Disclaimer: All respective rights/ownership go to their rightful owners. I claim no ownership besides any OC. I only wish to write a story :d.

Friendship is an interesting concept.

Humans desire this sort of bond throughout our entire lives. Someone to hang out with, talk to, and share memories with. It makes life so much more worth it for us. Yet, at the same time, friendship can also be a cause of pain and anguish.

My old friends can be a good example of this. We had been pretty good friends before I became friends with Kasumi. We would all eat together during lunch and talk about all sorts of trends. We would play together all the time and generally make each other's boring school days exciting. When we had gone separate ways, we didn't cause each other any issues, but it clearly stung for everyone that we at the state that we were at. It was quite an event for us to reconnect though! When I was able to actually spend time with my friends (minus Kasumi), it felt as though we were never apart, and nothing had ever come between us. It made me feel so happy. We made excellent memories pre and post Kasumi, the in-between being…difficult.

When we had stopped being friends, they didn't antagonize me or anything. They had weirdly accepted me as Kasumi's friend and left me to my own devices with her. It was…pretty awkward. Our eyes occasionally, met and immediately ignored each other. We came to an unspoken agreement to never acknowledge each other in that time. Until we reconnected of course.

"Hey Adam! How does this look on me?" Lady Noire says as she leaves the fitting room, breaking me out of my thoughts. Crap. I wasn't paying attention, gotta make something up quick. Let's see…whoa.

Honestly, I might be embellishing this a little, but she looks absolutely stunning wearing her hair down into a side pony tail with a light purple bow keeping it together, a simple dark purple dress with a small black belt around her mid-section that emphasizes her uh… assets.

"Uh, Adam, are you okay? You're kinda staring." Lady Noire says nervously. Shoot, got side tracked again.

"Sorry, was just caught off guard for a bit there. You look amazing by the by. I'd say that'd be a good buy." I say to Lady Noire as I quickly dart my eyes to her face and see the slight blush on her face. I hope that blush mean's she's embarrassed and not angry. She's absolutely the last person you want to ever be upset with.

"I'll excuse you for now, but stop spacing out like that okay?" A quick nod is my answer to her demand. "Good! Although, I guess in this case it's a good thing that you'd space out over something like this…" She says as she closes her fitting room door. Don't think I was supposed to hear that last part, but it's better than the alternative.

With a relieving sigh, I slump my shoulders back down and wait for Lady Noire to change back into her clothes.

You know, when we first walked in after our awkward time outside, I had expected to be spending most of our time going through various clothing stores. Waiting for Lady Noire to find clothing, try them on, repeat for some good couple hours, and then MAYBE make a purchase. All of this would finally end with us eating then going home. After all, that's how our first shopping trip went, unplanned as it was, but we weirdly haven't really done that.

Surprisingly, we just walked around and talked. We first just started with some small things. We talked about our hobbies (which is mostly gaming, everyone games in Gamindustri), our current progress on our current games and future games that we plan on getting/playing. It always surprised me that The Goddesses aren't excluded from gaming. In fact, I learned that all the Goddesses either develop or help develop the games that each country release. Lady Noire herself has played apart in just about everything that Lastation ever produced, as she pointed out to me consistently throughout the conversation.

This line of conversation eventually branched out to us talking more about ourselves. I told her about my experience as a hunter and how I had learned to swing a sword. Which wasn't much really. The guild had given me a good couple courses, and then the rest was trial and error. Lady Noire informed me more of her CPU duties, which consisted of taking care of more intense quests and public displays. Oh and, paper work. Plenty of paper work. Apparently, she could go weeks, nearly MONTHS doing nothing but paper work. She did go into detail of what her paper work entails, but I was only able to barely keep up to what she was saying midway through. What's most important that I had gotten was that CPU's have to be the best at everything to keep their nation alive, but it does seem lonely…

Anyway, we eventually went into one of the many clothing stores, leading me into my current situation. Which so far, hasn't been that bad actually. Unlike when I've gone with Kasumi to any clothing store, Lady Noire doesn't question 24/7 about the clothes she wants to try on and doesn't pester me for a compliment or anything on every article of clothing that she puts on. Which is honestly a good thing, I didn't know where to put my eyes on for just about anything that Lady Noire put on. Not like Lady Noire picked out risqué clothing or anything, it's just…I don't know. Half of me felt like I was being a pervert for seeing her wearing so many different articles of clothing/style and the other half felt horribly nervous about this whole ordeal. The Lady…is really pretty.

