It's amazing how easy it is to see through Tokura Misaki.

The things that immediately attract Asaka's attention when she looks at her aren't Misaki's calm behaviour or the softness of her voice, but the sadness in her eyes and the black ribbon on her wrist that just feels really out-of-place – as if it doesn't belong there. Even when she's really sure she hasn't met the calm girl before today, Asaka feels weirdly confident in front of her and it's just too easy to figure her out.

Ren's busy talking to Kai, who just arrived here with his friends. That kid, Kamui, shot Tetsu an angry glare when they came in, but now looks at Tetsu with a certain hesitation and Tetsu, who noticed that, challenges him to a cardfight. The red-haired boy and Kai's blond friend are talking about something in the corner of the shop. Misaki's the only one who hasn't said a word yet. She simply put an apron on as soon as she came in and sat down on the chair behind the counter.

Thinking about it, Asaka isn't sure why she knows the other girls name or why it's so tempting to tease her about the serious and sad look on her face to offer some distraction. The urge to ask about that ribbon, to tear it from Misaki's wrist, because it feels so wrong, because it shouldn't be there, is huge, too, and Asaka's pretty sure she's worked too long in this shop.

Still –

"Is there something wrong on my face? You're staring." Misaki says, somehow annoyed. That tone in her voice is the first thing about her that really is familiar to Asaka and frankly, it's rather nice to hear it again. (Again, even when she's 100% sure, she has never ever talked to Tokura Misaki in her whole life.) It's a rather embarrassing situation, but instead of blushing, Asaka smirks.

"You're annoying." Misaki calmly states as she pulls out her deck and looks at her cards.

"What a rude thing to say to the person that watched the store for you." Something about this feels really nice and easy, as if they already had this conversation a billion times before. It's not hard to counter Misaki's remark and she knows that neither of them actually means what they say. It's just the casual kind of teasing between two rivals –

Rivals? A ridiculous thought. How should that little shop girl be the rival of Team AL4's assassin?

Misaki rolls her eyes. "You're as childish as ever." Then, she bites her lips, but it's already too late. Curiously, Asaka leans over the counter, closer to Misaki, catching every slight movement and flinch and change in her expression.

"As ever?" Asaka laughs. "What are we? Star-crossed lovers from an other life who are fated to meet again here, in this cute little shop? You've got to be kidding."

But there's not a slightest bit of joking in Asaka's voice as she speaks, no hint of their teasing from earlier. For once it seems like Misaki has the upper hand, as if she knows something Asaka doesn't and while it does bother her, there's more to it. Why does it, with every passing second, feel more and more like they know each other? Still leaning on the counter, Asaka finds her face closer to Misaki's than she remembers, but she doesn't back away.

Why does Misaki avoid her gaze?

"Just tell me, what we are?"

"Asaka, we're leaving!" Ren's suddenly directly behind her and this time, she does start helplessly blushing.

"Ahh, Ren-sama, don't tell me you've listened all the time?" A small, but distance smile appears on Misaki's face, as if she knows something Asaka doesn't.

Such an annoying girl.

Before Asaka can say something, Ren grabs her wrist, immediately silencing her. He lets go of it when they're already out of the shop and almost at the Foo Fighter HQ.

Asaka doesn't forget about Misaki, though.

It's almost a week later, when Asaka leaves Fukuhara after their Cardfight! club meeting and sees Misaki again. Even this time, it's not hard to tell how nervous Misaki is. Even from this far away, it's easy to tell in the way she crosses her arms and bites her lips and plays with the ribbon on her wrist. As Asaka gets closer to her, she finds out that Misaki obviously waits for her.

"Hey." Asaka starts when she stands in front of Misaki, slightly bowing. "Is there something I can do for Your Highness today?"

"There's something," Misaki's fingers leave the ribbon and play with the red bow around her neck. "Something I wanted to tell you."

"Oh, there's something you want to tell my humble self. I'm really flattered." Misaki rolls her eyes and Asaka tries to bite back a smile. This does feel like something familiar.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"It's hard to explain."

"Forming words is really easy, even you should be able to do that. Come on, you don't look that stupid to me." Once again, Misaki rolls her eyes and sighs, but this time, Asaka sees a smile cross her features and that's nice.

