Title: Immature

Warnings: Some cursing.

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: Hey, everyone. Again, I'm sorry for the delay. This should have been up at least two weeks ago but I got distracted. The semester will be over soon though, so hopefully I will have a regular-ish updating schedule once more.

Thank you to everyone whose favorited, followed, and left feedback. You all are too kind. I hope you enjoy this too!

9. She looked forward to having Aelita join their group (until she did and she realized Aelita wasn't as mature as she had anticipated).

The first time Aelita…arrived…they were faced with the unexpected issue of just what to do with her. Not that they weren't happy about it, hell, Odd was ready to break out the confetti. "So…this is Earth?" Aelita questioned, glancing around the factory.

"We did it guys, we really did it," Jeremie beamed. Yumi watched, smiling, as Jeremie pulled Aelita into a hug before backing away, face red.

"What now?" Ulrich questioned.

"What d'you mean?" Odd asked. He paused mid-fist-pump.

"Well…where is she going to stay? She can't room with us without Jim having a fit and the only girls with singles are Claire-"

"No, she hates me," Odd interrupted.

"Tania?" Ulrich suggested.

"Didn't her roommate disappear last semester?" Yumi questioned. She took her turn in hugging Aelita and gave her a reassuring smile.

"I could stay at the factory," Aelita stated. "Technically it's been my home for a while now."

"No, no, there has to be someone…" Jeremie said. His brow furrowed as he thought it over.

"I'm coming up blank except for…" Odd trailed off, eyes meeting Ulrich's.

Ulrich nodded. "She might go for it," he agreed.

"No," Jeremie said. "Not Sissi."

"There has to be a solution," Yumi stated.

/

An hour later Yumi stood in her living room. Her mother rolled and unrolled the magazine in her hand. Her father looked up from the book he was reading. They weren't looking at her though; they were staring at Aelita as she wandered the room, idly touching things that caught her attention. "This is Aelita, Aelita Stones," Yumi told her parents. Aelita paused in her study of the framed photos on the mantel and smiled brightly. "She's Odd's cousin."

"Odd…" her mother said, lips pursed.

Her father frowned. "Is he the nice blonde boy or the nutty blonde one?"

"Takeyo!" Her mother hissed and swatted him with the magazine she had been reading. "Hello, Aelita."

"Hello," Aelita replied. Her cheeks were tinted pink, a shade lighter than the hair her father kept eyeing.

"Aelita could use a place to stay. She was admitted to Kadic late and there was a mix-up with her room and if she doesn't have somewhere to stay she'll have to go home." Yumi paused. "To Odd's family and no one deserves that, right, Dad?" Her father snorted while her mother's eyes narrowed. "Just until the school figures something else out. Please?"

Her parents exchanged a look. "Of course she can stay here, Yumi. Aelita, do you like sushi?"

"I wouldn't know," Aelita replied, beaming. "I've never had it before."

/

"Yumi," Aelita questioned. She was lying on her back, eyes fixed on the glowing stars above them. "Thank you, for taking me in. And for…for rescuing me."

"Of course," Yumi yawned. She turned onto her side and snuggled deeper into her pillow. "We're a team, and you're one of us, now." She yawned again. "Anyway…it's good not being the, the only girl anymore."

She fell asleep to the sound of Aelita's quiet laughter.

. . … . .

The next time was better, Yumi decided. They were better prepared for it. Aelita went to school and the only thing they had to pretend was that she was somehow involved in Odd's crazy family. Aelita was still top of the class, still got better grades than Jeremie, and had taken over Ulrich's tutoring much to everyone's relief.

But best of all, because Aelita stayed at the school now, that meant Yumi could too, sometimes, without her parents getting worried.

"So what do you want to do tonight?" Yumi asked. She was lying across Aelita's bed, head tilted back to watch as the girl typed on the pink laptop she had gotten somehow.

"Odd mentioned a monster movie marathon in his room, it sounds fun. Popped corn and M&Ms have been promised." Aelita flipped a few pages in the textbook, typed a couple words, and highlighted a section.

Yumi made a face. "Don't we see enough monsters?" she asked. "Like on a daily basis? I'm sick of monsters."

Aelita sighed and turned to her. She had a pen behind her ear and was chewing on the cap of her highlighter. "Odd calls it research," Aelita answered, "on different ways to dismember and disable attacks." She shrugged. "It sounds fun," she repeated. Yumi scrunched her nose and let her eyes drift to the frog clock on the desk. "Ulrich will be there."

"Oh, all right," she sighed.

. . … . .

