Clannad: Life of Another

Summary: They live almost all too different lives and yet two things make them seem alike… maybe even more reasons. But… what would happen if Fate puts them in the same path once more? TomoyoxYouhei

Hatsunefangirl's Author's Notes:

Hello, minna-san [everyone]~! It's me, your friendly author Hatsune. I know it's been a long time since I updated this story and I know it's quite surprising that I actually updated now seeing that it's been past 6 months already, which I recently just learned is the usual time limit to a story on hiatus and that if it hasn't been updated for more than that, then the author quits.

But I assure you, I am not quitting on this story. I mainly wanted to finish Suddenly Engaged before I go to my other stories. One thing at a time, you know. And well, anyway, I wasn't planning on this to be on hiatus, too.

But anyway, I am deeply sorry to have caused you all so much worry and trouble.

Enough with my rambling and let's move on to the story. Usual disclaimer applies~!

Chapter 3: Reconnect

In the midst of it all, I guess I could reconnect with an old friend. If you could call whatever relationship I have between Sunohara and me friendship.

Tomoyo hated to admit it but yeah, she was hungry. Wait, wrong use of tense. She is hungry. So, without further ado, she grudgingly nodded at Sunohara while her stomach wailed for lunch.

She hoped he hadn't heard it.

But the smirk that spread across the black haired man's face did nothing to lighten her mood. And she would have gladly punched him in the face for it, if they weren't in such an age where well, being civil meant something.

Not today, Tomoyo. Perhaps another day, but not today.

It was either that or it's because she wanted to keep her job.

But one day!

He led her down to the elevator where a few people were already gathered, most probably for lunch. Youhei was talking to another coworker of his and Tomoyo really didn't want to pay any attention. Despite them being a bit overly loud for her taste.

Snippets of their conversation though, weaved in and out of her ears. Except for one.

"So that girl… Sakagami Tomoyo, right? She seems really cute." The man, blonde hair and all, was quietly observing her head to toe, lingering somewhere on her chest, and as much as she wanted to punch him too, she instead pretended she didn't notice.

First day on the job, Tomoyo. No need to start a fight.

Youhei snorted. "I'm sure you can find better. And probably more cuter, too."

All reason flew out the window as Tomoyo kicked the back of Sunohara's knee as hard as she could. Well, as hard as she could not to cause too much collateral damage to be fired on her first day.

Youhei slumped to the floor much to the blonde coworker's surprise. Tomoyo, meanwhile, angrily marched towards the elevator, following the few others who wanted to go down for lunch.

Through her peripheral vision she could see Sunohara's blonde coworker help him up and though she was still quite a distance from him, she could hear him mutter "and less violent, too" supposedly for only the blonde one to hear.

The elevator was about to go down with or without the two idiots. However badly she wanted to leave those two behind, someone else had called out to them. A petite girl, actually.

"Oi~! Are you guys coming down for lunch or what?" she paused to let her hand hover over the close button, "cause if not, we're going ahead without you~!" she said in her sing song voice. Her fingers were inches away from pressing the button.

"3…" she counted off.

"Wait!" Sunohara panicked as he and his colleague ran quickly for the elevator. Sunohara having a bit of a hard time since he was trying to recover his knee from that deadly kick.

"2…"

Tomoyo stared on blankly, not really caring if Sunohara made it or not.

I can always follow these guys to the cafeteria.

"1…"

"MADE IT~!" Youhei cheered, finally making it inside. Surprisingly, everyone else ignored him. They were already used to Youhei's antics. The others who were still as new as say a few weeks before Tomoyo face palmed quietly in their places.

Tomoyo had the urge to follow them.

She felt Sunohara's eyes try to bore holes into her head.

"You," he angrily seethed, pointing an angry finger at her. Tomoyo did not look him in the eye. "Why didn't you stop her" –he pointed to the petite girl- "from trying to press the button?!"

Tomoyo closed her eyes, feeling the irritation in her boil up, then opened her eyes to stare blankly back at him. "I didn't know I needed to."

"You didn't- you- to- know-" Youhei was forming incomplete sentences and Tomoyo really didn't want to hear them at the moment. He scratched his head angrily before letting out a frustrated sigh and decided to growl angrily instead.

Tomoyo just shrugged, waiting for the elevator to arrive at the cafeteria.

"We're here~!" the petite girl sang, rushing out of the elevator and into through the double doors. The other people in the elevator grumbled and followed her down the hallway, ready for lunch.

Tomoyo didn't bother to see if Sunohara was coming or not. He was busy talking to his friend anyway. Again. Much to her irritation.

I mean, he was given the responsibility to show me around my workplace. Couldn't he at least have the decency to do just that? Tomoyo fumed, of course, the opinion not being heard by all the others, at least. But the hint of the subtle scowl could, if looked closely enough, be seen quite well. Or at least to anyone who was sensitive to emotions.

