~ Tuesday 5th April 2016 ~

My alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., and without really thinking about it, I got ready for school. I guess, everything looked rosier to me, and when I looked in the mirror, my uniform was immaculate and my make-up looked natural. I walked past four mirrors that showed my face and the full length mirror near the hall door. My sister and dad were out, my dad gone to work and my sister had stepped out for something else. I stuck a packed lunch into my bag before hoisting it over my shoulder.

I left my house, without breakfast as I wasn't hungry. I took the long walk to school as it was the most scenic and stopped when I reached the gate of the school. I dropped my bag to my side, finding it easier to hold then. I spotted Luka and waved to her, and my hand looked fuzzy to me. Luka stared at me as I walked over to her, Hatsune also making her way to us.

"Yu-chan?" Luka asked as she touched the end of my perfect braid, "what happened to your face?"

"What do you mean? Is it the new foundation I bought?" I asked her.

"Yukiji…you look like a clown that fell and landed into a hedge for that hedge to then beat him up…I thought you were out for the rest of the week anyway?"

"I had to come in…" I mumbled before moving away from them, not wanting them to know I was suspicious of Yandere.

Hatsune reached forward and caught my arm, before dragging me at speed to the gym. Luka followed behind her, opening her bag before she locked the door. Hatsune sat me down and leaned towards me.

"Do you have wipes?" Hatsune asked Luka who nodded.

My make-up was removed and it felt like my skin had been rubbed off with sandpaper. Luka went to redo it, giving me a little colour in my cheeks while Hatsune redid my hair in a low ponytail. My uniform was adjusted and then I was made to stand.

"Let's go see the others…I guess," Hatsune whispered as they brought me into the school.

The lockers appeared like statues, with odd things hanging out of their stomachs…wait no, those were the locks. I put my hand to my head, wondering if I was hallucinating again. I stopped at my locker to switch shoes and stick my lunch in. I could collect it at lunch time. Kira and Megumi turned to welcome Hatsune and Luka, before looking surprisingly at me.

"Yukiji…what are you doing in here?" Meiko asked softly.

"I'm here for class," I replied simply as I took my spot between Hatsune and Megumi.

No one else really talked, not sure what to do with me there. I looked around, spotting Senpai and hoping I looked decent. Had he seen me yesterday? I really hoped he hadn't seen me fall…oh crap, he was coming over here!

Senpai stopped a foot from me, Aki and Akira nearby with smiles on their faces. Senpai looked worried, as if he wasn't sure what to do.

"Yukiji…can we talk for a minute…alone?" he asked and I felt my heart stop for a minute.

"Yeah…yeah, sure," I answered and followed after him.

"Senpai!" Megumi called out and we both looked back at her, "Yukiji has a bit of a cold…"

"Okay Gumi-chan," he replied and she blushed before returning to our group.

I let him lead the way, towards our classroom. I followed behind, noticing that Aki and Akira guarded the doorway. Were they expecting something to happen? I gulped as I stepped in, following after Senpai. He was near my desk, his hand tracing shapes in the wooden surface.

My heart was racing so fast, it felt like a hummingbird's. Could he hear it? Could he see how nervous he made me? I clenched my hands tight, not sure what he was going to say. Would he know it was me who wrote that note for him? Oh God, I wasn't ready to tell him how I felt! Would he think I was some lovestruck teenager? Would he not want anything to do with me?

"Yukiji…I'm glad you came in today," Senpai said as he raised his head to look at me, his dark eyes scorching me.

"Em…I had to come in," I muttered pathetically.

"I had something I wanted to ask you," he said, a smile on his lips that made my heart race faster.

"What is it?" I asked, my voice so breathy that I wasn't sure he had heard me.

"I could only really ask you," he replied, "I wanted to ask you…do you know what Ms Kanade wanted with the geography assignment?"

I must have looked confused, because believe me, I was. I had thought he was going to confess his feelings for me…and instead he was asking me about geography?! Seriously?! My heart slowed down a little as I walked to my desk, with Senpai's hand touching my hip twice. I must have been unsteady…

"Be careful there," he said and I smiled at him, hoping to God I remembered to brush my teeth.

His answering smile told me I had. I retrieved my geography book and flipped it open to the chapter concerning volcanos and their formation.

