Look Before You Seek

Chapter 8

To the others in the group, it was obvious that Yumi was angry. But what they didn't know was that Yumi was, in actual fact, furious. She was furious at Minnie for taking her place last night, for replacing her. She was furious at Odd, for making it seem like she was better. She was furious at Ulrich, for accepting Minnie so quickly. She was furious at Jeremie, for trying to make her see reason, and she was furious at Aelita, for being okay with all of it! In fact, she was furious with all the Lyoko Warriors (Minnie included) for not discussing it with her.

It was like they expected everything to be fine with her. Yumi was glad that she was in a separate class from the rest of them, as she didn't think she could stand being in the same room as all of them at that moment. Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to her; Maybe they don't want me in the group anymore. Had they replaced her? I mean, she was a year older than everyone in the group. Maybe they thought it would be easier to have someone their own age? Maybe it was because she lived at the school, and she would be easier to reach in case of Lyoko emergency's.

Yumi thought of all these situations and more, not doing any work at all, which wasn't good, as she was suppose to be finishing her essay on volcano eruptions for geography. When she finally snapped out of it, she realized that she only had 5 minutes to complete a 500 word essay, and she was only 250 words into it. Luckily for Yumi, her geography teacher liked her, so she was able to get an extension with a few carefully chosen words.

Then the bell rang again, for lunch this time. Yumi had made up her mind to avoid the group altogether. She grabbed a lunch tray and lined up to get her food. Todays lunch was hot dogs, also called rot dogs by the younger students, who thought it was hilarious. It was a well known fact/ rumor to the students at Kadic that the canteen used bread and buns that had not been sold in the bakery about a week prior to being served on students lunch plates. Still, it was filling, and its wasn't that bad, as long as you ignored the crunching sound the bread made when you bit into it.

Yumi had noticed that Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and Jeremie all sat in the same table, with Minnie nowhere in sight. She had got her lunch, and was considering heading over to them, when Minnie walked into the lunch room. Yumi glared at her, but Minnie didn't notice. She had her nose stuck in a book,reading. It was quiet a thick book, and she couldn't see the title from where she was standing. Minnie seemed to find her way by her own personal radar that she had developed over the years. She didn't line up for lunch, but instead she sat down at the table and unpacked a lunch of some strange salad, packed in one of those Tupperware boxes.

Yumi stood for a few moments, staring, wondering where to go. There was only one empty table, and it was right next to the table where the rest of them were. She started desperately looking around for another table, when Odd got up for his second serving. Well, Yumi assumed that it was his second serving, but she could never be too sure with Odd.

"Hey, Yumi! Over here!" He shouted, waving furiously at her. Ulrich, Aelita and Jeremie were also staring at her, but Minnie was not. She still had her head buried in her book, eating silently.

Yumi saw she had two choices, either she left the Lunch room, throwing her food in the trash, or she went and sat with her supposed friends. Yumi's stomach growled. She knew she couldn't wait until dinner for something to eat, so she decided to go and sit with them.

"Hey," Ulrich said as she sat down.

"Hey," She said, not looking at him.

"Yumi, we're sorry about before. We were to tell you..." Yumi was ignoring him. "Yumi," He tired again, with a strong tone, forcing Yumi to look at him. "You have to know that the only reason we took her to Lyoko was because you weren't there. She was in the forest during dinner, and she overheard us, and then she followed us. She didn't give us much of a choice." His voice had changed into a softer tone, and his eyes looked into hers pleadingly.

"Whatever,"said Yumi, starting to eat. Ulrich sighed and gave up. Yumi was just to stubborn.

Minnie, however, had been pretending not to listen, pretended to read her book, but she wasn't. She was eavesdropping, although it was rather hard not to when they were practically talking to her ears.

She had heard the way that Ulrich had talked to Yumi, and the only time she had ever imagined a character speaking to another like that was when the character cared very much for that person. It was clear to Minnie that Ulrich liked Yumi quite a lot. At that moment, she may have assumed that he may even love Yumi.

There was silence on the table, until Odd came back with more food and started talking about this and that, like Odd did. Minnie had lost how many servings Odd had had during that lunch time, but she had finished her lunch.

She started packing up her things, except her book, which was the English version of 'Inkheart', her favorite book. Of course, the others in the group couldn't even read the title, let alone know the story.

"I'll see you guy's later," she told them, walking away.

"Where are you going?" Asked Yumi, faking curiosity.

Right at that moment, Minnie felt like saying mean things to Yumi. She wanted to yell at Yumi to try and make her see it her way. But of course, she knew that it wouldn't work, and that everyone would think she was a freak, so she didn't.

"I'm going to read," Minnie answered instead, with her back still turned. She knew that she hadn't really told them where she was going, but they didn't really need to know. I'm sure you and I could work out that she was going to the woods to read. She needed to do something to relax her nerves. She could feel Yumi's negative energy pulsing to her, and all of the negative feelings had been shared. She knew that she had to get away from Yumi before she did something that she would regret later.

Yumi seemed rather glad to see her go, although she still didn't feel as though she could trust the rest of the group. After all, they had gone and done this without even letting her know. She was still angry, but with Minnie gone, she was no longer furious.

"Yumi," Ulrich said when she'd finished her lunch. "Can I talk to you, outside?"

"Yeah, fine." Yumi was acting calm, but everyone could feel the anger inside of her, pulsing off her, making them want to be angry too.

Once they were outside, Ulrich turned to Yumi and said, "She doesn't have to come back to Lyoko, you know. She doesn't have to go again if your not comfortable with it." Yumi was looking everywhere but at Ulrich.

Ulrich forced her to look at him. "But it isn't about Minnie, is it?" He asked, looking her in the eyes.

She shook her head.

"You just felt betrayed because we let her come to Lyoko, aren't you? It could be any other person, and you'd be just as angry."

"Yes, I would," Yumi said, almost yelling. "In fact, I would probably be more angry. But it's not about who it is, but it's about what you did. What all of you did! You just let someone into Lyoko! It's suppose to be secret, not a club! You can't just let people join in!" Yumi was breathing very heavily by now.

"Yumi, I know that we shouldn't have, but we can't do anything now. She's already been to Lyoko." Yumi was now looking at her shoes. "Yumi, I'm sorry."

Ulrich could almost feeling her angry and hate melting away, and he was now left with a sad vibe pulsing from Yumi. He felt like hugging her, but he knew that he probably shouldn't. Yumi wasn't a touchy-feely person.

Does that answer the romance question for you? There you go.

Review.

Sorry about the short chapters, but you should see the chapters on my sisters Fanfiction. They're about a paragraph and a half long! Sorry, I'm babbeling.

Thanx!

OcyTaviAh