Toaru Tsui no Tomodachi

A Certain Pair of Friends

"That was not quite the reaction I was expecting," Saten said as she glanced to the floor of the threshold of Uiharu's apartment where a now unconscious Uiharu was laying, having fainted after Saten's somewhat aggressive declaration. Saten picked her flower-headed friend up delicately, holding her like a bride as she went into the apartment, closing the door behind her, and depositing the girl onto her bed, tucking her in like a young child.

Saten then began to ponder what she should do now. Normally the answer would have been obvious, she would have stayed to make sure her friend was all right. But given what had just happened she wasn't so sure. It wasn't necessarily a bad reaction per-say; the fainting could have been from simple lack of sleep or one of Uiharu's oh-so-common colds. But the timing was a little too... convenient for that. One way or another her action was likely the catalyst at least.

But that still didn't tell her whether Uiharu's reaction, that is to say the fainting, was a rejection or an acceptance. If it was an acceptance then it would be fine if she stayed. But if it was a rejection she doubted her friend would want her around when she woke up.

Saten had always been a risk taker and usually it worked out for her (level-upper incident notwithstanding) but never before had this much hinged on one interaction. This was the first time she had consciously risked something so important as her friendship with her best friend in the world. The outcome of this one little act could and would change everything.

Saten had decided she was ready for that, ready to accept whatever came of this, even if worst came to worst and the flower-headed rejected her and didn't want to be her friend anymore.

The prospect frightened her like nothing else but she trusted Uiharu like no one else and she trusted her to at least keep being her friend, even if she didn't return her feelings.

Saten sighed and sat down on the chair that was at Uiharu's desk. It was set a little bit short for the taller girl but it was quite comfortable, which was good considering the other girl slept in it as often as she slept in the bed. The flower-headed girl was such a hard worker, in her own way and she often ended up staying up quite late at night to finish up bits of coding or security patches or whatever she was working on, Saten rarely ever knew. Uiharu didn't often talk about her computer work and when she did Saten was always completely lost on the bits and pieces of jargon that the sentences were so thick with. All she could ever do was nod and say "I see" every so often, even if it was a blatant lie. But even if she couldn't understand she still loved the conversations, she loved every conversation she had with her friend.

Saten continued looking around the room. Even though she had been here numerous times before it seemed so new each time and her curiosity wouldn't let her stand by while a new place went unexplored. Her desk was as messy as ever it seemed, with piles of CDs stacked ridiculously high and 2 separate computer monitors, one of which was paused on some video game or another while the other had a screen with a massive string of numbers, letters, symbols, and endless lines of parentheses that made Saten dizzy just looking at.

The rest of the room was surprisingly clean for a teenage girl. Saten's room was ridiculously messy in comparison. She grinned when she thought back to the reason for this cleanliness.

It had been a warm spring day not but a few months ago.

"Wow... so this is your room eh?" Saten said as she barged into the small apartment. At the time it had been far worse than it was now, with pieces of trash strewn about the floor and clothes thrown every which way. "It's even messier than mine."

"Saten-san?! What are you doing?" Uiharu cried, sounding quite distressed at her new "friend's" sudden intrusion. "why are you being so mean?"

"I'm not being mean. It was a compliment actually. You see, messy rooms are far more interesting." She said as she began exploring, "So many treasures to be found." She said as she began rooting around the place much to Uiharu's continued dismay. But it wasn't until Saten had found one such treasure, a seemingly ordinary pair of yellow panties with a simple design, that she finally snapped.

Uiharu yanked the panties from Saten with tears brimming in her eyes and she opened her mouth to start yelling when suddenly she felt a gentle pressure on her head. She reached up to feel the soft petals of a flower that had been placed on the top center of her headband. Back then it had only had the few flowers to the left hand side of the headband, just above her ear.

"I almost forgot," Saten said with a wide smile, "a gift to celebrate our new friendship. The other flowers seemed to be a little lonely way off to the side so I thought I'd give them a friend as well. I'd hate for something so pretty to be all alone after all..."

