A/N: A big "thank you" to Petuniarose and Rival Argentica for the reviews! I love the encouragement as much as I love Naoi/Yuri. Hope you continue to enjoy, even through the inevitable ups and downs of a fic called "Heartbreak Cure."

(Rated T for language, Naoi/Yuri acting like a young married couple, and Sunohara acting like... Sunohara.)

(Disclaimer: Clannad and Angel Beats characters belong to Jun Maeda.)

Okay, here we go. Longer chapter ahead!


[Chapter 02]: Memories


Their discussion of Masami Iwasawa, music, rain, and even the infamous Youhei Sunohara had managed to keep Yuri's mind occupied for a couple of hours. She was tempted to look up some of the girl's songs on YouTube, but she didn't want to make a habit of leisurely using the Internet on the clock—lest her boss come to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Maybe she would watch the concert tonight. She'd heard Ryou's taste in music before and it wasn't bad, plus Iwasawa had an interesting backstory. Might as well root for the underdog.

Traffic sucked, so she was distracted by that for a while. Ayato hated to be in the same car with her when they were stuck in traffic—apparently her road rage was "monstrous." As it was, it took her half an hour longer to get home.

It was only when she was heading up the front walkway, digging through her purse for her house keys, that she remembered the pregnancy test. She fingered the stick thoughtfully, then released a breath and unlocked the front door. No sign of Ayato—he must have gotten stuck in traffic himself. She'd make dinner and take the test in the meantime, so she'd have something to surprise him with either way.

She started dinner, but on the way to the bathroom, the phone rang. Intercepted again.

"Hello-?"

"THANK YOU!" Yuri had to rip her ear away from the receiver before it blew her eardrums out. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou-!"

She stared at the phone in bewilderment. "Who the hell is this?! And why are you thanking me?" It sounded a little like Ayato on helium.

"Because you're trying to get knocked up," said the male voice, and she could practically hear the shit-eating grin on the other end, "I'm at a concert on a date with a really cute girl! Thanks for taking one for the team!"

"Youhei!" squealed a voice in the background. "It's not like that! Please give me back my phone!"

Yuri rolled her eyes, but grinned. "No problem, Sunohara. Just behave yourself, alright? I have to work with this girl. I don't want to get in trouble for being the one to suggest she take you."

"Hey, I'm extremely well-behaved!"

"Really? Because from what I remember of you on Valentine's Day—"

Sunohara gasped indignantly. "That was an accident! The balloon got attached to her skirt on its own; I had nothing to do with it!"

Geez, this guy yelped just like Ryou. Yuri hummed in vague acknowledgment.

"Anyways…" Sunohara cleared his throat. "I totally owe you one. Thanks for being too busy trying to get busy—"

"Youhei!" There was scuffling in the background, the sound of the cell phone being wrestled out of Sunohara's hands, and snickering as Ryou huffed and put the phone to her ear. "Sorry about that, Yuri," she said sheepishly. Then, in a quieter voice, "have you taken the test yet?"

"Not yet," Yuri answered. "I was just about to."

Ryou let out a sharp breath. "Oh my gosh, sorry to interrupt then!" she said, as if she'd committed some sort of crime. "You go right ahead. The concert's going to start soon anyway."

Yuri smiled. "You and Youhei have fun, then. I'll tell you the results when we get back to work on Monday, okay?"

"Okay!"

"And who knows, maybe tonight we'll both get laid," Yuri threw in lightly before hanging up.

"What?! Yuri-!"

She was going to pay for that little crack next week. Or not; Ryou tended to be a forgiving if not forgetful girl (by Monday she'd be chattering to Yuri about fortunes and magic again, no harm done). If only Sunohara had heard that one!

With nothing else to distract her now, Yuri's gaze returned to the stick in her hand. No more putting it off. She huffed at it, then slipped into the bathroom.

It was the type that took five minutes. Five whole minutes. As if she even had the patience for five seconds. She set a timer on her phone and sat down on the sink counter.

"Five minutes is a long time when you're waiting," she muttered, then frowned to herself. Whoa, déjà vu.

Not that déjà vu was entirely uncommon in her life; on the contrary, she kind of learned to expect it at this point. But that was a whole other story.

She drummed her fingers on the counter, the wall, the mirror. She could literally hear the analog clock in the kitchen ticking along, marking each slow second.

The concert was over. Humans had gone extinct. If she was pregnant she would have had the baby by now.

Two minutes had passed. Time was a fucking illusion.

