Faris sighs and leans against her front door. ‘Maybe I was a bit harsh on him…’ she thinks to herself. ‘He does seem to mean well.’ She crosses her arms. ‘But then, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If it ends in tragedy, then it’s decidedly better to have never loved than to have loved at all...’ She sighs and stares off into the distance. ‘…Because then, at least you won’t have the memory of the bittersweet taste of love to haunt you for the rest of your life.’
    She begins to return to her kitchen table when a soft scratching noise grabs her attention. She glances behind her at the door. “?” She turns and approaches the door to open it again when she steps on something. Moving her foot out of the way, Faris sees a purple card lying on the floor.
    With a sigh, she picks it up. “Poor fool, persistent as ever. I almost pity him.” She opens it out of curiosity and prepares herself for the last bad poem.
    To her surprise, James hadn’t even written it.
    The message on the card reads:
 

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove.
    O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
    Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never write, nor no man ever loved.

 I’ll love you no matter what, Faris.

~~James

    “Veni veni venias, Ne me mori facias…” Starr sings along with ‘Katayoku no Tenshi’. She’s resumed another FFVII game she’d saved earlier on and ditched since Sephiroth kept wiping her party off the face of the earth every time. Now she’s trying again, with re-organized Materia and a different party—Vincent, Cloud and Tifa.
    This is a good idea considering damage, but a bad idea seeing as Sephiroth keeps picking on Cloud and ONLY Cloud.
    Starr scowls at the sleeping, mute, death-sentenced Cloud and gives Sephiroth the finger as she revives him. This is seriously beginning to irritate her.
    “Why just CLOUD? Is this an omen?”
    As if in reply, Sephiroth promptly begins his huge-assed SuperNova summon just as the music comes to “veni veni venias” again.
    Starr is completely absorbed in the game, watching intently and praying that the Barrier and MBarrier she’s cast on the party is warrantied against happy big-assed comets coming out of nowhere and incinerating one’s ass.
    As the summon ends, Starr contemplates what to do next.
    She doesn’t contemplate for long, though, as out of nowhere a black-gloved hand settles lightly on her shoulder…
    “AUAUAUAUAUAUAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGHHHHH!” Starr screams, windmilling her arms around and whacking whatever’s behind her.
    “OWW!”
    Starr finally summons the courage to look at who it is and sighs with relief. It’s James, and he’s looking very upset. It seems to Starr that being mistaken for Sephiroth is not the cause of his sad face, though.
    “What happened?” Starr asks, pausing the game.
    James sighs. “She didn’t like it.”
    “WHAT?” Starr looks shocked. “Why?”
    “I was a moron and told her Batts had helped me out…and I found out she’s…”
    He breaks off and looks down.
    “Found out what?” Starr presses gently.
    Two tears hit the carpet and James says (barely audibly), “She just isn’t interested in falling in love.”
    “Oh, no…” Starr holds James’s hand.
    “I’m probably the one who turned her off of love in the first place…”
    “James, don’t say that!” Starr cries.
    “Why not? I’m klutzy and clueless and my poetry is terrible and now that I think about it, I have terrible fashion sense! Why would anyone want to hang around someone like me...?”
    “Because you’re nice and you mean well and you’d never hurt anyone and you make people laugh,” Starr replies. “What girl wouldn’t want a boyfriend like you?”
    “The only girl I’ve ever really loved…”
    Starr suddenly feels very sad inside, but isn’t quite sure why. She hesitantly leans forward, then hugs James. “You may think I’m just a psycho optimist, but in my experience, love will come when she knows you’re serious about how you feel…and maybe she’s just freaked because one of her past boyfriends was mean and doesn’t want to have to go through that again.”
    “I’d never be mean to her…” James squeaks into Starr’s shoulder.
    Starr smiles at the little tiny voice James has suddenly acquired. “Faris doesn’t know that. She thinks I’m still the same clumsy airhead as always, and she’s right.”
    “James…” Starr says threateningly, “if you trash yourself one more time, I’m shoving my PlayStation controller up your nose.”
    “What’s going up whose nose?” Jessie asks from the hallway, then sees James and Starr. “I thought we were trying to set him up with Faris!”
    “Shot down again,” Starr informs Jessie.
    Jessie looks astounded. “WHAT? How is that possible?!? He did everything right! Unless he told her that her Kadabra helped…”
    James nods miserably and Jessie pats him on the shoulder.
    “You’d think I’d be used to failure…” James says, voice still squeaky.
    “Being shot down always hurts,” Jessie says.
    Starr blinks, and Jessie explains, “I know, I know, you think I’d have men tripping all over themselves to get to me, but whenever they talk to me, I freeze! I’ve never been able to get over this silly shy thing…”
    “I somehow never pictured you as shy.”
    Jessie pulls down one eyelid and beda’s. “Well, you can’t tell a book by its cover, so nyah.”
    Starr raises her eyebrows, then turns back to James. “You have to keep trying, James. I know it hurts badly when someone you love pushes you away, but if you want her to know you care, keep trying.”
    James sniffles but looks up. “You’re right!” He clenches one fist and raises it determinedly, grinning his old I-am-invincible grin. “I love Faris, and someday she’ll see and she’ll love me too! Now, where’s my paycheck? I need to go get some more flowers!”
    With this James rises and strides confidently out of the room.
    Starr examines the wet spot on her shoulder where James cried on her. “Yew.”
    “You get used to being cried on when you’re with James as much as me. I always keep this around just incase.” Jessie whips a towel out of the void and gives it to Starr, who dries off.
    “Thanks!” Starr grins, then something catches her eye. “Hey, Faris!” she calls.
    “Hey, Starr,” Faris calls back.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Picking up my anime order from the store. FINALLY it came in…I’ve been waiting for that tankoubon for months!”
    “See you later, then!” Starr waves as Faris heads out the door. “I wonder if James heard right, that she’s not interested in love…”
    Jessie sighs. “I hate to see James like this. We have to get Faris to fall in love with him somehow.”
    “We?” Starr blinks.
    Jessie dashes into the closet, then dashes out wearing a red bikini, a pair of little wings and carrying a little bow-and arrow with a heart for a tip. “Of course! THIS is a job for Jessie, matchmaker extraordinaire!!!!”
    Starr sweatdrops. “Yeah, that’s great, but before we go anywhere can you please ditch the Naga outfit?”
    Jessie looks down and blushes. “Ehehe…. Sure.”

