It's been a year. When I saw him last I was lying to him, I feel like I'm always lying to him. But not today, I want to tell him how I feel, even if he already knows. "R-ryuuji," he stopped walking and turned to look at me, our hands still entwined together "what is it?" his answer was short, but I could feel so much feeling behind it, giving me more motivation, "Ryuuji, I," I look up at him straight in the eyes so he knows I'm being serious, "I l-l-lo-love you," my last word turned into a mumble.

As I felt my face heat up, I turned my head away to escape the embarrassment. I could tell he froze by the way his hand clammed up. I turned my head round slowly to face him, I was right, he was frozen, but not a shocked frozen, a happy frozen. His whole face had turned deep scarlet and he was grinning ear to ear while his body was slowly trembling. I opened my mouth to call his name, but was cut off when Ryuuji suddenly pulled me into his chest, and wrapped his arms around me in a gentle hug. "Me too, Taiga, I love you too," he whispered into my hair. I was caught by surprise, yet again, how many times has he hugged me today?

Seeing him again has made me realize how much I missed him in this past year, I want us to be so much closer but I'm too scared to change our current relationship. "You've already said that," I whispered back, finally letting words escape my mouth, "I know, I just wanted to say it again." We stayed in that position for a little longer, I snaked my arms around his waist to get into a more comfortable position, and listened to the sounds in the distance, even though we were on the second floor of a different building, we could still hear the sounds and happy cheers from the party. They all sounded happy, even though Ryuuji told me about some of the things that happened while I was away, I couldn't know everything, and that infuriated me. Ryuuji has probably made loads of new friends that I didn't know about, he probably had girls confessing to him, I mean look at him! He's handsome, inside and out.

I put my focus back on Ryuuji, instead of the past I should think about the future, we could do so many couple things now that I'm back, even if their embarrassing. Speaking of embarrassing, how long had we been hugging? I pulled away from him and grabbed his hand; I searched through my faded memories to find where the stairs were on this floor, and then started walking towards them. "Let's get to the party," I mumbled while blushing madly, trying to forget our previous awkward position. He hummed in response to my suggestion, and we were soon engulfed into silence again.

The whole way I never let go of his hand, and after a while, he held mine back; I kept glancing at him too. He hadn't grown that muck since I last saw him, to me he was still the same old Ryuuji, but on the inside he wasn't, he was different, he had changed, and I just couldn't shake the feeling that he was leaving me behind. We were nearing the auditorium, a place filled with many memories, like the beauty pageant and the Christmas party where Baka-Chi and I sang together. We walked slowly towards the open doors; our hands still entwined together, the wide room filled with music, laughter and chatter, which all came to an abrupt stop as soon as Ryuuji and I walked through those open doors.

The room was filled with many people, students of all three years, teachers and parents, all eventually stopped what they were doing to stare at us. At first it was only the third years who recognized us, then the DJ stopped playing the music because he also happened to be a third year, and because of the abrupt stop of the music everyone else in the hall followed the DJ's line of sight, and saw us. This took around 3 minutes. The first one to come up to us was Yas-chan, "Taaaaiiigggaa-cchhaaann!" She cried running up to me and squeezing the air out of my lungs, and, to my displeasure forcing me to let go of Ryuuji's hand. "I missed you soooo much Taiga-chan! How have you been? Are you feeling ok? Do you like your new school? Today Inko-chan said his name!"

Yas-chan assaulted me with so many questions at once it took me a few seconds to figure out what to answer, "I missed you too Yas-chan" was all I managed to say as I was too embarrassed by the huge audience watching our display. While Yas-chan continued to shower me with questions, kisses and hugs.

I looked over to Ryuuji out of the corner of my eye, only to see him smiling at us, which made me blush and turn my head away. That is until I heard "Ryuuji-senpai!" coming from the mouth of a quite pretty and tall girl, with dark brown hair that went down to her waist, and a beauty mark under the left side of her mouth, she had a little posse of two following her and a smirk playing at her lips.

I instantly didn't like the girl. She gave me the same feeling as when I first met Baka-Chi, but now Baka-Chi is tolerable, this girl, however, isn't. As soon as she got close enough, she glomped Ryuuji's arm like it was the most normal thing in the world, and that got me pissed. Who does she think she is!? I was so close to ripping her hair out.

"Where were you Ryuuji-sempai? We were looking all over for you," she cooed while rubbing her chest all over Ryuuji's arm, by this time I was probably red with anger and was about to rip her off Ryuuji and tell her to stay the heck away from my boyfriend when Ryuuji shrugged away from her touch and said, "please Hikari-san, I would appreciate it if you didn't touch me so carelessly in-front of my girlfriend." I was staring with my mouth wide open, I think everyone was staring with their mouth's wide open, I suddenly felt like I was on one of those crappy TV drama's.

