Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Hibike! Euphonium or its characters.

~ Chapter 2 ~

"Kumiko."

The voice was but a faint whisper, but she recognized it instantly. It sounded so distant, yet felt so near - like she was right next to her. However, Kumiko knew no one was there, for when she turned, she was only greeted by darkness.

"Kumiko…"

This time it came from the left; I turned, but again - nothing.

"Kumiko!"

At that moment, she finally saw her. Standing right in front of the red-head, only an arms length away, stood an angel. She was dressed in a white dress, which complimented her pale skin in a way that seemed impossible. Her black hair flowed as if a gentle breeze was passing through, though Kumiko was sure there was none.

Then, in a blink of an eye, the angel was right in front of her; so close she could feel each shallow breath on her face, Kumiko, on the other hand, couldn't bring herself to take even a single breath. The angel raised her hand and placed it on Kumiko's cheek, looking her straight in the eye.

"Kumiko," the dark-haired angel leaned in even closer, "I-"

"Kumiko!"

The red-head gasped and jolted up from her bed, hitting something hard as she did so. She heard a squeal and looked up to see Hazuki holding her head. Oh, so that's what I hit…

"Aaaah, that hurt!" Kumiko watched with a yawn as Hazuki danced around the room with a hand on her forehead. She stopped and pouted at her roommate, "That's the thanks I get for trying to keep you from missing class…"

Kumiko stopped mid-yawn. She looked towards the clock on her desk and realized with a start that she only had about thirty minutes until history class. Crap!

With a small squeal, the red-head jumped off her bed and ran to her side of the closet in order to find something to wear.

Hazuki sighed. "Honestly, Kumiko," she said in a soft, yet playful voice, "Taki-sensei is gonna kill you one day for always being late to his class."

Kumiko ignored her friend for the time-being as she threw on a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt.

Hazuki was right though, she had to admit. Taki-sensei was the youngest and, in the opinion of almost every girl - and a few boys - on campus, the hottest professor at Kitauji University. Due to this, most people assumed he was also a very laid-back and nice professor. The thought made Kumiko scoff to herself as she ran to the bathroom and brushed her teeth quickly.

Taki-sensei was anything but laid-back and nice; he was the most irritating, unfair, unpredictable professor - no, person - on the planet. His class was European History, which, when she had first signed up, Kumiko was sure would be an easy A. Boy, was I wrong…

At this point, the red-head was barely managing a C- in the class. It also didn't help that she was late about half of the time - which resulted in her having to slip in to the class during the middle of one of his oh-so-interesting lectures. Which then resulted in him stopping mid-sentence to give her his famous passive-aggressive, "you're totally dead" smiles until she sat down.

With an exhale, Kumiko finished gather her things and ran out the door, only sparing a slight wave in the direction of her roommate - who had been watching the red-head with not-so-slight amusement as she rushed to get ready.

The sprint to history class had become tradition on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so Kumiko had learned the perfect route to get to there as fast as possible (though she was usually still late).

Finally, with only two minutes to spare, Kumiko reached the door to Room 206.

"Here!" Kumiko sighed, leaning against the door frame. She looked up and was surprised to see that Taki-sensei hadn't arrived. Well, that's a relief.

The red-head made her way to her usual seat in the back, attempting to catch her breath as she did so. She flopped down onto her seat and leaned her head on the table. Glancing up towards the front row, she noticed that Reina hadn't arrived yet either. Sighing for what felt like the millionth time since she woke up thirty minutes before, Kumiko closed her eyes.

Another reason that Kumiko was so very annoyed by the class she was currently waiting to start, was that she hadn't even had any interest to take it in the first place. During first semester, she and Reina only had one class together, and they one row apart. On occasion, the red-head would overhear the other's rare conversations with those around her. At this point, Kumiko's crush on said person had already become quite prevalent, so when she heard that Reina was planning on taking European History in room 200b with Taki-sensei…well, long story short, she was only in this class to get more of a chance to see Reina on a daily basis.

At that moment, the memories of last night began flooding her mind.

"I-I like your underwear!"

