Until Death Will We Part

A story of Sakaki and Kagura

Chapter 1: Something's with Sakaki

The gentle sound of the school bells chimed in over the speakers. Tomo jumped out of her chair. "Alright, finally!" she screamed. Yukari's head cocked to Tomo and she sighed. "Calm down Yukari, it's not like she has a future anyway," she thought.

Chiyo-chan was packing her things when she noticed Sakaki still looking out the window. She walked over. "Miss Sakaki, are you all right?" Chiyo asked. Sakaki replied with a simple "mmh."

"Well okay, but if there's anything that's bothering you, you can talk to me okay?" Chiyo finally said before leaving the room. As she did so, she bumped right into Kagura who seemed to be oblivious to anything else happening. Chiyo looked up. "Sorry Miss Kagura." Kagura was staring at Sakaki. "Is she okay?" she asked.

"She said she was fine," responded Chiyo.

Kagura continued to look at Sakaki "that's what she always says… about everything."

"Maybe she just has a lot on her mind," Chiyo said smiling. "I know what that's like."

Kagura smirked a little at this, hoping that Chiyo was right. But in her heart, she knew that Sakaki had something much deeper going on in her mind. Sakaki looked at where Chiyo and Kagura were standing, but as she did so, Kagura immediately turned away and walked out. Sakaki lowered her head and put her hands over her face. She sat there for a few minutes before finally straightening herself out, grabbing her pack, and leaving. Yukari looked up from her desk. "What's got into her?"

Sakaki was walking home when Kagura came out of nowhere. "Hey Sakaki!" Sakaki replied with a simple "Oh, hey." She began to blush a little.

"So how are you doing?" Kagura asked.

"Oh, well… fine I guess."

"You guess? C'mon Sakaki, what's bothering you?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," Sakaki said wearily.

"Well if you-" Kagura began to say before noticing that Sakaki had stopped and was looking at the cat again. Kagura smirked a little and started to run over to scare the cat away, but then stopped dead in her tracks. She looked at Sakaki's face. She was actually smiling? She cringed as the cat bit onto Sakaki's hand again, but Sakaki did nothing. She reached out with her other hand slowly and began petting it anyway. The cat let go of her hand, and started to back away. Sakaki's eyes widened. The cat jumped up to the fence, and then disappeared into the alley.

"Why do you like that cat so much Sakaki?" Kagura asked.

"I… don't know…" she said plainly.

Kagura began scratching the back of her head. "Well… tests are coming up next week… if you want to come over to my place and study this weekend, I'm sure it would be fine with my parents."

Sakaki looked at her. "Really?"

"Of course!"

"Okay… how about Saturday at 3:00?"

"That should be fine!"

"Thank you."

"No problem, Sakaki." Kagura said. "You know, I should be going now. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye!"

"Oh… bye." Sakaki said grimly. Kagura ran off into the distance, but Sakaki didn't move. She only watched Kagura's legs pushing off of the pavement, and her hair dancing in the wind. She looked down and blushed before turning around and running home.

"The test is on Tuesday and will be covering chapters five through eight! Be ready!" Yukari said. "Woohoo! Weekend!" Tomo said bouncing out of the classroom. Everyone was in a good mood now that the day was over. But Sakaki still was looking out the window. Kagura walked over to her. "Hey Sakaki. You know, if you want to you could come over right now," she said hopefully.

"But I thought that was tomorrow," Sakaki said looking back at her.

"So what? I'm sure it would be fine."

Sakaki looked at Kagura blankly and finally said "Okay. Let's go then."

They took their bags and began walking down the road. Kagura looked over at her. "So do you want to study first or hang out first?"

Sakaki looked at the sky, pondering this. "Well, couldn't we do just a little studying on maybe… just chapter five? We have the rest of the weekend."

"Well hey Sakaki! You're taking the fun route this time! Usually you'd be studying all night."

Sakaki smiled and blushed a little. She couldn't help but notice it herself. She usually got home and immediately began working on homework. But something invigorated her. She felt alive.

"Hey Kagura?" Sakaki asked.

"Yes?"

"Well, can I use your phone when we get there?"

"Of course!"

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was at Chiyo's house. "Hey so where's Kagura and Sakaki?" Tomo asked.

"Oh I'm sorry! I forgot to tell them!" Chiyo said in a shaky voice.

Yomi interjected "Chiyo, you could still call them, school just got out."

"Okay!" Chiyo ran over to the phone and began dialing Kagura's number.

Kagura opened the door and the phone began to ring. She ran over to it and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hello! This is Chiyo! What are you doing right now Miss Kagura?"

"Oh, well me and Sakaki are studying at my place."

"Oh okay then! We were studying over at my place, so if you want to drop by it's fine!"

"Thanks Chiyo, bye." Kagura said, setting the phone down.

"So?" Yomi asked.

"They're studying together," Chiyo said. Tomo twitched. "Oh no," Yomi said, "Tomo has an idea."

"We could go sneak up to Kagura's house and then jump in and surprise them! Wouldn't that be fun!"

"Somehow, I don't think that would be a great idea," Yomi stated simply.

"Well why wouldn't it be?"

"Do you even know Kagura's parents?"

"Well no but-"

"Exactly."

"Miss Yomi is right Tomo," Chiyo said, "You can't drop by on someone if you don't know the consequences."

"Ya, ya ya," Tomo sighed. "Well you know what?"

Yomi collapsed her head onto the table. "Here we go again."

"I'm gonna do it and none of you are gonna stop me!"

Osaka stared at Tomo intently. "I will!" she said.

"Oh ya? How's that?"

"I'll telepathically stop you from moving! Then you ain't going anywhere!"

"Right, of course you will," Yomi said at last. "Tomo, if you're going to do it, could you at least wait until we've studied?"

"Ya, okay fatty."

SMACK!