-sorry,” Hannah stammered.

Amanda grabbed some of the napkins off her tray and handed them to Hannah. “We’ll talk later,” she promised. “And sorry for teasing. This first one… it ain’t a date,” she said as her cheeks began to color. “But… well, we’ll see where we go from there, alright?”

Hannah nodded as Barbara stepped closer to the table and hesitantly sat down. She was on the opposite side and end from Hannah, and Diana realized that this was the farthest that Barbara had sat from Hannah in… well, maybe ever.

Their friendships were all changing, weren’t they? It all started by that rehearsal room mishap. It all started with Akko…

Time passed by, life went on, and their friendships continued to evolve. The beginning was a bit rocky, and Sucy had repeated her dire warning to Hannah and Barbara that she had first given to Diana: she was willing to be nice, but if any of them intentionally hurt Akko, she would end them. After that, though, they all began feeling each other out and as a result, they began to grow closer. Barbara and Lotte got along famously, just like Diana knew she was going to, and Hannah started hanging out more with Jasminka, Constanze, and Amanda. Their circles expanded, with people like Avery and Mary and Blair existing in an orbit around the nine of them and occasionally hanging out, but for the most part? It was all nine of them or some offshoot of their friend group spending time together.

Diana insisted on regular study groups, and though Amanda and Akko often griped about attending them, all of their grades began to steadily improve. Diana, in turn, made sure to let them know how proud of their accomplishments she was. The active complaints against Akko began to diminish, slowly at first and then quicker and quicker. The last bit of real drama came in mid-November when Akko had the dubious honor of discovering that once Hannah decided you were her friend, she was a fierce and staunch defender. Chloé said something needlessly cruel. Diana wasn’t even certain what it was, as she wasn’t present for the incident, but from what she was able to gather, Chloé insinuated that Akko was so slow that she needed the help of eight other people in order to get a decent grade. Hannah heard this as she was passing by and went absolutely off on Chloé, insulting her in both English and in Chloé’s native French. It actually took Amanda swooping in to bodily hold Hannah back, or else it might have come to blows.

Chloé retreated, Hannah shouted at her back that no one insulted her friends, and that was that. In the aftermath of it all, Diana remembered Amanda having a queer look on her face as she gazed appraisingly at Hannah, who was still fuming that anyone say anything cross about Akko after how hard she had been working!

Diana was a tad concerned that something might be wrong, but was proven wrong the next day when Amanda finally officially asked Hannah out. Hannah said yes, and the two of them became the first couple of their friend group.

Diana was truly happy for Hannah, she really was… but she couldn’t deny that she felt a bit jealous at how Hannah and Amanda started being casually affectionate with each other. Diana knew that there was a rumor going around that she was touch adverse and had never bothered to correct it mostly because she didn’t want people that she didn’t know touching her. Seeing Hannah and Amanda, though… a favorite of theirs seemed either to be Amanda resting her head on Hannah’s lap or Hannah sitting on Amanda’s lap or even sitting reclined against Amanda’s torso if they were using one of the larger bean bag chairs. It looked warm and cozy and Diana started to actually ache for that sort of contact. But everyone knew that she was touch adverse and she couldn’t work up the courage to ask anyone for a hug.

Thus she watched and yearned and was happy for her friends, because that’s what Diana Cavendish did.

Autumn turned to winter, and the school was gripped by excitement and anticipation for the upcoming Winter Holiday. The long recess was a favorite for a reason, students returning home for Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever other traditions their family’s observed. Diana didn’t inquire too closely into the plans of the others, especially given her own bittersweet experience towards the holiday season. As was their custom, Aunt Daryl was taking her daughters to the Bahamas, and all staff were given paid leave to spend time with their families. If Diana went home, then it would be to a cold and empty house. She knew, of course, that both Hannah and Barbara would be overjoyed to have her over and that their parents would be more than happy to host her, but… well, Hannah’s family was rather large and her house got very lively. Barbara was the opposite; she was an only child and her parents doted on her and Diana always remembered feeling like a third wheel when spending too much time at the Parker household.

She also didn’t want to be a burden.

Luckily, she already had an agreement in place with the school. There were always five or six students who weren’t able to return home for the holidays for one reason or another, so there was precedent and a support plan in place to ensure that they all had meals, including small feasts on the holidays themselves, and that the heat remained on and the pavement shoveled if they got enough snow to blanket the ground. For her part, Diana enjoyed the silence and the solitude. She also volunteered to putter around the Music Hall and do things like restock chalk, make sure easels were in good repair, re-rosin bows for the string instruments, and tune the instruments she was familiar and comfortable with.

Diana wasn’t certain what it said about her as a person, but she actually really, really looked forward to the Winter Holidays specifically because she was able to do all that. No one looking to her for answers, no one calling on her in class, no one bothering her. Just her and some peace and quiet and all the musical instruments that she loved so very much. For her? It was heaven.

What she wasn’t at all expecting was to hear Akko grousing about the fact that she was going to be at the school over the break and she was going to be soooo bored the morning before the holidays started. Diana blinked in surprise before she leaned forward and looked down the table at Akko. “You aren’t going home?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh. No.” Akko gave an uncomfortable grin as she scratched the back of her head. “My, um… my family isn’t really made of money and the cost to fly from here back to Japan and then back to England is… no reason to do it if I can just stay here.”

Diana felt some conflicting feelings at that. First she was upset that Akko hadn’t told her earlier, but then she almost immediately realized that that wasn’t fair because she hadn’t announced her own holiday plans to anyone else yet, either. Then she felt concern because Akko genuinely seemed disheartened by the situation, but it was far too late to try and offer to purchase the airline tickets herself, assuming that Akko would accept the help to begin with.

Then, finally, she felt excitement. Akko was going to be here over the break with her. They could get so much work done on the recital!

Despite the excitement thrumming through her, she kept her expression composed and her voice calm. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, Akko. As luck would have it, though, I’ll be staying behind as well. I typically help the staff with some housekeeping and instrument care, but we can work on our recital. We still haven’t chosen a song yet, after all, and that’s only in, what, four months?” she asked. Then she noticed that Akko was staring at her with wide eyes. “What? Oh, dear, do I have something on my face?” she asked as she delicately probed around her mouth with her napkin.

“Huh? Oh, no! No, your face is perfect! That’s not… Diana, you’re going to be here, too?”

My face is what now? Diana wondered as she felt her cheeks warm. “Ye~ess, that is what I just said,” she replied slowly. What on Earth had gotten into Akko?

Akko excitedly slapped her hands against the top of the table and leaned towards Diana, her crimson eyes fairly sparkling. “So we’re going to get the chance to hang out? Just the two of us?!”

Diana found herself reflexively leaning away. “Y-yes, that’s… yes, Akko.”

“Yatta!” Akko cheered as her hands shot up into the air. Just as suddenly, they flew to her chest as Akko gave an excited little wriggle. She had just about the biggest grin that Diana had ever seen on her face. “Ya~ay!”

Diana was blushing harder now, and all the others were in various stages of bemusement at Akko’s antics. “A-Akko, some decorum, if you please. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Akko gasped, her expression turning shocked. “Daiyana! You wound me!” With that, she returned to her food, and that was that, the topic of conversation changing, leaving Diana feeling utterly perplexed.

What was that all about?

Winter break began with one of Diana’s favorite traditions of the holidays:

Sleeping in.

See, she was normally an absolute stickler for sticking to a schedule, and retiring at a good hour and rising early the next day resulted in being well-rested and ready for a productive day. The quiet early hours of the morning also provided a chance for meditative introspection and time to plan the course of the day. At home, the horses needed tending to (they outsourced care for the horses over the holidays, paying well for the luxury so that their own stablehands had time off) and chores needed doing and everything else that went on with running the manor. Here at school, most of her break was spent getting up at the same time as usual in order to ensure that she had enough time to work her way through the tasks that Luna Nova gave her. 

But the first morning?

That morning was hers, and she’d sleep in for as long as she’d like.

Or at least, that was the plan before insistent knocking at her dorm room’s door roused her out of her slumber. Blinking blearily, she turned her gaze at her clock on her nightstand. Good heavens, it was half six! Who in the world could need her at this hour?! Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she forced herself to get out of bed. She slid her feet into her comfy slippers and snatched her robe from its place on the back of her favorite chair and put it on over her nightgown. Stumbling around the bookcase separating her part of the room from Hannah and Barbara’s side, she yawned hugely and tried to tame her unruly mane with stiff fingers. The insistent knock came again. “Hold on!” Diana called out, trying not to sound too cross. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Giving a final wipe around her eyes and mouth, she opened up the door, only to blink in surprise. “Akko? What are you doing here?”

Akko took in a deep breath. “Okay, so, if we’re gonna get everything done today that I want to get done, we gotta get a move on. First you need do bathroom stuff and get dressed - I love that robe and those slippers, so you know - and then we can go and get breakfast.”

Diana blinked several times at her. “Akko… what?”

Akko’s tongue poked out from between her lips as she dug an incredibly folded and crumpled set of papers from the pocket of her jumper. “I made a list!”

“You made a list?”

“Yeah! For the awesome stuff we’re gonna do! I know you like lists so I made you a list!”

Diana’s heart melted at that. Unfortunately, that warmth was in a bitter stalemate with her still sleepy brain trying to catch up with the fact that Atsuko Kagari had somehow woken up before her and was expecting Diana to actually go out and do stuff on the one day that Diana took to sleep in. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Akko. It’s half six.”

