A couple weekends later, Zero was just about to leave when he heard a knock on his door. He opened it reluctantly to find Jem standing there, in normal clothes as he was, looking around. She hugged her notes to her chest, then promptly turned to Zero when she heard the door open.

"What do you want?" he sighed. She was closer up to him, since she was wearing heels. Why would any girl wear heels at noon on Sunday? Zero accused in his head. Though, honestly, it was a nice change for him to tower less over someone.

"I'm trying to study for the test, want to study with me?" she asked.

"The geometry test?" She nodded as he continued, "Why do you need me for that?"

"Because you're the only one the girls avoid, and they're driving me crazy. I can't concentrate," she answered.

"Why don't you try the library or something?" he objected.

"One step ahead of you. They are there too, giggling. I even tried to stay because it's not as bad, but then there are the boys to deal with. They're all starved for attention. They come talk to any girl who is not in a little clique fawning over the night class boys," she informed him. Then stressed, "And I hate when people talk to me."

He uttered, "Well, I was just about to leave so you'll have to wait. I mean, unless you want to go to target practice with m-"

"Ok," she interrupted. He was slightly displeased, thinking that she would be dissuaded by this and he would have some solitary time shooting things.

"All right then," he huffed, "follow me."

Jem followed him back into the headmaster's building, and eventually into the basement target practice room.

"I had no idea this was here," Jem said, a little in awe. Why the hell was a shooting range hidden on a prestigious school campus?

"Well, that's the idea," returned Zero. He would have told her not to tell anybody, except he knew she already didn't speak to anyone.

He went over to prepare the weaponry as she sat on one of the counters at a station, putting her feet up on a nearby chair. As Zero came up to the slot next to her, he tossed her a headset to protect her ears, though he did not have one himself. She placed them around her neck until he was ready to shoot.

"Get ready," was the only warning he gave, though he did wait for her to cover her ears before he took a shot. And there it was, bullseye on the first, second, third shot. Then he took a break.

Jem pushed the band back behind one ear so she could talk to him. "So, you're a good shot," she complimented.

"Cover your ears again," he told her, raising the gun again.

She did as he instructed and he opened fire. There was the outline of a man on the target face, which Zero now gave two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. The target now slightly resembled a snowman.

"Can you make a star?" she asked as he reloaded the gun. Zero didn't say anything, he simply shot a star into the target. Once he had, the shape fell off and floated to the ground.

"A spiral?" she requested. Zero moved down a space to a fresh target, then shot out a spiral, the shape also spiraling towards the ground, dangling from the target once he finished.

"A cat?" she challenged. Zero shot out a cat. Jem tilted her head to look at it.

"It would have come out better if I could actually draw a decent cat," Zero commented.

"How about..." Jem looked down at the notes in her lap for inspiration, "an obtuse scalene triangle." Soon an obtuse scalene triangle floated to the ground. She continued, "a right trapezoid...a concave kite." Zero shot out all the shapes as she listed them. "No," she corrected, "that's a convex kite, a concave kite-" but Zero had already started shooting another to fix his mistake.

"I'm impressed," she said. "Now how about a challenge? Make me an equilateral triangle." Zero did just that, counting out the bullets.

"I wasn't 100% sure I was going to get that one," Zero commented, "the angles were tricky to estimate evenly."

"But you got it," she praised. "Now how about an octagon?"

Zero again shot out the shape. "It has eight sides, but it's not quite even..." she commented, looking it over.

"You never said a regular octagon."

"Touche," she conceded. "It seems you don't need any practice shooting or studying for the test."

"Who said I did?" Zero contested as he again reloaded. He held the gun up and starting to shoot lines to take out corners and other designs of his choosing. Jem watched silently, feeling surprisingly at ease for listening to constant gunfire.