We'll just jump right into the chapter, I can explain a few things at the end.

Here's your warning: It's a little depressing actually, sorry about that.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own or work for Toei, I just wrote the story.

Realizations

Kairi stood outside the door of the bistrot, not wanting to go in yet. By the time he got back it was nearly midnight. 'At least...I didn't turn back into a pumpkin' He told himself jokingly.

Previously

He had snuck into the ball right when it was beginning to wind down. Commander Hilltop and Jim were nowhere near the sign-in table, so he managed to walk right in. You would think there would be more security considering this was a GSPO gathering.

Kairi hung back near the entrance scanning the room for Umika and Noel first, hoping they wouldn't catch him. When his eyes landed on Tsukasa, it became hard to look away from her. He knew she was beautiful already, but the moment he walked in and saw her standing off to the side, he was pretty sure his jaw dropped. The gown hugged her in all the right places. Paired with her mask and soft smile; it gave her an air of mystery, one he was willing to challenge.

For the most part he leaned against the wall keeping an eye on her. Every so often a woman would come up to flirt with him or ask him to dance. In a very gentleman-like manner he tipped his hat to them and declined politely. Of course, the moment he saw Noel approach Tsukasa and lead her away on the dance floor, Kairi felt a small pang of jealousy. 'Now,' He thought pushing himself off the wall. 'Would be a good time for her to actually "see me."'

Casually he strolled over to greet her formally as well as steal her away from Noel. No surprise to find them both stunned as he approached them mid-waltz. Kairi bowed respectfully and asked her for one dance. To his surprise, and hers secretly, she agreed and allowed him to lead her away.

His mind then wandered back to his attempt at kissing her; at that time his mind and heart were fighting for dominance over him. One thought about the future consequences, while the other lived in the moment. His mind won in the end and he managed to leave her somehow, but not before wounding her emotionally, and facing persecution from Noel too.

Pretty eventful for one hour, he must say. Making sure nothing was sticking out of the suitcase, he opened the door to the bistro. "Tadaima!" He called out.

Touma was standing in the kitchen when he came in. "Welcome home. Where did you run off to this late?"

"Oh you know, just some...late night shenanigans." He noted to the suitcase in his hand.

Touma stared at him quietly, making him slightly uncomfortable.

"So, did Umika come back?" He asked putting the suitcase down.

"Not yet, she should be home soon. Sakuya should be dropping her off any minute now."

"Good, then you can pull the old 'Do you have any idea what time it is' routine on them. Good practice for the future." He teased.

Touma rolled his eyes at him. Just then both men heard the front door burst open. Umika stomped into the room slamming the door behind her.

"Perfect timing." He said crossing his arms.

Touma walked around the counter to greet her. "Welcome home, how was-"

SMACK!

Before Touma could even finish his sentence, Umika walked up to Kairi and slapped him hard across the face.

Kairi held his cheek in pain. "What the hell was that for?!"

"What did you do to Tsukasa-san?!" She growled.

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw you at the masquerade earlier."

"You went to the masquerade?" Touma asked surprised.

Kairi didn't say a word. He had hoped he could escape without being seen by Umika, since he already blew his cover in front of Noel. He wondered if Keii-chan or Sakuya saw him too. Probably not if he was able to leave peacefully.

"Tsukasa looked devastated when I found her." She said disrupting his thoughts. "What did you say to her before you left?!"

"You went to see Tsukasa? Wait, is that why you were at the masquerade in the first place?"

Again, Kairi stayed silent. The jig was up. But unlike facing the GSPO officers, he had nowhere to run when being confronted by them.

Umika tapped her foot impatiently. "Well?"

Touma took a seat near the kitchen, waiting for his response.

"What happened…after I left?" He finally asked.

FLASHBACK

Umika swayed happily in Sakuya's arms. She never would have guessed that she would actually be this comfortable around him. Perhaps looks really were deceiving; on second thought, they probably were.

