"You're such an idiot!" Akemi rebuked Shiro. "You made her cry!"

"She's crying?!" Shiro said alarmed. "I-I didn't...She never cries."

"Her eye colour shifted. It was very slight change, but I could tell. I've been with her for years.

"Crying can lighten her burden you know. At least that's what I think. Every time she cries her eyes literally lightens - they become paler. She thought she had cried enough when her parents died. But I bet she hasn't gotten over it yet."

"She's had a lot of practice," Shigeru remarked.

"Practice?"

"Stopping her tears. Hiding her grief. Often only Akemi and I could tell when she's on the verge of tears." Shigeru explained.

"Then how come...?" Shiro asked. "Why'd she run off?"

"Your comment must have caught her off-guard.

Shiro pondered this for a moment. Damn if he didn't feel guilty. "I-I should go apologise."

He grabbed his own backpack and walked to the door, hesitatingly. "Hey Shigeru...?"

Shigeru turned to look at him.

"You...you're the person who knows her best after Akemi and obviously you feel sorry about her parents too - what I means is... why? Why do you tease her at all? You obviously care about how she feels."

Shigeru shrugged indifferently. "No reason, really."

Akemi scowled. "No reason why you and your friends have been harassing her since primary school?!

"I bet you're trying to make her cry aren't you? To see her eyes change colour. "

"You're wrong." Shigeru said, surprising Akemi with the promptness of the reply. "That is so immature."

She raised an eyebrow questioning this talk of maturity and immaturity.

He grinned. "I already achieved that in primary school. Now I wanna make her angry - I wonder what colour it'll change this time. Keep up with time, Akemi. Making her cry is so childish to do now."

Akemi gasped. "You brat! You're still freakin' IMMATURE!"

He laughed dodging out of the range of her kick. "Hey, watch it! But seriously, it took me four years of primary school to make her cry."

"And she didn't cry for the reason I expected her to," he murmured.

"What?"

"Nothin'. She's a strong girl, that's all," he said seriously. "Stubborn as a bull."

Akemi gazed out the door. "Yeah, she's strong. Don't worry Shiro, wait until she comes back. She's endured so much worse; your words won't break her."


Goldivera ran to the lockers. Stupid. I'm so stupid. He didn't mean any harm by that.

"I'm such a cry baby," she murmured.

She slid down leaning against the grey lockers. She smiled ruefully.

I only just managed to not cry. But then I ran out of the room anyway.

She remembered the countless tricks Shigeru and his group of friends had used to try to make her cry and laughed.

He made me so angry I refused to cry. Looks like that paid off hasn't it? Even though he succeeded in the end...

"-Hey, girl over there by the lockers. Can you tell me where class 1-B is?"

She looked over to see the speaker looking over at her calmly. She noted that he did not seem the slightest bit surprised about her eyes.

"Yeah. That's my class. You a transfer? I didn't expect a transfer to come halfway through the second semester."

"Well, I transferred a month ago - yeah, not the beginning of the semester though. I still don't really know the way. I just changed classes you see." He smiled. "I'm Kiyosaki Yoru."

She stood up out of politeness. "Sei Goldivera. I guess we should get to class, now that I can use you as an excuse for being late... We have a test you know?"

He couldn't help grinning at that. "Were you jigging? I'm sorry."

"No-of course not! I was just wondering how to excuse myself for turning up late!"

He laughed. "I was only joking. You denied it so furiously."

She smiled good naturedly and took him up another level outside the third classroom. Then she hesitated. She peered through the screen at the top anxiously.

"Hey Kiyosaki-san, do you mind going in first?" She whispered.

She moved behind him.

"Huh?" He stammered bewildered, but she didn't wait for his reply.

Curtly she leaned over to knock on the door - just three raps - and pushed the door open.

"LATE, MY DEARS?!" The teacher's voice boomed angrily. "Or were you hoping to skip my test?"

He pushed his glasses back up his nose and surveyed the unfamiliar boy's face.
Yoru was so surprised he was at a complete loss for words. Goldivera bit her lip to keep herself from laughing uncontrollably. She didn't want to end up on the detention roster; Mr Yoshimura could be very unpredictable and she couldn't afford to skip out on work.

She cleared her throat softly.

"Mr Yoshimura, this is Kiyosaki Yoru. He's just changed classes so he got lost."

Mr Yoshimura contemplated this, his face clearing.

