.

.

.

I love how you always work so hard

.

.

.

marigold

.

Yukiatsu knows exactly how their lives will play out.

Jintan will finish High School, barely, but won't go to University.

(He won't want to go.)

He won't leave this town.

(Because this is where Menma spent her life.)

He'll end up doing some work here, some work there, until he'll find himself a dedicated, diligent girl with a good job so that he can be the stay-at-home husband and father.

(Because this is what Menma would have wanted for him and possibly the only thing a future with her could have not given him: Menma would have been the stay-at-home part of the couple and Jintan would have worked hard in a job he would have hated even when his love for Menma and their children would have made him last through the day.)

.

Anaru will highly possibly be that dedicated, diligent girl, even if it's the most stupid thing she could do.

If she ever lets her feelings for Jintan go, she'll leave their home town, go to … Tokyo or Singapore or Rome and be a pretty influential, hip fashion blogger or PC game designer.

.

Poppo will settle down when he hits his early thirties, here in Japan, definitely, but where exactly, Yukiatsu doesn't know. It'll depend on his wife, he thinks. Oh, and his wife. She'll surely be the sweetest thing on earth, pretty to top, and Poppo and her will have the perfect life.

(He deserves a good life after everything with Menma—he's also the kind of person who has good luck, be it love or cards.)

.

Now, where will Tsuruko be. Definitely studying. Definitely having a doctor's degree no matter what she'll study. Maybe law. Or economics. No, definitely law. An attorney. He can just imagine her in a business suit, cool, pressed, exact. She'd win every case.

She'll probably marry a colleague, some guy with humour. Who can make a crowd roar and still appreciate the way Tsuruko smiles. (Discreet. Not very often. With a lightness as if breathing were easier when she smiles.)

.

And he? He'll study medicine, he'll be a surgeon, he'll make tons of money with it, he'll have some affairs, he'll never marry, and he won't be happy.

(He doesn't think he's a psychic or anything ridiculous like that—it's just that he's quite the connoisseur of human nature and the Super Peace Busters are the people who will never leave his mind.)

—

Slowly, one by one, everyone starts working on their issues—Poppo on his world trip with the right intentions, Jintan going to school again, Tsuruko and her haircut, Anaru wearing her glasses again—they all are, gradually, carefully.

Yukiatsu doesn't.

For him, Menma won't ever be something to 'get over'.

We let Menma go and she let us go, he thinks, but it's just not enough.

—

That thing with Menma (the thing where her fucking spirit appeared in front of Jintan, and could touch things, and write farewell letters, the thing where they all went mental and didn't give a damn) brought out a lot of things that would have better been buried and drowned five feet under. Yukiatsu—he himself doesn't care so much. He knows how strange and sick it is, going around wearing a dress that looks like Menma's, but also knows that he is strange and sick, and he's never denied that, so whatever. But even crying after the loveliest dead girl in the world, even seeing your once closest friends crying and sobbing yourself and breaking down and standing up—it doesn't prepare the painful awkwardness of the day after.

He knows that he's lucky like that since everyone (sans Jintan, maybe) knew that he loved Menma, no secrets of his were revealed. Jintan, too, was much too obvious for them not to see.

It's the other three who got the shit end of the stick—it's the girls whose secrets were pulled out violently, thrown in the middle of their group, and looked at because staring at other people is always easier than looking at yourself. It's Poppo whose stupid guilt finally welled up after all these years.

Poppo—he denies it, somehow, jokes about it, sometimes, but mostly, he's just practical Poppo who thinks doing stuff is the way to a successful life, and his world trip is exactly what will help him.

Tsuruko handles it the way she handles every person and every thing and every situation: unfaltering seriousness and that turn of the head that probably means something like, "I don't give a shit, you're so far beneath me, Yukiatsu." (It's not even a bluff, he can tell since he's the king of all bluffs, but he doesn't really understand how she can look at him with that kind of eyes and still be in love with him.)

Anaru, however, has never had any kind of countenance—which, Yukiatsu knows, is the reason why she is likeable and approachable and seems down-to-earth. She blurts things out, she stumbles over black lies and white truths and the grey zone between—she also turns beet-red whenever she sees Jintan look at her, like a shy schoolgirl.

—

It's so funny (in the tragic kind of way) to see how most people in life change—or don't change. Funny because one would think that life should be important enough to make things change. The truth is, most people don't. People don't change.

But the Super Peace Busters—they do.

He feels oddly wistful at the thought.

