The finale! Unless you'd like to choose otherwise. In any case, tell me. I am not the owner of Azumanga Daioh.
Chapter 9, "Summer High, Pt. 2; And the Winner Is...!".
"What are you doing here?" Tomo asked, suspicious of the circumstances.
"Hey! I asked first!" Yomi replied blatantly, shaking her head.
"Can't I have a little privacy? I'm getting tired of you popping in every other night!" the spastic girl became riled, not the best thing in the world to do; not to mention the statement fueled Kagura's curiosity as well.
"She's here that often?" the visitor asked, now worrying about what kinds of...things Yomi might have been doing.
"Yeah, she always comes over and bothers me now." Tomo explained while winding up her arm.
"You of all people, Tomo, don't have the right to say that! And anyway, what's she doing here?" the intruder inquired, turning her attention to Kagura.
"I'm allowed to have friends over! In fact, maybe I had reasons for having her over tonight." Her admirer answered, causing her to flinch. Her eyes narrowing, she looked from Kagura to Tomo, then back to Kagura.
"Is that so? Well...why didn't you invite me?" she blurted, her feelings hurt now.
"Well, for one thing-"Tomo began, but then stopped and thought for a moment. "Hey...wait a minute! You're getting mad because I won't spend time with you, and yet we're going to be together all day tomorrow at the amusement park! What the hell?" she realized, and pointed a finger at Yomi, who hopped into the room.
"I...hey, we are, aren't we? I almost forgot!" she remembered, and put a hand behind her head in embarrassment.
"Jeez, pretty bad for someone who's got a...crush on me...HEY! I meant t-to talk to you a-a-about that!" Tomo began stammering, and Yomi shot her head up in shock.
"WH-WHAT? Kagura, d-did you tell her about that? You j-jerk!" Yomi sputtered, shaking her fists at the other girl.
"I d-didn't tell her! It was pretty o-obvious from the start! Anyway, she's picked me, s-so lay off!" Kagura retorted. Yomi's mouth and eyes twitched for a second, before she erupted.
"WHAT! T-Tomo...Tomo, tell me she's kidding...!" she pleaded, a number of emotions plying across her face. As much as she'd like to shout a string of expletives at the moment, she would hear it out before making her decision.
"Yeah, she is!" Tomo agreed, and Kagura through a look in her decision.
"W-what? But I-I thought...today...oh, I understand." She resolved as her face became shadowed, and her fist began trembling.
"U-understand what?" her crush wondered aloud, watching the girl cautiously.
"That...that you were just screwing with my emotions!" she yelled, bringing her fist up. She subsequently slammed it down on top of Tomo's head, rendering the other girl quite dazed before she fled, tears flooding her eyes.
"K-Kagura, wait!" Tomo called, trying to get her bearings, before being stopped...by Yomi.
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That night was restless for the athlete. Her feelings were torn between satisfaction that she hadn't picked Yomi...yet, and then anger because Tomo had led her on for so long.
'What the hell would she do that for? I-I should've known b-better! I mean, jeez, she's Tomo for crying out loud. It's just like her, to mess with how I feel about her...I'm already confused enough about it, and now she's taking advantage of it to antagonize me! Well, I c-can play that game too...she'll get hers soon enough.' She decided, and attempted to get some sleep.
It didn't come easy, and even then she was plagued with confusion, anxiety, and almost every negative emotion a human could feel. After a night of tossing and turning, she woke up in the morning in a very uncomfortable position: on the floor, face-down.
"Ugh...man, I'd probably have been better off staying up all night...hey, I've gotta bone to pick with them! Tomo Takino will regret having screwed with me!" she raised a fist into the air, and as a result pain lanced through her arm from the position she was in relative to her action. She had already gotten ready for school, and was about to head out the door when... "Wait, what am I doing? It's Sunday!" she realized, returning to her room.
After more getting ready, she headed for the amusement park. "She'll regret messing with me!" she vowed, and hurried along. At about the same time, Tomo was awoken from a rather stressed sleep by her alarm clock. "Wha...oh, it's still early. There was something I wanted to do...ah! Kagura! I wanted to set her straight about what happened last night!" she decided quickly, and made to jump out of her bed.
She was stopped when she realized a rather powerful foreign object was wrapped around her waist. Looking down, she was torn between shock and amusement; a pair of arms. Knowing full well who it was, she attempted to pry them from her body, only to have them tighten their embrace. Turning her head, she looked straight at Yomi, who was still blissfully asleep.
'I don't wanna let anyone see us like this, but...but I don't want to end i-it...do I really l-l-love her?' she questioned mentally as she made a note in her mind to have Yomi agree not to mention this, especially around Kagura. Slowly wriggling out of the unexpectedly powerful position, she got ready for their date...and Tomo was confused as to why she'd considered it a date without even thinking about it.
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When she got to Kagura's house, Tomo was confounded to find that the other girl had left already. "Damnit! She's probably still brooding over it...which means she's still mad at me..." the thought sent a pang of guilt through her heart, and she suddenly felt as if it were all her fault. "I need to find out where that idiot went! Knowing her, she's gonna spill her heart out to one of the others if I don't fix it soon." Her instincts were voiced aloud, and she stormed off to check places she believed her admirer might go to.
Yomi awoke to find herself in her friend's bed. "I stayed over last night? And...whoa, what happened to my arms? They're positioned like I was...oh, no!" she remembered that last night, half asleep, she'd wrapped her arms around Tomo's waist. "She's probably pissed at me, otherwise she'd have woken me up!" the signs told her, though in fact Tomo had let her sleep because she wouldn't wake up.
