Ayane! Yay! (Finally! Gah!) Anyway, I updated. Yay. More Ayane. Woo hoo! Ninja Gaiden hasn't come out in Australia yet… sniff… okay, I'll shut up now. No use complaining for a month, right?

(You might want to pull out those earmuffs you needed for the last chapter to stop listening to me complaining ^.~) Hmm, that's an idea… *note to self* buy earmuffs! :)

*

Third day of school. And she still hated it. It still sucked big time. So why was she still going? She didn't even know herself. That aside, she was worried, although it was hard to admit to herself. What was wrong with Hayate? He had come home last night basically in tears, and was gone before she had even got up. Was he okay?

She still couldn't believe that he had been the one driving the car and killing Ryu's girlfriend, or whoever she was. Did that make her own brother a murderer? Or…

Her voice was faint, like in a distant dream. "Hayate?"

He was sitting underneath the tree. And it didn't take a genius to figure out that he had been crying. He was sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, head resting against his knees. His eyes were red, a telltale sign. As she walked over, he started, uncurled faster then she could say 'Hayate, what the hell?' and stood up.

"Ayane? What do you want?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry. What's wrong?"

He sighed, a sigh which contained sadness and despair, if she heard right. "Nothing that you need to worry about,"

"Don't know whether that's good or bad," she mused as they walked to school together. "No, really. What's the problem? People don't cry for no reason,"

"Nothing. I'm just… I don't know, a bit touchy at the moment,"

"That time of the month, huh?" she asked. He shot her a bemused look before turning around at something she didn't notice. Or didn't want to notice.

"Kasumi?"

Her hated half-sister was looking downcast for some reason. She didn't care why. But Hayate, she noticed with extreme annoyance, did. "Kas? What's up?"

Kasumi managed a small half-smile. "A fair bit, actually. Just I got a call from Helena. Her mother was killed this morning. She was just walking down the street, and boom, a truck comes down. She died instantly,"

"Oh my god. That's horrible," Hayate exclaimed. Her own response was short and to the point.

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer person,"

Kasumi looked shocked, and Hayate just glared at her. She shrugged and walked off. Suddenly, someone ran into her. She looked up, annoyed, into the dark brown eyes of… what was his name? Jane? No, Jann-something. Jann-Lee, that was it.

"Watch where you're going!" she exclaimed angrily. "That's the second time in as many days you've run into me!"

Instead of the furious glare she had been expecting, he apologised before going off again. She shook her head. What a weirdo.

Speaking of weirdos…

Hayabusa was sitting underneath a tree out on the oval by himself, head bent over something which she couldn't see from this angle. A book or something, perhaps? As she edged closer, she could see that it was actually his wrist, and he was bandaging it. Briefly she wondered why, before his voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Hello, Ayane,"

"How did you know it was me?" she blurted out before remembering her vow not to talk to him. He turned around to look at her, emerald eyes neutral.

"It wasn't that hard. Not many girls at this school have short hair like you,"

"And that's a bad thing?" she stretched out to her full height, grand total of five foot two, which wasn't much, but the best she could do. "You have a problem?"

"No. Just that you're the only girl with short hair that I know that would have some reason or no reason for coming to see what I was doing,"

"How did you know that?" He must be psychic. How the hell else would he know that I came to see what he was doing, not him, or something? Whatta freak!

"You didn't speak to me yesterday, for reasons I still don't know. So you wouldn't have come down to speak to me, it must be something that sparked your curiosity. The only thing that I was doing out of the ordinary was bandaging my wrist, therefore that's why you came down and I saw your silhouette,"

Oh my god. He really is like a genius or something. Who would go to that much trouble when you could just ask what I came down for? At least my fears of him being able to read me too easily are perfectly justified…

"Unless I came down to apologise," she suggested snidely. He shook his head, turning back away from her.

"You would be too stubborn to do that,"

Shit! He's good! "What makes you so sure?" she asked carefully.

"I just know,"

He wrapped the rest of the bandage impeccably around, before tightening it so it wouldn't unravel. He was wearing the sling again, today, she noticed, same arm as the wrist he had just finished bandaging.

"Been in the wars or something?" she asked, not able to fully keep the sneer out of her voice.

"You could say that," he stood up, emerald eyeing her intensely, before he left.

"Did you hear? Helena's mother was killed," was the first thing Hayate said to his friend, who was looking increasingly out of it.

"Really? I'm sorry to hear it,"

Truth be told, Ryu didn't sound that sorry. He sounded rather tired, actually. But he chose to ignore it, going on to a different, and probably more sensitive topic.

"What happened?" he asked softly, gesturing at the sling and wrist.

Ryu sighed gently, turning his head to face him.

"My shoulder was sore, and my father happened. Answer your question?"

Melancholy began to rise up in him. We are just teenagers. What can we do? Really? Not a lot… he shook his head, more at his friend's pathetic excuse for a father then anything else.

"I don't really know what to say,"

"Neither do I," Ryu laughed shortly, a bitter laugh which made him shudder like it was glass smashing against the concrete. "Forget that. Are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

A pause. Then Ryu spoke. "We're in maths now. Maths result. Just curious,"

He glanced across at Ayane sitting next to him, she was working, apparently uninterested in their conversation.

"I didn't speak to him. I ran inside and locked myself in my room so I wouldn't have to,"

"You won't be able to do that forever,"

He rubbed his eyes. "I know. But I'll do it for as long as I can,"