A/N: So apparently I updated chapter 10 too soon after publishing it, so it kind of mysteriously vanished. I tried updating it again, and it stayed vanished. So the only thing I could think of was to publish the next chapter! I'm not sure it's entirely ready, but oh well. So if you see this and you haven't read "Chapter 10 - The Breakdown Part 2" yet, make sure to go back and read it.

(Although I'm not sure that this will fix it, and will either be left with this chapter not existing either, or this chapter coming up and skipping chapter 10...)

The dream sequence was a late addition. I hope you like it.

Chapter 11 - The Reprieve

Kusuo was not excited about that news.

"Can we go now?" Teruhashi asked.

Kusuo nodded, and they went back to normal time, back to Teruhashi's room. Thankfully, they hadn't screwed up time and reality.

"Well, I guess that's settled." Kuboyasu leaned back on a chair, grinning with his hands behind his head, looking satisfied.

Everybody else looked around the room uncomfortably.

Kusuo was grinding his foot into the carpet. He couldn't make eye contact with any of them. "Thanks, guys, for knocking sense into me. Kokomi, I'm sorry I doubted you." She glared at him with a sideways glance with arms crossed. "And, I'm sorry I couldn't help you get out of that crowd."

"Oh, you're calling me Kokomi again. That's nice. Mm-hmm."

Chiyo said, "We'll leave you alone in a sec. Promise. But we have to figure something out first: how to make it so you can survive school tomorrow."

Almost as if that part of the day had been forgotten, a look of sheer terror appeared on her face, and she collapsed on her bed. "I … can't go through that again. Especially knowing what they will be thinking of me after what happened today."

Oh right, the rings! Kusuo had forgotten about them.

Kokomi shot him a quizzical look.

"Can you hear me, Kokomi?"

"Call me Teruhashi." She was obviously still upset about him not believing her.

"That's a yes. Listen, my brother made some rings. They're based off of an old ring I had before that could block telepathy. I donated that ring at the New Years Festival when you met him."

What's going on? Yumehara thought to herself. "Guys?"

"Just let them do their thing." Kuboyasu said, now resting his eyes.

"Anyway, the rings he made are supposed to act like a filter, which would mean that you can choose whose thoughts to let in." He pulled the larger ring out and put it on, and took the smaller ring and walked over, knelt down, and slid it on her finger.

"What are you doing, kneeling down all like a marriage proposal?"

"Um, trying to double this as a helpful, yet romantic gesture?"

How romantic, Yumehara thought.

"Nice try," Kokomi thought.

Kokomi played with the controls of the ring, and all of a sudden everything was quiet. Ahhhh. Her shoulders relaxed and she let out a huge sigh of relief, collapsing onto her bed again.

Chiyo asked, "What just happened?"

"Saiki just gave me a telepathy blocker," Kokomi responded.

"Too bad he didn't give you that this morning," Kuboyasu added jokingly.

"You had this all day?!" she accused, standing up.

"Um… I didn't really have the chance…" Saiki stood up, and staggered back a step, but before he could finish his thought she took a step, wound up, and punched him hard square in the nose, and for the second time that day, he collapsed. Fortunately, Kuboyasu stopped him from hitting his head on the floor.

She brought her hands up to her mouth the instant she did it. She must have been more flustered than she thought she was.

"I think it's time for us to go. Nendo, mind dropping me off at home?" Chiyo said. They huddled up and then she, Nendo, and Kuboyasu vanished.

Ok, good, now I have some time to think about this, Kusuo. She took a deep breath, and let it out with one of those arm motions she had seen on tv. She reviewed the events of the last few days, starting with the Chiyo jealousy. She knew that made him upset and that was on her. Chiyo had tried to mediate, and came back and told her about the Nendo thing.

If she were in his shoes would she have believed it? She knew she would have, and that it was irrational to hold it against him. Would she have believed him after he promised that he hadn't done it? She admitted that she didn't know. But, oh, the way he had looked at her!

