Hey everyone, I'm back. First off, I want to apologize for being so inconsistent with my work. I'm really drowning in work right now, but for now I don't have anything due- at least I hope not.

To address certain concerns regarding my other fics, may I just say again, I am in college and am VERY busy with all my assignments, I'm close to failing several classes. I update fics when I can but a lot of the time I don't have the time.

XxxxX

Tape Your Heart

Prologue: Everybody Hurts

xXLiStLesSXx

XxxxX

"It feels

Like nothing really matters anymore;

When you're gone,

I can't breathe.

And I know

You never meant to make me feel this way,

This can't

Be happening…"

-Everybody Hurts by Avril Lavigne

It's a ridiculous sensation, sick but empty, warm and yet so cold… It feels as if her insides are collapsing on her, as if her world is turning to nothing all at once.

She chose her.

Tamao is actively telling herself this even as Shizuma swings Nagisa around as if the world around them has gone still- as if their happily ever after is the only one worth writing. But it's as if her brain can't- won't accept the truth for what it is.

Because then every promise, every smile- everything will have been a lie. Because then everything she's ever dreamed, everything she built her everything on would have been…

It was foolish, she knows, to have built her castle on a loose foundation; she, of all people, should have known better than that.

And she had.

She knows better than to base everything keeping her breathing on one girl- on one chance. But for as much as your mother and your mother's mother will tell you not to give your all to the boy (girl) who would just as well leave you behind, if they had the chance, they'd do it all over again as well. Because as much as we say we hate them- as much as we say we'll never look at them that way again- if they came to us with nothing but a feeble apology and a paper ring, we'd take them back.

Every girl knows that.

And really, Tamao thinks, it's ridiculous that it hurts her this much. What did she, expect that Nagisa would choose her over Shizuma? That somehow Nagisa- Nagisa- would realize that even Shizuma's love was conditional?

Such a stupid girl.

What does she have that Shizuma doesn't? Shizuma is smart, even if she doesn't show it; she's charming and she's pretty. Much prettier than Tamao, who has always been the plainest of her family. Shizuma is gallant and Shizuma makes Nagisa feel like she's the only girl in the world, except when she loves Kaori.

But Tamao has never made her cry.

Tamao has never made her cry, and now here she is, watching as the girl she loves ran away with the girl she'd never thought she could hate but she does.

And yet…

She chose her.

And behind that harsh, superior whisper, there's a quieter, less confident voice.

She left you.

PGBR

Tsubomi doesn't know what to think- not anymore.

It's a disconcerting feeling- she isn't one to 'not know what to think', after all, and most of the time she says it after everything.

But here, now, watching her playful, forever grinning sempai huddled up on the cot that seemed impossibly large in comparison to her lonely figure, Tsubomi feels something twisting uncomfortably inside her. It isn't quite painfulso much as it is hollow; afraid.

And it's even worse, because everything she's ever wanted since she came to Spica in the beginning of the year was to get to know the girl with the beautiful voice, the one who had sung at the entrance ceremony. She remembers being overjoyed to discover that she was her angel's room attendant only to be crushed when she realized that she had an angel of her own, the one with the scared eyes and wavering heart.

Tsubomi knows Hikari doesn't love Amane- first of all, because ew, who could?- and secondly, because her sempai knew nothing of her knight in shining armor. She's like a Disney princess, and Amane, her prince that she'd never met before the fateful day they fell in love.

Barf.

But Hikari is so beautiful, and at this point, Tsubomi can't actually understand what else there was about her that someone like Yaya can possibly love.

And sometimes she stands in front of her mirror in only her bra (an A-cup, she sighs) and heart-patterned panties, and pretends that she's beautiful too.

She wonders what it must feel like to hold two hearts in the palm of her hand, but dismisses it quickly- where did she get the right to think that, when she couldn't even cling to one?

Even after it all, Tsubomi can't actually believe that the reason she doesn't have a chance with the girl she's grown to hate (love) is because of this stereotypical damsel in distress. Surely Yaya knows better.

But no, she sighs only seconds later, because Yaya-sempai is an idiot. She sighs to herself and pulls her knees to her chest, her eyes pausing on the brunette sitting so close, yet so far away.

And she waits. She waits and she waits for Yaya to say something; anything to let her know everything can be okay again.

But Yaya never says a word- never looks up after her shock of seeing Tsubomi in her room in the first place.

PGBR

She feels foolish- stupid even- for feeling anything at all.

It's what she's been trying to convince the world for years, after all- that she doesn't have a heart to break.

And only Chikaru ever saw through her, and Miyuki thinks that's okay, because what is Chikaru going to do? Chikaru is an observer, nothing more.

Sometimes Miyuki wonders how she does it, but then she sees the way Chikaru looks at Shion and she thinks maybe the princess of Lulim isn't so innocent.

Miyuki knows better than to feel anything when Shizuma brings home a new girl (always the ones with the stars in their eyes) by now.

But fuck it all, it hurts.

It fucking hurts and she wants to scream and cry and demand that Shizuma love her, and every emotion that she's bottled up inside for so long is threatening to break loose.

Because Shizuma's so selfish all the time; Shizuma has only ever loved herself after Kaori. Shizuma thinks she was the only one who was hurt when Kaori left; Shizuma thinks she's more entitled to her long awaited happiness than the rest of them, more deserving of it than Tamao. Than her best friend.

Shizuma thinks Miyuki doesn't understand.

But Miyuki knows that Shizuma doesn't.

Shizuma doesn't understand people, she doesn't understand emotions. She doesn't understand that every insignificant girl that she throws away means the world to someone else. Nagisa, she knows, will be just another girl, and Shizuma will get bored and throw her out like yesterday's trash for Tamao to collect.

Shizuma doesn't understand that she isn't the only one with feelings; that she isn't the only one whose heart has been shredded by these six years at Astraea Hill.

She forces the thoughts back, swallows down the rock in her throat and fades into the background as Shizuma runs through the double doors with Nagisa in tow.

She's almost done- she's almost gone. There's no need to let them inside now.

"You're such a crybaby, Miyuki."

I tried to write as in character as I could, in correspondence to how I think these character's tones would be in their heads. I feel like Tamao would be more hopeless and less critical, while Tsubomi would be more upbeat in her pain, since she wasn't directly hurt. I feel like Miyuki would be very bitter. So yeah, I hope I got the characteristics down right :3 I wanted to focus on the three broken hearts at the end of SP, though Chikaru and Shion will be a pair in SOME way. Review, por favor :3