"No More Regrets"
Ai stayed by her side until she calmed down.
She later fell asleep... he automatically thinks
of putting her back inside. He gently carries her
in his arms and carefully walks around her house..
and he runs into the cat, Lily.
"Oh..?" Ai was quite surprised.
"Meow~" The cat purred as it stroked its body
against Ai's leg.
"Hello there little fella." Ai bent down with no
expression as he stroked the back of the cat.
It continues to purr as if it has something to say.
Obviously, it still recognizes him and it missed him.
"Take care of Crystal." He says as he took a
step back and left, gently closing the door.
As Ai left, Lily/Crystal's house was left in silence.
She slept in peace. Somehow relieved to have
someone stay by her side the moment she
broke down and shut herself away from everyone.
The very next day, she had to attend work for
their taping of the movie. However...
"Hey Crystal---" Ai was just about to
raise his hand to wave at her but she
only passed him by.
"What's up with her?" Ranmaru
mutters with his usual annoyed expression.
"Leave her be." Camus calmly says.
"I agree with Myu-chan, there must be something
bothering Crystal-chan until now! You know what
happened yesterday right?!" Reiji tries his best to
lift the awkward mood of the place.
"What are you all doing here?" Ai ignored the fact
that he was actually ignored by Crystal/Lily and turned
around to ask.
"What do you mean, Ai-Ai? We're here to watch you
perform. We were worried about yesterday!" Reiji
smiles as he explains to Ai.
"Idiot! Who's worried?!" Ranmaru playfully
hits him in the head.
"Silence!" Camus raises his hand.
"Hello there, guys." Aine came and
greeted them.
"Oh, hello there Aine." Ai greets him.
"You're here to watch too?" He asked.
"Yeah." Aine smiles. "I'll pick up Crystal
after this too, we also have work together."
"I see." Ai nods.
"But doesn't that seem like as if she's working
with the same person?" Ranmaru raises a brow.
"Haha," Reiji laughs. "So you just realized THAT
Ran-Ran~?" He asks almost in a mocking tone.
"What's so funny?!" Ranmaru once again reacts
violently.
Meanwhile, in the dressing room...
Crystal/Lily sits down and sighs.
She looks in the mirror with sad eyes.
"What am I doing.. really..." Lily asks herself.
"Looking in the mirror, that is." Ai said as he
walked in.
"A-Ai!" She exclaimed. "Y-You startled me.."
She pouts her lips and looks away.
"We're about to start soon." Ai tells her.
"I know." She stands up and avoids any eye
contact with him, leaving him alone again.
After a while, they started acting.
Underwater... no... under the frozen water,
the merman keeps chasing after the image
of the ice princess that stood above.
The water freezes the moment she takes
a step... while the merman struggles to rise
above to have a chance to speak to her.
"Ice princess!!" The merman calls out to her.
"Silence!" She freezes the merman's spot.
"Speak to me!" The merman continues to
move to a different spot.
"You dare show your face to me once again.
You filthy creature, rot down in the deepest
core of the ocean's never-ending dark abyss!"
The ice princess faced him with a maddened
expression.
"I refuse to. I shall defreeze this frozen land.
You keep freezing your heart, shutting yourself
away from everyone. Tell me, why? Lift the curse,
I will bless you." The merman does his best to
convince the ice princess.
"You ask me, why? Because feeling nothing feels
great! Do you not love the irony? Ha, bless? You,
bless me? Bless me with a curse not, you stealing
a kiss from me is a curse enough, serving as a nightmare
that haunts me at night!" She gets even more angry.
"Can you really not feel at all? Is your heart truly frozen?
Are your feelings truly sleeping? What I see is they aren't.
What I see is anger, madness and hatred. You can feel...
Isn't that great? That's what's truly great." He looks at
her with empty eyes as he explains his thoughts.
She falls silent. "You merman... what do you want from me?!"
"I want to feel the warmth.. of feelings... and freedom...
set this cursed frozen land free from your ice of darkness."
He remains calm as he speaks to her.
"You want to feel? How foolish. Come feel the cold!"
She strikes him down with a shard of ice.
