Toaru Mito no Dankai

A Certain Unattained Stage

After making a slight detour to drop off the Capacity Down in a significantly more secure location than under her bed, Kuroko went back home. She arrived late but was surprised to find that she had come back before Misaka had.

Kuroko got changed, once again selecting something more conservative than her usual choices. As she was putting her pajama top on in the bathroom she heard the front door open and close. She quickly pulled on her pants and left. Misaka was sitting on her bed, tired, out of breath, and covered in sweat. Kuroko walked over to her and sat on her lap, smiling up at her. "Rough day?"

Misaka looked at her, "yeah, I guess," she remarked. The trials of the day finally making themselves apparent by the aching in her stiff, tired muscles. "What about you? I went to see you at Judgment but you weren't there. Saten and Uiharu told me you left quite suddenly they seemed a bit concerned."

"No need to worry about me," she responded cheerfully, "I appreciate their concern but it wasn't anything they need to worry about."

Misaka sighed, "get off," she said. Kuroko did so and she stood up, grabbing her pajamas and heading into the bathroom. She really could use a shower right now. So she went off into the bathroom and had a nice warm shower then got changed, did her homework and settled into bed with Kuroko for the night.

The next morning Misaka woke up alone once again. She heard Kuroko having a shower in the bathroom as she groggily checked her clock. 9:27 it read, causing her to panic for a second, thinking that she had overslept and was late, until she realized that it was saturday, and she didn't have school.

She sat up and stretched. She heard as the shower shut off and soon Kuroko came out. "Ah... Onee-sama," she said, "you're awake. Was I too loud?"

"No, it's fine," Misaka said, getting up to get ready herself, "hey, do you have anything planned for today? Want to do something together?" She offered. She didn't have anything to do today and they hadn't spent much time together since their "date" thing a few days ago.

"Actually I do have some plans for today; I was just about to head off now in fact." Kuroko responded

The answer took Misaka aback slightly. She thought Kuroko would leap at the opportunity. She hadn't mentioned anything that she was doing today. But then she shrugged it off. She had probably promised to spend some time with Uiharu or Saten today. "Ok then," she said, "have a nice time."

"I will. Bye." Kuroko said before walking out the door.

Misaka sighed. Despite the fact that, just yesterday, she had had a thrilling and utterly ridiculous fight against a large robotic exosuit, she found herself exceptionally bored. Even with all the trouble that Misaka seemed to attract and Academy City's advanced technologies it was still hard to find things to fill her days with.

It used to be easier. Before she had friends, before she was The Railgun she would spend her days practicing, working hard to be better. But now that was much harder to do. Any significant use of her power would cause considerable damage and probably a large-scale blackout. It had before… Though she couldn't really complain. Hanging out with her friends and having fun with others was much better than practicing by yourself.

Still, even though the others were busy she could still have fun by herself. So she showered, got dressed, and left for the arcade. She wasted an hour or two there before getting bored and leaving, wandering around town until she thought of something better to do.

As she walked her mind turned to the many events that had been happening of late. This week had seen her fresh out of one conflict right into another. Once again with an arrogant schoolmate who was amoral enough to actually try to kill her. Were all powerful rich girls this crazy? Or was it just the ones she knew?

Not only that, but yesterday's fight had made her realize a couple of things. In this conflict she was fighting her schoolmates. Her usual battles were against thugs, delinquents, or mad scientist ladies, not 13 year old schoolgirls. Some of them didn't even know what was really going on, like that airheaded lunatic from yesterday. Misaka couldn't hurt someone like that. Harsh as she was, she was no monster. Of course that was a difficult thing, considering that her enemies clearly wanted to hurt her, and they seemed to have the resources to do it. Not even The Queen had these kind of resources, and she was a level 5.

Misaka sighed. She knew she should stop worrying about this. It was the weekend, she was supposed to be having some fun. She looked down at the flyer in her hand, one she had unconsciously accepted from the girl who had been handing them out half a block ago. It was for a popular ice cream shop in town, advertising a special it was having in honor of its 5 year anniversary.

