"Midori…why do you look so dazed?" Yori asked as I walked into the dorm. My room was almost entirely fixed- they only had to paint over the graffiti and wait for the new windows to come in. I relished the moment, knowing to myself it would be one of my last nights with roommates, and one of my last nights sleeping on the floor. I felt myself turning red with embarrassment yet again. She was sitting up in her bed now, rubbing at her eyes. I took a quick glance at the clock. Ten.

"I…uh…tired" I stuttered awkwardly, but then chose to change the subject. "Did I wake you?"

Yori shook her head no, but I knew that she was just being polite. "Goodnight, Midori," she murmured, and disappeared beneath her blanket. Yuuki was in her bed as well, but she was sleeping like a rock. And snoring, too. Her snoring was something I definitely wouldn't miss. I smiled to myself. I was safe from their questions, for now. Had Yuuki been awake, I would have had some trouble, because when I was happy, I apparently wasn't very good at masking it. When I was sure Yori was asleep, I quietly changed into my pajamas, and the crawled into my makeshift bed. "Just a few more nights, Midori. Hang in there," I muttered softly to myself. And for that night, I was nearly entirely okay with sleeping on the floor.

The loud, horrible, beeping noise of a truck backing up woke me up with a start the next morning. It had woken Yori up, too. Not surprisingly, Yuuki was unaffected. I could hear the sound of the truck's engine, still running wildly. "How dare they wake us up on a day off," I whined, sitting up.

Yori didn't respond, but climbed out of her bed and over to the window. Then she turned to me. "I would think you'd be happy, Midori. It's your windows being delivered."

I blinked, surprised. The windows hadn't been supposed to come for another two days. Yet I was happy, finally feeling like things would be going right again. I stood up, and ran over to the window, pressing my nose up against the glass surface. Sure enough, two men were carrying out two cardboard boxes, each the size of a window. I smiled, and shut my eyes. Maybe tonight I could go back into my room. Or at most tomorrow. The thought put a little bit of optimism inside of me, and I wanted to go and install the new windows right then, all by myself. I would have loved to. But I held back, knowing that was obviously out of the question. I returned to my little sleeping area, and looked at Yori with a completely blank look. "I'm going to follow Yuuki's example, and go back to sleep. Wake me, and I'll make you wish you were never born." I gave her my best death-glare, and took pleasure in giving it. Today was a good day, and today I would sleep in. No matter what.

Yori nodded, a sprinkle of fear in her eyes. I turned on my side, facing the wall. I couldn't seem to stop smiling at myself, no matter how hard I tried. I managed to drift back to sleep, the smile still stuck onto my face with superglue.

Someone was shaking me, and whispering into my ear, "Midori, wake up!" I lashed out a hand and smacked the person in the face.

"Ow!" Yuuki squeaked, releasing my shoulder. "Yori warned me not to wake you up, but um…Zero's looking for you. So I thought you might want to know."

I shot up immediately at the mention of his name, but then realized that that was a mistake. Luckily, Yuuki didn't find it odd that my excitement grew at the mention of his name. Luckily she couldn't hear the pounding of my heart in my chest, or the way my brain was replaying last night's occurrences. Yuuki didn't know any of my feelings, and I wanted to keep it that way. "He is?" I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful, "Why?" I was silently pleading that my voice didn't give anything away.

Yuuki shrugged, a bored, blank look on her face. "Who knows? He's so weird, you know…but you'd better go and find him, or else he might think I didn't tell you."

"Alright, alright…" I tossed my blanket off of me, and began digging through my suitcase of clothing. I pulled out a pair of nice, clean clothes. Black jeans and a simple white tank top with a long-sleeved black sweater over it. Plain, but I had never been one for fancy clothing. Why waste my time with such frivolous things, anyways? I never quite understood it. I rushed out of the dorm, tying my hair into a ponytail on the way.

