Oh em ge, there was nothing to do for the past few days, so I decided to get ahead on the story. Prepare yourself for another emotional crying scene (I promise there will be happy chapters, so don't worry).

And guess what, more crying.

Am I just depressing or what? -x-

4 chapters, all have tears omglolwtfbbq.

enjoi.

c;

"Keroro!" Dororo exclaimed.

His visit was a surprise to him. Keroro never visited Dororo unless he was out of Gundams to build or there were no new releases for his favorite manga and anime. He was always Keroro's last choice.

"What are you doing here, Keroro? You never told me you were coming to visit," he asked curiously.

Keroro ignored the question and walked into Dororo's home without a proper welcome. It was terribly rude, but Dororo learned to tolerate Keroro, so much that he pitied him at times.

"Ooh, is that one of Koyuki's rice balls?" he asked as he ran towards the last pieces of the ball of rice. His eyes had a glow to them as he stared upon the last bits of delicious rice, and he stuffed the remains in his mouth.

"Keroro, don't eat it! I was saving it for-," he began.

Sadly, it was too late. Koyuki's special gift was now on its way to Keroro's stomach. This was more than enough to turn on Dororo's switch, and he curled up into his protective ball and started mumbling to himself as he recounted all the cruel things Keroro had done to him in their childhood.

"You took my lunch when we were little, so I had nothing to eat for the rest of the day. I was really hungry by the time dinner came, so I ate as much as I could, but my mother would scold me for eating too much. You didn't even return the lunchbox!"

That agonizing memory and many more were etched permanently in Dororo's mind. Keroro turned around after licking the extra rice off his fingers, only realizing now that he had Dororo spiraling into his depressed state. He had heard his mumbling earlier, but disregarded it. His mind was too busy savoring the taste of the remnants of Koyuki's rice ball. He immediately ran towards Dororo. He needed to get Dororo back to normal, or else he wouldn't get to ask him what had happened earlier in the yard.

"Dororo! Snap out of it!" Keroro shook him. It was obvious to the casual observer that Keroro was no expert in dealing with traumatized frogs, and his efforts had no effect on him. Frustrated, he tried many other methods of dealing with the situation, but ended up crying himself. Keroro's sadness had triggered his brain to reprocess what had happened and somehow managed to salvage what Dororo had said while he had tuned his whispers out of his head.

Teary-eyed, Keroro burst out in apology. Now there were two frogs on the ground crying. It was a sad sight indeed.

"I'm sorry Dororo! I didn't mean to make you cry. I was just so hungry. Natsumi and Fuyuki aren't home yet so there was nothing to eat and when I saw those bits of rice hunger just overwhelmed me," he said, but he knew excuses would get him nowhere with Dororo and continued on with his truly heartfelt apology. It was the only thing he knew he could do right.

"I forced myself to make you a lunch the day after I took your lunchbox as an apology to what happened the day before, but I ended up eating it. I reminded myself to make one for you again another day later, but I kept putting it off because I always thought I could pay you back later. I guess it's come back to bite me since I neglected you for so long." Keroro was really getting into it and looked like an exact replica of Dororo when his trauma mode was on, only greener.

"I also kept your lunchbox when we were young," he continued. "I always told myself I would return it to you, but I kept forgetting. I still have your lunchbox to this day and ever since we were assigned to invade Pekopon, I still continued to try to remember to give it to you, but I was always so caught up in making Gundams and watching television shows that I kept forgetting again and again. I know I've been a terrible friend to you all these years and yet you still put up with me and my antics. I'm sorry that I have to keep hurting you like that, Dororo! You're probably not listening to me because I don't know what happens to your senses when you look so miserable and beaten when you're like that, but I hope that you at least can hear me say that I'm sorry."

Keroro's confession went on for a few more minutes and was filled with more than a fair share of "I'm sorry" and other things of the sort. Little did Keroro know that Dororo had been listening to him the whole time. He didn't want to interrupt Keroro while he was in his own moment of trauma and decided to let him finish. He listened intently, on the verge of crying again due to the simple fact that he was glad that Keroro could show that he cared about others. Keroro's voice sounded similar to his when he was crying and Dororo could see that he was guilt was genuine. It changed the way Dororo saw Keroro in his mind, but of course, there was always complications.

This had happened before. He remembered when Keroro had gone down on his knees with apologies for his behavior many other times. They were all short-lived and Keroro was usually back to his normal obnoxious behavior the day after. Dororo could only hope that this time was different and also hoped that Keroro really did keep the lunchbox that he took. It was a cheap lunchbox, but its value didn't come from its price. Rather, it came from Keroro's decision to keep it all these years, bent on returning it. Even if he didn't ever remember to give it back to him, at least he had made an effort to try, which meant that he did value their friendship more than he usually showed to the other platoon members.

Keroro had finished with his rather long and sincere apology and slowly looked up to Dororo, afraid that he was still in the same position: crouched and curled. The face that Keroro made when he saw that Dororo wasn't still drowning in his painful memories was priceless and showed an enormous amount of relief to know that Dororo was back to normal. Keroro saw the tears that Dororo had cried on his mask, showing up as darker spots on the lighter fabric. It was only a reminder of the trouble that had occurred, but as much as Keroro wanted to rip the mask off to rid himself of anything that would tell of the guilt that he felt for his actions, he did nothing, knowing that he wouldn't appreciate it even if Keroro had asked nicely. He sat in front of Dororo speechlessly, who was on his knees and preparing some rice and tea.

"So you kept my lunchbox," Dororo said as he poured some tea into two small cups. He too was relieved. He felt a warm sensation inside of him, happy that Keroro had apologized and still recognized their friendship as something of importance. To Dororo, it seemed a bit funny to him that his lunchbox had become a sort of sign of the friendship that they shared. It wasn't a perfect friendship, but it still mattered a great deal to Dororo.

"Yeah," he said slowly. He kept quiet as Dororo handed him a cup of tea. He didn't want to talk because small traces of guilt still lingered around him, but not enough to keep him crying. He picked up the cup and took a small sip. He didn't usually drink tea, but the way that Dororo had prepared it made it taste heavenly.

The two exchanged small talk periodically, but a real conversation never lasted. It was still an awkward feeling for both of them to have been crying together. It left them dumbfounded and struggling to recreate a normal environment that they were used to.

They had tea and rice until the sun started setting. Their partial conversations had been filled with confessions and apologies and the mood never shifted to a cheerful one, but confessions and apologies were all that was needed to keep them happy for the rest of the day. Keroro got to apologize for many more things that he did wrong to Dororo, and Dororo was happy that Keroro had gotten rid of his burden of guilt.

It was time for Keroro to leave; the sun was almost hidden behind the horizon and the sky had turned a deep red with shades of darkness opposite the sunset. As he left Dororo's house to return home, Dororo stopped him before he had walked out of his house.

"You never did tell me why you came, Keroro. Mind telling me now?"

Keroro had come to ask about what happened at Giroro's tent, but his visit had taken an unexpected turn of events.

"I guess I just wanted to visit my best friend," he said with a slight smile on his face.

Hey, at least this chapter had a happier ending than the previous three. And so begins my journey to the happier side of the spectrum.

c;