Disclaimer: I don't own any Azumanga Daioh characters.

Note: I should be studying right now, so of course I'm doing this instead. This chapter contains more references to previously cut scenes, but not so much that nothing will make sense.


Chapter 29

Yukari sat on the steps outside of her school's library. Dressed in a long skirt, turtle neck sweater, and brown trench coat, she held the edges of the coat closed over her knees with her other hand holding her cell phone to her ear.

"You guys already had finals didn't you?" she inquired into the phone, gazing up at the white snow clouds that had covered the early evening sky.

"Yeah, last week," Nyamo's voice replied from the other end, "Yours are next week, right?"

"Yeah. I have one on Tuesday, two on Thursday, and one on Friday."

"Have you been studying?"

"Here and there. I work better under pressure." She paused and lowered her gaze to the small courtyard in front of her. A male student sat on a bench there, hunched over an open text book with one hand raked back through his hair. Absently she narrowed her eyes at him. "So what're you going to do now?"

"I'm still moving everything out of my dorm. I found a small apartment about five stops from here on the Marunouchi line. It's shitty, but it'll last me until I get a real job."

"Where'd you get the money for an apartment?"

"Saved up from part time jobs."

"Oh. Where are you going to look for a job now?"

"Not sure. I've managed to set up a few interviews. Seems like there's a lot of people looking for someone with a kinesiology degree. There's a gym looking for a personal trainer, but I don't think I'd like to deal with 'paying customers' all day. There's also a lab at the Sanno Hospital looking for someone a background in biomechanics, but I was told to stay far away from anything healthcare related. The other interview is at our old high school. They're looking for another P.E. teacher."

"Another one? How many does that make since we were there?"

"Well you were the one that got Coach Mutsu fired. After Coach Yamada, I'm not sure."

"That jerk-off got himself fired, and it's a good thing too! The school should have thanked me for almost drowning."

"Didn't he just get transferred to another school though?"

"In Hiroshima I think, or Osaka. One of those places."

"Well anyway, I think that the most recent P.E. teacher quit and now the school has an opening."

"Yeah, I thought about going to a high school to teach, but I have a few other options I'm gonna look into first," Yukari lied.

"Didn't you want to become an interpreter for a hospital or something?"

"Yeah, but you have to go to medical school if you want to be competitive."

"Oh. Do you think that you'd look into working at our old high school?"

"Yeah, maybe. With my level of English proficiency they'd be fighting to give me a job as an English teacher."

"Or a Korean teacher, or a Spanish teacher, or a Tagalog teacher. Really, what languages do you not know well enough to teach by now?"

"You're exaggerating, but I don't do Nilo-Saharan, Oto-Manguean, or Slavonic languages."

"English isn't a Slavic language?"

"No, it's Germanic, descended from Old English which descended from Old Low German. Weird because my German sucks as bad as my Italian."

"You're still way ahead of me on any of those. All right, I gotta go. Yoshi's here with the truck. You wanna do something this Friday after your final?"

"I can't. I already promised Shoichi I'd meet him at Shakey's in Shibuya."

"Oooh so you've finally got a date, huh?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"All right then. Call me and let me know how it goes. Good luck on your finals too."

"Thanks…Bye."

Yukari hit the 'end' button and lowered the phone. Snowflakes began to drift gently into the area.

Despite the numbness at the backs of her legs, she didn't feel compelled to get up. She didn't want to go into the library to study, and she didn't want to take her final exams. Even though she hated school, she didn't want to graduate. The next few weeks would bring the end to her life as a student. From then on, she would be completely classified as an adult, but adulthood was a state of mind that she could not yet grasp.

Mulling over the conversation she had just had, she tucked her phone into her pocket. Of all the things that she had imagined doing with her life, she had never pictured herself becoming a teacher. The thought hadn't even seriously crossed her mind until just several moments ago, but it was better than nothing. Being a teacher was a lot of responsibility. Perhaps if she jumped into that responsibility, she would learn to how to become an adult in no time.