—

Tsuruko is actually a pretty big coward. He knows that just like he knows her hair is totally straight without her ever needing to comb it through; like he knows she hates mindless waiting, like he knows her favourite flowers are pink tulips. The funny thing is, Tsuruko is a coward who can overcome her cowardice if she has to—lately, it's become more like an if she wants to but what that doesn't mean that her default mode isn't cowardice still.

For example, one day during lunch break—where he eats her bento and she does extra-curricular stuff (an alumni meeting or something, he thinks)—he says, "You're working too hard," and it's actually supposed to be, well, Yukiatsu being an arsehole just like always, but it quickly becomes Yukiatsu is being an idiot when Tsuruko says without looking up from her work, "No, I'm not. I'm not nearly as hard-working as you are."

(To another person, that would seem like a compliment even, but Yukiatsu is a connoisseur of human nature, and Tsuruko is always, somehow, in the line of his vision—so he knows that she knows that he knows how exactly those words are meant and supposed to be taken.)

You're the most hard-working person I know. The most hard-working at making your life miserable. At putting a distance between you and the people who care about you. At not caring. At being an idiot.

The way she gazes at him through her glasses says it all.

(And Tsuruko is a lot of good things (which he would never tell her) and a lot of bad things (which he only tells her when he's in the mood for getting ruthlessly and thoroughly lambasted) but mostly, she's just plain honest.

It's actually embarrassing how much hearing Menma's last words to him in that twisted way … annoys him. (Hurts.)

(Especially when it comes from her.)

(Another thing he will never tell her.)

—

"Na, Jintan."

Some part of him will always hate Jintan, and Yukiatsu knows it. But another part is just … glad, maybe, to have his best friend slash rival back. Because that's what they always were: one-sided rivals because Jintan has always been too oblivious for the fucking world.

"Oh—hey, Yukiatsu. What's up? Er, what are you doing here?" And in an odd, stumbling attempt of a joke, he adds, "Lost your way to your own school?"

It's kind of cute, Yukiatsu thinks wryly.

"No, actually. Tsuruko—told me to go here. Said that you wanted something from me."

(He's not an idiot, and Tsuruko knows that, so it's not like she didn't know that he'd knew that was a ruse.
But she's not an idiot either, so maybe that's why he's still here, standing in front of the boy he hates the most in the world. ("Admires the most, too," he can almost hear Tsuruko murmur behind one of her thousand notebooks, with uncrinkled eyes and a mouth hiding what could be a frown or a smile.))

Yukiatsu doesn't say anything, just watches Jintan watch him, and sees the wheels work behind his still-too-open eyes. "Tsuruko said that …?" He mumbles to himself, looking a cross between quizzical and stirred and afraid.

Before anything substantial can come out of this conversation, though, Anaru approaches them with a wave, her bright orange hair curling like flames around her head.

"Oh, hi, Yukiatsu, what're you doing here?" She asks with a quickness that feels forced. She turns her head to Jintan, in a way so that she doesn't have to look Yukiatsu in the eyes.

He wants to sigh, loudly—but no, he'll follow Tsuruko's game plan or whatever it is that she concocted for the Super Peace Busters' Road to Redemption. "Actually, I was going to talk to Jintan," he eventually says after Anaru's has quick-fired every topic she could think of away.

They both look surprised, each in their own way, before Anaru breathes out of sigh of relief, and Jintan rubs the back of his neck. "Sure … where?"

—

"Let me guess," Poppo says, voice all weird and scratchy over the bad Skipe connection, "in the end, you and Jintan just stared into your respective bowls of ramen and didn't talk about shit."

"Fuck off," Yukiatsu growls, one part annoyed. And basically, nine parts amused, too. So yes, maybe he is right. And? What does it matter? It wouldn't change a thing so whatever. Jintan will always be moronic, idealistic Jintan, and there will probably never be a time where he doesn't want to bash the guy's head against a very hard brick wall.

"So," Poppo asks. He rolls his eyes exasperatedly. "What's new with that? Just talk about the stuff that matters. To both of you." Poppo sighs and the line crackles with static. "Talk about Menma."

That … almost makes sense.

"Or you could at least talk about how confusing Anaru and Tsuruko can be. Talk about, for the love of god, neither of you can figure out how to cope with loving someone else after being in love with Menma for so long."

Rude.