“Uh-huh!”

“And you want me to do my morning routine right now and get dressed and hang out with you?”

“Uh, yeah, Diana. Wakey, wakey, it’s time to get on the same page!” She paused a beat and giggled, obviously delighted with herself. “Get it?” she asked as she shook the crumpled notes at Diana, who saw that 1. Akko had surprisingly neat and graceful hand-writing, 2. Akko also liked to doodle a lot, and 3. there were a lot of things scribbled out and replaced with other things on the list. “It’s not just the list, either!” Akko continued on. “It’s also a music joke! Same sheet of music!”

Diana couldn’t help it. She laughed. Just… Akko was so bloody adorable and proud of herself for that joke that the laugh bubbled up and burst out of Diana. “Alright, alright. Just… okay, come on in, you can sit on the sofa while I get ready,” she said as she shook her head and stepped out of the way. Akko made an unmistakably victorious noise as she all but pranced into the room. “Don’t get too excited,” Diana huffed.

“How could I not be?!” Akko said as she vaulted over the back of the couch and plopped down on its cushions. “We’re gonna have a great day together! I’m so excited!”

Diana chuckled as she headed back to her side of the room and got a change of clothes. “Is hanging out with me really that big of a deal?” she called out.

The answer came immediately: “Yes! Absolutely!”

Diana paused at that, her hands resting on the pair of jeans she had chosen. Wow. There had been no hesitation there. Akko just knew. It felt like Diana’s brain was short-circuiting, and it took her a moment to realize that she should probably answer. “W-well, then, I promise to not be too much of a stick in the mud.”

Akko’s delighted giggle floated from around the corner of the bookcase. “That’s a funny saying. Why is a stick in mud a bad or boring thing?”

Diana blew out a breath. “Honestly? I’m not certain. I’ve never given it all that much thought.” She came back around the bookcase, her clothes held in her arms. “I won’t take long, I promise.”

Akko nodded, her face bright and happy, and there was something about all of it that had Diana pausing, her eyes lingering on Akko. She wanted to remember this moment. On the face of it, it wasn’t anything special. Akko was just waiting for her to do her morning things so that they could go out and do things. It was utterly mundane and should have been nothing less than droll.

Akko made it special.

Akko’s joy and obvious excitement gave this small moment, this little sliver of time meaning and value and Diana didn’t ever want to forget it.

Before Akko. After Akko. Diana’s life had already been changed by their rehearsals colliding together the way that they had.

How else was Diana’s life going to change because of Akko’s influence?

Diana didn’t know, but… well, she was kind of interested in finding out.

As it so turned out, any doubts that Diana might have had about the list and plan only being things that Akko was interested in were very quickly laid to rest. In fact, while at breakfast, Akko informed her that the rest of the morning was going to be spent in the various rehearsal rooms, cleaning up and tuning and everything else. When Diana had asked her about it, Akko had given a big grin and said that two sets of hands were better than one, and that she was an ace at cleaning after all the punishments she had ‘gotten from Finnelan-sensei.’ She’d handle all the housekeeping stuff while Diana got started on tuning the instruments. “Between the two of us,” Akko had said around a mouthful of hashbrowns, “we’ll get that stuff done in no time!”

Diana had smiled to hide the disquiet that she felt at that. The whole thing about doing what she did was that it was time she had for herself. She could work with any students at any time to do the tuning and the cleaning and the stocking of supplies. She specifically waited until the Winter Holidays to do all this because she would be alone. It was time for her. That was the point of it all.

For all that, though, Akko was so obviously excited that Diana couldn’t bring herself to tell Akko that she wasn’t going to have Akko help her. It was obvious that Akko really wanted to help, so… well, they’d see how this went. If Akko bothered her, Diana would explain her position calmly and Akko would understand and they’d both work out something that they could do together… like work on their recital project together. Diana felt pleased with that idea. Thus reassured, she continued to eat, and shortly thereafter they both finished up and they got up to head to the Music Hall.

Imagine her surprise when immediately upon entering the strings room, Akko took a deep breath and turned to face her. “Okay, so, Barbara said that when you are doing this, you prefer peace and quiet. So! If you want I can start in another room, like, ah, woodwinds, and work on the list that Ursula-sensei gave me for the housekeeping things while you tune? You can let me know when you’re done in a room so we can switch.” She sheepishly grinned. “I promise to stay on focus as much as possible. Don’t worry, I remembered to take my Adderall this morning!” Akko lifted her arm in the air and made a fist as her other hand clasped her bicep. “Good work!”

Oddly enough, Diana didn’t feel relief at the suggestion. No, once her surprise wore off, she felt a bit concerned. “Akko… may I ask you something?”

Akko cocked her head with an innocent blink. “Eh?”

“Akko, when was the last time that you did something the way that you wanted to or did something because you wanted to?”

Her words only had Akko giving her a confused look. “I don’t understand.”

Diana blew out a breath. “Akko, do you want to be in different rooms for this?”

Akko blinked. “But Barbara said-”

Diana waved her off. “Ignore Barbara for a moment. Akko, do you want to be in different rooms?”

Akko blinked again, her eyebrows gathering together. “Well, no, but…”

Diana shook her head as she took a step closer. “There is no but, Akko. If you want to stay in the same room, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Akko looked like she wasn’t certain how to respond to the new development. “But she said you always work alone. That it’s special for you.”

Diana’s mouth moved before her brain could catch up. “And you’re more special to me than that solitude.”

Akko blushed as her eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline and Diana could swear that Akko’s iconic half ponytail stood up on end. She took a step back as she lifted her hands, palms towards Diana. “A-a-a-aaah, Daiyana, ch-chotto matte!” she stammered as she shook her hands at Diana. “You cannot just say stuff like that!” She clutched her chest. “My poor heart can’t take it! I’m too young and too cute to die!”

Diana rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No need for such melodrama, Akko,” she huffed, feeling a little nettled at the overly exuberant response. “Is it really so surprising that I’d prefer you over solitude?” she asked. “You’re my best friend, Akko.”

For a split second, a brittle cast settled over Akko’s face, but then was gone so fast that Diana began to doubt if she had seen it in the first place. “Your best friend?” Akko asked. “What about Hannah and Barbara?”

Diana grimaced. “We’re working on that. They are incredibly close, yes, but they did put me on a pedestal for far too long.” She gave Akko a soft smile. “You’ve never done that with me, and that makes a difference.”

Akko was blinking, now, and fairly quickly. “Well, then, I… um… okay.” She took a deep breath before giving Diana a big set of finger guns. “Then I’m gonna be the best friend for you that I can be! Just you wait and see!”

Diana laughed even as doubt niggled at her. When Akko was blinking like that… why did it seem like she was just about to cry? “Yes, well, I look forward to that,” Diana said with forced cheer. “And yes, that does start with us being in the same room while we work.”

Akko threw her arms up in the air. “Yatta!” she cheered. Then she turned and hurried over to the chalkboard. Had Diana watched her go instead of turning her attention to the violins, she would have noticed Akko quickly wiping at her eyes before getting to work.

Unfortunately, she didn’t notice Akko’s brief moment of grief and pain because sometimes life was painful and not at all like the stories with their happy endings. Sometimes moments that held potential for more slid by because of one poorly worded sentence, because of one young woman misinterpreting the feelings within her own heart.

Quietly, unobtrusively, the moment slid by and was lost forever in the current of time.

Hours passed, and Akko was as good as her word: she kept focus and was able to get much of the housekeeping tasks done, allowing Diana to focus on tune instruments far more than ever before, and thus made record progress. As she worked on tuning the instruments she took some time to think about what that meant. In previous years, she’d take her time getting things done, which was a nice change of pace from her usual process of doing things, which amounted to ‘as accurately and thoroughly and quickly as possible.’ Cleaning the rehearsal rooms and tuning the instruments was a chance to take a break from that hectic schedule. It was her chance to take her time and very deliberately complete the task. She had two weeks to get the tasks done, which was far more than enough time.

So, Before Akko, it was a guilty pleasure of hers, a chance to actually be unapologetically lazy when doing something and she loved it.

Now? After Akko? Well… maybe now she had something and someone worth being in a hurry for.

Initially a hypothesis, but it was very quickly turned into something far more solid after she offered to treat Akko to a lunch in town as reward for her hard work. Akko’s initial reaction puzzled Diana for a moment: Akko had sharply looked up from the easel she was working on fixing to give Diana a queer, almost wounded look before she blinked and grinned. Diana was across the room, and that first reaction had passed by so quickly and Akko was grinning so excitedly now that once again, Diana wondered if she had just imagined it… or maybe she was reading too much into things. She had done that before, where the most innocuous responses bored into her psyche, making her obsess over them, analyzing and over-analyzing and wondering what she had said or done wrong that had made the other person hate her.

Almost always, it was nothing. Her mind betraying her, giving meaning to the smallest of cues to make a mountain out of a molehill. Was she doing that again?

Had to be. Akko was nothing if not painfully earnest. She wore her heart on her sleeve and had never hesitated from speaking her mind even when it got her into considerable trouble. If Akko was upset with her or angry at her, she would absolutely let Diana know. So Diana dismissed that doubt, firmly shooing it away as Akko excitedly asked about what Diana had in mind for food.

Diana replied that it was up to Akko, a reward for her good behavior.

Akko’s cheeks had colored a little, and she had given Diana an intent, almost searching look. “Guess it pays off having friends in high places, huh?” she asked, and though the words were teasing on the surface… there was something off about them, something Diana couldn’t quite put her finger on.