The thought caused her to smirk softly. That way of thinking had almost drowned her once, and already she knew that becoming a teacher would be no different. She was not cut out for the role, but she had no other leads to follow. She had not done the research, made the phone calls, or taken the effort to get her foot into any other sort of doors. Why she had not done these essential things was not something she wanted to dwell on. She knew what she had been doing instead.

Rather than ponder her lack of foresight, she laced her fingers under her nose and directed her attention back to the student on the bench in the courtyard. How awful and wonderful it must have been to be him.


Outside the entrance of the rehabilitation center, Nyamo stood with her hands tucked in her coat pockets and a grim look set on her face. No matter how much she wanted to avoid this confrontation with Yukari, she knew that it had to happen sooner or later.

After a morning of picking up the phone to call Mrs. Tanizaki and tell her that she would not be going to Yukari's appointment, she had finally decided that if she were to confront Yukari at all it would be best to do it at a time when Yukari could not resort to her two usual responses to tough situations, those responses being to either lash out or run away. Even if this meeting resulted in an absolute end to their friendship, at least it would be something that she would know. She would rather have an actual end than a life time of not knowing where she stood with her friend.

With no further use in delaying the inevitable, she took a deep breath and approached the double glass doors that separated her from the next step in her life. As many times as she had passed by the rehab center, she could never have imagined it to be the place where her relationship with Yukari would either reach a new level of understanding or break apart completely.

She pushed open the doors and stepped into the building. The center's first room was the check-in and waiting area. A single row of seats extended along the side walls, and two separate rows of seats were placed back-to-back in the center. At the far end of the room was a reception desk where two women sat, one registering an elderly patient and another holding a phone to her ear as she busily scribbled something down.

Nyamo scanned over the faces in the room and saw a variety of people, some obvious patients and others possible friends and family members. At the far end of the seats, sitting in the second to last chair, a familiar woman sat straight with her purse slung on one shoulder and her hands folded in her lap.

Mrs. Tanizaki sat stiffly, failing in her attempts to keep her eyes focused on a single point in the room. Her fingers were brought tight together to keep them from fidgeting and she sat on the very edge of her chair as though she expected to be there for no more than a moment longer. When she glanced towards the door, she caught sight of Nyamo and instantly rose to greet her.

Seeing that she had been spotted, Nyamo knew that there was no turning back. She forced a small grin and approached the older woman. Coming with three feet of her, she folded her hands and bowed slightly. As far as she knew, Mrs. Tanizaki had always looked favorably upon her and she wanted to keep it that way, especially now.

"Sorry if I'm a bit late," she said softly.

"It's all right. I was almost afraid that you wouldn't come," Mrs. Tanizaki replied with a small grin of her own. She motioned Nyamo to follow her when she turned and headed down a hallway just to the right of the reception desk. At the end of the hallway she stopped in front of two elevators, reaching up and pushing one of the 'down' buttons.

Nyamo followed the woman and stood beside her as they waited for the elevator. Unsure of what to say, she decided to remain silent instead of trying to start small talk. She didn't know what had transpired between the mother and daughter as of yet, but none of it was her business and she didn't want to risk straying into any subjects that could have been potentially volatile.

The silence stretched on with Mrs. Tanizaki looking at the numbers above the elevator. She had felt very awkward about asking Nyamo to come and speak with Yukari. She had almost been ashamed, having to request the assistance of Yukari's friend where she as Yukari's mother had failed to open a door of communication. She knew Yukari better than anyone, or so she had thought, but Yukari would have nothing more to do with her. Nyamo, being the only friend that Yukari had ever brought home, was the first person she had thought of to help with the situation.

At last the elevator doors slid open and the two women stepped inside where Mrs. Tanizaki pushed the 'B2' button.

After a few moments, she sighed softly. "I wish I knew what to say."

