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natsume’s lips taste like cherry, more often than not. the white in their hair isn’t natural, it’s dyed, and they touch it up once a month. they have a tattoo, on the inside of their thigh, a little lightning bolt that they gave themself at the beginning of their second year of high school. they paint their nails once a week, to keep up appearances, but they actually prefer the look of chipped polish. they only drink coffee to keep themself going, and actually can’t stand the taste. they much prefer hot chocolate.
“it’s strange, you know?” hiyori had said once, swirling a spoon in her too-sweet tea. “it’s like, i can’t imagine a life without eden now, and there was a time when it wasn’t even a concept in my mind. obviously, nagisa-kun has always been there, but jun-kun and ibara didn’t exist to me back then. isn’t it strange?”
“i notice so many things, now,” nagisa had whispered in that gentle way of theirs, when they’d taken tsumugi stargazing. “i never used to see things. like hiyori-kun’s favorite perfume. i didn’t know what it was, before, and now i can’t imagine not knowing.”
eichi gets married. he looks dashing in a white suit, a light blue ribbon tied around his neck. hibiki is as intimidating and beautiful as ever, in a long black dress that clings to all the right places, hair pulled as high as it can go in a braided bun. natsume is in the bridal party, walking dutifully alongside ritsu as one of hibiki’s bridesmaids. tsumugi isn’t one of the groomsmen, instead sitting towards the middle with sora, and wonders if she should be hurt.
when hibiki dips eichi to celebrate their official union, tsumugi expects the usual pain, but instead feels nothing but pride.
rei and shu get married not long after, in a much smaller, much more private affair. tsumugi is invited by a drunk shu one night, who declares loudly how she misses her friend, even if she had ruined her life. tsumugi smiles, and promises to wear her best dress. once again, natsume is part of the wedding party, and tsumugi and sora sit in the middle. this time, though, natsume is beaming, crackling with proud energy. they’re a meteor if there ever was one, and tsumugi can feel herself fall in love all over again.
once they arrive home from the wedding, while natsume and sora barely managing to change into pajamas before collapsing into each other on the living room floor, tsumugi thinks. she thinks about ritsu’s best man speech that made everyone cry, how rei had stood and pulled them in close for a hug, how they’d simply held each other, and she calls her brother.
against all reason, he’s happy to hear from her, and promises to meet for coffee the next week. she’s something close to ecstatic, if she can even feel that.
tsumugi waits at the shop for three hours, until natsume picks her up with a kiss to her cheek and a promise to make her favorite for dinner.
while natsume heats up the pan to make pancakes in the evening, she thinks again of rei and shu’s wedding. she thinks about mika bawling as he gave shu away, mika bawling the whole ceremony, mika bawling through his maid of honor speech.
“‘m s’rry fer all this,” he’d sniffled into the mic, “‘m just so happy. oshi-san’s the greatest person, and she’s my family, and now ‘m getting more. i always thought that it’d always just be me ‘n her against the world, but ‘s not, and we have so many people now.”
she thinks about how shu had pulled mika down once he was done, and delicately pressed a kiss to every spot on his face she could reach, and how rei held him for a long, long while after. she thinks about how only one blood relative of either rei or shu’s was at the wedding, how it was their unitmates who walked them down the aisle, their friends who danced with them in place of parents.
sora comes out and hugs her, tight and strong, and tsumugi thinks that family might just be what you make with people.
kanata invites her to the aquarium one day. their phone buzzes with texts from their girlfriend and ryuseitai and their friends, but their eyes seem to only see tsumugi when they say, “you seem ‘happy’.”
tsumugi re-meets natsume’s parents. sakasaki-san is charming and lovely as always, her husband interested mostly in tsumugi’s new position as newdi’s official president. on their way home, champagne-drunk and giggling, natsume tells tsumugi that they love her maybe more than anyone on the planet, and she just kisses them because she does not know how to say that they are the only thing that exists to her, sometimes.
she buys a ring, and thinks she’s discreet until she’s abducted from an es hallway and interrogated by her partner’s overprotective siblings.
“be true,” shu spits, running her finger over her own wedding band.
“be ‘kind’”, says kanata.
rei just smiles at her, grasping shu’s hand.
“they’re going to say yes,” hibiki whispers, before all four of them disappear in a cloud of smoke. tsumugi spends a good ten minutes trying to find the door.
she and eichi go out for karaoke at twenty-one years old, one of the married and the other close to it, yet still feeling every bit like two awkward sixteen year olds that they never truly got to be.
“i’m sorry,” eichi says, clutching a tambourine like a lifeline.
“me too,” she responds, and hugs him.
sora looks at her one night as if it’s the first time.
“sora’s always loved senpai’s color, but he just now sees how beautiful it’s become.”
“thank you, sora-kun,” she smiles, and drops a kiss to his head, wondering if he knows that he’s saved her.
aoba tsumugi wakes up on a sunday morning to the sound of a bluebird chirping, her fiancee in her arms, plans for coffee with nagisa, eichi, and hiyori, and the sounds of her unitmate pouring pancake batter in a skillet, and she thinks that this may be what healing is.