Things in the electronics store had taken a turn. Sophia found out that the laptops were connected to the internet, and while showing Maya how all that worked, she decided to open the messaging program she used with her family without thinking. There, she found out that her mother had sent her many messages, and to make matters even worse, Steph had sent her several hundred. Reluctantly reading through them, the blonde found out just how much she had hurt her sister with her disappearance and how much it affected her life. Still is, for that matter.

Reading through every single one of their messages with tears running down her cheek, Sophia immediately exited the messaging program again and ran away. Her last conscious decision was to not have a complete breakdown in the middle of an electronics store. Maya ran after her, and the two ended up in the restrooms, the preferred place to have a semi-public breakdown involving a lot of tears and sobbing. Luckily, it was completely empty.

“S-Sophia…” Maya had no idea what to say and even less of a plan of what to do. Even she was still crying a little from the heartfelt messages, after all. Just imagining what was going through the blonde’s head right now made her feel horrible.

“…” She didn’t answer her.

“What can I do to help…?”

“…” The blonde stayed silent for a moment longer. “I… I can stop time. Can you learn how to… reverse it…?”

“How far… How far do you want to turn it back…?” Her expression turned even more complicated.

“I don’t know… A day? I could immediately bash in Canir’s face so that he never tells me about any of what led to t-today… Even better, go back to the lake incident, and punch me when I had the idea of those letters in the first place…”

“Good…” Maya looked a little happier again.

“How is that good?!”

“I was worried that you wanted to go all the way back… I thought you regretted meeting me…”

“Why would I want that…?” With her cheeks still wet with tears, the blonde tilted her head while glancing at her girlfriend. “You, Fen, everyone. The whole world is the best that happened to me… I-I just don't want to see Steph suffer so much… She hasn't deserved any of that. She did nothing wrong. It’s all my fault…”

“…” The white-haired girl had nothing to say here. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.

“I never should’ve opened this box… Ignorance was bliss… I always had the feeling that I hurt her with my disappearance, but this… t-this is too much…”

“I think it’s pretty harmless compared to what I’d do in her situation.”

“A-Are you trying to make me feel worse?!” Sophia started yelling.

“I have no idea… It’s not easy for me, either… I have no idea how to handle such a situation… I’m just trying…”

“T-Thank you…” She appreciated the effort.

“For real, though… What can I do to make you feel better?”

“…” The blonde just went silent once again. She couldn’t think of a single thing.

"Hmm…" As she also had nothing, Maya just got closer to her, put her hand behind Sophia's head, and pressed it against her shoulder while using her other arm to hug the girl.

“…” Her only reaction was a few muffled sobs before she eventually hugged her back, and the two stayed like that for a few minutes.

----------------

“Better now…?” After a while, Maya let go of her again and used a paper towel to dry the remaining tears on Sophia's cheek.

“Not at all.” She shook her head in return. “Ask me in a month again…”

“I see.”

“That’s also how long I’ll hate you for making me go through all that…”

“That’s fair, I guess.”

"You also won't get to test the stuff we bought for that long."

“E-Even the vibraty things?!” Maya didn’t like the sound of that.

“Especially them.”

“N-No way…” She looked devastated.

"Hehe." The faintest smile finally appeared on Sophia again.

"I don't think I can contain the horny until then, though." After seeing that she was feeling ever so slightly better, Maya decided to play along. It definitely wasn’t because she was actually getting desperate. "I will be really annoying for the entire month, you know? I might even turn into part dog and start humping you at some point."

“Idiot.” The blonde had nothing else to say.

“I know!”

"Don't worry. Having to wait for so long will only make it better when you finally get to test them."

“I’ll explode long before I get the chance!”

“Tough luck, I guess.”

“Hey!”

“You should be glad that the ban isn't one day per tear I shed today…"

“I’d never get to test them then!”

“Exactly!”

"Ah, I'm sorry…" Hearing that, Maya decided to apologize again. “I stand with my declaration that it will be good for you in the long run, but… I guess she really is your sister. Whatever you do, you give 120%... When it’s important, that is.”

“Should I be happy about that? Angry?”

“Whatever makes you feel better.”

“Neither does!”

“Then, I’m officially out of options.”

