I decided to end Absolute where it is because there isn't any reason in keeping it going when the main point of that story is over. So here's the sequel, named after another song by The Fray to stick with the theme. I'm actually planning on another sequel after this one, but don't hold me to that. Haha! Key word: PLANNING.

Anyway... enjoy! :)

Chapter 1

I don't know all the answers I think that I'll find
Or have it within the time but it's all that I'll have in mind
Until I fall away

Ritsu laced her gloved fingers with Mio's as they lay side by side in Ritsu's back yard, simply enjoying each other's company in the dying light of the evening. They'd returned to the drummer's house after their second week back of school since the blizzard. Mio didn't feel comfortable for them to hang out at the Akiyama residence for the sole reason that her parent's could find out about her relationship with her best friend, and the only grounds on which she was allowing Ritsu to even hold her hand at the Tainaka's was because Satoshi was at a friend's house and Mrs. Tainaka was at work.

They didn't mean to end up sprawled out in the snow. They had originally meant to gather some of the icy stuff for sno-cones (Ritsu's brilliant idea). Which turned out to be an extremely ill-planned one, considering the crippled state of the mastermind. Not surprisingly, Ritsu's crutches couldn't grip an icy patch and they both ended up tangled together in the frigid white fluff. From there, they ended up blushing and mumbling apologies, but neither made a move to get up. They simply lay next to each other, no words spoken. It reminded them of their first snowball fight, the first time they almost kissed, and the first time they began to have suspicions of each other's feelings.

That was only few weeks ago.

For some reason it felt like they'd been together forever. Things haven't changed all that much. They still argue, and the true dynamics of their relationship haven't varied from the norm. The only difference was that both were aware of how the other felt, and only revealed that part of themselves to the other when they were alone.

Ritsu ran her thumb over the back of Mio's hand. The dark-haired girl squeezed her hand back and cuddled up closer to the shorter girl, moving her head to rest on the front of Ritsu's dark blue coat. To anyone who might have seen them, it would seem as if Mio was cold and trying to warm up by moving closer, but Ritsu knew otherwise. This was Mio's way of communicating to her without saying anything, Mio was telling her how much she cared.

She knew it was difficult for the bassist to actually speak her feelings. Heck, even her lyrics were indiscernible, written in riddles so that people couldn't read her. So, small gestures every now and again were enough to show the brunette how much Mio really felt for her.

Suddenly, Ritsu felt soft wetness on her cheek. Mio's lips lingered there for a few seconds before she pulled away and lay her head back down, probably to hide a raging blush. Ritsu was frozen for a second, amber eyes wide and a slight blush adorning her cheeks. This was the first kiss Mio had ever initiated between them. Her features softened into smile as she wrapped her arms around the shy girl and buried her face into the shiny raven locks.

This was the Mio only Ritsu was ever allowed to see.

.

.

.

The next day, Ritsu had insisted that they practice, despite her obvious disability. She had gotten quite used to limping around on crutches, but it didn't diminish the difficulty of getting up the stairs to the clubroom.

"Who thought it was a good freakin' idea to put the clubroom on the second story!" The cripple whined as her friends surrounded her, making sure she didn't stumble.

"I told you we didn't have to practice until you were healed," Mio pointed out, walking a few steps below Ritsu, ready to catch her if she stumbled. "So don't complain since you were the one who insisted we did!"

Ritsu simply growled in response. She did have a point.

The band still didn't know about their relationship, but Mio and Ritsu agreed to keep it hidden until they were absolutely sure they were ready.

It was easier said than done, of course. They had occasional slip ups, but were saved by either Mio's quick thinking or Ritsu's skill at diverting attention.

However, the drummer had a strange feeling their secret wasn't completely theirs.

.

Flashback

"Ngh, damn it! I hate crutches!" Ritsu growled as she struggled to sit at her desk. It was homeroom, which meant Sawa-chan was teaching. Which usually meant a certain blonde's attention was focused solely at the front of the class. Today was a different story. "Heck, it even hurts to take a shower because the water burns the scrapes on my sides!"

"Geez, could you quit whining for two seconds?" Mio took the crutches from her crippled companion after plopping her books on her desk. She set the devices in question on the floor and out of harms way. "You'd think it was the end of the world, the way you're talking."

"Hehehe," Ritsu snickered, "Well, it might as well be! I really took something as simple as walking for granted. How many more weeks of this?"

A flicker of guilt flashed over Mio's face before it was swiftly replaced with annoyance. "You know, I haven't heard so much as a thank you for everything I've done for you these passed few days. I've pretty much been you're personal servant!"

Ritsu smiled goofily as the mention of the words "personal servant" generated an image of Mio in a maid's outfit in her mind's eye. "Mmm, thank you Mio-chan." She leaned forward teasingly and wagged her eyebrows. Mio just looked at her like she grew an extra head.

A gasp startled them both and they turned to see Tsumugi staring at them, eyes wide and hands covering her mouth in shock. There was an awkward silence before Ritsu chuckled nervously.

"Er… what's wrong, Mugi-chan?" The drummer twisted her head to the sides, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

The keyboardist blinked and turned a brilliant red color as she realized the attention was focused on her now. "F-Forgive me! It's nothing!" She apologized a little too loudly; earning weird looks from the students in surrounding desks.

"Ok… well, I'm gonna go back to my seat now…" Mio inched backwards awkwardly, eyebrows knitted in confusion.

End Flashback

.

"Thanks, Mio." She said as the dark-haired girl helped her into the chair. A giggle made Ritsu glance up. Mugi apparently found something amusing with what just transpired.

It's been like this for the past week and a half! She keeps looking at us all weird and giggling randomly like that. What the heck, Mugi!

