Yui hardly slept at all, not that anyone would have expected her to. Mornings after a restless night were typically handled with groggy disinterest; this one being no exception caused the first half of the school day to fly by quickly and void of memerobility. Just as the conclusion of the final Friday before summer holiday drew near, Yui fully grasped the handholds of awareness and finally felt wide awake. Morning classes, lonely lunchtime, and all but one remaining hour had passed by in a flash.
She had failed to make eye contact with Kyouko all day, despite their sharing of some class periods, and had not so much as seen Akari or Chinatsu. Her route to the next classroom proved fruitful for her desire to reconcile with the blonde; a chance hallway encounter (in roughly the same place as the one a few days before) was timed perfectly with Yui's newfound waking clarity, giving her the confidence to strike up conversation.
"Hey, Kyouko," she greeted casually, gaining the expectedly apathetic attention of her childhood friend.
"Hi, Yui."
"...How are you?" the dark-haired girl chattered. She felt some kind of question necessary to begin an actual conversation, even if it was blank small talk.
Kyouko spent a split second searching for a fitting response. "Ah, I'm... good." A little sincerity was lost from her answer, not because of the hesitation but the fact that her eyes had locked with Yui's amidst it, causing an involuntary reaction of apprehension. This was lost on Yui, though, who drove the banter forward the instant she knew Kyouko was attentive to it.
"Do you plan on going to the club room after class?"
"I do," the blonde said honestly, negating to add that she would only be waiting (and hoping) for Ayano to come sweep her away from there.
"Oh, good." Intent on sharing positive thoughts, Yui coerced a smile onto her own face. "I was hoping to talk with you."
"Okay." Kyouko's back tensed up, straightening her posture. "I'll see you then," her mouth fumbled out more quickly than her mind could process.
"Sounds good. See you soon." Yui resolved their brief but satisfactory discussion.
Roughly one hour later a bell chimed to signify the end of the day, embarking Yui on her pathway to the disbanded tea club room. Elsewhere, Sugiura Ayano idly observed the Amusement Club's founder departing their shared final class. Her eyes trailed Kyouko out the door, and then she stayed at her desk in pensive thought until Chitose approached.
"Ready to go, Ayano-chan?"
"Ah, y- yeah..." The tsundere perked her head and tried to brush away her wandering thoughts. Chitose would prod into them before she could, poking her own chin with her index finger to assume a curious pose.
"Or might you be thinking of tracking down Toshinou-san?"
Ayano would have exploded in a bright red ball of embarrassment if Chitose hadn't nearly whispered the question, or if anyone else was in their vicinity. Most students weren't eager to hang around in a classroom now that break had officially begun, gifting the friends a space of relative privacy.
Ayano dipped her head and thoughtlessly mumbled, "I might be considering it..."
The supporting half of the duo's glasses lit up from the sparkle in her eye. She was ecstatic to hear a confirmation, yet prepared for it enough to keep her cool.
"Well that's what she wanted you to do, right?"
Bewilderment and slight suspicion painted Ayano's face up until she caught a glimpse of her companion's giddy, up-to-something grin. The vice president compiled some basic links in her mind. Within seconds, she realized: Chitose found the note yesterday. A candy red flush poured into her skin, replacing the confused half of her expression with mortification.
"Y- You found the pudding cup, didn't you!?"
"Ufufu, don't worry... You know your secret's safe with me."
Ayano mentally huffed at Kyouko for being so careless; her train of thought immediately reminded her that this was Kyouko she was dealing with, meaning the whole thing was possibly a deliberate attempt to embarrass Ayano for sadistic joy anyway. The purple-headed tsundere scribbled a semiconscious reminder to properly punish her unofficial girlfriend when the opportunity arose, but that drew an unintentionally lewd picture in her head to heat her cheeks even more. By the passage of just a few ticks on the clock Ayano had become flustered and, feeling trapped, decided to scurry past Chitose towards the exit.
"Actually, I have somewhere to be!" She proclaimed, destination unknown.
"Wait, Ayano-chan," Chitose reeled her back with the call. "We have student council duties today." A heel dug into the tile and Ayano staggered to a halt.
A beat later, Chitose gave a nudge to her shoulder while walking past. "Come on," her smile towed the vice president along like a leash. "Let's walk and talk."
