Kanan knew this was a bad idea. She should've been more firm with Chika. Starting another idol group was just going to lead to more trouble. She had agreed to ask Dia about allowing a new idol club, though. It was a mistake, and she knew it without a doubt. Everybody needed to forget that stuff and move on with their lives. That advice applied to her as well, though. Even agreeing initially to the idea showed that she had a foot stuck in the past, remembering the old days.

She slapped her cheeks in order to try and snap herself out of it. Everything she had done was for the benefit of others, specifically Mari. She had ruined their idol group and their friendships all to give Mari a chance at a better life. It had hurt her every day since to think back on what she had lost, but she had been somewhat strengthened with the knowledge that Mari was going to make something of herself. Now that she was back, she had completely wasted everything they'd worked towards. If people weren't going to take her advice, then... then she was just going to stop giving it.

At least, she would stop after one last piece of advice. Taking out her phone, she pulled up Chika's number and sent her a text. 'I'm sorry, Chika, but I can't convince Dia to make another idol club. I suggest you let it go like we have. There's nothing but pain in it. Why don't you join the softball club or something? You love that.' It didn't feel good sending that text, but she tried to push those feelings aside. She'd spent enough time feeling bad about the decisions she'd made.

Not having to go to school had some benefits. She'd never been a very studious individual, which she might have accidentally passed down to Chika and You. It wasn't like she failed her classes, but she wasn't all that book smart. She felt much more comfortable around the water, which was why working at her dad's diving shop was a real blessing. Everything she was interested in was at the tips of her fingers.

Getting ready for another day of work, she changed into her wetsuit and went out back, where she started helping her dad haul diving equipment into the shed. Then she went into the garage to help repair broken equipment. This was the kind of stuff she'd never learn in school. The hands-on training was a lot more useful to her. Who ever used Pythagorean Theorem in their daily lives, anyway?

"Kanan dear, I think we've got a visitor." Her dad spoke to her with a playful tone, but it still made Kanan tense up. She was sure it was Dia or Mari, or maybe Chika or You, there with a disapproving look towards her actions. It turned out to not be any of them, though. In fact, it wasn't even a human. When she looked up to potentially confront the visitor, it turned out to be a cat.

"Huh..." Scratching her head with a wrench, Kanan eyed the cat curiously. It was a very lithe feline, with black fur in such a shade that it looked dark blue instead. Kanan was reminded of the night sky looking at it. Why had it walked into her garage, though? There wasn't anything in there interesting to cats. While she just stared in bemusement, her dad seemed to enjoy the sudden extra company.

"Funny to see a cat here, huh Kanan? They don't often like the water." That was true, though Kanan hadn't really thought about that. She was just relieved that it wasn't a human. There wasn't time to pay attention to a stray cat, anyway. Hopefully it would leave if they stopped paying attention to it, and they could continue fixing all the equipment they had spread out in front of them. Taking the initiative, she started screwing back on one of the oxygen tank valves that had somehow fallen off.

The cat didn't leave, though. Despite attention not being bestowed upon it, it didn't seem bothered. It watched them work for awhile, padding around the garage and staring at the equipment with a look that seemed curious. Kanan couldn't help but become distracted, occasionally looking over at the feline. The distractions ended up costing her, as her attempt to fix a breathing tube while looking with one eye ended up with her tearing a hole in the apparatus with a screwdriver. "Ah, dammit!"

"Watch the language, dear," her dad immediately quipped without looking at her. Kanan gritted her teeth and went back to worth, forcing herself to not pay attention to the feline intruder. She eventually fell back into a rhythm, and it was easy to not only ignore the cat, but also cleanse her mind of her previous unwanted thoughts. All she thought of, and all she wanted to think of, was diving equipment.

Despite spending nearly two hours sitting there and working, the cat never seemed to grow disinterested enough to leave. She was sure that when she looked up after patching up the final diving tank, the cat would be gone, but it wasn't. Sighing to herself, she knew that she would never be able to understand the inner machinations of land mammals. Sea creatures did more sensible things to her.

