"Honey? Are you okay?" Hiyori's mother called to her from the main floor. She must have heard the thump Hiyori made when she hit the wall.

"Y-yeah mom, I'm fine!" She yelled back, keeping her eyes on Yato at the window. He began to tap again, then pointed to his red cell phone in the opposite hand. Hiyori slid off of her bed and stepped over to her bedroom door, closing it quietly before making her way to the window to let Yato in. She swiftly undid both of the locks, and slid up the window with an icy click, the cold air rushing in like a wave. Hiyori braced herself, a chill running down her spine before she stepped out of the way, allowing Yato to swing himself right inside. He landed on the tan hardwood floor with almost no sound other than the clink of the buckle on his dark boots. He stood up tall, brushing a light dust of snow from his jersey and his neck scarf, and shaking it from his track pants.

"Thanks for leaving me out there for that long, I could have frozen to death." Yato said almost a little too loudly.

Hiyori stepped towards him, holding an index finger close to his face, "Shhhhh! Be quieter, my mom is right downstairs." She took a step back again, remembering for the millionth time that she wouldn't be able to see Yato, let alone hear him. "Why are you here, anyway? Didn't I tell you that I didn't want to see you today?" Hiyori thought about what she'd just said, and realized that she didn't want for it to sound that mean. "I mean, can't see you today."

Yato scoffed, looking her in the eye. "Well you couldn't come to me, so I came to you. Didn't you get my call?" He held up the phone again by the small strap before shoving it into his jersey pocket. Hiyori glanced over to her bedside table then back to Yato.

"No, I didn't. Now like I said more than once, I have a lot of work to do tonight, so thanks for the visit!" She said quickly, spinning Yato around by the shoulders and trying to push him toward the window.

"Woah woah woah, no way!" He protested, digging the rubber soles of his boots into the floor and turning back to face Hiyori. "I'm not going anywhere now that I'm already here."

"Oh come on, don't you have a job to do or something, Yato?" She said with a tone of annoyance, putting her hands on her hips.

He brought a hand up to his face and swept his bangs across his forehead. "Already had three today. And that's even a new record!" He said proudly, holding his chin high.

"Is there anything I can say to get you to leave?"

"Hmm... Nope."

Hiyori laid a hand over her eyes and sighed heavily, lacking the energy to find any more ways to make Yato get lost. "Okay. Well, I'm going back to work. If you're going to stay, you can sit and be quiet, or feel free to leave." She said to Yato, walking around him and pulling the window closed with a thump.

Yato shrugged in reply, his hands in his pockets, "Alright, I guess."

As Hiyori trudged from the end of her room back to her bed, she wondered why Yato was even at her house, let alone staying for what was probably going to be a while. She plopped back down onto the bed, crossing her legs again while Yato stood at its foot. She watched him as he eyed the apple that still lied on the comforter, then snatch it up and take a bite. At this point, Hiyori didn't even care about her snack, she just wanted to get this work done with as little interruption as possible. In seconds, Yato cleaned the fruit from its core, and expertly tossed it over his shoulder and into the trash bin on the opposite side of her room. Hiyori rolled her eyes, then finally reopened her text book to fill out the last of the answers.

Every now and then, she would look up from her book to find Yato migrating around her room, going from retying his scarf in her floor-length mirror to flipping through a photo album she had of her years before high school. She heard Yato giggle from the far corner of her room, "Was that actually you?" He snickered, holding up the photo in its clear plastic page. Hiyori had to squint, but she soon recognized the photo.

"Yeah. That's my brother and I, just after he graduated high school." She said, closing her biology textbook and then opening her math.

For some reason, Yato continued to smile as he went through the other pictures of a younger and slightly pudgier Hiyori. As he got to the back of the album, he stumbled across some more recent pictures like Hiyori with her school friends. Yato's chest began to feel warm inside as he flitted through the other photos, some of which were candid shots of just himself, walking or looking far off somewhere. When did she take those? Soon he found the selfie she must have taken of the two of them with Yukine the time they went the Capyper Land. Damn, that was fun, he thought. They'd all have to go back sometime, come the spring. He needed more merchandise for his Capyper collection. Hmmm Capypers...

"Yato?"

"Hm?" He was snapped from his important train of thought by Hiyori's airy voice. He closed the album, turning his head to make eye contact with her.

"Wasn't the reason that you wanted me to go to Kofuku's today was because Yukine needed help?"

Yato blinked once, raising both of his eyebrows. He looked away and pulled a small clear elastic from his pocket, sweeping up the longer hair at the back of his head and tying it up into a small ponytail.

"Yea. So what?"

"Then why did only you come and not Yuki?"

Yato seemed to freeze up at Hiyori's direct question. He dropped his hands to his sides and pressed his lips together. Usually he would avoid confrontation; it was just in his nature. But with the way Hiyori was staring into his eyes, there was no way he'd be able to talk his way around this.

AN: Chapter is a wee bit shorter this time, sorry 'bout that! Thank you for reading! Next chapter should be up in a day or two! Also, I'm aiming to improve my writing, so please drop a review if you can! Thanks again!

ps: I write these fics on my phone, so please notify me about any spelling errors so I can fix them later!