Alisi Thorndyke: Hey Matt. :) Nice chapter 2. :) I so love TORI! Now I sound like a fan girl. lol sorry. :)

Lan is interested in Pyshcology? Now that's new, but hey, it's never too late to learn new things. I love the science of the mind and the science of the world, just not earth science. I hate that, but most of all love science. :)

Good job. :)

Alisi T. :)

Me: I like biological science myself. I thought it would be a decent change to not only have Netto not only be not dumb, but smart, and have an interest in a deep intellectually-demanding subject. He's more admirable as a hero that way, in my opinion.

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Maurice A. Nigma: Well, this is a good chapter that you've put up. I mean, other than the grammer and spelling errors, this chapter brought out some interesting surprises. Not to mention the fact that the gang of the Exe series have reached college. Sorry that I didn't take the time to recognize this sooner. In any case, on with what I think of the latest chapter. Man, I didn't think that Shuko herself would be involved with some jerk who suddenly appears out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of her. Not to mention the fact that he also hurt Meiru and gave her a scrape on the arm. Just who in the world is that jerk? In any case, I hope that the others could figure out who this guy is before its too late. But something tells me that it won't be pretty.

Now, on a final note, I would like to say that the way that you have both Netto and Meiru. Though the guy is still as oblivous as ever for when it comes to his old friend's feelings, it seems to me that you did a good job with giving him a good idea on what to do with his own love life. Well, I think. Now, in the case with both Tohru and Shuko, I think that it's what I call someone trying to find protection. By that, I mean the way that Shuko herself is acting like a scared rabbit for when she saw that guy.

Well, that's all from me. Later and keep up the good work!

Maurice A. Nigma
The Great Blue One

Me: I'll address the individual paragraphs here.

#1 - That's okay, happens to everybody. Yeah, the guy's a jerk, but he's not just a jerk. And it won't be pretty, that much I can assure you.

#2 - Originally I was going to have Lan have some slight knowledge of his friend's affections for him, but there was an idea I wanted to incorporate that required his tiresome ignorance. And that good idea he has on his love life? I'm glad you liked it. If only everybody approached their marriage that way, so much grief would be avoided.

Anyways, I'm not sure I know what you mean by protection. If you mean protection from an ex-boyfriend, then forget it. Shuko having boyfriends or even one boyfriend would be completely impractical to include in the story based on the impression I gave her character and later her life.

Thank you very much for the long and specifically detailed review, Maurice! I hope you like this chapter.

The next day Tohru got a call from Waterworks informing him that he was to pick up Iceman. So yet again, Tohru did not go to college as usual. He went to the Waterworks, this time he took a cab. After his previous experience with Shuko, he did not feel like he wanted to run into the purple-haired girl with unusual mood swings again.

Unfortunately, he would not be so fortunate. He didn't run into Shuko while he was in the cab, of course, but it was at the Waterworks that he encountered her. She had her face pressed up against one of the tanks in the immediate are of the Waterworks, staring down at her shadow and up at the shimmering surface. She spotted Tohru's reflection as he tried to pass by without her noticing and immediately ran up to him. "Hi, Tohru-Kun!" she called, smiling.

Tohru instantly cringed, but then he settled down. Maybe nothing would happen out of the ordinary today. "How are you today, Shuko-Chan?" he said in greeting.

"I'm fine." Shuko replied "Aquaman is also doing very well. How about you?"

"I'm good." said Tohru. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Waiting for you!" Shuko replied. "Well, actually I didn't expect you till after I arrived. Your father told me you were coming by, so I stayed by this tank so I would see you."

Tohru blushed and he felt a silly grin take over his face. "That's real sweet, Shuko-Chan. I'm going up to my Dad's office to get Iceman. Want to come with me?"

Shuko eagerly agreed and they walked together to Dr. Froid's office. Dr. Froid was busy as usual, but he let his son in, smiled and shook his hand. "Nice to see you, Son. Here's Iceman."

"Thanks, Dad." said Tohru. Iceman was happy to be back with him.

"If you want to show Shuko-Chan around the Waterworks, go right ahead." said Dr. Froid. "I'm afraid I've got to get right back to work so I can't talk anymore. Have a good day, son!"

"Thanks again, Dad!" said Tohru. Shuko was more than willing to be shown around the plant by what she seemed to think of as the center of the universe. They looked at all the familiar places and eventually stopped on the same catwalk that the previous day's incident had occurred.

