Hey everybody! The story isn't done YET! So keep tuning in, won't ya? Hooray! It's time for sweet sixteen! *sniff* They grow up so fast!

Here we go!

I don't own these characters, but for this story, they're MINE! LOL

Chapter 16: Take a Deep Breath and Hope

Yukino pulled her black, knee-high socks over her shins and slipped her feet into her shoes. She sighed. Well, she had been right about yesterday. It was not joyous or relaxing in the least. Her argument with her sisters had gotten them nowhere, and they spent the rest of the day not speaking. She stayed in her room for the remainder of the evening, waiting for either one of them to walk into the room as if nothing had happened, and they would forget about it, like they usually did. It was the first time they had told themselves that they weren't going to speak to each other and actually stuck with it.

It had been depressing, to say the least.

*Some Sunday,* Yukino thought bleakly. She was still so ashamed. Now she had to go to school—and possibly face Arima. How was she supposed to do this? Every time her mind went near the thought of ANY member of the opposite sex, it replayed images of that kiss.

But really, what was that all about? She was so embarrassed. How could she have let her guard down like that? She had made a fool of herself in front of someone she barely knew. Now Ryosuke would probably think they were more than just acquaintances.

She shuddered. That's exactly what Ryosuke was. An acquaintance. And she had kissed him. She—

Yukino rubbed her temples slowly. She just wanted to forget that kiss ever happened, for her sanity's sake. She tensed her shoulders and took a deep breath before leaving the sanctity of her bedroom.

Still walking, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tilted her face toward the ceiling.

*Please God,* she begged silently, *Please let this be an ok week. Please.*

It was unfortunate Yukino wasn't watching where she was going, because soon she was laying face down onto the carpeted hallway floor, her ankles wrapped uncomfortably in a pastel-colored throw rug. She kicked the rug off and groaned.

*I swear, God, if You do this to me, I'm coming after You.*

Arima hit the snooze button on his alarm clock for what seemed like the twenty-seventh time. He pushed his weary dark head through the covers and glanced at the black digital numbers. He lifted his fingers and swept messy strands of black hair out of his almond eyes to get a better look at the small, narrow screen.

His eyes widened. He was late! Why didn't anyone bother to wake him up? He hopped out of bed and into his uniform slacks. He slid his shirt on over his head. Today was the day he was getting back with Yukino! He was so anxious about it, it had taken him hours just to fall asleep the night before. He exhaled slowly and smiled. Today was going to be a great day.

He hurried into the large tile bathroom next to his bedroom and found the tube of toothpaste. He couldn't wait to see her. He wanted to be there to see her smile again. He scrubbed his face with warm water, suddenly ecstatic. It seemed so long since he last saw her. She was truly beautiful, both inside and out. All he could think about was how badly he wanted to see her. Yesterday felt like the longest day of his life.

She sat cross-legged in her chair at the front of the classroom, fiddling anxiously with her mechanical pencil. Arima hadn't arrived at school yet. She expected to bump into him before class, but he still wasn't there. She almost expected some kind of altercation between the two of them, or maybe an awkward grunt or two, just to acknowledge each other's presence, but he was nowhere to be found. She was a bit relieved, but for the most part, Soichiro's absence was a little unnerving. He was almost never late. And now he had left her here, anticipating his arrival. She was going to be so embarrassed. What if he looked her in the eye? She would not be able to escape him, and she would have to come face to face with her impending guilt.

This was all so confusing. Were they really over? If so, there shouldn't be anything wrong with her little escapade over the weekend. So why did she feel guilty?

Yukino dropped her mechanical pencil to the floor. The tap of the thin plastic broke the low drone of Mr. Funbari's voice.

"Sorry," Yukino mumbled to no one in particular.

Mr. Funbari turned back to the chalkboard. Yukino scooted her chair backwards and hastily thrust her arm under her desk, jamming her fingers onto the hard, cold tile. She immediately sat back in her seat, cradling her index, middle, and ring fingers in her other hand. Tiny tears formed at the corners of her eyes. She bit her lip and reached for the pencil with her other hand. She was so jittery this morning!

Her head turned toward the side of the classroom as the shoji door slid open. Arima stood in the doorway, tall, out of breath, and his books held in one hand. Yukino's stomach dipped down to her knees and swooped up to her chest. She quickly averted her eyes to the top of her wooden desk and barely listened as Arima softly mumbled an apology to the teacher.

*Don't look at me," her mind urged,*Please, whatever you do, don't look at me!*

But Yukino could feel his dark, almond-shaped eyes on her as he strolled all the way to his desk, and they continued to rest on the back of her head for the remainder of the period.

She nervously played with her pencil and managed to drop it about five times during class. Her eyes had to avoid his, or else—she didn't know what she might do. Run to him maybe? Plant a passionate kiss onto those tender lips of his? His eyes didn't feel mean or angry today. They felt like Arima.

Yukino felt her heart sink. Maybe Arima was in love again. Maybe he had found another girl. He was so perfect; it was plausible that once news of their problem broke out, flocks of lovesick females would offer him their affection. And among the array of girls, he was sure to find one who was much more decisive and courageous than she was.