"It's bad to see even a small hint of a scowl on a pretty girl's face, ya know." Tomoyo's eyes widened a bit, coloring her usually stoic face. She looked left and right to search for the voice until her gaze slowly landed on the petite girl before her. The same petite girl who was working the elevator on their way down to the cafeteria.

From her surprised expression, Tomoyo's face formed into one of confusion.

"Sunohara-san can be a handful sometimes, but you'll get used to him soon enough." She smiled.

"That's not what I'm worried about most. I've been used to his antics since High School."

Tomoyo placed a foot forward, clearly heading for the cafeteria, the petite woman following in pace with her, much to Tomoyo's surprise. The girl was short enough to look like a middle schooler, short legs to go with it, so yeah, it surprised her a bit.

But the woman wasn't satisfied with their short conversation yet. So she urged, "Eh? So you and Sunohara-san were classmates back in High School? What was he like? How'd you even manage to tolerate him?"

"I didn't," Tomoyo replied, observing the petite blonde following close behind her. How far was the cafeteria anyway? "And he wasn't my classmate."

The petite woman grinned, almost imitating the Chesire cat, almost, had it not been the fact that the Chesire cat's grin was much wider than hers. Or that's what Tomoyo would have thought, if asked for her opinion and had she looked closely enough. "Oh, perhaps a lover, then."

Tomoyo had never been glad to not have reached the cafeteria, got a bottle and do an inelegant spit-take all in a matter of a few seconds. That would have been awkward, and very much unlike her.

"No."

The peitite girl pouted. Well, she did a good try as any. Just that, the relationship word of choice wasn't really appealing to the junior worker. She stopped when Tomoyo stopped in front of the door.

"He was my senior, by a year." Tomoyo stated, hand pushing aside the door so that the two could enter in. The other workers had already made themselves comfortable, or as comfortable as they could get with their long metallic tables and long benches could get. Those who had prepared their own lunches (bentos mostly, either prepared by their spouses or by themselves) had already occupied a few of the seats. Those who had no talent in cooking (the author being one of them), were too much in a hurry to make one, or just plainly didn't bring, were lining up to be served.

This almost feels like High School.

Tomoyo accepted the tray offered to her by the petite woman, the two joining the growing line to get their lunches.

It really didn't take long, and it would have been relatively pleasant if the petite woman hadn't pointed out that she better avoid the mystery meat when the due day comes that they do serve it. While Tomoyo, somewhere in her heart, is grateful for the little piece of information, it just didn't serve well with her stomach… for some reason.

And while she was musing quietly in her head, the petite woman –still Tomoyo could not get the chance to ask her name-'s shout of "Ooooooiiiii~!" and her hand waving up in the air as if she were beckoning her best friend over to their usual lunch table, woke her up from her reverie.

Tomoyo noticed, however, that a certain black haired buffoon was very much indignant at the thought of her joining them for lunch. As seen when he tugs on her arm and tried to shush her so that Tomoyo wouldn't walk this way.

"Seriously, Akira-chan, do you want to eat with that violent woman around?"

Tomoyo slammed her tray down on the table, making her obvious annoyance at the hated black haired male aware of it. Much to the male's chagrin.

He smiled, trying to ease the heavy tension that was surrounding her. She continued to glare at him, making Youhei stop his efforts at trying to appease her with his charm (or at least what he considered his charm anyway)

The girl sitting beside him smirked, much to Youhei's annoyance, and he turned his attention to her. She smiled coyly at him. "See? This is what happens when you forget about your own junior, Youhei-kun." Across from them, Tomoyo choked on her drink. Maybe that spit-take was coming sooner than she hoped. "I mean, you didn't treat her well when you were in High School, then you don't treat her well now, now that you're coworkers and all."

Tomoyo rolled her eyes. That was an understatement. If memory served her right, he was a thorn on her side every time they met. He'd challenge her to a fight –to which he loses every time as she uses her combos. He was a delinquent, along with him, that the students (and even some of her friends, mind you) labeled them 'The Dirty Pair'. Well, not to say they weren't a great help to her campaign for Student Council President and the fact that they helped her out with her own problems, she still found him his annoying best friends who didn't know when to quit with his stupid antics.

Going back to the chattering pair, she realized that Youhei, following her, had choked on a piece of chicken meat after hearing from Akira, of all people!, that the person sitting in front of him now, this silverette, was his junior turned best friend's ex-girlfriend turned Student Council President and the one who humiliated his manly pride after each and every fight?

Well, not exactly humiliate, but c'mon! you gotta admit that being beat up by a violent girl, accompanied by another violent girl on occasion, was a big blow to the manly pride.

To him, it was at least.

