Welcome to the 13th chapter of this story. P I am highly happy to say that this will not be the last chapter. So, don't get your hopes up about something happy going on. You know how it is.

Also, as an apology ahead of time, because I KNOW I'm going to use it, the mascara thing I know I've already done (See 09 – Uncontrolled) but it's such a great image that I think it deserves to be used a second time.

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Pink Camellias
13 – More or Less Forgiving
SethSolare

- - -

After finally landing in Hinata Park, Keitaro managed to finally make it back to the teahouse. His mind wandered to Naru. He hoped, at the very least, that Naru wouldn't spend her time being mad and not make it for her afternoon class. He also hoped, though, that Haruka hadn't run out of bandages.

As he entered, he called for his aunt. No answer came. After a few seconds, he called Haruka's name again, stepped further into the teahouse. He glanced around at all the empty tables. He turned toward the kitchen and moved toward the doorway. When he entered, he saw a woman hunched over the sink, staring out of the window at the late afternoon sky that sat over the trees.

"Kitsune?" he asked her.

The silvery haired girl turned toward Keitaro, wiping the side of her cheek as she faced him. "She went out for a bit. Haruka, I mean. She asked me to watch the place."

Noting her obviously troubled state, Keitaro smiled. "Well, I think it'd be better if you could hear your customers," he said, grabbing a napkin from the counter. He handed one to her. She pushed his hand aside and wiped away what she could of her dripping mascara with her hands. Keitaro propped himself up with hand on the counter, crumpling the napkin. "You look like you were all dressed up for something."

Kitsune was wearing a very fit, blue blouse that hung slightly below the waist of her light-brown slacks. She looked remarkably cute in men's clothes, except for the shoes. Her open-toe shoes showed off her neatly painted, red toenails that matched her fingers. However nice her clothes were, though, her make-up was already ruined. "It's nothing, Keitaro."

Keitaro, puzzled, looked up at her. "Nothing?" he paused slightly before continuing. "Is 'nothing' crying in Haruka's kitchen looking like that?" he asked rhetorically.

"Just shut up, Keitaro," she responded, turning back toward the sink. She sniffed a little resting her hands on the edge of the sink and leaned on them. "Just go back home."

"Oh come on," he started again. "Don't you think it's bad to just sit here and wallow? Why don't you just tell me what's wrong?"

"Yeah, sure. I think you'd have a great amount of wisdom when it comes to lesbian relationships, Keitaro," she said sarcastically. She looked up, again, at the sky through the window.

Keitaro felt a bit disheartened. He figured a relationship was a relationship, whether lesbian or not. However, he knew Kitsune well enough to let Naru handle that girl's problems. She was far better at it and had the whole girl thing going on.

"I think Motoko's just afraid of you," he said before he turned to walk away. He began walking toward the exit of the kitchen. As soon as he pulled aside the curtain, though, he felt Kitsune tugging on the upper back of his shirt. She grabbed as much of it as she could, clutching balls of the cloth in her hand. Her head rested on his back, as he came to a stop at the exit. He could immediately feel a spot of water form on his shirt.

"I was going out to tell her that she didn't have to leave," she began through whimpers. "And I found her at the playground kissing Yumi."

Keitaro turned around as Kitsune released her grip on the shirt. "Something tells me it wasn't something that she wanted to do."

Kitsune looked up at him, puzzled.

"She spent a good part of her afternoon telling me how she wants to love you. She just doesn't seem to know how to do that. She might be struggling with just love in general. I don't think it has anything to do with you being a girl, Kitsune," he said.

"Really, it's probably just that she's never had that mutual thing before. She's afraid that if she puts too much into this, and you being her first love, she could really crash and burn. She's unsure about love. She doesn't want to get hurt from this. And, right now, she's just too afraid to admit with absolute certainty that she really does love you," Keitaro said, giving the girl a soft hug. He felt her continue to silently cry into him.

"Also, I think you should be the one comforting her."

Kitsune gave him another quizzical look.

"Considering the fact that she did what she did, she probably thinks she just lost you," he said, staring into Kitsune's eyes. "And I know that's not true. Right?" he asked. Kitsune slinked off of Keitaro, trudging out of the kitchen and into the main room of the teahouse.

Kitsune stopped at the exit to the building. Keitaro stood at the door to the kitchen. She turned toward him, trying to hide her face. "You can do the bandages by yourself right? They're in the second cabinet."

Keitaro nodded before disappearing back into the kitchen.

- -

Shinobu finally made it home. She had been wandering the town aimlessly, pondering what she did. Walking from store to store, Shinobu had no idea what she was doing. In her head, she repeated the words that she yelled to Keisuke, words that she could so easily recall.

