Lonely No More
by Cyberchao X

Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Whatever…

*mid-May*

"I take it you already have a date to this school dance," Arisa said.

"Surprisingly, no. I don't know if they were too nervous or what; maybe more recently they've figured that I already have one," Suzuka replied.

"Really. I'd have never guessed that I'd have a date to the dance before you did. Maybe I should direct his boyfriend to you."

"You have a date? …Wait, what was that you just said?"

"Eh…on second thought, maybe I should take his boyfriend and direct him to you. You'd make a better 'beard' than me…though I guess I'm doing better than I thought at not making it blatantly obvious."

"…So your 'date' is a gay boy?"

"Yeah, I was surprised when it happened, too. I was just about to turn him down, tell him that I was a lesbian, and he stopped me and said 'I know. Just tell me who to have my boyfriend ask.' I guess the school's policy on same-sex couples isn't exactly tolerant, so gay and lesbian couples tend to pair up for 'double dates'. Of course, while dates from other schools are allowed, I felt kind of awkward having one of them ask Suki-tan. They're second-years, so it'd be a three-year difference for them; there isn't even the 'started going out when they were first-year/third-year' excuse like there is with Suki-tan and me."

"Maybe you should steer him in Shina-san's direction."

"Who, me?" Shinamori asked, surprising Arisa and Suzuka. "If this is about that dance, don't worry about finding me a date. I played it cool enough with the first guy who asked, made him think there was a chance I'd say no…but of course I couldn't risk not getting asked again. Turns out it wasn't an issue; I've had to turn down a few offers since then."

"And here I thought that your reputation had followed you here."

"There are still some whispers every so often, but most of those who didn't go to junior high with me believe them to be baseless rumors. Being a cheerleader certainly helps."

"I thought you weren't ashamed of who you are," Arisa said.

"Oh, I'm not. But I find that the locker room is a bit different when you think that everyone there is straight than when there's a known lesbian in the room. You understand that, don't you, Bannings-san?"

"…Yeah, I suppose I do. I hardly remember what that's actually like, but…I do seem to remember the first-years wondering why the second-years seemed so shy around their captain in the locker room."

"Ari-chan…I thought you said that it wasn't an open secret here."

"It isn't…although all of the girls do know now."

"…Spill it, Bannings-san; I know you're still committed to your junior high girlfriend, so if you've got an available teammate, I want to know."

"Aside from the battery, there are few relationships in softball more important than that of a double-play combination. When a shortstop and second baseman have really good chemistry, it makes the game run so much more smoothly."

Shinamori just stared at her, wondering why she was talking about the game itself, but Suzuka smiled—in addition to starting for the jayvee team, Arisa had been getting into the varsity games as a late-inning defensive substitute at shortstop. Apparently she had "really good chemistry" with the starting second baseman, a third-year. "Not bad, Ari-chan."

"Heheh…well, it's not like we're doing anything serious. Haya-chan would do about as much just as a way of saying hello."

"That's still not bad."

"Is this friend of yours ever coming back to Japan?" Shinamori asked. "Because she really sounds like someone I'd like to meet."

Arisa and Suzuka looked at each other. "…Not really sure. Should be eventually, but not sure when."

"Ah…this looks bad. Jugo-san has a particularly happy look on his face today and you have a particularly sad look on yours. He got a date to the dance and it isn't you, didn't he?"

"Am I really that obvious?" Kaburagi replied. "It's not like I had any reason to think he would ask me, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing."

"Didn't you say he already had a girlfriend?"

"They broke up. So I was still holding out hope."

"I'm really not sure what to say here. Even if I were to try to comfort you by saying that I don't have a date either, it wouldn't really mean anything because I've never gone to these things anyway. Also, it's not even true in the technical sense—officially, I'm going with Atsuya Watagami from class 2-F, and we're still trying to find someone to be his boyfriend's 'date' for the night."

"…Don't you actually have a girlfriend?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure if the school would sign off on her, especially not if it was a second- or third-year that was allegedly dating her."

"…why would it make a difference what year her date was in?"

"Plausibility. She was still in grade school when these guys were in junior high."

"You were doing a first-year last year?" A sudden clear of the throat suddenly alerted Kaburagi that class was starting. She was absolutely mortified at blurting that out. Arisa returned to her seat.