Ayano strolled a steady trail beside her compadre but grumbled over what to say. They set course down the hallway for the student council room, traveling via a stream of space which parted the energetic students layered against walls of lockers on either side.
"I don't want to pry too much, but... Is it official?"
"N- No!" Ayano stuttered. "N- Not exactly... I guess you're the first to know." She hoped, anyway.
"I see, I see..." Chitose reached and grasped the frame of her glasses but did not remove them yet. "I'm very happy for you, Ayano-chan!" Her head turned aside and slightly upwards as she applauded her friend. The ensuing eye contact set fire to Ayano's cheeks again.
"Th- Th- There's nothing to be happy about!" She waved her hands in a crossing motion. Chitose produced a warm smile despite the reaction. The delusion-blocking spectacles would remain bridged on her face and her sincerity would strike Ayano, settling the girl.
Whatever was going on entailed Ayano and Kyouko together, and that would typically be overwhelming for Chitose. Thankfully she had made peace with that reality after an exhausting, fantasy-filled evening following her unannounced discovery of Kyouko's love letter. Now the white-haired one was ready for more, poised to assist Ayano in progressing their budding relationship however possible.
"Perhaps you could make something to be happy about," Chitose proposed several steps later. This sent Ayano into a defensive state due to the secrets she and Kyouko had already created. Her eyes locked with the lines on the floor just ahead of her footsteps.
"If only she knew..." the tsundere told herself, and then began some deep breathing to repel the heated memories for the time being.
"You know what I mean?" the blue-eyed girl prodded. Ayano's absent look provoked her to continue. "Now's your chance to get closer to her!"
"Yeah, that's true." Ayano thought, but couldn't bring herself to speak it.
"I'm sure she'll be in the tea club room," Chitose led her, as if begging for the violet-headed girl to latch on. It worked somewhat.
"Well, their club hasn't been together much this week... I probably shouldn't bother them—"
"Ayano-chan!" She felt a gust of upturned air from Chitose's sudden rotation, and looked up to find her friend walking backwards a step ahead. "You have to be more involved!" Ayano's biggest supporter glistened with determination.
The object of the encouragement, after slowing to a stop and staring down her own torso for a short while, accepted the resolution.
"You're right." Ayano said with a slight nod. "But, you said it yourself — we have council work."
Chitose grinned with satisfaction and commanded, "Don't worry about that." She turned back in her original direction and the pair resumed walking, flowing through the ever-thinning hallway traffic again. "Just stick around long enough to get some basic stuff done, then I can cover for you~"
"Are you sure!? That'll be a lot of work..." Ayano would have continued, adding in the additional organization requirements for summer break if Chitose hadn't provided an immediate confirmation.
"It's not a problem, I promise."
"Thanks, Chitose..." She reinstated eye contact to share gratitude. "Okay, then... It's a plan."
"Guess I won't have to worry about privacy." Yui announced to the vacant tea club room. She had practiced asking Akari to leave as nicely as possible during the walk out here, apparently unnecessarily. "Maybe she's with Chinatsu somewhere..."
Hypothesis correct or not, Yui was alone, and Kyouko not far behind. Yui displayed patience to the otherwise empty building, seating herself at the side of the table nearest the door. She wedged her arm in between the table top and her jaw as she sat stiffly, eyeing the wooden framework of the unopened patio doors.
Her composed abeyance was short-lived. The room's entrance parted with a soft rumble and Yui darted around to face it. She saw Kyouko sliding the door closed and before that was finished, Yui was standing.
"Kyouko, hey..." She shared a smile with the blonde but stumbled on the words a bit, having been startled by her own rash act of getting up for no explicit reason.
Kyouko experienced a minor reaction to the smile; certain stimuli such as the room's tranquility and a happy greeting from her best friend crafted a slight feeling of sereneness in her core. Still, uncertainty from the tensions of the past week would not be denied in her head.
"Ah— hey, Yui." Kyouko returned greetings once her brain had finished processing the visual inputs. Before she could wonder why Yui had stood to greet her, a sentence pierced the warm air.
"I don't think the others are coming," came the mention of their anticipated seclusion. Then, after hesitant seconds: "Can we talk?"
"Uh, sure..." Kyouko accepted facilely, still positioned but a step inside the room. "About what?"
The universe's most open-ended question aided Yui little in opening up the conversation. She was ready to speak regardless: contrary to cliché, where to begin was the easy part in this instance.
