It's finally time. This is it. He swallows a lump in his throat as he wordlessly opens the empty case for the contacts he has in and fills them with solution. He then takes a breath and shakily reaches up to his eye as she looks at him. He takes out the one she can't directly see first with ease as soon as his fingers were close enough with the skill of doing this same routine every single day without fail since leaving America.

Kyoko watches him take out his contacts, which startles her because she thought they were in the case already. She watches as a brown contact falls into it's little case and is so confused that she keeps staring downwards as she looks at the little dot. Brown? They are brown? If he doesn't have the beautiful brown eyes that I've come to know, then what eyes does he have? "Kyoko." She finally looks up into the eyes of question. Mystic green? They look so beautiful! Why would he want to hide these? They look really good. Kind of reminds me of Cor... She shoves the thought aside. "There." He startles her out of her thinking.

"What?"

"What were you thinking of right there, just then."

"Your eyes are really beautiful."

"Thanks, but what were you just thinking?"

"Oh. Nothing."

"Kyoko," his voice holds a mild warning, "what was it?"

"Nothing! The beautiful green they are just reminded me of Prince Corn for a moment, but that was it. So what is it about the contacts? Why are you keeping this a secret? Who all knows? Is it really that big of a deal?"

"What did he look like?"

"Who?"

"The fairy Corn. What did he look like when you were younger?"

"Why?"

"Just...answer me, please."

"Okay, well, he had green eyes and golden hair that sparkled in the sun. He's other worldly and doesn't match people in Kyoto. He popped out of nowhere and liked climbing on the trees and was really nice."

"Blond hair, green eyes. What else stands out?"

"He spoke the language of fairies first before speaking our Japanese."

"The 'language of fairies'?"

"Yes. He even had a picture book once written in it that he told stories from."

Wait. Is she thinking English? I did speak it and that was what that one book was written in, but how could she not remember that is was English? "Could you understand him?"

She looks at me like I have lost my ever-loving mind. "Tsuruga-san, it was the language of fairies. How am I supposed to know what he said?"

He bites back a sigh. "Are you sure it wasn't just English?"

"But I know English. Wouldn't I recognize it?"

"Well did you know it back then?"

"Know what?"

"English!"

"No, I only knew Japanese. I didn't start English until a couple years later."

"So will you say that there was a chance it was English and you just didn't have the ability to recognize it?"

She stares at him for a long second. "Why is this so important to you?"

"Because what if he was an American?"

"He's a fairy, Tsuruga-san."

"What if he was just a boy?"

"He's not just some boy!"

"How do you know?"

"Because he isn't!"

"How?"

"Because he wouldn't lie to me!"

"Maybe he wouldn't, but did he ever explicitly say that he was one?"

"Y-" she was about to confirm, but his question brought her up short. Well he didn't say he wasn't...but by that logic I'm a dog because I never said I wasn't one either. She pauses for a long while, considering what he has said. "An American boy?" She thinks about the person in Guam. "Then why didn't he say anything in Guam then?" Annoyance tickles her tone. Shoot.

"Maybe he thought you would think you were cruelly lied to if he came out and said he was human then."

Her voice rises sharply. "I would never-"

"You would think that he was humouring and laughing at you for your thoughts."

"But he wouldn't have thought-"

"How would you know?" He presses, moving closer to stand right before her. Ren's eyes widen a bit, subconsciously pleading for her to come to the conclusion herself and understand that he never intended to make a whole other persona. He never thought he would ever see ever again, much less have her remember him then. "How would you know why he would do what he did?"

"I don't know!" Kyoko throws her hands in the air, exasperated and wondering why he thought it was relevant to his eyes. She looks to her knees and speaks in a softer tone. "All I know is that he helped me when I never asked, and became a rock for an emotionally unstable girl. The Beagle even said he had his own problems way higher than mine, but he still never breathed a word about it to me and only listened to my problems." Tears start welling up in her eyes and colours her voice. "I couldn't even help him when he selflessly did so much for me back then." They start falling down her face and Ren is suddenly at a loss of what to do, just like when she was crying in Kariuzawa.

Come on, man. Keep going. Don't stop there. His hands reach up and wipes away her tears, holding onto her face and his eyes look into hers, pleading for them to not cry any further. Her eyes look back, only mildly in shock that he is touching her. "What if I told you that you were fine, just how you were? You gave him something else other than him dwelling on his own stuff. He felt good helping you and liked being around you," he urged.

"But I couldn't be what he was to me, Tsuruga-san. I couldn't help him. I was of no use to him, and he left." Fresh tears pour out her eyes as she lets it out again, her need for air breaking apart her thoughts as she sobs. "If he wasn't a fairy...if he was American..." He can't stand seeing her crying face straight on, so he pulls her forward and just holds her as she cries. Kuon, we can't plan anything concerning the girl. She reacts so differently than planned at times, and way too quick to turn around and recover. It doesn't take too long for her to start stringing words together, but she doesn't back away from him, which he is glad for. If only her words weren't strung together to make the bullets that hit straight to his guilty heart with every question they form. "If he was only going to America and not some other fairy world apart from this one, then why couldn't he keep in touch? Why did he just leave me? Not only in Kyoto, but again in Guam eleven years later? He has left me twice. He has to be a fairy. If he wasn't, then why?" Her hands make fists on his lower chest, slightly crunching up the fabric.

"He was afraid of disappointing you," Ren murmurs, his head turned down and lightly pressing his lips to her hair. "He knows that you thought of him as a prince and didn't want to let you down." Ren closes his eyes. "He still doesn't."

"But the prince thing doesn't even matter. He was still my first true and honest friend regardless of that and he left me behind." Just like everyone, Ren mentally kicks himself while he already feels down.

They stay quiet for a long while, lost in their own thoughts. "What would you say to him if you saw him again?" Ren asks, breaking the silence.

She thinks for about a minute before shaking her head. "It's pointless. I probably won't see him again until I'm twenty-eight anyway."

What? "Why twenty-eight?"

"That's the next number in the sequence, right? Six, seventeen, twenty eight, thirty nine, fifty, sixty one, seventy two-"

"Intervals of eleven?"

"Why not? Granted, you can't be a negative age, but I used Guam as a reference number."

"I don't think you have to wait eleven years." I definitely can't wait until she is twenty-eight to make her happy. Eleven more years? I wouldn't be able to stand it. I could barely plat Guam, but what else should I have done then? A couple different options fly through his head and he kicks his already bruised self in the gut again.

She pulls back from him and looks him in the eye, her next question practically written on her face. "How can you be sure?"

He winces, but then remembers that he actually does want her to know this time around. "Because I know him."