Chiroro was awoken the next day by her sister muttering unintelligibly to herself, which either meant she was sleep talking or brainstorming. Sometimes both.

Cracking one eye open, she let a slight smile spread onto her face when she was met with the sight of her sister staring into her lap in deep thought. She was probably planning a course of action for winning over...

The smile was quickly dropped.

"Chi-ro-ro!" Karara called playfully, spotting Chiroro's open eyes, but seemingly oblivious to her displeased frown.

"Eh... morning, sis." Chiroro mumbled, sitting up and stretching, a slight frown still visible on her face. Finally sensing the atmosphere, Karara tilted her head curiously.

"Bad dream?"

"Huh? Oh, no." Chiroro replied "...I wish..." she added under her breath.

Getting out of bed, she stared exasperatedly at her sister's expectant gaze.

"...What?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Well, I was just waiting for you to wake up properly and stuff so I can explain my cunning ploy!" Karara smiled, doing a small fist pump. An action that would usually cause her sister to laugh, but today, she certainly wasn't in the mood.

"Karara..." She began, wondering how to word her next sentence.

"Yeah?" Karara asked, titling her head in the opposite direction to last time.

Chiroro looked at her sister's impatient face, before lowering her head slightly and sighing.

"N...not today..." she mumbled, biting her lip slightly and raising her eyes to meet her sister's.

"Not today... what?" She asked, confused. Chiroro resisted the urge to face palm at her dim-witted response.

"I don't want to help with this one..." Chiroro admitted, feeling bad but strangely satisfied for saying it.

Karara's expression darkened a lot more than Chiroro had expected it to, and she took a very slight step backwards.

"...What?" She asked darkly, giving Chiroro a chance to change her mind, and she very nearly did. However, she decided to listen to Tororo's advice and stick to her guns.

"I said I'm not helping you chase after Tororo" She said, more firmly this time, finally raising her head back up to stare her sister down, which turned out to be a rather hard task for her.

"Why?" Karara asked, her voice getting gradually louder. Chiroro swallowed. Karara only gave one word answers when she was either confused or angry, and she certainly wasn't the former. She looked even madder than the time she fought Tamama for Keroro's heart. She couldn't quite understand why her sister was suddenly so worked up, and she had no idea how to answer her question.

"Why, Chiroro?" Karara pressed, taking a slow, threatening step towards her. Chiroro refused to show how intimidated she felt and stood her ground.

"I'm done being your assistant, chasing after guys you don't even truly care about. You're my older twin, not my oppressor!" she spat, regretting it before she'd even finished speaking. However, Karara didn't react angrily; rather, she folded her arms and gave her a quizzical look.

"You've helped me every other time. Why is it only now that you've decided to abandon me?" Karara asked, making it sound much worse than it was, as usual. "Don't you care about my feelings anymore?"

"I don't know whether it's hit you yet, sister, but I have feelings of my own!" Chiroro hissed angrily, taking her own lunging step towards her now very confused looking sister.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Karara asked cluelessly.

"I can't help you go after Tororo because... because..." Chiroro began confidently, before trailing off at the end, not sure she was brave enough to say the rest.

"Because?" Karara prompted, just wanting a straight answer from her torn looking sister.

"Because... because I love him!" she cried, her face reddening in anger and embarrassment. Karara only stared silently.

"So... you won't help me... because you love him?"

Chiroro nodded, close to tears. Karara knew the next thing she was going to say was stupid, but couldn't seem to stop herself

"... I called... dibs?"

SMACK!

Karara staggered backwards, putting her hand to her stinging cheek, not really able to comprehend what just happened. Her sister had to be one of the friendliest people ever, she would never hurt a fly... had she really just slapped her? Staring at Chiroro in shock, she couldn't seem to find words to speak with.

"I pour my heart out to you..." Chiroro whispered, tears stinging her eyes "...and that is how you react?"

"You hit me." Karara replied in a stunned monotone. Chiroro laughed sadly.

"You aren't capable of love, Karara. You wouldn't know anything about how I feel right now." She said, before turning and leaving the room, making sure to grab Pururu's tail on the way out.

Taruru was jolted awake suddenly. He could have sworn he had heard a smack from across the hall. It was only very faint, but he had heard it all the same. Getting up from bed, he rubbed his tired eyes before leaving his room. He was going to call out and ask if whoever made the sound was okay, when the door to the twins' room was violently opened and a tearful Chiroro stalked out. She marched right past him, prompting concern from the blue frog.

