Chapter Text
it's always been just the two of them together, going out, having sleepovers, going to nerd conventions. and sure they have their friends, but their friends don't know just how clingy kumi is. they see her as this mom figure that acts as the proverbial angel on their shoulder telling them the right thing to do (without being condescending. kumi is good at that), making sure they don't drink too much, and driving them home, and helping them make big life decisions like getting a loan or buying a car or adopting a pet, and yeah, kumi does all those things for shiho, too. but it's... different.
right?
/
shiho doesn't see kumi until suzuka.
on their third year of highschool, kumi accompanied shiho as she confessed to a boy she liked. she doesn't even remember his name now but she does remember getting rejected on the school rooftop at lunch time, because kumi was there to wipe her tears and buy her yakisoba bread and strawberry milk before going back to class.
actually, maybe it wasn't lunch time. if shiho wanted yakisoba bread after getting her heart broken, kumi will make it happen even if it meant cutting classes.
the winter of that same year, shiho gets a boyfriend. for real, this time. she doesn't like him that way but he's cute and smells nice, unlike most of the guys in her class. shiho likes having him around, for the most part. sometimes, though, he wants to hold hands too much and his palms sweat easily.
they've been going out for a week and every time they get left alone, he kind of leans in to shiho as close as possible, and she just kind of laughs and pretends to start texting.
"kumi!" shiho yells, barging into the sasaki residence that night, "good evening, auntie, is kumi around?" she asks mrs. sasaki who was preparing the dinner table.
"she's upstairs with a friend. ask her to come down, will you?"
a friend? probably just mirei or yuka.
shiho walks up a short flight of stairs and bursts into the kumi bedroom door without knocking, "kumi, i got a prob—"
when the door is gaped open, she sees kumi in bed, her laptop playing a familiar theme song, and another girl resting on kumi's chest.
"shiho? what are you doing here?"
shiho blinks for a moment.
a very long moment.
the theme song stops playing but her blinking still does not.
"kumi-senpai, who is she?" the girl asks, lifting her head up that was. leaning. on. kumi. she's probably just some skank bitch trying to suck up to kumi for whatever reason, and shiho could tell she made her voice an octave higher while trying to get kumi's attention. burikko bullshit. she hates her, shiho decides at that moment. she's only met her now but she hates her.
she hears the laptop close and looks back at kumi before she pierced daggers in the poor girl's face with her glare. "you're watching star wars without me?"
"well... you were out on a date and we've seen this together before so..." kumi excuses, composing her posture and scoots a tad bit away from the girl, as if it'll help the current situation. "this is suzuka, by the way. she's a new recruit for the softball team."
"nice to meet y—"
"dinner is ready, your mom asked me to come get you." shiho says before slamming the door shut and sprinting down the steps. she bumps into mrs. sasaki while trying to get to the main door to leave.
"you're not staying for dinner, shiho?"
"not today, ma'am."
/
kumi (9:20pm): we had gyoza for dinner
kumi (9:20pm): i saved some for you
kumi (9:37pm): i gave it to your mom, it's in a blue tupperware in your fridge
shiho (12:02am): [sent a photo] it's good
kumi (12:02am): i helped wrap it :">
kumi (12:02am): we watched the last jedi
kumi (12:03am): suzuka didnt like it
shiho (12:03am): tasteless bitch
kumi (12:03am): language
shiho (12:03am): treehouse in 5?
/
there's a treehouse in the katō backyard that shiho's dad built after spending three months in america for work, and he grew to admire their obnoxiously large impractical lawns and white picket fences. thankfully, he didn't get the idea to build a fence around his house so kumi doesn't have to cirque de soleil her way in sneaking into shiho's place.
it takes kumi three minutes to arrive with her hair in a bun, wearing a tanktop, shorts and flip flops, finding shiho staring at the stars, clutching a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
"hey," kumi says, quietly, heaving and trying to catch her breath as climbs up the ladder. shiho assists and gives her some leverage as she pulls her up.
"that was fast, did you run the whole way here?"
she dusts herself off, snatches one end of the blanket and snuggles close to shiho, "of course, i did." kumi pauses, "are you mad at me?"
shiho looks away, "no."
kumi hums, as loud as the crickets and no one talks for a good ten minutes. shiho just stares at the frogs leaping on a nearby pond that is visible from here. and then, "did you have fun?"
"what?"
