Written as a vent piece.

Invisible

Odd loved his family, he really did. Except when he didn't.

It wasn't like he hated his family or anything like that. He didn't even really have all that much to complain about in all honesty. It wasn't like he had Ulrich's dad, always barking at him about how poor his grades were or that his friends were no good, or loudly complaining about the stick shoved up his rear (Ok, maybe not that last one). His was nothing like that.

His family loved him lots, they were supportive (maybe a little too much so at times), and they were fun to be around! There were smiles all the time in his house. How could he hate a family that always laughed so much, and told so many great stories and told so many jokes at the dinner table?

...Sure, he happened to be the butt of said jokes a lot of the time, but that was ok, right? It was good to laugh at yourself every now and again, he did it with the others back at Kadic all the time! And yeah, maybe hearing the story about how his sisters locked him in the bathroom for the millionth time wasn't funny to him, but everyone else seemed to like it. Who was he to ruin the mood of the evening?

He just forced a grin and nodded along; his annoyance was probably just an overreaction anyways. After all, Hiroki annoyed Yumi all the time, it was normal sibling stuff!

And yeah, maybe his jokes were the ones most often ignored, but it wasn't like that was unusual. Even at school, most of his jokes and jibes on Lyoko were met with eyerolls and calls to keep focused, but at least they gave a reaction. Here it was just... nothing. Like he was a ghost trying to make contact with the living world, only occasionally diverting attention away from whatever conversation they were having. Something about Pauling graduating? Or wait, was it Louise? He couldn't keep track anymore.

It was actually pretty disheartening. He'd thought it was a pretty good joke. He picked at his meal listlessly, suddenly not feeling nearly as hungry as before.

"And what about you, Odd?" He perked up as his mother called his name. "How's it been at Kadic? Been eventful?"

"Er..." He hesitated. It certainly had been an eventful year at Kadic' he and his friends had saved the whole friggin' planet from a demonic artificial intelligence! They'd all nearly died several times! He got to be a giant purple cat in the real world in various parts of the globe! But somehow, he had a feeling that talking about how he and his friends hacked into top secret networks and risked many lives on the daily for two years wouldn't make very good conversation at the table, so instead he settled on saying "It's been good, yeah."

"That's nice."

"Actually, my friends Ulrich and Je-"

"Hey, speaking of friends, I went out with-" And thus, the conversation was shifted away from him once more and back to an adult, who led and adult life, and did much more interesting adult things than Odd could.

He didn't stay at the table much longer. He quietly finished his meal and excused himself, citing tiredness from his plane trip back home as a good reason. No one put up an argument, and he heard an eruption of laughter from his room as he closed the door behind him. He let out a frustrated sigh as he flopped onto his bed. If that was any indication of how it would be the whole time, this was going to be a long winter break.

He almost couldn't wait to get back to Kadic already. Almost.

Kiwi, who had been sleeping, lifted his head from his dog bed and trotted over to his master, and began to lick his hand.

Well, how could you not smile at that. Odd lifted his other arm from over his eyes and smiled down at his little diggity dog. "At least I've got you around here, buddy. C'mere!" He pulled the mutt onto his bed and gave the dog the best belly scratches of his life.

A small buzz stopped him, much to Kiwi's displeasure, and pulled his attention towards his phone that he'd left on his nightstand to charge. He picked it up and glanced down at the screen. To his surprise, he'd had several unread messages.

First was a reply from Jeremy. He'd sent the genius a computer related meme he'd found earlier. While he didn't understand it himself, it seemed that Jeremy enjoyed it based on the several laughing emojis he'd sent (Aelita was teaching him well, it seemed).

Then, he'd had an email from Aelita. A short message wishing him a good holiday from both her and Jeremy, and had a music file attached to it, one of her latest projects he assumed. He'd have to listen to it later.

Then was a message from Yumi, a picture of her and Hiroki, with her in a Santa hat and her brother begrudgingly wearing a pair of reindeer antlers, though still smiling. He let out a laugh at her added message that it was actually Hiroki's idea to send it to him and not to let his face fool him.

And finally, the latest message of Ulrich asking him when he'd be ready to play online with him, one of their usual games of course. He grinned and started typing back.

He really did love his family, never let it be said that he didn't But they could be a little too much to handle sometimes. But that was ok.

He had some pretty amazing friends to talk to when that happened.

As the youngest of 3 with little to say and the one most often ribbed on, sometimes I get frustrated with my family around the holidays.

But I still love them to pieces.

I just needed a little bit to vent on.