Chapter Text
Mitsuki is sitting in a shitty folding chair in her nasty school gymnasium. She’s all dressed up in the stupid choir robes of graduation gowns the school made her buy. She shifts uncomfortably in the chair, careful not to let it squeak because those things will squeak if a feather moves the wrong way. She watches disinterestedly as some random classmate of hers walks up to the podium, the click of her heels echoing loudly in the far too silent gym. This whole ceremony is annoying, but she smiles in spite of herself at the fact that the valedictorian is a woman. What kind of girl kisser would she be if she didn’t love a woman in a powerful position? However, as the girl unfolded her paper and cleared her throat, Mitsuki had to suppress a groan at how long this speech looked to be.
The girl on stage started speaking, and the sound of her speech rang out in the gym, crackling over the speakers. “High school. What a pivotal time in a young life, so brief yet so agonizing. 7 AM classes, after school activities until 11 PM, yet somehow we still made it to our classes somewhat consciously. We passed too!” Small scattered laughs resounded as Mitsuki shifted in her seat again trying to keep her attention trained on her classmate. She was not a big person for ceremonies, but she didn’t want to drift off too far and miss anything, or worse, fall asleep. The speaker continued on with a small chuckle into the microphone, falling back into her speech pattern, “That is why we are all here today, in this big room with all of the pomp and circumstance and celebration, but also so much anxiety. 4 years seems like a long time until…”
The speech faded into the back of Mitsuki’s mind, it was just some stupid speech. It was the quintessential high school graduation speech, with all the same phrases that every other valedictorian ever has given. Plus how was she meant to focus on the speech when all she could think about was how excited she was to get out of this stupid gym. Now that she’s thinking about it, it is kind of ironic how the start of “adulthood” and “freedom” starts in such a structured environment. Sure, she knew that this tradition started hundreds of years ago and that it’s “important”, but hundreds of years ago, she would have been called a witch for existing. So really, why does she still have to be here again?
Mitsuki was snapped out of her reflection by the sound of applause, which she hastily joined into, secretly praising whatever higher power that the speech was over. That means that all that was left was the part where she has to go and get her diploma, then she could leave! As the principal stood up from his chair, one of the only nice chairs in this gym, Mitsuki could feel herself become reinvigorated with the incentive of leaving soon. The principal, Mr. Powell, a tall man with entirely too much hair for a man his age, grinned as he adjusted the microphone up to accommodate him.
He waved cordially to those in the audience, then began to speak. Mitsuki had never rolled her eyes harder, she thinks, because all he did was restate the same stupid things that the speaker had said in her speech. Why can’t he just skip ahead to the name calling? That would make her life so much easier. If he didn’t start soon her attention would fully detach since she was going to be called sometime in the middle of all the people. She knows it’s going to take a while to get to her, so she would really appreciate some brevity. Plus it’s not like she doesn’t have plans tonight! Technically those plans are just to hang out with her favorite person, Aya, but those are still fully plans!
Her thoughts were again interrupted by a smattering of applause, indicating that Mr. Powell was done with his tangent and ready to do what he was supposed to do. Finally.
The first name was called and Mitsuki was suddenly hit with the finality of it all. She pinches her leg to prevent herself from bouncing it, because even that small amount of noise seems too much for this environment. She was not in an existential kind of mood right now, especially in this icky auditorium. Everything in here was annoying her at this point. Now that she’s actively thinking about it, the collar on this gown was a little tight, and her tassel is almost touching her cheek, but it’s not actually touching it. She can sense its presence right next to her and it is making her so frustrated. Her skin starts to feel itchy and she really wants to leave now. She’s so close to the end of this ceremony yet it seems never ending. As the principal droned on, Mitsuki’s mind wandered, and she found herself thinking about Aya. About how, when she finally escaped this gym, the only thing waiting for her was the comfort of Aya’s company. Which, honestly, was more appealing than anything else at the moment. She just has to make it through maybe another 30 minutes and she (and Aya) are home free to do whatever they want to do, after all, they will be officially adults after this. She suspects they will probably end up just watching some comedy movie again, and she is counting down the hours until she can snuggle up with her best friend again. She does feel kind of guilty for enjoying cuddling with her best friend, because Mitsuki sometimes finds herself thinking about Aya in a less than platonic way during these times, but she can’t help herself. Aya is too valuable to lose. Mitsuki finds herself smiling by just the mere thought of her best friend, and she
“Garret Kent”, resounds in the gymnasium, and the boy sitting next to Mitsuki stands up and all but runs to the stage to receive his diploma. Mitsuki sucks in a breath, realizing that she is up next. She suddenly feels so self-conscious, is her tassel on the right side? Can people see her sweat stains on the robe? They shouldn’t, it is navy blue, but what if they just see her and know? Does everyone feel this way right now? She feels so alone, the fluorescent lights just now radiating the most uncomfortable level of heat. She can feel sweat forming on her upper lip, and hastily (and hopefully subtly) wipes it off in preparation for being called. As she does so, she hears the microphone crackle to life again.
