Okay, it didn't take me too long to update this time, so I hope no one's mad at me...

Chapter 11

Ulrich's POV

About a week had passed since I had my dream about Yumi, and my mind was slowly beginning to forget about her. A little bit. Actually, not really… I was thinking about her now more than ever. But the good news was that today, this lovely school-free Sunday, Odd and I were going to sneak out into town where I will be able to shove Yumi out of my mind.

"Ready?" Odd asked as he walked into our dorm, no doubt returning from a second breakfast or something.

I nodded, leading him out the door and into the hallway. As we passed by the dorm rooms, I noticed one of the doors was hanging wide open. I peered in to see Jeremie sitting at his desk, writing something wearing a pair of nerdy looking purple pajamas. I was just about to walk away when it hit me.

"Odd," I whispered, "Jeremie isn't dressed like an emo wannabe!"

Odd peered into Jeremie's dorm and his eyes widened. "You're right!"

In fact, with those nerdy glasses and a pair of kangaroo underwear sticking up slightly from the waistband of his much-too-small pajama pants, he looked like his old self.

Odd strolled into his bedroom, leaning over Jeremie's shoulder to read whatever Jeremie was writing. Jeremie immediately let out a high-pitched scream, falling off of his chair. It was really hard not to laugh.

"Hey Einstein, want to sneak out with us?" Odd suggested, chuckling slightly between words. Jeremie shook his head and sat back at his desk.

"I sort of have some… stuff to catch up on today," he said, pushing the bridge of his glasses higher up on his nose. Probably schoolwork, if the real Jeremie was back.

"See you later then!" Odd called back to Jeremie as he left the dorm. He walked up beside me as we finished the walk through the hallway and descended the dormitory building stairs.

"So, how are you and Yumi doing taking care of your kid?" Odd asked, probably just to start up some conversation. My mind immediately flashed to the dream I had of kissing Yumi, so I quickly shunned the thoughts out.

"Uhh… okay, I guess," I responded lamely. "How about you and Aelita?"

Odd didn't answer for a moment, looking deep in thought. "Yeah, we're good at taking care of the baby," he said somewhat dreamily, like his mind was elsewhere. I looked over at Odd, and he had sort of that… floaty look in his eyes whenever he was thinking about girls he liked. Uh oh.

I decided to approach the subject casually, thinking that maybe I was just having some sort of misunderstanding here. "You and Aelita have been spending a lot of time together."

"Yeah, we have. Aelita's really nice and fun to be around and stuff." Odd paused. "Hey Ulrich, have you ever really, really liked a girl, but you don't know how to ask her out because you know she doesn't like you back, and you know you're going to get rejected?"

My mind quickly flashed to Yumi, but I pushed the thoughts away again. Wait... but was Odd talking about Aelita? "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Odd and I pushed open the doors to outside, taking in the fresh scenery of spring. Finally some leaves on the trees again… winter seemed to drag on forever this year.

"I mean," Odd said, continuing back onto what he said before, "it just seems kind of pointless to ask the girl out or even try to flirt with her at all, because you know she's just going to reject you. So there isn't really a point at all, is there?"

I could feel my heart sink into my stomach. Odd and I were both screwed guys, both destined to like girls who wouldn't like us back like that….

"And it's especially hopeless when you know that girl likes someone else," Odd said angrily, kicking dirt into the air. Maybe things between me and Yumi were totally hopeless….

"But oh well," Odd stated lightheartedly, shrugging off the topic easily, as if it meant nothing to him. "Where do you want to go?"

I realized we had just left the Kadic gate, and needed to pick if we were going to go left or right down the sidewalk. "Uhhhh…" I stuttered, my mind quickly running over things on each side of town. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw William and Yumi laughing and walking with each other on the right side of me.

"We'll go this way," I said, pointing to my left, really wanting Yumi to leave my mind for just a minute. Odd agreed with me, then began babbling off a list of things we could do on the west side of town, which I didn't really listen to. This was going to be a difficult day.

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Odd and I just returned back to the Kadic dorms, just in time to get back to our room before Jim made his nightly rounds to check if we were all accounted for.

As we half-ran half-sped walked down the hall, I noticed Jeremie's door was still open and came to a halt. Whatever Jeremie had been doing this morning, it appeared he was still doing it now. Odd and I watched in amazment for a moment as Jeremie ferociously scribbled on a piece of paper.

"No, that's not right..." he muttered to himself, crunching up the paper in his fist and throwing it in a trash bin that seemed to be overflowing with balled up papers. Yup, you know Jeremie's back to normal when he begins talking to himself. Good ole not-fully-sane Jeremie.

Odd was eager to go spy on Jeremie, but I pulled him back by his ear and reminded him that Jim would be stomping down the halls any minute now.

We stealthily slipped back into our room, knowing our curfew had been hours ago, and began listening to our iPods and pretending to do homework like we had been there all night. Yeah, Odd and I were pros at doing this sort of stuff by now.

Jim's heavy pounding footsteps slowly reached our dorm, and he opened our door, trying to look macho. Unfortunately for him, he failed miserably because a thick wad of toilet paper was attached to the sole of his shoe. Odd and I snickered.

"What's so funny?" Jim asked angrily. Odd and I both mumbled "Nothing sir…" but broke out into fits of laughter when Jim left.

"I'm going to go visit Aelita," Odd said with a huge grin on his face from laughing at Jim, and quickly slipped out of our dorm to go see her. I still couldn't believe it… of all the people to have crushes on…. I sighed, listening to make sure Odd didn't get caught by Jim, when I heard Odd talking to someone outside the door.

