a/n: thanks to the hebb discord for This

Natsuki knows, and she understands from a very young age, that I'm not like other girls is a fancy way of saying you like slightly different boys and that actually being not like other girls, at least the girls in your class, is an altogether lonelier endeavor. The skirts feel too airy around her legs. There's the twisty and bright feeling in her chest she feels when the girl with the freckles from her maths class gives her a piece of chalk on the playground and clasps it in her hand like it's a promise too strange and powerful for her to put it into words yet.

She does put it into words, eventually. Not right then, but eventually.

A boy tries to kiss Yuuko when she is eight years old, and she stomps on his foot so hard he cries, and that's the end of that.

They meet in middle school, and it means nothing, and it means everything.

Yuuko doesn't trust Natsuki, never has - Nakagawa-san, that weird girl, with her strange way of speaking and her lopsided grin, lazy euph is what they call her and Yuuko doesn't stop them.

Minami Middle School has a band, and Nozomi tugs Natsuki along to show off the club room, and a week later she has a euphonium in her arms.

Yuuko has no idea how Nozomi and Natsuki met, but Mizore looks at Nozomi like the sun shines out of her ass and Nozomi and Natsuki are friends so that means they end up spending a lot of time together, for better or worse.

(Usually for worse)

Yuuko knows how to push down her feelings, replace them with anger and frumpiness until nobody can see what's underneath, and she'd like to think that she's very good at this. She's Mizore's second choice, and when she enters high school and her whole body feels like it's floating on clouds whenever she sees Kaori she knows that she's hardly even on her radar, and it's fine.

The only one who doesn't seem to think so is Natsuki, insufferable as she is, who sees her fawning over Kaori or fretting about Mizore and tells her, flat-out, that she deserves better.

"Trying to get a chance with me?" she asks, dry, arms crossed. Natsuki shrugs.

"Just checking up on ya," she says, and it's obvious that she means it, and the knowledge of that makes Yuuko feel an unfamiliar feeling she can't entirely explain.

Natsuki has one very small rainbow button on her backpack, which most people either don't notice or don't say anything about. It came with the giant flag that she keeps in her room, a place that only Yuuko and Nozomi have seen.

It scares her half to death every time someone glances at her a little too long at first, and then time passes and she builds up her shields and nobody really notices anyway, so it's fine.

Yuuko wants to do a lot of things, when Mizore tells her point-blank to her face that Nozomi is her only friend, but she can't see much with the tears blurring her vision and it's Mizore, so she settles for squishing her cheeks, pushing down her own feelings like she always does and trying to lighten the mood, somehow.

The rage doesn't go away. Her fists still itch to connect with something, her heart still sticks out in uneven spikes and she thinks oh, now everyone can see it.

They can't, of course, but she thinks it anyway.

Their first kiss is one that Natsuki doesn't count as their first kiss, because it's right after Mizore and Nozomi made up and they're in Natsuki's room, again, because Yuuko said she couldn't bear to go back home, not where she had photos of herself and Mizore, herself and Kaori.

"D'you have any photos of me?" she asks, twirling a pen between her fingers.

"I would if you ever took any. You're a shitty photographer." Yuuko doesn't look at her, but she's smiling a little, and it's strained. The pen pops open and makes a little dot of dark-blue ink on Natsuki's hand. "They all look like shots of cryptids."

"I'd make a great cryptid." Natsuki hunches over and makes her hands into claws, tries to roar. Yuuko snorts.

"You'd get caught within, like, a day." Yuuko's smile is radiant, though. There's not much malice behind the words at all. "Conspiracy theorists would have a field day."

"That wouldn't be so bad, getting to be in the spotlight for a day or so before people moved on." Natsuki winces at her own word choice. Yuuko looks very small, right then, even though Natsuki knows they're the exact same height. They've tested it. "You okay?"

"What do you think?" Yuuko doesn't try to hide the acid in her voice. Natsuki doesn't try to stop her. "Nobody wants me."

I want you, Natsuki wants to say, but there are certain lines in their relationship, a layer of irony and rudeness they have to keep up if they want this to keep going, so she just sits there, quiet, and then Yuuko grabs her hands and the ink is still wet so it rubs off on hers, and then she leans in close and…

...and they're kissing, and Natsuki lets herself sink into the feeling for exactly one second before she pushes Yuuko away.

"Not now," she says, closing her eyes so she can't see Yuuko's reaction, so Yuuko can't see her.

Yuuko catches a cab home that night, and Natsuki lies in bed and feels the weight of the world press on her.

