I'm not sure how long I stayed crying. I only knew that my first trigger back into reality was when the doorbell rang.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I reached for the doorknob.

Who knows? Maybe a miracle has happened, and my mother has come back to life. Or my dad suddenly realizes the solution to the case, so he's back home super early.

I swung the door open.

Drumroll please….. it is the….

Garbage truck guy.

Oh, awesome.

"Um, can I help you?" Because what the heck was he doing here? Unless, he was secretly a magical ninja that could reverse the past twenty-four hours.

"Miss? I'm just here to tell you that you need to move the garbage bin out. Today, is trash-collecting day."

"Oh, uh, it's ok. We didn't have a lot of trash to throw out, so we'll just skip this week. Yeah…"

"You sure?"

I nodded, my tears threatening to fall again.

"Okay. Well, then have a good day," he called as he walked back towards the truck. I watched as he drove down the street.

Have a good day, I would have almost started laughing at the irony if my heart wasn't about to break from depression.

I shut the door and sat back down on the floor. I saw a teardrop hit the ground. What was with me today? For some reason, I could. Not. Stop. Crying.

Okay, Kazuha, you can deal with this. Sure, you haven't finished your homework. Who cares if you broke your arm or your most beloved posse- yeah, that probably wasn't the most encouraging thought.

I was ready to break into another sob-fest when I heard the doorbell ring.

Yet again.

Did I really want to open that door and face disappointment?

No, but I went ahead and opened the door anyway.

I almost started crying again when I saw who was standing in front of me. But it sure wasn't crying from disappointment.

"Kazuha, are you okay?"

I blinked again to make sure the tall lean figure on my doorstep was really him (and to hold back the tears that I knew were all poised and ready to fall.)

"'zuha?" He asked again.

Relief flooded me. And I think I did start crying again.

"Heiji!"

I threw my arms around him. It hurt my casted arm a little, but I was past caring. All I knew was that Heiji was here, and when he was here, everything seemed to be better.

At first, Heiji was surprised at my reaction. (Well, why wouldn't he be?) He just stood there unmoving, for a brief second, and I almost pulled back in embarrassment. But hesitantly, his strong arms wrapped around me and then more definitely, held me there.

"I'm so, so glad you're here," I whispered into his ear.

"You've been crying," he said softly.

Then we both seemed to realize at the same time that we were in a rather, um, huggy position.

I stepped back quickly. My eyes were probably red-rimmed and my face was puffy from crying for so long. I knew without looking that my hair was also a mess.

"I'm sorry," I said waveringly. "It's just that-"

"You don't have to apologize for anything," Heiji stopped me.

He steered me back inside the house and sat me down on the couch. Then, he walked into the kitchen and found a tray of cookies that I had baked yesterday, along with some instant tea and carried them out to the living room.

"I figured you must be having trouble with your homework. So I brought this," He brought out from behind his back his Biology textbook.

I stared at him in disbelief. What was he, psychic or something? Maybe that's how he solved all those mystery cases.

"How did you know that I desperately needed it? And why do you have yours? I thought you finished your homework during class."

"I remembered your bag looked lighter today. And I remember that you had all of your textbooks inside your locker afterschool. So, after kendo practice ended, I ran back to my locker to get mine," Heiji admitted sheepishly.

"You did?" I opened up the textbook and found some of his notes. "You have your notes from the lecture, too? Then, that was why you were taking so long after practice ended. And I was yelling at you, too," I realized with sudden guilt.

I'm so sorry." (I seem to be saying that a lot today.)

"Fine, this time I will accept your apology," Heiji said with a small smile.

I laughed a little and he handed me a cup of tea before sipping from his own cup. I took it from him gratefully. I closed my eyes and breathed in the soothing smell of jasmine. It wasn't anything special. But it seemed to instantly dry the salt water in my eyes. I opened my eyes again to see Heiji peering at me over his cup of tea.

"Feel better now?" He asked.

"Lots."

"That's what I thought," he said. "So, what else is bothering you?"

"Why would you think that-"

Heiji gave me that don't-lie-to-me look.

I sighed. "I broke my mom's locket. I was holding it, and then the phone rang. It startled me, so being the stupid, clumsy person that I am, I dropped it."

He didn't really say anything. I know that he knew very well just how important that locket was to me. And we both knew that sympathy and self-remorse wasn't going to fix the locket.

"I could try to fix it for you," Heiji said suddenly.

I glanced up quickly at him.

"You don't have to…." I trailed off.

"Can I at least see how bad it's broken?"

"Fine," I gestured towards my bedroom. "It's on the nightstand where I usually keep it."

He was gone for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I busied myself with the life-saving Biology textbook. I ended up not using Heiji's notes since his handwriting was rather difficult to decipher, but the textbook was enough so that when he came back, I was nearly done with a page.

I didn't ask him about the locket. One, because I was already fairly sure that the locket was unfixable. Two, I didn't want anymore bad news. And three, he didn't push me to ask about it.

We were both pretty quiet for the next hour. I was still working on my homework, and Heiji had turned on the TV. He was engrossed in some new case that the police were investigating.

I don't remember much happening after that.

When I woke up in the morning, I realized that I was back in my bed. For a second, I was confused. Was everything that happened just a dream?

Then, I saw that although I was tucked into the blankets, I was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. And next to me on the nightstand was a note.

Kazuha:

You fell asleep yesterday after finishing your homework. You looked so peaceful and it seemed like you were really tired, so I decided not to wake you up. I also didn't want you to spend the night sleeping on the couch, so I brought you back into your room. Then, I finished the cookies.

I stopped for a moment. HE FINISHED MY COOKIES?

Anyways, I left after that. I hope you're feeling better. I'll be waiting outside my house to walk to school with you tomorrow morning (as usual.)

Heiji

PS: You got number fourteen wrong in your Biology homework.

YAAY! An extra long chapter! So Heiji does have his sweet moments. But don't worry... the story has just started. This is very, very anticlimatic.

Review? :]