"Chiroro, are you okay?" he called, not surprised when he didn't receive a response. He decided to check on Karara, to see if she was okay. He made his way up to the door and knocked lightly.

"Karara? Can I come in?" he asked. Receiving no reply, he entered anyway – he wasn't just going to leave her in there.

Karara was curled up on her bed, her hand against her cheek, which had gone very red. It wasn't hard for Taruru to put two and two together. He closed the door behind him quietly and went to sit with Karara on the bed in silence for a few moments.

"She hit you." He stated eventually, almost hoping that Karara would deny it. Chiroro was a lovable girl, she'd never dream of hurting anyone or anything. He couldn't imagine why she would even think of laying a hand on her beloved sister.

Karara only nodded, silent tears rolling down her face.

Taruru pulled her into a tight embrace, stroking her back to soothe her. He didn't bother asking if she wanted to talk about it, she usually didn't want to.

"It's my fault" She whispered suddenly, contradicting his current thoughts.

"What exactly happened?" He asked, leaning his head on hers as she buried her face into his chest, his eyes looking around the room absentmindedly as if searching for evidence.

"Well... she refused to help me go after Tororo... I got angry and questioned her, and then she admitted she was in love with him..."

Taruru's eyes widened in mild surprise, but he didn't say anything. He wanted to hear the rest of Karara's explanation.

"Then I... I told her I had dibs! Why did I do that, Taruru?!" she cried, sobbing into his chest as she let out muffled curses at her stupidity.

"So that's why she slapped you." Taruru confirmed, feeling Karara's responding nod.

"She told me I wasn't capable of love, and she's right. I just blindly chase after guys that do even just one nice thing for me... I don't know what it means to love someone at all!" She whispered shakily.

Taruru shook his head and pushed her off of him so he could face her, smiling slightly.

"Karara, you're sixteen, you don't have to know any of that stuff yet." He said gently. Karara reached up and touched the hand gripping lightly to her shoulder, sniffing slightly, but appearing to calm down.

"What about Chiroro, then?" She asked suddenly ""Are her feelings... real?"

Taruru looked up thoughtfully.

"I can't answer that. Heck, I'm a little surprised myself. I thought she might, er... 'play for the other team', as it were"

Karara gave Taruru an odd look and raised an eye ridge.

"You thought she liked girls?" She asked, a disbelieving, but amused grin appearing on her face.

"L-let's not drift off topic here, shall we?" He asked, his face reddening in embarrassment. "In all seriousness, Chiroro's feelings may well be real and true. She's normally never interested in guys or whatever, and if she managed to work up the courage to say no to you, even hit you, she's obviously serious about how she feels, don't you think?"

Karara nodded, not wanting to say more on the matter.

"...I'm going tell her you thought she was a lesbian" She smirked.

"Noooo don't!"

Chiroro sat at the empty dining table, staring into space. She had stopped crying, but her eye's were still wet, and rather red.

She couldn't believe she had hit her sister. Her best friend, her constant, and in what felt like a lapse of sanity, she had hit her. She still felt the sting in her palm.

She barely even remembered why she had even done it in the first place. She just remembered confessing her love for Tororo and then... something.

At that thought, the salmon recruit entered the room.

"Mornin' Chiroro" he mumbled tiredly, rubbing sleep from his eyes why shuffling his way into the kitchen, on his routine course straight to the fridge. Chiroro didn't reply, just continued staring ahead blankly.

Tororo noticed her vacant look, and after compiling his stupidly large breakfast, took a seat directly opposite her and in her line of sight. Chiroro didn't react.

"...Chiroro? Are you alright?" he asked, raising his voice slightly in a bid to bring her out of her daze.

The yellow tadpole suddenly snapped to attention.

"What? Oh, yes... I'm fine" she replied.

"You don't look it" he replied, referring to her flushed face, which was still a little damp. Not receiving a reply, he pushed over one of the plates that orbited his giant breakfast, covered in about ten slices of toast.

"Eat" he said simply.

Chiroro glanced at the absurd amount of toast on her plate and nodded slightly, grabbing a slice and taking a bite out of it.

"Want a drink?" Tororo asked in a way that said she was going to get one whatever her reply was.

Chiroro nodded again before continuing to devour her toast.

Fetching a glass of water from the kitchen, Tororo came and sat beside her, dragging his breakfast over to him from the other side of the table.

