The following day at school, Luka slumped down in her seat and spared a glance at the other kids in the class. The super-tall dude in front of her with the purple hair annoyed her, as she could never get any sight of the blackboard. The brown haired chick beside her was always smuggling sips from a small flask concealed in her skirt pocket.

Sighing, Luka leaned against her palm and thought briefly about closing her eyes and dozing before snapping them back open.

She hadn't gotten any sleep last night, having been tossing and turning and thinking. Why hadn't she done anything? She should've done something…she could've done something! Did this mean she was evil-a bad person, going to Hell?

She certainly felt like it.

Starting as the bell rang and jolted her back awake, Luka jumped and earned a few chortles from her classmates. Embarrassed, she slumped down over her desk.

Another student person walked through the door and handed the teacher a late slip, taking a seat to the far left of Luka. She didn't recognize her at first, but that hair…no way.

The oversized hat hung over her face, completely shadowing it, and the long clothes that cloaked her entire body…but the hair…the hair!

Luka couldn't stop staring, open-mouthed and stunned.

She was still staring halfway through the lesson, when the teacher, a not-easily-amused woman with one-sided blonde ponytail, cleared her throat and pointed to the girl with the hat.

"Excuse me, Miss. Please remove your hat." The teacher tapped her pointer stick on a stack of books lying on her desk. Then kindly added with a false, mocking smile: "School policy."

"I'd rather not," the quiet voice responded. A few mutters rippled through the class, shocked that 1) she was actually back-talking to Mrs. Neru, and 2) She was being quiet. She was never being quiet. She was always loud and annoying and-

"Ah-ah-ah, there will be no back-sassing your teachers, Miss." Mrs. Neru was attempting to keep her cool, which unfortunately wasn't working.

The girl very slowly lifted her hand and tugged off her hat, upsetting her teal hair.

Not-so-politely muffled gasps filled the class, even from Mrs. Neru. Luka's eyes squeezed shut and overflowed unnoticeably as she tried to transport somewhere else, anywhere else…

She opened her eyes back up and stared. Stared and stared, even as the history lesson awkwardly began.

Black eyes. Two big, fat, ugly, lumpy, purplish black eyes.

Luka felt as if she had just been hit by a train.

Because she knew she had done this to her.

The rest of the day the two left each other alone. Word had spread of Miku's injuries, and the teachers and staff had allowed her hat to remain shadowing her face with its oversized brim.

Miku made hidden eye contact with Luka once, during lunch as they ate at separate, empty tables. They had both looked away. Luka couldn't stand it anymore. She felt like tearing out her magenta hair, for Pete's sake.

Finally, during last period-Science-the two were forced to sit at the same table and were ordered to talk about the information learned from their Science Project.

They didn't.

They just sat uncomfortably, squirming every once in a while, keeping their heads craned opposite each other. It seemed to pain Miku every time she moved. Luka just knew that, underneath that long-sleeve shirt and jeans, the awful, terrible marks that burned her were not pretty.

"I'm sorry," It came out of Luka's quiet mouth abruptly. Cursing herself, she bit her tongue. She wasn't sure if Miku would be able to hear her over the rowdiness of the classroom, but she turned her blue head slowly and blinked at her once. Drat.

"I am, too." She murmured, barely audible. "I just left the bottle there…it was my fault, and…I deserved it."

Luka was silent.

Nobody deserves it. Her mind screamed for her to say. Get away from him.

Miku turned her head away and whispered something.

"What?" Luka asked gently, straining to hear her.

"I want to do the project at your house from now on." Miku muttered. "That's what I said."

"But my house is-" –littered with bottles.

"I-" –know. I don't care.

Their eyes spoke for them as Miku gazed out at Luka from underneath her large hat.

Luka's eyes spoke louder when they overflowed for the second time that day. Gripping the bottom of her seat, she lowered her head and wished for nobody to notice.

"Okay," she rasped hoarsely as if she hadn't had anything to drink for a week. "Sounds good."

And that was that.

So, as Kaito was at his favorite strip club, the two girls crept around in Luka's dirty home. They would silently do their project, not even looking at each other. Every day they would meet, pouring chemicals onto cloth and recording their reactions in the small composition notebook Luka kept.

After three days of only quiet murmuring of the project to each other, Luka spoke up, awkwardly and fumblingly.

"I cleaned the place."

And she had, indeed, cleaned the place. Her red-haired mother hadn't been home for a night or two, so Luka figured it wouldn't hurt much to give the place a bit of a cleaner touch. She had stored (more like stuffed) the bottles into the almost-already-full cabinets, leaving the doors nearly still an inch open from the crammed-in glass cylinders.

Instead of the expected 'Oh, how utterly pleasant' or 'Wow, Luka, you're so amazing for doing that', Miku responded by reaching her hand up and simply tugging off her large hat, leaving it to fall to the ground.

Her injuries being exposed, Miku's face quivered until she was doing a full-fledged sobbing attack into Luka's shoulder. Luka, surprised, flinched away, but slowly, very slowly, laid her hands on Miku's back, holding her tightly to herself uncomfortably but caringly, her own tears streaming down her scarlet cheeks.

What was she supposed to do, huh? Just push the girl away? She had let her get beaten, for God's sake. She couldn't just leave her now.

Guess this means we're friends now.