"Umi-chan, look," she calls out, approaches, breaking into not-quite run, steps hurried (yet measured and thoroughly planned, somehow, like she's expecting something from even the smallest detail of gesture, like desperation), and shoves the manga onto the other girl's face, with two pages spread open and cover looking like it's age a hundred, "aren't they cute?"

Umi's eyes hover between the book and her, whose grin a little bit too earnest to actually look like one.

Honoka watches the girl stands up from the floor, dusting off her skirt gracefully, and remarks (and half-gapes) how beautiful she looks like doing so, even though all she did was, you know, dusting her skirt off, and it's nothing new because supposedly girls and princesses do so. She runs her index finger on the surface of the pages, along the illustration of a knight on a white horse, in orange robe with splotches of red and a katana slung on his back, with hands held out to a pretty lady in kimono with the color of the sea. Both have this dumbly wide grin on their faces and it kind of ruins the whole romantic mood they're meant to act out. "I guess they are,"

"Do you think we could ever be like them?" Honoka asks, and looks into her eyes shyly and full of hope, and prays to get the answer she wants (but not the one she needs).

"Don't be silly," Umi replies and Honoka's shoulders sagged a little (alot), and suddenly the whole library sounds like someone pressed the mute button, and it feels like they're on a world of their own, just two ten year-olds and a smudgy from time illustration of a children fairytale and a heart broken into two, or three, or seven, "you can't even get a fifty on a math test. You can't be a knight."

"Eeeh?"

"Knights are perfect." She says, all absolute and sure, pulls the book from Honoka's hands, and snaps the two pages together, clamping the grayscale illustration shut in a soft thump all the while Honoka's heart makes a suspicious crick-CRACK noises.

Guess I'm not good enough for you, she swallows down the words (because) and instead, "Gee, fine!"

Honoka frowns from her heart because Umi doesn't even blush or even flattered, and she huffs, and the sound is not fond at all, but it's not like Umi will notice anything. Umi lets out a dry laugh and a smilethat tastes halfway bitter and mostly sourthat doesn't fit a 5th grader in any way possible, and she walks away with a thick hardcover book on her hand. Something about the Oda clan's victories and their smug shogi playing. Or the kinds of teapot they used to own and ogle at back in the days where the art of tea was a Serious Business. Still not something her age should read, or even borrow from the school library, or even carry around, with her fingers, dainty and fragile, wrapped tightly around it.

(Honoka imagines how her hand would feel like in hers, then promptly throws away the thought when she realizes her hand is much smaller in size, and the thought sends an itch down to the bottom of her stomach and she spends the night later trashing around on her bed hoping for it to go away and leave her alone already, because she had enough of dealing with heartbreaks and have no room for self-hating.)

She's twelve when she pulls herself together and thinks she might actually have a chance.

There's a beauty in struggle. Sure, Umi gives her cold shoulders now and then, scowls more than she smiles (at least towards her, you know, she's like – the special exception to everything, and the only person in the room who doesn't get an ounce of her leniency), and beats down on her pride and confidence whether she meant it or not, and Honoka likes to interpret them as signs of her being, you know, a special exception, because she's not as dense and she can feel it, the way Umi's eyes linger at her longer than they do at Kotori's chirping figure or the boys' puberty-broaden backs. She read once from a magazine with striking pink decorating every nook and cranny of its pages that longing looks from a maiden is supposedly, a sign of affection.

Like she's waiting for you to sweep her off her feet already.

It's mid-December when she decides to gather all her newfound courage to pop the question. The sky's white with streaks of blue and the cold bites into the dry-cracks of her skin relentlessly and she's left with joints tightened from the invisible nerves-gnawing frosts and she wishes for a personal, portable sun to carry around as a strap for her cell just to keep her a bit warmer. Apparently, her sun has matters to attend to even though the school bell rung half an hour ago. Apparently, being a class rep is suffering.

The door to the rooftop creaks open slowly, and the echo is better felt than heard to Honoka because at this point she's too tense for her senses to function accordingly, and Umi slips into the quiet rooftop with an apologetic smile present. For once, it's her who's frantically flinging apologies. It's a nice change of pace.

"Anyway, Honoka, what do you want to talk about?" Umi asks while rubbing her palms together for some makeshift warmth, even though if it's warmth she's seeking for, she could've asked her for a tight hug. She won't mind giving her one. And won't mind to contribute more for the days to come.

