A/N: Finally got this up! I hope you enjoy it, even with the angst/anxiety. Thanks to SmoothKaz for the review, the favorite, and the follow.

And a FYI— I edited the previous three chapters a little. Go back and reread if you would like to.

As always, I don't own Azumanga Daioh.

Chapter Four

It was Monday morning, and there was a cat in front of me.

The cat lay on top of a neighbor's wall, paws tucked in close to its chest, its tail curled around its side. I could hear soft snores coming from it.

I couldn't believe my luck. A cat, a real cat, and nothing was preventing me from petting it. Nothing except the attendance taking in homeroom, and that wasn't for another half hour or so. Getting up early to keep an eye out for cats on the way to school had paid off at last.

I took a few steps closer, trying to not stomp, to not appear threatening, and then the cat opened its eyes.

For a moment, everything was still. I could feel my skirt brushing against my legs; the weight of my briefcase dragged at my right shoulder.

The cat was only a couple steps away; it would be easy enough to reach out a hand…

And so I reached out my left hand.

For a moment, my hand hung there, the back of it smooth and unbroken. I noticed that my hand wasn't shaking, I noticed I felt calm, so calm, and that feeling itself seemed odd. I had thought all along that I would feel excited beyond words at this moment.

But even that minor confusion slid to somewhere else as I realized what I was about to do.

I was finally going to pet a cat.

After reading about cats and looking at cats and buying stuffed cats, I was going to touch a real one.

I wondered if my mother would have a reaction, but I pushed that aside. It was selfish of me.

I wanted to focus on what was in front of me. I wanted to remember it all.

My hand.

The gray cat before it.

The air separating us, shrinking by the second.

The gray cat blinked its eyes, twitched its ears, and kept it gaze on me. I drew in a breath. It wasn't hissing, it wasn't sliding out its claws, it wasn't flattening its ears in anger...

I was having a staring contest with a cat, and it didn't seem to notice my hand as I moved it closer and closer and closer.

The gray cat almost seemed to grin as it opened its mouth wide, wider then I had expected it could, and—

I thought it might let out a yawn.

Instead, it bit my hand.

No no no no no—why—it hurts—why—

The damaged nerves in my hand were sending spirals of information up my arm and past my collarbone and into my brain. Nuerons were pleading with me to get away from the source of pain as soon as possible, because dozens of tiny knives were cutting into my hand, and the nerves wouldn't stop splitting apart. They kept breaking, splintering into remnants of their previous selves.

Get it off of me…get it off of me…

Something was crying inside of me, and I couldn't get that something to stop. I couldn't hold it, I couldn't soothe it.

I could only stand there, as the cat let go of my hand and raced away, as my hand bled, as everything seemed to fall down and shatter.

The second calamity that happened that morning was the staring.

I noticed it as I walked from the nurse's office to Class 1-3. The nurse had been kind enough to not ask me many questions about the teethmarks. Yet, as she had applied antiseptic and bandages, I wondered if she thought I had gotten the injury in a fistfight.

The murmurs, the gasps, and the whispers that trailed behind my feet were like pins sticking in my ears.

"Did you see—?"

"Her hand!"

"Who could she have knocked out?"

"How did she get away with only one injury?"

"Look at her face. She must have fought some idiot who thought he was smart enough to win."

My face? I wondered, grimacing at that comment.

You're idiotic enough to mistake sadness for anger, or annoyance, or triumph?

What do they see when they look at my face?

I tried to block the rest of it out—the sounds of admiring, fearful voices—as I hurried to class. I tried to rearrange my face into an expression that might pass for boredom. I had to show them that I was someone above all the rumors, someone cooler than a street fighter, someone who I was not at all alike.

I didn't know what else to do. The rumors were clinging to me, burrowing into me. I couldn't make them go away—I couldn't tell the other students that they were wrong. I couldn't break down in their midst, become a bundle of long hair and clothes and a bandage lying on the floor.

If I acted as though it didn't matter to me, as if their words were not damaging me at all, then it could all go away.

I saw the 1-3 sign above my head. I reached out my right hand and slid open the door.

I stepped inside the classroom, and shut the door behind me. I was safe.

A few students turned their heads to look at me; I hoped they hadn't heard the rumors. I needed some silence, some peace, some place where I didn't have to put up that mask.

