notes – ah, hmmm, I don't know what this is, entirely. I just wanted to write about Anaru. Post-series, because I feel like her character probably grows up a lot after the Super Peace Busters get back together proper.

June's Purple

She painted her fingers red and her toes blue.

The difference was stark, and she stared at the way they clashed against the colour of her skin. The girl didn't know what compelled her to paint her nails like that, couldn't tell why she reached for bright baby blue when she intended to apply some topcoat. Then again, it wasn't like anyone could see her feet since she wore covered shoes to school.

Naruko blinked, examining her hands and feet again. Suddenly, the colours looked horrible together, hot red and shy blue, like a mixture of humiliating inconsistencies. The nail polish would fade off in a fortnight and she'd go back to pink, pink, pink because that was who she was.

Then, Naruko remembered she had to go out on the weekend. It wasn't so much of a choice as it was an unspoken duty to her friends. She would wear a new pair of sandals that showed off her feet because it was the only pair of shoes that could match the dress she'd already picked out.

She grabbed the nail polish remover off the shelf.

When her friends stuck their fingers down their throats, she plunged her Sapphire Sword into the heart of the Scarlet Dragon.

The catchy soundtrack of the game blared out of the speakers of the television, and she felt heroic accomplishment, watching her character dance around the screen, celebrating the new record time of defeating the level's Boss. She never could leave her community of video games. The first time she tried, she ended up succumbing to the urge within a month once she saw the newest version of Nokemon teasing her from the shelves of the game store.

The second time, she packed everything into five boxes, appalled by the fact that her collection took up so much space. When she cleared out her closet a couple of weeks later to make way for a Sunday's worth of shopping, the games burst out of the cardboard and she couldn't ignore the nostalgia of saving a blonde princess from a misunderstood monster.

By the third time, when she just didn't feel like going out with her friends – she dug out her Rindendo games and fixed on her spectacles and curled up under her bedsheets. It was the best day she had in a very long time.

Now, she stood with pride, savoring the neat compartments of knick knacks in her bedroom. She'd divided her games according to genres and consoles and played favourites guiltlessly – placing the one with Menma's sticker and a handful of childhood memories into the drawer in the middle, at the heart of her collection.

Yukiatsu was a picture-perfect kind of guy. He had a practiced crowd-smile he used to give off all the good impressions, but none of the right ones. His tie was ironed to military perfection, and his school uniform was always immaculate. When he touched her, confident fingertips butterflying over her knuckles, he felt like glass. He had a handsome face and a decent hairstyle and grades that made her wonder if he did anything other than study. It only made the fact that he was hopelessly crumpled and shriveled up on the inside all the more apparent. But sometimes, it seemed that Tsuruko and she were the only ones who knew.

Naruko envied his honest performance and winced at the way she faltered when she couldn't express the words under her skin. Yukiatsu could paint a lie with a bitter smile and tell the truth with a mean, mean grimace, and he was still so sure of himself. When Menma was around, his eyes could turn red with tears, just thinking about the girl and her uncharted smile. Naruko only allowed herself to stand around in a blue skirt made in Paris, ruminating with all the things she couldn't bring herself to say. Menma hadn't been angry with either of them for the way they'd acted. She was nice like that, and in countless other ways.

Some mornings, when Naruko looked into the bathroom mirror, she didn't even know what kind of girl she was going to be that day. Maybe it would be easier if someone told her how to be.

One of the few things she was sure of was that she couldn't fall in love with Yukiatsu, who was as perfect as much as he was broken. She didn't, and she wouldn't.

She had a thing for the boy with the messy hair and wrinkled uniform and big heart, instead.

Poppo fulfilled all male stereotypes while simultaneously refuting them.

After she moved out of the Secret Base, leaving behind an artwork of dust-free shelves and made-beds and clean floors, it took him only a week to throw everything back into chaos. Naruko had been floored when she visited him, intent on retrieving a shirt she'd forgotten. She gazed at the mountain of dirty clothes clumped together in one corner, the empty pizza box and the questionable magazines pouring out from underneath his rumpled blanket, wondering if she should just abandon her mission.

Poppo surprised her by climbing up the wooden ladder, which creaked under his weight, and returning with her purple blouse in one hand. "Oh yeah, I knew it was yours so I kept it for you," he said in between mouthfuls of potato chips.

