A little over two weeks passed since the anniversary of Konata and Kagami. July was slowly nearing its end and summer break was already around the corner, starting in August.

As always, Kagami was at Konata's place and today seemed rather promising for the two. Sojiro had just left the house a couple minutes ago, and Yutaka was still at Minami's place. In short, they had the house all to them alone. Obviously, both directly used this rare chance, and the only thing the two left behind in Konata's room were their clothes before leaving for the bathroom to take a shower. They came back to Konata's room a not further mentioned while later and stopped in front of the bed. Konata gazed into Kagami's eyes who did the same before she gently pushed her down on the bed and immediately climbed on top of her. Kagami kissed her on the lips a few times before she slowly moved to the side and started playfully nibbling on Konata's earlobe. She was about to return Kagami's favor by going on the offense as well, but something very unfortunate happened at the exact same moment at the entrance of the house.

"Konata-oneechan, I'm home~."

"…" The two heard a cheerful sound coming from downstairs and immediately froze up. All the vigor from earlier seemed like a complete lie.

"… Seriously?!" Kagami was the first to react to the voice and seemed really angry about it.

"Looks like it…" Konata, as well, was far from being happy.

"Haa…" She let out a strained and annoyed sigh, and the two let go of each other before getting dressed in record time again. Sadly, they already had a lot of training when it comes to hastily getting dressed after being interrupted. Although, something was different from the other times now. Normally, they would've pretended that nothing happened by reading a manga or light novel in the room while waiting for the 'interrupter' to greet them, but today, Kagami didn't feel like doing so. Instead, she looked rather dangerous, and Konata instantly had a bad feeling about it.

"Kagamin~…" She tried to say something, but it was too late already.

"…" Without saying a single word, Kagami stood up from the bed and, unable to be stopped, left the room.

A couple minutes passed and a Yutaka was being pushed into Konata's room by a very forceful looking Kagami. She made Yutaka sit down at the table and sat down at the other side herself before inviting Konata to join them with her eyes only. Konata let out a defeated sigh and then took place right next to Kagami.

"Ehm… W-What's going on?" Yutaka had question marks floating above her head because she had no idea why Kagami had suddenly abducted her, or why she was facing the couple in Konata's room at the moment. She looked at Konata for answers, but she stayed silent while averting her eyes. It was Kagami's after all. Kagami also noticed that, and after rolling her eyes at the wimpiness of her partner, she focused her gaze on Yutaka who just became even more confused in return.

"Well…" Kagami thought about the right words and suddenly boxed Konata's shoulder without much force behind it. "The wimp here and I have something to talk about with you, Yutaka."

"Hey…" Konata weakly protested for a second but was splendidly ignored.

"Oh, what is it?"

"The thing is… Kona and I have been hiding something from you that we really shouldn't have until now…"

"Eh…?" Two more question marks joined the pack as she tilted her head a little.

"Kona and I aren't… friends."

"W-What?!" Yutaka wasn't expecting that and looked beyond shocked.

"Ah, no, wait…" She realized the mistake of her wording. "Let me rephrase that… We aren't just friends, is what I wanted to say. There's more to it that we haven't told you yet…"

"Oh, I see~… Don't scare me like that, Kagami-senpai… Hmm…?" Yutaka looked relieved for a moment, but then started thinking about something and then made a guess about the situation. "Ah, so you two are a couple after all, huh?" Completely without any warning, she dropped a bomb on them.

"Ye-… Eh…?" Kagami's eyes grew big as she became somewhat speechless from the shock of the completely unexpected statement. Konata's reaction was even much more extreme. Kagami poked her side a few times, but there was no reaction whatsoever because she had completely frozen up.

"Ehm… W-Was I wrong…?" Yutaka started to panic because she didn't understand the reaction of the two.

"N-No…" Contrary to Konata who was still completely out of it, Kagami had recovered relatively fast and was able to answer her. "You're right, that's exactly what I meant…"

"Oh, so it really was like that~. So many things are making sense now."

