Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm not making any money from writing this fic.

--

Main Pairings (as it all stands right now) : Kagura/Tomo, grown-up Chiyo/Sakaki.

--

A sleepy young woman with red hair walks into her dark dorm room, trying to be as quiet as she can. Unfortunately for her, dark rooms coupled with hours and hours passed by doing lab work didn't do too much for her coordination. With a trip, an oomph and a small strangled 'I'm ok' she suddenly finds herself on the floor.

Her roommate turns the light on and greets her with a sleepy smile.

"Chiyo, if you're gonna try and keep up this nocturnal lifestyle of yours you could at least buy some night vision goggles or something… Or you could turn on the light when you come in, either way I don't mind as long as you don't end up sprawled on the floor."

Chiyo stands up and dusts herself off before shooting a sheepish smile and shrugging at her roommate who was now lying on her back with both hands behind her head.

"I didn't want to wake you, you have that important match tomorrow right?" Chiyo asks sheepishly before wandering into their small bathroom.

"What worried I can't win? This good ol' American college didn't offer me a full scholarship for nothing you know", retorts her roommate with a humble yet confident shine in her eyes.

She was about to elaborate on how easy it was going to be for their team to win after all the training their coach had made them do this month, when her eyes suddenly caught a washed-up and pyjama clad Chiyo-chan making her way to her own bed.

'Wow that was quick, Kagura thought, 'She must be that tired'.

Letting her eyes rest a little longer on the unaware Chiyo, Kagura felt herself be filled with a mixture of awe and somewhat parental pride. Her young friend had certainly filled out very nicely during the last five years.

Of course Kagura didn't really notice that often as they saw each other everyday and it was too gradual for her to catch it, but once in a while the eighteen year old Chiyo would catch her off-guard with how grown-up and beautiful she had become.

Chiyo was now as tall as herself with hair a little longer than shoulder length. Although her attributes had not quite placed her in Miss Sakaki's group, Kagura knew that the young Mihama at least belonged in her own. She wondered what a certain Takino wildcat would think of that and smiled when she thought about the probable answer.

"Miss Kagura?", a sleepy voice asked.

"Hmm?", Kagura lazily replied, still amused at the fact that Chiyo would often revert to using polite titles when her brain was in sleepy mode.

"Light please." The sleepy voice continued, as its owner allowed herself a well-deserved yawn.

Silently obeying Kagura switched off the light and stared up at the ceiling.

"Good night Chiyo."

--

The next day the two roommates made their way to the campus pool together, thanks to last nights lab session Chiyo didn't have any work to do today and chose to watch Kagura's race instead. She knew that after all this was the last race of the season and since they were graduating at the end of this year this race would be very important to the now very experienced athlete.

She looked over at her friend and smiled. Kagura caught the look and smile combo and raised an eyebrow.

"Chiyo I know I look good in the school colours but now really isn't the time to be thinking about asking me for an autograph…"

Chiyo-chan shook her head and rolled her eyes wondering if she was too old to be poking her tongue out in public.

A group of young freshmen holding pens and paper looked a bit dejected as they walked off after hearing Kagura's last remark.

Kagura of course oblivious to anything that didn't involve swimming or her friends walked on without incident.

As soon as they had reached the pool however a somewhat larger group of young fans were unavoidable and Chiyo took a seat in the stands as she watched Kagura try to handle all the attention she was getting.

Letting her eyes wander over the surroundings Chiyo thought back her first swimming in high school. She smiled and let the feeling of nostalgia wash over her as she thought about her old friends and their antics that day. For Chiyo, it had become a day that was hard to forget seeing as she nearly drowned… twice.

'Lucky Miss Sakaki was there to save me.' She thought. 'She always protected me, always made me feel warm and safe… I miss you Sakaki, you most of all.' Chiyo leaned into her seat and found herself imagining she was back in those protective arms.

A loud horn signaling the start of a race pulled Chiyo out of her nostalgic daydreams and threw her back into the commotion going on around her.