Akira patted his back as the other guy beside Sunohara handed him a glass of water. To which the black haired annoyance took from him and downed its contents in one gulp. He slammed the glass down and glared at Tomoyo.

Glared-at silver haired maiden returned the gesture with much more intensity.

Everyone thought that the glaring contest would last until the end until lunch break, but then, Youhei decided to break the ice.

"Are you really Tomoyo?"

Everyone else couldn't help but face palm. Tomoyo, on her part –and she was really honest here-, was trying very hard not to chuck the spoon at Sunohara's head. If it were even possible for a spoon to lodge itself onto a person's head (and for all stick there she cared).

"Are you an idiot?" Tomoyo internally smacked herself. Of course he was!

Sunohara sank back down to his seat. "Not really." He didn't bother to look at her, muttering something she couldn't quite hear, though she noticed that this Akira person, the petite woman she was talking to a while ago, snickered. Tomoyo guessed she must have heard it.

She looked at her watch. It was almost the end of the lunch break. She picked up her tray, stood up, and preceded to dump the leftovers inside the trash bin. Youhei realized, albeit a little late, that she was heading out for her job, which he still had the task of showing her around or else it's goodbye job. So, he quickly ate the last of his lunch and followed her out.

"Hey! Oi!" Youhei wondered if Tomoyo had a feat for avoiding crowds, whilst, he, on the other hand, bumped into several people before he could finally catch up to the silver haired maiden. "Wait up, will you?" he said once he a few paces behind her.

Tomoyo looked behind her, not at all surprised by Sunohara. What surprised her, though, was Akira –whose head appeared out from the canteen door, taking a deep breath and shouted:

"Youhei-kun said you haven't changed a bit since High School, Tomoyo-chan!"

Sunohara, who was holding onto Tomoyo's arm for support as he caught his breath, looked up. A blush was slowly forming across his cheeks. He turned around and shouted "shut up" but Akira had already gone back inside, most probably to hide from Youhei.

Youhei sighed and returned his attention back to Tomoyo, who was already walking ahead of him. She figured, since Youhei was too busy with his own problems, she'll take to her own job by herself.

"Hey, do you even know where your work place is?"

Tomoyo shook her head. "I could just ask Amano-san. I know where her office is."

"And what if she needs you to go far from her office? Like, oh I don't know, the electrician's office?"

"Then I'll ask her again. It was supposed to be your job to introduce me around but then you seem to be busy with something else so I'll have to make do."

Okay, that stung Youhei a bit. It's not that she was his only priority today. He also had other jobs to do for the company. He sighed. The manager gave him Tomoyo as his task today, so sohouldn't he b doing what he was asked to do?

Tomoyo was already halfway across the hall. He took a deep breath. This wasn't the time to push away his old friends. Tomoyo was his only link to the old him. Maybe they could get along?

"Hey! Wait up!" he shouted, jogging to catch up to her. He grabbed onto her elbow and dragged her towards the exit. He was gonna his job and he was gonna reconnect with an old friend. Or at least, he hoped they considered each other friends.

"I'll show you around."

Hatsunefangirl: And done! YAY! YAY! BANZAI~! I finally finished chapter 3, minna [everyone]~!

Prince_of_Death: *says sarcastically* Great! You left me alone for how many years. There were cobwebs already forming on my head before you decided to continue this fanfic! And this chapter is short! Tch. Seriously. *grumbles more about being ignored*

Hatsunefangirl: *grabs out her leek and whams it on Prince's head* Are you done yet?

Prince_of_Death: *grumbles curse words while treating his head* I hate you.

Hatsunefangirl: Ooooohhh, I'm so scared. *rolls eyes*

Prince_of_Death: Whatever.

-Hatsunefangirl's Author's Notes-:

Hi there, dear readers! Thanks for waiting patiently for Clannad: Life of Another Revised Chapter 3 – Reconnect. I humbly thank you very much for your support of this small little fanfic and I'm very much glad you guys still put up with me. Thank you very much~!

I tried very hard to make Tomoyo stay in character as much as possible (though I'm not sure about Youhei -_-') and I've read that Tomoyo's way of speaking is direct to the point, so I hope I did that well. About the whole 'author can't cook' thing, umm... yeah, it's true. I can't cook to save my life! If I tried, I would've burned the kitchen (and the house!) to a crisp! I didn't write it up there to insult anyone who can't cook, you're already considered my comrade if you're just like me~!

Ahh... anyway, thanks again for your wonderful reviews~!

Prince_of_Death: Now that Hatsune's said her word of thanks. I'd like to ask you guys to please review, comment, suggest, saying it sucks with a reason, telling us what you think, etc., etc.

But remember, flames are a complete and utter no-no.

Thank you very much and let's all hope Hatsune updates soon.