Disclaimer: At chapter 2, Lucky Star still isn't mine. Imagine that.

Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews again, everyone. We love them. Heads up here, a part of this chapter takes place in an online conversation, and is written in chatspeak (it was very, very difficult to actually make myself type like that). I obviously don't know any Japanese chatspeak, and it wouldn't make sense due to this being written in English anyway. I hope it's not too confusing. The dialog is completely back and forth. We also aren't too clear on game terminology, but we did our best so bear with us. Anyway, thanks again to my co-author/Konata and beta. Now enjoy reading the frenzied and not-so-frenzied thoughts of the Konami.

Chapter 2: It's Harder than a Galge.

The rain had eased. Only a hanging drizzle beneath stubbornly darkened clouds remained, sprinkling itself gently over the town of Washimiya. Kagami returned home with her head slightly hung, announcing her arrival as her sister trotted in behind her. After hearing the usual greetings from her family, the tired girl slipped off her shoes, removed her coat and retreated quickly to her room. This wasn't too out of the ordinary. Entrance exams were only a few months away, and Kagami was not one to shirk diligence.

Once in her room, she took a nice, deep breath. Some alone time was definitely what she needed. Already she was starting to feel better after one of Konata's more relentless teasing sessions on the way home. Sighing, Kagami took moment to enjoy the comforting feeling of coming home to a dry, warm place from the cold rain.

She only allowed herself the slightest brevity in the simple pleasure, however, and shortly reached into her bag to pull out all relevant books and documents. Kagami arranged herself properly for her work. She scooted her chair nice and close to her desk and loomed determinedly over her notes, pencil in hand.

A couple of hours should be good enough for today...

Ten minutes passed. A few paragraphs were successfully covered, a few important lines highlighted. Those lines were mentally repeated for the sake of memorization, echoing through the girl's mind...

"I love you..."

Kagami gave a few hard blinks. Had she randomly remembered Konata's antics just now? Weird. Yeah, it was really weird...really weird of her... Kagami recalled Konata's showy movements - the twirl of her long ultramarine hair, the exaggerated sparkle in her emerald eyes, even her voice had seemed silkier as she'd spun around so ridiculously...

"I love you..."

Some more time passed. Kagami's cheek was rested in her palm. A content, almost dreamy smile had settled upon her lips. Her eyes were focused on nothing in particular, and her pencil danced lazily between her fingers. The scene of Konata's silly little misdirected statement began happily replaying itself in the pigtailed girl's mind over and over again. An audible little sigh slipped out of her.

Kagami caught herself this time. She had lost focus. Glancing at the clock, she saw that an additional fifteen minutes had passed...fifteen straight minutes dedicated to daydreaming about an obnoxious little twerp who had spent the afternoon's train ride turning her dignity into a disheveled plaything.

"Ugh, how stupid...she wasn't even talking to me."

Kagami tightened her grip on her pencil, tossed back her hair and got back to work.

Only five minutes passed this time before her thoughts were invaded.

"So if I did this right now..." She recalled the annoyingly suggestive tone Konata had used.

She had really been playing it up this time, hadn't she? Putting her face in so close like that. And in public, too! The vivid image of Konata's large green eyes and tiny cat smile etched itself playfully into Kagami's mind. Her little nose had been warm to the touch. Kagami placed a finger over her own nose, attempting to recall the feeling of Konata's face just barely touching her own...

"It -was- on your mind!"

Kagami violently shook her head, whipping her pigtails from side to side.

"Ah, mou! This isn't the time!" She reprimanded herself. Clenching her pencil, she forced an exaggerated lurch toward her schoolwork. Kagami's vibrant blue eyes fixated themselves with sniper-like intensity to her target. She read on. Realizing that she was at the end of the page, she swiftly turned it. "Focus...focus."

"Hn, Kagamin's so cute"

Kagami's thoughts managed to cause her own heart to skip a beat. She could even feel the heat rising in her face as she still determinedly glared down at her notes, her brows knitting and her mouth quivering. The pencil shook in her hand a little.