The time I've spent with Lady Noire so far has been very enjoyable. So much, that I can't help but think about Kasumi.

Whenever I've been with Kasumi, I usually feel this strong desire to please her as much as possible. Like, it's some sort of other worldly desire that I can't really fight. Anytime that I'd try to reject her in any way, I'd just get horribly chilling feeling telling me otherwise. It could be over the smallest issues like, me just being slightly away from her when we're walking together and I'd just listen to her desires. Sometimes she'd try to hook her arm around me and we'd garner many looks. I'd try to get her to look go, but she'd never even budge a single bit. Honestly, you could call us a couple from just how we acted, and I couldn't really fight you about it no matter how much I tried.

It's strange really. How our relationship evolved. I really do wonder when it started to change to what we are now. It wasn't sudden, I'm not exactly sure but it felt slow. I know that it has something to do with her family, the gap in interaction we had prior to the incident of Lastation. If only I knew more…

"Alright Adam, I think I've got what I want. You ready to go?" Lady Noire says as she approaches me carrying the dress I had given a yes to and a couple of other articles of clothing she had personally picked out. I actually don't even remember those pieces being picked up…

"Yea I'm ready." I say to her as we both begin our way to the cashier. She rings us up and we're out of the store easily.

"Say Adam, mind if I ask you something?" Lady Noire says as we begin our walk around the mall again. I had tried to take the bags from the store from her, but she had insisted on carrying her own.

"Yea, sure." I say as I nod my head. "Well, it's just that, I noticed that you seemed sort of distracted when I left the fitting room. Is everything alright?" Oh, she noticed. "Well, it's really not that important. I was just thinking about a friend of mine, Kasumi." I non-absently replied. Thinking about Kasumi now these days makes me a little sad. It just reminds me constantly about how we used to be.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Lady Noire says as she looks away. Oh, I think she toke this the wrong way. "I uh, think you toke that the wrong way Lady Noire." Lady Noire turns around and gives me an inquisitive look. "She's very much alive and we're only friends. It's just that our relationship is rather difficult right now and it sometimes gets me down just thinking about it." I say in a rather solemn tone. It really does put me down to think about it, but at the same time, it feels nice to finally tell someone.

"Oh, that's a shame. It sounds like you really value her, I hope that whatever happened between you two can be fixed." Lady Noire says as she turns back towards me and gives me a look of sympathy

"Yea…I hope so too."

With that, our conversation died out and we continued our walk-in silence. I started to just observe the people around us to better occupy my mind. It's a rather nice thing to do whenever you find yourself surrounded by people. Observing people around you can be a great exper- huh Is that? I don't want to believe that is who I think it is, but it can't be anyone else.

Deep within the endless stream of people, I can spot a lone blonde sitting on a bench. She's only wearing the yellow dress this time with flats and minus anything else. She isn't doing much besides sitting on the bench…and staring straight at me.

I'm, I don't know. I don't know how to feel really. Kasumi doesn't ever go out alone as far as I know. She's always gone out of her to avoid any sort of crowds unless I'm with her ever since she's come to Lastation. People have always ostracized her for how she looks and her incredibly rude attitude (which the people around her made her become), but mostly because of how she looks. Lastation has always been rather hard on the other nations. Our pride makes it difficult for us to ever really get along with the other nations and even with each other at times. This causes us to either ignore anything we don't like or actively cause us to seek out to do something about whatever is causing us discomfort. It's quite cruel and evil at times, but I can't say that I haven't also done something like that before. Not to the scale of mistreating someone or worse, but usually just avoiding something that I didn't deem fit wasting any of my time on. Small things really.

Which really makes this encounter all the stranger. People are glancing at her in a very open matter, and some males are even gawking at her. I know that she utterly hates the attention people give her as she would usually grip my arm and whisper to me of her said hatred whenever we were together, but for once she's ignoring everything around her to focus her eyes directly on me.

