Set after S1E4, the 'beach episode'.

The clock read 2:16 the last time she checked it, but Yui could not tear her eyes off of the sleeping form of her best friend. The moonlight filtering through the skylight landed directly on Kyouko's slumbering form, bathing the blonde in an ethereal glow and giving her hair an almost otherworldly shimmer.

Yui could only admire the sleeping beauty next to her silently, lest she wake her up. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was a cranky, hungry Kyouko demanding some rum raisin ice cream. Not that she had any shortage - practically half her freezer was taken up by Kyouko's favorite frozen treat. Yui still wasn't too sure if it was healthy to supply the blonde with this much ice cream.

Actually, scratch that - Yui knew it wasn't healthy in the slightest, but didn't see any reason not to. It got Kyouko to cooperate with most of her requests, and besides, it made the blonde happy, and nobody, not even the likes of the cool, collected Yui Funami could possibly resist Kyouko's adorable pouting face. And there didn't seem to be too many adverse health effects. She'd stop buying them immediately if they started affecting Kyouko's health.

Although Yui couldn't really fathom anyone else, much less herself, being able to eat up the remaining stock.

Speaking of adverse health effects, Yui was mildly jealous (okay, maybe a bit more than mildly) of how slim Kyouko seemed to always be. Having witnessed the blonde's ravenous appetite on many, many occasions, Yui could only hypothesize all that food went into a black hole sitting in Kyouko's stomach. While Yui had to maintain a strict exercise regime (that mainly consisted of running, as she couldn't really afford a gym membership on top of buying extra food for Kyouko) in order to keep slim, all Kyouko had to do, apparently, was sit around watching Mirakurun and drawing her doujin.

She eats about twice as much as I do. Yui thought, shooting an annoyed glance at the sleeping Kyouko. She felt her wallet silently agree.

Oftentimes Yui asked herself why she went through all of this for the blonde, but the answer would always present itself in her mind, causing her heart to twist up inside her chest and her whole body to feel uncomfortably warm.

I'm still in love with Toshinou Kyouko. She had accepted her feelings for her childhood friend a long time ago, but that didn't mean she had to like them one bit. Truth be told, Yui was still confused sometimes as to why she was so attracted to the blonde. Sure, she was the prettiest thing under the sun (and here Yui had to stop herself from picturing Kyouko in her red bikini), but Yui was never one to prioritize looks when picturing her ideal girlfriend.

Which is why it wasn't Kyouko's golden, shining hair that attracted Yui, but the blonde's blindingly bright smile, the one while could light up a room and make Yui's heart flutter. It wasn't the blonde's round, adorable face, but rather her cute mannerisms that Yui would remember long after the blonde had left her apartment, leaving her (though she would never admit it in a million years) much lonelier. It wasn't Kyouko's slim, attractive figure, but her constant energy and optimistic attitude that would serve as a reminder to Yui to stop looking at the world through a lens of cynicism, but to instead embrace every moment in her life as if it were her last.

And if she really to take that at face value, come next morning Kyouko would be waking up to a large banner right in front of her, boldly asking 'Toshinou Kyouko, will you go out with me?'.

But Yui's cynicism, which had served her so well in life until now, would remain steadfast here. Time and time again, she had convinced herself that her best friend could not possibly harbour feelings for her, plain ol' Yui Funami. This time was no different. Yui let out a soft sigh and slid back into her futon, taking extra care not to disturb Kyouko.

Besides, Yui thought to herself, there's another reason I would never do that.

Yui's thoughts shifted over to the Student Council's vice president, one Ayano Sugiura, and Yui's newfound revelation of Ayano's feelings for Kyouko.

Yui and Ayano stared intently at the TV screen, the latter mashing buttons with a speed that Yui hadn't even seen out of a rum raisin empowered Kyouko.

It came as a surprise to Yui that the hardworking, studious Sugiura Ayano had a natural affinity for video games. She was already proving to be much better than Yui's standard blonde partner, and Yui predicted the violet-haired girl would become almost as good as herself if she kept practicing. Yui supposed all the paperwork that Ayano had to deal with on a daily basis would have improved her dexterity by leaps and bounds.

Utilizing things like teamwork, timing and dodging that Kyouko herself would have never considered, let alone actually used, the duo blitzed through one of the more difficult levels, one that Yui and Kyouko had only ever defeated twice. They had just beat the stage boss, and both leaned back from the screen in a mix of triumph and relief.

