I do not own Azumanga Daioh! I am a dirty, dirty thief... but a very poor thief so please don't sue me.

大学は始まる　College Begins

LU LA LU LA piano wa sekai no yumesaku rohana ni melody
Kowareta tokei wo shinjite jikan wa dare no mikata?
Doushite konna ni watashi no mune yasashii dareka wo matteruno?
Oshiete sutekina mirai MOONLIGHT, MOONLIGHT SLEEPIN'
LU LA LU LA omoide ringo ni mezame no shoujo ga kiss shi – BEEP (click)

Yomi rolled over with a moan to turn off Tomo's cell phone alarm at the same time reaching for her glasses to read the face of it.

7:01 AM

She didn't know how Tomo could lie in the same room and sleep through that shrill, nonsensical wake-up tune. Yomi stretched a leg out of her covers and strained to kick at Tomo's futon which was stretched out a few feet away in the cramped room that they now shared. Yomi's kick failed to connect with anything satisfyingly resistant and as she groggily rubbed her eyes and peered across the room in the dim light of morning she saw with more surprise than she probably should have felt that Tomo was not there.

"That immature brat. She'd be late for her first day of classes if it wasn't for me. I ought to let her oversleep," she yawned even as she crankily pulled herself, quite disheveled, across the room to pull open the sliding door to their correspondingly tiny living room. Tomo was sprawled out with arms akimbo, snoring vigorously in front of the television bags of junk food and comic books sprinkled liberally about the floor.

"Ooooyyyyyy, teme," she growled loudly, doing her best Beat Takeshi impression. Tomo didn't flinch so Yomi kicked her a few times.

Tomo slowly opened her eyes, a quizzical look on her face. She noticed Yomi standing over her first and then took a look at the junk food she was lying in. She brushed some shrimp crackers off her stomach and then, tipping her head down to her chest and noticing a half eaten chocolate Pocky stick sitting right beneath her chin as though it had fallen out of her mouth when she dozed off, she reached up and finished it off in one bite. Yomi watched the whole scene with a grimace before finally Tomo grinned sleepily up at her and asked, "What are you doing up so early, you idiot?"

"You're the idiot!" Yomi screeched tackling Tomo and letting loose a string of complaints, "itwasyouralarmthatwokemeupinthefirstplaceIshouldhaveletyouoversleepyouregoingtobelateanywayyouvegottocleanupthismess
youmadewhatwereyouthinkingwatchingtelevisionallnightbeforeyourfirstdayandwhatdoyouthinkyouredoingeatingallofourfood…"

Tomo slipped out of her grasp and bounded into the bathroom for a quick shower before she headed to the train station just leaving the door open a crack long enough to taunt Yomi by noting, "As far as eating all the food goes you should be thanking me; you look like you've gained a few pounds over the break Yomi-chaaan!" Tomo ducked inside just before a flurry of sheets and cookie boxes and chip bags and comic books crashed against the outside of the door.

Yomi, after a bit of grumbling, started to make herself breakfast and gradually cooled down. As she finished warming up her miso soup and boiling her tea Tomo streaked out of the bathroom and into their bedroom and Yomi could hear the crashes and thuds as Tomo tore apart the closet looking for something to wear. "You are going to clean up this mess!" Yomi said, popping two slices of bread into the toaster, though she'd said it with more of a questioning tone than she had intended.

"I have to catch the train!" shouted Tomo. Yomi's toast popped up and she smeared each piece with a hefty dollop of raspberry jam. She hated to let Tomo get away with destroying their apartment and then tearing out leaving behind a wake of destruction, but if there was ever a day to be sure to be on time it was the first day so Yomi let it go with an exasperated sigh. "Itadakimasu."

In the instant that Yomi clapped her hands together Tomo flew by seeming to wolf down a piece of toast and Yomi's whole cup of tea in the same fluid motion that she leapt into her shoes in the hallway and opened the front door. Yomi managed to open her mouth just as the door clicked shut.

"Idiot."

水原暦の幸運　The Good Fortune of Mizuhara Koyomi

Of course, Tomo wasn't the only one with classes to attend; Yomi just had the luck to get classes that didn't start quite as early. As a matter of fact, after her scare last year when it had looked for a little while like she might not even make it into any college at all, not only did she get accepted by her first choice (one of the most prestigious private universities in Tokyo) but she seemed to have lucked into the most enviable position of all her friends.

