Sorry for the late update! Originally this story was only to be a one-shot but the reviewers wanted more so I had to come up with more ideas for this story. I've got the idea for the 3rd chapter already and now I just need to write it. This chapter was only half edited so if things seem a bit confusing at times, forgive me. I'll get back to fixing things in the chapter once the story as a while is completed. For now, reviews/suggestions/corrections are welcomed as always.

Disclaimer: I don't own K-ON!

Mio ran. She ran like she never ran before. The rain increased with each step she took, merging with the tears that fell from her face. Mio felt a deep pain in her chest that wasn't just from a lack of air. Although she knew it wasn't possible this time, she wanted to go to Ritsu. Whenever she was troubled or needed someone to comfort her, she'd go to Ritsu. But this time, Ritsu was the problem. Mio desperately thought of anyone she could trust to talk to and then suddenly it hit her. There was someone she knew who would be able to help her. Someone who had always taken her seriously. Someone whom she had been spending a lot of time with since Ritsu's strange behavior. She pulled out her phone and shakily dialed a number.

"Hello?" said a voice on the other end.

"I'm sorry Nodoka but do you think you could meet me at the train station right now?" Mio said hoarsely.

"Sure but—"

Mio heard a click and checked her phone. It was dead. Swearing slightly, she shoved her phone back into her pocket and began heading to the train station. When she arrived, Mio noticed Nodoka sitting by the window with a cup of warm tea waiting for her. Mio sighed with relief, walked in briskly, and took her seat.

"Thank you for coming Nodoka." Mio said haggardly as she gave Nodoka a grateful look before sipping her tea and catching her breath. "I really needed this." Mio gave a contented sigh and closed her eyes as she relaxed into her seat.

"Um Mio?"

"Yes?" Mio said, without opening her eyes.

"I'm not sure you noticed this but I think you should go get cleaned up a bit. People are staring."

Mio opened her eyes and glanced around the restaurant before registering Nodoka's words and looked down at herself. She almost had forgotten that she was soaked from running. Mio felt her face heat up instantly and ran to the bathroom. Nodoka gave a nervous chuckle and patiently waited for Mio to return, watching the various people outside the restaurant window as they walked in the rain.

-0-0-0-

Mio splashed warm water on her face and wiped herself with a slightly damp handkerchief before checking her profile in the mirror. Her long, black hair had somewhat dried and no longer gave off the impression that she was crazy. Mio's clothes however, were another matter. She noticed that part of her shirt got torn in the process on the left side. Mio made a mental note to be careful on the way home so that she would be able to sew back up later. Her jeans were muddied from the waist down and somewhat dry. Sighing, Mio hurried back to Nodoka.

"Welcome back, Mio. You look a lot better than before." Nodoka said smiling slightly as she adjusted her glasses.

"It's not every day that I end up running in the rain from a friend." Mio said bitterly. She sipped her tea and put her cup down rather harshly.

"I wondered why you called me out here so suddenly and then just hung up on me." Nodoka said.

"Sorry about that. My phone died." Mio said.

"It's alright. I knew something was troubling you." Nodoka said, giving Mio a reassuring smile. "So about the friend you ran away from…was it Ritsu?"

"Yes." Mio could feel her face heating up. "I was helping her wash her family's car when…"

"Did you two fight?"

Mio nodded.

"We did but…I'm so confused right now and Ritsu doesn't want to talk to me. She's been avoiding me and I don't know why." Mio peered into her tea cup and struggled to contain the tears that were threatening to escape from the corner of her eyes.

"Go on."

"I thought we were best friends but maybe I hit her one too many times." Mio rambled as she began to raise her voice. "I wouldn't hit her if she'd just stop teasing me so much. I've told her time and time again I don't like it when she gets like that. But in the end she always tells me she's sorry and I can't bring myself not to forgive her. Ever since that lyric incident, she's been treating me almost as if I'm a stranger and—"

"Lyric incident?" Nodoka said, interrupting Mio.

