Chapter Nine: What Maria Saw

Maria Takarada was a familiar sight in the halls of LME. She was there every day after school and before her evening lessons. Everyone, from the President to the custodians, knew who she was and were happy to see her in better spirits than she had been for years. So seeing her skipping through the halls was normal for the talents and staff of LME.

As she approached the lurid pink LoveMe room door, Maria spotted Ren and Kyoko talking near some vending machines. She was about to run over to them when Ren laughed. It was a warm, teasing laugh that Maria had never heard from him before. Confused, she watched her big sister and her crush talk.

Suddenly it hit her. They were standing a little too close for acquaintances, leaning into each other slightly and focusing only on each other. Kyoko's cheeks were a little flushed, and there was this look in Ren's eyes that Maria hadn't seen before.

They liked each other. Like liked each other.

Maria's eyes welled with tears. How could they? They both knew how she felt about Ren! He was supposed to wait for her to grow up, and then marry her. But he had never looked at her the way he was looking at Kyoko. Maria frowned. He had never looked at any of his past girlfriends like that either. Like they were the world.

Oh.

He was in love with Kyoko.

And Maria's big sister loved him back.

More than just like, then. A kind of love that Maria wasn't ready for and didn't understand. Her mother had died when she was too young to remember how her parents looked at each other, but judging by the way her father looked at pictures of her mother, it must have been something just like this. Like her mother had been everything to him.

Maria wiped the tears from her eyes. They weren't doing this on purpose. Nobody chose who they fell in love with, just who they chose to be with. Grandfather was always telling her that, and he knew a lot about love. But she knew that in this case, she didn't have a chance, and neither did anyone else. Ren wouldn't see anyone but Kyoko ever again.

Lucky for him, Kyoko saw him too.

Maria turned and quietly went to the nearest elevator. She rode up to the top floor in silence, her usual exuberance subdued by her discovery. When she got to the top floor, she was immediately shown in to her grandfather's office, where she looked at him with big sad eyes.

"What's wrong Maria?" asked Lory, setting aside all his work and crossing to his granddaughter.

"Ren's in love," said Maria in a small voice. "He's in love with Kyoko."

"Yes he is," said Lory gently.

"And Big Sister loves him back," said Maria in that same small voice that nearly broke Lory's heart.

"She does," affirmed Lory, still gentle with Maria.

"He was never going to wait for me, was he?" asked Maria.

"Probably not," said Lory.

"Why didn't you tell me that?" yelled Maria. "Why didn't you tell me that he would want someone older and more mature than me?"

"Would you have heard me?" asked Lory. "And would it have stopped your crush on him?"

Maria thought for a moment about that. They had been trying to help her heal from her mother's death for a long time. She had attached to Ren because he hadn't tried to lie to her like all the other adults. He was handsome and kind and gentle, everything she had dreamed about in her visions of finding love. Of course she developed feelings for him.

But that laugh today. She had never heard it before, never imagined that Ren could laugh teasingly, and she had never seen the 'playboy' side that Kyoko had once vented her frustration about. Suddenly, Maria wondered if she even knew Ren, really knew him. If he had treated her like every other woman until Kyoko. If Maria had fallen for him the same way all those other women had: for what he appeared to be.

Because apparently he was someone else with her big sister. Maria had seen the tabloid pictures. There was tension between them, and they moved like a couple sometimes. Maria had never seen Ren tease Kyoko, but that didn't mean it didn't happen. Maybe what Kyoko saw, and therefore loved, was the man Ren really was.

And if Kyoko loved the real him, and was the only person who could coax his real self out of him, then Ren deserved to be with her.

"I wouldn't have listened," said Maria, "because I'm just like all those other stupid women who fell for who he seems to be. I didn't know that he could tease. I didn't know that he could be an outrageous flirt. He's like that with Big Sister, right? He teases her and flirts with her?"

"He does," said Lory. "And in her own, very strange way, Kyoko flirts back. You're right; he can be very different from what he appears to be."

"Does Big Sister know?"

"She does. She has seen him at his worst, and recalled him from his darkest memories. That is powerful, and she wouldn't be able to do it if he didn't love her, nor would she be willing if she didn't love him."

Maria thought about this for a moment. "Oh."

"Oh?" said Lory.

"Then I accept them as a couple," said Maria. "They should be together."

"That is my opinion as well," said Lory. "Though they are being remarkably stubborn about the whole thing."

"What do you mean?" asked Maria, curious.

"Let me show you the progress of their relationship, as told by pictures and Yashiro's occasional reports," said Lory, drawing Maria to the couches. Sebastian appeared and handed Lory a very thick folder, which he opened and placed on the table. Maria leaned forward and started thumbing through the pictures. She stopped at one of Kyoko holding something with tears in her eyes and Ren looking down at her, bewildered.

"That is the moment everything changed," said Lory. "Prior to this, they fought every time they saw each other. This moment, for some reason, changed Ren's perspective of her. Instead of teasing her to be mean, he began treating her as a colleague. I don't have the audio for it, so I don't know what was said. But this is when they turned from enemies to acquaintances."

"It's the stone," said Maria. "Big Sister's magic stone that she got from a fairy she met a long time ago. It helps her when she's sad or upset. I guess it helped her there too."

"A fairy?" asked Lory.

"Yes," said Maria. "I think she said his name was Corn."

"Really," said Lory. "That's very interesting."