Tangled Regrets – Chapter 2 – Sayaka Has an Annoying Classmate

Another one… Madoka really is collecting strays; I wonder if this is the one she’s been waiting for?

What am I saying? She’s been fidgety all week. This Akemi must be the one. Well, good luck with your new roomie, bestie. Hopefully, she won’t be half as much of a handful as mine.

Looking to the side, I see Kyouko trying to discreetly chew on some bubblegum. Sugar-free, because she’s still getting used to having the same cravings she had when her body was physically unable to put on weight.

No, I am not smirking with schadenfreude. It’s my natural, radiant, boyish smile.

And a bit of schadenfreude.

A new magical girl?! Where was she when Mami—hng! Too fast! I can’t keep up with—

With the habit of long practice, I dig a stiff finger into Kyouko’s side.

“Hey! What’s—” My roommate’s tirade is interrupted by a sharp glare from Mrs. Kaname. Being the most powerful mage of her generation has its perks, I guess.

Now, if only I could manage to get some way to shut Kyouko up on my own…

“What was that for?” she asks, much less noisily yet about as indignantly.

“You tried to kill me.”

She gets a weird look on her face that I’m far too used to by now. That means our memories are synching, which also means I get about as dumb a look on me semi-regularly.

Usually, when confronted with one of my many traumatic deaths. Joy.

“Well, to be fair, you were annoying, weak, and annoyingly weak.”

“Kyouko, that incarnation of me would have been a national strategic reserve.”

“Yeah. And you still died like a chump.”

“You self-destructed your soul to mercy-kill me.”

“And that’s how annoying you were,” she whispers with a grin from ear to ear.

That’s it: I’m sabotaging the bathroom scale tonight.

“You were cradling my corpse for days while my witch form grew stronger.”

“Well, your corpse didn’t speak. So, not as annoying.”

“I’m so savoring the time I ate you whole right now…”

“You mean last night? Because there’s still room for improvement.”

“Kyouko!” Oh, this utter—

“Sayaka!” That mocking grin of hers just makes me want to—

“Both of you!” And that’s Mrs. Kaname. Which means we got too loud.

Again.

Feeling my face already as deep burgundy as my whatever-she-is-supposed-to-be’s hair, I turn around to see the whole classroom either staring at us open-mouthed or doing their best to pretend they weren’t just doing that.

Kyousuke is still hiding behind his textbook on Western Seals. The coward.

And Mrs. Kaname, which, I should repeat, is the most powerful mage of her generation, is standing right in front of us. The fact we both are serious contenders for the title in ours doesn’t mean age and guile don’t factor into the sheer terror she can bring down on any wayward student.

And this woman changed my diapers once upon a time…

“Girls, I understand that you are at that age where memories come unprompted, and that can be seriously disrupting, but I will ask you once again: if you feel the need to discuss your sex life in public, at least have the decency to put up a telepathy channel before doing so. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kaname…” Kyouko and I answer in synch. Annoyingly.

Our teacher smiles and nods with all the sophistication and charm a woman can hope to get by the time she reaches her age. Likely, multiple lifetimes of being dashing and self-assured help a great deal with that—it would be cheating if she hadn’t actually worked for it in each and every one of them.

“Very well. I trust this won’t happen again?” she asks in her official teacher’s voice.

“No, Mrs. Kaname…” Seriously, despondent and chastised Kyouko is… I was going to say annoying, but I think I can see the appeal.

“Very well, I am glad we had this conversation. Now, go stand in the hall.” The fact that she doesn’t stop smiling gently through the whole speech isn’t as reassuring as it was when I skinned my knees…

So, without another word and decidedly not looking at our classmates suffering from second-hand embarrassment (nor at the coward violinist who used to be a crush once upon a time and oh Heavens, how deluded I was, I can’t believe—never mind), we march to our banishment.

I mean, it could be worse. I could be eaten by a girl whose soul has been mutilated by grief and sorrow. Again.

At least this Mitakihara doesn’t have glass walls, so we can relax once the door closes. I never once questioned how weird it was back then. It’s kind of strange how things that are a given are easily accepted.

Like a certain ponytailed terror’s penchant for gratuitous violence and over-eating…

“So…” she starts, fidgeting while trying to lean against the wall casually.

