The following Monday...

"Toshinou Kyouko!"

"Huh, Ayano?"

"Eh... You're alone..."

Ayano had gathered enough courage to make the trip to the tea ceremony club room by herself, but was not by any means prepared to be alone in such a private location with... her. Confidence leaving her in an instant, the student council vice president took on a panicked voice and desperately tried to explain her way out of this situation.

"Uhm... y- y- y- you didn't turn in your handout!"

Kyouko's mind had been elsewhere when Ayano entered the room a mere five seconds ago, and she had yet to pull herself from her thoughts. Analyzing the scenario, Ayano noted the fact that Kyouko probably didn't want to be bothered, and she likely didn't have the paper with her anyway. Now would be a good time to escape from this uncomfortable moment.

"Well, never mind! You can bring it in tomorrow!" She spoke quickly while turning away.

"Ayano, wait!"

Returning to her position in the doorway, half expecting a joke or a flirtatious comment which would only serve to embarrass her further, Ayano glared in the direction of the blonde. Her leer was intercepted by those two sparkling blue eyes that... weren't quite sparkling. Ayano immediately observed Kyouko's expression to be slightly dimmer than usual. As a matter of fact, judging by the inverted smile and faint evidence of dried tears on her upper cheek, Kyouko's entire face emanated negativity.

This visual prompted Ayano to rush over and hug her, though she would never acknowledge that herself. The purple-headed girl did know, however, that something was wrong, and she needed to take action. She tried speaking.

"T-... Toshinou Kyouko..."

And she failed at speaking. Silence doused the space between their eyes with the same suffocating intensity as the heat outside.

"Ayano..." Kyouko's voice served to relieve the helpless tightening of Ayano's chest, but only briefly as Kyouko broke their eye contact, leaving her classmate at a greater loss for words than she had previously imagined possible. Ayano nervously swallowed, unable to even open her mouth. Looking down to her closed notebook, Kyouko would continue —

"If you aren't too busy... could you maybe stay here, for a while?" Hesitating, Kyouko raised her head to send Ayano a look that was practically dripping with sadness and neediness, and maybe even a little desperation.

With that expression Ayano promised herself that whatever had gone wrong, any and all things that caused Toshinou Kyouko to feel this way she would do her absolute best to make right. Renewed by a motive she was not entirely familiar with, Ayano knew it was her job to put a smile back on her rival's face, even if she didn't know why.

Then pleadingly, albeit unnecessarily, Kyouko added, "Please?"

Ayano practically sprinted to a seat across from Kyouko, plopping down properly with her hands in her lap, her mouth screwed shut the entire time. Being the tsundere she didn't know she was, it became a struggle to formulate words to penetrate the still air, but her determination would eventually pull her through.

"Wh- What are you working on?" She asked, using her eyes to point at the notebook surrounded by eraser shavings sitting on the table across from her.

"Oh, it's nothing you would be interested in." Kyouko exhaled like she wanted to laugh, but her lips would not adjust to allow her to do so.

"More doujinshi?"

"Uh... yeah. I had an idea so I was trying to sketch something up."

Believe it or not, Ayano quite enjoys Kyouko's drawings. And based on the amount of erasing that had obviously been done, Kyouko must have been sketching something rather important. An excellent deduction, to be expected from the esteemed vice president of the student council.

"Can I see?"

"Oh, w- well it's just Mirakurun, so you won't be interested! Heh heh..." This time Kyouko did laugh, only in a nervously strained way.

Ayano was seriously curious now. "Come on, Toshinou Kyouko, I... I actually liked the book you sold at Comuket. So, please?"

Kyouko was struck. "She liked it? I thought she wasn't interested." Studying Ayano's blush and widened eyes, the artist realized she was actually quite interested.

"Well, I guess you can look," Kyouko decided, "but you aren't allowed to tell anyone about it, because... because this plot is copyrighted to me!"

Sliding the notebook across the table to herself, Ayano laughed. Leaving her proper tone of voice, she spoke very casually to Kyouko, a rare sight:

"Don't worry, I'm not going to steal your story."

Underneath the exterior notebook cover was a sort of makeshift cover page. Center frame was an illustration of pre-transformation Mirakurun — "What was her name again?" If it came into question, Ayano would admit that she still wasn't intimately familiar with the source material. Whatever the girl's name was, she was not giving the reader her usual shining smile, but instead gazed off-screen with a melancholy expression. This was clearly not typical Mirakurun doujinshi, Ayano noted. Her interest was piqued, to say the least.

The purple-haired girl snapped to the next page. Immediately, she realized that this story was very much a sketch, still in the 'idea' phase; the character artwork in the following panels was merely an outline with relatively little detail when compared to the title page. The only things filled in were dialogue bubbles and expressions with some vague backgrounds here and there. Despite this, her curiosity inspired her to continue.

~"Raika-chan, why would you do this?!"~ Mirakurun appeared fully transformed in the first panel.