So, Misaki gestures Asaka to follow her as she starts explaining. A really imaginative story about the world forgetting a boy and how Misaki and her friends are trying to get him back. Misaki tells her how she already knows Asaka, how they met at the Nationals once, how Asaka beat her (Which is the most realistic part of the story, but even then, it's odd how she can practically hear the crowds cheering for her, like a memory from a previous life, something that happened to another Narumi Asaka).

When they reach a small café at the centre of the town, Asaka lets herself fall on a chair, trying to properly process everything Misaki told her. Meanwhile, Misaki orders two coffees for both of them, and then pulls out her deck like yesterday, but there's something strange about it.

"Wait, don't you run an Oracle Think Tank deck?"

"Yeah, I changed to Genesis after the Asia Circuit."

"Listening to our advice, aren't you?"

Asaka slaps her hand in front of her mouth.

"I don't, I mean, it's not like, you know-"

Misaki abruptly leans over to her. "So there's at least something you remember."

...

The waiter brings their coffee and Misaki wants to pay, but Asaka's faster and hands him a bunch of money, waving him off.

...

"Maybe I, um, I only remember some aspects, short pieces. Things that don't fit to my other memories." Asaka begins again. "It's kind of... weird."

Misaki tightly grabs her wrist. "No, it's okay, I felt the same. You'll remember eventually."

"You know," Asaka grins, when Misaki slowly tries to let go of her wrist, but she clings to Misaki's hand. "There's no need to make up such a story, when you want to go out with me and hold my hand."

Immediately, Misaki pulls her hand away, slightly blushing. "That's not true!"

"'I felt the same,'" Asaka dramatically quotes and Misaki crosses her arms, looking out of the window. "That's pretty adorable, you know."

"Did you have fun with Misakki~?" Ren greats her, standing in front of the door in an apron. She can smell vegetables cooking in the kitchen, hoping Ren's cooking the delicious soup he cooked on the resort island.

They visited a resort island together?

Images of herself and Ren at the blue sea flow through her mind. Tetsu and that Kai Toshiki are there, too, and a bunch of other people - Misaki and her friends. She remembers how she and Ren looked for a third person to play volleyball with. Kai rejected them, but Misaki accepted the invitation.

She holds her aching head.

"Asaka, you okay?" She hears Ren's worried voice and straightens her posture again. Letting him see you this way is embarrassing. Get a hold of yourself. You want to be strong, right?

"I'm all right," she smiles and goes to the kitchen with Ren. When she sits down on one of the chairs, Ren hands her a glass of water and sits down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, red eyes meeting her blue ones.

"Did Misaki say something to you?" She shakes her head, but when the expression on Ren's face softens in relief, she nods. She can't lie to him, really. He sighs. "So, you know what happened. To Aichi-kun, I mean." She nods again and then shakes her head.

"That boy who went missing. Not really, I mean, no one knows where he is, right?"

"Yeah, no one knows," Ren repeats and while he still looks at her, it's easy to see he's lost in his thought somewhere else. "So, you remember everything that happened."

"Not everything. Bits and pieces slowly come back, but I'm not sure about most of it," she bites her lips. "Isn't this... Don't these things only happen in stories?"

Ren shakes his head, lifts his hand from her shoulder as if he wants to touch her face, to reassure her and tell her things will be all right, but then seems to stop himself as he gets up and turns to the food he cooks. (Maybe it's just Asaka's imagination, her hoping for things that will never happen.)

"Tell Tetsu dinner's ready soon."

On the next day, she meets Yuri. She stands on the same spot Misaki stood yesterday, but unlike her, Yuri actually called Asaka before she came. The both of them often meet each other for cardfights . After their some fights inside the Foo Fighter HQ, Yuri casually mentions how she has trouble to remember certain things in her past and Asaka shrugs. Yuri laughs and says she's probably imagining things.

"But it's really weird, though. Koutei feels something similar and on top of that all, he met two people at the airport who said they know him. Hmm, what were their names again... I think the girl's name is Tokura Misaki. Does that name ring any bells?"

"Kind of," Asaka starts.

