"Okay, so what exactly happened?"

Shadow glanced at her watch. "You have plenty of time to kill?"

"Well, not plenty, but I'd still like to know what's going on," Green replied. "One Saturday that I'm not around and now everyone seems to be giving each other death glares."

The girl in front of him shrugged. "There's not much to it, really. You remember the bet on Friday?"

"Yes."

"And of course - this is my guess, of course - Blue went ahead with her 'counselling', or so she calls it. Had a little chat with Gold. No prizes for guessing what Crys thought of that."

Green frowned. "Is she that sensitive now?"

Shadow gave another shrug, then leaned forward, "In truth, my guess is - this is just a guess, don't put my name to it - there was more than just a 'chat' going on."

"And then?"

"Well, Crys blew her top, as usual. Don't ask me how Red comes into this, though. Something to do with the bet, maybe. And Yellow and I went to lie low."

Green took a deep breath. "I see."

"And yeah, the rest is history."

"I hope - hi, Silver," Green greeted the redhead as he came to his usual spot in the cafeteria.

Silver gave a quick glance around him. "Still avoiding each other? It's been nearly a week already."

"Well done, Sherlock. Have a seat," Shadow said.

"What about Yellow?"

"Dealing with her favourite professor," Shadow replied shortly.

"She's always kind of busy," Silver observed. "She shouldn't stress herself out."

"She's a perfectionist. Not much that we can do about it," Shadow replied dryly. "By the way, does anyone have any idea about what crap our lovely PE slave-driver was talking about during assembly? - Oh, don't look at me like that, Green. It's perfectly normal for the human mind to filter out outside stimuli that it perceives to be utterly useless."

"You are impossible," Green remarked, with a wan smile.

"Blame me not. Blame our scientists who have studied us for years to understand why we do things like that."

"They certainly didn't study you for long enough."

"Their loss. But what was going on during assembly, anyway?"

Green shrugged. "Upcoming prom. Next week, I think."

"Oh, right. Another night of being bored to tears," Shadow replied lazily.

"You don't even have to dance."

"That's because no one even wants to go with me. Last time we spent three hours unmoving next to the cheesecake and the punch. Remember, Silver?"

"I thought it was the trifle," the redhead replied.

"The trifle and the punch, then. Anyway, who're you're planning to go with, Green?"

"Haven't thought about it," Green said, ducking his head but secretly giving the girl in front of him the quickest and smallest of glances.

Thankfully she didn't seem to notice it. Instead she began to muse to herself, "It'll be interesting to see Red and Blue, or Gold and Crys, go out with someone else other than each other..."

"Oh, hi." Yellow was surprise to see her roommate as she stepped out of the bathroom. "I thought Thursday evenings are - oh, sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned that."

Blue, lying on her back on her bed covers, folded her arms wearily. "I'm not talking to him anymore. You know that."

Yellow muttered another "sorry" as she began drying her hair. Blue closed her eyes and tried to banish all thoughts about her ex-friend.

For several minutes the room was stifled in an uncomfortable silence. Then Yellow remarked, "You know, I didn't know this until the other day - well, that, Shadow and Professor Dragyn are really close."

"I thought you and him were the close ones," Blue said.

"No, not like that - I mean - " Yellow blushed faintly, "not the student-teacher sort of way. I mean, like, she refers to him by his first name. And he doesn't mind. And - "

"So what d'you think is going on?" Blue interrupted.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you think - no, you're too innocent. I won't pollute your mind," Blue said.

"What?"

"Never mind." But Blue was secretly hoping there would be a chance to tackle Shadow and get answer.

"Who are you going to prom with?"

"Ooh - who do you have in mind?"

"Her? Finally plucked up the courage, eh?"

"I'm completely surprised - I'd no idea you'd go out with someone like him..."

Red ignored his classmates' blissful blabbering and headed swiftly down the corridor clutching his pencil case. Friday after school was never a good time to get caught up in a conversation with a chatterbox. He didn't stop until someone called his name.

"Hey, mate," Gold said as he caught up with Red.

"What do you want?"

"When are you going to return my cash?"

"What, you want it now? Why the hell now?" Red snapped irritably.

"'Cause it might be another two weeks before I get it back," Gold replied. "Man, look, I know you're still upset over that, well, so am I. Plus I lost my girlfriend, so there's no real comparison."

Red was unsympathetic. "There's so many other girls you could go out with. I have confidence in your abilities."

"Oh, come on - it's not like that. You know that."

"Really? I must have been blind then, because, as far as I recall, you flirted with every girl you could find when you were going out with Crys. Or is it that you can only flirt when you've got a girlfriend?"

Gold raised his hand to motion Red to stop. "Listen, that was just all for fun, okay? But it's not the same when Crys isn't around. Even when we were fighting, it was comforting actually having her around. You're going to say this is cliched, but I didn't quite realise it until we broke up. Which is late, I know. But better now than never."

Red bit his lip and thought of Blue. Better now than never. But how was he going to tell her? And when?