Everyone had thought when they graduated that they would all sadly be headed in completely different directions, but shortly afterwards Kagura had been contacted by the head of the athletics department at the university that had accepted Yomi and she was actively recruited. Although she had thought it impossible that she could meet the academic requirements for such a top-tier school, and had wondered even after the agent had met with her how she might pay their high tuition, thanks to the university's surprisingly earnest desire to have Kagura on their team roster she somehow managed to scrape together a special dispensation and a scholarship that got her in. Yomi was ecstatic to find out that she'd be going to the same school as one of her friends at least. Then, of course, Tomo had managed to con her into living with her… but all in all that wasn't too bad either.

So, although her friends had still largely scattered and only the two most boisterous of Bonklers were left to share it with, Yomi felt like she was somehow providing the surviving core of their wonderfully quirky gang. Thinking such thoughts and inwardly grinning she headed to her first day of classes with high expectations.

Naturally, her first day was a complete disaster…

Although she had walked around the campus plenty of times after she had gotten her acceptance and although she knew exactly where the first room on her schedule was, she had nevertheless managed to arrive late when it turned out that the class had been moved last minute and she hadn't gotten the notice. She ended up walking awkwardly into the first class of her new college life keenly aware of all the eyes on all the heads that turned to look at her embarrassing entrance and took the only available seat, which of course sat at the dead center of the front row, practically butted up against the professor's podium. He did not look amused.

Shortly afterwards in the cafeteria she had begun to eat from the bento box that she had prepared for herself when she realized that no one else in sight had brought their own lunch. She didn't have the courage to finish her apparently conspicuous meal, but she was still hungry so she bought a second lunch of pork katsudon and ended up eating all of it despite the fact that she knew she was supposed to be on a 'no-fried-foods-diet.'

Finally, before her last class, which was located in a separate part of campus a ten minute walk away, she got caught halfway there in a brief shower that left her dripping wet for her final period. She remembered that although she had taken her umbrella this morning she must have left it on the train while in her fog of happier thoughts. She pictured herself from a few hours earlier…

Imaginary Yomi was beaming cartoonishly and a little dimwittedly as she got off the train. Imaginary Yomi still had her umbrella, however, until she turned around and tossed it back on the train just as the doors whooshed shut as if she had planned it all along and was now laughing hysterically at the plight of reality Yomi.

She told herself it was the result of too much katsudon, but she had felt small and out of place all day long and it came to Yomi all of the sudden that she might have made some terrible mistake – maybe she wasn't ready for college… She wondered if this was what Chiyo-chan had felt like on her first day in high school.

As soon as the thought occurred to her she felt ashamed of herself; after all, attending the first day of college the same as millions of others her own age across the country were doing that very morning was hardly the same thing that Chiyo-chan had gone through when she skipped five whole grades and joined a high school were she didn't have a single friend. And that revelation brought her full circle to this morning when she realized how glad she was that Kagura, at least, was attending the same school as she. In fact, even as she had continued to brood over her problems she had been unconsciously walking toward the university pool facilities where she had agreed to meet Kagura that afternoon so that after the swim team's practice was over they could exchange takes on their first day as college students.

Yomi entered the main wing of the sports building and took the stairs down to the pool. Just as she was coming off the very last step, however, she saw something that made her jaw drop, her eyes grow saucer-sized, and her feet slip right out from under her. …It was a BOY.

In the first place, he was good-looking and in the second… he was carrying Kagura in his arms.

Yomi hit the wet tile floor with a painful thud.

神楽のボーイフレンド　Kagura's Boyfriend

Yomi's face remained frozen in shock throughout her tumble and for quite some time after. She was sure that the commotion her flamboyant entrance had caused would draw the attention of both Kagura and the boy who had scooped her into his arms, but while she drew stares from most everyone else Kagura and her mystery man remained oblivious. The two of them were laughing heartily before the boy rocked Kagura powerfully in his arms once, twice, and tossed her playfully into the pool trailing a loud laugh behind her! Whoever he was he was strong. In fact, as Yomi sat mesmerized by the scene she got a second, and in some ways even more powerful shock, when after the boy had leapt into the pool behind Kagura and they had splashed and tousled a bit they took off on a race. Actually at first, Yomi couldn't even put her finger on what was so surprising about that, but then all of the sudden it dawned on her.

Kagura as all her friends knew was nearly an Olympic class swimmer… and yet she was actually being beat! Not only that, but she was trailing by a fairly significant margin!

