Author's Note: MangaPearlShipping. Red and Platina. Before I wrote this, I would probably have said that I disagree strongly with this pairing. However, after writing it, I see that there is a huge potential for romance, even though it will never come to fruition. Thank you to Bionicle234 and BleedingSoul, an anon reader, for requesting!

I promise you're gonna love these next few chapters, at the very least.

A minor detail; it's AU. Mostly because I was sick of writing pairings in which someone has to travel to another region.

It Goes On

"Life went on, and so would she. Eventually."

The first day Platina went to work at Special Works Inc., she wore a pencil skirt and tucked her hair neatly behind little yellow clips. She carried a silver briefcase by her side.

When she got to her floor, the blue-haired receptionist directed her with a polite smile to a cubicle down the hall, where she set up shop. There was a company computer there, as well as a few shelves and an outlet.

There wasn't much in the briefcase, but she opened it anyway, setting her few possessions along the shelves. She took just a minute to look at a single photograph, containing three people.

She almost turned it around backwards, but she didn't. They were her baggage, those two people, and so she'd keep them with her at all times.

Sighing, Platina sank into the desk chair and placed her head neatly in her hands. Life went on, and so would she.

Eventually.

…

…

People at Special Works Inc. were mean, Platina discovered. Oh, sure, the receptionist was nice enough, but the others were all gossips. They would stand around the copy machine and drink their chai lattes and discuss coworkers.

Platina knew this because two weeks in, heaven forbid, she actually had to use the copy machine. She clutched the stack of papers to her chest and didn't meet anyone's eyes.

Or, she tried not to. "Hey there, Paper Lady," said a grinning guy with an extremely messy outfit. She looked up once, gave him the deer-in-headlights look, then turned away.

"Aw, you scared her," commented a brunette girl. As if Platina wasn't right there, feeding page after page and wishing that this stupid rattling machine would go just a bit faster. "Gold, be nicer."

"Good luck with that," snubbed a guy with long red hair against the wall. Out of all of them, he seemed the least attached.

But the peace didn't last long. As soon as Platina retrieved her papers and hurried away, still not sure what to say to the loiterers, she heard them lean in and talk in hushed voices.

As she walked back to her cubicle, head down, she passed another person who typed away furiously at a report. Her heels clicked on the tiles, and he turned. They exchanged just a glance – just a glance - before she kept going, and he turned back to his work.

The nameplate on the wall read 'Red'.

…

…

More weeks passed. Nothing changed, nothing got better.

Platina made more money than anyone from her hometown, and she was more miserable than she'd ever been in her life.

"Hey, you know, you don't have to eat here all alone," a voice said awkwardly from the doorway. Platina looked up sleepily, wiping a little tear from her eye as if nothing was wrong.

It was the guy from the cubicle next door. The one all the ladies talked about next to the copy machine. He looked even more handsome when he was standing and smiling, she decided.

"What… what did you say?" she asked.

"I said, you don't have to eat alone. Come on, we'll grab a bite." He grabbed her jacket by the door, and then hesitated. "You're so sad all the time, I don't know what else to do…"

How could she refuse that?

…

…

Lunch with Red wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought it would be. A little awkward at first, as they picked at salads in silence, then ate their fish hurriedly. Every so often, Platina would sneak a glance across the table, wondering, What's he trying to prove?

Red paid. When he took out his wallet, though, Platina saw a little picture of his hand around the waist of a petite blonde. Looked like a prom date, looked like so much more than a prom date.

It seemed like she wasn't the only one with baggage.

After that, though, plans changed and they walked down to the park, where they sat on the edge of a bridge and tossed pebbles in and made little hushed wishes.

Platina had this sudden, inexplicable urge to let everything fall out of her mouth. To tell him why she was so sad all the time. Why she didn't bother making friends with any of the other ladies around the office. The reason why she didn't eat anything freshly baked, why she never listened to even the best of advice. Because nothing quite measured up.

She didn't say any of that, though. Instead, she stared at a group of three children playing and said in monotone, "It's hard loving someone who's so far away."

He glanced down at her, and his namesake eyes held something other than sympathy. They held… was that…

Understanding?

"You left someone behind too, didn't you? When you came here."

Red, apparently, only seemed oblivious to her feelings. She tossed a final stone in with a resounding, confirming plop.

…

…

It was Red who finally pushed her to the boss's office, held the door, and gave her an encouraging pat on the back.

He was always the one behind her, she decided, even more so than the boys she loved back in her hometown or her so-called-friends from college or the people who let her go off into the world without so much as a farewell or even a good riddance.

She walked up to the shiny gold placard reading 'Green Oak' and the man in the empty business suit. She stepped right up to the greatest opportunity she'd ever had and said, "I quit."

Red's arm over her shoulder as she walked back to her little cubicle protected her from all the stares in the world.

"Why are you still here, though?" she asked curiously as he helped her sort out the company's equipment from her own.

He examined a photograph in his hand – a picture of Platina and two boys her age, playing innocently as children in a park – to avoid meeting her eye, face turning a light tint of peach.

"I couldn't go back," he finally admitted. "I couldn't face her again. I was so… so stupid, I just thought she was playing around, joking about something like love. And I can't fix it anymore." He met her eye. "You can't let them go. Not like I did…"

…

…

The last day Platina walked out of Special Works Inc., she didn't look back. And the boy with dark hair stared after her. "It was worth it…" he decided wistfully, then turned back to his computer screen.

After all, life went on, and so would he.

Author's Note: I wrote this backwards. Started with the last section and worked my way to the first. I think I'll do that more often.

That seemed confusing. Please let me know if you didn't understand what was going on, so I can make it better. I love making things better, it's my favorite!

Anyway, review! Also, to the anon reviewer: I would love to write me some CraftShipping. And to the other reviewer: I wrote a MizuhikiShipping poem, if that counts. Check out my profile.