It's…not a stare I can really describe. It's just a stare. I can't tell any emotion behind it (no thanks in part to my lack of reading), but it makes me feel like I've been caught red handed in some heinous action.

"Adam! What are you doing!? I almost lost you in the crowd!" I hear Lady Noire yelling out to me suddenly, bringing me out of my eye lock with Kasumi and causing me to turn in the direction of Lady Noire. "Ah, sorry. I just spotted someone that I know." I respond and return my eyes back to Kasumi, of who's stare has evolved from a stare into a glare! "Oh. Who is it?" Lady Noire says as she steps closer me to look over my shoulder to try to see Kasumi. In response, Kasumi's glare turns harder for a second before softening up and returning to the normal stare from before.

That was…weird. I didn't expect that. I mean, I did and I didn't. Kasumi has always hated the very idea of anyone being remotely close to me, and has been very active in me knowing that, but it feels like there was something else involved with that glare. It, scares me… aaaaaaaand she's coming.

"Oh. Is the blonde girl that just got up your friend?" Lady Noire inquires as Kasumi begins to weave past the crowd of people. "Yea, that's Kasumi." I respond in an uneven tone. "You okay? I guess she's the one that you have issues with, but they can't be that bad, right?" Oh, you have no idea. Well, I guess Lady Noire will most likely find out in a bit, since Kasumi will no doubt say something about me being out without her. Although it does make me think about our issues more. It mostly stems from this random marriage proposal, and Kasumi's lack of willingness to give me a reason for it. We've never had a chance to sit down and talk about it, all we've done so far is avoid it, maybe if we did talk it out, we could at least come to a compromise. "Maybe, but we'll see." I say as I move start to move towards Kasumi. "Let's go greet her quickly and get back to our outing. I'll talk to her about our issues another time." All the while my heart is pounding a mile a minute in anticipation of this encounter. I just hope this goes well.

It takes some bobbing and weaving, but I eventually meet Kasumi half-way and greet her.

"Uh, hey Kasumi. Whatcha up to?" Gotta try to be casual.

"I can ask you the same, you don't normally go out." Kasumi responds in an even tone. I already don't like where this is going. "Well, neither do you." I respond in kind.

"I just had a spur of the moment desire is all. Still, it's strange to see you out Adam. Especially so short after you just being released out of the hospital, I'd assume your… mother would keep you home."

"Well, the hospital cleared me of all possible issues, so I figured I'd get myself in order and go around a little. Stretch out my legs a little."

"And how come you didn't invite me to go with you?" She sounds a little angrey now.

"Ah well, I had som-"

"Adam! You need to slow down a little, I almost lost you in the crowd again you jerk." Lady Noire says as she catches up and stands midway between us as she catches up. "Oh, sorry Lady No- Black Heart. I just, had to speak with my friend Kasumi here." Lady Noire, gives me an odd look at me saying her CPU name instead of her real name. I can't really explain it, but I just had this feeling not to reveal just how close I am to Lady Noire around Kasumi. Something akin to an instinct. "That doesn't mean you can just leave me like that! What if I lost you and couldn't find you, I'd be scared for you!" I don't think she's talking about me with that, but I shouldn't point that out. "Sorry Lady Black Heart, I was just excited to see Kasumi. I'll try not to get lost from here on out."

"Hmph! As you should, worrying me like that for no reason…"

"Again, sorry." Man, she really knows how to guilt trip a guy, even knowing it isn't my fault, I still feel a little bad.

"Ahem! So. Who is your 'friend', Adam." I almost forgot about her.

"Ah right, sorry." *Ahem* "Kasumi meet Lady Black Heart. Lady Black Heart meet Kasumi." I really hope nothing goes bad.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Kasumi! I'm Lady Black Heart, CPU of Lastation, friend of Adam." Lady Noire says as she puts her hand out for Kasumi to shake.

"Likewise, Lady Black Heart. My name's Kasumi Kiro, a very good friend of Adam's." Kasumi responded after giving Lady Noire's hand a heated look and firm shake before letting go. "Oh, how long have you known Adam Kasumi?" The look on Lady Noire's face tells that she felt the shake/look that Kasumi sent her way but ignored it.

