Sooo…Yeah.

I'm writing my second story already xD (I'm writing this like a few hours after I finished my first one)

This, too is a one-shot.

Yeah, I really like writing them.

This is for best girl Zuramaru. This particular one-shot won't be as dark (Not that my first fanfic was THAT dark) because I don't think Maru had that many problems with her childhood, save for the fact that she would sometimes get teased for being 'outdated'. I think she does have SLIGHT self esteem issues, but it was slight.

So, nothing else I really have to say, except that constructive criticism would be much appreciated!

Warning: OOCness at times

Disclaimer: I don't own the Love Live! Series. If I did…then well, as Maru would put it, it would be the "Mirai ZURAAA!"

P.S. I'm sure you can tell, but I'm bad at coming up with names, so I named both this story and the previous after the main character themselves.

Kunikuda Hanamaru was, for lack of better word, different.

For one, she had a verbal tic. No matter how hard she tried to hide it, saying 'ora' and 'zura' was like second nature to Hanamaru.

Secondly, she was what people would describe as a 'bookworm'. Not that uncommon, but still. It was the little details like that that made Hanamaru stand out.

Oh, but that wasn't what made her different, no.

Hanamaru was...

Technology-retarted, to put it bluntly.

It wasn't entirely her fault either. Hanamaru was raised as a temple girl and as such did not watch the television much nor did she use the internet, let alone know what it was. (She had, of course HEARD about it)

And for that reason alone, Hanamaru was bullied.

It never went further than the simple teasing, but Hanamaru didn't care anyways.

Although, she never had any true friends. None of those 'best friends' everyone else seemed to have.

Put simply, Hanamaru was lonely.

Though she tried to deny it, there was always that nagging feeling that she was the odd one out; the only one without a friend.

She was...Lonely.

She had a deep fondness for Japanese literature, and often spent most of her time in the library, even going so far as to help out at the school library.

Though Hanamaru was, in fact, a member of her school's choir, she never wanted to be a school idol. Though everyone showered her with praises about how good her singing was, how angelic her voice was, she never, once in her life, considered being a school idol.

After all, with her great fondness for literature, Hanamaru's ambition had always been to become a writer. Not necessarily a world renown writer, but a writer nonetheless.

Or, perhaps, if that didn't work out, she could always work at the temple her family owned.

Nothing special. Hanamaru wanted to just be ordinary. She wasn't important enough to be special. She wasn't talented enough.

Or, that was what she thought, at least until she met her best friend, Ruby-chan.

Ruby-chan was a cutie pie. She was beautiful, cute and dazzling.

While Hanamaru was...a 'chibi procrastinator' and was neither cute nor interesting.

Ruby-chan, of course, like the good friend she was, protested otherwise and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Ruby-chan even defended her when she was teased once. Even if she did end up crying, with Hanamaru having to comfort her, it still touched Hanamaru and made her heart swell over and burst with a mixture of pride (For Ruby-chan) and gratefulness.

And who could say no to such a good friend?

So Hanamaru played along.

And for a while, Hanamaru could pretend that she was cute and interesting.

When Hanamaru enrolled into Uranohoshi, Hanamaru was surprised that her childhood friend and fellow kindergartener Tsushima Yoshiko was in the same class as her. It was good to meet a childhood friend again. Over the many years, Hanamaru had lost contact with her previous friends (Read as: Acquaintances). It was a pleasant surprise that Yoshiko still remembered Hanamaru.

Yoshiko's 'fallen angel' and 'Yohane' spiel had gotten progressively worse over the years, Hanamaru noted while she watched Yoshiko rant about her 'fallen angel' shtick. The 4 minute speech had remained mostly the same from when they were still in kindergarten.

Honestly, Hanamaru could recite the whole speech word for word.

She preferred to think that Yoshiko had written the speech on some sort of plaque that was attached to the wall and would look it over proudly every night before bed.

Yes, Hanamaru would rather not dwell on the more realistic possibility; that Yoshiko had gone too far with her 'fallen angel' gimmick and actually took the time to memorise the speech.

Hanamaru was surprised that nobody had yet to send the Chuunibyou to a mental asylum. Perhaps it was for the best. After all, Hanamaru didn't think that even the people at the asylum could deal with Yoshiko's delusions of grandeur.

Not that she realized how bad that sounded.

Hanamaru was innocent like that.

Although, she did legitimately worry for Yoshiko's sanity.

If there was even any left.

But Yoshiko had taken to calling her 'Zuramaru'.

It was a cute nickname. Newly dubbed Zuramaru didn't think she was adorable enough to have such a cute nickname.

But responding in kind, Zuramaru referred to Yoshiko as 'Yohane'.

It was mutual.

And Zuramaru had made two new (Okay, not really new, per se) friends in her first year at Uranohoshi.

It was...

Out of the ordinary. New.

An accomplishment.

At least, for Zuramaru it was.

And that was the beginning of it all.

And Zuramaru would be lonely no more.

Alright! Finally done with this story! It's shorter than my previous one, and I attempted to add some humour to this story (Which, I am very bad at) and honestly, I think this turned out pretty well. The original idea was that this story would tell the story leading up to Maru joining Aqours, but I decided against it and decided to veer off from canon and write my own version of how Maru met Yoshiko and Ruby. I think the characters here weren't as OOC as the ones in my first story, but I'm not really sure.

And yes, Maru did refer to Ruby as a 'cutie pie', though it was in the LLSIF game.

And the part where Maru says that Ruby was 'dazzling, cute' and stuff and where she referred to herself as 'not interesting, not cute, procrastinator' was actually canon.

Maru DID want to be an author and honestly, I think she would make a fantastic one! Her voice is also just pure gold. It's no wonder she got into the choir!

Anyways, that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you for reading this story and like always, constructive criticism would be much appreciated!

-H0shizora