"………Yumi……yeah……." I immediately perked up after hearing Yumi's name out of a blur of other words. There was another voice that I didn't recognize, so I cracked open the door to see who it was. William.

Who did he think he was, hanging around with Yumi this late at night?! I could feel my insides burn with jealousy. I waited for the sound of receding footsteps, and then quickly ran out into the hallway to follow Yumi.

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Yumi's POV

William and I laughed at his joke as he walked me back to my dorm from our day out of town and our night at the movies. I had to admit, William was really cool and hilarious. He hadn't taken me to a horror sort of movie so he could put his arms around me like any other guy, but took me to the movie I picked. He had been extremely nice the whole night, without trying to pull any moves on me. And to top that off, he was pretty cute.

William stopped, and I realized we had reached my dorm. "So, I'll pick you up here next Saturday to sneak out?" He asked, more of as a statement than a question.

"I don't know," I said just to tease him. "What if I have plans?"

He looked in thought for a moment. "Then, I guess I'd just have to ask you to sneak out with me Wednesday afternoon instead."

"And what if I have plans then too?"

"Then…" he began, "I'll just have to steal you from whoever you have plans with."

I laughed. "Well, good luck finding me then."

He grinned. "So… see you Wednesday then," he said as he slowly walked away, turning back once to take a look at me.

I smiled to myself a little while I pulled the key to my dorm out of my pocket. William was really sweet… maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a boyfriend after all.

I heard someone clear their throat loudly behind me, and it made me jump. I quickly turned around, finding myself face to face with Ulrich. Oh.

"Hey Ulrich," I said casually, wondering why he was here, talking to me at 10 o'clock at night. I put the key into my doorknob and unlocked my door, entering it slowly just incase if Ulrich wanted to talk to me before I went inside to do my homework and stuff. But to my surprise, Ulrich just followed me in. He shut the door swiftly behind us. Uh oh.

"What's up?" I asked, searching his face for what might be wrong with him. His face didn't show any emotion, but his brown eyes flickered with anger. Sheesh, what did I do to piss him off? He's been the one avoiding me!

"What were you doing out with William?" he interrogated. His voice sounded different… more mature, more serious.

"What are you, my mom?" I asked, crossing my arms over my stomach.

He still looked angrily at me, gritting his teeth, and took a step forward. "Look, why do you care, Ulrich?" I racked my brain for ideas of why he would be mad at me, but nothing came to me. "Is this about our stupid baby or something? Because I didn't have to watch it tonight, I gave it to Aelita to give to you."

"You were flirting with him, weren't you?" His voice was icy.

"What?!" I asked, my voice faltering. Why would Ulrich care if I was flirting with William?

"Do you like him?"

My eyes narrowed, trying to get this joke over with so Ulrich could just laugh at me and leave. Ulrich has never cared about anything involving me and another guy, unless if it was involved with Odd who I occasionally hung out with to plan pranks on Ulrich with.

"What if I did like him?" I challenged, taking a step forward intending to be eye to eye with him, but instead ended up having to look up at him. Since when did he grow?

He stared intently into my eyes, and I expected him to burst into insults. But then he did something I was so completely unprepared for, I froze from head to toe, and felt like my eyes were going to fall out of their sockets. My heart beat erratically and my mind went into overdrive. Ulrich's lips descended upon mine and it looked like he was going to kiss me.

But that was impossible, right? There's no way, ever, under any circumstance, that Ulrich would kiss me. On my 5th birthday, when his parents told him to hug me or he'd be grounded for 2 months, he picked getting grounded over giving me a hug. And that was just a hug.

But even though it seemed like the most unlikely thing to ever happen at this moment, his lips actually touched my unmoving ones. And he began to kiss me. I felt a huge burst in my heart, and for some reason completely unknown to me, I kissed him back.

I draped my arms over his shoulders and around his neck as I continued kissing him, while he put his arms around my waist, pressing me against him. I ran my fingers through his hair as our kiss turned into a full make-out session.

I didn't know why I was doing this. I hated Ulrich, and nothing would ever change that. But right now, all I wanted to do was kiss him, and my mind couldn't seem to focus on anything else.

Still kissing me, he lifted me slightly off the ground as he brought me over to my bed. He sat me down, continuing to kiss me.

Then, the touch of his warm fingertips slowly beginning to make their way up the back of my shirt brought me back to my senses. I pushed him off me with a force that sent him nearly half way across the room.

I could hear myself scream out, "What are you doing?!" in my mind, but somehow I couldn't make my lips move and form actual words in real life. I just stood there, my eyes wide and my mouth slightly open, completely shocked.

Ulrich looked back at me with a shocked face as well, but apparently he had enough feeling in his legs to move them and leave me in my dorm room. I felt my legs tremble and I fell back on my bed. I had never felt so confused in my entire life.

What the hell just happened?

hehe. I made them kiss! So if anyone complains about this being a bad chapter... I'll be really sad.

(sigh) Parting is such sweet sorrow... that I shall say good night till it be morrow. ...Oh god, I think all of this Romeo and Juliet stuff in English is really getting to my head... maybe that's why I had Ulrich and Yumi kiss.

Oh well. Anyways, please write me a review!! I love all of you reviewers!! (insert smiley face here, because I have yet to find a way to make a smiley face without it getting messed up or deleting itself)

--bRoK3n h3aRt--