Part 7

"I'm so sorry!"

Mio took a step back as Ritsu greeted her with an apology at the door. The girl bowed and almost hit the bassist on the way down.

Blinking in surprise, the black haired girl could barely get a sound out as she stood there, frozen in shock. "T-that…should be my line…" Mio blinked again, wondering why Ritsu beat her to it.

Straightening her back, Ritsu stood up and faced Mio. Only then did Mio notice a large piece of gauze wrapped around the right side of her friend's forehead. "Ritsu, what happened!?" Instinctively, the taller girl reached out, but she retracted her hand at the last minute, feeling overly conscious of her actions.

"Oh, this? Haha…it's a stupid story…I'll tell you after you come inside. It's kinda chilly out here…" Ritsu shivered, her legs still exposed to the crisp air. Even though the girl was sentenced to bed rest, she always did love to wear next to nothing after a hot bath.

Mio could tell that the girl had just taken a bath because the ends of her hair were still damp, her skin still flushed a light pink.

Ritsu closed the door after Mio, dashing back to the stairs as she waited for her guest to take her shoes off. As the brunette breezed past the bassist, she caught an overwhelming whiff of Ritsu's shampoo, a fragrance that had become one of her favorites over time.

"My mom's not going to be home until later. She got called into the office to deal with something." Standing by the stairs, Ritsu made idle chatter as she watched Mio gracefully slip her loafers off.

"Oh. Then how about dinner? Did she leave you something to reheat?" Mio placed her shoes by the side, following Ritsu up the stairs as the girl led the way.

"Yup, she did. I told her you were coming over and she made some extra for you, so…stay for a bit?" Ritsu trailed off at the end.

"Sure." Mio smiled, glad that everything was off to a good start, but she felt the dread settle in her stomach as she thought about what she planned to tell Ritsu today.

The two girls entered Ritsu's small room and they sat opposite each other at the small coffee table, silent for a moment.

"So…what happened to your head, Ritsu?" Mio found this a good a time as any to fill up the silence. She didn't really want delve into the serious stuff yet.

"Well, the funny thing is that I slipped and fell in the bath the day I faked my sickness. There was blood and stuff everywhere. I wouldn't have gotten to skip school that day if I didn't beg my mom to stay home! She almost didn't believe me, but since I looked like such a mess from all the crying after...after..." Ritsu suddenly stopped, looking for the words, but she couldn't seem to figure out how to say it.

Mio cringed at the pause, feeling that her harsh words were probably the cause of this whole mess.

An awkwardness filled the room neither one of them knew what to say.

"Mio, I'm sorry." Ritsu suddenly broke the silence as she blurted out the same lines she said earlier. She had her head down, her hands clenching fistfuls of her shorts. "I'm so sorry. Can we just go back to the way we were before?"

"What are you apologizing for?" Mio's mind was a jumble of thoughts, the scene not going the way she expected.

"I'm just sorry for making things so awkward. I never should have said those things in the music room. I never should have kissed you. I never should have said that I was in love with you!" Ritsu was almost shouting at the end of her sentence, her voice trembling.

"Ritsu…" The bassist clenched her teeth together, feeling the tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. "Do you really wish that?"

"I miss my best friend, Mio…I miss being able to talk to you normally about things. I hate that you're uncomfortable and I hate that all of this means nothing to you. I've been in love with you for so long. You don't even know…" Ritsu could barely stifle her emotions as the waterworks started.

As Ritsu sobbed into her hands, Mio felt her heart break at the sight. She wanted to fix things, she wanted to things to be normal. She just wanted Ritsu to understand.

"T-Then you should have told me earlier! If you knew you were in love with me, you should have told me…you should have told me!" Mio was half standing now, slamming her hands down on the small table between them. Hot and angry tears streamed down her face and the girl was just overwhelmed with thoughts of her past love.

"Y-you say things like it'd be so easy! It's not, Mio. I told you and now we're just a mess." Ritsu's tears were starting to subside and she was starting to get annoyed. Her childhood friend was spouting nonsense now. Why was she the angry one?