Tohru leaned on the railing and stared down into the lake-like reservoir. "You like this place a lot, don't you, Shuko-Chan?"

"Oh yes, Tohru-kun!" Shuko replied, leaning next to him to stair into the water. "I think I'll come here everyday if only to look at the reservoirs in the main entrance area. The whole place makes me feel… happy. Very calm and cheerful. I don't feel that way anywhere else."

Tohru raised his eyebrows, as did Iceman from inside Tohru's PET. "Nowhere?" he asked.

"Nowhere." Shuko replied "Well, there is one other place."

Tohru looked up from the reservoir. "What's that?"

"With you." Shuko answered, placing a hand on his arm.

The blood in Tohru's body reversed gravitational positions with his feet and his whole face may as well have been sweating blood it was so red. "Well, I…." he stammered. He really had no idea what to say. What could he say? Whether what he heard was false or not, he was just now told that someone felt their best around him. That he was in that person's top two of favorite things.

Tohru did nothing but blush and blush for over a minute, looking at Shuko and laughing nervously. Shuko simply smiled, taking over Tohru's focus with her gaze. Now it was Iceman's turn to be completely weirded out, and before Tohru exploded Iceman spoke up. "Did you noticed the large pipes at the bottom of the reservoir?"

Both Tohru and Shuko jumped two feet in the air as the realized that they still weren't alone. Shuko actually fell on the railing and cried out in fear. Tohru lost his footing completely and landed on his back. "Ah!" he shouted. He took out his PET and yelled at Iceman. "Don't talk so loudly!"

A normal Navi might have shouted right back. However, Iceman being a close friend of Tohru's, empathized with him and apologized. "I'm sorry, Tohru-kun. Please forgive me."

Shuko had recovered herself and helped Tohru to his feet. Tohru shut his eyes for a few seconds and sighed. Whenever Iceman asked for forgiveness it made Tohru feel worse about what he himself had done. "I forgive you, Iceman. I'm sorry I yelled at you, can you forgive me for that?"

"I forgive you, Tohru-kun." said Iceman, his large eyes moistening. Tohru hugged Iceman to his chest and smiled.

Shuko was surprised at how quickly Iceman and Tohru made up, but after what she had just done she decided it might be wise to change the subject entirely. She looked over the railing and pointed with her finger. "There, see? There are large pipes near the bottom. There are some on the sides two, I wonder why?"

Tohru put his PET away and explained to Shuko why the pipes were there. The smaller ones at the bottom were for the different neighborhoods and the largest ones transported water to other facilities for containment.

"Some of them are open and some are not." said Tohru. "If you look closely enough, you can see small whirlpool currents around the open ones."

It was difficult to see, but Shuko could just make them out. "They're very hard to make out, but it sure is interesting." she said. "Tohru, can I talk to you privately, please?"

Tohru said yes and put the mute on his PET on. Shuko did likewise. "I was going to apologize for what just happened, but then I heard you yell at Iceman."

"Yes, but we made up, okay?" said Tohru. "That whole thing is settled."

"That's not what I mean." Shuko said. "I think that what happened really was my fault, but Iceman simply apologized and asked to be forgiven. Why?"

"I don't know, Shuko-Chan." Tohru replied. "Even if you were indirectly responsible, Iceman didn't defend himself like I might have. And whenever I yell at him or scold him and he asks to be forgiven, I feel bad inside. As if I was being too harsh or mean-spirited. So I can't really refuse to forgive him, even if I still feel he did something wrong. I'd want him to forgive me, so I can't really do otherwise, though it was still harder for him to ask to be forgiven in the first place."

"Oh, Tohru-kun…" said Shuko. "I've never looked at it that way. I always thought problems were something that couldn't be avoided and there wasn't anything you could do about them. I think I must have let myself despair ever since…"

Shuko stopped talking and her mouth moved as if she was catching herself from revealing a horrible secret. "Well, never mind that." she said, getting control again. "The thing is I'm really happy that what happened just now happened. I also want to ask you to forgive me for making you feel uncomfortable, it was really forward of me."

Tohru dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "There's nothing to forgive. I was just surprised. Most people contain those feelings, and I'm glad you told me. It explains a lot of things, and I hope I can count on you to be as outgoing in the future."

Shuko nodded and then hugged Tohru. "I will." she said. "Thank you, Tohru-kun."

When Tohru got home, Netto and Meiru came to his house to discuss what had happened that day.