She breathed in and out, trying to calm down. Why should she be so anxious? Not only was their baby going to be planned, but it was going to be born out of love, right? Not a lot of people were so lucky.

Yuri managed a smile at the thought, and her fingers traced the jewels on the locket around her neck. Emerald and amethyst. A winning combination, if she did say so herself. Ayato had always had good taste (he'd married her, hadn't he?).

Everything about them had always been a winning combination—save for when they first met, when his pottery vase shards combined with her fingers and equaled blood everywhere. But at least when he saw the blood he'd been kind enough to stop yelling at her for being clumsy and wrap her hand in gauze. From then on, they'd clicked. It wasn't just the familiar feel of him (her mom had once suggested that maybe they'd met "once upon a dream"), it was the crackling chemistry mixed with comfort. As if being with him was like being wrapped in an electric blanket… ugh, her sister Ajisai had always been better at analogies.

She just… couldn't imagine having a family with anyone else.

Briiiiiiiiiiiii-

"Shit!"

Yuri launched herself off the counter, holding a hand to her heart. The phone alarm. Right. For the test.

She picked up the plastic stick, bracing herself for the worst and the best, then squinted down at the little window. At the colored mark staring right back up at her.

Negative. It was negative.

How anticlimactic.

Yuri shook the stick, for no other reason than that it made her feel better. It wasn't like it was a damn Etch-A-Sketch, the negative wouldn't change or go away. And how accurate were these things, anyway?

Shrugging, she tossed the test into the trash. She hadn't really expected results two weeks after they started trying. It was just that, after all the hype, she was getting fonder of the idea of having a physical reminder of their love.

But maybe that sounded a little cheesy…

She wasn't sure how long she'd been in there, but from inside the bathroom, she heard the shuffle of footsteps outside the front door, and a pause before the click of a doorknob turning. And then she remembered the plus side of a negative. A grin trickling across her face, she slipped out the door and into the hall.

Ayato opened the front door and stepped inside. He eased out of his shoes, and would have shrugged off his coat—if Yuri hadn't gotten to him first. He supposed he should have recognized that determined gleam in her eye in the split second he'd seen her standing at the other end of the entry hall, but then she'd rushed at him before the first syllable of her name could roll off his tongue. The second syllable was swallowed up, fading like a distant memory because now his lips only knew Yuri's. Her hands grazed his cheeks before sliding down to his shoulders and pushing off his coat. Once they both heard it fall lifelessly to the floor, Yuri pressed closer against his chest, clutching onto his arms as she nipped more purposefully at his mouth.

Ayato pulled away for breath, and something else—a question twinkling in his eye. "Are you…?"

"No." She laid her lips on his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his jawline. "No. That's where you come in."

"Well, as glad as I am to be of service," he murmured against her neck, nibbling at her skin and enjoying the contented noises she made, "you're making dinner—"

"Let it burn—"

"—and in the meantime I'm going to check the weather," he finished.

Yuri whined when he pulled away one last time, and rolled her eyes. The food was almost done, anyway, and the weather should be on in a couple of minutes, so it shouldn't take too long. But still. "Storm addict."

"Hey, our first kiss was in the rain," Ayato defended himself, leaning down to turn on the television. "Imagine if our first child was conceived during a storm."

Yuri mulled over the possible storm innuendos in her head, before deciding there were too many and waving it off. "Fine, whatever." He arched an eyebrow at her, but she gave him a reassuring smile. "You're worth waiting for."

She knew he was watching her from behind as she sashayed into the kitchen. That was the goal.

The TV room was just outside the kitchen, with a window right above the television so that a person on the couch could have a clear view of the chef, just as the chef could hear the TV while they cooked. As Yuri finished up on the dumplings and rice, the weatherperson was raving about a good thunderstorm that had been brewing all day. No wonder the clouds in the overcast sky hadn't rained on her and Ryou's heads when they went out to lunch. They were lying in wait.

Well, lucky for Ayato. Storms meant a lot to him. He hadn't mentioned it, but it didn't just rain the first time they kissed. It had stormed the first time they almost did. She remembered it vividly. Lightning had cracked and rippled over their heads, providing an eerily perfect ambiance as Yuri snarled at Kimito Naoi for putting his hands on his son. She'd threatened to convince her vase-loving parents to stop buying from his business, and she was sure that it wasn't just the downpour of rain that was making the man shake in his boots. That and the roar of wind and thunder must have given Ayato the confidence to stand up to his father alongside her. To give him credit, she would never forget how the lightning captured the fierceness in his gold eyes, or how later by her car when he was leaning in to tell her how much her solidarity meant to him, a magnificent crack of thunder had startled them apart.

