I'm so sorry about the delay, guys—see my end notes for more details about that. Besides that, I hope some of you are still reading, and please leave a review! This chapter was hard for me to get right, but I really did try, I promise. So please let me know what you think and please look forward to next chapter after this :)

Even the Stars Grow Older

Eleven: A Very Tsundere Confession

Silence.

Absolute, utter silence.

There were a lot of things that Ayano had come to expect of Sakurako and Himawari in their substantial time spent as friends. Silence, however, was one of the very few things she didn't.

She chanced a glance in the rearview mirror and was met by a sight that just seemed…reversed, somehow. Sakurako was staring out the window, her jaw taught and her eyes glazed over. Next to her, Himawari sat with her hands curled in her lap, her fingers twitching, the corner of her full lips caught on her teeth. Every so often, the latter would sneak a glance at the former, just for an instant, but the look in her eyes, open and afraid, as though she were one wrong move away from being utterly devastated... It worried the purple-haired kaichou.

The situation in Yui's beat up station wagon was slightly different, but not entirely unlike the other.

Chinatsu was her usual catty, talkative self as she leaned forward in her seat, spurred into an argument with Kyouko due to the blonde's baiting (really, Yui thought, after four years, you'd think she might have learned to ignore it). Beside her, Akari was quiet. This wasn't unusual in and of itself; Akari was often content to sit back and let Chinatsu lead, only jumping in once in a while to give an opinion, or to stop the pinkette from saying something particularly mean. But today…today her silence seemed different, more…nervous.

And if that wasn't enough reasoning, there was also the fact that she had been wearing an almost non-stop blush ever since they met up again after the sales had ended. It was so consistent that Yui had almost mistaken it for a sunburn, but then there was her behavior… It seemed that the redhead was doing any and everything in her power to avoid meeting Chinatsu's gaze—or at least, as much as she could without the latter growing suspicious. On the occasions she failed, her blush seemed to grow darker, and she would stutter out a response if asked for her input.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the way Akari was acting was that despite her strange behavior, she seemed genuinely happy. Through the rearview mirror, Yui's eyes were drawn to Chinatsu's left hand, which was resting casually on Akari's right leg, her fingers tapping restlessly, the rhythm speeding up with her temper. It wasn't abnormal for Chinatsu to keep some kind of physical contact with those around her, particularly Akari, but recently, particularly on this trip, it seemed as though the pinkette was always in some kind of contact with the redhead.

She was acting more protective than usual as well; Yui had spotted her, on two separate occasions just that day, practically growling at a couple of poor souls who dared to stop Akari and compliment her on the outfit Kyouko had designed for her. On one occasion, Yui had been afraid that Chinatsu was actually going to spit venom at some sleazy, acne-ridden twenty-something who'd looked the redhead up and down. The pinkette had let Akari pass, making up some excuse about looking at a booth they'd passed, before rounding on the young man. Yui hadn't been able to hear anything, thanks to the incessant roaring of the crowd, but there had been a lot of sneering, chest-poking and standing on tip-toe (to make herself more threatening, Yui assumed—sometimes she wondered whether Chinatsu was descended from some kind of feline ancestor), and the guilty party had walked away looking like he was about to wet himself. Then Chinatsu had bounced back over to Akari, looping their arms and pulling the shorter girl to her, as if nothing had happened.

This sort of behavior coming from Chinatsu wasn't entirely alien, particularly to Yui—back in middle school, she hadn't above physical violence whenever anyone got too close to Yui. But something about this time was different; for one thing, Chinatsu clearly hadn't wanted Akari to see her, whereas with Yui, it hadn't mattered who was around. For another, while Chinatsu had clung to Yui like a ragdoll, the contact she kept with Akari was much more casual, and if anything, protective as opposed to clingy.

As for Akari…well, Akari somehow seemed as though she was both enjoying the contact and resisting the urge to pull away. The redhead couldn't seem to keep her eyes off of the hand resting on her thigh, but at the same time, it seemed to be hurting her to look at it.

Yui had to look away at this point, because she was driving and none of this odd behavior would matter if they were all dead.

Still…something had changed. Chinatsu was, for all intents and purposes, acting fairly normal. Then again, Chinatsu had proven her adaptability time and time again, beginning with her unorthodox introduction to the Amusement Club back in junior high. However, Akari, who was less so, and also more prone to be the victim of circumstances rather than the cause (another reason Chinatsu's behavior was somewhat unreliable) was acting very strangely indeed.

"…Sakurako…?"

Silence.

A beat.

"Sakurako, please…"

The silence continued, seeming to stretch on for hours as Himawari stared tearfully at her best friend (or, rather, the side of her face, as Sakurako was refusing to look at her). The bluenette bit her lip, swallowing back the sob that was begging to exit her throat. It was like trying to swallow a large rock.

