I can't apologise enough for the stupid delay in updates, i've been so busy working and trying to do 100 things at once. It's hard to even get online let alone write. :'( I wrote this as a one off but might continue, the other fics are suffering but to be totally honest I'm stuck with them, I've sat down and wrote chapters for each unfinished one but they don't work so haven't been added. I will get there, eventually.

You were so fucking tired, so angry with the fucking crow that you couldn't even think straight - each and every thought circling back and stabbing the imagine of Ikki in your mind. It wasn't like you didn't have any idea either, kissing him seemed to have been the most obvious way to display your feelings yet here you were watching Ikki swoon over yet another girl.

No, it wasn't just another girl, it was the same damn girl he'd been following around like a lost puppy for the last week. Sure you'd met her and genuinely didn't dislike anything she'd said or did whilst you'd been there but man you hated that chick; the stupid new girl with the stupid hair - pointed out countless times by a misreading Ikki that they shared a hair colour and you were just being mean.

You'd tried to be mean, without looking like a total obsessive you'd tried to get Ikki back, around him constantly striving for attention or just one smile that would tell him he was actually reading the whole situation wrong, that there was hope. But a week of constant coverage of the crow and constantly being shot down really wore you down, the Crow's usually wide grin turning to a sigh when you caught up with him broke your heart.

No, no that wasn't what broke it. You could pinpoint the second, the moment, that one point that broke everything;

Stood outside class waiting for Ikki to finish talking to that stupid new girl - of course you hadn't remembered her name, she'd be gone soon right? Rolling back and forth on your feet, head thudding from the lost hours of sleep, eyes begging to close but at the same time far to aware that they couldn't until things were right. Looking around the door for the hundredth time you felt your heart skip, one beat missed, one breath hitched and pained. Like watching a car crash and not being able to do a thing about it, not being able to even get involved and save people, not being able to make any kind of useful action as you're stuck behind the screen of the TV.

But it was worse, you were there and your eyes couldn't move, trapped in the movement of Ikki's lips on hers. The brunette had her pressed up against a desk, one hand on her waist and the other smugly on the desk surface. A smile cracking on his face, her eye's closed and arms wrapping slowly around his neck.

As the two's eyes opened they shared a look, that was when your heart had broken, that was something you'd never had.

Your eyes closed and you clutched your chest, stumbling away from the door and trying to breath, it hurt so fucking much! The stupid image now in his head replaying itself over and over again, as though you could forget that anytime soon, imprinting itself forever. You gasped, now leant on the wall, the only thing separating yourself from Ikki. You tried to find your breath, to stop that throbbing in your chest, to find your sight as your vision swayed.

It wasn't even like the kiss you'd shared with the crow was that special, it was more than a kiss to you but maybe Ikki had seen it differently? Maybe it was a game, like when you were kids and the crow would pull your hair, wrestle you to the ground and throw your school bag in the river, hide your keys so you couldn't get home. Maybe the kiss you'd had was a game? Make you feel on top of the world and then push you from the edge, the whole world impaling on your heart, everything the crow had ever said now having nothing to stand on, no proof of reality.

Maybe you were the game.

You could feel the hole where your heart had been, an empty thud painful and suffocating, another marking out a mere second since you'd looked away. And another, slow but there, the jagged pieces burying into your chest and jolting you with each breath, each flash of memory. Lungs feeling like they were breathing in liquid, with each breath things became worse.

"Kazu?"

Like a kiss could last forever, like he hadn't expected you to stand there waiting for him like you had since the day you'd become "friends". Like the surprise in his voice could be anything but cocky… yet he sounded worried, fucking worried that he'd just pulled the world from beneath your feet.

"Kazu?" A shake on the shoulder startled you and you blankly stare into his eyes, blinking back moisture that threatened to make things so much worse. You smacked his hand away like a fly, in the same motion wiping your eyes and stepping back into the corridor, shaking your head and trying to find some kind of words to string together that sounded human. Sounding human whilst dying inside.

"I'm off, catch you later..."

You muttered fast, eyes avoiding his, avoiding the girl that now stood behind the crow in the doorway, a hand delicately poised on his waist, not understanding the emotion on your face.

You turned and tried to remember how to walk, to turn your back on Ikki and walk out of there and home. It felt such a long way, an impossible distance to live through.

"Kazu…" He was there again, a hand on your elbow trying to read your face. He was usually so good at that but he hadn't seen this one before, hadn't got the sense or honesty to read it.

You shrugged him off and were glad that he didn't follow, you couldn't deal with it, not there. The pain in your chest intensified, that stupid wish that maybe the crow would understand what was wrong with you, wake up and feel some kind of remorse.

But no, he's not like that and never was. Isn't that why you liked the loud mouthed crow so much? Isn't that why you'd never given up trying to stop what was coming?

He broke your heart because you let him.