Mr. Powell’s voice overpowers the buzzing of the lights to say, “Mitsuki Koga”, and Mitsuki’s mouth goes dry. It’s her turn. Finally. But she somehow doesn’t want it to be here yet. Her legs almost move on her own as she stalks toward the stage. She subtly sneaks a glance at the students waiting in their seats, having yet to be called. She is searching for a certain girl, one who she knows is wearing sparkly pink heels that match her sparkly pink eyeliner. She spots her in the third row behind where Mitsuki is seated, eyes trained on Mitsuki, seemingly expecting this attention. Before Mitsuki can rip her eyes away, Aya offers her a signature grin and a little hand heart. Mitsuki’s face goes slightly pink at this display of affection, and she finds herself extremely thankful for the nature of stage lights to wash everyone out. She walks with purpose now, headed for Mr. Powell, who is waiting on the stage, hand extended for a handshake. Mitsuki takes his hand, shakes it as well as she can muster right now and grabs her diploma.
Mr Powell Grins down at her, saying, “congratulations”. Mitsuki blankly nods back and heads back down the stage stairs as Mr. Powell heads back to the podium to call the next student. As she heads back, she feels this odd sense of both relief and trepidation settle into her. She did it, she finished high school. She has the official document now. Now she just has to make it through the next few minutes and the ceremony will be done.
She makes it back to her chair, setting down her diploma with hands that she hadn’t even realized were shaking. How were they shaking? She had played in concerts in front of people before, which meant she has to be on stage much longer than she had just been. Though she supposes when she performs her hands are busy playing her guitar. She always gets lost in the world of music when she performs though, so that is also a contributing factor. Once she gets into the zone, she becomes “rocker Mitsuki” as Aya calls it. She likes rocker Mitsuki, she sounds cooler than regular Mitsuki. Having a name for her stage persona is also really helpful for her anxiety, because if she feels like she is scared of what is about to happen, she can just pretend she is someone else. Of course, this only really is effective if she is performing for a large group of people. Small crowds are intimate, and Mitsuki feels like she owes them authenticity. Aya always says that Mitsuki owes nothing to anyone, but that’s just something people say. Mitsuki owed it to her uncle to earn this diploma, the one she turns around in her hands right now.
Diploma… Aya… Mitsuki’s head suddenly snaps up. She has to make sure to hear Aya’s name being called so she can return the favor of support. She doesn’t want to make her mad, because then they wouldn’t be able to have fun at their sleepover that night. That or Aya would guilt trip Mitsuki into watching some stupid Avengers movie. They are all the same after a certain point, and Aya says that that’s why they’re so great. Mitsuki does not agree in the slightest.
Mitsuki is glad that she decided to pay attention because approximately 2 and a half minutes after she did, Aya was called up. Mitsuki could hear the sequins on Aya’s dress brush against her gown and her heels click on the metal stairs as she ascended to receive her diploma. Mitsuki watched, transfixed as Aya beamed at her, blinking almost owlishly as she tried to remember what to do. As Aya got closer to approaching Mr. Powell, she shrugged and waved to Mitsuki, causing a deeper flush in Mitsuki’s cheeks. Mitsuki scrambled to force her hands to do something, anything back at aya, and somehow her hands settled on double peace signs? Aya smiled graciously and turned away to shake Mr. Powell’s hand and take her diploma. Mitsuki breathed a sigh of relief and looked down at her lap. She was a mess. She could feel her heart pounding, faster than it had been when she was actually on stage. Leave it to Mitsuki to be more scared of a girl than her future.
After that, the ceremony was over faster than she expected, and the next thing she knew, she was being ushered out of the gym by Aya.
Aya was chattering at 300 MPH and Mitsuki did all she could just to keep up. “Ohmigod I cannot believe that we just graduated!” Aya said, gesturing wildly at Mitsuki. “I mean, I definitely can believe that we just graduated because I’m literally in the robe and everything but this is so surreal! I never thought we would make it but OMG we did!” Mitsuki just smiled softly and nodded. It was nice to have a person who talks a lot as her best friend, it balanced out her distaste for chatter.
Aya stopped walking in the middle of the hallway, causing Mitsuki to stumble and shoot her a confused look. Aya turned around and grabbed Mitsuki’s face, and stared at her with the most serious expression she could make. Mitsuki bit back a yelp and decided to just rest with a confused expression on her face. It took everything in her just to maintain eye contact, so much so that her palms were becoming sweaty again. Aya opened her mouth to speak, but Mitsuki heard none of it. Her eyes were hyper focused in on Aya’s perfect lips. She realized she was staring a second after she should have stopped, and ripped her eyes back up to meet Aya’s, and to her relief, Aya seemed to still be talking.
