It was still a rare occasion to see Kurumi out of the common room for anything other than lessons and prefecting duties, but today was one of those days where something or someone by the name of Selina had pulle Kurumi out of bed, forced her to brush hair, and put on something other than her pajamas or her school uniform. Not that jeans and a purple sweater were all that much better.

Kurumi hadn't made it very far before she already felt exposed and began to wonder if she should just turn around and head back to the common room and up to the dorms to the comfort and security of her bed. Unable to make up her mind, Kurumi leaned her right shoulder against the wall and sort of just hugged herself.

Louisa had gotten out of common room with a relaxed mood and a book in hand, Viola was still grounded so she had no company at all as she headed down the corridor to the staircase before it moved away from--

--wait a minute!

Louisa backtracked a bit and took a closer look at the figure slammed against the wall. What in the name of Merlin was this particular Gryffindor doing here? Louisa was heading to the Great Hall to grab meet her and spill the beans about all that she heard from both boys! Well.. this secluded place was better...

Pursing her lips and straightening her back, the Ravenclaw started walking toward Kurumi. "You." As in the two-timer, disloyal girl that snogged someone when the boyfriend was away you. Louisa stood before her looking into her eyes and contemplating what to say first. But.. did her face look this ashen before? Were those extra red lines in her eyes? Was that a dark circle underneath them? Was she this skinny...?

"You look terrible for someone that had broken someone else's heart." Mhhmmm. No one was around to act.

Kurumi's shoulders hunched a little as she felt the weight of the necklace she still wore around her neck. The necklace that she still did not intend on taking off unless the person who gave it to her commanded that she did. She shouldn't be out here...she wasn't ready yet. Having finally made her decision, Kurumi slowly turned around...

....and froze.

It wasn't the fact that it was Louisa standing there. Nor was it in the brief exchange they had just had that Kurumi knew that Louisa knew what had happened. Nor was it the accusing tone in her voice. No...it was the words themselves that brought the tears to her eyes. It was the reminder of how Jonathan had looked when she had told him what had happened. Told him that she had ruined things and he didn't deserve to be with someone like her... Someone who she still thought about every day even though he seemed to not even give her a second glance.

Her hand reached for her chest, clutching the pendant there for a moment as Louisa's words repeated over and over in her head, tearing her down further each time and reopening the heartache that she had managed to tuck away long enough to exit the common room.

Kurumi couldn't speak...instead all she did was stand there clutching her chest, the necklace, and crying. Jonathan wasn't the only one who had had their heart broken that day, not that Kurumi could compare her pain to his. But her heart was still shattered, never to be the same.

Louisa's eyes quickly averted from the ghost-like face of the girl down to her neck where her hand clutched around something. A necklace probably. Huh. What a weird first reaction... Louisa opened her mouth to elaborate on her sentence that maybe Kurumi missed somehow that she wasn't pushing Louisa away or even speak. "What I mea-" But Kurumi was crying now. Real tears... and her body might or might not have shrunk in size, if this was possible. "Why are you crying?!" Louisa scoffed, "Talk to me!" The Ravenclaw wanted to poke the girl and make sure she was paying attention but she didn't move her hands away from her book.

Maybe Jonathan didn't want Louisa poking around and discovering what exactly had happened, and maybe the sixteen years old had no business with either Lewis or Kurumi whether they snogged or not, but the fact that it was bad enough that a cocky Slytherin was broken over the matter - it just tugged on Louisa's hidden curious nosy Ravenclaw deep inside to know how could Kurumi, the cookie girl, end up betraying her boyfriend with Lewis, the awkward boy.

Leaning against the wall with a frown on her face, Louisa looked down at the crying Gryffindor, "Honestly? I don't believe you get the right to express your sadness over losing a great person like him." She fished a hanky out of her breast pocket and stretched her hand, "Wipe those unworthy feelings off your face and talk to me, Kurumi." She continue to cry like this, Louisa was going to wipe them herself.

Kurumi's hand tightened around the necklace and Louisa's words continued to stab her like hot irons. Why was she crying? Wasn't it obvious WHY she was crying? Selina had been enraged at her when she had told her what had happened, but she hadn't been attacked...not like this...

Kurumi still couldn't find her voice silence between Louisa's words only made Kurumi's chest tighten and her breath become more uneven and short. She felt like the walls were closing in around her, threatening to crush her, and Kurumi's free hand gripped for something, anything, to help her keep her balance - which just so happened to be the tapestry they were standing in front of. Losing...Louisa was wrong thing. Kurumi wasn't in the process of losing anyone. At least that is how the sentence translated in her head right now. Kurumi had lost him. So she could cry all she wanted about having lost someone as amazing as Jonathan. "Louisa....don't tell me how I am allowed to feel about this..." she whispered, averting her eyes towards the ground. "...about what happened...." Her voice cracked again and her shoulders hunched even more. "....about how much it hurts..."

