It'd been a month since I'd turned fifteen, and I'd slowly gotten to know my friends again. Apparently, I had given Zoe much-needed confidence, Kay had became closer to me than before (not like I knew the difference; I didn't remember before,) and Ryu and I had become friends while, previously, we didn't speak much, if ever.

This chapter truly begins at a sleep-over at the apparently-new apartment Kay and I got. It was twice as big as the old one, according to Kay, and we split it down the middle, with Kay getting the left half and me getting the right half. We broke the boundaries, though, to play spin the bottle.

"Alright," Zoe said, sitting across from me. Everyone was wearing pajamas, but Zoe's was the most memorable: it had Shinigami-san's face all over them, while Linda's pajama's had snakes all over them. "Here's how we play this: when the bottle lands on you, you can choose either truth or dare. You can only pass once. We choose who makes up by going in counter-clockwise order, starting with me." Zoe said. We were sitting in this order: Zoe, Kay, Isabella, Madison, Linda, me, William, and Ryu. A new addition to Kay's group of friends was Liz and Luc's daughter, Madison. If you shortened her name, she would hit you. Hard.

"Let's do it!" I smiled, causing the others to smile. They'd began seeing me as kind of a baby; if I smiled, they smiled too. This was, apparently, because I looked cute with short hair (my hair, though back to its normal sandy blonde color, was still short.)

Zoe spun the bottle, and it landed on William. Cue several 'Oooohs!' from the girls, and several laughs from my friends and me.

"Truth." William said.

"Hmmm..." Zoe smiled cruelly. "Who do you have a crush on?"

William blushed. "Pass."

Kay spun the bottle, and it landed on Madison.

"Dare." Madison said.

"I dunno..." Kay said. "Kiss Ryu."

Ryu looked at Kay oddly, but blushed a bright red when Madison kissed him right on the lips. I laughed for a whole minute after, causing the game to temporarily stop. Nobody got it but me, though. Y'see, Kay thinks Ryu is into guys, so all the girls think that and ask him to go on shopping trips and the like. Being a nice, shy guy, he never says no. But all the guys know Ryu actually has a giant crush on Kay, though he is, in fact, bisexual. Because I lived with Kay and knew that she thought Ryu was into guys, I watched Ryu asked, over-and-over, to do girl-things with Kay, never saying 'no,' when, in fact, he hated every moment of it.

Well, not every moment; Ryu admitted that he liked Twilight.

But, anyways, I'd recently realized I should probably not sit by while Ryu, my best friend, was tortured with shopping. But the matter of 'when-do-I-tell-Kay-that-Ryu-is-into-her-and-bisexual-and-doesn't-know-that-you-think-he's-completely-into-guys' was completely confusing.

Isabella smiled, and spun the bottle. It landed on Ryu, and Ryu frowned. "Crap." He muttered.

Isabella laughed.

"Truth," Ryu sighed.

"Who do you think is hotter, William or Murphy?" Isabella asked.

I looked at Ryu's eye, seeing the twitch that had developed whenever one of the girls asked him something he hated. I didn't see how they never noticed it.

Ryu looked down and said "Murphy."

I raised my eyebrows, pretending to be shocked. In truth, he'd already told all of us that he found every single one of us unattractive, but I was still going to mess with him, and, hopefully, make it up to him later. I patted him on his back. "It's okay."

Ryu gave me a death-glare.

"My turn," Linda smiled. Linda had became great friends with the other girls, but everyone was careful not to mention Medusa around her.

"Has anyone else noticed that Dad and I are the ones who keep getting hurt?" I asked. "It's like an Irish curse or something."

"Huh. I guess that does happen." Zoe said.

"Whatever. I'm still taking my turn." Linda said, spinning the bottle. It landed on me.

"Truth," I said.

"Alright. Do you hate me for standing by when I could've helped you back when we were with mom?" Linda asked. The fun atmosphere disappeared.

"No. I couldn't hate you." I said.

Zoe glared at Linda, who was smiling at me.

"You ever been in a room where you can sense conflict?" Ryu asked. Ryu had, despite all odds, became less shy, and might soon be normal. If you can be normal in our situations, that is.

"My turn," I smiled. I spun the bottle, and it landed on Isabella. "Are you angry at me?" I asked.

"For what?" Isabella asked.

"I mean, y'know. I was with you, and should've been able to protect you from getting kidnapped." I said.

"I'm not angry at you. You're like a second little brother to me," Isabella smiled.

I smiled back. "Thanks."