Nyamo glanced at the frowning profile of the older woman and was suddenly confronted with an unexpected glimpse of shared features between her and Yukari. Most of the time Nyamo could not see the specific differences between the mother and daughter because, of course, they were two different people who shared only so many chromosomes. However, once in a while one of them would do something or make a certain expression, such as the scowl that Mrs. Tanizaki currently made, that would leave no question of relation.

"You don't have to say anything," she replied and turned her attention back to the elevator doors.

"I just never imagined," Mrs. Tanizaki murmured, letting her train of thought get the best of her, "I mean, you always hear about warning signs."

A bit uncomfortable discussing the matter, Nyamo replied nonetheless politely. "It would have been hard to know where to look."

"I wasn't even around to look. I should have stayed with her instead of going with her father."

It was evident that Mrs. Tanizaki was looking for some kind of verbal consolation, but Nyamo couldn't think of any to give. She was not in a position to try and comfort a mother who had come dangerously close to losing a daughter. She could not empathize with such a situation, and any attempts she made would have sounded useless and empty. Instead, she changed the subject.

"How is Mr. Tanizaki by the way?" The elevator doors slid open and she motioned for Mrs. Tanizaki to exit first.

In doing so, Mrs. Tanizaki headed off to the right down a long hallway with a vinyl floor. The hallway extended about two hundred feet with several sets of double doors on either side. At the far end, a woman dressed in a one piece bathing suit and a towel wrapped around her waist was busy transferring items from a cart into a supply closet.

"He's doing all right," Mrs. Tanizaki replied, "but he's not saying much. I get the feeling that he just doesn't know what to do right now. He hasn't made much of an effort to visit Yukari and for the most part he just stays at home fixing things up. I don't think he can stomach the sight of her right now."

Nyamo cringed inwardly. So much for a graceful change of topic.

"Oh," she said plainly, suddenly having to extend her strides to stay beside the other woman. "What do you mean fixing up?"

"The house was a wreck when we got there, and I won't even mention the car. Yukari wouldn't say anything about it."

"I see."

Mrs. Tanizaki shook her head and rummaged through her purse for a handkerchief. "You know, I really should have stayed around instead of going off with him. I just thought that Yukari would have been able to take care of herself."

"She would have, if not for…the things that she got into."

"That's what I mean. Yukari was always a smart girl, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mother. Sure she was stupid sometimes, but never unintelligent you know? You see those stories on TV and you always think 'good thing I raised my child better than their parents raised theirs.' Yukari could have done so much more with her gift, but I was still proud of her when she became a teacher. No offense to teachers of course."

"It's ok. Yukari could have done a lot more than I ever could have."

"Having the talent is only half of it. I wish that she could have had your drive. Now look what she's gotten into. Busted up, addicted, and…pregnant," Mrs. Tanizaki expelled a distraught giggle, coming to a stop by the last set of doors on the right hand side. She dabbed a corner of the handkerchief to her eyes, having already promised herself that if she was going to cry then she would do it when she had more of a reason. Until then, she tried to remain optimistic about this meeting between Nyamo and her daughter.

Nyamo stopped by the door as well. Once again at a loss for words, she tucked her hands back into her pockets and remained stoic. Usually she was the perfect beam that could support just about any emotional weight, but not where this matter was concerned. She was not about step up to Mrs. Tanizaki as though she had the right to try and tell her that things would be fine.

Mrs. Tanizaki sniffed once and slipped the handkerchief back into her purse.

"I'll tell you right now, I don't know what to do about this." Her voice lowered almost to a whisper and she looked squarely at the dark haired woman. "The pregnancy, I mean. The doctors say that this baby isn't exactly good news."

Nyamo lowered her gaze for a moment before returning it to the flustered woman. After having unknowingly watched Yukari decay over the past several years, and then having almost watched her die, she did not even want to think about the possibility of Yukari's child being a nine-month time bomb.

"You shouldn't have to do anything about it. It's Yukari's decision," she remarked bluntly.