“Telepathy,” I interrupt. “Unless you want Mrs. Kaname to actually act annoyed.”

‘God, no, the woman is terrifying enough—how did I do this so easily?’

‘Because you weren’t thinking about it… Remember, Kyousuke explained how thinking about playing the violin made him worse at playing the violin—’

‘Can you stop talking about the nerd for just two minutes? Ugh. It’s like you are obsessed or something.’

Right. One thing about telepathy, or at least the way we use telepathy? It’s very hard to lie. It’s not that thoughts come out unfiltered because we can decide what we send out or not, but what we are not as good at is how we decide what we send along with those thoughts. In this case, Kyouko has managed to tinge her message with disgust (likely very sincere) at Kyousuke’s continued existence.

But she also has sent fear.

With a sigh, I drape an arm over my… something’s shoulders.

‘I’m not going to disappear, Kyouko.’

‘Of course you aren’t. I’m far too adorable.’

And something about that smirk… Well. I decide to make a show of looking her up and down.

‘I guess you look cuter this chubby.’

‘Hey!’ Ah, indignation tinged with genuine horror. How refreshing.

‘What? You used to have a smaller bust than me; you are filling out quite nicely,’ I say while making grabby motions with the hand that’s not holding her close to me.

‘Still smaller! Your mammoth tits aren’t the issue here! And stop acting like a dirty old pervert!’

‘Not likely!’ And I grab an (admittedly smaller than mine) breast and squeeze it while—

And she moans.

Dammit! I used to do this jokingly. Why do I keep forgetting—

I know, Sayaka. It sucks to be alone. Believe me, I know. But it’s okay now. ’Cause I’m here with you... Sayaka.

And I hug her.

‘Wha—’

‘Please. Please don’t speak. Not now, Kyouko.’

And I can feel the rush of indistinct emotions as she first tries to figure out what it is I’m actually asking her to do, and then…

The memories hit.

She stiffens, her body going rigid between my arms right before she allows herself to cling to me. Her mind burns against mine, our breathing a chorus of synchronized gasps as Kyouko dies to stop me once again.

She… So many times…

If only I hadn’t been so foolish.

“No,” still short of breath, Kyouko mutters this into my ear.

“No,” she repeats, “you weren’t foolish. You were noble. Brave. Betrayed. Never foolish.”

“Kyouko… I made you suffer so many times…”

“Sayaka, you freed me.” And she leans back, and her hand lifts my chin, forcing me to look into orange eyes that always burn and never smolder. “You don’t know what it was, to live like that, just… subsisting, waiting for the one fight I couldn’t win. You… I…” And Kyouko hesitates, and that hurts me more than it should.

So I kiss her.

Again, because I never know what else to do to reassure her (and myself) that we are here, that we are real, that we aren’t going to slip away or fall to despair and become something other.

‘I never want to let you go,’ we think.

‘I know,’ we answer.

And there’s something carried by the thoughts. Because the words are the same, but the feelings aren’t. We share both despair and relief, but she has a hope that burns bright, almost blinding, the chance at something better than she had. While I…

I was happy, before the memories started.

I was a regular girl. Sure, my best friend was the daughter of a famous mage who, for some reason, had retired to become a teacher, but Madoka was normal, her brother was an adorable baby, and I was… Myself.

A regular girl, a bit of a tomboy, with a stupid crush on her stupid childhood friend. I had a fight with Hitomi, our other friend, over the broody violinist, but that would have been mended in no time at all because we were at that age: just stupid girls growing up and living each little thing as if it was the most dramatic moment of our lives, because… Well, they were. Because we had no way to compare with other things, and so, our lowest point had to be the lowest point ever and not just something interesting in an existence that had barely started, something to learn from and grow up with.

And then… I happened to walk in front of an old church, one of those ‘anti-multiple lives’ places that preach people like me bring the end of the world by tainting this one with the remains of… Well, one of those places.

There was a girl with burgundy hair and orange eyes sitting on the stairs with a despondent look that caught my eye, and I turned toward her.

And Madoka gasped.

I remember a feeling of… awe. Of something about to happen that wasn’t a storm, but could have been if stars were raindrops. And then the girl lifted her head, and our eyes met.

