(Author's note: I'm so sorry about the extreme delay. It just so happens that every time I sat down to write, I got lost. I owe you everything. Please enjoy the chapter.)

A cigarette jutted out of the corner of his mouth, a stream of smoke drifting lazily toward the ceiling, as he stared down at the photographs scattered across the glass coffee table. He could not really remember when he had decided to take up smoking, but something told him it was four months ago. The truth was something closer to six months. He found that he did not really care. He reached up to take the cigarette out of his mouth and his fingers grazed his chin. He felt the roughness of the five o'clock shadow he was growing, and remembered Serena's nagging voice telling him that he "should really do something about that." He did not feel much like doing anything, anymore.

He pinched the cigarette between his middle finger and thumb, held it over the ashtray on the corner of the table, and tapped it lightly with his pointer finger. With a slowness that seemed almost deliberate, the smoldering ash sifted down into the pile of cigarette butts. For a moment, Darien marveled at how habitual the small act had become, then the cigarette went back into his mouth, his attention went back to the pictures.

There was still one thing that he rather enjoyed doing, and that was taking Rini out on Tuesday afternoons. To the park, to get ice cream, whatever. These were the best times, anymore.

Though, last time, she had said a funny thing, to him.

They were sitting on the pier, Rini eating ice cream and kicking her feet back and forth from off the end of the little pier, both of them enjoying the late afternoon sun and the sound of the boats. Darien sat on the dock next to little Rini, and he thought of all the things that had gone wrong. He thought of how good his life had been, and that was when Rini said,

"Setsuna's eyes."

With much difficulty, Darien asked, "What?" It had been so long since he had heard her name spoken aloud. To him, her name sounded like some beautiful, foreign word that he had heard only in his dreams. Something intangible. The feel of her skin came back to him suddenly, and he shut his eyes.

"Didn't you ever notice, Darien?" Rini asked, not looking at him. "Didn't you ever notice the way her eyes look in the pictures?"

Darien thought a moment, looking down at her. He was stricken by two things: one, that Rini had mentioned Setsuna, and two, that Rini had noticed something so precise as the way someone's eyes looked when they were feigning emotion. He had not answered her, and then she had started going on about a play at school and how she was auditioning for the lead. Darien had tried to listen to her, but he had only been able to give Rini half an ear. Now that he was examining the pictures for himself, he thought that Rini had known that he would only have been able to give her half an ear, and that was why she gone on into mundane conversation.

Now that he saw what she meant.

Setsuna didn't have the same look in every picture, of course. He only saw the truth in her eyes when she was looking at him. Rini had noticed this. Rini was trying to get him to see something. Rini had a hold on something that could present some kind of danger to the way the future went.

Darien lifted one of the photographs of Setsuna by herself. She was looking off, but he had asked her to. He had played at photography, but it had been little more than a simple hobby that never developed into anything serious. Some photographs he'd taken for a portfolio attempt were of Setsuna. He had asked her to be his subject. She had the look in almost every one of those photographs, even when she was smiling a brilliant smile.

There was a knock at the door. Darien looked up a moment. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, holding it between his fingers. "Yeah?"

He heard the knob turn and then heard the door creak open. He said nothing, he only started to pile all the pictures up into his hands and then turned them face down. When he looked up, he saw Rini standing by the small foyer, as though she were afraid to come into his living room.

They looked at each other for a long time.

"What are you thinking?"

Rini walked into the room silently and stood in front of him. He put out his cigarette and held out his arms a little, but she didn't move. He saw that she had her hands clasped tightly around something. Tears stood out in her eyes, but none fell. She held out her hands. He cupped his beneath hers. She gently placed a small object in his hands. He dared to look down and saw a dangly, diamond teardrop earring. He raised his eyes to Rini again.

"I know you have the other one," she whispered. Darien swallowed. Rini stared at him only a moment longer, then she turned around and started to leave.

"Rini," Darien said. She did not listen. Rini left the apartment in silence. Darien stared down at Setsuna's earring. He did have the other one. She left it at Serena's, and its pair hadn't been with it, because Rini had taken the other one. He closed his hand around the earring, then shut his eyes tightly.

…