"Is that it?" The merman didn't do anything and his expression
remained the same despite being pierced by a shard of ice.
Her eyes widens with surprise, "What the...?"
"I cannot feel the pain at all." He moves his hands
dramatically. "This isn't fun at all. Can you remove this
thing please?" He points at the ice.
"You really... can't.. feel...?" She asks with
hesitation, her expression shows surprise.
The ice slowly melts as if his condition moved
her in some way, a sudden change of heart?
"This emptiness will last for an eternal."
The merman put up a fake smile.
"Seriously.." The ice princess felt herself
lose strength. "What am I doing?"
"CUUUUUUT!" The director yells.
"What's wrong with you Crystal?! That ain't
part of your dialogue!!!"
"I... I'm sorry." Crystal/Lily bows as she apologizes.
"Jeez, it's the 14th time today Crystal, 14th!!!"
The director sighs. "Let's pack up for today guys."
"Sorry." Crystal mutters as the crew walks past
through her.
Left alone in the studio with Quartet Night
and Aine Kisaragi too, Crystal/Lily remains silent.
"Hey." Ai speaks.
"What?" Crystal/Lily looks away
before responding to him.
"Next time, do better. You're starting to get annoying,
Crystal. It's not alright. You can do better, why aren't
you doing any better? Don't dwell upon your personal
problems, we don't care about that, we want the job
done nice and clean but we can't because of your
silly drama." Ai changes his mind about saying what
he really actually wanted to say and ends up lecturing
Crystal/Lily.
"What...? After you stayed, now you're going to say
THAT? I don't know you anymore, Ai-kun... I just...
No... what am I saying? I'm sorry." Lily/Crystal
looks away before she even says more.
"Hmph." Ai walks away.
"I hope you feel better soon, Crystal-chan!!!"
Reiji calls out to her before leaving with Ai and
the others. "Oi, Ai-Ai!!! WHY'D YOU DO THAT?!"
"Thanks, Reiji-kun..." Crystal/Lily still cannot
look at them in the eye.
"Shall we go, Crystal?" Aine asks her.
"Aine..." Lily/Crystal looks at him.
"Yes?" He smiles.
"COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE?"
She yells at him, leaving him in a shocked state.
"C-Crystal... why...?" Aine hesitates to ask.
"I mean... you see, it pains me every time I see
you because you serve as a reminder of Ai-kun
to me! It's just something you won't understand.
Please..." Lily/Crystal starts to break down again.
"I see." Aine calms down and fakes a smile.
"If that's what my lady wishes, I will grant it.
But remember, call for me when you need me.
I'll come for you no matter what." He turns around
and leaves.
Lily, in an emotional breakdown state,
heads back home with a depressed aura
all over her. Ignoring all the phone calls
and other stuffs. She locks herself up in
her room and ignores the knockings on her
door, people calling out to her.
"Senpai..? Are you alright?" Syo and
Natsuki came to ask but she won't respond.
"Not good." Tokiya mutters.
"I guess it's best to leave her be for now."
Masato suggests.
"She's grown cold to Ai-senpai... and
even colder to us! What happened to
her?!" Natsuki wonders.
"We don't know... but I do hope she gets
better soon..." Otoya sadly says.
"Hohoho, make way young ones!!!"
Saotome came spinning in.
"P-P-PRINCIPAL?!" Everyone exclaimed,
surprised of his usual sudden appearance.
"You all leave. I will talk to her."
Saotome orders them and they all look
at each others' eyes before nodding and
leaving, deciding to leave it to their principal.
As the boys leave, Saotome knocks but
gets no respond. Once again, he knocks
but this time he calls her name, "Miss Emily."
Her eyes widened and finally gave notice.
She stood up and hesitates before opening
the door but in the end she opened it after all.
"Ohohoho." Saotome laughs.
"How did you...?" Lily/Crystal wonders.
"Silly. It's obvious after all, if they knew you
from the past. And besides, I am Shining
Saotome! You can't hide anything from me!!"
He spins in to her room in the Shining Agency's dorm.
"I see.. that's true..." Lily falls silent.
"So? What problem do we have here?"
Saotome asks her.