"I want to start by apologizing. I- I haven't been a good friend to you lately."
Distant cicadas sang a tune that paralyzed Kyouko. Yui had flinched minutely while getting the words out, but locked a sincere expression aimed directly into her childhood friend's pupils during and after.
She continued, "I have more to be sorry for than you know, but I had to start with being a friend. I've done nothing but drag you into messes for the past week." Yui envisioned herself bashing her head against a wall; she was the half of the relationship who should never have needed to use that line.
"I don't ever want you to think you can't count on me," the raven-haired girl completed. Reiteration of such a long-term promise stunned Kyouko, jabbing directly into the hole in her emotions which had been growing throughout the period of distance from her best friend.
"Yui..." A teardrop welled and Kyouko's face hinted signs of scrunching up in anguish. The urge to cry resisted itself; too many unresolved doubts still lingered to release it all now.
The more mature member of the duo fought the desire to step closer, because she didn't want Kyouko to feel trapped or pressured. Her subconscious self made that decision, as well as the next one to proceed verbalizing.
"I really am sorry, Kyouko. A- After what happened last weekend..." Yui faced the floor beside her and blushed. "Things just got a little confusing. And being knocked out by the cold, I didn't know how to handle any of it..."
"It's okay, Yui~"
Yui was gifted the sight of a glistening blue-eyed, full-faced smile for the first time in many days. "That's all I needed to hear."
The bend of her lips flattened immediately afterwards, however. "Except..." Kyouko struck a genuinely bashful pose and held each of her hands with the other. The crease of her mouth tightened as she paused, second-guessing whatever she had prearranged to say.
"Except?" Yui prodded calmly. Again she subconsciously refused the want to approach Kyouko and stayed several arms' lengths back.
A raging whirlwind of sensations plowed through the blonde-topped head. Her mind was running in overdrive to analyze each distinctive apprehension she felt, and then to piece them together on the puzzle that would become her next line. Kyouko sucked in all the air she could gather from her surroundings and forced the past five days out of her thoughts. This allowed the girl to finally propose the concept she had thought up at the beginning of the week.
"About last weekend," the summertime ambience parted around Kyouko's words. "At the time, I thought..." she waited for her cognition to pick the right wording; "You and I would be... together."
Yui could have blurted out a few distinct responses, but she held steadfast. One thing at a time.
"There is more to it, like I said..."
A flash of Kyouko's growingly confused expression came and went in Yui's field of vision as the dark-headed girl bowed her head again. "Okay, deep breaths..."
"This is a little hard to say, but... For a while, Chinatsu-chan and I were... sort of d- dating." Yui slapped her palm onto the back of her neck. "...Secretly," she supplemented rhetorically.
Such a revelation was as far from Kyouko's expectations as anything could be. Inwardly pointed eyebrows and the split between her lips conveyed accurate depictions of shock, disdain and irritation. The typically stoical fragment of the duo reinstated eye contact, and upon seeing this reaction was forced into an impulsive explanation.
"We're not anymore! It really wasn't like that." Yui felt herself sink into the grave she'd been digging.
"Then what was it like!?" The blonde quipped, very discomposedly. Yui had prepared to elaborate regardless.
"Hah~" The girl sighed, and then spoke calmly. "It was a mistake to begin with. I realized we weren't compatible, but even before that... I was honestly going to tell you. I just never got the chance."
Kyouko let her eyelids linger shut while thoughts compiled. She weathered the familiar (though admittedly much more severe than past experiences) sting of jealousy first — not over Chinatsu this time, but Yui. Then came frustration, uniquely so because it was Yui with whom she was frustrated, as well as Chinatsu to a lesser degree. Most emphatically though was the sensation of abandonment, perhaps even bordering on betrayal: knowing that Yui's emotional absence as of late was backed by surreptitious dates served to confirm Kyouko's insecurities rather than assuage them.
"...That explains a lot," Kyouko breathed with a let down slump of her upper extremities.
"Listen, it was a mistake—" The rarely shaken Yui impeded her own sentence by stepping forward. Inhibitions had finally been overcome and she brought herself toe to toe with Kyouko, resting her fingers on one of the blonde's pensively folded forearms. From Kyouko's perspective, the timing was well off — now was the point when she was least receptive to physical contact.