I walked across the floor towards the windows. I couldn't help but notice that Yomi and Tomo and Chiyo had gathered around Chiyo's desk. The three of them were talking. Tomo seemed to have too much energy for so early in the morning. Yomi was making little effort to tell Tomo to stop, but her expression made it clear she was too tired to do much. Chiyo appeared to be happy that the two of them were there.

Why am I paying attention to them in the first place? So what if I thought they might seem like possible friends? That rumor is going to kill everything. Now there's evidence.

Chiyo caught my glance, and waved, a smile on her face.

"Hi, Sakaki-san!"

I waved back at her with my right hand. I hoped that my briefcase, and the bandaged hand encircling its handle, was out of sight. Something held me back, told me not to let the three of them think of me as a formidable fist fighter. Not yet.

Tomo and Yomi glanced over as well. Tomo grinned; Yomi yawned, and then rolled her eyes in Tomo's direction, as if to say, Sorry about that.

"Yo, Sakaki! What's up?" Tomo asked as I walked down the aisle towards them, coming to a stop beside Chiyo's desk in the second row. "You look like Yomi sat on you!"

Yomi's eye rolling transformed into a full on glare. "Shut up."

I set down my briefcase on the floor—it seemed heavier than usual—as Tomo retorted, "You shut up."

Yomi yawned, covering her mouth with a hand. "That's the best you've got?"

"Just you wait—"

"Sakaki-san?" Chiyo asked, cutting off Tomo, a timid note to her tone.

I glanced her direction, and tried to build the foundations of a smile on my face. It might cover up the fact that my hand was aching—

"Is your hand all right?"

No!

I realized I had been rubbing the bandage with my free hand. All three girls must have seen the injury. It was in plain sight.

No!

"I'm fine," I muttered.

I have to go. I can't let them—they'll ask questions—

I propelled my bandaged hand behind my back as I picked up my briefcase with the other. Turning to my right, I darted between the desks across from Chiyo's, leaving the three of them behind me. I wanted nothing more than to get to my seat by the windows.

I must have seemed so rude.

I don't care. They can live with it.

Those girls couldn't have wanted to talk to me, despite seeming so attentive. They wanted to have others take notice they were talking to me, that was it; they wanted a rise in status.

I wasn't going to fall for that; I didn't want to have to deal with fake friends on top of faking coolness.

I reached my desk. At least I could at least get away from nosy classmates here.

I placed my briefcase on its hook, slid onto my seat, and stared outside at the clouds. I needed to do something, anything, to get my mind off of the past few minutes.

While walking the rest of the way to school, a weight in my stomach had formed. Fashioned out of some hybrid of sadness, and weariness, and fear, it wouldn't let me stop thinking about the gray cat, the biting cat.

It could have been in a bad mood…cats aren't really morning animals. I could try again after school.

Maybe I would feel better if I did.

"Sakaki-san?"

It was Chiyo. Her voice came from behind me. She had come over to stand beside my desk.

I noticed this with a sense of detachment, a sense that it didn't matter what Chiyo did. Not to me.

I had to get through today, and the next day, and the next. The small details of other people's actions weren't important. They would end up lost in a haze of forgetfulness, anyway.

I could sense Chiyo's presence behind me. I could sense it, and I didn't want it there. It was meaningless. It was useless.

Leave me alone.

I continued to gaze out the window, noticing that grayish clouds had spread out to reach both ends of the sky. I wondered if a storm was coming.

"Um…S-sakaki-san?"

Would the neighborhood cats find shelter if it rained? Maybe my mom would let them huddle under the eaves. It was a bitter thought, a hope that died almost as soon as it awoke.

"Sakaki—"

I have to respond. She's not going to stop, otherwise.

"What?" I asked, still staring out at the sky. I wasn't about to face her. I couldn't. There was no point.

"I was wondering…Tomo and Yomi invited me to have lunch with them today…and I wondered if you would like to join us…"

They might ask me about my hand again…I don't want that to happen…

And they could still want to be seen with me. Eating lunch with the delinquent who got in a fight this morning—that'd help them.

But a thought was quivering beneath the stew of anger and exhaustion and despair, and it made me pause.

This is the first time anyone here has asked me to eat lunch with them. And I did want to be friends with Chiyo, at least until last Friday.

I frowned at the memory.

Chiyo had asked me a question I wanted to have heard long ago, and I was going to say no. I was going to give this chance up, this single chance I had gotten, and for what? Because I was assuming that she wanted admiration from all?

What if I was wrong?

But what if I'm right?

Six words left me in a rush, as if hurrying become sound waves, to vibrate their way through the air.

"Where—where would we be eating?"