"Like I said, Ritsu…If you were so sure...if only you had told me earlier…" Mio was quiet for a second, seething over what could have been. "That time when you were jealous about Nodoka, I thought you had feelings for me, but you just said we were just friends. I didn't know how you felt about me after that." Mio could still remember what had happened after that fiasco. They were so close, she could even hear the words on the tip of Ritsu's tongue, but the girl didn't have the guts to say it.

"You keep saying earlier, earlier, but what difference does it make? Now or earlier, things would have ended up the same way. You don't feel the same way I do!"

"How do you know that for sure?"

"It's because I know you were going out with Sokabe-sempai!" Ritsu choked out the words, biting her lower lip. The drummer struggled to meet Mio's eyes and she could see the shock register on the other girl's face.

"H-how…did you know about that? I didn't tell anyone about it." Mio swallowed hard, wondering if those secret rendezvous at school weren't so secret after all.

Ritsu paused, sighing. She had furrowed her brows as she struggled to keep her composure. The drummer forced a smile, but it was a sad smile. "You think I wouldn't know about something like that? We've been friends for how long now, Mio? I'm your best friend. I know you better than anyone. I knew you wanted to keep it a secret."

"I…" Mio was speechless.

"Why did you go out with her anyway? Did you fall in love with the president of your fan club n the end?" Ritsu could feel the green-eyed monster rear its head, the thought of Mio being with someone else made her blood boil. "At her graduation, you seemed really down. Is that when you broke up?"

"It…it was complicated. I may have gotten attached to her, but it wasn't like I really…liked her that way or anything." Mio had an unreadable expression on her face.

"Then why would you go out with someone you didn't have feelings for in the first place?"

"It was because she knew how to say the right things to comfort me. It was after the whole Nodoka incident that she started talking to me. I ran into her one day after school…and we got to talking. It became sort of a habit for us then to…spend time together." Mio's eyes glazed over as she remembered the quiet days she would spend time in the student council office just doing homework or talking with her upperclassman. "We were good friends."

"Then…why?" Ritsu was confused, wondering when Mio had the time to get to know Sokabe Megumi. It wasn't like they walked home together every day, but they were always busy with the light music club and they all ate lunch together.

"I respected her and I admired her. She was beautiful, smart, hard-working and everything I wanted to be, but I just didn't feel that way towards her…But I knew she liked me. She was in love with me." Mio stared off into space, fidgeting with her fingers. She said it with so much conviction that Ritsu recoiled from the tone in Mio's voice.

"You went out with her just because of that?" Ritsu was shocked.

"No. I went out with her because she convinced me that in an all girls' school, romantic relationships were mistaken. She led me to believe that my feelings for my best friend wouldn't amount to anything, that you would never be able to return my feelings anyway. She convinced me to go out with her because she said she was different from everyone else." Mio stared down at the table as she heard her own words leave her mouth.

The realization of things hurt. It seemed that from the very beginning, she did think of Ritsu in a romantic way.

"Mio..." Ritsu shook her head with disgust, feeling her heart ache as she realized how dense she had been.

"Her parents walked in on us once when I was over at her house and things were over from that day on. They pushed her to get married after she finished university and set her up for marriage meetings. I knew she loved me, but it wasn't like she could give up her family for me." Mio felt her chest tighten as she remembered all the things Sokabe had said to convince her parents that it was all a joke, a stupid phase in her adolescent life. "I think that maybe in the end, I loved her, but it wasn't the same…"

"Not the same as what?" Ritsu leaned forward, eager to hear the next part.

"The way I feel about you." Mio re-thought her words. "It's not the same as what I felt with sempai. If you left me like she did, I don't know what I would do with myself. You're my best friend and I care about you so much that I didn't fully understand the…r-romantic feelings I had for you."

"Mio, I would never leave you." Ritsu leaned across the table, grabbing the bassist by the shoulders as she forced the girl to look into her eyes. They burned with a determination, with a passion that Mio had never seen before.

