Kureno stared at the telephone cradled in his hands, deep russet eyes glazed with the aftereffects of insomnia and melancholia, laden with the remnants of hot, woebegon tears, painfully straining to focus on the Lilliputian-esque marks on the phone's miniscule, plastic buttons. Leaning against the fusuma leading into Akito-san's bedchambers, Kureno let out a tiny sigh, tightening his knuckles around the plastic body of the mobile, bangs screening his vision from the corridor's occupants. And it is in this moment that Kureno has finally realized how completely pathetic and disgusting he really is.

His mind mired in thoughts of Yume's most recent medical incarceration, he found himself thinking lower and lower of himself as the full weight of his situation hit him harder and harder as the minutes passed. It seemed that, since Yume had seen him, that one afternoon at the library so many weeks ago, her situation had simply continued to decompose and crumble more and more, falling less and less healthy due to her bouts of stress and overwork each time she hit what seemed to be rock bottom. And in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't Akito's fault for hating her, he knew it wasn't Shigure's fault for bothering her: it was his own for ever reinvolving her in his life in the first place.

He could only wonder how Yume was, envisioning her formerly glorious, withering form laying in a hospital bed, glancing askew at him, doe-eyed and suffering, yet gritting her teeth and casting him a calm smile, and the only thing that he felt was the one emotion he had never wanted to feel towards her: one of fear. For, in this moment, she had transformed from something delectible and astral as she near always was - no, there was no question; it was constant - to something dangerous, something forbidden, and, not to forget, something that would eat away at his soul, should it go unattended to. He could only imagine what she might say if she knew he was standing here, thinking such things about her... If she would say anything.

Instead of arguing, instead of begging, he had simply sat idly, allowing Akito to forbid him to see the one woman that he had come to deeply care about in years, while he knew perfectly well that this could very possibly be the last opportunity to meet with her... well, pretty much ever, should Akito get her way.

There was only one question he could really ask himself that would - or, really, could - really mean anything: If he cared about her so, worried about her... Why did he not stick up for her when Akito had mercilessly spat her slander, rather than sitting there uselessly? Why had he failed to demand his freedom, the freedom to visit her? Why was Akito still so much more goddamned important?

So far, his only answer was that he just might be the biggest pussy that he knew. Nay, scratch that -- that had ever lived.

It was times like these when Kureno seriously weighed things; when he tried so desperately to decipher who and what he was -- and what love was, or, rather, whatever this was to make him so shameless as he was. It was so unlike those days of his youth when he still knew himself, yet not so unlike... This was fear, but some new extraordinary sort of fear that made him shiver and elate. But there was that fear... and the mere fact of this made him want to drive the phone clutched in his hand straight into the innards of his chest.

And then he came to realize that this was different; it was this time that he no longer had to dwell for countless hours over whatever his affections for Yume might truly be. There was no longer that unavoidable need to obsess, to worry, to completely absorb himself in his insecurity and in his dreams.

Because this time he knew, so there was no need to wonder and fret carelessly like he had done so many times during his adolescence. Because this time he knew - he finally knew - that his feelings for Yume were simply... unquestionable.

Inside of Souma Shigure's mind, gears were turning.

Unsurprisingly, the latest developments in Yasukawa-chan and Kureno's relationship had opened up new, wonderful doors for Shigure's plan to snake its way into the innermost folds of their bond, which inevitably would drive the two further apart, and, not to mention, dangerously closer, in turn. And as he followed the buxom, blonde nurse through the winding white corridors of the hospital, blidingly bright sunlight streaming through large, unveiled windows, Shigure realized he had two options from this point:

Either lie to Yume, or...

Well, perhaps he really only had once choice after all.

He knew very well of the dangers this plan of action aroused, for not only Yume, not only for Kureno, but, quite unusually, for himself as well. Usually, as it went without saying, Shigure wasn't much of a martyr, and personally, he'd never had much time for them, either. And he could think of many a circumstance in which he sacrificed someone else's well-being in order to preserve his own, and could also revisit these times with a sense of pride at his tactical, self-serving techniques. However, he knew the stakes were higher this time: Yume was a good girl, and the last thing he wanted to see at the moment was her suffering needlessly, especially because of something he did, but regardless of how strongly he felt that way, it was the only way to achieve his final goal... and there wasn't many a thing that could stop him in his tracks.

In a matter of a minute or so, they arrived at Yume's room. He tried his hardest to ignore the attractive caretaker's flirtacious glances as he stepped into the room, donning his usual, most practised nonchalant demeanor as he swept by her with but a word of halfhearted appreciation. And, unexpectedly, he felt a jolt at seeing Yume laying there, helpless in her bed. If it was a good jolt or a bad jolt, however, he was uncertain.

She didn't seem conscious, but she spoke to him, proving himself wrong. "Ah... Shigure. You came to visit me, I see." She forced a wry smile to curve her lips as he shot her a handsome smirk.

"An, I did, I did," said Shigure, seating himself on the edge of the bed, staring down at her, into her eyes. He smiled again. "Kureno called me, a total wreck, he is... He's been worried sick, it seems, but we both know he can't do much about that, an. Not that I wasn't concerned too, of course." He leered. "But how have you been?"