Yumi groaned as she sat down at the lunch table and poked at the stew with her spoon. Jeremie gave her a pained look as well. "Odd?" Yumi questioned. She had to shout to be heard over the noise blaring from the overhead speakers.

"Who else?" Jeremie growled. He rubbed at his eyebrows and then his eyes narrowed at something over Yumi's shoulder. She twisted to see Ulrich set his tray down next to her. "It's funny," Jeremie said waspishly, "how clever you can be when it isn't related to a textbook." He fumbled with a bottle of aspirin and Yumi held a hand out wordlessly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ulrich replied. He poked at the potatoes on his tray. Yumi smiled as Jeremie deposited two of the white pills in her hand. She downed them dry.

"Aelita told me that Odd told her that you helped him plan this," Jeremie snapped. Yumi's head throbbed enough from the…music…that it took her a few tries to understand what he'd just said. Jeremie waved his hand in the air to highlight the heavy metal currently pulsing from the speakers. "You can rewire an electrical system but you're failing chem-"

"Isn't this awesome?" Aelita asked brightly. She smiled as she sat down at the table and kissed Jeremie on the cheek. Jeremie's mouth fell open, and Yumi wasn't sure if it was in shock of the kiss or in shock at what she said. Yumi's was because of the words, definitely the words, she had just said. "Odd says I can DJ the sound system after school if it's still up. I think this is a little much for lunch but it's so much better than whatever it was that was playing earlier."

"Super Furry Animals," Ulrich replied.

"What?" Jeremie asked while Aelita looked at him curiously.

"The band, it was the Super Furry Animals."

"Oh, how interesting." Yumi tried to tune out while they talked gibberish. She hadn't expected Aelita to, well, be in league with Odd and his immature tendencies, but here she was, squealing about being able to take over the sound system in a couple of hours. She studied the other girl, watched the way she smiled and waved her arms around, how she practically vibrated with happiness and excitement.

This wasn't what she'd expected.

"Yumi?"

"Huh?" She looked up to find Aelita's green eyes watching her curiously. "What?"

"I asked, what would you think of Japanese Electronic after school? Any favorites?"

Yumi shook her head. "No, and I really don't want to be caught in league with Odd. I'm sure Delmas will expel him this time."

Jeremie gave a long suffering sigh. "If he wasn't expelled for last April's Shower Incident then I doubt this will get him more than a detention."

Yumi could only nod in disappointed agreement.

. . … . .

Yumi was soaking her sore muscles in the bathtub when her mother knocked on the door. "Yumi, Aelita's downstairs," she called.

"I'll be there in a minute!" she shouted back. She groaned as she levered herself up into a standing position and grabbed her towel. Her muscles ached. That last training session had been rough.

When she got downstairs she heard Aelita's laughter accompanied with Hiroki talking in a bad accent. She paused in the doorway to the living room and stared. The two were sitting hunched on the sofa, controllers in hand and eyes fixed to the screen where some videogame was playing.

"Take that!" Hiroki roared. His character swung some kind of axe at what looked like mechanical parrots. Suddenly a red box popped up and Hiroki's pirate (was it a pirate?) turned into a…chicken? Yumi was confused. "Aw, man!"

"Haha! You're a chicken. I get to get the power-up!" Aelita crowed. On screen Aelita's girl-princess-fairy skipped toward a treasure chest.

"No way!" Hiroki exclaimed. "I'll peck you to death!" The chicken proceeded to chase the princess while Aelita hit Hiroki with a throw pillow. "Cheating, cheating!"

"Creative counter-attack," Aelita threw back. Yumi cleared her throat and they both looked up with wide smiles. "Hey, Yumi, do you want to play too?"

Hiroki pulled a face. "Yumi's a buzzkill. She doesn't understand videogames." His face screwed up even more. "She doesn't believe in fighting or whatever."

"I don't like fighting fake things," Yumi corrected. Hiroki shrugged like it was the same thing, which it wasn't. It wasn't. Her eyes narrowed but she didn't say anything else. It wasn't his fault that he just didn't get that she spent so much time fighting digital monsters for real. It wasn't a game to her; it couldn't be a game to her. She crossed her arms and shifted her stance to relieve the tension stiffening her muscles. "Sorry for the wait, I lost track of time."

"It's no problem," Aelita replied. She hit the now-a-pirate-again character with a wand and then went off to fight more robot parrots. "Hiroki's been keeping me entertained."

"Aelita's great at videogames." The unlike you is unsaid but Yumi can hear it and it sets her teeth on edge. "It's like she's a natural."

