Chapter Text
Graduation.
Graduation was the only thing in mind for Yuuko, there was only a month left for her, and for her friend's high school life to be over.
She spent the sunday evening thinking about it, laying on bed while listening to her favorite music, she began to recall.
During her entire life Yuuko was always questioned about her future, and she always replied the same "I'm not sure yet!" and now, with little over a month to graduate, she still didn't know. It certainly didn't help that her mom was strict enough and that most of her friends already had it figured out, Mio was focusing on becoming a mangaka, she even had a manga accepted by a famous publisher! "Lucky her" Yuuko thought to herself "Not surprising she knows what to do, she's always been smarter than me"
Nano was going to stay at home looking after Hakase, which was about to start middle school herself, and Mai, well, Yuuko didn't know what Mai was going to do, she didn't gave a straight answer when asked, but in Yuuko's mind, she was certain Mai had it figured out, "How wouldn't she know? She's Mai-chan" Yuuko couldn't help but admire her long time friend, who always impressed her, ever since they met for the first time in middle school.
Yuuko didn't really want to go to school tomorrow, well, she never *wants* to, but it has been different the last couple of weeks, she's been feeling stressed and bummed out over all the graduation preparations, teachers constantly reminding her than now, now or never, she had to know what to do with her life, going or even thinking about school made her feel stressed, when she was in school even looking at her friends or at Sakurai-sensei made her feel stressed, she couldn't stand being the only one there who didn't know what to do, or at least that's what she thought.
"Why everything must be so hard..." She muttered to herself "I wish we could all be back to first grade of high school, everything was so easy back then, now high school is ending and I don't want to leave them"
That was what Yuuko was more afraid of. Leaving her friends.
Despite her childlike behaviour, Yuuko understood that graduating was going to make seeing her friends harder, everyone getting boring adult-jobs living a boring adult-life, Where was the fun in that?
Yuuko seemed to be more concious of this than everyone else, and that was taking a toll on her
"Why everyone acts like nothing is going to happen!?" Yuuko thought, or yelled, she couldn't know, the music coming from her headphones muffling every sound from the outside.
Yuuko stopped for a second and looked around, the sun was beggining to set, filling her bedroom with a bright orange light, her cat, who was taking a nap on her desk, woke up, probably because of the strike of sound coming from the other side of the room.
"Heh, I guess I did yell after all, I'm sorry Chissan" The girl said with a regretful tone, snapping her fingers, inviting the cat to come rest in bed with her, after a while of trying to get Chissan to come to her, she suceeded, Yuuko relaxed as her cat sleeped peacefully next to her.
"Maybe I am overreacting after all"
"When times look hard
A friend you might need
Mogami River."
—
Next day, 8:30 AM
"O-okay class! Good morning! The class will start soon so take a seat p-please!" Said Sakurai-sensei, with a more rushed look than usual, if that was even possible.
"Huh, what's up with Sakurai-sensei today, Mio-chan? She seems odd" Yuuko asked the girl on the seat in front of her.
"Well the teachers have been under some pressure, with all the preparations for graduation and everything" Mio replied, taking her attention away from the newspaper she was reading.
"I don't understand all the fuzz about it, There's still a whole month ahead of us!" Yuuko replied, looking annoyed at being reminded of the ceremony.
"Well you know, how it is, and plus it's a pretty big deal! My mom even bought this brand new camera just so she could take a good picture of the four of us" Mio replied
"Woah! Really? That's amazing! You have to let us see it, Mio-chan!" Yuuko exclaimed, changing the focus of the conversation to something more of her interest.
"No, Yukko, I can't afford you breaking my mom's camera" Mio replied harshly.
"Whaaat? You know I wouldn't break it Mio-chan!"
"Even so, my mom has it under lockdown for now, she got so mad when my sister took it to record her date with her girlfriend! She really is reserving it for graduation"
"Alright then, Mio-chan, but you gotta let me see it after graduation!"
"A-Alright class! Attention please!" Said the always nervous Izumi "We g-got a guest today"
As soon as she said that, a tall looking man, wearing a suit and glasses came into the classroom, you only had to look him once to know he wasn't from the school's faculty.
"U-uhm, H-his name is Kiyoshi-san, and he's here to talk about c-college opportunities and career options with you s-students"
"That's right, thank you, Sakurai-sensei" The man spoke, with a soft voice, but loud enough for everyone to hear "Hello class, as your teacher said, we're gonna talk about your future, as you all well know by now, graduation is around the corner, and you guys should have decided what you're planning to study, if you're planning on further education, or what you're going to work on, if you're planning to get a job straight ahead"
Yuuko sighed at the man's announcement "Not this again..." she thought.
