(A/N: This is where the story begins to pick up. Hope you guys enjoy!)

OPERATION!FRIENDSHIP

2
friends take initiative

::-::

I thrust the door of Classroom S-6 open with my elbow, putting my hands on my hips and searching for Hu.

"Wow, Pascal," I hear Cheria say with an uneasy smile on her face. "You seem... er... lively, today."

Lively? Wonder what she means by that. Oh, there's Hu! ...In the corner, reading some really thick and complicated book about the origins of calculus and all that whatnot. (Why am I not surprised?)

I walk over to him. He looks up with an impassive expression.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

Well, sheesh. Way to greet an old once-a-horrible-enemy-but-now-a-kind-of-but-not-really-friendly-acquaintance. His tone might not be cold, but it's sure not welcoming. Yeah, we kinda had drama in the past, so I guess I can understand. I mean, it's better than how he talks with most girls, but that's because those girls are always asking him out. And Hu hates it when girls ask him out.

"Uhhh..."

"Can I help you?" he repeats.

"Errr... Yes! Yes you can." I pause for a moment before bursting out. "Hu, let's go out."

I swear that it's suddenly so quiet you could hear a pin drop. (I never got that idiom, because first I thought it was bowling pins and that you could hear them drop no matter how noisy it was—just look at bowling alleys!—and then I thought actual pins would be way too quiet to hear them drop. But now I really do understand. It's really that quiet.)

I'm pretty sure everyone's looking at us. Most of 'em look plenty shocked. Some of the girls look really nasty. Hu looks super startled, and if I didn't know better, I'd say he's blushing a little.

"Pascal, just what are you insinuating...?"

"Holey guacamole—! No, that's not what I meant! I mean let's go outside! Outside!"

But the room still feels tense. So tense that you could snap a rubber band. One of those really stretchy ones, too, not the wimpy ones.

"Very well." He gets up and walks out.

Oh well, at least it's break so the teachers won't yell at us.

Cheria taps my shoulder as I walk by. "Good luck."

"Don't worry! Luck is my middle name and Lady Luck is my mother!" Or would that make that luck my last name? Whatever.

We pull outside of the classroom to where the fall leaves are falling on the ground. (Get it? Fall? Autumn? Fall? Haha? I'm so punny! ...Yeah, I guess that sucked.) It reminds me of what was happening around this time two years ago, when Dad first introduced me to Hu. I kept calling him Li'l Bro back then because he always got super fired up whenever I did. It was really funny.

"What is it?"

Hu's tapping his foot and his expression's pretty impassive, but his voice is strangely gentle.

"Er... just wanted to say hi?"

"A simple greeting would have sufficed indoors," Hu points out.

I expect him to leave after that, but he doesn't. Kinda strange. It seems like he's actually waiting for me to say something. Something that he's wanted to hear for awhile. Like a kid on Christmas Eve. Maybe not that eager, but... you know what I mean.

What do I say now? 'I just wanted to talk to you because we haven't done that in forever?' 'I actually kinda have a big thing for you now?' 'Weather's nice?'

I guess the last one could do for an icebreaker. "Nice weather we're having, huh?"

"Pascal. It's raining." Hu looks toward the trees. Sure enough, there's rain running down the branches. Funky. I hadn't even noticed.

"Oh. Right."

"Come, Pascal." He folds his arms. He looks equal parts patronizing and equal parts cool when he does that. "You looked as if you wished to speak about something important."

I hear myself sigh. Should I just come out and say it?

Yeah, why not. This is Hu. He likes honestly.

"I just... I kinda miss you, Hu. Can't we, like, try to be friends? Like get past everything and talk again?"

Hu's brow twists into a really strange expression, like he's thinking about waaaay too much waaaaay too fast and his brain is about to blow up. "Very well," he says, and turns and leaves.

Wait, what?

Did he just say that? Did he just say we could be friends? Did he really say that?

I hadn't thought it would be so... so simple. So... easy.

Oh well. I guess these things happen when you're the daughter of Lady Luck. You probably tend to get pretty lucky yourself.

::-::

"Hey, did you hear?"

"What? What? About who?"

"Pascal. And Hubert. She asked him out!"

"Oh my gosh. She did not."

"She's so sloppy. So clumsy. Ugh! Who would want a drab like her?"

"Obviously not Hubert. He rejected her pretty fast."

"Aww, the poor thing. It's a pity there's nothing attractive about her..."

