Lonely No More
by Cyberchao X

Chapter 33

Disclaimer: No, still don't own…a couple of these characters. Man, it always seems so weird doing disclaimers for this fic when the majority of the characters are OCs. And yet, the canon is just important enough to the story that I don't really feel like I could reskin it as a purely original story by renaming the two main characters who came from the canon work.

*Graduation Day*

"Hey there, Mai-chan. Brought you something."

"Shun!" She looked at the object he placed in her hand. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yep. Lucky I didn't have anyone to give mine to last year. Can't think of anyone I'd rather give it to." He wrapped his arms around her, and she jumped up to give him a kiss. "So, where to?"

"I don't know. There are so many places we could go. Oh, Hanna-chan told me about this shop that sells these great cakes…"

"Oh, sempai! Imagine running into you here! Is Katsura-san here too?"

"Eheheh…we don't spend all of our spare time together…" Suki looked a bit sheepish. "…Actually Ari-chan and Suzu-chan invited me along."

"…Tsukimura-san is here?" Chura asked.

"Oh, you know Suzuka-chan?"

"Yeah. Don't you remember me talking to you about this? Don't worry…I know it's not my place to judge. If this is really what makes you happy, then I support you," Suzuka said.

"Um, thanks?"

Suzuka smiled. "Lighten up, Shura-san. Enjoy yourself. Besides…school's out, so technically I'm not your class rep until it's been confirmed that we'll be in the same class again next year."

"They don't really move people around that much, though, do they?" Arisa asked. "I kind of wish there was a chance we could be in the same class…"

"Y-yeah…I wish we could, too. But then again, maybe it's for the best that we aren't together all the time…"

Arisa frowned. "And why is that?!"

"Because," Suzuka whispered in her ear, "it makes our time together that much sweeter." She wanted to start making out with Arisa right on the spot, but there were people around who didn't know about their relationship, so she settled for covertly groping her lover's behind. Once they had abit more privacy, she indulged her desires. "And because I'm finding it harder to resist you."

"Then why don't you give in? Come out. There are already rumors…"

"I'll try not to do anything to prove or disprove them," Suzuka replied. "An air of mystery makes a girl more interesting, you know?"

"You seem to have eased up on the dating, though," Arisa pointed out.

"…Yeah, I have. Male or female, I don't really want other people. I want you."

Arisa turned bright red. "You're so sweet." She turned to Suki. "I may just have to find out what these 'ideas' of yours about chocolate are."

"Eh?"

"Suzuka mentioned that you had some interesting ideas involving chocolate."

Suki licked her. "I think you already had a pretty good idea, given the way you phrased that."

"So I did. Definitely approve the idea of eating chocolate off of Suzuka's luscious body."

"What about my body?" Suki asked, offended.

"Don't you have Katsura-chan for that?"

"…Yeah, I suppose. But then I'd have to make the chocolate."

"Well if I was the one licking you off, it would still have to be your…I'm not finishing that sentence."

"You're disgusting, Ari-chan."

"Yeah, but you're so perfect that you probably shit rainbows and butterflies."

"…What."

Suzuka was giggling. "Well, I made Suzu-chan laugh, so it's all good," Arisa said.

"Do you…really see me that way?"

"Well, yeah, kind of."

"I'm not perfect, Arisa. I have my flaws. I have issues with monogamy, as you've experienced."

"Your problem is that you love too much. That's not a problem."

"That's far from my only flaw. I don't have any drive…do you know when the last time we had a captain with no foreign ancestry was?"

"…Huh? You mean on the basketball team?"

"Yeah. Rioni-sempai told me that the captain in her first year was only half-Japanese too, and I looked into old yearbooks…the captain your first year was an exchange student, not Japanese at all. And the captain the year before that was likewise of mixed heritage, and her first year, the captain was her older sister, with another exchange student sandwiched between them. This year will be the first time in almost a decade that the captain is of fully Japanese ancestry."

"I'm so sorry…I didn't even think about that…"

"Don't be. I didn't really care whether I got the captaincy or not. I don't think basketball was ever really my 'thing' in the first place—I just sort of got pushed into it because I'm so tall. I don't regret joining the team, but…it's more because of memories of you that I've stayed with it. So I think this might be my final year."

Arisa hit her. "Idiot. You don't have to stick it out through all of high school if you don't want, but you'd stop after graduating junior high, when we could actually be teammates again for a year if you went out for the high school team?"

"Ah, well…still, why'd you have to punch me?"

"You were asking for it."

Suki laid some money on the table and left. "I'm going to go find Katsu-tan. She treats me right."

"So, now that it's just the two of us…"

"Did you seriously do that just to get rid of her?"

"No, of course not! I didn't really want to start a fight with her. But I was going to ask her to give us some alone time after we finished our food anyway, so this ended up just speeding things along. And I can tell she wasn't really mad at me. Her voice was more teasing than anything else as she stormed out."

"Still, it was weird seeing you two fighting."

"Eh, it happens. Besides, we weren't exactly the best of friends the first time we met, remember?"

