The desks at school are very old. I know this, not because I'm a desk expert, but because of the generations of students who left their marks on the aging wood. I spend the entirety of classes staring at the work of the genius artists that were my predecessors. I can confidently claim that "Rentaro was here" and some girl named Chiyo had a scary crush on a guy named Eijiro, based on how many times she connected their names. There's endless stuff like that and it can easily keep my attention through the boring classes.

I am in the process of deciphering an abstract-looking doodle when a single phrase said by my teacher causes my ears to twitch.

"...partner project…"

Immediate dread fills me.

I glance up and take in my surroundings that I had been ignoring. When did I even zone out? On the whiteboard is a lot of writing detailing a poem we analyzed as a class. Okay, I remember doing that at the beginning. No memory of a project though, and no clues written on the board.

"I will allow you to choose your partners, just remember you two are being graded as one."

As soon as the words were spoken, a wave of turning heads floods through the class, best friends giving each other "the look." A few others point questioning fingers and received head nods in return.

Ah. Having a friend must be so convenient right now. Though, it's fine. I will be partners with whoever is left, or work alone. I've never had problems in this situation before.

A waving hand catches my eye and I can't help but look at the source. Gina, four desks away, grins when she finally catches my attention. She points, first at me, then at herself, and makes a questioning movement.

That's...she's asking me to be partners?

Dumbfounded, I nod my head. She flashes a brilliant smile and faces forward again. I move to stare at the board again too, but I'm focused on wondering why my heart beat so pleasantly, sped up from the excitement of being asked for partnership. She noticed me before, too, when I was leaving school, and was worried about me.

I remind myself that I don't care about having friends.

"Nomi!" A cheerful Gina pops in front of my desk the second class ends, her barrettes as sparkly as ever. Her glasses were hanging on the edge of her nose, in dire need of adjustment, but she didn't seem to notice.

We only have a few minutes before the next class, so I'm not sure what kind of conversation could be productive in such a short time slot, but I respond anyway.

"Hi. Do you want to talk about the project?" From what I gathered from the rest of the class, it's a creative writing assignment. Using all of the writing techniques we've learned so far this year. I'm honestly a little worried about it since I don't remember learning anything at all. I swear I pay a decent amount of attention to my classes, but right now I have to question my ability to remember stuff.

"Hm? Oh, no, not really. Well, kinda. Thought we could figure out a day to work on the project real fast. It's due in a few days."

"Then how about tomorrow after school? My house is fine, only my brother will be home."

"You have siblings, Nomi?"

"Yes, two. An older sister and brother."

"Lucky. I'd love to be the youngest. I have a younger brother, it kills. He likes to bring dead spiders into the house and place them on my bed."

She shudders and makes a terrified face. It's such an exaggerated reenactment of her horror that I couldn't help it—I laugh.

"No, it's true!" She continues, delighted in receiving such a positive reaction. "I can't stand touching those monsters either, so I have to beg him to get rid of them."

"Why not your parents?"

"The first time, my dad said something about spiders being part of life and how I should learn to accept them. Was a little upset with my brother for messing with the dead. He's sorta hippie, I guess. My mom thought it was funny." Gina makes a frown, but I could see a smile twitch at the corner.

Habitually, I glance at the clock and note less than a minute until our next class. Most of the students are already sitting back down in their desks.

"So my house, tomorrow after school? Let's brainstorm ideas until then." I confirm.

She flashes me another one of her smiles. "Sure, let's walk together to your house then."

She plops back into her desk the moment the door slides open to reveal our history teacher. As he opens his notebook and picks up an Expo marker, I think about my short conversation with Gina and feel a smile curve my lips.

Maybe this is why Kokomi likes the attention of other people. I never imagined it felt this nice.

"So what's your brother like? How old is he?" Gina questions. We've just started walking to my house to work on the project and her bouncy way of walking is already dizzying.

"18. He's a little...weird," I summarize, sudden memories of him following Kokomi around filling my head. I work to replace them with more flattering ones, memories of when he acts like a brother and not a stalker. "But nice. He can get a bit protective, though."

"Cool, well, I gave our project a little thought."