"on your date, i mean."
"oh," shiho says, "yeah, i guess."
"does it have anything to do with the problem you were gonna ask me to help you with?"
"yeah, before i caught you in bed with another girl."
kumi laughs, "you make it sound so morbid."
"i think he wants to kiss me." shiho blurts out, facing kumi now, and she's had boys sending her their bad poetry before, shiho never had a clue what they mean when they say she's prettier than all the stars combined —until she sees the way the light hits kumi's eyes made her orbs glisten that it almost seems like they're twinkling, and when shiho looks back up to the sky to compare—she feels like she understands what they meant.
"do you want to kiss him?"
"i don't know, i've never kissed anyone before."
"are you serious?"
"why is that surprising? you would've been the first one to know about it."
kumi hums, settling in the silence that soon accompanied them. sharing the same tiny blanket, it's hard for shiho to not take a whiff of kumi's head. she never noticed how her hair smells like peaches before, "did you change your shampoo?"
"nope."
"does suzuka use peach shampoo?" shiho hisses, and allowing herself to roll her eyes because kumi is busy looking at the sky anyway.
"how the hell would i know?" kumi asks, before leaning her head on shiho's shoulder. "i use peach shampoo, though. you never noticed?"
she shakes her head, scooting a teeny bit down to a squat position. kumi is tall tall, leaning on a short girl's shoulder probably isn't all too comfortable. shiho feels the other girl's cheek directly in contact against her skin that she can tell the exact moment a smile forms on the corner of kumi's lips, "shiho?"
"hm?"
"you're jealous."
"are you crazy?" shiho guffaws, like it's the most ridiculous thought in the history of the universe, and turns to look at kumi so fast she almost breaks her neck, "why in the world would i be jealous??? you're the one who's jealous!" she accuses, jokingly, as a form of denial or maybe coping mechanism. but then,
"i am." kumi whispers, but loud enough for shiho to hear, head still nestled on the space where shiho's neck meets her collarbone, "not that i was trying to hide it."
shiho pictures the final second before a bat swing, 150 grams of spinning force about to catapult in her face, and sure it's made of rubber, but a rubber ball coming in a 100 kilometers per hour is still a projectile. she sees a vivid image of the pitcher's stance, face just about to contort into a grimace when they realise it's about to hit someone's head. shiho can choose to do one of two things: acknowledge the ball and try to hit it. she knows it's not gonna end well, she can almost feel it against her face.
or, she can get a concussion.
"jealous of what?"
"your boyfriend," kumi admits, abashedly. her face turns bright red in a matter of seconds, burying her face deeper in her part of the blanket that she rolled into a ball.
"why would you be jealous of him?" shiho asks, and she feels? flattered? relieved? happy? she's not really sure.
"because. you barely spend time with me anymore. is it silly? it's silly, isn't it. i knew it. i'm so weird."
"no! it's not silly at all..." shiho drones on, "i.. i was jealous, too."
"please, like i'm gonna replace my best friend with someone who hates star wars."
"pinky promise?"
"we're in high school, shiho."
there was something in that gyōza, shiho reckons, like some kind of aphrodisiac, because kumi embarrassed is all kinds of cute, until she starts to bite her lip, and then it's anybody's guess.
shiho is not proud of what happens next, or at least convinces herself that it was a normal thing to do.
kumi's lips taste like strawberry when they kiss, but with a peppermint aftertaste that shiho does not hate, at all. they're both terrible at kissing, shiho doesn't know where to put her hands and kumi's palms are just clenched around the hem of her tanktop, as if pulling it down, which shiho cannot argue with because it feels like she's floating. her baseball concussion lead to her being given pain meds, and shiho never understood addiction, or at least never empathized with it. she's strong-willed enough to stop whatever it is she needs to stop. but kumi is tugging down on her lips, with her lips, and if she had to be addicted to one thing, it would be this.
again, terrible kissers. but shiho feels kumi smile against her lips so she smiles in return. it takes a second for them to pull away and suddenly the ants climbing up the tree became the most interesting thing to watch because neither of them wants to look at each other.
"you're still using flavored toothpaste at that age?" she snickers, trying to get her attention away from the taste of strawberry that is still very much present in her mouth.