"At Yomi's desk, I suppose," Chiyo-chan said. "She offered, and I think that all of us will fit."

The despair went away. The callousness of my thoughts about others went away as well, but I knew that was futile.

I couldn't think like that, and get away with it, not without guilt layering on top of me as I tried to fall asleep at night.

I glanced away from the window and towards Chiyo-chan. She looked so hopeful, so earnest. I couldn't crush her dreams, could I? Even if I had failed to pet a cat, I couldn't take that anger and shame out on Chiyo-chan.

My injury burned, reminding me what had happened because of my failure. It reminded me hat everything had seemed to fall, that I had fallen on the sidewalk, curling my knees to my chest, that I had shut my eyes against the sight of red drops on the concrete—the smell made me dizzy—

Put it aside. Just put it aside.

I can do something about it later.

Us...

I steadied myself against my desktop, blinking myself out of my head. Chiyo-chan was still there, waiting. I remembered something about lunch, an invitation to lunch.

"That sounds fine," I said.

Chiyo-chan's smile was almost enough to make me forget about the ache in my hand.

The morning went on; no amount of unhappiness would stop time. Yukari-sensei gave us an English lesson peppered with random shouted exclamations. The clouds outside my window drifted by, regressing to a fluffy white color. I took notes, smudged and messier then usual — and I began to hope that the gray cat would, one day, let me pet it.

It might not be a morning cat.

Maybe it was hungry.

Or it was not used to people petting it. Still, I was hopeful that in time, it would become used to me.

The lunchtime bell rang, startling me out of my thoughts.

Oh…right. Lunch.

I glanced towards Yomi, who was taking out her bento box at the desk next to mine.

It's small…smaller then mine…oh, isn't she on a diet?

Yomi must have felt my eyes on her, and glanced up. She smiled as she caught my gaze in hers.

"Hi," Yomi said, unwrapping her chopsticks. "You're welcome to come over here and sit. Tomo went to get a drink, so we have some peace and quiet for a while."

I hoped that I was showing some emotion close to friendliness as I picked up my box and pulled my chair over to the side of Yomi's desk, closest to my own.

"What do you have?" Yomi asked, glancing over at my bento as I untied the cloth wrapping and took off the lid.

There was the usual rice, with fried okara and vegetables on the side, along with some grilled fish. Leftovers from dinner never failed to make an apperance in my lunch, but at least they were better then food thrown together by hassled hands in the morning.

"That looks good," Yomi said. "I just have some rice and cabbage pickle and some salmon. It's not much, I know, but it's healthy."

"Y-yeah…aren't cabbage pickles spicy?" Good job, Sakaki! I mentally congratulated myself. You were able to ask a question.

"Oh." Yomi adjusted her glasses with the tip of her finger. "I guess so…but I've always liked spicy things…"

"I'm here, at last! You can stop being bored now!"

It was Tomo, of course. It wouldn't be anyone else, except the resident wildcat of the school, who pulled up a chair from a desk which wasn't hers. She sat down across from Yomi with a thump, a smile, a bento box, and a can of Sprite.

I wondered if wild cats were as cute as the neighborhood cats. Actual wild cats, though, not hyper girls who had so much energy it made your head spin. Would wild cats have different fur patterns than domesticated cats? Did that make them look even cuter?

"Hey, Sakaki." Tomo nodded in my direction as she opened her can of soda.

I nodded back, wondering if she might make some lewd comment.

"What's with your bento box?" Yomi asked. She leaned across the desk to peer into her friend's lunch. I hoped that would be enough to distract Tomo.

"My bento box?" Tomo asked, outraged. "What do you mean, my bento box? What's wrong with my bento box?"

"You have chicken karaage and a bunch of onigiri!" Yomi protested. "Onigiri made with white rice!"

"So?"

"I have plain brown rice!"

"Yeah, because it's all part of your diet," Tomo teased, taking a sip of her drink.

"Shut it!" Yomi's glasses flashed as her fingers folded themselves to make a fist.

"Uh…Yomi-san?"

The last voice made the tension seep out of Yomi, made Tomo's grin even wider, and made me alert to the fact that Chiyo-chan was here.

Maybe this won't be so bad.

"Is everything alright?" Chiyo-chan asked, settling down her own lunch across from me. Her pigtails bobbed as she pulled up an extra chair and sat down. "Why were you and Tomo fighting?"

"We weren't fighting," Tomo insisted. "Yomi thought my lunch was too unhealthy. Like cabbage pickles won't make you gain a few pounds."