She fiddled with the clothing in her hands, a little speechless seeing him so reliable, and… eating like that.

The second time was at another one of their barbeques.

"Anaru!"

She used to wince at the sound of that nickname, but now she just looked up at Poppo with an eyebrow raised. On the grill, sausages and chicken wings burned in the night air and nothing else – where was the corn she'd brought for them? Poppo only had meat on his mind, typical. Tsuruko and Jintan chatted quietly at one side. Yukiatsu watched everyone while sipping his juice. Some things just never changed.

"Here!" Poppo thrust a paper plate at her. She jumped in the chair at the sudden gesture, receiving five red wieners cut into adorable little octopi.

"These are…" she muttered curiously.

"Yeah, that other time when you stayed over, you mentioned that you liked them so I cooked some for you!" the boy beamed. "You're welcome!"

Naruko smiled at him and his blue Hawaiian shirt, poking a plastic fork at the first octopus.

"Thank you."

Jintan was the epitome of awkward.

When he was called on to answer questions in class, it looked as if he'd just been given a death sentence. His back snapped straight and he'd feverishly skim through the pages of his notebook to scrounge up an answer that wasn't there. Jintan would turn around with careful precision, almost as if he thought if he did it like so, the twenty pairs of eyes on him wouldn't notice. He'd ask her for the answer with an urgent whisper, and Naruko liked to pretend she didn't know sometimes. At others, she honestly had no clue.

He wore different coloured socks to school every once in awhile. She glimpsed the spectacle one morning when she saw him exchanging his shoes at the shoe lockers. She was the only one who noticed because she was the only one who looked at him.

Lunch, in the beginning, was a complete disaster. She had to teach him where to line up and that the old lady vendors were in particularly sour moods on Thursdays, so he should be ready with the exact amount of money upon payment to avoid riling them up. She couldn't bear leaving him alone even after a week because he wasn't even near acclimated to the crowd of students along the hallways.

When her mother heard about Jintan going back to school, she persisted in a campaign to make boxed lunches for the two of them, decorating their lunches with much fanfare. Naruko was appalled at first – but her mother was an undeniably good cook, and Jintan looked happy when she passed him his portion discreetly before classes started every day.

He walked to school with his eyes glued to the pavement, but there was something courageous about him, even with his shoulders hunched up like that. Maybe because he'd found the motivation to put one sneakered foot in front of the other over and over. She caught herself staring at him for a dangerous amount of time every other morning when she bumped into him while racing against chime of the first bell. There was something fun about how her pink shirt swished beside his dark blue pants when they were bordering on late, storming up the street to the school's gate. And it was strange how she could keep up with Jintan's pace when they ran, almost like he was purposely going slower to wait up for her.

… No, it was just her imagination.

Naruko smiled in spite of all the nights she'd tossed and turned because of him and his mixed signals. It was strange how different he'd become since that summer ten years ago – changed in all the little things he did, like actually bothering with 'sorry's and looking both ways before crossing the road – and the only thing that stayed the same was that she still liked him and he still didn't like her.

She threw the masking tape at him as he rolled up posters of the autumn season's new anime on the wall of the store. This was the only job he kept after Menma's farewell, and Naruko had to constantly tell herself not too think too much about it.

"Nice throw!" Jintan chuckled, the smile reaching his eyes.

Naruko gave him a sheepish grin and diverted her gaze to the cashier because she wanted to, but the blushing had been entirely involuntary – and hopefully unnoticeable.

"I still can't believe you want me to help you pick out clothes," she said, surveying a line of floral dresses.

"It's been a long time since I've had short hair, so a second opinion would be appreciated," Tsuruko replied from the other side of the rack. She sported her new hairstyle with a simple flower hairclip that Naruko thought looked strangely cute.

She was another person who was confident and sure of herself. Maybe she picked it up from Yukiatsu, or maybe it was the other way around, or maybe that was just what they learned growing up together. Naruko could never guess. Tsuruko was assertive and firm and she either said 'yes' or 'no' to the outfits Naruko offered her. There was never an in-between indecisiveness like "I don't know, should I get it?" or "Do you think it makes me look fat?" Those words didn't suit Tsuruko's polished image at all.