"Looks like he's accepted the excuse...Way to go Vera," Goldivera thought. Then as if he had heard her silent sigh of relief he gazed at her suspiciously. "Who made him your responsibility, Goldivera? What's your reason for being late?"

She sighed, looking pleadingly at Kiyosaki. To her surprise comprehension flitted in his eyes. She held her breath and he... gave a sympathetic smile.

Great, that's all he's gonna do? Smile at me in symapthy?

She ducked her head in anticipation of her punishment so when Kiyosaki spoke it startled her.
"Sensei, I do beg your pardon. I sort of asked her to guide me to my next classes so she went looking for me. I got terribly lost, you see, but then she found me. She was keeping her promise, even though she knew the consequences of being late for this test."

Goldivera almost gawked at him but she felt the teacher's beady eyes focus on her. She tried to assume a nonchalant expression.

"I see. I didn't know you were such a responsible girl, Goldivera," Mr Yoshimura said smiling.

Goldivera was astonished. She turned and quickly reassessed Kiyosaki. "This guy... I didn't know Mr Yoshimura could be so tolerant - and he actually smiled!"

"I guess I'll allow both of you to take the tests tomorrow morning. We don't have enough time to let you start now."

Kiyosaki winked at her when the teacher's back turned and made his way to an empty seat on the second row. She realised she was still standing transfixed. With a faint blush of embarrassment on her cheeks she took her place next to Akemi.

"I was getting worried..."Akemi said gently. She didn't want to bring up the earlier subject carelessly but Goldivera smiled.

"You worry too much. I'm fine...just didn't expect anyone to mention that anymore. Focus on your test."

Akemi smiled. "Lucky you, you get to do it tomorrow. You've got time to study now."
Goldivera nodded.


"Was it hard?" Goldivera asked curiously. "Mr Yoshimura didn't even let me sneak a peek at the test."

"Moderately so." Akemi replied as they rounded the corner into the next class.

"Ah... only science then lunchbreak. See you at lunch."

They were learning about genetics. Mr Yamada had photocopied some pages from a textbook.
"He's such a textbook teacher; it's such a bore," a brunette in the corner exclaimed, not bothering to whisper. A few others murmured their agreements.

Mr Yamada blushed a beet red and scribbled furiously on the blackboard. Again he was only copying from the textbook. He finished drawing a punnett square and spoke in a rather high voice.

"Look here, please. Today's topic is Dominant and Recessive genes and how to denote them. For example..."

"In the textbook...," a guy snickered.
Mr Yamada cleared his throat nervously and continued doggedly. "For example...blue eyes are recessive and hence denoted with lowercase letters 'bb'. Black eyes are dominant and are therefore denoted with uppercase letter 'BB'...Does anyone remember what recessive mean?"
A girl in the front row raised her hand and answered, "It means that both of the same kind of genes are needed to produce that characteristic. So if the someone has blue eyes, which is recessive, it means that they have 2 of those blue eyed genes. Having only one would result in the dominant gene overriding i.e a black colour."

"Very good, Watanabe-san."

Goldivera felt paranoia creep over her at the mention of 'blue eyes'. She sunk lower in her seat as she caught a rise of a hand in the corner of her eye.

"Yes, Suzuki-san?" Damn it. Suzuki Meiko. This was going to be the worst day of her life.
The thin girl stood up and spoke loudly for good measure. "Are you sure about that, Yamada-sensei?"

Mr Yamada stared at her and she continued. "I'm not contradicting you...or the textbook. It's just that there happens to be a blue-eyed person in this class."

All eyes turned onto Goldivera. She fought the urge to glare back at them. It would only reinforce her unfriendliness.

"I happen to know that one of her parents were..."

Goldivera's heart began to race at the mention of her parents...

"...completely Japanese."

She almost sighed outright with relief.

"As far as I know, her father had no foreign blood in him. Her mother however was English. As I've learnt this before, I know that you only receive one gene from each of your parents..."
Goldivera froze; she could tell where this was leading...
Suzuki Meiko flicked an amused look at Goldivera and her voice rose as she made her point.
"So how is it possible for a recessive feature such as blue eyes to appear in their child if there was no possibility of the father giving away a blue eyed gene?"


Meiko is such a b**** isn't she. Good thing she hasn't let fly that Goldivera's an orphan. Who knows what'd she do to make her life miserable. She's already exploiting primary school rumours that Goldivera's parents were having an affair and that the only reason they married each other was because Goldivera was born. Meiko is suggesting that Goldivera isn't her father's child.