Before Yukiatsu can say anything to either suggestion, Poppo turns from the computer screen to talk with some blonde girl In a language that sounds a lot like gibberish (which Anaru, who surprisingly has a knack for languages, would probably label itSwiss German or something similarly ridiculous).

"Sorry man," Poppo says to Yukiatsu after finishing his other conversation, his grin big and not the least rueful, "the Pfannkuchenmassaker at Mädels in Dirndln is starting … gotta go! Just talk to Tsuruko—she's the only one who gets your twisty twistedness anyways."

In less time than it takes Yukiatsu to think You can't be serious … really? Dirndl? the program announces Poppo-yo-:D21 has gone offline.

Yukiatsu rubs the spot between his eyebrows with the heel of his hand with a sigh.

"I hate it when he pulls shit like that," he mutters to himself and flips his laptop shut harder than is strictly necessary.

—

Yukiatsu wouldn't say that he's his truest self in the presence of Tsurumi Chiriko. The frustration he will always feel around Jintan, the no-nonsense easiness between himself and Poppo, the way he can laugh at Anaru's clumsiness—those things feel much simpler, much more real.

"Chiko-chan, Matsuyuki-kun is here—he said he has something for your project, it was?"

Tsuruko looks up from something that looks like biology homework, rubbing her eyes, blinking like she's tired or exhausted. Yukiatsu raises an eyebrow, knowing that she will see it, and sends her a grin as smug as it is constructed.

As usual, she fully ignores him, and nods at her oldest brother, mouth curving … not really into a smile, but something akin to it; comfortable, pretty, entirely unfamiliar. "Thank you, nii-san. He can come in," she adds in his general direction, and her entire being turns blasé again.

Daisuke, Yukiatsu can still remember is his name, nods at his younger sister and leaves them.

Yukiatsu closes the door to her bedroom quietly, and watches her write something down on a still blank sheet of paper. She doesn't offer him a seat. She doesn't acknowledge his presence.

It's very simple, honestly. He can't move on from Tsuruko. He can't change the way he is with her. She knows him on such a deep, intimate level—and he never allowed her in, but somehow, she could understand how messed up his mind worked from afar, from behind her notebooks and glasses and walls as easily as if she could touch the lines on his heart.
There is no way to unravel this kind of thing. There is no way that he won't remember everything that he is and was and will never be when he looks into her quiet, quiet eyes.

"Isn't he suspicious of what we could do alone in your bedroom?" If she would look at him, she would see his smug, leering face—and no matter how good her poker face is, she would show a reaction. A raised eyebrow, or a frown. A blush.

But she doesn't.

She continues her task, whatever it is, without missing a beat. After two minutes that feel exactly as long as they are, she puts her pen down and swivels around to where he stands. One moment long, she just looks at him. Her hands rest on her thighs, unmoving, unflinching. Her eyes wander, first to his face, then his torso, then his hands. She sighs softly as her eyes meet his again, finally.

It's a tired sound, an open sound, a vulnerability.

(But Tsuruko changed. She changed and he doesn't know how she did it when looking into his eyes must feel almost as bad for her as looking into hers is for him. (Because in return, there is nothing hideous he doesn't know about her, either.))

"Don't be cruel, Yukiatsu." Her voice is stern, honest. Cold, like the biting March air outside that numbed his fingertips on the way to her.

He can't forget the way she looked at her brother.

"But that's just the way I am, Tsuruko."

It's the same way he keeps catching her look at the rest of the Super Peace Busters. Like forgiveness is something that can be bestowed, and redemption something achievable.

She smiles then—there, he thinks, there—but it's wry and sad, nothing like that other look.

He feels his hands clench inside the pockets of his trousers.

"I know that," she says, clearly. Her spine straightens even more as she continues, "Maybe it is foolish to hope."

Yukiatsu never knew that heart skips a beat could be more than a figure of speech—not before this moment, this moment where she looks at him, and then looks through him, right inside his heart and his brain and his anger and his vainness and his ugliness and his love and his hurt. Tsuruko's facial expression never changes as they continue looking at each other, her posture is as straight as ever. Her breathing doesn't hitch—his does.

Because suddenly, there's love, love like in I'm in love with you, I hate you, I wish you were a better person, I wish I was a better person, I know that we will never work, but I'm in love with you. I don't know how to change that.

Somehow, she lets him in. And somehow Yukiatsu knows, she never has before. Never before shown him how she feels, in all her manifoldness and magnificence and terrifying intenseness. It feels odd; it feels humiliating.

A thoughtful look crosses her face. "Is it foolish to hope, Yukiatsu?"

