[AUTHORSNOTES] I'm so sorry about the delay on these chapters – my internet went down on the way through. Anyway, here is another chapter for you all to enjoy, and while it may look like the story isn't exactly going anywhere yet, there are relevent points in these chapters – you just have to look for them =)

CHAPTER FIVE: Touch!

The skies outside were still nice and bright, a kind of calming blue against the horizon of yellow and white that was the deserts. Serah stretched slightly as she walked out of the academy, dragging her feet along the ground a little as she did so. Feeling more than content with the awesome lunch Maka had shouted her, Serah decided it would be appropriate to go out and try out her circlets. Calling them 'new' circlets made it sound like she had owned a pair before, and didn't seem to fit for some reason. She glanced up at the chuckling sun as she began to walk properly, before a voice echoed throughout the area with a loud and resounding boom from above – although to her, the voice had a similar effect to a blood-curdling shriek, and it had her suddenly come to a dead halt.

"There you are!" The loud and obnoxious voice shouted, and Serah felt her right eye begin to twitch from behind her glasses. For someone who she had never met until that afternoon, she was beginning to hate hearing him speak. "You're going to pay for making a fool out of me!" That twitching eye of hers stopped as she heard the volume of those words become louder and louder far too quickly, and as she snapped her gaze to the top balcony of the Academy, she spotted him – that moroncalled Black Star, and he was coming at her with a clenched fist pulled back, as if he had leapt from the balcony with the intention to leap at her – or rather, that's what it looked like to her, in any case.

Serah's feet acted before she could even think of what to do – she had somehow jumped backwards a few paces, stumbled a few paces back further, and as she continued to lose balance, her bag dragged her the rest of the way to fall flat on her back and hit her head against the pavement in the same motion. Taking in a sharp breath through her gritted teeth, Serah placed a hand to the back of her head out of reaction, glaring up at the gloating form of Black Star with a venomous glint.

"What the hell do you want now?" Serah spat, looking down at her hand as she pulled it from the back of her head – a couple of flecks of blood here and there – it looked like she had just grazed her head with the contact to the pavement, just her luck. That was going to make her life with hair brushes a royal pain. She blinked after a few seconds, looking at the busted remains of her box, where the Circlets had actually torn through the box. Blood flecked the white surface of the circlet blades, and as Serah looked to the source of blood, she noticed that the forearm of her left arm had a neat gash sliced along the length of her arm by the exposed Circlet blade. The other Circlet blade was sitting in her lap, dangerously close to slicing into her stomach, and Serah had to count her lucky stars that she hadnt taken a stronger grip of the box.

"I was going to demand payback for what happened earlier, but you can't even stand up against me." Black Star chortled, and as Serah cast him a more intense glare, he seemed to laugh more and more, and it just confirmed Serah's impression of him – he seemed more like a hawing donkey than anything else. Serah shook her head as she carefully pulled her whtie and orange top off, and wrapped it around the busted box to try and keep the Circlets from poking out and causing more damage.

"Fine, you've gotten your payback. Are you happy now?" Serah ground out, dragging herself to her feet gingerly as she stopped herself from actually biting – she didn't have any real proof, but she had the suspision that he was baiting her into getting into a fight with him. She touched the bridge of her nose carefully, finding that her glasses must have slipped off in the moment that she had hit her head, for they were no longer in their usual place upon her nose.

"You're totally weak – How could someone as weak as you steal the spotlight from me?" Black Star continued to speak, however, Serah was beyond listening to him – she didn't even hear him as she looked around to try and find her glasses. She finally spotted them several feet away, on the very edge of the steps down towards the bulk of Death City. Walking over as casually as she could manage, she ignored the exclamation of something from Black Star as she crouched down to pick up her glasses. She looked down at the lenses carefully, letting out an irritated breath through her nose as she observed the cracks through the tinted glass – well, it looked like she needed to buy another pair, which was unfortunate; She actually liked this pair. "You're ignoring me, aren't you!" She snapped her gaze to where Black Star was standing behind her, to fix him with the most filthy glare she could muster at that moment.