Groaning, Kumiko put her hands over her head in a futile attempt to hide herself away from the rest of the world. Maybe I should drop this class. I mean, after last night, I don't think I'll even be able to look at her without…

She groaned again and contemplated leaving the class right then and there.

At that moment, however, she heard the door open and looked up to see Taki-sensei taking his place at the front of the room.

"Good morning, everyone," he greeted in his cheery, yet probably fake voice. He was greeted with a few half-hearted replies, cuing him to begin taking role. He began calling out each students name in his ever-so-polite voice, causing the many to almost tremble as he called out their names. Gross.

"Oumae Kumiko."

"Here," the red-head replied lazily. At her reply, Taki-sensei looked up with a somewhat surprised look on his face, as if to say "Oh, you're actually on time today?" This caused a slight grimace to form on Kumiko's face, So annoying.

He continued calling out names as Kumiko closed her eyes once again and started to get comfortable in her seat, preparing for a long and boring hour and a half.

"Kousaka Reina."

"Here."

Kumiko's eyes snapped open and she quickly turned to her right, where there was usually an empty seat. Today, however, the seat was occupied.

Not only was it occupied, but sitting only a foot away from her was none other than the dark-haired angel herself. Kumiko swallowed, unable to full understand what was happening.

At that moment, Reina turned to meet Kumiko's surprised look, causing the red-head to quickly look away with a flushed face.

What is going on….?

Taki-sensei soon finished with role and began lecturing. However, Kumiko barely noticed this because she was still having a hard time breathing correctly.

Usually, Reina sat at the very front of the class, never even looking back for a second. Kumiko was used to this, she liked this, because she was (obviously) not very good at actually dealing with the other woman. Hell, they had barely made eye contact before their awkward encounter the night before. Honestly, Kumiko was pretty sure Reina had no idea who she was before then. So why did she choose to sit here all of a sudden?!

The red-head, who at this point had completely given up on napping throughout the class as she had intended to before, was trying her hardest not to look to her right. However, this was proving to be an extremely difficult task. The other woman was so close that Kumiko could faintly smell her perfume, which surprised her. I didn't know she wore perfume…

It had a very distinct smell, like lavender mixed with a hint of regular soap, however there was also another smell mixed within the others - something that seemed to be strictly Reina. It was intoxicating.

Not only could she smell the dark-haired woman, she could sometimes hear her breath slightly, calmly. Sometimes she would let out a very quiet sigh when she mis-copied something the professor said, or when she others in the class would begin giggling quietly to one another.

An hour went by and Kumiko was sure it was the most stressful hour of her life. She spent the entire time trying her best (well, maybe not her best) to listen to Taki-sensei as he talked about…something historical, but just ended up being hyper-aware of the person next to her. Every shift, sigh, adjustment, or movement in general caused Kumiko's eyes to flick towards Reina. Luckily, the red-head was almost positive that the other hadn't noticed Kumiko's struggles. Just another thirty minutes, I can do this….

Fate didn't seem to want to give the girl a break, however, for at that moment Taki-sensei made an announcement.

"For your midterm grade, I want you all to develop your own research on a European culture of your choice," he said as he began handing out the outline for the assignment. "The research should include the history of each culture and how it is incorporated in that culture today. You will have to present your information in front of the class, so please keep this in mind when you begin preparing."

An audible groan was released from the class at Taki-sensei's declaration, causing him to chuckle. "I understand this is not ideal, but I promise you it won't be too difficult. In fact, I've decided to make it even easier on you all." This caused the class to come to attention.

As he finished handing out the papers, he turned to the class once more. "I will allow you all to choose a partner to do this project with, so that one person won't have to do all the work." A wave of excited and relieved whispers erupted from the class at that time. Taki-sensei raised his hand as to silence the room. "Choose your partners wisely, students. You don't want to be stuck with someone who will slack off and make you do all the work."

At that, Kumiko could have sworn he looked directly at her for a moment. That better have been my imagination…Jerk.

