Work Text:
CRASH.
“Traitor!” Sana adds another cushion to her barricade.
Jun, rolling his eyes, brandishes his imaginary sword.
“Your brother has chosen the side of the soon-to-be victors,” Sayo says. “On the Queen’s orders I command the … forces—”
“The Cookie Army,” Sana supplies.
“Right, yes … I—”
“Stop right there!”
All three of them do, immediately. The mighty pillar of the Bun Army, Saaya Yamabuki herself, leans against the doorway, a plate of sandwiches in one hand. “Oh, to think my own siblings would turn against each other,” she laments with dramatic flair. “But hey, I know just the thing we need!”
Jun eyes the plate, unimpressed. “Bread?”
Saaya winks, and he relents and grins.
“What about you, Sayo-senpai?” says Saaya. “Has the skirmish spoiled your appetite too?”
“I would hope not.” Sayo begins passing out the sandwiches. “But accepting food from the enemy is inadvisable.”
Sayo isn’t sure what she expected when she offered to come over, but Saaya’s parents are away for the weekend and Sayo owes the girl more than a couple of favours. After all, it was Sayo’s somewhat intellectual interest in baking that had made her a regular here in recent weeks. Having learned the ropes from two other eager, friendly brunettes, she couldn’t rest easy without seeking out the wisdom of Yamabuki Bakery too.
Since then she’s watched Saaya’s lean, strong drummer’s arms work at dough, heard her hum snatches of songs in the warm glow of the oven. When Saaya bakes, the kitchen comes alive.
Sayo still has a long way to go.
Come evening, Saaya shakes her hair loose, misplaces her scrunchie and absently replaces it with an old tortoiseshell claw clip of her mother’s. It does the job until it doesn’t.
Sayo watches it inch lower and lower on her head, curls slipping free as Saaya flits around the kitchen with a mop, rosy-cheeked and stalwart. At her own insistence Sayo is drying dishes at the sink.
“Yamabuki-san …”
“Hm?” Saaya turns with a frizz-framed smile. “You can leave those! It’s getting late anyway. I’m sure you’d rather head off.”
Ever-organised, ever-composed Saaya can be a mess too, it seems. “No, I can manage. It’s the least I can do after that delicious dinner and all the baking advice you’ve given me.”
“But—”
“Only—”
A beat passes, gazes flickering.
“Ah, s-sorry.” Saaya blows a stray curl out of her face and resumes her mopping. “What were you saying?”
“Oh—nothing, I—Your hair is coming undone. It looks like it’s bothering you.”
Sayo is aware her timing leaves a little to be desired, like missed notes, like off-rhythm playing, but that’s not something a metronome can fix.
Maybe it doesn’t need fixing. Not everything does.
“Eh? Oh, it is, isn’t it?” With a self-conscious chuckle, Saaya tries to push the curls back into place with the back of her wrist. “There’s about a hundred spare scrunchies up in my room but right now? I’m in the zone. Or something!”
By the time the dishes are neatly stacked on the rack, the claw clip is all but dangling from its last lifeline. Sayo hangs up the towel and, unthinking, goes to Saaya’s aid.
“Yamabuki-san, if you’ll allow me …”
Bent over a bucket of murky water, Saaya stiffens in surprise. Sayo stands behind her and carefully untangles the clip, gathering Saaya’s hair up and twisting it into a tight roll. On goes the clip again. Sayo steps back, still on autopilot.
“Thank … you.”
Maybe it’s because Sayo’s hearing has suddenly decided to skip like an old record, but Saaya sounds less smooth than usual, less sure.
“You’re welcome.”
Could she have said anything more stilted?
“Didn’t want to see me looking like I crawled out of a ditch?” Saaya laughs. “That’s fair, I wouldn’t either. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“I think it’s fine. If anything it only shows how much of a hard worker you are.”
“Well, I’m not as smart a worker as you, clearly.”
Is that what she really thinks, or is she joking about the tidiness of Sayo’s hair? Sayo lets the statement settle, thoughtfully.
It’s not long before Saaya’s humming again, over the sound of running water. Sayo takes a breath automatically to ask her what the tune is, but catches herself just in time to realise she knows.
