2 June 2012: Naruto'sramengirl wrote a review that really made me look at this chapter in a different light. As a result, I rewrote it. Thank you so much.

3 July 2012: I thought that I was done with this chapter, but I changed my mind and rewrote the whole thing after finding that the dialogue was a touch too bland. A huge, huge thanks to Smartguy5000 for the review. This is my attempt at moving the characters around more, a comment of yours that I completely agree with.

I thought I'd escaped a nightmare only to find one in my own room in the very esteemed halls of residence at our university (note the sarcasm). I can hear moans, screams, and even the ever-so-sweet "Oh, baby!" escape from the confines of what is supposed to be my sanctuary in this Godforsaken place. My God, I've lost all motivation to retrieve the notes I took for my essay, but endure this I must. Trying to capture all the ickiness of Jeremie's and Aelita's nastily sappy expressions in my already horrified mind, I propel myself forward and open the door.

"Yumi!" Mel gasps, still writhing on top of her companion. "What are you doing here?"

"Doing homework." I say sweetly.

She's draped on top of a footballer, that much I can tell. He has a perfect six-pack, defined muscle, all sinewy and sleek. Or maybe he's a rower? I can't see his face, but that's just as well, because if we happen to be know each other, I don't want to have to shun him just because of poor decision making on his part.

"Can you do your homework later?" She says. "Don't you have, like, a lecture now?"

"Soon. Not now though."

"Are you sure?"

"Maybe you should adjust your watch." I make a big show of looking down at mine. "My watch says that it's ten past five. What does yours say?"

"I suppose you're right," She's defeated and she knows it. "I'll see you later, honey?"

"Yeah," the guy says. He's still shirtless, but at least he's managed to find his underwear and shorts. "Do you see my shirt anywhere?"

"Never mind about that, you can just use one of Yumi's."

"Right."

"My sleeping shirts," I can't help but add as Mel hands him an extra large men's shirt in black. It hangs on him loosely.

I start to regret my words because he turns around. Maybe to check if Mel's roommate is hotter than her because I'm pretty sure guys like him only want one thing from a woman.

It's Ulrich. Oh, snap. "Hey Yumi," he says genially. Says it like there's nothing horribly, awfully wrong about this whole situation. "Hope you don't mind."

You know those situations when the awkwardness is just palpable? Right now, I could probably reach out a cut myself a slice of awkward pie. Bad analogy, but oh my God, Ulrich's in my room, knows that I wear ugly shirts to bed, and even worse, was looking at Mel's lacey lingerie probably only an hour before. Oh my God.

Oh God.

"Well, we'll see each other again?" Ulrich finally says, sending Mel a tiny smirk. It causes mini palpitations in her heart and she falls over dying.

At least that's how I wanted it. She turns her bedroom eyes on full force. Bitch sure knows how to lay it on thick. "Of course. It was a good exercise."

"Bye, Yumi." He tips his head and leaves.

I choke out at the now-empty doorway, "Bye."

The lecture is as boring as I expected it to be. I think it's pretty obvious why Mrs. Richards (the Old Bat and Medusa are a couple of her choice nicknames) is still single after all these years. In her past life, she was probably a hamster or some other creature that has a particularly difficult time with social cues. Hint: when someone isn't paying attention to you and hasn't been paying attention to you for the past hour, it's probably time to change up your lecture. Or maybe just move on from your obsession with Canadians and your students might just pay attention. Also, bright blue eyeshadow doesn't bring you the right kind of attention.

But as the clock strikes seven and I get a text from Aelita to meet her at Le Scopitone, some nightclub she won't stop talking about, a smile lights up Medusa's face. And she stops talking about Canadians for the third time in the past two hours. "Have a great weekend, guys!"

(it's not like we all know there's a Justin Bieber live interview on some Québécois talk show coming on at zero two hundred hours Central European Summer Time or anything)

We mutter our good-byes to her, some of which are quite light-hearted, and the trudge that's been in my step all day finally lifts. Then it hits me. Like, really hits me.

Mel and Ulrich are together. Mel and Ulrich are having sex. Mel is my roommate. This will ensure more access to Ulrich. There is also the unfortunate point that Mel is with him. I can feel the trudge coming back, the headache that comes with everything that is Mel.

Even more than ever now, I need to talk to Aelita. She's going to help me get Ulrich. Because that guy is mine. It's like how dogs pee to mark their territory. I've peed on Ulrich...he just doesn't know it.

That happy little thought is on my admittedly single-minded brain as I dump my textbooks on the my dorm floor and get dressed. It also stays on my mind as I blatantly jaywalk across many, many streets and consequently frustrate a number of drivers. But they don't understand my predicament and need to scream at the most compassionate person I can get a hold of. Of course this means that a certain bird that is the synonym for more lewd activities come out.

I flip off one last driver and stride right into the club as I cross Rue Esclangon. The lights throb, blinking and spinning, and the music is almost overwhelming. In here, Aelita's pink perfectly-messed up bob of a haircut is nothing. Coontails, neon green highlights, and elaborate styles of braiding all make their appearance somewhere.

But Aelita is Aelita, and being the one who can make a bin bag look like high fashion, it's easy enough to spot her talking to Jeremie across the club. They're at this little side table that looks to be the perfect place for my inevitable rant. It takes barely nanoseconds for me to reach her, even in this mass of wriggling, sweaty bodies.