"Yes, lyric incident. I happened to send Ritsu a handwritten form of some new lyrics for a song I was working on. I'm not sure why, but they seemed to bother her. Eventually she got over whatever was bothering her once I told her that I had wrote them but then she started treating me differently from everyone else. I didn't notice it at first because she's always so cheerful but I noticed that when I'm there it seems as if she's forcing herself to be 'normal' towards me. Sometimes I catch her staring at me with disbelief or some other depressing look. And whenever I talk about you, she gets this unapproachable aura to her. It's almost like…"

"Almost like…?" Nodoka said.

"Almost like she hates me." Mio whispered, gently tracing the outline of her tea cup as a single tear rolled down her face.

She watched as Nodoka stirred her tea slowly as she contemplated Mio's words.

"Can you not think of anything else, perhaps signs, in the past few weeks that may have caused her to be like this?"

"Not really. I was hoping you'd see something I may have missed in what I've just told you."

"Hmmm." Nodoka pondered. "It sounds to me that Ritsu might be jealous."

"Jealous?" Mio's eyes widened. "By what?"

"Not what. Who."

Mio gave Nodoka a puzzled looked before Nodoka gave an exasperated sigh.

"Well, there's me for one thing. She might be jealous of our friendship. Though I'm a bit embarrassed about that." Nodoka said while scratching her cheek. "It's not like I'd take you away from her or anything."

"Baka Ritsu." Mio muttered while blushing. "This is just a repeat of what happened when she was sick last time. We made up but for it to happen again…I don't understand."

"That song you showed me a while back. What was it called again?"

"Fuyu no Hi? What does it have to do with this?" Mio said.

"How or when did you get the inspiration to write it?" Nodoka took her cup of tea and sipped it.

"Well, it wasn't anything special." Mio said. "I just got the idea for the lyrics one day when I was walking home from school."

"Did anything happen during your walk?"

"Nothing in particular..." Mio's eyes widened for just a second, and glanced at Nodoka.

"Well?"

"Well…" Mio began. "I did notice that some boys from a neighboring high school were playing soccer. Ritsu and I stopped to watch them a bit. Both teams were playing so horribly that Ritsu offered to play against them, saying she'd beat them all."

Mio gave a rather large smile at the memory, which did not go unnoticed by Nodoka.

"And what happened?"

"One of the boys said Ritsu wouldn't be able to handle playing against so many boys. Of course, Ritsu took that to heart." Mio chuckled a bit. "Made a bet with them too." The smile fell from her face and she scowled. "I was the bet."

"She used you as a bet?" Nodoka said.

"Yeah, she did." Mio said bitterly. "Some boy said that if they could have a date with me as a prize, then they would bet two tickets to that new theme park that had just opened." Mio shook her head angrily. "I told her no, that it was dangerous and I just wanted to go home, but she wouldn't listen."

"So what happened?"

"Surprisingly, Ritsu was the only one who was able to score any goals, so she won.

"That's good, isn't it? She saved you at least, right?"

"But that's not the point Nodoka!" Mio said angrily as she stood up. "I told her no. I didn't want to be a part of something that could turn ugly. And it did!"

Mio suddenly froze when she noticed everyone in the restaurant was looking at her. She felt blood rush to her face as she gave a quick bow and sunk into her seat, burying her head into her arms.

"Mio…" Nodoka got up from her seat and slide into the booth next Mio. She patted Mio on the back.

"Mio, what happened after the match?"

"Some of the boys got mad and tried to hurt her. They grabbed her and tried to take her away. I was so terrified that I just stood there, even when I noticed they were coming toward me. I don't know how it happened, but Ritsu punched one of the guys holding her in the stomach and was able to get to me. She was so brave. Unlike me, just standing there…" Mio paused a moment to calm herself before she continued. "We tried to calling for help and were lucky when a stranger came by and begin to take on the boys. He told us to call for the police, so Ritsu and I ran as fast as we could throughout the park looking for policemen. We found one, but by the time we got to the area where the boys were at, most had left, save for the few that the stranger had beat down."

"I'm glad that someone was there to help you. I hate to imagine what would have happened to you two." Nodoka said, shaking her head. "What did the stranger look like? What did he say?

