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"I'm not lonely," Honoka lies. "Don't worry about it."
"Well I guess it's not like you have to be alone if you don't want to," Nagisa says. "You get love letters all the time! You could probably date anyone you wanted!"
Honoka would prefer not to have this discussion again, so she says, "But Nagisa, haven't I heard you sometimes get more than one letter a day? That's never happened to me!"
"Yeah, but mine are all from girls!" Nagisa says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You get real confessions!"
"Is that so?" Honoka says, and keeps smiling.
—
Nagisa keeps calling Pretty Cure things unbelievable, but Honoka's not terribly surprised that she's been chosen to fight against the forces of entropy. In a way, it suits her. Unlike Nagisa, she was never going to be a normal girl anyhow.
Entropy isn't so bad, really. Everything in the universe is destined to drift apart and die alone, but without that drifting, nothing would ever come together in the first place. Better to have loved and lost, right?
Someday everything will be consumed by darkness, but when the enemy says so, Honoka takes Nagisa's hand and tells them, "Not today."
—
"Why do you always say what I'm thinking before I do?" Nagisa asks.
Where to even start? Honoka's closer to Nagisa than to anyone else, and science is about noticing patterns, and Nagisa is especially predictable. On top of that, Nagisa was obviously struggling to articulate the importance of appreciating the people around you while they're there, because you'll inevitably part ways as you grow. That's a topic ingrained in Honoka's bones. It's the moral of every story she's ever heard about girls like her.
Honoka settles on just smiling and apologizing — like the girl's supposed to, in the end.
—
Hikari has it worse. When she matures, she won't be Hikari anymore. She won't get to stay with Nagisa, either, and unlike Honoka, she won't even be able to look up at the stars and tell herself that Nagisa is somewhere under the same sky.
Hikari doesn't complain, so Honoka definitely shouldn't.
What good could come from talking about it? Even if they say they're only fighting to protect Hikari, every battle brings them closer to losing her. The enemy keeps attacking, and the Heartiels keep appearing when Pretty Cure survives the attacks. There's only one alternative to growing up.
—
The world didn't end.
Hikari's gone. Mipple's gone. Mepple, Porun, Lulun — all gone. That's fine. It's not as if they're dead. They just left. Without magic binding them together, Nagisa will drift away too. She only has three more years to be a normal girl before she's an adult woman, after all.
Everyone leaves eventually. Honoka has learned to stop crying over it. She's no longer the spoiled, weak little girl who spent hours sobbing into her grandmother's lap over getting to have the nicest house in the city almost all to herself.
It isn't the end of the world.
—
Everyone is going to be together forever after all!
It's the most wonderful thing that Honoka can imagine. Porun and Lulun didn't want Hikari to leave, and in the moment when it mattered most, they had the power to stop her. They're so shamelessly childish even when they're saving the world, and Honoka loves them for it. Mipple came back with them. For days after her return, every single time that there's no one looking, she poofs into her normal form on Honoka's lap, and Honoka strokes her floppy little ears and pokes her chubby little cheeks. Mepple came back too, and he's staying with Nagisa, and that means that Nagisa will have to stay with Honoka, because Mipple and Mepple are a real couple.
"What are you most looking forward to about high school?" Honoka asks Nagisa as the two of them take a stroll through the park to digest their takoyaki. What little snow still falls melts quickly these days, and soon the cherry blossoms will be in bloom. Honoka feels unusually optimistic about the future right now, so it should be a fun topic for conversation.
"Lacrosse, I guess," says Nagisa. "It's going to feel weird being a rookie again, but I'm up for the challenge of proving myself."
"That's just like you," Honoka says, smiling giddily and overcome by fondness. "But you know... you're going to be closer to Fujimura-kun again, too."
"Oh well," says Nagisa. She barely sounds flustered at all.
Honoka's smile melts. That isn't part of their familiar routine. "What do you mean by 'oh well'?"
"I think I'm sort of over it, mostly," Nagisa explains, only blushing a little. "My heart always races when I watch him play soccer, and his hair is nice, and he always seems kind and thoughtful when I do manage to talk to him. That's the most I've ever really felt for a... I mean, for someone like him. But there's only so far I can stretch it, you know? If I ever did tell him that I like him, there wouldn't be much more to say or do after that, so why bother?"
"You can't just give up on your feelings!" Honoka blurts out, horrified.
"But I want to!" Nagisa insists. "Of course you don't get it. You're a proper girl. You're smart, and reliable, and beautiful, and you've got absolutely gorgeous hair, and your skin is so soft and smooth, and—"
Honoka grabs her hand, and Nagisa stops talking.
"Nagisa," Honoka says, feeling so much hope and so much terror that she can't tell which of them it is that's making her heart race, "I'm not proper at all. But that's okay, because you aren't really normal, are you?"
"What is that supposed to—" Nagisa starts to ask, but Honoka pulls her in and kisses her before she can think better of it.
Nagisa's lips are as soft and warm as her hand. Her mouth and Honoka's fit together as naturally as their interlaced fingers.
"Oh," says Nagisa when Honoka lets her speak again. "Huh."
"Yeah," says Honoka.
They keep hold of each other's hands as they continue on their walk. Everything remains the same, except for their understanding.