The tears didn't lessen any and if anything became thicker and hotter as they streamed down her face. The wounds that had been healed by time were now reopened and the Ravenclaw in front of her now was rubbing salt in them. What did she want from her? To get mad? Act like nothing was wrong? Because EVERYTHING was wrong and Louisa was being selfish for thinking Kurumi should act any differently than the Gryffindor was right now. It was clear that she was upset, which left Kurumi wondering what all had been discussed between Jonathan and her, and it was clear that Louisa needed to take her aggression out. So Kurumi spoke again.

"I-If it will m-m-make you feel better......you can hit me....if you want..."

Kurumi wasn't going to fight. Wasn't going to deny anything. Kurumi had wanted Jonathan to shout at her. Get angry. But he hadn't. The least Louisa could do was give her the punishment Kurumi felt she deserved.

She talked! Even if it was more like whisper and whimper, Louisa dropped her hand that held the hanky and leaned in just a little bit to get what Kurumi was saying. She didn't have the right to tell how she should feel? Well that was true. Louisa didn't answer this, she simply ignored it and felt tiny bit of gladness that the about-to-pass-out Gryffindor could rationalize something. However, 'how much it hurts' deserved a major scoff from Louisa. "How much it hurts the brokee." Like... the one who broke everything, geddit? "I can't believe you did this to yourself... to him." Louisa's voice went down a notch.

...only to grow louder at Kurumi's next words. HIT HER? Louisa's frown grew deeper, "What?!!" So Louisa didn't have the right to tell Kurumi how she was supposed to feel but she had the right to hit her? That rationalizing thing was down the drain. This girl was losing her mind, her self-esteem and everything in between. "I'm not an angry monster!" So no, she was not going to hit her. "I want you to know that you messed up big time, Kurumi Hollingberry. I don't even know what to say, but betrayal is one unforgivable sin. Not even lovers could forgive it." In case she didn't know that she'd lost him forever.

"You don't even have an excuse!" Louisa yelled this part, not because she hated Kurumi but because she looked so hard for an excuse to understand the girl, convince herself that it wasn't betrayal the ugliest in every relationship, but nothing had come to Louisa. Kurumi was found guilty.

"Yes, Louisa, how much this hurts me," she repeated, her eyes lifting from the ground now and meeting the Ravenclaw's head on. What did Louisa expect? That Kurumi wouldn't be hurt about this? That Kurumi would have just gone about her life as if nothing had happened? Kurumi thought that Ravenclaws were supposed to be bright, but Louisa was proving to not see ANY of the genuine pain and suffering that was reflected in Kurumi's disheveled appearance and broken eyes. "You make it sound like I planned for this to happen....for Jonathan's father to pull him from school suddenly without word...for him not to write me for six months..." Kurumi couldn't continue with the series of events and things that were swimming through her head. It was clear that Louisa had made up her mind about Kurumi and nothing was going to change that.

It was all coming back to her now, not the day in the pathways...but the months where Kurumi had cried herself to sleep in the dorms wondering where Jonathan was and if he was thinking about her. It had been Adam all over again. Disappearing. No form of contact. Being abandoned. Just one letter from him...and everything could have been different... Well, Kurumi would never know for certain, but by the time Jonathan's first form of contact had reached her it had been too late.

"Y-You think I don't know that, Louisa?" Kurumi whispered again, defeated, broken, wanting to just disappear into the tapestry beside where she stood. "What would you have had me do? LIE to Jonathan? Not tell him what happened? Not tell him that he deserves someone who trusts him and who he can trust?" Kurumi didn't know where her voice was coming from and why all this was flowing so easily right now. Perhaps it was because she had kept all this bottled up inside her for too long as the lay in her bed in fetal position shaking herself to sleep. Kurumi couldn't change what happened, between her and Lewis and she didn't want to. "You act like I don't care about him...like I never did..." Her voice was cracking now and her body showing signs of fatigue. "Because I still do, Louisa, Jonathan was the first boy I said I lo---" But Kurumi stopped herself. She didn't have a right to say those words out loud now. No matter how true they were still. "I still do...Louisa....I think I always will....and that is why....I had to..." The tears were streaming down her face now to the point where it was a wonder that they were not carving into her cheek bones. "...I had to let him go....I couldn't let him stay with me..."

