"Little child, be not afraid..." She whispered, gazing down at her fingers, tears rolling silently down her cheeks. "The stormclouds mask your beloved moon...

The tears poured faster, cascading onto her bare, shivering knees. Her breaths grew into irregular, hiccuping gasps, as her chest shook with sadness. Her eyes heavy and unfocused, she gazed off into the thick woods, arms thrown across her chest in a vain attempt to keep herself warm. The rain pounded fiercely upon the pagoda's roof, and with the tears streaming down her cheeks, she felt all alone, in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, rain coursing down her body. All around her the rain fell like teardrops.

"And you loved her," the half-sentence came, choked and half-formed, from her soft lips. Those lips, which for long had belonged to someone else, were hers for tonight. "And you fucking loved her. Thought I knew you...thought I knew everything. All that time, you fucking loved her. What have you done to me?" She was the best, she knew it. Why would anyone in the world choose someone else over her? She'd seen them, together, behind the gym building. It had torn her heart apart, just as everytime she was forced to watch and stand guard, her chest felt as though there were claws inside of her.

She didn't see the stars. She didn't see the trees. She didn't see the sunrise. The rain continued to pound savagely against the ground as Kiyashiki Momomi stared blankly out at the thick, dark forest, shivering every time a raindrop hit her skin, the tears dried on her face. And then, when she risked being caught, Momomi slipped away into the forest, silent as a deer, with a tear-streaked face and a broken heart.

"Where the hell is she?!" Kaname inquired of the blank wall. "She can't have been out all night! Can she?!"

The wall said nothing.

"But she's terrified of storms!"

The wall merely offered bland, ivory almost-comfort.

"What did I do?!"

The wall looked sternly back at her. It was reprimanding her, she knew.

"Okay, okay, I know what I did! But she didn't have to run off like that!"

The wall didn't sympathize with her. It thought Momomi had a point. Kaname sighed, brushing her hair back from her face, feeling the warm pillow under her cheek like a reminder of all the good times they'd had together on that very bed. "I'm not worrying about her, Wall-chan! I know she can take care of herself. I'm just upset about not sleeping with her last night. A growing girl needs to get some every once and a while." Kaname felt her stomach clench at what she knew was a lie. And Kaname prided herself on not lying.

"MOMOMI!" The word was stifled by the trees, bouncing back to the speaker before it had a chance to go farther than the clearing. "Come out already! They'll start looking for you!" Was it Kaname's imagination, or did the wind whisper in her ears? Did it sound like, "I'll never come out for you"?

"It isn't funny!"

"I don't love you," the wind whispered in her ears.

"AND I DON'T LOVE YOU, EITHER! Shion will start looking for you, and I don't want her to find you if I can't!"

"What do you care if she finds me? You've just been using me."

"If Shion beats me, I'll never hear the end of it!"

"You're talking to a breeze, Kaname..."

This ended Kaname's conversation with the wind and the forest. She trudged around in the woods, searching for her roomate, with no luck. It's not that I want to find her, Kaname told herself fiercely. It's just that I've gotta chew her out for not obeying me. Or, well, not coming home. And I've gotta yell at her for that. That's why I'm looking.

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" Kaname screeched. At least, Kaname thought, this time I'm not yelling at an inanimate object. "I skipped all my classes looking for you, and all the while you were at school?! Don't you have any self-respect?!"

"The question here," Momomi said cooly, eyes narrowed. "is whether YOU do."

"What the hell, Momomi?! What did I do?!" Kaname knew this was the wrong thing to say when Momomi glared at her in a way Kaname had hoped would never be directed at her. Her eyes glowed with disgust, and even Kaname knew this was not the time to argue with her girlfriend. If Momomi even was her girlfriend anymore.

"It's not what you did," Momomi began. Kaname began to breath a sigh of relief, but sucked her breath back in at Momomi's next words: "It's who you did."

Behind the gym. Yesterday. She had been caught unaware, that innocent, sweet girl, with no idea what was coming to her.

Amane.