She had forgiven him about their fight from last week, but this week was a new set of problems. What if every time they made up they just have a whole new fight every few days?

Kusuo started coming to, and slowly sat up. "Are you going to hit me again?"

She looked at him. "Sorry about that." She realized she needed to voice the thing that was bothering her the most at the moment. "You scared me!"

"What? When? With the rings?"

"The way you looked at me today. Even if I had done what you thought I had done. It looked like you hated me, that I was your worst enemy." She started choking up again.

He suddenly found his shoes very interesting. "I'm sorry. I felt … betrayed. I know you were upset about me and Yumehara, and about what happened last week, and after I saw … you know ... my mind went out of control."

As he stood up, he felt something rustle in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out - it was the letter. The letter? How did this get here? MOMMMMMM! Of course she would be meddling.

She raised an eyebrow, glancing between his eyes and the envelope. He pursed his lips, looked away sheepishly, and handed it to her. One thing at a time..

She opened the letter. He didn't want to be there for her reaction, so he got up to go. "Stay!" she said, and pointed to the chair. He obeyed.

Dear Kokomi,

I haven't been interested in romance very long. I knew I couldn't handle it with my telepathy. But when it was gone, all sorts of possibilities opened up. I actually wanted friends around, and didn't mind the idea of being in a relationship.

Since second year, four girls have tried to get involved with me. You, Yumehara, Aiura, and Imu. Although I think Imu only wanted to stick it to you. I turned all of you down, but you were the most persistent, and eventually I fell for you.

After you got mad at me last night, thinking I had fallen for Yumehara, I stopped to consider, "If the timing were different, if I had lost my powers at a different time, would it have worked out with somebody else? Or if they were as persistent as Kokomi?"

I went through any romantic possibility I could think of. Yumehara is sweet, but she's not my type. Aiura and I have a powers thing in common, and she was pretty persistent too, but she's a little weird. Imu - no. Even the other girls in our class, in other classes, the crazy girl from the occult club, and even wondering about some of the guys.

But I want to tell you, Kokomi, that of all the people I know, the only one I can see having this connection with is you. Kokomi, it's only you. I know I broke your heart, and if you give me another chance, I promise to take care of your heart forever.

- K

While she was reading, she had sat down on the bed, pulled her legs up and and held onto them. For the first time since Friday, she felt a huge smile spread across her face. For days, she felt like every little thing had caused her to burst in tears, but felt that was over now. Her glow came back and even sent a glowing pulse through the room.

When she finished reading, she got up, reached out and wrapped her arms around his waist. She bent her knees and lifted him a few inches into the air, and twirled him around a few times.

"Ow. Oww. Ow! Ow!" he said.

Right, I probably broke his nose. "Sorry." She went to grab him some ice.

"Can I call you Kokomi again?" he asked. She nodded emphatically, smiling, biting her lower lip. "Kokomi, I'm sorry - Sorry for worrying you about Yumehara. Sorry for not believing you with the Nendo thing." Even though I don't know how I could have done it differently. She raised a finger to his lips to interrupt his thoughts. "And I'm sorry for blowing you off for years and faking relationships. And sorry for treating you like pond scum all day, and for not giving you the ring before.

"Part of me did want you to know what it was like. I went through today without my ring on purpose, so I could remember what it was like, and then I forgot I had them. If I had remembered the ring, I would have given it to you."

"And I'm sorry I didn't trust you with Chiyo, got jealous, and punched you in the nose."

They wrapped their arms around each other tightly, then she started sobbing. Maybe she wasn't done crying, after all. It was like having her first glass of water in a month. He couldn't help it either and bawled like a baby.

Ok, now do I kiss her? He hadn't meant for her to hear, but she did anyway.

Kokomi looked him in the eye. "One thing at a time, remember?" She said, throwing his own words back at him. "Let's just stay in this moment," she thought, and pulled him back into her arms. "It's not fair, having others hear your thoughts, is it." Maybe if we can get through a few days without fighting...

