Coco had been irritable all day. It wasn't uncommon for her to become annoyed or snarky, but today she was... more of that. More passive-aggressive, more quietly angry.

Fox usually just gave his partner her space when she was having a bad day. But today...

He knew why she was upset. He knew what led to such prolonged anger and such muted suffering. He just wasn't sure how to broach the subject without making her feel worse.

He could hear her, re-watching the broadcast on her Scroll, constantly rewinding to see the same battle against the two students visiting from Haven... he heard Professor Port's commentary, and the collective sounds of the audience... including the exact moment her fair-weather fans turned on her and condemned her for losing her battle.

But no, that wasn't where her attention would dwell. Coco kept recording back to a moment in the fight, where her sunglasses were shattered and she bitterly mused something... something too low for the microphones in Amity to pick up, but which Fox surmised was disparaging her opposition.

She kept re-watching that moment, though Fox could not discern exactly why. He'd been sitting beside Velvet when it happened and detected no surprise or confusion from her when she saw Coco's eyes... only the despair a few moments later when the battle was over.

At last he had an idea, though he hoped he could wait and that she would simply work through this obsessive patch of reruns on her own. He certainly wanted to help her, but didn't want her to think he was simply humoring her, or worse...

...admitting what he knew.

Then again, he thought she knew that he knew, and they simply never discussed it...

Fox cleared his throat as though to speak, but when he heard Coco's head incline his way, he would simply stretch on his bed or tap idly on his Scroll, throwing her off again. He didn't want to speak and make it clear he knew the reason for her suffering, but if she was determined to simply continue suffering...

There was an intermediary he could use. Something that might help her and allow Fox not to intercede on her behalf. He sharpened his focus, listening for their teammates... but Yatsuhashi and Velvet were gone from the room, leaving just them. If things escalated and Fox needed to be... candid, he could speak with his own voice. And for Coco, he would extend that effort.

"Would it help if you called one of your brothers?" Fox inquired, doing his best to sound uninvested; simply compelling her to move on. "I'm sure they were watching after they saw your match announced."

Coco scoffed almost immediately. "No, Fox, I really don't want to talk to anyone about this."

At once, a brick wall. Rare for her, but never something she put up solely to keep others out... just something to test their devotion and their patience.

"Not even me?" Fox asked.

"Not right now," Coco flatly replied, still replaying the footage.

As his team leader, that would easily be the end of the conversation. Velvet and Yatsu would've withdrawn and waited for Coco to talk at a better time.

As his partner... he made a point to measure the lengths of her breaths and the pace of her heartbeat. He knew when she just needed someone to share the burdens, rather than carry them all on her back.

He had not seen the broadcast, but...

He'd never seen her, but he knew...

He knew what fear sounded like in a heartbeat. He knew what anxiety sounded like as it carried on each breath.

He knew the sound Coco made each time she donned her shades. The way her finger slid under the frame and caressed her eyelid to better hold in place.

"No one saw your eyes," Fox assured her. "They don't know."

At last she paused, her finger drawn away from her Scroll. He didn't know the moment she paused, but he suspected it was a moment her sunglasses were broken and her face was clearly visible to the camera. He imagined she saw some shadow, some angle of the camera, something that gave her reason to worry that someone else saw what she was really hiding.

The sunglasses weren't what hid her eyes; they merely let her enjoy some... particular sights unnoticed. The contacts she wore, however...

Many emotions sped through her rapid heartbeat. Doubt carried on her fast and sudden breathing.

Fox did his best to project calm, though he tried not to seem so ambivalent. He tried to seem invested at the same time he tried to be reassuring. It... wasn't easy for someone who barely projected emotion at all.

Coco did as she always did; buried her fear beneath bravado. "And how would you know?"

"I don't," Fox admitted. "I've never seen your eyes, and never will."

It was something that was easy for him to live with. But not something so easily heard by his teammates, when he needed to remind them.

Coco's confidence was shattered by an instant feeling of regret. She may have tried to deflect, but she could not conceal her own empathy... no matter how she buried things beneath the surface, even a blind man could eventually find them.

"I know you aren't ready to share this, but you can't allow yourself to be afraid," Fox counseled. "Ruby-"

"I know," Coco admitted.

"Velvet and Yatsuhashi-"

"I know," Coco said again.

She sighed. She knew he was right, and Fox had the good graces not to rub it in.

She was so angry... anger, they said, was born of fear. And for her...

She'd hid it away so long, warned by her family that such a thing would be dangerous, that it would bring harm to her, that others like her had been targeted for... for their particular unique trait.

Fox knew. It... it didn't surprise her, really, but it was jarring to think she couldn't fool a blind man.

"I... need a moment," Coco requested. "I'll be back."

Fox inclined his head, gesturing to the Scroll still in her hand. "So long as you don't watch the video again, take all the time you need."

Looking out for her again... as infuriating as it was for her to acknowledge.

"Right," Coco nodded. "I'm just going to throw some water on my face."

Fox noted to himself she still had her Scroll when she stepped into the bathroom, but did not concern herself. Even amidst splashing water, he'd know if she turned it on again.


Coco did as she pledged, running the faucet and wiping her eyes with a damp paper towel. She could see already how red and puffy she was... how she'd aggravating things by allowing herself to become so upset.

She looked at her Scroll again, drawing over the video with her index finger and finding the camera shot of her face. She'd watched it many times now, and was almost convinced...

She turned her gaze to her reflection in the mirror above the sink, to the brown staring back. Every morning started the same way... appraising herself and the dark brown staring back at her.

Except the rare occasions when she... needed to take out the contacts and blink a few times and remember...

Coco popped out both, letting them rest in her free hand. The other drew back over the screen of her Scroll, comparing what the past had recorded and what the present stared back from the mirror.

Her eyes were far darker on camera... so brown no light escaped them.

No silver emerged from that recording, as stared back at her now.

She knew she shouldn't have had to keep it secret. Ruby walked openly about the campus without fear, and she was in as safe a place as she could be now, surrounded by friends and teammates who felt more and more like family.

But it was the family she had before who warned her about the trouble her eyes could bring. Toma bought her the contacts when she was still very young, and she wore them along with her trendy and stylish sunglasses now...

She wasn't ready to tell them. Not yet. She wasn't ready to acknowledge how long she'd hid something from them, though the longer she waited the harder it was to reveal...

But Fox discovered her secret and the world hadn't ended.

One day she'd tell them, when she wasn't so paralyzed by anger... when fear wasn't forcing her hand to replay a video over and over.

Nothing would make her happier than to know her teammates could see her as she was.

Coco finally closed the video of the Vytal Festival semi-final round and began shopping for competitive prices on shades. She was in need of a new pair.