This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Rascal Does Not Dream light novel series, which was written by Hajime Kamoshida. I do not claim ownership of these characters or the plot of the original series.

I thank Kamoshida for the story and the characters he has created that allows me to do something like this for my own entertainment and, hopefully, the entertainment of the readers.

When Shoko finally regained her composure she found that she and Azusagawa-sensei were alone. Minami-sensei had disappeared unnoticed while she was crying, clearly wanting to give them some privacy, and Shoko was grateful.

But now that she had released all the pent-up emotion there were questions that clamoured to be answered, and she looked up at Azusagawa-sensei knowing that she was far from finished with what she'd set out to do.

"Here," he said, before she could say anything. He reached down by his feet, picking up a bottle of water and handing it to her. She accepted gratefully. The water was still somehow cool, despite it sitting out in the open the entire time they'd been talking. Azusagawa-sensei must have got it from a vending machine right before coming to the classroom.

"Thank you," she said, her voice slightly raspy. She took a sip and then screwed the cap back on. She needed to focus. "I have some questions."

"Ask them," said Azusagawa-sensei. Again, it was as though he expected this. How long had he been thinking about this moment? As long as Shoko? Longer?

"Where have you been?" The question came out only half formed, but she got the sense he understood.

"I've been here the whole time," he answered. Not exactly the answer she was looking for, but again she had a feeling he was aware of that.

He just wanted her to say it.

"Why didn't you come find me?" The question came out oddly weak, Shoko's fear of rejection forcing itself into her voice.

"I wasn't allowed," said Azusagawa-sensei simply. He looked toward her, his eyes sad. "Your grandmother wouldn't let me."

For some reason Shoko felt angry. It felt like such an excuse. The easy way out. Blaming it on someone else.

But Azusagawa-sensei was still talking.

"Your mother and I weren't married when she died," he told her, his voice heavy. "We ended up in a custody battle over you. I was still very young, hadn't yet completed my teaching qualifications, and had no steady income. I had money left to me in Mai's will, but because the will was also contested that couldn't be counted to my benefit."

"On the other hand your grandmother had experience raising a young girl as an only parent. She was wealthy due to the success of her management agency. And perhaps most importantly she could afford high quality lawyers to argue her case. I had no savings, and the money donated by my friends and family could only go so far. The lawyers I could afford worked hard, but didn't have the experience. And so I lost. You went to your grandmother and she barred me from having any contact with you."

"How do I know you are telling the truth?" Shoko wondered. What he'd said had lined up with her experience of what her grandmother had said about him. Pretending she didn't know who he was, even though Nodoka clearly knew. But what if her grandmother had a good reason for keeping him away.

Azusagawa-sensei watched her for a moment, and then slowly reached into his pocket, producing his wallet. For a wild moment Shoko thought he was about to bribe her, but then he opened the wallet, and showed her the picture tucked inside.

It was her. She looked maybe three or four years younger than she was now, and was clearly celebrating a special occasion. She was sitting with a birthday cake in front of her, and a quick look at the candles showed that she'd been turning twelve. She was smiling up at the camera, a big beaming grin. Shoko couldn't even remember the events in the photo taking place, did not know who was taking the picture or who else had been there. But she looked so happy.

And Azusagawa-sensei had this photo in his wallet the whole time. The weeks that had passed with Shoko agonising over when and what to tell him, wondering if he'd figure out that she was his daughter, and he'd had this picture of her tucked away in his wallet all along.

Shoko swallowed.

"How did you get that picture?" She asked. It felt easier than addressing her feelings.

"Toyohama has been keeping an eye on you for me," said Azusagawa-sensei, folding up his wallet and returning it to his pocket. "Sharing photos and videos, telling me about what you've been getting up to, warning me when a new show or movie you were starring in was about to come out."

"She did all that," Shoko breathed. "But she never talked about you. Never."