And there was a rush of battle, and tears, and betrayal, and awful secrets that tainted each thing I had ever sacrificed myself for.

And death. So much death.

And then the girl was with me, hugging me, crying with me, clinging to me.

That’s how Kyouko got thrown out of her house by her zealot of a father and how she came to live with me.

And how I learned how abnormal my best friend, the one who cannot do even the weakest spell in our syllabus, actually is.

And… that’s how my happy childhood, with its small despairs and blessedly mediocre happiness, came to an end.

So, while Kyouko throws burning hope at me through or shared mind, I…

I don’t know what I send her, but it only makes her clutch to me harder.

***

“Give me that,” Kyouko points with her chopsticks at the single cherry tomato adorning my white rice.

“No,” I answer, huddling my lunch box protectively.

“Come on! You always end up leaving it out!”

“Then wait for me to finish before you steal my food.”

“This is about the goddamn apples again, isn’t it?”

“What can I say, food thief? Karma is a—” Ah. Damn.

“Ugh. Just had to go and say the cursed word, didn’t you?”

“Sorry…” I offer meekly. Damn it. Now the mood’s ruined.

“Hey,” Kyouko takes my chin and makes me look up at her. Again. She’s getting far too comfortable doing that. “None of that. We already had our daily freakout quota, all right?”

“Gah, don’t remind me. Think they heard us?”

At that, Kyouko very conspicuously looks around, only to have the students nearest to us in the rooftop where we are eating lunch suddenly discover how utterly engrossing whatever it is they are eating is.

Kyousuke starts whistling for good measure.

I don’t know if it’s the cowardice or the nosiness that pisses me off the most.

“Want me to hit him?” Kyouko asks, and my childhood friend flinches.

“Again?” I answer, and Kyousuke starts looking for possible escape routes.

Heh. Poor, dumb boy. He still has so much to learn about Kyouko.

Not that I’ll give him the chance to. He already ruined Hitomi.

Not like that. Well, I don’t think. They are still so young…

Gods damn it!

“Realizing you are an old woman yet again?”

“Shut up. I can’t be older than twenty.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Going by Madoka and her mother, I would say we are… quite an anomaly.”

“Well, duh, but I’m not going to admit to a single year into my thirties while I still have to change my bra size.”

And she snorts in that cute way that always catches her by surprise mid-smirk.

It’s… It’s soothing, actually. She’s abrasive, has an in-your-face attitude that has made it a struggle to have mom and dad not throw her out, law and famous mage demanding she stay or not. She’s the kind of girl who will put up with you only as far as she decides you are worth the hassle and not a single minute more.

And she’s the only pillar I have in a world that keeps changing under my feet.

This is precisely the kind of thing that would be dangerously codependent were it not because our relationship had already been established even before this world was born.

I mean, ‘fated lovers’ has a nice ring to it until you realize that… Well. You are fated.

I snap my lunchbox shut before a probing pair of chopsticks manage to snatch my cherry tomato.

“I’m saving that.”

“You aren’t! You are gonna leave it alone, and then, when you finish, you will say something like ‘Oh, I wasn’t that hungry after all, do you want this, Kyouko?’ And it will look all suave and mature-like, but we both know you alwaysleave out the damn tomato, so give it to me already—”

And I kiss her.

There are quite a few gasps around us, but my eyes are closed, and I am feeling Kyouko melt against my lips, so I doubt she’s taking names at the moment.

Which means you live another day, Kyousuke.

I don’t let the kiss linger too much, and I go back to eat a moment before Kyouko blinks herself into awareness. And she digs into her own food with no further protest.

And then we are almost done, the bell is about to sound, so I pick up my cherry tomato with my chopsticks and—

“Oh, it looks like I’m not that hungry after all. Do you want this—”

Before I finish the line, Kyoko has bitten into my chopsticks past the tomato and is glaring at me like a small dog hanging off a gnawed plushie.

I laugh, and she tackles me to the ground.

***

“Well, it looks like Madoka won’t be joining us today,” I say, likely unnecessarily, as the throng of students rushes out around us at the end of school.

“Yeah, no kidding, if that was the one…”

“I’m still not sure I buy into your theory.”

“Come on! Someone has to be the thread!”