Okay, okay. Storms were incredible. And though she'd been lucky enough to never see one, for some reason she'd always had an interest in tornadoes.

After setting the plates and bowls out on the counter, Yuri wandered into the TV room and pressed her face against the glass of the window. Nothing yet, but the clouds were cooking up something good.

Briefly, a flicker of concern entered her mind as she thought of Ryou. But then… no, the concert was somewhere in the Shibuya area. That was why she'd left an hour early (apparently Ryou's sister was the boss's son's teacher, so Ichiki tended to be lenient with her). Yuri glanced over her shoulder at the radar on the screen, worrying her lip until she saw to her satisfaction that the concert was far enough from the stretch of the storm to be safe. Content, she turned back to the window. There was something hypnotizing about the deep blue-gray of the clouds, a promising navy that swirled around their neighborhood. She hummed a sigh of soft bliss when the first raindrop smacked against the glass.

A tap on her shoulder made her turn around.

"Anything good?" Smirking at her jumpiness, Ayato handed her an already-served bowl and some chopsticks. His bowl was waiting for him on the coffee table.

Yuri returned his smirk and kissed him. "Soon," she said. "It's picking up."

They ate on the couch together, huddled close, occasionally feeding each other bites (and Yuri sometimes beating him to the food with her lips, but Ayato wasn't complaining). Waiting for the spark to turn into a flame, for the drizzle to turn into a downpour. Autumn rain didn't have the same warmth as it did in summer, but it still had its aesthetic charm, and the thunder could still make a name for itself.

With much reluctance, Ayato left the warmth of her arms to put away the dishes, and Yuri returned to the window. A pleasant surge of excitement rose up in her chest at how much the navy blue had darkened in the last few minutes. Ryou was lucky to have escaped, she mused silently. Last time it had gotten this thick and dark, they'd been at work, and Ryou had fretted and hemmed and hawed and tried to get ahold of her sister to tell her she loved her, just in case. And she'd fretted some more, chewing her lip raw, when the line had gone dead. Poor thing was like a nervous little kitten.

The last time a storm had darkened the sky this much when she was with Ayato, well… things had turned out a bit different.

"What're you smirking about?" Ayato's teasing tone grazed her ear as his arms wrapped around her middle.

Yuri turned to him, tracing her hands up his arms to his shoulders and then to his face. Her fingers brushed against the apple of his cheek as she hummed thoughtfully, pretending to dwell on her answer.

"Memories," she said. And then her lips were on his.

He instinctively clutched at her sides, pulling her closer to him, and made calculated steps to turn them around so that he was guiding them both back to the sofa. If she didn't know the layout of this house by heart, she wouldn't have been able to tell that the sofa would be there to catch her fall, so blinded by what the passion in his kiss did to her. Three years of marriage and her legs still turned to jelly. She tumbled backwards onto the couch with a squeal, bringing him down with her.

The news was still going but she didn't care. She didn't really give a shit where the remote was, either. It was hard to think about such things when Ayato was peppering kisses along her jawline, neck, and collarbone. Or when she was too busy trying to undo his belt, while musing as his hands ran along her sides before gripping at her waist if the bed was comfy enough to be worth pausing for.

Comfort was ideal, but she'd be damned if she put a stop to this. She adjusted her hips, shifting determinedly on the couch to get the best spot while giving him room to settle—plus there was something underneath her, and she felt like the damned princess and the pea here. She shifted again, whining against his mouth, and crushed whatever it was beneath her. Which resulted in loud screaming.

Luckily, it was coming from the television. But the ear-splitting shout made them jolt and snap their heads toward the screen.

A girl with chin-length fuchsia hair was sitting on a chair onstage, surrounded by a flood of screaming fans and lights. Large pink signs read "WE LOVE YOU IWASAWA" in darker pink glitter.

"Oh, right. The concert…" Yuri eyed the screen thoughtfully, and shifted her hips upward to free the mystery object—the remote, of course—from under her.

"Concert?" Ayato repeated, curiosity etching his features.

"Ryou from work said she was going to see this concert tonight... I hear Iwasawa's kind of a rising star."

"Iwasawa?" He scrunched up his face in thought, like he'd heard the name before. "Hm. Looks like we caught her between songs."

"Are we really going to stop in the middle of this to-" Yuri started to say, but sure enough, Iwasawa gave a soft hum, and the strum of her guitar signaled the start of a gentle new ballad.

