The day he walked away, Meroko vowed that she would never come crying back.

"Really?" he whispered in her ear. She could feel the wall behind her, and she could feel him. Right there. She's not looking him in the eyes, like not looking would somehow make this less real and she wouldn't be breaking the promises she made to herself.

He held her by the wrists, but his grip was so barely-there, whispy, like smoke, that she could hardly classify it as restraint and, anyway, she's not moiving (maybe his grip is stronger than she thought – stupid, stupid Meroko!).

And suddenly she remembers that there's nothing holding her here but selfless, stupid love that will never be returned. So she raises her eyes and bites the bile back and says:

"Really."

He only smiles.

She wished that his heart was breaking, that he was hurting as bad as she was. He, on the other hand, was guaranteed her pain.

I love Takuto, I love Takuto, I love Takuto, now – a million times over, the truth, and still she never does.

Mitsuki had it wrong. Izumi doesn't occupy some deep, forgotten closet of ex-loves and trampled dreams (with Seijuro and Fuzuki). He occupies its whole. She thinks of him every day. Most of the time she's angry. She thinks this is a good sign – she's getting over this, it him – but no luck. Meroko has never been lucky in love.

I love Takuto now, she repeats…

…but her fingers….

(I love Takuto, now)

…push the buttons in a shaky order that heralds ever ounce of adrenaline, and love, and hate, in her entire body. In her entire soul.

"I need your help," she chokes out. "It's… this girl… Takuto…"

"I understand," he says, in a childish, easy voice that makes her lips quiver and her knees weak.

(She's come crawling back.

That's what he understands.)

"I love Takuto now," she adds for good measure.

"I understand," he repeats, with equal cheer. Almost as if there's a joke here somewhere. Well, if there is a joke, Meroko doesn't get it.

"It's been ages since I last heard from you-" and she grits her teeth and braces herself for what will, inevitably, happen next:

"Me-chan."

(The way he says her name.)