I'm Not Who You Think I Am
Note: Azumanga Daioh does not belong to me.
"I don't believe you!" Tomo shouted. "All this time you've been lying to us!"
"Tomo, please!" Yomi begged. "You have to understand. I couldn't tell anyone! I couldn't risk anyone finding out!" Then, turning to Chiyo-chan, she asked, "You understand, right?" Chiyo backed away.
"Yomi-san... I trusted you! How could you?" she sobbed. "We all trusted you!" Sakaki glared at Yomi while comforting Chiyo-chan, Kaorin looked like she'd been hit with a boulder, Kagura looked at the floor, and Osaka was trying to figure out exactly how this could have happened. She couldn't believe what she'd seen. How could YOMI, of all people, really been Midoriko Suzuki, a girl who had disappeared from her elementary school ten years before. Nyamo and Yukari made a move to block the door.
"Suzuki-san, we're not quite sure how to handle this," Nyamo muttered. "We should be reporting this to the police! You've been considered dead for five years, and your parents will want to know that you're alive." Yomi shook her head.
"Do you think I would have run away if I thought they cared? They don't give a rat's ass about me! I'm just in the way of their goals. They only made a big fuss about my disappearance because they thought it would "look good." Her voice trailed off.
"Suzuki-san," Yukari began. "The fact is that you ran away ten years ago, so that would make you what, twenty now?"
"That's right," Yomi replied.
"Well, that means that you are LEGALLY free from your parents, but what about your obligation to them? And since you've been long considered dead, we have the obligation to report your existence. We all got a huge shock when Osaka found your elementary school ID."
"That doesn't mean you have to turn me in!" Yomi shrieked. "I've lived for TEN YEARS with the Mizuhara family! Why can't I just go on living the way I have? I'll be going to college soon!"
"Yomi," Tomo said softly. Yomi looked around the room at her friends. As hard as she tried to stop it, the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Koyomi Mizuhara was not born Koyomi Mizuhara. Until she was ten years old, she was Midoriko Suzuki, a rich kid from a very prominent family. Of course, certain social stigma comes with being a member of such a family, so Midoriko was raised very strictly. If she made one mistake, she would be slapped, hit with whatever was available, or locked outside. Even minor infractions like eating a cookie before dinner was a punishable offense. Worse than that, her parents considered her a drain on their finances, and an obstacle in the way of achieving their goals. So when she was ten years old, walking home from elementary school, she ran away and never came back.
She went to stay with the Mizuharas, a family that was friends of one of her friends from elementary school's family (A/N- that sentence STILL sounds weird to me.). She enrolled in a different elementary school as Koyomi Mizuhara, two grades below her actual one. The Mizuharas treated her like their own daughter, and she was finally able to live a normal childhood. Growing up, the fear that she would be discovered was never really present in her mind.
But she had, and now everything she'd worked so hard to build was falling apart right as she watched. Her friends, the people she cared about the most, were watching her as if she might suddenly rush forward and attack them.
"All right," she whispered, her voice breaking as she spoke. "I'll go home.
Within minutes, the police converged on the school. "Suzuki-san, we'll be taking you downtown to ask you some questions, all right?" the officer asked gently. Yomi nodded through her tears.
Outside as she was being escorted to the squad car, Yomi mumbled a goodbye to her friends. "It was an honor to have met all of you," she whispered. As the car pulled out, she watched all her friends get smaller and smaller in the distance. She started crying, but at the same time thinking no one would shed a tear over her. She was wrong. All of her friends were silently sobbing too.
"TURN ON THE TV!" Yukari shouted as she burst in the room the next day, late as usual. "TURN IT TO CHANNEL 21 NEWS! IT'S LIVE COVERAGE OF YOMI'S HOMECOMING!" Sakaki obliged, turning on television.
"I'm Usako Minekura, your correspondant for Channel 21 News!" the bubbly, bleach-blonde TV newscaster said into the screen, "And we're here live at Midoriko Suzuki's return home. Suzuki disappeared ten years ago from her elementary school and was presumed dead five years ago."
"Yeah, yeah, we already know that!" Tomo said irately.
"Please, Yomi-san! Be strong!" Chiyo-chan whispered desperately.
"You can do it," Sakaki muttered.
"Mom? Dad?" TV Yomi said when her parents stepped out of their huge house.
"Midoriko," her mother said coldly, as if she was trying to repress her disgust and hatred.
"Get... out. We don't want a child like you anymore," her father spat. "You ran away. Do you know how bad this is for our family's societal image? You ruined us, Midoriko!"
"DAMMIT!" Tomo shrieked, flinging her bag at the television. "At least be greatful your daughter is alive, you bastards!" The bag hit the TV, but nothing happened. With a scream of outrage, Tomo picked up her shoe and smashed the screen with it. There was an explosion, and Tomo was thrown backwards.
"Tomo!" Chiyo-chan screamed.
"I'm fine," Tomo said, staggering to her feet. "Yomi's parents just pissed me off. Who the hell disowns a kid they just got back?"
"Obviously they do," Kagura said. But inside, she was just as angry as Tomo.
Bleedleeedleeedle. Tomo's cell phone went off. "Hello?" she asked.
"Hi." Yomi's voice on ther other end was strangely calm for someone who just got disowned.
"Yomi! I'm so sorry!" Tomo burst into tears. "I didn't mean to blame you! I'm such a horrible person! Please forgive me!"
"Tomo. I'm coming back. The Mizuhara family offered to adopt me. My parents jumped at the chance. They don't want a kid like me. I knew I couldn't hide forever, and I knew this day was coming. I'll be back to go to college, this time as the REAL Koyomi Mizuhara." And then she hung up.
"Was that Yomi?" Kaorin asked.
"Yeah. And she's coming back!" Tomo said happily.
It's strange, but it seems that the bonds of friendship will survive anything. Even the shocker that your friend has been living a lie for the past ten years of her life. The will to survive beats everything. Even getting disowned.
When Yomi came back, everyone welcomed her with open arms. She decided to finish the last weeks of high school, and then she would go to college. Now that she wasn't living under an assumed name and lifestyle, she felt like she could truly trust her friends. And she was ready to live life to the fullest.
The End
Omake- Author's Comments
This is a story that is very important to me. I've wanted to write it for a long time, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to communicate my meaning well enough. I really can't talk too much about this story, and I apologize for that. I just hope that I did the storyline justice.
Thank you for reading.
-GoesKaboom