Chapter Text
It has been 84 years.
Atsuko jolted out of her musing, hastily shoving the album with the couple photos of her and Tomomi into the box.
A severely tone-deaf Sakuragi hummed the opening bars of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ – both mother and child dramatically posed behind her, arms spread wide.
Glaring at Yuko, Atsuko threw a stuffed toy at her friend’s head. “You’re the worst - both of you. Does Sakuragi even know where the song is from?”
“Sure, we watched it three times.”
The odd little girl eschewed cartoons in favor of sports channels and old foreign movies, which made for very interesting playtime sessions that Atsuko often struggled to follow. Like her mother, Sakuragi was boisterous and inventive- Atsuko now realised how mundane her life was before they crashed into it.
It had been 4 months, since Tomochin left her. And it should have felt like 84 years, but she had hardly noticed the passing of time.
Atsuko probably should have been more upset that the breakup went so smoothly. Tomomi had everything planned out, they hardly needed to contact each other to organise the separation of shared assets. Their joint bank account was dissolved and divided equally amongst them even though Tomochin had been the bigger contributor. In fact, the title deed of the house was signed over to Atsuko’s name as well, but Atsuko insisted they sold the house and split the proceedings.
It came as a surprise to herself, that she remained so emotionally balanced through the entire process of breaking up with Tomochin. She didn’t think she would’ve, if it were not for Yuko and Sakuragi having invaded every facet of her life, distracting her from her melancholy.
She really didn’t mind the noise, or the mess, nor mother and daughter’s penchant for nudity- her old schoolmate always had the subtlety of a jackhammer and very little body consciousness, her offspring didn't turn out any different.
Yuko herself was going through her own separation from her marriage, newly emboldened by the mutual support she found in Atsuko. It had been a tense affair, but they were all adjusting to the new normal.
“Can I have this?” Sakuragi asked, lifting the cat plushie thrown at Yuko.
“No, honey, Acchan needs to return it to someone,” Yuko replied, gesturing at the box of stuff Atsuko was packing away for Tomomi. Atsuko woke up that weekend and decided that she needed closure and started packing away everything that reminded her of her ex-girlfriend.
“That’s ok, you can have it, kiddo. I doubt Tomochin will miss it,” Atsuko said.
“Thanks!” Sakuragi bounded into the living area with her new toy, likely inventing another weird story for the stuffed cat.
“Okay, I’m meeting her at the restaurant at 1pm for lunch,” Yuko said, rapidly typing up a reply to Tomomi. “You gonna be okay babysitting the kid on your own?”
“Yeah, no problem.” Atsuko tossed another shirt into the box, and huffed. “Honestly, she never even made time to have lunch with me on her off days!”
“And I will tell her you’re now in the ‘anger’ stage of your breakup.”
“I’m not angry,” Atsuko grumbled. “Just annoyed.”
“The ‘annoyed’ stage then. You know, she does still care about you.”
“I know. That’s why I’m so annoyed. We’ve been friends since we were kids, and we’ve just reverted back to that as though the years we dated didn’t happen.”
“You know, everyone was pretty shocked when you two hooked up.”
Atsuko frowned at that. “Really? Was it that weird?”
“No, I mean like we all thought Itano was straight. You, we all knew you were queerer than a 3 yen coin.”
“Same though. I mean, back in school.” Atsuko trailed off, remember how Yuko had flirted incorrigibly with anything in a skirt back in school. Petty schoolgirl jealousy caused a lot of fights between Jurina and Yuko, but they knew it was only in good fun. “I think everyone was pretty surprised when you ended up- you know.”
“Mm. Being a teenager was confusing. I didn’t know if I was gay or straight. I thought that maybe, if I slept with a guy I’d know for sure.”
“And you found out you were straight?”
“Nope. I found out I was really, really gay, but also, pregnant. So…” Yuko replied with a quirk of the lips. She sighed and flopped back onto the bed. “Sakuragi is the best thing to have ever happened to me and yes, I know that’s what all mothers say. No regrets at all.”
A series of baby dinosaur screeching noises and a loud crash from the living room underscored the point and the two women started laughing. “Okay, occasional regret. Don’t laugh, Maeda. You’ll come to regret it too.”
“I look forward to this regret with anticipation.”
Grinning at each other, they bumped shoulders and exited the bedroom to find out what shenanigans the littlest member of the household had gotten up to this time.