"It's actually nothing important, really," she slips in a half-laugh, though her half-laughter was short-lived when Umi shoots her The Evil Eye, because maybe, she isn't worth The Mighty Umi's time, "I just, um, I have this question to ask. It's. It's actually rather important."

"I see," Umi says, the words rolling off in vapor clouds.

Honoka looks away for a second to clear off her thoughts, then back to gazing deeply into Umi's eyes the way knights do to their damsel in distresses, the way a merman yearns for the sky blue above the blue linings of ocean. She clears her thoughts, blinks, and charges through,

"Umi-chan. D, do you want to, to go out with me?"

And here comes the silence, and Honoka stares at Umi with gritted teeth and the stupidly loud thumping of her heart, face-paced and impatient and all heavy-metal. Umi looks like she's mulling over the question, but then again she doesn't really know what's on the class rep's mind. (Because she doesn't want to hope too much.)

"Sure," Umi nods, and Honoka wonders why it feels too anticlimactic for such… well-thought out and fiction-inspired confession, down to the stuttering bit, though it's mostly just her being a massive wrecking nerves, "where to?"

"Huh?"

Umi sighs, and rubs the bridge of her nose while creases appear between her brows and suddenly Honoka considers jumping off the roof because it will probably save her from the humiliation. "You asked me to go out with you, right? Where to? Where do you want to go, Honoka,"

This time Umi's words roll onto the broken, disjointed ears of Kousaka Honoka, who's hearing less and less from the world as the eerie silence of despair swallows her whole. The prospect of doing a bungee-jump from the rooftop down to the concrete ground below sounds even more appealing than it was minutes ago.

(But she can't miss the way the flickers in Umi's eyes died down for just a millisecond when she quiets down and drops the issue of her failure of a confession. Umi looks off and askew.

It reads like a disappointment. Halfway into an expression akin to betrayal, but mostly just pure disappointment, and all in all, she's screwed and she knows it.)

The realization comes in with the picture taken with the rest of the class together as some kind of a memento, since in months lives will go on but they will no longer glare at the same whiteboard. Honoka stands beside Umi just because, and puts and arm around the graduating class rep's shoulder and they're really close and it's the way Umi relaxes into her arm that makes her lips quiver into a dumb un-smile. And, God, she smells really good.

When she gets her own copy of the picture later it kind of cracks her up, seeing the Honoka in the photo giving Umi this subtle side-glance. Umi's looking at the camera, smile all radiant and straight-A beautiful. Kotori won't stop poking fun at the incredulousness of the picture.

She's fourteen when she realizes that not all love are meant to be returned. (She's fourteen when her smile crumbles apart and her chest tightens and she's hearing more and more frustrated whines of a little girl In Love from the back of her mind.)

"I—," she starts, and Umi gives her this impatient look (like she's expecting something to follow after the word, four letters and it starts with an L and ends with an E and there's an O and a V in-between, but that's just Honoka being stupidly hopeful, right?) and anyway, she starts and immediately regrets the fact that she doesn't have the courage to say the rest of the sentence, so she slowly clamps her mouth shut and the next thing she blearily aware of is the soft click of the sliding door and Umi's retreating figure and her as the last man standing on their classroom.

—like you, she closes her eyes, and the summer feels colder even with the sun and its holy oppressive heat and she silently craves for the sea. Ilikeyou.

She's fifteen when she's thinking of giving up entirely on her love.

It takes years for her to finally realize that she's never going to get the girl to look at her the same way she looks at her, and that's hours of her life wasted on longing looks and failed attempts at flattering her object of affection, who's probably, denser than the Berlin Wall. Nowadays she's doing less and less side-glancing and more and more avoiding, eye-contacts are scarce and nearly amount to nil, and Kotori's eyes, full of worries, linger at her longer than it should be. That, and at times she finds herself in a tight hug courtesy of Kotori but it's different from their usual friendly-skinship and more along the line of I'm sorry I can't fix you.

One rainy day, in an unsettling coincidence where it's just her and Umi in the classroom, both packing their things while she's trying her best not to spark up anything that might interest her childhood friend – everything falls apart.

"Honoka," Umi begins, and it's so quiet it might as well lose to the pitter-patter of the rain outside, and Honoka halts her movements as the clattering of her stuffs might drown in Umi's voice, "you're avoiding me."

