FASH: Thank you for waiting, there were a bunch of really bad storms in my area yesterday; tornado warnings, power going out, the whole she-bang. Holy mother of God, my sister had to drive through the storm and she was terrified.

""-speech

''-thoughts

-x-x-x-

Shin blinked and stared at him before making a noncommittal sound from the back of his throat in what Sena assumed was supposed to be a greeting, before dropping the duffle bag he'd been carrying to the floor and turning back around.

"Wait Shin, where are you going? It's almost time for curfew." Sakuraba reminded, quickly stealing glances of both his stoic friend and Sena.

"I'm just jogging around the campus once more, I have not yet properly cooled down my muscles." Shin replied without turning around.

"Oh, okay, just remember not to take too long."

The unnerving squeak of the door was Shin's answer.

The fair haired boy sighed and mumbled something about training maniacs under his breath.

"So Sena, I would be right to conclude that you and Shin-kun know each other?" Takami asked, adjusting his glasses absentmindedly.

Sakuraba's attention immediately snapped onto the brunette and Sena shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

"Well, we're acquainted with each other, but only because my grandparents are Shin-san's grandparent's gar- good friends."

It wasn't a complete lie, they were good friends, but Sena wasn't sure how well middle class kids were treated in an elite school like this, even if Takami, Sakuraba and Marco were quite nice Sena wasn't naive enough to think that everyone was like them. It would probably be better not to mention that his grandparents were the Shin family's gardeners.

"Oh? That sounds interesting, so did you meet up a lot when you were younger?"

"No, not very much at all, we rarely visited our grandparents at the same time, I can count on one hand how many times I've met him, and the last time I saw him was during the summer when I was in my first year of middle school."

"So it's been nearly three full years since you've last seen each other? I suppose that's why Shin-kun didn't seem to recognize you, but..." Takami trailed off, eyebrows furrowing. "Usually he's a little more polite."

"Well, you know Shin." Sakuraba cut in with a shrug. "Training takes priority in his life. He probably would have been nicer if he'd completely cooled down before meeting Sena."

Sena was convinced that wouldn't have been the case, at all.

"In any case, Shin-kun really isn't the type to have anything inappropriate at all, let alone lying around in clear sight, so you don't need to give him time to clear up the room before you go in."

"Ah, that's true." Sena would be shocked if someone as serious looking as Shin had something to hide.

"Your room is the last room on the left from the entrance, so the first room on the right from here." Sakuraba helpfully supplied as Sena stood up and grabbed his bag.

"Thank you, I should be able to get myself settled in just fine. Good night."

"Have a good rest."

Sena shuffled over to his room and found himself cautiously opening the door, despite knowing that no one else was inside. He stepped in and gazed around at the furniture; two dressers, two desks, two chairs, two laundry baskets, one bunk bed.

'But which bunk is mine?'

Both beds were equipped with blankets, pillows, and were perfectly made. Sena bit his lip as he carefully looked the bunk bed up and down, trying to find any evidence that would indicate which one wasn't taken without luck.

He glanced around the room once more, feeling a little edgy, before his eyes settled on a door on the wall opposite to the entrance. With nothing better to do he strode towards it and peaked inside, letting out a low whistle when it turned out to be a fair sized bathroom. He stepped into the area and began digging through his bag to pull out his toiletries, setting them down on the sink's countertop and fusing over how to position everything. After it was all in perfect order he stripped out of his clothes and slipped into his pajamas before brushing his teeth.

By the time he exited the bathroom Shin had reappeared, sitting on the bottom bunk as he took off his socks.

"So I've got the top bunk?" Sena asked and Shin briefly glanced up at him before standing and moving over to one of the two dressers to grab a pair of pajamas before wordlessly moving to the bathroom.

"... Okay, top bunk it is then." He set his bag down next to the empty dresser before climbing up the ladder to the top bunk. He sat down on the blankets, tapping his fingers against the guard rail absentmindedly as he wondered if he should try and make some light conversation with his roommate before they both went to sleep.

'But there's no guarantee that he would join in on the conversation, in fact, it seems highly unlikely.' He went rigid as Shin exited the bathroom and deposited his dirty clothes into a laundry basket.

"Sh-Shin-san? Do you remember me at all?" Sena questioned after summoning up every cubic measurement of courage he had.

Shin didn't turn towards him, but Sena could see him give a slight nod.

'Alright, don't be spineless Sena, talking to Shin-san isn't such a big deal.' "I was surprised to see you again, it's been a long time."

Shin didn't answer in a vocal or physical manner, Sena's comment seeming to roll off of him much like water off a duck's back.

