The next day Momiji started watching for the girl. It surprised him that she was actually in some of his other classes too. As she sat in the back and rarely talked, he had never noticed. Momiji kept half an eye on her for most of the morning but aside from yawning a lot she didn't fall asleep again. A few times he wondered if he should try to talk to her between classes but she left quickly and was gone before he could think of anything to say.

At lunch Momiji sat down at a table with his cousin Haru. Though they were liked by most of the grade, neither of them had many close friends and they had long since resigned themselves to sticking together.

"Hi," Momiji said brightly. He did most things brightly. Other words usually used to describe him included perky, optimistic, and energetic. Momiji was known for having a consistently happy personality.

"Hello," Haru picked at his sandwich in a drowsy manner. Haru was the most laid back person Momiji knew. Only if he was angry would he ever be quick or loud; all other times he moved calmly and easily through life.

Momiji scanned the cafeteria for the mysterious girl. She wasn't there. "Hey. Do you know what the new girl's name is?"

"Hm?" Haru turned to blink at him. "What new girl?"

"The one who moved here after summer break. What's her name?"

"Oh, that girl. She's in my math class. I think she fell asleep once last week. I don't know. She seems kind of shy."

As Momiji munched on his lunch, he watched the sea of students ebb and flow. No new girl. Oh well, he thought.

At the end of lunch though, Momiji suddenly remembered a book he had meant to check out so he left Haru for the library. It was there that he found, fast asleep at one of the back tables, surrounded by books and papers, the enigmatic new girl.

OOO

Namie stirred. Someone was tapping her shoulder. She groaned faintly. She didn't want to wake up now that she had finally fallen asleep. Did she really have to get up? Couldn't she sleep for just five more minutes?

The tapping continued. Namie gradually became aware of something stuck to her face. And her pillow had gotten much flatter and harder.

Slowly, Namie opened her eyes. She was at a desk. There were books and papers around her. Her first thought was that she had fallen asleep in class again. She sat up quickly looking around wildly to figure out where she was.

Books. Books were everywhere. The library. That's right, she remembered. She had taken her lunch period to try and finish up some homework. She was in the library and there was a boy tapping her on the shoulder.

"Hi," he gave her a wide smile. He was on the tall side, probably at least five inches taller than she was, had messy, yellow blonde hair and bright brown eyes. Namie was pretty sure that he was in some of her classes.

"Sorry to wake you up," he continued in a lively tone. "But lunch is almost over and I didn't think you'd want to sleep right through the bell."

"No," Namie replied in a preoccupied voice, brushing her hair out of her eyes and surveying the mess of papers on the table. "Um, thank you."

There was a pause, then suddenly the boy stuck out a hand. "I'm Momiji Sohma."

Namie blinked at him. "Oh. Namie, Namie Kimura."

Momiji gave her another wide smile. "Nice to meet you." He watched as Namie started to collect all her papers. Suddenly the bell rang and he turned to go to class. But as he began to walk away, Momiji looked back in time to see Namie staring at a sheet of math homework with a somewhat hopeless look on her face. He took two steps back to her side and pointed to the last problem which was still blank.

"It's twelve. It looks unsolvable but you just have to look a little deeper and notice the details. Then you can use the Chain Rule. And you figure out the answer's twelve."

The Namie looked up at him surprised. "Thanks," she said.

"Anytime," smiled Momiji, and he walked off to class whistling.

Disclaimer: Fruit's Basket and its characters belong to Natsuki Takaya