This is going to take some getting used to. He thought to himself, and she nodded in agreement.

There was a knock on her door. "Honey?" It was her mom. "I just saw you on the internet. You're trending. Do you need to talk?"

Crap, they both thought.

When Chiyo got home, Shun was waiting for her.

They had had an interesting few days. Ever since he beat up Saiki, he just seemed … off. Sure, their date was great, and him breaking down after the Saiki beating was endearing. But it must have knocked something loose. She was so excited when he called her the next night. He had just discovered his powers (yes, the ones that beat up Saiki), and was having so much fun learning how to use them, and how it made him feel.

Then he had shown up yesterday, out of the blue, kissed her, and left without a word. At first, she was very pleased with him giving her a kiss, since she hadn't given him a chance to kiss her back after their date. But then, after thinking about it, she thought it was very selfish of him, like he was taking the kiss from her.

And today, when he not only stood against Kokomi, but led the others...

He asked, "Where have you been? We were supposed to go out right after school. But now I have to go to my Dark Reunion meeting."

Chiyo looked at the time. "Oh no! I'm so sorry. We were helping Kokomi. I didn't realize we were gone so long."

"Yeah, that was crazy today. She'll bounce back, I'm sure. Well, should we try tomorrow?" It sounded kind of like a business proposition.

"Sure…"

"Great," he said flatly, and walked away.

She noticed he never bothered to ask how she was doing or if Kokomi was okay.

Message to Kokomi:
Chiyo: Kokomi? I think something is happening with Kaido.
Kokomi: Oh Chiyo, I'm so sorry, that's really hard. He'll come through.

Shun wasn't going to a Dark Reunion meeting, he was going to a TFC meeting. It was an emergency meeting to discuss what to do about Teruhashi's meltdown.

"Your idea didn't work! It was just supposed to get her and Saiki to break up. Now she's a total wreck!" There was a silent video replaying the incident over and over on the screen.

"It was his idea", somebody said, pointing to Shun.

"I just said they were fighting," Shun said, "I never found out what they you guys were going to do with that information. But it does seem like they have no chance now. You should have seen them at school today."

"We did," literally everybody said, pointing to the screen.

"Well now, the video is viral, recruitment is down, and we now even have a competing organization starting up sympathizing 'The Real Teruhashi," the president announced.

The room was quiet for a minute. Then Shun offered, "Do we actually need her? Seems like the people who actually like Teruhashi left with President Sawakita, and those who remain are just in it for the prestige of being in the club."

They all looked at him. "What? Do you actually think anybody doesn't know that?"

"He has a point."

"But what do we replace her with? We can't just be 'The Fan Club'."

The council, more than half of which were on the virtual screen, seemed to share a knowing look, and all seemed to give the president a subtle yet resolute nod.

"The council will confer. Make no action at this time. We need to … try some things. We will meet again on Saturday. Adjourned."

"Mom, this is Kusuo, Kusuo, Mom." Kokomi announced.

Her mom gave Kusuo a once-over like she was judging a dog at the show. "Pleasure," she said, and they exchanged very proper bows. "Can I steal Kokomi for a minute?" She took Kokomi's arm, without waiting for an answer, and led her down into the kitchen.

"What happened?" her mom asked evenly. This might end up being the longest conversation she had with her mom in a year. Kokomi couldn't tell if her expression was judgy, stern, or concerned.

"I dunno, just a lot of pressure, I guess." She looked down a little, not being able to maintain eye contact.

"Do you know how many people have seen this?"

Kokomi actually didn't want to know. She looked at the floor. Of course her mom would be this way.

But, to her surprise, her mom lifted Kokomi's chin with her finger, and gave her a big hug. Kokomi cried it out again. "I've really needed you, mom."

Like the last time we had a real talk, and you told me to butt out? her mom thought. At least she kept the thought to herself.