"Well, she was scared," said Azusagawa-sensei, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Toyohama spoke up for me during the custody battle, saying that Mai would have wanted me to look after you. After that she had to work hard just to be allowed to spend time with you. If she had told you about me there is no doubt your grandmother would never have allowed her to see you again. That's terrifying."

"But that's what happened to you," Shoko pressed. "You haven't been allowed to see me. How could you live with that?"

"I always knew I would see you again," Azusagawa-sensei assured her. "I had planned to get in contact when you were legally an adult. Mai's mother wouldn't have a say in who you could spend time with when you were old enough to decide for yourself. But it looks like you found me first. I'm glad."

He smiled at her. It looked so genuine. Shoko hadn't even considered that he could smile, after being exposed to his monotone speaking style and his near perpetual boredom. It was like he was a different person.

For the first time she believed that this man was someone her mother could fall in love with.

And now she wanted to learn more.

"I have so many questions," she said, unable to pick just one.

"There's no need to rush," Azusagawa-sensei assured her. "We have plenty of time."

"But there's so much I need to learn," Shoko insisted.

"Like what?"

"Who are you?" Shoko burst out. "How did you meet mum? What was she like? What did she like? What did you do together? What did you think about me?"

There were just too many questions, and she wanted answers for all of them.

"Then let's take them one at a time," said Azusagawa-sensei. "I suppose I'll start with the first question you asked. Who am I? I am Sakuta Azusagawa, your father and a teacher here at Minegahara High."

Shoko felt the need to respond.

"I am Shoko Sakurajima," she said, proudly. "Your daughter, actress, and student at Minegahara High."

She smiled, and Azusagawa-sensei smiled right back at her.

"Nice to meet you, Shoko Sakurajima," he said. He glanced out the window. It was still light outside, but there was an orange tint that suggested it wouldn't stay so for much longer.

"You live nearby?" He asked, turning back to her. Shoko nodded. "Then let me walk you home."

"But…" If Azusagawa-sensei was walking her home, then there was a very clear endpoint when they would have to split apart. Shoko felt she had far too many questions than could be answered before then.

"We have plenty of time," Azusagawa-sensei assured her. "If you still have questions we can meet up again. And again. There's no need to do it all in one go."

Shoko nodded.

"Right," she agreed. She had done the hard part. She had confessed. Now it was time to get to know her father. And that was something that could only happen over time. She had to be patient, but now she felt she could be. She knew enough that she could wait.

They left the classroom, Shoko doing a quick pitstop at her desk to collect her bag, and headed along to the staffroom. Azusagawa-sensei said it was so that he could collect his things, and while he did return with a bag Shoko overheard him talking with Minami-sensei inside.

"What were you talking about?" Shoko asked as they headed down the hallway.

Azusagawa-sensei looked surprised, then smiled.

"I was thanking her," he said. "It's not easy being caught up in family drama, especially as an outsider."

They continued walking; out the doors, through the schoolyard, towards the Minegahara gates. All without saying a word.

As they stepped through the gates and off school grounds, Azusagawa-sensei spoke.

"So, Shoko," he said, causing her to jump. "You don't mind me calling you Shoko?"

"Eh, no," she said. She hadn't thought about it, but it must have been weird to address your own child so formally. "So, should I call you…"

Dad? It made sense, but it also felt way too soon. They barely knew each other.

It seemed Azusagawa-sensei agreed.

"Why don't you call me Sakuta, for now," he suggested. "Unless we are in class. That could cause problems."

"I can imagine," said Shoko. She had been living with the awkwardness of having her father be her teacher. But now that they had both admitted that their relationship did exist to one another it would lead to a whole new type of awkwardness. And that would only increase if her classmates found out about it too.

"Hey," she said, thinking of something suddenly. "Is it weird for you to call me Sakurajima?"

"What do you mean?" Sakuta wondered, tilting his head.

"You said I look like my mother," she reminded him, a hint of warning in her voice that he better not have been lying. "She was Sakurajima too. Isn't that weird for you?"

"Not really," Sakuta shrugged. "I never called your mother Sakurajima."