Uiharu looked at the long-haired girl for a moment then her eyes went downwards towards the floor. "th-thank you," she said, her scolding dying in her throat at the other girl's sincere words.

From that day on the room had been kept spotless in a (futile) attempt to ward off any further prying attempts by Saten. Not only that but the panties that she had picked up seemed to have become important in some way to the flower-headed girl, judging by the fact that she wore them to so many special occasions despite the fact that they didn't seem significant in any other way.

Saten smiled as she remembered that happy time. She looked back at the sleeping girl and her headband which was now bursting with flowers, most of which had been presents from Saten. "Bribes" would be another appropriate term, given that most of the came with apologies for some misbehavior or another that the long haired level zero had committed.

"At least those beautiful little flowers aren't lonely anymore," she whispered. There was a subtle worry in her voice with an even more subtle hope, "I suppose you aren't alone anymore either. Even if you don't accept me as a friend you still have other people now right? Rich girls too. I know how much you love those. Even a level 5, the railgun herself, calls you a friend. Of course such a cute, sweet, kind girl like you deserves the best," she said as she reached out to pat the other girl's head, careful not to disturb the delicate petals of her headband.

Saten yawned widely. 'I'll stay until morning I guess,' the tired little girl decided. 'We'll see then how you feel about this.' Until then all she could do was hope and wish. She looked again at Uiharu's wreathe of flowers and began counting off the petals, 'She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not...' on and on until finally she slipped into sleep. With her last breath of consciousness she breathed out "she loves me."

Uiharu woke up the next morning quite confused. She didn't remember when she had fallen asleep nor why Saten was sitting,napping away, in the recently awakened-girl's computer chair which the other girl had pulled beside her bed.

She did remember the dream she had had featuring her long-haired friend. She remembered how Saten had kissed her and confessed her love. It had felt so real too, Uiharu could still feel the tingling of her lips where Saten's had been.

Of course it didn't matter how real it felt, Uiharu knew that it had been a dream. Her one-sided crush on her best friend was just that, a crush. The other girl didn't return her feelings and Uiharu was fine with that. It wasn't like she wasn't used to it by now. She wasn't nearly as bold as Kuroko when it came to expressing feelings and the fear of losing her greatest friend was a big enough deterrent for any such actions, especially knowing that Saten didn't return her feelings.

With a sigh and a heavy heart she rolled over in her bed, turning towards the wall. She shouldn't be staring at her friend after all.

A few moments later she heard some noise from behind her, she turned to look only to be startled by the sight of Saten not but a couple feet away from her, leaning on the bed and looking intently at her with her classic disregard for personal space.

"Hey there Uiharu. Feeling better?" Saten asked with a kind caring voice.

Drawing back a bit and blushing deeply at the closeness of the girl of her dreams Uiharu nodded. She drew up the blankets to try and cover her blush.

So far it was too difficult to tell how Uiharu was feeling. She seemed embarrassed but she was always embarrassed when Saten got so close, it was half the reason the long-haired girl did so in the first place. She didn't seem scared or angry or anything at Saten's presence. It could be that she had forgotten what had happened.

That itself was a blessing and an oppurtunity. Even if she did remember Saten could always play it off as a joke or something. She could abort this whole process right now and let everything go back to the way it was before.

"Oh good. I was worried when you fainted so suddenly yesterday. I didn't know my confession would surprise you quite so much." Saten was a risk-taker. She knew what she was putting on the line here, but she had decided that she would risk it even if the consequences for a failure were almost unthinkable for the level zero.

"C-C-Con-Confess?!" Uiharu spluttered out. She wasn't sure if she had heard Saten right. If she had then that meant...

Saten gave a single nod, "I love you Uiharu," she repeated with far more conviction than she had had yesterday. Then she closed her eyes. She knew that there was no turning back now. Either she would be rejected and Uiharu would push her away or...