She fidgeted as they started heading for the door. Despite her earlier efforts, her doubts came roaring back in. Friends in high places… did Akko think that Diana was trying to flaunt her wealth? The thought bothered Diana more than she expected, and she cleared her throat to try and ease some of the scratchy tightness from it. What could she even really say in response? “Akko… I…” She bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry,” she settled on saying, and even though she had cleared her throat, the words were still noticeably emotional. “I don’t… I didn’t mean… did that sound transactional?” she asked, each word sounding more feeble than the one that came before. “I swear I didn’t… I just…” She was blinking away tears now. She had said the wrong thing and now Akko wasn’t going to want to be around her anymore and Diana’s big, stupid mouth had ruined everything again! “I just wanted to show you how much I appreciated your help,” she whispered as she stood frozen, giving everything she had to not erupt into tears. And it had been such a lovely morning!

And then Akko was hugging her, arms almost fiercely wrapping around her in a tight embrace. Diana’s breath whooshed out of her not because of the strength in Akko’s arms but because this was the first time that someone had hugged her like this since her mother…

Shaking hands lifted to cling to Akko’s back as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh. Oh no, I…” she croaked before she gasped and sucked in a shuddering breath. “Why am I…?” she whimpered. Akko only hugged her tighter, warm and solid and real and Diana completely lost it. Grief that she hadn’t even known that she had bottled up came surging up, carrying her away like so much flotsam and jetsam as she began sobbing. She wasn’t even aware of when exactly they sank down to the floor, she only knew that one moment they were standing and the next they were sitting, Diana half in Akko’s lap as she continued crying no matter how she tried to stop.

Why stop, though? Why stop when Akko crooned comfortingly, equal parts Japanese and English, telling Diana that it was okay, that she could let it out, that Akko understood and that she was sorry for not wording things right and triggering Diana.

Diana barely processed any of the words, whether Japanese or English. She didn’t need to. It was more the tone of voice that Akko was using that was important. That was what Diana seized onto with every ounce of willpower that she had, because that gentle croon, those soft reassurances, the hand gently petting the back of her head, Akko’s warmth and the smell of hot cocoa in the soft folds of her jumper grounded Diana, gave her strength to not become totally lost to her grief.

Time lost all meaning as the world shrank in on this one moment. She cried. She cried until she couldn’t cry any longer, until she had given everything that she had to give. After the last of the tears faded leaving only an aching exhaustion in their wake, she sighed as she remained curled up against Akko. Ugh, poor girl’s legs were probably dead asleep with how Diana had practically been draped in her lap all this time. Diana tried to clear her throat. The noise that escaped her was far less composed and a great deal more needy and vulnerable, and she winced. “I, um… I’m sorry. I…” She huffed, and attempted to deflect with humor. “I don’t imagine that this was on your list.”

She expected Akko to laugh. Akko didn’t. “No,” she said in a soft and gentle voice. “It wasn’t.”

Diana felt herself begin to blush. “Sorry for sobbing onto your jumper. Large, um… large wet spot now.”

She felt Akko shrug. “I have other jumpers and this one can be washed. To borrow words from you, you’re more special to me than a dry jumper.”

Diana’s blush deepened. Oh. So that’s how that felt. She blinked a few times as she processed that. Then she let out a breath. “What next?” she asked as she turned her head up, only to freeze. Now she felt like a deer caught in headlights, what with how close Akko’s face was to her. It wasn’t just the proximity, it was also the look that Akko was giving her. Achingly tender, yes, but also… it made Diana feel warm and cherished and protected. She swallowed. Such closeness… was natural after what just happened. Right? “Lunch?” she asked without looking away from Akko’s eyes. That crimson hue really was striking, wasn’t it?

Then Akko’s lips twitched in a small and wry smile, and she amiably patted Diana’s shoulder. “How about we take a rain check on that?” she asked.

Diana let out another breath, this one of a relief that Diana didn’t fully understand, just as she didn’t understand why pulling away was so difficult at the same time that it brought its own sense of relief with it. “Maybe we can make sandwiches in the kitchen?” she asked.

“Ooh! Yeah! That sounds like it could work! Then we can get to the next thing on the list, too!”

“Which is?” Diana asked as she slowly and shakily stood.

“Working on our recital project!”

Despite the tears that had just happened, Diana couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “We haven’t even picked a song yet!” she chortled as she wiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. “Ugh, I must look a fright right now.”

“You don’t.” Akko’s words were soft but they carried an earnest weight with them. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

Once again, Diana’s cheeks warmed. “Akko, I just spent what felt like a small eternity bawling my eyes out.”

“You say that like emotions should be considered ugly,” Akko retorted before she gave a small shake of her head. “They aren’t. Emotions are emotions. They’re natural.” She paused a moment as she glanced away. “Why do you think I was playing the song I was playing when I stayed into your rehearsal time?”

“What?” Diana asked.

Akko smiled sadly as she started heading for the door again. “Keep Me In Your Heart. I was playing that because I was sad. But it was beautiful, right?” she asked.

“W-well, yes.”

“See? Grief and sadness can be beautiful too, right? It isn’t scary or ugly.” She gave Diana a meaningful look. “There is no ugly sadness. There are only ugly souls. Emotion is as beautiful as the soul of the one feeling them. Your sadness made my heart ache but it didn’t make you a fright. It’s just as beautiful as your spirit.”

Well. Damn. That was just about the most touchingly beautiful thing that Diana had ever heard. “I… well…” She wet her lips as her fingers began to fidget. “Same to you.” She met Akko’s gaze. “Your grief was beautiful, too.”

Akko held her gaze for a long moment before a small smile touched her lips. She murmured something in Japanese under her breath for a moment before she grinned at Diana. “Thank you for saying that, it’s very sweet. How about we go and get our food and then we can head to the room with the nice piano and we can figure this out.”

Diana offered a smile of her own. “Well, if you ask me? That sounds good enough to put on the list,” she said, her heart soaring at Akko’s giggle. “Speaking of, I noticed that there were a lot of things crossed out,” she continued as they started heading down the corridor towards the doors that led out into the campus proper. “May I ask why?”

“Huh? Oh, uh… I wanted it to be all stuff that you would like so I asked the people who knew you what you would want to do. Uhhh… like Barbara, Hannah, Finnelan-sensei, all of them.”

Diana felt touched by that. “You did research?” she asked as they reached the doors, and she pushed them open for Akko.

“Oh. Thanks! And yeah, I did.” Akko grinned again as her cheeks turned rosy, though that could have been the nipping air. “I wanted it to be right for you.”

“Aw, Akko! That’s so sweet of you!” Diana said. Once again, her mouth moved before her mind could interject. “Seriously, I am so lucky to have a friend like you. You’ve been an absolute treat!”

Akko smiled, the expression a bit bittersweet. “Kinda kicking myself that we didn’t try sooner, yeah? Feels like time lost.”

Diana laughed as she bumped shoulders with Akko. “Don’t worry, Akko, we’ll still be friends after we graduate.” She looked up into the cloud covered sky. “The long distance will be rough, I think, but totally worth it. We’re going to be friends forever.”

“I’d like that,” Akko admitted. “And, uh…” Her expression fell. “I don’t know if I want to go back. I’m trying to figure out a way to stay here. Maybe a Uni visa?”

Diana gave her a surprised look as she held open the doors for the dining hall for her. “You don’t want to go home?”

Akko shrugged, feigning a nonchalance that wasn’t reflected in her eyes. “Japan… it’s very formal, ne? When I’m there, I’m expected to be meek and obedient, to follow the rules of society and family. I don’t really fit in anymore.” There was a bitter gleam in her eyes, now. “Especially since I’m, ah… mm, shoot, hang on… yuri to wa?” she muttered as she knuckled her forehead. “I like girls?” she said after a moment. “Something about a Greek island.” She pouted. “I remember that but I can’t remember-”

“You’re a lesbian?” Diana asked, her eyebrows rising in some surprise. That was honestly a bit of a shock. Akko had never once talked about any sort of preference or even a crush before. She had agreed whenever someone - mostly Hannah and Barbara, honestly - asked if she thought someone was attractive, but Diana couldn’t remember a single time that Akko had volunteered any such information on her own.

Akko sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “Ehhhh, maybe? Lesbian is if you only like girls, aa?”

“Yes.”

“That… mm, it doesn’t perfectly fit?” Akko said as they entered the kitchen. She led the way over to where the bread and sandwich makings were kept for students to use. “My parents… they were confused when I never was boy crazy like my sister or my peers. Boys are okay, I guess.” She paused. “Andrew is nice, but he feels more like onii-san than bōifurendo. Girls, though…” Akko puffed out a breath that rustled her bangs. “I prefer yuri over yaoi doujinshi if that makes sense.”

Diana gave Akko an utterly lost look.

Akko groaned. “Okay, so…” Her lips pursed and she frowned as she started making her sandwich. “Andrew feels more like a big brother than a romantic person. I prefer manga that has girls loving girls more than boys loving boys… or even girls loving boys.” She stared at the countertop, her gaze distant. “I don’t know. I haven’t had anyone to figure things out with.” Her lips pursed. “One thing, though. I know I am kuia.”

Diana frowned as she slowly and quietly mouthed that out. Huh. That sounded an awful lot like… “Do you mean queer?”

Akko glanced at her. “Is that a bad thing?”

Diana blinked and then shook her head. “No! No, it’s fine! It’s more than fine, honestly. I mean, just look at Hannah and Amanda. Those two are unapologetically queer.”