"What are you talking about, Umi-chan—"

Umi raises her voice, and her voice crackles, like fire, something the rain outside won't even be able to put out, "What happened?" and this time her face is turned towards her and she' shrinking in size under Umi's intense gaze. "Why are you doing this?"

"It's nothing," she answers back with a murmur, eyes strangely fixated on her school bag, "it really is."

(She catches, from the corner of her eye, Umi looking like she's about to say something, then stops and strolls out of the classroom without turning back, leaving her wondering whether things would be better had Umi said what she wanted to get across.

Or maybe, whether things would be a whole lot easier for her had she seized Umi's hand. Maybe it takes those words to be spoken for something to actually change, for the better or for worse.)

Kotori kind of saves the day.

She's been spending her days studying together with Kotori in the library since midterms is just around the corner and naturally, for the free air-conditionings. They sit with a set of problems sitting still to be solved and eventually, somewhere along the way, Kotori closes her math notebook and stares resolutely at her instead.

"Kotori-chan," she says, looking up from her book, a wry smile plastered on her face, "I,"

Kotori smiles anyway, "I know," she says, I'm sorry, she mouths.

Somehow Kotori roped Umi into their small three-man school idol group business.

It's a bit embarrassing for them to see her tripping on her own feet and falling flat to the asphalt below with her butt as the sacrificial lamb, but when Umi stretches a hand to her, she can't resist the smile tugging at her lips.

She gives Umi's hand a firm grip and gets back on her feet once again.

Their first live concert is a total failure and it left them a total mess – a mixture of bittersweet tears and sobbing noises muffled by hearty laughter and suddenly the near-empty auditorium doesn't feel too lonely anymore.

She's fifteen when gives up on giving up her love. She's fifteen when she's in love all over again.

Eri happens, and things take turn for the worse… sort of.

Eri is a natural leader, a natural beauty, a natural hardworker – Eri's everything she's not and that actually stings a little (a lot). She's like, Umi, only more adult-like, and has better control over her emotions, so they bond rather quickly. A little too quickly for her liking, but still. It's not like she can coop Umi into a windowless asylum just to make sure she's ten meters radius away from any Ayase Eri on the solar system. Jealousy blinds her, but not enough to turn her into a lion unleashed. She's also no master when it comes to the art of subtlety, and no, telling Umi straight to her face "If you like Eri-chan that much why don't you turn back the time so the two of you can be magically born as childhood sweethearts and marry each other in the future" doesn't even sound remotely like one. It didn't work the first and last time she pulled it, and that's the tragic backstory behind the moon-shaped scar near her elbow, a grim reminder of how Umi's rather… skilled at pinching people.

But the fact is irrefutable; Umi is… overly-fond of Eri, and that's bad.

So one day they're walking beside each other with stacks of books and documents on their hands after they kindly offered helping hands to the student council (she didn't miss the way Umi seemed really eager at getting some burden off of Eri's shoulders). And then of course she trips on thin air and oxygen and carbon dioxide and the books roughly kiss the floor in a loud THUMP. Umi reprimands her while picking the books up, andHonoka is half-grateful for the help but if only she could shut the heck up.

"You should learn a thing or two from Eri," Umi says, sky blue eyes (wide, angered, hurt) snapping at her, but she doesn't take notice and she's actually too busy with dust-kissed biology encyclopedias.

(But then again you're you, and that's why I only have my eyes set on you.)

"Gee, Umi-chaaan," she replies back, and sticks a tongue out.

(Sorry for not being Eri-chan.)

Eri is, in reality, Too Awesome to Hate.

Eri is probably an almost perfection rather than a full-blown one like Maki-chan, but that's what made her even more charming than the first year. It's all about the counter-balance. She's smart, she's the student council president, she's a real beauty, she's got a nice, adult-like figure, she's – a scaredy-cat, at times clumsy, is rather easily flustered (courtesy of none other than her right hand man Nozomi), a coward deep down, and an expert at losing.

That, Honoka can relate.

All in all, Eri is perfect at being imperfect. Kind of like Umi. She possesses the qualities of winners while not actually being one. She seeks for Gold and ends up with a Bronze, or even an Iron. Honoka feels this unusual attraction at the president – it's different from the one she has going on with Umi for years, but it's wonderful all the same.