Looking away again, Mio felt reason batter her romantic side. Part of her just wanted to believe Ritsu's words, but the other part of her wanted to protect herself from being hurt again. "The outside world isn't so kind, Ritsu. We're in an all-girls school. It's not the real world. What if your parents ask you one day why you don't have a boyfriend yet?"

"I would tell them that I'm going out with you. I'm not ashamed of it. I really do love you." Ritsu gave Mio's shoulders a reassuring squeeze.

"You're being naïve, Ritsu." Mio felt the tears well up in her eyes, thoughts of Yui and Azusa filling her mind as she scoffed at the naivety of it all. They were being children. There was no telling what could happen two years or even two months down the road. They were in high school.

"Mio, I'm being serious! Do you understand how I feel?" Ritsu tightened her grip on Mio's shoulders.

"You don't know what you're feeling! I don't even know what I'm feeling!" Mio tried to shake Ritsu off, feeling the pressure of anger and sadness suffocate her from the inside. Whatever happened, she didn't want Ritsu to not be in her life.

"I know that I've been in love with you since elementary school!" Ritsu's eyes were blazing now, her nostrils flaring in anger.

"You and I both know that is ridiculous! You-!"

Mio's eyes snapped wide open as Ritsu climbed over the table and was suddenly kissing her. She wanted to fight her off, but even though everything in their friendship was so wrong at the moment, what she felt was all too right. The bassist gave in, letting the drummer ravage her mouth as felt herself being pushed down into the carpet. Ritsu's hands pinned her down, holding her arms above her head against the floor.

The sporty girl was straddling her, thighs square against the bassist's hips. Mio let her voice escape in breathy moans as Ritsu ran her fingers through her hair as they kissed.

It was many minutes later before they parted, breathless and starved for oxygen.

Casually resetting their positions, Mio cleared her throat and smoothed out her disheveled hair as she took her seat in front of the coffee table again. "Sorry, for my outburst."

Mimicking Mio, Ritsu sat opposite the girl, blushing slightly as she had her gaze turned towards the wall. "I would like to apologize as well. I was being a bit too forceful."

The air was thick with the calmness that kicked in after the tumultuous wave of emotions had passed over and after some sexual tension was successfully relieved.

"Are you coming to school tomorrow?" Mio's voice was barely above a whisper as she broke the silence.

"Only if you're coming to pick me up." Ritsu replied without hesitation, a wide lopsided grin spreading slowly across her lips.

Standing, Mio made her way over to the drummer, pouting, her eyebrows furrowed in frustration. She threw her arms around Ritsu's midsection, burying her face in the girl's shirt as she wrapped her up in a tight embrace. "Stupid Ritsu."

The next day at school, it was more than expected that a crowd of girls had gathered around Ritsu's desk before homeroom started. At the sight of Ritsu's bandaged head, her absence from practice was all forgiven and the class' production was well underway again.

"Ricchan! You didn't tell us you were so seriously injured!" Yui draped her arms over Ristu's shoulders from behind, melting like a puddle of ice cream as she pulled at the drummer's cheeks.

"O-Oi! Yui! Cut that out! It's really not that bad. I didn't even need to stay home for so long, but my mom just wanted to make sure I was alright. The gash isn't even bandage-worthy." Ritsu brushed Yui off, grumbling as she got her books out for homeroom.

"Oh, speaking of absences…did you and Mio-chan make up yet?" Mugi asked oh so innocently as she smiled her usual kind smile.

"You two were having a fight?" Yui asked cluelessly, watching Ritsu's facial expressions change rapidly.

"I-I-uh…did Mio talk to you about that?" Ritsu stammered and stuttered, wondering if a half hour's make out fest on her bed counted as 'making up'.

"Well, Mio-chan seemed pretty down these days and there was always some weird atmosphere between you two. I'm glad you got it all sorted out though!" Mugi beamed, her mind running wild with her imagination, wondering what could have made Ritsu blush like that at the mention of Mio's name.

"Yay! I'm glad too! Azusa and I had a little bit of a fight too, but now…" Yui turned as red as a beet as she obscured her face with her hands, gushing as she twirled around like an idiot.