"I believe that's the fastest time I've ever completed this level." Yui said with a slight smile.

"Well, I've always been good at video games." Ayano admitted with a grin.

"Much better than Kyouko, at any rate." Yui let out a soft sigh. She loved the blonde, she really did (maybe even more so than was socially appropriate), but it was excruciatingly difficult to work together with someone whose strategy was, for all intents and purposes, mashing buttons in a seemingly random pattern.

Yui was glad she'd invited Ayano to come over and visit. Sure, Kyouko came over (almost certainly without any forewarning) fairly often, but she couldn't always be there. Plus, it was nice to have the Ayano's company for a change - someone slightly more down-to-earth and less, well, Kyouko. She also looked forward to not having the post-sleepover clean up, too.

"Speaking of Kyouko, does she sleep over often?" Ayano asked, gesturing to the folded futon that Yui still hadn't bothered to put away. Yui looked around her apartment, noting down the fridge, still housing the head of cabbage that served as Kyouko's housewarming present; a sizeable stack of manga that Kyouko insisted she was still reading; and a small pile of pajamas that Kyouko had left over at Yui's place the last time she slept over.

"Too often, sometimes." Yui said with a frown. Kyouko was messy, loud and entirely too energetic for her own good sometimes - not that Yui would ever pass up an opportunity to spend time with the blonde.

"But between you and me…" Yui trailed off here, unable to decide if she should tell Ayano about how she really felt. On one hand, she wasn't sure if this was entirely appropriate talk, and she really didn't think she was that close to Ayano. On the other, she knew that Ayano was an only child, so if there was anyone who could understand how she felt, it would be Ayano.

"I'm really glad Kyouko does. It's like her being unpredictable keeps me from being too boring, in some strange way or another. It really makes things around here feel less…"

"Lonely?" Ayano completed the sentence. She understood where Yui was coming from - she always looked forward to the Saturday revision sessions between her and Chitose.

Yui and Ayano smiled at each other, an unspoken understanding falling on the duo. Yui took advantage of the pause in their conversation, rising to her feet and heading over the kitchen to grab a can of soda for both her and Ayano. She set one down in front of her guest, who nodded appreciatively. She popped the tab open and took a big gulp when she heard the last words she'd ever expect to hear tonight.

"Do you have feelings for Toshinou Kyouko?"

It took everything Yui had to prevent herself from spurting soda all over her freshly cleaned apartment floor. Instead, she hastily swallowed the remainder, feeling the burning sensation travel down her throat, and answered, in a voice that was far calmer than she actually felt:

"Why do you ask?" Why do you want to know? was the real question Yui wanted to ask, but she really didn't want to come off as rude to her new guest. She adjusted her face from her initial shock to her signature face of impassiveness, hoping she wouldn't be too obvious about how she really felt for the blonde.

"It's just... " and here Ayano blushed slightly, "I was curious, I guess…" she paused, and an uncomfortable silence fell over the two of them. Yui raised an eyebrow at this, clearly not convinced. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Ayano sighed, and confessed:

"I think I'm in love with Toshinou Kyouko."

Nothing could possibly have prepared Yui for this. If the violet-haired girl had said anything else after her confession, Yui didn't hear any of it. She was too busy trying to recall all the times Ayano and Kyouko spent together. Most of what she could remember was red - oh, right, Chitose would almost always be there, too.

On that note, Yui now realised that Chitose wasn't just teasing her fellow Student Council member in jest - well, she was doing that, but the white-haired girl was also trying, in her own special way, to push Ayano towards Kyouko - which meant that Chitose knew about the former's schoolgirl crush. Probably.

"Does Chitose know?" Yui didn't really need to know this, but she figured it was better than the alternative, which would involve lengthy conversations about how, when, where and why Ayano started developing feelings for the blonde.

"She's the only person I've ever told, actually… well, except you, of course." Ayano admitted.

The uncomfortable silence returned to the duo, and Yui took this as Ayano's permission to digest everything she had just said.

Well, that confirmed it. Evidently, at some point in time, Ayano had developed a crush on Kyouko, but the violet-haired girl was too shy to admit her feelings for the blonde. Chitose, acting as Ayano's best friend and confidante, tried (when she wasn't suffering from her nosebleeds) to push Ayano to be more honest about her feelings, or even just tried to help Ayano spend more time with Kyouko.

