A Simple Happiness

Description: Okay, so this is my first Azumanga Daioh fanfic. I really hope that everyone will give it a chance. Anyway.. ever since Kagura joined Miss Yukari's class, there has been friction between her and Tomo. Their friction even somehow created a slightly twisted friendship. But what will happen when Tomo starts to develop some feelings for her "rival"? KaguraxTomo.

Rating: T.

Chapter Four: A Shoulder To Cry On

While walking home from school, Kagura glanced at the sheet of paper with the large "72" written on it. And with a small "25" written below it (the teacher had decided to write it after the entire confusion incident). She could only imagine how dissappionted her parents would be. If there was one thing that upset Kagura more than anything else, it would be knowing that she had let someone down. She hated feeling like a failier to anyone.

The athlete sighed when she reached the door. She stuffed her hand into her pocket and felt around for the key. Once she found it, she slowly inserted it into the lock. She turned the golden object at a speed that wouldn't normally be associated with our Kagura, here. She simply wanted to put off facing her parents for as long as possible.

She finally stepped through the door.

"Is that you, sweetie?" Mrs. Kagura called from the kitchen.

"Yeah, it's me..." the adressed girl replied quietly, but loud enough for her mother to hear.

Kagura's mom walked over to her daughter. "So..."

"So... what?" Kagura knew what was coming.

"How'd you do on your test?" she placed her hand outwards, palm facing up, as an invetation for Kagura to give her the dreaded peice of paper.

Kagura sighed and looked downwards in shame. She handed her mother her test paper, never taking her eyes off the floor.

"I thought you said you studied?" Mrs Kagura exclaimed. She sounded like she was trying her hardest to keep a calm tone in her voice.

"I... I did, mom. I swear," Kagura replied, honestly. "I just... I really don't understand it..."

"That's a lie," her mother decided, her voice sounding more and more angery with each word. "Entrance Exams are only a few months away! You can't afford to slack off then! This is your future we're talking about here! This ISN'T a trivial matter! What are you planning to DO with your life, anyway?"

"Umm... I dunno..."

"See? You have no drive. You're just going to go through life with this 'I dunno...' attitude, not knowing what you want to do. And you know where that'll lead you? On the streets, that's where! And that is all because you are goddamn lazy and don't study, so you get bad grades in school! Is that what you really want? Is it! Just you wait 'till your father hears about this! He'll -... HEY! Where're you going!"

Kagura was making her way up the stairs. "I'm going to put on some more comfortable clothes. I'm going for a walk".

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Why does that clock look like it's going backwards instead of forwards?

Tomo sighed and continued to watch the clock. It's true what they say, time DOES go fast when you're having fun. Tomo, however, WASN'T having fun.

An hour past since the detention started, but it felt like forever to Miss Takino.

"Tomo Takino, that's your time done. You can go home now," the teacher said.

"Thank GOD," Tomo exclaimed loudly. She picked up her school things and walked out of the door.

She made her way down the empty hallways, with no other sound other than the tap-tap-tap of her feet against the floor. When she finally got outside she looked up at the sky. It was starting to get dark already.

"Ugh, I could SO go an ice cream right now..." Tomo muttered to herself, holding her grumbling stomach. "I better hurry if I want to get to the store before it closes..."

She began to pick up the pace, until she felt someone shove past her.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, jurk!" Tomo yelled, turning around.

The other person didn't turn around straight away, however. They looked like they were frantically whiping their face and eyes. "I.. I-I'm sorry. I'm so clumsy..." replied a soft female voice. The girl turned around when she was seemingly satisfied with how her face looked.

"And so you should be! I-... Kagura?" Tomo said, sightly stunned. She blinked. "Have you... been crying?"

Kagura whiped her eyes again and struggled to hold back even more tears. But she resisted because she knew she could expect Tomo laughing at her and calling her a cry-baby. "Nuh... n-no," she replied, stuttering.

"Aw, c'mere," Tomo said comfortingly, linking arms witht the slightly taller girl. "I was just about to get some ice cream. We can talk about it while we eat."

