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Clearly, I've changed my name, though it probably isn't as big of a deal here and won't cause the problems it might in other fandoms…anyway, thanks for all the reviews! I'm going to stop replying to them in the story simply to stop cluttering everything up- if you'd like a reply, feel free to mention that in your review and I'll message you. Otherwise, enjoy, and please continue to review :3 They really do motivate me to write, I never would have started this up again if I hadn't got such a hit on this story recently review-wise.

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More than This

Six: We Could Be

iAtethePoisonedApple

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Tamamin awoke earlier than usual, her body still used to the school schedule. After a few moments, she noticed a heavy but pleasant weight against her midriff, and reached down to intertwine her fingers gently with those of her best friend. With a low sigh, Sugi pulled Tamamin tighter to her chest and buried her face in the smaller girl's hair.

Tamamin rolled over to face Sugi and pressed a kiss to the sleepy girl's lips. "You're such a top," she said, giggling when Sugi grumbled and rolled onto her stomach, trapping the smaller girl beneath her arm.

"'s early, go back t' sleep," Sugi replied, her voice muffled by the pillows. She groaned when she felt Tamamin squirming beside her and sat up, yawning widely and rubbing her eyes with the balls of her palm. "Tamamin, it's break."

"I can't go back to sleep," the shorter girl declared, moving to stand up, but squealing as she was pulled back down, falling on top of the surprisingly strong Sugi. "Sugi~!"

Sugi grinned and maneuvered herself so that Tamamin was straddling her lap and leaned forward, capturing the girl's pale lips in a long kiss. Tamamin giggled into Sugi's lips and returned the kiss lavishly, her arms tightening around the taller girl's neck. After several seconds they broke the kiss for air, and Tamamin kept her arms in their position, her face buried in Sugi's hair. "I thought you of all people would wait until you brushed your teeth to attack me like that."

"Attack you, as if you didn't love it," Sugi mumbled, grinning sleepily up at Tamamin, who was smiling down at her with an indescribable look in her eyes. "Let's make out, Tamamiii~n," she purred, burying her fingers in Tamamin's hair and pulling her back up to her lips.

The shorter girl's giggles quickly morphed into breathy moans as Sugi moved down to the column of her neck, her lips pressing slow, pressured kisses all the way down it as she made her way to Tamamin's collarbone. "Sugi-" the smaller girl choked out, her hands gripping the taller girl's shoulders helplessly. "Sugi, stop. Please, you need to stop."

She felt Sugi let out an annoyed sigh against her skin and bit her lip as her friend slowly rose back up to meet her eyes, her sleepy glare only adding to her sexy, disheveled appearance. "What?" she asked, obviously annoyed with being interrupted.

"Sugi, we can't do this- not like this," Tamamin said reluctantly, knowing a sleepy Sugi was only just barely more rational than a drunken Sugi. "Not if we want to see if there are real feelings behind everything."

Sugi pulled away from Tamamin and pouted, folding her arms over her chest and the shorter girl smiled fondly at her. "Come on, Sugi, I want to go see the Christmas display with Akko and Mari-chin!" she chirped, tugging at the half-conscious girl's arm until Sugi stumbled out of bed and down the stairs behind her.

PGBR

"I can't believe I got dragged out of bed for this," Sugi sighed, thinking wistfully of her warm bed back at the cabin…Tamamin in her arms…she shook herself from her thoughts and back to the present. They were standing in the middle of a giant Christmas display that had been set up in a small town at the base of the mountain where Akko's family's cabin was located, shivering and enjoying the festivities.

Akko and Mari were huddled into each other for warmth, and Tamamin was nursing a hot cocoa, looking reminiscent of a giant marshmallow with her huge, fluffy coat, while Sugi was already donning the jacket of a young man she'd met only moments before. As he shuffled his feet, nervously asking for her number, Sugi chanced a glance at Tamamin, who rolled her eyes at the taller girl before glaring determinedly at her drink. Sugi groaned inwardly and proceeded to give the boy her number. He wasn't exactly hard on the eyes, and if Tamamin wasn't even going to bother to talk to her, Sugi certainly didn't feel the need to hold herself back.

A tiny part of her felt guilty- she knew it was her fault Tamamin was acting so cold towards her. When they had first arrived at the crowded little town, Mari had instantly attached herself to Akko, who had wrapped a protective arm around her girlfriend. Sugi had been taken aback by Tamamin clutching her waist, and had pried the girl off of her, insisting that they should act more normal. Tamamin had then argued that plenty of girls acted like this with their friends- that was how Akko and Mari got away with it, after all, but Sugi had shied away from the contact even afterwards. She and Tamamin had never been that close before, and it felt as if they were putting themselves out there for the world to do what it liked with them.

Tamamin hadn't talked to her in two hours.

