Disclaimer: Not mine. I am not making any money from writing this fic.

--

Chapter Six

--

Kagura was never very good with mathematics, but still, even she knew how the equations were going to turn out this time.

Six plane tickets, minus four for old friends, minus one for a good high school acquaintance, equals one remaining plane ticket.

One ticket for one Sakaki-obsessed Kaorin, the exact equivalent of what it would take to have one very, very stressed out Chiyo-chan.

Kagura looked over at her younger friend. Her sweet features were marred by some serious doubts.

Kagura sighed.

"Chiyo come on, let's go for a swim. I think we both need to relax our muscles."

"Sorry Kagura, I think you better go on ahead. If I did decide to go swimming today, I think I may just drown from lack of concentration." Chiyo said without much change in her expression.

"Come on Chiyo, you know that if it ever came to that I'll be there to save you." Kagura offered, puffing her chest out for a laugh.

Chiyo-chan smiled a little.

"Just don't expect any mouth to mouth right away because as you know, Sakaki doesn't arrive until next week." Kagura added, her own smile growing.

Chiyo stood up, stretched her arms and set about preparing her towel and swimsuit.

'I might as well go.' She thought. 'Nothing will good can possibly come from yet more hours of moping.'

She looked at Kagura who was looking at her.

"What? Do I have something on my face?," Chiyo asked.

"No, not yet." Kagura said before hurling a pillow at Chiyo's head.

"Oww! That hur…"

The second pillow was not that far behind the first.

"Kagu…"

smack

The third didn't drag it's weight either.

"Alright that's it!" exclaimed a red faced but smiling Chiyo-chan. "Two can play at this game!"

--

Several sacrificed pillows later…

"So should we go swimming now?" inquired Chiyo, who was now feeling a lot better now that Kagura had managed to take her mind off a certain 'cute things' lover.

A muffled 'oh you mean in water this time?' was heard from underneath a pile of deceased pillow carcasses.

'I dunno, I'm kinda comfy under this sea of pillow insides.'

Chiyo-chan gently bounced up and down a little on the large mound under the pile she was sitting on.

"Kagura how can you make something so simple sound so gross?"

--

At the pool

Chiyo and Kagura finally made it to down to the pools but found them to be quite crowded.

Kagura of course, being the unofficial owner of the million-dollar college pool facilities, somehow managed to procure two lanes for their solely for their use.

"Kagura don't you think this is a little unnecessary?" asked a confused Chiyo.

"Unnecessary? It's stupid to race in one lane. Not to mention unsafe!"

"Race? You asked me to come here so we could race?"

"Well no. Not at first, but then you beat me so bad at that pillow fight and now I just have to get back at you." Kagura replied while stretching.

Chiyo-chan sighed but did some stretches as well.

"Looks like you've gotten a lot more mature… Miss Kagura…" She said, making sure the last part was drawled out, slower than the first.

The people around them, (and there were quite a few since Kagura was borderline famous), had now taken to reveling in the competitive air that the two friends were stirring up and took seats close to the two free lanes.

Kagura grinned. It seemed to her that Chiyo was more than willing to race her. She was glad at the fact since not many people ever offered.

Of course she was also aware that Chiyo had grown up to be quite the athlete surprisingly enough, with her natural talents becoming apparent during her mid-teens.

Kagura herself had taught Chiyo-chan everything she knew about honing her skills.

The young redhead cleared her throat.

"Are we ready yet?" asked a smiling Chiyo-chan who looked as if she was ready to get in the water.

"Chiyo! If I didn't know better I'd say you wore your bathing suit under your clothes. How so very.."

"Tomo of me?" Chiyo-chan giggled.

A blushing Kagura quickly ducked into the changing rooms calling "back in a second" over her shoulder.

Chiyo-chan did some more basic stretches and anticipated Kagura's return.

She had never beaten her friend in a race but had come quite close during her last few tries. Chiyo was even better some who considered themselves Kagura's rivals.

Kagura herself was glad that Chiyo's athletic self had filled out so incredibly well. She thought to herself more than a few times that Chiyo's parents must have endowed their child with pretty incredible genes.

At any rate she was glad for the friendly competitions in which she never had to hold back. The young swimmer would have surely felt the loss of Sakaki and high school sports fests a lot harder if Chiyo wasn't around.

"Hey! Let's go! And before you were telling me to hurry up!" Kagura said as she made her way to the start.

Chiyo followed her with a smile, both oblivious to the fact that the entire crowd that had gone there to swim that day was now watching them intently.

Whispers of: "Oh wow are they actually gonna race? I should have brought my camera!" could clearly be heard.

"Ready?" asked Kagura.

"Anytime you are." Replied her younger counterpart.

"On three?"

"One."

"Two"

"Wait Kagura…"

"Huh?"

"You should know, I've decided to dedicate this race to Sakaki."