"What are you smiling about?" Sakuya asked looking down at her.

She shook her head at him. "Nothing in particular. Thank you for inviting me; I'm having a wonderful time tonight."

"No, thank you for being my dat- er, guest." He said correcting himself. No point in getting his hopes up. Sakuya leaned forward to dip her in his arms.

Umika laughed. "You can say date if you want to. I consider this to be one."

Sakuya had a big grin on his face when he pulled her upright.

As he spun her around, Umika spotted Tsukasa standing near the window talking to someone. She squinted to eyes to get a better look. It took her seconds to realize that she was talking to Kairi as Lupin Red.

"EH?" She shrieked.

"What is it?" Sakuya asked looking in her direction.

Quickly she grabbed his face, diverting his attention away from Tsukasa. "Ah iie. Nandemonai."

She looked back just in time to see Kairi remove his hand from her cheek and walk away, leaving Tsukasa visibly upset. She watched him disappear behind the double doors of the entrance before deciding to check on Tsukasa.

"Anou, could you excuse me for a moment, I need to go to the ladies room." She said apologetically.

Umika made her way towards Tsukasa while Sakuya walked off to find Keiichiro and Mana. By the time she got to her it was worst than she imagined.

"Tsukasa-san." Umika said touching her shoulder.

She looked at the woman dressed in pink; her expression was a mixture of wanting to cry, and attempting to keep a brave face for appearance sake. "What happened?" She asked her. Umika had hoped that she would give her at least some sort of clue as to what Kairi had said or done to her. But, in the state she was in now...

"Umika-chan..." She choked out.

The room fell silent as Umika recounted what had happened but hours ago.

Kairi stared an imaginary hole into the ground, hoping it would become real so he could make an escape. He hadn't realized how badly he had hurt her from his actions.

"What happened?" Umika asked calmly once more, crossing her arms.

"I tried to kiss her…" He confessed.

"You did what?!"

Touma covered his face, shaking his head.

She felt like slapping him all over again. "Why would you do that, what is wrong with you?" Her eyes grew wide. "Masaka, do you have feelings for Tsukasa-san?"

He continued staring at the floor. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" She repeated. "How can you not know? Do you know how confusing that sounds, how confusing that must be for Tsukasa-san who's so vulnerable right now because of this whole phantom thief thing? And you just decided to take advantage of it by playing with her emotions?"

"That wasn't what I was trying to do!"

"Then what were you trying to do?!"

Kairi couldn't answer that question. How could he? Even if he managed to come up with one they still wouldn't be satisfied with it.

Umika took his silence as his answer. She strode past him upstairs, returning a few minutes later wearing sweatpants and a jacket with an overnight bag in her hands.

"Where are you going?" Touma asked.

"To Mana-san's, I'm sleeping over at her house tonight." She told him. "We're having a sleepover to cheer up Tsukasa-san; she's in the car right now with Sakuya-san."

"Tsukasa's-" He took a step towards the door.

"Stop!" She said glaring at him. "Don't even think about it." She warned. "You've done enough for one night." Umika adjusted the strap on her bag. "I'll see you guys tomorrow." She bid them goodnight, shutting the door behind her.

The room grew silent again. Touma glanced up at the younger man.

He let out a sigh. "What?" He asked crossing his arms. "You're not gonna lecture me too are you?"

"I'm not even sure this deserves a lecture."

"Hey I was just following your advice; be honest."

"Were you being honest though?"

"Of course I was! I was doing what my heart told me to do."

"Mess with her mind?"

"What? No. It's not like that. Jeez why is everyone on my ass all of a sudden? If you really want me to be honest, then why don't I just reveal I'm Lupin Red to her, and then we can all go to jail? Huh! How's that for honesty?" He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "At any rate, why am I the only one getting lectured for this? Why aren't you telling Umika about all of this honesty nonsense?"

"Because Umika's not doing what you're doing!"