"And then you got into a fight with Nanoha…" A loud sigh reminded Suzuka that the two of them were far from the only ones in the place who missed Nanoha immensely. She apologized to Momoko for bringing it up. (CCX: Oh, c'mon, like you didn't already know that they were at the Midoriya?)

CCX: Um…I've got nothing for how to advance the main plot without skipping ahead to the start of the next school year (how long is the spring break in Japan, anyway?), so we're going to head over to some side characters who aren't really doing anything plot-relevant.

"Thank you for allowing me to join you on your vacation, Ichirei-san," Izei said, bowing respectfully to him.

"Think nothing of it," he replied. "Miki-chan would probably be quite cross with me if I didn't."

"Why do I doubt that making me happy was your only motivation?" Miki asked her father.

"Lighten up, oneechan," Sakura told her sister. "Papa is happy that you've found someone willing to look past your overly youthful exterior to love you for who you are. Any other benefits of his presence in the vicinity of ours are just secondary. Right?" Their father pretended not to know what Sakura was talking about, but they all knew the truth—that he was hoping that the presence of a boyfriend would make people think that his younger daughter was already taken, since most strangers would assume her to be the older of the two. Indeed, Sakura looked to be at least as old as Miki actually was, while Miki still didn't even look as old as her younger sister's actual age.

"Well, as long as being your fake boyfriend doesn't involve any lovey-dovey stuff."

"What? You don't think I'm attractive?"

"That's irrelevant. You're Miki-chan's sister."

"So if she wasn't my sister you would find her attractive?" Miki asked.

"Well, yeah… maybe. It's tough to say, because a lot of the traits that make Sakura-chan physically attractive are your traits too, so if she weren't your sister, she might not have them."

"Okay, now you're just making shit up."

"Am not, although you just displayed one of the areas where she has the advantage over you—her ladylike demeanor," Izei said snidely. "Once you get past the fact that she managed to start developing before you even though you had a three-year head start, the two of you have very similar features."

"…If you say so." She walked off.

"…Did I hit a nerve?"

"Yeah. Lately oneesan has been having trouble looking straight at me. I tried to find out why, but she just yelled at me, said that it wasn't anything I did and that I should just leave it. …" Sakura paused. "I was only three years old when my mother died, so I don't have that many memories of her. And we don't keep pictures of her around the house, because they bring up too many bad memories for my father and sister. I'd even forgotten just what she looked like… I tracked down my parents' wedding album…it was a very familiar face, and body. Not exactly like, but quite similar to, what I see in the mirror every day."

"I see. So by comparing her to you, I was also comparing her to her mother. I'll go apologize to her."

"No, I'll go talk to her. We've gotten past this, after all. Besides, I know where to look."

"Okay, yeah, you do that. I'll be out in a little bit." Izei was actually glad that Sakura had volunteered to go after Miki. "Miki told me the whole story. I hope you don't mind…Sorry, I guess that's probably not something you'd want many people knowing about you."

"Hm?"

"Your late ex-wife. Everything. Even…even the part that the two of you have kept from Sakura."

"Oh. Yeah, she probably should've told me before revealing that part of the story. But…that's quite a display of trust. I figured that if you two were together for a long enough period of time, eventually Sakura-chan or I would end up having to tell you that story…though of course, Sakura-chan's version would've lacked one part. She's lucky that she was too young to remember everything about it. But… really, can you blame Miki-chan for being the way she is about that? What she went through…losing a parent to those circumstances, seeing another parent ready to commit suicide…that's rough for anyone to handle. And she had to deal with that at the age of six. Maybe that's why she can't quite fully grow up."

"That's crazy. Miki-chan's growing up just fine. Her body may be taking a little while to catch up, but it's slowly happening."

"…Just how involved are you two, anyway?"

"Involved enough. For me, anyway. I get the feeling she wants us to be more involved, but I think she's just raging against her lack of endowments."

"Yeah, that's always a sensitive topic. Even more so now that Sakura-chan's been growing."

"Sorry for running off," Miki said. "Besides, that type of stuff is meaningless, right? We're our own people, and genetics can't be helped. But just because I may have taken on some of her physical traits doesn't mean I'm going to turn out like her."

"Of course you won't. You're a good person, Miki. That's why I love you." He ran his fingers through her long midnight hair and kissed her, and her only response was to draw him closer because she felt better when she was in his embrace.

CCX: Yeah…in my attempts to avoid being one of those authors who lavishes tons of words on descriptions, I often go too far in the other direction, waiting many chapters after introducing characters to give them a physical description, if I ever do at all. Miki, of course, at least got some physical description right away, because her diminutive size is an important character trait, but I waited until just now to mention a hair color—midnight, or "a black so dark that it looks blue when light hits it at a certain angle" (thanks, TV Tropes)—and I still haven't mentioned an eye color (because I haven't decided on one, though I know that it's a dark color). These are among the traits that she and her sister share, by the way, and both are traits that their mother had and their father doesn't. (Though of course, he has dark hair and dark eyes too, because light hair and eyes aren't really very Japanese traits at all.) Until next time, CCX, signing off.