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[daiya no a, takako/ryoko] an abandoned fic post
i'm not putting this on ao3 bc i don't want to finish it but i also don't want to not post it at all? so here it is ig. i'm... not taking crit on this bc it's unpolished as hell. i lied i am taking crit just... don't expect me to automatically take it bc this thing is unpolished.
takako/ryoko during their second year, so one year before gravity. "takako finds a garden, ryoko jumps out a window, and life is a little beautiful." is the summary i wrote back when i was planning on finishing this, so, there you go. pg-13 maybe.
Takako discovers the garden behind the first girls' dormitory four months into her second year at Seido. It's a find she can only credit to not looking where she was going, calling for Jun so they can head to the cafeteria for dinner, because she only runs into the gate by tripping over a shrub. "Ow," she hisses, wincing along out of the bush with leaves sticking to her sock. She stops to brush them away, and stands back up, curling her hand carefully around one of the bars of the tall, barely-decorative, peeling white gate that does a terrible job obscuring the honestly pretty scraggly garden beyond. It's the view when she tilts her head up toward the shadow laying across the pathway that makes her decide to open the gate: the garden appears to run right up against the back of the dorm, spreading from the windows of the first floor rec rooms. She does her homework in that rec room every day, but there's never been anything but the carefully landscaped lawn outside. "That doesn't add up," she says, out loud, and pulls on the bar in her hand.
Immediately, the view changes. She squints a little against the brightness of the sun hitting the pool in the middle of the garden, lifting her other hand to shield against the glare, but it's the smell that gets her to walk through the gate. She's smelled the lush scent of well-cared-for flowers before, the wet-and-green smell of a garden teeming with life, and it's stronger here than anywhere else she's ever been. The gate swings shut behind her without even a squeak, and she passes under a line of hanging baskets filled with bright flowers, following the lazily looping gravel path that moves around the garden for lack of anywhere else to go. The idea of straying off the path and trampling the grass seems out of place when it passes across her mind, so she dismisses it, fingers linked together across her stomach. There are benches under a canopy of ivy in the darker corner, across from the gate, and when she sets down on the stone bench for a moment she's filled with a throat-aching desire to share it with her friends. She watches a hummingbird flit from one hanging basket to another for a long few minutes, before the sun passes around the corner of the dormitory roof and sets a dimness across the garden. The change in the light makes the whole garden seem sleepier, and she smiles a little for the fifteen seconds before she realizes she was in the middle of something--!
She stands in a hurry, but she's only made it a few steps down the pathway around the other way when she spots the vegetable garden, and, beyond it, the rec room windows. The garden is a jarring spot of brown among all the greenery: it clearly hasn't been used in some time, if the sparse collection of weeds and faded vegetable signs worn down by water and bleached by sunlight are any indication. It's the rec room windows that really interest her, though. Or, more specifically, the warm pink color she can see when she cranes her neck. Ryoko.
Where Ryoko is, Jun isn't far behind, at least not at dinner time. Takako hops between the garden's beds with care, trying not to slip in her school shoes, and finally makes it to the windows. They're not terribly high up, but there are window boxes filled with dead petunias hanging from the ledge below them, which makes it hard to reach the window without getting dirt on her shirt. When she bends down to look at the underside of the one directly in her way, tucking her hair behind her ear, she sighs with relief: the window boxes are pretty clearly hanging from a metallic white fixture drilled into the dormitory wall. When she puts her palms under the corners of the box and wiggles up, the box comes free with very little resistance. She sets it down with care on the empty garden plot and stands up, brushing her palms together to scatter dirt away. Then she reaches out and raps her knuckles against the window's glass, like she would on a door, one-two-three in quick succession.
There's a moment of surprise on the other side of the glass as Ryoko and the other second years look around for the source of the hollow ringing noise, and Takako knocks again, stopping to wave when Ryoko turns from the table toward the windows. Ryoko's eyebrows rise, and then so does she, from her chair, crossing the room to reach for the window lock, fail, and then rise up on tip-toe to actually unlock the window. She pulls it open enough that Takako can curl her fingers through the gap from the other side, and then Takako pulls it open the rest of the way with a quiet noise of exertion.
"Hi," Takako says, when she's done, leaning gingerly forward against the dormitory wall. She's just tall enough her shoulders pull even with the windowsill, which means she has to look up at Ryoko. "Have you seen Jun?"
