It was getting to be too much. It was already three o'clock in the morning, and she had a nine o'clock class in the morning. The stress of homework had begun to overpower her. She was at the point of literally pulling her hair out and forming a pile of it in the little trash bin next to her.

She was generally a good student, but she'd never been good at stress-management since middle school. At least then, she'd always had her mom there to help, with hugs and encouraging words. Sometimes she would sit down with her and say, "Okay, what does the next problem say?" Even though the woman had no idea how to solve the homework problems, she would cheerfully sit by her daughter, and together, they would put one step in front of the other, sometimes finishing in the early morning hours. It was even worse for the long-term assignments. The girl was skilled at making schedules for that kind of thing, but usually couldn't follow through with them and would procrastinate instead. Her mother would encourage her often in these times as well, saying, "Just start it. Just do the first paragraph of your paper. It'll get easier."

The system was different in college. Classes alternated every other day, which was very jarring to the girl's internal clock. She was a creature of habit who did not respond well to change, even seemingly minor ones like that. Therefore, the transition to college was devastating, and there was the new homework system. There was much less every-day work and more long-term work. While this might seem to decrease the day-to-day strain, it did quite the opposite. The girl was still quite prone to procrastination, even though her mind thrived on logic in most other areas of life. She knew that if she faced the work she was stressed about, then it would be gone and so would a great deal of her anxiety. This knowledge was always present in the back of her mind, even while she was doing activities that were supposed to be fun, like spending time with friends or reading.

The worst part about all of this was the fact that the girl's mother was thousands of miles away, quite out of reach. Of course the two spoke on the telephone nearly every day, but it was impossible for her to hold her daughter during a stress attack or help her concentrate.

This particular Sunday night/Monday morning, the girl had done no work since Thursday. She had slept through all her Friday classes, even her afternoon ones. Her room mate had left on Friday afternoon to attend a wedding on Saturday and wouldn't be back until Monday evening and, despite the fact that the girl was able to sit in her room and reading for days at a time (which is what she'd been doing for the past few days), she was quite the extrovert and often became lonely and a little depressed when her room mate left every Sunday. Her room mate's home was less than thirty miles away, so her room mate would leave every Sunday morning and return after the girl was asleep Sunday night. Usually this was manageable for her because it was only one day, but this weekend was tougher. Combine with that the facts that her homework had been piling up (at this school, it spells disaster for a student to not work for even one or two days) and that her first big test was on Wednesday and she would never be prepared for it, and one might come to understand why the girl was visibly shaking and in tears in the middle of the night.

The fear paralyzed her as she lay in her bed, clinging to her covers. There would be no chance of her falling asleep any time soon.

She jumped when she felt a soft, gloved hand catch a tear from her cheekbone.

"Why are you crying, Ojou-san?"

She hadn't heard or seen the figure until he'd spoken. All she saw was a profile in the almost-full moonlight streaming from the window. It was white-clad, complete with a cape and top hat which was angled to cover part of the face in shadows. There was also a strange circle of moonlight reflected from something on the right side of the person's face.

A name immediately popped into the girl's head. She would recognize that outfit anywhere…she just couldn't believe it. What was this person doing talking to her?

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." The voice was light and a little playful, with a hint of an Asian accent. Japanese, she knew.

This person didn't, couldn't, be real. She must have cried herself to sleep at some point. Or she's finally lost it and was hallucinating. Well, why not play along, then? If he was just a projection of her addled brain, he'd care about whatever she said, right?

She held her hands in her lap and tried to stop the quiet tears. "...It's too much. I can't cope. Even when I'm with people I care about, I feel alone... I don't want to be alone anymore."

Suddenly she felt herself being swept into an embrace, strong arms around her. The white-clad form held her tightly, cheek against cheek. His breath tickled her ear. "You're never alone. Remember that. When you want to just say "screw reality" and watch it burn, remember: there is Someone who cares."

The girl wanted to retort, "Oh yeah, and who's that?", but the tears and sobs rushed out again in torrents at those words.

0/0/0/0/0

Someone was talking. The voice was slightly fuzzy, as if from a recording. It was saying something about clouds. The girl slowly rose to full awareness.

She was in her bed. The voice on the radio-alarm was giving the weather forecast. She was alone.

So it had been a dream.

She turned around to retrieve her glasses from the table behind her, but stopped short before she touched them.

There was a single yellow rose on her desk, with a note attached tied together with a single red velvet ribbon.

Yellow meant friendship and the promise of a new beginning.

So...had last night been real?

She gingerly reached for the note. It was the size of an index card and the script was neat and flowing.

"Never alone. Never forget."

And, drawn beneath the text, was something the girl never thought she would see in real life.

A smiling cartoon of the Kaitou Kid.