Vert had never been this cold before in her life.

"Come over, she says... We'll read a book together by the fireplace, she says... I have some hot chocolate just for the two of us, she says...!" The blonde goddess rubbed her arms as she held herself, teeth starting to chatter along with the bits of hail smashing against the guest room window she found herself in. "Thank you ever so much for leaving out the part that this is the coldest week of the year here in Lowee, Blanc...! My, and I can't forget to thank you for leaving on important business moments after I arrive...! Thank you so, so much for that, Blanc...!"

The CPU's numerous complaints went without any response. It was natural for this to happen, of course.

She was alone. There was no one here to hear them.

She had flown out to Lowee under the pretense of a romantic winter getaway (that she had mostly supplied herself on the giddy flight over), left her games and her sunny nation of Leanbox behind, and she'd been dumped!

"It's not fair..."

She knew deep down she was acting selfish. Her words were being spoken not by herself, but by her freezing, freezing body — and the lack of Blanc's to snuggle with under the covers to hide from the cold.

The situation was not one anyone could have planned for. She couldn't blame Blanc for it, certainly not. Blanc's Oracle was on holiday for the next two weeks for some strange reason (Blanc had gotten very angry when Vert tried to push the subject, leading Vert to assume there must have been something of a fight between the two). With the weather as it was and business needing to be taken care of, it was just unfortunate, or perhaps very fortunate, happenstance that Vert had been there at just the right time to provide Blanc's younger sisters with an alternate caretaker while their normal one was away and while their sister left to take care of whatever she needed to do.

It was just... The thing was...

"It's so cold...!"

She had never experienced a blizzard like this before! Even inside, even wrapped up in these blankets on a cozy guest room bed, it simply had no right being this cold! Even if it did, at least if Blanc were here, then this would have been the perfect time to throw up some "come warm me with your body" flags for her girlfriend to snatch up, but said girlfriend had left her alone!

Pouting and freezing, the CPU hugged herself tighter, regretting that she had left the warm bath so quickly. She had done so with good reason, of course. She had already taken three baths tonight — first her own, then a second when she realized the twins typically bathed with someone else, and a third after Ram had accidentally sprayed her with that sticky soap just after she'd finished drying off. At least it had been nice and warm and steamy in there, though...

"My goodness, I'm not seriously considering a fourth one, am I?" The blonde goddess pursed her lips at the thought. She didn't very well want the object of her affections to return home and find Vert a shriveled up prune, now did she? Some sacrifices had to be made. As she considered this, her frown deepened as a more serious thought struck her. "Are those two really used to this weather...? I know Blanc and Mina always keep them bundled up, but this calls for more than some coats, doesn't it...? Maybe I should... Ohhh, brrrr...!"

What felt like a fresh breeze somehow penetrating the walls and going right into her bones prevented her thoughts from progressing much further than that — for the moment, at least.

"Blaaaaanc...! Come baaaaaack...!"

As she let out this quiet wail, unbeknownst to Vert, two pairs of eyes were watching her every move from the crack in the guest room doorway. With the blonde diving under the covers, one of the two pint-sized peepers found a sense of guilt filling her inside, and she couldn't help but step away from their viewpoint. She held her hands together, bundled in the sleeves of an oversized sweater, and waited for her companion to join her.

"Rom? What's wrong? She might start crying soon, don't you wanna see that?" Her sister having left their makeshift watch post, Ram had no choice but to move away from the doorway to follow her twin back into the hall. Her crossed her arms, frowning as she noticed the lack of a smile on Rom's face. Something had to be wrong. "Come ooonnnn, what's going on? You're gonna miss it."

"We should help her... Why can't we turn the heat back on, Ram...?" Rom glanced towards the doorway again. She could no longer see the goddess inside, nor hear her moans and groans, but she doubted that Vert would have magically warmed up once they stopped looking. Considering Ram had convinced her to turn off the heat in this part of the Basilicom, she had to be freezing... "She looks so cold..."

