Ahhhh it looks like nothing's getting done until this entire fic is wrapped up good grief -_-'

Anyway...

~Yuu~

"Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!" I'm jumping up and down on the carpet barefoot I can't believe it I'm sooooo excited that I almost forget to go downstairs! I can see them right there, the jeeps coming up the WBBA parking lot, finally yesssss! They're here, they're here -

Tsubasa is here to take me home finally! I've been using one of the rooms at the WBBA for weeks and weeks and weeeeeks and it's no way near as cool as my room back at me and Tsubasa's apartment, and I've missed him, and he promised to take me out for ice cream as soon as he got back! But I don't care about that right now because I can't THINK.

I even forget to put on my shoes before I run downstairs, step, step, step, all 63 steps exactly down to the lobby from this dinky little room, no use bothering with the elevator because I can't KEEP STILL. Like I'm on an enormous sugar high or something, which I've experienced before - it's not pleasant - but -

Doors! The doors to the lobby! I'm so close I can hear them talking, smiles in their voices, they're glad to be back -

"TSUBASA!" Running, running, I'd slip on the tiles if I had my shoes on but my bare feet cling to them - I'm gonna tackle him in an ENOOOOORMOUS bear hug right when I get in there and I'm -

I skid to a stop on the cold tiles. Hands, right there -

He's holding hands with Madoka. I want to hug him and beg him to take me home and beg him never to leave again, to keep his promise to bring me training - but it's that THING, right there, that...that...they're holding hands. What did I miss? What has he gone and done while he's been gone? Oh, I just knew I shouldn'tve let him go without me, I just KNEW it, but they just never LISTEN!

Look left, look left, and there is a little girl hanging on to Tsubasa's hand. Another kid. Another. I thought I was his best friend. I thought I was the only kid he was ever going to care about because he told me I was his best friend and he really really cared about me and -

"Hi, Yuu." He lets go of the hands of both these girls, these intruders, and he holds his arms out to me. He hugs me but I'm almost too numb to feel it.

Madoka hugs me too, traitor. "Yuu, I could've sworn you've grown already! I've only been gone a little while and..."

The words swim around my head like weird little fish, oh, "...sprouting up like a weed, just..."

"Yuu, there's someone I want you to meet." I manage to get back to reality for just a sec, just a raging sec. Madoka pulls the little girl forward by the hand. "Yuu, this is Cogs. She'll be staying here to train."

I don't want -

"We were hoping you could maybe show her around." Tsubasa's voice just edges on desperation, well it should-! He leans close and whispers to me, "Since you're a young blader like her, we were hoping that you'de help her feel more at home here."

We, that horrendous, traitorous WE, hanging in the air. I don't want -

He looks at me expectantly. I don't want Cogs here. I don't want to show her around. I want it all to go away, disappear - I can feel right here that my life, and all the little 10 years of it, have just about changed as big as they possibly could.

"Okay." Just to keep in character, I throw a big hug around his waist, high as I can reach, and he pats me on the back before Cogs joins me and we go. I don't want them to think anything's wrong with me - have to talk to Tsubasa by myself. I bet it's all a misunderstanding, it has to be...

Cogs is just four, she says, I don't care. So little, in the way. I, I wish I, I wish I could go back back in time and MAKE them let me come so I could stop all this, this madness, this KID all of a sudden holding Tsubasa's hand, at his side where I should be - Madoka, their fingers intertwined -

I must talk to him. I must. I wheel around right in the middle of that sentence, and I don't know what I was saying, I just - and Cogs follows me as fast as she can, she's so little. Underfoot.

"Yuu! Yuu! Wait, I can't go fast as you!" I stop just for a second so she can catch up, just a little while. I take the elevator, no stairs for little Cogs, Tsubasa will be angry if I leave her.

I find him in the big huge office that Ryo uses, so big and spacious and boring. "Tsubasa - "

"Not now, Yuu, I'm very busy", he says, one gloved palm out that stops all my words every. Single. Time.

And the other gloved palm wrapped against Madoka's. Of course. Inseparable. Her. I am angry with her, I don't hate her, but all of this is just so FRUSTRATING, and nobody ever listens to KIDS because what do THEY know!?

Cogs speaks up. "Yuu, I thought you were gonna show me - "

"Not now. Tsubasa, I - "

"Yuu, I'm sure it can wait", he says sternly, his eyes, so stern on me. When he gives me this look I get all anxious because I know he's disappointed in me.

And so I go back to the lobby. I take Cogs around. I show her the bey room and the offices and the swimming pool, even, and I do what he wants me to, because even if I'm mad right now he's right. It can wait. And it's harder to stand his disappointment than it is to look at their fingers, so tangled...