DISCLAIMER: I don't own Azumanga Daioh. That Azuma guy does.
PROLOGUE
The redheaded girl sat at her computer and drummed her fingers on the desk.
She scooted her seat in ever so slightly and hovered her hands over the keyboard, as if waiting for the words to pour out.
As any writer would guess, they of course didn't. Instead, her hands continued to hover, almost levitate, above the keys, waiting for inspiration to strike.
Soon, they were distracted, and started to drum again. One of them reached for the mouse to start playing music, but changed its mind halfway and contented itself with running through its owner's hairstyle.
The girl sighed, adjusted her chair again slightly, and asked herself, "How should I write this?"
THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
an Azumanga fanfic by Einoo
CHAPTER I
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
"I know a woman, became a wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life:
She said, 'A good day ain't got no rain.'
She said, 'A bad day's when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been.' "
--Paul Simon, Slip Slidin' Away
Where's that buzzing sound coming from?
That was the first thing that the woman thought when she woke up.
She thought for a little while longer, and then noted how she couldn't actually think because of the way her head was throbbing.
The first thing she said was the following:
"Ow..."
It was hard to say this, because her tongue felt heavy and unable to do any work. In fact, her whole body felt this way.
On top of that, she still was unsure of where she was.
It was all very strange. At the same time, though, it had an odd feeling of familiarity.
It was at this point that the woman realized the alarm clock was buzzing.
She opened her eyes, immediately realizing that her previous doubts regarding where she was had partly stemmed from the fact that she actually couldn't see anything, and glanced sluggishly at the clock. It said it was 8:46 AM.
Good. That was normal. A little early, in fact. She directed her gaze vaguely toward the ceiling.
The clock continued to buzz. The woman groped for the snooze button, but the buzzing noise continued. She hit the clock harder, and it still did not continue. She hit it harder still. The numbers flickered on the clock, but nothing else happened.
Then she realized the buzzing was coming from her own head.
But why would my head be buzzing? the confused woman wondered.
She looked again at the clock – her clock, she realized, feeling a rush of relief for reasons she couldn't quite explain – and it now said 8:47 AM.
Good. Time was being consistent.
The woman sighed, feeling a bit better. She now knew where she was and what the time was. However, she was still apprehensive because she didn't know why she was there or how she had gotten there in the first place.
"Wh..." she began, before getting cut off by a gigantic yawn.
The woman then heard a stirring from next to her. She immediately turned to face the source of this disturbance.
She yelped and fell off the bed in surprise.
When she recovered from her fall, she got up, dusted herself off, and took a closer look at what she had seen. It was a man, probably around the same age as she was, although it was hard to tell. The woman did not entirely object to him being in her bed, but it was highly disconcerting that she did not know who he was or how he had gotten there.
The man fidgeted some more. Then, quite suddenly (or so it seemed to the woman), he sat up, awoken by the woman's yelp. The woman, being considerate, gave him a second or so to gather his thoughts before shouting, "Hey!!"
The man turned his head toward her in surprise, clutching his head, and asked quietly, "...Uh... Who are you?"
"I'm–" The woman had to pause for a second before she remembered her name– "Tomo Takino!! Who the hell are you??"
The man stared beyond Tomo for a second, then responded, "I'm... Uh–"
"You know what?!" Tomo interrupted loudly. "It doesn't matter who you are. The important thing is..." But she trailed off, not knowing what the important thing was.
"Geez... Would you quit yelling?" the man moaned.
"The important thing is... uh..." Tomo repeated, completely ignoring the man.
"You don't know what the important thing is, do you?"
"I most certainly do!" Tomo insisted. "And that is... that... it is important... because..."
"Because we had sex," the man finished.
Tomo stood speechless for a second. Then, she responded, "...We did?"
The man nodded.
"Ah," Tomo said, not really meaning it. "So we did, then."
Then something clicked.