Then her eye was drawn to the bottom left hand corner. It seemed they were also offering a present to the first 100 costumers. It was a limited edition keychain, Gekota bundled up in a thick winter coat, but with sunglasses and an ice cream.

It was adorable. She had to have it. She checked the hours of operation to see that it had opened only ten minutes ago… Maybe she could just go and have a small cone…

It was a matter of seconds before the temptation overwhelmed her and she settled on her course of action. She headed off to the ice cream parlor, luckily it was nearby and within five minutes she could see the shop front from the other side of the highway. She began crossing the bridge leading over it when, halfway across, something else caught her eye.

Kuroko was walking down the street with a girl Misaka did not recognize clinging to her arm like a possessive, lovesick puppy. They were talking, Kuroko was laughing, looking so happy, neither of them noticing Misaka at all as she stood on the bridge, watching them. They seemed to be so close, as close as two people can be, as they walked into the ice cream shop.

Misaka hadn't moved the whole time she had been watching. It took a few seconds after they had gone into the shop, away from her field of vision, for Misaka to turn on her heel and walk away. She wasn't sure what she had just seen but she was sure she didn't want to see any more of it. Even her precious Gekota was forgotten as she walked back to her dorm, her stomach, for some reason, twisted and turned and suddenly she wasn't feeling that well.

She wandered home in a bit of a daze, lost in thought. Her first thought was that it was a simple mistake, a misunderstanding. That probably wasn't Kuroko she had seen, right? And not with some other girl right?

Of course she couldn't convince herself with such bold faced lies for very long. Of course it had been Kuroko, the same hair the same face, the same Tokiwadai uniform as she was always wearing. But what about that other girl? There had to be a logical reason that they were hanging out together, right?

'Maybe she's related to Kuroko, or a friend from school?' She reasoned.

But neither of those possibilities worked. She bore absolutely no family resemblance to Kuroko. And she couldn't be from school, not only had Misaka never seen her before (and she was rather distinct with her snow white hair so she probably would have at least noticed her before) but she wasn't wearing the uniform that Tokiwadai students were required to wear at all times.

'Maybe she's a colleague from a different Judgment branch.' But even that wouldn't work. They seemed far too close to just be colleague.

With each new rationalization shot down she drew closer and closer to another answer. An answer she dreaded, and tried harder and harder to avoid, but only ended up being drawn closer towards.

'Is Kuroko… cheating on me?' she asked to herself, finally acknowledging the possibility she had been trying to avoid. The thought hit her like a ton of bricks, and even as she attempted to reject it evidence seemed to creep from her memories.

Kuroko had been acting oddly recently, now that she thought about it. Yesterday she had chalked up her weird behavior to their new relationship, but now that excuse no longer made sense. She had been acting distant recently. At school she had almost completely stopped her fawning attention and public displays of clingy affection. Even when they were alone the lustful and romantic attentions had dwindled in the past couple days. The few times she did do something it was more like a joke to her than honest seduction.

All the small things that she had hardly noticed suddenly formed themselves into clear, coherent patterns. Her recent choice of more modest nightwear to the lack of good morning kisses. She hadn't missed them, so she had barely noticed when she stopped. But now she saw them and twisted them into a pattern that pointed towards one conclusion.

Now she was sure what was going on. She curled her hands into fists, all her unsure emotions turning into anger.

'What the hell?' she thought furiously, 'so she chases me for months trying to get me to notice and like her, then, when I finally return her feelings, she goes behind my back and hooks up with some other girl? How long has this been going on? How long has Kuroko been lying to me and going behind my back? Was this all some game to her? Just a fun little chase where I was nothing more than a prize to be discarded once the game was over?'

She sat there fuming for a long time before the anger finally dulled and receded. And all her rage filled accusations died away to be replaced by a single thought, a single question, 'what if it's me?' The Queen's speech from their battle rang once more in her ears. Back then Kuroko had gone through so much and the only person she could blame was herself. But she had changed. She had stopped her anger and violence towards Kuroko (for the most part) and had tried her hardest to return her affections and reciprocate her feelings.