“‘Determination Symphony’?”
The humming stops. “Yes! You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.”
If she finds herself joining in it’s more muscle memory than anything.
Once the kitchen is spotless, Saaya sits down at the table and rests her chin on her arms. She cuts such a quiet, solitary figure that Sayo softens and delays her departure yet again.
It can’t be easy for Saaya; her mother being so far out of her sight. Yes, things change, people change, but Sayo knows how twisted the road can be.
“Do you mind if I make some tea?”
Saaya rouses herself, blinking. “I don’t mind, but you can go home, really.”
“I will if that’s what you want, but you look as though —What I mean to say is, as long as I’m not overstaying my welcome …”
“You’re too kind, Sayo-senpai.” There’s a teasing lilt in Saaya’s voice, but the gratitude seems genuine. “At least let me make the tea then.”
Unfortunately for her, Sayo is an archer with her target in plain sight. “Truly, I insist.”
Saaya holds up her hands in surrender. “Getting on a disciplinary officer’s bad side is the last thing I’d want to do.”
Offering a cursory smile, Sayo puts the kettle on and Saaya points her to the boxes of tea. “Chamomile?”
“Perfect.”
Sayo can feel Saaya’s eyes on her as she works, steadily, assuredly, yet with a jitter here and a flutter there that she can only attribute to the unfamiliarity of the equipment. A bit like the first time she walked on eggshells making blueberry pie, only for Saaya to reach around her for the butter with cheerful ease, eyes alight and cheek smeared with flour.
Sayo doesn’t remember any of the mess getting on her at all.
Three tablespoons of tea, measured to the millimetre, into the glass teapot. Water, not a drop spilt. Back to the table. The flowers bleed faint colour through the glass between them, water turning golden like that glowing hour before daylight fades.
Sayo pours and waits for Saaya’s judgement.
“Mm. It’s good.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“As expected from our Sayo-senpai! Ever cool-headed and graceful.”
If that was meant to make Sayo blush, it succeeds. “I’m … not quite sure what you’re talking about.”
Why does it take so little to bring the sparkle into Saaya’s eyes? Flowers, fresh cinnamon, sun on the windowsill. Humiliating her friends.
“In all seriousness, you really are dependable,” Saaya continues. “Even when you’re just making tea you’re so …”
Sayo knows what’s coming, of course. “Precise?”
Saaya frowns. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No. It can be useful, I’ll admit.”
“Ehh, it’s a lot more just useful, right?”
“Too much fixation and you miss what’s most important, Yamabuki-san.”
Hina used to put cold dinners outside Sayo’s door sometimes. When the soup spilled on the lovingly scrawled note underneath, Sayo only lost her temper.
Saaya can pick out Sana’s favourite spoon blindfolded and knows a thousand and one ways to coax Jun into the bath.
“Well … we’re all guilty of missing what’s important,” says Saaya, expression half-hidden behind her teacup.
And maybe she had been guilty of it, in those times of worrying and being brave for everyone but herself. She dreamed about fairytales and happy endings while Sayo found mindlessness in scraping her fingertips raw, but maybe their reasons weren’t so different.
As for now …
“Hina put chocolate ice cream in her prawns yesterday,” Sayo recalls, half to herself.
“Oh wow. Did she … like it?”
“I assume she did. The face she made was … as peculiar as her tastes.”
Saaya leans in, smile shrewd. “You really care about your sister, don’t you?”
Not like how Saaya cares; not with that patient willingness to be everything to a few and nothing to the world. Only like she, Sayo, knows how—but then again she can do a lot more now than she thought possible.
Slowly their teacups empty, and Sayo heads to the door, shrugging her coat on.
She pauses. “Yamabuki-san.”
Saaya holds the door, all attention.
“There. Is that what you were looking for?”
Saaya’s gaze follows the line of Sayo’s arm to the gap behind the plant on the windowsill. Sure enough, there it is. Her scrunchie.
The laugh bursts out of her. “How did I not see that?”
Before Sayo leaves, she lingers a moment to watch Saaya slip the scrunchie onto her wrist. It’s a silly, forgettable, dispensable joy. But her guitar can wait a little longer all the same.
She’s not in a hurry tonight.