Yukino felt her bottom lip quiver violently and she covered her face with her hands. She wished she were in love. Her thoughts ran back to the weekend. She forced herself to watch as the memory of Ryosuke's kiss replayed in her mind. Ryosuke was handsome, and nice, but he hadn't been there for her over the past couple of years like Soichiro had. She didn't even know him.

Soon, she found her hands getting wet, and she scrubbed roughly at her eyes. She couldn't cry here, at school. Too many people would see her. She sighed, suddenly angry with herself. All she did was cry.

Arima ran a slender hand through his black tendrils and blew his bangs out of his eyes, exasperated. All day it seemed as if Yukino was trying to evade him. She had hunched over her stack of books and glided away inconspicuously whenever he came near her in the hallway, she ran to her friends to help them with homework assignments when he offered her his pen, and she suddenly needed to go to the bathroom after she sneezed and he said "Bless you."

She was acting very peculiar. Arima frowned. Well, it was possible that she was angry at him about the week before. Looking back, he must have hurt her. He hadn't spoken to her in the longest time. But now that he was trying to make up, she didn't seem to want to give him a chance. Yukino wasn't cooperating, and his teachers didn't seem to be on his side, either. Every time he approached her, a teacher decided to call her up to the chalkboard to answer a question, or to discuss a possible extension on a class project. He even started to march up to her on her way to the main office when an important announcement came over the PA system. Apparently, there wasn't to be any school the next day due to repairs being done to the building.

Arima sighed. But he was trying, and he wasn't going to stop. Yukino was important to him, and he wasn't going to give up now. Right now, they were in their Conversational English class, and the teacher had not entered the room yet. There was Yukino, sitting at her desk, toying with her ballpoint pen. She didn't seem to be doing anything.

Arima took one step when the shoji door shot open, and the school nurse rushed in front of him. He fell over his feet.

"Miyazawa Yukino!" Mrs. Midori called out, "Will you please come to the nurse's office? Your sister is in the school infirmary and would like to see you now."

Arima's mouth dropped open. He regained his composure, his expression grim. She seemed awfully relived to leave him. He sighed. Why was this so difficult?

Yukino rushed down the hallway after Nurse Midori, her straight, short hair blowing behind her. Her palms were sweating. It was sad to think that she was actually happy about the news of her bedridden sister. She was sure that she could sense Soichiro right behind her, advancing to her side, back there in the classroom.

She wanted to be civil with him, but at the same time, she wasn't quite ready to talk to him! What would she tell him, anyway? How lonely she was without him? That was something she wanted to say, but she knew Soichiro didn't like passive women. Would she express how angry she was? Or worse, would she blurt out the episode she had at the movie theatre? She exhaled slowly through her lips. At least there was no school the next day. She wouldn't have to face him then. Jeez. Being in love was hard.

Yukino stood in the doorway of the infirmary. The room was cool and white. She relaxed her shoulders. It was so serene. Lines of clean, sheeted beds stretched out in front of her to the open windows. The light, soft drapes blew in the cold breeze, and the wind danced in to brush across her face. She looked down to her left, and there was Kano. All of her was enveloped in white bed sheets, except for her head, which sported a huge red welt just below her temple.

"She was hit with a basketball during gym," Mrs. Midori explained. Yukino jumped. She had forgotten she was standing beside her. Mrs. Midori tilted her head to the side and smiled.

"She wanted your company." Mrs. Midori turned and sauntered next door into her office.

Yukino heard a shuffling sound of feet behind her. She turned around and there stood Tomohiko and Tsukino, her arms crossed over her chest.

"What're you doing here?" Tsuki hissed.

Yukino glared. Why didn't she just let it go already? She glanced over Tsuki's shoulder at Tomohiko. HE was there? He came to visit his crush's sister in the infirmary? Yukino felt a strong twinge of jealousy.

*How sweet,* she thought heatedly. He was a good catch.

She remembered how she once had someone like that. In fact, looking at Tomohiko, with his dark hair and eyes didn't remind her of his brother, but this time, reminded her of Soichiro. Except Soichiro's hair wasn't cut the way Tomohiko's was. She almost smiled inwardly. Soichiro's hair was so delightfully messy, the way it swayed, just above those eyes of his.

She shook her head, her mental picture immediately dissolving into little pixels of color. Now all that was in her mind was a depressingly empty, black background.

Yukino pouted. Tsuki's love life still had the beauty of the beginning, but she herself couldn't bear to face Soichiro because she still felt so guilty about the weekend! Her jealousy rose to anger.

"I'm visiting my sister, what're YOU doing here?" she asked, rather snippily.

"I'm not acting like a shallow idiot, if that's what you mean," Tsuki added, just as snippily.

Yukino groaned. "Will you just let it go already? It's not like I'm going to be with him!"

The sisters glared at each other.

Tomohiko sweat dropped. What was going on? He stepped back a few paces and decided to stand in the corner, nervously eyeing a crack in the wall.

"Well, you'd better not," Tsuki bit back.