No! I won't let her distract me anymore! I have to focus on my studying, damnit! No more thinking about it! No more!

She had been very warm under that umbrella...

No, no, no!

"I love you..."

Knock knock

Tsukasa's small fist gently tapped the frame of Kagami's door. She wore a sheepish smile as she peeked her head through the open crack. In her other hand she held a notebook and pen.

"Oneechan, I was having a bit of trouble with one of the questions in he--"

Tsukasa cut herself short when she got a look at the slightly crazed expression on the face of her older twin, who had whipped her head around at an inhuman speed. As if to accentuate, the pencil in Kagami's left hand snapped in half simultaneously with the turning of her head, its eraser half plunking to the floor. One of Kagami's eyelids twitched, just slightly.

"...b-but I think I'll figure it out myself..." Tsukasa quivered out, the tips of her bow drooping. She ducked back behind the door and disappeared from sight. It was a little too late before Kagami found the wherewithal to try and stop her.

The girl's forehead hit her desk with a soft thump. Strands of lilac hair scattered and settled about the otherwise neatened study materials.

I'm going crazy... She groaned inwardly. One little sentence from her and I'm messed up for the rest of the day? This is pathetic! The girl folded her arms and rested her forehead upon them, still keeping her face buried. "She wasn't even talking to me." She spoke aloud to herself. "She didn't even...even say that to me." She sighed through her nose. So I should just let it go and move on. This is no way that a university student would be behaving. If I'm not careful I'll wind up like her, completely unprepared for next year...

Kagami paused in her thoughts for a moment. Lifting her head from her desk, she leaned against the back of her chair and stared up at the ceiling. Next year...next year she would be a university student. Things were going to be so different. Would she still commute home? She hadn't really thought about that. What were the others planning? Would they be far away? Would she be far from them? Would Konata...?

Briefly, Kagami toyed with the scenario of a new life where she didn't see Konata every day. No lunches together, no copying homework, no weird trips to Akihabara every week or visits at home. No more teasing, no more bizarre anime and game references being inserted into the everyday aspects of her life, no more endless conversations about nothing and everything under the sun.

I would miss her... Kagami mused wistfully. I should try to keep in touch no matter what happens, I guess. She smiled a bit. At least if we go to different schools, she couldn't use copying my answers as her only excuse to hang out anymore. There was still no way Konata would be diligent with a University lifestyle, though. Kagami knew that. Where a responsible person like herself carefully placed all of her priorities in the correct order, Konata's priority was always to have fun. She was always off in another world. Such a pain. But I guess that's one reason why I love her.

Kagami broke from her pondering and instantly sat up straight. Her face was rigid. She had made herself blush again. Her hands were partially lifted, as if she were planning to touch them to her cheeks but had not quite followed through.

I did NOT just think that! I...I need to get back to work! The frazzled girl scrambled back to her papers and snatched up her pencil. Of course, it took her a couple of seconds to realize that her pencil was nothing more than a splintered stub now. Sighing, she went to dig for a new one.


The door to Konata's room shut with a soft tap. The small girl stretched lazily, then went about changing from her uniform. From the train station to her room, a pleased little smile had failed to fade from her catlike mouth.

"Mission complete." She mumbled happily to herself, pulling out the chair at her computer desk and booting up. A few familiar clicks and keystrokes later, Konata was successfully logged onto the game of -000000-. Not even a second had passed before a message popped up on her screen. It was her dear wife. The room filled with the soft but vigorous sound of clacking keys.

"hey"

"hey, whats up?"

"not much, where u been?"

"stayed a lil late cuz of rain"

"leveling up's not the same w/o u dearest lol"

"lol thx. i was tryin to IRL level up"

"whut again?"

"yea, exp really paying off. im getting closer"

"u been at it a long tiem. why's it taking so long for ur 'good end' honey? lol"

"IRL is harder than a galge"

"i guess i wouldn't know LOL"

"but i think i triggered a flag today"

"o yeah? think ur gonna get her luv meter high enough before the final day?"

