Author's Notes: A new chapter less than a month after the last chapter? Blasphemy! Really, I can explain though. I have another fic that I've been writing for another anime, and I've been really into writing that. On top of that, the more time that passes since I watched K-On!, the less attached I grow to it. I still like the anime, of course (and the manga), and I have no plans of stopping this. I still have ideas for what I want to do; they're just appearing slower than I'd like. Thank you all for being patient and continuing to read this!

It was somewhere she had been many times. While it had been years since she'd set foot in these halls, her steps echoed alone off the walls often over the past several months. The contradiction was striking, but she knew a simple explanation for it: she was dreaming.

Mio knew she was dreaming whenever she walked the halls of her former school, but it seemed to always draw her in, night after night, and she didn't have the power to break away. Sometimes figures of her past would greet her, accuse her, accost her, and sometimes she would be cursed to wander alone for as long as her dreams desired. Tonight seemed like the latter, as it felt like she had been walking for hours without a single person in sight, looking longingly into empty classrooms.

It must have been much simpler when this was where she went every weekday. Through her assorted memories, made hazy by the throes of the dreamscape, she could remember being, if not necessarily carefree, a lot less burdened by loss. Loss of friends, of time, of a chance. This was her life now, and it was a waste to dwell on what she couldn't control. It was hard, though.

She found herself standing in front of the Light Music club room again, a room she seemed to find in her dreams as often as she once entered it in reality. Twisting the doorknob, she went inside, expecting club activities to be going on as usual. Instead it was empty, a thin layer of dust covering the furniture. There was no sign that anyone had been in here in some time.

The aquarium where the club's mascot, Ton-chan, once lived was still there, but no turtle inhabited it. Water still filled the box, but it was a yellowish-green, as if it hadn't been cleaned in quite awhile. It was a dream, though: it was only a dream. When she closed her eyes, she opened them to the same scene. The dream wasn't ready to let her go.

Muttering to herself in frustration, Mio walked over to the window and lifted the blinds. It was light outside, which seemed strange, since she felt like it was supposed to be night. The sun was setting, and as it set a lone figure walked up towards the school. From this distance, she couldn't tell who it was, but she still watched until they disappeared from view, more than likely having already reached the front doors. If she wasn't going to wake up yet, maybe it was best to leave. Turning around to head for the door, Ritsu was standing right in front of her.

Jumping back in alarm, Mio heard the glass crack slightly as her wide eyes stared directly at her former friend. "Can't you feel it?" Mio tilted her head in confusion, wondering why her dreams had to be so cryptic. Ritsu walked up to her, no hint of emotion on her face as she grabbed Mio's shoulders and shoved her against the glass. She cried out as the window cracked further, though she couldn't turn around to see it.

"Look how empty things are when you're around." A small grin formed on Ritsu's face, but there was no happiness there, no teasing expression: just nothing. "You're turning all of your memories into dust."

"N-No... This isn't real." Mio shuddered, her voice not sounding as convincing as she hoped. The grip on her shoulders tightened, the glass behind her creaking louder.

"You should have died." The glass shattered, and she was falling. Everything became black as the sun set.

The sun was shining down on her body, heating up any exposed skin. Mio was grateful that she hadn't been forced to lug her bass and amp all the way to the school, as Miss Yamanaka had volunteered to drive her there. It had taken a chain to set things in motion, as Mio first had to text Mugi, since she had no way of getting into the school during vacation. Mugi had then contacted Miss Yamanaka, who offered to unlock the front doors and let Mio in, not to mention drive her over there.

Mio was glad to not have been pressed on her reasons for wanting to go back to her old school, bass slung over her shoulder. The truth was, she didn't really know herself, so she couldn't have given a good answer regardless. Maybe it was her dream, which still stuck with her hours after waking up. Regardless, it just felt like something she wanted to do.

Nobody seemed to question her actions anymore. It probably was because of what happened, but Mio didn't know whether to be grateful to avoid tough questions or bothered that everyone was treating her like some kind of fragile being. She just wanted things to be normal again, not to get special treatment that sometimes ended up making her feel isolated.

Miss Yamanaka - Sawako - said she wanted to look over some papers from the previous semester, and showed Mio which room she would be in. It was under the guise of a simple walk, but she knew that Sawako was doing this under the assumption that she didn't remember her way around the school. She felt a twinge of annoyance, but she quickly reminded herself that people were just trying to take care of her. It still bothered her.

Making her way to the Light Music club room was slow, her still-recovering legs compounded by the bass and amp she was carrying. It had been weird to call Sawako - an adult - by her first name, but she had to remind herself that she was an adult now too. That didn't seem right at all: she still felt like a seventeen-year-old student, but that time had long since passed, whether or not she had been there to experience it. Her mood was not great when she entered the room.

Once she walked inside, she set down the amp with a sigh of relief. The place wasn't too much different than it was in her dream, but it was a lot cleaner. She was surprised that it looked almost exactly like she remembered it. Shrugging it off, she plugged in the amp, then slipped her bass from her shoulders and set it down gently, unzipping its home and bringing it out into the light.

