Rebanex: Ugh, I just noticed that. I didn't realize how much of a Bella thing it was to say until you pointed that out... Well, I was going for cheese and fluff. I guess I kind of succeeded too much?

This chapter will be sad (but short), to make up for the excessive squishiness in the previous chapters. Also it is an AH AU.

I was trying this different style of writing. It's kind of choppy and jarring... rrgh. You tell me, is it a failed experiment?

SLIGHTLY EDITED. Touched up on a few bits, but otherwise I liked this one.

13. Time

Konoka and Setsuna met when they were seven.

Setsuna was the new student, and back then, kids rarely transferred into the school in the middle of the year, so naturally all the other kids were curious about her. However, they quickly backed off when met by Setsuna's cold glares and indifferent stares. The only one who did not stop trying to talk to her was Konoka. Konoka, whose sanity was questioned, just could not get her mind off of that mysterious transfer student.

Setsuna was not as mean to Konoka as she was to everyone else. But Konoka sometimes wished that Setsuna would be mean to her, because instead of shouting at her or giving her bitter expressions, Setsuna would just run away. She would avoid Konoka's eyes and then edge away like a cornered animal.

It kind of hurt.

Konoka was very likeable. At least, everyone she knew liked her. Konoka had no idea how she was supposed to make Setsuna like her because she had never needed to try to make people like her before.

It rained the day Konoka finally decided, this is it! She was going to talk to Setsuna, and if it went badly... Well then, she would have met the first person to dislike her.

The confrontation ended with Konoka holding a sobbing Setsuna to her chest. Her hands unconsciously rubbed Setsuna's back, careful to avoid the bruises. Her head was still reeling from the big, dark secret Setsuna had just revealed to her.

The next day, Konoka had a cold.

Everyone was shocked when Setsuna went right up to Konoka and apologized. They were completely baffled when Konoka sneezed and Setsuna gave her a packet of tissues. They could not believe their eyes when Konoka pouted at being unable to open the packet and Setsuna helped her... while blushing.

Occasionally Setsuna would act stand-offish, but otherwise she seemed completely smitten with Konoka.

All through elementary and middle school, Setsuna was teased by the others of being overprotective of Konoka. But it was true. If it was wet outside, Setsuna would playfully flick water at Konoka, yet if someone else did it, she would enact revenge... and it would be ten times worse. Like pushing that person into the school's pool. Or dumping a bucket of muddy water over that person's head.

When they were fourteen, Konoka began to notice Setsuna noticing her. And so did everyone else.

They swore Konoka and Setsuna would hook up, marry, then live happily forever after. They were like the school's Golden Couple, or whatever. The two laughed and shrugged off the fantasies, but Konoka secretly thought that too. Actually, they kissed once. Lip-on-lip. Konoka had cowardly declared that it was for practice. So that when they did it with the people they actually liked (Secchan) it would not be horrible.

It was funny because two years later, when they were sixteen, Setsuna finally got a girlfriend.

No one was surprised that she liked girls.

Everyone was surprised that the girlfriend's name did not start with the letter 'K'.

Actually, it started with the letter 'T'.

It was funny—funny in a kind of painful way—their conversation in which Setsuna had let it slip that she was taken. It was not really a conversation considering it started out with Konoka leaning in for a kiss, and Setsuna nearly letting her before suddenly jerking away. It was not a conversation because Setsuna did most of the talking (stammering), explaining why they could no longer have their 'practice' make out sessions, and Konoka just stood there silently, too stunned to reply.

Konoka never confessed, and Setsuna never knew.

They parted on graduation day. It was awkward. They were eighteen.

Today, they are twenty-seven.

Konoka sifts through her mail. She stops when she sees an elegant looking envelope. It is peach-colored and has a red, flowery seal.

She opens it.

It is a wedding invitation.

Her heart falls to the floor.

She does not want to go.

Setsuna had been her best friend for eleven years. They kept in contact after graduating for about three.

And she does not want to go.

She does not want to see how happy Setsuna is. How together Setsuna's life must be.

She does not want to see Setsuna's fiancée—wife, how beautiful she must be, how lucky she is.

Konoka thinks back when people used to think she and Setsuna were perfect together. How they thought the two would grow up together and never apart.

She remembers dreams of marriage, both participants in soft white dresses. Dreams of growing old together, adopting a girl or boy, having fights, making up... intertwining wrinkly fingers. She remembers hoping Setsuna would die first, because Konoka did not want Setsuna to feel abandoned.

How silly of her to think that Setsuna was so dependant on her.

She reaches for a pen to write a reply.

She is crying by the time she reaches the sentence, yes, I can attend.