"Hello, Suzuka-san."

"Hello, Miki-san. You're in high spirits."

"And why wouldn't I be?" She pretended to look angry, then laughed. "Honestly, I'm resigned to the fact that nobody's going to ask me to this dance, and I don't really care. Besides…can you imagine how tall a pair of high heels I'd need to be able to slow dance with a boy comfortably?"

"Tall enough that it wouldn't really be any more 'comfortable'," Suzuka agreed.

"So then does that mean you won't go with me?" Izei asked.

"Yes, it means I will not accept your pity invitation."

"It wasn't a pity invitation."

"Or your 'I can't get a real date so I'm asking a friend to go with me' invitation. Hey, Suzuka-san, do you have a date yet?" Suzuka shook her head. "You should ask Suzuka-san."

"I…no, I don't think…besides, Tsukimura-san is so popular; there are probably tons of guys who want that date more…"

"…And you wonder why you can't find a date. Whatever; have fun at the dance all by yourself."

After the meeting, Suzuka approached Izei. "…It wasn't because you couldn't find a date either, was it, Kumaya-san?"

"…It wasn't pity. Yes, I do feel bad for her, and want her to be happy…"

"I could tell. I tried to suggest it to her shortly after we met, but she didn't see it. I could see it, though…you're really in love with her, aren't you?"

"…I always thought she was cute…and sweet, and funny. I had a little boyhood crush on her, but it was too early for boys and girls to date—we were only like 9 or 10 years old. But then by the time it wasn't too early, she had, well, you know…'stopped growing up'. On the outside, anyway. So I guess I was concerned about how it would look if I was dating her. It shouldn't have been a problem then, when we were only 12, but I was an idiot…and by the time I got over it, the gap between her apparent and actual age had grown further, and now here we are. I should've confessed earlier. Now she's got such a complex about her height—no, about her entire appearance—that she honestly doesn't believe that someone her own age could love her unless they were a lolicon."

"And if I were her, I'd be rightfully suspicious of a new suitor. But you've known her for how long?"

"9 years. We met on the first day of grade 1."

"More than long enough to know what lies beneath the childish appearance. Ask her again. Tell her what you told me."

"I…I can't…"

"If you don't, I'll tell her what you told me. That you've loved her for a long time but were too afraid to say anything."

"…Come. I'm…I'm not sure if I can do this. Please, Tsukimura-san, be my support. Er…that is if it's not too far out of your way."

Suzuka shrugged. "If it is, I can just call home and have the limo pick me up."

"…and you're at a public school why?"

"Well I went to a public grade school, and then I wanted to stay with my friends when we got to junior high and they're not all as rich as my family is…" She realized that this wasn't really a great explanation anymore because Arisa was from a rich family as well and Nanoha, Fate and Hayate were no longer on Earth. (Actual answer: Because the middle-class author is writing what he knows.)

"Ah, Izei, what are you doing here…oh, and Suzuka-san too?"

Izei said nothing. "Go on, Kumaya-san," Suzuka urged.

"Yeah, get it over with," said the girl who was standing next to Miki. "You've only been wanting to do this since you were my age, after all." Suzuka thought that the girl didn't look to be that much younger than them, which made this seem like an odd statement.

"Will you can it, Sakura-kun?" The girl immediately got indignant, and Suzuka suddenly remembered Miki saying she had a 12-year-old sister who looked to be about 14—which matched the age that Izei had said he was when he'd first wanted to ask Miki out.

"Hey, hey, Sakura-chan's only 12, remember? No flirting with my baby sister, Izei!"

"So then she's always been this oblivious?" Suzuka whispered to Sakura.

"No; it's grown as she hasn't. We haven't met, have we?"

"No, though Miki-san mentioned she had a younger sister. I'm Tsukimura Suzuka; I'm in Student Council with your sister and Kumaya-san."

"Pleased to meet you. Ichirei Sakura, though you've already been given both of those names."

"It's not her I'm interested in, Miki-san—no, Miki. I asked you before and I'm asking you again: come to the school dance with me."

"That didn't sound much like a question, Izu-kun," Sakura pointed out. (A/N: Ah, the perils of writing transliterated Japanese. That "u" pops out of nowhere because that's how the lack of a vowel is represented when writing Japanese words out in the Roman alphabet—phonetically, Sakura is more or less calling him "Izkun".)