“Yeah, like Madoka, or her mom. You know, the Curse Breaker herself,” I reply as I start walking toward our home.

“I mean, sure, there’s something fishy about the two of them, but they always gave off this feeling like they were waiting for someone.”

“Which only adds to the theory that one of them is the thread.”

“I… I’m not sure. They are involved, of course, but Madoka’s mom was never a magical girl, was she?”

“Which, again, makes it far too suspicious that she would be so powerful this time around.”

“Of course, but then why would they both react so strongly today? She didn’t even check to see whether Madoka reacted before sending her out with the new trans—”

Black hair drifts lazily in the dead breeze of a fake world as a storm of bullets races past her. Homura Akemi stands with unnatural poise as the witch dies and the labyrinth collapses—

A clumsy girl with glasses and two braids asks me to trust her. I don’t. And I live to regret it.

She fights at my side, determination and something else in her eyes, but I refuse her help. Because I know Homura Akemi is far too mysterious, someone who shouldn’t be here, not now, not with everything that’s—

“You’re right about me. I don’t give a damn if you live or die; I don’t care. I just don’t want Madoka to see you like this as you destroy yourself. If you don’t let me help you now, you’re going to die either way. You see, if you make her suffer anymore... then I will... kill you right here, right now... Sayaka Miki!”

And I clutch my chest, my heart racing, my breathing erratic once again, my eyes dilated.

Kyouko guides me to the nearest wall, and we both lean on it and hug before the memories hit her.

And, throughout the pain and the horror of remembering Homura Akemi go from an adorably inept scaredy cat to a killing machine without equal, there’s only one thing that I manage to cling to:

Kyouko was right. And I am never going to hear the end of it.

***

“Told you!” Kyouko says with a smirk that’s becoming that bit more grating by the second.

“Yes. Yes, you did.”

“And I was right!”

“Yes. Yes, you were.”

“I was right, and you were wrong!”

“You are far too cheerful for someone who has uncovered one of the dark mysteries of the world.”

“Because I was right! And you, my sulking bluette, were wrong!”

“Bluette is not a word.”

“It so is! And I am also right about that.”

“If it is, so is winette.”

And Kyouko makes a face like she just swallowed something calorie-free. Ah, balance has been restored.

“Hey, you know we never got drunk?” she says after a moment of mental readjustment.

“Are you sure? It would explain how we got together.” Yes, I am smiling cheekily.

“Jerk. As if you could resist this,” she says, gesturing at a body that really shouldn’t make her feel so self-conscious about her weight.

…. Fine, I won’t sabotage the bathroom scale.

Today.

“I actually preferred you with those Daisy dukes.”

And now she’s flushing.

What?! Months, literal months of having her get on my last nerve, and I only needed an off-hand remark about liking her in pants that may as well be underwear to get her to shut up? This is unfair! The cheat code is unfair!

“W—well, I liked you in that weird blue thingy with the cape…” And now she’s fidgeting. And I’m blushing.

Oh, come on!We have seen each other naked! Frequently! And for reasons other than—

Uh… Not much reason to keep seeing each other naked other than the obvious, is there? I mean, we do get changed for PE, but…

Anyway, we have been having sex since a week after we officially met; I shouldn’t be blushing just because of something like that.

“I… I guess you’ll see me in my uniform often enough after we start practicing projection…” I manage to almost not stutter.

“Ye—yeah. That will be…” And she looks at me.

And I look back.

***

We rush into our room, once again thankful that my parents don’t get home until much later, and our clothes are flying before we even manage to close the door. Kyouko tastes like green apples, something always sharp about her lips, her smile, her everything, and her hands are pulling at the buttons of my blouse with as much insistency as I am at hers. Our skirts become a tripping hazard in short order, and we both jump to the bed with a little magic-assisted grace that still ends up with us two tangled over my bedspread. Her underwear is sporty as ever, a stretchy tanktop and boyshorts, and—

“Lingerie…” she whispers in almost awe.

And I blush. Again.

“Thought you might like it. It’s kind of frilly,” I say, trying not to stare self-consciously at my white bra and panties that should contrast with my blue… everything.

“It is…” she answers, almost distracted as she traces the contour of an embroidered blue rose right over my areola till something makes the flower raise.