"I never want to see you again. You're the worst person I've ever known. You're weak. You're pathetic. You're scum. You don't deserve me, you worthless piece of trash. You don't deserve anyone. I will never see you again."

She sighed, standing at the entry way to the dormitory. She looked down at the half-empty wicker basket of groceries in her hand. "It's almost pathetic, really," she said to herself. Sliding the door open, Shinobu walked inside the house, removing her shoes with her feet. She slid them to the edge of the depression in the floor next to the myriad of shoes at the entrance. For each girl in the house, at least 2 pairs of shoes usually filled the entrance way. Keitaro's only pair, she noticed, was not there. The other girls' shoes, except for Motoko and Su, also were gone. Naru, of course, was at class, and Kitsune could more than likely be working. Su was prone to walking outside barefoot anyway.

"Motoko's probably got problems of her own," she thought. As she noticed Tsuruko's footwear, she contemplated the idea. However, considering recent events, she decided against it.

She stepped into the lobby area of the dormitory heading toward the kitchen. She slid open the door placing the basket on the center island of the kitchen. She did as usually did, washing her hands, starting the rice, heating the oil, and washing the vegetables. It felt normal, to her. "It's like nothing's wrong at all," she said to herself.

She took the knife from the block, starting to chop the vegetables for the evening's dinner. "There's still the chicken to sear," she reminded herself. She put down the knife and removed the package from the basket. It was wrapped in butcher's paper, folded and sealed up with tape that had printed instructions on how to properly cook the chicken. Unwrapping it, she carefully put it in the hot, oiled pan and turned back toward the vegetables.

"Thought I'd help," said Su, who was already happily chopping away. Shinobu watched as her friend, with the same efficiency as herself, did what she could do. Her eyebrows furrowed at the blonde into somewhat of an exasperated, worried look.

"You're awfully, quiet, Shinobu," Su remarked. She barely flinched, watching what she was doing. She pushed aside the already cut food, separating each individual food into its own region on the chopping board.

After she was finished, she turned toward Shinobu. The dark-haired girl simply stared back, completely lost in thought. She tilted her head in a quizzical manner, looking at her, waiting for a response. Walking over to Shinobu, she waved a hand in front of her eyes, which brought the other back to realization.

Su laughed a bit. "You're absolutely out of it," she said.

"Sorry, I'm just a bit tired," Shinobu apologized, noticing that the work she started at the cutting board was now complete. "You look like you actually learned something from me," she smiled.

"Yeah," Su giggled. "I can cut this stuff straight now. Though, I think the carrot triangles, rectangles, and weird shapes I used to make were far more entertaining."

Shinobu's expression softened. She felt like crying, but nothing really came of it. She leaned back against the counter staring down at the floor. She looked back up at Su who was happily cooking dinner. "It's like nothing ever happened," she thought.

Su, after putting all the vegetables in the pan, looked over at the quiet girl in the corner. "You know, you're just being entirely too quiet – even for you," she said. "That means you either lost your voice or something bad has happened. And since you responded to me earlier, I'm guessing something bad happened. And your hair looks terrible."

Shinobu's looked up at her friend, her eyes slightly red. She ran her hands through her hair, trying to straighten up whatever mess was on her head. She didn't even want to think about what she said.

"Shinobu," Su started, now concerned, "What's wrong?"

She moved over to Su, taking hold of her. She pulled herself into Shinobu's body trying to cling to her as tight as she could. She tried to force herself to cry, tried to force herself to sound like crying. It didn't happen.

"I saw Keisuke, today," she whispered.

"What happened there?" Su tried to pull the girl off of her so she could look at her face.

"I said some horrible things. I told him that he's just useless. He's worthless. He's weak without someone," she continued. She pushed her body off of Su. "And as I walked away, I realized that I should be saying that to myself. I mean, every time he invited me to his house, we'd just-" she stopped.

"He what?" Su asked.

"We'd go to his room and, well, you know," she said, embarrassed.

"Really?" Su asked, slightly interested.

"Don't say it like that!" Shinobu yelled. "I mean, it just makes me feel… dirty." She whispered the last word, wishing that she didn't believe it herself.

"I fed off of his want for me. I kept trying to find happiness in his fake love for me. I mean, I tried to get with Keitaro, and that didn't do anything. And after that, I just wanted to be with someone," Shinobu whimpered.

"Don't say that, Shinobu. You're just-" Shinobu lifted her head up quickly at Su. She looked at her with a scared face.

