...Emotionless, indifferent, unconcerned. That's how my classmates call me. It is also how I want to be and how I want to stay being... Until the incident earlier...

Baka (Mikan), was fuming mad at Nogi. She kept bugging me to call him and arrange a meeting during lunch. An arranged lunch just for the two of them. She still kept going and going and I kept on shooting her with my upgraded Baka Gun; made especially for annoying girls like her. After the sixteenth—no, seventeenth time that she begged, I gave in. She jumped triumphantly and started to upset me when she forgot why she begged...She was asking for those fluffy, pink sweets that make me want to vomit when I even take in its scent. Sweet, the complete opposite of me.

I dragged her to the cafeteria. At the top is a VIP lounge, very private and cosy and...Owned by me. That was where Nogi and Baka were going to meet. Inside is filled with furniture enclosed in fur with shades of lilac and ashen colours, reflecting my eyes. The chandelier hangs loose; pieces of rare gems surround the light bulbs, giving off a very vibrant colour. A male with flaxen hair and deep cerulean eyes sat on a chair.

Baka asked me ever so enthusiastically to leave as she sat down next to him, like her life depended on my decision to leave. I nodded politely in Nogi's direction and he responded, nodding back. His eyes have shown the feelings of one who is genuinely curious; I'm guessing Baka here hasn't explained anything to him yet. Good thing they don't know that I installed video cams in the corners of the room, covering every nook and corner and I installed high-quality microphones, even the buzzing of the smallest fly can be heard clearly.

I went back to my room in the dorm. I turned on the speakers connected to the microphones in the VIP room. I lied down in my bed, awfully tired of Baka's nagging and whines. In the quiet of the room, I felt myself drifting away to sleep. The sounds of the outside surroundings were almost as if a large vortex was there that took in each and every sound it encounters. I inhaled the air I can, and then exhaled noisily. I waited for the vortex to come and get me. I waited and I waited but still listened to the voices emerging from the speaker. Then three rapid raps came. Silence. Five more. And a cry: "Hotaru-san! Something is wrong with those two! Help please..."

Those three sentences were enough to snap me back to reality. I knew exactly who those two were.

'Look for Nogi first. Mikan could just be somewhere in the candy shop drooling at every candy she encounters. Don't worry, she's safe.' I thought.

I grabbed my coat and ran to the place where Nogi usually is. In the forest, playing with the wild animals and talking to them. He talks to them like they can really understand what he's saying and somehow I believe him. These wild animals should be really vicious but they find a liking to Nogi, that's why they don't attack him or anyone he considers as a friend.

I walked and walked until I reached the middle of the forest. The middle of the forest isn't hard to reach because the middle is a spherical clearing. I saw it again. That silky soft flaxen hair, so beautiful that the temptation to touch it is clearly hard to resist and; those deep cerulean eyes, showing that he was hurting. He was stretched out in the middle of the clearing, tears shimmering in the sun.

Words coming from Baka were more like infuriated than her usual goal: stay calm. She mentioned something about him not taking notice of her as her excuse for her irritation towards him. Nogi, on the other hand, took those words seriously and got hurt inside. When we went to the movies before the semester's break, they met each other then they said and I quote: "It was love at first sight." But I don't believe in that. You just can't love a person without truly knowing him.

He let me do what I can do to comfort him. I held his hand, felt his pulse if he was still alive because he was as motionless as a rock, dried his tears, and lied down beside him in the grassy clearing. Being next to him in the stillness of the afternoon was nice. His soft yet muscular chest served as my pillow for the meanwhile. His arms were my blanket.

The time passed by fast then it was dark. I urged him to go to the dorm with me but he declined. I offered to stay there but I yawned and he frowned and told me to go to sleep in the dorm. I followed, disappearing in the first tree I encounter. I hid there, thinking there's something that I should wait for. Something important. I climbed the tree and sat on the branch that has lots of leaves so that can conceal me from him.

A figure rushed out from the trees. A girl with auburn hair. Mikan. She went beside him and wiped off his tears, like I did, and pinched his cheek. He blushed crimson and forgave her. Mikan smiled and leaned in to Ruka. He leaned closer too.

I jumped off the tree and ran back to the dorm, slamming the door shut. I find my way to the bed and cried. My heart thumped so fast, I feared I was going to get a heart attack. Then hot, very hot streams of tears flowed down my cheeks and I knew this wasn't a heart attack. It was the feeling of heartbreak.

I dug my nails in the pillows that I come across. I throw them to the walls. I scream into the pillows. I pull my hair. Everything that I did involved sobbing. The pain was too much. I never thought that Mikan would love Ruka. I thought she loved Hyuuga. Most of all, I never thought that I could love someone as pure and beautiful as Ruka.

Anyway, this is yet another problem to be solved. Another mystery to be understood. And if you ask me what I learned, I learned that love hurts.