Yuuko gets home and presses her face into her mattress with enough force that it actually hurts her nose a little bit. She's not tired at all; it's the opposite, and she wishes she could be tired, because instead every single molecule of her body is screaming at her, calling her an idiot for falling in love with the wrong people and always, always paying the price for it, and she's a melodramatic teenager but she's also hurting and the one person she could maybe talk to about it is the one she just kissed, like a moron.

She falls asleep with her hand clutching her heart.

Natsuki sees Yuuko at school the next day, Mizore noticeably absent, and they sort of halfheartedly wave to each other and it's a start, at least.

Their actual first kiss (according to Natsuki, though Yuuko is significantly less of a romantic and considers their first kiss to be the first time they kissed, simple as that) is several months later, after they've been picked as president and vice president, in Yuuko's living room.

"My parents aren't going to be home until late," she says, burrowing into the pink hoodie that's a little too big for her but it'd been a birthday present from Kaori and the air conditioning in her house is always too cold, even in the summer, so she keeps it on. It's still weird to see Natsuki on her couch, even though they've done this before.

"Asking me to stay over, Prez?" Natsuki looks at the club budget, some sad thing they've inherited.

"I outrank you. I could make you stay, if I wanted."

"It's only a position of power when we're in school, dummy. Even in the school, it's only in the band."

"I'm joking, Natsuki."

"I know. So am I." There's a pause, then, and Yuuko wonders why Asuka picked her to be president anyway - she never knew her very well, not beyond how everyone else knew her, the quasi-mythic leader, flitting in and out of the band like a fae, so theatrical that it wasn't hard to imagine that she was hiding something. "We're gonna be the worst leaders."

"Probably." Yuuko pauses, and the words form all of a sudden on her tongue and she thinks that if she doesn't say them she'll explode. "At least I'll have you there."

"And I'll have you." Natsuki bumps her shoulder and the touch sends a shiver through Yuuko's body. She doesn't let herself hope - never was very good at doing that, letting herself hope - but Natsuki doesn't move away. Yuuko licks her lips and Natsuki takes it as an invitation, and it is, and she tastes like the chips they'd been eating earlier and the kiss is impossibly soft and this, Yuuko thinks, this is what it's supposed to feel like.

Natsuki tends to walk home alone, since her house isn't all that far from the school, but Yuuko tags along, sometimes, and she doesn't stop her.

Right now, they're not at either house, they're at the pharmacy, a creepy and clinical place with dry air and too-harsh lighting, and Natsuki's there to pick up some toothpaste, and it's the most boring place in the world, but she has someone with her and that, somehow, makes it feel more alive than anything else.

"Do you really think we're going to be bad leaders?" Yuuko runs her pointer finger along some greeting cards and winces when a thin red line comes back. Natsuki's breath hitches.

"I think I am," she says, because it's what Yuuko wants to hear and it's true, anyway.

They both have some problems with self-esteem, when it comes down to it.

"You're too intense for people to ignore you."

"Wow, thanks for that." Yuuko takes a yellow strip of cloth from one of those side racks where they keep the things nobody wants, rubs it between her fingers. "Nobody takes me seriously because of what happened with Kousaka last year. Because I'm the ribbon girl and I'm too angry all the time."

"You're bleeding on that." Natsuki points to the cloth with the hand that's not holding her toothpaste. Yuuko jumps back at the sight of her own blood. "You'll have to buy it."

"Shit."

"It kinda looks like your ribbon, though."

"Yeah, it does." Yuuko leans against Natsuki and it's the most familiar feeling in the world and it makes her head spin every time. "It's smaller."

"Yeah."

They buy the ribbon-adjacent cloth and the next day Yuuko shows up at Natsuki's house wearing it, head held high, and they don't need to say anything.

Yuuko tries to enjoy the spring, the new life in everything, and she's not exactly afraid of her role as president but she's not looking forward to having the weight of the band on her, not looking forward to Kaori being hundreds of miles away, but there isn't much she can do about it so she just counts the days and waits.

The new school year starts, and there's a fair amount of new students in the band - likely because of Taki-sensei, Natsuki thinks - and little Kanade follows Kumiko around like she's got the secrets to the world hidden under that stutter of hers and Natsuki tries not to be jealous.

Nozomi and Mizore deal with their own problems, and Natsuki is only tangentially involved in it, and she's fine with that. Leaving the meddling to Kumiko is something she's more than ready to do.

And they seem happy, anyhow, so that's all she needs to worry about for the time being.