"Really?"

"I always called her Mai," he said. "Sure, it is a bit weird that there is a Sakurajima in my class who looks almost exactly like she did, but it's weirder that the girl is actually my daughter."

"I suppose it's all about context," said Shoko. She could sort of understand. If she'd been given her father's surname and she was in his class it would have been weird to have the same surname as her teacher, but not as weird as having that teacher be her father.

They came to a stop by the train tracks as the protective barrier lowered into their path.

"So what do you want to ask me?" Asked Sakuta. "What do you want to know?"

Again, the sheer multitude of questions made Shoko's head ache, but their conversation had brought one in particular to the surface.

"How did you and mum meet?" She asked, looking at him. "You said you always called her Mai. That's a bit strange, isn't it?"

Sakuta smiled.

"True," he murmured. "Everything was a little strange."

The train trundled by and the barriers rose again. They could have run in the hopes of catching the train before it left the station, but Shoko had no reason to rush. She wanted to hear this story.

"I met your mother in my second year of high school," said Sakuta as they stepped across the tracks. "She was in the year above me, a third year."

"You didn't meet before then?" Shoko wondered. They'd have been at school together for at least a year.

"I knew who Mai was, and I recognised her, but we never spoke," explained Sakuta. "We probably would have never spoken, except we happened to bump into each other at a local library."

"And?" Shoko pressed.

"She told me to forget everything and pretend I hadn't seen her."

"Huh?" That was not where Shoko had expected this story to go.

Sakuta chuckled.

"Yeah, that was strange," he admitted. "Strange enough that I couldn't stop thinking about her. When we were back at school I payed more attention, and I realised something."

"What was that?"

"She was lonely."

Shoko stared up at him, startled.

"Lonely?" She wondered.

Sakuta nodded.

"I'm sure you'll have been told about how great an actress Mai was," he said, scanning his pass through the gates at Shichirigahama Station. Shoko followed him. "But just being told about her success and watching her shows and movies doesn't tell the full story. Mai Sakurajima wasn't just a famous actress. She was the Mai Sakurajima."

Shoko listened, hanging onto his every word.

"There was not a person in Japan who didn't know who she was," Sakuta continued. "She was on billboards, magazine covers, on TV every single day. Everyone knew her. And so it came as a surprise when Mai announced she was going on hiatus from acting."

"Nodoka told me about that," said Shoko. "Mum moved away from home, started attending Minegahara High, and met you, right?"

Sakuta nodded.

"Mai had been very clear with her mother that she would not pose in a bikini," he explained. "One day she turned up at the studio, and there was a bikini waiting for her. The contract was already signed so she had no choice. She did her job, but was furious. She quit acting, not because she didn't want to do it anymore, but just to spite her mother."

"Nodoka says it was the right thing to do," Shoko offered uncertainly.

"It worked out for her," said Sakuta. He seemed to understand what Nodoka was saying, even without hearing the words first hand. "But it wasn't a pleasant experience. Mai quit acting just before starting high school. But she still had to fulfil all the obligations she was already signed up for."

That must have been difficult. Shoko had experience of this herself. She had managed to convince her grandmother to cut back on her work, but in the weeks that followed she was just as busy as ever. The contracts were already signed, there was no easy way out of them. For her mother it must have been the worst, having decided to quit completely, but still having a full schedule.

"The problem was timing," said Sakuta. "She was just about to start high school, but because of work Mai missed most of first term. When she finally had the chance to go to school full-time she found that there was no place for her in her class."

Shoko frowned.

"No place for her?" She repeated, confused.

"Social groups form naturally over time," Sakuta explained. "Especially in a school environment. And once the social groups have formed they tend not to change. Mai missed out on the period where everyone found their place, and so she was alone."

"Until you came along, right," said Shoko.

Sakuta smiled.

"After I first met Mai I started to notice how she was always alone," he said. "I confronted her about it, shared some of what I was struggling with, and she told me a little about what had happened. I figured the best way to solve the problem was for her to return to acting, but I made a comment about her manager being eager for her to work again, not knowing the reason she had stopped in the first place, and Mai stormed off and started avoiding me."