"Ah!" Tomo repeated. "Yeah! We did, didn't we? I was... uh... somewhere... doing something... and you came up to me... or maybe I came up to you... But I think I remember talking and... geez, then something else happened and... Then I think remember us having sex. I win!" She pointed a finger at the man in triumph.
"Wait, you're actually happy you had drunken sex with a random guy?"
"I'm happy because I figured it out!"
"No, I actually was the one who told you."
"Of course you were." Tomo waved her hand dismissively.
"You really oughtn't to have had sex with me, though," said the man. "That sort of behavior is unbefitting for a police officer."
"...I'm... a police officer?" Tomo scratched her head and looked around. Then her eyes landed on the police officer's cap hanging on top of her lamp and she yelped.
"Shit!" she cursed. "I am a police officer! What am I gonna do! If they ever found out about this I'd so totally be discharged! Whatdoido? WHAT DO I DO?!" She frantically spun around in place.
"You could just-"
"I gotta call someone!" Tomo said, panicked. She lunged for the phone on the man's side of the bed and missed, instead knocking her head on the bed and falling onto the floor.
This seemed to have steadied her a bit, since when she got up and brushed herself off, she said to herself, "OK, Tomo, don't panic. Think this through. All you have to do is think it through. Who could you call that would be able to help you out?"
She thought for a second, and then lit up. "Oh, of course! I'll call Yomi! She'll–"
But she abruptly crashed back down to Earth again. She hadn't been in contact with Yomi for nearly six months now...
Koyomi Mizuhara sat calmly in her chair and read the day's newspaper. She sighed.
"It really is terrible, what's happening in the world today..."
No one answered her, because she was alone in her office.
She knew she probably shouldn't be reading the newspaper in her office when she was supposed to be doing work, but the workday had just started, and since she had skipped breakfast in the rush of all the preparations, she had not had time to read the newspaper. It was important to her that she keep up with current events, so she read the news every day. Even when it depressed her, which it inevitably did.
She was just about to read another article on how things were going downhill when there was a knock at the door. She hastily stuffed her newspaper in one of her desk drawers and said, "Come in!"
A rather downtrodden-looking young man entered through the door and walked up to Koyomi's desk.
"Mizuhara-san...?" he began.
"Yes, Suzuki-san?" said Koyomi.
"Listen, about that report I was supposed to turn in on Friday... I–"
"Didn't do it?"
The man squirmed slightly but continued to speak. "My wife is sick, very badly, and I didn't have time for it. I had to send her to the emergency room, and I tried
to do some of it in the waiting room, but it was hard to concentrate..."
Koyomi looked over him with a very cold and very shrewd expression. "Really? Why didn't I hear about this earlier?"
The man continued shakily, "W-well I... I..." before losing his voice.
Koyomi adjusted her glasses slightly. "You were afraid about how I would react, weren't you?"
The man nodded.
Koyomi sighed and leaned forward in her chair. "Look–" Her employee flinched– "I know what the consensus is around here about my management style..."
"I... I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do. The consensus is that I'm kind of an ogre. Is it not?"
"Well... I..."
"Come on, now," Koyomi said, a hint of humor in her voice. "I don't bite."
"Well..." Her employee said, cringing, "Yeah... It kind of is..."
"Do you know why this is?"
The man blinked. "Uh... no... not really," he admitted.
"It's because I am person who likes to be firm about rules. I lay down the rules clearly and then expect them to be followed. You see..."
Koyomi didn't much enjoy her job. Too often she had to be like this, ignoring any compassion she might have for anyone in order to make sure "things stayed in line". She knew that she was the person for the job – even since her high school days she had always made it clear that she didn't take any crap from anyone – but after a while it got very wearing on her. All this stuff she had to repeat about keeping the company "well-oiled" held no real meaning to her. It was just recitation. To be honest, she wasn't sure what the company she worked for actually did, but she knew for sure that whatever it was, it didn't really matter. Not to her, and not to the world in general. And she knew too that her position in middle management didn't mean anything either. Ultimately, she was expendable.
