"Tsu-chan, wake up!" Haven poked the lump of a blanket that was her sleeping friend.

"Gnhhh…" it groaned and rolled over.

"Come on, Tsu-chan," Haven continued as she dressed for the day. Fia rolled over and checked the time on her cell phone.

"Angel, it's 5:30. Classes don't start for at least two more hours. Go back to sleep," Fia groaned.

"But I'm so excited! I won't be able to sleep," Haven complained. Her remark was met with light snoring.

"I guess I'll just go surprise everyone with breakfast," Haven mused to herself as she headed to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, the fire alarms began to sound and the four occupants of Unit 1-11 began to evacuate.

As everyone in the apartment complex filed out of the building, several shot glances at the burning apartment and a particular white-haired resident.

"Who let Haven into the kitchen?" a random student asked loudly. Fia was as red as a tomato or the small fire blazing in their apartment's kitchen.

"Is this a common occurrence?" Nagisa asked. Fia laughed dryly.

"Now that I know you're this dangerous, I'll ask you to help me on my pranks," Karma gave Haven an unsettling smile.

"Oi, it's not completely my fault!" Haven protested, "Who stores their chemical concoctions in a kitchen anyways!" Fia began to fluster.

"Shit! No one can know about that! Ahhh! The firemen! Come on, Angel, we need to make the fire bigger! I can't leave any evidence!" Fia grabbed Haven's arm and began to run back towards the apartment.

"What are you thinking?" Karma asked as he stopped Fia by grabbing onto the hood of her jacket.

"...Trying to hide the evidence," Fia replied meekly before beginning a mantra of, "Please think it's just cleaning supplies."

The four stood and waited with their fidgeting classmates who were watching firemen go in and out of the building.

"Ma'am, could you please come with me?" a fireman tapped Fia's shoulder.

"Ummm… sure," Fia replied and the fireman led her to a less crowded area. Nagisa, Haven, and Karma were already there.

"What chemicals were in your kitchen?" the fireman asked.

"Just regular cleaning supplies!" Fia answered quickly.

"Well, those were some hell of some cleaning supplies! They were inflammable and helped contain the fire." Behind the fireman, Fia saw Haven and Nagisa staring at them in shock and Karma trying not to burst out laughing. "What's even stranger is that there's no smoke damage anywhere," the fireman continued.

"Really interesting sir. I'm just glad no one got hurt. Can I go now?" Fia sputtered. She could see Karma's urge to laugh was increasing by the second.

"Sure! Have a good day at school, kids," the fireman said with a friendly wave.


"I flew all the way to America and took a position as a teacher again for nothing!" a loud lady screeched from the boy's bedroom.

Haven opened the door to her room. "I'M TRYING TO WORK HERE!" she yelled before slamming the door closed.

Fia stared blankly at the boys' door. Was this even real? How is it that after returning from classes, she had found her new teacher in her apartment as she angrily dragged Nagisa and Karma into their room. At first, she was mildly concerned that Karma had gotten himself into trouble on the first day - as was to be expected. Now, she was just confused.

"It is not easy to teach a protege on this schedule!" the blond lady shouted as she came out of the boys' room.

"I was actually trying to get something done," Haven grumbled as she exited her own room.

Fia looked between her teacher, her roommate, and her other housemates. "Do you guys know Ms. Jelavic?" Fia asked Nagisa and Karma.

"You could say that" Karma responded flatly. "She was our teacher in junior high. Right, Ms. Bitch?"

"B-but you're so young, Ms. Jelavic!" Fia sputtered. "And it's not nice to call people that, Karma!"

"Yeah, you brat," Ms. Jelavic poked Karma in the cheek.

Fia sighed and, after seeing Ms. Jelavic off, called her companions for a house meeting at the kitchen table. She looked between a diligently typing Haven to a politely smiling Nagisa to a bored, leaning-back-in-his-chair Karma. She sighed and tucked her chin into her palm.

"Well, that was exhausting," Fia sighed. "We started the day with a flourishing amount of fire and fun, rushed to make it to our respective classes, only to find out that my outrageous teacher is your teacher from middle school." She looked to Karma and Nagisa. "Tell me, has she always been so blunt about her sexuality?"

"Pretty much," Nagisa said, "but she can be a really good teacher. She taught us a lot, especially about communication." Nagisa smiled in Haven's direction.

"Communication, huh…" Fia murmured dejectedly. "In any case, was your day any better, Haven? I know you were looking forward to being back in a comp. sci. class."

"Uh-huh," Haven nodded her head, obviously preoccupied.