"Sa—" Her voice broke sharply, and she snapped both her jaws and her eyes shut, forcing back the tears.

Sakurako flinched, just slightly.

"Sakurako," Himawari tried again, with more certainty. "Sakurako, if you don't…well, I suppose you've made your opinion fairly clear by this point, so…" She paused, looking down at her hands twisting themselves into knots in her lap. "I…it doesn't have to mean anything, I…"

"It doesn't?"

The sudden utterance both shocked and pierced Himawari to the core, and she hesitated for just a split second. Then, making her mind up just as quickly, lest the pause cost her the blonde's friendship as well (and she didn't know if her heart could handle losing Sakurako two ways in less than two hours), she said, "No. It…it doesn't."

To her surprise, Sakurako's hands, already clenched into fists, tightened, her arms growing stiff at her sides. "Right," the blonde said, harshly. "Of course it doesn't mean anything. You just wanted to shut me up and found a new way of doing it, yeah?"

Himawari blinked. She was silent for almost a full minute before she opened her mouth to respond. "What?"

Sakurako whirled on her, eyes red and tear-clogged. "You're always telling me how thoughtless I am, but what about you? You didn't stop to think that maybe kissing me was taking it a step too far? After all that talk about Kyouko-senpai!"

"Augh!" Himawari threw her hands in the air, running them through her hair almost frantically. "After all that, you still—Sakurako, I didn't kiss you to shut you up!" She had to consciously force herself from continuing along the lines of 'but if I'd known it would work so well, I would have done it years ago'. Despite her annoyance, the fight that would have started would go on all night and she wanted to sort this out now.

Sakurako scoffed. "Really?" she asked, in a tone that implied it wasn't a question at all. "Then why did you?"

"Because you were being an idiot!"

"Ha! I'm always an idiot! Why was this time any different?!"

Not pausing to contemplate how utterly ridiculous this conversation had gotten, Himawari shot back, "Because I've wanted to do that since junior high and I couldn't help it! It's not my fault you're too much of an idiot to notice!"

This time, it was Sakurako's turn to blink in shock. "So…you don't like Kyouko-senpai?"

"Of course I—" Himawari started, her temper flaring even hotter, before she caught the look on Sakuruako's face. Her amber eyes, once narrowed in anger and what Himawari was now certain had been hurt, were now wide and full of trepidation. One hand gripped the bedspread beneath the blonde tightly, while the other had come to rest, seemingly subconsciously, over her heart, fingers grabbing for something that wasn't there. "I…no," she finished simply, massaging her eyes with her fingers before pulling her hand away to look Sakurako dead in the eyes. "I don't."

"You…meant it?"

Himawari sighed, falling to her knees in front of Sakurako and, taking a blind leap of faith, rested her arms atop Sakurako's legs, her chin atop them so that she was looking up at the girl. "Of course I mean it, Sakurako," she said, reaching up to tuck a lock of dirty blonde hair behind Sakurako's ear. The other girl flushed fire engine red, but didn't move away. The bluenette chuckled softly, burying her face in her arms so that Sakurako was just looking at an expanse of blue hair. "Trust you to turn a…a love confession into an argument," she said, her words muffled by her arms. Then she looked back up, and her eyes were full of an emotion Sakurako didn't recognize—it was alien, and yet achingly familiar, and it made her heart skip a beat. "Did you really have no idea?"

Sakurako mumbled something incoherent.

"Sakurako…I've felt this way about you for years, ever since junior high," Himawari continued, though her mind was begging her mouth to shut up. "If you don't believe me, then ask one of the others—as I understand it, we've been getting less and less subtle with time."

"Yeah right, I'm annoying and stupid, why would you want to be with someone like me?" came the muttered response, which made Himawari frown and open her mouth to reply. Then Sakurako choked, quite possibly on her own saliva. "And did you just say we? Last I checked, you were the one all over me back there?"

Himawari huffed and pushed back onto her heels, standing up again. Her self-consciousness levels were nearly at their breaking point, but she forced herself to draw up the very last of her reserves—she had nothing left to lose now, and she wasn't going down without a fight. "You heard me, I said we," she replied, her voice stronger now. She stepped forward, into Sakurako's personal space, and her confidence was boosted slightly upon seeing the blonde's wide-eyed reaction to being so near the bluenette's chest. Then she leaned down so that she was face to face with Sakurako, arms still folded over her chest. "You claim to be unable to bear spending time with me, but throw jealous fits when I spend time with anyone else. You hate the fact that we've been stuck together since preschool, but give me the cold shoulder for a week when you find out I'm taking different classes. You hate my…my breasts, but take every opportunity to touch them, and I've caught you staring when you think I'm not looking—speaking of which, my eyes are up here," she finished smugly as Sakurako's eyes darted back up to her own.

