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The weeks after they save the world are a blur, in the best possible way.
Renovations start on the destroyed parts of the city and school. Satsuki puts them up in a hotel, along with dozens of others, for when they’re still deciding on whether to stay and rebuild or move and start new somewhere else.
Ryuko’s pretty sure she gave them a fancier suite than mostly everyone else, but. Oh well. Maybe having a long lost sister has its perks.
Alternatively, it could be because she quite literally saved the world, but, you know. Either option would be plausible.
The suite in the hotel the Mankanshoku family has holed up in is excessive, to say the least. Four rooms in total, three bedrooms, two with adjoining bathrooms, and an open concept kitchen/dining room/living space. It’s a luxury compared to the Mankanshoku family home, but it’s a welcomed comfort, especially since it feels so well-earned.
Mako’s mom and dad snore faintly from the master bedroom, while Guts and her brother snooze peacefully in the other room, nearby.
Mako breathes slow, even breaths onto her pillow, next to her, and Ryuko can’t help but think about the proposal of a date she’d seemed so excited about.
Huh. On a date. With a girl. With this girl.
Mako shifts, softly, next to her.
Yeah, she thinks, watching the way her cheek smushes adorably into the pillow. She’s ridiculously lucky. Or horrendously down bad, but she’s the one with the raging crush, so it’s not like she’s a reliable objective party.
Mako’s hands rest on the mattress, in front of her, one wrapped loosely around a penguin plush and the other lying loosely on the pale white bedsheets.
Her heart flutters in her chest.
She has to kick herself, mentally. She kicked a whole species of aliens ass, sacrificed her best friend, got her heart ripped out, saved the world. She can build up enough courage to hold her hand. Surely, she can do something that stupid.
Her heart ricochets against her insides as she slowly moves her hand to rest in Mako’s. It’s steady and slow against the softness of the bedsheets, but suddenly every little motion seems ridiculously loud.
Mako doesn’t seem to stir, when she does it, though. She just rests her unmoving hand a little longer.
Nothing.
Oh, thank god, she thinks, and her heart flutters a little faster.
God. Nervous about hand-holding.
Swnketsu would never let her live it down if he saw how bad her heart rate was now.
Tentatively, she maneuvers her hand lightly, ever so delicately intertwining it with Mako’s own.
It’s so nice. And soft. It’s so scary.
She closes her eyes to seal herself off from the shame.
They’re only shut for what feels like a millisecond before she feels that delicate hand squeeze back, and then her eyes fly open, met face to face with Mako’s half open, big brown ones.
Mako tightens her hand around hers, squeezing it, and Ryuko’s heart does a little pulse inside her chest.
“If you want to hold my hand,” she says, half mumbled and quietly, “you just had to say so.” She cuts herself off with a short yawn.
Ryuko flushes, caught in her attempted stealthiness.
“I didn’t know if you were asleep,” she whispers.
“I drool when I sleep,” Mako says, plainly. As if it wasn’t something Ryuko didn’t already know well. “That’s how you can always tell.”
Ryuko blinks tiredly, endearment pressed into a small smile.
“I know,” she says, with a returning squeeze of her hand. “I know.”
Mako blinks, once, slowly at her. It reminds Ryuko so much of the stray cats that used to wander by the Mankanshoku home, how they’d look up at her after she’d woken them from a long day of napping in the sun.
Ryuko blinks slowly back.
Mako shifts slightly, angling her face to see her better.
“What’cha thinking about?” she asks, nonchalant and half-muffled by her pillow.
Ryuko sighs, a sleepy, drawn-out thing. She shrugs, then realizes it isn’t visible with how one shoulder is squished into the mattress, and makes the equivalent gesture through a humming noise.
“I ‘unno. Just…” she takes another tired breath, “everything.”
Mako yawns, eyes squeezing closed. “Sleep now,” she murmurs, “think later.”
Ryuko giggles, or at least, a phantom of it, whatever her tired body will allow.
“I know,” she says, “I know. ‘S just…” she trails off, letting her eyes fall half-closed. “What do we even do now?”
Mako shrugs, but it’s equally smushed by blankets.
“Anything,” she says, biting back a yawn. “Whatever we want, you know?” Her eyes close again. “Isn’t that exciting?”
It’s terrifying, Ryuko thinks. It’s exciting. And it’s terrifying.
She’s completed every mission, everything she set herself here to do. Avenged her father’s murder. Became the most powerful fighter at Honnouji Academy. Successfully freed the planet, freed the world from the threat of COVERS. And lost Senketsu. But, looking back, it seems she would’ve always lost him, in the end.
She lets her eyes drift back to where Mako’s hand lies with hers. At the person - at the people, the species, the planet - she and Senketsu dedicated themselves to protect, even at the cost of their own fate.
Senketsu’s not here to push and tease her anymore. She feels her heart twine as if pulled by ropes, squeezing. She braces herself to find her own bravery again.
“Anything we want…” Ryuko trails off, sentence lost to the sleepy train. She uses her thumb to trace patterns onto the backside of Mako’s palm. She shifts, and it seems so loud, the subtle scratching of the sheets.
“Of all the things you wanna do,” she asks, half-mumbled, “and the first thing you wanna do is go on a date with me?”
She finds she’s scared to know the answer. Scared that Mako will change her mind, or back out.
She only has a split second of fear in her mind, though, because as soon as the question is out of her mouth, Mako responds immediately, opening her mouth with a confident, “yeah.”
Ryuko blinks.
“Obviously,” she adds, as if nothing in the world could possibly be more obvious.
Before Ryuko can open her mouth to stutter or ask another dumb question, the sheets shift as Mako slides herself closer, letting go of their intertwined hands in favor of curling herself loosely around Ryuko, cocooned peacefully around her, like a jellyfish’s delicate limbs as they tangle loosely with another’s.
Ryuko feels her cheeks warm as she leans into it, throwing an arm around her in return and letting herself listen to the evening out of Mako’s gentle breathing.
“You’re gon’ be my girlfriend. B’cuz mmmm’ like you,” she mumbles, brain already shutting down to sleep.
Ryuko breathes in the scent of her hair - that coconut-scented shampoo in the wefts of her coconut-shell shaped bob, and lets her eyes drift closed, still so unused to the sensation of having nothing to worry about - nothing world-ending, no alien fabrics or deranged abusive mothers or complicated battle plans or a living suit that feeds off her blood and teases her for her bad jokes and exposed her tits to the whole of Honnouji.
“‘M gonna date you so hard,” Mako mumbles, so near sleep that it’s almost incoherent, and Ryuko has to force back the giggle in her throat, not wanting to risk waking her up.
Maybe life can be simple, she thinks to herself. Not normal, her life will never be normal, but simple, maybe. Maybe it can just be her, and her sister, and her girlfriend’s family. Maybe they can move somewhere new together and go on fun little dates - maybe even hold hands in a romantic way, if she’s feeling daring.
Maybe Ryuko Matoi doesn’t have to be an alien fighter for once in her life, and maybe that’s all she’s ever wanted.