This chapter took me a long time to write too. Everything will get so much easier during winter break. Mostly because I've written a good chunk of it already.

Thank you for reading!

"She did what?!"

Ephemer couldn't remember the last time he felt this livid. Skuld only gave him a disapproving lift of her eyebrow before returning to her textbook.

"I don't even know how you're surprised." she informed him. "If you had just talked to her, then you'd probably be back together."

"Were you not here the day I went over to her dorm, and found she changed the locks? And when I tried to knock on her door, she didn't answer?"

"Yes." Skuld agreed with a short nod. "I was also there the day you debated for a solid hour on whether you should delete her number from your phone- just so you wouldn't feel bad every time you looked at it. Hmm... When did that occur again? Oh yeah, the day before you tried to get into her dorm."

"Whose side are you on anyway?"

"Not yours, apparently." came the nonchalant answer. Skuld squinted at her notebook for a moment before erasing a note she had made. She started rewriting it as she then told him, "However, if you're going to act like an idiot who didn't think she had the willpower to go to someone else-"

"Shut up!" Ephemer screaming, slamming his hands on the table. "Just shut up! Why can't you just listen to me for once instead of making things worse? I'm trying to have a conversation with you, and you just keep talking!"

"And I'm trying to do schoolwork!" Skuld shouted right back. "I don't have time for you to self loathe, Ephemer. Believe it or not, there are other things more important in this world than you."

Frustrated, and becoming even more angered, Ephemer hit the tabletop at its side before getting up and leaving Skuld alone. He stomped out of the cafeteria to some place even he wasn't aware of yet. There were plenty of places for him to go, after all. He knew every inch of this school. No one could hide from him even if they wanted to. That included know-it-all best friends, stupid pretty boys that could take any girl they wanted, and -above all else- raspberry-pink haired exes that somehow had the absolute audacity to go after some after guy just days after breaking up with you.

Could you see why this totally wasn't his fault, and how the world just wanted to hate him at the moment?

Ephemer stormed into his room, making gratuitous use of slamming the door behind him, before heading over to his bed. He growled before whacking the metal bed frame with his foot. Ephemer then immediately started cursing from the pain. He hated everything right now; his room, the bed, Anora, Skuld, and Brain. Was that even a real name? Who would name their kid Brain? Did something go wrong in the translation department, or was someone trying to be cute?

Still grumbling, Ephemer crawled onto his bed and laid down on the mattress. He took one of his pillows and tightly wrapped it around his head like a helmet. He laid his head down, closed his eyes, and wished to know what dumbo thought it was a good idea to name their child after a bodily organ.

When Ephemer opened his eyes again, he was sitting on a park bench by the gym. He was dressed completely to the nines in a suit that was a hand-me-down from Gula. Ephemer blinked, trying to figure out why he was dressed like this before realizing that someone was sitting beside him. His heart almost stopped at seeing Anora there. She too was dressed rather splendorous; wearing a light blue dress that caught every breeze in a beautiful flow. Except right now she was sitting, and each breeze instead made her shiver.

"Are you too cold now?" he carefully asked. "I can give you my jacket if you want it."

But Anora shook her head. Ephemer frowned, his eyebrows furrowing in a light worry. The was a pain growing in his chest now. It hurt, a lot. But he could ignore it for the time being. What mattered most was Anora. She truly was beautiful- even with the embarrassment shared between them for her minor swooning episode. He needed to say something. He needed her to know just how beautiful she was.

Giving a wistful sigh, the boy started to fondly remark, "Hey Ano-"

"There you are!"

Both teens blinked in confusion for a moment before turning to the source of the voice. To Ephemer's utter fear, and Anora's relief, it was Brain.

"Thank you for getting Anora out of the gym, Ephemer." the older student grinned, tilting his hat at the younger. "It was getting super stuffy in there anyway. How are you feeling, pretty girl? Was letting Ephemer take you for a spin on the dance floor too much for you?"

Anora simply smiled before getting up off the bench. Brain returned the gesture with a sweet smile of his own- he gently bend down to take her hand, kissing her knuckles with a tenderness that Ephemer clearly envied.

"Brain," Ephemer started to argue, "Anora and I were just-" He didn't finish his sentence. Instead he gave a rather nasty cough. Anora and Brain didn't seem to notice. Instead, the couple started to head back toward the gym. Ephemer immediately jumped from the bench to follow them.

"Hey, wai-" he tried to call out to them, but he was coughing so hard now that he had to bend over. A part of him expected to throw up- something was definitely getting caught in his throat and forcing its way up. He thought he was going insane when a white fluffy dandelion seed came out of his mouth. For a moment, all he could do was stare at it.

"Dandelions?" he wondered to himself before coughing up more dandelion seeds. "Why…?"

"Why did you hurt her?"