Mio took notice of Yuuko's exhasperation "Cmon Yuuko, is not that bad, I'm sure you're going to get it all sorted out" The blue haired girl said, trying to reassure her friend.
"Is easy for you to say, Mio-chan, you already know what you want to do" Yuuko said to Mio, whispering so they wouldn't interrupt Kiyoshi-san, who was still giving his speech.
"I know all of you are talented students, talented people, and that's true, whether you believe it or not, Even some of you have got accepted to sone prestigious colleges!" The man said, with a proud tone on his voice "Right, Sakurai-sensei?"
"Uhm, Y-yeah! M-Minakami-san is one of the students who got a-accepted for an important university all the way in Tokyo!, a-and she's not the only one on this school, I-i know all of you can achieve what you want to do if you t-try hard enough" Izumi said, trying to follow up with Kiyoshi-san's wave of inspiration for the students.
After Sakurai announced that though, most heads we're turned in direction to Mai's seat, and some people began talking to each other, including Yuuko and Mio.
"What? Yuuko did you knew about this?" Said Mio-chan, with a mix of a worried and surprised expression on her face.
"I had no idea! Why didn't she tell us? She's gonna leave Tokisadame and she didn't even thought of telling us?" Yuuko replied, dumb-founded.
Yuuko had known Mai for years, more than she had known all of her other friends, and the fact that Mai couldn't tell her that she was moving to Tokyo for some prestigious college hurt her a lot more than she was willing to admit, even if Yuuko knew that Mai wasn't the most talkative person around, she still felt hurt, weren't they best friends, after all?
Yuuko shot a look at Mai, which, commonly, didn't look at her in return, instead she was reading a book, trying to ignore all the eyes that we're aiming at her direction, clearly uncomfortable by all the sudden attention she was getting.
"Yuuko, we need to talk to her when class ends, okay?" Mio said to the brown haired girl, which seemed too distracted by her own thoughts to notice someone talked to her.
Even if she was to reply, Izumi had already interrupted the class, or at least tried to.
"C-class! attention p-please!" Sakurai tried her best to get class back to normal.
"P-please! Kiyoshi-san is not d-done yet..." Maybe she gave up on trying to control her students too easily, still, everyone stopped anyways, probably out of pity for her.
"U-uhm t-thanks, please c-continue, Kiyoshi-san"
"Of course, so now we're gonna be handing out some forms that you're gonna have to fill out, just some questions about your career choice and what are your plans and hopes for the future" Kiyoshi said, while handing Izumi the papers so she could pass it around to the students "Once you're done please raise your hand and I'll go get it"
A form was handed to Yuuko, and she noticed she was already familiar with it "Haven't we done this before?" And sure enough, they already did a similar thing on the first year of high school.
Yuuko sighed and took a look at some of the questions.
"First Question: What are your hopes for the future?"
As soon as she read it Yuuko felt defeated "I can't even answer the first question!" She always had an habit to give up on things too easily, and this was no exception, but maybe she could do an effort this time, right? Knowing the lazy nature of their friend, Mio and Nano always told her that she must put a full effort on everything, no matter how hard it is, It's not that Yuuko wasn't energetic or anything, she was a pretty vigorous girl herself, she just didn't like dealing with any sort of responsabilities.
"Alright then, it wouldn't hurt to try!" Yuuko began writing on the piece of paper, though, as soon as she did, her mind started wandering somewhere else again, she couldn't avoid thinking about Mai,
Mai, Mai, Mai. Was she really going to leave? It had to be a mistake, right? Maybe she just found out herself? "Yeah, that has to be it" There was no way her best friend just didn't think to tell her! "I'm glad it was all just a misunderstanding!"
But wait, Mai is still leaving, right?
"Mai-chan, she's still leaving, so she's not gonna hangout with us anymore! She's not gonna come over to my house for sleepovers! And I'm not gonna be able to go to her house to play videogames anymore! She's.. She's not gonna be my friend anymore!" All of this happened on Yuuko's mind, panicking on the inside while simultanously writing down stuff she didn't even know she was writing! Of course she wasn't paying attention.
"I have to do something, she can't just go! I'm her best friend, I must do something!" Yuuko thought, with a look of determination on her eyes "That's right, I'll convince her of not going and-"
"A-alright class! it's almost t-time for lunch break!, p-please leave your forms on my desk if you didn't finish on time" Sakurai-sensei interrupted Yuuko's own thoughts.