Wait. This was pretty.

"Iradachi o doko ni butsukeru ka sagashiteru aida ni owaru hi…"

The singer cooed the lyrics like they meant a lot to her, like she was singing quietly but from the deepest part of her heart.

"Sora wa haiiro o shite sono saki wa nani mo mienai…"

Wait. Wait.

This song seemed… familiar.

God, not that she didn't use that word every damn day of her life, but déjà vu was nothing compared to this feeling. Something welling up inside of her. A strange rush of a desperate reminder, like a snooze alarm that had long been muffled.

What was this feeling?

"Joushiki butteru yatsu ga waratteru tsugi wa donna uso o iu…"

It wasn't just in her brain, but in her heart, which was pounding in her chest because it felt like Iwasawa was using this song to tell her something. To pass along some kind of message, something Yuri was supposed to know about the world. About herself. About Iwasawa too.

"…sore de erareta mono daiji ni kazatte okeru no…"

She knew sometimes songs made people connect with the singers, but this was ridiculous. This wasn't like that. It was as if Yuri actually knew her, even though it was impossible. She hadn't had this feeling since – since she met Ayato.

But it was almost like every moment she listened to this song, a mystery was being solved.

"Demo asu e to susumanakya naranai…"

She couldn't look away. She couldn't turn off the concert now. She let the remote fall out of her hand onto the coffee table, entranced, because she couldn't miss a second of this.

"dakara kou utau yo…"

Because Iwasawa was building up to something intense, something incredible she put her whole heart into, and this… this was where the dam burst.

"Naiteru kimi koso… kodoku na… kimi koso…"

Iwasawa wasn't just singing to the world now, she was begging. Crying out a passionate message through the screen – and her voice broke through some sort of barrier in Yuri's head, shattering it like glass and freeing everything it was keeping back.

"…tadishii yo… ningenrashii yo…"

She knew this song – Iwasawa – a white-haired girl humming it on the way to graduation – Kanade – Angel – fighting against God – her brothers and sisters, murdered –

"Otoshita namida ga kou iu yo, konna ni mo, utsukushii…"

That was real. That wasn't a dream. But it was a dream, it was just of a memory. And there were so many. Flickering and swirling like the shadows in the classroom – God, it was like someone had dumped a box of puzzle pieces and they were just gushing around inside her head and she was about to short-circuit.

"Uso jo nai…"

It wasn't a lie. They were memories, not just dreams – memories she was still trying to make sense of, and Iwasawa was still singing like she was calling out to the audience, pleading with them, soothing them. But Yuri's heart pounded in her chest as each memory fell into place, and things were only just beginning to make sense, and she felt just a little less crazy about her whole life and déjà vu, but she was far from soothed.

"Hontou no… bokura wo…"

A whole lifetime and an afterlife was seeping back into her mind, people she hadn't thought of in twenty-four years, a whole other world she lingered in for decades, a Guild she blew up, a concert with speakers blaring this very song.

"Arigatou."

It was like she had been woken up from a long, elaborate dream by a bucket of ice cold October rainwater and was remembering the most outrageous party she went to last night. And she still felt hungover. She couldn't bear to listen to another moment of this concert, lest Iwasawa break into a different Girls Dead Monster song that brought back her memories of her life before that one.

She was losing her damn mind, letting all these memories of the Afterlife and her previous life back into her head. She didn't have the capacity to listen any longer. The song had opened a door and let a second life back into her head, and right now her mind was struggling to make room.

It was all Iwasawa's fault. What the hell kind of sorcery was this? How could a song have a power to do this to someone? Damn it, how did she even remember the exact words?

Ugh, she couldn't linger on that. Her head was a bit preoccupied at the moment. The noise had to go. Groggy and grumpy, Yuri reached for the remote on the coffee table, grumbling inwardly to herself.

Was this how Otonashi had felt that day, when…

The thought hadn't entirely finished, but it collided with two other panicked ones when another arm reached out, snatched up the remote, and clicked a button that sent the room into semi-darkness.

When Yuri cautiously turned her head, she came face-to-face with Ayato Naoi.

Only now the name meant two different things entirely.


Preview:

"You…"

"You're the one acting like I just confessed to a murder."

"What did you think we were going to do after this?"

"What exactly are you saying?"

"We wouldn't want a child born out of false love."

"I didn't realize you hated me that much."

"Nakamura, you crazy wench, don't—"

[Chapter 03]: Of Two Minds.