—

He doesn't know how to respond.

—

So in the end, he just doesn't.

Tsuruko—she can measure up how long a silence from him has to be for it to mean that he doesn't know the answer—not doesn't want to answer, not is reluctant to answer, not still hesitates to answer: doesn't know.

A smile appears on her face, unfamiliar, somehow brave and somewhat pretty. It's a smile not given reluctantly, and it is free of any trace of cynicism or intent to hurt.

Yukiatsu wonders how he could have missed the changes in Tsuruko, but he doesn't wonder long. The answer is simple: The way she changes is the same way she is. Quiet, so quiet, and below her harsh, frigid exterior as soft as the warm, mellow light of her bedside light.

"It's getting late," Tsuruko says after minutes of the quiet, voice as sharp and precise as always—but still so different, he doesn't know how he never saw the difference before today, "you should go home, Yukiatsu. And don't forget to give me the assignment sheets you came all the way here for."

She doesn't say anything more as she returns to her homework or notebook or whatever it is.

She doesn't ask him how his conversation with Jintan went. She doesn't ask him about Anaru.

(Yukiatsu wonders if she needs to.)

—

He could be together with Anaru. They could be a couple—a pretty couple, an admired couple, with enough history together to let them work—and Yukiatsu knows it like he knows a lot of hurtful things. Tsuruko was right like she mostly is when it's about honesty. He and Anaru, they always kind of got each other. No word too much, no glance too little.

If they would have met outside the Super Peace Busters, they would have gotten together.

"You're avoiding me."

Anaru promptly runs to her defence, saying things like I'm not, how could you say that? I was just busy the last months!

She's a shitty liar.

Yukiatsu just crosses his arms, waiting with raised eyebrows. They always got each other, so she slumps her shoulders rather quickly, and gives up because she knows there's no point in pretending to be dumber than she is.

"Just a little bit," she says. And throws him what can only be labelled as 'cute pout.' Yukiatsu grins wryly. "It's because of Tsuruko. And," she stutters a little, turns red a little, "J-jintan. It's because of them."

"Do those two decide who we are friends with now?" He's purposely mean again, he notices, but can't bring himself to care.

"Don't be a dick."

Deja vu, he shakes off the memory of Tsuruko, in her swivel chair, with her serious eyes, her glasses, her cruelness, her honesty wielded like her weapon and her shield. Her feelings for him.

"I'm trying here, Anaru," he finds himself saying in the end. It's the truth, too. "I just want to get over it, whatever it is. So tell me what's bugging you."

"It's just …" Anaru grapples for words, not something entirely unusual for her. No one ever claimed that she's eloquence incarnate. She breathes in deeply, as if the air was packed with courage or something, and says: "We could be together, Yukiatsu."

He raises his eyebrows, half in amusement, half in surprise, before he remembers—they could be a couple, for exactly those kind of thoughts. They're two birds of a feather. They understand each other. They get along with each other, better than any other two in their remaining group, and they could be together—

—but they won't.

Anaru smiles—they won't—and Yukiatsu smirks—they won't—and it's really okay. He shrugs and answers her, "I know."

But Anaru, idiotic and brave girl that she is, still has to continue saying the truth. "I like Jintan." And then, something happens—a dissonance between her words and her voice. She says: "And you should feel lucky that Tsuruko likes you so much." Her smile turns cheeky and Yukiatsu lets out a breath he didn't know he held. "I for one don't get that, like, at all."

"You think you're very funny, huh?" He answers without missing a beat, smirk in place, but this is Anaru. The much too empathic girl with the big eyes and jug ears from ten years before still lingers under all that make-up and cocky behaviour.

Instead of responding to his jibe, Anaru says, "It's okay to care. It's okay to move on."
Then, she breathes out loudly, letting go of the seriousness in her voice, and sing-songs a little, "But who am I to tell you, oh big and great Matsuyuki-sama …"

And he shoves her a little, like the boy he tries to forget he was, and says, "Shut up, Anaru."

He's never been his most eloquent around the Super Peace Busters either.

—

There are days when all he would say to Menma if she came back is "Fuck you." Fuck you so much, he'd tell her, and he'd mean it with every fibre of his being.

Fuck you for making me love you. Fuck you for being the kindest, greatest, most beautiful childhood friend. Fuck you for being dead when you're the person who deserves it the least in the whole damn world.

Fuck you for making me give living a shot.