She had always said in high school that she, unlike other folks she knew, was going to make something of herself. In a way, she had: She had a job with pay that was quite good. She was moving up the company ladder. Her car was a very nice one. But sometimes at night she wondered if she had really made anything of herself in the end. She knew her employees hated her and she knew why.
The one thing she really felt satisfied about these days was her decision about her former best friend, Tomo. Despite Tomo's fairly good job, she had been struggling for a while due to an irresponsibility as vast as the ocean surrounding Japan. She always spent her money on the frivolous, whether it be alcohol or some new technological gadget or video game. Whatever it was, though, it was never the rent. So of course, this meant she was constantly mooching off Koyomi and taking advantage of their friend status. Every month, Koyomi would sigh and grudgingly
hand over money to her friend in the increasingly dim hopes that Tomo might be able to fend for herself the next month, but this never happened. Instead, Tomo's situation got increasingly worse and Koyomi finally had to wash her hands of her best friend's actions and cut contact. It was a hard decision, but she had to do it for the good of herself and Tomo as well.
Koyomi realized that she had sort of lost track of what she had been saying. She knew it wouldn't matter, since she knew this stuff by heart, but she thought that if her attention had lapsed for a while that it was probably time to wrap the speech up.
"...and so I'm going to give you a warning. You'll need to have that report on my desk by tomorrow. I'm sorry about this, but it's honestly nothing personal. This is just about efficiency. You understand, right?"
The man, looking considerably paler than when he had come in, nodded.
"Good." Koyomi nodded back at him. "And I really do hope your wife turns out okay. See you."
"Y-yes..." The man hurried out the door.
Koyomi fetched her newspaper out of the desk drawer and continued to read about war, famine and pestilence.
There was a buzz, an antsiness in the air at Azuma High. Summer was approaching fast, and the children were excited at the prospect of fun in the sun, sports, maxin' and relaxin' on the beach, vacations, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Class was the last thing students were focused on. In fact, even the teachers were getting restless. They were getting a little spacey – but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in this one.
"All right, class," she said vaguely, "Where're you guys goin' over the summer?" About half the class raised their hands; the other half just looked embarrassed. "A'ight, how 'bout... Uh, you... I forget your name..."
"That's OK," the boy in question responded. "And I'm going to visit Okinawa with my family!"
"Nice, nice, I been there before on a class trip... Those Shiisai things're neat. What about you, Suzuki-san?"
"If... family issues work out, I'm going to visit France..." the boy she called on responded glumly.
"Neat! Watch out for flyin' baguettes. Those things're deadly. And you, uh... I forget your name too..."
The girl she called on responded, "Actually I'm not going anywhere, but I was just wondering where you're going to go this summer, Kasuga-sensei! You're such an interesting person, I'm sure you have some kind of special plan as to where you're going!"
The other students murmured in agreement.
"Aw jeez, I really... Thanks guys..." Ayumu Kasuga (formerly known by her high school friends as Osaka) said, blushing slightly. "I'm goin'... I mean... I guess you could say that I'm... not really goin'... anywhere..."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the girl she had called upon apologized.
"Naw, naw, it's alright," Ayumu said, smiling. "I just go with the flow. Prob'ly in like a day, or ten minutes, or maybe like a million years or something, I'll wind up goin' on some kinda vacation thing with somebody or somethin'... Or maybe I'll just go on that Astronomy Club trip with Aida-sensei..."
"Ooooh!" said one particularly ecxitable young girl. "You should go with us! Aida-sensei says we're gonna have a campout and there's gonna be food and drinks and she'll play guitar and sing and on the last day we'll get to go to this big observatory and-"
She suddenly stopped talking, perhaps realizing that everyone was looking at her funny, and blushed.
"Uh... yeah..." Ayumu coughed. "Maybe I'll go... I do like food. Anyway, uh, before school gets out, I have another exercise in flexible thinkin' for you guys!" About half the students rolled their eyes, but the other half suddenly lit up. "This one is an old but good one."
She picked up a piece of chalk and copied down the riddle as she said it: "What belongs to you but is most often used by others?" She turned around. "OK, five minutes! Go!"