"He told us to be careful next time, that he wasn't always going to play hero and save people." Mio smiled at remembering the stranger's words. "For a second I thought Ritsu was the one who was charging into the group of boys. They're both about the same height, had the same hair color, and the school uniform he was wearing was similar to ours. But anyways," Mio continued. "Ritsu talked to the policeman and we both agreed to press charges. We gave him our contact information so they could mail us the reports later on. The policeman called for backup and they took the boys away. They wanted us for questioning but the stranger said he'd take care of it for us since he had recorded some of what happened earlier on his phone. We both wanted to make it up to him but he said was that if we were to meet him again, all he wanted was to take us outon a group date. Then we went home."

"That's rather strange." Nodoka said as she slowly got back up and took her seat opposite of Mio.

"What is?"

"He saw you guys earlier yet did nothing to help you two until you were in even more danger. That sounds fishy to me."

"I thought so too at the time but I don't think it matters now. Perhaps he was just as scared as we were and waited until he saw a moment to go and fight. But anyways, I got the report the day after the lyric incident. It said that all the boys, or at least the ones they were able to identify, were expelled from their school. I just hope that I never see any of them again." Mio shuddered and drank the remaining tea from her cup. She looked out the window and saw that it had stopped raining.

"Yes, that would be nice." Nodoka said.

"Then I called Ritsu, to ask if she had received her report. When I started talking about how nice that strange boy was to help us, she got really quiet. And then she started treating me as if I were a stranger. It got worse when she heard that I was hanging out with you more." Mio said, sheepishly. "I hope you're not mad. It's not like I intended us to hang out with you just because she didn't want to be with me. I really do like being with you Nodoka. You've always been nice to be with."

"I don't mind Mio. I'm glad that you think of me in that way. But I wonder if there is more to this situation that we haven't realized yet." Nodoka said. "Certainly jealously plays a part in her behavior toward me and as you said, it's happened before. However, I still feel bothered by one thing. It's where that stranger falls into place that confuses me... Perhaps she likes him and is jealous that you wrote about him?"

"WHAT? LIKE HIM?" Mio jumped up from her seat in shock, forgetting where she was at once again. She bowed quickly to the other customers and tried to regain her composure.

"You can't be serious?" Mio said, trying to ignore the stares from the restaurant people.

"Well, if you think about it logically, it could be a possibility." Nodoka said.

"But we haven't seen him since that time. We hardly even talked to him. Well, I hardly talked to him. I was so upset that Ritsu did all the talking." Mio's eyes widened. "Now that I think about it, she did seem very happy when he was talking to us. I don't know Nodoka. I just don't think Ritsu would keep him a secret from me, even if she did like him."

"I know it's unpleasant to think about Mio, but you have to consider the facts. You even said yourself that she seemed to enjoy talking to him."

"Yes but I didn't think it was anything serious. I mean, I did write them with him in mind in those lyrics…and Ritsu. I just wanted to put the feelings I had at the time when she rescued me and that boy too. That's all."

"Now that you've explained it a bit more I understand a bit better about the whole situation. Maybe Ritsu took it the wrong way and thinks you like him as well?"

"But I don't like him!"

"I think Ritsu thinks you do." Nodoka sighed. "All I can say Mio is that you and Ritsu need to sit down somewhere, just the two of you, and talk things out. From the very beginning."

"I want to, Nodoka, but if Ritsu won't even give me the chance…" Mio's voice trailed off.

"Then make a chance occur. You're an intelligent girl Mio. I'm sure you can come up with something."

"I wish I really had as much faith in myself as you think I have." Mio chuckled softly.

"Mio?"

"Thank you." She murmured. "I'll let you know what happens." Mio got up slowly, putting down enough money to cover both of their expenses. "I'll see you later."

Nodoka smiled and nodded her head as she watched Mio leave. She got together her items and looked up at the window just before Mio was out of view. Nodoka also noticed that a group of boys from the restaurant they were in were also looking out the same window and gave each other smiles that sent a chill down Nodoka's back. The boys got up and slowly went outside in the direction that Mio had gone.

"This doesn't look good." Nodoka mumbled as she hurriedly pulled out her cell phone.

Jediotaku: Yeah I know the whole rain thing was a bit strange but what was supposed to happen was Ritsu was told to wash the car BEFORE it rained so the family could put it in the garage but seeing as how things went... :P I might be able to explain it through Ritsu's actions in the next chapter as to what happened after Mio left.