Silence.

"Does anyone know what tha hell just happened?" The pink haired mechanic was the first one to speak. Some uncomfortable shuffling and silent glances spoke mountains.

"That was that Mark kid or whatever, yeah?" Akane asked.

"I believe that was Makoto Naegi, an underclassman of ours." Sonia's silky voice murmured, rising above the chatter. "What a strange reaction. He certainly didn't look very happy." A curious but serene expression passed over her features. "I don't suppose you have anything to do with his sudden entrance and exit, Junko?" she addressed the model.

Junko had let go of the nurse, who had collapsed unceremoniously to the floor, trembling. Now she sat, perfectly still, as she stared at the closed door. Her face was a blank slate and she hadn't seemed to hear the princess. Finally she heaved a sigh, before uncrossing her legs and stretching.

"Well that's a little unfortunate," she hummed.

"Ah, p-pardon me for asking, but is something wrong, Junko-sama?" Tsumiki stuttered from her place on the floor.

Junko gave her a bored glance, before looking away. "It's nothing important," she replied. She cocked her head, lost in thought. "I think I'll go for a walk."

The model strode out the classroom at a leisurely pace, not bothering to close the door behind her. She paused in the empty hallway, glancing behind her. Seeing no one, she sighed.

"That's irritating as hell," she murmured quietly. Then she giggled. And giggled and she kept going until she was laughing alone in the hallway. "Who'd have thought the twink had a backbone?" she laughed.

"Ah," she sighed again, laughter gone. "But Makoto's upset with me now. That's no good."

Then she frowned. Was it no good? Makoto didn't have anything to do with her plans. In fact, he was a distraction, and more importantly, an obstacle. Junko had asked him out because of that hope of his, wanted to see if it was as fragile as the boy looked. And of course, you know the saying; keep your friends close, and enemies closer.

Since then, Makoto had been irritatingly normal. It was his greatest trait, after all. Being average. And if Junko hated anything, it was predictability. So why was it that she felt that twinge of regret? She frowned, and laughed again, for good measure. She closed her eyes, letting her brilliant mind run. Based on previous evidence, Makoto would come running back. He wasn't just average, he was an herbivore man. Of course, she was surprised he'd broken it off at all, but then again, she hadn't been paying much attention; there were plenty of factors that could have pushed him that bit farther. There was a play in a few weeks, wasn't there? She mused to herself. That was probably the source. Satisfied, she grinned a wicked grin, and began to ponder whether she'd take the boy back, and what unusual punishments she could devise.

"Its been THREE DAYS!" complained Junko. "What the hell?" Mukuro ignored the bitter whining of her older sister, and focused on gently brushing golden curls. They were doing what should have been their usual routine; Mukuro brushing and curling Junko's hair (because God knows she couldn't take care of it all herself), trying her best to be gentle. To up the stakes, for every tug or pull, Junko would pull a knife (sometimes a knitting needle or similar stabby object) and try her best to impale her. Mukuro wasn't one to have a great deal of self-pride, but she was sure anyone else would have ended up in hospital a number of times, especially as sometimes Junko would try to stab her anyway.

Today, however, was a little different. Mukuro was almost finished with Junko's hair, as the golden curls gleamed under the sunlight. Junko, however, had not attempted to impale her even once. It wasn't that she didn't have a weapon; in fact, Junko was punctuating her words with waves of a wicked looking meat skewer, sharpened to a fine point. Since Junko had woken that morning, she had been in a foul mood. The topic? Makoto Naegi.

"Today will be the fourth day," Junko added. "Four days and he hasn't so much as sent me a sappy text message! What the hell is up with that?! Look!" Junko reached into the spot between her boobs, and pulled out a abnormally large cell phone, tapping a few buttons, before turning and all but throwing the phone at her twin sister. Mukuro caught it one handed, gently placing the hairbrush down. Junko sulked, fiddling with her hair, as Mukuro scrolled the messages. Her mouth twitched slightly as she scrolled.

Every day. Makoto had sent her at least one message every day. The more recent entries were one message at most, mainly either a good morning or goodnight, sometimes a reminder of due homework. Earlier texts occurred several times a day. Cute messages, good mornings, invites to go out, or even funny stories about his ridiculous luck. He even messaged her when something bad happened to her classmates, because of course, stories like that were Junko's favourite. He always added that everything turned out fine, but of course he would. Makoto would never let his classmates truly suffer. Sometimes he asked Junko why she wasn't around. Asked her if she was okay. It was horribly cute. Judging by the messages, Makoto had been patient, understanding. He'd treated the fact that Junko had never answered a single one of messages as another one of her quirks, it seems, Mukuro noted, scrolling. Out of context, the complete absence of replies and the number of texts from Makoto would be creepy, borderline stalkerish. But in this case, she knew Junko, and she knew Makoto. This was an inside joke they had shared, Mukuro smiled to herself. She didn't know her sister could be associated with anything this cute.