"No, it didn't. Maybe that'll be enough to convince your sister that I'm serious."

"…Is that why you've stuck with me all this time? And here I thought it was because we were friends."

"…" It took a moment for Izei to realize what Miki was accusing him of. "…See, this is exactly why I didn't confess sooner! I was afraid that people would think I was a lolicon, and wouldn't you know it, now you think I'm a lolicon! …I blame you for making me do this." The last remark was directed at Suzuka, and he walked off.

"Kumaya-san, wait!" Suzuka started after him, then turned back toward the Ichirei sisters. "I can't believe you, Miki-chan! Here you are worried about how others see you, and you just chased off the one guy who's known you long enough to see past that! Yes, yes, we know: you're pissed off at the fact that at age 15 you still look like a 10-year-old girl, and you're worried that only a lolicon could fall in love with a '10-year-old-girl' regardless of how old she actually is. But you know who else could fall in love with a 10-year-old girl? A 10-year-old boy. Your sister suggested that he's been wanting to ask you out since the two of you were 12, which is what he told me, but he said that he'd had a crush on you before that, when you were still too young to actually think about dating. He's loved you since you actually were as young as you look."

"…He said all that?"

"Well, I might've given his words a bit more passion, but yeah, he said he had a crush on you when you two were about 9 or 10, but by the time it was 'time' to start thinking about dating, you had already stopped growing and he wussed out. Again, my words, though he did call himself an idiot."

"…He is an idiot."

"For falling in love with a girl who can't seem to age?"

"No, for not acting on his feelings and screw the consequences. You're right…I had resigned myself to my unhappiness, figured that the only type of people who would love me weren't the type of people I'd want to love. But I'm only human…I can't stop myself from desiring that tenderness…"

"It could've been worse, onee-san. You could've kept him waiting for the past three years. The anticipation would've been hard enough regardless, but the fact that you still look like a little kid now would make it brutal…not to mention an ironic reversal of the older man 'waiting for' the girl to grow up."

"Eh? What do you mean?" Suzuka asked.

"Our father imposed a strict 'no dating before high school' policy upon us," Miki explained. "Not that it's ever been an issue for me…Sakura-chan, on the other hand…"

"And yo—"

"Stop that question right there, Tsukimura-san," Sakura interrupted. "Trust me, you don't want to ask that question, or any related questions."

"She got what she deserved," Miki said, a sudden coldness to her voice.

"Stop that. You can't really believe that, can you?"

"You weren't the one who…" she trailed off. "This is why I don't talk about that, especially not around you. You think things were merely very bad…but they were even worse."

"I…think I'll be seeing you," Suzuka said nervously, sensing the tension in the air.

CCX: Whoa. Think things just got very dramatic. Let's cut to someone else…after all, this chapter has yet to have an obligatory appearance by Suki!

"So I was thinking maybe we could go out Friday night. You available?" Suki asked.

"Actually, there's this school dance…I'd have just invited you if I could, but they don't allow same-sex couples and my 'date' and his boyfriend are second-years so I don't think I could get him to bring you as his 'date'."

"Ah. 'His boyfriend', huh? Why even bother? You're certainly rich enough that the extra cost for a single wouldn't make a difference for you."

CCX: It's true. Back at our school, the "split up a couple and use them to bring another couple" trick was used not to get same-sex couples into homecoming at couples' prices, but more frequently at Junior-Senior Prom, where a couples ticket actually was fully twice the cost of a single ticket and therefore there would be no monetary advantage, to smuggle sophomores in. Or was that just in another fanfiction I wrote? …Yeah, that totally wasn't something that actually happened at my school; that was a scene from season 4 of Park Place, which I probably shouldn't have even bothered mentioning because it was this self-indulgent thing that ran for a long time in my head but was purposely never put into writing. It "ran" for two self-contained seasons as a summer space-filler before taking an odd turn toward becoming a high school drama (though season 4 managed to tie some of the characters from season 1 back into its canon), ending with a rather shitty season 6 after the main characters had gone off to college, and while it averted the usual "all the characters end up at the same college" shtick it was still probably at its best when the shifting storylines shifted back to the characters that were still in high school, and even that wasn't great. I think that its "spin-off" would probably still be running, but I completely lost track of the "network schedule" and the document was among those chewed up by the computer crash.