Yui didn't know how to feel about all of this. Her heart was torn right down the middle, two sides fighting over for dominance of how she should respond. On one hand, she wanted to tell Ayano that yes, yes she was in love with Toshinou Kyouko. She wanted to tell Ayano about how sometimes, while lying on her futon at night, she could almost imagine Kyouko's warmth constantly beside her; about how Yui had catalogued and frequently practised making all of Kyouko's favorite dishes, even if she knew the blonde would chow down anything put in front of her; and how Kyouko's smile would never fail to elicit a jump in her heart.

And Yui wanted to tell Ayano about how she knew, from the first day that she'd realised her love for her childhood friend, that trying to win her affections would be nothing but a pointless endeavour. That Kyouko would come to Yui for all her problems - both academic and romantic, and it was this that made Yui so sure Kyouko could and would never like her.

Even if, by some miracle, Kyouko did develop feelings for her (as had happened frequently in Yui's dreams), there was no doubt the blonde would have said something, or started flirting with her, or not throw herself on Chinatsu every time the pinkette joined them. Kyouko definitely wasn't shy when it came to matters of the heart, and Yui was tired of waiting.

The other part of her acknowledged how Kyouko did seem to show an interest in Ayano. Sure, her flirtatiousness towards the violet-haired girl may have just been Kyouko's attempts at getting her out of her shell, but it was at least more affection than she'd ever shown Yui. If she could push Kyouko towards Ayano, like Chitose had the other way, and in doing so guarantee the happiness of both her new friend and her best friend, she was prepared to do it.

Yui Funami, best friend of Toshinou Kyouko, had long accepted her fate - she would be Kyouko's best friend, and nothing more.

What are best friends for, right?

"No. No, we're just best friends. That's all we are."

Yui could only hope Ayano didn't notice the slight tremor in her voice, her clenched fists, or the tears forming in her eyes as her heart broke once again.

Yui's eyes still remained fixed upon Kyouko's body. She observed the steady rise and fall of her chest, the messy hair, some of which lied across her face, but most of all the serene smile upon Kyouko's face, so unlike the energetic grins Yui was used to receiving.

I wonder what she's dreaming about.

Yui reached over and brushed an errant lock of hair away from the blonde's face, staring at it intensely, as if trying to capture the image of Kyouko in her mind. Yui tried to ignore how hollow her heart felt, staring at Kyouko. At last, she pulled her arm away from the blonde's forehead and raised it to her lips, imagining the feeling of her lips on Kyouko's.

She let her head hit the pillow, closed her eyes, and willed her mind not to think about a certain blonde.

"No. No, we're just best friends. That's all we are."

Ayano was tempted to take Yui's answer at face value - to just pretend that, yes, Yui did not harbor feelings for Kyouko. Ayano would then go ahead and do what Chitose had urged her to do for the last year or so, and then Kyouko and her would be a happy couple forever and after.

Except that would be the easy way out. And if there was anything Sugiura Ayano could claim, it was that she never took the easy way out.

Ayano acknowledged how long it took Yui to actually properly answer her question. She took notice in the tremble in Yui's voice, and how the room suddenly got very, very quiet as the two girls looked at each other, as if daring someone to say what they both already knew.

Finally, Ayano relented.

"Alright. If you say so." Ayano gave Yui one last chance to back out - one last chance to take it all back, and in the process maybe salvage a chance for her to stop Ayano from chasing after Kyouko. Yui paused and an unreadable look came over her face.

"I…" Ayano held her breath.

Yui paused, closing her eyes. She lowered her gaze slightly, and Ayano almost thought, from the slight shine in her eyes, that the cool, collected Yui Funami was about to break down in front of her.

"...think we should go to bed. It's getting pretty late." Yui finished, but her dispassionate voice was more than enough of a sign to Ayano that trapped within Yui was a plethora of unspoken confessions.

Ayano almost considered probing further. Almost. But, seeing Yui in this state was more than enough of a warning to the violet haired girl. She nodded silently in affirmation, moving to lay out their futons.

The rest of the night passed without conversation.

There was no doubt, in Ayano's mind, that Yui Funami was in love with Toshinou Kyouko.

The violet-haired girl stared out her bedroom window, contemplating her own feelings for her classmate and longtime crush.

Life was so much more simple back then - when all she had was a crush on the blonde. Ayano still remembered her first day attending Nanamori Middle School, where she grew to (secretly) like the loud, obnoxious blonde girl sat in front of her. Nobody would notice the way Ayano's eyes would flicker away from her notes to stare at Kyouko's form occasionally, or how she would sometimes (much to her own chagrin) ignore the teacher's lectures while imagining the feeling of running her fingers through Kyouko's hair.