"Oh, the paper... wait, THE PAPER" Yuuko mumbled to herself, accidentally saying the last part louder than she intended to, she went pale and rushed to see what she wrote down while lost on her mind.
"Eh, Yukko, are you okay?" A worried-looking Mio asked, interrumpting the conversation she was just having with Nano.
"Haha... Of course Mio-chan! Everything is okay here!" Yuuko tried putting on her best cool-looking façade she could.
"Uh, Aioi-san, Did you forget to fill out the form?" Nano asked the distraught looking Yuuko.
"Whaat!? Of course not! You really think I'm capable of that? Pff"
"Actually yeah, Yukko, you are" Mio said almost instantly.
"Whatever you say, Mio-chan! I'm gonna hand this perfectly filled out form to Sakurai-sensei now" Yuuko walked over to Ms. Sakurai's desk and left her form there "I'm so screwed"
—
Yuuko and Mio continued on with their insignificant dispute, while Nano just observed and made some remarks here and there, she was used to it by now, and she didn't even try to stop them like she used to when she first joined the peculiar friend group.
It was time for lunch break, and the three of the girls just wanted to ask Mai for explanations, so they sat on their desks waiting for Mai to finish buying her lunch.
"Do you really think Minakami-san is leaving?" Nano asked Yuuko
"That's what Sakurai-sensei said! Nano-chan did you knew about this?"
"I didn't Aioi-san, Is weird that Minakami-san didn't tell us though, Hakase is going to be sad when she hears about this" Nano said with a sad tone on her voice
"I was thinking, maybe she just found out herself? There's no way she didn't tell us on purpose!" Yuuko said, trying to bring some light into the situation.
"Yeah maybe, We have to ask her when she get's here, that's the only way we'll know for sure" Mio replied, trying to be rational.
After a while more of conversation between the three friends, a certain black haired girl walked through the classroom's door, made her way to the place her friend's were eating, and sat down.
"Hello" She simply said.
"Mai-chan! You didn't tell us you were moving to Tokyo!"
"Y-yeah! Minakami-san! Is it true?"
"Mai, are you really gonna leave Tokisadame?"
As soon as she opened her mouth, Mai was bombarded with all sorts of questions, which all revolved about one thing. Are you really leaving?
Even if she was talking to her friends, the situation wasn't any easier for Mai, she was uncomfortable and fidgeting with her hands under the desk, something that her friends have never seen her do before, she was always the serious type, but for the first time to her friends, she seemed vulnerable, still, she limited to answering with a simple nod or by shaking her head, with the ocassional words here and there.
"So you did got accepted for a college in tokyo?" Mio asked, and Mai nodded.
"And you plan on going, Minakami-san?" Nano asked, and Mai nodded.
"Mai-chan! Did you knew you were going to leave?" Yuuko asked, and Mai, once again, nodded.
"So you did knew, Mai-chan! Why didnt you tell us?" Yuuko asked, getting closer to Mai's face, following her over-the-top nature of expressing emotions "I forgot." Mai replied coldly.
"You forgot!? Mai-chan!" At this point Yuuko was doing her classic "sad puppy eyes" face at Mai.
"We don't want you to leave, Mai-chan!" Yuuko hugged her friend out of a sudden, Mai didn't hug her back, but didn't make any attempts to stop Yuuko either.
"Yukko is right, Mai-chan, we wish you would've told us before" Mio said, leaving out a sigh at her friend's "I forgot" comment.
"Sorry." Mai said, still trapped in by Yuuko's hug.
"So when are you leaving, Minakami-san?" Nano asked.
"Few days after graduation." Mai replied to her friend's question, and Yuuko finally let go of her "Whaat!? That's like, so soon! We have to throw a goodbye party or something! You can't leave like just like that!"
"Yeah! Yukko is right Mai! We'll make sure to give you a proper goodbye before you go!" Mio exclaimed, looking even more excited about the idea of a party than Yuuko.
"I like that idea, Aioi-san! If Minakami-san is okay with it I could cook some food for the goodbye party"
"That would be awesome, Nano-chan!, what do you think Mai-chan?" Yuuko looked at her friend awaiting for a positive answer "Alright." Mai replied with her typical blank expression.
"Yay! You're not gonna regret this Mai-chan! We'll make sure you have tons of fun this next few weeks! Yuuko said, practically charging herself at her friend for another hug, which again, Mai did not reject.
"Thanks, Yukko." Mai said, with a small smile on her lips.