"That's true… H-Huh?! Wait, what?"

"The behavior of you two was always so confusing because it never felt like you two were just friends…"

"Ahaha, yeah, we're hearing that a lot, we were never good at hiding it."

"I can see that now. You know, I was really troubled because of that, Kagami-senpai… I wanted to be as good friends with Minami-chan as you and Konata-oneechan are, but something really felt off all the time."

"Come on, I already admitted that we're bad at hiding it, but I really don't think we're that much of a bad example on how friends interact with each other…."

"Uh…" Yutaka wasn't sure how to answer at first, but she then started a short recap of a few selected things she witnessed about the couple. "I think the first time I noticed that something was different when Konata-oneechan introduced me to you and gave the tour of the house…"

"T-The very first day we met?!" Kagami didn't expect to be under suspicion that early.

"I didn't know what it was back then, but… Well, your clothes were scattered all over the house, and I realized just now that it was obvious that you two were sharing a bed…"

"Uhh…"

"There's also how cuddly you two always are, or how often you are here, especially in the morning of weekdays, or how you usually take your baths together… Oh, or how you and Konata-oneechan often kiss as a goodbye when you actually do leave, Kagami-senpai…"

"I-I see… I guess that could raise a few questions… Wait! What was that at the end there, Yutaka?!"

"The kissing? You know this house better than I do, don't, you Kagami-senpai?"

"I-I suppose so?"

"Then you should also know that you have a really good view of the entrance from the kitchen, right?"

"Yeah, you can stop there… I get it… A-Anyway, why didn't you say anything, Yutaka?"

"About what?" She didn't understand Kagami's question. "By the way, what are you telling me about your relationship now?"

"Ah, oh, w-well…" Kagami began to hesitate because the topic wasn't exactly easy. "Y-You see, Kona and I are kind of having a problem ever since you moved in here, Yutaka…"

"Eh…? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, it's not really your fault. You know that Sojiro has to leave the house pretty often because of his work, right? Thanks to that, Kona and I had a lot of time for us alone, but ever since you're also here, Yutaka, we basically have no freedom at all anymore… With that, I mean, having no chance to be more… intimate…" She kept it somewhat ambiguous because it suddenly was way more embarrassing that she initially thought, but it only got worse.

"Hmm…? O-Oh…" Yutaka looked around in Konata's room and immediately turned red. Kagami and Konata's ability to get dressed in record time after almost getting caught actually had a very easy explanation because they had a trick for it. Yutaka's eyes stopped at the area next to the bed, and she was able to connect the dots between Kagami's complaints about being unable to be intimate and her person by the fact that she was currently looking at two sets of underwear. "I-I'm so sorry, Kagami-senpai!" She started apologizing with a bright red face. "I-I had no idea!"

"N-No, like I said, it's not really your fault, you don't have to apologize..." Kagami felt really bad about Yutaka apologizing for them being unable to have fun.

"O-Okay… But, is there anything I can help with? After all, it maybe isn't my fault, but I'm, more or less, still the problem, aren't I?"

"Well, if possible, it would be great if you could leave the house more often when Sojiro's out as well. You know, having a better timing when visiting Minami, or Hiyori as well."

"Oh, sure, that shouldn't be a problem. I'll just pay more attention when he's gone now." Without any more questions asked, she directly agreed to the request.

"Thank you very much, Yutaka, it'll help us a lot." Kagami was really relieved and happy that they'll be able to spend some uninterrupted quality time in the future again.

"You're welcome… By the way…" Yutaka changed the topic and pointed at Konata. "Shouldn't we… do something about her?"

"Hmm?" Kagami looked straight into Konata's eyes that lost its shine a while ago but just shrugged her shoulders. "Nah, she's fine~. It happens from time to time when she isn't able to follow the situation anymore. She'll be back to normal soon enough."