Because Jonathan deserved the best. It was all she wanted for him.

Whao. Whaowhaowhaowhao!

Louisa blinked at Kurumi as she just started talking and getting what's left of her energy to justify her betrayal. She listened to that, her face as stony as she could muster something she learned from Joao and giving none of her confusion away. Jonathan left for six months without writing her? That... was news to Louisa. "It doesn't give you the right to just go ahead and snog someone." SNOG! So yeah, Louisa was actually mad at that particular moment when Kurumi just forgot about Jonathan and was with Lewis... she wasn't made about the breakup specifically.

She still had feelings for Jonathan?!! "You shouldn't." Louisa replied simply, for the sake of the boy, Kurumi shouldn't have feelings for him. "You hurt him when you had feelings for him." In case the Gryffindor didn't notice this tiny bit of news.

... she had to let him go. Louisa sighed and started rubbing her forehead, "Do you know what he'd told me that day at the movie? Right when we left and spent the evening out?" She looked back at Kurumi, something in Louisa's eyes that was other than disappointment at the girl - it was sympathy for the boy, "I told him that relationships in our age should be only for fun coz they hurt so much if broken... he said.." Louisa continued in a slower tone, "Love has no age limits." Why was she telling this to Kurumi? "He still believes in love, he doesn't even regret a second he spent with you. With all the pain you caused him, he's still Jonathan! I can't understand how you sleep at night with him away from you like that." Not that Kurumi looked so healthy at the moment.

Louisa needed to say those things to her. She couldn't just let her be guarded by her best friend and start over with Lewis as if nothing had happened! Two weeks of agony were not enough for those who betray, and it definitely is Kurumi's bad luck that Louisa's sore spot is betrayal.

Kurumi winced noticeably at the word snog. Kurumi hated that word. It wasn't one that was used in Japan and it seemed to desensitize everything that was involved in a kiss. Not just the ones her and Lewis shared...but the ones her and Jonathan shared. People threw that word out like it was nothing, like right now, and Kurumi hated it. Snog implied, as least to Kurumi, that there was no thought involved. That you just did it for the heck of it without any disregard for repercussions. It hadn't been that way...not at all...it still wasn't. "I never said it did, Louisa," Kurumi replied. Meaning that it gave her the right. Because the fault was with her, even if Selina insisted that Kurumi couldn't and shouldn't take all the blame for this since Lewis knew she was with Jonathan and still had kissed her.

Kurumi's eyes lifted, infuriated with what Louisa just said to her now. She SHOULDN'T? Again, Louisa had no right to tell Kurumi what she was allowed to feel, especially when it came to Jonathan. "That...isn't for you to decide, Louisa," Kurumi said, her voice still broken and quivering. "And you are wrong, I didn't hurt him because I have feelings for him...I hurt him because I let my insecurities...." She had let her insecurities about being abandoned and forgotten make her not trust him. "It shouldn't matter to you...how I feel about him....because he thinks it is all a lie."

And that was the worst part about all this. Jonathan thinking that she was lying to him when she never had. Never could. She cared for him too much to ever do that, lie.

What Louisa said next both surprised her and didn't. What surprised her most was that it meant Jonathan still had feelings for her. That he... Kurumi felt selfish for even thinking that thought, but it somehow made the weight of the necklace around her neck more bearable. Had Louisa told him the same thing? That he shouldn't feel things for her? The fact that he still did, it made her feel just a little better knowing that she hadn't destroyed the most beautiful part of him. The part that had allowed her in, changed him, and he change her. Kurumi didn't regret a moment she spent with him, save not telling him sooner...but she had been too weak, selfishly weak, when they had met because of her mother's impending death. It had been selfish, she knew, to not have told him then because she was afraid of losing him right then. Kurumi wiped a few tears from her eyes with her index finger, her hand lingering on her cheek.

"What...makes you think I have slept, Louisa?" she asked softly, her voice eerily calm as she did. Because every time she closed her eyes, the only image she had in her head was of him trying to hide the tears that were falling down his face. "I hardly sleep...or eat...or leave my room..." Kurumi leaned against the wall even more for support now. What was Louisa expecting that she was doing?

Kurumi lifted her gaze again, hurt and pain plastered on ever contour of her face. "Louisa....what do you think I have been doing?" Meaning, how did the Ravenclaw think the Gryffindor had been spending her time? Because it was becoming obvious that she, being Louisa, had NO clue what this was all doing to Kurumi.