"Yeah, but I kind of like this. Besides, while I'm not actively trying to cover up the fact that I'm a lesbian, it's not exactly common knowledge yet."

"So then are you able to get the girls in the locker room to be as comfortable around you as they would be around a straight girl?"

"You sound like Shinamori-san. And no, they know the truth. Also I'm not the only lesbian on the team."

"Shinamori-san?"

"I believe I mentioned her in passing. On the first day of school…Suzuka's new friend. Second-most perverted lesbian I've ever met."

"I guess I don't count because I'm bisexual."

"What are you talking about? My little Suki-tan is a good girl, isn't she?"

"Only if you want me to be. I could be a bad, bad girl for you if you want."

"Ah. So that's what this phone call is really about. Hold on; if we're going to have phone sex I should at least get into my room first."

Suki laughed. "Nah, we're cool. Maybe we'll see each other Saturday instead. Not Saturday night, though; I promised that night to Tatsu-kun. Though I suppose I could ask him if he could switch to Friday night…"

"Do what you want. I like that idea, but if he says no, that's cool too."

"'Kay. Love ya, Arisa-chan."

"Love you too, Suki-tan." It wasn't until after she'd hung up that she realized she'd nonchalantly parroted back Suki's aishiteru—the first time she'd said that to Suki. And it was only this second fact—that her first time was over the phone, rather than to Suki's beautiful face—that bothered her. "I wonder if I should try to see if Watagami-san's boyfriend would be willing to at least try to get Suki as his date. It's not like they actually check ages…we have to give what school our date is from if they don't go to our school, but she could totally pass as a third-year…hell, she could pass for a high schooler!"

Suzuka sought out Izei before school the next day, but couldn't find him. She waited at the end of lunch, trying to catch him as he went to lunch, and found him. "Hey Kumaya-san. Have you talked to Miki-san yet today?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Don't stay bitter. After you left, I chewed her out, told her the part that you left out, about how long you've loved her. She seems to have realized her mistake…I think she'd be more than willing to go to the dance with you now."

"Really?"

Suzuka nodded. "Also, there's something else I want to ask you about her…but I don't think we have enough time right now."

Izei nodded back. "After school, then."

After school, they met. "So, did you ask her again?"

"Yep. She accepted, just like you said she would. What else were you going to ask about, and if it's about her, why are you asking me?"

"Well, I started asking her a question about her mother yesterday, and before I could get anywhere, Ichirei-san—Sakura-san, that is—stopped me from even asking the question and Miki-san went all cold-hearted. Do you know anything about it?"

"I know that their mother is dead…I never even met her, though I think she was still alive when I first met Miki-san. She died shortly afterwards…Miki-san doesn't like to talk about it, and I get the feeling that she truly hates her mother. Not in the 'why did you have to die and leave me so soon, mother' way, either, even though that would be a far more logical reason to hate a mother who died when you were only 6 years old. No, however it was that her mother died—and the girl I met that day wasn't depressed like a young girl whose mother was dying would be, so I doubt it was an illness—it changed her. …I don't really like talking about this, either. When she finally did come back to school after her mother's death…that wasn't the Miki I fell in love with. That barely qualified as a person—more like a girl-shaped shell. Not the headstrong, vivacious girl you know."

"…I'm almost sorry I asked. I had no idea that she'd endured such hardship."

Izei smiled. "Compared to what she went through then, being a 15-year-old girl with a 10-year-old's body is nothing, right? So maybe she's stronger because of her hardships."

"Yeah…maybe…"

CCX: I did a lot of tweaking as to what the whole story behind Mrs. Ichirei's absence was as I went through writing this chapter. The "original" Mr. Ichirei's being a single parent was never adequately explained, but him being an overprotective single father was definitely an important part of his character, so I had to make sure this incarnation was also a single father. The full story of Mrs. Ichirei has been written down now, so as to keep me from forgetting it if we ever get to the time where Miki reveals it. Though I'm not sure if such a point will ever come, because this story is not supposed to be about dark and twisty! Miki, your past is too dark and twisty! ^_^ Cyberchao X, signing off!