"Okay… If you say so…" Yutaka simply believed her, and the two kept talking about various things for a couple minutes. Just as predicted by her, Konata started to show signs of life after a while again.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…" She repeated herself more than just a few times. "W-What is going on here? W-What just happened? I'm dreaming, right? My cute little Yu-chan…" She went from shock right into panicking.

"What's wrong, Konata-oneechan?" She innocently asked while cutely tilting her head to the side.

"W-Where do I even start…?"

"About what?"

"Why is your reaction so light, Yu-chan? Why don't you have any questions? Aren't you embarrassed talking so openly about it? Aren't you surprised that I'm dating a girl? Who are you? Don't you have anything against it or don't even have a comment? Why, or how did you even come to the conclusion that we're a couple?!" It looked like Konata was still conscious about her surroundings when she froze up earlier. Kagami and Yutaka just looked at her for a while until the barrage of question ended and let her calm down a bit afterward.

"Uhm…" Yutaka wasn't sure what to answer first. "You see, I recently found out the pen name Hiyori-chan uses for her manga…"

"W-What?!" An unexpected answer came out.

"After that, I became really interested and tried looking it up on the internet…"

"Oh-oh…" Konata once more had a bad feeling.

"I actually found a couple of her older works and… and I won't easily be surprised ever again…"

"Y-Yu-chan, what exactly did you see?" Konata's bad feeling only got stronger.

"E-Ehm…" Yutaka suddenly began to furiously blush, and a cloud of steam erupted above her head.

"Au…" Konata's face also turned red, and she hid it behind her hands, but the reason for it was different. She simply wanted to die in shame. "D-Does Hiyorin know about that?" There was another girl who probably wants to die because of that as well after all.

"No, I haven't told her yet, why?"

"Good… She surely is going to have a heart attack…"

"Anyway…" Kagami wanted to bring the conversation to the initial topic again. "What do you think about it, Yutaka?"

"About what?" She didn't understand her question.

"I mean about Kona and me…"

"Yes…" She was still confused.

"More precisely, two girls dating and stuff…"

"Hmm? Is there something wrong with that?" Yutaka was completely oblivious and had no idea what Kagami's intention was.

"N-No, there's obviously no problem at all, but… Wow, I'm really impressed how open minded you are, Yutaka, and really happy about that."

"Open minded? Why?" Yutaka continued to fail to see what Kagami was trying to say.

"You really have no idea?"

"?" She only tilted her head again.

"You see, two girls dating, or boys, isn't really that common and often seen as something… bad…"

"Eh? Really? Well, I think I haven't seen it in public now that you mention it, but… in Hiyori-chan's manga, it seemed perfectly normal and fine…"

"Well, it's fiction, and that's often different from the real world. In our society, same sex couples are often looked down on by a fraction of them because they can't accept them and…" Kagami continued to explain Yutaka how a certain part of society sees them and with every mentioned detail, Yutaka looked more and more confused.

"Wait a moment, Kagami-senpai… Is that really true? Why are there so many idiots out there? Is this planet still okay?"

"Ahaha~, that's a very good question." It was something the couple had asked themselves as well already. "Well, our group of friends and family are very tolerant and supporting, and so, we actually can't complain that much. To be honest, we really don't care about anyone else we don't know. Sure, we obviously would be really happy if the discrimination was completely gone, but I guess you know what I mean…"

"Yeah… In the first place, I really don't get their problem at all." Yutaka failed to see the nonexistent issue. "I'm totally fine with it, that's for sure."

"Thank you very much, Yutaka."

"Yeah, thanks, Yu-chan."

"Well, it's easy to see how happy you two are, especially Konata-oneechan, compared to two or so years ago. There's no way I couldn't support it even if I would understand the problem…"

"T-There's no need to mention the past here, Yu-chan~." Konata simply wanted to forget about that.

"Ehehe~." Yutaka chuckled a little when she saw Konata pouting, but she was quickly silenced by her. Konata left her place, walked up to her and started hugging Yutaka out of nowhere who quickly returned it without knowing why.