Getting ready quickly, she left via window to avoid suspicion, which actually did the opposite. Afterwards, she too checked Kagura's house, only to find that she had left and Tomo had already been and gone. "What is this, some kind of game?" she asked no one in particular as she hunted the pair down.
Kagura found solace in Sakaki, who invited her in after she found the worn-out girl on her street. After receiving an explanation of the events leading up to their meeting, Sakaki mulled over it with more interest than she expected. "Are you sure that's what's really going on, though?" she finally asked to a bewildered Kagura.
"Well, duh! I just got through explaining it!" she shot back, then looked away.
"It sounds like you overreacted a bit. Maybe you should talk to her about it, and sort everything out." The more stable of the two suggested.
"Well...I was trying to figure...and then she...I think you're right, I do need to talk with her. But after that, Yomi's gotta have her wrapped around her finger by now." Kagura broke down, sighing and throwing her head back.
"Presumptuous, aren't we? I'm sure she's feeling as bad about it as you are, Kagura. I'll help you, if you want." Sakaki offered. Kagura shifted and looked over to her. "Thanks, Sakaki." She accepted warmly.
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"Agh! I can't find her anywhere! Why does she have to do dumb things like this all the time?" Tomo stopped her search for a moment, and let out an exasperated sigh. She moved to continue, but felt a snag as something held her back. "Yomi..." she snorted, and she was correct.
"I thought we were going out today?" the taller girl looked hopeful, but she knew that Tomo had principles, and the spastic girl held tight to them.
"Yomi, I...tomorrow? Please?" she wearily requested. Although she wanted to protest, Yomi succumbed to the pleading look on her friend's face, and sighed.
"Alright...well, uh...see, there's-"she began, but Tomo finished for her, "-something that's been going on between you two. Care to explain?" the petite girl implied, and Yomi gave her a long, detailed explanation. When she finished, Tomo stared at her, mouth agape.
"JEEZ! I...I-I didn't r-realize that this was...so out of hand. You should've told me before, idiot!" she began her habit of launching insults, and Yomi took up soon after.
"It was obvious from the start! You're the one who's too dense to see it!" she argued. After an intense session of flaunting an unnecessary amount of vocabulary, they began to look together. They checked her house again, their friends' houses, and were left with one more logical solution; Sakaki.
"Wait outside!" Tomo commanded, walking from the now-taken aback Yomi. Knocking on the door, she was greeted by Sakaki.
"See, I told you she'd come looking for you." She said to someone Tomo couldn't see, and then moved to reveal the sulking girl.
"Kagura! It's about freaking time, I had to look everywhere for you!" she informed her.
"Y-you actually went to look for me?" Kagura repeated, almost unbelieving of it.
"Of course! I do have standards, ya'know!" her hyper crush replied. At that, Kagura couldn't feel mad for some reason. Instead, she only stood up and walked over to stand by her. And after that, she proceeded to beat the girl up quite fiercely.
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And so the two returned to Kagura's after bidding a time-consuming farewell to Yomi. After exchanging their thoughts on the subject they settled down for the night. Tomo was surprised at how similar Kagura's room was; it had the simple things, a bed, a desk, and a t.v...humble in her opinion, but then, that's what she liked about Kagura. And she realized for the first time that she was often thinking about the other girl.
'Well...oh, screw it! I don't care about it anymore, I know how I feel now!' she told herself. As she sat down next to Kagura, she took the athlete's hand. She noted how the other girl was noticeably stronger.
"W-what is it, Tomo?" Kagura asked, half wondering if it was under the circumstances she had surmised the previous night.
"Kagura, you...you've got stronger feelings than a crush, don't you?" her guest began.
"H-huh? Wha d-do you mean?" she inquired. She turned to her, and she was surprised to see a bright blush on her cheeks.
"You c-care a-about me, right?" she continued.
"O-of course I do! I...I have to say this! I love you!" Kagura confessed to her.
Tomo blushed even deeper. "I thought so...I'm still not a hundred percent sure, but..." she admitted, but she was pretty close. The last of her defenses broke away when she looked at Kagura; the other girl's face held joy, relief, and hope.
Deciding it was finally time to find out, Kagura moved her arms and hugged Tomo tightly, to show her that she supported her feelings. At that, Tomo realized the feelings were mutual, and returned the embrace. When they parted, Kagura made her final decision. Slowly, cautiously, she placed her hands on Tomo's shoulders.
When the other girl didn't protest, she made her feelings known: she leaned in and placed an awkward, inexperienced kiss on her lips. Both of them reveled in the feeling, and it was a full few minutes before they parted and gasped for air.
"W-wow...so...y-you love me too?" Kagura finally asked, sorting it out.
"Well, I just let you have my first kiss, so I s-should think so!" her new girlfriend replied. All of her new emotions welling up at once, Kagura threw herself into Tomo's embrace, both of them losing their balance and falling back onto the bed. Sighing in content, Kagura rested her head in the crook of the other girl's neck.
While she was eager to find out how far Tomo would let her explore, she didn't want a full-blown trial-and-error scenario, so she was content to snuggle in her companion's embrace. Unfortunately, their happiness together almost assuredly wouldn't be able to mask the unavoidable conflict with Yomi.
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End of Chapter 9.
I've decided that this is only the beginning! More will be up soon, and I'll try to update "The Genius Bubblehead" as soon as possible! R&R!