'This is awkward...' Sena kept his eyes glued to Shin's form as the other boy walked towards the door.

"It seems like-"

Click.

Shin had turned the light switch off.

He was being ignored, wasn't he? He was definitely being ignored.

'Well, it's not like Shin-san ever paid too much attention to me whenever we saw each other in the first place, but this is a bit depressing, since we're room mates and all.' He lifted the blankets up and pulled them over him with a sigh. 'This is sort of like the first time I remember meeting him.'

"G-goodnight, Shin-san." He called lightly, not entirely too surprised when he only received a grunt in answer.

'He talks to Sakuraba-san just fine. I really must have done something bad the actual first time I met him.' Sena tightly shut his eyes, desperately trying to draw up long forgotten memories.

The first time he remembered meeting Shin, their second ever meeting, he had just turned six and was going to visit his grandparents for Christmas.

After working for the Shin family for so long, and becoming very good friends with each other, Sena's grandparents had been invited to move into the Shin residence, which the elderly Shin couple had complained felt empty with the absence of their children.

Sena's grandparents had decided the move was a good idea and had sold their previous house.

Which meant that by visiting his own grandparents, he'd also inadvertently be visiting the Shin family.

He hardly even remembered their second meeting, but he knew that the slightly older boy had been polite but distant, only nodding or shaking his head to whatever questions Sena asked him.

'Come to think of it... I'm not sure if he's ever spoken directly to me.' Sena sighed into his pillow.

Seeing Shin talk to someone who he wasn't related to just cemented Sena's belief that he'd done something incredibly stupid the first time they met, and Shin had never completely forgiven him for it. Holding a grudge for something that happened when Sena had been, what, four, seemed like a petty thing to do, but Sena didn't know Shin well enough to know if he was the type to never forgive and never forget.

Sena shifted restlessly, somehow unable to become comfortable when he knew that Shin was just below him, possibly glaring up and mentally cursing Sena for prancing into his life.

It took a lot of time, tossing and turning, but eventually Sena was able to fall asleep.

He awoke fairly early the next morning out of habit, immediately tensing up and opening a single eye just a fraction to ensure that Shin wasn't for some reason standing on the ladder, staring down at him with malice filled eyes. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found no spiteful person in his immediate vicinity, but he slowly hung his head over the side of the guard rail to assure himself that Shin wasn't glaring up at the top bunk.

He was grateful to find the bed below his empty and he quickly slid down the ladder and dug into his backpack for a fresh change of clothes before moving into the bathroom for his morning shower.

Later he stepped out into the hallway feeling fresh and tranquil, the first obviously due to the shower and the second due to Shin's absence, and carefully made his way into the still messy kitchen to make himself some toast.

He'd just finished eating and was fretfully putting his dish in the overstuffed sink when he saw Sakuraba shuffling towards him with a horribly amusing case of bed-head.

Sena bit his lip in an effort not to smile, but found that he couldn't quite stop the corners of his lips from raising up. Sakuraba gazed at his expression sleepily for a moment before dim understanding settled over his features.

"Yeah, my hair likes to defy gravity in the morning." He said with a yawn before stumbling around to pour himself a glass of orange juice. "I suppose Shin's already gone?"

"He wasn't around when I woke up. Does he always leave so early in the morning?"

"It's a habit for him to get up early, I think, and Shin dislikes being idle, so he's probably either in the school's gym or running around the campus."

Sena nodded in comprehension before settling himself down on a couch in the living room and glancing over the copy of the school's map that had been set out on the coffee table, trying to find the rooms that had been listed on his timetable.

After studying the map enough that he was pretty sure he knew where to go for what class he spent the better part of the morning lazing around the living room, flipping through magazines as Takami firmly ordered the others to clean the kitchen before the group decided to go out for some lunch. They invited Sena along, but the brunette declined, saying he'd like to wait for his luggage and could just cook something for himself.

Really he didn't have enough pocket money to go out to eat all the time, but no one else had to know that.

After everyone had left he searched through the fridge and cupboards for suitable ingredients and had just made himself some lunch and a mental note to go grocery shopping when there was a knock on the door. By the time he reached it there was no one on the other side, but a post-it note had been stuck near the door handle informing him that his luggage had been delivered downstairs.

Figuring he wasn't in that much of a hurry he leisurely ate his lunch before making his way to the ground level and retrieving his two suitcases from the security guard at the main desk.

He dragged them towards the Section A stairs, unable to help but think they were heavier than they ought to be. His mother had promised to do a final sweep of his room to make sure he had packed everything he needed, which probably meant that she efficiently re-packed each suitcase in order to fit as much stuff as physically possible.

