Author's Note

So, this happened. I'm honestly not sure why I decided to work on this fic again, considering it was slated for termination after I decided to rewrite Shoot to Thrill and include this sequel in the rewrite. By the way, that rewrite is delayed until I either finish one fic of or get bored of writing for the Swordswoman Pentalogy. Probably the latter, considering I'll be working on the series for likely the next several years if I don't drop it altogether.

I guess you can either blame or be grateful for ForteDragon, who encouraged/pestered me numerous times about updating this. Although I have to say, it's impressive that it didn't backfire horribly; usually when someone tries constantly to get me to do something, I end up wanting to not do it. Blame my abnormal brain for that odd reaction, I guess, and be glad it didn't happen this time.

Anyway, that's enough out of me. See you at the bottom!

Forgive - Forget = Love

Chapter Three: School is a Wonderful Thing?

"Do you really think I'd want to hurt the precious person who gave this precious necklace to me?"

Asuna was taken aback by the intensity of her proclamation. She couldn't believe it; all this time, she'd hated the poor girl, thinking that she wasn't even capable of feeling so strongly about something like this. It was then that she decided…

Whatever Yuuki had to say, it couldn't be something hurtful.

But even so, she hadn't fully forgiven her. Yuuki had still caused both her and Kimiko a lot of pain, even if it wasn't her intent to do so. Well, she still didn't know the full story, but…

Asuna looked away, putting a hand up to cover the traitorous smile that grew on her face. "Your explanation better be good, Yuu-chan."

Out of the corner of her eye, the chestnut-haired girl saw her ex-friend — she still didn't fully trust her — smile through her tears. Not a mocking smile; a truly grateful one, a smile that fit someone who had just been given a second chance after a lot of horrible guilt.

Well, maybe that's what it is…

"Thank you!" the teary-eyed girl said, jumping on Asuna and delivering a fierce bear hug. Asuna could feel her tears dampen the shoulder of her white jacket.

At Yuuki's next move, she found her body betraying her. She let out a shiver as the violet-haired girl embracing her whispered something to her, her lips brushing over her ear as she spoke.

"I promise I'll make things right."

"That's not everything… you see, I… I like you…"

"Then… this necklace is… you gave me it because…"

"Yeah…"

"Aren't you afraid of us? Doesn't it feel disgusting to touch us, Konno Yuuki?"

"No! That's not…!"

"She's barely healed from the last time you broke her heart."

"I never… I never meant to…!"

"We never want to see you again."

"NO!"

The shout reverberated throughout the bedroom. Its origin bolted upright in bed like lightning struck her body. Although, given the situation, a more accurate description would be that lightning struck her heart.

Its frantic beating felt to her to be on a dangerous level. She felt like she would have a heart attack if she suffered any more of this.

It had been close to a week since her family decided to settle down in a small, friendly town they briefly passed over in their travels. The decision came from the combined begging of two sisters and one wife to finally settle down and stop traveling, but what they didn't foresee was that the oh so stern man of the house was a total pushover when it came to being begged by his family. They had never tried it before, but the effectiveness was certainly noted for future reference.

So, after finding and buying a house, they decided to head back to their home base (they left the things they couldn't take with them at a family friend's house) back in Tokyo, where they kept the objects necessary for living in one place while they traveled the country. It was there that Yuuki discovered that both of her old best friends had moved. She had no idea where to, and it crushed her. She wasn't going to get a chance to apologize to them, to tell them clearly her reason for disappearing from their lives.

Her family could tell she needed time to herself, but they couldn't just let her be a lump while they packed things up. And so, as a way to try to get her mind off her sorrows, her family sent her via train to go check out the town they would be living in. Check out their new house, meet the neighbors, that kind of thing. They basically decided to turn her into a scout for the day.

Of course, her luck had been down as of late. This fact was reinforced and amplified tenfold when she saw a certain someone sitting on a bench, just barely visible through the crowd. Due to its location behind a corner, she only saw it, and the girl sitting on it, for a solitary moment as she walked off the train platform.

