"Hurry up, Heiji!" I yelled, before shooting him a glare. He looked at me, smiled, shrugged, and continued to pack his kendo equipment at the pace of, say, a slug.

It has been a whole THIRTY minutes since practice ended. Thirty! But he seems unaware of the fact that his best friend (yep, that's me) has been waiting oh, so patiently for him for hours. It's beyond frustrating how he's just taking his sweet time.

Time that I could be studying for the major test tomorrow. But of course that's not the case for Mr. Genius. In fact, I'm pretty sure the concept of "studying" is utterly foreign to Heiji. All he has to do is waltz into the classroom (while I'm cramming in last minute information), look at the paper sensei passes out, scribble in answers for about fifteen minutes, and poof! 100%.

The world is cruel to me.

Well, at least he and his friends were getting nearer to where I was waiting by the bench. So there were making progress. And I could eavesdrop on their conversation.

"You know that new girl that came yesterday?" One of them (not sure what his name was) asked Heiji. "The really hot one that calls herself Candy?"

"Yeah?" Heiji raised a single dark eyebrow.

I bit my lip.

"I heard her talking about your by the lockers today," Unidentified Guy continued.

WHAT? She's not even that pretty! And what kind of name is Candy, anyway? Okay, fine, she has a good figure and wears cute clothes, and has amazing hair (not that I'm jealous or anything), but would Heiji really fall for that? Hasn't he heard the saying that beauty is only skin deep? He's way too good for- ahem.

Forget everything I just said.

"Really?" Heiji's face was expressionless.

I looked away. But I could still hear them talking.

"Yeah, dude, I would do anything to go out with her. I also heard her friends say that she wants to ask you out."

My throat made a sort of choking sound, like a cat coughing up a hairball.

"Hey, isn't that Kazuha?"

Sure, now they notice me.

"Yeah, I need to go now. She's probably going to kill me if I waste anymore time," laughed Heiji. "Right, 'zuha?"

"Don't call me that," I scowled. (And I'M NOT IN A BAD MOOD BECAUSE OF ALL THAT CANDY BUSINESS! I'm just…okay, if you aren't going to help me prove my point then Just. Shut. Up.)

"Well, someone's grumpy today," Heiji said innocently.

"Yeah, I wonder why," I glared at him.

"You know, I remember my mom telling me that if you glare too much, your face will be permanently like that."

"That's not funny."

"Yeah it is!"

"Well, not when you're making fun of me!"

"You were in a bad mood to begin with!"

"And now you just made it worse!"

"Can't you take a joke?"

"Does it look like I'm in the joking mood right now?"

"Hey, Heiji!" Unidentified Guy called. We stopped in mid-argument.

"You guys are like a married couple!" He yelled before cracking up. Then, he realized that he was within our attacking distance, and began to run.

"Heiji and Kazuha sitting in a tree…." I could hear him singing.

I felt the blood surge to my face, and I'm pretty sure my face was bright red.

"Baka! It's not like that!" Heiji yelled. The other guys were laughing as well. I saw that Unidentified Guy was already a good distance away.

Which kind of sucked because I really needed a good way to release my frustration. And my akido needed some practicing.

"I'll get him tomorrow," he said drily.

"Yeah, let me know when you do."

"It's not funny, 'zuha."

"I know that! But you can't always be so grumpy whenever someone teases us about, you know-" I broke off. Because I know that he knew what I knew when I said "you know." (Did you get that?) And Heiji had stressed more than once that he absolutely hated talking about issues related to that. So we just avoid the subject altogether.

"Come on, Kazuha," he started walking in the direction of our homes, and I had to run a little to catch up.

I tilted my face up to look at him. Now, he looked flustered.

"Heiji," I began slowly.

"Just forget about it!" he snapped.

I sighed heavily.

Heiji and I were just friends.

And that's all we were ever going to be.