"No, we can't! She has to freeze!" Despite the fact that it was Rom asking, the person most likely to get Ram to do anything, the CPU Candidate stomped her foot lightly, clearly not willing to budge on this. Unlike other times when she was making a fuss over this or that, however, her eyes shone with something much more than her usual childish fluster. "She... She wants to take Blanc away! We have to stop her!"

Rom looked at the ground, unable to respond to that. It was true. That was why she initially had been completely on board with this idea of Ram's. Ever since Vert had gotten closer to Blanc, their sister had been spending less and less time with them... And she was changing, almost like she was turning into someone else. Rom didn't know what to do... Even sweet little Rom had found herself filling with uncomfortable feelings towards the blonde who she had often considered to be like a friendly, if sometimes over affectionate, older sister in her own right.

"Yeah... You know it's true." Taking Rom's silence to mean she was agreeing with her, Ram closed her eyes and nodded, like she had won that battle already. As far as the CPU Candidate was concerned, she absolutely and most definitely had. "Besides, this is funny, isn't it?"

Silence. This time, Rom's expression turned sour — like she wanted to speak, but didn't want to hurt any feelings. It was an expression Ram was quite familiar with.

"You... don't think this is funny?" The CPU Candidate could feel herself deflating inside with this knowledge. Surely, Rom thought it was funny...! She had to think it was funny making the person who wanted to steal their sister away pay a little bit! It wasn't hurting anyone, it was just... "You really don't?"

Rom shook her head.

Now it was Ram who lowered her head. Looking towards the door herself, already knowing the answer to the question she was about to ask, she let the words leave her lips despite the fact that...

"F-Fine, then what about-"

"I didn't think what you did in the bath was funny either..."

... despite the fact that Rom was definitely going to say that next too.

"So... So what? We just let her take our sister away?! Really, Rom!?" Even if Rom didn't think it was funny, Ram wouldn't stand for this. She could accept her twin sister not sharing her sense of humor, but- But there was no way she would let her twin fall for whatever trick that that blonde CPU had played on Blanc! She took a step towards Rom, hoping with all her heart that it wasn't too late for her sister. "You want her to do that? You really want her to do that...?!"

"No, I... I don't..." Rom couldn't look anywhere but down. Everything felt heavy and confused inside. She knew Vert wasn't a bad person, she just... She was just doing a bad thing, that was all... But did that make it okay for them to do a bad thing to her too...? She didn't understand... Before she could stop herself, she felt the sting of forming tears in her eyes, and hurriedly rushed to wipe them away.

"Wh-" Most times, seeing Rom starting to cry would be all Ram needed to halt whatever she was doing and try to stop those tears. Most times, though, didn't involve such a dire situation. With Rom starting to cry, Ram could only take that to mean Vert had already started to worm her way into Rom's heart too — that Rom was being taken too. Soon, she'd be all alone, and both of them, Rom and Blanc, would... would... "No! No, you can't! I-I won't let you! P-Please, Rom, you can't leave me too!"

Rom stared, her tears halted — not because she felt better or convinced or any differently, but because Ram had beaten her to the punch. Tears were spilling out of her twin's eyes in a fashion that made Rom want to drop everything and just hug her sister until everything felt better.

Before Rom could do anything about that, as Ram continued to cry and yell and let it all out, they were interrupted. Before she could finish trying to convince Rom she was making a horrible decision, Ram found herself being hoisted into the air. Eyes wide with alarm, she began flailing her arms and legs, looking left and right to find the source of this mysterious assault. Rather than helping, Rom was simply watching wide eyed, mouth open like she'd seen a ghost — or, more realistically, gotten caught trying to sneak some cookies out of the cookie jar.

"My my... Take Blanc away? Oh, you silly girls, you should have realized my plan all along was to take you away!"

