A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed! Chapter 38 will be up within days.

            For now, for better or worse, I’ve decided to try something. There’s a one-shot type thing I wrote quite a while ago that never quite seemed to be ready for posting. I glanced at it over break and thought…Perhaps what STC needs right now (among many other things) is a break. So here is an omake chapter. Chronologically, it does not fit into the timeline anywhere, since it takes place on Serena’s sixteenth birthday (which already  happened in the Fiore Arc), and Darien can see, and Rini is present. But that is the joy of omake. Nothing has to make sense.      

 

Disclaimer: I don’t own any proper nouns in this chapter.

 

L

 

Subject to Change

Season 2

Omake

L

 

            It was her birthday, and she was sick. Serena rolled over beneath her covers and clawed a balled-up Kleenex from her nightstand just in time to catch another fit of sneezes.

            Reaching under her back when she had finally stopped sneezing, she found the crushed tissue box under her covers where she had rolled over onto it during the night. Wrestling a fresh tissue out of it, she dropped the used tissue onto her already overflowing trash can and used the new one to blow out first one nostril, then the other.

            “Sweetheart?” Over the trumpeting noises of her nose-blowing came a knock at her door. Her mother peeked in. “How are you feeling?”

            “Icky,” Serena croaked. Her throat burned, and now her nose felt flaky from the tissues. “Do we have ady bore throat drops?”

            Her mother came to sit on her bed. “You’re out already?”

            Serena cast a glance over at the empty bag on her nightstand, nearly buried beneath a mountain of half-used Kleenex and empty aspirin wrappers. Her mother followed her gaze.

            “Oh, dear,” she sighed, placing a cool hand on Serena’s forehead. “I’ll send Daddy out for more. But if you suck on too many, you’re going to get sores in your mouth…”

            Serena stretched her mouth wide and pulled down on her lip. There was already a stinging canker sore there from all the throat drops she had devoured. But she preferred the stinging of her lip to the burning pain up and down her throat.

            “Oh…” Her mother made a sympathetic noise. “My poor baby…” She rubbed Serena’s head soothingly, smoothing her hair back from her hot face.

            “Dis is da suckiest birthday ever,” rasped Serena petulantly, basking in the attention. “We were going do go to da beach!”

            “Hey, Odango Atama!” Rini appeared in the doorway. She was the picture of health, tan and rosy-cheeked. She’d been spending her nights camped out in the living room while Serena was sick. “People are here to see you. You wanna take a second to peel the Kleenex off your nose, or can I let them in now?”

            Serena’s eyes widened and she scrubbed hastily at her nose. “Dere aren’d ady stuck to by dose–are dere? RINIII!” she wailed, for the girl had ducked out of her room again. “Moooooom!”

            Her mother chuckled and plumped her pillows. “There aren’t. You look fine. Besides, your friends know you’ve been sick.” She rose and headed for the door.

            “I dow, bud–bud!”

            It was too late, for Serena heard her mother’s voice in the hall. “Why, Darien! And Lita–everyone! How sweet of you to come see Serena!”

            And then they were filing in, Asanuma squeezing in first. “Serena-chan! We hear you’ve been bubbling snot!”

            “DUBAAAAAA!” Serena wailed, her voice nasal from her clogged sinuses.

            Darien and Lita both cuffed “Duba” upside the head.

            “We brought soup!” Motoki set his bag down beside her bed and pulled out a tray, thermos, napkins, and a spoon. He set it down on her lap. “Lita and I made it, it should still be hot…”

            Serena smiled at him, but…  Ick! Chicken noodle soup for breakfast? It was her BIRTHDAY! She wanted CAKE! Ice cream cake, with chocolate cake and whipped frosting and cookies-and-cream ice cream!

            “There’s a cake waiting for you AFTER you finish the soup, Odango.” She turned to see Darien dragging her stool from her vanity to the other side of her bed, the Kleenex-carpeted one, and sitting down.

            “Hey! No fair! How come you get to sit?” demanded Asanuma.

            “We’ll go get some chairs from the kitchen,” Motoki said, dragging Asanuma out of the room with him. “Lita, wanna help?”

            “And leave Serena alone with Shields? I don’t think so–ack!” Lita blanched as Motoki hooked an arm around her waist and dragged her backwards. Automatically, she elbowed backwards, and Motoki crumpled.

