A/N: Just marathoned all 8 current episodes of S2 and I'm a wreck and it hurts so good. Set right at the end of episode 8. Not sure why I wrote this but I just…. had to… There's no point to it other than the fact that I was overwhelmed with feelings and needed to channel it somehow.

Told from Yui's POV because I love the girls' friendship soooo much.

Disclaimer: I do not own Oregairu.

Chapter 1. Inseparable

It was horrible.

Seeing her like that.

The past several weeks in the club room had been the same, following the same monotonous schedule.

With few requests to take care of and even fewer reasons to smile, Yui had all but forgotten how to.

Perhaps it was because of Yukino's fake smile, that plastered curl of thin lips that made her stomach twist every time she looked up from her phone.

She knew it was all because of what was happening with Hachiman and Iroha, and not only those things, but the events that had led up to it thus far. Everything as far back as his false confession to Ebina on the field trip was a contributing factor to their present situation.

And Yui hated it.

His frequent absence from the club room from then only invited silence, a solitude she was never sure could even exist between two people until she'd felt it for herself. She and Yukino conversed daily, but it was never the same. Something had always felt off, and though Yui couldn't ever explain it, she understood it.

He'd left them behind - both of them - somehow convinced that his presence there would only hurt them further.

He was an idiot.

Yui had thought as much to herself daily as well, partially blaming him for the pain behind Yukino's painted smile, and partially blaming herself for her own inactivity and inability to help fix things.

In recent days, the typing of her fingers across her cell phone's keypad had been accompanied by only one book getting its pages flipped rather than two.

She hated that. It should've been two. It should always be two…

And so to see him barge in like that, demanding he was looking for something genuine with tears in those perpetually-stoic eyes, Yui had nearly jumped for joy.

He'd come back.

He'd come back because he'd wanted to.

He wanted to be with them, work with them.

Because he truly did care about them.

And she'd understood that much at the very least.

But she had to admit there was still a great deal about this - about their relationships - that she still couldn't comprehend, and perhaps never would.

Yukino's reaction had snapped her back into reality, the reality that everything wasn't just magically going to be alright between the three of them just like that. Weeks of strained smiles and lifeless gazes couldn't be mended so easily, even if Hachiman's emotional display had been an undeniably breathtaking event.

Even if his confession had been all Yui needed, Yukino needed more.

But what it was or from whom she could obtain it from, she didn't know.

So she'd ran, clutching her arms around herself as though she'd found herself within a raging blizzard. The clatter of her chair, the choked breaths on her lips, the slamming of the door behind her…

Yui couldn't ignore those things.

It was too horrible to watch, too horrible to accept, too horrible to leave alone.

So with a tearful and desperate persuasion, she'd brought Hachiman along, dashing up the staircase with a fierce urgency despite the trembling of her legs.

It may not have been a matter of life and death, but to Yui, this was something almost just as dire. She didn't fully understand why, but she simply knew she had to run, had to go after her.

Yukino was her best friend.

She couldn't let her suffer this confusion alone.

Yui's declaration to Hachiman had been nothing but the truth; she'd never seen Yukino like that before, and it terrified her.

The girl she knew always sat with her back straight, and hands in fists on her knees - not with her shoulders slouched and arms shaking as she hugged herself, under the impression that no one else in the world was willing to do such a thing.

The girl she knew walked with confidence and poise - she didn't stumble over the leg of her own chair and rush to the door like a trapped animal seeking an escape route.

The girl she knew was always polite and able to control her emotions - she never slammed doors or ran away from a situation she didn't understand.

Which was why Yui knew she was truly in great pain with this now.

And that was also why it was such a relief to find her, standing out there on the stretch of pavement between the two school buildings.

The sunset was a swirl of pink and purple at her back, but even from that distance, Yui could see that her eyes were still dull.

They hadn't sparkled in weeks, since the field trip and Hachiman's staged confession.

It was all Yui could do to keep herself from falling to her knees as she ran to her.

Dread shot through her at the sound of Yukino's voice, quiet, reserved, and wobbling ever so slightly.

But most of all, it was scared.

Yukino was scared.

Yui had never known her to show fear before, not like this.

This wasn't the uncertainty that a job wouldn't work out.

This was true, genuine fear.

Her life was about to shatter, her most prominent relationships cracking and sliding apart more and more by the second.

She didn't know what to do.

