Chapter Text
June 5th
Yukiko is already awake and out of bed when Chie wakes up, reaching across the empty bed. Letting her arm fall to the mattress, she sighs and shifts, her skirt bundled at her waist, her thin shirt sticky with sweat and her hair sticking to her cheeks and forehead. Turning to her side, she grabs her phone, checks the time – 09:38am. There’s a text from Souji, attempting to organise a trip to the TV that afternoon, one from her Mom, asking what time she’d come back from the Amagis’, and one from Yosuke, asking where she and Yukiko disappeared to last night.
She lets the phone drop back to the tatami with a soft thump, and turns away, groaning, pressing her palm to her head.
She had woken up in Yukiko’s bed a lot over the years, her nose buried in Yukiko’s long hair, or with an arm thrown haphazardly over her waist, but –
This was different, she thinks, staring up at the ceiling.
The pipes gurgle, and Chie hears the rush of water from the bathroom, steam billowing from the bottom of the door.
Yukiko’s having a shower. Chie feels hot all of a sudden.
That’s a normal thing, Chie reminds herself. That’s a perfectly normal thing that humans do, that all people do. Yukiko has taken showers with Chie in the next room before. Hell, they’ve spent plenty of time in the hot springs together.
Thing was, was she supposed to…she didn’t know, go join her, now? Was that a thing that was expected, now that they…
That they what? Were dating? Was that what had happened last night? Did they start dating?
Was that possible? Was that allowed?
Chie throws the covers off herself and sits up, cross-legged, grasping her phone with both hands.
From: Yosuke Hanamura
whr did u n yukiko go????
left me n partner by rselves
r00d
She rolls her eyes; Yukiko may think Chie’s texting is bad, but she’s never had to deal with Yosuke before. Ignoring the little voice inside her that said that Yosuke, somehow, just knew, she texts back.
Yukiko was tired! I took her home. U seemd fine when we left :\
u 8 FIVE beef bwlz n left us to pay 4 dem!!!!!!
Chie breathes out. Right. Right. He’s just pissy because they left Aiya without paying their half of the bill.
…They’re free when u finish them tho rite???
ONLY WEN ITZ RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sry. :\ U usually LUV the chance 2 b alone with leader.
A low blow, but it just might shut him up. He doesn’t text back immediately. Critical hit, Chie thinks.
She shuts her phone with a clack, ignoring Souji’s politely worded requests to meet at Junes to check the TV. They got Kanji out yesterday, after all. She knows Souji likes to go back in afterwards to check they hadn’t missed anything crucial, but going in the next day after such a long, hard fight was just brutal. Her legs are killing her.
Besides that. She…well.
She feels like she may need to have a long conversation with Yukiko.
Chie sighs, lying back down on the bed, her arm over her eyes to block out the sun.
It didn’t have to mean that she and Yukiko were…like that, what they did. Not necessarily.
Maybe the fumes in Kanji’s bathhouse had just gotten to them, spending so many hours in there fighting and sweating. They’d been tired, and sore, and Chie had eaten too much at Aiya, and hadn’t wanted to walk home after she dropped Yukiko off at the inn, and when they’d gotten under the covers together, maybe all those factors had just come together and gotten a little messy and –
Chie stands up and busies herself trying to find her jacket and her socks. Maybe it had been nothing but them both being tired and addled from spending too long in the TV.
When Yukiko comes out of the shower, Chie thinks, they’ll talk about it.
Maybe do more than talk, a little voice in her head says.
The door to the bathroom slides open, and Yukiko emerges with her hair pulled into a wet bun on top of her head, a bright red towel wrapped around her midsection. There’s a bruise forming on the curve of her neck.
She looks great, Chie thinks stupidly, which is unfair. She just woke up, she’s not wearing any make-up, just wearing a stupid towel, and she looks great.
Chie glances at herself in the mirror against the wall, and tries to smooth down the tangle of her hair, sudden aware of the dark of her roots showing at the scalp.
Yukiko moves across to the other side of the room, behind a screen, and begins getting dressed, not looking at Chie at all. Chie presses her mouth into a thin line as Yukiko slips into her juban, tying it at the waist, and begins the complicated matter of getting into her kimono.
Chie shouldn’t stare. Even if all she can see is the top of Yukiko’s head over the screen, occasionally a slender hand reaching up as she tugs on her sleeves.