"Hey, Oumae." Yuuko sits next to the girl who seems so insistent on shoving herself into everyone's problems like it's the easiest thing in the world.

"Ah, Yuuko-senpai. What's up?"

"Nothing much." It's sunny today, sunny enough that Yuuko has to squint to not have those splotchy dots show up in front of her face. "I'm not here to chew you out, you know. You can wipe that terrified look off your face."

"R-right. Sorry." Oumae is tall, but she curls into herself when she talks, like she's trying not to be seen.

If that's her intention, Yuuko thinks, she does a pretty piss-poor job of it.

She doesn't say that, because she does have some tact, but the thought still lingers.

"Do you ever get upset, Oumae?" Yuuko asks. Oumae shrugs.

"I mean, yeah. Doesn't everyone?"

"You know what I mean."

"I don't."

"I hate to say it, but we're not…all that different." Yuuko tugs down one of the flaps of her ribbon. "When you get down to it. And you can never tell Kousaka or Natsuki this, you hear me?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"I don't know how to stop falling for the wrong people."

"Hah, yeah, I get that." Oumae laughs a little, and it's a raspy sound, like she's forgotten how to do it.

"Things aren't working out so hot between you and Kousaka?"

"W-what? No! Wh- it's not like that!"

"Sure it's not." Yuuko sighs, wondering why she's saying any of this at all. Maybe it's just the energy that Oumae radiates. Maybe Yuuko is a complete hypocrite and she's dumping her problems onto this girl just like everyone else does to her. "It'd be nice if someone cared about me once in a while, right? If someone chose me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Yuuko wonders what goes on in this girl's head - she doesn't know her, not really, only knows the bare facts - she gets tangled in everyone's problems and she plays the euphonium and that's it, really. She could have a secret double life as a spy and Yuuko would be none the wiser.

A spy probably wouldn't be this forlorn, though, at least not without expecting something in return, which she isn't.

Yuuko might not be tired, she muses, but Oumae is. She's exhausted.

Natsuki sees Kumiko and Tsukamoto going out, sees Kumiko the unhappiest she's ever been, and she doesn't say anything about it because it's not her place, not until Kumiko comes to her one day after practice, waving goodbye to Kousaka and then jogging to greet her.

"H-hey. Natsuki."

"Yeah?"

"Could I, uh, could I have some advice?"

"Sure. Can't promise it'll be good advice, though."

"H-how did you come out?" Kumiko doesn't look at her. Natsuki's heart breaks.

"I didn't. Not really." This is the truth. "I just kinda…started to exist as myself, in the world. Figured it didn't matter much how other people saw me. My parents didn't really notice, or else they didn't want to. I'm pretty sure Katou still thinks I have a lineup of secret boyfriends hidden somewhere." Natsuki attempts a chuckle, and it comes out strained. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine! It's all totally fine, I was just…wondering."

"I'm saying this because I'm your best friend."

"Yeah?"

"Dump Tsukamoto's ass. You're not happy with him."

"You're blunt."

"Takes one to know one." Natsuki wants to hug her and figures she'll ask her if that's okay at the end of this conversation. "You're gonna be okay, alright? If- if ya take care of yourself. You'll be okay."

"Will I?"

Natsuki opens her arms and Kumiko rushes in and Natsuki never wants to let go.

"You're not secretly taking me to a garbage dump or something, right? Or one of your horrible punk shows?" Yuuko doesn't mind Natsuki's hands over her eyes, guiding her like she's doing, weird as it is to trust someone this much. There's still a nagging voice in the back of her mind that says to take the blinds off and get away.

"'Course I'm not. You'd catch the smell from a kilometer away anyway, and then there wouldn't really be a point to this." Natsuki flexes her fingers a little to emphasize the point, and Yuuko can see little flashes of light in the gaps between them. "Alright, here we go."

It's a punching bag.

They're in a gym, and Natsuki has taken her on a special mystery date to place her right in front of a punching bag.

"What is this?"

"Ya don't like it?"

"Is there supposed to be some subliminal messaging here?"

"You seemed stressed. I figured this could help. If it's not your thing I could take ya over to the tea shop down the street or something. I don't have any plans for the rest of the night." Natsuki leans on an invisible wall and nearly trips over her own two feet. Yuuko laughs, and mostly to humor her she halfheartedly punches the bag. It barely shifts. "Hey, you've got more pent-up rage than that."

"Fine." Yuuko punches it with a little bit more force this time.

"You can let it all out here."

