Yumi tapped her foot anxiously outside Ulrich and Odd's dorm room. She'd already knocked on the door and counted to ten but she hadn't heard any reply from inside the room; maybe he really had gone to take a nap after all. After taking a deep breath she pushed down on the door handle and let herself in. Gazing around she noticed that the room itself was surprising clean except for some scattered clothing balled up on the floor. Yumi's slightly annoyed expression softened into a smile when she noticed that disheveled and asleep in his bed was Ulrich. He was sprawled out on his side with his back facing the wall and Yumi watched as his chest rose and fell beneath his blue comforter.

She quietly walked to stand beside him and studied his face thoughtfully; his sharp features looked more at peace than they had in several weeks. Smiling to herself, Yumi carefully reached out and brushed some of his messy hair off of his face and her fingers, almost having a mind of their own, trailed down to his cheek. Her thumb ran across his cheekbone and traced the swelling dark bruise that marred his otherwise smooth skin before seeing him stir in his sleep and quickly pulling her hand away completely. She couldn't help but wince at how painful that mark looked.

Ulrich's head lolled to the side and his eyes slowly blinked open. Unaware that he wasn't alone, he sighed and upon looking at the clock cursed loudly.

"I take it you didn't have a good nap then," Yumi said between quiet laughs. He froze at the sound of her voice and his head whipped up to stare at her.

"Yumi!" he gasped before lowering his eyes, "what do you want?"

She clenched her hands into fists angrily. All she did was come to check up on him and he was already trying to shut her out! Honestly she did have an ulterior motive for doing so, but it wasn't like he knew that; at least he had no way of knowing for sure. Yumi took a deep breath to help calm her down because she knew if she lashed out at Ulrich they'd only end up fighting again. Then again, at least fighting with him was somewhat normal; things between them hadn't been normal in quite a while.

"I just came to talk."

He gave her an unconvinced look then shifted his face so that she couldn't see his eyes and sat up so that he could lean back against his outstretched arms. His blankets fell down and exposed his bony shoulders, toned biceps, and an unsightly orange-sized blue bruise on his upper arm. As soon as Yumi laid eyes on it another wave of anger flared up in her gut; he probably had another excuse for that one too. She was eventually able to force her eyes away from the mark and focused instead on his weathered dark brown eyes.

"We're worried about you Ulrich." He dropped her gaze once more and ran a hand through his hair. How many times was he going to have to sit through this talk? Odd had already cornered him right before breakfast and the only reason he'd stopped harassing Ulrich was because he'd been so incredibly hungry. He hadn't followed Odd to breakfast and had ended up skipping lunch to study for his algebra exam he had at the end of the day so he was sincerely hoping that Yumi didn't want to talk through dinner.

Eyelids drooping warily, he prepared himself for another questioning that he'd have to ultimately dance around the answers to.

"I'm just under a lot of pressure right now," he slyly admits, "There's a lot riding on me." While he was speaking truthfully, he knew that Yumi wouldn't grasp the real weight his words held.

"But you don't have to deal with it all by yourself. That's what friends are for," she pressed. There was no way that whatever was bothering him couldn't be solved with the help of his friends; their group had gotten through much worse over the years, Yumi was sure of it.

"Yeah but you guys aren't miracle-workers. There's some stuff I have to figure out on my own." Ulrich thought they all needed to stop worrying about him so much, couldn't they see that he was trying his hardest to keep himself together and get himself out of this situation? He couldn't just fix things overnight but he was persistently problem solving.

"How do you even know that we can't help you when you won't even tell us what's wrong? It's like you don't want us to care enough about you to want to help you." She couldn't keep her frustration from seeping into her tone and her heart leaped uneasily when she saw his taut frown, yet she knew that he wouldn't willingly give her answers unless she could convince him to open up.

Ulrich felt the shame swim through his chest at her statement. It wasn't that he wanted them to stop caring about him, it was just that he didn't want them to pry into his personal life. His friends had given him space to sulk and reflect on his issues before, so why weren't they letting him do the same now? He had always been a closed book when it came to his family and private matters so they should've realized that he wasn't going to talk about them just because they were interested.

"There's nothing wrong so it doesn't even matter," he said defiantly but both of them knew he was only lying through his teeth.

"So now there's nothing wrong? You just said you were under a lot of pressure. That's not nothing." Yumi knew that her emotions were beginning to spiral out of control for good however she kind of hoped a good dose of anger would break through his shell. At the same time if she pressed too hard he could end up ignoring her completely and storming out which would be the opposite of progress.

