Disclaimer: I only own my OC's. I'm not making any profit. Thank you.


Today is just another ordinary day. A day of school, chatting, giggling classmates, and whatnot. Blah. It's so boring to be at school. Especially when all of your classmates are girls.

Ok, first of all, I need to clarify something. I am not boy crazy.

I'm not! I think they're just…Boys, or whatever. That's not the point. I actually don't really mind being in an all-female class. It's just that the whole notion of having an all-female class is dumb. Especially if you were in a coeducational school.

See, there's the stupidity of it all. To go to a coeducational school and have segregated classes. I mean, what the heck?

Maybe the teachers wanted to have full separation between the different sexes but just couldn't afford to split the school up. Or they could just be bored. But either way, the result of this extremely unnecessary decision is that both the female and the male student body have a heightened sense of excitement about each other.

It's kind of like, "the boys/girls are here, but just not in our class". It almost adds to the sense of drama and mysteriousness, I suppose. But anyway. Now we have classes full of people who only care about impressing the opposite sex and dating.

Can you say lame?

So now the teacher is blabbing on about something to do with triangles. I don't really understand how math works. Those numbers and strange spatial ideas are completely lost on me.

And after a few more minutes of boredom (thinking to yourself is really a good way to kill time), the bell rings! Yay! Fifteen minutes of break and then it's English class! Another class from hell! I just don't understand how the gram-ma-ti-cal stuff works. It's totally just as confusing as math.

When the class ends all the girls immediately swarm into their little circles and begin walking out of class, chattering and giggling about some guy or clothes or whatever they talk about. I'm left to my own little world until a voice calls out, all high and excited, "Masaki-san! It's your darling!"

Ugh. Why is the world so cruel?

I get up and go to the door. "What do you want, Taichi?"

He fidgets, "Ah, hey Masaki."

I roll my eyes, "Taichi, we've known each other for twelve-and-a-half years already. You've never called my by my last name."

He's still fidgeting, "Umm, right, Chouko. So, uh, my mom was wondering whether you want to come over again today."

I stand there, considering for a moment the amount of people that are eavesdropping on the conversation and the effect it is going to make in the rumour area. I shrug, "Sure. I need help with math anyway."

By now, he looks completely embarrassed, "Oh. I see." He hesitates, "But I'll probably be a little late, I think…"

"Catching up with that anti-school senpai of yours?"

He colours. It's amazing how people actually blush in distress/anger these days. Taichi is probably one of the few that does that at least three times per day. "Please don't say that! You know that Akutsu-senpai is a really nice person."

I put up my hands, "Ok, ok, chill. No need to get offended. And besides, he does skip school and go around beating people up. It's not like my description of him was wrong or anything."

He frowns and screws his face up in a very strange way, saying nothing. The bell rings. He leaves.


It's after school, and I sling my bag over my shoulder and start towards the door. "Going to see your boyfriend?" a couple of boys from Taichi's class, I presume, jeer, lounging on the doorframe.

"Get a life," I say to them while moving past them out of the doors. It's so sad when they're trying to be cool but they're so obviously not.

Behind me, I hear the girls in my class squeal start chatting animatedly with the guys. Wow. I must seriously not be missing out on much if that's what they'd meant when they bragged about what awesome boyfriends they have.

"You're so cold, Chouko," a girl ran up behind me, grinning and pushing her bangs behind her ear.

I laugh, "Who, me? How can you say that?"

She laughs also, then asks, "Are you going to Dan-kun's house again?"

"Yeah," I continue walking. News sure travel fast…

"How can you do that to me? I thought we were going to do something fun today!"

I roll my eyes, "Like what?"

"Like painting our toenails! And talking about that super hot new transfer student!"

I laugh again. You just have to hand it to Satomi. She can make anything remotely normal like studying at her house sound like a big sleepover party.

"What?" she pouted. "I heard he's seriously really cool! A tennis player and a really good one at that! Plus, he's two years older than us. Talk about dreamy!"

"Mhm," I see a familiar figure up ahead. He walks in shy but purposeful steps towards the tennis courts. I accidentally start looking at his legs. They're really skinny.

Beside me, I hear a grunt of disgust and something akin to "lovesick puppy".

I snap my head back at Satomi indignantly, "Excuse me?"

She shakes her head, "You guys should just get together already. It's so obvious it's sad."