She hesitantly tells Yuri everything she knows and Yuri keeps nodding, slowly processing Asaka's words. They agree to start investigating this topic, though the only person who knows something about this and who would help them is Ren, but after that evening, neither Asaka or him mentioned this topic. Not that Asaka's fine with these things remaining unsaid and ignored, she just doesn't know how to bring them up again, when she's not even sure why everyone forgot about them.

Something about Misaki makes her feel very uncomfortable and unhappy and Asaka would love to know more about their past relationship and the things that were between them, but whenever she sees a new image in her mind, another memory of her forgotten past, it feels like Asaka loses a part of her current self. As if she and the other Asaka don't belong together.

To get her old memories back, it seems like she has to lose her current self and she keeps telling herself she isn't afraid and has to be strong, but lying to the voices in your head is hard.

"You all right, Asaka?" Ren asks sweetly on the third evening after she and Yuri decided to find some clues about what happened to their memories. "You look tired."

He's suddenly really close to her on the couch and his red hair falls on her shoulder. Asaka backs away in surprise, shaking her head. "Everything's fine, Ren-sama."

"You sure?" All of the previous sweetness in his voice is gone as he brings his own face closer to hers, so close their noses are about to touch and she's way too aware of him feeling her breathing. "Don't tell me it's still about Aichi-kun. You're also searching for him, aren't you."

A part of her wants to question the 'also', but she knows who Ren talks about. Of cause, Kai is always involved in everything, somehow. Why can't he, just for once, stop being annoying?

"You didn't tell me what happened, so I wanted to find it out on my own." She turns her head away, making Ren back away in process, and then crosses her arms. "I got a bit curious."

"Asaka... there's something I want to show you."

He stands up, looking at Asaka expectantly and in the same moment, she starts feeling sorry for what she said. "I'm sorry for being impolite, Ren-sama."

But he only shakes his head. "No need to be. I should be sorry," he holds out his hand. "Will you forgive me for what I did?" She senses there's a greater meaning to those careful words. Was there something Ren tried to hide? Something about their past and that kid named Aichi?

She shoves her questions into a deep corner of her mind as she takes Ren's hand. They take the elevator down and after a couple of moments in pure silence, Ren leans against the wall. "I'm not allowed to show this to anyone, or even talk about this, but the place we're going to is the portal. The portal that leads to Aichi-kun's sanctuary."

"Aichi's sanctuary?"

"Yeah, it... it's hard to explain." Ren rubs the back of his head. "Though, I still think you should know about this."

"Then why didn't you tell me earlier?" She doesn't want to seem ungrateful. When she asks this question, it's because she means it in some very honest way and not to make Ren feel uncomfortable. After all, she tries to be there for him and he can tell her everything that's on his mind.

"I thought you wouldn't care about these things."

"I care about everything that matters to you." It takes her a second to realize the exact meaning of what she said. "Excuse me, I, um, Ren-sama, I-"

"It's okay," he laughs. "I know what you mean. Somehow, I can exactly understand how you feel."

When they get out of the elevator, he leads her to three white pillars that are in front of the wall. She raises an eyebrow, but when he places a hand on the middle one, the wall fades away and reveals something that reminds her of one of these old Greek temples.

"This is where we have to leave each other." A certain sadness stains Ren's voice, that sounds less worried about Asaka and more jealous. She doesn't ask why Ren can't come with her or what's behind this portal that leads her to such an ancient looking place. She only nods, says 'thank you' and steps through the portal without too much fuss.

On the other side, she finds herself surrounded pillars similar to the ones she saw before. It's not a real room, so she can see what's outside the temple. Instead of landscapes and the light blue sky, she finds herself surrounded by countless stars and the darkest night she's seen. She thinks she's alone in this temple and gasps when she realizes that what she sees between the starts and mistook for the moon, actually is earth.

"Didn't expect you to come here."

Someone laughs. A tall blonde haired girl suddenly appears in front of her – Kourin, the third member of that idol group. Asaka remembers her being on the same school as Misaki. Putting a hand on her hip, a smirk flashes across Kourin's face. "You'll have to fight me, if you want to go any further."

"Well then, sorry for bursting in, Princess. But don't think I'll go easy on you because of your pretty face." Asaka bows. "It's the Princess' duty to bow in front of the Queen after all."