Ritsu gave Mio a pointed look, which she returned with shrug and an expression that said, 'Don't ask me…'

In order to keep the band activities moving, the injured club president decreed that all members were to attempt to write a song. Preferably acoustic, for the percussionist was temporarily out of commission. As they were sharing their (god-awful) lyrics, Ritsu kept running the past few weeks through her memory. She couldn't find anything they did or said that would've "outed" them. They didn't even kiss often, maybe two or three times after the first day back from the ski lodge. And even then, they made sure they were behind closed doors. Sorry… locked doors.

But Mugi's actions as of late were very suspicious, if not a little irritating.

She intended to approach the blonde after practice, but that would involve privacy, something that would be difficult to obtain given her current condition. Mio would surely follow her everywhere, and she didn't want her to freak out if Mugi actually did know their secret. It's not that the blonde wasn't trustworthy… oh no. Ritsu would entrust the keyboardist with that precious piece of information before Yui, or even Azusa. It was just that fact that it could leak out into the world if they weren't extremely careful.

"Hello… Ricchannn… earth to Ricchan…" Yui waved a hand in front of the girl's face.

"Hm! Er… what?" The brunette shook her head and groaned when she realized everyone was staring at her. "Sorry, just spaced out…"

"Oh, well Mugi-chan was just saying her dad said we could come over for dinner tomorrow night since it's not a school night," piped the energetic guitarist. Today was thursday.

"Can you make it? Everyone else has already agreed," Mugi clasped her hands together in anticipation, cerulean eyes sparkling. The brunette glanced at Mio, who gave her a subtle nod.

"Oh, yeah sure! I'll be there!" Ritsu grinned and gave a thumbs up, earning herself a round of smiles from the members of the light music club.

.

.

.

After practice, Ritsu invited Mio over to her house to do homework. Once they were inside, they did more talking than working, as the cripple had shared her suspicions of Tsumugi with her girlfriend on their way home.

"So, what if she has something planned?" Mio inquired nervously as she attempted to motivate her companion into trying to do the math on her own instead of copying hers. "Like she's going to announce her support for us or something like that! Oh my God, Ritsu!"

"Hey… hey. I don't think she'll go that far. I mean… we don't even know if she knows, right? It's just… ya know… speculation?" The brunette tried to reason, but she didn't quite know whom she was trying to convince. "Besides… she would've asked us beforehand to make sure it would be alright. I'm sure of it."

"B-But… you know, sometimes she has those occasional moments of unpredictability. You never know!" The grey-eyed girl was beginning to freak out, just as Ritsu had predicted. "What if-"

"Miooo…. We don't know if anything like that is going to happen," The drummer sighed. "It could just be an innocent invitation to dinner… wait! Didn't Yui say her dad invited us? Could he be involved in this conspiracy!"

"Well, not exactly. He just gave her permission."

"Hm… but why bring him up at all? Sounds fishy to me… if not a little creepy," Ritsu rubbed her chin in thought as Mio began to hyperventilate.

"What are going to do? We already said we'd be there, we can't just not go!"

"You're right. We have to go, but we need a game plan!"

"Uh… ok. What's the game plan, then?"

"Er, well…" Ritsu paused and scratched her head. "Oh! Deny 'till we die."

Mio deadpanned. "Wow."

"Well, what else can we do?" The brunette explained, "If we say something to her and she didn't already know, then we just screwed ourselves over. But if we don't say anything we're at her mercy!"

Mio made a scared sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a whimper. In all honesty, Ritsu kind of wanted the others to know. She felt like she was lying to her best friends by keeping them in the dark. But she would fight for secrecy as long as Mio wanted it to remain so.

However, a few weeks in and she was already tired of it. Then again, she was never revered for her patience.

"Maybe we... ugh, no that wouldn't work... or what if... no..." Mio was murmuring to herself, desperate to come up with anything that would keep them from being outed tomorrow night.

"I'm telling you, I don't think she's actually going to say anything. Maybe she just wants us all to hang out together since our vacation was cut a little short, that's all," Ritsu suggested. Maybe sharing her thoughts with Mio wasn't such a great idea, she was just going to worry herself into a puddle. "And if she does say anything, I'll take care of it. So don't worry!"

Mio glanced at her warily. "What do you mean by, 'I'll take care of it...'"

It took the brunette a second to figure out what Mio meant. "Oh! Geez, I'm not gonna beat Mugi-chan up or anything, Mio-chan! What do you take me for!"

The dark-haired girl sighed in relief. "Well, with you... I never know."

"No respect... I get no respect..."

"It was a legitimate concern!"

"Me beating up one of the sweetest people in existence? I can't believe you think of me that way!" Ritsu lamented in a dramatic manner, throwing her hands up to the heavens as if asking "why!"

"I don't, but again, with you sometimes I really don't know..." Mio was chuckling now, and Ritsu jumped for joy on the inside because she succeeded in making her distressed girlfriend laugh.

"But there's no fun in predictability, Mio-chan," The brunette dragged her hands down her face in mock exasperation.

"That doesn't make me feel better. Tomorrow is going to be very unpredictable."

"Don't worry, be happy now... oooh-oh-oh-ooooh-ooh-oh-" Ritsu sang and snapped her fingers to the reggae beat of the song playing in her head. Mio watched in silence as the snapping became a groove played out on the table with a pencil and an eraser. The drummer paused for a moment to take a puff from an imaginary blunt and continued singing, causing Mio to burst out in giggles.

"Hey, you're singing isn't that bad!" Mio said in surprise between bouts of laughter. Ritsu paused again and gave a wink and a grin.

"I've been practicin' for you, mon."

Some parts are kind of silly, but I think it balances it out a bit. Sorry for mistakes, just let me know if you see any because I didn't proofread very well.

What's going to happen at Mugi's house tomorrow? Stay tuned to find out! ;)