Scrolling back to the most recent messages, Mukuro saw what Junko meant. Starting three days ago, Makoto had not sent a single message. Not a good morning, or a good night. No smiley face emojis, not even a break up text.

It was…odd. "He didn't even send me a message about why he was upset!" Junko whined again, mimicking Mukuro's thoughts. "He's almost as responsible as Taka about this kind of stuff, and a complete softie! Usually, he'd be all like, 'I need to tell you how I feel!' or at least give me the puppy eye disappointment! To just ghost me like this is weird! Makoto can't even hold grudges! Someone could frame him for murder, and he'd forgive them!"

"Uh huh," Mukuro kept a blank face. "You're awfully emotional about all this. Are you really that upset?" A flash registered, and she dodged the tip of the meat skewer.

"I am not," pouted Junko.

"I thought you liked surprises?" Another stab.

"I do!"

"Then why are you upset? Shouldn't you be happy?" She resisted the urge to flinch as Junko stabbed the skewer into the table on her left.

Junko grimaced. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm super stoked, but it's also so boring. He's not running back right away, which is interesting, but he instead ghosts me completely! It's like he's punishing me by boring me to death!"

"You did neglect him, shamelessly manipulate his emotions, and then cheat on him with the school nurse," Mukuro pointed out. "You kinda deserve it."

"No one asked for your shitty opinion, stinky, cross eyed mutt!" Junko snarled. She sighed, crossing one leg after the other, and admired her cherry red finger nails, emotions flipped in an instant. Her eyes narrowed, and Mukuro watched the gears turn in her sisters head. "He wants to play a game, huh?" Junko murmured. "What a poor choice."

Makoto sneezed.

"You okay, buddy?" Leon asked. He glanced over to where Makoto sat on the classroom floor. The small boy was glaring at the piece of wood like it offended him personally. Rust-red paint covered Makoto's hands, and the paint was splotched haphazardly on his clothes, in his hair, and, as Makoto turned his face to towards him, he learned, on his face as well.

"I'm fine," Makoto sniffed. He went back to painting the block of wood angrily, before placing it off to the side to dry, and grabbing the next piece. Leon watched in silence.

"Dude," he began. "If you're that upset, why not just text her or something?" Leon knew something was up with Makoto and Junko. Ignoring the fact that he hadn't actually seen the two together for weeks, the day before last, Makoto had come in sporting a foul mood. Well, as foul as it could be considering it was Makoto. Cold and distant seemed more appropriate. He'd guessed it was relationship troubles pretty quickly after he'd flinched at Junko's name.

"Can't," Makoto mumbled.

"Huh? Why not?" Leon blinked.

Makoto raised a hand to sheepishly rub at his neck. "I kinda lost it on my way home a few days ago."

Leon whistled. "Relationship troubles AND you lost your phone? Sucks to be you, huh? Not to mention you lost those keys too. Life just isn't going your way this week." Makoto seemed to shrink into himself, and Leon was reminded of a sad puppy.

"Hey," he said awkwardly. "You know how I'm a big shot baseball star and all that? Well, I have a couple of tickets for a match in a couple of days. I was thinking of inviting Sayaka, but ya know, it's probably too short notice anyway. So how about you come with be instead? It'll raise your spirits!" he added.

Makoto's eyes widened comically as he glanced Leon's way. "Really?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, man." Leon grinned. Makoto slowly matched Leon's smile and nodded.

"That's be pretty cool. Thanks."

"No prob," the baseballer smirked. "Just write down you address, and I'll come pick you up."

"Got it," Makoto smiled. The two held gazes for a moment, before they both shared a grin and a giggle.

Leon felt the gazes of the class on him and glanced around. Looks of approval were shot his way from everyone from Aoi to even Kyoko sending him a gaze of relief. Makoto's bad mood had been worrying everyone. When he came in that morning, Taka had strode up to the student, ready to admonish him for the missing key, but had all but stopped dead at the sight of sad eyes, and hunched, broken shoulders. He'd instead decided to find the keys himself, and instead asked Makoto to be more careful. Since then, the class had been keeping a close eye on the lucky student. He was the heart of class 78, in a way. If the class rep position hadn't been chosen so early, and Taka wasn't such an obvious candidate for the position, he'd have won the spot by a landslide.

Now that Makoto was being cheered up, Leon was ready to commence the next step. Find out what Junko had done to tear up Makoto so badly. He clenched his fist. Junko wouldn't get away with her antics this time.

wwwwwwwwwwwwww

Hey, so author here again. Sorry to everyone who read this chapter when it went up the first time; shout-out to the lovely commentor who initially made me aware of the issue with their blunt (if not wonderfully entertaining) review: "For the love of God, fix your code."

Hopefully, the code is now fixed. This is, unfortunately, not the first and probably not the last time I'll have this issue. If you haven't encountered it before on any of my stories, welcome to the "FanFiction Hates Luna Club." Anyway, I moved up the updates because I decided that it wasn't fair that AO3 was like four chapters ahead, and now I'm evening the score. Sorry for the delay, the usual excuses apply, yadda yadda, hope you enjoyed!