Ritsu raised her eyebrow at Yui's antics, but thought nothing more of it.

"Okay, okay, settle down, everyone! Time for attendance." The teacher walked in right on time, putting an end to the morning gossip and stopping Yui before she finished her sentence and before she tripped over the desks around her from spinning too much.

It wasn't long before all the students were seated and fighting hard against boredom, eagerly awaiting the lunch bell.

"I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!" Ritsu emphatically recited her lines in the music room, her hands empty as she had her script up in her head.

A soft click signaled the entrance of another individual and Ritsu paused momentarily, shifting gears as she turned to face the intruder. Her lips parted in a wide grin as she caught sight of a fair skinned and black haired maiden.

"Come in! Come in! Oh! My heart's darling, hear me this time- Catherine, at last!" Ritsu held an outstretched hand to Mio as she closed the gap between them.

Shaking her head as she laughed, Mio took Ritsu's hand, grinning. "Oh Heathcliff, as suave as ever, I see."

"I'd like to think so at least." The drummer snaked her arms around the taller girl's waist, finally feeling relaxed after what seemed like weeks of insanity and drama.

Mio returned the hug and rested her chin on Ritsu's shoulder. "I definitely think so."

"So what brings you here, fair maiden?" Ritsu grinned, loving the feeling of Mio's warm body against her hands.

"I just thought I'd bring you lunch since you were practicing so hard. Yakisoba bread was on sale at the cafeteria. Yui told me you forgot your lunchbox at home today and opted to practice in here instead." Mio rustled the plastic bag she had in her hands.

Releasing the girl from her grasps, Ritsu's ears perked up at the sound of lunch. "Thank you, Mio. Then I'll take a 10 minute break!" Dragging Mio over to the two seater by the blackboard, the drummer readied herself to dig into her feast of carbs.

"You think you're ready for the big day? Just about 4 days left now." Mio lounged on the sofa, watching as Ritsu tore apart the bread wrapping.

Ritsu hesitated slightly before answering. "I'm more than ready! I've definitely practiced enough!" Ritsu grinned widely before taking a big bite into her sandwich.

Mio watched as Ritsu devoured her favorite food, feeling a bit uneasy at the way Ritsu answered her question just now. It wasn't like the happy-go-lucky girl to be unsure of herself, but could it be that she was feeling nervous about the play? Skipping lunch to practice was rather un-Ritsu like as well.

"I'm sure you'll be a great Heathcliff. You've been working so hard after all…" Mio smiled to herself.

Ritsu looked up, swallowing the last bit of yakisoba bread she wolfed down. "Sorry, Mio. Did you say something?"

Shaking her head, Mio stood up, her hands behind her back.

"Nope. It was nothing." Turning around with a gentle smile on her face, she stretched her hand out to Ritsu. "How about I help you run lines? Practicing with a partner is much more fun, right?"

Taking Mio's hand, Ritsu felt all her uncertainties fly away. "Definitely."

Sighing, Ritsu found herself in front of the music room doors again. It was after school and all the actors in her class had the week off until the dress rehearsals the day before the play. No matter how well Ritsu knew her lines, she felt anxious about performing in front of the whole school. It was a completely different thing to have a small classroom play, but she just caught wind of the news of their venue change. One of the drama clubs had cancelled their act, so Ritsu's class nabbed the booking for the gymnasium stage.

Even during their concert performances, the drummer was used to being hidden away at the back, obscured from the audience's stares. However, this time, she would be center stage, the main character. Just thinking about all those eyes on her made her stomach churn with anxiety. It really wasn't a concept she was used to.

"Y-Yui-sempai…w-w-watch where your hands are going! They're-Ahn!"

Ritsu stood, frozen in front of the large double doors, just about to head in until she heard faint voices float through the cracks. "A-Azusa…?" The drummer raised her eyebrow as high as it would go. It was impossible. Judging by the suggestive nature of what the girl had just said, there was just simply no way that Nakano Azusa was in there…saying those things.

