Kana POV:

I sat on the Hoshino's couch, eating an apple and studying the recording of B Komachi practicing. I could distinguish some minor issues, such as the angle of my hips during the fourth beat, or the way I was slightly behind during the spinning move. Who knew MEM-cho and Ruby spun so fast?

Despite our not wanting, Aqua (our director) insisted we practice everyday. He didn't care about me and Ruby's falling-out, he cared about our upcoming performances and Ruby's solo MV. 

MEM-cho had stormed off to who-knows-where. Me and Ruby had painstakingly finished our practice. Ruby went up to her room after that and Aqua was in the kitchen, making dinner. 

I clicked replay on the video. But suddenly, a loud bang made me jolt in suprise. 

"Aqua Hoshino!" Someone shouted. 

I immediantly thought, MEM. But when I got up and peeked into the kitchen, I realised it was Akane instead who stood at the doorway, her cheeks red and her eyes furious.

My stomach dropped. She had found out. 

"Aqua Hoshino," she repeated through gritted teeth, "I can't believe you!"

"What?" Aqua replied, looking up from chopping carrots. His face was all mock- confusion, but I could tell his eyes were dark and understanding. 

Then, Akane spotted me. "Arima-chan!" She shouted. I jumped. "Confirm it! Is it true that Aqua is cheating on me with Frill Shiranui?!"

I stared at her. Then, I lowered my head and whispered. "Yes. It's true."

Akane faltered, her anger evaporating into bitter disappointment. Clearly MEM had told her about Aqua.

"I spotted them together in a bush at school. Aqua forced me to keep quiet. I was only allowed to tell three people- MEM, Ruby and Miyako." I said quietly. "But MEM and Aqua had a fight and I guess now you know. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry I tried to protect Aqua." 

Aqua's ice-cold gaze flickered to me. But I wasn't going to be intimidated by him anymore. 

"But I shouldn't have," I contuined, stepping out of the doorway to face Aqua, despite his burning gaze. "Anyone- no matter who- who cheats is dishonest. Cruel." 

Now I realised all my words to Akane were really for me. 

Up till now, I hadn't realised- rather, I hadn't wanted to realise- that I had always hidden a secret part of me deep inside, a part of me that liked Aqua. 

And I had hidden it so deep unconsiously because I knew that was wrong. It would never work out. And now I knew what kind of person Aqua was. Because truthfully, I didn't understand him. I didn't understand the motives behind his actions or his strange personalities. And it's dangerous to love someone you don't understand. 

I'd been subconsiously trying to ice over those feelings- paint them over like they were insiginificant mistakes in a drawing. Hide them with bigger strokes of lies. Lies to myself. 

The smarter part of me, my brain- knew that I couldn't do this. I would end up like Akane- brokenhearted, lost and betrayed. 

But my heart didn't want to lose the precious feelings that have rained down on me. My heart didn't want to forget. Because no matter how cruel or evil or mean or horrible he was, my heart could forgive him. How selfish. 

I could put a lying, cheating man over a heartbroken girl. My brain screams at me no, but my heart doesn't argue. 

I don't know how much longer my brain can keep fighting back. 

Akane POV:

It hurt. 

My instinctive response to the sight of him. The sight of Aqua, with his tousled stableboy-style golden hair, crowning his sharp features like a prince, his ocean-blue eyes looking both pitiful, understanding and impassive at the same time. His ocean-blue eyes, so, so blue, deep as the sea, holding secrets that I could never dig out. Holding me in them, drowning in his eyes, drowning, the stubborn part of me refusing to go up for air, even though I knew what lay beneath the perfect blue water- cold, solid sand and the salty sting of regret. 

Kana's words sliced through me like a knife. And now my blood was dripping over the floor, except it wasn't blood, it was tears, and no matter how much one tries to hold in the blood from a wound it doesn't fade, just like how much I can try to hold in the tears but they won't stop falling to the floor with the distinct pitter-patter, like raindrops. Endless rain, like a sheet of cold. 

"It doesn't.... I don't...." I looked up from the floor, staring back at Aqua's eyes while trying not to lose myself in them. "I don't understand. What... what did I do wrong?" 

Why did it hurt so much? It shouldn't pain me this deeply. I shouldn't care for him this much. But the moment he'd pulled me back in the pouring rain that solemn day atop the highway, I knew I couldn't ever forget him. I'd lead myself to believe he really loved me, all the while guiding my broken soul to live in a perfect fantasy that would one day shatter into a million glass pieces, each sharp and broken in it's own imperfect way. 