"Bull! Umika's doing the exact same thing!"

"Umika's not the one hiding behind a mask!" He said standing up.

Kairi held his glare defensively.

Touma took a deep breath before continuing. "It's true that she's still not revealing her identity as a phantom thief yet, none of us are. But Umika's true feelings...they're being expressed as Umika, not as Lupin Yellow."

Kairi didn't know how to respond to that. Every time Umika spoke with Sakuya, even expressed a slight interest in him, she always did it as Umika. To be fair, Sakuya never really showed any interest in Lupin Yellow, minus that one time he said she smelled nice. But beside that, she wasn't pretending to like him to get info out of him, she genuinely did so.

He grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself before slumping down into one of the seats. So much for being straightforward.

"I didn't think I would have to spell this out for you." He told him. "But...if you truly do have feelings for Tsukasa, then why don't you tell her; face to face, no hiding under a mask."

Kairi drew circles on the table with his finger. "Demo...what if she doesn't like the person under the mask?"

"You've never asked. Maybe the person under the mask is just what she wants, someone that's real." He placed a hand on his shoulder. "You should try and talk to her. But not for awhile, unless you want Umika to kill you."

He smirked at the thought. "That sounds like something she would do."

Touma took the suitcase from him. "It's getting late. We should get some rest for tomorrow." Kairi raised an eyebrow at him. "No, we're not opening the bistro. But we do need our energy in case something does come up and it's Gangler related." He gave him a stern look. "No more late night rendezvous." He told him. "I don't want to have to keep staying up late because of you."

Kairi leaned back in his chair with a grin. "Thanks dad." He called, watching Touma leave the room.

He tilted his head backwards staring at the ceiling. Kairi didn't go up right away. He wanted to- no, he needed to collect his thoughts and figure out his feelings; otherwise it was going to cause trouble for him and everyone else later on.

Everyone was so insistent that he had feelings for Tsukasa; Touma, Umika, even Noel seemed to catch on. But…were they right?

He compared his feelings for Tsukasa to that of Umika, which turned out to be really gross since he could never see Umika in that sort of way. They lived together for so long now that they were practically family. He wiped that thought from his brain and compared her to Mana instead. Aside from the fact that Mana was taken, it was a completely different feeling; Mana was sweet, soft, of course pretty, but also not a girl he was particularly interested in. Tsukasa was also sweet, but also strong minded, had conviction, didn't take crap from anyone, not to mention she had purpose. She had a reason for what she was doing, and that in turn mirrored his.

As he listed off all of the qualities he liked about her in his head, the clearer it became to him. More than ever now he was certain about how he felt about her. And it only took a little bit of time (And a good slap in the face) for him to see that.

"I'm…" He began to say. He chuckled, thinking about the next words to leave his mouth. "I'm in love with Tsukasa-san…"

Tsukasa sat on the couch with her legs tucked underneath her. It was a little after one, nearly two hours after they left the masquerade. She had just gotten out of the shower and was waiting for the other two to return.

Mana ran upstairs to grab blankets for the three of them while Umika wandered into the kitchen to fix them something. She puffed air into her hands, trying to keep warm. Umika said that this sleepover was to help her feel better, but she was unsure how effective that would be.

FLASHBACK

"Umika-chan…" She tried to hide the rasp in her voice from nearly crying. "I'm...I'm not feeling well all of a sudden. I think I'm going to head home now."

Umika looked at her with concern. "Okay. Give me a second to let the others know that you're leaving."

"Wait!" She said stopping her. "I'm not really in the mood to say goodbye to them. Could you tell them for me please?"

Umika didn't feel like leaving her alone by herself, not that Tsukasa would do anything or was capable and such. And yet…

"Sorry, but as your friend I'm unable to let you go home by yourself."

"Hmm?"

