A/N: Due to a rather intense phase of denial, I left this story unattended for an unholy amount of time. Thanks to all the amzing feedback that I got, I was once again motivated to continue it. Thanks a lot! :)

VI

Dazed and confused, Mitsuru reached for the alarm clock. Was something wrong with it? This wasn't its usual sound and also not its usual position – Mitsuru started to come to her senses. This also wasn't her room.

After a split second of panic, she had collected herself. She remembered the night before: she had set out for Yukari's room all on her own, had woken her up and then they … Mitsuru lowered her head in shame. How utterly uncontrolled of herself. Why had she let her desires take her over like this? It had all seemed so right last night, now it all seemed so wrong.

Mitsuru silently picked up her clothes that were scattered on the bed. She got up very carefully, as to not make a sound and slowly walked to the door. Yukari didn't show any signs of waking up, so Mitsuru continued outside, closing the door behind her with a little sigh. Now she hurried back to her room, it wasn't too early in the morning to be spotted by another inhabitant of the dorm.

Back in her room, Mitsuru put her pyjama ack on. She felt horribly exposed, as if someone had ripped her clothes off on a lively street. With something between a sigh and growl, she let herself fall into her own bed and buried her head between the pillows. Why couldn't she turn invisible now? She didn't feel like facing anyone she knew ever again.

Memories of last night crept into her mind, beautiful and frightening at the same time. Mitsuru didn't fool herself, she was fully aware that at the time it happened, she enjoyed it. Very intensely so. Was this like a hangover? The price you paid in the morning for last night's enjoyment? Or was it that now that she wasn't drunk with desire, with - as much as she hated to admit it - arousal any more, she was able to clearly see and properly judge what happened?

In her head, Mitsuru went over the possible ways of dealing with the situation she was facing. She could try to forget what had happened, although the memory right now was extremely vivid and there was no way to ensure Yukari would forget about it as well. She could try to face her desires that she had lost control of, although this would leave her in a position wide open to emotional hurting. Just having put the death of her father behind herself, Mitsuru was not yet ready for further emotional distress.

What did that leave her with? The only option Mitsuru could still think of was neglect. Maybe if she acted as if the night had been nothing but an incident that didn't require further attention, Yukari wouldn't pursue the matter further. Hopefully, at least. Was there another way out of this? No ideal solution would come to Mitsuru's mind. Not without hesitation, she decided to just sit it out and ignore Yukari for a while. She hoped things would just resolve themselves and go back to normal.

Mitsuru sighed and tried to fall asleep again. She couldn't help regarding her way out of this inner conflict of hers as evidence of incapacity. Then again, this was no matter that she, the heiress of the Kirijo group, should clutter her busy mind with. Burying her head deeper into a pillow, Mitsuru closed her eyes and fell asleep after a while.

When she awoke, bright daylight fell through the windows and everything around her was silent. It had to be noon already, seeing as she had set no alarm, and everyone else was probably at school right now. At least Mitsuru wouldn't have to face any of her dorm mates – for some reason, she didn't feel like dealing with humans right now.

Mitsuru wondered why that was – being around people right now would certainly prove to be a great distraction from her current troubles, both with her father's death and Takeba. But something in her felt almost like she was not up to the task of dealing with her dorm mates, the people that she fought with and that supported her whenever possible. It actually would be beneficial for her to spend more time with them but Mitsuru inexplicably started to doubt her value to the others. They had become largely independent from her, with Arisato taking the leader role and Fuuka providing better support than Mitsuru had been able to.

Did they even need her any more? Her, as a person? Or was she just their key to the Kirijo group's power? Was there a point in fighting on? Mitsuru had been fighting to restore her family's honour, to pay the debt for what her ancestors had done – but now, with the last remains of her family gone, what was there to fight for?