"N-not so rough…Yui-sempai…"

"I-I'm sorry, Azu-nyan. You're just too cute…"

Swallowing hard, Ritsu's mind spun. It had to be a misunderstanding.

"We shouldn't be doing these kind of things at school…"

Taking a deep breath, Ritsu did her best impression of a deep chesty cough, exclaiming loudly as she cleared her throat. "Ahh! This school is so dusty…it's totally irritating my throat." Cough cough. Ritsu pressed her ear against the door, listening.

There was a rushed scrambling of feet and rustling of clothing as she heard the two girls whisper in hushed tones.

"Y-y-yui-sempai! You said no one would come by!"

Without hesitating, Ritsu opened the door widely, stepping in and announcing her presence.

"You two! What do you think you're doing!" Arm outstretched and finger pointed in a classic 'objection!' pose, Ritsu stared down the two girls who were…

Perfectly seated on the sofa and fully dressed. They both shared a matching sheepish smile, but other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Ritsu gave them almost no time to cover up their deeds, but somehow they managed to pull it off. Maybe it really wasn't what it seemed like.

"R-Ricchan! What do you mean? Azusa and I were just having a nice and quiet little chat." Yui's voice was shaking, her hands gripping the hem of her skirt tightly. The girl had only her dress shirt on, her blazer missing.

Taking another look at the two guitarists, Ritsu's breath suddenly hitched in her throat. Yui's crooked necktie, Azusa's torn tights. The drummer averted her eyes quickly, staring up at the ceiling as she let out a forced laugh.

"Boy, you guys totally had me going there! I heard all these weird noises from the other side and completely had the idea that you two were doing indecent things in here, but c'mon. Who was I kidding? You two? Yeah right!" Ritsu kept chuckling to herself, wanting to laugh it all away, but she toned it down when she realized that the other two girls were quiet as ever.

A short period of awkward silence broke out, both Yui and Azusa's faces growing redder by the second.

Ritsu chanced another glance.

Yui's fourth button on her dress shirt was unbuttoned, the yellow of her bra peeking out slightly.

"T-there's no way...I must be dreaming…" Ritsu muttered to herself.

Another quick look.

She spotted Yui's blazer on the floor.

"Just a coincidence. It is rather hot in this room anyway…" Ritsu fanned herself with her hand, feeling sweat bead at her forehead.

One last glance that cinched the deal.

Azusa's skirt was on inside out, the tag with the washing instructions sticking out.

"The world is backwards today! Why have the innocent fallen so far!? You two are pure maidens no more!" Ritsu sank to her knees, wondering what had happened while she was tied up in her Mio drama.

"R-Ricchan! I-I-I was just curious!" Her face burning with embarrassment, the guitarist stood abruptly and bolted out of the room, her blazer long forgotten on the floor.

"Y-yui-sempai! Don't leave me!" Azusa, with a shade of red on her face matching her lover's, rushing out of the room after her upperclassman.

A silly grin spreading across her face, Ritsu got up off the floor, trying to wrap her head around the fact that their light music club was growing up. Before she knew it, Ritsu was on the floor, doubled over with laughter, feeling less heart heavy. Whipping out her phone, she scrolled through her contacts until she came to Akiyama Mio, deciding to ask if the bassist was free to help her relax a little.

Getting a quick reply, Ritsu grinned from ear to ear, happy she caught Mio before she left. The drummer hurried to the shoe lockers where her bassist said she would be waiting.

Just as Ritsu left the room, a figure emerged from her hiding place in the storage closet. It was the same one that Mio had hid in just yesterday, but the individual's intentions were far from innocent. She had an idea brewing in her little blonde head, a devilish gleam in her blue eyes.

A/N:

Hi everyone! Hopefully, I can finish this before 2014 rolls around! Hang in there. Almost there. Tons of filler right now though. Time lines and such were messy and not well thought out since I started writing this before the second season ended.

Stay tuned for some last minute drama!

P.S. Check out my FB page :)
www. facebook . com (/) kiichigocos