Ryoko's expression flickers. "You made me unlock the window for you so you could ask about Jun?"
Takako pauses. Then she sighs out, as lovelorn as possible. "But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks," she begins, "it is the east, and Ryoko is the sun."
Ryoko stares at her just long enough she begins to think she shouldn't have said it, not where other people could hear, but then Ryoko is pushing on her side of the sill and twisting to set her butt on it. She turns enough to lean out of the window, her skirt spread wide over her thighs, and she reaches down to brush something from Takako's hair. She holds up a bright orange flower petal, pinched between her thumb and her forefinger, when Takako makes a noise of surprise, and then curls it into her palm so she can blow it at Takako's face.
"Ryoko," Takako says, laughing, and brushes it off her shoulder so it drifts to the grass, a shock of color against the vivid green. "Should I keep going?" she asks, looking back up.
"They die in the end," Ryoko points out, and leans down again to curl her fingers against Takako's cheek. Takako turns her nose into Ryoko's palm, feeling the vague catch of callus against her jaw, and presses a kiss to the soft center. Ryoko's mouth parts at the contact, and she pulls her hand back into her lap, fingers curled into a fist. "So pick something more romantic."
"The balcony scene is iconic, you know," Takako says.
"You just can't think of a single other romantic play," Ryoko guesses.
"That too," Takako agrees, sheepish. "Have you been in here before?" She gestures over her shoulder.
"I've seen it," Ryoko says, "it's hidden, somehow, so it was annoying for a while until I figured out the trick. But when I tried to open the gate, it didn't open. What did you do?"
"Nothing," Takako reports, and Ryoko grumbles something under her breath about resting power levels. Takako spreads her palm against the dormitory's red bricks, tracing the lines of mortar with her fingertips. "Do you want to come in? It's not that long a drop."
Ryoko hums, thoughtful, and then turns on the sill to tell her friends she's going outside, to lock the window behind her. "I need my shoes," she realizes, in the middle of turning back, and lifts one finger at Takako. "Wait one minute." She leaps away from the window with a thud on the carpet, and after a moment she's back, getting her knee on the windowsill and setting her leather uniform shoes out where Takako can gently steady them. When she slides out of the window and onto the sill, it's one long movement, fluid enough Takako can't break down the steps, and then she's reaching to pluck her shoes from Takako's hand, her sock feet dangling down next to Takako's shoulder.
"Let me do it," Takako says, pulling on the shoes instead of letting them go.
"Why?" Ryoko asks, pulling back.
"I'm playing my part of your romantic lead," Takako answers, and looks up through her lashes at Ryoko, a smile playing over her mouth as she guides Ryoko's toes into her loafer. Ryoko's fingers find the hem of her skirt, and she pulls it taut across her thighs, staring back. There's tension in the line of her shoulders that makes Takako drop her gaze and find Ryoko's other heel, running her thumb down the tendon behind Ryoko's heel. She touches the pad of it to the skin over the ankle of Ryoko's dark ankle sock, her fingertips burning with their closeness. For now she merely slides on the other shoe and steps back enough to put space between her and the wall. She lifts her hands, palms up.
Ryoko looks down at her and seems to realize her offer, but she huffs out a breath through her nose and pushes off the sill, uncoiling as her feet touch the ground next to Takako. Her arm loops across Takako's hips, and she leans sideways, her weight a steady, heavy heat against Takako's chest, her cheek slotting into Takako's shoulder. This close, the smell of her overwhelms the sweetness of the garden. The light smell of her shampoo, the nameless, fresh smell of her perfume -- Takako turns her chin to press her mouth to Ryoko's cheekbone. Ryoko's hand, fisted in the seam of her shirt, tightens, and the smile on her mouth softens.
"Come on," Takako says, soft, patting her other arm, and Ryoko straightens up to move around Takako, gingerly moving over the lines of string in the vegetable plot.
"It doesn't look this nice on the outside," Ryoko says, standing on the lawn with no care for trampling much of anything. Takako stays on the path, next to her, and reaches out for her hand. Ryoko's tangle through hers and she pulls, until Ryoko follows her toward the ivy canopy. "Wait, did you drag me in here so we could make out?"
"What else would I have dragged you in here for?" Takako teases, looking over her shoulder. "But the view from the benches is nice, too."