"Fine, more or less," said Yume, yawning a bit. "It's not like I'm here for any really serious reason, right?"

"I suppose not," said Shigure, "if you consider your well-being to be some sort of laughing matter." He let out a short sigh. "You're wasting away all your good health, Yume-chan."

"I know it," said Yume. "But... it's just been so... hard."

"Oh?"

She seemed guilty - it was easy for Shigure to pick up on - and he felt her wither a bit beneath her blankets. "No, just... Just forget I said anything. I'm sure it'll sound totally foolish if I say anything more..."

"Try me," he challenged, digging around for a cigarette, ignoring the plaque on the wall clearly telling him not to.

Yume was hesitant to answer, even still. She looked nervously at her elbow, avoiding his glance. "Just... everything..." Another pause, and she forced the words past her lips. "It's as though ever since I ran into Kureno that day that everything's just gotten so... hard... and..."

Shigure released a humorless chuckle, lighting his cigarette before quickly looking around the room for any cameras that might get him into trouble. "Finally, the bitter truth comes out, ne?"

Silence.

He smiled, "Not that you aren't completely adorable when you're embarrassed, but don't feel too bad about thinking that way." He took a drag on the cancerous cylinder hanging loosely between his chapped lips. "Feelings like that come along with being involved in the curse; I would have thought you'd figured that simple fact out long before you saw Kureno at the library last month."

Yume failed to respond, so Shigure took the opportunity to send a pitious smile her way, though she continued to avoid his stare and it had, in turn, gone unnoticed. After a few minutes or so of deafening silence, Shigure's cigarette had reduced itself to ashes in the water glass on Yume's bedside stand and snowflakes had begun to flood down from the skies outside the window. Shigure looked at the clock on the wall, heaving a sigh to break the silence.

"I need to be heading home soon," said Shigure, looking at Yume again to find her dark eyes transfixed on the frosted windowpane. He stood, the lie that had formulated in his mind over the few minutes of peace that had plagued the room passing from his throat carelessly, as though he was simply stating fact and not a hazardous, decietful lie.

"Akito has requested that you call Kureno as soon as you can," he said. He could practically see her muscles tense, see her jaws grind. "He's been in shambles, and she wants him calmed down. It's obvious that if he talks with you, this will happen."

Yume finally spoke, voice hoarse. "But Akito told me that -"

"Forget what Akito told you," said Shigure, perhaps a bit too hastily, but, to his immense gratitude, she didn't seem to pick up on the slight change in his pace. "I'm just repeating to you what she said to me earlier. So give him a call when you've got the time."

Still slightly dubious, Yume looked at him for a moment, eyes locking with his. Somewhere deep down inside her, he knew there was that foreboding spark of distrust blazing about, and the knowledge of this fact seemed to make his insides squirm. He knew she wasn't stupid, and just that made this whole scheme of his a lot riskier than he had originally anticipated. However, she seemed to give in, nodding.

"I promise I will, Shigure. Thanks for telling me."

He nodded to her, turning on heel to face the door. As he walked away slowly, a satisfied leer spread across his face.

"You're very welcome, Yasukawa-chan. Later."

Back at the Souma estate, deep in the center, perched safely in her room, there was an outraged Goddess lurking in the shadows.

Fury swept through Souma Akito's body like electicity through a generator, building up slowly, intensely, consuming her mind and soul to coax her into a state of perpetual ire. Smiling bitterly, eyes narrowed, her body trembling in bouts of violent tremors of mad ferocity, she looked at Kureno's cell phone laying neatly in her hands, the highlighted name of the Yasukawa bitch glowing ominously on his call registry. An embittered chuckle rumbled through her chest as she slapped the mobile closed quickly, throwing it across her futon, fists clenching in its absence.

After all of the warnings she'd given, after all of the yelling, the anger... she still dared to talk to him as though she hadn't heard a word of what Akito had told her. Somewhere in the bitch's simple, little mind, she still saw it fit to go against her, just like some sort of reckless child or... or some sort of hideous, vile woman that dangerously resembled Ren. Akito, coincidentally, hated both of those things.

To refrain from hurting Kureno too badly, she hadn't done anything drastic to affect the current situation concerning he and the Yume bitch. The most she could have done and the most that she had done was scream at her a bit, like she'd always wanted to, ever since she'd heard that Kureno had even seen her, rather than simply letting loose and breaking every bloody bone in the whore's pretty little body. After all, Kureno hadn't done anything wrong; it was all Yume's fault, and that much was blatantly obvious. And now that Shigure had made contact with her - hell, who knows what the little harlot had managed to pull with a man like him - the Souma matriarch found herself hating the girl more and more by the very second that she thought about it. She could only imagine the disgustingly tantalizing images of Yume's hands slipping all over Shigure's lean physique, pressing her filthy little lips against his... Absolutely disgusting.

As quickly as her anger had come, it fled, her mind suddenly freezing as the ideal solution to her dilemma popped into her brain. A slow, grim smile languidly curling her lips into a devious grin, she felt her heartbeat quicken and her fists clench. With any luck...

She laughed as somewhere, miles away, the problem was falling fast asleep.