Or she thought nobody noticed, until Chitose helpfully brought it up in the Student Council's room one day, relentlessly teasing the violet haired girl.

Back when Toshinou Kyouko (Ayano did love saying her whole name out loud) was nothing more than a schoolgirl crush, she would lay in bed picturing herself getting swept away in Kyouko's energetic whims, going on dates and long talks into midnights.

But then it all became so real.

It started with the competition between the both of them, and it only escalated from there. Ayano got to actually talk to Kyouko, and find out more about the blonde as a person. Ayano discovered, not to her surprise, about the blonde's laziness when it came to studying for tests, but also found out about how she'd take lunchtimes off to sleep in the Amusement Club, exhausted from a night's work of drawing her doujin.

And then there was that time when Chitose had invited the quartet to come along with the Student Council to the beach, and Ayano could honestly say she'd had more fun on the beach that day than she ever would if the blonde didn't tag along.

Maybe I'll try being a little more honest.

That was her vow, wasn't it? Looking at Kyouko, framed against the endless expanse of the sea, the last vestiges of sunlight forming a halo around the blonde - It was right then and there that she had admitted that her feelings for Kyouko were justified and very, very real.

It was a downward spiral from there. Toshinou Kyouko became a permanent resident in Ayano's mind - she would often think about how this dress would look good on Kyouko, or how she should invite Kyouko out to try this new restaurant, and would often imagine how it'd be like to go on an actual date with the blonde.

It was maddening, and she knew of only one way to stop it all.

But she also noticed how Kyouko's best friend, Yui, would sometimes gaze at Kyouko in class. Sure, the gazes were fleeting, but Kyouko could see the look in Yui's eyes, it was one of affection, of care beyond what a best friend should give. But she knew herself, and she knew how paranoid she could get - for all she knew, Yui was truly just Kyouko's best friend.

And so she accepted Yui's offer to 'come over to her house sometime' - determined to find out once and for all. The question was stuck in her head all day, and she had almost asked it on multiple occasions, but she'd always gotten too scared at the last second. She mentally berated herself every time, until she finally steeled herself, and did it.

But maybe she wished she hadn't, because she now knew, without a doubt, that Yui Funami was in love with Toshinou Kyouko.

Ayano wondered just how much Yui had been hurting inside. She'd only hung out with the group a couple of times, but even from there it was easy to see how infatuated Kyouko was with Chinatsu (forming a very odd love triangle). If Ayano herself felt her heart fall into her stomach every time the blonde hugged (or attempted to hug) the pinkette, then what must Yui feel?

Yui, who had been in love with Kyouko for, as far as she could tell, since they were children. Yui, who constantly chastised the blonde for being messy or not completing their homework, yet would clean up after her and teach her (so long as she was actually willing to learn, of course.).

Yui, who always stood by Kyouko's side, come hell or high water.

Yui, who would always be Toshinou Kyouko's best friend.

Ayano stared out at the starry skyline; at the neat rows and columns of brick red rooftops, and made another personal vow:

I'll do whatever it takes to get Yui together with Kyouko.

She read that love was putting someone else's feelings above your own - about the many sacrifices one must make for a loved one.

Kyouko would be happier with Yui instead of me. Ayano hated to admit this to herself, but it was true. Ayano didn't know much about the blonde - sure, she knew that her favourite treat was rum raisin, but then again, practically everyone in the school did. She didn't know what her favourite warm food was, or what kind of clothes she would shop for, or what kind of jewelry she liked…

Yui would know all of that. Kyouko would be happier with Yui.

Ayano felt her heart clench up at the thought of Kyouko and Yui holding hands. She closed her eyes, burying her face into her pillow, trying to get rid of the unwelcome images.

Ayano wanted to be able to forget about all of Yui's feelings. She wanted to wake up tomorrow, stroll out of her house, and ask Toshinou Kyouko, the girl of her dreams, out on a date.

But Ayano Sugiura could never do that to Yui Funami.

With a soft sigh, Ayano turned her body over and pushed her back against the wall, pretending there was a certain blonde lying behind her, wrapping her soft, warm arms around her.

I ship both Kyouko/Ayano and Kyouko/Yui, so I tried picturing both of them liking her at the same time. Needless to say, this did not lead to a happy ending.