Aelita laughed and ruffled his hair after the Level Complete screen popped up. "I guess I've had a lot of practice with digital monsters and worlds," she said. She stood. "I'll catch you later, okay? We'll have a rematch."

"Definitely," he agreed. Yumi ignored how happy her brother seemed.

"I'm sorry you had to wait with him," she apologized as they exited the house. "And play his videogame. He's been glued to that game since he got it last week."

Aelita gave her a confused look. "It was fine, Yumi. Really. Odd and Ulrich have been teaching me how to play and that game is fun. I'll have to see if Odd has it or if Ulrich will get it." It was Yumi's turn to give Aelita a confused look. Aelita shrugged, a blush staining her cheeks as she shoved her hands into the orange hoodie she was wearing. "Your brother's not that bad, Yumi."

"That's because you don't live with him," she sighed. She let it go though as they headed toward the cinema.

. . … . .

She was crossing the courtyard when the snowball hit her in the middle of her back. "What the...? Who did that?" she demanded, spinning around.

The second snowball hit her in the face. Aelita laughed and ducked down behind a bush.

"I can see you!" she called. She scooped up a handful of snow, packed it down into a ball. She backed away slowly, crunched the snow loudly beneath her boots. Aelita stood, ready to fire, and was met with a face full of snow.

It devolved from there into cold snow, damp clothes, and laughter.

. . … . .

"What is it about Odd?" Yumi asked. It was late and they were laying side-by-side in Aelita's too-pink bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars Aelita had insisted on putting up. Yumi silently admitted she found them comforting, familiar. Aelita gave a questioning hmm and shifted next to her. "He's completely immature and reckless and I don't know how he hasn't been sent home yet…but you go along with it. You help him and you enjoy it and…why?"

She felt Aelita shrug and then the bed moved as Aelita rolled onto her side. Yumi twisted so that she was facing the younger girl as well. "Jeremie's worried about you," she added. The faint light from the moon outside and the fainter light from the fake stars above highlighted the downturn to Aelita's mouth, the crease between her eyebrows. "We're all worried."

"Because of Odd?" Aelita questioned. Yumi nodded. Aelita snorted and her eyes rolled. "You shouldn't be, neither of you." With a hmph she rolled back so that she faced her ceiling. "I know Odd can be a bit much sometimes but…it's okay. He's okay. He has fun, and maybe you can't see it, but he's just so full of life and passion and sometimes it's intoxicating. It's like he gets it, gets me."

She worried her bottom lip and Yumi touched her shoulder hesitantly. "We're here for you, Aelita. Jeremie, Ulrich, me, we're all here for you. We-"

"I know," Aelita interrupted. "I know. And I appreciate it. But Odd…with him I don't have to be smart or brilliant or anything." She shrugged again and Yumi frowned, confused. She didn't understand, Aelita was all those things, anyone could see it. Hell, she got better grades than Jeremie.

"I know I'm not what you expected," Aelita continued, cutting into Yumi's musings. "I'm not what any of you expected, not really. Jeremie wanted a brainiac and you wanted someone to help rein in the boys and I don't really know what Ulrich expected…but I'm, I'm me, you know? I can't be everything for everyone and with Odd I can buy silly hats or play pranks or dance around in the rain and not be looked at like I'm crazy. I'm not crazy, Yumi," she murmured. "I'm not crazy, I'm just so happy to be here finally and I want to experience everything otherwise it'll be like there was no point in leaving Lyoko."

Yumi tensed. She reached out and gripped Aelita's shoulder tightly until the younger girl turned to face her. "No one thinks you're crazy, Aelita. And there was a point to leaving Lyoko. You belong here."

Aelita nodded. "Yeah, I know. I'm still trying to figure out where though."

They were silent for a while, listening to the air system kick on and then off. A door down the hall opened and closed, footsteps retreating toward the bathroom. The frog clock on Aelita's desk tick-tocked the passing minutes. Yumi stared up at the stars on the ceiling and thought over what Aelita had said. Over what she had assumed herself.

"Aelita?"

"Mm?"

"Tomorrow do you want to do something? Anything you want?"

She felt Aelita laugh next to her. "Careful, I may ask to dye our hair weird colors or try on crazy outfits or-"

"Or prank the boys?" Yumi asked. She gave Aelita a small smile. After a moment Aelita returned it.

"Yeah," she yawned. "We can do that. That sounds fun. Goodnight, Yumi."

It did sound fun, Yumi thought. "Goodnight, Aelita," she murmured back. She twisted, pulled the covers up to her chin and drifted off to sleep.