She's seated with her legs crossed on his couch, committing a sin – one she's pretty sure the vegan Gods will never forgive her for – that has everything to do with the scoop of vanilla ice cream in her mouth, when she realizes they've been using her notebook as an excuse to spend time together.

It started off as his way of keeping an eye on her a few days after their brief encounter in the choir room. He had a feeling she would prefer hiding behind her perfect show-face to laying her heart on the table again so he came up to her locker in the afternoon with an excuse. He had forgotten her book so he suggested she came over to pick it up herself and she agreed with a simple shrug of her shoulders.

He glanced back at her every now and then as he drove to his place, taking in the bags under her hooded eyes and the slump of her shoulders. She noticed her notebook peeking out from his unzipped book bag in the back seat when she turned to get her iPod out of her own bag.

Neither of them said a word the entire journey there.

The Chang residence was quieter than she had expected, and it had a lot more dragons hanging on the walls in her mind. She couldn't help but notice how many pictures of him practically covered the wall that followed the stairs that lead to the second floor of their home.

Baby Mike with his mother and father after she had just given birth to him. The older man's face covered in sweat with a little blood dripping from his hand, the woman's bangs clinging to her forehead as she stared down at the little wonder that she helped create. She couldn't really see much of Mike himself, though, just his tiny hand reaching out for his mother's face.

Mini Mike with yellow streaks in his hair and a heavy looking golden pyramid hanging around his neck with a gap-toothed mini Matt by his side wearing a blonde wig and green jacket, the both of them smiling like they had just won a year's supply of candy. "It was our first Halloween together as best friends," he told her a few days later, "back in kindergarten."

Her favourite was probably tween Mike with a circular, orange ball in his right hand that had a star in the very middle and a Pikachu sitting comfortably on his left shoulder. She laughed when he told her he still couldn't sleep peacefully without both of those items sitting at the corner of his bed, on top of Snorlax (his favourite pillow).

Most of her first visit was filled with questions about the pictures on the wall, and even though she didn't get to learn about every single one she enjoyed listened to the stories behind half of them. The two of them genuinely forgot about her notebook and when she returned home and opened her bag to find that it wasn't present, she sighed in relief.

How they had managed to keep this going for a month baffled her mind, but she wasn't ready to question it just as yet.

"So, ninjas don't speak?" Is what had left her lips in the place of the question floating around her head.

"It would ruin the whole image. We're mysterious and deadly beings, the only way we communicate is through battle. If we spare you, we like you. If we murder you, we don't. If we hurt you, don't step on our toes again. That's all you need to know."

"But what if you're sent to kill someone you love?"

She's thinking of Finn when she asks that question, immediately getting more ice cream into her mouth so her companion wouldn't see her lip tremble.

It's completely useless, because he knows, but she likes to pretend she's not such an open book around him. He just goes along with it, knowing he would turn incredibly awkward if he made it clear that he knows far too much about her already.

"That's an assassin's job. And assassins aren't cool." Finn's an ass and assholes aren't cool.

They spend the rest of the afternoon bouncing off ninja codename ideas. She keeps suggesting names that include the word 'star' and he's trying to fit the name of a Pokémon into his. He decides he's simply going to call her Kim (because she can do anything) and she's extremely reluctant to call him Ron and he honestly believes she's afraid of offending him and he shows he it doesn't really matter when he stands up and does the most ridiculous dance she's seen in her life.

They settle for another name for him (Jake, to which he happily agrees to by rapping about being the American dragon) before she packs up her books and leaves for home at six like she had done every day since he had first 'forgotten' her notebook. She was beginning to wonder what he had done with it (he considered throwing it out, but he kept it just in case she might have actually wanted it back one day).

When she falls back against her bed, looking up at the golden stars stickers he had helped get onto her ceiling when they had first gone to her house instead of his like they normally would, she's terrified because she's calling herself his Rose and in her mind, he's her Ron and everything is spinning in her head so fast that she kind of wants to sit up and pick up the phone, upchucking her word vomit while he listens and hoping he won't think she's completely insane by the time she's finished.

But then she remembers he has a Rose he's very happy and even though she has him, it feels like she has no one. She doesn't really know when acceptance simply wasn't enough to feed her hungry heart any longer but she blames him for giving her something else to wish for that will never come true.

He seems to forget that Rachel isn't his Rose and that he shouldn't be as happy spending time with her as he is spending time with Tina and he's beginning to loathe himself for acting in the same way her previous suitor did. But he can't blame her because it's his fault and he intends to fix it all.