Akko blinked and then laughed. She said something in delighted Japanese before switching back to English. “Unapologetically queer. I like that.” She nudged Diana with her elbow. “I might seem subdued about those things here in England where it’s more accepted, but in Japan? I would be seen as just as unapologetically queer as Amanda!”

Diana cocked her head as she started to make her own sandwich. “Is that a bad thing?” she asked, parroting Akko.

Akko was still grinning as she shook her head. “No. If anything, it’s a badge of honor.” She took in a deep breath. “I am Kagari Atsuko and I am unapologetically queer!” she shouted at the top of her lungs before she laughed gaily.

Diana had jerked a bit at the volume that Akko had used, but she joined Akko’s laughter after a moment. “Feel better?” she teasingly asked. “Coming out to the pots and pans?”

Akko nodded, a bright grin still on her face. “Aa. I do.” She winked at Diana. “After all, we can’t have them feeling left out, ne?”

Diana laughed again and shook her head. “Never change, Akko. Never change.”

Akko snorted as they gathered up their plates and grabbed some water bottles from the fridge. “Never happen. That’s part of why I want to stay here. In Japan they want to put me into a small little box that would suffocate me. Here? I can be me.”

Diana’s heart panged at the thought of anyone putting Akko in a box. Akko deserved to be Akko and nothing less. “Akko… this isn’t a flex, I swear, but… listen, my family does have access to some resources that others might not. If you want, I can get you in contact with an attorney who could work with you to make sure that you can stay. You wouldn’t have to worry about cost, he’s on retainer and is paid a salary for things like this.”

Akko gave her a look as they sat down in the dining hall. “You would do that for me?” she asked softly.

Diana solemnly nodded. “Yes. You deserve to be you and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that that happens. I promise.”

Akko stared at her for a long moment before she slowly nodded. “That sounds good, Diana. I really appreciate that and the heavens know that I need all the help that I can get.”

Diana gave her a reassuring nod. “I’ll send the email today, then.”

They started eating, and Akko was almost done with her sandwich when she hummed. “I know what song we should do,” she said.

Diana blinked. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Clair de Lune. It’s fitting, right? Lune and Luna? Ties into our school.”

Diana smiled. “That sounds perfect. Excellent suggestion, Akko.” She frowned in concentration as she called forth the memory. “The poem is quite lovely, too.”

“It’s a poem?” Akko mumbled around the last mouthful of her sandwich.

“Yes. Give me a moment, I memorized it long ago.” Diana’s eyes grew heavy lidded as she recalled the details of her mother’s study, the last place that she had recited it as a means to show how well she was doing with her French.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur

L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune

Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur

Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune.

Akko sighed. “Beautiful,” she murmured. “What’s it mean?”

Diana’s mouth quirked to the side. “Singing all the while, in the minor mode, Of all-conquering love and life so kind to them, They do not seem to believe in their good fortune, And their song mingles with the moonlight.”

Akko’s expression fell a bit. “Oh. That’s sad.”

Diana chuckled. “Yes, Akko. It is. The music itself is rather melancholy as well, is it not?” she asked. “And while you think about that, go get a banana from that bowl over there. You still need your fruits and veggies.”

Akko sighed. “Hai-hai, o-nee-sa-ma!” she said before she dutifully got up and got her banana.

And just like that, they had their song for their recital.

The rest of their holiday passed by, and it was one of the happiest times of Diana’s life. There was something magical about deepening her friendship with Akko like this. It was just the two of them for the most part, with no distractions and few other obligations. Between the two of them, they got Diana’s list of chores done in half the time, and they were practically inseparable for the rest of the holidays.

Though much of what they did blurred together in a haze of joy and mirth, there were a few things that Diana would remember as clear as a bell, even years later.

Christmas was one. Akko had confided that while Christmas was somewhat popular in Japan, it was very much a secondary holiday to the New Year. Diana had felt a bit of relief at that, as Christmas for her… she got some presents from Hannah and Barbara (that she would open in January, after they returned to school) that she returned in kind, and she made sure that all the staff of Cavendish Manor received presents besides the Holiday bonus that they got… Daryl and the twins generally got her gift cards to the bookstore in Edinburgh that Diana favored, and that was pretty much it. In turn, Diana got them things that she knew they would like, usually in the form of expensive perfumes or jewelry or vouchers for fashion boutiques. 

But it was all superficial.

Christmas hadn’t been magical and joyful for her since her mother passed. It was yet another source of obligation for her, another thing that she had to keep track of and ensure that everyone she was responsible for got their presents. It was a bit of a relief that Akko wasn’t expecting much in the way of pomp and circumstance for the holiday.

That said, Diana still managed to find something for her friend.

It happened accidentally, as luck would have it. They had gone out into Blytonbury to the music shop there a few days before Christmas because Akko was looking at getting a new guitar strap. Diana had been absently browsing the store while Akko was trying some of them out when Diana spotted it.

The perfect thing.

Better yet? It was only £1, so it wasn’t even like it was very expensive at all. Giving a sneaky glance in Akko’s direction to make sure that she was distracted, she quickly purchased it. Akko none the wiser, they returned to school and that evening Diana printed out a fairly generic Christmas card. She’d never forget what she wrote in it because even years later that generic, hand-printed card remained in her possession in a place of honor in a memory box dedicated to all her happy memories with Akko.

Akko, thank you for making this holiday break

the best that I have ever had. Please let this present

be a symbol of my everlasting support that you be

unapologetically you for all the years ahead.

With all the affection and appreciation in my heart,

Happy Christmas! -Diana

That done, she tucked her present into the card and put both into the envelope that she addressed to Akko in her very best flowing script. Then it was just waiting for past midnight on Christmas Eve when Akko was sure to be asleep and feeling rather like Saint Nick as she snuck through the halls to Akko’s dorm room, where Diana slipped the card beneath the door. Feeling accomplished, she returned to her room and went to bed.

She was awoken the next morning by a knocking at her door, and she got up, put on her robe and slippers and went to her door. Opening it up, she discovered a still tousle-haired and blearily blinking Akko who was in her pyjamas. She was holding the unopened card, and she cocked her head. “Daiyana, is this from you?” she asked in a voice made husky by the sleep that she hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

Diana smiled and stepped back, giving Akko room to enter. “Yes. I hope it isn’t a problem.”

Akko hummed and sleepily blinked as they moved over to the couch where they sat down. “I can open it?” she asked after she gave a jaw-cracking yawn.

Diana giggled. “It is Christmas, is it not?”

Akko hummed again before she opened the envelope. Then she opened up the card and froze as she stared down at the vinyl sticker that read ‘Unapologetically QUEER’ with ‘queer’ written out with rainbow letters. She blinked and read Diana’s hand-written note and blushed. “Daiyana, I… wow, this is amazing! I…” She blinked some more, her eyes growing bright with unshed tears. “It’s perfect, thank you.” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t get you anything. Sorry.”

Diana smiled and reached out and patted her knee. “No, Akko, you did. Like I said in the card, this has been the best winter holidays that I’ve had in very many years. That’s certainly a gift enough.”

Akko looked like she was just about to cry but in a very good way. “Yeah?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Diana said as she gave Akko a tender look. “Happy Christmas, Akko.”

Akko sat and breathed and stared at the card for a few moments before she looked at Diana. “May I hug you?” she asked. Diana nodded and held open her arms and then they were embracing and it was warm and soft and perfect in ways that she couldn’t even begin to hope to articulate even if she tried. They stayed like that for a long, long moment before Akko took in a breath. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Merry Christmas.” They remained embraced for a few moments longer before Akko pulled back with a sunny smile. “Let’s get ready for the day and go get breakfast!” she said, her eyes sparkling with joy and a deep, deep affection that Diana felt drawn to.

For a moment it felt as though there should be something more here, but before Diana could linger on that feeling Akko was getting up from the sofa and the moment was over. Diana shook off a brief feeling of disquiet at that, and they set about their day.

The second memory that she would never forget was late one evening during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. They were in Akko’s dorm room and had been watching Amadeus. That had been a suggestion of Akko’s, one that had surprised Diana, given the film’s age… thirty-five years ago wasn’t yesterday, after all. Diana wasn’t too enthused about the film’s loose interpretation of the history of one of if not the greatest musicians of all time, but she had nonetheless agreed. She loved Mozart’s music, and she loved spending time with Akko. So, they settled down together on the biggest bean bag chair and started the movie, the lights off and a bowl of popcorn on the floor between their legs. It turned out to be a good choice, with the raunchy themes being right up Akko’s alley and Salieri’s plot against Mozart tickling Diana’s interest in a good mystery story. 

It was towards the end of the movie that she was distracted by the gentle weight of Akko’s head as it rolled onto her shoulder. She blinked away from the movie that she had previously been engrossed in and looked over to find Akko dozing, her lips slightly parted as her soft breath whooshed in and out. Akko’s arms were crossed over her chest and she had curled in on herself, which was what had caused her head to roll over to rest against Diana’s shoulder. Diana stared, transfixed, as Akko made a soft noise and shifted slightly, snuggling deeper into the bean bag chair.

Hn. Akko was usually so outgoing and energetic and so on the move all the time that it was easy to… to overlook how pretty she actually really was. Especially now, her expression softened by sleep and her long eyelashes resting on her upper cheeks. Diana felt an ache in her chest as she quietly watched Akko sleep. She… really liked this. It felt soft and intimate in a way that Diana had never felt before. Akko trusted her enough to fall asleep next to her like this. Trusted her enough to rest her head on Diana’s shoulder while she slept. Diana’s heart panged under the weight of that trust even as she mourned the fact that it wasn’t likely that this was going to happen again. Or if it did, it wouldn’t happen very often at all.