"at least i brushed my teeth. you taste exactly like gyōza." kumi bites back and shiho is mortified .
they laugh about it for the rest of the night. when papa katō wakes them up for breakfast, he asks why shiho hasn't touched the fruit bowl when it's supposedly her favorite thing, and kumi answers for her, "she's had her fill of strawberries last night, sir."
kumi seems to have no problem about it the day after, just nonchalantly joking about it on the dining table in front of shiho's entire family, but something clicked in shiho's head. she couldn't put her finger on what exactly was it until she finally let her boyfriend kiss her, only to feel disappointed that he doesn't taste like any fruit at all.
shiho tried. she really did. she fed him strawberries and colgate, for fuck's sake. what was so different now that she's so repulsed by it?
kumi's lips are pillowy, for starters. and soft, and not chapped at all, and there was a slight tremor in her hands that shiho found quite endearing and that she looked like she was so afraid to touch shiho, and kumi is gentle, so gentl—
everyone, at some point, used to practice kissing on their best friend,
right?
it's just like when someone covers a song but the original is way better. so what do you do? you keep listening to the origi—
no, you find a new song to listen to.
because the very next week, shiho finds miss-hates-star-wars suck up and kumi in an abandoned classroom, practicing .
/
shiho drunkenly stares at a strawberry bowl in the counter of the bar as it jogs her memories. her world is spinning, and not just because of the tequila. she's getting married. in two days. to takumi. handsome, gallant, rich takumi, who always seems too busy take her calls or help her pick gifts for their registry, or let her come for once.
she remembers confessing to kumi about her soon to be orgasm-less married life, shamelessly hoping it'll end up the way they resolved her kissing dilemma in back high school.
(was she gonna ask kumi to help? of course not, that would be ridiculous. as ridiculous as it would be for kumi to not at least offer her assistance.)
kumi is always on the moral high ground anyway, and she's done her too many favors already.
besides, kumi is her first on a lot of other things. first punch in the face, first kiss, first big fight, first love, etc,. shiho can't let her first orgasm be kumi's responsibility, too.
now with an obnoxiously shiny rock in finger, kumi won't be her first marriage either.
(it'll be fine. divorces are easy.)
as if on cue, kumi arrives, now with an open beer bottle in hand, in a dress that is too tight and too short and this is the only time shiho is thankful to have double vision from being batshit drunk. and that is bad. she's one shot away from passing out, which means she's way over her mouth lock limit.
"look who decided to party after all," shiho slurs, barely able to keep upright.
"i called someone to drive us all home. it'll be a shame to leave this party sober." kumi says, with a stupid smile on her. so stupid. shiho wants nothing but to kiss that stupid smile away.
her vision is very much impaired but the dimmer on the lights somehow accentuates the shape of kumi's lips from this distance. or maybe shiho is just looking at them directly, who knows at this point.
she grabs strawberries from the bowl and shoves them right in front of kumi's face, "do you know how much i love strawberries? THEY'RE MY FAVORITE FRUIT IN THE UNIVERSE."
"i know that," kumi replies, listening to shiho ramble as she takes a sip of beer, smiling from ear to ear.
"you wanna know when i last ate a strawberry? TEN YEARS AGO."
"hmm," she hums, and somehow kumi's beer bottle disappeared and is now focused on making sure shiho's face doesn't hit the floor. kumi is so good, and nice, and takes care of shiho when no one else wants to.
"do you wanna know why i stopped eating strawberries?"
"because your local grocery stopped importing the good ones from tochigi?"
shiho slaps kumi's face, softly and playfully, almost like a caress, if caressing meant having sticky ass palms from grabbing a handful of fruit without the bartender's permission.
"no!" she's yelling now, "because every time i eat a strawberry, i think of—"
a voice calls kumi from the dance floor and the mere second that it took for kumi turn her head around is enough for shiho to realise what she was about to say and, shut the fuck up, you're getting married in two days. keep that shit to yourself.
"it's my friend, the one i called to drive us home, wanna greet her? it's your party."
hell yeah, shiho wants to greet the person who saved her from a great deal of doom.
kumi waves her hands up so the person knows where to go and maybe it's just the magnificent dimmers but that face looks so much like a face she wants to hit.
fuck, not her.
"kumi!"
"hey, suzuka. sorry for the trouble."
shiho notes the lack of honorifics and senses some tension starting to form.
apparently, an entire bottle of tequila was not enough to get through today. shiho wonders if she can sneak three bottles inside her puffy ass wedding dress that she can drink through a tube during the ceremony.