"Here." He said, passing the glass to her. He felt a little awkward about the whole thing... this was the first time he'd paid any attention to Chiroro, rather than it being the other way around. Plus, its not as if he was actually any good at comforting people.

"So... what happened?" he asked.

"You don't have to try to comfort me" Chiroro mumbled. Tororo shook his head, a lopsided grin forming on his face.

"Now you know saying stuff like that just makes me want to try harder!" he chuckled.

Chiroro smiled slightly before returning to a frown, remembering what had happened earlier.

"Long story short, I said no to her and we argued. I don't really want to go into it..." she explained lamely. Her heart fluttered slightly when Tororo beamed at her suddenly.

"Oh, good for you!" he said, feeling proud for some reason.

"I hit her." Chiroro added abruptly, trying not to start crying again "I got really upset and I hit her."

Tororo dropped his smile and gave her a confused look.

"It would make a hell of a lot more sense if I actually explained it properly... but I don't want to talk about it..."

Tororo only nodded, making it hard to tell what he thought of it all.

"What are you doing today?" he asked, seemingly out of the blue.

"Oh? Nothing... why?" Chiroro replied

"Just wondered if you wanted to hang out or something" he asked awkwardly, looking away and pursing his lips in an odd way.

Chiroro raised an eye ridge in confusion, but nodded with a shy smile. She knew that he was only offering because he knew she didn't want to see her sister, but that in itself was sweet.

"K-Karara... did you honestly learn nothing?" Taruru asked in disbelief as Karara snuck up to Tororo's room. Taruru had been following behind her the whole time, trying to convince her to stop what she was doing, to no avail.

"Of course I learned something. This... if Chiroro really does love Tororo, she'll have to prove it... by fighting me for him!" She smiled proudly, mind clearly set on her little theory.

"What kind of logic is that?! Karara, please!" Taruru questioned, practically begging now.

"No, Taruru, I'm gonna do this" She pressed.

Taruru said nothing and hung his head sadly. Not getting the gesture, Karara made her way to Tororo's door, found it unlocked, and promptly barged right in. Once inside, she was instantly met with the sight of both Tororo and Chiroro both staring intently at the chubby hacker's computer monitor, the salmon tadpole teaching the yellow one something or other to do with publishing software. They turned around almost simultaneously at the sound of the door opening, Chiroro guiltily shying away as soon as she realised it was her sister, even though she didn't look bruised or even upset in the slightest.

"Tororo!" Karara cried, pointing at said tadpole with a determined look in her eyes.

"Karara..." he started.

"I have come to win you over!" She stated proudly. Outside the door, Taruru face palmed and groaned.

Tororo thought carefully before saying anything.

"For what?" he finally asked cryptically. Karara gave him a confused look.

"Huh?"

Tororo smirked and came towards her.

"How much would you freak out if I... returned your feelings..." he began quietly, before leaning both his arms on the wall either side of Karara's head and leaned his face dangerously close to hers "...and tried to get... physical with you?" he finished, his grin widening as he watched her visibly pale.

"A-a lot" She replied quickly, letting out a breath of relief when Tororo pushed away from the wall and backing away to give her space.

"Then what exactly is the point of it all?" he asked, raising an eye ridge in question. Chiroro briefly wondered if he had rehearsed this in preparation for this very moment, but he looked so terribly awkward that she decided he was just doing a good job of improvising. Meanwhile, Karara looked just as bewildered as ever.

Tororo turned and sat back down next to Chiroro.

"This is the advice bit, you're on your own" He whispered to her with a grin. Chiroro only rolled her eyes at him and swivelled round in her chair, something she found more fun than it should be.

"You don't have to chase random dudes around, you know. If you just thought about it for once, you'd see what I'm getting at"

Karara frowned, not liking how cryptic this conversation was to her.

"The answer is right in front of you" Chiroro added before doing a shooing motion with her hand, enjoying the look on her sisters face as she shook her head and left the room in confusion. A short silence enveloped the room, the sound of Karara and Taruru walking down the hall becoming the only sound before it slowly petered away. Chiroro shot an unimpressed look in Tororo's direction.

"What? She's your sister, and I didn't particularly want to play love councillor again." He said, thinking back to that time in the hallway with Taruru.

"Again?" Chiroro asked, an amused expression on her face.

"Long story..." he said, frowning slightly. "Anyway, I did try to help out a little. It's the thought that counts." He added, referring to how he had tried comforting her all day.

