Hola everyone! It's Neko, and I'm BACK!

I'm wondering if anyone watches Glee, cuz the last episode (Sexy) was HILARIOUS xD

Ahhhhh I have a bajillion projects this week. It's as if the teachers WANT us to die. Sigh.

Well, hope you like this chappie!

With love,

Neko-Neko

"Oh, yeah, Miku! Len! Len! Len!" Rin squealed as she hopped around the room, freaking out and dancing around. She was grinning so hard that you may have thought that her smile would split in two, and she laughing so hard that you couldn't help but think that if she kept at it, she would soon double up in a heart attack.

I groaned, shaking my head but grinning at the same time.

"That dance was over a week ago," I said dryly. "No need to fuss about it even more."

"No, no, he asked me out!"

When I sent her an odd look, she continued explaining. "Like, you know, on a real date? To a café? YEEE.."

I blinked. "A date?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah!" she chirped. "Why?"

"Nothing," I frowned, "Let's go ask the teacher about that math problem you're having trouble on."

"Okay!"

I stood by on the side as Rin listened quietly and the teacher wrote furiously on the chalkboard, waving his hands around and telling Rin about the different terms and equations. I was finished with the class work already, but was too lazy to explain the lesson to the clueless Rin.

"Go and ask the teacher," I had said, and while I prepared to get up, she suddenly remembered about her date with Len.

I closed my eyes. She had a date, and by now, Luka and Gakupo were going out as well. Everyone had seemingly felt the love in the air except for me.

The bell rang, and everyone closed their books with a sharp snap.

"Remember, do problems one through fifty-six today!" the teacher hollered as we exited the classroom into the bustling hallway.

As Rin and I split, veering off into different classrooms, I frantically searched for Kaito. I needed to talk to him. I just wanted to talk to someone.

I looked across two rows to the third seat from the back, Kaito's seat. It was empty. I snapped back down to Earth just as the teacher muttered, "Shion, Kaito? Is he absent today?"

I turned around to see Gakupo raise his hand.

"Yeah, he's sick. You know, with the weather and all."

The teacher nodded, adjusting her red spectacles. "Thank you, Kamui-san."

Absent, and sick to top it off? My heart pounded with worry. Kaito was never sick, literally. I would often see him walking in the rain without an umbrella, back hunched over and trudging through the mud, or even wearing his summer uniform in the middle of a bitterly cold winter, just to appear at school again the next day without a cough or a sneeze.

In other words, "sick" was rare for him.

I listened to the science lesson with little interest, my mind wandering off to other things, such as Rin and Len's date. My ears, however, seemed to have another brain of its own, and I soon found myself listening to a conversation between Meiko and Lily.

I peered at my paper, which was covered with various doodles, and pretended to take notes as I secretly eavesdropped.

"This class is so damn boring, don't you think, Lily?" Meiko was muttering under her breath.

"I don't know," Lily replied with a troubled look on her face, "Misaki-sensei is nice enough, but I guess her class gets a bit dull sometimes."

Lily was a super smart student, one of the smartest at Crypton. She used to be my best friend until she began drifting off to the more popular groups. Even though she hung out with people like Meiko and Luka, she was still one of my really close friends.

"Ack," Meiko yawned, "Kaito's absent today. Thank goodness, he's so annoying."

My heart thumped. Annoying? How could she call him that when she knew just how much he liked her?

Lily seemed to think the same way I did. She laughed nervously. "But Meiko, don't you like…"

"Oh, of course not!" Meiko smiled. "He's too quiet, and he barely talks to girls. Can you believe it? He's boring, too. Yeah, I'd rather like someone like…" she paused. "Kiyoteru. The smart, funny, outgoing type."

Lily looked at Meiko with a blank expression. "Then why did you dance with him?" she questioned.

"Oh, that?" she blinked, tossing her hair, "I just felt sorry for him."

I clenched and unclenched my fists, gritting my teeth. Kaito deserved more, he was better than this. He was not boring; he was funny, kind, hyper, and likable. All you needed to do was get to know him first to experience his other side – the side apart from his shy appearance.

"Hatsune-san?" The teacher looked at me, "Are you all right?"

It took me a second to realize that I was banging my fist on the desk and frowning, staring intensely at my paper.

"Oh," I blushed and stuttered. "I'm fine, sensei, I really am. I'm just…" I scanned the board for the lesson. "I was just frustrated about one of these chemical equations… I get it now."

The class tittered with laughter, but the teacher smiled and nodded.

"Okay, then." She said. "Alright."

xXx

A week later from that day, Kaito came back to school, tired, and visibly avoiding Meiko. We settled down in math class, and I asked him what was wrong and why he was gone the whole week.

"Flu," he grinned, "I finally caught the flu, but I'm alive, of course. Alive, but tired as heck. And about Meiko…" he looked at me with tired eyes. "I don't really want to talk about that."

After he finished speaking, he yawned, stretching and laying his head on the desk, promptly closing his eyes. I shook my head. He was like a cat, lazy, but cute…

The teacher slapped a ruler on Kaito's desk, and he bolted straight up with a look of shock on his face. Everyone chuckled, and Kaito flushed a shade of tomato red.

"We know that you've been absent for a week, Shion-san," the teacher said, nodding his head, "but that doesn't mean that you can sleep in class." Kaito reddened even more, and scratched his head.

"Sorry, sensei."

"Apology accepted," he said, swiftly putting down his ruler and returning to the front of the room. "Today, we start chapter nine, lesson six."

The lesson was a fairly easy one compared to the earlier ones in the chapter, and we all finished early with more than enough time to spare on doing other things. I pulled out a sheet of paper, and just as I began to sketch out a picture, the teacher called my name.

"Hatsune-san?"

I jumped, looking up.

"Can you please come here for a moment?"

I nervously smoothed my skirt. What did he want? Was I in trouble? I walked up to him and cleared my throat.

"You called for me…?" I asked, twirling a stray strand of hair around my finger.

"Yes," he said, coughing. "If you haven't noticed, Shion-san has been absent the past week."

"Yeah, he had the flu," I said.

"So he did," the teacher nodded, raising his eyebrows as if he wanted to ask me how I knew. "Well," he continued, "He's been struggling a bit in his lessons, you see, he doesn't understand the lessons because he missed class. This chapter was pretty hard, after all."

"Yeah, I guess," I muttered, shifting uneasily. What did he want?

"So, this is where you come in, Hatsune." My math teacher looked up from his work and stared straight into my eyes. "You're my best student, and he needs help, Miku," he said.

"So?" I asked, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

"So, I want you to tutor him." He said, handing me a slip of paper. "Every Tuesday or any other day after school, you can go to his house to tutor him. That's a permission slip for your parents."

I twitched. "What?" I exclaimed, swallowing. "But…"

He blinked, looking back up at me. "I'm counting on you, Hatsune."