Huh. So this is at least a little my fault, too, Kokomi thought. "I'm sorry if I've pushed you away. The last few years have been really hard."

"Oh, baby." She squeezed harder.

Kokomi told her mom about the perfect persona she's been trying to carry around, and her mom nodded and listened, and eventually said, "Oh, honey, to make real friends you have to put your real self out there. But, just like you don't like everybody, not everybody will like who that is. But your real friends will."

Kusuo had gone down to the front room and picked out a dumb movie for them to watch and was ready to start when Kokomi came back. It was one of those movies that they could laugh at how dumb it was. He was worn out, and started to nod off. Despite passing out twice, using powers more today than in recent history, and his emotional roller coaster, he knew Kokomi had had it worse. But looking at her, she seemed genuinely engaged in the movie. Eventually, he fell asleep, and his head collapsed on her shoulder.

He was back in the hotel room, in a room next to Kokomi, Imu, and Yumehara. They were about to meet three guys for a mixer.

What a terrible idea, he remembered thinking, as he started chowing down on his parfait.

Why are you even here? he heard a sudden thought. He didn't know if it was his thoughts at the time, or his subconscious...

I don't know?

The boys came in and were instantly drawn to Kokomi. Moths to a flame, ignoring Yumehara and Imu. All three girls picked up on it, and were upset. The boys struggled to prove they were listening to Yumehara and Imu until Kusuo prompted them with telepathy.

Why did you do that? Another probing thought.

Well, I'm either trying to protect Yumehara and Imu, or I'm trying to fan the attention off of Teruhashi, or …

The boys left, and played a quick game to see who would win the right to go out with Kokomi. Jerks. Kusuo knocked them out and dragged them away.

Why did you do that? What is this, a trivia contest?

I don't know. I didn't want Kokomi to go out with a bunch of jerks.

Why? Surely she could tell they were jerks. Surely she's been asked out by jerks before? Doesn't that make you a little bit like the Teruhashi Fan Club?

Well, yeah, but, this is different.

How so? Wow, he didn't remember his subconscious being so argumentative before.

I guess I just want to look out for her.

Why? Why her? Are you this protective of everyone?

He had to think for a bit. No.

Then why?

He didn't have an answer.

The scene flickered to the school bathroom. He had followed her and Saiko in. She said she was in love with Kusuo, then saw Kusuo enter right then, and tried to backpedal. She hoped he was asleep or something, so he pretended to be asleep.

Who falls asleep standing up just seconds after entering a room? Why are you here?

Seriously?

What were you going to accomplish besides eavesdropping on them? Which you could have done from anywhere else? Which you, in fact, were already doing?

Ummmmm…

So the only thing that makes sense is that you wanted to save her then, too.

Unless I was trying to stop her from getting me involved?

Even he wasn't convinced. If he had gotten there one minute earlier and stopped her from mentioning she was in love with Kusuo, Saiko would have only harassed her later. If he had shown up one minute later, it wouldn't have made any difference, except that Saiko might not have believed her. So what if Kokomi hadn't mentioned his name? Would it have slowed him down any?

So why were you there?

Humph.

Flickered to the school play. To following the newspaper staff and splashing them with his motorcycle. To Kokomi defending him to the newspaper staff after the shipwreck. To her eating crappy ramen. To her being by his side, however briefly, which he was seasick. To him swapping out mugs with Makoto for her birthday gift, wondering what to do with the hideous mug he had just inherited.

To two days before the mixer. He was walking down the hall with Aiura's arms wrapping his arm, telling Imu about their relationship. Kokomi was on her way. He got shoved in the closet with Aiura, and Imu started badgering Kokomi about her feelings for Kusuo. Aiura was wondering what was going on.

Kokomi was not acting like the Kokomi he was used to. She wasn't the 'I'm going to get him to say 'wow' Kokomi, the 'This is my chance to sit by Kusuo' Kokomi, or the otherwise arrogant Kokomi; this was thoughtful, pensive Kokomi. Broken, tender Kokomi.