She begins to wonder why she once held contempt to Eri, and shakes off the thought of blaming Love for it.

Is this even worth it, she hears herself whispers, less a question than a statement, to the Kousaka Honoka in the mirror, and they both exchange angry smiles with each other.

She notices the changes in Umi, like how she dressed up nicer than ever these days, pastel touches and warm, soft colors, skirts a bit shorter but not enough for the daring territory, the slight swaying when she walks – it's all in the details, and she had to admit that the change itself is barely noticeable, and giggles a bit at the thought of, that's so like Umi-chan.

She's not one with subtlety, so, she strikes while the iron is still hot, one rainy day when she's forgotten her umbrella back home and it's just Umi and her and tiny umbrella that fits for one person only. She also welcomes the close proximity. "Umi-chan," she asks, eyes on the road as she makes her way carefully around a puddle, "are you in love?"

The way she worded it, featherweight and out of nowhere, she thinks Umi would just shrug it off, a bit flustered maybe, but still taking it lightly. She meets her wrong.

"Wh," Umi says back to her, half-shouts, just a little bit too fast to be a proper surprise, from the corner of her eyes, she watches Umi whipping her head to her direction, "what, that's – "

"I see!" She chuckles to make it light, and perhaps it might help her minimize the chance of getting thrown out of Umi's umbrella. "So, so, who's the lucky guy – or girl, eh? Eh? Umi-chaaan?"

"That's none of your business, Honoka." Umi tries to steady her voice, but it's still quivering by a little bit, and she's not sure whether it's excitement or agitation or whatever. Umi tries to reign over her emotions before they got the better of her.

"It's Eri-chan, isn't it?" She means it as a joke. Her eyes are on the asphalt below, watching her steps. They're uneven with Umi's, hers a tempo too fast and Umi's too slow. They used to walk in a same tempo some time ago when they were just a pair of runny-nosed brats and yet to feel the disaster called Love.

Umi goes off quiet and they spend the rest of the walk back home lips pursed together but minds running rampant with what-ifs and whys. If only I didn't—

On another rainy day, she lost her umbrella and Umi's there with one in her hand but Eri is there with none.

"Ah, it seems that someone stole mine," Eri says, and Honoka wastes no time to act. She pulls a textbook out of her bag, the one with her copy of math homework slipped in there, and holds it up above her head, "guess I'll just wait for the rain to let up. See you tomorrow, Honoka, Umi – Honoka?"

Umi also throws her a questioning look while opening her umbrella. "Honoka, aren't we going to share the umbrella?"

"Crap, I forgot! I need to run an errand, and the convenience store is the other way around, so yeah, see ya two tomorrow!" She says, and dashes straight home with the heavy torrents of rain viciously tormenting her hunched back.

She's sixteen when she tries not to look back. (She's sixteen when she pretends to miss the shout Umi gave her the second she darted out of the school building, Honoka, wait up, Honoka—)

The next day, Umi doesn't look too happy.

"Um. So. How's walking home with Eri-chan?"

Umi chews her lower lip, and averts her eyes elsewhere, and Honoka sincerely hopes that someone, anyone would barge in any minute now because it's just the two of them now in the rooftop and it's awfully windy and awkward here. "You don't understand," Umi continues, and her voice is hushed and small and just plain sad that Honoka's feeling guilty and wishes the floor would open up and just swallow her whole, "you won't."

"Sorry," she says, a bit louder than Umi's near-murmur. She's obligated to say it.

"You're always like this," she listens to Umi with her ears on but heart somewhere else, and finds herself staring at her shoes even though there isn't anything remotely special about them, "always, always, always betraying my expectations,"

"Huh, what?"

Umi takes a step back, breathing in, pausing, and mutters something under her breath, but it's too low for Honoka to hear and she'd strained her ears, that even the strong wind couldn't blow the words onto her, and instead she's looking pretty dumb with crestfallen face and her head leaned to the front.

"Umi-chan, sorry, but really, ya see, I'm kind of… lost here, like – I don't know what you're even talking about but," she's rambling now and it's obvious from how she fumbles with her own words that she's out of her wit as to what to do next, like she's in a fit of bewilderment and desperation, "but, but—I, I'm really, really sorry for… for not living up to your wants,"

"You're not the only one at fault, Honoka." Umi says, cutting Honoka off deliberately. Honoka jumps a little and tries to quell the sudden craving for a warm bath, anything to soothe the cold scraping her exposed skins. "I am partly to blame, too, for not stating my feelings correctly."