"Ah," said Shoko.

"I tried to talk to her," said Sakuta. "But she was used to avoiding press and paparazzi. I was no match. But in the end she came to me. She'd thought about what I said and decided I was right, and she should return to acting. And so she did."

That appeared to be the end of the story.

"And that's it?" Shoko wondered. "I thought I was going to learn the mystery of why you always called her Mai."

"It isn't really much of a mystery," Sakuta mused. "The day after we first met I called her Sakurajima, and she said the name was a bit of a mouthful. So I called her Mai."

"It was that simple?"

"It was that simple," said Sakuta. "She did the same. She said I didn't look like an Azusagawa, so she called me Sakuta. But the truth is she just liked me."

"Not short on confidence, are you," Shoko noted. Sakuta was speaking with such a simple and matter-of-fact voice it was clear he was either speaking the absolute truth, or he was completely estranged from reality.

"After the years Mai and I spent together, I know her better than anyone," said Sakuta, without a trace of embarrassment. "I didn't know why Mai acted like that at the time. But now I understand. Looking back, it was obvious."

They'd made it onto the train by this point and rode it all the way to Fujisawa station. Stepping off, they walked together out onto the streets.

"So, if that's how you met, how did you become a couple?" Shoko wondered. "Were you still in high school? You must have been, right?"

"We were," said Sakuta. "After Mai told me she was going back to show-business she invited me to spend the day with her."

"She asked you out?" For some reason Shoko had been sure it would be the other way around.

"She was insistent it was not a date," said Sakuta, with a grin. "She fed me a line about how when she returned to show-business she wouldn't have time for hanging around with school friends, but it was absolutely a date."

"She seemed to say a lot of things she didn't mean," said Shoko, arching an eyebrow. She still wasn't sure Sakuta was being completely honest.

"She did that," said Sakuta. His grin faded slightly into a more melancholy look. "She lived in an adult's world, and acted appropriately. She tried to be mature at all times, but since she was still a child she still got embarrassed about things."

"What sort of things?"

"Anything to do with her true feelings," said Sakuta. "She'd hide behind phrases like 'I'll let you do this' and 'if you would like' to mask that she was the one who wanted to do them. She liked to tease me as an 'older woman' but every time she'd make a suggestive comment I'd play along and she'd just get embarrassed."

"I feel like I'm seeing a whole new side to her," murmured Shoko. She had heard some stuff from Nodoka about what her mother was like as a person, but most of what she'd learned was her grandmother's tales of Mai's career. The idea that she could be embarrassed about anything was completely new to her.

"There's so much more to tell," said Sakuta. "Everyone knew Mai Sakurajima. Everyone loved Mai Sakurajima. But they didn't know that the real Mai Sakurajima was far more incredible than what they saw on screen."

They reached a fork in the road and together they stepped in opposite directions.

"I guess this is where we part ways," said Sakuta.

"But…" Shoko wasn't ready to say goodbye. There was still so much to talk about.

"How about we walk home again tomorrow," Sakuta suggested.

"I have a photoshoot," said Shoko. "I have to leave as soon as school is over." She was seriously tempted to just not turn up.

"Then how about we have lunch together," suggested Sakuta. "Mai and I used to eat lunch in one of the third-year classrooms that was never occupied. Why don't we meet up there?"

"Really?" Shoko asked, excited. "Sure."

"Then it's a date," said Sakuta cheerfully. "I'll tell you about the time I proclaimed my love to Mai in front of the entire school."

"You did what!?"

Sakuta just laughed. He headed off down the road and Shoko simply had to watch him go, her mind filled with thoughts, but her heart feeling incredibly light. She would be seeing her father again tomorrow. And he'd tell her even more about him and her mother.

She couldn't wait.

A/N: And that's all for this chapter. Please join me again for Chapter 6: Bonding.