Urawa Ryo smiled patiently at his daughter, who he had picked up at school to make sure that she had gone home. With her driving record, he didn't exactly want her to be driving at full speed on her dirt bike. And with Michiru, who knew if she really was going to actually go home after school. Not that Haruka-sama would've let her fence today, but she probably would've found something else to do.
For example, "I mean, it's not like I couldn't have found Jian-kun and gone to the movies with him. That's not strenuous work or anything. I mean, you just sit there and watch. The most activity possible is if I were to make-out with him," and off his look, "not that I would this early in the relationship, of course," she said innocently.
Ryo sighed. He knew that Michiru was frustrated with being treated like she would break if anyone did anything to her - unfortunately for her, it went even deeper than she knew because Neko was avoiding talking about the dance with her altogether, although undoubtedly, she had picked up on that too - but she really was in bad shape after the fight. She was lucky she wasn't still in the hospital, but it probably would've been more detrimental to her health than going to school. She tended to bolt at any given chance when in the hospital. They were lucky she was in too much pain to get out of bed on Sunday. By Monday, it was apparent that she was getting restless and that they weren't going to keep her in bed for long.
"Michiru, I'm just asking you to take it easy for awhile. Think of this as an opportunity to get ahead on homework, so you don't have to do it later this week." Well, that was not a welcome suggestion. "Think how upset Chibi will be when he finds out that you're just as ahead as him," he added, knowing that this would cheer her up a little. It did, but he knew that she was still a little upset at being kept from her activities. "Pumpkin, you need some rest. But how about tonight we make a hot cocoa date?"
Michiru brightened considerably, "Hai!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After having played with the most kawaii little kids for a while at the park, Neko finally started to make her way back to Infinity College. She was walking along, singing "Motto Suteki Na Asa Ga Kuruyo" to herself when suddenly she thought she heard sobbing coming from somewhere. She stopped and listened. Yes, there was definitely someone crying on the other side of the wall she was standing next to. The wall was too high for her to see over, even if she jumped. "Hello?" she called out, but the person didn't answer. If she wanted to know what was going on, she'd have to get over the wall.
She looked around and noticed a tree that had a branch that looked strong and that was the right height. She thought she could do this. Either this was going to be awesome, or she'd crash into the wall and Mi-chan would hate her for awhile. She gave herself a running start and jumped, grabbing the tree branch. Then she used it to swing herself up high enough to get above the wall. Then using her acrobatic and pole vaulting abilities, she arched her back and pushed herself away from the branch. She somehow managed to land perfectly on the wall. "Sugoi! " She bowed before an imaginary audience.
Then she got serious and looked for the person she had heard. There on a bench next to the wall was a guy sobbing into his hands. She walked along the wall towards him and knelt down to talk to him. "Daijoubu ka?"
He looked up startled at her voice. Upon seeing her, he answered, "How could I be ok? After what I've done to my Hite-chan? She'll never forgive me."
"It couldn't have been that bad," she said sympathetically. "People are forgiven for horrible things all the time, and you seem so upset that I can't imagine that you would be able to do something horrible enough that it couldn't be forgiven."
"But that's because you weren't there. You didn't see."
She crossed her arms. "I've seen guys do bad things. Try me."
He controlled his sobs and said, "Ano, I was an idiot the other day and forgot that we had a date."
"Well, granted, that wasn't very good, but it's not-"
He put up a hand to stop her. "So today I got her these flowers." He held up the flowers that had been next to him on the bench. "They're marketed especially for apologies and they were on sale, so I thought, 'why not?' But I guess she was allergic to them or something because when I gave them to her, she just passed out. They had to take her to the hospital and everything."
"But you couldn't have known that she was allergic. She'll forgive you, if that's all it was." She was comforting him, but she wanted to get a closer look at the flowers. Especially since he'd said they were on sale. "I don't suppose I could see the flowers, could I?"
"Take them! I don't want anything to do with them." He stood on the bench to hand them to her. As he did, she suddenly felt the same dizziness she had felt when Jian-kun had helped her up that morning, except even stronger this time. Her head spun and her vision blurred. The next thing she knew, she was falling backwards off the wall.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Haruka was driving home from fencing, which had run a bit late today, when she thought she saw Setsuna standing on a wall. That didn't make sense. Setsuna was on the moon watching the Gate of Time. Besides this person looked younger than Setsuna did. Haruka slowed down and realized that it was one of the Mizuno twins, probably Neko-chan, since her hair was down and she wasn't at home in bed like Mi-chan should have been. She wondered what Neko-chan was doing. It seemed to Haruka that Neko-chan should either be at pole vault practice with Tenshi or at home with Mi-chan, depending on how much she had recovered from the fight. But on top of a wall in the middle of Infinity Bank?
She stopped the car and got out to see what was going on. But before she got there, something happened and Neko-chan seemed to fall off the wall. Haruka ran full speed and managed to catch her before she hit the ground. Neko-chan managed to whisper "Tenshi" before blacking out. Haruka put her down and jumped onto the wall (a feat that the Outer Scouts do with no problem, unlike Neko-chan), preparing to transform and attack if needed. But there she only saw a horrified guy staring at her.
"What happened?!" she asked him harshly.
"Sh- She wanted to see the flowers," he managed. And then he ran away.
Haruka let him go. She was sure he hadn't done anything, but she still didn't know what really had. Except for maybe the flowers? "Shimatta!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The numbers in Mi-chan's pre-calculus book swam before her eyes. This dizziness was a lot stronger than