If only she had the same talent. Shopping would be so much more efficient.

When she casually mentioned this to Tsuruko, the girl began to laugh.

"Honestly?" she asked while covering her mouth with one hand, amused by the logic. Her eyes were pretty behind the rims of her glasses.

"Honest."

Naruko then held up a red checkered skirt that Tsuruko ended up buying.

The door rattled aside and Jintan's face appeared in the tiny crack. He pushed it fully open after seeing her standing outside his house. He was wearing that red shirt again, the one that roared out 'true feelings' in bold. Naruko blinked, stepping through the threshold with light feet and kicking off her sandals, a sling bag over her shoulder.

"T-thank you for coming over to help me with homework," the boy mumbled, one hand behind his head. "I still don't get some parts of math," he continued.

"It's fine." She walked over to the table in the living room where his books and papers were all askew. Naruko crossed her legs and pulled out her phone from the pocket of her shorts, tapping a button to read the new message.

"By the way, I asked Yukiatsu and Tsuruko to come over and help," she informed him and he sat down across from her. Jintan eyes lilted with pleased surprise. "Great! They'll be able to teach me since they're really smart," he commented.

"Hey! What do you mean by that?" she asked with a joking smile.

"Ah, I didn't mean it that way," the boy laughed a little.

"By the way, Poppo's been having trouble studying, so he's dropping by too," Jintan added.

Naruko shook her head, smiling. In the end, the five of them still managed to come together, even when it wasn't intentional. And it was odd that things were going her way for once. She stopped thinking about it in case she jinxed it.

"Ah! My nail broke!" she squeaked, shaking her hand and blowing on the victimized finger.

Poppo peered over her shoulder before shrugging and saying, "It looks fine to me."

The girl bit her lip with indignant insult, covering her nail with the other hand and tucking it close to her stomach. That didn't stop Yukiatsu from snickering at his place on the armchair on the other side of the small round table of the Secret Base. Tsuruko gave him a pointed look before stepping over to take her hand and examine the nail.

"It's just a little chip, I'm sure it can be easily remedied," she deduced. Naruko didn't know if the action warranted an obedient head nod or an embarrassed thank you.

She scrutinized her hand, coming to the conclusion that she would have to redo them to get the colour even and the length identical. She'd have to go buy some pink nail polish, if that was the case. But then again, she still had a bottle of red and another of blue at home.

Maybe it was time for a change.

"I love how you're always so level-headed," Menma said, pink flowers bordering her words.

"I'm not the one who's level-headed," Naruko replied, tracing her navy nail along the indents of the words where Menma applied extra pressure. The blue characters sprang out of the paper under the light of her desk lamp. She remembered all the times she'd burst out crying in front of her friends and the times when she fought brutally with her mother. "I just wanted to be like you when we were kids," she sighed, rereading the short letter and never being able to feel any less content.

If Menma were here, she'd probably argue and insist that Naruko waslevel and that she was perfect when she was being herself. The problem was that Menma was terribly nice, and Naruko didn't exactly understand who she was. Her mother would attribute it to puberty, but was it really all that simple?

Thinking right now, Naruko realised that she'd stopped wanting to be like Menma for quite awhile. Maybe ever since Jintan had handed her back her handkerchief with that sincere look behind his eyes.

"Level-headed, huh?" she said, considering the word.

Once in a while, and maybe not often enough, the five of them dropped by the Honma household.

They settled down on cushions with the altar, hers a nice shade of teal. Menma's mother presented them with tea and apologetic smiles that slowly turned into welcoming 'hello's. This was the biggest change in Naruko's life thus far – celebrating Menma's passing and remembering what it was like when she was around, being able to share her childhood with four friends again.

Jintan sat in the middle and pressed his palms together. Everyone followed.

Menma's picture smiled at them. It was quiet, for just a moment.

When she returned home after school, she still didn't know what kind of girl she was.

She liked video games in silver wrapping and pink fingernails and cerulean skirts. She liked boys despite their cruel words and obscene habits because of their kind hearts, girls with rimmed spectacles and pretty smiles. She liked an old friend with blue eyes, who wore a beautiful yukata when she'd been young. She liked Jinta Yadomi.

Maybe that was enough.