Uiharu wrapped her arms around her friends waist and began crying into the other girl's chest. She didn't know why she was crying. Everything was just so overwhelming. She was so happy right now that she felt like she could just about burst. The only word she could get out was, "really?"

Saten looked down at her friend and immediately felt a great wave of relief running through her. She returned the other girl's hug "of course Uiharu, I would never joke about something like this. I really do love you, I have for a while." Despite having charged in to this situation fairly recklessly, as was her usual, Saten felt so cool right now. Everything was going perfect, she was being so suave and charming (in her mind at least), and best of all Uiharu returned her feelings... probably... she should probably get confirmation or something when this hug was over...

When Uiharu's tears of joy had finally dried up however she did not let go. The hug dragged on and on and though Saten was loathe to let go of the other girl, she thought that it might have gone on a tad too long. "Um... Uiharu..." she began.

Uiharu, being brought back to reality by Saten's voice, immediately backed off blushing, "I'm sorry," she said, her voice full of embarrassment.

"it's fine," Saten deferred, trying to laugh it off, but she could tell that the atmosphere had grown tense and despite how suave and cool she believed she was being, she had no idea what to do next. As the awkward silence grew along with the tenseness of the atmosphere Saten found herself fighting a growing urge to flip Uiharu's skirt out of both habit and stress relief. Still she knew that now was not the time. She was strong enough to fight that desire...

2 seconds later...

"Saten-san!" Uiharu cried holding her skirt back down, "why do you always do that?"

"Tradition," Saten explained in response, she was a little ashamed of herself for caving in to the temptation so quickly but it had broken the awkward silence. "You don't expect me to stop such a great and long-lasting tradition simply because I confessed do you?" she teased.

She knew that answer was somewhat lacking but she kept the real reason a closely guarded secret. As opposed to what she had told Misaka she did have a reason for flipping Uiharu's skirt in particular that first time she did it rather than anyone else's before or afterwards. When she had first met Uiharu she had been quite a shy girl who had a lot of difficulty opening up to others. Still there had been something about her that had, upon the first time the long haired girl had seen her, convinced her that the flower-headed girl would make a great friend if she made the effort.

Still it was hard to get someone like that to open up. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to pierce a shy person's armor, so Saten knew she had to do something drastic to catch her off her guard for long enough to worm her way in and become friends. The flipping of her skirt had been such an unexpected, intimate, and embarrassing for the flower-headed girl that it had made her completely drop her guard.

The logic behind that however was kind of silly so she hadn't told Uiharu the first couple times she had asked out of embarrassment, after that she had kept it a secret because she liked secrets and Uiharu's indignant face was so cute.

"speaking of my confession, I don't believe that I've heard an answer yet," Saten pointed out and waited for her reply.

The flower-headed girl's reply was an even deeper blush than before and a whole lot of stammering before she finally managed to squeak out the word "yes" in a very quiet voice.

Her friend's embarrassed face was even cuter than her indignant face so Saten couldn't help but tease her just a little bit more, "yes what?"

Uiharu clenched her fist and looked down at the floor as she took a deep breath "I... I... I lo... I love you too Saten," she finally managed to get out.

Saten sank into the chair that was behind her with a massive sigh, "wow... that's a relief. I was so worried yesterday when you fainted on me. I thought you were going to take this really badly."

"I..." Uiharu began, then she paused and sat down on her bed after finding that her legs were still having trouble supporting her, "I thought it was all a dream... I didn't think you would actually do that."

"It was kind of a reckless thing to do wasn't it."

"That's not why... I just didn't think that you would ever actually return my feelings."

"Same here... that's why it took so long to tell you. I was so scared of you rejecting me."

"I... umm... why did you?" Uiharu asked, curious as to what had caused her friend's sudden change of heart.