Yomi's mind snapped back into action with almost audible force. Countless questions assailed her in rapid succession. Where had Kagura met this guy? He had to be older than she was, but how much? When did she have time to meet a boyfriend when she had spent so much time with their friends during their vacation? Why hadn't she told anyone? When had she become so flirtatious? He couldn't possibly be someone she had just met today, could he? And how could anyone out swim Kagura? Although Yomi knew how childish the feeling was, she felt a pang of jealousy. She hoped that Kagura had not simply come to school this morning to find handsome men falling all over her while Yomi had been made to feel awkward and overwhelmed from almost the moment she'd arrived at the campus gates.

Still, this last thought was quickly pushed aside by the excitement that she felt discovering Kagura's secret. She couldn't wait to torture Tomo with her newfound knowledge! But she realized too that that would only be fun for a short while and she would eventually need someone to gossip with. What would Chiyo-chan make of all this she wondered? Before she had time to wonder much further though she heard Kagura gaily call out, "Yomi, over here!"

Yomi looked up to see Kagura had now swum to the end of the pool where Yomi sat and was resting her chin on her arms which were folded over the pool's edge.

"I'm almost done here, I promise. Actually practice officially ended already and Jun'ichirō and I are just going to do another ten laps or so and then I can be in and out of the locker room in less than ten minutes."

Yomi, as if understanding, but only very slowly nodded, "Unh." Then, staring down at the tile floor softly questioned, "Jun'ichirō"

"Oh, that's right… sorry," started Kagura, "Jun'ichirō is GARBLMFGHLMNN!" And with that suddenly she disappeared as if snatched underwater from below at about the same time that the erstwhile mystery boy, Jun'ichirō emerged, smiling, and apparently keeping a firm hold on the wild torrent of thrashing arms and legs that Kagura had become. "Nice to meet you," he said simply but pleasantly.

Yomi jumped to her feet, as much out of the embarrassment caused by a cute boy's unexpected greeting as the need to avoid the splashing caused by the drowning Kagura.

"N-nice to meet you…" stammered Yomi bowing, then turning scarlet almost instantly.

There was a brief awkward moment during which Yomi caught herself staring at Jun'ichirō. He had a short black hair, a square jaw, and generally strong, serious features that were, Yomi thought, wonderfully incongruent with his bubbly personality. Another second, however, reminded her that Jun'ichirō no doubt saw only a girl who had eaten more than her share of fried food for lunch and she self consciously crossed her arms trying to determine the most casual way to hide her extra poundage.

"Did this loser tell you that I'm on the swim team too?" he asked, finally breaking the silence. Yomi simply shook her head. It occurred to Yomi that Kagura and Jun'ichirō must be very close already. From the way he spoke, he seemed to think Yomi already knew about their relationship when, in fact, she hadn't even known he existed until a few minutes ago…

There was another pause.

"Aa," Yomi pointed a finger at the water's now calm surface where Jun'ichirō still held Kagura.

"Oh… That's right," he recalled. He took a step back and Kagura floated to the surface in a manner reminiscent of a conversation they had all once with Osaka. For just a second Yomi began to seriously think that Jun'ichirō might have taken his joke too far, but before she could worry further Kagura exploded out of the water. Even while gasping for breath she managed to release a torrent of curses that accompanied her furious attack on the boy. "You're such a stupid jerk!" yelled Kagura. Nevertheless, Yomi could see that even as she rained blows upon Jun'ichirō she was smiling and her boyfriend, for his part, chuckled heartily, wagging his finger at her and with a tone of reproach teasing, "Hey, Kōhai must show respect…"

"Idiot," sighed Kagura finally, abandoning her revenge with a final splash in Jun'ichirō's direction. She climbed out and retrieved her towel from a bench near the entrance commenting over her shoulder, "I was going to invite you to get a drink with me and my friend, but now that you're behaving like child I don't think I want you to come. You can just stay here and swim your last set of laps yourself."

Yomi had to suppress a giggle as she saw Jun'ichirō stick his tongue out in response as Kagura turned her back for a second. When Kagura had turned around and begun marching toward the locker room, however, he put on a more serious face. "I'm sorry," he cajoled, "How about if I promise to pay the check?"

Kagura continued into the locker room, but she called out from within, "We'll be at the place with the big red and white signboard across the street from the north gate. Don't take too long!"

恵子　Keiko

Yomi nodded politely at the waitress who set down her oolong tea and looked enviously across the table at Kagura, who dug enthusiastically into a giant sundae. "You know," Kagura said in between heaping spoonfuls when she noticed Yomi's expression, "you can order whatever you want."