His Kokomi.

And he had been shoved in a closet with Aiura and a broom. And this was right after he had done the worst thing he had ever done to her, pretending to be in a relationship to get away from her.

Why?

Oh, give it a rest, will you?

Why did you push her away?

Cuz I'm a jerk, I guess. I'm just a jerk like those other guys, just a jerk in a different way.

Why did you push her away?

Oh no. She was right; dammit, she was right. Cuz I didn't know! I didn't know I liked her, ok?! Or if I did know, I knew it would never work out, so I must have thought I had to do it, to protect her. So if I did, I must have convinced myself she was a pest. I don't know when I started liking her for sure, but it was definitely before being in the closet with Aiura. Before I pushed her away, and it has only been getting worse since.

Wait - with Imu, she said, "Yes, I like Saiki," and with Saiko, she had said, "I'm in love with Saiki." Love? But that was so long ago...

While Kokomi was watching the movie, she was pondering her mother's words. Real friends needed the real you, but that's also you get people to not like you. That was what she had been avoiding for the last few years. Dreading was more like it. Since she started at PK, she hadn't had any enemies like she did in her old school. She had become something like a regional icon, but no enemies. Not that she knew of anyway. What she did know is that she hadn't had many friends since then either. Not until Kusuo somehow started breaking down her walls...

Then she noticed that she could see Kusuo's dreams. He had never mentioned anything to her about seeing dreams before. She wondered if it was because they were touching, so she tried an experiment. She tried to push him off to separate contact for a second without waking him up, but flicking his head gently still left part of him in contact with her.

She gave him a firm but gentle shove on his head and torso, and he flew up a little, and during that second, she did notice that she couldn't see his dreams, but then his head landed solidly on the pillow she had on her lap. Oops.

Kokomi had a little too much fun poking at his thoughts while he was dreaming. She hadn't known he was at the mixer; she even remembered thinking that it would have been better if Kusuo were there. She remembered him showing up in the bathroom when she was with Saiko, and it didn't really make sense that he would have sleep-walked there, so she must have suppressed that memory. It was educational to say the least to see these events from his point of view.

After she read Kusuo's letter, she felt ready to trust him again, ready to let him in. She wasn't sure she was 100% healed yet, though, but reviewing his dreams with him was definitely therapeutic. Now, there was just one more thing she needed to know, even though it was irrational that she needed it.

Kusuo woke up in a cold sweat, gasping. Wait, where am I? He was laying on something firm, facing a television that wasn't his. He was holding onto something firm yet smooth. Upon discovering it was a leg, he started, rolled over, and found he was laying on Kokomi's lap on a small couch pillow, and her hand was gently resting on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" Kokomi asked.

"I just, just, I guess it was a -"

"Dream?" she finished for him.

"Yes..." After a brief pause, he saw a weird look on her face that she clearly couldn't hide, no matter how hard she was trying. "What did you do?" He thought.

"It's pretty illuminating, sometimes, to review the past, don't you think?"

It felt real, like I was being interrogated by … "Wait a minute. Did you…?"

She grinned an evil grin.

"Why you little, devious… Wait, what about 'people's memories being central to who they are?" He wanted to see where this went before he decided to get mad.

"Yes, but I'm sure you noticed that your memory wasn't changed. Maybe you could say your memory changed you. I only asked questions. Honest. I didn't change your dreams. Promise." She held up some fingers.

He stared up at her with his mouth open. He sat up and turned her toward him. "So I did like you after all. I didn't realize…" he started whimpering, and couldn't finish his sentence. She put her hands on his shoulders and smiled. Her warm gaze put him at ease, and they looked in each other's eyes for a few minutes. With nothing else to say, Kokomi turned back to the movie, but while doing so took his arm, put it around her, and gently rested her head on his chest.