"I should have taken the chance to try out Tomo's rolling defense," Ayumu commented. Chiyo seemed to deflate a little on hearing the name. Before she could ask what the matter was, though, the younger girl spoke up. "By the way," Chiyo said, "Did you hear that Kimura-sensei became a monk?"

"WHAT!?"

"Oh, yeah," she deadpanned, "He shaved his head and moved to a monastery and everything. His wife was kinda upset, but..." and then she couldn't keep a straight face anymore. "Gotcha."

Ayumu's expression went from dumbfounded to outraged. "You little...! Don't do that! I almost had a heart attack!"

Chiyo laughed. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. That's what you get for disappearing on us!"

"I guess I deserved that... say, have you eaten?"

"No. I came straight here from the airport."

"Well, I have some random food items in the mini-fridge there. I could throw us together something if you like."

"Oh, let me!" Chiyo rose and started digging in her pocket. "Remember how I used to be into cooking? I kept it up, and look what my roommate made for me!" She withdrew what looked like a kamikaze headband and tossed on the couch next to Ayumu, who picked it up and struggled though the butchered Japanese writing on either side of the rising sun. "Lady... iron... chef?"

"That's right."

"That's ridiculous. And she didn't use the right kanji for Iron."

"It's the thought that counts," Chiyo took the headband, donned it and struck a pose, speaking in the manner of a bad martial arts movie. "I have gained a reputation for being able to make anything out of anything. My Szechwan technique is known and feared throughout the University!"

"Could you make au gratin bread rolls out of cucumbers?"

Chiyo didn't miss a beat. "If I put my mind to it, sure. Show me to your ingredients and prepare to be amazed!" Ayumu gestured vaguely at the fake kitchenette and Chiyo vaulted into action. Literally.

"Did you go insane in America?" Ayumu asked blandly as Chiyo landed ninja-style in front of the stove and stood as if she were imagining a fiery explosion in the background. Where had all this energy come from? "Or was it just five seconds ago?"

"No, it was long ago. You see, back in America, my friends had decided that Chaos Mathematics wasn't turning my brain into jelly fast enough. So they subjected me to this endless stream of American popular culture, trying to brainwash me, I guess. We went through everything from Citizen Kane to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back."

"Oh, you poor thing! I saw that one dubbed into Japanese."

Chiyo was examining the vast array of unused spices above her mini-stove. "Some of these are getting pretty old, you know. But, yeah, after about two weeks with Rose and her boyfriend, I was already scarred for life."

"So," Brett asked, "What did you think, Chihuahua?"

Chiyo stared blankly at the closing credits for a long moment, then stood shakily. "That's it," she said bleakly, "That was the last straw. You've shattered my young mind beyond all repair. The old Chiyo is dead, never to return." She shambled heavily from the room. "Farewell." But as soon as she crossed the threshold, she turned on her heel and strode back in. "I'm back!" she said brightly.

"She's gone," Brett said.

"Oh, yeah," Rose agreed.

"Honestly, I don't know how any of them found time to study. They were always up to some stupid scheme or another, and more often than not, I ended up getting dragged into them. At first they saw me as a stick-in-the-mud, but after a while I kinda gave up resisting." She took one bottle and set it aside. "Oh, you have sansho? Perfect! One thing they never did, though, and I'm glad, is they never tried to get me to drink. From what I've seen it do to them, alcohol is just plain evil."

Ayumu finished her glass and set it aside, declining to comment.

"No, if you think I've gone crazy, you should see Brett and his roommates. They had one of those overbooked rooms, you know, three guys, and they were always at each other's throats... but then, they were always together, too. They invited me and Rose over to play Risk a lot."

Chiyo looked surveyed her half of the board over steepled figures. Her blue legions of doom had conquered all of North and South America and were already half-way through Europe. The other four colors were scattered pretty much at random through the remainder of the map, still hamstrung by doing battle with each other. "I'm done with my turn," she said.

"That does it," Michael cried. He suddenly stood on his chair and put his hands out grandly, as if giving a speech to an army. "Ah'ma retake this bitch! I'm gonna take back Kamchatka! And I'm gonna take back Ural, and China and Irktusk! And then I'm gonna take the White House!" He stabbed a finger at the single blue figure sitting demurely in the Eastern US. "WHOOO!"

"Oh, shut up, Howard Dean," Brett said irritably. "Can't you just sit down and get your ass kicked quietly like the rest of us?"

"They were always picking on me," continued Chiyo, chopping a small brace of carrots with lightning speed. "Like before I really knew English that well, they would send me into stores to ask for 'Recreational Pharmaceuticals.' It took me a while to realize what it meant."

"That's real sad, Chiyo-chan. I only know five phrases in English, and 'Recreational Pharmaceuticals' is one of them."

"You don't...?"

"Of course not. It's just good for jokes."

"Oh, okay. You're still don't spicy food?" Ayumu nodded vehemently. "I'll only use half of the bottle, then. I was really glad for the constant Chiyo abuse, though, 'cause they were always abusing each other and it made me feel accepted. It was just how they showed affection. I could talk all night about them, you know?"

"Sounds like you had fun."