            “Oh my God! Toki, I’m so sorry!” Lita’s eyes widened. She dropped into a crouch beside him. “I didn’t meant to–well, I did, but–”

            “I’m…okay…” Motoki wheezed.

            Asanuma rolled his eyes now, and with a wink, said, “Wanna give me a hand with them, Rini?” Together, he and Rini dragged Motoki and Lita from the bedroom.

            Serena was laughing, her giggles punctuated by honks as she blew her nose to keep her airways clear. “Poor Doki!”

            “He enjoys it deep down,” Darien said. “Motoki’s a bit of a masochist at heart, as you can tell from his choice of friends. Speaking of masochism…”

            He shifted a little, pulling something from his pocket and handing it to her. “You like cool berry flavor, right?”

            Serena grinned down at the package of throat drops he’d handed her and ripped them open, popping one into her mouth. Relief dripped down her throat in a cool, refreshing wave of relief.

            “Yup!” she said around the lozenge. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Waid–dis isn’d by birthday presedt, righd?”

            Darien feigned surprise. “It’s your birthday?”

            Serena threw a used tissue at him. “Ged sick ad die!”

            “If that happened, how would you get your present from me?” he teased.

Then he prodded the carpeting of used tissues with his foot. “Jeez, you’ve been busy, Odango.”

            She cleared her throat, trying to clear the mucus. “You’re telling be.” Her voice came out mucusy thick, but the throat lozenge had extinguished nearly all the burning. She bounced up on her bed suddenly, nearly upsetting the tray Motoki had meticulously set up. “I wrode a poeb about it! Wadda see?”

            Darien, leaning forward to hold the tray so it didn’t fall over and spill soup all over Serena’s bed, found himself in very close proximity, suddenly, to Serena’s face. Well, to all of her really. Her cheeks, he noticed this close up, were the teensiest bit flushed and her pupils were larger than normal–or was that just because of how close he was? Her breath smelled like eucalyptus-drenched fruit, and it was very cold against his lips, like a winter breeze.

            Serena stared at him. In their round blue depths he saw, for the first time, flecks of silver, like minnows in an ocean. They extricated something inside him, some memory. He found himself tilting his head, leaning a breath closer as he focused on those silver flecks, trying to identify what exactly…

            “A-HEM!”

            Darien wrenched back, throwing himself back onto the stool. Distantly, he registered that Serena, too, had thrown herself back into her pillows.

            Rini and Buji stood in the doorway, their arms crossed and eyes narrowed, looking like twins.

            “I thought you were sick, Onee-chan,” said Buji. The accusing expression on his face was beyond amusing, especially when coupled with the way he and Rini had taken identical stances. “She doesn’t look sick,” he said to Rini.

            “Well, she’s been dripping snot and hacking up mucus and sticking Kleenex up her nose.” On her fingers Rini ticked through the highly disgusting list of Serena’s activities for the past day. “I thought she was sick. But if she wants to kiss, I guess she isn’t…”

            “Ew,” said Buji, scrunching his face at Darien. “As if kissing isn’t yucky enough already.”

            Beside him, Rini rolled her eyes, distracted from torturing Serena for a minute. “Yucky isn’t a word.”

            “Yucky is too a word!” Buji said indignantly in a surprised sort of way, as though he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.           

            “Save yourself the humiliation and just listen to me. It’s not a word, and using it makes you sound like a kindergartener.”

            “Well at least I don’t look like a kindergartener!”

            “At least I don’t write like one!”

            “I DON’T write like one!”

            A dreamy smile had crossed Serena’s face as she watched them; she propped a cheek on her hand and listened to them bicker, pulling a Kleenex to her nose as she did.

            In Darien, however, a strange feeling was beginning to build, a heavy suspicion of Buji that he could neither pinpoint the cause of nor push away. As he listened to them argue, he wore a thunderous frown in contrast to Serena’s sunny smile.

            “What is this, a re-enactment?” Asanuma clomped into the room, a chair in his arms. “Serena and Darien, curb your clones!”

            “I’m not Darien’s clone!” Buji stomped a foot in rage.

            “No, in temperament you’re more like Serena, ototo-chan,” Lita said, entering the room with her own chair. Motoki followed at her heels, holding his chair gingerly away from his tender–or tenderized–parts. “Did you eat your soup yet, Serena?”