It wasn't as if Sugi were afraid of what any of these people thought; actually, it was out of her concern for Tamamin that she had refused the contact. Tamamin was so naïve- she didn't know how these things worked, and Sugi refused to let her friend (and maybe more) be hurt. But now there was a tiny, insecure whisper in the back of her mind, wondering if she had done the right thing, after all.

She was jolted back to the present by the boy explaining that he had to go back to his girlfriend (girlfriend, really, what a man). Sugi offered him the jacket back, but he shook his head even as he was turning blue, insisting that she keep it. She shrugged as he jogged off, shoving a hand into one of the pockets and approaching Tamamin hesitantly. "Are you going to keep this up all day?" she asked quietly, her fingers just barely dancing down Tamamin's sides.

"Are you going to do that every time I'm upset with you?" Tamamin replied in such an uncharacteristically bitter tone that Sugi was genuinely taken aback. "That's not how you fix things, Sugi."

At this, Sugi frowned, stiffening as her pride bubbled within her. "Who says I was trying to fix anything?" she asked. "I have nothing to fix."

Tamamin scoffed. "You don't even see what you did to make me upset," she muttered. "You'd think, for all the times Akko goes to you for advice on Mari-chin…"

"I know what made you upset, Tamamin," Sugi replied sharply. "But I'm not your girlfriend, and you have no right to get angry with me for not wanting to flaunt whatever we have in public."

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth once she saw Tamamin's lower lip quiver, but before she could say anything, the shorter girl spoke. "You know what?" she began, poking her finger into the brunette's chest, "I don't care if you give your number to a thousand boys. This was a terrible idea, being drunk make out partners was more than enough, and I can't believe I let you rope me into this," she spat, more disgusted with herself than anything. "I can't believe you did this to me, Sugi," she added in a lower voice, and Sugi frowned in confusion. "I know you manipulate those boys with your looks and charm and all, but I never thought you'd do it to me."

"Tamamin, I wouldn't!" Sugi replied, darting around so that Tamamin was forced to look into her eyes. "Why would you think I would do something like that to you?"

Tamamin shook her head, her teeth digging into her lower lip, a single tear escaping her wide, innocent eyes. She was a mess when she cried, and she knew it. She had to end this, and then get away from here, fast. "What else am I supposed to think, Sugi?" she asked quietly. "You don't want me to have a boyfriend, but you refuse to give us a chance. Nothing's going to grow from kissing and groping, not for us, Sugi!" Tamamin snapped suddenly, her eyes boring into those of her confused friend. "We've been doing that for years!" The smaller girl was shaking, and Sugi reached out to her only to be shoved back. "Calling a boy a man won't make him grow up any faster, Sugi," Tamamin muttered, her voice finally breaking, and she pushed passed the tall brunette, easily dodging Sugi's attempt to grab onto her, and disappeared into the crowd of people around them.

PGBR

Tamamin made it approximately a quarter of a mile away from the scene of the fight before she collapsed against the side of a building, dissolving into loud, heart wrenching sobs. The pain in her chest felt like it was eating her alive, and she couldn't stop shaking, even though she was hardly cold after the mad dash she'd just made.

What is this? What's wrong with me?

"You've never had your heart broken before?"

Tamamin started, whirling around to face a boy who looked to be about her age- actually, he looked pretty familiar…

"Harada?" she squeaked before she could stop herself, instantly clapping her hands over her mouth. The boy only laughed and nodded. "Mari's boyfriend."

"Ex," he corrected with a slight nod in acknowledgment. "It hurts, right? And it feels like it'll never get any better. But it will, okay? Trust me, I've been there." One look at Tamamin's face had the boy backtracking. "N-not that I was in love with Mari-chan! It was a different girl! But…yeah, I've been there."

Tamamin smiled slightly through her large, messy tears. "Thanks, Harada-kun!" she chirped, trying bravely to smile through the pain, "but I'm not heart broken or anything like that, it wasn't that serious. I mean, I'm not in love with her- him!"

The boy nodded as if he understood, and took her into his arms as if it were nothing, and Tamamin just fell into him, sobbing uncontrollably. "Of course you're not," he mumbled, holding her close to him as he thought of another girl, one with a shy smile and a loud, overprotective 'best friend'.

Their moment was interrupted only a moment later by the sound of a throat being cleared loudly. Without letting go, Harada looked up, his eyes going wide in fright at the sight of the raging girl in front of him. "Let go of my girlfriend," Sugi snarled, taking advantage of Harada's shock to curl an arm around the shorter girl and pull Tamamin to her.

"Sugi!" Tamamin scolded, but the lovely girl's glare didn't soften, and the arm around her waist only gripped her more tightly.

"Calm down, okay? I was only comforting her," Harada defended, hands up in surrender as he backed away. Sugi huffed an angry breath through her nose and wrapped her other arm around Tamamin so that the smaller girl couldn't escape. "Always getting accused of stealing people's girlfriends," he muttered under his breath as he trudged away.