But it was enough.

She thought about moving on. Of just pretending she never saw the girl. But then, all kinds of questions kept her rooted to her spot.

Why was she there? Why did she look so depressed? Did she live there – is this where she moved to? Was Kimiko there as well?

These questions, along with many others, prevented her from walking in any direction but towards the bench where her best friend sat, looking in dire need of comfort. And so she did, putting on her façade of happiness that she had grown so accustomed to wearing.

Even when she arrived right in front of her, the girl didn't register her presence. Silently and slowly, Yuuki took a deep breath before moving to sit down beside her.

Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest from the anticipation. She had no idea how she was going to go about doing this— or, at least, that's what she thought at first. Somehow, just like always, she found the right words flowing out of her mouth with ease.

The resulting exchange between the once-friends pulled heavily on Yuuki's heartstrings. For what happened to have affected them so deeply… she never expected that. She thought Kimiko's feelings for her were just a fleeting crush, not something so strong.

But, as she learned, her friend had recovered at least a little. The thought served as some form of small comfort to the violet-haired girl, though she knew that there were certainly still things that needed to be fixed.

Of course, several days later, when she and her family were finally settled into their new house, and she was finally registered to go to school again (during her family's travels, Yuuki had attended online high school), she had yet to figure out a way to set things right.

She didn't even know when she would next meet her two once-friends. She got Asuna's mail address again on her new cellphone, but they hadn't conversed at all yet.

Wait a minute…

"Oi! Sis, you gonna get up any time soon? You know you start—"

"Crap, I start school today!"

A certain sky-blue-haired girl clad in white fleece pajamas merely put her hand to her forehead as she felt a rush of wind pass by her from her spot in her sister's doorway. "'Go wake your sister up,' they said," she muttered under her breath as a blur of violet hair disappeared into the bathroom behind her. "'Don't let her sleep in on her first day of school,' they said."

The blunette known as Aiko Konno grumpily walked over to her sister's closet, knowing she would have to be the one to get her sister's clothes for her. However, she soon thought better of it. Her morning of sleeping in for once had been ruined because of her sister, when she was already awake in the first place.

"This'll teach her not to mess with my mornings off," she whispered. Granted, it was her parents who told her to wake her sister up, but if the little squirt had actually gotten up when she was supposed to (why in God's name didn't she if she was already awake?), then their parents wouldn't have come to her in the first place.

After a spectacularly embarrassing journey through the house in search of her clothes, which her sister had hidden for who knows what reason, Yuuki finally found herself on the way to school.

There's only one high school in this town, so I might see Asuna right off the bat, she thought rather happily. Though a slight nervousness ran through her at the thought of seeing her friends, especially Kimiko. She still had a lot to fix, and a lot to explain.

But right then, those thoughts seemed so far away. She just felt ecstatic that she would be going to real school for the first time in months, if not a year! The thought excited her so much that she ended up leaving the house a full fifteen minutes earlier than she needed to. But she didn't mind getting there earlier; it meant more time to explore once she arrived.

Speaking of which, she could see her new school in the distance. She sped up without thinking, breaking into a full sprint towards the building – she always had been very athletic, but more than that, she was just excited.

Oh, I can't wait! I finally get to go to a real school again!

With those thoughts flashing through her head, Yuuki ran full-tilt towards the first school in over a year she'd get to enter.

As Kimiko and Shino walked through the halls of their school, the former couldn't help but get a strange feeling. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something felt… different, somehow. Nostalgic, she might say.

The raven-haired city girl didn't know exactly what this feeling was, but she did know exactly who it made her think of. It made her think of the one person she had spent months trying to forget, only to ultimately succeed after moving away from her home and meeting the girl next to her. That person… she was the reason that Kimiko and Asuna became lovers in the first place. Because the chestnut-haired girl felt sorry for her after what happened between them.

I have to stop thinking about her! The raven-haired beauty shouted in her head, shaking it vigorously to add emphasis to her thoughts. I have Shinocchi now!