"That's right. Thanks Tororo, you were great today" Chiroro smiled at him and pulled him into a hug before she could stop herself. Though he stiffened in her embrace, he still managed to shyly return the gesture, his face flushed red.

Tororo had a medical check up later that day. Pururu had decided to put her 'tragedy' behind her and just do her job. Tororo still gave her the tail that he had taken from Chiroro, causing the lilac frog to become tearful for a little while before putting the precious final symbol of youth somewhere safe.

"S-so... Tororo..." Pururu began intent on moving forward "Anything going on with you that you'd like to talk about?"

Tororo thought to himself for a brief moment.

"Not really. I'm trying to be nicer and more helpful to people like I said I would, but it's really hard" he admitted. Pururu chuckled a little.

"I heard about the advice you gave Taruru and the advice you almost gave to Karara. You should become an agony... uncle"

"Oh screw you" Tororo huffed, frowning embarrassedly "It was agony just trying to say it all"

Pururu smiled and jotted something down on her pad.

"The fact that you put that much effort into it is remarkable... are you trying to impress someone?" she asked.

"Impress someone? What, like I'd get a merit from the boss for being a good boy? Should I start eating vegetables next?" Tororo answered sarcastically.

"I didn't mean that... I meant impress someone" Pururu emphasised.

"Just tell me what you're thinking already" Tororo grumbled impatiently.

"Like... a girl?" Pururu tried again.

Tororo recoiled slightly, his face red, to Pururu's utter amusement.

"What are you insinuating, Medic? Chiroro is a friend!" he spat defensively.

"I never said anything about Chiroro" Pururu reminded him, weaving her fingers together and leaning her head on them, grinning big.

Tororo was about to mention that the only other girls on the ship were a basket case and a pensioner, but he didn't feel like dying today, so he just left the room in an embarrassed huff.

"Oh, and Tororo? Leader told me to tell you to set the ship's coordinates to Pokopen for tomorrow. We're picking up the Keroro platoon to assist us on part of the mission" Pururu called after him.

"Argh, fuck that!" Tororo growled aloud to no one in particular.

"Fuck what?" Chiroro asked, popping up from around the corner, nearly giving the chubby hacker a heart attack.

Holy... Chiroro!" he cried, as Chiroro laughed at his reaction.

"Just thought I'd come find you and say goodnight, 'cause I'm going to bed soon" she said, falling into step with him.

"Oh... really? Well... goodnight, then" Tororo replied, surprised but oddly touched by the gesture.

"Oh... and I'm sorry for randomly hugging you earlier... I know you have issues with personal space" Chiroro added, causing Tororo to blush.

"I do not! I... well, maybe..."

Chiroro only smiled again before walking closer by Tororo.

"The most ironic thing just happened" She said quietly.

"Oh?" Tororo asked, his interest piqued.

"Karara told me she thinks she loves Taruru... like, properly loves him... but she's too shy to tell him" Chiroro explained rolling her eyes with a smirk.

"My god, you're joking!" Tororo said, both eye ridges raised in utter disbelief.

"I wish I was. God, I just want to bang their stupid heads together. Taruru's had a blatant crush on her forever." Chiroro sighed, shaking her head. Tororo suddenly let out an involuntary yawn.

"I'm sorry Chiroro, but as riveting as this conversation has been, I really need to turn in... today just felt like a chapter in a cheesy romance novel" He apologised, turning round the corner leading in the direction of his room.

"Alright. You've done very well" Chiroro joked "Goodnight, Tororo"

"You too..." he replied, before they finally went their separate ways.

A/N

Unnecessarily dramatic chapter is unnecessary. This chapter was awkward as hell to hell to type up because I hate it XD There we go, another one of the first ideas I had for this story... thought I think it was originally meant to be Karara that slapped Chiroro... but I think I made her psychopathic enough for this chapter XD

This chapter has been written up for about a month, just never typed... don't hurt me XD

The chapter after this has been started, but I'm still trying to figure out where this will go. Lots of crazy stuff happened, and I've been distracted. But I promise to finish this. I don't like the idea of having an unfinished story on my page XD

That's all for now... enjoy? :3

((oh Ps, I do actually have a finished ToroChiro smut as a final experiment to see if I really was asexual... which I am, so it's quite pitiful XD I'm only adding this because I think someone asked me to do a smut of this couple a while back... do you still want me to post it? If I recieve genuine interest in it for some terrifying reason, I might just type it up XP))