"She wants us to write an easy about volcanos," I replied and he nodded, "and it can't be more than 1000 words."

"Thanks Yukiji," he said as he touched the book, "this really helped."

I nodded, not trusting my voice anymore. He left to talk to his friends and I sunk down into my desk. I put my head in my hands, wondering what had gotten into me. Had I really thought he was going to confess his feelings to me?

I wasn't sure how long I sat there before Ms Kanade walked in, wearing a new citrus perfume. I glanced up to see her brown hair was around her shoulders, covering the straps of a yellow summer dress. She was smiling to herself as she turned to the board and started writing out work for class, focusing on the experiment we did yesterday.

She finished a few moments later, a diagram made up and some words scribbled into the sides. She then looked out at the class, obviously waiting for people to enter, when her eyes rested on me.

"Yukiji?" she asked before making her way to me, "I told your father you were unwell."

"I had to come in…" I muttered, "now I wish I hadn't."

"Are you still feeling unwell? I'll bring you to the nurse and ring your father if you want," she said as dropped to her hunches to rest her arms on my desk, a smile on her face.

"It's not that," I mumbled as I raised my head to look at her, "boys are just idiots."

"They are," she replied as she reached forward to tuck a strange of loose hair behind my ear, "but don't worry about it. They only really act like idiots when in the presence of girls they like."

"Do they ever confess their feelings?" I asked her and she shook her head, "why not?"

"Some guys don't want to express their feelings in case they get rejected. But I can tell you this, when you want to start a relationship with someone, you have to have the courage to lay your heart on the line. Let them know what is on your mind, how you feel about them. Tell them that, if they are your friend, that you want more than that. And remember, he has to have the courage to accept those feelings of yours. It takes two to make a relationship work, otherwise it's like a one sided conversation. I won't ask who this guy is, but I wish you all the best with it. Now, do you think you can make it through class?"

"Yeah," I replied, feeling a little brighter.

"Good," she said and she stood, dusting down her dress, "we'll do a basic theory class today on the dissection. Since you didn't see the whole thing."

Class went on like that, with Kaito and Hatsune talking Ms Kanade through the experiment. Gackpo and Luka backed up what they were saying by mentioned other things that they noticed. Aki had fun mentioning how Kaito jumped when the frog began dancing.

"I thought it was alive!" Kaito snapped, with the rest of the class laughing at him.

"You just sent an electrical current into its muscles, making it spasm, Kaito," Ms Kanade stated, suppressing a giggle herself, "every year someone does it."

From there we went onto handwriting, where my handwriting reminded me of a baby ccousin I used to babysit. Was I really that sick? I took out a fresh piece of paper and put my pen down on it, wanting to convey a message to Senpai. Ms Kanade had said to have courage, so I addressed it to him…and knew…if I wanted him to know it was me, I would have to set up a date to see him.

Dear Senpai,

I am writing you this letter to tell you how much you mean to me. You are someone I never thought I would actually get a chance to meet. You are the best thing to happen to me, and I don't regret telling you how I feel. I have had one boyfriend before you, but it was nothing serious. As someone once said to me, it was like a one-sided conversation, rather than a serious relationship. We departed shortly after starting the relationship, both wanting different things.

The feelings I had for him are nothing compared to what I feel for you. You stole my heart away the first day we meet here in Academi High School. I had been lost, and you had given me directions to my class. You were so sweet to me, and we hadn't even been introduced. At first, I was confused by these feelings of mine. I didn't know what I wanted. I had only recently broken up with my boyfriend, and felt I wasn't ready to take another chance. So I decided to become a friend of yours, someone you could talk to. I wanted to find out who you truly were and what you liked. You were cool, nice and funny. You made me laugh, something no other guy was able to do. So I decided, I wanted to be with you.

But I didn't know how to tell you these feelings of mine, and I was scared of being rejected. I wanted to be someone you would want to be with. I wanted to be someone who could be there for you. I can't really explain these feelings of mine on a piece of paper. I also don't know your feelings, or if you have any towards me but I don't want you to tell me something you really don't believe. I want to receive your love and trust when you truly mean it. All I ask of you is to show me that you care for me. I know this is a leap of faith, but can you meet me this Friday? I'll be under the cherry blossom trees behind the school at 5pm. I hope to see you there…

xxx

I folded the note up, not wanting to reread the words in case I changed my mind. I needed to have the courage to tell him, and this note would tell him something. The last note had been…a simple confession. Nothing like this. If he read this and still wanted to meet me this Friday, I knew he had to feel something. But I didn't want him to know it was me…not yet. I wanted to see if he would figure it out before then.