“And you like me in frilly things,” I half state, half ask.

“I…” Orange eyes go from the breast she was suddenly so fascinated by to my own blue. “I do.”

I catch her face and drag her up just a bit, just enough for our lips to brush, to get back the sharp taste of green apples that she has been gorging herself on during our way home.

“Why?” I can’t help but ask. And I hate the moment of weakness, the sheer needfor her to tell me—

“It’s when you shone brighter. Even when you knew, even when you were prepared to die… You were the best of us. So new, so unskilled, so weak… And so courageous, so noble, so unflinching.” There’s something frail in her eyes, and I know she’s not telling me something, but her mind is now pushing against mine, and—

Love. Admiration. Desire. Hope.

Home.

And I hug her. Because there’s so much we can’t yet say, but so much time for us to say it.

“I still lost. Each and every time.”

“We could not win. Not back then.”

But now we can.

And I kiss her. Again. And again. And again.

One meeting of our lips for each parting we suffered. One kiss for every wound. One caress for each hurried goodbye.

We have a lifetime to make up for it. It may not be enough.

So I better try my best.

After all, Kyouko, that’s what you liked about me, wasn’t it?

I don’t know how I manage, but I have her under me, her chest rising and falling with exaggerated motion as she looks at me with hunger she reserves just for these moments. My hands lift the elastic fabric of her tanktop and my mouth latches on a nipple that’s already eager for it, and my other hand delves between her legs.

I’m always surprised to find her ready for me, yet she has never been anything but.

My fingers glide up and down, and Kyouko bites her lip as she pulls at my hair, guiding me around her chest, pulling me from one breast to another as I manage to drag her panties down far enough not to bother me as I decide to get rough on her clitoris, to stimulate her between the alternating motions of my index and middle finger. Kyouko’s back arches over my bed, and I can feel her mind bursting with—

And I’m on my back, looking at the ceiling.

“Damn it! Again?!”

“You sneeze, you lose, knight.” I can hear the smirk in her voice, and I manage to let out an almost sincere grumble before Kyouko drapes her body over mine, her tongue reaching for my suddenly bare sex even as she puts hers in reach of mine.

So, again, after Kyouko has turned the tables on me in a way that she shouldn’t be able to, because she wasn’t more experienced than me in this, I kiss her inner thighs, hide a smile at the way that always makes her twitch, and dive right into her sex just as she tries to make me unable to do so by latching her lips over my own clitoris and sucking on it so hard that—

Fuck.

This shouldn’t feel half as good.

Wait a minute; this shouldn’t feel half as good.

“Magic?!”

“We are mages in training, Sayaka. What were you expecting?”

And I try to grumble, really, I do, but I’ve got a redhead sucking down on my clitoris as she teases it with her tongue who’s using some kind of magic I haven’t heard about to make my body more sensitive and—

“Fuck!”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.” And she laughs. And then keeps on laughing even as she kisses and licks and teases and—

I’m not going to last long.

With a last effort, I go back to applying myself. I don’t have her trick, but she was damn near close before she started her—oh gods, that is so good that I—so I can try to—drag tongue between her lips, flick her clit, tap on it before kissing it, and—Kouko, Kyouko, Kyouko!

‘Sayaka!’

‘Mine!’

Love. Desire. Need. Acceptance. Hope.

Love.

And we… come.

As our feelings rush from one to the other, as our bodies mingle as much as our selves, as sensation is enhanced time and again by something that borders on desperation, except that there’s no longer anything bad to fear, and only a lifetime remains—to heal and cherish the wonderful person who crossed time again and again just so we could meet and share, and remember and—

And thought disappears for but a moment, and I can only feel Kyouko and the certainty she’s feeling me.

We drop down to the bed beside one another, exhausted in all the ways that matter, sharing a smile that won’t leave our faces.

We hug, and I don’t care who started it, just that we are touching.

And we rest.

“I can’t wait to do this in projected space,” she mumbles from where she’s nestled over my breast after an unmeasurable while.

I remember a burgundy, frilly dress that left her shoulders bare and a daring hemline raising in the front only to reveal delightful stockings and a short skirt underneath.

“Me too,” I murmur.

But that’s a lie. Because I can wait.

We have a whole lifetime ahead of us, after all.