"You didn't do anything wrong," Aqua replied smoothly. So smooth. Without a hint of remorse or pity in his voice. His eyes were devoid of any emotion. "You could never do anything wrong, Akane." 

There it was. His distinct way of talking, his distinct words that wriggled it's way into my heart and now latched onto it, refusing to let go no matter how hard I tugged. 

"Then why... why did you do this?"

Aqua POV:

Akane's eyes were turqoise pools of confusion, disappointment and remorse. Emotions I couldn't relate to. 

This was messing up everything. But it didn't matter. I had what I needed from Frill, and I would find another way to get the information Akane had. Perhaps a little blackmail was in order? 

"I don't know." I stared straight back at Akane with a cool, collected gaze, one rather like a stranger's. She really was just a stranger to me. Another pawn in the game of chess. And I'm the one playing. Ai is the opposition's King. I need to claim her to win. "I wish I knew." Another lie. 

It's so funny how lies pile up atop each other till they become a mountain. While others are crushed by it, I climb the hills. And when I reach the peak and claim those lies with a flag of my own,  those lies become stronger, more definite, till they can crush more. More and more victims of my lies till they are all that I know. 

To others, life is something precious. Something you'll never have another chance at again. Children are taught to appreciate life at a very young age. But what about me? There is no point to this second life. I would have quite happily died in my past life for Ai. But now I have to live in this universe where Ai doesn't exist and instead her murderer does. 

In the end, I revolve around Ai. She is the sun and I am her planets. I am stuck in an endless orbit, unable to move or stop, else I will destroy the perfect harmony of the planets. As long as the sun- Ai- keeps burning, I can keep living. But now that her light is exstinguished, all that is left of my planet is rocks and dust. But with those rocks and that dust, I have the power to hunt the universe that cruelly let Ai burn- lie-  herself to death.  And I will never stop hunting until that universe is gone and I will be gone and it doesn't matter if I'm gone if Ai is gone too. 

Looking into Akane's pained eyes now, I can tell we live in a different orbit. In an alternate universe. That is why I cannot ever truly care for, or understand, others that aren't Ai. They don't live on lies. They have completely different beliefs and circumstances. They are able to truly thrive. I'm just their dead weight that they have to drag with them. 

"Stop it, Aqua!" Suddenly, a familair red-haired girl leapt in front of me, her arms outstretched almost like she was protecting Akane from me. Her eyes were set and determined. "Just stop it! Stop giving her indirect, cruel, wrong answers! You know why you did it! Even if.... even if we don't know! Even if we don't understand!" 

I didn't reply. I couldn't. 

"Isn't it enough for you that someone loves you?" Kana shouted. "Even if that someone isn't who you want? Don't you feel blessed and lucky to have someone who wants to wake up next to you every morning! You should! Akane trusts you, and you trampled all over that trust!"

But she shouldn't trust me. And you shouldn't either. 

"What is wrong with you?!" Kana contuined, her eyes tearing up. "Why can't you understand any emotions that are even remotely human?!" 

Her eyes remind me of constellations. Like stars that are so far away and you know you can never touch them  but you want to reach for them anyway. 

That's how I feel, and I wish I could say it. I want to understand, but I can't. I gave up a long time ago. 

Except Kana's eyes are different. Akane's reflect human emotions and thoughts that I could never truly accept. Kana's also exist in a different atmosphere, but they make me want to drag myself into them- they make me want to leave this endless orbit and escape to her's instead. Even if it means losing myself in them. Even if it means never being able to truly reach out and steal a brush of my fingertips against the soft glow of her star. 

Suddenly, our direct, tense eye contact breaks when Akane shoves Kana out of the way furiously. And I find myself staring into the ice-cold depths of Akane's eyes again. "I would ask you why, but I know you won't answer," Akane seethed, "You know what? I want to just reach into your soul and wrench out the answers. But I know they'll only break me even more, because your answers are just as devoid and dark as you are." 

Her insults don't hurt me. They don't leave a scratch. They bounce off me like rubber. Why? Because I already know that. I already understand that. 

"This is over. It's over," Akane said desperately, as if she still wanted to convince herself of that. "I just want to escape. But I'm trapped!" 

She screamed,

"And you're the trapping me!"

A/N: Those poetic paragraphs took me forever to write. APPRECIATE THEM. THIS is the climax. The moment I try to use words to describe my interpertation of Aqua, Kana and Akane's reality. The people who are laughing because it sounds cheesy- I get it. People who are actually able to even remotely relate with my words- THANK YOU.