“Two months ban!” Sophia didn’t like her reply.

“A-Ah.” The white-haired girl flinched in response. “W-What do you want to do, though…?”

"How would I know?!" She got loud again. "Ah, wait, I do have an idea… I want to cry some more!"

“Besides that, I mean…”

“There’s nothing…”

“Do you want to see her?”

“YES!”

“Should we go and visit her?”

“NO!” Sophia vehemently shook her head.

“Why not?”

“D-Did you not see what just happened?!” She kept raising her voice. “I-I won’t be able to deal with that… I will… I will cave in to whatever she wants me to do… I’d feel too guilty to turn her down…”

“I highly doubt she’d do anything to make you unhappy, though.”

“…”

“How about you send her another message, then?” Maya tried a slightly different approach. “Tell her that you’re really doing fine. Tell her you're happy she's so worried about you and doesn't want to let you go. She should, though. Tell her that you want her to be happy, too. She should stop worrying about her stupid big sister and have a good life. Something like that."

“Including the stupid part…?”

“First and foremost, that. It's vital to this whole conversation."

“Idiot…”

“Exactly!” Maya nodded a few times. “You should mention that about yourself a few times, too!”

“I hate you…”

“That, you shouldn’t mention~.”

“Shut up already…”

“We both know I won’t do that before you’re back to normal again.” The incognito cat shook her head.

“When was I ever normal in the first place…?”

“When did I ever stop talking?”

“…” The blonde had no comeback for that. “Even at being the worst, you are the best…”

“I’m the best at everything~.”

“You sure are.”

“Hehe.” She liked her agreeing on that. “Alright, let’s go and send Steph another message!”

“Eh?!” Sophia raised her voice once again. “W-We’re actually doing that?! I’m going to cry again, you know?!”

“For again, you first have to stop, though…” Maya rolled her eyes while handing her girlfriend another paper tissue. “For starters, wipe your current ones away.”

“…”

“Let’s go!” After Sophia looked somewhat presentable again, she grabbed her hand and dragged her back to the laptop again.

----------------

“A-Are we really going to do it…? W-What if she-… Ah.” The blonde was unable to finish her sentence as she froze up the moment she logged into the messaging app again.

“What’s wrong?”

“…” Fresh tears appeared in the corners of her eyes again.

“W-What…?”

“T-There… There are new messages… S-Steph just sent a ton of them…”

“S-Seriously?!” Maya hadn't seen that one coming. “What did she write?”

“I-I haven’t looked yet… Oh no!” She suddenly raised her voice again.

“What is it now?!”

“This chat… it has a function that tells the other person when their messages got read…”

"A-Ah.”

"I-I bet Steph noticed that… and… and she now thinks I'm… back…”

“Well, you kinda are, I guess…?”

“Yes! But actually, no!”

“And now?”

“No idea!” Sophia needed a moment to collect herself. “Wait, I think you can turn that off somewhere in the settings… I-I can’t have her see that I’ve read the newest messages, as well…”

“Won’t she notice the moment you send your message, anyway?”

“Y-Yes, but if she sees me before the message… She won’t be stopping with sending me new ones… and I’ll go back to crying the entire time again…”

“As I said before… you first have to stop crying before going back to it…” Maya handed her another tissue. She had grabbed a lot of them before leaving the restroom.

“…” She responded by patting her cheeks dry. Afterward, the blonde clicked around on the screen a bit. “Okay, anyway, I changed it, so s-she doesn’t see me…” Once that was dealt with, she finally opened the new messages.

----

Sophia?!

-

Are you there?!

-

Sophia?!

-

Answer!!!!!!!!

-

Please!

-

What is going on?!

-

I was about to give you my daily update…

-

Why are all my messages marked as read?!!!

-

Are you back?

-

Where are you?!

-

Answer!

-

I beg you!

-

Sophia…

-

I miss you…

-

I want to see you again…

-

Just reply already…

-

Please…

-

Anything…

----

“…” Maya was even more glad that she had grabbed all those tissues earlier. She needed some of them, too. “Y-Your sister is great… I thought Chloe is unmatched when it comes to caring for others, but…”

“T-There’s no one better than Steph…” Sophia had already blown through all of her tissues and had started stealing the ones of her girlfriend.