Her dad went inside after they finished, leaving her to carry all the equipment to their rightful places. Grunting, she hoisted up several air tanks and hugged them tightly, carrying them to the tank shelves. The whole way, the cat followed her. She tried to think nothing of it, but it kept following her with each trip she took. It made her more and more curious, though she knew that there would be no answers granted to her. Animals didn't talk, after all.

When she finally finished putting everything away, she slapped her hands together to get any residual dust off, then cracked her knuckles. After a hard day's work, she liked to cool off in the ocean. That was what the wetsuit was for: once she finished working, she could head right to the docks and dive into the water. So around the house she went, to the docks with the cat in pursuit.

She dived into the water without hesitation, relishing the cool feeling surrounding herself. Cutting through the water, she figured a long, healthy swim would bore the cat into finally leaving. Again, she was wrong. No matter how long she swam around the ocean, the cat stayed on the dock, watching her with almost unblinking eyes. It was unnerving when she took the time to look back. She didn't really want to keep eye contact for very long due to that.

By the time she hoisted herself back onto the dock, the sun had set and the water was being bathed by the glow of the moon. Water dripped from her body onto the wood, and still that cat was standing there, looking up at her as if it expected her to wonder. Wonder she did. What was this cat's deal? Why was it so interested in her? If only she had a way to get answers to these questions.

"It's time for me to go inside now. Go... back to your friends, or something." Kanan made a shoo-ing motion towards the cat, then walked back to the garage, where she grabbed a towel and started drying off. She made sure that she wasn't going to track any water into the house before hanging back up the towel and opening up the door that connected the garage to the house. When she looked back into the garage, the cat was there staring at her.

Feeling unnerved, she shut the door and locked up. She didn't want to think that she was locking up to keep a cat out of her house. They couldn't even open doors. No, it wasn't that. It was just for general safety purposes, that's all.

Dia tapped her pen against her desk, staring at the paperwork placed perfectly on its surface. She really needed to get on it, but she found her drive lacking. Her mind hadn't been on school all day, no matter how hard she'd tried. All she could think of were Kanan and Mari. The thoughts caused her emotions to swirl in a terrible turmoil. At times they made her mad, then the fire would be gone and she'd spiral straight down into sadness. After all of that was mixed together, she felt completely despondent. She didn't know whether she completely hated her former friends or wanted to beg them to talk to her again.

If only student council work could take her mind off of what troubled her. Instead, she found herself unable to do any work at all. Her concentration was shot, at least when it came to the stuff she needed to do. The pen dropped from her fingers, clacking uselessly against the desk. She was wasting the school's time by not getting any work done. Some student council president she turned out to be. At least she had no oversight, or she'd be in trouble.

Well, there was one specific overseer, but they hadn't been doing any sort of overseeing. Dia still couldn't believe that Mari was the school's chairwoman. She was a student, for goodness sake! The school must've been in more dire straights than she thought. She moved the top paper from the stack, hoping that the second one would give her more inspiration. Alas, it did not.

Putting her palms against the desk, she pushed herself up into a standing position, her chair sliding backwards. If she was going to be a strong businesswoman someday, she couldn't let her emotions get in the way of her work. She'd spent the entire day in a miserable state, silently bemoaning her situation, but what good had that done? This wasn't what her father would do. When life got tough, he stood tall and pushed through until things were better. She had to do that too.

Her friendships may have been broken beyond repair, but for now, her and Mari were coworkers in a way. She needed the chairwoman's help in getting all this work done. If she could push past the wayward emotions she had towards Mari, work could actually get done. With resolve, she left her office and went over to the chairwoman's office, hoping Mari was there.

She knocked on the door, waiting tensely for a response. When she heard "Come in," she opened the door and stepped inside. The door shut behind her as she saw the desk chair facing away from her. Obviously Mari was there, though. That was her voice, without a doubt. "Mari..." She found her voice faltering, making it hard to continue. It was imperative that she push through, though. Her future depended on it. "As the chairwoman of this school, I request your assistance in helping with paperwork."