"No, I'm going home!" Serah spoke bitterly, lifting herself back to her feet as she folded her now broken glasses up. A kind of noise of shock escaped Black Star as she directed her angry glare away from him, and in the moment that she took a step to leave, she bumped into someone that had suddenly appeared in the half a second that she had placed her attention back to Black Star. She almost slipped, but secured herself in place as she snapped her gaze to whoever she had bumped into – when she found herself face to face with the one person she least expected to bump into during such a situation – she had only managed to spot the tiniest touches of gold before she practically bounced off him, and down a couple of steps to the right. A vivid flush of red touched the sides of her face as embarrasment took complete control of her facial features, and she could feel that horrible squirming feeling of a mild version of humiliation overcoming her.

"I-I'm so sorry!" Serah managed to grind out, and as she glanced at the barely-jostled Death The Kid, she felt her right foot slip on the step, sending her to slamming her knee upon the steps before she even knew what had hit her. A pained gasp escaped Serah as she forced herself to her feet as soon as she could manage, and as she heard someone begin to say something, she was practically limping down the steps at a run before she could even comprehend what had happened.

Slowing to a kind of hobble several hundred meters into the maze of Death City, Serah let out a shaky breath through her nose as she looked down at her broken glasses in her hand. A perfectly awesome day had turned into a perfectly horrible nightmare as soon as Black Star decided to notice her for some unexplainable reason. She'd have coped with the whole lot, if her glasses hadn't of gotten broken through all that – if her glasses had of miraculously survived being hurdled to the ground like that, she would have been happy enough to push that foolfrom her mind. But oh no – He had to pick on her during lunch, then leap at her, making her crack her head against the pavement, gash her arm open, and break her glasses all in the one moment.

Gash her arm open … Serah let out a breath as she rearranged everything in her grip to look down at her most prominent injury – yep, her arm was gashed; the injury was about ten centimeters long, and seemed to be around half a centimeter deep. Blood was running down the arm and dripping off as she walked, making it seem worse than it actually was? Serah took thanks in the fact that the gash hadn't hit bone or anything. Just a hell of a lot of Suchers and a nice amount of bandages would fix it – Serah was thankful that her clumbsiness had her invest in all manner of medical supplies. Her knee protested in her continuing on walking, however she merely paid no attention to it – when she got home, she'd let it get it's way.

Serah's foot caught on something, and as she began to stumble forward, all thoughts that had been running through her head disappeared within an instance. As she stumbled forward a pace more, she managed to stop herself from falling face first into the curbing of the road, which was a very, very good thing – her remaining shreds of good temperament was dwindling in the balance. Straightening herself up, she glared down at the ground where she had tripped first off, to see that she had managed to catch the tiniest of the upturned paving she had been walking upon – Talk about bad luck - Serah was beginning to wonder if she should retire for the day, in case something worse decides to rear it's ugly head.

Shaking her head in frustration, Serah increased her grip of the tank top bound box, deciding that she should go home, attend to her injuries, gorge on the seasoned seaweed she managed to get hold of last week, and then she would go to bed. It made no sense for her to continue on like this without any real closing thought. Oh that 'prick' was going to be the Death of her, she was sure of it.

"You alright?" Came a voice from behind, causing Serah to blink through her annoyance. Bringing her gaze back to focus, Serah looked over at where the voice had come from, to see a vaguely familiar form standing a few meters away. She eyed her suspiciously, before she realised where she had seen this person before – she was always following Death The Kid around with the other one … Patty? Serah didn't really know, she heard someone say the name Patty often in class, but she never took any real notice as to who the name belonged to. She could feel that her expression didn't look plesant, and she wasn't actually in the mood for cheering up – to put it bluntly.

"I'm fine." Serah ground out, turning on her heel to begin to leave again – all she wanted was to go home, already!

"Really?" The young woman called Liz commented, sarcasm dripping from her one word with sickly intensity. Serah came to a halt again, slowly, and she closed her eyes as she let out a breath slowly. No, she wasn't fine,she was quite simply, pissed off … or more to the point, she felt like she had just been humiliated by that blue haired obnoxious boy she was really beginning to hate. No, it wasn't really hate, she just had nothing but bad confontations with him, and she was hoping more than anything else, that there wouldn't be a next time.

"Kinda ..." Serah commented wearily after a few moments, looking back at Liz over her shoulder carefully. "I just wanna go home." It was in that moment, when she had calmed down enough to answer honestly, that Liz seemed to drop a fair portion of that look of boredom, and she began to approach after a moment.