"C'mon, like I said, it's all my fault," this time Honoka raises her voice and strengthens her tone, and she almost sounds like she's pissed and she knows she'll regret this later, with her face contorted into a semblance of anger and Umi – why's she taking another step back? "it's, it's all my fault for being a pain in the butt and misinterpreting everything and I guess I really, really am a big dummy because even now I don't even know where did I go wrong and what did I ever do to you because, yeah, right, I'm just a dumbas—"

"Honoka!" This time Umi shouts, and a deafening silence enshrouds them as they lock eyes. Honoka balls her fists on her sides, trying to channel all of her boiling fury to them instead, since she can't risk hurting the girl she loves anymore. She's a sore loser, but not that much of a loser. "Why – I, Honoka,"

(Why did you say that, do you know how much I _ you?)

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Umi-chan," Honoka says, and her shoulders sag and the door to the rooftop thrown open and figures come shuffling in, "I know. Sorry."

(Sorry for _ing you.)

The Love Live! tournament. The disbandment of Muse. The third-years graduating. Everything was like a fleeting and unfocused blur, disappearing into the horizon.

Honoka kept everything inside and Umi did too, and not once they addressed to whatever went between them since then, but likewise, there's an end to everything.

(The good news is, there's a new beginning to every ending, and maybe the future isn't so bad after all.)

She's seventeen when she's faced with a decision to go on without Umi.

It's not that she didn't try to move on; she did, oh God, she did, but it's the world that moved on without her, leaving her crumpled and battered and every bit messed up, at least not in the front, but she's never been really good at façade and pretense, so it probably shows. That might be the answer behind the sympathy in Maki's eyes, the frequent warm hugs from Kotori, and the sweets left on her desk by Yukiho when she's out taking a bath.

So one rainy day, (it's gotten repetitive at this point, and these days Honoka prepares herself for whatever that might jump at her whenever the sky shows even the smallest hint of gloom), it's just her and Umi and an empty classroom saves the two of them and history report halfway done and this time it really feels like they're the only one in the whole world, Umi – who's all grace and calm and beauty and her, who really is a bundle of wrecked nerves.

And then Umi asks, softly dropping her hand above her history textbook and it rolls a bit before going motionless and still. "I'll tell her,"

Honoka looks up from the damned assignment she's been staring blankly at for the past fifteen minutes or so. "Eh?"

"I'm going to tell her what I feel. I can't continue on, leaving things like this," Umi explains, and she listens to it intently because she wasn't given any other option, "I'll just have to tell her straight so this time, there'll be an end to all of this."

"Sure!" She chirps in reply, because… because.

"But," Umi's face scrunches up as she mulls over her thought, "I think I'm going to tell her over a letter."

"A love letter? That's classic. And that's so like you!" Honoka slips in a laugh, and quenches the urge to add in some salt and pepper to her words. "Are you going to write it in a neat calligraphy, 'I Love You', all black ink and careful curves?"

Umi heaves a sigh, and then picks up her pen once more, the tip hovering just above the paper. "You're supposed to wish me a 'good luck', you know."

Silence settles in, and Umi sits there across her and pen still not touching the surface of the paper. (As if she's waiting for something, anything, please, this is the last chance, I've given you the cue—)

So she says, "Good luck," and this time she looks up from her shoes, straight to the amber eyes, and she can feel crinkles on her eyes and the corners of her lips curving up into one sincere smile, "and Umi-chan, I – "

I've always liked you. I like you. Ilikeyou.

She's seventeen when she picks up a blue envelope from inside her shoe locker, and she doesn't really know whether she should laugh or cry, and reads aloud the sharp, yet neat handwriting on the bottom-right of the front side, to Kousaka Honoka, whom I have loved for seven years now.

Notes: [1] ahahahahahahahahahaha.

[2] I SWEAR THIS WILL BE THE LAST HONOKA/UMI FROM ME.

[3]I suck at writing romance go me. Also, school is on again and the next thing from me will probably an update of Cinderella of The Thirteenth Hour, because I have high hopes on that one.

[4] Reviews are really appreciated.