She had to bite her cheek and focus very, very carefully on breathing as she turned her attention back to the film, or else she would have started to cry. What was this feeling? Why was she reacting like this? Akko had just fallen asleep, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. They were just two best friends hanging out and watching a movie and Akko had fallen asleep, there was no reason to get this worked up about it.

Maybe it was because it reminded her of when she was a little girl and had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap while watching movies?

Whatever the reason and despite the fact that Diana was struggling not to cry, she knew she’d remember this soft and quiet moment for the rest of her life. Akko trusted her, she trusted Akko, and she mourned that this would have to come to an end.

Come to an end it did. By the time that the movie ended, Diana had composed herself and she had the opportunity to tease Akko about falling asleep in the final third of the movie. Akko had blushed in that way that Diana found utterly adorable, Diana had bid her goodnight, and had returned to her dorm room, which had never before seemed so cold and lonely as it had in this moment.

It took her a long time to actually fall asleep that night.

Her final forever memory from the holiday break was on New Year’s Day itself. Once again Akko surprised her by knocking on her door at half six. By this point, however, Diana was back in her normal sleep schedule and was thus already awake and dressed by the time that Akko came calling. What she wasn’t expecting was Akko carrying a basket stuffed with food that looked like it had been pilfered from the kitchens. She was also carrying a cloth wrapped box. When Diana had said nothing and raised a single eyebrow, Akko had grinned and had explained that she wanted to share something of her culture with Diana.

So they ended up eating breakfast on her coffee table. It was mostly cold foods, things that could easily survive an early morning, pre-dawn trip from the kitchens to Diana’s dorm room. The cloth-wrapped box remained unopened and Akko resisted Diana’s attempts to get her to explain what it was, which was somewhat unusual for Akko. Usually she couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.

Then, finally, as the eastern horizon began to lighten, Akko glanced at the clock and smiled. “I want to share with you the Hatsunohide,” she said. “New Year’s is one of the most important holidays in Japan, and the first sunrise of the year is something that one should always try to watch,” she said. “It’s a bit chilly outside, but I brought a thermos of hot cocoa. If you put on your thickest jumper and wool socks and we huddle underneath a blanket together, we should be okay.”

“We’re going to watch the sunrise?” Diana asked as she watched Akko. Given Akko’s expression, this really was very important.

“Yes,” Akko said in a soft voice. “It would mean a lot to me if we did.”

Well, that just meant that they were absolutely going to watch the sunrise. It didn’t matter how cold it was outside, Diana would share this with Akko. So it was that around eight o’clock they headed outside onto Diana’s balcony which had a good view of the east. Akko hadn’t been lying when she said that it was chilly, but it wasn’t so cold that it was unbearable. If anything, the cold air kissing their exposed faces emphasized the coziness of the blanket they were sharing. They waited in a companionable silence, a look of quiet reverence on Akko’s face as she steadfastly gazed at the eastern horizon.

Happiness, Diana decided, was comfy jumpers and thick wool socks and sharing hot cocoa with Akko, their fingers wrapped around warm mugs as they enjoyed the peace and quiet of the school morning made mostly empty by the winter holidays. Happiness was awaiting the arrival of the sun. Happiness was Akko by her side.

Then, in a blaze of golden glory, the sun broke the horizon, bathing the world in its radiant light. Akko let out a soft sigh before she set down her mug and clapped her hands together. She whispered what sounded like a prayer in Japanese. Once she was done, she turned her head and gazed at Diana, her face glowing with the light of the brand new year. “Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said. Diana could only nod, feeling stricken dumb by the reverent beauty of the moment.

They stayed outside for another fifteen minutes or so before they headed back inside. Now was when Akko unwrapped the cloth package, revealing a red lacquered box that Akko explained was a jubako food box. It had three layers of food that she had been preparing for the last few days… which, incidentally, explained why she hadn’t been spending as much time with Diana since the evening that they had watched Amadeus. It was important to eat this, the Osechi Ryori, on New Year’s Day. Diana was a bit surprised. She knew that Akko could make a good tea, especially plum tea, but she hadn’t known that she was skilled enough at making food to prepare the beautiful spread set before them. She complimented Akko, and Akko blushed as she sheepishly grinned. “My ‘Kaa-san would have my hide if I couldn’t do at least the basics,” she laughed. “And hey, this year I get to share it with you, so I made sure everything was perfect!”

That was something that Diana would wholeheartedly agree with as they began eating.

Everything was absolutely delicious.

The winter break ended, and school began in earnest. It seemed as though their lives became increasingly busy between their existing coursework, the various musical solos they were being graded on, the studying they had to do for their A-Level examinations, and everything else that went into their final months at Luna Nova. There was some good news: the attorney that Diana had mentioned to Akko was a huge help in helping her get the legwork done for a visa so that she could stay in the UK for university. Even better, because her grades had improved so much with Diana’s help the past five months or so, several prominent universities seemed open to her attending them, provided that she did as well on her final exams as Diana knew she was capable of. The future looked bright with promise, and the two of them worked hard on their duet.

Their practice sessions were very quickly becoming Diana’s favorite part of the day. Akko seemed so excited about everything ahead of them, and that absolutely infected the way that she played. At first Diana was worried about that because Clair de Lune was supposed to be more solemn, but then she remembered that they were not necessarily being graded on their ability to perfectly play their selected piece, but rather their interpretations of it. If Akko was playing the piece alone, she’d probably get docked a substantial amount of points, but she wasn’t playing alone.

She was playing with Diana.

And they played off of each other.

Their duet became a reflection of their personalities. Diana’s playing was more somber and crisp, the piano lending a solemn air to the sections where she led. Akko, on the other hand, played with an almost mischievously joyful air. She wasn’t sloppy. Anyone could tell that she wasn’t sloppy, that she was actually incredibly skilled with the guitar, credit going to how hard she had been working this past year. But she was also unmistakably Akko in a way that Diana couldn’t wait to be heard on the stage in front of an audience. She couldn’t wait to play with Akko, to subtly switch between taking the lead and letting the lead be taken, their two styles and moods complimenting each other perfectly.

She couldn’t wait to let the world know that she had fallen in love with Kagari Atsuko, the girl she had once seen as a nuisance.

The epiphany had initially been a shock when it came to her late March, only a few weeks before their recital. They had played through Clair de Lune three times back-to-back and it had been perfect. Perfect enough that she felt confident in playing some other things, silly things, fun things. There were other practices still ahead, and she cherished the fun little improv sessions that she had with Akko.

She… didn’t remember what it was that had her laughing as hard as she did, merely that it happened. They had entered some sort of a battle of music, each playing progressively harder sections. Diana would forget exactly what piece she played. She only remembered that it was one of the pieces that she had learned just to say that she had learned it, just to show that she was good enough to play it. Akko finished her piece and Diana had grinned at her and hammered out her own section, her hands and fingers flying out over the keys and Akko had merely stared in shock for a few beats of silence before she hunched down over her guitar and got such an absolutely gremlin look about her and played the most ridiculous piece of music that Diana had burst out laughing hard enough that…

…that she snorted.

She immediately stopped and clapped her hands over her mouth in abject horror, her aunt’s voice ringing in her ears, chastising her for a lack of decorum when Akko was suddenly in front of her, holding her hands and crimson eyes fairly sparkling with untold mirth.

Diana couldn’t remember exactly what it was that Akko said to her in that moment, and that was something that she would regret for the rest of her life.

She could only ever remember the tone of it, the feel of it. The absolute delight that Akko expressed that Diana could laugh so hard that she snorted, that Akko was the one to make her do it, and that she wanted to be around to see it again.

Akko was so… so non-judgmental and so accepting and so excited in that moment that Diana realized that she really wanted to kiss her. 

All the little moments over the past five months suddenly made sense. All the heartache as Diana yearned for something that she didn’t yet understand suddenly burst into clarity. She had been falling for Akko for so long now and now she finally knew.

Knew and… and did nothing about.

Her reasoning was sound. Their recital was mere weeks away and Diana knew that Akko was stressing out about her exams and adding a new relationship on top of that would have been too much. At that moment, Diana… she smiled and thanked Akko and teased her with a soft ‘we’ll see’ when Akko pressed about getting her to laugh hard enough to snort again. She suggested they run through Clair de Lune one last time before their reserved rehearsal time ended. They played it, it was perfect, and they went to have dinner with all their friends.

That night, Diana came to the decision that it would be best to wait until after their recital. In fact, that was perfect. She and Akko would do their piano and guitar duet of Clair de Lune, they would do an amazing job performing it, they would get full marks, and at the celebratory dinner afterwards, Diana would confess her feelings.

It was simple and it was perfect and it was going to be amazing.

Diana did not often get nervous, but she had to admit to herself that she was nervous as the day of the recital finally arrived. Months of preparation, untold hours practicing and practicing and practicing until she and Akko could practically play the piece in their sleep. That didn’t mean that Diana was immune to the jitters. It was actually almost humorous. Despite how good she knew she was, despite her mastery of the piano, she still got nervous before a recital like this.