~"Don't call me that! We can't be friends anymore. That's how it has to be."~

~"But... Raibarun, we've been friends for so long!"~ Now Mirakurun was reeling back, with tears in her eyes.

~"Shut up! You're a witch girl, so talk with your fists!"~ The next page used multiple panels to illustrate Raibarun launching a blast of magical energy, striking Mirakurun in the face.

While she was flipping the paper again, Ayano glanced up at Kyouko, only for a second. The blonde was sitting patiently, staring off into the distance while twiddling a pencil around her fingers, lacking the glistening, excited eyes she usually gets when somebody reads her work. There was something about Kyouko's expression, and the mood of this doujinshi so far... somehow Kyouko seemed unusually mature, the purple-head thought.

The entire third page was dedicated to a more detailed zoom of Mirakurun's tear-laden face. Her eyes squinted shut and her cheek was shaded to show a mark from her rival's attack.

~"If that's how it has to be, then... then I won't fight you any more!"~

Less completed than the previous pages, the fourth consisted of Mirakurun — rather, untransformed Mirakurun — having an internal monologue.

~"After that day, Raika-chan stopped talking to me at school. We didn't have lunch together any more, and she avoided me between classes.

"I know it's my job to stop Raibarun, especially now that she really has turned evil. But now that we aren't secretly friends any more, it just doesn't feel right. We could really hurt eachother..."~

The final two panels displayed the main character standing alone holding her magical wand, and, subsequently, breaking it.

The next and final page simply read, ~"The End"~

"Eh? The end?"

The student council member dropped the notebook back on the table, unceremoniously leveled her head and said very flatly:

"Toshinou Kyouko, what is this?"

"Eh-heh-heh... You see, sometimes I write sad stuff, but... I normally don't share it with anyone." Kyouko awkwardly explained.

Ayano was a bit dumbfounded. "What was that about? Mirakurun just... gives up?" Impulsively and without contemplation Ayano bolted up from her seat and assumed her accusatory-finger-point pose.

"What's with you?!"

"What?!" Kyouko flinched in surprise.

"Your mood is so serious today. Did you fall down the stairs and hit your head again?"

"Ah... No, I..." The blonde seemed as if she was struggling to find the right words.

"Not to mention, school just ended and none of your friends are here." Ayano steadily slumped back down to a sitting position. "You can tell me if something happened..." Her determined look then faded into the bashful one Kyouko was more accustomed to. "Not that I really care, or anything..."

"No, it's nothing, just... Yui-chan didn't come to school today, and Akari is off shopping with her sister, or something like that."

"That's right, I forgot Funami-san was absent today. But what about Yoshikawa-san?" Ayano pointed out the unmentioned club member.

"She... wouldn't talk to me." The otaku's head dropped in a dejected fashion.

"But why not?"

"I don't know for sure, but... well, it's kind of complicated."

The tsundere girl had been confident up to this point, but now the conversation didn't seem to be moving forward. "You're being too vague..."

"Okay, I'll start from this morning. My mom woke me up asking if I felt all right, since she had just found out over the phone that Yui was sick. That's when I knew she wasn't coming in today. Then I ran into Chinatsu-chan on the walk to school..."

~"Oooi, China-chan!"

Chinatsu stopped mid-step and whipped around to face the source of the call, her backpack swinging dramatically and bundles of hair bouncing to a halt. "Good morni—"

"Don't talk to me." Kyouko was interrupted. The pink devil's cerulean orbs sparkled threateningly under the morning sun. Kyouko couldn't think of what to respond with, though her gasp and wide eyes conveyed depression mixed with a little bit of terror.

"I don't want to be around you right now." With that, Chinatsu spun on her heel and strutted away.~

"I was so upset I considered turning back and going home, but decided it would probably be easier to sit in class than to convince my mom I was sick or something." Kyouko mumbled out, clearly rattled by the odd scenario.

"That's awful! And you don't know why she said that?"

"I have... an idea. But she keeps avoiding me, so I can't know for sure..."

Ayano placed her hand to her own chin and processed Kyouko's recollection. "I never did like the pink-haired girl. How could she act like such a... such a..."

"Ayano."

Apparently shocked by being torn from her thoughts, the vice president locked eyes with the blonde. Kyouko had a formation of tear drops developing in the corner of her right eye. "Ayano, thanks for sitting with me," she smiled. Before either of them knew it, she was on the opposite side of the table and next to Ayano, hugging the purple-haired girl from the side. The tsundere's face instantly darkened to rival the shade of her hair.

"To- T- T- T- Toshinou Kyouko!" Kyouko ignored the protests and held on a few more seconds before pulling away.

"I really want to go see Yui now. I promise I'll bring you that handout first thing tomorrow morning!" She yelled over her shoulder while running toward the room's exit.

"Hm, the what?" "Ah, Toshinou Kyouko, wait! What about this notebook?" Ayano referred to Kyouko's sketch book which was still on the table.

The artist turned back for one last wink before heading out the door. "You can keep it!"

"Toshinou Kyouko... Thanks."

To be continued...