'Oh no… not these thoughts again.' she said to herself a little alarmed.

Shaking her head and looking around guiltily Chiyo tried to put the lingering thoughts of Sakaki out of her mind and tried to concentrate on the races. Luckily Kagura made it a little easier on her by winning all the time.

Chiyo put some of her cheering skills learned in high school to good use determined to keep her Sakaki filled thoughts out of her head, unaware it had captured the attention of all those around her. All of Chiyo's cuteness had now apparently translated into contest winning, natural beauty and charm.

More than a few girlfriends were being annoyed at the looks their boyfriends were shooting at Chiyo-chan, not to mention the few boyfriends that were suitably confused at the same looks their girlfriends also been aiming in Chiyo's direction.

--

It wasn't long before the winners of each race were being handed their medals on the podium and Chiyo was back to thinking about Sakaki.

After a little while Kagura was able to make her way through the fans without having pens and paper thrown at her

"Yo." She said with several medals now hanging from her neck.

"You ok there?" she added as she caught Chiyo's spaced out look. "Not going all Osaka on me are you?"

Chiyo giggled at the thought and shook her head.

Kagura sat down next her and elbowed her friend gently. "Then what's up?"

"I had a weird thought today, well memory… thought memory thing. Before your race, I… uh, thought some."

Kagura raised an eyebrow. This was very unlike Chiyo-chan. Well spoken, eloquent Chiyo-chan.

"Chiyo you ok? Is it anything I can help with?"

Chiyo leant her head on Kagura's shoulder.

"Your shoulder's wet." She stated.

Kagura laughed and without another thought placed her hand on Chiyo's head.

Chiyo closed her eyes and was flooded by yet more 'odd feeling inspiring' high school memories about a certain animal lover.

She involuntarily sighed. "Miss Sakaki… I love you."

Then a few odd things happened. Firstly a giant question mark appeared above Kagura's head. This was then replaced with an even bigger exclamation mark.

While this was going on Chiyo-chans hands went up and covered her mouth, her eyes grew wide and there were several giant sweat drop shapes sitting on her forehead and the back of her head.

Kagura stood and pointed at Chiyo-chan before realising her rudeness, dropping her arm and taking to jumping up and down on the spot instead.

"Uh..", Chiyo started.

"Chiyo! You're in love with Sakaki!" Kagura exclaimed. Unbeknownst to her the giant exclamation mark above her head had started blinking.

"Since when? Since when were you in love with Sakaki?!" Kagura asked smiling.

Chiyo-chan took her hands off her mouth in order to be able to answer her bouncing friend in such a fast speaking pace that even Tomo would have been impressed.

"About two hours I think. Since before your race. I just started thinking about her then. No… that's a lie. I mean… these feelings… just… after a year into college… everyone was coupling up and I couldn't stop thinking about her… but I think it was more one of those loves that you try push right at the back of your head because it seems to be so right."

Chiyo takes a giant breath.

"but also so wrong because I'm a girl and normally that's ok by me except she's a girl and maybe I don't love her anyway.… thinking about her just makes me warm and fuzzy and I don't want to think about being with her anymore I just want to be with her and it's kind of like you and Tomo."

"Huh?" Kagura sat down because the exclamation mark had again become a question mark and the question mark was getting heavy.

"So, what you're trying to say is that you've been in love with Sakaki since college?" Kagura was still smiling, it had been a while since she's had any good news. Well, this was more big, every surprising news but there was no reason it couldn't be good news too.

Chiyo nodded silently still suffering from the disbelief that she had actually said aloud to someone else what she had been afraid to say aloud to herself.

Kagura nodded too for lack of anything else to say right at that moment. Until another statement crept its way into her head…

"Wait… what do you mean like me and Tomo?!"

--

AN: Read and review please… just something I'm trying out. Will continue if anyone takes a liking to it. My first fic in a long long time. So try to be kind 