When Alice returns to the kitchenette after the meeting, returning a cleaning rag to its bucket in the corner, she looks up to notice someone rummaging through the cupboards. Standing on her toes, Koharu takes a pack of rice crackers, gathering it along with a bottle of diet soda and a few cans of tinned fish so she can carry it all.

Alice: Ehm… Shirahara? We’re actually trying to ration the food, so we don’t have to do a supply run every day. Maybe you could save—

Koharu: It’s Koharu.

Alice: Right, but… If you want a snack, you can ask Asaharu, okay? She can produce any sweet she wants. That stuff in the cupboard is… Well, I need to eat, too, and I can’t exactly sustain myself on the treats Asaharu whips up. I’ve been told they’re really good, though, so—

Koharu: I’m not going to bother her. I have work to do. (she puts her “groceries” back onto the kitchen counter, taking only a rice cracker before moving to leave)

Alice: Your friends told me what happened when you were out of town… Must’ve been pretty hard for you… not being like them, I mean.

Koharu: (she shrugs) It’s over now, so don’t bother. Got better things to do.

Alice: Do I, or do you?

Koharu: Do I.

Alice: Being?

Koharu: Something I need to figure out.

Alice: (she sits down at the small kitchen table, inviting Koharu to sit down across from her) Wanna talk about it?

Koharu: No.

Alice: When people ask you if you wanna talk about it, that tends to be a rhetorical question.

Koharu: I told your friend everything she wanted to know.

Alice: About the boy? (she shakes her head) Nah. Fuck that guy. I wanna know how you’re doing. Your friends are worried about you. I’m worried about you.

Koharu: I’ll be fine. I’ll present you with any relevant information I can dig up about him when I find it. Just need the time to trace his digital footsteps. He never shut up once, so there must be social media posts, or blogs or anything from which we’ll be able to infer his motives.

Alice: Huh. Who’s going to do that?

Koharu: I am.

Alice: Didn’t know you were good at reading between the lines. Or do you expect him to have some hidden account somewhere where he put all of his scheming with the other Balancers out in the open? Where he’s vlogging all of his villainous motives for the world to see?

Koharu: Of course not! (she mumbles) That’s ridiculous.

Alice: Wanna give it some practice?

Koharu: Practice what?

Alice: Reading between the lines. Think of what I’m saying. Doing. What’s my intention? What’s my goal, talking to you like this? What’s my motive?

Koharu: (she glares at Alice, before sniffing and taking a seat across from her at the table)

Alice: Shirahara?

Koharu: It’s Koharu.

Alice: And what is my name?

Koharu: (she frowns) … Rinju.

Alice: First name?

Koharu: … Does it matter?

Alice: If you wanna psychoanalyze people, knowing their names is a good start.

Koharu: Completely irrelevant.

Alice: If you say so. Any idea why I’m bothering you yet?

Koharu: … (she glares) Wasting my time.

Alice: More than you’re wasting it trying to track down what username your guy used on the gaming forum he hung out on when he was ten?

Koharu: What do you even do, huh? I’ll solve this, and I’ll take him down! All you do is clean up after that punk girl and pretend you’re everyone’s mom! ’s not my fault that you’re useless! You’re not even a Puella Magi!

Alice: And since when are you?

Koharu: …

Alice: Do you get it now?

Koharu: … I found out that he was spying on us for the Balancers. A-And I knew he was in love with me. That was all me. I figured that out. I… I can read people. I know what they are thinking and I am not some kind of useless… useless—

Alice: Whatever you’re going to say, there’s nothing wrong with that. You were hurt. You were betrayed, and… it’s okay to be hurt. To feel betrayed.

Koharu: What do you know? I’ve seen you two. She’d do everything for you. She never talks back to you.

Alice: (she scoffs) If only you knew. Yui and I have had plenty of spats.

Koharu: This isn’t a spat. He… he took advantage of me, and I—

Alice: —no, you didn’t—

Koharu: —irrational—

Alice: No one is perfectly rational, Koharu. Falling in love is something a lot of people do. And so is, well, falling out of love.

Koharu: It was all fake anyways. It doesn’t matter. It never did. 

Alice: I don’t think it’s as easy as that. (she stays quiet for a second as Koharu’s phone loudly beeps in her pocket) Speak of the devil.

Koharu: He doesn’t love me. He is trying to manipulate me.

Alice: Trust me, people can hurt you even if they love you. They can… show you things you’ve never seen before, but they can just as easily… take you places you don’t want to be. They can let you down when you need them the most, they can… be… so cruel. And yet, they’ll still… love you. In some… inexplicable way. They… don’t see that you’re in pain when all they want is for you to be happy. They can love you even if they don’t know you.

Koharu: That is not the kind of love that I want. I don’t care if… someone loves me when they don’t have my best interests at heart. Loving is… not something you do for your own sake.

Alice: If you don’t care for that kind of love, then why do you still care for him?

Koharu: … What do you even know? (she stands up, moving to lock herself back into the office)

Alice: More than I care to, Koharu. (she sighs as she reclines in her chair, watching Koharu blustering back upstairs)