The idea for this fic struck me randomly, like the proverbial ninja in the night. It starts as your typical "a few years later" Azumanga Daioh fic, where we can see what happened to our favourite girls after they finished high school, and how they are dealing with their adult lives. And since said lives are not going as well as one could wish, they need to do something about it... together.

Azumanga Daioh belongs to Kiyohiko Azuma, who is our benevolent original author.

The sky was getting dark, and the street lamp Mihama Chiyo was just passing by flickered to life. A cloud of insects immediately flocked to the light, but Chiyo paid it no attention at all; she was busy getting depressed over herself again.

The former child prodigy was not feeling well about her life. Being assistant manager in a major telecommunications company was not bad, especially in these times of crisis, but she couldn't help thinking that maybe she somehow had failed her own expectations; no, she was sure of that.

Back in high school, life was so simple, so deceptively regular and easy to live. Everybody seemed to think that there's nothing she couldn't do when it comes to intellectual capabilities, and to be honest she shared the same opinion about herself. After all, she managed not only to advance five years ahead of her peers, but to excel in her new class to the point when her new, older friends accepted her intellectual superiority. At the end of her last year, she was even awarded the title of the best student in her school, despite her young age! Chiyo was not a person who would brag about it or look down on her less-gifted friends, but she simple accepted her own genius as an undisputed fact.

However, after the high school ended, Chiyo suddenly faced a new chapter in her life, something she was completely unprepared for. Her parents prodded her towards going overseas to study economics, so that her future career would be secured with both intellect and education, and of course she complied - it wasn't like she had any other plans, never really thinking about the future too seriously. She and Tadakichi-san said goodbye to their homeland, and so began her venture into the world of adults.

During her first year in the University of California she knew she would be shining as always. She missed her old gang, but she hoped that she could win some new friends like she did before, with her natural charm and keen mind. She did make friends of sorts indeed, but they were mostly around twenty years old, while she was still twelve - a child among young adults. Over time she realised that the age difference was for some reason much bigger than in high school; her university peers found her adorable, but they couldn't really include her in most of their usual activities. Chiyo was therefore spending most of her time with geeks and bookworms, who preferred other pastimes than most American students, but even with them she could not really form close bonds due to age and cultural differences.

Chiyo could live with that, but during her second year another issue started to plague her: she lost her faith in her own genius. Chiyo was still considered to be very bright, but other students were considerably different from her old high school friends: many of them were very focused on the lectures, determined to start a career or already working in financial institutions, and sometimes extremely intelligent too. Chiyo found herself in a completely new position: before her trip to California her life consisted of "doing well" and "having fun", with little to no attention directed at any long-term objectives; now she needed to deal with social environment where some people were not only her equals or even better in education - this was something she didn't mind - but who also made her realise that she was still a child, who isn't really qualified yet to do anything with her life. She didn't like very much, but she had no doubts about that.

During the following years in California, Chiyo was adrift, like someone who is only partially awaken. Not only did she feel too different from her friends, nice as they might be, but she also decided that she's not really all that interested in economics. What's more, her body decided to take sudden steps towards maturity, which was also rather detracting from her daily routines. Her naturally cheerful personality remained all there on the surface, but inside she was feeling more and more insecure about herself; she just didn't feel ready to become one of them, those adult people with their adult problems and mindsets. Her careful experiences with grown-up forms of entertainment that she decided to try out didn't turn out very well either, and she started to retract from others even more, instead concentrating on learning and random hobbies, such as cooking, yoga, or poetry club. Over those years she was doing pretty well - though not nearly as well as she had anticipated - and finished her studies with flying colours, but her life was no longer simple. To be honest, she felt as disoriented and unmotivated as Tomo had been, but not nearly as cheerful. And much more lonely.

This state of affairs, she mused, was somehow still present, she was just more used to it now than when she had been living abroad. After receiving a title in Global Economics and Management she returned to Japan with aged Tadakichi-san, not really knowing what to do. Her family, although not as rich and influential as it had been only a few years ago, could still pull many strings, and she was offered a position in one of the telephone companies in Tokyo. She accepted it with gratitude, and vowed to herself to give it her best... But at the same time she was sure that her life was somehow out of order, especially when she compared herself to that little Chiyo-chan she was so long ago.

And she was barely nineteen.

Chiyo's grim thoughts were somehow disturbed by the sound of running steps behind her. She automatically glanced back, just to be sure it was nothing dangerous - it was getting dark after all - but she only saw a young woman in blue tracksuit, jogging along the edge of the pavement. Chiyo moved to the side to give her more space, just in case, and was ready to get back to pondering her disappointing existence. However, once the girl passed by her, Chiyo felt compelled to have a closer look at her. That runner's steps seemed somehow familiar... The way people move doesn't really change over the years...

Moved by an impulse coming from some obscure past, Chiyo rushed after the other woman as fast as her high-heeled shoes allowed her. "Kagura-san! Kagura-san, please wait!"

The running girl slowed, made a few more jogs, then stopped and turned around with athletic grace. She looked at the delicate, but rather tall and well-endowed, auburn-haired teenager dressed in formal attire that seemed to be running after her, and after a few seconds of bewilderment her eyes opened wide with sudden realisation.

"I'll be damned, if it's not our little Chiyo-chan", she said, slowly cracking a big grin.

So, this was the beginning; a bit grim maybe, but it should get better soon. To be honest I have nothing planned, this chapter just wrote itself today. I have some general ideas on what can happen in the immediate future, and what's going on with all the girls, but I don't really know where the entire story is headed. I envisage it as a general/friendship fic when our heroines are getting back together years later (possibly with a slice of humour added), but that's about it. Will there be romance? Or a journey? Or social criticism? Or Lucky Star characters? Or just lemons? Or maybe a masked maniac will slaughter everyone with a rusted chainsaw? Who knows! But we might learn if I feel motivated enough to continue (hint, hint).

So, please R&R.