"When they first started, I was worried, but I knew that you wouldn't really make me choose between you and Tenshi-kun. But then you started dying�."
"Neko-chan, what are you talking about?" Mi-chan wasn't even sure that Neko was talking to her. She put her hands on Neko's shoulders and made her look at her. "Neko, talk to me!"
"My dreams. I'm talking about my dreams. I've been having nightmares about you and Tenshi-kun dying because of me, but then it was just her dying, and I couldn't do anything about it, so I- I broke up with her."
"You've been having prophetic dreams?" Mi-chan was slightly over-sensitive about the subject of forecasting dreams, since she had been haunted so long by those that foreshadowed their skirmish with Jian-wa. She was also a bit protective of her nightmares and her sister, and was upset that the two had met.
"I don't know," Neko sniffed. "They seem prophetic, but they're all sort of different too." Her eyes filled with hope as they came into contact with Mi-chan's. "Do you think they aren't?" She would trust Mi-chan's judgment - she was the expert on dreams as far as Neko was concerned.
"I-" Mi-chan had no answers for Neko. The best she could do was offer a shoulder for Neko to cry on. But she knew that no matter how long she sat there with her sister, comforting her, hugging her, and promising her love and forgiveness, there wasn't anything she could do to fix it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tenshi sat down on the edge of her bed in defeat. She stared at the glittering ring in the palm of her hand. It was so beautiful - a horrible reminder of what she had lost today. She quickly closed her fingers around it so she wouldn't have to see it.
Unfortunately, as she looked up, the first thing she saw was the picture Neko had given her, sitting on the dresser. Neko had looked at her so adoringly that day. "Stop it!" she futilely told the picture. Naturally, Neko didn't react.
She jumped up and took the picture off the dresser. Although her vision blurred with tears, she still could see Neko's smile, and it seemed to be mocking her. A smile telling her the way things ought to be, but weren't. "Koneko�," she whispered, as she wiped off a tear that had fallen on the glass right where Neko was.
Tenshi had always taken for granted that everything always worked out for the best, but now, in the pit of despair, she really couldn't see how. And suddenly, looking at the expression of adoration on Neko's face, she felt really angry and betrayed, as if the photo was trying to lead her on. "Liar!" she shouted at it, as she threw it across the room.
Still outraged, she turned on the jewelry that still was scattered across the dresser from that morning. She ferociously swept them off the dresser, not caring as they scattered around the room. Also not caring as the sweep of her arm caught her phone and knocked it to the ground as well. In fact, now she didn't want to have to deal with anything related to Neko. Unfortunately, almost anything in the room had some trace of Neko or a Neko-related event. In the heat of anger, Tenshi charged around the room, knocking things over and throwing things around the room. Finally, as she began to run out of energy, she stopped, falling back onto her bed.
Throughout this entire demonstration of her inner turmoil, Tenshi had still managed to hold on to the ring. Now she opened her hand again and examined the fine piece of jewelry. The brilliant blue tanzanite stone was just as beautiful as the day she bought it, though its beauty had been outshone by the person she had bought it for. The person she couldn't ever imagine that she'd stop loving. The person who had just broke her heart.
"Shimatta!" she screamed, as she heaved the ring across the room.
Unfortunately, Puroko, who was checking to make sure Tenshi was okay after hearing all the commotion from the room, had just opened the door and poked her head in. "Tenshi?" she asked softly before the ring hit the wall, inches from her head.
She jumped, totally shaken by both the projectile and the mess in Tenshi's normally tidy room. Not to mention the fury expressed in Tenshi's face. Tenshi looked into her wide navy eyes and realized just how much she had freaked her sister out before Puroko ran from the doorway and across the hall.
"Puroko!" Tenshi shouted, as she got up off her bed and ran after her, somehow making it through her room without tripping. She got to the closed door of Puroko's room and stopped short. "Puroko?" She could hear Puroko in there sobbing, and that almost broke her heart for a second time that day. She knocked. "Puroko, please," she said, her voice trembling. "Puroko, I'm sorry."
She sank to her knees and leaned her side against the door. "I'm sorry, Kiddo, I'm sorry," she repeated, through tears of her own.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Puroko was still crying, although more silently, when she walked back to the door and considered opening it. Tenshi had been outside begging for forgiveness for several minutes, but Puroko wasn't sure what to do. She had never seen Tenshi so angry before, and it scared her. And the fact that she was scared of Tenshi, her older sister, who she had always looked up to unquestioningly, distressed her even more. She sat down on the ground and leaned against the door, listening to Tenshi for about half a minute. Then she wiped her eyes, sniffed, and stood up. She wasn't ready to see Tenshi, but she didn't want her to cry anymore either. And she wanted to know why Tenshi was acting so strangely. She put her ear and her hand to the door, as if Tenshi would somehow be able to sense that she was now as close to her as she could be without actually opening the door.