“Alright, I'll let her have it today.”

“Idiot…”

“I know~.”

“…” Letting out a small chuckle, Sophia glanced at the screen again.

“Hmm…” Maya looked at her instead. “This message thing… Earlier, you mentioned that you can also use the camera to show yourself to the one chatting with you, right…?"

“I-I’m not going to do that!”

“No, that’s not what I meant…” The white-haired girl shook her head. “Can you take one of these pictures things and send it to her? You look a bit different, but I don’t think anyone would notice that you’re a little smaller than you used to be without being right in front of you. The only difference is the few black stripes in your hair, but those don't really matter, do they?"

“…” Sophia went silent once again. “Do… Do you think that’s a good idea…?”

“Maybe…? I don’t know… I messed up enough already.”

“You sure did…”

“…” Maya tilted her head. “She wants to see you, and that’s the best thing I can’t think of if you can’t handle meeting her. Show her that you’re still out somewhere and that you’re doing fine.”

“…” The blonde’s face probably went through every emotion it was capable of doing. Eventually, though, she opened the camera app on the laptop. "Wow, I look horrible!" She immediately noticed her puffy eyes and the tear markings on her cheeks when she saw the picture of herself.

“You’ve looked better, yeah.” She showed her a small smile in response before doing her best to clean up Sophia’s face with the last remaining tissue. “I don’t think I can do anything against the puffy eyes, though. Just tell her you cried a lot before.”

“Very helpful…” Sophia rolled her eyes in return. “Hmm…” She stared at her picture currently being shown by the camera for a bit longer and noticed how half of Maya was in it, as well. “Come closer for a moment.” Saying so, the blonde wrapped one of her arms around her girlfriend’s waist and pulled her as close as possible. Afterward, she put her head on Maya’s shoulder and cuddled even closer to her.

"Are you sure you want me in the picture…?" She took a wild guess of what her plan was right now.

“Absolutely!” She started smiling. “You’re the main reason I’m not going back to Steph, after all.”

“D-Don’t you dare to tell her that!” Maya started panicking. "A-At least not in those very words!”

“Smile~.” The sound of her losing her cool helped the blonde calm down a bit. Afterward, once she was happy enough with the scene she was seeing, Sophia took the picture showing both. “Well, I don’t like the electronics store background and how I look right now, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that…"

----

Steph

I’m sorry.

Sorry for everything I did to you.

This wasn’t the plan.

This wasn’t my plan at all.

The plan didn’t care about my feeling on the matter, though.

I’m happy that you’re missing me so much.

I miss you, too.

I’m glad that you worry so much, as well.

Pleases stop that, though…

I’m doing well.

Really well.

Incredibly well.

I can’t bear you ruining your life because of me.

Stop looking for me.

Please.

Go on without me.

I would love to see you, too…

But, I can’t…

I fear that seeing you would waver my resolution to the decisions I have made so far.

My old life and my new one…

They’re not compatible with each other.

I love you.

I love you so much.

You have no idea how much I really do.

But…

There are so many other people I now love, too.

First and foremost, my girlfriend.

I can't make her and all the others…

Make them feel the same as I made you…

I’m sorry.

I’m an idiot.

I know.

Please be happy again.

Do it for me.

Please.

Just thinking about you being unhappy because of me is killing me.

I know.

I’m selfish.

You’re strong.

I know you can do it.

For your sake, too.

You might not believe me, but I’m happy.

Truly happy.

I want nothing more than you to be happy, too.

It just has to be without me…

I’m sorry.

---

Here’s proof of me being happy.

I had a bit of a makeover, but it’s still clearly me.

(Please ignore my puffy eyes… I cried a lot after I saw your messages)

Next to me is Maya. She’s the one. My girlfriend.

Isn’t she the cutest?

---

Thank you.

For everything.

----

After sending all those messages in rapid succession, Sophia attached the picture she had taken earlier and quickly closed the messaging app again. She didn’t want to risk Steph being able to reply. This would’ve destroyed her for good.

Once this was taken care of, the blonde returned to the restroom. She had taken a liking to the paper tissues there and wanted to use more of them. A lot more, to be exact.