"It's too dangerous; I wouldn't want you to fall asleep at the wheel, or get into an accident on your way home." She replied feigning naivety. "I'll ride with you to your apartment, and I can have Sakuya-san pick us up from there. We'll stay at Mana-san's tonight so we can look after you."

"But-"

Umika held up a hand to stop her. "I told you," She grabbed both her hands and gave her a reassuring smile. "It's because we're friends."

And that's exactly what happened. Right after Umika told Mana of her sleepover idea, she rode with Tsukasa back to her apartment where Tsukasa changed out of her masquerade attire. After she hung her dress in her closet, she turned around and picked up the mask lying on her bed. A part of her wanted to throw it away, pretend it never happened. But she knew it wouldn't erase what had happened, what feelings it sparked within her. Those memories would stay in her heart. She left the mask on her dresser and proceeded to grab her things for the night. Tsukasa stuffed a set of pajamas and a bag of toiletries into a pink duffel, along with a set of clothes for tomorrow. Thankfully she didn't have to work the next day, but she was still on call just in case.

When they heard Sakuya pull up, she locked up her apartment and went outside to meet him. He drove them all the way to Jurer so Umika could grab her things as well. "Wait in the car." She told them. "I'll be right back."

While they were sitting there, Sakuya looked in the rearview mirror keeping an eye on her. Umika hadn't told him the details of what had happened, but Tsukasa definitely didn't look sick in that sort of sense. There was though, evidence of pain in her expression.

"Anou, sempai…"

Before he could say anything else Umika came outside with her overnight bag in hand. "Sorry about that." She said sliding into the front seat. "I had something I needed to take care of." She placed her bag on top of her lap. "Now then, shall we get going?"

"Tea's ready." Umika announced interrupting her thoughts. She came into the living room dressed in yellow pajamas decorated with Sun patterns grinning from ear to ear. In her hands she held a tray of mugs filled with warm tea. "It's a little bit hot."She said handing one to Tsukasa. "But it's so good as it begins to cool down."

Tsukasa held the cup close to her, enjoying the warmth that emitted from it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. My best friend taught me this recipe." She said grabbing her own mug, sitting on the floor in front of her. "She called it 'smile tea', because by the time you finish the whole mug, you're smiling in satisfaction. It's made with honey, and a dash of cinnamon." She took a sip before holding it in her lap. "Whenever something really upset me, or I was having a hard day, she would make this for me. She said it was passed down from generation to generation, but let's be honest; she made that part up on the spot." She giggled.

Tsukasa smiled, bringing the mug to her lips and allowing the warm liquid soothe her insides. "It's delicious."

"Isn't it? The cinnamon was my idea."

Tsukasa covered the top of the mug letting the steam pass through her fingers. "Umika-chan?"

"Hmm, what is it?"

She looked down at her lap. "Well, you see..." She ran her thumb across the rim. "Have you...have you ever been hurt by someone before?"

"Hurt?" She tilted her head to the side. "In what way?"

"Like," She tried to describe the pain she was feeling at the moment. "It hurts to smile, even a fake one is the most painful. You feel lost. Or, you've done nothing wrong and yet it still feels like it's your fault. You can sit for hours staring at nothing; not even thinking, just drilling holes into the ground with vision alone." Tsukasa closed her eyes softly. "Even picturing their face makes you feel disgusting, and you're not sure why you feel that way..." She opened her eyes, linking her fingers around the mug as best as she could. "Have you...ever felt that way before?"

Umika sat there thinking about it. "Hmm...Honestly, no I haven't. But if I may," She scooted closer to her. "Do you think that...you might be in love?"

"Love?"

"Mm hmm, love. Sounds to me like you're in love with whoever is making you feel this way. It hurts because you're unsure what you want to do next; you can't decide if you want to punch them in the face for being so stupid, or pull them into your arms and keep them close to you." Umika had a big grin on her face. "I'm sure Mana-san must have felt that way at least once about Keiichiro-kun."