Once again, about half the class merely leaned back in their chairs and did nothing, but the rest immediately started concentrating hard. Some even took out paper and pencils to better solve the problem. Between the two different types of students, the next five minutes of class went by in near-complete silence.
When the time was up, Ayumu said, funnily enough, "Time's up!" She looked at them expectantly. "Well?"
The girl who had asked Ayumu where she was going for the summer piped up first. "The answers to my math homework!"
Both halves of the class laughed.
"Good answer," Ayumu said, "But not the one I was lookin' for. How about... uh... you?" She pointed at yet another student she had forgotten the name of.
The boy said, "A video game system."
"Sorry to tell you this, but not everyone's as generous as you," Ayumu grinned. "Give up, guys?"
The silence she got in return informed her that they had, in fact, given up.
"Your name!"
Half the class started applauding. The other half rolled their eyes and made snarky, semi-clever comments among themselves, all along the lines that it was rich of her to say that when she herself could never remember anyone's name in the class.
The bell rang. "Well, looks like that's the end!" Ayumu said cheerfully. "Now c'mon, guys, get outta here already!" she said, gesturing theatrically toward the door.
No sooner had she said it than the kids rushed out of the classroom. Respectfully, of course – but quickly. Very, very quickly.
Ayumu was smiling and humming vaguely to herself in the teachers' room, shuffling random papers. She was so intent upon this that she failed to notice another teacher enter.
"Hello, Ayumu," said the teacher finally, and Ayumu shifted her gaze slowly in the direction the voice was coming from.
"Hi there Kaorin!" Ayumu said in a friendly but distracted manner. "How was your day?"
"Oh, great," Kaorin said. "Exhausting, of course, but it was great regardless. Besides, I can't complain; I don't really work here anyhow."
This was sort of true. Kaorin only worked here as a volunteer, and part-time. Her full-time job was, of course, one in astronomy. Given the unlikelihood of her returning to her old high school, her having ended up here with a former classmate was fated to occur. Or at least it was to Kaorin, since she had always been a sucker for those romantic sorts of notions, although most of her contemporaries would probably have referred to it as a fluke. Either way, it had been a most peculiar coincidence. Kaorin was quite renowned in her field, and often gave lectures at various colleges. Usually she didn't go to high schools, but when she had gotten a request from her old high school her interest was piqued. She thought she might go to see what had happened to her old hangout.
She had actually received the request from "Osaka" herself, but of course she did not recognize her former acquaintance's real name, so it was a total surprise when she realized it was that same spaced-out girl she had known in high school. Ayumu's subject was, to even more surprise on Kaorin's part, physics (she was later told by the teacher that she had chosen it because of wanting to know how flying pigtails could work or some similarly bizarre reason), but Ayumu actually covered more scientific ground than that, and often went on tangents relating to other fields of science, plus some art, some severely fractured literature, and good old fashioned misinformation. Since she and her lecturing had been received quite well at the school, plus the pull of an old friend, Kaorin came back for lectures frequently, and finally decided to start up an astronomy club there again, which had ceased due to lack of interest from teachers.
So, she worked at the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those being the most convenient times for her, plus spending a little extra time there getting paperwork done or simply visiting. Through school matters, she and Ayumu had developed a closer bond to each other and considered themselves good friends.
"Yeah, my day was pretty good too," Ayumu responded. "The kids were a little more fidgety than usual, but summer vacation and stuff's comin' up. Oh, that reminds me. I was thinkin' of maybe coming along with your astronomy club this year on your trip! Would you be all right with that?"
Kaorin looked flattered. "Of course I'd be all right with that!" she said. "You're my friend, after all. You're going to have to pack some things with you, though. Toothbrushes, change of clothes, things of that sort. We're going out camping to a place where there's no light pollution and look through a telescope. Saturn is going to be especially close that week."
"Cool! Should I also bring my wocket-huntin' net?" Ayumu asked, with complete sincerity.