(Because he does. I love how hard-working you are—these are the words that push him every day; to endure how horrible life can be, and sometimes (more often now than ever before) to accept how genuinely beautiful life can be. He still doesn't understand it, how Menma could see a person who puts effort into things, and tries, and works to make things better when, looking into a mirror, all he sees are failures and hate and anger and loss, but these were Menma's last words to him, the things she thought were the most important to let him know—the biggest reason why she loved him. He won't question her. Just because Menma would want it more than anything, Yukiatsu does the hardest thing: He lives a life worth living.)

(For the biggest part, there are days filled with tranquillity and acceptance, days he spends doing homework and studying for university entrance exams and reading good books and going for a jog, and if Menma ever were to appear again in front of him, he would probably fall to his knees and cry and laugh and … and—tell her thank you.)

—

Half a year after they all went crazy, running after the ghost of a girl they all loved so dearly, they meet at their secret base.

It's a little bit dusty and the air is stale like it simply is when a place isn't visited for months. Before Menma died, they spent all their free time at the place, but after, it was more of a couch to crash on for Poppo in the event of him being in town, and then somehow, something like a weird club house for the rest of them. With the big guy on his travels again and their finals approaching, neither of the remaining four have much time to dust off the shelves and light scented candles in every corner.

But today, they meet.

Jintan is the one who texted him, but Yukiatsu bets it was Anaru's or Tsuruko's idea.

The stereo is on with something old, and jazzy, and foreign, something that he doesn't mind listening to, and they grill some kebabs Jintan's father prepared, and they drink unsweetened fruit tea like Poppo always drinks, and they heat up Anaru's home-made marshmallows. Tsuruko and Jintan pin all the postcards Poppo sent them on the old cork board and discuss when they think Poppo will return.

Anaru and Jintan sit close but not too close, Jintan listening while Anaru babbles about whatever unimportant thing she can think of in the presence of the boy she is on love with.

Yukiatsu watches Tsuruko watch them. He doesn't know why he is still surprised when he realises how little he understands her. (Why does she smile right now? Did she choose the music? Why is she in love with him?)

For just one minute, he imagines the future.

And—

his vision has blurred, Yukiatsu thinks, as he watches the Super Peace Busters talking with each other—Tsuruko almost laughs at Anaru's joke before hiding her mouth behind her hand, Jintan chuckles into Tsuruko's strawberry bowl while Anaru gesticulates wildly with her hands full of Poppo's postcards

—because suddenly, he doesn't know at all anymore what the future will hold for them.

The funny thing is?

He doesn't give a flying shit about it.

Oh man.

Yukiatsu, why are you such a frustrating, difficult character to write? Why must I find you so interesting that I want to make some kind of sense of you before I write down what you probably think, how you probably behave? Urgghh.

The marigold, FYI, can mean something along the lines of Sacred Affection, Cruelty, Grief—but also represents qualities like passion or creativity.

On another note: Why did no one tell me there was an AnoHana film adaptation waiting for us? Why did no one tell me that there would be Future!Super Peace Buster-ness happening? Like, all of them writing letters to Menma and … smiling? Yes, I won't lie. Today I watched the trailers/PVs about five times, then thought to myself a) Okay, I have to finish my series before the subbed version of the movie is out and I cannot hold onto my kinda angst-ish headcanon (and thank god for that) anymore, I should better hurry and WRITE, and b) Hey, if they're … happy? Then … maybe I won't let Yukiatsu die alone and hopeless and wrecked? (Honestly, those trailers made me truly believe that there can be happiness for Yukiatsu after Menma. I didn't before.)

And a last thing: I've had/have major writer's block. I'm also starting university in a few weeks, and I have pretty big family-related burdens to shoulder right now. It hasn't been the easiest, or nicest year for me, and that, as I have noticed, slows my desire to be creative down, so I won't promise anything on the update front.

But I'll really try because I love writing and how it makes me feel (happy and content and accomplished, that is), so I'm really sure that every Super Peace Buster (and a special guest whose oneshot has been finished for at least half a year) will get his/her time to shine.

And if you want to be sure you made someone smile today—leave me a message or a review. I enjoy talking to you guys and reading your thoughts a lot ;)

Lots of love (and also pancakes. One can never go wrong with cakes from the pan),

—bells

EDIT: Okay, it's slightly edited. I'll send it to my beta for further proofreading, too. And I added a scene or two, just to make it a rounder (?) thing. English ain't my mother tongue, so if something sounds strange, do tell me :)