She never said she had the right to snog someone, she never slept, she didn't think Louisa had the right to tell her she shouldn't be feeling anything for Jonathan. Well... the Ravenclaw was... glad to hear all of those. It meant, Kurumi wasn't the two-timer selfish girl Louisa was convinced she was. Huh. Good progress.

The new Prefect sighed and didn't answer Kurumi's questions, she just leaned against the wall and looked down at the floor. "I don't know, Kurumi, okay? But it was a bit hard to believe that you were feeling this... bad about what you did to him." The Ravenclaw lifted her head to look sideways at her friend, "Jonathan Kim never ever showed vulnerability when I was around. Something big is broken within him now that he does." But Kurumi already knew this so, "I don't know what you've been doing but I'm sure you had half the house staying up late with their cookie girl wiping her tears, patting her back and whatever while HE was just bottling it all up." And THAT, ladies and gentleman, called for an angry Louisa all over again.

She pushed away from the wall and started again, "And you knew it! You know he's not just any boy, gets broken, talks about it and then gets better!" If Louisa knew it, Kurumi must've known more than this. "If it wasn't for the fact that we encountered you at the movie and then Lewis came into the picture, I wouldn't have gotten him to talk! Or to express anything of his bitterness or frustration!" Her voice was reaching dangerous high tones. "You are selfish. I can't even say how disappointed I am in you." Because there were high standards and now there are standards.

Kurumi sighed and leaned against the wall more, her back to it and head head almost slamming against it as she looked up towards the ceiling. See, Louisa had passed her judgement on Kurumi and no matter what she said, how much she cried, how honest she was...nothing was going to make the Ravenclaw change her mind. Kurumi didn't mind that Louisa was mad at her, even hated her perhaps, what she did hate was the false assumptions the girl was making about her.

Especially Louisa's use of past tense just now.

"There is no were...Louisa....I AM feeling all this..." What Louisa said next, about Jonathan not showing his vulnerability and all, that was just WHO he was. He never showed emotion and always kept a poker face. It was part of his character and what had made him around her even more amazing because he HAD shown that side of himself, and not just at the break up. Not only that, but he always appreciated just how vulnerable she was, and encouraged her to be so around him. So Louisa was telling her things that she already knew...and Kurumi would really appreciate it if she would stop. "You DO have assumptions about what I have been doing...and you just gave one right now," Kurumi said as she sunk down to the floor. It hurt that Louisa had such low standards for Kurumi. Assuming that she went back to the common room and sought out the sympathy of everyone in her house. Kurumi didn't want anyone's sympathy. She didn't deserve it and had even tried to push Selina away when she had tried. "No one has been comforting me, Louisa, I haven't wanted anyone's sympathy...not even Selina's when she tried to give it to me." Kurumi bit her lip.

Louisa could compare her and Jonathan all she wanted to, it didn't make it right though. They were both very different in how they dealt with this like this.

Kurumi just sat there as Louisa continued to raise her voice and tear her down. Not that there was anything for Louisa to tear down. Kurumi had done that herself, what had been left of her at least. "I never said I wasn't any of those things either..." So Louisa could stop assuming things about her, like right now. "People like me don't deserve happiness...which is why...which is why...." And then out of frustration Kurumi almost threw the bag that was around her shoulders still against the wall, causing some of its contents to fall out. More specifically, some blank sheets of piano music that she had been wanting to give to Jonathan for a long time now...sheets that she had made...sheets where she had written composed by Jonathan Kim in her careful calligraphy.

Louisa didn't want to be so blunt about her 'assumptions' but Kurumi talking like this made the girl just blurt out, "Yes, I do! It's obvious, Kurumi. When we came to see you at the movie, it wasn't Jonathan's name you whimpered! It wasn't his face you stared at! It was Lewis. It's obvious where you've gone after Jonathan, what you've been doing." She stopped staring fully at Kurumi's face, not mad anymore but sad and disappointed. "Tell me I"m wrong... tell me that you didn't breath out Lewis' name and that Jonathan is the only one you've been thinking about. Tell me... please." Because if she didn't, Louisa was going to lose yet another thread of faith in young love.

Before the Ravenclaw knew it, Kurumi was admitting that she was selfish and... she didn't deserve happiness which's why what? Louisa didn't get the time to disagree because her bag slipped and almost everything dropped over to the floor. Louisa's eyebrows were raised as she stared down at the papers scattered down, one of which landed exactly at Louisa's foot. The name Jonathan stared back at the Prefect, her eyes blurred for a second as she widened them and plopped down on her knees clutching the paper in her hand.

... a music sheet?

With Jonathan's name on it.

Falling from Kurumi's bag.