"Er, no," said Kaorin. "That won't be necessary."
"Well, if you're sure, but those wockets can sneak up on ya anywhere. Oh, by the way, Kaorin," Ayumu added, suddenly looking a bit more serious, "How're things goin' with you and your husband?"
"Oh, great," Kaorin smiled. "We're going to be celebrating our two-year anniversary next month, you know."
"That's fantastic!" Ayumu congratulated Kaorin. "You're so lucky to have found someone to spend the rest of your life with so soon. I'm prob'ly not gonna ever find a guy who likes me enough. They all think I'm some kinda nut!"
"Don't be like that," Kaorin said reprovingly. "You'll find someone eventually. You're a really great person, you know."
"Aw, shucks," Ayumu said, trying to look modest but failing to hide her pride. "I'm nothin' special."
"Don't believe a word of what she tells you, Osaka!" said a teacher who had managed to sneak into the staff room unnoticed. "It's a trap! Soon you'll be old and lonely like I am!"
"I told you I don't want to be called that anymore," Ayumu replied.
"Don't say things like that!" reprimanded another teacher who had entered the staff room with her friend.
"Oh, and I suppose you're going to stop me, Nyamo?" the teacher, in her trademark zigzag sweater, mocked. "Besides, you know it's true. From experience!"
"Well, at least stop calling Ayumu-san 'Osaka', Yukari! You know she doesn't like to be called that name."
"Oh, have a sense of humor, would ya? I'm sure Osaka doesn't mind. Right, Osaka?"
Yes, Yukari and Minamo were still working at the school, and they had not changed much. They looked a little older, but for the most part, they looked basically indistinguishable from they did four or five years ago. And their personalities had changed even less. In fact, they behaved exactly the same as they did when they were teaching Ayumu in high school. For instance, everyone else at the school who had known her from before had adjusted to calling Ayumu by her real name, but stubborn Yukari-chan refused to give up the nickname that she had always gone by back in the day. This bothered Ayumu, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do to get this to stop.
"No, I don't mind," Ayumu sighed.
"See, toldja Nyamo," said Yukari.
Minamo merely sighed in response.
"So anyways," Yukari continued casually, "What're all you guys gonna do on your vacation? As usual, I'm going to go someplace very expensive."
"Actually," said Kaorin brightly, "Ayumu was just talking to me about possibly going with me on my astronomy trip this year!"
"Yes," Ayumu agreed. "It sounds quite fun!"
"Pssht," Yukari scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. "What kind of lame trip is that? You might as well just stay home the whole time and order pizza or something. You should come with me!"
"Oh?" Kaorin asked. "Where are you going?"
"She already told ya, Kaorin," Ayumu stated. "Somewhere very expensive! I bet it's an ice hotel on the moon."
Damn, said Yukari to herself. I should have thought of that! Out loud, though, she just continued, "No, no, I'm going to... America!"
If she had been expecting some sort of awe-struck gasp from this statement, as she surely must have been given the overblown way she announced it, she was sorely disappointed. Everyone else in the room just looked on her silently with confused expressions on their faces.
"Uh..." Nyamo pointed out, "America is... not really an expensive place... at all."
"Of course it's expensive!" Yukari maintained. "Why else would I go there on vacation?"
"Because it's all you can afford?" Kaorin postulated. "And you already know the language?"
The English teacher put her hands on her hips in a defiant manner. "Totally false! The United States is a terribly, terribly expensive place and since I'm positive no one else in this room besides me has ever been there, there's no way YOU can tell me for sure whether or not it costs loads and loads of money to visit there. Which, by the way, it does."
The others were not impressed, but Yukari did not show any sign of budging from her statement, so eventually everyone stopped looking at her and turned away to concentrate on their own business. Eventually Yukari, realizing no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her, exited the room, grumbling to herself.
On her way out down the hallway, she ran into Kimura.
"Hello there, Yukari-sensei," Kimura said politely.
Yukari looked at him perplexedly for a second, then finally managed to say, "...Didn't you get fired?"