Saten opened her mouth to respond then thought it over. She could still vividly (perhaps more vividly than she would care to) see the sight of her other two best friends making out on their bed despite being the same gender. She hadn't had much time to think about it other than how it related to her own issues but now that she thought about it she realized that the best reaction would probably be to try and forget it, or at least not bring it up with them and certainly not tell anyone about it. So she simply replied, "I was motivated by the bravery of another person and seeing how well it worked out for them."

Uiharu nodded and then there was another slightly awkward silence until she finally spoke up and asked, "now what?"

Once again Saten opened her mouth only to realize that, "I have no idea really. The romance stories usually end at this point with a happily ever after or something don't they?" Growing up without parents or many other adult role models made many children who had grown up in Academy city have a somewhat loose grip on what a relationship looked like. Many, like Saten, gathered it from a series of romance stories and dramas to get a half-way realistic view of what it was like, others, like Misaka, chose instead to get their idea of what a relationship was from fairy tales rather than more realistic sources and ended up with an idealized picture of what was actually a conflict filled road. Still others, like a certain teleporter that Saten could name, chose to get their idea of what a relationship was from books that someone their age had no place reading. The thirteen year old wasn't anywhere near ready for the kind of intimate, mature relationship that her other friends currently had so she wasn't quite sure what came next.

"I suppose... nothing," Saten continued, "We can just continue being friends until we're ready for something else. And when we are ready, we both now know each other's feelings so it can grow from there."

"So it's just going to go like it's always gone?" Uiharu said, maybe slightly disappointed at that but actually quite relieved at the same time.

"I suppose we could start holding hands or something, you know, maybe some kissing... if you want... I wouldn't mind or anything if you don't," Saten continued. Now even she was blushing, the cool and suave persona gone out the window long ago, "It's not like I didn't like it... I did."

"I... I wouldn't mind... I liked it too," the flower-headed girl stuttered. There was another short, awkward pause before Saten stood up and walked over to her.

"Can we... now?" Saten asked, looking in her eye with an odd sort of seriousness that Uiharu wouldn't normally attribute to her friend.

She nodded and closed her eyes, puckering her lips slightly. Saten drew close, slowly. It wasn't like the first time. The danger and risk of the first kiss had nullified her embarassment,but this time it hit full force and she found herself shaking and hesitating as she got closer until finally she stopped just a short distance. She closed her eyes and tried to convince her body to move the rest of the way, fruitlessly however. They hovered there for a few seconds until Uiharu, surprisingly, decided to take the initiative and close the gap. Unfortunately it was a clumsy kiss, their noses knocking together painfully.

"Saten-san," Uiharu half-scolded half-whined at her friends role in the clumsy little display of affection.

"Sorry, sorry," Saten replied, "I'm just a little bit nervous and I'm not very good at kissing yet, it's not like I've done it much before. The other one before this was good but you fainted afterwards."

She heard the other girl mutter something, "what was that?" the long haired girl asked, the other girl's words too quiet to hear.

"I said 'do it again' properly this time," the flower-headed girl clarified with an odd and cute sort of authority in her voice that conflicted (yet somehow mixed so well) with her embarrassed blush.

Saten smiled and obediently said, "yes ma'am" as if she was an army private talking to her superior. She decided to reposition herself for this next attempt. She moved onto the bed, next to the other girl. She moved one knee behind Uiharu putting her quite close. Then she cradled the back of Uiharu's head with her hand. Then she tilted her own head and began moving towards the other girl again, moving her head closer as well. Soon the pair's lips met in a slower and more delicate version of their very first kiss. She counted to three in her head then moved away.

"Better?" She asked.

Uiharu simply looked down at the bed and nodded, too embarrassed to speak.

After moving to a more comfortable, and further away, position on the bed, the long-hared girl sat along with her friend in silence, cooling off her own embarrassment. Eventually she tried to start another conversation with the flower-headed girl to help relax the atmosphere, "there have been quite a few sirens recently. I think that's the fifth that's gone by in the past half hour."