            “Ub…” Serena looked down at the soup, lower lip poking out. I don’t want to eat soup for breakfast! she sobbed internally.

            In her ear, Darien whispered, “Just pour it in your Subspace pocket.”

            She flicked a glance up at him, then brightened. “Okay! Cover be!”

            Darien leaned over, on the pretext of reaching a Kleenex for her, as she surreptitiously poured the soup into her Subspace pocket. Totally overshadowing her feeling that she was really going to regret pouring soup into her Subspace pocket were the tingles that Darien leaning so close over her sent across her skin.

            “Done?” he whispered to her, breath tickling her ear. She couldn’t suppress a giggle, squirming.

            “Dode!” she breathed quickly, and he sat back.

            But it was too late. Everyone had turned toward them at Serena’s giggle.

            “Hmmm…” said Motoki, Asanuma, and Rini.

            “HUH!” said Lita and Buji.

            Serena felt a blush burning in her cheeks that had nothing to do with her slight fever. Trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything, she showed them her empty bowl. Her nose and throat had suddenly cleared up quite a lot, making her voice sound much more normal. “Cake time?”

            “Hmph!” said Lita and Rini, crossing their arms.

            “I want cake!” exclaimed Buji, looking back and forth between everyone.

            “Did it taste okay?” asked Motoki eagerly, taking the soup tray from Serena.

            “Teehee,” escaped from Asanuma with an evil little grin.

            Darien cleared his throat. “So what are we doing today? Since we can’t go to the beach now.”

            “Well, since it’s Serena’s sixteenth birthday,” Asanuma’s eyes twinkled, “we should take her clubbing.”

            Rini rolled her eyes. Serena reached to clamp her hands over Buji’s ears even as Darien did the same to hers.

            “Hey!” complained Buji, struggling with Serena’s hands. “How come no one’s covering Rini’s ears?”

            “Because I grew up with Asanuma and am immune to all his perversion–” Rini broke off as hands clamped over her ears. “Hey!” She glared up at Motoki.

            Darien glared at Asanuma as Serena, her hands occupied with covering Buji’s ears, squirmed her shoulders, trying to free her own ears.

            Asanuma laughed a little nervously. It was times like this he kind of wished his future self was a little more…discreet? Why did he, present Asanuma, have to get beaten up by present Darien for something he hadn’t even done yet?

            At this moment, Ikuko walked in. “Everyone, would you–” She stopped dead on the threshold, eyes flicking curiously over them. She tilted her head in a Serena-like way. “Is this a new game…?”

            Darien dropped his hands from Serena’s ears as though he had been scalded, and everyone else followed suit, laughing awkwardly.

            Ikuko just smiled. She was used to strange things from Serena, and didn’t expect much different from her friends. “I have plates and forks for the cake. Would you all like some now?”

            Motoki looked around. “We wouldn’t want to get crumbs in Serena’s room, Ikuko-san…”

            “Too late for that.” Rini looked pointedly at a half-empty package of cookies on Serena’s nightstand, then an empty chips bag on her dresser. Serena flushed and sneezed.

            “We’ll eat downstairs, I think,” Ikuko said, plucking up the empty packages with a reproving look at her daughter.

            “Heeey!” Serena cried. “What about me? I should get to eat it, too, it’s my birthday cake!”

            “I didn’t say you couldn’t come down, sweetheart,” Ikuko said patiently. “Darien, dear, will you help her downstairs? She hasn’t been very steady on her feet, the new cold medicine we bought’s a little strong…” She disappeared down the stairs.

            “Cold medicine makes you tipsy, huh?” said Asanuma, shaking his head and grinning. “There go our plans for your twenty-first birthday…”

            Lita put her hands on her hips. “And what plans were those, buster?”

            “Listen to that, I think Serena’s mom is calling me to help her! Ciao!” Asanuma streaked out of the room. Rini and Buji followed, rolling their eyes.

            “Let’s get your downstairs, girlfriend,” Lita said to Serena, but Darien waved her and Motoki off. “I’ve got her. You guys go make sure you get a share of cake before the human vacuum arrives.”

            “I hope you’re talking about yourself,” Serena retorted.

            “Of course not,” Darien said as Motoki and Lita filed out. He leaned forward, pushing Serena’s bangs off her forehead. “Aha, I thought so.” He touched the dark bruise her hair had hidden. “You tripped?”