As it so turned out, Professor Finnelan and Headmistress Holbrooke had requested to sit in on one of the later practices that Diana and Akko had conducted. After the two of them were done playing, Headmistress Holbrooke had made an offer that was an incredible honor: the most skilled performers from Luna Nova were being invited to play at the Blytonbury Performing Arts Theater rather than the performing spaces on the Luna Nova campus. It was an incredible honor because out of their class of eighty, only ten students had been invited. It was Luna Nova announcing that these students were the best that Luna Nova had to offer. Even better? Professor Holbrooke gave them the last spot, the one reserved for the best performers after she had listened to Akko play with Diana.

That alone was momentous. Professor Holbrooke all but told Akko that she was just as good as Diana and she deserved to play by Diana’s side in Blytonbury. Diana had just about come apart with a fierce pride.

Of course, Akko was Akko, headstrong and stubborn to the last. She insisted on remaining at Luna Nova to support her friends who hadn’t quite made Blytonbury. Diana understood and didn’t expect anything less. After all, she was looking forward to sitting in the audience for Hannah and Barbara’s performances earlier on in the program. Luna Nova was fairly close to the Blytonbury Theater. The weather was also absolutely lovely and Akko was going to wear a suit to counter Diana’s dress and it was only a ten minute bike ride. It was so, so close by and the last performance on Luna Nova, that of Lotte and Sucy, was early enough that Akko could take her sweet time and arrive with a comfortable margin before their performance. Certainly long enough to catch her breath, cool off, and get ready for the recital itself.

Diana agreed with the plan, knew that Akko always wore her helmet and was a careful bike rider who used the bike lanes and everything. It was a good plan.

It was simple and it was perfect and it was going to be amazing.

Diana settled into the audience as the performances began to start. As was to be expected, these were the very best performances of musicians in the third and final year at a private school that specialized in musical performing arts. All of them were experts in their chosen instruments and their performances reflected that.

The two performances that she was most looking forward to were those of Amanda and Hannah and then Avery and Barbara. Hannah and Amanda were first up, and Diana had to roll her eyes at Amanda’s stagemanship… her hair was slick back and she was wearing a suit sans the blouse. She still had her waistcoat, though her tie seemed to be missing. The sleeves of her blouse were also rolled up to just below her elbows. Hannah, for her part, was wearing an off the shoulder knee length cocktail dress in a vibrant green that matched Amanda’s eyes. The two of them waited for the previous performers to leave the stage before Amanda took in a deep breath and tucked her fiddle beneath her chin. The audience grew silent as the bow came up, and after a moment’s pause, a beat began to play over the theater’s speakers. After a moment, Amanda nodded and began to play, her body swaying to the music.

Diana immediately recognized the song. It was Promentory, from the soundtrack of Last of the Mohicans. A bit of a risky choice, given the relative simplicity of it and the reliance on the theater to play the drums and the other background instruments of the song. But Amanda and Hannah more than made up for that by the emotion they put into the performance. The length, too, aided them. Had they gone with a shorter piece like The Kiss it would have been likely that the two of them wouldn’t make Blytonbury. As it was, it turned out to be one of the more moving renditions of Promentory that Diana had seen, especially with Amanda’s skill at the fiddle, and Hannah was exquisite on the flute. The end of their performance resulted in a hearty applause, though not quite an ovation.

There were a few more performances, and Diana’s lips pursed as she discreetly sent Akko a text: ‘Hope that the performances at Luna Nova went well. H&A did very well. Barbara and Aves up next. Hope to see you soon.’

She sent the text, and a moment later she got the reply: ‘OMW, don’t worry! Su and Lotte did GREAT!’ 

True to form, the words were followed by an obscene amount of emojis, and Diana smiled fondly. She glanced up at the stage as Avery and Barbara started getting set up. Barbara’s dress was less vibrant than Hannah’s was, and Avery was wearing a glittery black dress and a mask, and she was holding a prop stiletto, the blade long and narrow in her hands. Their performance was two before hers and Akko’s. Akko was cutting it close, but she’d definitely be there on time if she was leaving now. ‘Be careful, please’ she sent.

Akko’s reply came quick: ‘Aye aye boss lady!’

Warmth blossomed in her chest at that reply, the same as all those months ago. ‘See you soon, Akko.’ That final text sent, she lifted her gaze to the stage where Barbara was lifting her bass clarinet to her lips. Avery took a deep breath and nodded, and Barbara began to play and Avery began to sing.

Now, Diana was terribly fond of Hannah and Amanda had somehow managed to grow on Diana over the last five months. So it was absolutely not personal when she said that Avery and Barbara’s performance completely outclassed Hannah and Amanda’s. Avery was going to be a world class singer someday and absolutely crushed the highest notes of Mozart’s most challenging aria. Even as she sang with Barbara’s flawless accompaniment on her bass clarinet, Diana smiled at the memory of watching Amadeus with Akko, where this song played a small part.

This time, when the performance ended, Barbara and Avery got a standing ovation. Perhaps no one clapped or cheered louder than Hannah, who was obviously overjoyed at her best friend’s performance. Diana made sure to whistle and cheer and clap with the best of them even as she took the opportunity to make her way to the wings of the stage. There she was able to congratulate Barbara and Avery as they got off stage, both flush from the performance and from their reception.

The second to last performance was just as good as all the others, even if it was a bit annoying that it was Chloé playing with Sarah Bernhardt, who had to be a saint to put up with Chloé’s particular brand of boorishness. Despite her less than admirable behavior, Chloé was a skilled musician, and she and Sarah played a wonderful Duets for Violin and Cello, Op. 6, No. 2: I. Allegro con Brio. Diana had to grudgingly applaud her approval as the performance ended. 

That approval ended the moment that Chloé got within speaking distance and sneered at her. “Where’s your little pet project, Cavendish?” she asked.

Diana’s lips pursed. “On her way after supporting her friends at Luna Nova, and we could all learn from her example.” She turned and gave Sarah a very warm smile. “Excellent work, Sarah, I think I saw both your parents crying with pride in the audience.”

Sarah smiled back. “Yes, I saw as well. Break a leg! I’ve been looking forward to seeing this for quite a while!”

Diana nodded her thanks even as she glanced around for Akko. She still wasn’t to be seen. Ah, well, that wasn’t unlike Akko to be just a little bit late. She stepped onto the stage and strode over to the edge of it where she bent down. Headmistress Holbrooke gave a warm smile as she got up from the judge’s table and hurried over. “I’m sorry, Headmistress, but Akko is running a few minutes late. She was supporting Miss Jansson and Miss Manbavaran’s performance and is on her way. Traffic might have slowed her down.”

Headmistress Holbrooke nodded her understanding. “It shows what a good friend she is. We can wait a few minutes.”

Diana smiled her thanks as she straightened and smoothed out the satin of her dress. She strode over to the waiting grand piano and went through a few quick adagios. Then, her lips quirking with a teasing smile, she looked out over the audience and played the opening bars of Heart and Soul, which got a bit of a laugh. Grinning more fully at them, she leaned towards the microphone. “Our apologies, ladies and gentlemen and esteemed guests. It seems as though my partner is running a little bit late.” She noticed the exasperated look that Amanda got on her face, and the redheaded American met her gaze and held up a hand in a clear ‘just a minute’ gesture. Amanda then pulled out her phone and called Akko, from what Diana could tell. Okay, good, she’d tell Akko to hurry up. Diana continued to smile charmingly. “It wouldn’t be Akko if she wasn’t at least a little late,” she quipped, and everyone in the audience who knew Akko chuckled because yes, that was very on brand for her. She continued to make a few lighthearted jokes and anecdotes about times that Akko was late, even as she glanced at Amanda, who was looking increasingly perturbed. Finally, Amanda met her gaze and shook her head. She didn’t know.

Diana hummed. “Just a moment, please,” she said to the microphone before she picked up her clutch from the floor by the bench. She pulled out her phone and checked it. Good service, but the last thing in her messages with Akko was her telling Akko that she’d see her soon. Akko hadn’t replied.

Diana stared at her phone for too long before she heard the crowd start whispering. She had to do something. She couldn’t just sit here. Trying to smile reassuringly, she leaned towards the microphone once more. “Terribly sorry about the inconvenience, everyone. I promise to have a very stern word with her after the performance about the importance of punctuality.” She laughed. “I might even take away her dessert privileges for a week. For Akko, that’s a fate worse than death.” The crowd laughed again. Amanda was trying to call again and Hannah and Barbara looked on with increasing unease. “In the meantime,” Diana continued, “I shall endure being on this stage alone and feeling terribly awkward by playing music. Akko? If you’re listening? Please do hurry up, this is so uncomfortable!”

The crowd laughed yet again, and Diana began to play because that’s all she could do.

She played lighthearted songs, things that she had played to make Akko smile and laugh. She kept that up for some time until the crowd wasn’t laughing along or smiling anymore. How long had it been? She glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes? That should have been how long it took Akko to get from Luna Nova to the theater.

The crowd wasn’t smiling anymore and neither was Diana. Worry gnawing at her gut, she turned to her music as a distraction, playing the songs that were a challenge, that she had to concentrate on or get wrong. She ended on the song that she had played to win her silly little game with her Akko that one perfect rehearsal. 

Akko still wasn’t there.

Twenty minutes late.

Diana stopped playing.