The following morning, she finds her notebook in her locker with a paper beside it with three words written on it.

I FOUND IT!

She wanted to laugh at the little stick man dance he had doodled at the bottom of the little piece of paper. She wanted to smile at the fact that she had gotten her notebook back just in time for her next algebra test because it contained a few important notes about a couple of tricky equations. She wanted to feel proud of herself for not bursting into tears at the sight of Finn's name on each of the pages but she didn't do anything but stare at it for a good two minutes before shoving it back into her locker and closing it with a loud bang.

He passed by her locker after the final bell sounded and he waved at her with the widest grin on his face. She adjusted the strap of her bag as she waved back, beaming just as much as he was as she prepared herself to escort him to his car. She paused mid-step when he didn't wait for her to catch up, when he didn't tease her about how she was going to drool when they watched Zac Efron in Hairspray that afternoon, when he didn't try to convince her that playing Pokémon would be better for his health than dancing around to the songs in Mamma Mia.

He walked right by, enveloping the girl with fishnet stocking into a tight hug at the far end of the hallway before exiting the school without so much as giving her a second glance.

It seemed she had forgotten about the picture in his house that wasn't hung up on his wall for all to see, the picture that didn't bother her at all for the first three weeks of visits and fun and games, the picture that he had labelled one of his most prized possessions, the picture that had be put on his bedside table.

Happy Mike and happy Tina, holding each other so closely it looked like it might have been hard for them to breathe, their lips pressed together as the corners of their lips curled into smiles, the Camp Asian emblem on the arms of their purple employee hoodies.

If we hurt you, don't step on our toes again.

His words repeated like a disturbing mantra as she walked to a place she knew wasn't home, rubbing at her eyes and swallowing back the lump in her throat that just wouldn't go away long enough for her to not allow more tears to fall.

The only way we communicate is through battle.

"Don't forget me, I beg," she sang under her breath, her voice hoarse and dry. "I remember you said,"

Sometimes you last in a battle where you're clearing losing, because the person fighting you doesn't really want to hurt you at all. But in the end, as a ninja, you have to make a choice.

"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

"Rachel?" His voice was warm, curious, comforting, worried, and familiar.

"Sometimes it lasts…S-Sometimes…" She croaked as she stopped in hr tracks, her legs refusing to allow her to go any further. She took in a few shaky breaths as his arms wrapped her in for a tight hug but she couldn't hug back, her hands clasped together and sandwiched between both their bodies, awkwardly resting on her chest and the lower half of his torso.

"Ssh, Rachel, it's going to be okay."

"Noah, mommy says you have to help with the – Noah, what's wrong?"

All she hears through her sobs is the pitter patter of an eight year old's footsteps, running towards her until a pair of small arms were wrapped around her thigh in a possessive manner, a larger arm wrapped around her waist while the other brushed against her shoulder each time the owner of the limb stroked at her hair to try and calm her down.

Sometimes it hurts instead.

The End

I just wanted to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter (don't be afraid to review twice, feedback is always nice. Or review for the first time if you haven't before, feedback is always nice.), everyone who wanted alerts on updates of this story, everyone who favourited this story already, everyone who actually read this story.

I was so humbled by the response I got since I had taken such a big break from writing fiction and I was just so happy to see you all enjoyed reading it as much as I fretted about whether this was good or absolute junk.

And also, if the story status wasn't enough to send you off about my little joke, this isn't the last chapter. FOOLED YOU (I HOPE).

But once again, thank you!

LIST OF REFERENCES (for those of you who think a few things sound familiar but can't pinpoint it, and because I wanted to tell you):

Pokémon:

Pikachu mention, duh.
'Snorlax' is also the name of a Pokénom who loves to snooze.

Yu-Gi-Oh!:

The picture where Mike and Matt were dressed for Halloween. Mike was dressed as Yugi Muto and Matt was dressed as Joey Wheeler.

Glee:

Rachel is said to be a vegan, and strict vegans do not eat dairy products. And I honestly don't see Mike's mother having 'vegan friendly' milk for her young, growing little boy.

The favourite pillow idea comes from Mike cuddling a pillow in BIOTA. In my head canon, he's just a big lover of pillows. Period.

Disney:

Kim, the nickname given to Rachel, comes from Kim Possible. Ron Stoppable is her best friend turned boyfriend by the end of the show.
Jake, the nickname given to Mike, comes from Jake Long from the show American Dragon. Rose is his long interest throughout the series and inevitably becomes his girlfriend by the end of it.

Adele:

Someone Like You was all up in there at the end of the story.