The next morning the only thing unusual was that Uncle Ronny seemed as if he had gotten no sleep. There were dark circles under his eyes and a deep frown on his constant smiling face. Hayli was also quieter, but since it was the weekend she had slept in and awoken on her own accord before waking her sister. The three ate lunch, mostly in silence. After a maid had cleaned up the dirty dishes Ronny cleared his throat. "You understand that I cannot let last night go unpunished." Both girls nodded. "You two will be under strict supervision. You wake up, go to school, come home, do homework, eat supper and spend the evening in your rooms. At eleven you will be in bed." The girls mentally weighed their punishment. It didn't seem so horrible. "That also means no phone, no Ipod, no computer, no technology what so ever." The punishment just became so much worse.
"For how long?" Nova dared to ask. She wasn't obsessed with technology, but she also didn't have many friends in Japan and when Hayli wasn't keeping her distracted she got bored rather easily.
"Until I decide that you have been punished enough." He said. Again the girls nodded and the conversation was over. As the girls got up to leave he added one more thing. "At the end of today I'm going to inspect your rooms. I expect them to be spotless."
Hayli let out a drawn out sigh that transformed into a growl. Instead of going straight to her room Nova followed her sister into hers. Nova had to admit that her own room was disorganized. Hayli's room on the other hand was..."Oh my goodness!" Nova's mouth dropped in astonishment at the disaster. "Wait, what is that?" she squinted at the floor.
"What?" Hayli asked innocently.
"Is that glass? No, wait, porcelain?"
Hayli brought her hand up to her mouth to muffle her sneaky snickers. "Actually, they're plates." she admitted. Walking over to her dresser Hayli pulled out an expensive decorative plate and dropped it on the floor!
"Haylirain!"
"Well I ran out of things to break in here, so...yeah." She smirked. Nova shook her head in pure awe. After snatching some trash bags from the pantry, and some cookies, the girls filled the bags with broken pieces of plates and everything else that Hayli had found to break. After helping finish Hayli's room, Novalee cleaned her own bland room. After the girls and Ronny finished their supper, he inspected their rooms and seemed rather pleased with their work.
The next day was the first time that Novalee didn't hear the sounds of crashing next door, especially on a school morning. She assumed it had something to do with Uncle Ronny threatening Hayli that if she continued to break things that she would never have contact with the outside world again. After pulling on some orange tights with a matching hair clip and her school uniform, Novalee headed downstairs to get breakfast. Hayli was already downstairs, munching on some toast. She wore a black straight jacket and black and white striped thigh highs with the school uniform skirt. "I see you're wearing at least part of your school uniform."
"Yeah, well, it looks cute like this." Hayli replied. Nova knew that was only part of the truth. The other part was Hayli knew she had pushed Ronny to the edge and was attempting to follow some of the rules to keep from angering him further. Just because she hated following rules didn't mean that she wasn't still a good person.
Once at school and a few complaints later, mostly on Hayli's behalf, the girls parted ways to their classes. Nova was staring off into space when a nearby voice startled her. "I like the orange."
"huh? oh! Thanks." She said, turning to Tohru
"Look! You two match!" Uo-chan laughed, gesturing to Kyo who let out a grumble.
"I like Kyo's hair." Nova stated plainly, surprising the ex-yankee and himself, causing them both to stare at her.
"I think your hair is cool. You don't see much red around here." Uo said, regaining herself.
"It suits youi." Hana said quietly. Thanking them, Nova caught herself smiling.
At lunch the twins met up in the cafeteria. "So where to?" Nova asked.
"Hmmmm" Hayli scanned the lunch room crowd. "Oh there's Tenkai!" she exclaimed, waving to the boys from Saturday's club.
"But... I see Shui." Nova hurried, trying to avoid speaking to the partial cause of their grounding.
"Who?"
" Shui. I made friends with her."
"She can come to."
"But she already has a seat."
"Hayli! Come on!" Tenkai shouted, waving her over to the group of guys.
"Are you coming?" Hayli asked, beginning to head over to the boys.
Nova felt herself hesitate. "Actually, I think I'm going to go sit with Shui."
"Oh." Hayli's smile faded a little but she shrugged and headed over to the boys.
Nova let out a sigh and sat down across from the white haired girl listening to her she noticed Novalee she turned it off and smiled. "You don't mind if i sit here do you?" Nova asked, shyly.
"Not at all." Her voice sounded as if her mind were elsewhere.
"I don't think I really got a chance to ask, but your hair, it's not natural is it?"
At this Shui seemed to be snapped back to reality. "No. I bleach it to be more unique."
Nova couldn't help but giggle and even Shui let out a small whimsical laugh. "Do you know Haru...Haru...something?
Shui smiled. "No. I don't know Haru something."
"Oh, well he's got white hair too. I met him on my second day. Actually..." Nova turned to look around the room. "Ah! There he is." She pointed across the room to the two-tone haired boy at the vending machine. "He's really nice."
Shui had a faraway look in her gray-blue eyes. "Yes, but he is very strange."
"I thought you didn't know him."
"I don't." She stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The two girls chatted until the bell, not mentioning Haru again.
The rest of the school day Nova sat deep in thought. Her mind was focused on Hayli and that dumb boy. She knew that he was nothing but trouble. Why couldn't her sister see that? Surely she wasn't so infatuated as to be blind! Grr!
"Are you alright?"
Nova lifted her head to see the silver haired Yuki standing before her. "Why do you ask?"
"The bell has rang and you are tearing your hair out. I believe I also heard you growl." He seemed to be confused and somewhat amused at the same time.
Nova's face began turning a bright shade of red. "Uh yeah, sorry. I was just thinking." She admitted , standing and grabbing her bag.
"I hope everything works out alright." He told her with smile and a tilt of his head.
"Thanks." she managed to mumble, her face threatening to match her hair color, and rushed out of the classroom.
Haylirain had managed to ruin what was left of Novalee's good mood, with all of her talk about Tenkai once they were home. After finishing homework they went downstairs for dinner and Ronny gave them some good news. "Some boxes have arrived from the United States. Your stuff is here." Both girls squealed with happiness. When they had moved they were only able to bring a few bags, mainly clothes, and had been waiting on the rest of their belongings. "I'll have the maids take the boxes to your rooms."With this news, the girls were in a good mood and the three of them had a chatty dinner, talking about their day, although no one else was happy to hear Hayli talking a boy.
Back in her room, Novalee found a stack of boxes. Grabbing the one off top she pulled it open to find stuffed animals and some quilts she had made with her grandmother back in the U.S. She arranged them on her bed and opened another box. "That is definitely not mine." She told herself, finding the box filled to the top with weapons of all sorts. "I'm surprised she managed to make it out the country." She commented, pushing the large box out of her room and directly into Hayli's.
"Help me with this." Hayli said as her sister entered. She had been struggling with the bookshelf in the corner. After the girls finished moving it they moved the rest of the furniture in the room. The bed and dresser were against the far wall. The desk and bookshelf framed the door and the closet was on the left wall with the right wall bare. As Nova left, Hayli started covering the bare wall with posters of the band Insane Clown Posse. Back in her own room Nova emptied a few boxes full of books and covered her shelf before heading to bed.