"What was that?" Tamamin finally asked, turning so that she could glare at her friend.

Sugi winced internally- how long had it been since she'd seen the light, happy-go-lucky girl she fell- she liked so much? "That was me scaring off some guy trying to put the moves on you," she mumbled. "Look, Tamamin, I'm sorry." Tamamin raised an eyebrow.

"I hope that's not all you're going to say."

Sugi sighed and leaned her head against the wall as they watched the festivities from afar. "I don't know what else to say."

"Is it really that hard?" Tamamin's voice was surprisingly quiet, and Sugi glanced down at the girl in her arms with a curious expression. "To ask me, I mean. To want us? If you can say it in the heat of the moment like that, why can't you just say it to me?"

Sugi's jaw tightened. "You told me we didn't have to name this, Tamamin," she stated coldly.

If it were anyone else, Tamamin could have (would have) just left right then- just walked away and forgotten about them entirely. But Sugi wasn't just anyone, she didn't lift out like a cookie-cutter- Sugi was her best friend. Her heart-wrenchingly beautiful, unattainable best friend. "We don't," she said softly. "But if we don't, you can't keep laying claims on me like that, Sugi." Her voice grew stronger as she spoke; more determined.

The beautiful girl folded her arms over her chest and huffed. "I wasn't laying a claim," she said loftily. "If you would rather have had him asking for your number-"

"And who says I wouldn't?" Tamamin replied, as if daring Sugi to challenge her. "We both know Harada-kun is a perfectly nice guy."

"Have you already forgotten about your boyfriend?" Sugi replied, her tone venomous as she emphasized the last word.

Tamamin giggled slightly in disbelief before realizing that her friend was absolutely serious. Because besides the fact that she had literally contradicted her own views of Tamamin's boyfriend… "Are you kidding me?" she asked. "In all the years I've known you, you've never had less than three boyfriends at a time, Sugi- you're not really one to call me out on how to treat my boyfriend."

"It's different," the taller girl mumbled, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against the building behind her, her eyes focused on the ground, though her bangs had fallen to cover them.

Tamamin watched Sugi- this new side of her best friend baffled her, though it wasn't exactly a negative sort of shock. She wasn't sure how she felt about this side of Sugi at all, just that it was…different. "How?" she asked quietly, turning her wide eyes to stare at the sulking brunette.

"It just is," Sugi muttered, still staring at the ground to avoid Tamamin's gaze. Deep down, she knew it was unfair of her to criticize the shorter girl for the treatment of her boyfriend, even if she was in some kind of position to do so. But everything inside of her was so opposed to the idea of Tamamin having a boyfriend- Tamamin belonging to someone else- that she couldn't bring herself to be rational, something that she had always prided herself on.

Her heart gave an uncomfortable leap when she felt small, impossibly soft fingers lifting her chin, forcing her to look away from the ground, and it almost burst out of her chest when a pair of gentle lips met with hers not even a second later. She found herself wrapping her arms around Tamamin's waist, pulling her closer, flush against herself, because Sugi was feeling strange inside, as if closest wasn't close enough. Slender arms wrapped around her neck, squeezing tightly, almost to an uncomfortable level, but somehow her body had gone numb to any kind of pain, and all she could focus on was Tamamin's lips, and the small body wrapped up in her arms.

They broke apart several minutes later, and Sugi found herself struggling for breath as she rested her forehead against Tamamin's. "Don't talk to Harada-kun," she murmured into the shorter girl's hair, arms still tight around Tamamin.

The words were both a blessing and a curse- a blessing, because at least now she knew that Sugi cared, but a curse because Sugi didn't care quite enough to stay away from boys herself. Tamamin weighed her options- the right decision, of course, was to call Sugi out on being irrational and unfair. And before, back when it was just some boy, Tamamin would have done so in a heartbeat. After all, what was a relationship built on possessiveness?

But this wasn't just some boy- this was Sugi, and she knew her best friend well enough to know that Sugi had never made a request like this before, knew her well enough to realize that this meant that maybe, just maybe, the taller girl was developing real feelings for her.

So for the first time in her life, Tamamin shoved away her honesty- this wasn't as simple as she'd first assumed it would be- and tightened her arms around Sugi's shoulders. Rewarded with a gentle kiss to her neck, Tamamin took Sugi's face in her hands, forcing the girl to look her in the eyes- what she found there, an unreadable blend of emotions, almost made her fall apart on the spot, but she held on. "I won't," she stated definitely.

Sugi grinned brightly and claimed Tamamin's lips in a long kiss, and in that moment, the shorter girl realized that maybe, just maybe, this could actually be something.

They could actually be something.

So there it is- I hope it's still to your guys's liking, I'm a bit off today for reasons that none of you probably care about :P So please forgive me if anything's not the way it should be.

Please remember to leave a review!