"Yeah?" I had too, but hadn't been able to come up with anything good. I'm glad she was feeling confident.

"I think we should do a little romance story."

I can't help but look at her in surprise. Gina is most in her element during science class—I certainly didn't take her for a romantic.

She must have misinterpreted my look because she laughed. "Nothing complicated, we don't need to get into a love triangle or anything, I was just thinking we would be able to cover most of the requirements without thinking about them too much."

I puzzle over the potential of a romance story for a little bit. Straightforward, and we can use typical tropes when we get stuck on writer's block. "Yeah, sounds good to me. Have you thought about a plot?"

"Yes!" She jumped, clearly excited to share her idea. "Okay, but you can't judge me, okay? Okay?"

"Okay…"

"Okay, so, the main character is this girl, and she has this major crush on a boy, but she doesn't know how to get the boy to notice her. So she goes through all this crazy stuff to get him to notice her but all of it either backfires or doesn't work. And in the end, she goes up and just straight tells him the deal and she finds out he's been watching her the whole time!"

"Sounds like a novel."

"We can write a short version."

"Oh, turn right here, my house is right there." I pull out my house key and open the door, walking inside. "I think we can do it, plus the idea of her going through multiple plans to get his attention gives us a lot of room to hit all the requirements. Makoto!" I call into the house. "I'm home! A classmate is here for a school project!"

There's no response. Either he's memorizing lines, or he hasn't gotten home yet. I guide Gina to my room and tell her to make herself comfortable, to which she responds to by falling face-first onto my bed, a muffled shout proclaiming its softness. I sit at my desk and turn on the computer sitting there, quickly typing in my password when the prompt came up. I maneuver to a new document and wonder at the blank page.

"How should we start?" Gina's voice suddenly appears right beside me, startling me into clicking the keyboard. A "j" appears, and she laughs as I delete it, which makes me smile.

"Do you have names for your characters?" I ask. "Because I think I have a couple that I'd like to use."

"Sure, let's hear them."

"Chiyo and Eijiro," I say, remembering my desk at school. I don't know if they ever did get together, but I think Chiyo would like it if she were able to be with her crush even in fiction.

Gina shrugs. "Sure, those sound fine to me." A mischievous grin suddenly curled. "We can start the story with 'Eijiro always looks soooo dreamy.'"

I burst out laughing. "'I spend hours staring at him during class. I just can't get him out of my mind!'"

She shrieks, my contribution exciting her. "'I wonder what's going on in his mind! I wish he would stare at me, too.'" She acts it out dramatically, falling to her knees and staring into the world of imagination.

Giggling, I type it all, and continue to type for the next hour. The story goes completely off track, but it's so much fun to pretend to be this crazy, love-stricken girl that we don't even care. She lavishes Eijiro with gifts in his locker and desk but forgets to put her name on them. She writes a love confession as her speech for debate class, but he turns out sick that day so he wasn't in school. She prepares an airplane and pilot to write her love with clouds, but he had an eye doctor appointment and just got his eyes dilated, so he couldn't look up at the sky where the sun was. Failure after failure, the girl Chiyo did more and more bizarre things.

Gina and I are cracking up particularly hard after Gina tried to act out a ridiculous dance routine that "absolutely has to be in the story" but accidentally ran into the wall. The moment it happened, I felt the air release from my lungs and I fell to the floor in a fit of giggles. She joined me soon after, and then we couldn't stop—laughing together as if it had been the funniest thing to have ever happened or ever will happen.

Suddenly, my bedroom door bangs open. A growling Makoto is revealed to be on the other side.

"What are you doing, Nomi? I'm trying to...oh, hello," he stops, awkwardly, upon noticing an unfamiliar face. The interruption calmed me, though, and I was able to stop laughing long enough to breathe and massage my cheeks. I couldn't stop it from twitching back into a smile though when I remembered the SLAM! into the wall.

"This is Gina," I provide. "We're working on a project together."

"That's...great." He looks puzzled. Oh, that's right. I never bring classmates home, so the new event must be throwing him off. I raise my eyebrows at him and he blinks, comes back to reality, and shuts my door. I turn back to Gina as his footsteps fade away down the hall.