Practicing gave her a comforting feeling, and she was glad that she was regaining her old playing ability. It brought her purpose and something to do outside of studying and getting lost in old memories. With her bass connected to the amp, she strummed the strings to test the sound, then tuned them a touch to get the sound just right. After that, she began to play.

It wasn't a song she had played in her old band, but a new, slow-tempo bass strumming, with more effort put into it to make up for the lack of accompanying instruments. With no one there, she felt more free to express herself, but simultaneously lonely without anyone there to hear it. The paradoxical nature of her thoughts bugged her, but she tried to push it out of her mind and continued to play. Eventually she began to sing, the words she had written down days earlier flowing into the air effortlessly.

Even though she knew that she had been in a band, and she had heard with her own ears her hands play the bass and her voice sing out melodious words, she still found it hard to believe that she had done so. At least, it felt that way until she was playing, until she was hearing her own voice and everything seemed right, like things could actually be exactly what she wanted them to be. That was why she wanted to keep playing.

Something reached her ears, a sound that she was definitely not making. Though she continued to play, she strained to hear exactly what it was. It sounded like someone was tapping on the wall, just outside the room. It sounded like someone was drumming just outside the room. Slowly and carefully she stopped playing, setting her bass down on its case. Then she ran towards the door, flinging it open and staring out into the corridor. No one was there.

Mio frowned slightly, stepping out and looking around, then leaning over the wall to look down the stairs, but no one was there. Had she imagined it? It had seemed real, but... She pinched her arm suddenly, letting out a small yelp of pain. No, she wasn't dreaming, but maybe she was just hearing what... what she... What was she thinking? What she wanted to hear? No, that wasn't true at all. She didn't want it to be true.

Her thoughts were a jumbled mess when she went back into the room, but rather than return to her bass, she walked to the window and opened the blinds. She half-expected to see someone out there, but it was empty. Who was she kidding? The only thing about her dream that she wanted to be true was to see Ritsu walking on school grounds.

It was dumb. It was stupid, and it wasn't healthy to dwell on it, but dwell on it Mio did. She had kept Ritsu successfully out of her mind for weeks, but now the memory of her former friend was creeping back in, and she wasn't able to shut it out. Late at night and feeling lost, she decided she needed to talk to someone, so she grabbed her phone and called Azusa.

"Mio-chan? What's up?"

"Azusa, I..." Mio bit her lip, suddenly feeling self-conscious about voicing out her issues. This should have been something she could have done on her own. She didn't want to give everyone a reason to keep handling her carefully, but she really didn't know what to do.

"Are you worried about university?"

"No, it's not that.

"Ritsu then?" She nailed it right on the head. The silence on Mio's end gave Azusa all the answers she needed. "Mio-chan, this isn't something that you can force. It just takes time.

"I don't have time, though!" Mio shouted in frustration, feeling well-hidden worries coming up front and center as she allowed herself to be open and honest with her friend. "The entrance exam is next week, and university is up after that. If I make it, it's only going to be you there, and you're two years up on me now. I won't have any more chances to fix things! I..." She hadn't realized she'd begun to cry until a choked sob cut off her flow. Nearly dropping the phone in surprise and embarrassment, she hoped that Azusa hadn't heard. No such luck.

"Mio-chan, are you crying?" Mio tried to respond, but another sob broke her concentration. Damn these untenable emotions.

"D-Don't cry, Mio-chan! I-I'll come right over!"

"Wait! Azusa, don't." She quickly ran the back of her hand across her eyes, trying to wipe away her tears. This wasn't what she needed, even if it was what she wanted. Her constricted heart wanted someone to come and comfort her, but she needed to listen to her brain, and it was telling her the truth: that doing this would only reinforce the notion that she wasn't strong enough to do things on her own. She was strong!

"I'm... I'm fine, okay? I just... I just want to try to make things okay again. I want things to go back to the way they were. I know it can't, I just... I just want to try." There was silence on the other line, and Mio wondered if Azusa was going to tell her the truth, that things could never go back to the way things were. Maybe she'd even insist on coming over.

"... Okay, Mio-chan. I understand. If you want, we can try to figure out a way for you to talk to her again. We can make sure you're able to get what you want to say out there." A small smile graced Mio's lips, relieved that Azusa would agree to such naivety. Maybe it could work.

"Thank you, Azusa. I don't want to take up too much of your time, though. I know you have to prepare for university as well."

"Oh, don't worry about it, Mio-chan! I really want to try and help." It was nice that Azusa wanted to help. Mio felt a stronger connection with her than anybody else in her life at the moment, and it was relieving that her going back and forth on whether or not to talk to Ritsu wasn't a point of derision. However, she knew that she needed to talk to Ritsu on her own. After all the dreams she had, she had finally had a revelation, a breakthrough of sorts. She knew now that she had to go up to Ritsu and say sorry.

She would apologize for not dying.