            “Over my own feet. That’s how we found out the cold medicine was stronger than usual.” Serena leaned into his touch for a moment, then scooted forward and swung her legs out of the bed. She was wearing a pair of pajama pants emblazoned with chibi Sailor Senshi.

            “There aren’t any Tuxedo Masks on there,” Darien noted, swinging her up into his arms.

            She poked him. “My mom didn’t say you had to carry me. Just make sure I don’t trip. She’s going to look at us weird if you come down carrying me.”

            “No, she won’t. She’ll do that starry-eyed thing she does and give you an extra helping of cake because she’s glad you’re friends with such a nice boy.” Darien smirked slyly. “Besides, Lita always gets so mad when I carry you.”

            Serena sighed dramatically, relaxing back into his hold as he stepped carefully down the stairs. “Okay, but that means you have to put up with this –!”

            She blew her nose right in his ear.

            Darien jumped a mile in the air, and it was only his superhero reflexes that kept them both from tumbling head-first down the stairs. As it was, they still landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, him on his back with the bottom stair digging painfully into his back and her half on top of him.

            “Odango,” he wheezed, “I’m going to kill you.”

            “Oops?” she said innocently.

            “Guys!” came a shout. Then Motoki was jogging into the room, skidding to a stop with wide eyes as he saw them. “Whoah. Did you take some of that cold medicine, too, Dare?”

            Serena braced her knees on Darien’s abdomen to push herself up, eliciting another wheeze of pain from him. He got his revenge by putting his hand on top of one of her pigtails where they streamed to the floor as he braced himself to get up, meaning that she got a good yank in the scalp as she tried to stand up.

            “Oops?” he said innocently.

            “Are you guys fighting again?” Motoki said. “Don’t, come on, we found something really cool to watch while we eat cake. Come on.” He dragged Darien to his feet and dragged Serena with his other hand, pulling them into the living room, where everyone was camped out in front of the television.

            “It’s a tape of Serena’s eighth birthday!” Motoki said excitedly, dropping onto the loveseat next to Lita. “It was at the arcade, I totally forgot!”

            Serena’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah, I remember that! Your dad got me the Hello Kitty pinata!”

            “You mean even then Serena had your dad wrapped around her little finger?” Lita teased.

            “I think she had everyone wrapped around her finger that year,” Ikuko said dryly, handing Serena and Darien plates with cake. “She’d just lost her two front teeth. She was so adorable!” She clasped her hands to her cheeks.

            “See?” Darien said out of the side of his mouth to Serena where she had snuggled into the armchair. “Starry-eyed look.”

            “Mom,” said Serena with puppy-dog eyes and quivering lips. “Do you mean I’m not adorable anymore?”

            “FOUL!” cried Asanuma and Darien. “That’s fishing for compliments!”

            “Of course you’re still adorable, dear,” Ikuko said, patting her daughter’s hand. “But you were cuter then.” She picked up the remote and pressed play.

            Darien settled in to watch, perching on the arm of Serena’s armchair. The screen stayed black, to his surprise, and he wondered if the video had somehow malfunctioned, for he could hear voices laughing and calling out, and a voice that was definitely Kenji Tsukino’s but younger, saying “And here we are at my baby girl’s eight birthday–”

            But then Ikuko’s voice said, “Oh! Kenji, you forgot to take off the lens cap, here–”

            Serena, below Darien, laughed. “He still does that!”

            The black screen disappeared, and a grainy image of the arcade appeared. It looked fairly different: there were less tables and video games, and the booths had ugly orange cushions instead of the nicer blue ones that were there today. These booths were crammed with squirming, laughing kids. One sat in a stool that had been pulled up to the booth, and the camera jerkily zoomed in on her. The eight-year-old Serena, her mouth opened wide to suck in the breath to blow out her birthday candles, revealing a gaping hole where her front teeth should be that made her look almost painfully adorable. What really plucked Darien’s heartstrings, though, was how she was sitting on her knees in the booth, rocked back on her heels, and as she leaned back to gasp down a little more air to blow, her shoes pulled at the long blonde streamers of hair that even then pooled behind her, and she went tumbling with a shriek.

            The camera image rocked and went crazy for several moments as gasps exploded and Kenji darted forward, shouting, “Serena!”

            Asanuma, in the living room, was cracking up, as were Buji and Rini. “You were a klutz even then, nee-chan!” Buji howled.