Mitsuki sheepishly interrupted her sentence with a quiet, “could you go back? I kinda zoned out…” which earned her a giggle from Aya.
“Oh Mitsuki, you’re such a space cadet sometimes,” Aya sighed. “What I was saying is that we need to do something fun! Celebrate! We just graduated high school and since I’m sleeping over at yours tonight we should totally do something different!” Mitsuki’s eyes widened at this, her unhelpful mind flashing through all of the things Aya could mean by this.
Carefully, trying to find the right tone, she replied, “What were you thinking to do?”
Aya beamed, grabbing Mitsuki’s hands, startling her. “Okay. Don’t hate me, but I think we need to actually do something now that we’re actually adults… so I bought” Aya leans into Mitsuki’s ear to whisper, “a fake id,” Aya leans back to look at Mitsuki and Mitsuki can only try not to react excessively.
Mitsuki’s eyes widen in spite of all the efforts to react normally, as she lets a “huh?” slip.
Aya laughs, and nods. She takes Mitsuki’s hand to resume their walk to Mitsuki’s car and continues talking, “Okay I’m not trying to go anywhere, I just want to see what it would be like to drink with my bestie before we go off to college and never see each other.” Mitsuki rolled her eyes at this, knowing that Aya was being overly dramatic.
“Dude, we are literally going to school 20 minutes from each other. I promise we will see each other plenty,” Mitsuki replied, letting a lighter tone slip into her voice. When she looked over at Aya though, her face was contorted in the cutest little frown.
From the frowny lips came a small, “you promise?” from Aya.
Mitsuki nodded and stuck out her pinky finger. She knows a pinky swear is a juvenile promise, but it was just what she and Aya did sometimes. If a pinky promise was made, that promise must be kept no matter what. Aya noticed what she was doing and smiled, linking pinkies with Mitsuki with enthusiasm.
They neared Mitsuki’s car, a simple black sedan. It was pretty old and maybe a bit messy since Mitsuki had to use CDs to play music. The bluetooth feature was not yet around when her car was manufactured, but Mitsuki had come to enjoy the physical music and she and Aya even made mixtapes for her car at some of their hangouts. Mitsuki headed over to the driver’s side, taking a moment to take off the gown she was wearing. With the itchy sack off, she felt comfortable again. On the other side of the car, Aya was also discarding her gown. As she shoved it into the backseat, the sun reflected off of the sequins on her pink dress underneath, casting golden patterns onto Mitsuki’s seats. And Mitsuki wouldn’t lie, she also was not at all mad about the form fitting nature of this dress. Though she would rather not stare too long and let herself get caught up in it, so she quickly sits down in her seat, adjusting the rear view mirror because it somehow is never in the right spot. Her theory is that it is just loose enough that it moves a centimeter any time anyone starts the car. After adjusting her mirror, Aya sits down in the passenger’s seat and shuts the door.
Aya buckles herself in and then turns to Mitsuki, a joyful grin on her face. “Soooo Mitsuki, what mix are we feeling today?” Mitsuki looks over at Aya and smiles quickly, with a pensive expression taking over her countenance the next moment.
Then, her face lights up in realization, and she turns to Aya, saying, “what about screaming in the front seat?” Aya’s eyes widen in shock, reaching to grab the CD, before she turns back.
In confirmation, she asks, “are you sure?”, to which Mitsuki nods with determination.
Aya grabs the CD and shrugs to herself. Mitsuki knows this one is old, it’s one of the first ones they made once they found a way to actually burn CDs in this day and age. It has some of their favorite songs on it though, and sue her, Mitsuki is feeling nostalgic. As the CD clicks into the car’s stereo, Mitsuki and Aya can hear the whirring behind the screen as the machine tries to read it. They hear a click and finally the comforting sounds of the Foo Fighters come on.
Mitsuki rolls down the windows and opens the sunroof because she thinks that it fits the moment. She is rewarded with a whoop from her friend in the passenger’s seat, who sticks her arms up and starts half yelling and half singing along to the music. Mitsuki can’t stop herself from joining, Aya is too magnetic.
Looking over at her best friend, Mitsuki can’t believe that she got so lucky with this girl. She is so excited to go into her future with her, and she can tell that Aya is excited too. She may have spent a bit too long staring at her girl though, because she realizes at the last second that ‘oh shit, she’s driving!’. She slams the brakes in order to not run a red light, inadvertently sending Aya forward into the dashboard. She looks over at her apologetically, but sees Aya looking at her with the most sugary sweet expression. Mitsuki doesn’t know what it means exactly, but she feels incredibly loved right now. She’s grateful for that.
She does remember the purpose of this drive, which is a little scary to be honest. She would never try to fool an adult in any way, but with Aya at her side? She would do anything.