"Well... yeah. Sort of. The schoolwork was a problem, though. At first I was fine, but I started to sink farther and farther into this mental haze. Eventually, I couldn't focus on anything... sometimes I would just space out for these huge chunks of time for no reason at all."

"I feel your pain," Ayumu said. "Nothing's worse than suddenly realizing that you lost a half hour."

"In the last semester I was pretty much brain-dead... but I still managed to have a little fun. Did you ever see that movie on the internet where that guy is hitting the melon full of sterno with a baseball bat?"

"Mm... no."

"Don't try it. You'll lose your eyebrows. And your friends will tape it and laugh at you until you chase them away with a flaming baseball bat."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"I almost wasn't me. Gahh... I just might be the dumbest prodigy that ever lived. By the last couple of weeks, whenever Brett or his cronies came up with another stupid idea, I'd go along with it just out of this sort of morbid curiosity to see how it would turn out... and to get out of studying every hour of every day."

Her hands moved confidently and swiftly even as she kept talking. Ayumu admired her speed, but the knife was making her a little nervous. "I didn't remember I had those," she commented on the stalks Chiyo butchered.

"They're probably getting pretty old," Chiyo said without concern, tossing them onto her pan. With a quick twist back and forth to judge the flame, she picked a setting and started throwing ingredients in, and liberal dashes of various spices seeing use for the first time since Ayumu had impulsively picked them up. "It's like you have a little produce section in there."

"Well, I've taken up cooking a little myself. My Szechwan technique isn't known or feared anywhere, but I think I'm pretty good at it."

"Oh, did you want to...?"

"No, that's fine," Ayumu assured her. "Saved me the work."

Chiyo took the headband off and stuffed it back in her pocket. "You were in the middle of a story, too, weren't you? Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. So this Rose is your roommate?"

"Yep. She's a theater major, really nice. About two meters tall, but I got stuck on the top bunk because she's afraid of heights."

"Makes sense. How long are you going to keep that on the stove?"

"Until it's done. I have a special sense for that sort of thing."

"Jeez..." Ayumu shook her head. "Model student, master cook, noble friend... is there anything you're bad at?"

"Three things."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now. Sports and tongue-twisters. Wait, three? Is the list longer?"

"I found out last year that I'm also bad at skullduggery."

"Skullduggery?"

"Our dorm played a game of Assassination. We all got a dart gun, one dart and an index card with one other player's name on it. It was our job to shoot that person, then we got their card. Thing was, if you found out who was hunting you, you could shoot them, and if you fired and missed, you had to get a new dart at the front desk. Made the dorm pretty tense for a while, especially for the first week..."

"Brett Gipson," Chiyo read aloud, then slid the card into her pocket. "What were the odds? Rose, I'm going out to kill your boyfriend."

"Have fun."

Making sure that the small dart gun was ready, she set out from her room softly. It was unfortunate, but she was a bit of a mascot for her dorm; everybody there knew who she was. Whoever had the card with "Chiyo Mihama" knew exactly who they were after.

As it turned out, her assassin didn't encounter her on the way, though she did see something a little unnerving. Two guys greeted one another calmly in the hall, but as soon as they passed each other, one turned on his heel, drawing his gun with a predatory grin. Chiyo quickened her pace, passing under a homemade poster that read "Watch your back!"

After an eternity, she came to Brett's room. She held her dart gun behind her back and knocked nervously. The peephole darkened for a moment, then Michael said, "It's Chihuahua."

"Let 'er in."

Upon entering, Chiyo almost jumped out of her skin. The three tenants all had their dart guns trained one her, and they had taped on laser pointers to enhance the effect. Fortunately, she covered her reaction well enough so as not to be suspicious.

"So, what didja need, Chihuahua?" Brett asked.

"I dunno," Chiyo replied, "Just bored."

"Well, you can hang out with us," Colin invited. "Have a seat."

"Sure." Chiyo started in, surreptitiously circling to put Michael between her and Brett. She would only have one shot... but they didn't suspect anything. Why was she so rattled? I'm not built for this, she decided.

"Hey!" somebody said loudly in the hall. The sound made Chiyo cringe and her dart flew into the wall behind her. All three of her hosts stared. "It's not what it looks like!" she said frantically.

Michael fired his dart into the tiles at Chiyo's feet. As soon as that dart left its gun, Brett twisted in his chair and fired up at his roommate, missing also.

"You swine!" Michael cried, "You were sitting there all day, waiting for me to spend my dart, weren't you?"

"Guilty as charged," Brett said smugly. "I'll get you next time."

"Fool! I can shoot you now! The game is far from decided!"

"That all depends, my friend..." both tensed, "...on who gets their dart at the front desk first!"

Brett and Michael vaulted from their seats and shoved past Chiyo on either side. She leaned out of the door and saw them racing down the hall, elbowing and pushing each other wildly. They were maybe a little bit too much into the game.

"Oh, and Chihuahua?" Colin asked. She turned back just in time to see a foam dart bounce off her forehead. "Your brains are splattered."

"It's too late for that," she sighed, handing over her card. She left to Colin's diabolical laughter as he saw his new target.