Around that time, an unsteady hand reached for the door handle just behind Kyouko. However, thrown off even further by the chunk of words she had overheard, Ayano hesitated and listened in concealment.
"...Not only keeping it a secret, but even agreeing to date her in the first place," Yui had continued. "It was a mistake, and now I know why." She finished with resolve, her regret-stained words a mirror to the sorrowful look on her face. The otaku beneath her gaze tensed up.
Yui clenched the hand which held her friend's arm into a loose fist, insisting sincerity behind the succeeding sentence. "You reminded me why."
Kyouko momentarily absorbed all the implications behind her counterpart's declaration. She perceived the emotions leaking from Yui's expression and had to look away to avoid spilling out her own. Presumptions filled in Yui's intentions, and Kyouko could tell where this was going. She also quickly noted her immediate discomfort with the idea, perhaps as a self-preservation tactic by her afflicted mind.
"Yui... h- hold on..." she rambled inconclusively. Her diffidence had no effect on Yui's absolution.
"I felt the same way you did last weekend," the dark-headed girl carried on.
"But then you kicked me out to have a secret date after!" the conflicted blonde could exclaim only in her head, though the same tone became portrayed by her facial expression soon after.
"Kyouko, please just hear me out..."
Yui foraged through millions of word choices in finding her next sentence proper. She wanted to make clear the feelings she had repressed, the appreciation she had failed to display in the past and the dependencies she had on Kyouko all at once. Yui wanted her carefree, lazy, exhausting, genuine, irreplaceable best friend to know how closely important she was to her life. While these thoughts whizzed through her head, acute signs of impatience in the blue eyes beneath her demanded she spit it out already, so she did in almost the simplest way possible.
"I... want to be with you."
Solidification of her hunch about Yui's feelings struck Kyouko. Her imagination reflexively dove into an alternate universe fantasy: in it, Yui had sprung up this confession nearly a week earlier, when it had been most relevant. In that scenario, Kyouko could only picture herself accepting the proposal with bright eyes and a smile for the future.
However in present reality, the blonde was cross between falling into her childhood friend's arms like a romance cliché or storming out of the room in exasperated agony. A rampage of counterintuitive emotions muddily yielded her thoughts.
"Do you feel the same way?" Yui asked cleanly and concisely.
Deep blue orbs remained pointed at the floor in pondering. Yui's hand waited lightly on the other girl's arm, sidelined in expectation. The target of the query couldn't bring herself to say yes; her affirmative answer would have come quickly if none of the events throughout the week had happened. Now Kyouko's affections were far from cut and dry, and in that moment a major source of her confliction popped into her mind.
"It's not that simple, Yui."
Before she could utter another word, the door creaked open less than a meter away from the pair.
"To—" Ayano unsteadily appeared, as if cued by the inadvertent thought Kyouko had of her. "Toshinou Kyouko..."
Cicada sound faded in through the open door. Ayano held the most puzzled, hopeless look ever, confirming for Kyouko that she had been listening in for some time.
"What are you doing here?" Yui asked in plain words, with the slightest touch of offense in her tone.
Kyouko glanced at Yui with a dull flame igniting in her eyes. This isolated Ayano, who, feeling the psychological tension impact her like a blast of energy, slid the door back to a closed position and dashed away to avoid conflict.
"Ayano, wait!" Kyouko cast out a call to reel the tsundere back, but it was no use. Yellow locks swayed as she rotated towards the exit, poised to follow.
"Kyouko, what are you doing?!"
She stopped midway through the doorway and snapped around to face Yui.
"This is your fault!" the blonde accused angrily. Tears from earlier rebuilt themselves at the base of her eyelids following the words. She turned and leaned to take off a second time; Yui's hindrance then became physical via her hand atop Kyouko's shoulder.
"I want an answer," the black-haired girl decreed. Her tone was grave but needy.
Kyouko felt her internal train wreck culminate as she sat in neutral at the gate, knowing Ayano was moving down the path with pace. Given Yui's dense unawareness of the full situation, Kyouko felt such a timely demand unfair. The blonde's impulse then provided an easy way out of the pressure — an oversimplified and equally unfair response.
"No."
Seemingly instantly, as time had ceased progressing for her, Yui lifted her weakened fingertips. The body beneath them was gone in a flash, leaving Yui behind with nothing but the lonely heat of summer.