"No, I'm fine. I'm not hungry," Yomi muttered. In the first place, she naturally felt strange about letting Kagura's boyfriend pay for her food after they had just met. Secondly, she had eaten the better part of two lunches this afternoon and she almost started to explain as much to Kagura, but thankfully thought better of it. It wasn't just that she wanted to avoid a deserved round of reproach and quite a bit of teasing; she couldn't wait to ask Kagura about Jun'ichirō. She was dying to know how they had met and what it was like to have a real, serious boyfriend, and… well, she wanted to hear everything.

She just didn't know where to start. Instead of diving into the interrogation though, Yomi decided take a more round about approach. "I think Jun'ichirō is really cool."

Although Yomi had thought Kagura must have realized that Yomi would want to hear every detail about her friend's new romance Kagura's expression was a strange brand of surprise. First she scrunched up her forehead and squinted looking from left to right and back again as though looking for where such a query had come from. Then, even stranger, she made a sour face and said somewhat incredulously, "Really?"

Yomi was thrown for a moment. Perhaps Kagura was teasing. There seemed to be plenty of joking around between Kagura and Jun'ichirō. Then again, she thought, even if he isn't really her type she must like him for some reason. "Well," she tried, "he's an incredible swimmer."

"Yeah," Kagura admitted somewhat begrudgingly, "but I'm improving a lot. Three years ago he was almost full minute faster in the thousand meters than me, but today I only lost by eighteen seconds. My goal is to beat him at least once by the end of the year."

Something about the way that Kagura had spoken was strange, but Yomi still couldn't figure out what exactly, so shaking her head she continued, "I just can't believe that you never told any of us about him…"

"What?" exclaimed Kagura, "That's ridiculous. Apparently, you all just weren't paying any attention." Taken by surprise and more than a little frustrated by the thought that her friends (and not just Tomo) had seemingly let such an important detail of her personal life go in one ear and out the other she had to take a moment to think back to the last time she would have talked to Yomi about her brother.

She recalled finally, that she had told everyone a few months ago all about how her brother had gone with her and her parents to Narita Shrine and been sick all the next day from eating too much takoyaki. "I told you about how I saw him for New Year's, remember?" she demanded, hoping that that, at least, would jog Yomi's memory.

Now it was Yomi's turn to be shocked. She didn't remember Kagura saying a word about spending New Year's with any boy, but more than that she just couldn't believe that Kagura had apparently been dating anyone for months if not longer without a word to her friends, so slamming her hands down on the table between them she rose and shouted almost angrily, "Just how long have you and this Jun'ichirō been going out, anyway!"

Kagura's eyes took up half of her face they had grown so large, whereas her mouth had formed a perfect o-shape that was the tiniest pinpoint in size. No one noticed Chiyo-chan's father float by with a tray of drinks.

….

"Heh heh"

"Tcha Ha Ha Ha Ha"

"HO HO HO HO HA HA HO HO!"

Tomo rolled on the floor gripping her sides and seeming as unable to breathe as she had been a half hour ago when her brother, Jun'ichirō, had held her underwater.

"What's going on?"

Jun'ichirō, having finished up his workout and finally having made it to the restaurant looked down at his sister still convulsing on the floor. Kagura took one look at her brother and it redoubled her hysteria.

"What is it that my little sister finds so funny?" he asked, turning to Yomi.

Finally… Yomi put it all together. She understood Kagura's laughter and she remembered Kagura telling everyone about the trip to Narita with her brother. She retraced the afternoon in her mind and realized that where she had thought she had seen obvious signs she realized now she had been filling in plenty of blanks on her own. And, of course, she was mortified to recall what she had just been saying to Kagura about her own brother. Trying to escape the embarrassment, she began to sink unconsciously in her chair trying to slip out of sight and, if at all possible, out of existence.

Jun'ichirō sat at the table as his sister's guffaws died down. "I'm glad that sis seems to be having a good time with you," he said, smirking over at Yomi. She smiled back weakly, still trying to establish firmly in her mind the idea that the boy sitting in front of her was Kagura's big brother.

When Kagura seemed to have laughed herself dry and was wiping the tears from her eyes her brother turned to her and asked, "Hey, Keiko, are you going to get up and join your friend and me, or shall I set your food down so that you can eat off the floor?"

