[one-sided KobatoxFujimoto, almost-FujimotoxSayaka (much as I don't want it!) ]
From afar, as if within a dream, Kobato watched Fujimoto with Sayaka-sensei. She watched every small but true smile, every lingering glance, every gentle touch.
She wanted to cry for the impending death of her love, but the feeling at the bottom of her heart was too heavy to be dislodged by one cleansing session. All she'd get, she knew, were swollen eyes and general hopelessness. While she could still observe and hang onto her composure, heartbreak would remain at bay. Heartache and heartbreak felt very different from each other, and she much preferred the former over the latter.
Unfortunately, her clock was ticking and time was running out. She was only a few candies away from her goal (and- or, she corrected herself- two weeks away from her failure) and she needed to come to a closure now.
The problem was, it was going to be unpleasant either way. He could win Sayaka-sensei from her lingering attachment to the debt collector; he could declare his feelings for Kobato (burning eyes, intense voice, hidden sweetness...if only). But then what would she do? Leave him, and all that she had discovered? Stay, and forever renounce that place?
Currently, she was very tempted to let things run their course and leave (abandon) the two to their own developing (love) story. Fujimoto, for all of his gruffness and curt words, was not a mean or ugly man; and Sayaka-sensei was graceful where she was clumsy, assured where she was tongue-tied, womanly where she was still a child to be taken care of. They looked destined for each other, the couple that everyone smiled at and sighed over as the perfect ending to a fairytale.
But Kobato's gut rebelled against such a quiet and abrupt quitting from the scene. She had grown to know them well, especially Fujimoto (stay safe, don't work yourself so hard!) and to leave them without a farewell after all they had done for her was wrong, wrong, wrong. The most logical thing was to congratulate them and wish them well until she felt it.
A memory broke on her; the woman turning in her divorce papers, resigned to her solitary fate as her supposed mate for life, looked away for his true love. Then, Kobato cried for her, cried for her hidden unhappiness and fear at her changing life, cried for her disillusionment with happily-ever-afters.
She wished someone would cry for her.
Maybe she would feel a little better about the foregone conclusion.