Taki-sensei then clapped his hands together, "Alright, for the rest of the class you may get together with the partner of your choice and begin deciding which culture you'd like to research. When you're done, tell me who your partner will be and your topic, and then you may leave."

With that, the students began looking around for their partners; some already had someone in mind, while others simply waited to see who else was available. Kumiko was among the latter group.

With a sigh, she propped her head on her hand and waited until she could spot someone else who was in need of a partner. I hate this kind of stuff.

"Kumiko."

The red-head stopped breathing. Was that..?

She slowly turned to her right and almost fell off her chair when she met Reina's eyes with her own.

"Um.."

"That's your name, isn't it?"

All Kumiko could think about was the fact that this person's voice was so beautiful, so rich, so sexy. It took few minutes for her to register what Reina had actually said.

"O-oh! Yeah. Kumiko, that's me," she cleared her throat, trying to cover up her awkwardness - it wasn't working.

Reina nodded once and then turned to the open textbook sitting in front of her, "I was thinking we could do either Ireland or Romania, since they both have a lot of interesting and easily-accessible information," she then turned back to Kumiko with her usual blank expression. "What do you think?"

…..What?

Kumiko's mind was blank. Was Reina talking about the project? Why would she talk about that with her? Shouldn't she be asking her partner about-?

The red-head's eyes went wide. Wait. Is she..? Am I…?

"W-wait, so are we…partners?" Kumiko asked plainly. Reina's expression remained blank, however there was a hint of mirth within her eyes as she looked at the red-head.

"Of course."

And that was it. Kumiko remained still as Reina continued to talk about the assignment.

Oh. Okay.

The red-head slowly came back to life and looked at her dark-haired counterpart as she wrote down their names and topic - which Kumiko hadn't caught when the other was discussing it just a moment before - on a sheet of scrap paper. As she watched, she couldn't help but notice the way Reina wrote her name. The woman's handwriting was unsurprisingly very neat, with cute little flicks and curves at the end of every letter. Kumiko thought that her name had never looked so beautiful on a piece of paper before then.

"-so that we can talk about the project later this week."

Kumiko blinked and looked away from her name, realizing she had missed what the other had said. "I-I'm sorry, what?"

Reina didn't seem to be annoyed with Kumiko's lack of attention as she began to repeat what she had just said, "I was saying that we should exchange numbers so that we can work on the assignment later this week."

However, all Kumiko really caught from that was "exhange numbers."

"U-um, yeah! Sure!" the red-head fumbled to reach for a pen and paper so that she could write out her number in her much messier handwriting. She handed it to Reina as she accepted the other's number at the same moment, which - of course - looked a lot better than her own.

Kumiko looked down at the assortment of numbers on the paper in her hands as if it was Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket. This is Reina's phone number. Her actual number.

She looked up and noticed the other girl rising from her seat so that she could give Taki-sensei their topic. Following the other's lead, Kumiko shoved her belongings in her back pack and clumsily left her own seat.

She watched as Reina handed the paper to the professor and then headed for the door without looking back, Kumiko's number in hand.

With a dumbfounded look, Kumiko watched the other leave for a moment before snapping out of her reverie and heading for the door herself.

On her walk to her next class, she reflected on what had just happened and concluded that she, without a doubt, had no clue what had just happened.

However, as she looked at the number in her hand, Kumiko gave a small smile and decided not to dwell on what had happened and instead to just enjoy the fact that she now had an excuse to talk to Reina outside of class.

Then again, that's just more opportunities for me to make a fool out of myself again…

Cringing slightly, she decided to push that thought away from now and focus on the walk ahead of her.

A/N:

Hi! I just want to thank everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed the story so far! I'm so excited that you guys are enjoying these two as much as I am :3 I do want to let you all know that this won't be an extremely long story, most likely (though I tend to add some things as I go along so it might end up a little longer than I originally anticipated); but I do know how it's going to go and I'm super excited for you guys to find out!

I hope you guys continue to enjoy the story and let me know what you think! :3

Special thanks to reviewers: Psykoakuma, not a straight trumpet, YuriLover24, Aoizora, angel0wonder