Tsukasa thought about her diagnosis. Sure she's always wanted to punch Lupin Red in the face; they've been enemies for how long already. On the other hand, to pull him closer…that sounded right too. It would explain why she stopped him from walking away, and why she was so willing to let him kiss her at the ball. As confusing as that sounded, it also made a whole lot of sense.

Umika watched her earnestly; not that she was trying to help Kairi in any sort of way, God no, she was still mad at him. But, Tsukasa had to realize that she was falling for her teammate. At least if they both came to terms with their feelings, she could have another "speedy confessions" event at the bistrot again. Wouldn't that be a sight; the level-head and the knuckle-head falling in love.

"You really think I could be in love with him?"

"Mm, either that, or you loathe the heck out of him." She shrugged.

That made her laugh. "Perhaps it's not the latter then." She admitted. Tsukasa took another sip; the 'smile-tea' seemed to be doing its job. "Arigatou Umika-chan."

"Hmm? For what?"

"For being so kind and caring, you really are a great friend."

Umika gave her a smile that mimicked the suns on her PJs.

"I'm back!"Mana called from the top of the stairs. "Sorry for the delay. I forgot it's been so long since I had company over." She placed a blanket on each of their futons in her living room. "Did I miss anything?"

"Oh nothing special." Umika said swaying her head back and forth. "Tsukasa-san is in love with someone." She squealed.

"Really? That's wonderful." Mana clapped her hands together. Umika handed her some tea. "Now we can go on group dates together!"

"Yep, our Tsukasa-san is growing up so fast." She teased. "Ah, what are we going to do with you?" She asked patting her leg.

Mana became giddy with excitement. "You see, I knew my intuition was right!" She told Tsukasa. "I knew you and Kairi were a perfect match!"

"Kairi?!" Both girls freaked out.

"Oh, is that not who we're talking about here?" She asked confused.

"Well uhh..." Umika began. "Yes and no." She hissed under her breath.

"It's actually someone else." Tsukasa spoke for herself. "I uh, didn't say anything because I was too ashamed of who it was."

Mana touched her chin. "I see." She sighed. "Aw, and I was so sure of myself this time." Mana took a sip of the 'smile-tea.' "So then, if it's not Kairi, who is it?"

Tsukasa and Umika froze.

"Umm..."

"Oh that doesn't really matter." Umika said waving it off. 'Even though you're one hundred percent correct.' "Let's just finish our tea for now and get some shut eye. We can talk more about this in the morning, ne?"

Author's Note: Okay guys, I know it's been nearly two weeks since I updated and I apologize for that. I've been busy with work lately. Not to mention I had a major Writer's Block with this chapter. The hardest part was trying to write Tsukasa's feelings of pain; I just couldn't put it into words. That is, until I experienced it myself; earlier this week I met this guy who I was really into. And, to make a long story short, I was heart broken. Just so you know I'm not using that as an excuse as to why I couldn't get this done sooner. Actually it's quite the opposite; because of that I was able to get it done. (By the way, this song popped up on my YouTube recommendations called "If My Heart Had A Heart" by Cassadee Pope. It pretty much describes how Tsukasa's feeling at the moment. I suggest you go listen to it to see what I mean.)

And I know I keep hopping back and forth between 'bistro' and 'bistrot', but I'm not sure what I should actually call it. On their menu it says 'Bistrot' but it's technically called a 'bistro' right? If anyone knows the answer let me know.

But anyway, more and more ideas for this story keep pouring into my head. So it might not be as short as I made it out to be. Actually, I think a possible sequel is in the works ;) That is, if I can get my shhhh-stuff together haha.

Thank you to everyone who's been keeping up so far, and to those who have been leaving reviews for me:

-Guest 362

-Toa Solaric

-Guest Melody

-Knoctis00

-PrettyRecklessLaura

-rubius

As always, let me know what you guys think and I'll try to get back into the groove of writing. Have a good one!