Strength had, ironically, never been one of his strong points, and lugging his two over-packed suitcases up a couple flights of stairs was going to be troublesome, but he was stubborn and refused to take one up at a time.

He'd hardly made it up six steps before Shin silently passed him by, pausing and turning to give him a blank look before wordlessly taking both suitcases from Sena's hands.

Sena let him take them up the stairs, much too nervous to insist that he could carry it up himself.

Normally he might think that this was a gesture of goodwill, but Shin's furrowed eyebrows and slight frown seemed to suggest otherwise.

'I wonder if he's doing this to try and prove how inferior my strength is to his.' Sena mentally groaned, he didn't want to believe that someone with such nice grandparents was anything but amiable, but Shin's refusal to talk to him wasn't making this situation easy.

Shin set down his suitcases in the entryway to their dorm and Sena nervously thanked him, thinking it was better to be polite than to be rude and better his chances of having to face Shin's wrath.

He nearly tripped over himself when Shin murmured: "You're welcome" to him and had to stifle the urge to ask the older boy if he'd said anything.

Shin walked forward, completely unfazed, and Sena stared after him in shock, desperately trying to rationalize this strange occurrence.

Maybe, even if Shin didn't like him, his upbringing made it impossible for him to completely ignore situations where saying nothing would be considered impolite?

'That sort of makes sense...'

Maybe yesterday, like Sakuraba had thought, Shin had just been too focussed on training and his usual routine to mind his manners? But even if that was so, that didn't mean Shin disliked him any less, it just meant he didn't want to be discourteous.

'But still... That was the first time he's spoken directly to me.' Sena didn't know if he should be happy or stay alarmed, so he decided to focus on getting his luggage to his room and unpacking.

Upon entering he heard the sound of running water, indicating that Shin was taking a shower and wouldn't be loitering around the room to make things more awkward, so Sena quickly set to work emptying out his suitcases.

There were very few personal items nestled in amongst the new clothes his mother had bought him, firmly insisting that he not wear his uniform all the time while in the dorm, and even after he'd set all those items down on the top of the dresser, the wooden piece of furniture still looked quite bare.

He knelt in front of the dresser and gently ran a finger along a lacquered wooden picture frame containing a two year old photo of him and his parents, unable to stop a sigh from escaping his lips.

"How have your parents been?"

Sena promptly fell over, having been too out of it to hear that the shower had turned off and the bathroom door open. He quickly sorted the question out in his mind and turned to face Shin with a small smile, but the answered died on his lips.

It could have just been his imagination, still running rampant with the conclusion that Shin disliked him, or maybe Shin was just irritated by his wet bangs getting into his eyes, but the older boy appeared to be glowering down at him.

Surely no one had that sort of look on their face as they asked questions unless they disliked the person they were questioning.

'S-scary.'

Sena somehow managed to pull himself together to answer before Shin lost interest and left. "Very good, and yours?"

"They have been quite well, thank you for asking." He replied before exiting the room, leaving Sena to puzzle over the last fifteen minutes.

'First he speaks directly to me, then he initiates a conversation of sorts with me, but all the while he looks as if he doesn't want to talk to me at all.'

God, Shin was a confusing individual, it would probably be better not to think about the anomaly that was he until Sena had been around long enough to see if Shin was like this to everyone else.

He began digging his clothes out of his suitcases and placing them inside drawers until the only thing left was something Sena hadn't expected.

"Oh, mom..." Sena reached out and grabbed onto the plushie that had been hidden under his sweaters, looking it over with a small smile.

He'd been rather distraught when he finally figured out that living in a dorm meant that he couldn't bring along his pet cat, and apparently that had been enough of a reason for his mother to search all the toy stores in their area to find a cat plushie that looked like Pitt.

He set the stuffed animal by the edge of his bed, just above the ladder, then he sneaked into the living room to grab some more magazines before going back to his own room and flipping through them lazily as he laid down on his bed.

He'd drifted off halfway through his second magazine and awoke slowly to the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing.

He sedately sat up and gazed down, blinking slowly as he absorbed what he saw in front of him.

Shin was silently staring up at the cat plushie with a look that Sena couldn't help but think had a distinct subtext of: I can't believe a male high school student has a stuffed animal on his bed.

"Takami-san says dinner will be here soon." Shin finally spoke up after a solid thirty seconds of staring.

"Ah, thank you, I'll be out in a minute."

Shin nodded and left, once again leaving Sena alone in their room.

'Getting used to this is going to be tough.'