"Hayate, open the door!" I yelled. I was swaying dangerously in the elevator. My head felt ridiculously heavy on my neck, despite the meds Han gave me. The longer I stood there, the dizzier I felt.

"Rin, it's the middle of the night!" His voice came over the speakers.

"You know I don't have time during the day." I shot back.

"You would've seen me during the day next Saturday when we visited mom and dad." He reminded. Aw, crap. Totally forgot. "What couldn't wait?"

"I need to borrow your old hover board. Kaede's going to show me how to wire one." I lied. I quickly sent a ping to Kaede asking him to work on a few mods so I could at least have him to back me up. I didn't think Hayate would put the pieces together and tell Takashi, but I wasn't going to take any chances.

"I can show you that." He responded, sounded offended.

"But Kaede-" I began. I was cut off by both Hayate's scoff as he began to mock him, and Kaede's ping say that he was in the middle of a break and I could come now if I wanted. I started grinning; Kaede might not have a lot of patience with me, but he loved trying to turn me into a tech head. It was very rare that he actually had time, though.

"I'll grab it and be gone." I interrupted. He sighed, and I started get very anxious. "Please, he's waiting on me!"

"Fine." He bit out grudgingly. The elevator dropped to his floor.

"Just wait and let me-" He began when he opened the door to his apartment. Completely ignoring him, I ducked under his arm and scurried in."-get it." He let out the breath he was holding in exasperation and slammed the door. I glanced back to see him run a hand through the long bangs that hung in front of the right side of his face. I knew he liked it because it came him a little of bit of a bad guy look when paired with his usual scowling expression, but I never understood how he saw where he was going.

"Still in the closet?" I asked as I shoved the doors open without waiting for a reply. He sighed deeply and pushed me to the side so he could reach to the top to pull it down.

"Why can't you use yours?" He asked with a grunt as he yanked it off the top shelf.

"Remember the last time I tried to learn a lesson about circuits on my own hover board?" I asked sarcastically.

I had accidentally messed with the lifters, which is a huge problem. Kaede made me fix it myself and I spent several painfully long weeks trapped in my dorm room at night while I tried to get it working again because I didn't have enough merits to get a newer, decent one. I was furious with Kaede, but I understood why he made me figure it out for myself when I eventually got it reprogrammed to be better than it was before. Proud that I now had a better understanding of technology, Kaede had surprised me with the faster hover board that now laid at the bottom of a mountain stream. Depending on how long it spent down there, it might be salvageable when the water level dropped, but I didn't have time to wait for that.

"No. I don't." He shot back.

"Well, it wasn't good." I replied in a snipped tone as I reached to grab the hover board from his hands that were lifted above his head. He was taller than me, and wouldn't let me get a hold of it.

"Does this have anything to do with our bet?" He asked suspiciously. I arched an eyebrow in a way I hoped he found convincing.

"Nope. I won yesterday." I jumped for the board he was holding aloft, but he rocked on his toes so the board was just above my fingertips.

"You didn't." He replied in shock.

"I did. No one in the clique knew you had a sister. Someone wanted to meet me." I lied. His eyebrows furrowed in disbelieve. "Give me the hover board! Kaede's waiting!"

"You're lying." He accused.

"I am not." I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. The words did loose a little power with the way my stopped up nose made them sound. His lips pressed together. "Look, I know you don't want anyone to know about me, so I'm not going to go to the bash. I just got the invite." I changed tactics.

He looked taken aback by that statement. His arms drooped a little bit and I gently started trying to tug the hover board out of his grasp. He let his arms drop down in front of him as he stared at me with his lips pressed together in thought and his forehead scrunched. His grip on the edge of the metal surface of the board only got tighter though.

"Kaede only takes short breaks when he's working on something; if I don't hurry, he won't have time to teach me tonight." I reminded as I tugged at the board in his hands. His expression darkened.

"Why do you always go to Kaede?" He asked harshly.

"He's always wanted to turn me into tech head and he loves it when I ask him for help." I answered in confusion. He was always teasing Kaede about opening himself up to torture when he did something like this with me. He and I couldn't do stuff like this together without trying to rip each other's throats out.

"Just give her the board." A familiar almost raspy voice ordered from the doorway. It didn't sound that different when it wasn't slurred with alcohol.

I glanced over my shoulder before I could stop myself. Takashi was sprawled on the couch in his party clothes with a drink in his hand. Two more were sitting on the table in front of him; probably Hayate's and another Crim's that had already left. He was staring at me with a practiced look of condescending boredom.

I felt myself pale slightly, but it was probably not very noticeable considerably my face was still slightly flushed with fever. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed him. I turned back to Hayate before I could stare like an idiot any more. I raised my eyebrows at him, hoping he would listen to Takashi.

"You're face is red." He teased. He swiped a hand out to mess with my hair like he did when I was little to torment me. He frowned the second his pinky brushed my forehead. I realized too late I should have tried to dodge; he didn't need to know how I got sick. I was much to tired to deal with him mocking me for not getting out of the rain or for falling in the stream.

"How long have you had a fever?" He asked sharply.

"'bout an hour?" I estimated. "I'm fine. It'll go down in no time." I snatched for the board, but even one handed his grip was too strong. He was now almost glaring at me.

"I think it's about time I left." Takashi commented from the other room, apparently sensing the tension between the two of us. I heard the glass clink on the table.

"No, stay." I looked over my shoulder at him. His eyebrows shot up. Apparently he wasn't used to having extras tell him what to do. "I'm leaving." I turned back to Hayate. "Give me the board."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Takashi." He called without looking away from me. Takashi passed with a nod to both of us before he strolled out the door.