Mitsuru felt terribly ill and empty all of a sudden. She got up and dressed with a sentiment of self-disgust. Without any motivation to do anything, she dragged herself down the stairs and into the kitchen to make tea for herself. Once it was done, she sat down on the sofa with her cup and stared into the hot liquid as if an answer to all her questions and doubts was to be found within it. The recent happenings had left a hole in her and it felt like there was nothing to fill it, like she was slowly becoming hollow.

Mitsuru kept staring into the tea with an expression just as blank as her mind. When she finally decided to take a sip, the tea had gone cold. How long had she been sitting here, sulking over her own uselessness? Had her mind wandered off? She closed her eyes for a split-second and saw an image of Takeba in front of her inner eye.

In a sudden rush of panic, Mitsuru's eyes snapped open. What had that been? How could something like this now, when she was awake and thoughtful, cross her mind? It made no sense at all. Although admittedly, she was in dire need of some distraction from her unproductive sulking, this was an extremely unwanted thought creeping into her consciousness.

She shook her head in an attempt to just shrug off the image that had startled her and got off from the sofa she had slouched upon. With a sudden urge to act determined, she put the rest of the cold tea away and returned to her room.

As she arrived there, she looked around with an insecure expression – what was is that she was so determined to do to? She hadn't attended school in quite a while, so she had no homework to do and the Kirijo group management had not requested her opinion on any urgent matter. There was nothing she really felt she had to do – only something she felt she had to avoid doing.

With a sigh, Mitsuru decided to tidy up and clean her room. She had been inattentive of her room for the better of the time since she returned from her duties with the Kirijo group, leaving it in a for her unusually messy state. Hopefully, tidying up would make her feel more organized. Mitsuru liked her self-image to be that of a woman in complete control of herself, this included her appearance as much as her room.

After some time of cleaning, Mitsuru's room looked as perfect as ever again and she had to admit she was a little proud of herself. At least she wasn't letting herself go completely any more. Unlike she had done last night …

Mitsuru growled at herself. There was no use, she could not get what happened out of her mind. Everything she did was just a means of distracting herself from what her mind was trailing off to, everything she pondered was just an excuse to not address what really bothered her the most.

There was a desire for this other young woman in her, she didn't know where it came from or what its purpose was, she just knew she had a hard time getting it under her control. And Mitsuru didn't like situations that were out of control. To her, uncontrolled situations were just waiting to escalate because of some or other unplanned factor. Especially in this case, there was no way Mitsuru could allow to let such an escalation happen. She had to put this to an end, she had to stop her mind from wandering off to Takeba's room, she had to stop her hands from trembling at the thoughts of Tabeka's smooth skin, she had to get this girl out of her mind. Only how, she didn't know.

What she knew was that the situation she currently was in was unstable at best, it felt like it would only take a tiny action to make Mitsuru get completely off track. She didn't want to enter a whole spiral of emotions, of pleasure and guilt, anxieties and enjoyment right now. There was no way she was up that task, she would just collapse under all those emotions breaking in on her like a flood.

Mitsuru buried her face in her hands as if she could shut out the world and her troubles with this. She felt desperate because there was literally nothing she could think of doing to stop herself from following this desire, to shut it out of her mind for good. A tear ran down her cheek, a tear of anger and despair. Actually, Mitsuru didn't want to cry, she wanted to scream at herself to pull herself together and get things sorted out but the only thing that would come out were helpless tears.

She stood in the middle of her room, sobbing. It had gone dark while she was working in her room and the street lights in front of her window painted a dramatic play of light and shadow onto the scenery.

There was a creaking sound, faint enough to be a product of Mitsuru's imagination but abrupt enough to make her take her hands down and stop sobbing for a moment. Another creaking sound, there was no mistake now that the sound was indeed real. Mitsuru froze in terror as she realised she had let her door unlocked. She didn't dare move a finger as the next creaking sound reached her ear from directly behind her.

Breathing heavily and with eyes wide open from fear, Mitsuru stood completely still and felt her heart pounding in her chest. Then, two hands were slipped onto her hips and something warm touched her back. Instantly, Mitsuru recognized the touch of the hands and the smell of the person behind her – it was Takeba.