52ji no ongaku
"songs for the 52nd hour"

Almost all of these drabbles are based on the manga, meaning there will be spoilers if you are not familiar with the plot, characters, deaths, and so on. Some of these are not a hundred percent accurate to events (for example, this first drabble would be lacking Ryouko if I went by the fact that Kiyotaka and Madoka married before Ryouko and Rio ever met), but still follow the general plotline. An anime based item (like the second drabble) may also slip through, but only occasionally.

Pairings, when there are any, will be mostly KousukexRyouko and KanonexEyes, with the occasional mixup here and there (expect at least one EyesxRyouko and KousukexRio).

Titles are taken from a "52 flavours" theme list found years ago. If anyone would like the full list of themes, please send me a message.

Enjoy the drabbles. :)

They were there at his wedding and he realized it only when he grew bored with the rambles of the pastor, tilting his head just enough so that he could see those who sat at the back of this tiny chapel--and it was there they stood, all in a neat little row, dressed in shades of white.

Rio was the first, and she wore the dress of a little girl (something she could really not be--no, she had witnessed too much to really be a little girl anymore) in a blinding, innocent white. One of her hands lay absently on the frills of her skirt and the other was grasped in Kousuke's, who stood beside her, his new glasses falling down his nose. He wore a suit that looked used and thus was not so white, and his brightly colored hair stood out like a flame on a candle. Beside him, in the middle, was Ryouko, scrawniest and somehow the prettiest, seeming awkward in a long cream dress that had probably been designed for a bridesmaid. She was as tall as the other two boys, taller than Kousuke by at least three inches, and somehow it seemed an obvious fact that frills and lace (what Rio had opted for) would not have worked with her. Eyes lingered by her side and kept his attention on the floor, his blueish locks of hair covering much of his face. His suit looked new and expensive, the only proper choice of dress for this ceremony--but only Eyes would be able to afford a new suit, after all, and so that had to be considered.

Kanone stood on the end, and Kiyotaka's gaze remained fixed on him for just a moment too long, long enough to be noticed. The German's lips slowly eased themselves into a smile, the kind of expression that the older man was familiar with and did not like seeing. Kanone's suit was the darkest of them all, not even a white but perhaps more tan, and for a moment Kiyotaka wondered to himself what this meant--this dark person among a sea of innocence--but convinced himself that it was only a shadow and looked away just as the ceremony began to make movement in the right direction. He did not have time to think about it now, because he was getting married and they were only watching.

When he and his wife proceeded down the aisle they were gone, but even that could not erase the image of those five children lined up together, all in white (or four in white and one in shadow), all watching without speaking a word. He wondered why they had come, but then Madoka smiled at him and he thought of it no more. He would think of it later and wonder if it was an omen.