The 'Hikari' girl burst out laughing "oh please senpai, I think we both know that you having a girlfriend was just a rumor. I even checked every girl in the school, none admitted to being your girlfriend" she stated this obviously amused which made me even angrier. I really wanted to go over to her and give her a smack down, but thankfully I didn't have to do anything 'cause Ryuuji gave her one of his death glare's "Did it ever occur to you that she may go to a different school?" The girl obviously didn't know when to give up because she replied with a very smug "oh really? Then where is this girlfriend of yours senpai, the 'Palm-top Tiger' I believe was her nickname."

Without further a due I marched right up to the annoying girl, who kept slobbering all over my boyfriend, because I obviously couldn't keep my temper in anymore "I'm right here! Now get lost before I make you!" The girl stood there with her mouth slightly agape, she looked me up and down before she once again, broke into laughter "seriously hahahaha I see why they called her 'Palm-top', she is sooo small!" That was the last straw, I snapped. I slowly reached behind my back, and pulled out my trusty wooden sword. The amusement on her face quickly turned to fear when she saw my weapon, as she stepped back slowly she called out "Ryuuji-senpai, please stop her"

"Sorry Hikari-san, I can't stop her when she's this angry"

"How dare you try and beg Ryuuji for help!" I screamed, absolutely infuriated. It was like this girl was meant to be killed by me, but my murderous intentions were stopped when someone stood in-front of my target. I looked up to see the face of the person who dared stop my hunt only to see the face of my bestest friend ever, "MINORIN!"

"TAIGA!" She screamed back at me as we ran into each other's arms, my past anger partly forgotten (emphasis on the 'partly'). We hugged and chatted for a while, we didn't have much to catch up on as we texted each other daily updated on each of our lives. Before I forgot I turned back to 'Hikari' "get out of my face before I count to 10 or I won't let you leave here un-hurt."

I let her off with a warning, she should have been grateful and just ran, but the annoying girl just didn't know when to stop "why should I listen to you? If anything you should be the one to leave you don't even go to school here." I had to admit she had gut's, even when I gave her my scariest glare she only trembled a little and carried on "plus I think Ryuuji-senpai would much rather have a girlfriend like me than you!"

I think she was just asking to get hit, but before I could another person got in the way. "Aaahhh I've had enough of watching this one-sided fight. Hikari you should leave your just making it worse for yourself. If you say anymore you could probably go to hospital."

"But Ami-senpai-" At the name my head shot up of course who else would say that but Baka-Chi. "No Hikari just leave, the only one who can make fun of Taiga's height is me"

"Baka-Chi..." I picked up my sword, was everyone out to annoy me today. I was about to launch at her when the last of our gang came out of the shadows, Kitamura. He stood in-front of me and held out his hand's as if to stop me, while Minorin came from behind and held my arms so I wouldn't be able to move them "come on Aisaka, it was just a joke. You know how Ami is right?"

"Yeah Taiga, she's just messing with you." I sighed and looked over to the cause of all this trouble, 'Hikari'. "Leave right now,"

"Bu-"

"NOW" Minorin, Kitamura, Ami, Ryuuji and I all screamed. I guess she was getting on everyone's nerves. She turned around and left, her posse following her. Good riddance.

As soon as they left the building the drama was over and the DJ started playing again like nothing ever happened. All of my past classmates crowded me asking me questions, but after a while it was just the five of us left. "It's good to see you again Aisaka" Kiamura said first, "You too Kitamuta-kun" I replied with a smile on my face to my past crush. "It's not for me; I was hoping to never see you again" Ami interrupted with a smirk on her face "I feel the same Baka-Chi" I countered, mirroring her smirk, she nodded her approval and I nodded mine, we had a love/hate relationship. "I missed you lots and lots Taiga!"

"Me too Minorin, me too!" I cried to her while we hugged again. After we stopped Ami stepped up again "what about you Takasu- kun, don't you have something to say to Taiga?" She had a devious smile on her face. "Nope Taiga and I have already spoken"

"Aww I wanted to hear you say you loved her" Ami said with a pout on her face. My face was probably as red as a tomato by then, and it got redder when Ryuuji mumbled, "I already did." They all froze and looked at him, then me, then him again, and as if on cue they all broke into grins. "Congratulations Taiga/Aisaka!" they all said at the same time, the in sync thing was starting to creep me out.

"Well then," Minorin started, still sporting a grin, "since we've all made our feelings clear here. Let's go Party!" She screamed, grabbing Baka-Chi's hand, and running onto the dance floor with Kitamura following. I watched them go, then looked at Ryuuji, he looked at me, "Shall we?" he asked, extending the hand I was once holding, "we shall," I replied grabbing his hand and pulling him towards our friends.

Graduation day is a day filled with tears of joy, and sadness. You may get separated from friends and loved ones, but all in all graduation isn't all bad.

AN: Hope you guys liked this story please look out for my other works XD