The same man who had previously been lectured in Koyomi's office was now waiting alone in a waiting room holding and stroking a small, excitable pet dog. Both the dog and its owner shared the same nervous look, although the man was much more subdued. This was why he had to hold his pet in his lap, otherwise the pet would have barked frantically and ran around the room. As it was it only did the former.
Just when this man thought he could wait no longer, his veterinarian finally arrived. "Hello," she said in a soft but firm voice, "...Uh–" She paused to check her clipboard– "Suzuki-san?" The man nodded to confirm that this was, in fact, his name. The veterinarian continued, "I'm Sakaki-san. You called to see me about your dog Daiki, right?"
The man nodded again, feeling a little insulted that the veterinarian remembered his pet's name and not his own, but saying nothing.
"All right, then, follow me," said Sakaki-san as she walked down the hall. Suzuki-san obediently followed her down said hall and into a room. He gave his dog to the veterinarian and stood by nervously as she examined him.
"You've had this dog for two years, correct?" Sakaki-san asked the nervous man. He nodded, and in return, she "hmmmm"ed.
She continued to examine the dog and quietly ask his owner questions, and Suzuki-san couldn't help noticing with apprehensiveness that the veterinarian grew more and more worried-looking as she did so. At first, though, he tried to ignore this by sticking his head in a sports-related magazine (the first he set eyes on). Soon, though, he felt as though he ought to try to cheer her up, perhaps in an attempt to deny that there was sure to be bad news about Daiki, and decided to engage her in conversation.
"Hey," he began.
"Yes?" said Sakaki-san distractedly.
"I've been reading this article, and... I dunno, you're probably not all that interested in what goes on in the athletic world..."
"Not much," Sakaki-san admitted, "But you know, I used to be quite the athlete at school..."
"Okay," the man said, "Well, they have this interview about this girl who did like really amazingly in the Olympics... "
"Hmm?"
"Yeah, apparently her name is... Kagura Keiko-san..."
To the man's pleasant surprise, the veterinarian turned her head over to him and let out a slight chuckle. "Really now?" she said. When Suzuki-san nodded, Sakaki-san responded, "Hah, I used to go to school with her."
"Really?" asked the man.
"Yes," Sakaki-san answered. "I'm not sure, but I think she considered me her rival? She used to challenge me all the time to athletic contests... I don't think she really understood me very well. I was never very interested in sports."
"Oh, that must have been annoying."
"A little, but I really didn't hold it against her. She was a little... overenthusiastic at times, but she really was a very nice person. She would never intentionally hurt someone's feelings."
"Ah."
After that, conversation ceased once more, and although Sakaki-san's mood had been brightened slightly by talk of her former high school friend, she quickly became worried once more, and when she was finished, she turned to her client with a grim look on her face.
"Well?" said the man expectantly.
"I'm sorry, Suzuki-san," said the veterinarian, and she looked as though she really was, "But it doesn't look good for your pet." She proceeded to explain the trouble with Daiki in a manner that the man could not understand at all, but then added something he understood very well: She grimaced as though bracing herself to say what she must, and then stated, "I think the only think we can do here is to... put him down."
The man looked as though he was the most miserable he had ever been in his life.
Later that night, Sakaki-san was checking her email when she noticed a mail from her old friend Chiyo-chan. She wasn't surprised (she received mail from her all the time), but something bout the subject line caught her eye.
As she read it, a smile started to appear on her face and gradually became wider and wider.
Well? I like my other fic, yes, and might continue to update it, but I think this one will allow me a little more freedom and probably a lot more eloquence. This fic probably isn't in the same universe as the other one.
Maaaan, this chapter took forever. I started it in mid-January and have been working on it off and on for quite a while. If only there wasn't so much stuff I had to fit into this chapter. And if only my attention span wasn't so freaking terrible. Perhaps I could have split this up into more than one chapter, but I wanted to get all the exposition out of the way so I could get the story moving. Although I have to admit I did much enjoy writing all of it.