But maybe her best wasn't good enough… Despite her efforts she had been progressing with this relationship at a pace slower than a snail through mud. She just wasn't ready for all this, and Kuroko had been nothing but patient with her. But maybe asking her to be patient was selfish. Relationships were all about compromise, and Kuroko had been the one to compromise everything so far. Misaka's responsibilities were to do little more than tolerate her.

She should do more. She should try to be a girlfriend to Kuroko, rather than hiding behind a mask of shame and secrecy about the whole thing. She resolved to change things, make them better.

But even as she thought this she realized that it was already too late for that. She had gone too long without doing anything,without returning even the most basic of Kuroko's feelings. Kuroko had been so patient for so long, and had finally gotten tired of waiting for her. She had moved on and left Misaka alone in the lurch without so much as a goodbye.

She felt betrayed, but she felt like she had deserved that betrayal. Once again she had been ignorant to the feelings of someone she cared about, and once again, because of her failure, the person she cared about was hurt. She couldn't blame Kuroko for leaving her, as so many other friends had done in the past.

Tears threatened to fall but Misaka held them back. Instead she sat silently wallowing on the edge of her bed.

That was when the door opened and Kuroko entered. "Hey there Onee-sama, I'm back." She said cheerfully, as if nothing had happened, as if nothing was wrong.

A whirlwind of emotions brewed inside of Misaka, a flurry of anger, grief, fear, betrayal, hate, and love. She didn't know what to say, what to do, what to feel. She was aware as Kuroko walked across the room and stopped right in front of her. Slowly Misaka raised her head to look up at Kuroko, ready to deliver her reckoning, whatever that may be.

But as she opened her eyes and raised her head she saw something being dangled in front of her face. Kuroko was bending down, holding something out to her. From her fist hung a keychain, a cute little one featuring Gekota wrapped up in a heavy coat with sunglasses and an ice cream cone.

"I was hanging out with a childhood friend today," Kuroko said, explaining, "While we were out I saw a flier for an ice cream shop that was handing these out as part of an event, thought I'd go and get one for you in case you didn't know about it."

Misaka reached out in a daze and accepted the keychain. She looked at it confused. 'A childhood friend?' she repeated in her mind, 'does that mean they're just friends?' this revelation shot through her, breaking up all the built up emotions inside of her, like a tsunami that had broken only halfway to shore.

She looked up at Kuroko, who was smiling happily at her waiting for Misaka's response. She received it the next second, though it was not the response she had been hoping for, when Misaka hit her hard on the head and turned away from her, baring her back rather than a smile.

Kuroko rubbed the sore lump on her head, utterly confused as to what she had done to deserve that. She looked at Misaka, about to ask why when she saw her Misaka as she sat there, her muscles all tensed up and quivering with some barely repressed emotion.

Kuroko sat behind her, curling one arm around her and holding her shaking form, while the other reached down and rubbed her back in the same spot that had been so effective at calming her the other day.

"What's wrong?" Kuroko cooed in a comforting voice, "did you have a bad day or something?"

The tears she had been holding in finally fell. She didn't know what to think any more. She had convinced herself of such an awful truth, had spent over an hour beating herself up over it, letting her emotions ferment, boil, seethe. And now that she had been proven wrong, now that all her fears were gone, why now did she feel worse than before? She had faced her fears but now that she saw they were unfounded, it felt like all her worrying, all her grief and anger, all her feelings had been for nothing.

"it's all your fault," Misaka said bitterly, wiping her tears, "making me worry like this over nothing."

"worry?" Kuroko asked, confused, "what were you worrying about?"

"You," Misaka replied, her tone switching to one of anger. Though the anger in her voice was subdued by Kuroko's gentle touch it did not extinguish it, nor all her other emotions, "you and that other girl you were with."