"How was classes?" Tohru asked.

"Nothing big to report." said Netto. "Even my psychology studies were boring today. Um… how was your day, Tohru-kun?"

Tohru filled them in on what had happened. He went into great detail of what had happened regarding himself and Iceman and how Shuko had been affected at seeing how they acted towards each other. Meiru was a tenderhearted woman, and she spilled a few tears as Tohru finished his story.

"That all sounds so sweet, Tohru-kun." she remarked, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky. "I wish I could have been there."

Netto was smiling and rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, that um… sounds really nice. I wish I could be as one to one with Rockman. He is my brother, after all."

"He's your older brother." Meiru pointed out. "So he should be trying harder to be on terms with you rather than the other way around. Hey…"

"What?" said Netto and Tohru in unison.

"I was thinking of how Rockman was your bother, Netto-kun." Meiru replied. "And I think- and this is just a thought, but I think Shuko probably considers Tohru-kun her brother."

Tohru's face flushed for the third time that day. "Her brother?" he echoed.

"Well, I can't see that happening between anybody besides a brother and sister." said Meiru. "Remember that incident that happened with that deleted homework of mine?"

Tohru grinned. "I sure do." he replied. "It was an accident, but I was acting like I had planted a bomb in the teacher's desk. You said it was okay and that I didn't have to worry about it, and I finally calmed down."

Meiru patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, and I did that because think of you as my brother. I don't see things like that happen between anyone else. I think that since Shuko-Chan's brothers are off at college, she wants some close company. You're younger than her, so it seems natural that she'd treat you like a little brother. What do you think, Netto?"

"It sounds very possible." Netto agreed. "In fact, I think we ought to include something like that in our paper. By the way, did you two see the sandy-haired tanned skinned man today? I didn't."

"Me neither." said Meiru and Tohru at the same time, laughing as they finished.

"Well, let's get to our homework." said Netto.

Tohru stood up. "I'll be back in a minute. There's something I need to get from my room. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Tohru left the living room and Netto and Meiru took out their homework. Meiru opened her notebook, but Netto left his lying closed on his lap. "Meiru-Chan? Can I say something?" he asked.

"Sure, Netto-kun." said Meiru. "What is it?"

Netto drummed his fingers on his notebook. "I was thinking about what you said yesterday, about me getting married someday…"

"Oh?" said Meiru, who's heart suddenly went crazy with hope. "And what have you thought of it?"

"Well, I remember how you'd mentioned it and how you really went in depth about the subject, and I felt…" Netto reached out and grabbed Meiru's hand. He actually had to kneel a little to balance himself.

Sweat was beginning to drop from Meiru's forehead and was staining her notebook paper. "Oh… Will he ask me? Oh please, let him ask me!" she hoped.

Netto smiled up at her and said: "I can't talk to anybody else in the world about something so personal in my life, and you even cared to bring it up and discuss it one day. It means a lot to me, Meiru-Chan. I just thought I should tell you that."

If there was ever a moment in Meiru's life where she wished she would just disappear it was then. She smiled and patted Netto's hand, though she was shaking like a leaf and sweating like nobody's business. She had just then been so hopeful, and then it felt like her heart had been torn in two.

"Thanks for telling me, Netto-kun." she whispered. "I appreciate it."

Netto's PET suddenly beeped and he took it out. Rockman said it was an e-mail from the Science Labs from his Dad saying that he had to come immediately. "I'm afraid you'll have to do without me today, Meiru-Chan." he said. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Meiru just nodded a pale shaky nod as Netto ran out.

Tohru entered the room with his notebook and pens and stuff. "I think any psychological stuff that we need to include in our paper can be covered by what's happening with Shuko and me. What do you think, Meiru-Chan?"

Tohru heard no answer. Meiru was sitting as straight as a rod with her hands hovering in mid-air. Then she threw her face into her hands and sobbed the saddest, the most despairing and the most heartbroken sob the world has ever known. Tohru ran to her and hugged her. She clung to him and even pounded her fist on his shoulder once or twice and sobbed the word "Why?!" into his chest.

Tohru was terribly frightened. He had never seen Meiru like this before. "Meiru-Chan! What's wrong?" he said.

"What am I going to do?" Meiru cried. "What am I going to do?! Oh Tohru, what am I going to do?!"

Poor Tohru could only hold his considered sister in his arms and wonder what on earth had happened that could bring her to such a hopeless state.