A/N: I didn't fall off of the face of the planet...I was just drowning in homework. I just wrote a 20 page lab report and a 8 page pre-lab. Next up... 100 pages of reading. Yay all nighter.

Yet here I am updating. To tell you the truth, whoever you are, it took me twice as long to write my reports because I kept on getting ideas for stories. I wrote 4 short stories today. Hahaha. This one was inspired by one of the textbooks I had to read. How romantic.

Enjoy, kids.

****Ooops. I forgot to mention, if you don't read the light novels, you probably won't know what's going on. I don't want to spoil it for people who don't want to know so...

go to this link and follow the spoilers on the top comment of the page (remove the spaces): http : / / forums. animesuki. com/ showthread. php? p=2587036

Listening

"I call him Doraemon."

"Eh?" Nijou Noriko turned away from the stuffed pig on Shimako's bed. Toudou Shimako smiled and motioned her head towards the stuffed animal. Noriko colored. Shimako must have noticed that she was looking intently at the stuffed animal.

Shimako laughed softly.

"Do not worry Noriko-chan, you are not the first to wonder about my preference of stuffed animals."

"Ah…well pigs are underrepresented in the stuffed animal industry anyways. I support your cause, Shimako-san."

Shimako laughed again at Noriko's antics.

Minutes later, they carried on with their homework. Noriko stared intently at her paper, stuck on one sentence. She subconsciously twirled her pen. The scratching sounds of Shimako's pen could be heard in the room as she worked on a problem.

"It was my mother's," Shimako said without looking up. Noriko stopped twirling her pen and turned slightly to look at her. Shimako mechanically worked on chemistry—undoubtedly her best subject—going through the motions of Schrodinger's equation subconsciously.

"I was told that she was never away from it growing up."

There was a difference, that much Noriko knew, between hearing and listening. Between listening and listening empathetically. The Kanji for listening consisted of the symbols for the ear, the eyes, and the heart. To listen, as embodied by the kanji on paper, was to hear the spoken words, to see the unspoken in the slightest changes in her facial expression and gestures, and to understand and be swept up in who she was and where she was coming from.

That was listening.

"I know how hard it must be," Noriko said while placing a hand on Shimako's writing arm, forcing her to stop, "to have never known them and always know, even at the back of your mind, that you are somewhat incomplete."

This was listening.

"…It is," Shimako said, more to herself, as she placed her pen down.