"Why'd you do that? If you'd given me the board, I'd have been gone." I asked. He sighed.

"How did you get a fever anyway? Please tell me you weren't in the rain." He ignored my question. I didn't say anything. "That's so stupid! Your board's too fast for the rain; you're lucky you didn't slide backwards off of it when the top got wet."

"I'm okay," I reminded as I let my grasp on the hover board drop.

"Would you admit it if you weren't?" He shot back as he lifted the board back onto the top shelf. My heart sank; without that I was screwed.

"I am." I said again. He pinched the bridge of his nose to quell the coming head ache and stepped around me towards the couch. I stood on the point of my toes and tried to reach the board.

"Stop that and come over here." He ordered in frustration from the other room where he was watching the wall screen after I didn't come in myself after a few minutes. I sighed and sat on the other end of the couch. Flicking my eye screen back up, I pinged Kaede telling him I wouldn't make it tonight.

I chewed my lip in frustration. I was exhausted; the cold had sucked the energy out of my body and I felt like I could sleep for a year, but that wasn't optional. I needed to be working on mods for a hover board tonight, especially since Han was coaching me tomorrow.

"Why do you need my hover board so bad?" He asked. "You're good enough now that you won't mess anything up on yours. Wait, nothing happened to yours, right?" I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and saw him completely immersed in the feed in front of him. I wondered if he was really listening for the answer. "It was you wasn't it?"

I glanced over at him in shock. "What?"

"I know your voice." He deadpanned. I put my face in my hands. I really didn't want to deal with this tonight.

"Yeah, it was." I answered shortly. I peeked through my fingers at him. His face looked tenser than I liked. "He'll never know it was me. No name, no face, and probably no victory. I'll be laughed at for a week, then everyone will be distracted by something else."

. "You still can't use my board; that' s too big a risk for me." He deadpanned. "You might screw yourself socially, but you won't do the same to me." I sighed.

"I can't use my own board." I admitted. "And whatever happened to 'there's no bad publicity as long as your in your mansion with your disposable clothes, blah.'" I misquoted snarkily.

"So, okay, I lied. And why can't you use your own board?" He almost whined.

"No time." He sighed.

"Even if you had a year to add mods to your hover board, he'd still beat you because he's a better rider." He reminded.

"You haven't seen me ride a hover board since I was an ugly." I retorted.

"Do I need to? The surge doesn't add coordination or grace." He replied arrogantly.

"I find help somewhere else." I stood to leave. I got dizzy about halfway up and had to cling to the arm of the couch to steady myself.

"You're staying here tonight." He ordered. "You can't fly like that."

"I walked." I replied stiffly before I prissed out the door, completely ignoring his protests.

Z

"Kaede, Hayate wouldn't let me borrow his board. Do you have one?" I was now braced in the corner of the elevator, hoping my eldest brother could at least help me.

"Yeah, it's a pretty good one." His voice came over the speakers as the elevator shot up to his floor.

When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was the amount of wires and circuits scattered across the floor of the apartment. Kaede was in the middle of them, squinting at a piece of machinery I didn't recognize. He had one hand fisted in his close cropped hair in frustration, and I knew that meant he wasn't going to want to put up with me tonight and I was going to have to do most of the mods myself.

Kaede didn't look up from what he was doing, so I started to hunt for the board myself. I found it at the bottom of a pile of scrap hover cams and other things he used to work on when he was bored. My heart sank a little bit. It was big and would have a lot of power, but he had pulled a few of the inner parts out to use on other projects. It would take a lot of work to get it ready to race. I only had three days to go.

Z

"Why don't you understand this?" Kaede finally exploded in frustration. I was exhausted, almost too sick to keep my aching head up, and having a horribly difficult time trying to undo the damage he had done to the board. He had been so absorbed in his project, that he hardly took the time to answer questions, and when he did, he was snippy and aggravated when I didn't get it right the first time.

"This is the most complicated mod I've ever tried to do from scratch." I snapped back.

"Just leave it; the sun's almost up, we can do it tomorrow." He went back to working on whatever he was doing. I scrunched my forehead up, thinking that maybe there shouldn't be a we involving my brothers. It dawned on me that maybe he was being cryptic with his instructions on purpose. If Hayate took his head out of his butt long enough to realize it was me on the feeds, than so did Kaede. I got my answer a few minutes later when he muttered something about a 'cry for attention'. Neither of them seemed very happy about this upcoming race, and with the way they both obsessed over the numbers more than they would admit, I couldn't blame them. No one wanted to be famous because they were a laughing stock.

Ignoring his instruction, I finished the mod I was working on. As I worked, I couldn't help but think I made the right choice contacted Han.

"Don't try flying that until I look over you're work." He warned when he saw me getting ready to leave.

Of course I didn't listen. After making some scary changes with the way my board worked last time, I had done phenomenally well this time. Everything needed tweaking, but at least I was staying in the sky. As sick as I felt right then, that in itself was a small miracle.

The sun was just starting to rise when I reached my dorm building. I paused at my window, trying to decide if I wanted to watch the sun rise. Deciding I couldn't stay awake long enough, I jumped through my window and pulled in my board.

I practically threw myself onto the soft mattress, before I yanked the covers on top of me without bothering to undress. This had been one of the longest nights of my life. My eyelids were just drifting shut when I heard the ping in my ear. Sighing, I flexed my fingers and waited impatiently for my eye screen to pop up. It was Hayate, and he sounded very offended that I had left to go Kaede's. He sarcastically wished me luck getting home.

My fist was almost already curled to turn off my eye screen when a second ping came in. This one was from Han and it contained nothing but a place and a time. My lips pulled up in a grin. With his help and my new hover board, for the first time, it looked like I might actually be a contender.