"Rise-Chan I'm here, please open up," Yukiko says as she politely knocks on her friend's door.

Hearing her voice, Rise panics. She did not expect Yukiko to arrive so quickly. She hasn't even had time to wash her face yet, so her makeup is still all smeared. So she quickly responds with "Yukiko-Senpai?! Uh, give me a minute! I've got to clean myself up!"

Yukiko obliges her younger friend, and waits outside of the door for a minute exactly while Rise tries to clean up her face. After a minute, Yukiko knocks on the door again.

"Rise-Chan, I'm coming in, okay?" Yukiko says as she begins opening the door.

"Wait Senpai I'm not... ah whatever, come in," Rise says, sighing.

Yukiko enters, and immediately walks over to Rise and gives her a friendly hug. As she's hugging her, she soothingly says "I heard the news from Kanji-kun, about Yu-kun getting a girlfriend. He said you didn't take it very well, so I decided to check in on you. If you have to cry, you have my shoulder," while she's saying this, she begins stroking Rise's hair.

Rise, who had been trying her best to look strong in front of Yukiko, begins crying again into the shoulder of her Senpai. Through her tears, she tries to speak, but it comes out as incoherent gibberish.

Yukiko, still stroking Rise's hair, says "shh... shh, it's okay, you don't need to force yourself to speak. Speak whenever you're ready, and I'll be here to listen."

After spending a few more minutes crying in Yukiko's embrace, she finally manages to slow her crying down just enough to regain coherency. So she asks Yukiko "is there something wrong with me, Senpai? Am I too boring for him, is that the problem? Kanji-kun said that Ai must have been special, because Yu-senpai picked her... does that mean I'm not special?"

Hearing this, Yukiko furrowed her brow. She grabbed Rise's shoulders, and stared intensely into Rise's eyes. Yukiko scolds Rise, saying "Rise-Chan, I do not want to hear you insulting yourself! You're an amazing woman, do not ever forget that! You're cute, charming, energetic, smart, and you're a famous Idol! If Yu-kun can't see how great you are, then while he may be our leader, he must be blind. So please, do not beat yourself up over this, you're far better than you think you are."

Upon hearing this, tears return to Rise's eyes. The tears are not of sadness, but instead they are tears of happiness. A blush appears on Rise's face as she asks "do you truly think so, Senpai? You're not just saying this to cheer me up, are you?"

Yukiko simply smiles at her younger friend's question, before replying with "I truly mean it, you're incredible, Rise-Chan. I'm sure you'll find someone else you like eventually, and if they aren't as blind as Yu-kun, I'm sure they'll like you as well."

Hearing this, Rise gets a strange feeling. It feels similar to the feeling she gets when she's with Yu. Though she doesn't truly understand what it means, she knows that it feels good, and that's enough to make her smile brightly. Her tears fully dry up as she nods her head and says "you're right, thank you so much Yukiko-Senpai."

Yukiko responds to Rise by saying "now there's that smiling face I was looking for, I'm glad you're feeling better. On another note, are you free today Rise-Chan?"

Rise nods her head and asks "yeah I'm open today, why?"

"Well, I had planned a couple activities for us to do together just in case I wasn't able to cheer you up, though you don't seem to need more cheering up. I don't want those plans to go to waste, so instead of the activities being used to cheer you up, we can use the activities to celebrate you being cheered up!" Yukiko states ecstatically,

Rise is shocked for a second, as her blush grows bigger. It takes her a few moments to respond, which worries Yukiko.

"Oh, you don't want to go? I'm sorry, I just thought-" before Yukiko can finish her sentence, Rise cuts her off by saying "of course I want to go! You went through all this effort just to cheer me up, right? I'd be a jerk if I didn't want to hang out with you after that!" Rise exclaims, causing Yukiko to sigh in relief.

"It'll be fine if it's just us two, correct? Everyone else was busy, so they can't make it. Yosuke and Teddie are working, Kanji is helping out Naoto with something, Chie found a stack of old kung fu DVDs she's never seen before, so she's been just binging that all day. Then, well, Yu-kun isn't busy, but it's pretty obvious why he isn't invited. Is that alright?" Yukiko asks Rise.

Hearing that it would only be her and Yukiko, Rise got more excited than she was before. She enthusiastically nodded her head, saying "of course that's fine with me! We rarely get the chance to hang out alone, so I'm down! But uh, what exactly will we be doing?"

Upon hearing her question, Yukiko pulls out a hand written list and hands it to her. As Rise reads the list, Yukiko says "I thought up a bunch of different things for us to do together! We obviously can't do all of them, and since this is for you, I decided to let you pick!"

Rise, amazed at just how many things Yukiko thought of, says "Senpai, you really didn't need to put in this much effort for me. But I'm glad you did!" After saying that, Rise carefully observes the list, and thinks hard about what she wants to do.