I could almost feel the waves of annoyance coming from Yomi. "Cabbage pickles are quite healthy, I'll have you know."

"They're pickled," Tomo said. "Pickled foods can't be healthy, right, Chiyo-chan?"

"Um…" Chiyo-chan seemed confused as she mulled over Tomo's question. "There are a lot of vitamins in pickled foods, but they can also be salty, so it's debatable."

"See?" Yomi said in triumph. "Vitamins make you healthy. Even you should know that, Tomo."

"Salt's not great for you, though," Tomo said.

"Then why are you eating onigiri?" Yomi asked. "That has salt in it."

Tomo placed a hand over the onigiri in her bento. They looked quite good, but her protective stance seemed a little much for mounds of rice. "Don't you dare insult my onigiri. I will defend it's honor to my last breath."

Yomi letting out a sigh. "Please don't make obscure references to Lupin. I've told you that again and again."

"That wasn't a reference to Lupin."

"Right, and you didn't drop those two water buckets in the hallway earlier this week."

"They were heavy," Tomo said, as if that was something rational Yomi had forgotten. "Geez, Yomi, stop being so…so Yomi!"

"That isn't even a good response." Yomi sighed, adjusting her glasses with a fingertip. "Now, eat your food, or I'll eat it for you."

Tomo glared at her, a shocked, pained, emotion in her eyes. Yet it had to be fake; she had to know Yomi was joking.

And then Tomo started to shovel down her food. I had no idea that chopsticks could move that fast.

"Is your hand any better, Sakaki-san?" Chiyo-chan piped up after we all watched Tomo eat for a moment.

I started, my spine straightening and my lungs drawing in a quick breath.

What do I say? What do I say? Why didn't I think of this earlier?

"Yes," I said, the syllable like the sole, sharp, chime of a bell.

"That's good!" Chiyo-chan said, as she unwrapped her lunch and broke her chopsticks in half. "I'm glad that it's bandaged well. Did you put any ointment on it?"

"The…the nurse put some antiseptics on it."

"Good!" Chiyo-chan beamed. "I wouldn't want your hand to get worse, Sakaki-san. I'm glad the nurse knew what to do."

"Me too." I took a bite of rice and chewed, hoping that would cue Chiyo-chan into the fact that I didn't feel like talking more. Not about my hand. While it was nice of her to care, I wasn't about to allow the chance to have her asked what happened to my hand.

The truth—that in trying to pet a cat, I had received a bite—would be a source of hilarity. The other students all believed that I had picked a fight with a mysterious person, and won. They believed I was tough, that I could fistfight, that my face was a reminder to not mess with me.

It had only been a few hours, and already the locks were clicking into place. Already, the rumors had solidified into permanent, everlasting fact, and I could do nothing to fix any of it.

But I could do something to make friends, so I ate my lunch and listened to the conversation. As I did, I reflected on how it was kind of Chiyo-chan to say that she wouldn't want my injury to get any worse.

And it had been nice of Yomi to invite me to sit with her, to talk to me, and to distract Tomo. Lunch had been Chiyo-chan's idea; there had been no need for Yomi to do anything. And yet, she had.

Tomo had greeted me. It wasn't much, but coming from the girl who wavered between insults and jokes as a form of communication, I would take it.

Whenever girls in the past had dared approach me, all they had to say was some variation of a flittering, worthless, forgettable, comment. Those girls always talked to an idol when they spoke to me. They never talked to the person who walked on the ground, never knew the person who fell down on the sidewalk, never understood that they were why I hoped that I would get past long days filled with nothing.

Chiyo-chan and Yomi and Tomo could be different. They had to be different. They had to—

"Yomi," Tomo groaned, shaking me from my thoughts. "Can I have some of your food?"

"No," Yomi snapped as she swallowed the last of her pickled cabbage. "It's gone, anyway."

"I'm still hungry, though." Tomo turned her pleading gaze towards me. "Sakaki-san, could I have a bite of your food? Please? Just a small bit?"

"U-um," I stammered, already feeling the blush rise on my face. "I—I've already eaten most of my lunch…"

"She doesn't want to share, either!" Yomi exclaimed, casting me an apologetic glance. "Go get some bread, or something!"

Tomo sighed, resting her head on the desk. "Good grief, refused food by my own friends," she complained, her voice muffled. "That goes for you, too, Chiyo-chan. When I'm dying of starvation, I'll tell you three not to come to my funeral."

