Leah was tall, blond, beautiful – and Kimiko's best friend. She paced slowly around her sandy house driveway in shiny leather platformed boots, laced to her knees. Her skirt was a short, tight, black one, and across her turquoise silk jacket she had one arm folded, the other slackly holding a cigarette. Her face held an expression which could've been interpreted as something between boredom and worry. With her long wavy extensions, flicked fringe and fake eyelashes, along with all this, she looked like some kind of punk Barbie. She was the girl everyone seemed to know.

"Hey, L!"

Seconds after taking another drag of her cigarette, Leah turned to see Kimiko clomping excitedly towards her, purse in hand and a ready-to-party expression stamped on her face.

"Hey," she answered, less enthusiastically, as her friend hugged her. "-listen, Kim…"

"-Are we gonna get going now?!" Kimiko beamed, completely oblivious to the fact L wasn't feeling the same vibe as her.

"-No, erm…" Leah took a last drag of her cigarette, looking down, then flicked it somewhere to the left.

"What's up?" although Kimiko's voice was still high-pitched and excited, her big smile had dissolved to a little tense frown.

"…I'm not feeling too good, K," Leah said, sighing, and folding both arms completely over her stomach, "I don't think I can-"

"-Oh c'mon, you've been talking all week about this.."

"-I know, but listen-"

"-You can't just blow off Kai's party now just because you're on your period or something!"

There was a sudden pause in which Leah was looking down to her shoes, biting her lip, then her head suddenly jolted back up and her eyes darted to left and right as if to check whether anyone was listening to the conversation.

"Oh god, Leah…"

"-Come inside with me please."

She grabbed Kimiko gently by the shoulder and the two girls then began to make their way towards Leah's front door. As they entered Kimiko's mind was asking a lot of questions, but in the centre of it all there was still the party.

____________________________________________________________________

As Leah pushed Kimiko quickly in the direction of her bedroom, they passed her mom who was in the kitchen.

"-Hey, I thought you girls were going to-"

"-Not now, Mom…" Leah said firmly, as she opened the door and pushed Kimiko in. She immediately landed her butt on the silk sheets of Leah's bed. Leah turned to face her friend, shutting the door behind her with both hands on the knob, sighing deeply.

"L…" Kimiko said, her shoulders tense and an eyebrow raised, "…what's going on?"

Leah sighed again, and then approached the bed. She sat down next to Kimiko, hunched forward with her fingers playing on her pink lips.

"…The thing is, K-" she responded, now sitting up a little and staring straight forward, "-I haven't had my period for 3 weeks now."

Kimiko's mind went completely blank as soon as it clicked on to what her best friend was trying to say. She'd so been looking forward to the party, and now it'd come to this – something she totally hadn't expected. Of course, she immediately felt for L, too.

"Wha-oh my god… really, Leah?"

Leah nodded. "I think it's Joshua's."

Kimiko immediately leant across the bed and hugged Leah tightly.

"…What should I do?" she hugged Kimiko back.

When K let go, the two were looking into each other's eyes and holding hands.

"….Get a test tomorrow." Kimiko said, trying to smile understandingly.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, tomorrow."

Leah suddenly released her hand and ruffled her hair for a few seconds. She was now smiling the smile everyone loved to see.

"-Okay… for now, let's go party!"

…

And so off the two best friends went. It had been a very deep-talking night for Kimiko, with the whole situation with Master F and now L's possible pregnancy… but still, a party was a party, and there was no chance she was gonna miss out on any.