Kagura smiled. She hadn't lost a race in a very long time.

"Well then Chiyo-chan maybe today's my day."

"One?" Chiyo asked by way of reply.

"Two" Kagura nodded.

"Three!" the crowd shouted.

At the sight and sound of breaking water, the crowd broke out into cheers.

--

… Surprising the lot of them, the Kagura fans went home disappointed for the first time since she arrived at the college.

'Dammit,' thought Kagura, grinning as she was exiting the pool. 'Maybe I should have dedicated that race to Tomo.'

--

In Japan a week later.

The wildcat who walked on two legs was bounding about the place looking for her favourite sweater.

"Where could it be? I love that sweater."

"Tomo what are you doing?" asked her often disgruntled best friend.

"Looking for my sweater."

"I know that. You've been wandering around for the past half hour now, mumbling 'where's my sweater, I love that sweater,' every five seconds. What I really wanna know is why are you looking for it in my house?"

An irritated Yomi who was eager to leave for the airport demanded answers.

She hated to be late. Oddly enough her best friend was Tomo Takino so it was a surprise she hadn't gotten used to it.

"Yomi this is the last place I remember having it and I can't leave without it! It's my favourite. That idiot Kagura gave it to me for my last birthday before she left.

Tomo was rarely sentimental so she added the 'idiot' part just to balance out her statement.

The wildcat caught a glimpse of Yomi's expression and wondered why her friend was looking so angry.

"Tomo do you mean that blue sweater with the black on it?"

"Yeah."

"The one you wore here when you came over last night because I didn't want to go all the way to your house to wake you up five hours after your alarm went off?"

"Yeah."

"The one you're wearing right now?!"

"Oh."

"GRAAARGH!!"

--

Sakaki was busy checking over her list for the last time when she came upon the photo she usually kept in her wallet.

"Oh. It must have slipped out."

She stared at the photograph of her and her friends at Chiyo's summer home.

'The first time I went on vacation with friends.'

Sakaki smiled at the thought. Chiyo always made me feel so welcome.

Letting her eyes graze over each of the faces in the photo Sakaki thought.

'We've all changed so much. How much have you changed Chiyo-chan? What do you look like now? How do you wear your hair? Has your personality changed? Do you still hate athletics?'

Sakaki smiled at her last question. The only time she had ever tried her best at sports fests was when Chiyo needed her.

'Chiyo-chan… do you still need me now?'

Maya surveyed his owner from the top of Sakaki's bookshelf.

"Meow."

"It's ok Maya. I'm ok."

"Meaaaow."

Sakaki smiled at the wildcat.

"We'll get to see her soon."

Maya leapt off the tall book shelf with ease and landed close to Sakaki's legs brushing against them.

With one last look at the photo, Sakaki said to the girl in pigtails: "No matter who you are now, no matter what you've become, you'll always be cute to me."

She then collected her baggage, ushered Maya into his carry cage and went out to wait for the car.

--

In a car near Sakaki and Maya's apartment.

"Kaorin are you sure this is the right way to Sakaki's?"

"Of course I'm sure Chihiro, now stop driving like a slug and go a little faster will you? We're going to be late at this rate!" replied her easily irritated friend.

Afraid that she was going to set off another disconcerting mood-swing in her front seat passenger, Chihiro decided to drive a little faster.

She had of course heard about the driving skills their old teacher Miss Yukari often bestowed upon the roads and it's many users, so Chihiro made it a point to drive with the utmost control.

She thought it odd that Kaorin was encouraging her to speed, after the stories she heard of their last summer break during high school, Chihiro figured Kaorin would be the last person to want any car to go faster.

As she had these thoughts, she was completely unaware that her backseat passenger, a Miss Ayumu Kasuga was thinking something along some very different lines.

'If we're going as slow as a slug then we'd be driving real slow. But if we were going as slow as a sea slug, then wouldn't we be swimming really slow?'

'But then sea slugs aren't really that slow at all are they? And for that matter they don't even swim. They crawl along the ocean floor, but they can swim though, when they want to escape from predators they swim into fast water currents that hurl them away real quick!'

Osaka made crawling, swirling movements with both hands imitating two sea slugs. 'Go sea slugs. Go.'

Chihiro saw this in her rearview mirror and decided not to ask anything. Her decision was based purely on the fear that Osaka might reply.

--

At the airport.

The six girls were seated close to the departure gates waiting for their flight to be called.

Yomi was reading through a magazine, Tomo was poking her arm to pass the time. Poor Sakaki was in the middle.

Chihiro and Kaorin were sneaking glances at Tomo and Sakaki and as for the other friend, well she was in thought so deep it was likely that she'd soon be exhibiting signs of drowning.

It was guaranteed long flight, in more ways than one hundred.

Unfortunately for Yomi and the aircraft crew, only one out of two wildcats was travelling secured.

--