School shoes pounded onto the dirt-dusted trail. For the duration of the five second dead sprint, Kyouko ran faster than ever before. Lush foliage retreated around a corner to reveal Ayano more quickly than expected. The student council vice president had slowed to a lethargic walk and, assuming the identity of her follower, stopped to let her catch up.
Ayano didn't turn to face her until Kyouko fully arrived. Spotty shadows from draping tree limbs played across strands of red-violet; iris of the same hue latched onto the blonde's motions as she knelt to catch her breath.
"What exactly is going on, Toshinou Kyouko?" Her gaze was mellow, her voice patient.
"Don't worry about that~" Kyouko suggested, trying to overcome light gasps enough to smile in the meantime. "I'm glad you found my instructions!"
"But I was clearly interrupting... something." Ayano discarded the mention of Kyouko's letter and focused on the task at hand. Her classmate's aura dimmed a bit.
"It's really nothing." Not only was she dodging the subject, but also failing to accept how attentive Ayano had obviously been.
"K- K- Kyouko," the purple-headed girl blushed. "I need to know..." Her expression shifted to full seriousness.
"...What was your answer?"
A beat passed and the blonde could only stammer.
"I- I didn't... It was..."
The peaceful atmosphere faded out as Kyouko's vision narrowed in on her supposed rival. Standing stiffly, Ayano's brow curled in hopeless longing; that in addition to the shape of her acutely parted lips drew a look of despair, as if the girl's entire well-being hinged upon the yellow-headed otaku before her. A summation of all doubts was evident in the expression, so Kyouko closed some of the space between them with the goal of wiping that dispirited look off her face, cute it may be.
"...It doesn't matter," Kyouko finalised, and to it Ayano gaped.
"Wh-... Of course it does!"
"Ayano, I... I've loved spending time with you lately. And not just the sexy times," Kyouko deadpanned. Her tsundere lover nearly fainted. "Honestly, today I was ready to ask you that same question..."
One foot skidded behind another; Ayano retreated from her crush's veiled confession. Her head fell under darker, more uniform shade while doing so. The skin on Kyouko's face, meanwhile, continuously reflected glimmers of afternoon sunshine.
The blonde's instinct was to let out everything — not only to fully disclose past events, but explain how they had spiraled her through nearly a week of agony. Her purple-headed classmate really had been the only thing keeping her sane, and she deserved credit for it. But rather than unleash a bundle of emotions all at once, Kyouko bit her tongue and willed away the tears. She wanted not Ayano's pity, but her true feelings.
"I really like you, Ayano." Kyouko readied another, stronger word on the tip of her tongue. Before she could say it, Ayano intervened; she wanted the whole truth.
"What about Yui-san?"
Kyouko paused for a second, but then released a vigorous exclamation.
"...I don't know! I really don't know, okay!?"
Ayano stepped back again from the surprise before steadying herself, in stature but not mentality. Upon considering Kyouko's ambivalence, the vice president's reaction began with a welling of moisture around her desperate eyes.
"Th- That's not good enough!"
Kyouko's voice lowered to a soft whine. "But Ayano... I know how I feel about you!"
The target of the words felt consumed by Kyouko's divided status. Below her nuzzled brow, blazing red cheeks, and desert-dry mouth, Ayano felt the sting of rejection stiffening her joints. The tsundere's heart was in her throat, and she choked on it.
"I- I can't do this..." Violet hair wisped around as she turned to leave.
"Wait, please!" pleaded Kyouko.
"I have to go," Ayano winced defeatedly, showing her back to the blonde. She trundled speedily toward the distant school building bearing no particular destination in mind. Nothing accompanied her but the sparse rain of dejected tears.
"I don't want to be your second choice," she whispered to the crystal blue sky once Kyouko was out of earshot.
Kyouko stayed tense until the vice president was far up the path, beyond her scope of vision. All her emotions seemed condensed inside the tight fist she was holding. Frustration piled onto her shoulders; for several minutes she felt tethered to the random stone on the pathway where Ayano had left her.
Eventually, she moved. Anger would keep that fist balled up tautly the entire trip home. Kyouko walked alone, somewhere between slowly and quickly; somewhere between giving up and trying again, her thoughts dragged her into a bottomless hole. After some amount of time, she wallowed into her house and settled in for the first evening of a long and sorrowful summer break.