"Does that include you standing in front of me while I'm sitting on it," Ryoko drawls.
Takako stops at the bench. "Maybe, if you behave," she says, without looking at Ryoko.
takako/ryoko during their second year, so one year before gravity. "takako finds a garden, ryoko jumps out a window, and life is a little beautiful." is the summary i wrote back when i was planning on finishing this, so, there you go. pg-13 maybe.
Takako discovers the garden behind the first girls' dormitory four months into her second year at Seido. It's a find she can only credit to not looking where she was going, calling for Jun so they can head to the cafeteria for dinner, because she only runs into the gate by tripping over a shrub. "Ow," she hisses, wincing along out of the bush with leaves sticking to her sock. She stops to brush them away, and stands back up, curling her hand carefully around one of the bars of the tall, barely-decorative, peeling white gate that does a terrible job obscuring the honestly pretty scraggly garden beyond. It's the view when she tilts her head up toward the shadow laying across the pathway that makes her decide to open the gate: the garden appears to run right up against the back of the dorm, spreading from the windows of the first floor rec rooms. She does her homework in that rec room every day, but there's never been anything but the carefully landscaped lawn outside. "That doesn't add up," she says, out loud, and pulls on the bar in her hand.
Immediately, the view changes. She squints a little against the brightness of the sun hitting the pool in the middle of the garden, lifting her other hand to shield against the glare, but it's the smell that gets her to walk through the gate. She's smelled the lush scent of well-cared-for flowers before, the wet-and-green smell of a garden teeming with life, and it's stronger here than anywhere else she's ever been. The gate swings shut behind her without even a squeak, and she passes under a line of hanging baskets filled with bright flowers, following the lazily looping gravel path that moves around the garden for lack of anywhere else to go. The idea of straying off the path and trampling the grass seems out of place when it passes across her mind, so she dismisses it, fingers linked together across her stomach. There are benches under a canopy of ivy in the darker corner, across from the gate, and when she sets down on the stone bench for a moment she's filled with a throat-aching desire to share it with her friends. She watches a hummingbird flit from one hanging basket to another for a long few minutes, before the sun passes around the corner of the dormitory roof and sets a dimness across the garden. The change in the light makes the whole garden seem sleepier, and she smiles a little for the fifteen seconds before she realizes she was in the middle of something--!
She stands in a hurry, but she's only made it a few steps down the pathway around the other way when she spots the vegetable garden, and, beyond it, the rec room windows. The garden is a jarring spot of brown among all the greenery: it clearly hasn't been used in some time, if the sparse collection of weeds and faded vegetable signs worn down by water and bleached by sunlight are any indication. It's the rec room windows that really interest her, though. Or, more specifically, the warm pink color she can see when she cranes her neck. Ryoko.
Where Ryoko is, Jun isn't far behind, at least not at dinner time. Takako hops between the garden's beds with care, trying not to slip in her school shoes, and finally makes it to the windows. They're not terribly high up, but there are window boxes filled with dead petunias hanging from the ledge below them, which makes it hard to reach the window without getting dirt on her shirt. When she bends down to look at the underside of the one directly in her way, tucking her hair behind her ear, she sighs with relief: the window boxes are pretty clearly hanging from a metallic white fixture drilled into the dormitory wall. When she puts her palms under the corners of the box and wiggles up, the box comes free with very little resistance. She sets it down with care on the empty garden plot and stands up, brushing her palms together to scatter dirt away. Then she reaches out and raps her knuckles against the window's glass, like she would on a door, one-two-three in quick succession.
There's a moment of surprise on the other side of the glass as Ryoko and the other second years look around for the source of the hollow ringing noise, and Takako knocks again, stopping to wave when Ryoko turns from the table toward the windows. Ryoko's eyebrows rise, and then so does she, from her chair, crossing the room to reach for the window lock, fail, and then rise up on tip-toe to actually unlock the window. She pulls it open enough that Takako can curl her fingers through the gap from the other side, and then Takako pulls it open the rest of the way with a quiet noise of exertion.
"Hi," Takako says, when she's done, leaning gingerly forward against the dormitory wall. She's just tall enough her shoulders pull even with the windowsill, which means she has to look up at Ryoko. "Have you seen Jun?"
Ryoko's expression flickers. "You made me unlock the window for you so you could ask about Jun?"