"Keiko?" thought Yomi to herself. Before she ventured to inquire about Keiko aloud, however, it occurred to her that, strange as it seemed, she wasn't sure just what Kagura's first name was…

Raspberry Heaven! Hitori janaitte yakusoku shitane Heaven
Raspberry Heaven! Amai namida rakuen de mata hohoende
Raspberry Heaven! Mukae ni kitano yasashii yume no Heaven!
Raspberry Heaven! I'm coming back to you.
Rakuen no hana saita hini kimi to futari futari de aimashou…

作家から　From the Author

Here are some notes on why I'm writing this story and where I plan to go with it:

It is incredibly difficult if not simply impossible to capture the brilliance of Azumanga Daioh! in a strictly written format. The show's humor relies almost entirely on the visuals and the incredible work of the Japanese voice acting staff. Why, knowing this, I am still attempting to write this fanfiction I can't really explain, but I mention it in order to assure my readers that I am aware of this fact and hopefully reassure them that thusly aware I am perhaps better able to adjust accordingly than those authors who are not.

I have tried then to maintain the core of light-hearted fun that made the show great, but I also believe that the introduction of a few more dramatic elements is in keeping with the path that the girls of Azumanga Daioh! would probably take after their high school years together. In fact, within the show itself I think the later episodes tended more than the earlier ones towards a certain tone of sobriety and even elegant melancholy. Still, I'll do my best to keep my story funny and upbeat more often than not.

Now, a note on the story's romance: I am a sucker for cute, romantic fanfiction and it seems to me to be the single most popular reason that people get into writing it. When it comes to Azumanga Daioh, however, this poses a problem, because it presents the author who wants to include plenty of it with what are in my opinion two distasteful choices. On the one hand, one could simply pair all of the girls off. I honestly enjoy a good shojo or shonen-ai as much as the next guy, but I just don't see the basis for it in the Azumanga canon if for no other reason than that the Azumanga world, despite its sometimes bizarre presentation, is, when it comes down to it, the very average world of modern-day Japan and the odds of any six given Japanese high school girls having relationships with each other in Japan today are infinitesimal. I know, I know, we write fanfiction because we want to see "what if?" when the rules be damned, but I simply felt it more natural for whatever reason to go the other way and simply write in my own male characters. I owe a debt to the author of "Azumanga Daioh! Plus Six" for pointing out the existence of Ooyama Maasaki's frequent presence in the background of the original show, and I plan on gradually making him and perhaps one or two others into fairly major characters over the course of the story. Also, when I say gradually, I mean it! I've outlined about thirteen chapters so far, and if my first whole chapter is my average pace it should take about 40,000 words. If I get a good reaction to it all though, I might end up writing as much as another twenty chapters…

I will be writing under the assumption that none of the girls had any remotely notable relationships or even made close male friends during their three years in high school. One certainly gets that impression when they interrogate Nyamo at Chiyo's beach house, anyway. Also, I figure most of them were too busy studying for exams senior year at least. But now that they're in college and they have plenty of free time (and trust me, having spent a year at a university in Tokyo, they do have free time there) they're bound to start dating in earnest. Still, don't be surprised if I sprinkle in a bit of yuri somewhere along the line, although I should warn all the Kaorin fans out there that it probably won't come from her as she was my absolute least favorite character and after high school she moved to Cambodia or some equivalent locale as far as I'm concerned.

So, for everyone who like me simply couldn't stand to see the show end I hope you enjoy this story half as much as you did the original!

説明　Explanations

Always at the end of my stories I will add explanations of Japanese terms, sounds, situations etc. as well as the occasional obscure reference to the show just to make sure that even someone who's seen little of the show and anime in general can follow along

1. "Oi, teme" literally means "hey, you" in English, but it is a very crude, insulting slang that would only be used by the sort of roughnecks and yakuza that Japanese actor, Beat Takeshi is famous for playing.

2. "Itadakimasu" literally means "I receive it" but its meaning has no direct equivalent in English. If anything it is similar to the grace which Americans say over meals. Japanese clap there hands together once and bow their heads slightly in a fashion also seen at shrines and take a moment to appreciate the work, human and divine, that brought the food to their table.

3. In episode thirteen Yomi calls Tomo, Kagura, and Osaka "Bonklers" because they celebrate their forgetfulness and later their poor marks. Frankly, I have no idea what this might be a reference to and I'm pretty sure there's no direct translation, but in context of the episode the meaning is clear. ADV translates the term as "knuckleheads."

4. In episode four Osaka says that she can't float, but Tomo is skeptical because, when people drown their bodies float to the top. Osaka believes, then, that she can float if she pretends to be a corpse.

5. Another untranslatable term, "kouhai" are younger, less experienced members of any group. The "kouhai" relationship to the "senpai" is taken very seriously in Japan. In college clubs "kouhai" do all the grunt work and if taken too far by an overzealous "senpai" it can seem like an unending parallel to fraternity hazing.

次の章：クラブ活動のフェア　Next Chapter: Club Activities Fair