Something in Ephemer froze before he nearly snapped his neck to look up. Standing there, on opposite sides of him, were two different versions of himself. The him on the left was dressed like a knight. This version of him had seen and been through wars, and death, and mental torture orchestrated by a higher power. The other him on the right had also seen a devastating war -one that involved children fighting their own friends- along with distrust and confusion in the world starting after.

They both had their own Anora- an Anora that died, or almost died, and their guilt could be felt in our far more mundane Ephemer. They also had to leave their respective Anora under unfair circumstances. Circumstances that, compared to the other two Ephemers, our Ephemer could never imagine in all of his years. A simple breakup after a bad argument was what these Ephemers wished they could have done to their Anoras. Our Ephemer had it easy, and yet he still made their love suffer.

"Why did you hurt her again?" the Ephemer on the right questioned in monotone. Looking at our Ephemer with soulless eyes.

"But I-" Ephemer tried to argue, but he suddenly lurched as another pool of dandelions came pouring out of his mouth.

"Why did you hurt her?" the Ephemer on the left echoed. His eyes were also without life. He almost looked like he wanted to cry.

Our Ephemer tried to open his mouth to argue, only another expulsion of dandelion seeds came out. The intervals were becoming more frequent. Ephemer continued to heave and dandelions continued to come out of his mouth in a terrifying frequency. The other Ephemers were not helping with the terror growing in our Ephemer's chest. They continued their question, their accusatory, numb, question, as Ephemer continued to expel more and more dandelions. The pain felt even worse than this- tears forming at the corners of Ephemer's eyes as he could do nothing but hear the others question and let the dandelions flow out of his mouth like the words he should have said.

Nothing could have stopped this pain. This madness. He just wanted to… To...

Ephemer finally catapulted out of his sleep with a sharp inhale. His brain was pounding in his skull as he quickly looked around his room, trying to get some bearings on where he was. He was in his dorm at Daybreak Academy. Where else was he expected to be? This familiar room was his world, after all. Ephemer made a disheartened glance at his clock. It was almost time for dinner- he might as well start heading over to the cafeteria.

The young man wondered if he was even walking straight at this point. His head still pounding like a drum, his thoughts occupied on his weird dream. He barely even registered that he actually entered the cafeteria. Let alone that someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Ephemer?" a small voice asked. "Are you alright?"

Confused, Ephemer slightly turned around to see Strelitzia standing there. Her face was contemplative- as if she had debated for awhile if she should approach him or not.

"I'm fine." he easily dismissed. But the Vulpes girl gently shook her head.

"No, you're not." she rebutted. "Everyone knows that you're taking the breakup as hard as Anora is. Maybe even worse."

At this, Ephemer gave a dark snort. "Anora? Hurting over this? Zee, please, she immediately went to Brain because she couldn't handle being alone. She didn't love me."

Strelitzia flinched. "You don't know that."

"Don't I?" Ephemer immediately spat back, his anger coming back to him tenfold. "You have no idea what it's like! You don't know what it's like watching Anora go off with someone else, be happy with someone else, that isn't you! Even when she had you for months -months!- as if that time didn't matter! You wouldn't know at all what it's like to fall in love with someone so… So dense!"

At this, the Vulpes student shuffled her feet a little.

"I fell in love with Anora the moment I saw her." she quietly admitted. "She was sitting outside one of the classrooms, waiting for her house results to come back. She just looked so… overwhelmed and dejected. My heart immediately went out to her. I hadn't felt like that since..."

Ephemer gave Strelitzia a rather confused look. Her hands were nervously knit into each other, and she refused to look him in the eye. A wave of stupidity crashed against Ephemer's skull like a wrecking ball. How could he forget that Strelitzia had liked Anora too? She was the one that took Anora's first kiss, after all. The cause of all the events that led to him and Anora getting together to begin with. It all started with Strelitzia.

And all this time, she knew this. All this time, she had to watch Anora date Ephemer instead of being with her. Strelitzia turned her head slightly, still refusing to look Ephemer in the eye. In an even tinier whisper, she admitted, "I still love her too."

"Strelitzia..." the young man mumbled, "I didn't know."

Strelitzia shrunk a little, saying nothing further about her thoughts.

"I have to go." she did eventually tell him. "Lauriam and I are having dinner with Elrena. You're welcome to join us if you want."

Even at the offer, Strelitzia quickly left without hearing Ephemer's reply. This left Ephemer on his own again. He simply remained where he was, almost dumbstruck by what Strelitzia had told him. Maybe he'd take her up on the offer to sit with them; he had so many questions for her now. Not that he should be asking them at dinner, but still.

"This wasn't my fault." Ephemer grumbled to himself. And yet, in the back of his mind, he could still hear those inner thoughts whisper; "Yes it was."