Fia smiled, being with Nagisa and Haven was usually very easy for her. By contrast… Fia looked to the redhead with an air of both hesitancy and morbid curiosity. "How about you Karma?"

"Me?" He let the feet of his chair hit the floor. "It was fine, I guess."

"You didn't cause any trouble?" Fia asked, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Apparently, he found this entertaining so he chuckled. "Nope. Don't worry, not a single hair was out of place."

"That's a relief," she replied sarcastically. "Good to know that Campus Security won't be knocking on our doors anytime soon…"

"Says the girl hiding questionable substances under the sink?" he teased.

"It's for the sake of scientific discovery and the pursuit of knowledge!" she protested.

"I doubt Campus Security will care why you have them," Haven pointed out as she got up to plug in her computer's charger.

"Well, on the bright side," Karma started, "if you kill a guy, I'll help you Barium."

A flood of red rose from Fia's neck up to her ears like a mercury thermometer. A sharp slapping noise echoed through the kitchen as Fia's hands covered her mouth. There was a pause until a faint squealing noise slowly grew more and more audible.

"Fia, are you alri-" Nagisa asked as he reached his hand out to the petrified girl.

Before he could make contact or even finish his sentence, Fia fell forward in a raging fit of laughter. Her shoulders shook and the table trembled under the hand that was slapping it so hard. She laughed and laughed, and then she stopped to look at Karma as she bit her lip only to break out into more laughter.

The redhead sweatdropped. "It wasn't that funny."

Nagisa smiled warily. "But you are talking to a chemist. I'm going to get you some water, okay, Fia?" The bluenette rose from his seat and went to grab a glass.

The giddy, tomato-faced girl looked up from where her face was resting on the table. She stifled a giggle. "Potassium!"

"Huh?" Nagisa asked.

Karma shook his head. "She means 'K'."

Fia grinned at Karma. "You got it!" She gladly accepted the cup of water from Nagisa to calm herself down. "So…" she attempted to break the awkward stares focused in on her. "So what class are you taking, Karma?"

"Political science."

"Really? I never really would have guessed," Fia said. "What got you interested in that field?"

"I want to be a bureaucrat one day," Karma replied nonchalantly. "I appreciate the work they put in to keep their countries safe during national crises."

"Huh…" she mumbled.

"What? You got a problem with that?" he asked.

"No, no. I just didn't expect you to respect any authoritative figures after… yesterday when we were detained by mall security." Fia shot Karma a look. The redhead laughed in response.

Haven looked between the two of them. "What happened?"

Nagisa sighed. "Well…"

Flashback:

Nagisa found himself sitting between Karma and Fia as they argued loudly about Karma's behavior. He smiled apologetically at both the curious security workers passing by and the security guard who was trying to make a report of the day's fountain incident.

"Who convinces an eight-year-old that they can be the next James Bond?!" Fia cried as she face-palmed.

"Gotta let the kid dream big" the redhead laughed.

"BUT TO HELP HIM ESCAPE INTO THE AIR VENTS SO THAT HE COULD ASSASSINATE THE HEAD OF SECURITY AND FREE THE MANNEQUINS TO LEAD A REVOLT?!"

Karma laughed as he leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "So, Mr. Guard? Got anything else you wanted to ask me~?"

End of Flashback

"And that's what happened," Nagisa said. Fia's face was buried in her hands and Karma was laughing.

"If you had let me go through with my plan, Tsu-chan, I might have been able to snag the mannequin wearing that dress you liked so much~" Karma stuck his tongue out.

"OH, SHUT UP!" Fia yelled, but she smiled embarrassedly. "Anyway, I have to get some homework done for Jelavic's class, so we'll all hang out again later, okay?"

Karma smirked. "Potassium," he called over his shoulder. Fia's ears went red but she resigned herself to get back at him later.


"Want to play Call of Duty?" Benny called into Haven's room. She was typing furiously on her computer.

"Trying to work," Haven called, "I'll come out when I'm done."

Fia reluctantly sat down on the couch next to Karma and Nagisa. She didn't generally play first person shooter games because they all-too-easily hit home most of the time, but she relented for now. She would have felt bad if she didn't spend time with the guys, especially after Benny had come all this way to check on them; she didn't blame him, though. The last time Benny had seen Karma, he had offered to suffocate Haven. Good times, right?

It didn't take long to figure out who the key players were. Benny was good; he had fast reflexes from years dedicated to playing video games. Nagisa, on the other hand, was gloriously terrifying. His expression never changed from that of his normal, calm one but he seemed to be a tactical genius. Consistently, his accuracy and stealth were infallible. Karma would have been one of the top players. He had the highest kill rates for the first few rounds until he found a more entertaining way of playing.