A bit taken aback, Mrs. Tanizaki blinked, then nodded vigorously and pointed her thumb to the door. "Well…she's in there. Aquatic therapy they call it. Everything's taken so much out of her that she can hardly support her own weight, but she's getting better. The doctors recommended this to keep her muscles from atrophying and to maintain a range of motion in her arms and legs. If she doesn't talk to you, I appreciate your help anyway."

"I'll see what I can do," Nyamo replied. She reached for the bar of the door and pushed both hands against it, entering into the room on the other side.

The room was an indoor pool with a tiled deck. The pool itself was about half the size of a normal one and was divided into three sections by two ropes of buoys. Against the far right wall were pieces of equipment ranging from Styrofoam arm and leg supports, water weights, medicine balls, support belts, float pads, and others. The swim coach in Nyamo made sure to check for the necessary safety items, which she located without problem. Several first aid kits were made handy in their boxes on the wall along with one defibrillator and a fire extinguisher.

In the middle section of the pool was an older woman in a dark blue bathing suit. Her back was to Nyamo and her arms were extended in front of her.

Holding onto the woman's arms was Yukari, wearing a pink and white suit with her hair tied back in a pony tail. The cast on her broken arm looked to have been covered with a special, form-fitting plastic that reached all the way to her upper arm where it was temporarily sealed. Similar seals would have been found over both of her legs along with five pound weights strapped to her ankles. Presently she was supported in the water by a back brace that kept her suspended, but not afloat.

"Just five more and then we'll try the other leg," the therapist was saying.

"What do you mean just five more?" Yukari balked, "Why not fifty? How about a couple of hundred? Hell, there's nothing as savory as the feel of your bones grinding together!"

"It's not that bad, Ms. Tanizaki. Your legs will feel much better when we're done. "

"Well right now they feel like they're twisted backwards!"

"Don't worry. Just try to ignore the discomfort."

Yukari's expression fell bland as she looked at the therapist. Clearly the woman had never been crushed in an auto accident before.

Just as she opened her mouth to make a comment that would have related the therapist's intelligence to that of a box of rocks, she glanced over the woman's shoulder and saw Nyamo standing several yards away from the pool's edge. Having heard the door open and close she had assumed it to be her mother again, but seeing Nyamo brought a suddenly stony tension to her face. She pushed herself away from the therapist and reached for one of the support pads that had been floating nearby.

"All right, lady. Take a break and go outside," she snapped.

The therapist smiled gently and shook her head. "I'm sorry, but leaving a patient unattended in the pool area is strictly against policy."

Nyamo winced slightly to the resulting thwack of the support pad against the therapist's head. Several moments later she watched the therapist climb from the pool and make her way to the door, rubbing her head and muttering something as she left.

Yukari draped her arms over the support pad and turned in the water, facing her back to her friend. She regretted her last interaction with Nyamo, but just like everything else she regretted, the incident would soon be brushed out the door of her memory and deliberately forgotten.

Nyamo was slow to step up to the pool's edge. When she did, she watched Yukari with the expectation that she would say something. She assumed that if Yukari had not wanted to talk then she wouldn't have sent the therapist outside. Yet seconds wore on and the only sound to be heard was the gentle lapping of water against the side of the deck. Finally, her impulse got the better of her.

"Hey," she greeted casually.

Yukari averted her attention to her hands that remained across the support pad. Through the tight plastic on her right arm she could make out the bandage that covered the wounds at the back of her hand. Water had gotten through the plastic and the bandage was soaked. The cast would itch later and the bandage would have to be changed, as would the one over the back of her left hand.

"Hey," she replied after a moment. Nyamo's presence alone was enough to make her feel quite uncomfortable right then. She hated to be caught in such an emotionally and physically vulnerable condition and could only hope that Nyamo had not come with the intention of sympathizing and making her feel even more pathetic.

Nyamo lowered herself to sit cross legged on the deck. "Are you all right?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yukari frowned over her shoulder at the woman, then looked back down to her hands. "I'm fine…You ask some stupid questions sometimes."