"sorta. u cant expect a tsundere like this 1 to confess like in the galge"

"sure wasn't this hard for u to win me over lol"

"lol yea"

"once u succeed r u gonna be around less?"

"lol u jealous?"

"well u r technically cheatin on me"

"arnt u married to 5 other ppl?"

"baby thats all on different characters, don't take it hard"

"lol ur such a slut"

"ur no better dear lol"

"haha. hey im bored honey. Lets go raid that party from yesterday k?"

"sounds good"

Konata's conversation idled into occasional tactical comments as she and her wife began victimizing a rouge group that had been harassing some newbies the other day. It was an errand of justice.

There was a small knock on the door, but the blue-haired gamer couldn't answer. It was hard to get up in the middle of a big fight, especially with others relying on her. So instead she called, "Come in."

Yutaka's head poked into the room.

"Oneechan, the phone is for you."

"Kay."

Tick tappa ticka tap, the keyboard gave a more enthused response than the girl.

Yutaka smiled uneasily and tilted her small head to the side, sweatdropping. "...sh-should I bring it in to you then?"

"Yup." Konata nodded slightly, but only a careful eye would have noticed.

Yutaka stepped inside. She was curious about what her older cousin was doing online that was so captivating, but experience had taught her that taking a quick peek at Konata's monitor wasn't always a good idea. Keeping her eyes away from the screen, she handed the cordless phone over.

"Here, Oneechan."

"Thanks," Konata muttered, taking the phone and wedging it between her shoulder and cheek. "Hello?"

Tsukasa's cheerful voice answered on the other end. "Ah, Kona-chan!"

"Oo, Tsukasa. What's up?"

"Oh, well...you know how entrance exams are in a few months? Well um...Oneechan's been really nervous about her studying lately, which kinda got me a little nervous about it, but I don't wanna study alone..."

Tsukasa hesitated a bit before finishing her request. "Ah...I wanted to know if you'd like to come over this weekend for some studying. We could do a late-night session and have a sleepover, maybe? I'd bake cookies..."

Konata sat up straighter and answered enthusiastically. "Oh, yeah! Kagamin did her homework already too, right?"

"Uh...I'm pretty sure she did." Konata could almost hear Tsukasa's tentative little smile in her voice. "I would ask Oneechan if she'd study with me alone, but she's been a little scary lately..."

"Scarier than usual?"

Tsukasa gave a nervous chuckle, too embarrassed to answer the inappropriate question. "K-Kona-chan..."

Hnnn, scary-nervous Kagamin is something I've got to see... Konata thought wryly.

"Sure Tsukasa. Let's totally work hard together this weekend." The girl's lazy tone of voice naturally contradicted her statement completely, but Tsukasa's voice perked up nonetheless.

"So we'll see you Saturday after school?"

"Nn. Sounds good."

"Thank you! Good night, Kona-chan!" Tsukasa hung up.

Konata put the phone down and sat there for a moment. She was actually idling on the game a little.

"...An opening..."

Footnotes: Not -quite- sure when chapter 3 is coming out, but you can be sure that it'll be buckets of fun. Oh yeah, we had a very random talk about which Star Wars characters the Lucky Star characters would do best as (and I don't even like Star Wars all that much). We decided that Konata would be Han Solo, her dad would be Chewbacca and Kagami would be Princess Leia. Who would be Luke Skywalker? I wonder.

Next Time: This is Kagami. You know what it's like when you submit a fanfiction online and you're like, super excited to see the results? You wait a little bit and then check your stats, and you see you've got over 50 hits! Score! Then you check your reviews and you see that there's only one. You're like, "What's going on? Only 1 out of 50 people wrote something about it? What gives?" Then you log into your email and refresh over and over again until you finally get another one, and all they say is something like "it's cool", and even though that's really lame you're still SO happy that someone else wrote something about your stuff! Isn't it sad??

Next Chapter: Awkward Arrangements. Otanoshimi ni!