            Motoki wore a concerned expression. “I remember this! My dad says that’s how he got his first white hairs, watching Serena pitch over like that.”

            Ikuko nodded. “He’s not the only one.”

            Darien resisted the urge to “ssshhh” them. He wanted to hear what was going on in the video. The camera still seemed to be where Kenji had dropped it on a table, tipped over and filming a flurry of moving legs and feet. After the hubbub calmed, though, it was lifted again and retrained on Serena. A little boy whose sandy hair and faceful of freckles immediately identified him as a young Motoki was helping Serena to her feet. She was laughing in that sheepish way she still had, her face flushed pink except for where it was covered by white frosting. She had a veritable mask of it on her nose and the upper left corner of her face. The camera panned over to the cake, still with its lit candles but missing the sugar-spun roses from a whole corner.

            “Forget calling her Dumpling Head, Darien,” Asanuma said. “You should call her Frosting Face!”

            “Numa!” Serena wailed, flailing her socked feet. “Don’t even think about it, Darien–”

            “Shh!” Darien put a hand over her mouth, his eyes still glued to the TV screen. To his disappointment, the camera was now panning away from the child Serena, who had now blown out the candles, and scanning the rest of the arcade. It was clear that just one side of the arcade was for the birthday party; in the rest, business was continuing as usual, children playing at the video games–“Hey!”

            “What?” Everyone looked at him, including Serena, who peeled his hand from her mouth.

            “Was that Asanuma?” Darien said, pointing at the screen.

            Ikuko paused the video and rewound it a few seconds. “Right there,” Darien said when the image of a child standing in front of the claw machine came up.

            “That’s not Asanuma,” Buji said, squinting. “He’s too fat.”

            Motoki, Darien, and Serena all choked on their pieces of cake.

            Asanuma glared at them all. “Some friends you are, laughing at my younger self’s pain.”

            “Come again, Frosting Face?” Serena retorted.

            “Wait!” Buji said. “You mean Asanuma was fat?”

            “Not fat,” Asanuma said defensively. “Vertically challenged. I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet.”

            “I think it hit you instead,” Buji said. Rini made a small sound like a choked laugh, and he straightened up, looking very pleased with himself. Until Asanuma flung a dollop of frosting that hit him right between the eyes. “Hey!”

            “Who hit who now?” Asanuma said.

            “Boys,” Ikuko said sharply. “If frosting gets on my cushions…”

            They hunched their shoulders. “Yes, ma’am…”

            “Who would have thought?” Motoki said brightly, clearly trying to smooth over the situation. “Asanuma was there and we didn’t even know it, Usa-chan!”

            Serena nodded solemnly, licking the last of the frosting from her fork. “It must have been fate.”

            “Dude! Imagine what fun we would have had if we’d known each other then!” Asanuma said. “I could have brought my sticker maker to the party and we could have made everyone stickers that said All Hail Princess Serena–”

            They continued to chatter happily as Darien watched the rest of the video wander to an end. It was mostly just Serena opening presents now and flinging gap-toothed grins of gratitude at other children….other children who weren’t him.

            Imagine what fun we would have had if we’d known each other then!

 

L

 

            Serena glanced up as she felt a current of sadness wisp and break around her like the water that swirls around your ankles at the beach. Her eyes went immediately to Darien, who was still reclined on the arm beside her. His posture spoke of relaxation, but his body, so close above hers, was tense. His eyes were on the TV screen, but so fixed that she didn’t know if he was really seeing what he was watching. She looked anyways, and only saw herself ripping open the wrapping paper of a Glitterator. Nothing to make him look so intense… He inhaled deeply, and his eyes flicked down to hers.

            She snatched hers away before he could tell she’d been watching him. She pretended to look around the room instead, and her eyes landed on Lita. Her friend was staring off into space in the direction of the TV, too, with that same fixed, tense expression Darien had had, not participating in the conversation between the others. As Serena watched, Lita bit her lip. Serena opened her mouth to say something, but Motoki turned toward Lita, saying something softly to her and putting his arm around her shoulders. She smiled back, the tense expression receding, and leaned her head against his.

            “Uh-oh, the lovebirds are starting to nest,” Asanuma remarked. “Time for us to fly away.”

            Lita sent him a half-hearted scowl, which was echoed by a reproachful look from Motoki. They all filed out, thanking Ikuko and wishing Serena happy birthday and (in Asanuma’s case) reminding Rini that Serena needed to get sixteen spankings this year.