She steps out from behind the screen, her kimono as neat as it would be if one of the inn staff helped her put it on.
Chie always needs to ask her Mom for help if she wants to look that good. And she always feels like she’s waddling around in the skirt a little, not drifting around as gracefully as Yukiko does.
She swallows.
“Yukiko –“
“Oh, Souji-kun wants to go into the TV again today,” she says, looking at her phone and still avoiding Chie’s eye. The bruise on her neck keeps drawing Chie’s gaze. Yukiko frowns at her phone.
“…Do we really need to go again today? Yosuke-kun got Kanji-kun home safe and sound,” she says, “And I’m going to be really busy…”
“Busy?” Chie says, and the word comes out hoarse. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be doing. She doesn’t know why Yukiko won’t look at her. What she wants is for Yukiko to be slipping back under the covers with her, holding her hand like she did last night.
“I…have to have lunch with my parents and some friends of theirs today,” she says, “They’ve been making a big deal of it for a while, so they probably want to discuss how the conversation will go first. I’ve already slept in.”
“How the conversation will go…?”
“They’re family friends. Misato and Junichi Harada. They have a son – Junta-san. He’s seventeen,” she says, very quickly, “Kasai-san has been working hard to organise this…”
“Wait, wait, what? Junta-san? The Haradas? Yukiko…this, this sounds like –“ Chie splutters, “You’re too young for that kind of thing!”
Not that Chie knows a lot about that kind of…thing. Her family aren’t very traditional – they’d never even consider miai as an option for her, even if Chie had become an old spinster.
Although, a sneering voice whispers in her head, that may just be because Chie isn’t exactly any guy’s idea of a good marriage candidate.
“I’m sure nothing will come of it!” Yukiko says, too cheerfully, and one hand resting on the bruise on her neck , “I just…I need to be presentable. The Haradas have been loyal customers and incredible business partners over the years. It won’t reflect well on the inn if I – if I don’t at least make an effort.”
Chie stares, her fingers clenched into tight fists in her lap.
“I’m already going to hurt them enough by leaving. I can’t hurt them more than that,” Yukiko mutters, and then looks at Chie, smiling, “I’m sorry, Chie. Can you make your own way home?” she says, “You can borrow some clean clothes, if you like.”
Ha. As though any of Yukiko’s tiny clothes would fit her.
“Oh, haha, that’s okay!” Chie says, finding her socks and tugging them up her legs, “I’ll jog home – it’s a good chance for an extra work-out.”
Yukiko turns and smiles at her, and for a second Chie thinks she’s going to lean over and kiss her again.
She stoops, and begins making her bed, tidying up non-existent clutter, looking everywhere but at Chie.
“Alright, um,” Chie says, heading to the door, “Well. Bye.”
June 16th
It’s not that she and Yukiko have been avoiding each other exactly. It’s not like that at all. They still spend a lot of time together, studying together in Chie’s room, walking around the Shopping District after school, exercising in the TV with the boys, helping Kanji learn the ropes of Shadow fighting. Yukiko still laughs like a crazy hyena at things Chie can never predict, and Chie will still charge into battle at the sight of some guy hassling Yukiko for things she doesn’t want to give.
Admittedly, she does the latter a little…more aggressively than is probably necessary lately.
So, they haven’t been avoiding each other. But they have been avoiding certain topics.
They haven’t talked about her meeting with the Haradas, for one. They haven’t talked about the bruise Yukiko covered up with a scarf for a week, even in the height of summer. They haven’t talked about the weird way the air between them seems charged now, tense, the way even Yosuke seems to be looking at them a little oddly, Kanji occasionally blinking at them at glancing at Souji for assistance.
They haven’t been talking about what happened the night of June 4th.
And it’s driving Chie crazy. What if Yukiko isn’t even thinking about it? Because she is! She’s thinking about it all the time.
“Chie?”
“Huh?”
“Is there anything else we need for the curry?” Yukiko asks her, holding the shopping basket daintily out to her.
“Oh, er, I don’t know? Maybe. Chocolate, or – or coffee…” she says. She doesn’t care about the curry. If Yosuke wasn’t dead-set on having homemade curry, for some reason, she’d suggest just getting a box mix and some rice and calling it a day.
“Chocolate or coffee?” Yukiko asks, pursing her lips and tilting her head, a strand of hair falling in front of her face. Chie wants to push it behind her ear. She stays her hand.