By the time that twenty-five minutes had rolled around, the crowd was uneasily whispering, but Diana hadn’t left the stage. She waited for her Akko because that’s all that she could do. She waited for her Akko because Akko wouldn’t abandon her. Akko would show up all sheepish smiles and offered excuses of yet another misadventure that she had gone on while on the way to their recital. Diana would scold Akko but forgive her because that’s what she did. She loved Akko and she’d forgive her even as she used this as ammunition to win arguments against Akko for years to come. ‘Well, yes, dearest, that may be true, but remember that time I had to sit on stage alone for ages while you were off chasing kittens?’

That’s what needed to happen.

By the time that thirty minutes rolled around, Diana was biting her nails, ruining her manicure but she couldn’t care less.

Thirty-three minutes and forty-two seconds after their recital was supposed to begin, the doors leading into the theater opened, and Diana just about collapsed with relief. She leaned towards the microphone just so Akko could hear her. “Akko, it’s about time!” she said, her voice sharper than it should have been, but- “I’ve been worried sick about–”

Her words cut off as swiftly as if they had been cut off by a guillotine.

A sheepish and possibly disheveled Akko wasn’t standing in the doorway.

Professor Callistis was.

She was flanked by a priest and a constable, and Diana could see it in their faces even before they said a single word, could see it in how Professor Callistis was holding Akko’s battered guitar case.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no!” The words were getting louder and the three of them were getting closer and maybe if Diana hoped hard enough they wouldn’t be there, Akko would! Diana got up off the bench and looked back at the still open doorway. “Akko!” she shouted. “Akko, stop fooling around! Come out! We need to play! We worked so hard together! Akko!”

The three were too close now and Diana couldn’t ignore them any longer. Professor Callistis had been crying. “I’m so sorry, Diana,” she whispered. “She’s gone.”

Diana wouldn’t ever remember collapsing onto the stage. She wouldn’t ever remember screaming out a grief she hadn’t felt since her mother died. Even when she watched videos of it happening later on, the girl on the stage seemed like a complete stranger, a platinum blonde girl in a crimson dress wailing out a sound that no human should ever have to make.

Diana didn’t remember any of it.

But then, she really didn’t remember much in those first days After Akko.

The funeral happened on a sunny day, which was fitting, Diana supposed. Amanda would tell her afterwards that it really was a perfect day and Akko would have loved it. At the time, everything was numb. Diana didn’t hear the birds in the trees. Didn’t feel the sun’s warmth against her skin or the fabric of her black dress. Could barely see anything other than the grave that they were putting Akko into.

It had been a drunk driver. He had succumbed to road rage and blew past a driver going just under the speed limit. In his drunken stupor and his blinding anger, he didn’t notice the red light. Didn’t notice the girl on the bicycle in the intersection. Witnesses said that because he wasn’t accelerating anymore, Akko hadn’t had the warning that a racing engine might have given her.

She was struck dead on.

The impact was great enough that the strap to her guitar case burst and the case flew away from the impact. The guitar survived, save for a few scuffs and an impressive dent on the side of the case from where it slid down the road before it struck a curb.

The case and its guitar survived.

Akko did not. 

The man was awaiting trial and was likely to spend decades in prison. For the first time in her life, Diana felt like that wasn’t good enough. She wanted him dead and her Akko back with her.

It was a wish that would remain forever unfulfilled.

Akko’s parents had come. Diana had wanted to hate them based on what Akko told her, but she couldn’t after she saw the grief on their faces. They had lost a daughter who they loved dearly even if they hadn’t understood her.

During the service…

During the service Kagari-san, the father, had said truly beautiful things, had spoken at length about how Akko had come to love Blytonbury and Luna Nova as a second home. That was why he and Akko’s mother had decided that it was only fitting that Akko… that they would take half of Akko’s ashes back home to Japan, and that half of Akko’s ashes would be buried at the cemetery closest to Luna Nova. Akko would forever be a girl of two worlds.

Diana hadn’t said beautiful things. She hadn’t actually said anything at all. Everyone else did. Even Chloé had said something about Akko’s spirit being indomitable and that she, of all people, hadn’t deserved this. More than a hundred people spoke, more than a hundred people remembered how Akko had changed their lives for the better. Everyone else was crying.

Diana didn’t cry.

Diana didn’t speak.

When Amanda finished saying her bit and had returned to where they were all sitting, she had asked if Diana wanted to say anything, but Diana had remained seated, staring at the portrait of Akko that they had chosen, the one where she was grinning so hard that her eyes had squinted shut. She sat there and stared, only peripherally aware of the whispered conversations around her. She had expected Amanda to call her a coward, to get angry, to blame her, but she hadn’t. She had made a sound that could have been understanding before she sat down next to Hannah.

They were all crying.

Diana didn’t cry.

After the memorial service came the sunny funeral itself, and it was only afterwards that Diana blinked out of her stupor as she realized that someone was saying her name. She turned to see Akko’s parents, the ones she wanted to hate but couldn’t. They both bowed, and the gesture was so unexpected that Diana couldn’t help but bow back to them. “So,” the father said, “you are the Diana that Akko spoke so often and so long about.”

Diana had blinked in surprise. “Akko talked about me.”

The mother nodded. “Yes. In practically every email home that she sent. She admired you very much.”

“Oh.” Diana blinked again. “You mean over the past five months?”

They both shook their heads. “No,” the father replied. “For all three years. She expressed frustration at times, but overall she was proud to have known you as a friend.”

Diana felt something die inside of her. “Yes,” she heard herself say. “She was my dearest friend. I am sorry for your loss.”

They spoke for a few more minutes though Diana didn’t have any idea what about. After that, they said their farewells, and Diana would never speak to them ever again.

Diana did very well on her A-Level exams, which was quite a feat, given that she literally didn’t remember taking a single one of them. She had a top pick of any university in the UK. Before… well, before she had been planning on going to Durham University for her undergraduate studies and then to the Royal Academy of Music for her postgraduate work. After… she was running on autopilot. She was accepted into Durham and the thing that should have been one of the proudest moments of her life felt flat and grey, just like the world around her.

She was having trouble sleeping, she found, and she turned to sleeping medication to help. She began university, and though all the technical skills were there, the soul had long since withered away. There was no more joy in music. No more challenge. She was aware that the other students joked that she was an advanced android being tested to replace human musicians. She was technically perfect and rarely made a mistake while playing, if ever. But she did not smile. She did not rage. She did not emote at all. She took notes, she wrote music, she played. That was all.

She had no friends. Hannah and Barbara had both opted for Southampton. At first they regularly texted, but Diana started taking a day to reply… two days… three days… a week. Eventually she stopped texting at all, and so did the girls. The students at Durham gave her a wide berth, and Diana couldn’t blame them.

Her grades started to slip.

Being technically perfect wasn’t enough, not at this level. The first time that Diana failed, she got drunk. She got very drunk. Drunk like that man who had killed… had taken the most important person away from her.

More failing grades rolled in, and Diana spent more and more time drunk.

She didn’t think that her mum would be very proud of her…

Neither would… neither would…

Well. Who cared? They were dead and Diana wasn’t and that was life.

Diana was failed out of Durham before the end of her first year. Well, technically, she was put on academic probation and sent back home with stern orders to get her act together before she attempted to return. Upon her arrival to Cavendish Manor, her aunt had given her a judging look. Anna, though, Anna was concerned. She shouldn’t be, but she was.

Diana remembered even less of that time period, other than hazy visits from those who used to be able to depend on her and of the bottle. The bottle had become her constant companion. Aunt Daryl had haughtily sniffed something about Diana drinking herself to an early grave. Diana had sardonically laughed and asked when?

And that was the first time that Aunt Daryl had ever given her a look of pure pity.

Diana wasn’t sober for a very long time after that.

Where?

Where th’fuck?

Ugh, she knew she fucking had a bottle of vodka in here!

Where the fuck did it…?

Diana blearily blinked in the musty, dank darkness of her bedroom. A shaft of light was stabbing out from a crack in her blackout curtains, and she avoided it at all costs, skirting around it in search of anything to drink. There was nothing but empty bottles in here! What th’fuck did she even pay people for?!

She stumbled about, searching for anything that could keep the haze alive, could keep the demons away, could keep her numb to everything but the dizziness and the release of drunkenness. Not finding anything in her bedroom, she grumbled under her breath and stumbled to her closet. Maybe she had stashed something in here? 

She began digging around, mostly blind because of the darkness. As such, she didn’t immediately recognize what she was touching when her hand first hit the hard shell of something. Blinking in confusion, she ran her hands along whatever it was. A guitar case? What the hell? She hadn’t played guitar since she was like… ten. She grabbed the case and brought it out into the bedroom where she turned on her bedside lamp. Wincing at the first artificial light she had seen in far too long, she looked down with squinted eyes at the battered and dusty guitar case.

For a long moment, she didn’t recognize it.

It was only after she noticed the scuffs on the bottom of it and the dent along the curved wall of the bottom that she remembered.

Remembered and felt the contempt of an accumulated who even knew how long well up. Her guitar case! Why had that been given to Diana and not anyone else who could have used it?! Why was Diana the one who was given stewardship of this piece of rubbish?! This guitar wasn’t her! This guitar could never replace her!

Seething rage welled up, and for a moment, Diana was very, very close to smashing the case and the guitar inside of it so that she could burn it all. But then… she didn’t even know if she was strong enough to manage such a thing at that moment. Giving a disgusted scoff, she picked it up, fully ready to toss it to the side.

But…

There was something about the moment that had her hesitating. 

The hesitation endured, and she set the guitar case on the bed. She stared at it for a long moment before she reached out with shaking hands and undid the clasps, which released. A miracle in and of itself.