Ram's limbs dropped to her sides almost immediately upon hearing the voice. She craned her head up, rather than to the side, and her eyes met with the blue ones of none other than Vert herself, who was looking down at her with a strange expression that made Ram feel even more conflicted than she already did. As tears slowly continued to fall, the CPU Candidate found herself being set back onto the ground and turned around, before the buxom blonde knelt before her and began gently wiping away the tears with her thumb.

"Honestly, look at you two... Standing out here and crying about this, of all things..." The gentleness of Vert's voice was matched only by the movements she made as she slowly wiped the tears away from Ram's face. Glancing just above Ram's head, she moved one hand from the girl's face and slowly beckoned for Rom, who was still watching, stunned, to come over. "Come here. Why don't we three sort this out before your sister comes home? I think she would like that very much, don't you?"

While Ram was still managing to force a sour look at Vert despite the fact that she was standing still and begrudgingly accepting the kindness being offered her, Rom dutifully walked over to the two and stood next to her sister, at which point Vert reached over and ran a hand through her hair and began addressing the few tears that had spilled from Rom's eyes as well.

"Sort it out..." Quietly offering those few words to the young woman before her, Rom ignored the quiet gasp from her side. If Vert was willing to address this... whatever it was, and if she could make all the bad feelings inside of Rom go away, then she was more than willing to hear her out. She put on a brave face, because the idea of Blanc being taken away still scared her just as much as it did Ram, but she knew she had to be a big girl for this. "I want that."

"Mmm..." Seeing that she was making significant progress with one already, Vert smiled warmly at the Candidate, gently patting the girl on the head. The girl offered her a hesitant, tentative smile in response. For Rom, Vert knew, this was a huge amount of headway made. "So do I. I would be heartbroken if we couldn't."

Ram could only stare. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, what she was hearing. Something inside her throat — was it her heart? how had her heart moved there so quickly? yet it had to be her heart — was shaking, it felt like. It was like it was going to burst, like she was going to burst. This was the exact thing that she had been so scared of happening. Yet now that it was here, she couldn't find the power to scream about it or fuss. It scared her. Blanc was already almost gone, to a place that Ram was sure she could never reach, now Rom too?

Ram took a step backwards. She took another step backwards, and tears were falling once again.

"I hate you! I hate both of you! G-Go leave m-me if you don't want me that much! S-See if I care!"

Before either Vert or Rom could do anything about it, Ram had turned tail and made a break for it, dashing down the hall as fast as her legs could take her. Maybe her mind understood, somewhere, that she was wrong, but her heart was full of everything she had been feeling about Blanc for months — and now it was being applied to Rom as well. She couldn't handle that. It was going to break her little heart into pieces and she had to get away before she let Vert take anything else away.

Biting her lip, Vert stood up as she watched Ram dash off, placing a hand on Rom's shoulder to stop her from going after her. Doubt quickly filled the CPU Candidate up with this action — had she made the wrong decision? Had she really betrayed Ram after all...?

Her worries were put to rest with one look at the expression on Vert's face.

"Do you know where she'll go, Rom?" With her free arm, the CPU rubbed her shoulder. It was much too cold to be dealing with all of this, though if what she had overheard before she'd left the guest room was true, these two troublemakers were more the cause of her chill than the weather outside was. If that was the case, then it was because she and Blanc hadn't done something about this that she was cold now, and she very well couldn't complain about that like she could the weather, now could she? "We can't leave her alone right now."

"Kitchen... She'll go to the kitchen." Rom hesitantly raised a hand to point in the direction Ram had went off in, even though she knew Vert knew very well where the kitchen was — even before things had changed before her and Blanc, Vert was a frequent enough visitor as it was. She wasn't sure what Vert was going to do, but knowing Vert wasn't going to leave Ram alone restored her confidence significantly. "I don't want her to be alone."

Taking Rom's raised hand in her own, Vert set off towards the kitchen and offered her girlfriend's younger sister a bright smile. It was a smile that, for the first time since this incident began, Rom actually felt comfortable returning.

"My, what a coincidence, Rom. I don't want that either."