"Really, thank you, Yu-chan. I'm so proud of you…" Konata never really thought that Yutaka's going to be a problem, but it's still relieving to see that it's actually true. Furthermore, knowing just how much she didn't care about it and even didn't understand the problem was amazing and admirable in her eyes. She just had to hug her. Kagami watched them with warm eyes, but Konata suddenly grabbed her hand and dragged her into the hug. She didn't hesitate and gladly let it happen. The three stayed in the embrace for a while and the couple felt incredibly blessed by their supporting environment. They parted soon enough and sat down at the table once they were back to normal again.

…

"More importantly…" Yutaka changed the topic after they went quiet for a while. "Have you two already planned something for summer break?"

"…" Konata and Kagami just looked at each other before they started laughing. "Ahaha, 'more importantly', she says… You're really great, Yu-chan."

"Absolutely…" Kagami also liked how the plans for the summer were more important than their relationship that differs a little from the norm. "I think we're free for most of the time because we haven't really planned anything. Why are you asking, Yutaka?"

"Do you have plans, Yu-chan?"

"Yes~." Yutaka happily started talking about the summer plans of her group. "Minami-chan's family owns a forest cottage at a scenic place near a lake, and they said we could use it for a couple days if we wanted to."

"Heh~? How nice…" Konata clearly sounded envious.

"Stupid rich people… First Miyuki and now Minami as well… That place where they're living really is loaded, huh?" Kagami openly complained, but it was more than obvious that she was jealous as well.

"Do you two want to come with us?" Yutaka invited them to go together.

"Well, I would happily agree, but we would feel bad to intrude on your trip…"

"That's no problem at all. Miyuki-senpai is coming with us anyway because Minami-chan's parents only allowed us to go when she's looking after us, and Tsukasa-senpai also sounded really eager to go when we asked the two at Miyuki-senpai's place earlier. That's why we decided to invite all of the senpai group anyway. It's also more fun if the group is bigger, isn't it?"

"Really? If that's how it is, we obviously accept, right, Kagamin~?"

"Sure, sounds good after all."

"Great!" Yutaka was happy that they agreed and afterward started talking about the details of the trip. Once the most important things were clarified, Yutaka wanted to leave the couple alone and was about to exit the room when Konata suddenly stopped her again.

"Ah, Yu-chan, about what we talked earlier… About Kagamin~ and me, please try to keep it to yourself, okay?"

"Sure."

"I don't really mind if you tell Minami about it, I actually think she's already suspicious, but, well, no one else, okay?"

"Okay."

"Especially not Hiyorin."

"Why not? I don't think she would say anything bad."

"Nono, I just don't want you to be alone with her when she finds out, that's all." Konata has no idea what's going to happen once Hiyori finds out that she and Kagami actually are a couple and weren't simply teasing her. She only knew that it's probably going to be dangerous for Yutaka alone.

"Oh, I see…?" Once the topic was over, Yutaka finally left Konata's room, and the couple were alone again.

"Well, that talk was easy~."

"…" Kagami just looked at Konata in disbelief at what she just said and sighed. "Shut up, idiot."

.

And here's another short(er) chapter. It was a random idea that floated through my head and didn't really fit in the next chapter because it's going to be too much again. It does work pretty well as a prelude to the summer break chapter, though.

Poor Konata, she really is useless sometimes when it comes to things she didn't expect. Just like everyone else in this story, Yutaka also has a hidden side to her. She may be naïve and pure on the surface, but she really isn't as innocent as Konata thought she is.

(Not so) Fun fact: This chapter completely happened on a whim while I was enjoying my break. I haven't even started the summer break chapter, and I have absolutely no idea when it's going to happen, much less when it's finished. The only thing I know at the moment is that Hiyori is going to suffer a lot of damage. Mainly mentally… Besides maybe the blood loss from her nose, that is...