She didn’t lift up the lid for a good five minutes after that. She actually puttered around again, trying to find a bottle with anything to drink. Her search was unfruitful and she eventually returned to the bed. She slowly lifted the lid, and for the first time in well over a year she saw Akko’s guitar.

Unapologetically QUEER.

The sticker was emblazoned on the guitar right at the base of the strings. She remembered… she remembered how excited Akko had been to put it on her guitar. “It deserves a place of honor!” she had chirped at the time, and Diana had laughed.

Something was clawing at her throat, and for a moment she could pretend it was the thirst. She dragged a finger over now long untuned strings, the twangs discordant in the silence of the room. “Grace and poise,” she whispered to the tune of Heart and Soul. Akko’s guitar deserved better than this. She’d get it tuned and place it in the Manor’s music room. Better there than the dark grave of Diana’s closet. Mind made up, she lifted the guitar out of the case, only to stop and frown in confusion at the envelope that was resting in the case below the guitar.

“What the blazes is that?” she murmured to herself as she placed the guitar on her unmade and quite frankly filthy bed. She reached down and picked up the envelope and turned it over to see ‘To Diana’ written in Akko’s surprisingly neat handwriting. The ‘i’ in her name was dotted with a heart.

As she had once before with Akko, Diana ended up on the floor with no clear memory of how she ended up down there. For a long moment, she did nothing other than hold the letter with shaking hands. But then she finally gathered her strength and opened the envelope and pulled out the letter from within. Taking a deep breath and staring up at the ceiling for a long moment, she then dropped her gaze and unfolded the last letter that Akko ever wrote to her.

Hey, Diana! I know our big recital is tomorrow and I know that I should be sleeping but I’m so excited that I can’t quite manage that, not yet. So I guess that I wanted to write down some of my thoughts and feelings. I sometimes struggle with voicing how I feel so this is kind of new for me. I do want to say that becoming your friend… it’s completely changed the course of my life. I was in a pretty dark place after my grandma died and everyone was bullying me and stuff, but then you became my friend and just… everything got better. Hannah and Barbara stopped picking on me so much and even became friends with all of us too, which has been fantastic! But really, you are the most important part of all of that. Without you taking a moment to hang out with me and empathize with the pain I was feeling in that rehearsal room, I probably would have quit school and gone back home, which would have been miserable. Your kindness and your friendship convinced me to hang on and stay in England, and now look at us! We’re gonna bring down the house tomorrow!

And it’s all because of you. You gave me the support I needed to be unapologetically enthusiastic, unapologetically queer, unapologetically Akko in a way I could not be in Japan. For that alone, I think that I’d forever be grateful to you. But unfortunately, part of being unapologetically Akko means that I get to be greedy. 

See, I’ve noticed the looks that you’ve given me. I don’t think that I’ve misinterpreted them, either. One of the amazing things about you is that while you are the embodiment of grace and poise, you also wear your heart on your sleeve, just like I do. So I think you feel the same way that I do.

So while I’m unapologetically enthusiastic, unapologetically queer, and unapologetically Akko, the only other thing that I want to be is unapologetically yours.

What do you think, Diana? Think we can make a big duet out of life? Cuz I know that you’re the only partner I could ever want.

With love,

-Akko

Diana stared at the letter for a long, long moment before she felt the first tear roll down her cheek. It was joined by a second, then a third, and then for the first time since Akko died, Diana cried.

It all came out, then. All her grief. All her sadness. The loss of what could have been, a bright future snuffed out because a drunk and angry man had done the wrong thing at the wrong time. She mourned Akko in a way that she hadn’t allowed herself, the thick walls that she had constructed to protect her heart from the tragedy that had already happened and could not be changed coming crumbling down. Alone in her room save for Akko’s confession letter and Akko’s guitar and case, Diana grieved.

Just as Diana taking a moment to be empathetic towards Akko saved Akko from her own grief, Akko’s confession letter saved Diana from hers. She spent a good hour sobbing. After she was done, she took stock of herself for the first time in… honestly, she didn’t even want to know how long. Her hair was probably a loss with how matted it was and her body was absolutely filthy. Akko wouldn’t like any of that, just like she wouldn’t like Diana living in the darkness. Diana wet cracked lips as she stumbled over to the windows. Taking a breath to steady herself, she threw open the heavy curtains. She winced and recoiled from the sudden flare of blinding light. Her eyes slowly adjusted, though, and her next step was to push open her windows, letting in fresh air.

As she did so, though, she noticed marks on the insides of her forearms and wrists, and she turned her arms to inspect them after she got the last windows open, letting in warmth and the smell of spring and the sound of birdsong. All of that faded to the background as she recognized what the crisscross patterns of thin white lines against her skin actually were.

She blinked as she lifted a finger and traced over some of them.

She genuinely didn’t remember making these. When had she–?

Ice coursed through her veins as her breath caught in her chest.

Oh.

Wow.

She… she really needed help.

She took a few deep breaths to help stop the world from spinning. The warmth of the sun against her sallow skin helped ground her. After a few minutes of basking in the warmth, she had recovered enough strength to head into her bathroom and to her shower. She turned the water on as hot as she could stand, got undressed, and stepped under the nearly scalding spray. After she was done washing herself (she was going to need a haircut, she couldn’t undo all the knots and snarls) she got dressed in the cleanest clothes that she could find before she stumbled out of her bedroom, her wet hair heavy against her upper back. 

She found Anna speaking with Aunt Daryl, and they both went silent at her approach and had unabashedly stared at her as she stood before them. “Aunt Daryl,” she said, her voice rough with tears and disuse. “Anna. I… I need help. I’m scared and I hurt. So, so much.”

Then, for the first time that she could actually remember, her Aunt was hugging her.

So it began.

On the third anniversary, a car entered the cemetery and drove along the winding roads to a spot where a beautiful cherry tree was planted. The car parked near the tree, and the young woman got out of the car, her short platinum and tea green hair dancing in the soft wind. She was wearing a dark blouse, and she shielded her eyes against the brightness of the sun with an arm that still bore thin, faded scars. She took a moment to gain her bearings before she made her way over to the grave. When she arrived, she took a moment to tune the guitar that she was carrying.

The twanging notes faded into silence, and the woman sat for a long moment, basking in the warmth and the breeze and the silence. Finally, she began to speak.

“Hey, Akko. It’s… well, it’s been a while since I last saw you. I’ve been really busy with rehab and therapy.” She smiled, soft and bittersweet. “You’ll be proud of me, though. I know I had some pretty bad relapses early on, but I’ve been sober a whole seven months! It’s really hard some days, but I know that you’d want me to not go back there, so… well, I’ve been strong because of you.”

There came another silence, soft and warm and comfortable.

“I’ve been accepted back into Durham,” she continued. “They’re impressed by the work I’ve put towards getting better. Old Holbrooke and Finnelan and even Ursula sent in letters of recommendation after I spent last year working as a tutor on Luna Nova. It’s crazy that it’s already been three years since we were students there, right?” She chuckled. “It honestly feels like it’s been so much longer than that. I feel like an old lady at nearly twenty-two.” She shook her head. “Birthday isn’t all that far away. Um… Barbara and Hannah will be celebrating with me. Virgin cocktails as far as the eye can see. Oh! Amanda proposed to Hannah and she said yes! They’re likely to wait until after graduation to tie the knot, but they’re adorable together.” She continued talking for quite some time, going on about all the things that had been going on in the lives of their friends.

Then, finally, she gave a small and crooked grin. “Oh? The guitar? I’m sure you recognize it.” Her eyes began to glimmer as she gently touched the ‘Unapologetically QUEER’ sticker. She cleared her throat and rolled her jaw. “I, um… I’m picking it up, you see. I was inspired by the best, and while I’m pretty rough right now, I think I’ll do alright eventually. Never be as good as you, though.” She was blinking, now, quite rapidly as she gently strummed. “In fact, I have a song I’d like to play for you. I’d appreciate any pointers once I’m done, though.” She was playing a simple melody, one made famous by famous singers and one known the world over. “Let me know if you’ve heard this one. I made a few changes to make it fit.” She played a few more bars, and began to sing in a voice made rough by emotion, by all the previous talking, and by the abuse that her throat had suffered during the long inebriation.

You were my sunshine, my only sunshine

You made me happy when skies were grey

You'll never know dear, how much I loved you

Please don't take my sunshine away

 

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamt I held you in my arms

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken

And I hung my head and cried

 

You were my sunshine, my only sunshine

You made me happy when skies were grey

You'll never know dear, how much I loved you

Please don't take my sunshine away

 

I'll always love you and hold your memory

If only you could do the same

But then you left me to go to heaven

And now I’m mourning every day

 

You were my sunshine, my only sunshine

You made me happy when skies were grey

You'll never know dear, how much I loved you

Please don't take my sunshine away

 

I never told you how much I loved you

And no one else dear, could come between

But now you've left me and gone without me

What should I do with all our dreams?

 

You were my sunshine, my only sunshine

You made me happy when skies were grey

You'll never know dear, how much I loved you

Please don't take my sunshine away

The last notes faded away, and Diana Cavendish sat in silence for a long while. What had started with a song about the moonlight ended with a song about sunshine. Cruelly ironic, wasn’t it? With a final bittersweet twist of her lips, she leaned down and pressed a kiss against the surface of the gravestone. “Goodbye, Akko, and may you be my sunshine once again some better day.”

She got in her car, started it, and drove away. She would meet Akko again. If not in this, then in another lifetime.

But that is a story for a different day.