"Oh? Does the great Dia Kurosawa now need help with some measly paperwork?" Mari swirled around in her chair, a flair for the dramatic that hadn't disappeared with her absence. "And here I thought you were smart enough to do it yourself." Dia was taken aback by Mari's harsh tone. She figured this would happen, considering how their previous conversation had gone. It was something she had even attempted to prepare herself for on the walk over. Apparently it hadn't been enough time, as those words and the way they were spoken acted like a knife plunged right into her chest.

She found herself at a loss for words, trying to gain back her confidence in the face of such harshness from someone who had always been a wonderful ray of sunshine. It hurt: it really did. She wanted to remain strong, but she knew that she was failing. The way the stern look on Mari's face started melting away into concern told her all she needed to know: that she didn't look like the strong, mature student council president she wanted to be. She knew that she looked exactly as she felt: like the weak, thirdwheeling crybaby that Kanan and Mari had always dragged around when they were kids. That wasn't the person she wanted to be anymore. She couldn't be.

"That information is irrelevant. I've been left with all the student council work, and if there's not going to be anyone else appointed to the council, I request that you assist me until there's enough people to split the work between." Her expression hardened, sharpening the previous softness Mari's words had inflicted upon her. She wasn't the little crybaby who needed her hand held. That wasn't going to be how she went through life. Her friendships may be in tatters, but she could rise from those ashes like a phoenix and claim the Kurosawa strength that she was destined to have.

"I..." Now it was Mari who was caught off guard, but not because of how formal Dia's tone had become. She had been used to that. No, it was the truth she had seen behind that formality. To see such a wounded expression on Dia's face tugged at her heart. She was mad, but she didn't want to see that. Maybe she had been too harsh... No, no, that wasn't it. She had been the one who was hurt. This was just a natural reaction when someone who had hurt her came in and started demanding things. "I guess I can help, if you really think it's too hard for you to accomplish alone."

Dia gritted her teeth, feeling waves of anger starting to rise in her. She wanted to start yelling, to let Mari know that she was more than capable of doing everything herself, and that she would be ten times the chairwoman that Mari was. That was just the anger talking, though. Besides, if she started yelling, then she'd certainly start crying, and it would ruin everything she'd just said to herself. She had to be professional, just like her father would be.

"As the chairwoman, I shouldn't be asking you to assist me. You should be doing it of your own volition." She turned and opened the door again, taking a step out before turning back to look at Mari. "If not, then I am more than capable of doing it myself." With that, she walked out, letting the door swing shut behind her. Whether or not Mari helped her, she at least took a stand and felt more confident about doing what she needed to do that evening.

Still, after having such a conversation with someone that used to be so close to her, she couldn't help but feel absolutely wretched.

Mari hadn't expected to be sitting across from Dia. Not after what had happened. Yet there she was, sitting in Dia's office, doing paperwork. For a moment, she had strongly considered just going home and leaving Dia to her own devices. She didn't, though. Something just wouldn't let her abandon Dia in her time of need. Alanis Morissette was surely staring knowingly at her.

She told herself that this was just something that the chairwoman would do. It was important to get all the actual schoolwork done, even if she didn't care for it all that much. That obviously wasn't the truth, though. She just couldn't keep herself away from her friends, even if they weren't her friends anymore. This was just a convenient excuse that let her be near Dia again without having to admit the truth.

She tried her best to concentrate solely on paperwork, but it was impossible. Her eyes kept drifting back to Dia, watching her do paperwork on the other side. What made it worse was that every so often, she caught Dia looking at her. Their eyes would meet, then quickly break apart as they went right back to their paperwork. Mari knew that Dia was looking at her, and she knew that Dia knew that she was looking at her. It was incredibly stressful. She either needed to break the tension, or she was going to be the one to break.

"Wow, this paperwork sure is boring!" Mari sighed dramatically, sweeping two of her papers away with a flick of her hand. They landed on Dia's side, drawing her unamused gaze. "Starting tomorrow, I'm going to hire someone to do all this paperwork for us."