Nyamo made no reply and there came another long silence. She was sure that Yukari had done enough listening with her mother around and she was not going to lead any discussion that took place between them.

Finally Yukari gathered enough nerve to speak up again, albeit curtly. "I wasn't feeling well last time so I hope you're not expecting an apology."

"No. Are you?"

"I don't know. Should I?"

Nyamo sighed. Answering that question involved bringing to surface the darkest years of her life, and she was not about to discuss them while sitting there at the edge of a pool and looking at her listener's back.

"I was hoping that we could get together and talk some time," she said.

"About what?"

"Everything."

Yukari frowned over her shoulder, then looked back ahead. After a moment she replied. "I'm going home tomorrow."

"Are you ready?"

"I still have physical therapy twice a week, and drug testing at the hospital."

"Do you know for how long?"

"You said you wanted to talk so do you wanna come over tomorrow or not?"

"I came all this way today. The least you could do is look at me."

Yukari bared her teeth in a suddenly angry glare that melted back into a frown when she turned fully around. Facing Nyamo, her fingers dug hard into the material of the support pad. She didn't know how much, if at all, Nyamo was responsible for what had happened to her, and she could therefore not be confidently angry at her. Not having an appropriate target for her anger was frustrating enough, and without the right target, everything became a target.

Now able to get a better look at her friend, Nyamo examined her more carefully. Yukari looked a little better than she had three weeks ago, even though she was still slightly emaciated and the color of her skin was several shades too pale.

"Are you going to stay over there?" she asked, wishing to get a closer look.

"Don't patronize me!" Yukari snapped back, feeling a sudden surge of animosity.

"I wasn't patronizing you."

"So it didn't occur to you that if I had wanted to go over there then I would have? Is it your assumption that I can't make those kinds of decisions for myself? You think that you have to give me cues like I'm some kid who doesn't know what she's doing?"

"Nevermind," Nyamo sighed and got back up to her feet, "I'm not going to argue with you."

She tucked her hands back into her pockets and turned to make for the door. Already she could tell that Yukari was no more receptive than she was the last time they met, but this time there were no drugs to blame. Yukari was genuinely angry for the sake of being angry and Nyamo was not about to sit there and be her verbal punching bag. She had tried, but she could not open a door that did not want to be opened.

"Damn right you're not gonna argue with me!" Yukari shouted, "Who the Hell do you think you are anyway? You always talk about me not changing since high school? You're the one who always tried to look out for me like I was someone who needed that kind of help! Do you have any idea what that kinda shit can do to the self esteem of a perfectly competent human being?"

Nyamo stopped and slowly turned to look at the woman in absolute disbelief. The words gave her the distinct feeling that Yukari had been brooding over these matters for some time, and she'd be damned if she was going to let them go unchallenged.

"Yukari, I saved your ass from drowning back in high school, not to mention the fact that I also peeled your mangled body off the pavement three weeks ago. You'd be dead now if it weren't for me!"

"Well maybe my ass isn't yours to save! If it weren't for you then maybe I wouldn't have been on that pavement in the first place!"

The sheer implication of Yukari's statement was enough to knock Nyamo's mindset back one step. At first she wasn't sure if she had even heard the woman correctly, so preposterous was the claim.

"Are you," she started softly, eyes narrowing "trying to blame your drug use on me?"

"My dealer was working for Yukio who you knew back in high school. What the fuck am I supposed to think about that? How am I to know that I wasn't specifically targeted? Was he doing you a favor?"

The statement was enough to bring Nyamo storming back to the pool's edge with a warning set just beneath the surface of her furious glower.

"Don't even try that Yukari," she growled, "You don't know jack-shit about what you're talking about so just stay the Hell away from it."

"Who're you trying to convince?" Yukari smirked. It felt good to have someone to blame, even if blaming Nyamo didn't really make her feel good at all.