Kagura seemed surprised by Tomo's reaction, but accepted. "Okay..." she said. She had calmed down ever so slightly now that Tomo was with her, she didn't really know why. "Hey," she exclaimed, "Your bandage... you took it off." she pointed to her friend's hand, which she "broke" earlier that day.

Tomo looked at her hand. "Oh, yeah. I took it off in detention because it was itchy."

Kagura smirked, "So I DIDN'T brake it, huh?"

Tomo stuck out her tongue. "Hey, you pissed me off, I had to get my revenge somehow," she giggled, "Plus, it DID hurt a bit."

"Bitch," Kagura said jokingly, a smile on her face. It's strange that one person can both ruin and brighten up exactly the same day.

Tomo giggled and pushed Kagura playfully. Kagura liked it when Tomo was in this kinda of mood. They had fun this way. Playing around like a couple of kids. They only thing Kagura disliked about it was that they would both usually take it over the top and someone would get hurt (be it pysically or emotionally). But at this point right here... this is what Kagura liked.

"There's the ice cream store," Kagura annouced as she pointed to their destination which was only just barely in sight.

"Race ya," Tomo challenged, smirking.

Kagura laughed. "Okay, but you're gonna loose".

The two girls stopped walking to countdown for the big "race".

"Ready? Set... G-... HEY! NOT YET! CHEATER!"

"Hahahahahaha!" Tomo ran her fastest as she laughed meniciningly. Kagura began to start running behind the mischievous girl. It didn't take her long to catch up with her aponent. But Tomo wasn't going to give up. She ran even harder, desperate to beat the athlete. But then suddenly...

CRASH!

Kagura stopped dead in her tracks at the loud noise. She had a good guess about what it would be, but she would much rather it wasn't what she thought.

"Owwww," Tomo moaned quietly. She had been running so fast that she haven't been watching where she was going, and tripped over a large rock.

"Oh my God... Tomo!" Kagura ran straight over to the injured girl.

Tomo strained back tears as she sat herself up. She looked at her knee, and was relieved to see that it was just a graze and brusie. No matter how small the injury was, it still hurt a lot.

Kagura knelt down beside her friend. "Are you okay? Can you walk?" she grabbed Tomo's hand to help pull her up. The slightly shorter girl winced in pain and draped her arms around Kagura's neck and clung to her for support. It might've been a little too over-dramatic... but this is Tomo we're talking about here.

"Heh, I guess not..." Tomo admitted, still keeping a tight hold of Kagura.

Kagura re-positioned Tomo to have one of her arms over her shoulder and the other hanging loosly by her side. Kagura then rested her own hand on Tomo's waist. "I'll help you walk," she said with a smile. "We'll find a bench to sit at so you can rest of a while, okay?"

Tomo really didn't understand why Kagura was being so nice to her, especially after how badly Tomo had treated her earlier that day. Well, not just that day... any day for that matter. Tomo knew that if she was put in the same situation, she wouldn't be so sinscire about it. In fact, she would probably just laugh. She knew that she was a lot more mean than most people, but Kagura didn't exactly strike her as one of those "most people". She did know that Kagura had a really big heart... but she didn't think that she would be so kind to not only tolerate her bahaviour, but to still look out for her when she was hurt. She kind of liked the feeling of being cared about. She suddenly felt her cheeks becoming warm.

"Wait there, I think I might have a tissue..." Kagura felt around in her pockets until she found one. "Ah," she emclaimed before she pressed it gently on Tomo's knee. "I may as well whipe this blood away. And when you get home you can cover it with a band-aid so you don't get any infections or anything."

"Thanks, Kagura," Tomo said softly. A smile crossed her face. A warm smile, which was unusual for Tomo.

"It's okay," Kagura replied. She tossed the dirty, blood-dotted tissue into the trash-can a few feet away before taking a seat next to her friend. "It's not like I could just leave you there."

Tomo nodded, feeling slightly guilty knowing that she would probably do just that. She decided it'd be best to change the subject. "So... why WERE you crying earlier, Kagura?"