Was it just Louisa or was something really not making any sense? She looked up at the girl waving the paper in her hand, "What's this, Kurumi?" Her voice was very odd coming this soft after all the angry emotions.

And there it was. Louisa finally owning up to her bit of this conversation. Kurumi hadn't denied anything, which she couldn't tell was what the Ravenclaw wanted or didn't, but Kurumi had nothing to hide. She knew what she had done. Knew what damaged it had caused and was still causing and it would be stupid to pretend that it wasn't. "Stop seeing only what you want to see. Believing what you want to believe," Kurumi snapped, although her voice was calm...full of hurt. Louisa was WAY off with her words right now. WAY off. "It was not Lewis I saw first. Not his name I said first. Not him I stared at the longest. It was Jonathan." The tears that had somewhat subsided were back again and Kurumi's body was shaking from frustration. "My heart broke again that day, Louisa. Seeing him for the first time since that day...seeing him look away from me...pretend that I don't exist... reminding me of what I lost. So stop pretending you know everything about me...about how I feel about this...you don't know anything."

Kurumi was usually very soft spoken and hated confrontation, but the way Louisa was talking to her. Assuming that she had just tossed Jonathan aside like he was nothing and gone running straight to Lewis...is made her sick. Ending things with Jonathan had been one of the hardest things she had ever done, ever seen, coming only in second to her mother dying right in front of her eyes. So no, Louisa, you had NO right to say anything that you just did right now.

Kurumi clutched her chest again, feeling a sharp pain in her chest as confusion washed over again. She knew that what she had done, letting Jonathan go so he could be happy was the right thing. So why was Louisa seeming to imply that it would have been better for her to stay with him? WHY would anyone wish a relationship where trust had been broken on anyone?

"Yes, I said Lewis name too...after I said Jonathan's. After I saw Jonathan and forced myself to look away because he looked away from me. I haven't spoken to either of them. That day was the first I had seen either of them since...." Kurumi bit her lip again. It hurt her more that Louisa had such low standards for Kurumi. Assuming that she had rushed to Lewis' arms after breaking not only Jonathan's hear, but her own. Kurumi was a lot of things, and not all of them good, but she was NOT that sort of girl. "...and I still haven't seen either of them since the movie..."

Not that it mattered, because Louisa had made her decision. Passed her judgement and nothing Kurumi did or say was ever going to be good enough.

But before Kurumi could continue Louisa was holding a piece of paper and Kurumi gasped. "I-I-It's...n-n-n-nothing," she stammered, trying to gather up the other pieces of piano sheet music. Because, again, nothing Kurumi said was going to be good enough for Louisa, so why even bother telling her that they were a gift that she had been wanting to give him for a long time now...

Only they weren't nothing. The pieces on the floor right now were almost symbolic pieces of her broken heart. A piece of them that she wasn't ready to let go, yet knowing she had to. Maybe that is why she wanted to give these to him, even after they were no more.

Stop seeing only what you want to see. Believing what you want to believe. Louisa's flinch might've been internal or external but it was a flinch either way. Those words, maybe not as direct, were said to her a couple of times before by her mother, her ex and now by Kurumi - someone who was hurt, drained and supposedly unable to pass on any logic. The Gryffindor's next words were a bunch of unclear roaring as her first words echoed in Louisa's head, the girl's face was blank all the time but her eyes did see Kurumi's brown eyes.

... brown?

"Why are your eyes brown?" It was the random question of the year, but Louisa's observant self didn't observe this. She saw Kurumi's eyes before, this dull color was never seen before... or maybe Louisa was losing memory because of that straight-to-the-heart comment.

She stretched her hand to Kurumi, offering the paper back. "You stuttered now." She hadn't stuttered all this time but now, she did. Louisa's voice was lifeless, she needed to hide her emotions for until after Kurumi left, "Which means it is something."

Pause.

Louisa's throat was really hurting from all the angry yelling. "You're... really... hurting too..." It was SO SO hard to try to see from both sides. Louisa was convinced that JONATHAN was the victim, he was hurting while Kurumi here must've been the sinner. But.. did a sinner cry at the mention of their victim's name? Did they shake? Did they... accept to be called selfish and sinners in the first place?

Something didn't click in the Ravenclaw's mind.

Kurumi was a bit taken aback by Louisa question and the sudden shift in conversation that it caused. Kurumi suddenly felt very deflated and emotionally drained as if the situation they were in right now were a balloon slowly losing the air inside it. For Kurumi, this was going from one emotional topic to another...but she couldn't fault Loiusa for that. She wouldn't know. Just like the break up, hardly anyone knew about....her mother.