"It's nothing, really..." Lily refuses to say.
"It's Mr.Mikaze, isn't it?" Saotome asks again.
"So yeah you do know." Lily raises a brow
and walks back in right after she closed the
door.
"It's love, Ms.Emily. Don't let it go.
That's IF you believe it's true and genuine."
Saotome suddenly spoke in a different, serious
tone of voice.
"But this love will be the death of him."
Lily frowns.
"Love may be poisonous, but even the
most poisonous fruits bear the most
beautiful flowers. It can be deadly, but
lovely when restrained. Even if death
tears you apart, you'd still be happy...
to live without regrets."
Saotome smiles warmly.
"P-Principal... do you have any regrets..?"
Lily asks out of curiosity.
"Why yes I do." Saotome chuckles.
"I once lost my love before.
And now I regret it.
My own son doesn't even know me.
But I'm the only one to be blamed."
"That's so sad..." Lily comments.
He chuckles again, "So now, do you want
to live a life filled with regrets?" Saotome
asks Lily once again.
"I... I don't want that... I want to be happy
with Ai-kun..." Lily stares at the floor as
she speaks.
"Then go tell him. Before it's too late."
Saotome laughs as he opens the window
before making his exit.
"You're right... YOU'RE DEFINITELY RIGHT!"
Lily snaps her finger and runs out of the door.
"She took her leave before me huh? Well,
love cannot wait." Saotome laughs as he
watches Lily's back run further away.
Lily decided to run over to Ai's room.
Around that time, it was already midnight.
It 'surprised' Ai when she stormed over to his room.
"Ai-kun?" She keeps calling out to him as she
knocks on his door.
"Crystal...?" Ai stopped typing and looks
at the door.
"Ai-kun... I'm sorry..." She started sobbing.
Ai stood up and walked up the door, as he
opened it, he found her sitting on the floor,
hugging her knees, her face buried on her
legs, hiding her crying face. His eyes widened.
"C-Crystal...? What are you doing there?"
"I'm sorry... I was just out of myself..."
Lily keeps sobbing as she speaks.
He kneels on one knee and holds her shoulders
to assist her up, "Stand up, it's cold down there."
She stands up, still rubbing her eyes to also
wipe her tears away. Ai sits her down on the
bench right next to his room.
"So, what do you want?" Ai asks, clueless
of what might have caused her to storm over
so suddenly.
"Nothing, really... I just wanted to say thank you...
and sorry..." Lily finally stopped crying but she was
left in a daze, she stares at the floor as she apologizes.
Ai was left speechless, he fell silent.
For a moment, an awkward silence lasted...
until Ai broke it. "It's fine."
She was quite surprised to hear his response,
it almost felt like he understood her again, she
wondered, is he starting to feel again? Either
way, she was happy. She smiles and stands
up, faces him and bows down, "Thank you."
Ai stares at her, not sure of what he should do.
Suddenly, he grabbed her hand and pulled her
close to him, causing her to suddenly fall on his
lap and he hugged her from behind. Lily's face
went bright red and panicked as she asked, "A-Ai-
kun?! W-What are you doing?!"
He holds her tighter, "Isn't this what someone should
do to comfort a human? That was what I was taught.
Am I not correct? If so please do correct me."
"You want to comfort me..?" She mutters.
"No.. No.. it's fine with me..." Lily releases herself
and faces him, only to embrace him properly this time.
"Really, thank you."
"How many times do you plan on saying that?
I already told you it's nothing, it's fine." Ai didn't
react by Lily's sudden embrace.
She giggles, "Okay, sorry."
"That one too." Ai seemed expressionless,
but he himself knew, there was something
strange he felt. It was happiness.
She giggles again and says nothing more,
releasing him from her embrace. "I really
shouldn't abuse you. You might accuse me
and sue me for sexual harrassment." She
told him her last words for tonight before going
back to her own room, thinking to herself, "I
feel better now... I don't want anymore regrets."
As she walks away, Ai stares at her back walking
away from him... when she finally disappeared into the
corner, he stared at his hand that suddenly grabbed
hers, "Why did I just do that?"
Chapter 34
"No More Regrets"