"I wonder if there's a fire or something," Uiharu suggested. She hadn't really noticed the sirens with all that had been happening.

Saten went to the window and looked out just in time to see an Anti-Skill van barrell on by, "Nope, looks like Anti-Skill. Maybe some big bust is going on or something." She would check the rumor sites later to see if she could figure out what had gone on.

Suddenly Uiharu looked at the clock, "what?! It's this late already? I gotta get ready and go to work." she said as she frantically began to do just that.

"um... I guess I'll just wait outside for you then?" Saten asked suspecting that Uiharu wouldn't want her in her watching her get undressed. Not that she'd like that or anything... it wasn't like she'd dislike it or thought that Uiharu was ugly or anything it was just that... the picture of the other two making out flashed again through her head once again triggering the simple conclusion that she wasn't ready for that kind of stuff yet.

"sure, go and do that," Uiharu answered and went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Saten sighed and left the apartment, waiting outside the door for around five minutes until she was joined again by her friend. In those five minutes she had seen yet another Anti-Skill van making her even more curious.

When they finally got to the office they found it in chaos. The second they entered Konori approached Uiharu and said, "thank god you're here. I need you to try and fix whatever's wrong with the computers that's causing us to be unable to access the camera network. I'm going out to see what I can do to help Anti-Skill," she said as she began to leave the building, just before reaching the door she turned back to them, "and out of curiosity," she continued in a voice that was equal parts worry and anger, "do either of you know where Kuroko is?"

"no," the pair responded simultaneously as the shook their heads, surprised by how frustrated Konori-senpai was acting.

After she left Uiharu took her place at her desk and began her work. "She wasn't here yesterday either was she," Uiharu said regarding Kuroko.

"Yeah," Saten replied, "Misaka said that she was sick."

"huh... that's surprising," Uiharu replied, the surprise at the situation weathered by her confusion at the error that the screen was displaying.

The screen was a standard error screen, one that said that a program needed administrative approval to run. The problem was that the network had never needed approval (other than bureaucratic approval from Anti-Skill, but that was a matter of Judgment guidelines that didn't block network access and even if it had Konori had already gotten approval) before. She tried her passwords as well as the passwords needed to access other programs but none of them worked. She tried other methods of accessing the program but everything encountered this same wall. She used a few programs to try and figure it out but any half-decent hacking tools actually did require Anti-Skill approval to use.

She got more and more frustrated as she was reduced to guessing random passwords until finally Saten asked what was wrong and Uiharu blurted out, "this thing," she said pointing, "it's asking for some password, it's never done that before."

Saten leaned over and typed something and suddenly the screen flashed "access granted".

Uiharu's jaw dropped, "What did you do Saten-san?"

"Well I heard somewhere that the most common password is password so I guessed that," She beamed, "looks like I got lucky."

Or not... as the next second the text on the screen changed, "Access granted... just kidding. You don't really think the password would be something so simple and, frankly, cliched as that did you? Better luck next time."

While this really annoyed Uiharu it also told her something important. It was clearly the work of a hacker, quite a good one at that to be so resistant to all her attempts so far, no official coding would be that unserious. Official coding usually made people fall asleep, she had never seen one that made someone laugh as hard as Saten was right now.

She checked her Gatekeeper firewall to see if it had recently been breached but saw that it had not, meaning that it was probably a problem within the networks themselves. She decided to call up Anti-Skill and report this and was surprised to get the chief himself on the line. She reported what she had experienced.

"Don't worry about that, it is simply a new security measure we have implemented in a few choice Judgment locations. It is a new and more than a little buggy right now but you can rest assured we have people working on it right now. Until then it would be best to try and work without camera access for the next day or so." He responded calmly.

"But... but that makes no sense," she said and told him about the message she had just received that had convinced her that it was a hacker in the first place.

"Our coding department has a sense of humor at times, they tend to get a little less light than is strictly healthy," he replied in a slightly exasperated manner that told Uiharu that he had dealt with this kind of problem from them before.