Swallowing, Kurumi hugged her knees tightly too her chest. "My abilities turned off the day...the day my mother...the day she....died."

Kurumi slowly looked up and accepted the paper back with a trembling hand. For perhaps the first time during their conversation, Louisa was right. These papers were something. "He is a composer...," she replied softly, looking at the piece of piano music in her hands. "A brilliant one..." Kurumi would know, she had heard first had several times. "...and I just......but it doesn't matter now, I guess. He wouldn't let me get close enough to...give these to him..." Besides, why would it even matter to Louisa what they were. Louisa felt nothing but disgust for the Gryffindor anyway.

Louisa's next words cause Kurumi's eyes to widened and she finally looked up at the Ravenclaw. Kurumi almost felt insulted by her question. Did Louisa honestly think that Kurumi wasn't hurting? That she was HAPPY about all this? "Of course I am, Louisa, I hurt someone I lo--- I care for a lot..." Again, Kurumi had no right to say that word, especially since Jonathan wouldn't want her to because, in his eyes, it was a lie.

Louisa got yet another smack to the head -figuratively speaking- in less than five minutes. She found herself sliding down the wall to sit on her knees on the floor, her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth slightly open. Kurumi's mother died? Recently? H-how... b-b-but w-why.. no, HOW did that happen? "I..." am sorry? That was one pathetic word. She shut up and looked down at Kurumi's feet... away from her face and broken features. Something in the Ravenclaw's mind didn't want to see the actual image of Kurumi, the one that Louisa overlooked for the past half an hour and just went ahead flinging accusations at Kurumi because Louisa believed she was at fault. And should be punished. She overlooked the real picture. What happened behind the scenes that most definitely had a deep impact on everything later.

... wait, her abilities?! Louisa frowned in confusion. "W-what abilities?"

Jonathan was a brilliant composer? The Ravenclaw half-smiled, she maneuvered herself to be leaning against the wall as she sat down on the floor few feet away from Kurumi. "He said he just enjoyed playing it to himself." Who knew he was underestimating himself? Jonathan Kim underestimating himself!

Oh and Kurumi wanted to.. give those to him? Louisa glanced sideways at the papers, "I... uh.. am planning to get him a piano soon. From somewhere. If you like..." she could deliver them, withOUT mentioning Kurumi's name. Louisa still sympathized with Jonathan a lot. Although now with Kurumi's mother getting into the picture, the Ravenclaw did not know how to feel toward the girl. How was it possible that she held in so much withered feelings.

Someone she loved. Louisa pursed her lips at this, feeling a tinge of jealousy and then some of her anger crept back into the surface only it wasn't as heated this time. "You see, Kurumi, that is why I am.. like this with you now." her voice was measured and somewhat calm, "You had someone so committing and one mistake on his behalf, or his dad's, made you turn the tables on him." Louisa fell silent for a moment. "You should know that not many people have the privilege of being with someone they love... someone who's ready to make promises for them."

Kurumi bit her lip and for once was glad that someone didn't finish their sentence starting with 'I'. Kurumi really didn't want to hear...that phrase when it came to losing her mother, no matter how sincere they were. It wasn't going to make her feel any better, nor was it going to bring her mother back. So, Kurumi almost thanked Louisa for not saying anything. It was actually the best thing for her. It was what Lewis and Jonathan had done when they had seen her in Diagon Alley. They both knew words were not needed.

Kurumi lifted her head again when Louisa did speak and chewed on her lip nervously for a moment. "I'm...a metamorphagus." That explained everything, right? Kurumi had somehow been able to keep it hidden from most of the student body for almost six terms now, but it was becoming apparent that she could no longer do so. She just wished that it didn't have to be this way.

Kurumi leaned her chin on her knees and rocked for a moment. "He....would really like that," she smile slightly. She had never seen him as content as when he had played for her on Valentine's Day. He belonged in front of a piano. Kurumi didn't even ask how, or if she could help, it wasn't her place to. "You would...do that?" Kurumi asked, her eyes shimmering again with tears of a different kind. "You...you can't say they are from me though..." Although, Jonathan knew Kurumi's handwriting well enough that he would be able to tell. "I....I don't think he would accept anything from me..." Which broke her heart a little more now. That he just wanted to cut her completely out of his life...even though he told Louisa he didn't regret being with her.