“Y-yeah! I mean, I think I saw that on a cooking show once?” she says, and turns to look at Souji, quietly watching them, “You’ve heard of that, right?”
There’s something about Souji’s tense expression that tells her, no, he has never heard of anything like that in his life.
“I’m not sure…” Souji says, and then gently yet firmly takes the shopping basket from Yukiko’s hands, “You know what? How about I handle this and you two do dessert.”
“Oh! Yeah, haha, sure!” she says, smiling, “Can you cook?”
“A little,” Souji mumbles, head tucking into his collar, his cheeks going faintly pink as he returns half of the things Yukiko picked out and then grabs some different items off the shelf.
It can’t possibly be the case, what with him being the most popular guy in Inaba and their confident and fearless leader, but sometimes she swears that Souji is actually a little shy.
“Oh…yes, that’s fine,” Yukiko says, looking quite downtrodden.
“C-come on Yukiko, the dessert is the best part of the meal! Let’s go shop around for some inspiration,” she says, and reaches to take Yukiko’s hand.
Yukiko jumps, snatching her hand away as though Chie had something horribly contagious.
At the expression on Chie’s face, she rearranges her expression and shoots her that bland smile she usually reserves for guests at the inn. Souji looks over his shoulder at them, one eyebrow quirking.
“Yes, yes, let’s…how about we bake eclairs?” Yukiko says, showing too many teeth with her smile, “That should be easy enough, right?”
“I like smores,” Souji says quietly, sounding a little desperate for some reason.
“Oooh, very American, very exotic!” Chie says, and she knows she’s being weirdly loud and way-too-cheerful. Yukiko smiles back, and they talk as they head towards the sweets section.
She doesn’t try to take Yukiko’s hand again, but the urge to do so feels stronger than ever.
June 17th
It’s widely agreed that Souji’s curry is, by far, the best curry any of them have ever tasted.
Yosuke really can’t sing its praises enough, despite Souji looking vaguely as though he wants to hide in his tracksuit at the flattery.
It’s kind of sweet, Chie thinks, if annoying.
It is also widely agreed that the Amagi-Satonaka mint-chocolate-cinnamon-miso-steak-smores are an absolute blight upon the culinary arts and should never, ever be repeated.
“I don’t get where we went wrong. I mean, we used all the best ingredients! How could it possibly turn out bad?”
“I don’t know, maybe the steak was a little much…” Yukiko says softly to her, barely audibly over the noise of Hanako snoring. Chie pauses her pacing, looking across at her.
“Huh? No way, steak is always great. It was the miso. For sure,” Chie says, turning to look at her.
“But I love miso! We always use it at the inn,” Yukiko replies, looking horribly offended. Chie has to smile at her expression, and sits down next to her.
“Ha, maybe next time we use a recipe?” she says, scratching the back of her neck.
“…The cooks at the inn never use a recipe,” Yukiko says, a touch sulky.
“Well they’re professionals! They don’t have to. We’re just starting out,” she says, “Maybe Souji-kun can point us to a few blogs. He seems like the type.”
Yukiko perks up at that, looking at Chie with a smile that makes warmth spread to the tips of her finger and toes.
“It’s a little unexpected, but he does, doesn’t he? He’s a very unusual person,” she says.
“Yeah, the grey bowlcut is kind of the least of it, right?” she says, grinning, and the joke hits the mark, Yukiko lapses into a high-pitched giggling fit, her hands over her mouth.
As much as she complains about Yukiko’s gigglesplosions, she loves it when she manages to trigger one intentionally. And there’s a little part of her…
Well. A part of her that really hates she’s started doing it in front of the boys now, too. She always thought that side of Yukiko was just for her. Something Chie could fold up and keep to herself, jealously.
I’ll never loosen my grip on her…
Tomoe shudders in her mind, and Chie sits up as though a bolt of lightning spat up her spine. Yukiko looks across at her, wide-eyed.
“Chie, are you okay?”
“Yeah…” she says, trailing off, and then swallows, reaching forward with a shaking hand to rest her hand on Yukiko’s. She swallows. It feels like there’s so much inside her, pulsing and desperately trying to be free. She should talk to Yukiko about it. She should say something.
“Yukiko, I –“
And then a huge, angry man barges into their tent, they both scream, and Chie kicks Kanji Tatsumi in the face.