"I told him I loved him, we did all of that, and he didn't even care. I'm worse than Kitsune a few years ago. And you only let guys grope you. I'm just a horrible woman. I'm just terrible," she said. She backed away, slowly, from Su. "I'm just weak."

"Well, I don't let just any guy grope me," Su said, trying to lighten her up. Seeing that that didn't work, "In any case, don't you think you're just being too hard on yourself? You thought what you were doing was right and good. You knew what you wanted. And it's his fault for being a liar."

"I didn't see that he was lying. It was obvious he was lying," Shinobu continued in a whisper.

"Shinobu," Su said, moving toward the girl. She pulled her close, hugging her, "Shinobu, I fell for his little deal. I mean, he's just a really good liar. I mean, he got me to make out with him before. And, then, he did it again when he was with you. He's good at manipulating people. And, one day, it's going to come back and bite him."

"So that's it? 'Sorry, that's just how it is. Learn to live with it?'" Shinobu asked. She was exasperated. She didn't want to continue talking about him. She grabbed a spatula from a drawer, and started moving the vegetables about in the pan rather meekly. Sighing, she put it down softly, and looked down at the pan. "Sorry for yelling at you," she said, her back turned to Su.

"You're allowed to," she responded, coming up behind the other girl, hugging her. "We'll work this out. Some day, you'll realize, you'll be glad this happened. You'll be happy with some other guy knowing that all the crap you've been though was worth that."

Shinobu nodded.

"Look at Motoko. She put up with all of her own depression and self-pity and is now, happily with Kitsune," she said. "Oh! And Kitsune managed to talk to Tsuruko today. It was pretty amazing. I heard the entire thing from that secret passageway we found two years ago," she said. She continued on about her eavesdropping on the conversation she heard this morning.

- -

Motoko slipped on an oversized t-shirt before leaving the bath. Her shorts were barely seen past the edge of her top. She then wrapped her hair in her towel. After having been rebuffed by Kitsune after almost making out with Yumihiko in the park, Motoko didn't feel like doing anything at all that night. She simply soaked alone in the bath for nearly an hour and a half.

"What the hell was I thinking? Yumi? Sure, we dated, but I'm not dating him. And Kitsune's far more important. She thinks I don't care about her, anymore," she told herself. Motoko stood in the corner of the changing room next to the bath. She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to comfort herself.

"I need to take it all back. I lo-" she stopped herself from saying the rest of the words. She was afraid to admit them, now. Even though she said the same thing a few times before, she was no longer sure if she meant it.

Motoko slinked down to a sitting position on the floor. Pulling up her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs. The room was slightly dim; Keitaro kept forgetting to change one of the broken bulbs in the room. Motoko, however, felt it was rather appropriate. She stared at one of the two fixtures in the room not emanating light.

"Maybe I just want to be with her because I think it's just strange to be with a girl. Maybe I don't love her," she thought.

However, to her right, the door leading to the house slid open. Slowly, Kitsune stepped though. She didn't exactly look happy or sad. She looked, simply, normal. And with her normal look, she glanced at the person on the floor. Motoko looked back up at Kitsune. In silence, Kitsune sat on top of one of the tables, her feet hanging over the edge. Kitsune stared at the floor.

"I'm sorry," were the first words Motoko could even think of saying. She felt the words were useless.

Without looking up, Kitsune responded, "I'm sorry for getting mad at you. It was wrong of me to jump to conclusions like that." Kitsune didn't honestly believe her words. She knew what she had to do. And to do that, she had to at least make peace and forgive her girlfriend.

"Don't be sorry. You've been nothing but good to me and I screwed it up. I don't even know why you want to be with someone like me," she whispered.

"Don't say that. I want to be with you because I love you." Kitsune looked over at Motoko. She stood from the table and walked toward Motoko. Offering her a hand, she helped her up. Kitsune pulled Motoko close to her body. She held her as close as she could and looked over Motoko's face.

"I don't know what I'm doing. Tsuruko told me what you said. I should be happy and yet, I feel like I've destroyed whatever we had already," Motoko said, her forehead coming into contact with Kitsune's.

"If you just want me to say that I forgive you for almost kissing Yumi, I do. I honestly forgive you for that. That doesn't mean a thing to me," Kitsune assured. Motoko sniffed, stifling her desire to cry. She tried to force a smile through a mouthed "thank you."

"But there is something that does matter," Kitsune continued. Motoko opened her eyes and looked into Kitsune's.

"What do you mean?" Motoko asked.