"YOU CAN RUN ON WALLS?" Fia screamed as her character ran for dear life from Karma's.

"Yup! Upgrades!" Karma maneuvered his character in front of Fia's. His character pulled a knife for a close-range kill and Fia button-smashed her controller as she frantically tried to figure out the controls.

"WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS?!" she cried in dismay.

"I'll give you a ten-second head start." Karma nudged Fia with his elbow.

She gulped and with an "eep!" sent her character running in a different direction. "WHY ME?!"

Karma mused. "Because it's fun. Ten. Eight. Four-"

"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU COUNT!" Fia dropped her controller and started shaking Karma by his arm. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"

He laughed. "You never said I had to count down by ones. By the way-" Orange eyes met olive ones.

"Yeah…?" Fia looked up. "What is it?" By this point, it looked like her cheeks would never return to their natural color and tears were welled in the corner of her eyes. Too fun.

"Zero. Ready or not, here I come~~!" Karma called.

"GYAH!" Fia frantically tried to grab her controller again but Karma kneed it up into the air. Fia desperately played the juggling game with her controller. "CAZZO!" A long string of Italian lept out of the girl's mouth as her character ran. Needless to say, she didn't win that round. Sighing, she turned to Karma with a sour but serious expression. He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I-I," she stammered, "I think that y-you should help me with the controls so that this c-can be a fair fight! I won't take 'no' for an answer!"

He grinned. "So you do have some fire in you. Alright, but I teach by example." His eyes gleamed and Fia shuddered. It was too late to get discouraged now.

"So that's how you throw a grenade," Karma said smugly.

"Like… this?" Fia copied the commands Karma had showed her - then it dawned on her. Her grenade wasn't flying at Karma's character or any other feasible target for that matter. No, the grenade was flying vertically up and was about to crash land… on her own character. "YOU MOTHER-FU-" she yelled as the explosion rocked the virtual world. Karma was clutching his stomach and laughing. Angry, she dropped her controller and started smacking his arm. "HOW COULD YOU?!"

Nagisa sweat-dropped as the couch shook beside him and his housemates hit the floor. He could hear Karma easily, and happily, evading Fia's punches, but he didn't bother to look that way. No, his focus had to be perfect. He sent his character into the water, counting down the seconds until he had to come up to breathe. He saw an opposing player run up to the river bank and wait for his chance, but Nagisa was smarter. He maneuvered his character into an optimal spot and at the very last second possible, he lunged at them and plunged his character's knife through his opponent's body. A slight smile graced the bluenette's face.

After a few games like that, Haven came into the room with her computer. A few moments of typing later, she picked up a controller.

"Can I join?" Haven asked.

"Yeah, sure, next round," Benny replied as he dodged one of Nagisa's attacks.

Haven sat down on the couch next to Nagisa. A few more rounds passed with Haven casually manipulating the game controllers. With each round, Nagisa sweat-dropped and Benny spewed loud profanities more and more often.

Fia watched Karma's quadrant carefully. She would get her kill, oh yes, she would have to. As Karma rounded a corner to escape the shots being fired at him by another player, Fia took a deep breath and had her character step out from behind an adjacent barrel. She knew that Karma was not occupied enough to neglect paying attention to the character map, but she was determined to make this work. Her character ran towards his character while shooting a gun. Her aim was atrocious, but that wasn't the main goal. She hit a particular set of commands on her controller and then pulled her character's knife so that her character could grab his. She could hear the redhead scoff next to her. She bit her lip, worried that he might use his deadly accuracy on her, but, to her relief, he also pulled a knife. As his character pulled away from hers and reversed their positions, Fia smiled and put down her controller.

"Mission accomplished~" the girl chimed.

Karma looked at her, then his attention was brought back to the screen when he heard a loud explosion. The grenade. She had used the suicidal prank he had taught her and set him up to stay put so that his character would die along with hers. His gaze shifted back to the girl sitting next to him only to see that she was practically sparkling. "And I thought I was the underhanded one," he laughed. Karma reached over to pat the girl's head. "Not a bad job, Fia."

"What can I say? I had a good teacher-STOP MESSING UP MY HAIR!" she exclaimed as a simple head pat was turned into a violent noogie.

"Yeah? Well, let's see how well you do in the next round!" Karma crooned. Although her vision was blurred by tears, she swore she could see horns and a swishing devil tail.

"Not again!" she whined.

A few moments later, the round was over.

"Haven, how are you doing so well?" Benny asked in disbelief as the screen declared Player 5 as the winner of the third game in a row.

"Oh, I just worked on it a lot over the summer," she shrugged nonchalantly.

