Okay, now she officially and actually couldn't breathe.

She had never felt this way in her life. It was like when their mother had passed away: Ruri and she had spent days, weeks, months clinging to each other and crying for their loss. But that was normal. Crying over the death of a loved one was normal. Crying over losing a parent was normal.

This is not normal.

She tried to regain control, but the more she did, the less she had. Her whole body was being rocked by an earthquake of emotion: emotion she neither understood nor accepted. She was Kohaku. She was a warrior. She carried volcanic water of healing on her back for years and--according to Senku--had helped keep her sister alive.

According to Senku...

It was so little, so brief, and yet more than enough: thinking about him now brought up the vivid image of his visage pressed face-to-face with Luna's. That alone was all it took for her to double over even harder, bend to the pressure even deeper, to bow to the God of Gravity, who ruled over not just her world, but her heart as well. She choked, literally, on a wracking sob and gasped for air. The more she tried to rationalise it awayーor even just understand itーthe harder it became to breathe. Then she heard scuffling off to the left, her senses set ablaze like a hunter who never lets their guard down.

She thought of Senku, her brain daydreaming without consent of him chasing after her, then immediately scoffed at her own stupid fantasies. She forced herself just to ignore it.

Probably just some wild animal.

The thought that she was being watched, however, made her try and calm herself down almost immediately. Her sobs started to relax into whimpers, her breathing laboured less and softened in tandem with the grip she had on herself.

Shake it off, Kohaku. You're stronger than this...aren't you?

Suddenly, she began to recall every moment Senku had demonstrated his unending faith in her strength. They whirled around in her head with the speed and power of the time she became a human centrifuge for him. It immediately derailed her again. She thought of Senku riddled with bullets, of Luna saving his life with her medicinal science and her strategic sequestering of a boyfriend as payment. She thought of him accepting, of what that meant in its eventuality, and she couldn't stop it this time. Her thoughts poured out of her in a strangled cry:

"S-stupid... so stupid! Of course this was going to happen, so just... j-just-- aagh!"

She grunted in frustration and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. The pressure felt nice until images of Senku and Luna began to manifest underneath it.

"Dammit, no... just stop it, already!"

But there was none of that. Her emotions, unchecked, swelled up once again and she had to throw her arms around in a frenzy like some paincked, wounded animal. Somehow this strange gesture made her begin to calm down again. There was no stopping it, but she had do do something. Once again she heard shifting in the bushes behind her, and the idea of anyone or anything witnessing her weakness hit her like a freight train; no way could she allow it.

Imagine if he saw you crying like this. He'd never think of you the same way again. He'd never believe in your strength ever again, he'd...

Steady as she goes, she went into her memories, thinking of every moment they ever had together where his belief in her had shown itself without a warning nor a why. Every time he had placed his bets on her abilities without a second thought. Every time he had made her feel like she was his go-to girl... There were too many to count, so she started pairing them up with all the times she'd repaid his faith with her own.

She never stopped believing in Senku since the day they met, and she'd gone ahead and made that much clear to the world, including him. As much as she tried to avoid it, she couldn't help but feel he'd done the same.

He never doubted her.

Never, even when his silly, skinny self had offered to carry the water for her, she could still tell: he believed in her. This feeling of mutual respect and confidence in one another must be what was behind this sense of loss; she understood now that what she felt, seeing him with Luna, was that she was no longer his go-to girl... that she had somehow lost him.

A nasty chuckle rang throughout her head as she got up and replied to that idea out loud:

"He was never yours to lose."

Kohaku pushed up on her knees, came to standing, and got lost in the shape of the moon. That elegant, powerful silhouette was that changed forever with the introduction of Senku and his Science into her life. Gathering up the echinacea, primrose, and tea tree leaves which she had collected so far that had fallen along the river bank in her chaotic arrival, she tucked them away safely in her harvest sack. She then sighed deeply, looking back at the moon, and remembered something Senku had taught her about the languages of humans of old:

"Lunar: of, determined by, or resembling the moon."

...Luna...

All of a sudden, the moon looked fucking hideous: painfully bright and evil. She grimaced at it, spit on the ground, and began making for the trees... facing further south and away from the village. She sighed again, and began to walk away from the water.

