I am supposed to be doing homework but I owe you guys an explanation for going AWOL and then coughing out a crappy chapter.

That said, meaning I have in fact noticed about what I was doing, let's go on with the one-shots. Just know that I intend to make this at least eight one shots in this collection, and though none are really connected, I will put in a concluding kind of end story.

(If I go AWOL again, or if there is a lapse in updates, please don't kill me. I have my reasons. Yes, I'm lazy, but I also have a personal life. Thank you.)

"You look bothered, Yoh-kun," Manta told his friend gently on the way home from school.

By 'bothered', Manta meant that Yoh did not look as cheerful or as easy-going as he usually did.

"Bothered?" Yoh looked puzzled first, but he acknowledged the realization. Still, he played dumb. "What do you mean?"

"I mean… you know… you don't seem happy today," Manta said, scrunching up his face in an effort to articulate. "Whatsamatter?"

Yoh stopped (with his mouth about to reply), thought about it, and then clamped his mouth shut, looking faintly embarrassed.

"It…it's nothing…"

Manta gave him a half-patronizing, half-suspicious look. "Aw, come on—what's wrong?"

Yoh was silent. Manta tried a different tactic.

"I thought we were friends!"

Actually, he wasn't fooling anyone, but Yoh spilled in the end.

"It's Anna," he said finally.

"Eh? What she do now?"

"Nothing like that," Yoh said quickly. "It's different."

"Different…how?"

"Uh…"

Here Yoh stalled again. Manta gave him such a hurt look that he sighed and gave in.

"Do you know that guy in our class… Taro?"

"Nouzuma-kun? Yeah…"

"He...HeaskedAnnaout."

"Eh? What?"

"He—asked—Anna—out."

(It took a while for it to register that Nouzuma was, in fact, a new student. Therefore he was forgiven if he thought he could ask Kyouyama Anna out on a date.)

"What'd she say?" Manta finally asked, after thinking it over with a kind of beaten look on his face. "Don't tell me she said yes."

"…She didn't," Yoh said, kicking a pebble. "And she told him about being engaged to me, then he said something about not believing her, and… I think you know why he's been at the nurse's office since…"

Being no stranger to Anna's strength, Manta winced.

"So…why does this bother you, then?"

"Eiha…" (here Yoh looked anywhere but at Manta) "I dunno. It really bothered me."

"Bothered you?"

"Bothered me. Yeah." He paused, and then added as an afterthought, "I dunno why…"

Manta looked at him with a concerned frown, scrunched up his face into realization, and then burst out laughing. Yoh looked at him, panicked.

"What? What is it?" Yoh asked, worried. Manta sniggered.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe you were jealous?"

"Jealous?" A big, puzzled question mark hung over his head.

"Of some other guy that Anna-san might like," Manta pressed, though now he was also embarrassed. He was never an expert at the whole relationship thing.

Yoh looked stricken. "Anna likes someone!"

The hurt look on his face was priceless.

Manta sighed. "Let's walk you through this very slowly…"

I will be editing everything before the next chapter. Hang in there, guys…