In the silence of the room, only the repeated 'tick-tock' of the clock could be heard. The room was blatantly blank, void of everything that might be marked as unnecessary; a white ceiling, white walls, a bed with white sheets and an old nightstand made all its furniture.

Nagisa was sitting by the bedside, still and soundless. She had been like this for about twenty minutes, watching the sleeping Ritsu silently, and although she had never been a patient person, somehow this motionless sitting here didn't tire her.

Tick-tock.

Ritsu stirred, indicating his awakening. Like a finely-wrought statue clad in Lolita clothes, Nagisa didn't move or give away her presence in any way—only her eyes flickered at the action.

The man's fingers rubbed the bridge of his nose as he sighed. "How long have you been here, Nagisa?"

She flinched, her composure gone in an instant. "H-how did you know I'm here!?"

"Your scent. I know it too well. Annoying as always."

A blush tinged Nagisa's cheeks, and she was thankful Ritsu couldn't see it. "You—!"

"So what are you doing here?"

"I-I'm watching you, idiot!"

"What for?" his voice was so indifferent it irritated her to no end.

"Because you're now blind! You can't move on your own!" she yelled, losing her patience. O Seven Moons, how much she loathed this man and the fashion in which he always ruffled her calmness without any effort!

He winced visibly. "Stop shouting. It's getting on my nerves."

Nagisa sucked the air into her lungs to say something that would knock this man down a notch or two. But when his palm reached to smooth out the neckerchief tied over his eyes, she suddenly couldn't hold back anymore. Her head dropped onto the freshly-laved sheets as she struggled to understand her own feelings.

"Ritsu…"

Nagisa didn't know what else she would say if Natsuo didn't peek into the room, his only eye catching her figure. "Sensei? You need to sleep properly."

She didn't answer.

"You haven't slept since Ritsu—" Natsuo cut off, for his creator's face, red from embarrassment, sent him a warning look. "Khm, I was actually looking for Youji…" the boy trailed off, closing the door and leaving the two to their tête-à-tête.

Natsuo was right. Her eyelids felt so heavy they were tugging her down, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a proper nap.

"Don't say… anything," Nagisa murmured, plopping her head back onto the sheets. The shock she had experienced upon seen Ritsu having gone blind had been too strong for her to be able to drift off, but now that the idiot was here alive, she could feel her body starting to relax.

Nagisa didn't understand herself. She hated this haughty, selfish man; she remembered what he'd done to the fourteen-year-old Soubi and Sanae—and yet there she was, unable to leave his bedside, holding back her tears when she saw Ritsu pained. She failed to comprehend her own feelings, and it was as vexing as the man lying in front on her.

A pond. She was standing before a big pond. What…?

"Big sis."

Her whole being shuddered as Nagisa spun around and saw her little sister a few yards away, in her usual school uniform. She wasn't smiling though.

"S-Sanae!" Nagisa wanted to inch closer but at the same time, something hampered her, making her remain on the spot.

Sanae tilted her head. "How is Ritsu, big sis? I heard you haven't torn your eyes off of him since that accident."

Her heart sank. "Sanae, it's not… I hate him, you know that!" she shouted louder than she should have, a bit too louder. Nothing in Sanae's expression changed.

"Oh, is that so?"

Nagisa trembled. She could withstand this cold look from anyone but her little sister, and it was making her heart crumble. "Lil sis, you died because of him! Of course I hate him, this stupid, arrogant—"

"Don't tell me you didn't feel relieved. I don't like it when you lie to me, big sis."

"W-what!?"

Sanae shifted a step closer. Her gaze was as cold as a stone buried under eternal snow, piercing through Nagisa, giving her a foreboding. A ring suddenly appeared between the younger girl's fingers—that ring—and she began toying with it, her eyes never leaving her sister's.

"You were relieved. You didn't have to try to please me all the time anymore. Because of your sense of responsibility, you were always running after me, fulfilling all my wished. But when I had drowned, you had been freed from this burden, and you felt relieved."

Fright chained Nagisa to the ground. Sanae was saying such unbelievable, egregious things it hurt to just hear them. "Nonsense! You know I've always loved you!"

The ring shone between Sanae's digits as she deftly turned it.

"You know, Nagisa," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "people wear masks. In front of themselves, too. They lie to themselves and believe those lies; they put on their vizards and never take them off. But the truth is that I was a burden to you. One that you were willing to carry, but nevertheless a burden," Sanae finished coolly.

The pond beside them began turning red. The lilies' leaves now looked ominously dark on its scarlet water, and this time it was terror that clenched Nagisa. She was so desperate to prove Sanae wrong she didn't care about her voice's volume. "No! I-I love you, Sanae! I still remember you! You meant everything to me!"

"And that's why you wanted to get rid of me," for the first time during this conversation, a smirk emerged on the other's lips, and it was as terrifying as the blood-colored pond. "You never admitted it to yourself, big sis, but you wanted it. Funny how people fool themselves, huh?"

The water started overflowing, washing over Nagisa's ankles. She wasn't looking at Sanae anymore, her eyes shut and her palms covering her ears as she shook her head violently.

"No! No!" she wished it would just end, this whole talk would just stop, stop…

But Sanae's unperturbed childish voice reached her even through the covered ears.

"That's why you will never be able to hate Ritsu," she continued. "Right, Nagisa? You were nothing, always had to follow your little sister because it was the responsibility you'd bestowed upon yourself, but I died and you realized that thanks to Ritsu, you weren't a slave anymore."

"No…"

"Now you're trying to see me in Youji. You feel guilty. You want to redeem yourself and convince yourself my death was a disaster to you. But it wasn't. We both know that. He knows that."

"No, no, NO!"

"Stop shouting, will you?"

It was Ritsu's voice.

Nagisa opened her eyes, springing to her feet from the place where she was kneeling. She was in the white room, and Ritsu's head was turned in her direction, his mouth twisted in dismal.

She felt her heart thumping wildly. Sanae… had that been just a dream? The nightmare's Sanae's words resonated in her skull as she looked at the man on the bed. As Nagisa took in her surroundings, now fully awake, her knees slackened beneath her.

"Had a bad dream?" Ritsu asked.

Hate. She was supposed to hate him with all her soul, not be sitting by his bedside like his lover and lamenting his loss of vision.

Nagisa couldn't hold it any longer. With a loud sob, she collapsed onto the bed, her face approximately in the place where Ritsu's chest was resting under the blanket. It was just suddenly too much, too many feelings in her heart contradicting with each other, and upon them all—guilt, all-encompassing, nagging, unavoidable. She was crying out loud like a little girl, and her shoulders shook badly.

"Nagisa?" for perhaps the first time in her life, Ritsu's voice sounded surprised when talking to her. Her hands squeezed his blanket.

"R-Ri-Ritsu…" was the only thing she managed to let out in between the sobs. Crying in front of him was so embarrassing, so unacceptable, but the tears just wouldn't stop. A pain impaled her chest, and there was no way to hide from it.

A hand touched her back. It was hesitant, but at last rubbed a few awkward and presumably soothing circles before stopping somewhere under her dress's collar. "So annoying," Ritsu sighed but it didn't sound as firm as normally, rather confused.

Nagisa sobbed again.

She would never be able to hate this man, as much as she would never be able to love him. But on the top of it all, until her last breath on this planet, she would never be able to stop seeing Sanae's reproaching, knowing smile every damn time she closed her eyes.