Haven't been able to get this out of my head. Seriously. Again, many thanks to my friend/beta for making sure this actually makes sense!

Shinoa hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Mitsuba all day, and she couldn't figure out why.

It wasn't that Mitsuba looked any different from usual, or had done something different with her hair, or anything like that. No, Mitsuba looked exactly the same as she always had- blonde hair in pigtails, face set in a frown, beautiful eyes narrowed-

Wait, beautiful? Where did that come from?

"Oh look, Shinoa," thought Yuu to her. "Now I have something to tease you about."

"What are you going to tease me about, cherry boy?" She thought back to him, confused.

"Seriously, Shinoa? And you call me dense," thought Yuu, scoffing at her. "It's pretty clear to everyone but you and Mitsuba that you like her."

"...what?"

Shinoa had to stop and think for a minute. Was this really love? Did she like Mitsuba in a way that was more than platonic? She wouldn't know- as much good as her family may have done, they showed no love to each other. And after her older sister, Mahiru, had met Guren and died because of it, things had only become more frosty between the siblings. The only person who had ever shown her even a shred of warmth before she met Yuu and the others was Shinya.

Ah, Shinya. As much as Shinoa might not know love, she certainly cared about people. Or she thought she did.

"We know you care, Shinoa," thought Yoichi with an amused tone. Shinoa had forgotten that he and Yuu had been listening in on her thoughts this whole time. "It's pretty clear that you do, even if you might not think so."

"Yeah. Thanks, guys," thought Shinoa, promptly shutting them out of her mind. She needed to think about this alone; having someone tell her about what she was feeling wouldn't help any. Did she really like Mitsuba like that?

She thought back to when she saw Mitsuba that morning. There were butterflies in her stomach, she remembered, and when she saw her, she remembered that her mind went completely blank, and she just couldn't stop staring. Mitsuba had even asked her what was wrong, and had snapped at her when Shinoa had replied with "Oh, Mitsu, you must really love me to ask me what's wrong! I knew it! All along, you've been thinking about little ol' me!"

Well, Shinoa might not know about love, but she'd read enough fanfiction and romance novels to know that those were some of the symptoms.

Oh. Ohh no. I'm in trouble now.

Well, she thought, at least I'm capable of hiding my feelings. She thanked god that Mitsuba couldn't read her mind like Yuu and Yoichi were able to, because if anyone but then found out about these...feelings of hers, nothing good would come of it. Mitsuba thankfully wasn't associated with the Brotherhood, but if they were planning something, what would happen to her friends? Her family?

Well, she didn't particularly care about any of her siblings except for Shinya.

What happens just happens, she decided. I'll do everything I can to protect Mitsu, and if I can't...well, I'll never let that happen. I'd die before that happened.

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