Hubert Oswell's eyelid twitched. He slammed his copy of Twenty Advanced Mathematical Theorems and Their Origins against the library table (gently, for it was an excellent book and he didn't want to damage it), rose, and strode to the adjacent table, his signature trenchcoat rippling about long, lanky slacks.

"Pardon the intrusion." He glared over the top of his glasses at the three gossiping girls. "You are distracting me from my studies. Kindly refrain from speaking so you will not make yourself sound more idiotic than you already are."

Without another word, he turned and swept back to his table, leaving the girls with their jaws on the floor.

::-::

After school, I decided to stick around. Gotta wait for Hu and all. I mean, I really do want to be friends. Even if he's uncomfortable with walking home together... Well, too bad. We live close by anyway.

I see him storming out of the school gates, a volume as thick as his head clutched tightly beneath one arm. Well, that's one way to make an appearance.

"Hey Huuuuuu!" I call, waving my hands avidly.

He stops short when he sees me. It might just be me, but he looks a little... angry.

"Hu?" I ask timidly, walking up to him. I catch a glance of the book title: Twenty Advanced Mathematical Theorems and Their Origins. Ahh, typical Hu. "Hu, is something wrong?"

Hu turns away. Really fast. "Pascal. What are you doing here?"

I decide to be honest. Again. "I was waiting for ya. Thought we could walk home together and all that."

Hu's silent for a little while. "I don't believe that is a wise choice."

I expected this, but what surprises me is his tone. It's not cold, or angry, or annoyed... but flat. Like he's saying something he doesn't believe.

"Aww, c'mon! Don't be like that!" I reach up to tousle his hair, but stop just a few inches away. Just 'cause we're trying to become friends again doesn't mean I can act like nothing happened, after all. "I've already decided, Li'l Bro!"

Hu's shoulders stiffen, and he strides off without a word.

"Hey!" I sprint after him. (Hate his long legs. HATE them.) "C'mon, Hu, I was just teasing."

"So I noticed." He barely cuts down his pace, but it still makes a difference.

I slow to a jog. "Why do you hate that nickname so much? I think it's cute."

Hu casts me a dour glance. "'Cute' is hardly how a man should like to appear in front of the person he—never mind."

He slows down even more until I'm walking next to him. "But I like it," I say.

"I don't," he says.

Well, I guess I'll never understand boys... but come to think of it, since I kinda have a thing for Hu, it does seem pretty weird to call him 'Li'l Bro.'

"Sooo," I say, trying to break the awkward wall between us, "how's it going?"

"In what area?"

"Um... I dunno." Man, this is awful. Not the awkwardness... I'd kinda been expecting that. But it's awful to think we were once super comfortable with each other, and now... "How about food?"

Hu seems startled. "...Food?"

"Yeah! Y'know, food? Munchables?" He's still confused. Maybe I should try translating it to Hubertese. "Edible commodities?"

He's still kinda weirded out, but he starts talking. "I suppose I am doing fine. Last I calculated, my body mass index was 21.5 kilograms per meter squared, in the healthy range and at 14th percentile—"

That right there? That just flew over my head. At least I'm used to it, right? "Whoa, Hu! Didn't mean to hear all that. I meant, like, I dunno... Eaten anything delicious recently?"

Hu stops short and looks me straight in the eye. "I hope you realize that this is a wholly futile and inconsequential topic, Pascal."

In that moment, I get pretty mad. It's really sudden, like a bunch of fire in my stomach that comes out my mouth. "Well, fine! Go ahead and criticize me. I guess it's my fault that I'm the only one trying to keep the conversation going, yeah?"

Surprise flickers over Hu's face for a moment. "Pascal, I hadn't meant... I apologize."

"Whatever." The fire in my stomach dies just as quickly as it welled up. "My house is up ahead. Thanks for walking with me."

I plod up the driveway to my suburban one-story house, but Hu's voice stops me.

"Pascal."

I stop and turn around, forcing a cheery smile on my face.

"Yeah?"

Hu's expression is pretty strange. I don't think I've ever seen him with that expression before. It's kinda nervous, sad, regretful, anticipating, even a little happy, all at once.

"For what it is worth... I sincerely hope this may work out." His gaze falls to the ground. "That we can become... friends."

Right at that moment, I feel so happy that I could hug the sun.

"Thanks, Hu," I say. "That means a lot. It really does."

And the moment I go into my house, I rush to the window to watch Hu leave.

...Okay, that sounded creepy, but I like the guy! Cut me some slack.

(A/N: Reviews would be amazing. Like the digital form of ramen. And believe me, nothing is better than ramen. NOTHING. Except for the digital form of ramen. Which is also known as 'reviews.')