"Okay, I'm doing it!" Yuuko thinks about Kaori's placid, tolerating smiles, about Mizore looking her in the eye and saying she's only ever had one friend, and before she knows it her fist has connected with the bag and it's swinging and her hand stings.

"There ya go!" Natsuki cheers her on, grinning. Yuuko's heart hammers in her chest and she imagines it spiked and ragged again. She slams her knuckles into the bag again and again until she's sweating and her entire body is moving, Mizore's face and Kaori's face and Kousaka, sometimes, all of them blur into this red-hot feeling of adrenaline-fueled exhaustion, like she's about to take an exam after no sleep, like her body's forcing her awake against her own volition.

She's angry and she doesn't care who knows it.

And then her legs give out from under her and Natsuki is there, all of a sudden, and Yuuko is crying a little bit but she's laughing, too, exhilarated.

"Yuuko!" Not Ribbons, or Prez. So this is serious. "You okay?"

"I feel great! Ha-ha! Yes! You have to try this, Natsuki!"

"Maybe next time." Natsuki glances at the punching bag again, smiles a little softly. Just the implication of a next time is enough to get Yuuko on her feet again, walking out, wondering how it's possible to feel this sad and this happy at the same time.

"So we've got Kumiko as the president, yeah? I'm not good with paperwork but ya got that, right?"

"And I selected the vice president." Yuuko puffs up her chest, proud of herself, and Natsuki thinks of a bird. "Tsukamoto-kun, the kid with the green hair? I don't know him that well, but he's dependable and Asuka-senpai told me he'd be a good fit for the position." Yuuko shrugs as she says it, returning to shuffling her folders, and Natsuki's blood runs cold.

"You what."

They don't talk for the train ride back, shoulders barely brushing against each other, the contact a shock to both when the train makes a turn and everything gets jostled.

Yuuko isn't mad about it, and she doesn't think Natsuki is either, but they're both sitting in the feeling of something and neither girl wants to be the one to break the silence.

It's too late for them to change things - the paperwork's already gone through and Tsukamoto is already the vice president - but Yuuko sends Oumae an apology text through Natsuki and hopes it'll be enough.

They graduate and it's honestly a little anticlimactic. The band hasn't been theirs in months, and they're going to the same university anyway, so none of it really matters all that much. Natsuki watches some girl she doesn't know - the valedictorian, but that's the only thing she knows about her - give a speech about the precious time she's spent at Kitauji, and Natsuki holds Yuuko's hand thoughtlessly, and Yuuko squeezes it back. She thinks about leaving behind the Agata Festival and the uniform skirts and relaxes in her seat a little, relishing in the few hours left before all of that can be a part of her past.

"What now?" Yuuko asks, afterwards, sitting in some crappy fast food restaurant. Natsuki shrugs. "I'd have thought you'd be happier about this whole thing. Going off to university! Wa-hoo."

"I'm worried about Kumiko." Natsuki drops her gaze to the table, stained with what she'd rather not know. "We left her behind."

"You're making it sound like a warzone. She's a high schooler with another year left of high school. She'll be fine."

"She'd better be."

"I apologized for the Tsukamoto thing, alright?" Yuuko quivers, and she feels like a cat with her hackles raised.

"I'm not mad at you about that! You didn't know! It's not your fault, Yuuko!" Natsuki levels her gaze, and it's too much, Yuuko thinks, it's too much for one person to care that much. "I'm just tired, that's it. I'm tired and I'm scared she's gonna wear herself out until she's nothing-"

"And you can't have that on your conscience, right?" Yuuko doesn't mean to be this angry, she never does, but the words come out like bile in her mouth. Natsuki doesn't respond.

"I don't like how much of a hold Asuka-senpai has on me, alright?" she finally says, quiet, after thirty seconds or so, once the silence has become unbearable. "Even though we weren't even that close. I feel like it all just...skipped a generation, like there're all these talented euphoniums and then there's just me. Lazy euph."

"Get some closure, then. You have her number, right?"

"Closure, huh?" Natsuki twirls a purple strand of hair around her finger, staring at the table like she always does when she's deep in thought. "Would ya help me with something?"

Natsuki sits alone on her bed, a day later, because this is something she doesn't want to involve Yuuko in - they're both protective of themselves and of each other, when they get down to it. The phone beeps once, twice, three times. Natsuki counts each beep on her fingers, moving her free hand up and down with the numbers sticking out. She almost flinches when the line finally connects and Asuka's voice comes through the speaker, clear as anything.

"Oh, Nakagawa-chan! Here to get some advice from your benevolent senior?" There's still that honey-sweet sensibility, betraying something underneath - everyone knew Asuka was hiding something, everyone knew she wasn't naturally like that.