She called me her friend.

A warm sense of wonder filled me. It was as if every sad thought about loneliness, every gray-tinged emotion about adoration, had evaporated. It was gone, gone for the moment, and in its place was a euphoric sensation, born in my chest and growing into a feeling of such joy that I wondered if I might just implode.

I blinked, startled, as I noticed Chiyo-chan gazing at me.

"Do you feel all right, Sakaki-san?" she asked, concerned. "You look a little off."

"Oh." I blinked again, and then again, and then once more. "I'm fine."

I hoped none of them saw that I was trying to hold back tears.

The school day was coming to a close when Kaorin approached my desk. It was nice to see her again. I hoped that she might say how much fun she had had at the arcade—or no, she might tell me if she had named her plush cat yet—

"Hi, Sakaki-san!" Kaorin stood where Chiyo-chan had been earlier. Her face was light red, the color of light from scarlet glass spilling across the sidewalk.

Why is she blushing now? I wondered, and the old annoyance flared up in me. Tomo had called me her friend, and Yomi and Chiyo-chan both seemed as friendly toward me. I would have thought that something would have changed. Something would have moved aside, and I would find that people had stopped acting as though I would break their necks with one silent glare.

Blushing was never a good sign—it showed that the person was hesitant, and thrilled, about being with me. It showed that they believed I was cool, and tough, and scary.

I was none of those, but Kaorin wouldn't know that. She saw what she saw, and heard what she heard, and it was foolish to think anything I could do would change her perceptions.

"Hi," I murmured to Kaorin, turning my head in her direction, comforted by the fact that my hair hid part of my face.

Yet, perhaps there was a chance that Kaorin no longer believed I was who everyone else made me out to be. She had wanted me to be happy two days ago. That couldn't have gone away.

"I wanted to thank you again for helping me at the arcade on Saturday," Kaorin said, her expression shifting from nervousness to happiness. A lot of happiness, and appreciation.

"You're welcome," I said.

"It was fun," Kaorin said. "And I named the plush cat Chobi."

Would I surprise her if I showed enthusiasm? "That's—"

"It's so cool that you would help me like that, Sakaki-san," Kaorin interrupted me, eyes lighting up. "Especially when you probably don't like plush cats and stuff like that yourself."

I swallowed, feeling the heavy weight of alienation fall onto my shoulders, sink through my skin, and enter my heart once again. Crap.

"Thank you," I murmured. Tears were threatening a jailbreak from the prison of my eyes; I had to look away.

I am not going to cry in front of Kaorin—not when I'm in school. It wouldn't be cool, and I have to act cool, don't I?

"Have you joined any clubs yet?"

I turned my head back at the sound of Kaorin's voice. She hadn't left.

Was she making small talk? Was she trying to get to know me?

Did I even care?

I'm not brave enough—I'm too shy—to work on changing how people think of me. She's never going to know the person she admires so much.

"No."

"Oh! Do you know about the Astronomy Club?"

"The Astronomy Club?" I repeated. The world around me seemed dull, toned down, and all I wanted was to go home.

"It's really fun," Kaorin insisted. "I—I'm part of it." Her blush deepened slightly. "We use telescopes to look at the stars, and look at maps of the universe and the solar system, and we're going to go on a trip to the planetarium soon."

"I—I've never been in a club," I said.

"It's fun," Kaorin said. "It's not like class." She hesitated, then asked, "Would you—um, would you—?"

"Would I?" I asked, tilting my head so that I was gazing straight into her eyes. Light from the window illuminated her face, but I couldn't tell what her her expression was.

A moment passed—a lull in the conversation, the feeling of paper ripping.

"Oh!" Kaorin's eyes flared with a sudden realization. "I mean, I should have known you wouldn't be into silly little clubs like that anyway. It's nothing, really. I've got to go!"

She scurried away, her face folding into apologetic guilt.

I stared once more at the surface of my desk. It was smooth and clean; there wasn't any blemishes on it. It wasn't hampered by patches of dirt, or dust, or the darkness of an empty room, late at night, when all one could think of was how strange people could be, how sorrowful they could make you feel.

If only she had invited me to join.

I don't know what to do anymore. I feel so alone. I am alone. Lunch was only for today—who knows if it'll happen again. And now Kaorin—Kaorin—

I shouldn't have taken that chance. I was wrong. She never really understood me at all. She didn't know what would make me happy.

I hate this. I hate this, and I'll never be able to change it.

Never.