Nyamo's expression turned dark, though she refrained from saying something that she would later regret. Yukari's words did more than anger her. For the first time in their friendship, she was genuinely hurt by them, to know that Yukari assumed the worst of her after all this time.

"I'm not going to discuss this here. I'll be at your house tomorrow," she said and headed back towards the door.

"What, are you afraid that someone is going to hear us?" Yukari called after her, "That they'll hear about how the infallible Minamo Kurosawa has connections with a drug lord?"

Again Nyamo stopped and shot the woman a glare. "If you really feel that way then give me one good reason why I would want you put in this position. After all those times I tried to keep you out of trouble, why would I ask someone to do this to you?"

"Because you were tired of putting up with me!" Yukari shouted, slamming her left fist down into the water. "I always knew you were like the others just looking for a way to get rid of me! Did you actually think that I wouldn't find you out?"

It took only one second for the anger to fall from Nyamo's expression and she looked at her friend with a vague new sense of understanding. Like a cornered animal, Yukari was lashing out with the intention of pointing the blame finger away from herself. It wasn't the first time she had done it and Nyamo chided herself for not having picked up on it sooner.

"That is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard come out of your mouth," she said in a softer tone, "What's wrong with you? You've made some outrageous claims in the past, but I'm starting to get the feeling that this isn't about me at all."

Yukari quickly turned her back to Nyamo, suddenly having to wipe her eyes against an insulting twinge of tears. Beneath her aimless resentment, she knew that Nyamo wouldn't have intentionally put her in harm's way, but right now that only made her feel worse. Every other person she tried to blame always tied back to Nyamo, and if she couldn't lay responsibility on Nyamo then she could only lay it on herself. Taking responsibility for her own actions was definitely not something that she was accustomed to. Right then she would have preferred that Nyamo stay angry at her. At least anger was something that she could deal with.

"Get out of here. You've done enough already," she muttered.

Nyamo stood silent for a minute and allowed the weight of the moment to sink in. She had never contemplated Yukari's actions beyond face value before. With slow steps she returned to the pool's edge.

"You don't believe that," she stated.

"Leave me alone!"

"Your parents said that you weren't speaking to them."

"Stop trying to change the subject!"

Nyamo rolled her eyes at the woman's stubbornness. Most women were all too happy to talk about their emotions or why they felt a certain way, but not Yukari.

"And what is 'the subject'?" she asked with no small amount of cynicism, "That your best high school friend who has always gone out of her way for you has actually been plotting the destruction of your life? That everything bad that happens to you is never your fault? That-"

Yukari growled and undid the strap of the belt around her waist, allowing herself to duck under water. Nyamo might not have been buying her defense, but that didn't mean that she had to stand there and get buried further into the dirt.

"Dammit!" Nyamo scowled and circled around to the other side of the pool. She was almost compelled to jump in the water and drag Yukari up to make her listen, but that would not have helped the tension between them. Coming to Yukari's facing side she stopped in the hopes of getting the woman's attention. "You can't turn your back on this, Yukari! You hear me? Stop running!"

Yukari remained submerged until she ran out of air. At the point she lifted her head just long enough to take in another deep breath, then ducked under again.

This happened twice before Nyamo finally gave in. Sighing, she turned on her heel and made for the door, even though was not done with Yukari by a long shot. Even if Yukari didn't want to talk, she sure as Hell was going to listen sooner or later.

Coming to the door, she shoved her hands against it and slammed it open.

Startled from the sound, Mrs. Tanizaki straightened from her slouched position against the opposite wall and looked hopefully at her.

"Well?" she asked.

Nyamo didn't break her pace but instead walked backwards to meet the woman's gaze. Still simmering with frustration, she only shrugged and lifted her hands helplessly.

"You were right," she said, "She talked, but she didn't say a damn thing."



Note:
Yep. A few days from now, I'll realize that I posted this and wonder what in the Hell I was thinking. And to myself who is reading this now, I'm thinking that you need to stop messing around and get back to studying.