A array of golden sunshine kisses my skin as I feel a small tug on my sleeve.

"Look, Kyo-kun! Ice-cream!" Tohru Honda, my girlfriend says happily.

I grin and follow her over to the picturesque ice cream van. God, it feels hella good to be out of that awful prison.

Akito owned up to it all. He called the police and admitted that he was the one who had tried to kill Tohru. He was taken in, questioned and subsequently arrested. His trial is in a few months, and I know for a fact that he's pleading guilty.

I don't care, to be honest. That bastard should get what's coming to him. He tried to kill the person who means the most to me in the world and then blamed me for it. I spent three months in a fucking prison (well, a juvenile detention centre) because he didn't have the balls to own up. Yeah, that peice of shit should get what's coming to him. He can rot in jail for all I care.

Maybe that's not fair. He did prevent Tohru from jumping off that roof.

I can't believe she would do something like that. Tohru's supposd to be the sane one, the one who'll be there for you when you're feeling low. Not the other way round. She was suicidal. Fuck, I should've been there; there to catch her if she was to fall. I'm supposed to be her boyfriend, for fuck's sake.

And yep, Tohru and I are officially... 'An Item'. All I know is that I love her. I'll love Tohru Honda until the day I die.

---HISAKO---

Twelve months.

Twelve months ago, my big brother, my best friend died in a car accident.

Strangely, I feel indifferent. The place in my heart reserved for emotions is filled to the brim with... well, nothing.

After everything that went down with Tohru and Akito... I am numb.

I miss Yuki. After all this, I miss him. I miss our conversations, which ranged from politics to cats. Yuki was never very affectionate. I didn't mind that.

But I loved him. I loved him so fucking much and I still do, I suppose. I like Ai, my new girlfriend.

She's kind and really caring. She's cute, and really funny. She's cultured and intellectual. She's brave. Her dad left the family years ago and her mum has agoraphobia, meaning she's afraid of going outside. She's also a raging homophobe and took it really badly when Ai came out. I want to be there for her, I want her to know that she's not alone.

I really like Ai. Maybe one day I'll even grow to love her.

But she's still not him.

---Kyo---

I hate the smell of hospitals. The reek of disinfectant that seems to follow you around the goddamn place.

I've been spending more time than I'd like to at the hospital.

And no, Tohru's cancer has not disappeared. She's still fighting, still going strong. My beautiful Tohru is going to defeat this. She has to.

She had surgery two months after the incident. Three months later, it looks like she's going to get through this. I can only support my girlfriend as she fights the hardest battle of her life.

I can only squeeze her trembling hand as she vomits uncontrollably.

I can only make her a glass of warm milk as she tosses and turns each night.

I can only offer a shoulder to cry on when she's struggling to see the point of it all.

Last month, Tohru woke up one morning to find that half of her hair was scattered on the pillow. She felt her head, and more hair came away in her hands. It had been thinning ever since she started chemotherapy, but that awful morning she suddenly went completly bald. Her eyebrows fell off, her eyelashes too.

All I could do was hug her, and tell her that everything would be OK.

She's still beautiful, although she doesn't think so. I will always love her, whatever she looks like.

Oh yeah, and Yuki's still here. I still hate the damn rat. Well, actaully, not so much anymore. Don't get me wrong, I don't like him or anything, we're not friends...

But ... (Don't EVER tell him that I said this) I guess he's slightly OK. I'll put up with him. Tohru completly adores him for some weird reason.

And yes, we're still living in that house with Shigure. Tohru is still eternally grateful, and makes a point of thanking Shigure every morning. Sounds annoying, right? Trust me, it's about a million times more irritating than you think.

Everything is more or less the same. Although Tohru's taken residence in my room now.

She sleeps there mostly because when she wakes up in the night and starts vomiting, I can be there to get her a drink and a towel. The vomiting is bad. Really, really bad. She's sick until she starts chocking over the bucket, and when she has vomited up the entire contents of her stomach, she starts sicking up an awful liquidy substance. This is what's dangerous, because if she keeps vomiting that and not being able to hold down any water, then she could get dehydrated, although luckily this hasn't happned yet.

It's hard watching her in pain like that. I feel like I should do something, but the simple truth is that I just can't.

I can only love her.

I will always love her.

---TOHRU---

"Hello?" I nervously speak into the telephone.

"I'm here." The voice on the other side tells me.

"How are you, Akito-san?" I ask the woman who wanted me dead.

This has sort of become a regular thing. Every Friday at eight O'clock in the evening, I call Akito-san, just to see how she is. She's in a women's prison, although only the more senior members of the zodiac know of this. And me, of course. But that's a secret. No one knows that I know, if you see what I mean.

"I'm... doing OK." she replies. I can picture the frightened young woman trying to put on a brave face speaking to me at the other end of the line.

I feel sorry for her, I don't want her to suffer because of me. But at least Kyo-kun is out now. He didn't deserve that. I don't ever want to leave his side again.

I don't get that nightmare anymore. Akito stopped being the big bad beast a long time ago. I would say we're kind of friends now. She grew up being told what to do, how to act- everything was decided for her. She grew up with hate replacing the love of a mother. She grew up with emptiness replacing the love of a father. She grew up into a world where the gender she was born as just wasn't enough, so she was forced to live her life as someone she wasn't, couldn't and would never be.

She had free will. She made a choice, and because of that I can't ever completly trust her. But I can forgive her.

I will get through this. I have to be strong. For her, for me, for my Kyo-kun. For mum.

Because now I have a new nightmare. I get it every single night, and it's so, so much wotse than any I've had before.

The beginning is the same. I'm having a picnic with mum and Kyo-kun. Like the last nightmare, I go to get lunch out but when I turn around, I'm standing on the root. I'm back to that horrific day on Akito's roof. I'm sick and tired of it all. I want it to end. Akito is calling my name as the wind howls. A wave of cold smashes into my skin.

I take a step forward. I take a deep breath. I close my eyes.

And I jump.