Kurumi was back to rocking slightly, holding the necklace hanging around her neck once more. "It...it is never one thing, Louisa," she replied calmly. "I....someone I thought cared about me left me...and never wrote...abandoned me...and I thought...I thought it was happening again..." She hugged her knees a little more tightly against her chest. "When Jonathan left...I had just found out about....my mother.... and he was gone. I wrote him almost every day...and no letters were returned....I-I-It's not an excuse, I-I-I should have trusted him, he never gave me a reason not to..." And that was where Kurumi was at fault, because she wasn't ready to. Which is even more reason why she had to let Jonathan go. "I know....Louisa....I know.... and he deserves someone who trusts him and who he can trust....that isn't me...." Kurumi couldn't change what happened, and now surely Louisa saw that the selfish thing Kurumi could have done was keep a relationship that she had broken. "I...I just want him to be happy..."

Which now looked like that meant she shouldn't be any part of his life and maybe she just needed to accept that. Accept that she was nothing but a memory in his mind.

Metamorphagus? Louisa lifted her gaze to look at Kurumi, and she stared for a bit. Amazed and intrigued to ask more questions... but she refrained. It was probably the last thing the Gryffindor wanted to do after all this chaos Louisa had caused in this small corridor - sharing. "Oh." was all she allowed herself to say. As if this was just any cool casual information someone shares with another on a floor of a corridor.

Why was it so hard for Kurumi to believe that Louisa would do that, yes. "I'd do it for Jonathan, yes. I want him to be.. himself again." She lowered her gaze and nodded at Kurumi's advice, "I won't say they're from you." Would he be able to recognize the handwriting, though? And more importantly, what would he do if he did? Louisa wanted to tell Kurumi that she thought he'd take something from the Gryffindor, Louisa felt that Jonathan was struggling inside to let the girl go but wasn't there yet. She assumed he'd hang on to anything from her, anything after the big breakup. It might give him hope that maybe the two of them didn't have to be so far apart....?

However, the Ravenclaw remained silent. Her assumptions didn't do her much good today, did they? They just made her yell and hurt someone... without investigating carefully about the actual story first.

Trust issues. Huh. Every time Louisa got involved in a relationship, it was trust issues that messed everything up and broke whatever beautiful two people had. Trust issues that usually led to commitment issues... the 'C' word that Louisa craved all her life. "I think... you're... right." HARD to admit this. But she did, because the Ravenclaw always challenged herself into doing something hard but right. "He's better off without someone who doesn't trust him, or isn't trusted herself." Harsh words, Louisa had her bad moments.

Kurumi could feel the tone of curiosity that was coming from Louisa's 'oh' but the Ravenclaw had something else coming if she thought that now was the appropriate time to ask further questions. Kurumi hated talking about it, her abilities, and it was especially true now since they were a reminder of things she had lost. A reminder of her mother and how she was never coming back. So the Gryffindor was glad when Louisa just let that conversation drop.

Kurumi didn't speak, but instead reorganized all the sheets of piano sheet music back into a neat pile and removed the emerald green ribbon from her bag that had come undone and slowly tied it around the papers in a neat bow. Kurumi sort of just held them there for a moment, still wishing that she could deliver them to her herself so that they could talk...only Kurumi knew that was asking too much. It was too soon. It didn't make her miss him any less, however. Slowly, she handed them to Louisa as if she were handing over something very precious and fragile. "Thank you..." Even if Louisa wasn't doing it for Kurumi, by extension she was.

Kurumi only nodded at Louisa's next words. See, finally someone saw what Kurumi had been trying to tell those that new the situation. Treyen had told Kurumi she was insane, especially with the rest of what she felt was the right thing to do. "Which...is also why I am going to tell Lewis he shouldn't want to be with me either..." she murmured, hugging her knees tightly against her chest again. Because Kurumi didn't trust herself with anyone's heart.

Louisa watched Kurumi tying the green ribbon around the paper as if they were fragile shreds of glass. How would Jonathan react if he saw her right now giving his precious gift to someone who wasn't nearly as close to the Slytherin as she was? How would he react to see her conflict mirrored by her gestures, looks, and whispers. Louisa accepted the pile of papers silently. She made sure to place them somewhere between the book's covers without getting wrinkled or abused.

Were they... done here? Apparently not since Kurumi uttered something very... weird. So weird that Louisa put aside her book and shifted on her butt to completely stare at the Gryffindor. "Y-you... what?" To say that the girl's spirit was down would be the understatement of the year... Louisa was making history today apparently.

This was wrong! Kurumi shouldn't say this! She was supposed to convince Louisa that she was actually a very trustworthy person, or she should've told her to just zip it and get the hell out of here, or anything that would express Kurumi's anger.
Apparently Louisa did not know this girl at all. The Ravenclaw frowned and pursed her lips, struggling for words. Instinctively, she wanted to agree. Yes, Kurumi didn't really prove herself as a trustworthy person since she betrayed Jonathan with Lewis... why would she so suddenly NOT betray Lewis? It didn't make sense, logically and the odds said she'd betray him.