"Well, you're bleeding, so I guess I'll help you with your stuff." She spoke, and Serah let out a breath through her nose slowly as she placed her gaze back ahead of her carefully.

"I can carry it myself." She spoke, hearing the sounds of footsteps approaching, until Liz had come to a stop just next to her, with her arms outstretched for the box Serah was holding with the tank top wrapped around. "No, seriously, I can carry my own belongings."

"And stop the bleeding at the same time?" Liz spoke, and Serah didn't need to see the rasied eyebrow to know that there was disbelief there – the tone of her voice was plenty enough for her to notice. Letting out another breath, Serah reluctantly handed Liz the box bound in the tank top, and as she looked down at her arm, she noticed the amound of blood running down her fingertips – oh, she hoped she didn't get blood over Death The Kid when she bumped into him. She'd let Liz help her out, until she was at home, then that was end of story – she didn't like the idea of someone she only really knew the name of to be helping her out like this – at least while she was in such a bad mood. "Are you normally injuring yourself like this?"

"Kinda." Serah spoke, beginning to make her way onwards home, and Liz began to follow after a second. "I'm clumbsy, so sharp objects are dangerous." Silence decended on Serah like a thick cloud of smog, and while she was content to keep it that way, she couldn't help but feel that she really was being rude. Letting out a breath, Serah scratched the back of her head with a hand, ignoring the flickering of pain that was beginning to surface in her arm – now that she was calming down, she could actually feel the pain becoming more intense. She did notice, however, that Liz was alone – no younger sister, or Meister with her at all, which prompted a mild form of curiosity; although in her current mood, it looked more like a bitter attempt at conversation to others, she would assume.

"You're not with the other two?" Serah asked after a moment, lowering her arm as they passed Soul and Maka's place – only a couple of streets away now.

"No." Liz spoke, that same boredom in her voice as the last few statements – she must really lead a cynical life if this was how she normally spoke. "Patty's calming Kid down." Calming Death The Kid Down? What the heck happened in the twenty seconds or so that it took for her to bump into him, and for Liz to catch up with her.

"Calming Death The Kid down?" Serah repeated after a moment, looking over her shoulder, to look a Liz.

"He started throwing a tantrum cause you got blood on his coat." Liz answered, and for some reason, Serah began to wonder how blood getting on his coat would make him throw a trantrum of sorts? It certainly didn't sound like something that any normal person would do – Hell, most people would see if the person bleeding was alright - and at that thought, Serah really did begin to feel like she should be slapped. "So what exactly happened, anyway?"

"Happened when?" Serah asked after a few moments, a tone of mild surprise in her voice as she looked at Liz again – she had been lost in thought about how horribly she was acting.

"To your arm."

"Oh." Serah spoke, mentally slapping herself for that one – she should have expected that at the very least. "I slipped when Black Star leapt out at me." She looked down at the pavement ahead of her as she turned down the last street towards her house. "The weapon in that box you've got there broke out on the way down."

"I see." Liz's voice spoke, and Serah let out another breath as she looked ahead for her house – this was becoming far to awkward for her – she just wanted to mend her arm and go have a long, hot bath.

Serah's house came to view, causing Serah to feel a bit of relief as she looked around at Liz, who was still carrying that box for her – but with a bit more care, Serah noticed. She came to a halt just a few paces from the door, turning to see that Liz had come to a halt as well, and she had a raised eyebrow.

"Thanks for the help." Serah spoke, and she saw Liz glance up at the house after a second. "I can take that box again."

"Sure." Liz spoke with that air of boredom, however Serah had long since decided that this was how the woman was. Serah reached out for the box, cringing in pain as she pressed the box into the wrong part of her arm.

"Bye." Serah spoke, just before Liz was about to say something, however the strange woman didn't frown – she remained silent for a few moments.

"Later." She spoke, and within a few moments, she was on her way, leaving Serah standing on the doorstep of her little house. Serah let out a breath slowly through her nose, pushing the door open carefully as she began to focus on working on necessary jobs – like mending her arm and then cleaning all the blood from her belongings.

For a day that started out so promising, it had turned into a real nightmare.