"You can't just hire someone to do school paperwork. That doesn't teach us anything." Dia sighed and rubbed her forehead, feeling a familiar headache coming on. This was such a Mari solution to a problem that wasn't even that difficult.

"But it does, Dia! Money talks." She rubbed her fingers together, giving Dia a big smile. Dia just rolled her eyes and pushed Mari's wayward papers away, getting back to the grind.

"So does hard work. Now get your work done, or we'll never get to leave." Mari stuck her tongue out, but Dia was no longer looking at her. Sighing softly, she grabbed the two papers she flicked away and brought them back to her stack, resuming work. Though it hadn't lasted long, her random outburst had helped her push her previous thoughts away, at least temporarily. She was able to at least somewhat pay attention to her work, and it didn't take them all night to get it done.

"See? Was that so hard?" Dia grabbed Mari's finished papers and put them in neat, even stacks. Then she placed everything in its proper place and pushed her chair in. "Now, I'm going home. Feel free to stay here if you want, but you have to lock up after yourself." She held up a keyring, jingling it in front of Mari to see if she'd take it.

"And be here by myself? But what if something spooky happens?" She jumped up and wrapped her arms tightly around Dia. "Who would protect me from any school trespassers?"

"Just use the sword I keep taped to the bottom of my desk." To Mari's surprise, Dia didn't immediately try to wrestle herself out of Mari's grip. She was looking at Dia's face, and she swore that she saw some emotion pass across it, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. It vanished too fast for her to understand what it was, but she still felt slightly encouraged. Even if she wanted to keep being mad at Dia and ignore her forevermore, she just couldn't do it. The silliness that they were participating in right now, that was what made the most sense. That was what felt right.

"... Wait, do you actually have a sword under your desk?"

That night, Mari sat on her bed, legs crossed with a notepad on her lap. She tapped her pen against the paper, frowning as she glanced over to her left. Treasure, her new raccoon pet, sat there looking up at her, chittering quietly. Its calmness had a good effect on her, allowing her to finally uncap her pen and start writing.

She had read online that it was good to write out how one was feeling, in order to keep it from being bottled up and destroying them horribly from the inside. It was like writing a letter to someone, then never sending it. She wasn't sure it would feel as good as an actual verbal castigation, but she was willing to try it anyway. It would probably hurt her more if she saw Dia's face hold such sadness again.

Dia, every time I see you I feel such conflicting emotions. I get mad, of course. You hurt me so bad when you and Kanan sent me away. I didn't want to go! Why couldn't either of you understand that? Now you act like my being here is so problematic. It hurts because I came back for you two, and now neither of you want to be near me. That makes me sad as well. You told me once that you'd never make me cry, but you lied. You lied, and now I'm crying again. It's messing up my writing, and it's your fault. But I can't stay mad at you. I tried, I really did, but I can't. Seeing you makes me happy even when it makes me mad. I think about how things used to be, and how happy we were. It's not fair that it can't be that way anymore. Why did things have to change? I didn't want it to. Why does thinking about you make my heart start to pound and tears start to come out? I hate feeling this way! Can't we just go back to the way things were? Please? All I want is for you to say sorry. I want to forgive you. I don't want to hold onto all this anger and sadness. Please. I just want to forgive you.

At some point, she had stopped crying, though her tears had definitely smudged some of her words. It didn't matter, though. This wasn't going anywhere but the trash. It felt a little good to write out all of that. She probably wouldn't have been able to articulate it properly without saying something funny to break the tension, or breaking down crying. Tearing the paper from the notepad, she crumpled it up and threw it at her trash can, bouncing off the rim and onto the floor. 'Great.'

She felt a gentle nudge against her side, which was Treasure looking up at her with its big ol' raccoon eyes. Smiling softly, Mari patted its head, then wiped the tears from her eyes. It was probably a useless action, though. She still had another letter to write and never send. Picking up her pen again, she started to write again.

Kanan, every time I see you I feel such conflicting emotions...