I found Zero at our meeting place- the barn. Somehow, we had a mutual understanding that if we were looking for one another, that was where to go. I wasn't sure when the agreement had been established, but now it was just understood.

"You were looking for me?" I asked, no emotion accenting my voice.

He nodded. "The Chairman wanted me to run some errands for him. I figured I'd take you along, if you'd like. You need some fresh air."

On the outside, I shrugged, and kept a straight face. "Cool. Sure, I'll go." The last thing I wanted to do was go out in public, but hey, whatever. If I was with Zero, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Ah, don't you just love my deductive reasoning skills? Yeah, I thought so.

"Well, we should get going," he said lazily, gesturing towards the door. I took the lead, secretly wondering why Yuuki wasn't the one doing this job. I would have assumed that Zero offered to do the errands, to get some alone time with me, but I wasn't going to flatter myself. Zero trailed behind me, and the girlish part of me hoped this might turn out to be almost like his way of asking me on a date. But again, I wasn't going to flatter myself, because in the end, I knew it wasn't going to last. Relationships rarely do, these days. I'd been hurt before. Ever since, I'd built a wall around my heart, and I was bound and determined to keep everyone out.

So why, oh why, had people been taking a battering ram to it lately?

"So what's our first task?" I asked, my hands in my pockets, as we walked down the sidewalk, through mobs of happy people.

"He gave me some letters to take to the post office. So I figure we might as well get that done first, just to get rid of them. After all, I'm likely to lose them." He produced a small stack of letters from his coat pocket, and handed them to me.

I leafed through them, looking at who they were addressed to. Okay, so I was a little nosy, but I was curious to whom a guy like the Chairman could send letters to. One of the addresses in particular caught my attention. And as soon as I saw it, I was insulted, upset, and extremely angry.

Yoshio's Psychiatric Hospital.

I stopped dead in my tracks, because I knew immediately what this letter was about, without even ripping it open. Zero didn't notice I'd stopped for a few steps, but then he stopped, and turned around. I felt an odd sensation of sadness and anger boiling up inside of me.

"Midori?" Zero asked, a look of concern on his face.

"I'm not crazy," I choked out, trying not to cry. I dropped all of the letters onto the sidewalk, except for the one for the hospital. I clutched that one to my chest. Zero held out a hand, and I briefly wondered if he'd known about this. I doubted it, but I also knew that I didn't want him to know about it.

I bolted, pushing my way through groups of people. There was no way, no way I was going back to that stupid Academy. I wasn't crazy. And I wasn't about to let people think that I was either. The Chairman might be my guardian, but he was not going to send me away. Zero was running after me, I could hear him shouting my name. But I lost him, and ran into an alley, where I hid myself behind a trashcan, full of what looked like leftover noodles and takeout containers.

With trembling hands, I opened up the letter. Yeah, it's illegal- but I really couldn't care less about what was legal and what wasn't at the moment. I unfolded the piece of paper, which had very neat, very clear print. I read the letter out loud to myself softly.

"Dear Dr. Hakudo,

I am writing to you on behalf of one of the adolescents that is currently under my care. From day one, she has been odd, and mentally unstable as well. She had random, unexplainable bouts of anger, followed by depression. She isolates herself, and has tried to commit suicide on a previous occasion. From what I have seen, she has been in several fights, punched another student at my school, and I fear she is a danger to herself and others. I think it would be in best interests if she was properly evaluated, and placed in your hospital for some time. My student has lost all of her family, so I don't believe that she has anyone to care for her, and I believe that it might have triggered all of her violent emotions. She is a ticking time bomb, one that I think would be best to stop sooner than later.

Best Wishes…"

I wanted to scream. At Kaien, at the world, at whoever this Dr. Hakudo person was. I wasn't crazy. And I sure as hell wasn't going to be evaluated by some "professional," either. Why was everyone convinced that there was something wrong with me?

And for the first time in what felt like, and what might have very well been years, I curled up into a ball, dropped the letter to the ground, and I started to cry.