"I...I understand," Uiharu said, not sure what else she could say.

After hanging up she told Saten what had transpired and she agreed that it was slightly suspicious. But the rest of the day did not turn up anything new that could give them information on what was really going on. The sirens had stopped a while ago even though Anti-Skill vans still zipped down the street on a regular basis. The most information Saten could find about it online were a few guesses that it was some sort of drill that Anti-Skill was running.

Though this hardly sated her curiosity it was all she could find before the day was over and the two went home. As they parted Saten suggested meeting up tomorrow for some ice cream and shopping, to which Uiharu agreed.

Satisfied at her good day in general Saten composed a happy little tune (that she called doki-doki pantsu) and whistled it all the way home.

The next day was just as good. She and Uiharu, who didn't work today, went out on the town, which was again filled with Anti-Skill vans with their sirens off. As the pair was walking to the mall sharing a large ice cream cone, they heard a familiar voice in front of them.

"Dammit Kuroko, where the hell did you go," said a very frustrated Misaka. She had spent all morning searching but hadn't found a single sign of the teleporter. She was worried and angry. The only way this day could get any worse was if that spiky haired idiot were to show his face (which was impossible as he was currently in jail along with the few hundred other victims of Kuroko's crime-hunting spree decrying his luck) or...

"Hey there Misaka, what's up?" Saten asked, catching the electro-master by surprise.

"I.. uh... I'm just looking for Kuroko," Misaka replied embarrassed. She still wasn't sure how much Saten knew or had seen but the very idea that she might know was... disconcerting.

"Why what happened?" Uiharu asked. It was the second time she had heard someone ask after her friends location in the past two days. It was slightly worrying but she was sure the other girl was fine.

"oh... nothing... I gotta go," Misaka said before hurrying off.

"Sure you don't want some help?" Saten offered to her shrinking back but received no answer. So after a brief look at Uiharu they decided to continue with their plans but perhaps keep an eye out for their friend in case they crossed paths.

As it turns out they didn't, and the rest of their fun little day together passed by in a blur. Until finally curfew neared and they returned home. Saten walked Uiharu home first since it was on the way. When they got there she smiled at her friend and said, "I have something for you." She pulled out a single flower from her bag. "It's been a while since I last gave you one of these and it seemed like a good time."

Uiharu took it with a grin and said, "thank you very much."

"it really brings back memories doesn't it? Of the first time I gave you one all those months ago. It was right in that room just as you were about to yell at me for rifling through your room. You were holding the very pair of panties that you're wearing right now," even though she hadn't flipped her skirt even once today (a fact of which she was very proud) she knew that she was right, "and your face was as red as it is now too."

"Saten-saaan..." Uiharu whined, "don't bring up such embarras-" she was cut off by a gentle kiss from the other girl.

"I'd hate for something so pretty to be all alone," she echoed her sentiment from all those months ago, "I'm happy to be your friend and I hope our friendship continues to grow."

Uiharu nodded, "thank you."

"It's my pleasure," Saten replied, "goodnight Uiharu."

"goodnight Saten-san," Uiharu said before withdrawing into her room to prepare the latest addition to her wreath.

Author's Note:Saten and Uiharu really don't get enough love, I mean KuroMiko isn't a very popular pairing either but it still has its fans and its fanfictions. Even though SatenxUiharu has plenty of fans there are so few works of fiction for it on this site.

It was so hard deciding whether I should title the chapter "a certain pair of friends" or "a certain pair of panties". I tried to see if there was a word for one that sounded like the other but that failed so I decided to go with the safe option and just do "friends"

Dedications: The reason this chapter is in here at all was the revelation I received from EtherealFox that my story was getting a little too somber so it only seems right to dedicate this chapter to him/her/hir/it/them. EtherealFox is another faithful reviewer and reader and I thank you very much for leaving such fun and interesting reviews.

Coming Soon: Pawns threatens King, the Black-Knight-Gambit begins.