The office was quiet, save for the scratching of Hina's pen as she went through documents.

The Pandemonium Society was doing something again, was what she heard as Ako was complaining. She didn't care. It was work, and work had to be done.

A hand appeared in front of her face, waving slowly to catch her attention. "President, are you alright?" Ako's face appeared behind the hand wearing an expression of concern. She wouldn't care about me, after all. It's all a front.

"I'm fine, Ako. Why the sudden concern?" She tried to give Ako a smile, but her muscles were unable to get the strength to do anything more than an empty look.

Ako blinked, causing Hina to realise that she may have been too aggressive in her word choice. She still needed to pretend she didn't care, after all.

Pretending like nothing had happened, Ako continued. "You look like you haven't slept in days, President. When was the last time you had a break?"

Hina resisted the urge to bite back, instead taking a deep breath. "I'm fine, Ako. How about you?" It came out harsher than she wanted, and this time Ako did not wave it off.

"President, is something the matter? Did Iroha send over something again? Or is it that snake Makoto-"

"I'M FINE!" The unexpected shout quieted down Ako just as she had hoped, letting Hina go back to work.

She was so engrossed in her work, she didn't notice Ako stepping out of the room.

A million thoughts were running through Ako's mind at what was going on with the Head Prefect right now.

A Pandemonium Society plot? Someone bothering her recently? Or just that time of the month? It could be anything, and with the Head Prefect in this mood right now Ako didn't think it was a good idea to ask what exactly it was that was bothering her.

Instead… Biting her lips, she took out her phone, and dialed a number she knew by heart, because she refused to save it on principle.

As much as she hated to admit it, Sensei would know best.

A part of her, the romantic part of her that wished he was beside her all the time, swooned at knowing she would be seeing him again, while the other parts were biting their thumbs in anger that they needed his help to help the Head Prefect.

A smaller part of her, a part of her she patently ignored, was asking if her relationship with Sensei was the cause for the Head Prefect's mood.

That was impossible though.

The Head Prefect… no, Sorasaki Hina would never get angry at such a thing.

Skrtch skrtch skrtch

The sound of the pencil was hard and rough, while the feel of it wasn't much different. A problem of cheap pencils like the ones that the Pandemonium Society insisted that they used.

It suited Hina just fine though. The sound joined the shuffling of papers to make the empty room just a bit less lonely like her heart.

Rata-tat-tat

The sounds of someone knocking on the door threw her out of focus, and brought irritation to the forefront of her emotions.

"Enter." She readied her verbal arsenal to unleash on whoever decided to disturb her after she had specifically told the last person who was looking for her to put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on her door. If it was Ako, she would enjoy it as well.

All her preparations were thrown out the window as the person she least expected to see and least wanted to see entered.

Sensei walked in, messing with his hair in that way he always did whenever he was nervous, his suit jacket slightly messy around the collar like he had rushed down here straight from SCHALE, and as the door closed she could see Ako peeking into the room. Flaunting it in front of her. Her anger boiled. So it wasn't enough that she took him, she had to show it off.

"Hi Hina. I hear-"

She cut him off. "Whatever you heard is a lie." The sounds of her pencil scratching across the paper became louder, as she put more pressure on the lead.

His face twisted in mock concern, and he moved closer in that way he always did to people he felt needed help. She didn't need help. She was strong, everyone said so. "Hina, are you alright? You sound pretty angry, did something happen?"

Faintly, she heard a creak. It wasn't fair. Why was he still acting like this despite being with Ako? Why was he so kind and generous and helpful to a person like her even though he had someone else? Did he enjoy playing with her heart like this? Why was he always like this? Was he like this to everyone?

A hand waved in front of her, his hand, and his face was there too, false worry on it. "Hina? You spaced out there. Do you need me to get Ako to-" A loud crack sounded, and Hina noted somewhere in her brain that it was the pencil she had been holding. She had broken it in half.

"Sensei, leave me alone." Her voice was forceful as forceful as she could make it without crying, but it didn't deter the adult playing with her heart from trying to bring her hopes up so he could bring it down again.

He seemed befuddled and hurt at what Hina said, but instead of listening to her for once he doubled down on it. "Hina, is something the matter? You can always tell me-"

"GET OUT!" she screamed. "LEAVE ME ALONE! BOTH OF YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Throwing the chair to the ground, she pushed him out despite Sensei being nearly twice her weight and fighting back the whole time, and ignoring his desperate fake pleas for her to listen to him only so he manipulate her again.

Only after she had pushed him out, when she saw the two of them looking at her with hurt and confusion in their eyes, only after she had locked the door and used a chair to block it so that no one could enter it, did she collapse on the floor and cry.

She didn't know what time it was now. Darkness had settled in, and despite people trying to open the door no one had managed to get through the barricade she had put in front of it. People had called out for her, Ako, Sensei, Iori, Chinatsu, all of them had called for her, trying to get her out of the office. Hours had passed before the attempts tapered off and finally stopped, and she knew that finally everyone would see her for who she really was and leave her all alone.

Between that time and now, she had cried. Cried and cried and cried until no more tears would come out and her eyes were puffy and red and swollen from how hard she had been crying.

Now all that was left was self-loathing. She sat on the floor, knees tucked in, trying her best to curl up into a ball, with her back to the door, all the while hoping she was anywhere but here.