The blonde floundered, mouth opening and closing repeatedly for a long moment, before she finally snapped her jaw shut and her eyes darted to the wall, avoiding Himawari's.

"And Sakurako…"

Sakurako flinched, expecting more evidence to be thrown in her face, but was instead met with not words, but a soft, warm hand gently guiding her chin until she was forced to look in the blunette's eyes. Before she could protest or look away once again, Himawari's face was incredibly close, and she closed her eyes, breath catching in her chest…only to feel a warm, firm pressure against her forehead. She opened her eyes, confused (and maybe just a little bit disappointed), eyes following Himawari as she pulled back. The bluenette's thumb was now absently stroking Sakurako's cheek as its owner watched her with impossible fondness.

"You are not stupid," she said, her voice gentle, but at the same time firm. "I won't deny that you can be incredibly annoying at times," Sakurako's face twisted in a scowl, which only served to make Himawari's eyes crinkle in amusement, "but that's what makes you Sakurako. And I fell I love with you, Sakurako. Not you on your best behavior or when you're proving how smart you really are when you want to be, but you. Just…you. I…I like taking care of you, and I like helping you with your homework. I just wish you'd be a little less argumentative all the time and just let me love you."

"Himawari…" Sakurako didn't know what to say. She honestly didn't. She licked her lips nervously, and it was only thanks to her heightened state of focus that she saw Himawari's eyes dart downward for just a millisecond. And it was in that millisecond that she realized Himawari was telling the truth. It didn't matter that Sakurako didn't know what to say, or that she couldn't wrap her head around any of this yet, let alone the latent, unnamed feelings she'd held for years now exploding inside her own chest. All that mattered was that Himawari was here, inches from her, telling her without a second's hesitation that she loved her, just for being Sakurako.

All this had, of course, flown through her mind in one single moment of realization, and Sakurako snapped back to reality before Himawari had. In that split second that Himawari was distracted, Sakurako threw her arms around the bluenette's neck and launched herself up from her position on the hotel bed, into Himawari's arms, eliciting a soft oomph from the other girl. Still, Himawari caught her, preventing the two of them from toppling over backwards, and took a moment to catch her breath, Sakurako's face buried in her neck.

Meanwhile, Sakurako's mind was a mess of jumbled thoughts and emotions as she clung to Himawari. The warmth, the softness, the looks, the fullness, the fear…but more than anything, she felt incredibly and absolutely safe in Himawari's arms. Her stomach felt like it was full of a thousand butterflies, and it was jumping as though she was going to be sick, but it a good way, and Sakurako had no idea what to do or what was going to happen. She just knew that Himawari holding her like this felt good—safe, warm, close—so holding her tighter must feel better.

And so Sakurako tightened her arms around Himawari's neck, eliciting a quiet gasp from the bluenette, who led them back over to the bed and maneuvered so that they were both sitting down against the pillows.

Himawari knew Sakurako better than anything—better even, if possible, than herself, and she knew that Sakurako was nowhere near the point Himawari herself was. The blonde was more than likely confused and, if Himawari dared to hope that her love was reciprocated, completely unaware of what her feelings had meant. Despite this, Sakurako didn't seem to want to let go, and maneuvered herself right into Himawari's lap the second the latter had finally gotten the both of them settled. Himawari bit back another gasp, closing her eyes and swallowing hard. Sakurako didn't mean it—she had no idea what she did to her, Himawari was certain—but if things kept up like this, the more mature, significantly more aware of her own feelings Himawari wasn't sure she would last the night.

BLAH. Not sure about this, but that's what I get for waiting several months in between chapters. Speaking of, I'm so sorry about the hiatus! You guys are all so incredibly supportive of this story and of me, and you deserve way better than that! I got so caught up in my externship and debating if the career was right for me and switching between depression/anxiety meds that I just completely let the story slip. But I'm in a slightly more stable point in my life, so I decided to try to start up again, and I hope you guys can forgive me, or at least continue to enjoy the story as you had been. I was prompted to start again NOW when I looked for YuruYuri fanfic to READ and the whole first page was like a page out of my Spanish textbook. I'm sure they're great stories, but even though I took advanced Spanish back in high school, the most I know now is "Donde esta la bibliotecha?" and "Puedo ir al bano, por favor?". So yeah. Got frustrated, wrote this.

Please leave a review! I really tried with this chapter—it was always going to be a hard one to write, which is my own fault for drawing everything out for so long. I don't mind going the long route, but geez, the PRESSURE :P