"Yumi!" She smiles, like me being here gives her the greatest pleasure in the world. Oh, wait, noooo, that's Jeremie. Because she has a boyfriend.

"Are you okay?" Jeremie asks. "You look kind of...constipated."

"I'm not constipated." I snap. "I was just thinking, okay?"

"About Mother Nature's monthly gift?"

"Aelita, make your boyfriend go away."

"Jeremie, why don't you go get us some drinks." She turns to him with a saccharine smile. "Please, for me?"

And that's how I get Aelita to do my dirty work for me. Now she spins around to face me, and when she notices me standing up, pats Jeremie's empty chair. "Come on, sit down. I know you had your period just last week and you don't have pooping problems. So, tell me, what's up?"

"Mel is what's up," I say.

"Mel? As in Melisande, your roommate? I think she's an idiotic bumblebee, but besides that, she's sweet. She gave me gum once."

I huff. "Bumblebees don't even like gum! And besides, bumblebees are cute. Mel is not." At her expectant look, I barrel on. "I found Mel having sex with Ulrich in our room."

"Ulrich problems, I knew it." That knowing smile is infuriating. I don't see how Jeremie once wrote a love poem to it. Her teeth aren't pearls, Jeremie. Humans can't have pearls as teeth.

"The important thing at hand is not your knowledge, Aelita. It's that I found my stupid roommate having sex with the guy I've been into ever since we were freshers."

"Someone's in a pissy mood today."

The remark is enough to set me off. "I am!" I cry. "I also embarrassed myself in front of him. You know what I did? Because I'll tell you what I did. He said 'hi' to me and I didn't say anything back."

"You've done it now." Aelita rolls her eyes. "End of the world. Apocalypse. All the rumours of December 2012 really are true."

"You don't get it. I bet he thinks I'm stupid now. He thinks that just because he has really good abs and a nice face that I'll just melt in a puddle."

"Since when did you become a psychic? You don't know this for sure, do you?"

"Well," I pause to think, "No. But I'm pretty sure of it."

"The fact is that you don't know this for sure. You've got to calm down, Yumi. You didn't say hi to Ulrich, that's that. I think the more important problem here is that your roommate is currently in a relationship with your crush of three years and going." It's really amazing, sometimes, how Aelita manages to twist everything around and make me sound like the unbalanced one.

"I suppose you're right." I say grudgingly. I don't want her to think that I'm accepting her being a smart arse and all.

"I'm always right. Moving on though, what are you going to do about this?"

"About their relationship? I'm going to get Ulrich to like me instead." At her encouraging nod, I continue. "I'm going to destroy their fledgling relationship and take whatever is left of it and tear it into shreds. I'll drink her blood!"

"Nice, that's the bloodthirsty Yumi I know. But tell me, how exactly are you going to do that?"

"Steal Mel's clothes?"

"Before that."

"Steal Mel's personality?"

"Wrong direction."

I sigh. "Ummm, maybe I could talk to him?"

"Exactly! You've got to make the first move. Become friends, but not too close friends. Whatever anyone else has told you, ignore it. Girls do get friendzoned and it's not easy getting out of The Zone."

"Should I be taking notes?" I smirk. My mood is lifting already. With her helping me, how can I fail?

Jeremie, with his spectacular timing, comes back with two Kanterbrau beers. "Thought you might need these."

"I didn't think it'd take so long." Aelita says.

"It didn't, but I thought you and Yumi needed more time."

She positively beams at him, and coos in the most disgusting tone I've heard in a long time. "Oh, Jeremie, you're so thoughtful."

"Spare me."

But I can tell they've caught on to my mood, because Aelita just smiles and Jeremie laughs and laughs and laughs. The lights flicker on just about everywhere, making her gold lamé top glitter in the dark of the club. In the back of my mind, I remember that Mel has a top just like Aelita's. There's an English saying that makes me smile when I compare the two.

All that glitters is not gold. Everything will (hopefully) be okay and I'll show Prince Charming who's the real princess.

A/N: Sincere thanks to Naruto'sramengirl for her review. It's amazing how a paragraph can force yourself to reflect upon your writing. I already said that I didn't like Chapter 2, and I ended up rewriting the whole chapter. She's right; you guys didn't need to know about Yumi dressing unless it was pivotal to the story. And it wasn't. I also took out the second scene in Chapter 1, since I feel like it makes it more concise.

This is without the comment of anyone else, but I'm not liking Mel much, and have taken her out (at least as a main character). I wanted to try an OC that people could like and wouldn't feel that she was intruding in the relationships of the LWs, but right now, I don't know if I'm ready to attempt that. OCs are very tricky beings indeed. ;) This is supposed to be an AU about the LWs where Yumi is a bit more worldly and Lyoko is done differently, but that doesn't mean I want to mess with their relationships.

Though I know it isn't perfect by any means, I hope it feels like a tighter story already with the changes. This pacing is a too fast for my liking, but now I'm thinking that I don't like the idea of Chapter 2 being a filler chapter. There's a lot of crap I need to get out of the way to set the background, but that doesn't mean I should subject anyone to a chapter where Yumi gets dressed and goes through a badly-written scene of being drunk and throwing herself over Ulrich. It's just not her. While the characters are going to be OOC, they're not meant to be that out there.

Also, thank you to the other two reviewers. I apologise for taking so long to get back to you, WilliamsSky. And to The Forgotten Password, your review makes me smile! Thank you, you guys. :)