"I need to know what you feel about me. I've admitted several times that I love you. If anyone asked me if I had someone, I would, without a doubt, say that I am dating a wonderful girl named Motoko." Kitsune sighed, not moving from her position, their heads touching each other. "I know you're unsure, Motoko."

"What?" Motoko asked, she pulled away from Kitsune. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're not sure if you feel the same way that I do." Kitsune moved closer to Motoko who was now backed up against a wall. Kitsune continued, "I need you to figure that out. I want this to be something special. And if we can't commit to each other, then this is just not going to work."

Motoko nodded silently, meekly.

"So I'm giving you until Friday. You have until then to just tell me if you want this to mean something. Three days is more than enough time to figure out if you love me or not. You already know you want to. All there is now is to simply do it or don't."

"Don't make it sound like that," Motoko whispered.

"Sorry," Kitsune said, wrapping her arms around Motoko. "But I have to know. I love you. And I need to know if we can be happy. I don't want to wait the rest of my life for someone to sweep me off my feet again. I love you, now. And I need to know if you do, too."

Motoko nodded. "I'm being unfair to you. I'm horrible."

"No you're not," Kitsune assured her. "Even if after three days you figure out you don't love me, I'll still love you. I'll always be your friend. That never changes." Kitsune tilted Motoko's head up, letting her look her in the eyes.

"I'll always love you, as corny as that sounds," Kitsune giggled a bit, trying to put a smile on Motoko's face. "Always."

Kitsune pulled Motoko closer to her, their lips drew together. Kitsune kissed Motoko, letting their tongues play with each other. She was happy like this. She wanted more, but at that moment, that would do. It would hold her over.

"I hope this isn't the last one," she thought as the two girls kissed in the laundry room. "Please don't let this be the last one."

- -

Keitaro sat alone in the dark of his room. He sighed, looking out his window. He'd pissed Naru off yet again, and he'd be alone this night. No late night cuddling, talking, or kissing. "I can't even do nice things for people and she'd take it easy on me."

Of course, he knew that her threshold for forgiveness was definitely in his favor. Since they started dating, she did at least try to be a bit nicer. "Maybe she'll do something cute and say she's sorry."

And, on cue, a knock came from the board covering the hole in his room. The board moved away and Naru's Liddo-kun popped down through the hole. "So are you going to apologize to me?" came a voice from above.

Keitaro slinked down into his futon. "Guess I lose this one," he laughed at himself. "Sorry for being late. But Motoko had something that was really bugging her," he said.

Naru popped her head through the opening. "I know. Haruka told me that Kitsune commandeered the teahouse for a while. I just put two and two together and all," she said.

"Couldn't you have at least put it together before jumping to conclusions?" he complained.

"Hey, you stood me up. There's no good in that at all. They invented cell phones for a reason, you know," Naru flipped over the edge of the hole and dropped down into Keitaro's room, her Liddo-kun in hand.

"Oh, well, you know, uh…" Keitaro tried to cover up his embarrassment.

Naru sighed, "You really are a dummy, you know that?" She plopped down on the futon next to him. She reached over him, putting a pillow in his lap. Laying her head down on the pillow, she began, "So, you better tell me what happened."

"Huh?"

"Well, you can't just say you're sorry, right now. You stood me up," she giggled.

"Can you stop bringing that up? I'm sorry, okay?" he said, frustrated.

"Hey, hey, don't get mad," Naru said, looking at him. "I'm just giving you crap. But I do want to know what happened. I'm curious," she said.

Sighing, Keitaro looked down at Naru, "So you're not mad?"

She grabbed his cheeks and awkwardly tried to bring the two of them close enough to kiss. A quick peck and she smiled back at him from the pillow, "Of course not. Who could stay mad at you? So tell me what happened."

Keitaro looked worriedly back at Naru, explaining the lives of the two troubled girls.

- - -

I already know the Naru/Kei thing seemed slightly anti-climatic. However, I wanted them to hold up the ideal of a relationship. Fixing things. Forgiving. Etc. The other girls seem to have problems with that. They either can't forgive each other or themselves. Kitsune, earlier, couldn't forgive Motoko. Shinobu couldn't forgive herself for giving in so easily to Keisuke. And, as we all know, you don't stand up the person you've been dating for a year. And, as it seems, Naru can just easily forgive him.

Also, for those who don't remember from, I believe, Chapter 2 (Boyfriends), Su's graduation is also on Friday. Thus, I plan on making this fic last a whole week of story time. And, for those who lost track, it was Tuesday night in this chapter.

Anyway, I have a lot of great ideas already planned and worked out. So, I hope you all enjoy the upcoming chapters.

SS