Kagura blushed ever so slightly, embarassed about one of the harshest girl's in school catching her in tears about something that would seem trivial to most other people. "Well... you see... it was about my grade today..."

"About how you got twenty-five percent? Yeah, that must've been rough. But is that any reason to cry, seriously?" Tomo couldn't help but be surprised about Kagura's answer. It wasn't exactly something she, herself, would cry about. In fact, she couldn't really care less what score she got. School wasn't a big deal for her.

"Well... not really. But..." her eyes started to glaze over. "I let my parents down, and I hate to think that anyone would ever be disapointed in me. I know it sounds stupid, but... I dunno..." tears were now starting to roll down her face, "F-for some r-reason it's alw-wuh-ways been a buh..b-big deal to m-me."

Tomo was kinda shocked, but still sympathetic. But when she thought about it, she remembered there was one insident before the Sports Fest when Kagura and herself were playing around and Kagura accidentlly knocked into Chiyo, who was trying to put up a tent. Naturally, Tomo expected Kagura to put all the blame on her. But instead tears started to well up in her eyes and she offered to put it up all by herself. Like she had so much guilt for letting everyone down that she felt she owed it to them.

Again, Tomo started to realise how cold-hearted she actually was. She knew that she wouldn't act that way if something like that happend. She would probably just laugh and point all the blame at Kagura. She never realised until now just how good of a person Kagura actually was. Under her tough exterior, she was just a sensitive, sweet girl who would never do anyone any harm on purpose.

Tomo had never felt so low.

Suddenly Tomo felt arms being wrapped around her, and herself being pulled forward, into a tight embrace. Kagura sobbed quietly on Tomo's shoulder, her body was shaking all over.

Again, Tomo was surpised by the way her friend was acting. A hug? This is something Tomo rarely, if ever, experienced with friends. Sure, there was those times with Yomi, but that was hardly a hug. No, this was different. Different in a good way. She really liked the feeling of being needed. It not only made Kagura feel better, but it made Tomo feel good about herself, too. But it wasn't even just the feeling of being wanted, there was also something about Kagura that made it all the better. Her hot breath against her neck, her soft hands on her back. She was even liking her large chest being pushed against her's (which wasn't something she would really like to admit).

Tomo gulped and started to rub Kagura's back, to comfort her a little. It felt like they were the only two people in the entire world. Neither of them noticed that the passers by were staring at the two girls in the embrace. Tomo reached her hand up a little more to stroke Kagura's brown hair. Comforting her was actually only a fraction of her reason for doing this... she actually had a really incredible urge to touch the other girl's short locks. Her cheeks were now hotter than ever, and it wasn't from body-heat.

Shortly after, Kagura had seemed to have calmed down, and she pulled away gently.

"Sorry about that, Tomo..." she said, blushing from embarassment of her unexpected. She wiped a few of the last stray tears from her face.

"Oh, it's okay," Tomo replied, trying to hide her beetroot-red cheeks. Her stomach felt like it was doing backflips. "What's happening to me?" she thought to herself.

"Urm... can you walk now?" Kagura asked, trying to make the situation a little less awkward.

"Uh, I think," Tomo said. She took hold of the bench for support and stood slowly. She then took a few steps back and fourth.

Kagura smiled. "Yay, that's good!" she also stood. "So... you up for that ice-cream?"

"Uhhh... not really," she replied, holding her stomach. It was still doing backflips. "I don't really feel too up for it any more."

A/N: Sorry if my update was late. It's mainly been a mixture of business and lazy-ness.

Oh, well. I hope I made up for it with this chapter. It's very Kagura/Tomo-y AND it's longer! YAY:D

And I've notice in my reviews... I seem to be converting some Kaorin-haters? o.o That CERTAINLY wasn't my intention. At all. I love Kaorin, and I didn't at all mean to make her such a possesive little brat.

One more thing, I'd like to ask for some feedback on Tomo's bahaviour in this chapter. I'm a little worried that I might've made her a little OOC... I hope not... I also really hope that the ending wasn't too cheesy for anyone. ;

Until next time, folks!

-ButtersMuffin-