"What's up, Kimiko?" the object of Kiriko's most recent thought asked her with a slightly concerned face. "You don't look so good."

"Nothing, just… caught a chill," the raven-haired girl lied. "Hey, Shinocchi…"

"What is it— seriously, what happened?" Shino reinstated her question a little more forcefully as she felt her girlfriend grab her hand.

"Don't worry about it," Kimiko said as she intertwined their fingers and squeezed. "I just need some… reassurance. I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Okay…" though she personally didn't dislike the fact that they were holding hands, the rather shy bespectacled girl still hadn't grown fully accustomed to public displays of affection.

During the rest of the walk to the classroom, their hands didn't separate once.

When Kimiko had randomly shaken her head in the hallway, Shino had suspected something was on her mind. When the long-haired girl grabbed her hand out of nowhere, suspicion turned to concern. Even when they reached their classroom and sat down next to each other, and the city girl finally let go of her hand, the feeling of worry didn't lessen.

Asuna arrived shortly after and the three began to lightly converse, though the raven-haired girl didn't seem to be paying it much attention. The feeling only grew as the short-haired girl discovered just how detached Kimiko was from everything.

Then, the worried feeling tripled when the teacher walked into the room, because right at the moment where he looked out the door, Kimiko grabber her hand again and squeezed it. Somehow, it didn't seem like a coincidence that on the same day that Shino's girlfriend suddenly started acting insecure, the first thing the teacher said was:

"Today, we have another first year student joining us! She's another one from Tokyo, but she's recently been travelling all around the country."

By the time he finished, the raven-haired beauty's hand had almost cut off Shino's circulation. The bespectacled girl had to wonder just what was making her girlfriend so agitated, but she didn't have much time to ponder it before her question got answered.

On the teacher's cue, a girl walked into the room and stunned everyone. Her uniform seemed wrinkled a bit in certain areas, as if she'd run the whole way to school, but she didn't seem tired in the slightest. What made her so stunning had nothing to do with her clothes or her stamina, however.

Instead, it was her beauty. Long, lustrous violet hair that reached down to her waist, soft, expressive magenta eyes, smooth porcelain skin, and a slim, curvy figure to die for, this girl had it all. Her raw beauty rivaled Kimiko's, Shino mused, though she still found her girlfriend more attractive.

… Or she would, if the raven-haired girl would stop squeezing her hand half to death!

The beautiful new girl began to introduce herself in a clear, confident, and possibly even excited voice. "Hey, everyone! My name is Konno Yuuki! I hope we can get… along…"

Shino realized right away the reason why the new girl trailed off. Her stare of bewilderment that surfaced the moment her eyes reached the back of the class was a dead giveaway. For the second time since Kimiko herself transferred in, another new transfer student knew her somehow.

"Kimi-tan?!"

"Yuuki?!"

Both of them promptly shouting each other's names in shock just a second later didn't detract from this point, either.

Author's Note

I had to fix a couple inconsistencies waiting to happen in this chapter, but I think it turned out decently. Probably not my best work, but then again, nothing ever is anymore. I constantly fail to live up to my own standards.

Well, what do you think? I think as far as a setup chapter goes, this did its job, at the very least. All four of the main characters, three of which are transfer students are in the same class, what are the odds? Probably very low, so I hope you can suspend your disbelief under the pretense of entertainment, and also, remember that this is a small-town high school, so there'd only be a few classes for each grade anyway.

This whole premise is really built on ridiculous coincidences, though… first, Kimiko moves from Tokyo, then Asuna moves to the same city from Tokyo whilst not knowing that this is where her ex moved. Then Yuuki's family decides to settle down in the same small town where everyone else lives… if that's not a coincidence to end all coincidences, I don't know what is. Blame my ship-thirsty brain all those months ago, because the current me has no idea what I was thinking back then.

Anyway, my rant against myself aside (because trust me, I could keep going), I'd say I'm about done. See you all next chapter, whenever that happens.