I need to just disappear for a few days... some distance and I will get over this, I know it.

Kohaku straightened up proudly and jumped up into the trees, bounding effortlessly from one branch to the next in the air like she had when she was chasing down Homura. As she flew up, she thought she heard...

"No, wait--"

Huh?

"Wait, Kohaku!--"

Off to the north-west where she had run from, she swore she heard the stumbling footsteps and voice of the genius in constant question. She flipped around immediately, mid-bound between two trees, and very nearly lost her footing. On the next jump, she shook it off.

No. Don't bother. There's no way.

But even her own self-doubt felt slighted and slayed as the cold, autumn wind carried a voice back from where she'd left behind.

"KOHAKU!!"

As if he would come after you.

The air of the night became colder than she had anticipated without warning as Kohaku zipped through the tree tops to head for her secret sunrise spot. She kept thinking back to that sound when she left the river; she could have sworn she heard Senku calling her name... but that was crazy.

Illogical. Impossible. First of all, he's probably busy shoving his tongue in Luna's stupid mouth.

Jealousy was an ugly colour on her. She didn't like it. She didn't like how any of this was making her feel. Or act. Or think. Luna wasn't stupid. She had saved Senku's life with her knowledge of medicine science, hadn't she? That was why Senku had agreed to be her boyfriend in the first place...

She asks him when his life depends on him saying yes, and you're defending her?

And here came the internal debate that she always ended up having when thinking about the fact that Senku had accepted someone to be his official girlfriend, ever since it happened:

It's not like she was trying to manipulate him...

Oh no? The guy had at least 5 holes in his chest and she was the only one who could save him. In that moment, she chose to ask him to be her boyfriend. How is that not manipulative?!

I'm sure she didn't mean it that way--

Yeah, because all girls wait for a dude to be on his DEATHBED before making their move. So classy.

She doesn't think that far ahead... she's just a girl who liked a boy and was brave enough to tell him.

It was logical.

Reasonable.

Honest.

And still:

Why are you making excuses for her? She stole your man!

He's not my man!

Oh, please... don't be stupid.

He's not! He never will be! He thinks I'm a freaking gorilla! He doesn't feel that way about me, he... he never will.

How could you ever know that if you never tell him how you feel?

Ha!

For what purpose!? So he can reject me and I can be embarassed when I see him for the rest of my life?!

You are deeply stupid. Go on undervalue yourself and ignore the signs. Ignore how he hugged you on treasure island. See where that gets you.

Oh just...shut up already.

The debate raged on through the night as she flew through the canopy south towards the water. Just in the nick of time, as dawn approached and the deep black-blue of the sky became more cerulean, she arrived at the beach of what was once the Omaezaki lighthouse: her favourite spot to watch the rising sun in her land. She perched herself on the giant stones that overlooked the water, looked at the relatively tiny silhouette of Mount Fuji off to her left in the now-far north, and imagined the smoke of the morning fires at Ishigami Village just as they started springing up. Only eyes like hers could ever have seen such a thing.

Again, she thought of Senku.

Flashbacks of the poker game and all those little displays of unwavering faith in her abilities; her sight, her strength... all these moments mingling with the magnificent colours of the sunrise made her eyes fill then brim over with silent tears. She hoped there would be a quota that would soon max out on her ability to cry; Kohaku hated this wet, weepy weakness with every fibre of her being. The plumes of smoke became clearer, larger now that Ishigami Village had grown so much since becoming the Kingdom of Science, and realised that she truly needed a break from Senku.

It made her even sadder.

Now that he and Luna are officially official, they're sure to be running around acting like a full-blown happy couple.

As much as she hated to admit it, she wouldn't be able to handle that.

She wiped her tears away languidly as the oranges and pinks and purples of sunrise melted away into normal white daylight, and got up from her sitting spot, turning back towards the village.

I won't be gone long, I'll just walk back and look for more medicinal flowers...

Kohaku knew she had to get back, or her family would worry. She wondered if Senku would, too, as she began a slow walk down the rocks back towards the forests. She ran across a silly fantasy in her head of him running up to her upon arrival, sick with worry, scolding her before holding her like he did on treasure island.

And then decided to take her sweet time coming home.