    Out of uniform and wandering down the street, Starr sighs. After crashing around in her closet for fifteen minutes, Jessie finally decided on an outfit—a tight pink shirt and jeans. Starr is wearing her favourite green shirt and her jeans. It took all of five seconds to decide on an outfit.
    Starr is wondering if all that gel has somehow seeped into Jessie’s head and dissolved her brain somewhat.
    “Now, let’s seeeeeeee….” Jessie murmurs, gazing into the crowd. “If I was Faris Greyweirs, where would I go…”
    Starr notices Jessie’s gaze turning toward a classy fashion boutique and pokes her in the arm. “That would work…except for NO. We’re here to look for Faris, not go on yet another shopping spree.”
    “But that’s where I’d go if I were Faris,” Jessie explains.
    Starr admits that this is logical and refrains from clunking Jessie. “You aren’t Faris, though. I know her the best out of anyone—although I admit there’s still a lot about her I need to learn—and I think if I were Faris and I were pissed with James and wanted to blow off some steam, I’d go to…”
    With a little whip-crack noise, Starr jabs her index finger at a building across the road. “THERE. Rio’s Pokémon Battle Arena. People fight their Pokémon there for fun. Every time you win, you pick up a certain number of points, and you can trade those in for stuff later. I went once; it was fun. I kicked the heck out of everyone…the prize was weird, though.”
    Jessie listens hard. “From the sound of it, someone’s really cleaning up in there.”
    “Wonder if they beat the longest streak record.” Starr listens as well. She can faintly hear a chant.
    “They’re cheering for Faris in there! Come on, let’s see how she’s doing!”
    “If James were here, we could set up a cheering section,” Jessie sighs. “I wonder where he is…”
    Starr cringes, remembering the time she saw Jessie and James practicing their infamous Pikachu Cheer, and says, “Eh…you don’t have to go to all that trouble. Just seeing you there will be enough for Faris. And James probably isn’t far. There are florists all over the place here.”
    “Oh. Okay!” Jessie says cheerily, bad mood flying out the window.

     James watches as yet another moth goes flapping out of his wallet, and pouts. Even if Faris did threaten to mangle him if he gave her more flowers, he knows he has to keep trying. He knows he has that paycheck around somewhere…
    “I HAVE to try. Otherwise she’ll never see how much I care about her!”
    Suddenly a mob of cheering fans from the Battle Arena down the street goes charging by, flattening James.
    “Hey, what’s the big idea?” he demands.
    “You should see it! There’s some girl in there with a Clefairy and she’s beating EVERYBODY!”
    James freezes.
    A Clefairy…?
    Who does he know with a Clefairy…?
    Just one person…
    And that person is….
    “FARIS!!!!!!!!!!!” James yowls, jumping three feet up off the pavement and dashing down the street to the Battle Arena. He hopes Faris hasn’t gotten bored with winning and left yet…