"Well, you can't tell me what to do!"

Yukino was furious. Love sickness could really make people act so stupidly. Why was Tsuki still mad at her? Tomohiko had followed her into the infirmary. She had her man. Who Yukino decided to date was not going to affect whether or not Tomohiko liked her.

In truth, Tsukino's judgments really put a strain on Yukino's heart. Tsuki must think so low of her. Did her sister really think she was that shallow?

*Well, you did kiss him, after all," a voice at the back of her head piped up.

Yukino brushed the thought out of her mind and pointed a finger in Tsuki's face.

"Look, I said I wasn't going to be with him, so I won't!"

"Why don't you guys just say sorry already? My head hurts," a voice from the bed mumbled into the pillow.

Kano rolled over and wrapped the sheets more tightly around her body. Her sisters looked down at her, and then at each other. Tsuki bit her lip and suddenly seemed aware of Tomohiko's presence standing uncomfortably in the corner.

"You sure you're not going to do anything rash?" she asked, toying with her hands. Yukino nodded vigorously.

"Of course not!"

Tsuki glanced at her tentatively.

"'Cause, you know--" she hesitated.

"--I really care about you and the decisions you make," she continued.

Yukino's eyebrows lifted, concerned.

Tsuki fixed a pained expression on her face.

"I mean, come on, Yukino! You just met him!" she whined, and took Yukino's hand in hers.

"I just don't want you to get hurt even more."

Yukino's mouth pulled downward into a confused frown. Tsuki sighed, trying desperately to get her feelings across to her older sister.

"I-It kinda disappointed me when I saw you two. It surprised me. I never thought you'd do that."

Yukino swallowed and bit her lip, allowing Tsuki to continue.

"I mean, you're my big sister. You always were an emblem of class and composure. You and Arima both."

Yukino felt so light from her sister's words. She sighed. Why didn't she just explain this in the first place? She would have been sure to understand. Yukino blinked.

"I'm sorry," she said, and locked Tsuki into an embrace.

"Good," Kano yawned.

Tsuki laughed good-naturedly. The sisters released each other, and Tomohiko rose from his corner, confused yet relieved. The three of them smiled and began to fawn over Kano and her large, red welt.

Arima dragged his feet down the empty hallway, feeling tired and defeated. Kendo practice was over, and he still hadn't spoken with Yukino. Practice was always challenging, but it was especially hard to concentrate knowing that he still hadn't accomplished anything. He sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead, exhausted.

Maybe school wasn't the best place to make up. It was too much of a busy place for him to express how he truly felt, and it was too crowded for Yukino and him to find a moment's peace to really talk. Just going up to her during class wasn't enough. He had to do something special for such a special woman. But when?

Yukino sat on the floor of Kano and Tsuki's bedroom floor, notes and textbooks stretched out in front of her. Since there was to be no school the next day, the teachers had piled on the homework. She pushed her reading glasses up on her nose. For the past fifteen minutes, she had picked up her pen, put it down, and picked it up again. Here was all this work in front of her, but her thoughts kept interrupting.

This morning, she had done her best to stay out of Soichiro's range of view, but it was not because she hated him or anything. She could never hate Soichiro. It was just that she felt so guilty about the weekend. But why? Her feelings for Soichiro had stopped for just a moment, but seeing him at school, just being under his presence again brought on old feelings to hit her on the side of the head.

While her family flitted about around her, minding their own business, she was just sort of isolated, in her own little world. It was odd. She was in a totally different place.

She would go into this kind of trance, where she would imagine herself with Soichiro. With Soichiro, her head was tilted to the side, her neck bared for him to kiss it as many times as he pleased. She wanted him to.

Sitting on the bedroom floor, in the real world, she would hug herself, placing her hand softly on the side of her neck, and tracing her fingers up and down, imitating his lips. This is where she wanted his hands and lips to be.

And then she would feel so fragile and weak, and she would imagine him kissing her some more. She found it odd that her memories of Ryosuke never broke in to rudely halt the things that Dream Yukino and Dream Soichiro were doing in her brain.

She contemplated this for a while, and came to the conclusion that on that day, Ryosuke was just an outlet. He was just—there. She had been right when she thought that kiss meant something. It had indeed. She had poured her sadness and her troubles into that kiss—just not her heart. She had confused it for something more, but now she realized that Ryosuke was a sort of medicine that brought someone to health, or that extra bit of reading a student did to ace a class.

As shallow as it seemed, it was the truth. Just like these things, Ryosuke was the step to her realizing just how much she loved Soichiro.

And she loved Soichiro a great deal.

She wished desperately that the scenes in her brain were projected into reality. She hoped for it. She hungered for it.

She stared aimlessly out of the bedroom window and was glad that she was alone at that moment, with nobody to ask her what she was thinking. The quiet slideshow in her head was private. She liked her imaginative haven.

She continued to watch the environment outside as it became accumulated with soft, powdery snow.

It looked as if there was going to be a blizzard.

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So, did you guys like it? Don't forget to drop me a line! Chapter 17, you're on deck!