Kuroko considered her statement for a second. Then she realized what must have happened. A massive smile spread across her face but she kept the happiness from her voice, "oh. You saw me with Jericho? She's just an old childhood friend I met up with yesterday. We haven't seen each other in years so I wanted to catch up. It was quite a task getting her out of her apartment though; she's borderline agoraphobic and very shy. She clung to me the entire time we were out, just like she did when we were kids. She's a good friend, but there is no need to get jealous over her." Though she kept up her comforting tone she was secretly delighted by the fact that her Onee-sama was jealous over her. She was so adorable like this.

"I'm not jealous," she vehemently denied. Though, now she had heard the term she realized that that was exactly what she was feeling.

Kuroko wanted to squeal at how cute this was. She hugged Misaka closer to her and put her head on her shoulder and whispered into her ear, "don't worry, I know exactly how you're feeling, exactly what you're going through. I know just how awful it feels," her voice became less and less cheerful as she continued, "I know how scary those niggling doubts can be, and how hard it can be on you. I know the feeling of that, somehow, someway it's all your fault that the other person is doing what they're doing. That somehow, you're not good enough for them and never will be."

Then her voice perked up again, going back into the same soothing tone as before, "but I also know that, if you truly love and trust a person, then it gets easier in time. I know that jealousy doesn't last, and all those niggling doubts can be resolved, forgotten. All you have to do is accept them, accept that although there is a possibility that they might be true, that I love you enough that that possibility is almost nonexistent."

And for once Misaka understood, truly understood, how Kuroko felt all those times when she had gone off on a jealous fit whenever Misaka paid more attention to someone else. And she also knew that, if anyone would know how jealousy felt, it would be Kuroko. And as she looked at it she realized just how silly she was being about the whole thing. The whole thing was utterly irrational, she felt ashamed that she had felt any jealousy at all. Her emotions died down, burning out like a candle as she relaxed into Kuroko's hold. "Thanks… for the keychain." She said as the feeling of calm spread throughout her body.

"It was nothing, I know how much you love those kind of things," Kuroko teased, glad Misaka had cheered up. They sat there for a few more minutes, and then Kuroko said, "You know, the day's still young. What do you say I make us some food and we go out for a nice romantic picnic dinner?"

Misaka nodded sedately, just lying there on her bed as Kuroko went to the kitchen. When the calm feeling began to wear off she sat up again and stretched. Today had been as trying a day on her mind as yesterday had been on her body. She cursed herself for assuming such ridiculous things but she was glad nothing had come of it. She was confident that their relationship was stronger than that, Kuroko wouldn't leave her, she wasn't that kind of person.

But though she had confidence and hope, acceptance was still far away from Misaka.

Author's Note: This chapter was kind of fun to write. It was nice to be able to write about Misaka being jealous for Kuroko rather than the other way around without making her jealousy irrational. I mean yeah it is still irrational, all jealousy is (all emotion is really…) but it actually fits into what someone like Misaka is likely to feel.

Speaking of feelings…. It seems that, nowadays, the hardest thing about writing this is the fact that, whenever I'm writing a chapter I feel like I'd rather be writing another chapter that I already have all planned out. Not only that but I feel like I'm putting too much unnecessary detail in. Most books don't explain the actions of the protagonists each morning. But still, I dislike jumping from scene to scene without any explanation of what happened in the intervening time. I feel like I need to mention that they are going to this place and giving them a reason to go to said place, but I also feel like it is just a waste of time on the reader's part.

The other reason this is so late is because of the content of the chapter itself. I'm enjoying having the romance in this story and that was a third of the reason why I wrote this to begin with, but that doesn't change the fact that it's hard to do. I mean not only do I have to extrapolate from very different canon examples for their feelings and actions in a relationship with each other, I also need to manipulate the romance in such a way that, while creating enough drama and conflict to remain interesting, it isn't enough conflict to be off-putting, either to the reader or to the parties involved. One of the bigger problems is that most romance stories tell the tale of how the two people got together, not their happy life beyond that. The conflict is usually in the attainment not the maintenance. This makes it even more difficult to write an interesting relationship.