(Jeremie's POV)
Knock knock knock!
I forced my eyes open, rubbing my face where the keyboard had imprinted itself. "What's going on?"
Knock knock knock!
I got up, answering the door. Ulrich stumbled in, looking pale and frantic. "Yumi's gone missing!"
"What?" I put my glasses on, still too tired to think right.
"Her parents called the school, they said she never came home last night."
"Didn't she go see Aelita after school?" I asked, trying to think back.
"I don't know, I didn't see her again after that thing with William."
"What thing with William?" I asked. Ulrich wasn't paying attention though. Instead, he pushed past me, running across the hall and beating on the door.
"William!" Ulrich shouted. "Get out here!"
Before I could stop him, Ulrich kicked the door, breaking it open. William sprang from his room, tackling Ulrich to the floor. "Back off, Stern!" he yelled, punching Ulrich. I didn't know what I could do, not being the fighting type.
"Where is she?" Ulrich shouted.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I could see William smirking and knew immediately he had Yumi. I sneaked past the fighting boys, slipping into William's room. Yumi lay sleeping on William's bed, wrapped in his blankets, a large gash running across the left side of her face. "Yumi?"
"What are you doing! Get out of my room!" William advanced towards me, but Ulrich tackled him to the ground.
"Jeremie, go get Jim or Delmas!" he grunted, trying to keep William pinned.
I ran down the hall to the first floor of the dorm building, running into Jim almost immediately. "Jim! Come quick! There's a fight and William kidnapped Yumi!"
"What are you talking about, Belpois?" Jim rolled his eyes, about to turn away.
"No! Jim, Ulrich and William are fighting!"
"Oh, you're serious," Jim replied stupidly, running up the stairs. I followed after him, hoping Ulrich managed to keep William down.
Codelyokocodelyokocodelyoko
Yumi was put in the same hospital room as Aelita, after she managed to persuade the doctors that it wouldn't be a problem and that they were best friends. Yumi hadn't woken up, and the doctors had informed us that she probably wouldn't for a while. I felt completely numb, having two friends in the hospital, but I was glad they put them in the same room so I could spend time with both of them. Ulrich was pretty torn up after his fight with William, receiving a black eye and busted lip and nose. Odd joked that it made him look like a tough hero. I found it difficult to look at him.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Odd asked, sitting at the end of Aelita's bed but looking over at Yumi. I shrugged, not sure what to think at the moment. Ulrich was sitting in the chair next to Yumi, his head resting on her bed, sleeping soundly.
"She looks like she got hit pretty hard," Aelita noted. Despite my pleas for her to sleep, she insisted on staying up and talking with the rest of us.
"I can't believe William did that," I mumbled, sitting next to Aelita on her bed. "I mean, he always seemed a little crazy, but what he did was beyond that."
"Will they catch him?" Aelita asked.
I shrugged. "He jumped out of a second story window. Most likely injured himself, he can't have gotten too far. They'll find him in no time."
"And he'll go to prison?"
"No doubt," I answered. "Now get some rest, Aelita," I pleaded once again. "You need it. If anything changes I'll wake you up to tell you."
"Okay," she mumbled, curling up beneath the blankets. "Don't let me miss anything."
I watched her drift to sleep, neither Odd nor I making a sound so that she'd fall asleep faster. Ulrich and Yumi were both silent on the other side of the room, and I could see Odd starting to doze off while sitting up. "Come on." I nudged him. "Let's go get some rest."
"Okay," Odd answered sleepy. He gave one last glance towards Aelita, then over to Ulrich and Yumi. "It's not getting better, is it?"
I shrugged. "It'll get better."
"It's kinda funny, don't you think?" Odd chuckled sadly. "Fighting XANA, risking our lives, and the thing that's killing us and tearing us apart isn't even XANA's fault anymore. "
I listened to him ramble about, thinking to myself at the same time. Time was flying by. It seemed like only yesterday, Aelita was the twelve-year-old girl on the computer screen, and now she was the fourteen-year-old dying in a hospital bed. "Aelita's birthday is coming up," I remembered. "Just a few more weeks."
Odd nodded. "Yeah, I completely forgot." We stepped out into the winter air, pulling our collars up against the wind blowing against our backs. "Do you think she'll make it?" I heard Odd mutter.
"Of course," I answered, kicked at a small patch of snow. "Why shouldn't she?"
Odd shrugged. "Just seems like nothing is going right anymore."
So the next chapter is where Ulrich had broken up with Aelita because he thought he loved Yumi. This is where I'm changing things up a little, because I didn't particularly like the train wreck that had created. So please review, and keep an eye out for the next chapter!