"Whatever," I take one last glance at the tennis courts. Taichi's gone. "I can't imagine us being together. That's way too awkward. And besides," I add hurriedly before Satomi can say anything, "He doesn't like me."

She raises her eyebrows disbelievingly, "How do you know?"

I shrug, "I just do. I have known him ever since we were babies."

We take a right turn and say bye to each other, going our separate ways. On the way towards Taichi's house, I think about the conversation we just had.

I actually never knew that whatever I feel for Taichi was so…Apparent. Oh well, I'm pretty sure my other classmates haven't noticed, so it's alright. And I know that Satomi will never tell her classmates. She's good like that, despite the general impression she gives of being quite a flirt.

I've known Satomi since grade four, I think, and we've always been in the same class together until this year. She's really pretty in that smokey-eyed 'come hither' way, and ever since she started to get her curves and putting on makeup it had been all chaos. The boys around us have been clamouring to get her attention. But for some reason, she never seems to be interested in any of the guys in our grade (actually, I think I can understand why…). Instead, she's more attracted to older guys, saying that they're more "mature" and "sexy".

Personally, I think boys are all pretty much the same. So, whatever. I guess I'm biased anyway, since I like Taichi. Everybody else is just, I dunno, crass.


I finally get to Taichi's house, which is incidentally five minutes from mine, and ring the doorbell. Taichi's mom opens the door with a smile.

"So how was your day?"

"Good," I reply, helping myself to the cookies on the table. Taichi's mom is just too awesome. A plump, middle-aged woman, she's known as the neighbourhood gossip (along with my mom) and one of the nicest women ever. She nods and goes back into the living room, "I'll be here if you need anything!"

"Yeah," I answer and start towards Taichi's bedroom. I hope he comes home soon.

Half an hour and three cookies later, I hear the front door being opened. I gnaw on the fourth cookie, debating whether I should go out to meet him or not.

Nah. He'll come anyway, since this is his room.

And soon enough, the door opens to reveal Taichi, with a rather tall and scary looking guy following him.

"Chouko!" Taichi beams, evidently more at ease without any of our nosy classmates around.

"Hey." I look at the dude behind him. "Hi."

He grunts and turns towards Taichi, promptly ignoring me, "You gonna start or what?"

Taichi starts, "Ah, yes! Wait a second, please. I'll just get my books out." He begins to rummage through his bag.

I realize at this moment that my presence is probably unwelcome here, and excuse myself. Taichi glances at me curiously, but nods, and the other guy, whom I am quite sure is Akutsu-senpai, continues to act as though I am nonexistent. I think he might have tilted his head minutely when I said goodbye to him, but I couldn't be sure.


I walk back to my house and goes into my room. Sighing, I toss my bag onto the floor and try to disregard that annoying feeling of disappointment. Ugh, it sucks to even say that word.

I remember all those times when I would go over to Taichi's house and we would start playing or studying or eating or just plain chatting. Those were the good times, I guess.

I stare at the picture of him and me in our matching Disney hats. That was probably when we were six. Our parents took us to Disneyland and we accidentally stumbled into the haunted house. Boy was it scary. We ended up being rescued by one of the workers dressed as a beheaded knight when we started wailing.

Now that I thought about it, it was pretty funny. Taichi was scarred for life, though. Nothing can ever get him near an amusement park or anything of the sort anymore.

But I guess now all I have is our memories together. Now, Taichi's got a life. It's not like he hasn't got one before (goodness, no.) It's just that… I guess Taichi's no longer 'my friend Taichi'.

He's 'Taichi the tennis club member', 'Taichi the ardent tennis freak', 'Taichi the weird polite guy', 'Taichi, Akutsu's friend'.

Just not my friend, I suppose.

I turn towards the window abruptly, breaking myself out of my little "emo trance". Whatever. Who cares. He can do what he wants. I'll just do what I want to.

I know that Taichi'll probably never like me...

But, just, gah! I don't know! I stare out the window at the clouds above.

It'll all work out.

Somehow.


Author's Comment: Ok, so that totally didn't go as I'd originally planned. Ugh. I'll probably have to come back to revise it. Just so everybody knows, all the names in this fic that I've made up are completely random. I don't know what they mean so, uh, don't ask me. (If you're really curious, go search it up or something xD).

Another thing is that I probably won't be working on October! for a while. I tried, but I'm getting a major writer's block. So…Yeah. I might come back to it again later, so it's not dead (I hope)!