Takako pauses. Then she sighs out, as lovelorn as possible. "But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks," she begins, "it is the east, and Ryoko is the sun."
Ryoko stares at her just long enough she begins to think she shouldn't have said it, not where other people could hear, but then Ryoko is pushing on her side of the sill and twisting to set her butt on it. She turns enough to lean out of the window, her skirt spread wide over her thighs, and she reaches down to brush something from Takako's hair. She holds up a bright orange flower petal, pinched between her thumb and her forefinger, when Takako makes a noise of surprise, and then curls it into her palm so she can blow it at Takako's face.
"Ryoko," Takako says, laughing, and brushes it off her shoulder so it drifts to the grass, a shock of color against the vivid green. "Should I keep going?" she asks, looking back up.
"They die in the end," Ryoko points out, and leans down again to curl her fingers against Takako's cheek. Takako turns her nose into Ryoko's palm, feeling the vague catch of callus against her jaw, and presses a kiss to the soft center. Ryoko's mouth parts at the contact, and she pulls her hand back into her lap, fingers curled into a fist. "So pick something more romantic."
"The balcony scene is iconic, you know," Takako says.
"You just can't think of a single other romantic play," Ryoko guesses.
"That too," Takako agrees, sheepish. "Have you been in here before?" She gestures over her shoulder.
"I've seen it," Ryoko says, "it's hidden, somehow, so it was annoying for a while until I figured out the trick. But when I tried to open the gate, it didn't open. What did you do?"
"Nothing," Takako reports, and Ryoko grumbles something under her breath about resting power levels. Takako spreads her palm against the dormitory's red bricks, tracing the lines of mortar with her fingertips. "Do you want to come in? It's not that long a drop."
Ryoko hums, thoughtful, and then turns on the sill to tell her friends she's going outside, to lock the window behind her. "I need my shoes," she realizes, in the middle of turning back, and lifts one finger at Takako. "Wait one minute." She leaps away from the window with a thud on the carpet, and after a moment she's back, getting her knee on the windowsill and setting her leather uniform shoes out where Takako can gently steady them. When she slides out of the window and onto the sill, it's one long movement, fluid enough Takako can't break down the steps, and then she's reaching to pluck her shoes from Takako's hand, her sock feet dangling down next to Takako's shoulder.
"Let me do it," Takako says, pulling on the shoes instead of letting them go.
"Why?" Ryoko asks, pulling back.
"I'm playing my part of your romantic lead," Takako answers, and looks up through her lashes at Ryoko, a smile playing over her mouth as she guides Ryoko's toes into her loafer. Ryoko's fingers find the hem of her skirt, and she pulls it taut across her thighs, staring back. There's tension in the line of her shoulders that makes Takako drop her gaze and find Ryoko's other heel, running her thumb down the tendon behind Ryoko's heel. She touches the pad of it to the skin over the ankle of Ryoko's dark ankle sock, her fingertips burning with their closeness. For now she merely slides on the other shoe and steps back enough to put space between her and the wall. She lifts her hands, palms up.
Ryoko looks down at her and seems to realize her offer, but she huffs out a breath through her nose and pushes off the sill, uncoiling as her feet touch the ground next to Takako. Her arm loops across Takako's hips, and she leans sideways, her weight a steady, heavy heat against Takako's chest, her cheek slotting into Takako's shoulder. This close, the smell of her overwhelms the sweetness of the garden. The light smell of her shampoo, the nameless, fresh smell of her perfume -- Takako turns her chin to press her mouth to Ryoko's cheekbone. Ryoko's hand, fisted in the seam of her shirt, tightens, and the smile on her mouth softens.
"Come on," Takako says, soft, patting her other arm, and Ryoko straightens up to move around Takako, gingerly moving over the lines of string in the vegetable plot.
"It doesn't look this nice on the outside," Ryoko says, standing on the lawn with no care for trampling much of anything. Takako stays on the path, next to her, and reaches out for her hand. Ryoko's tangle through hers and she pulls, until Ryoko follows her toward the ivy canopy. "Wait, did you drag me in here so we could make out?"
"What else would I have dragged you in here for?" Takako teases, looking over her shoulder. "But the view from the benches is nice, too."
"Does that include you standing in front of me while I'm sitting on it," Ryoko drawls.
Takako stops at the bench. "Maybe, if you behave," she says, without looking at Ryoko.