Snap.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii." The voice called, droning like a swarm of rather boring bees. The girl struggled bravely on, pen still posed to paper ready to finish this maths question. She gritted her teeth as the noise still continued. "Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

It was okay, she could stand this. She just had to focus on her problems, and not-

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Not snap her pencil in half in annoyance. She sighed. Tomo, she decided, was taking advantage of her new found freedom given to her by her parents when she became a high school student too much, by coming over to her house almost every day in the evenings.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Tomo owed her a damn pencil.

Recorded.

Having replaced her pencil with a fresh one from the pot on her desk, she was almost tempted to look around and see what Tomo was doing, but Yomi thought against it. Attention was what she wanted: hers would be better focused on the quadratic equation she needed to solve here. Time went by without any disturbance from behind her, and she almost hoped the other girl had gone to sleep, or something else had distracted her. Possibly shiny.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

That was it. Yomi spun around in her chair and faced Tomo.

Or at least the top of her hair. Tomo was lying face down, possibly asleep, head in a manga book. She turned back, glad Tomo had not seen that she was getting to the taller girl.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"What is it Tomo?"

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Tomo..."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Standing up with enough force to knock her chair over, Yomi strode over to Tomo and lifted her up by the shoulders.

"What." She said, stressing the end of each word, "is. It. Tomo?"

The wild cat gave a weak smile and held up a small tape recorder with a speaker attached. Even as Yomi leaned in for a closer look, she pressed the play button.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

The sudden noise so close to her shocked Yomi, and she jumped back almost far enough to collide with her fallen chair, stopping herself at the last moment.

"Gahaha! Your face! Haha!" A small laughing ball lay on the floor, rolling from side to side. Tomo had tears in her eyes at the success of her rather juvinal prank, and was about to rise up for a second round of mocking when she found Yomi's face an inch from hers, glasses gleaming brightly. Then, in a burst of sound which sent Tomo's ears ringing, she said three words.

"Shut. Up. I.d.i.o.t!"

Lunch

Sakaki sat alone in the classroom, quietly eating her lunch. Usually Kaorin sat near her, eating in silence; Sakaki guessed the girl was as shy as she was, but she was ill today. Sakaki sighed as she looked over her classmates all eating together, when a small hand tugged on her sleeve.

"Sakaki-san?" asked Chiyo, her sweet eyes gazing directly into the other girls. Sakaki felt a blush on her cheeks rising.
"Sakaki-san, would you like to eat with us?" Her arm flicked back, pointing at Tomo, Yomi and Chiriro, all sitting around a couple of desks.

"Ah...if you don't mind...Chiyo-chan."

A beaming, adorable smile was her reward.

"Of course not, Sakaki-san!"

As Sakaki sat down, Tomo jogged the table with her foot as she preformed one of her wild gestures.

"Yahoo! Meatballs and egg roll! Yay! Yahoo!"

This had the unfortunate implication of knocking Sakaki's food flying: the lidless box flew neatly across the floor, spilling its contents in a neat pile.

This heap would be possibly salvageable if a boy from the class hadn't then stepped on it.

Oh dear.

Foundations

Sakaki only vaguely heard the hurried apologies, as she was already grabbing the class dustpan and brush and doing her best to tidy up the mess. Her stomach rumbled slightly as she did so; she tried not to think about the three more hungry hours she was going to have to get through before home where she could eat.

Before she knew what was happening, another pair of hands appeared by her side, holding another brush. Yomi glanced at her and said, in a dead pan voice Sakaki guessed was caused by dealing with Tomo "You don't have to do everything by yourself, Sakaki."

Returning to her seat around the group to get her stuff before the start of next lesson, Sakaki had just turned away when Tomo tapped her on the shoulder. Turning, she saw the hyperactive girl looking ever so slightly sheepish, before a big smile went across her face and she grabbed Sakaki's hand.

"Ehh, don't worry about it!" She said, slipping something wrapped in a cloth into Sakaki's hand. "You don't worry about it, do you Sakaki-san?"Sakaki shook her head in the negative, then Tomo continued. "Great! Nothing to worry about then."

Exactly what was inside the cloth Sakaki didn't get to see then, as Yukari strode into the room in characteristic bad temper, and called for all to enter their seats.

Around half way through the lesson, Sakaki risked it and opened the bundle, hidden behind her propped up English textbook.

There, lying in the red fabric, was a meatball and an eggroll. She glanced over at Tomo, who, guessing correctly what she had done, gave her the thumbs up, and gestured her to eat the snacks, Tomo's favourites.

Sakaki bit into the two items with relish, still hungry from not getting lunch. She gave a nodded thanks to Tomo, who gave another thumbs up before Yukari hit her with the chalk.

The day continued on normally, but Sakaki left school with a light heart. It was only a little, but the foundation of friendships, something she had few of in middle school, were definitely forming, with little acts of kindness.

She thought high school was going to be good.