The bell goes off in my ear and the whole stack of toast drops out my hand onto the ground as I jerk awake and try and remember where I am and why I'm sleeping outside again, flat on my back on a concrete bench, glassy blue sky above me and iron railings all round.

Roof. Which roof?

Voices below me. Pitter pattering feet. The bell. Everything's very clean.

Oh yeah.

I groan. So guess who, which genius, thought hey, instead of just going back to sleep like any normal homeless wraith-killing magical girl after a shitty night of not-exactly-hard-to-interpret dreams about falling, guess what? I'm gonna drag my ass off this warm, cosy couch and walk, in the cold, all the way to my shitty over-priced holding pen of a school so I can busted by some know-nothing teacher and yelled at by my best friend.

Yeah.

At least I managed to beg some scraps off the nice lady on the breakfast bar who knows a hard luck case when she sees one. Stood in line with the rest of the kids there early doors so no one can see them hand the meal tickets over. Tried my best to look underfed and sorry for myself. It wasn't hard.

If I book it I can get to class on time. I scoop up the toast, 10 second rule, whatever, but stay horizontal for a bit. Get my bearings. Run through this stupid argument again in my head so I don't just haul ass out of here.

We didn't talk yesterday, me and Sayaka. Vegged out on the sofa and watched the TV reports about that mysterious explosion on the highway. Everyone trying really hard not to say that word, the one that begins with b and ends with an omb. Some bullshit about a pipeline or a tanker going ass over tea kettle. Kaboom. Real convincing. Mami tells me it's the same across the country. She found some kind of message board, sneaky little web of people probing and trying to find each other. Teenage girls blowing shit up country-wide. Complete fucking headache for Kyubey and his buddies but guess that's the cost of a good soul nowadays. But yeah. We didn't talk. Not a solitary text. And I think it's because she's angry.

I don't really want to talk to Sayaka about what happened – I really, really, don't want to say to her, hey, sorry I didn't tell you I got cornered by five guys, and oh, by the way, I got cut, this guy had a knife and he went for me, but it's no big deal, guess I could've got stabbed, guess I was scared, got myself into a really bad situation, but you know what, I didn't think it was worth telling my best friend about.

But then, I also don't wanna be waiting around with it dangling over my head. At least I can try and have it out with her while Mami isn't around to play a marriage counsellor, head bobbing one of those stupid dogs people put in their stupid cars, making sure we don't lash out or say anything too near the knuckle, too real.

And….I guess some part of me figures she deserves to know.

I peel myself off the bench, stretch, knock my bag over and spill crumbs and books and shit, cram it all back in with the toast, try and brush my hair with my fingers but probably just make it worse. Uniform's been stuffed in a backpack in Mami's house since the last time I bothered to show up here (was that a week ago? Two?) so it's not what I'd call fresh and I'm wearing sneakers (the ones without the toe hole though, gotta have some standards). Whatever. I'm clean. Or maybe I was just trying to drown myself in the shower for convincing myself this is a good idea.

At least I can make a nice big entrance now I'm late and look like seven shades of shit warmed up.

Ok. Let's do this.

"Sorry I'm late."

Miss Saotome just stops dead, right in the middle of giving (what's his name? brown hair? Medium build? A nose? A face?) some kid a lecture, everyone has eyes on stalks, so while she does the flappy-jaw dead-fish impression I nip over to my seat, lean back, pretend I can't hear Sakura, Sakura getting whispered behind people's hands, look over at Sayaka and tip her the wink, which makes her blush, toss her head and look away, the whole I'm not with her pantomime, but I don't think she's mad.

Saotome doesn't give me grief right away.

"Miss Sakura. Nice of you to join us." Pretty sure she didn't meant it like some of them mean it, usually the I-hate-my-job-but-the-bitch-wife-won't-let-me-quit brigade, but some of the kids laugh. She clears her throat and they stop.

"Why are you late?"

My brain says, I missed the bus, alarm didn't go off, saw a traffic accident, clock was slow.

My mouth says, "I fell asleep on the roof."

Shit.

I add, "Sorry," so I don't sound like I'm completely taking the piss.

No laughing this time. We lock eyes. I'm praying, leave it, leave it, because I feel like if she yells I'll just walk out. Everyone's waiting. They want a scene, something to do the rounds, bit of currency, bit of importance from an eyewitness account. They resent me. I can feel it. Guess their rents are shelling out big time but the government pays the bills for poor little orphan Kyouko. Maybe Teach can feel it too. She could do it easy, make a dig then be the bigger person. Get a bit of respect. Score some points. And haven't I been on the end of that one before.

But she just…sighs.

"I see. I'd like to speak to you after school today, Miss Sakura. Please try to be….please try to get to class on time in the future."

I nod. She's got to make a show of things, just like I have.

"Well. As I was saying before…."

I let my shoulders slump and glare at the kid next to me looking at me like I'm an urban legend or something. Just got to get through the morning. I'm tempted to start munching toast in here but I'm not gonna push it.

Sometimes I feel kind of bad for Miss Saotome. She's ok. I think she even cares.

"You showed up."

Sayaka's not looking at me but she gets this super-fixed expression like the bottom-left-hand-corner of the whiteboard holds the key to life or something when she talks over the link.

Here we go. "Yeah, don't remind me."

