**Don't own the characters or the series. On with the show.

04:The Last Thing on My Mind

Shingo almost felt himself lord of the manor as he sat, legs propped up on the coffee table, in the Mizuno apartment. Except Ami sat next to him. And the true lady of the manor was away.
I don't know why I did it. No idea. Well, okay, I called Maehara's Florist, and they won't have it till tomorrow. So I thought Saeko would be here. NEVER occurred to me she'd be working. So here I'm stuck.
"Shin-chan, are you alright."
"Oh, fine."
A pause. "Something's wrong, isn't? Tell Ami-chan."
"Ami, no,"
"It's okay," and she began an embrace. Shingo fought himself into accepting it. He felt a little sick. Here he was, hot for Mrs. Mizuno, and Ami was not hot but obsessive for him, and he had to pretend to accept this.

This went on for about ten minutes, Ami just sort of clinging to him, her eyes clenched shut and tears standing out, holding onto Shingo as if he were a teddy bear, and Shingo was livid, livid with shame that this girl needed him and livid that he had come for nothing.

"Ami, look," quick and sharp, his face red. She shrank back.
Picture of an axemurderer. Calmly.
"Um. Okay, here's the thing."
"Okay?" from Ami. Shingo saw some hope. My cover's not gone yet. Hmm.
"Look. I, guess your life's not been good, right?"
Ami beamed. "With you, it –"
"Without me, I mean."
Deflated now. "No. Mom always works. And Dad's in America."
Yes, Mommy sure does work, and he hated himself for his irreverence.
"Well." Inspiration. "How did you feel when you met me?"
Ami's eyes briefly went starry, with a languishing smile to match. Cripes, she's like Usagi! Then she seemed to pull herself together to reflect.
"You, you gave me, life. I mean, I have studies, and I still get top of the country and all that, but what am I really close to? A lot of times I'm ill, or I have to study, so I can't hang with them a lot. Minako compares us to a magical girl superhero team when we're together, and that's right for them. But I'm not really part of it."
Ami looked down. Shingo was also.
"But I've got you. I thought I did."
Shingo jumped slightly within himself. A slight twitch. No need to hide it, no need to deny. Guess she does see it.
"You don't call anymore. We never go anywhere." No tears, bereft of fight or agony, it was plain. She could be speaking of the heat death of the universe, eons away. Bad things happening to good people. Something removed from grandchildren or greatgrandchildren, something removed from the governments and creeds of today. A natural fact, unpleasant but there, and requiring some acknowledgement anyway. "And even if you aren't," a catching of the voice, "aren't seeing anyone else, I don't think you care about me like I do about you."
She looked up, and to Shingo's credit his eyes, behind which lay this whole intrigue, could meet Ami's intense Sapphire lights. "Am I right?"
"Ami."
"Yes?"
Shingo was to the point of tears. He didn't even argue them away as he had been doing for so long. "I've been cheating on you."
Ami sat back. Looked at the crammed bookshelf that dwarfed the television, an outmoded thing from the seventies, small. The bookshelf full of Hawking and Feynman and Hitchens. Einstein and Sommerfeld. Gray. Hardy and Newton. The cataloging of the cosmos and the body. Numbers. Reason. Medicine and molecular phenomena. Chemistry and calculus. Her test papers covering the fridge in the kitchen. Her strength. She could be strong, why should this matter? A case in point. Rei locked away for months from her friends, and she cared so deeply about personalities. She even had two religions to her name, the nationalist depth of Shinto and the epic, international and interepochal creed of Christ. That was Rei Hino. Minako Aino lived for the bright lights. An idol, why should there be unhappiness? It was not science but it was an aim. Usagi had appetites, gorging, and she always turned up lucky with people to fawn over her, doting parents and Mamoru, and when he would not dote, there was Makoto, who had cooking. It was not that love was barren for all, just for some. Ami was one. Her mother was one. Mamoru could not hold it either. Best for such to have science, she thought. Something away from the heart. And Rei had not grasped it. I flew too close to the sun. I had to stray, and it would not work. Stress of a bridge built too long, or a cell membrane grown too big. My life can't hold love. The faintest suggestion, a faint burning prescient of a tear, and she did not fight or kill it, it just ceased.
"Well, I guess there's nothing left but for you to go." Not antagonistic, but cold. Not bubbly, bordering on emotionally unstable as Usagi could occasionally be. All business. Strict as she had been before she had any friends. She certainly had one less after this business.
Shingo got up, went to the door, and eyes clenched shut, whirled. "Ami I'm sleeping with your mother." He then flew forth from the apartment, kicking the door shut behind him, and that slam was as the slam of a coffin lid the size of the world to Ami right then.

"Mako, wake up!"
"Wuh!" Makoto snapped awake. She and Rei had slept over at Mako's apartment after their stratagem.
"I have a feeling something's wrong," Rei said. This was not to be taken lightly; her psychic abilities were well known. Many people kept coming to Hikawa shrine, in spite of Old Man Hino's indiscretions, solely because of this raven-haired girl who could (for a nominal fee) tell the future.
"Is, is it Ami?"
"I think it is."
"Well, what about it? Did you see anything?"
"I don't know, I was asleep, and I can't do it as well with dreams."
"So you don't –"
"No, I don't know, just, let's get going!"
So the two dressed and hurried out, with no idea what to do or what had happened, each hoping the best for their dear friend.