            “Or should I be reminding Darien?” he said wickedly as Darien got to his feet to leave. This got him Glares of Death from several people, not the least of whom was Serena’s mother.

            Serena caught Darien’s sleeve as he moved to follow Asanuma out the door. “Wait,” she said quietly so that only he would hear. “Can you help me back upstairs?” She saw him hesitate. “I won’t blow my nose in your ear, I promise.”

            He grimaced. “All right.”

            He just let her hold onto his arm the whole way up the stairs this time instead of carrying her. She didn’t need it much anyway; the cold medicine was wearing off, she could feel it in the way her throat and nose were beginning to burn again, but she pretended to stumble a few times so he wouldn’t leave the way that she could sense from his tense muscles that he was about to.

            In her room, he eased her down onto the edge of her bed and tried to step away. She didn’t let go of his arm. “See?” she said brightly. “I didn’t blow my nose on you!”

            He mustered a smile. “I’m surprised. I was sure when you promised not to blow your nose in my ear that you were just planning to plow it in some other part.”

            “The thought crossed my mind,” Serena admitted.

            “I would say that having two elementary schoolers constantly underfoot is making you regress to juvenile behavior, but you’ve always been juvenile as long as I’ve known you.”

            There was the faintest emphasis to as long as I’ve known you. Serena, staring up into Darien’s gold eyes, remembered the video they had just watched. What had he thought, watching it? Where had he been, when they had all been at the arcade, having fun, on that day eight years ago? He had already been in the orphanage by then…had he had a good day? Had he played with friends? Had he gotten to eat a good dinner, had he… Her questions were endless, mostly because she was pretty sure she knew the answers to them but didn’t want to think that they were true, and she wished, suddenly, that she had been there with him. She loved her friends and her family and all her memories with them, but if some magical time god were to come to her right now and give her the chance to have gone and been with Darien and the orphanage so that he wouldn’t be alone, she would go without thinking.

            “What were you doing?” she asked abruptly. “That day, on my birthday.”

            His arm tensed inside her grasp. He turned to look out the window, giving her the profile that she had seen so many times as Sailor Moon before she found out he was Tuxedo Mask.

            “I can’t remember.”

            Serena’s grip loosened as she realized, of course he wouldn’t remember. She remembered, because it was her birthday, but of course other people didn’t think about that day anymore than any other day, especially since he hadn’t even known her, how conceited she was–

            “And I hate that,” he said. He turned, and their eyes met, locked. “That I can’t remember. That there was a time in my life when I didn’t know it was your birthday, that I didn’t even know you existed.” That there were other people, talking and laughing with her when he had probably been holed up in his corner of the room at the orphanage, reading yet another book and hating everything around him, the princess who came to his dreams and filled them with blood and pain, the other children who taunted him for waking from his sleep screaming and crying like a baby, the world of people who had abandoned him in that horrible place. All that time Serena had been in the world, and he hadn’t known it.

            “I just…” he said, “wish I had been there. Back then.”

            Serena bit her lip. “I wish I had been there,” she whispered. “With you.”

            “At the orphanage?” Darien shook his head. A sad smile touched the ends of his mouth, carving lines there. “No, you don’t.”

            She hugged his arm harder. “Remember how you said if you came to hell with me, the devil might kick us out because he’d get so sick of us arguing?”

            Darien couldn’t believe she remembered that. To think that she had held on to something he had said so long ago, and was still carrying it around inside her… He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

            “I think the orphanage would have been like that.” Serena put her chin against his arm, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. “As long as we were together, we could have made it okay.”

            She smiled up at him. And he found himself smiling back. There was a feeling threading through him, as though Serena had gathered his memories of those years at the orphanage and pushed herself into them, woven herself through. As though, even though she hadn’t been there, she had been; as thought, like Asanuma had been at her eight-year-old birthday party and none of them had known it, she had been with him all that time, he just hadn’t known it.

            He put his head to hers. “I think you’re right.”

            Serena made a happy sound and snuggled into his arm again. Then she rocked back up on her knees, clenching a tissue in her hand, looking very serious. She pulled on his sleeve as though to bring him closer for her to whisper something to him. He leaned closer, inclining his head toward her–

            And she blew her nose. Right in his ear.

            “ODANGO!”