"I'll have to leave the Prefect Team, at the very least." The voice surprised her, until she realised it was hers. The crying had left her voice hoarse, making her sound more adult-like. Maybe if she had always sounded like that, Sensei would have fallen for her.

She chuckled at that thought, but there was no real emotion in it. Her head sunk onto her knees. "No way that would have worked." If Ako was anything to go by, she would have needed twenty more centimeters on her height, and something more than mosquito bites on her chest.

There had never been a chance, no matter what she had hoped, and that thought stung even harder now.

A knock sounded, and she ignored it before she realised it hadn't come from the door behind her, the only door to the room.

It had come from the window.

The knock happened again, and this time it was accompanied by a voice. "Oi~ Are you gonna let me in or not?"

A voice she recognised. She ignored it, curling up tighter instead.

"Sorasaki Hina, I can see you, you know."

Finally, she looked up. "Iroha… what are you doing."

Natsume Iroha was fiddling with the window, her hair swaying with the trees as she shuffled on the second floor window. "Getting this- ah, there we go." Like the window hadn't been locked, she opened it and let herself into the office.

Her lazy dead-eyed look bored into Hina with an expression others would recognise as anger, but one that Hina instead recognised as the patented 'Makoto did something and now I have to fix it' look that Iroha usually had on whenever they met for business.

This time, Hina had the distinctive feeling it was aimed at her. "Why are you breaking into my office?"

"Because you weren't answering your calls?" Walking over to Hina's desk and picking up her phone, Iroha showed the screen to Hina.

"...It's only 99 missed calls." She petulantly looked away, as Iroha sighed, slumping into the guest chair and taking out a book. "That's 99 plus, I'm pretty sure some of them called you a hundred times alone."

"...Why are you here."

"I said it already, didn't I? You weren't answering your calls, and Makoto wanted me to give you more work."

More work?... "Tell Makoto she's won. I don't think I can continue being the Prefect Team leader anymore. She won't need to give me more work anymore."

"Alright." The sound of pages being turned was the only thing that broke the silence between the two of them.

"You're not going to ask what happened?"

"Why should I? If you say you can't do it, that means you can't do it." Another page being turned. "I trust you to be good enough at your job to recognise that."

That sentence stopped Hina. Iroha… trusted her? "You trust me?"

Iroha stopped all movement, as she took in what Hina said. "Yes? I may be in the Pandemonium Society, but that doesn't mean I hate you." She turned her head to look Hina in the eyes. "You're good at your job and you do it. That's already better than most people in Gehenna. It's gonna be rough, not having you in-charge of the Prefect Team… and I don't know how we'll keep some of those troublemakers in check now," she sighed, "but if you've finally burnt yourself out, then-"

"Wait, what do you mean 'finally'?"

Iroha blinked, showing the first signs of emotion in the conversation other than annoyance. "It's obvious. You routinely work yourself to the bone, taking on as much work as you can instead of giving it to your subordinates, not to mention that a lot of the time you have to deal with all those delinquents because they aren't capable of doing it themselves. Are you telling me you never realised that yourself this whole time?"

Near the end, she took on a tone of disbelief that made Hina embarrassed. "...I never had anything other than work." Now she had nothing.

"Hm. Now that you say it, a lot of things make sense now." Shutting her book and keeping it back in her jacket, Iroha got up and moved closer to Hina, leaning in with an expression Hina wasn't very comfortable with. "...That 'had' sounds interesting. So what did you find that made you realise there was something other than work?"

A beat passed, and Iroha's expression slowly changed as she realised she might have asked the wrong question before a small wavering voice responded.

"Sensei."

Iroha schooled her expression to prevent her eyes from jumping past her eyebrows, as she heard what the Head Prefect had just admitted to.

"But he's going out with Ako." Suddenly, every action that the Head Prefect had made fit.

The Head Prefect was throwing a tantrum because of a broken heart. If it wasn't for the fact that she was right there and in a very emotionally vulnerable state, Iroha would have laughed at how absurd it was. The lawkeeper of Gehenna, the monster even students from other academies feared… was having a tantrum because her first love was with someone.

'I should get out of here,' she thought. She had already done enough, just getting the message to the Head Prefect was all she needed to do. She didn't need to try and act as love-counselling.

But a part of her, one she tried to ignore most of the time, was telling her that the Head Prefect; no, Sorasaki Hina might need help.

So instead of listening to her instincts and running away, she sat down beside the white-haired girl.

As nonchalantly as she could, she asked, "So how did you find out?"

Hina gave her a look, one that she ignored easily. She might not have realised it yet, but she was lashing out because she wanted someone to listen to her. Iroha knew that well enough, that feeling of wanting to be heard. Thankfully, Makoto was too… slow to realise that Iroha meant everything she said.

"If that's not fine, then how about… how did you and Sensei first meet?" She gave Hina an easy grin, causing her to sigh.

Then she started talking. And talking. And the more she talked, the closer the distance between them got, until eventually Hina started talking about that conversation. The mall. The events.

That was when the tears started falling, but Iroha didn't mind. It was better to let it out with someone who was listening.

In the morning, they parted ways, and she was gratified to see that Hina had a small smile on her face.

She would get over it.

Authors notes: This fought me the whole time like the other two chapters. Was gonna get it out before the year was done... well, technically I've done that.

Originally, this was gonna be just an epilogue... well, its the same length as the other two chapters combined thereabouts, so it's a chapter.