Nobody ever called her out on it, until Kumiko did, and this was how she'd repaid her. Natsuki takes a deep breath.

"Why the hell did you choose Tsukamoto to be the vice president?"

"You're angry." Asuka pauses. Natsuki grits her teeth. "Well, why wouldn't I? They like each other, and I'm nothing if not someone who adores young love in all of its forms. I put you and Yoshikawa-chan together, didn't I?"

"Yeah! You did! Because ya knew that I…that I…" Natsuki falters, trying to think of the best way to handle this delicately and not out her friend, and nothing comes to mind. "We're good for each other. Me and Yuuko. Kumiko and Tsukamoto aren't."

"You know my word isn't law, right? You could have chosen someone else."

"Yuuko was in charge of that." Natsuki scratches at a pimple on her leg. Asuka is great at this, she thinks, getting under people's skin, making them feel stupid. No wonder she was so good at being the vice president - she'd have lowered their self-esteem so much that they'd have no choice but to follow her.

"Hmm, so you weren't paying attention?"

"Kumiko's not a happy kid."

"Neither was I."

"Yeah. And you're out of high school now, in the great wide world, yeah? Didn't even leave her with a phone number to call, but you gave it to me, making me feel like shit every time I call you because you should really be talking to her. Not me. Her." Natsuki pauses, reaches to tug at her ponytail and still finds herself surprised at the way her hand finds empty air instead. "I was always the dud, right?"

"Aren't you dramatic?"

"Bye, Asuka-senpai." Natsuki hangs up and lets the catharsis of the feeling wash over her for a few seconds, then flops down on the bed, stares up at the skylight.

Yuuko will never, ever admit it, not in a million years, but she and Kousaka are maybe kind of occasionally sometimes the kind of thing people might consider friends.

Which is to say, of course, that she calls her every few days, asks for updates about the band. Natsuki takes the opposite approach, staying in contact only with Oumae, and that's fine. Yuuko doesn't know the full extent of whatever happened with Oumae and Tsukamoto - the guilt gnaws at her anyway - but it's bad, whatever it is.

Kousaka seems to be fine as drum major, at least.

In any case, Yuuko is living with her girlfriend at a big university in Tokyo and that's more than either of them could've hoped for, and Yuuko is allowed to be opinionated and Natsuki is allowed to wear pants and both of those things are more important than one would think.

They put together a band and it's a little wonky and neither of them are very good, but it's theirs and nobody else's and that makes it precious. Natsuki tacks up posters around town and Yuuko gets the word out online and their first shows are only attended by a handful of people, but word gets out and they're not famous, exactly, nobody stops them on the street, but people like them. The shows are well-attended, and it's exhilarating to perform like this, without a conductor, without anyone telling them what to do. Natsuki sings until her voice goes raw and drinks up the cheers of the crowd, and she thinks that Yuuko must be enjoying this too, the attention, the emotional freedom, and she asks her as much, one night, in their too-small bed that's really just the right size.

"You're happier," Natsuki says, looking at Yuuko's purple nails, pressed against her. "Aren't ya?"

"Is this your way of trying to break up with me or something?" Yuuko tries to push her off the bed, and Natsuki grabs her arm at the last second and takes her down with her. They both land, uncomfortably, on the carpet.

"Of course it's not, dumbass. I'm just saying."

"Yeah, of course I'm happier. The band's taking off, I'm top of my poli-sci class, I live with you…" Yuuko pauses. There it is again, that fear they both have, that they'll be too serious and it'll drive the other away. She looks away.

"Hrm." Natsuki raises her eyebrows, and Yuuko presses a hand to her face. "So, ya like me?"

"You're so annoying."

"I know." Natsuki settles back into herself. "I'm happier, too."

"That's good." Yuuko closes her eyes. Natsuki's heart does a little flip. "I'm doing this because I trust you, by the way."

"Or because ya want to take a nap. Maybe I'm rubbing off on you." Natsuki pauses and closes her eyes, too. "I trust you, too."

"Okay."

"Alright, then." They're close, and that's not something either one of them would have expected, and it's…

It's nice.

a/n: i think of natsuki and yuuko as two "prongs" so to speak of how the hibike anime "softened" its female characters to make it more marketable - natsuki presenting in a more traditionally feminine matter, yuuko's anger being less prevalent (especially in the second season) and since they're, y'know, together, it felt natural to write about both of them dealing with the pressures that tell them to be like that. call it meta or what you will.