"Listen..." Louisa's hand went through her hair frustratedly, and she struggled for words again. GAH! "Listen..." again... this time she rubbed her temples nervously and went for it, "Listen, Kurumi, I'm not the person you want to say this to. Okay? Because we're not on the same page here.. and from what little I know of Lewis, I don't want him to be hurt too." By being with her. "But I also came to know that people... can.. change.." THERE.

Louisa paused trying to understand what she'd just said. Feeling uncomfortable, she started getting up, "Like I said. I'm not really reliable to give you any advice in that field. I..uh... apologize.. if I was unnecessarily rude at some points but I think you already know this about me." Right? Because after six years of attending classes, doing homework and casual meet-ups together you know that a person was rude and blunt sometimes, no? Yeah.. exactly.

Kurumi watched as her gift vanished from sight and she sighed softly as she leaned a little more into the wall. And that was it.... All she could do now was hope that he used them to compose more of the amazing music that he did.

Kurumi didn't see Louisa's reaction, her eyes not really focused on anything in particular other than straight ahead, but her eyes did refocus when she was told to listen...several times. Turning her head slowly, Kurumi remained silent as Louisa...gave her some advice? But, Louisa couldn't possibly be giving her the advice she thought she was hearing, could she? Not after the way she had just been shouted at. Yet, something resonated within the Gryffindor that told her that was exactly what Louisa was suggesting she do...not that Kurumi was sure she was going to accept that advice. But she had been listening, just like Louisa had asked her to.

Kurumi sort of just nodded at the last bit of information Louisa gave her and at the apology. Kurumi didn't speak, however, not sure if she really was ready to accept an apology for everything that had been said to her. Kurumi hated people assuming things about her, stereotyping her as something, labeling...she had been a victim of that all her life in some very harsh instances. "I know...Louisa," she finally said after a few more moments, a few more tears trickling down her cheeks now. "Just...do one more thing for me, please?" she looked up at Louisa now, making sure that she met her fellow sixth year's gaze, about a million and one emotions reflected in her brown eyes. "M-Make sure he takes care of himself?" Please?

Louisa gulped as soon as Kurumi asked for one more service from the Ravenclaw. Louisa expected a lot of things; Kurumi telling her not to tell anyone about this, Kurumi telling her to leave her alone forever, Kurumi asking for the papers back... anything really but not what the Gryffindor had just asked for. The new Prefect froze in her spot, she didn't even pick up her book and papers yet. "W-wha..a..t." And why on earth was Kurumi crying again? Louisa's mouth twitched into a pout as she knelt down and picked her stuff off the floor.

Yeah. She was going to make sure he was alright... but now it'll be for Kurumi as much as it's for Jonathan, Louisa's friend. Now, Louisa didn't know who was the 'sinner' and who was the 'victim' anymore. Black and white no more, there's grey all over the place. And it was scary for the Ravenclaw, not being able to rationalize everything into right or wrong. She needed to leave as quickly as possible before Kurumi opened her eyes to some new scary facts.

"I... will." she cleared her throat, hugged her book with the papers poking out of it and gave Kurumi one last look, "Maybe you'll fix things eventually." And she almost raaaaan away, before Kurumi recognized yet another advice. Louisa walked fast fast fast toward the common room she'd come from, she needed to hide those sheets and get her plan working about that piano. If anything, it was more crucial now.

Asher had just been to the owlery to take some other presents to Avis to send to Italy mostly candy from Honeydukes for his cousins. Between packing for the holiday and wrapping presents he didn’t have a lot of time to do much else besides his school work.

His hands had been pretty full on the way up here, but now that his hands we're fairly empty minus a BIG and heavy red bag. Which contained someone very special's Christmas present. He was to meet her on the seventh floor to exchange presents.

Before he realized it Asher was already back at Lachlan the Lanky. He knew that he would soon be back at the staircase so turned around and started pacing the tapestry. He actually was started to sweat. Quite frankly he was a bit nervous about this present..... it was like no other.

Anya skipped on over to the statue that she agreed to meet Asher at. It was almost time to leave for the holiday... which meant now was the time to exchange presents.

And so Anya skipped down the hall holding a bag containing a hat.

In typical girl fashion, it was gift that was mostly for her benefit.

"Hey Honeyduke. Gotcha something." she said holding out the gift. He should open it. And wear it right now. Since it was no secret how much Anya liked hats.