A/N: Second to last one. (I bet you can guess what pairing the last one is about.) Umm... what can I say. Can be read as friendship/unrequited love/whatever you feel like.
TWO - II - 2
New Year's Eve has never seemed lonelier. Luna does not like being alone, even if she has been for almost her entire life. She lies back on her double bed and stares at the ceiling. She doesn't really feel in the mood to watch a film or use the laptop that's gathering dust in the other room or listening to music to cheer her up. There's no substitute for a friend, even if that friend was Soul-Sucked into being with you ... or just stayed with you out of pity. But there's no such luck this year. In fact, this year has been a rather irritating one, really. Working for someone that arrogant and manipulative was bound to leave its mark, but Luna needed the money. (And she's got it, which is a good thing, she supposes - but no-one to celebrate with. God, how depressing.)
What is there to do?
She could go and spy on Yuka Azumi. Luna knows that Yuka always visits the same place at this time every year - a simple memorial stone, a tribute to her dead lover. Luna thinks that word in scorn. Lover, teacher, helper, who cares. Just a person who took Yuka away from her. Just like that Elementary Principal who she was forced to work for a few years back, eurgh. Wrinkling her face in disgust, she turns her thoughts elsewhere, looking for those tiny spaces in her mind where the thought of Yuka has not yet enroached upon.
She could go to a club down in the city or at least get out of this apartment. But she's not exactly in the mood - even if being in your thirties is still considered young nowadays, she still hasn't got the energy she used to have. Must be all that stress.
I hate my job, Luna thinks. Undercover missions and secret plots involving the Soul-Sucked control of "difficult" targets were all fine - quite fun, really - and Luna didn't want to give that up just yet, but she just hated doing all this not for herself, but for someone else. Some bastard who didn't even let her have control of her own Alice, instead forced a pair of power-controlling earrings onto her so that he could be sure of no rebellion. To be fair, a few of her previous employers had used the same measures, but now Luna thinks that she's getting strong enough to grow out of this habit.
This year, thinks Luna, is going to be different. So I only have the weakest dregs of my power left - so what? I can still control children - and children can have great power. Just look at, what's-his-name, the Black Cat, that bitch Kaoru's son. There is always a way to get where you want if only you can find it. Amplification Alices, or maybe Invention Alices to get these studs out of my ears, and from then on things will be easy.
Yuka found her own way out, didn't she? Walked right out of that Academy by herself when that teacher died. Luna mentally slaps herself for thinking about Yuka again and fiddles with her earring to distract herself.
And then when I have power, maybe being alone won't seem so hard.
XXX
Yuka sits by the gravestone, lights a candle, and thinks about things. Her boyfriend is sitting by the car - he never knew Izumi-sensei, and he says that it would be strange for him to come with her. But Yuka isn't thinking about him right now anyway. She's thinking about Izumi-sensei, her schooldays, her daughter.
She takes a deep breath and starts talking. She does this every year - goes to Izumi-sensei's grave and talks to the headstone about her life so far.
"Our daughter, Mikan, didn't stay with me for Christmas. I don't mind; it was partly my doing anyway. You remember Igarashi-sensei, I mean, Kaoru Hyuuga of course; you know that her son and Mikan are going out now? I told you last year, didn't I ..." Yuka smiles as she thinks of the happy couple. "I heard him ask her to stay at his house over the holidays, and I didn't have the heart to force Mikan to do otherwise. I hope they're alright there. It seems that all the people from our past are connected to our daughter in so many ways ... but I've been through that before, haven't I?"
Her hands are cold, and she twists them around in her lap. She briefly wonders whether anyone else can hear her, seemingly talking to herself out in the snow-covered graveyard, but then decides that she doesn't care. It's worth looking crazy and having cold hands to be here tonight.
So she carries on talking - and maybe, somewhere far away, Izumi-sensei carries on listening.
XXX