Lunch came around and I got up to go to my locker, watching Yandere sit at her table. Megumi and Hatsune had gone over to talk to her, so while she was distracted, I grabbed my note and went to Senpai's locker.

"Please meet me," I whispered to the note as I slipped it in and had it rest against his shoes. I locked his locker and wondered briefly what I should do now. I had to get my lunch from my locker…

"The needle," I muttered, remembering Yandere and her strange behaviour yesterday.

I walked over to her locker, and noticed the lock was undone. That made it a little easier to open, but I was cautious. I opened it slowly, surprised to only see her shoes. I took one out and then the other, nothing inside them or around them. There was nothing there, and yet I was certain I had seen her with the needle and the vial yesterday. Maybe she had them moved, so I closed her locker and went to my own. I took out my lunch and went back to class.

Ms Kanade decided to do a joint class, combining 3-2 and 3-1. Mr Aido stepped in to talk about chemistry.

"Now ladies, how many of you wear make-up?" he asked and almost every girl, except Megumi and Yandere, put up their hands.

"Well, do you know what chemicals you're putting on your face?" he asked before telling us everything.

By the end of class, some girls had found wipes and were taking it off. I hadn't realised how pale Hatsune was without her glitter girl foundation, or how little sleep Meiko seemed to get, if the bags under her eyes were any indication.

"What do you use for concealer?" I asked her, clearly impressed by how much it had concealed.

"It's the new Panda Bear Undercover," she said as she retrieved it from her bag, "I bought it from Tokyo. You can have it though, I don't want it after finding out what goes into it!"

"Thanks," I said, not sure how to take that statement.

"Yu-chan," Hatsune asked, "do you want my foundation?"

"Do you not want it?" I asked her.

"No…I think I'll go over to that Basic brand."

Luka located her pale pink Lovestruck lipgloss and gave it to me, saying it, "didn't have that nice strawberry flavour anymore." I sighed and accepted it, knowing that they were all handmedowns because of this class. But hey, maybe I could use some of this…for Friday. That thought made my heart race a little before class finished for the day.

"Has anyone seen Teto?" Kira asked at the end of the day, "she said she was coming in late this morning."

"Maybe the gates were closed before she got here," Luka said as we grabbed our things, "maybe she went home?"

"Yeah…maybe," Kira mumbled, clearly uncertain.

I had to balance on Hatsune's shoulder to put on my shoes, taking off the school shoes and put them in my locker. I looked over at Senpai, and saw he was reading the note. There was a smile on his face as he folded it up to put in his bag. I hope that smile meant he would meet me there.

"Hey, do you want to come over to my house?" Megumi asked.

"Sure," Luka replied.

"Cool!" Meiko answered.

"I have to get home," Hatsune replied with a sigh, "mum got annoyed at me for being late yesterday."

"Sames," Kira answered, "hey, do you want to walk together?"

"Sounds good," Hatsune smiled at Kira before looking at me, "what about you, Yu-chan?"

"I think I'll go with Gumi," I said, "you have to show me how to use the concealer, Meiko."

"Will do," and we walked out together.

Hatsune and Kira lagged behind, talking about Hiro. He was still in Tokyo and wanted to know if Kira wanted to meet up over the weekend there. I waved to them as we got to the gates, noticing Yandere calling out to them. None of my other friends seemed to notice, so I ignored it and went on my way to my friend's house.

It was ten that evening when I got home, my sister drove me there. I was so tired, and wrecked that when my head hit the pillow…I was asleep almost immediately. I forgot to take the make-up off…but I really didn't care.

"I think she should stay at home tomorrow, dad," I vaguely remembered my sister saying, "she's not well."

"I have to go to work," Dad replied, "can you stay with her?"

"Leave money for pizza?"

"Sure," he replied and then I fell asleep, dreaming of Senpai…