"So that was my brother."

"You didn't tell me your brother was Mugami Tooru!" She quietly squeals, hands gesturing wildly. "Oh my gosh! He's so famous! And he's your brother!"

"Ah, yea—"

"And he's even dreamier in real life."

"Um, I gu—"

"Gosh, that must be so incredible to be related to him. I bet you get to meet all sorts of celebrities!"

"Not really." I state shortly, suddenly angry. I expect her to keep raving about my brother, but she turns toward me in surprise, quickly melting away to guilt.

"Oh, gosh, no, I'm so sorry, Nomi. I didn't mean to focus on him like that, I was just so shocked, I lost all sense of reality. I really didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

My anger immediately transformed to my own guilt. How could I possibly be mad? Excitement is a natural reaction when such a huge celebrity suddenly pops up with no warning.

"No, I'm sorry too, I should have told you."

"I really didn't mean that he's dreamy," she continues, desperate to clear up a potential misunderstanding. "I mean, I did, and I do, but not that kind of dreamy. Like yes, he's totally dreamy, but I have a crush on..." Immediately her cheeks flush red as soon as she realizes what she just almost admitted to. She snaps back to my desk and shoves her hands on the computer's keyboard. "So Chiyo dances in front of the school, but Eijiro doesn't realize it's an interpretive dance of her love for him…" She begins typing heavily, probably hoping the clicking noise of the keyboard will distract me.

Such hope is foolish.

"Who?" I ask slowly, sliding next to her.

"Who what?" She asks, determined.

"Who do you have a crush on?"

"I never said I have a crush on anybody."

"Yes you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Hm." I look at the computer screen but give her a sideways look. Then I sigh and fall to the ground. "Whatever you say, Gina. But I'll find out sooner or later."

"Oh yeah? How would that work?"

I tap my head with my forefinger. "I just know things."

She gives me a look that almost sends me to laughter, but pain stops me in my tracks—that harsh pinch again, right in the front of my brain. A boy's face enters my mind, but I push it away in favor of getting rid of the sharp headache suddenly throbbing behind my eyes.

"Nomi?"

"Mmm?"

"Nomi!"

"Yes? What?" I take away my hand from my head to stare at Gina in response to her outburst. She frowns at me.

"Are you okay? Do you have a headache?"

"Ah..yeah…"

"Do you need Advil or something? Water?"

"No, no, it's okay." I do my best to shake off the residual pain—it's mostly gone now—and tap the computer screen. "Are we almost done though? We can probably end it soon, right?"

She makes a face of sympathy towards me but follows my lead and moves on from my headache.

"Yeah, we can end it, I can't imagine that we've missed any requirements at this point, and I should be getting home."

"Okay, but then are we cutting the dance routine?"

"No."

"Good. Because it was brilliant."

"We should probably cut the part when I ran into the wall though."

"Absolutely not, that was the best part!"

I wave goodbye from the front-doorway as she disappears down the street, heading home after a long night of brilliant writing. I walk up the stairs to my bedroom and collapse on my bed, peeking at the computer screen to make sure the document is still there. We saved it, but I should probably email it to myself to be safe.

A wide smile spreads across my face and I'm quick to bury it in my covers. That was so...fun. I never realized being with another person could make me so happy. This must be why everyone is so obsessed with making friends.

Well, I won't be so greedy as to suddenly wish for more people to take notice of me. Gina is more than I could hope for, and certainly more than I ever dared to dream of.

I giggle a little and sigh happiness.

I, Teruhashi Nomi, have a friend.

A/N

Alright guys, meet Gina! A little quirky, but a cheerful and thoughtful friend for our Nomi.

Hm? What was that? You think it's strange that Gina can notice Nomi when no one else can? Well, friendship is magic, after all.

Kidding, kidding (though only slightly). While friendship is magic, we have to remember that Nomi is not completely invisible, just easily overlooked. She just blends in a little too well (I guess kinda like Satou, but even more extreme?). Gina is just one of those people who make sure to take special notice of everyone around her and is particularly good at it. She has really awesome observation skills, which is why her favorite and best class is science. Hope you guys like her.