"I can't believe you said you fell asleep."

"I did, though."

"But you didn't have to say that!"

"I wasn't gonna, it just kind of….came out."

"Did you see everyone's faces?"

"Whatever, I bet half of them were thinking 'who is she, she doesn't even go here'."

"Yeah, probably."

Sayaka's trying not to smile. I try not to get caught looking because seeing her smile is making me smile too. Don't want people to get stupid ideas.

Why are they gonna get stupid ideas, Kyouko? Like what? Who's going to think something like that about you two?

Apart from you.

I push it away because it's pissing me off. Get these thoughts sometimes. Doesn't mean anything. I'm not gonna spend time worrying about it. Like her touching my hand that moment before the wraiths jumped on us the other night. Not a big deal. Heat of the moment. Trying to stop me popping off too early. Meaningless. Not that I thought it meant anything.

Of course not.

Coming to class seems to have polished. Sayaka's not mad, anyway. Miss Saotome's yammering on about something I should probably care about. A few nods, kid in front of me has his head on his arms, catching some zeds. Feels ok. But not real, exactly. Still. It's not terrible. Just….normal.

Could today just be a normal day?

A day where I go to school, don't sleep til noon, don't go walking the streets, scrubbing for change, robbing, a day where I don't go down the arcade, I don't punch someone who touched me (when was the last time someone touched me like that, no, fuck, nevermind), don't get cut, don't run for my life, but instead sit in my place, my desk, and actually try and think about learning something, exams, ding ding ding, run along after the bell like all the other kids, round two tomorrow, head all fuzzy with daydreams, and go home thinking, yeah, one day, something'll happen, change, I'll get there, it's gonna be different, you'll see.

If I'm honest – I want to believe. I used to believe.

I just have this terrible sense – why is it terrible, why do I feel forced, why isn't it real – that that's how things are meant to be?

Maybe that's why I feel trapped.

"We're still going to talk, you know."

"I know."

Bell goes again and everyone stands up at once, me a second later. No idea what lesson is next, just traipse along out the door behind everyone. Ignore Teach's puppy dogs eyes cos they make me feel guilty, god knows why.

"It's Math."

"Shit."

Sayaka slows down til she's walking next to me. The rest trundle along ahead, only a few curious looks behind.

"I'm glad you came in today." Sayaka says (out loud), smiles. Can see the big dark bags under her eyes, those lines, the worrying, bit of a hard stare, but she means this smile. I know it. Make my own attempt back.

"I'm glad you're glad. I'm just tired."

"Oh, come on now." She slaps my back. Hand stays there a couple of seconds. "You like math, don't you?"

"Hate it."

She giggles. We're coming up to the door. Getting a few backwards glances. Teacher (floppy hair, glasses, what was his name?) raises an eyebrow when he sees me but says nothing, thank god.

"Well, good luck. See you at break, ok?"

And with that she pops along to her seat, leaving me to try and remember where I actually sit. Used to skip this class even when I bothered to turn up regular, so I set up camp on the back row. Kid following me looks like they want to say something, probably their seat, but I give them the evil eye and they think better of it, so I settle in for the long wait.

'We're still going to talk', she says. Obviously I don't want the drama, don't want to have to explain, I'd rather just let it rest and get on with our lives, but….

More than that, I guess I just wanna talk to Sayaka. No walls up. Tell her how I feel about ….all this. Why I'm doing stupid things. Just talk shit at her. We used to be able to do that. Not like we can't now. We just don't.

But we should.

I'm not naïve. I'm not like Mami, wanting to get along for the sake of getting along. But…

I want to try and make things right.

Break's about an hour away. Time to knuckle down. And by knuckle down I mean doodle, play with my hair, stare out the window at the big tall towers of glass reflecting the sun straight into my eyes, watch the clouds chase each other by.

About half an hour in, I see Sayaka start, accept the note being passed to her. I want to reach out, say something like, "oh, secret admirer?", but I'm curious, and like an idiot I watch her read it, and then look over to the left, and Kamijou, limp-dick bastard, just ignores it or doesn't even notice.

But sat behind him is that princess friend of hers, Shizuki Hitomi, seaweed girl, and she notices, alright.

AN:

Hey all. How we all doing. Thanks for reading, I keep checking my views like a proper sad act, but every time it goes up I'm happy. If you're feeling this is all a bit Waiting for Godot, Godot will be arriving, and soon. I dropped some references to poorfag-chan and failurefag because I spend too much time on Madoka shitposting pages on fb.

Reviews!

K. Azecrath. My consistent reviewer. I appreciate your honesty, I think I'll go back and try and clarify the whole flashback business. Regarding being post episode 12, one of the cruxes here is when the characters perceive things to be. This will become more evident later but I think I may go back and seed more clues regarding the setting being post-Rebellion for the sake of the reader. I'm glad you liked it otherwise! Thank you once again.

Nobless Oblige. Fantastic username I have to say, there a story behind that? Loving your impressions of the fic, never thought I'd be crafty enough to write a mystery! (Plus awkward noir needs to be a new genre). Mami has been difficult for me to write for sure so first person might have been a bit much, but Sayaka has definitely posed the most problems (although perhaps you can tell from the above chapter? Lol). Thanks for you review.

Guest 3 – thanks dude, much appreciated.