"I'll have to watch you next game. Maybe I'll pick up some tips," Benny mumbled as he went to start another round.

"Yes, Haven. Which quadrant is yours?" Nagisa asked.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," Haven replied calmly.

"It doesn't add up, though," Karma smiled, "There are five players and only four quadrants. Fia and I have been playing cat and mouse in the lower half of the screen and I know Nagisa and Benny are on the top half. So, where are you?"

Fia looked at Karma with a blank expression. "Eh?" Then she counted on her fingers. "One, two, thr-Hey! Karma is right! Although, you don't know how much it kills me to even say that." The two stuck their tongues out at the other from where they were both sitting on the floor.

"I think I'll sit this round out," Nagisa commented.

"Will you keep an eye on her? I just want to make sure everyone is playing fair," Fia said as she turned back to the tv screen, controller clutched tightly in her hands.

"I think I'll sit this round out as well," Haven said as she began reaching for her computer.

"Nu-uh-uh," Karma shook his finger as he held the laptop just out of reach.

"Give it back!" Haven began flailing to try to get it. She stood up and tried to grab the computer from him. He held it just out of her reach. "Come on, just give it back!" Haven jumped. Karma just held it further away.

Fia turned to look at Haven. "Are you ready to start?"

"Uhh, no, no… nonononono!" Haven shook her head violently as she tried to get her computer once again.

"Haven, just tell us what you did. You won't get in trouble," Benny sighed. Haven usually started acting like a five-year-old when she was about to get caught and thus, needed to be treated like one.

"It wasn't much. I just got fed up with always losing, so I spent the end of last year and the summer working on a program that would play the game for me," Haven tapped her fingertips together.

"What?!" Benny exclaimed, "I'm not sure whether to feel bad or honored." Haven shot him a sour look as she reclaimed her laptop.

"Oh, do you girls want to go see the new Sonic Ninja movie this weekend?" Benny asked.

"But they're so unrealistic," Haven complained, "I mean, those scenes in the last movie, that's not what hacking looks like." She proceeded to begin typing. "This what hacking looks like," she quickly turned her computer around to show Benny the page of her hacking into his gaming console.

"We could see another movie, Haven," Benny suggested.

"The Imitation Game, but that's no longer in theaters," Haven replied as she turned her computer to face her again, her fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard.

Fia looked to Karma. "Didn't you want to see Sonic Ninja, Karma? We can go! You, me, Benny, and Nagisa."

Nagisa smiled. "That might be fun. Are you into 'Sonic Ninja'?"

"Not in particular," she admitted, "but I do like watching movies. You seem to really like it, Nagisa."

"Sure," he replied. "Karma and I have read the comics since we met in junior high." Fia and Nagisa looked to Karma but he shrugged and stuck his tongue out of his mouth.

"I think I'll just stay in and study. I have a paper due Monday," Benny replied.

"Oh…" Fia said, disappointed.

"We can still go," Nagisa suggested. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us, Haven?"

"I'm not really…" Haven stopped typing for a second, "a fan of going to the movies."

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?" Benny asked.

"Kind of…" Haven replied, vaguely.


Haven: Our day most definitely started with a bang.

Fia: (has her headphones in) AsapSCIENCE, thank you for this lovely Periodic Table song~

Karma: Well, there's no curium for stupidity.

Fia: (can't hear) WHAT? Oh, hold on a sec- (takes headphones off) What were you saying?

Karma: Nothing, just that today was fun. It's not every day that that you get to kill your housemates-Don't look so proud, you only had one kill the entire game.

Fia: (turns red) It was the only one I needed! It served you right! (stomps foot and pouts)

Benny: Fia, you know tilting the controller doesn't do anything.

Fia: (blushes) It does plenty! If I feel like it's working a-and it helps m-my confidence then it does plenty!

Karma: Is suicide bombing what you call "confidence?"

Fia: Shut up! Or else I'll tilt my controller into your face! (cheeks go from pink to scarlet)

Benny: Those are mine! Don't touch my equipment!

Karma: Want a rematch? Loser has to eat Haven's cooking~.

Fia: (shudders) I'll pass. No offense, Angel. Speaking of you, though… How many times have you NOT talked about your computer? (attempts to count on her fingers)

Karma: You can complete complex chemical calculations almost instantaneously in your head, but you have to count on your fingers for the simple things?

Nagisa: Well, anyway, is our kitchen going to be alright?

Fia: Yup~! It'll be good as new by the time the next chapter rolls around! I'll cook something delicious!

Narrator: Look forward to Haven's going home, a movie, dramatic homework, and some punny cooking. Is it just me, or does Karma's prospective job sound pretentious?