"I've known Adam since we were young, and we've been together since then pretty much. In fact, we pretty much only hang out with each other. We don't have anyone else but each other. So, it's a little strange to see him out with someone besides me, especially with someone like you, Lady Black Heart. I didn't think CPU's had the luxury to be able to interact with their people. Let alone befriend anyone." Kasumi says all this as she keeps her eyes centered on me, essentially ignoring Lady Noire in favor of keeping her attention on me.

"I have friends! CPU's can do anything so long as they set their mind to it! So something like having friends is something can be easily be done. In fact, I probably have too many friends to deal with!" The way Lady Noire said that isn't very convincing. "Anyway, it's great to hear that your friendship together has lasted so long. Friends are very important to have" The way Lady Noire said that…makes me feel sad.

"Yes well. Adam and I are very good friends. In fact, we're each other's only friend. We haven't needed any others." I could feel the venom from her words in my very veins. I need to stop this before this can get any worse.

"Well then! Sorry to cut this short, but me and Lady Black Heart have to move along. It was really nice seeing you Kasumi but I'll see you later." I clap my hands to draw attention and quickly give this sorry excuse to try to make an exit. Kasumi's eye's turn wide and turns herself straight on me.

"Ah, that's right! Sorry to cut this short Kasumi, but we do have to get going." Lady Noire says as picks up on what I'm trying to do and begins to back off from Kasumi. I follow her lead and follow her.

"I'm really sorry to cut this short Kasumi, but I'll talk to you later, alright?" I say as my final piece and begin to walk with Lady Noire. It hurts. I feel like I'm getting stabbed directly into the heart. Leaving Kasumi was never something I've been able to do, or willing.

"Please don't leave." I turn around instantly as Kasumi says those words to see that she's looking down at her feet now. "Adam, please don't go. Please. Stay with me." Kasumi says in a depressive tone that tugs at me more than anyone could ever understand. Her words serve to deepen the hole that the knife had made in my heart. It almost makes me instantly change the direction of my feet from Lady Noire to Kasumi.

This reminds me of my self-made promise that I had made to Kasumi years ago. I never spoke to her about it, but I always kept it, and I feel like she somehow knew about it. Whenever there was any chance of me leaving her, in any meaning of the word, she'd always beg me not to do so in various ways. I'd always instantly listen to her regardless of what could happen.

Always.

"Sorry Kasumi, but I can't just leave Lady Noire… I'll call you later. Promise." I say to Kasumi as she looks back up at me with the most crestfallen expression mixed with shock. "So, it's that way." Kasumi says as her eyes moisten and her expression eases into…something else. "I'll let you 'hang' with Lady Noire for today, but you'd better not forget to call me if you know what's good for you Adam." Kasumi declares as she turns about and storms off to the exit of the mall.

I know that my choice there was the correct one, I couldn't just suddenly leave Lady Noire. She's the very first person besides Kasumi to want to be my friend. It also feels right to branch out, and she DID save my life. Besides, who could give up being friends with Lady Black Heart?

"But I can't help but feel like she left just now in more ways than one just now." I mutter to myself as I begin to feel numb. The hole in my heart now bleeding and waning in pain. She definitely left with more then just herself. Weirdly enough though...

"It does feel right." I say to myself as I look back towards Lady Noire who had watched our exchange. She gives me an apologetic smile and moves towards me.

"I'm sorry about that. It feels like it was my fault."

"Don't worry about it. It's probably a good thing that this happened."

"Are you sure?"

"Totally. C'mon, we shouldn't let this get us done, we still have a whole day to go through and I'm feeling pretty hungry after that." I say to Lady Noire as I begin walking to the food court. She nods and follows me.

I really do feel like that this was a good thing. Ignoring the stabbing pain in my heart, maybe this will let us grow past the stale state that our relationship is currently in.

I just really hope nothing bad comes of this.

A/N: I feel pretty bad about this release. This chapter has sat on my laptop pretty much done for a good month. I do have to say that this chapter changed significantly from before, but I got sorta distracted by BlazBlue TAG and Octopath. Also some fun stuff happening. I do have to say that I have been working on something on the side as I edited this chapter, and we'll see how it goes.

As always, thank you all for taking the time to read. Thank you to everyone who has fav/followed, and hope you all have a wonderful day.