She didn't understand.

Yui could only make an effort to comfort her, voicing her thoughts of how everything was going to be alright, despite her own lack of understanding of the emotions coursing through her. Whatever Yui herself was feeling, she knew it was less suffocating than what Yukino was experiencing right now.

Placing a hand on her shoulder was a small action, but it grounded herself and simultaneously supported Yukino. She was shaking - worse than Yui herself was - and she couldn't keep the tears at bay.

When she grabbed Yukino's other shoulder, Yui heard her gasp softly, as though she wanted to flee…

But she stayed. She didn't run away anymore.

Her eyes were still glazed, confused and hurt, her breathing shallow. But she wasn't so awfully frightened anymore.

Just… terribly confused, and still undoubtedly hurting.

Yui was amazed at herself that she could still managed to speak, the tumble of words spilling out even faster than the tears now.

"I… I hate the way things are right now…" she confessed.

Yui dropped her head to her friend's shoulder and wept, feeling warm wetness rushing down her cheeks to be absorbed by the other girl's uniform. Her fingers curled, hands clutching, gripping anything she could find to cling to.

She could feel Yukino's heart beneath her palm, throbbing so hard it made Yui bite her lip.

That was how scared Yukino had been.

That was how confused she still was.

She didn't want to let her suffer like this anymore.

Yui felt as her friend tentatively reached up to hold onto her wrist; Yukino was still shaking.

Yui wanted to comfort her.

But she couldn't continue speaking right away, and instead, the other girl took the opportunity.

"Why… are you crying…?"

Yukino's voice rasped into her ear, thin and fragile. Yui could hear it in her tone that Yukino was almost at her breaking point.

She couldn't say it out loud, but Yui screamed her response in her mind:

Because you won't! I'm crying for you too, Yukinon!

All she could do was hug her tighter, blubbering a string of incomprehensible sounds into Yukino's shoulder. The girl was still shaking, and her heart was still thrumming thickly and rapidly enough for Yui to feel it. She could only shake her head and wail helplessly, silently begging Yukino to be okay.

Thankfully, Yukino didn't let her go.

"You really do… play dirty…"

And at long last, Yukino broke.

It wasn't a tremendous event, but Yui had never seen or felt her cry before.

And she was glad for it. She felt as though Yukino really needed this. She felt she'd needed this for a very, very long time now.

The recent events that concerned her beloved club members had been pushing her too hard. Yukino was bound to have broken sooner or later.

Yui was just relieved she'd been there when it happened, that she'd been able to hold her and feel Yukino return her embrace.

Crying alone always hurt, but crying together suddenly didn't seem so bad.

And she was glad that Yukino was crying for the right reasons now. It was all still a bit jarring, a jumbled mass of emotions swirling within her mind and her chest.

But at least she wasn't going to be losing Hachiman.

Neither of them would be.

And they would't be losing each other, either.

Yui could feel it now as Yukino gently stroked her hands through her hair - still trying to provide solace for others first and foremost, even though it was Yukino herself who needed the contact most of all right now.

Yui could only cling tighter, pull her closer, and cry a little harder. She felt as Yukino buried her head on her shoulder, in a similar fashion as to how Yui had done the same for her.

And for a moment, they didn't need words. For a moment, it was just ragged breathing and the gentle stroking of hands over backs and fingers through hair.

It was fragile moment, easily breakable, and entirely human.

But there was no shame in any of this, not in sobbing in each other's arms, not in their unrefined shortness of breath, not in letting Hachiman see them this way.

This was their relationship. They could be as strong or as weak as they needed to, as fickle or as persistent as they wanted to, and the three of them would never judge, never place blame.

And they'd never break apart.

If anything had come from all of this, it was that knowledge.

They'd always be together, whether they wanted it or not.

But all of this only proved that they all did.

The evening swept around them, a cool breeze passing them by, giving them all a much-needed breath.

The sky overlooked them, a fiery witness to the events that had transpired between the inseparable trio.

All of their time together thus far had led to this moment of regret, acceptance, and healing.

They'd continue to exist together, and in existing they would hurt one another and get hurt themselves.

But after all they'd been through, they knew they'd be able to handle it all, sometimes with tears and sometimes without them.

But either way, they'd withstand it all.

Together.

A/N: Gosh, I'm so glad this show got a second season I love it so much.

Please review!