FOUR - IV - 4

There is really nothing to do around here, Yuu thinks. He's one of the few students who has had to return to school early, which is why he is sitting in the Latents' classroom by himself being bored. Heh. He knows that Mikan, Natsume and Luca are all at Natsume's house for Christmas, and Hotaru is probably with Hayate, Anna and Nonoko are at Anna's house ... and that's about all of Yuu's "best friends". He sighs, just as the door slams open and startles him.

"Who's that? Oh, it's you. Hey, Iincho," a voice says. Yuu turns to see Mochu, one of those guys who always hangs around Natsume. Yuu doesn't really talk to Natsume that much, and he always gets the feeling that Natsume doesn't like him very much - the only reason that Yuu ever goes anywhere near that boy is because of Mikan. Because he's not exactly friends with Natsume, Yuu isn't exactly friends with Mochu either.

"Hi," Yuu says. He smiles nervously. He knows that he and Mochu don't belong to the same group, and so they haven't ever really spoken as friends. Mochu is with the "Natsume gang", as he sometimes calls them in his head, and Yuu is with those "geeks", Anna and Nonoko. (Hotaru scares him.)

But Mochu doesn't really seem like he wants to be picky about who to hang out with tonight. After all, there really is no-one else around except for a few crazy-hard-working Technicals in their lab block. "So ... how was your Christmas?" Mochu says after a pause. Yuu can almost feel the awkwardness physically.

"It was okay, I didn't do really much. Um ... how was yours?"

"Alright thanks, some of my brother's annoying little friends came round but that was about it." There's not really much else to say.

"Have you done the English homework for Yamada-sensei?" says Yuu when the pause stretches out for a bit too long.

Mochu looks at him as if he's mad. Which he probably is, asking that kind of question to one of Natsume's "followers". Luckily, Yuu is spared a scathing answer when the door opens again and another person steps inside.

"Heya! My mum had to bring me back early 'cos of the festival tomorrow, and I'm so glad that I'm not the only one here!" says the fox-eyed boy from their class, closing the door behind him and sitting on a desk. (Yuu can't remember when they had stopped referring to that boy by his name.)

"Yeah, same here," says Mochu. He seems to sound almost glad to have someone who's not a boring Special Star goody-two-shoes to talk to - don't think like that, says Yuu to himself. "How'd your Christmas go then?"

"It was great! I got loads of new stuff," says the new arrival. "How about you? And you, Iincho?" The fox-eyed kid, Kitsuneme, is the mind reader's (Yuu can't remember when they stopped calling that guy by his real name either) best friend, not part of any weird clique and just a regular friendly guy. Yuu's rather relieved that he's here.

Mochu talks a bit about how his brother's best friend tried to steal his laptop, and then Yuu gets a chance to speak. Kitsumeme laughs at his story of his mum setting fire to the rice instead of the Christmas pudding by mistake, and suddenly the conversation with Mochu seems much more ... friendly, relaxed. Yuu isn't quite sure why Kitsuneme (as well as Kokoroyomi, he remembers) has that effect on conversations, or why the prospect of talking to Mochu scared him so much in the first place. Really, he is just a normal guy, albeit one that likes to hang around with Natsume instead of the Technicals.

Maybe he isn't that bad after all, Yuu thinks.

XXX