Chapter Four - A New Day

Dim, dim, dim, dim, dim, dim.

Jeremie, Odd, Aelita, and Yumi all reached up and turned off their alarm clocks.

Six o'clock in the morning, time to get ready for the new day.

But, what about Ulrich? Why did he just lye in bed and not get up and get ready?

...Yumi...

That name echoed in his head so loud he didn't even hear his alarm clock go off. He didn't even notice Odd get up and turn it off. However, he DID notice when Odd pored a bottle of cold water on him.

"ODD!" Ulrich screeched." What the hell was that for?"

"Ulrich, calm down will you!" his room mate said "Its 6:05 in the morning already, come on get up before the showers are full and they run out of hot water…not to mention breakfast!"

Odd gasped suddenly remembering about his favourite hobby and grabbed his robe, slippers and tooth brush and ran to the showers.

Ulrich sat up in bed, his feet hanging off the side. He put his hands in his head massaging his temples. Ulrich was still pretty hurt from what Yumi had said to him yesterday evening. He desperately wanted to hate Yumi, but at the same time he wanted to do nothing more than forgive her.

He could relate with his parents treating him like crap, but he knew that didn't even come close to loosing both your parents and little brother. It must have been hard enough oh Yumi with her parents getting a divorce; her father taking Hiroki, and her mother taking her, not to mention both of them moving to different parts of Japan. At least Ulrich's parents were still together and did love him, regardless of how deeply it was buried in their hearts…

Just then, out of the corner of Ulrich's eye, he saw a black shadow. When he looked up, the shadow disappeared. At first he thought it was Odd or Jeremie checking in on him but it didn't look like a person's shadow at all. It looked more like a shadow of smoke; translucent and black.

'X.A.N.A.?' Was the first thing that crossed the teenager's mind.

No…It couldn't be. They shut down the supercomputer; there was no way X.A.N.A. was attacking the school.

Unless…

Shaking the pointless thought from his mind, Ulrich finally got out of bed and peeked out his door.

The shadow was completely gone.

Suddenly, Ulrich felt a presence behind him. Having no idea who was behind him, Ulrich turned around quickly in fighting stance like he learned in Pincak Silat. Just as he was about to punch the living daylights on whomever the person was, he realized it was Jim!

"Ulrich! What are you doing? Why aren't you in the showers like everyone else?" Jim yelled.

"Sorry Jim," Ulrich apologized, "I'm going right now." Ulrich quickly grabbed his robe and tooth brush and ran to the shower room.

In the showers, Ulrich thought up the brilliant idea of drowning himself. But then he realized that wouldn't solve anything. Yumi did just lose her parents, but she had no right to blame Ulrich for it. She could have met any boy and something could have happened to her parents.

After all, they had no proof X.A.N.A. burned down Yumi's house, it could have been accidental, after all; Yumi did happen to disappear two days before her birthday. And her mother, (since Yumi's dad and Hiroki had moved out already) might have been baking her cake.

Even though she was gone, Ulrich knew that parents had habits of still celebrating that special day regardless of whether their child was dead, missing, or just unable to be there with them. And maybe she was hoping her daughter would return…

Once again, Ulrich felt cold water pour down on him but it wasn't from Odd this time, it was because the shower had run out of hot water.

"Shit!" Ulrich cursed under his breath as he turned off the water and jumped out of the shower. Ulrich then made up his mind not to drown himself; if the shower water was cold, he could only imagine how cold the water would be if he was drowning.

Wanting to get all the thoughts of suicide and Yumi out of his head, Ulrich decided to get ready for school very slowly and skip breakfast to study and get ready for all his classes.

He wasn't very hungry and he couldn't bear to face Yumi today.

xXx

Yumi snapped her alarm clock off, got up, stretched, and got out of bed. Instead of lying there, unwilling to greet the morning sun, the young Asian got out of bed and waddled through piles of clothes and school supplies until finally she reached her dresser.

Opening the top drawer, she pulled out her toiletry items and quickly made her way to the showers before Sissy and her gang took over. Just in time too, Yumi was able to claim a shower stall before the mean crew arrived.

Quickly showering, teen brushed her teeth and got ready for the day in record time. Most of the girls in the bathroom who knew Yumi or what happened to her stared at her in shock. Out of the corner of her eye, Yumi saw the girl whispering to each other; debating on which one should as if Yumi was okay.

Unable to help herself, she smiled and laughed; really laughed. "Don't worry about me," she said "I'm fine. Today's a new day, is it not?"

"Uh, yeah…sure…" One of the girls said, giving a small, hesitant smile.

"Well, see you in class!" Was the only thing the teen said before rushing back to her room to ditch her pajamas and to pick up her backpack.

On her way out, Yumi ran into Sissy and her usual mean crew. At first surprised to see her number one enemy outside of her dorm, Sissy faltered and missed her chance for a snide remark. But Yumi didn't care, she just walked by her, smiled and waved.

"Good morning Sissy, better hurry up and get in the showers before they're all full. After all, you don't wanna miss breakfast, do you? I sure don't!"

And with that, the young Lyoko warrior shuffled away; leaving everyone around her totally flabbergasted.

Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter, my depression has become much worse these past few weeks.

I'll try to not be this tardy with the next chapter.

[BR0KEN-TYPE-WRITER]