Friends [Natsuki x Yuri]

01

She'd slept in her uniform again. Last nights events were blurry; all she could remember was shouting and excruciating pain.

Wincing, Natsuki hurried to the bathroom and saw a huge purple bruise covering the top left of her forehead. It was barely noticeable due to her fringe, but it still forced a horrible shiver to run down her spine.

Her father had beat her again, in some drunken fit of rage, like he always did. She was used to it by now, but at the same time she wasn't used to it.

Smoothing the creases in her uniform, and wiping the scuff marks from her white socks (where her father had probably aggressively kicked her the night before), she applied a plaster to a small wound on her knee that was bleeding out slightly.

It was still relatively early. Maybe she would be able to scrounge something to eat, if she was lucky. She grabbed her bag and silently, cautiously tiptoed downstairs and into the kitchen.

No luck. Once again, her father had left her with absolutely nothing. No food, no lunch money, so she was bound to go hungry again.

It was normal by now. She'd learned to ignore the desperate growls her stomach made during school, her mind focused on surviving through the school day, literally, as well as without anything drastic happening, so that she could go to her safe-haven: the Literature Club.

She was lucky that Monika had allowed her to keep her manga in the clubroom, even if Natsuki knew that she didn't really count manga as literature. In fact, she was probably the only member of the club who read and respected manga for what it was.

Sighing, Natsuki once again grabbed her bag, and quietly left for hell- school. At least it was better than that place, and him.

Locking the door, she slipped the keys into her blazer pocket, tightening her ribbons and adjusting her hairclip absent-mindedly to suit her tastes.

The walk to school wasn't particularly long, but she made it so. She left early for two reasons - a) to get as far away from her father as possible before he woke up and b) so that she had time to dawdle and daydream on the way.

When she said daydream, she didn't mean of mermaids and fairies and passing tests and whatnot (not that she failed her tests, because she'd be damned if she didn't pass), she dreamed of a normal life, with a normal family, a place where she wasn't oppressed due to alcohol and death.

But sometimes, dreams were dreams and could never actually come true. Like falling in love with someone you needed as you watched them fall in love with your best friends.

She stared dejectedly at the ground. So much had changed, yet so much was the same. She would go to school, slowly die of hunger during lunch break, suffer two more hours of agony and then read manga for an hour. Probably argue with Yuri once or twice and give Sayori a cookie (how did she get those if she couldn't even feed herself?).

Yeah...

It was at times like those, when she was alone contemplating life, that she wondered where it had all gone wrong. Why she'd faded away from her friends slowly, alienating herself from those who cared about her. Why she'd decided to be a martyr. She was young then, upset about her mother's sudden death and reeling from her father's newfound love for hitting her.

And she was suddenly at school. The gates were relatively empty, only a small trickle of goodie goodie students entering at that time. Natsuki grimaced to herself, even though she always felt relieved at this time, because it meant that people were less likely to notice her and ask questions; if they did, she blamed the cat or being clumsy.

She decided to quickly grab a volume of manga to read snatches of during lessons. Turning left, she hoisted her bag further up her shoulder, her feet slapping against the wooden tiles of the familiar corridors. She thundered up the stairs to the the third year corridor, where the clubroom was.

The door swung open aggressively, not banging against the wall loudly but still startling both Natsuki and the other girl in the room (obvious by the yelp she let out), who she had just noticed. Natsuki's face flushed a light pink from embarrassment for scaring another student.

"Sorry 'bout that, I was coming to get something and I didn't realise there was someone in the room," Natsuki apologised, attempting to play it cool even as her heart plummeted as she realised who it was.

Yuri took deep, calming breaths, holding a hand to her chest. "This is what reading horror does to you..." she muttered quietly, placing a bookmark on the page she was at.

Natsuki doubled back on herself. "Well I was just coming to get- you know? I can get it later..." she said, already halfway through the door.

"No, Natsuki, it's alright! Just come and get what you need!" Yuri smiled warmly, placing her novel in her bag and getting up. "I was just leaving, anyway, to get a book from the library."

"Yeah, well, it's fine, I don't really need it anyway. It can wait until later. It's not that important," Natsuki snapped, jogging the last few steps away from Yuri and slamming the door in her face.

Once again, she thundered down the corridors, attracting the attention of the few people who actually wandered those halls at this time of morning.

Eventually, she slowed, her breathing uneven as she found herself at the stairs again. Grabbing the banister instinctively, her feet landed softly on each step below her.

It wouldn't hurt to go to the library; she probably had homework due that day that she hadn't done, so it was probably safest to do that.

The most secluded area of the library was Natsuki's go-to place. People rarely came there, and almost always left quickly as they caught on to Natsuki's quiet yet extremely hostile manner around them. She liked it there, no distractions, no unnecessary questions, it was the perfect place for her to relax and get in the right frame of mind.

Then she realised.

Oh. Oh crap.

She whipped out her pencil case, and a notebook that she always had at hand, just in case. "Crap!" she muttered. "I forgot to write a poem!"

For a few days now, Monika had instated a club activity - writing a poem to share with the other club members. Every day, she gave the club a different topic for their poems, and today's poem was about something that angered her.

Natsuki already knew what she wanted to write. Twisting a pen around in her hand, she put it to the paper and began to write.

*

We used to be the best of friends
Until I went away.
We hoped that it would never end,
But that's what it did, one day.

Now you make me angry,
Now you make me sad,
When I see you I'm never happy,
You make me feel so bad.

You were one half, I the other,
But our pieces ceased to fit,
When the time ended for a mother,
I saw less of her, bit by bit.

Slowly and slowly, he grew in his rage.
I cowered and cried and I screamed for help,
But I learned to stop as I aged.
She's gone, you're gone, they're gone, I'm gone.

Now you make me angry,
Now you make me sad,
It's my fault I'm never happy,
But it's your fault I feel so bad.

*

Natsuki reread the poem. She was really proud of this one, but she wasn't sure where the inspiration for the poem was, but it was probably something to do with the dream she'd had last night. About Yuri and her, a field, a chain of flowers, and a hill and a hair clip.

"Miss Natsuki? It's time to go to your first class, now," the librarian reminded her uncertainly.

Natsuki snook a glance at the clock on the wall. Sure enough, it was time for her to be getting to her first period - something dull and boring, probably.

A/N: I'm actually really happy with this chapter!

-UnicornIceCreamWitch ❤️