"I've always been under pressure Yumi. We're all under pressure to stop XANA once and for all." He almost cringed at the void of sentiment in his words. Ulrich did care about protecting the world and was proud to call himself a Lyoko warrior but he was too worn out to be passionate about much of anything at the moment.

"This isn't about XANA, Ulrich," she snapped at him, "This is about you and your unwillingness to let me help you!" Maybe speaking as his friends wouldn't do any good, but Yumi wondered if he had a soft spot for her that she could exploit for answers. She didn't want to take advantage of the feelings he may or may not have for her but, upon eyeing his bruised face again, she knew something had to be done.

"I don't need you or anyone else helping me! I'm fine!" he yelled back. Ulrich clenched his jaw and buried his fists in the surrounding bed sheets. Odd hadn't been nearly as unrelenting as her; darn her stubbornness. Seeing that their conversation was as good as over, Yumi decided to try one last tactic to attempt to get through to him.

"Oh yeah? Have you looked in the mirror lately?" she asked with as even of a tone as she could manage. Ulrich visibly stiffened and his eyes widened slightly. There was no conceivable way that she knew what was happening to him so his mind raced to find other implications of what she was insinuating. However, he couldn't shake the feeling that she could see right through him and it unnerved him to no end.

Yumi was shocked at his reaction to her question and all the anger and frustration she'd been feeling dissipated when she saw the panic he was emitting. But why was he acting so frightened now? She hadn't figured anything out and she had been very straightforward with her inquisitions.

"What are you talking about?" he breathlessly replied. She couldn't know.

Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously but after shaking some stray hairs from her face she worriedly observed Ulrich's tired face.

"You haven't been sleeping enough, you always look exhausted," she began as she took one of his hands in her own, "you barely eat anything when your appetite used to rival Odd's." Yumi traced invisible patterns on his wrist with her thumb to soothe herself. Staring down at his lap Ulrich couldn't help but wonder how accurate her words were. His clothes had been feeling a bit baggy lately and he was lucky if he got more than five hours of sleep a night with how much studying he'd been doing in order to keep his grades up.

"You never spend time with us unless it's XANA related," she softly continued, "we miss you. I miss-"

She trailed off and carefully took a knee by his bed so that she was just under eye-level with him and slowly reached out to touch his cheek once more.

Instinctively he flinched away from her hand and watched anxiously as she withdrew it quickly as if she'd been burned.

Hurt and confused, Yumi sat back on her heels and let her hands fall lamely in her lap. Did he think that she was going to hurt him? She wasn't a violent person so how could he possibly come to that conclusion? Angry at herself for believing she'd sent him the wrong signals, she fought back tears of frustration.

After a few awkward seconds passed, Ulrich stared down at her curiously. He did feel like a class A jerk for dodging her hand like that, but if anything, he would expect her to be seething at him over it instead of sitting dejectedly on the floor. In the moment that she reached for him, he knew that he was with Yumi and that she certainly wouldn't do anything to hurt him, yet his body acted on its own and now he was left to explain his touch issues. He sighed upon contemplating how to fix things and blushed slightly when he remembered how warm and gentle her hands were. God he was such a sap.

Leaning over the side of the bed he grabbed Yumi's hand and pressed her palm against the side of his face. She hesitantly fitted her hand to cup his cheek and knowing it would make her smile he nuzzled into her touch. Yumi laughed lightly and he smiled goofily at her causing both of their faces to heat up. However, Ulrich quickly remembered their previous conversation, as did Yumi and they frowned at each other once more.

He climbed out of his bed, onto the floor, and sat cross-legged in front of her. Once settled down he once again realized how beat he really was. He had been trying so hard the past couple of weeks to get his grades up and while continuing to help his friends battle XANA, but being split down the middle, he couldn't give his full attention to either without neglecting the other. Eyeing Yumi out of the corner of his eye, Ulrich wondered if he shared some of his burden with her, if she could help him balance things out. Of course he couldn't tell her everything, but if he could feel even slightly better he was willing to part with a few truths.

"Yumi…you can't tell the others any of this."

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That's it for this chapter. I've written most of this story already (20,000 words for my own personal entertainment) but I won't post anymore unless someone wants to read it so please leave a review or send me a PM if you'd like to know what happens next (: Thanks for reading - Sn0wAngel 3