I woke up with a slight sore on my back. The sun was shining and snuck its way through the closed curtain on the window and found my eyes. As I made my way up and opened the window, a breezy Autumn wind greeted me. Leaves were starting to fall and some had already covered the streets. It was a bit cooler than yesterday; maybe I should carry my jacket with me to school today.

I came down the stair just early enough to say a goodbye to my uncle as he kissed Nanako on cheek and then left to work.

"I have to make breakfast now," she said, and pouted. "Dad didn't eat any, he just came down and left."

I smiled and offered my help to her, since I could also prepare my lunch along with preparing the breakfast.

We ate and watched the television a bit to kill off some time before heading out to school.

I turned and locked the door behind me when, from the corner of my eyes, I saw a figure standing at the far side of the street.

It was Chie. She was walking towards us while waving her hand in a contented manner.

"Hey, guys!"

She looked a slightly bit different than normally did every other day. She was having different jacket on. It was a yellowish tone, blended with some of her favorite green color, while the lining was in orange. Her socks were a bit higher and the shoes were different also.

"Uh, hey," still confused from her unexpected appearance, I simply just greeted her back.

"Hi, Nanako-chan, are you guys going to school now?" Placing both hands on her knees, she bent down and asked Nanako.

"Hi, Chie-san," Nanako greeted, obviously gladdened to see Chie here. "Yeah, we are about to."

"So what's brought you out here today? I thought your house was in the opposite direction," I questioned her.

"Blah, no bigggies," she scoffed. "I was just thinking of joining along with you guys. What do you say?"

"Well… uh," I turned to Nanako, whose eyes were looking back at me. "What do you think we should do?"

"I think it's great!" she smiled.

"Well, then it's decided then," Chie joined us, placing Nanako between me and her. She grabbed her hand while I held her other. "Let's go!"

Was it just me or this so called "unexpected meeting" a bit suspicious …

Nanako parted way not so long after, leaving only me and Chie together. It was beginning to get a bit awkward now. Well, at least to me. What was she doing here?

That awkwardness persistently hung on around us a while more as we proceeded side by side slowly to school; most because I didn't know what to talk about, and because Chie was waiting on me to say something. Finally, as to have had enough, Chie broke the silence: "It's kinda cold today, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it is. A bit cooler, less humid,"

"I hate the fact that we have to bring our jacket to school in the morning today, and then when school's done, we have to bring it back by hands since it's going to be warmer afternoon,"

"Yeah,"

The silence returned and the awkwardness meter had just gone up, way up. We kept on walking like that for a while more until I decided to say: "So tell me, Chie. Why are you here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, why are you walking with me to school today? You never did this before, since your house is not on the same route as mine."

"I told you already, I just wanted to help you walk Nanako to her school, and also I wanted to check if you guys are still doing fine,"

"Why? You just woke up this morning and decided that you wanted to be our motherly figure?"

"No. I was thinking about how Dojima-san is hardly around anymore since he has to deal with the murder case now, so I thought that I should give you guys a hand,"

I giggled, "Whatever you say, Chie,"

We entered the classroom, and it was heavy, the air was. It felt as if all the eyes in the class were glued onto to me the moment Chie and I walked in. I sat down on my seat, and Yosuke and Rise rushed at me.

"So how did it go?" They asked in a interrogating manner.

"What go?" I raised a brow. "What are you talking about?"

"What?" They were speaking synchronically. "You don't remember?"

"About what?"

"Dude," Yosuke widened his eyes. "Don't tell me that you forgot all of that happened yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?" Trying to recollect my scattered memories, I stared at Rise then to Yosuke and then to Chie, who was sitting on the seat right next to me while having this odd grin on her lips.

Then it hit me.

"Oh! That bet!"

"He's going to lose," Yosuke sighed.

"What? No!" As I heard him, I rose up. "There's no way I can lose this bet. I was just… wasn't ready."

"Yeah, that's right! Senpai won't lose to this!" Rise spoke.

"Well, dude, then you're gonna have to be ready now," Yosuke patted his hand on my shoulder.

"Ha, then one point goes to me!" Chie, now said something, she stood and pointed her thumb proudly to her chest. "You were oblivious and fell for that trick,"

"What point? I thought the game ends when either side give up, not calculated by points," I raised my objection to her.

"Whatever is the case, you did fall for it."

"What? It wasn't even a trick to start with. You just asked to go to school with me,"

The bell for the first period rang, cutting off our argument. We sat back down to our seats; each had a contemptuous thought for the other. Yosuke moved back to his own seat as Rise just calmly making her way back to her classroom. Ms. Kashiwagi entered the class, encountering Rise on her way in, she gave her a disgusted look behind her back.

As usual, she found the teacher's desk as comfortable as a chair and sat on it, as opposed to sit on the chair like a normal teacher would. She crossed her legs and began to survey her eyes throughout the room. The class was quiet for a few second. Chie was sticking her tongue out to me…

"Since today is Wednesday, so… Mr. Seta!"

I startled as my name rang through the class. All eyes poured to my direction, and I stood up uncomfortable. "Yes?"

"How would you like to be our first victim of the day and answer the… pop quiz that I have?" Her eyes were grossing me out somehow.

"Do I have a choice?" I shrugged; a few giggles can be heard.

"Okay, how about question 13 on your homework? I'll give you some time to get out your notebook,"

Crap. Now I remembered that we had homework yesterday. Trembling slightly, I took as slow as I could to pull out my notebook. Opened some random, blank page and looked up, clueless.

"Uh," I decided to buy some more extra time. "As for the homework yesterday, I did some researches on my textbook, the pages that you assigned to us, but after a long moment, I realized that the information that was provided to me were shallow and unhelping. So at another attempt to solve this mystery, I had to look it up on the Internet to find more info on this subject, and without my content, I wandered up to some foreign websites. Because of that, I had to go look for the dictionary which was in my uncle's bookshelf, which was locked up securely so that no one couldn't touch it. Since that was the case, I had to ask my cousin whether if she knew the exact location of the key to the shelf. She didn't, so I had to have her call my uncle from his work, then…"

"Okay, okay, I've got it," I was cut short. "Did you, or did you not do your homework?"

I was in the mud; couldn't go anywhere. But suddenly, from the corner of my eyes, a piece of paper was slowly making its way towards my direction. It was Chie's. She had written some notes on that piece of paper. "54.34%" it said.

Dammit Chie, why do you have to play this game now? It had zero difference or whatsoever to indirectly blackmailing me. I had two choices, either went down and be obedient to her, or I could just be a man and take it.

"Fifty…four point thirty…four percent?" I repeated desperately, hoping that what she wrote was true.

"It looks like you did after all," she shrugged, sounding disappointed.

I sat down, sighing. Chie was now smiling wickedly.

Dammit Chie… She really does know how to play this…

After school, the whole group came back up, with the exception of Chie and Yukiko.

"Dude, you have to start focusing now. She 's winning little by little," Yosuke commented.

"No, I believe in Senpai. There is absolutely no way that he can lose to Chie-senpai," Rise backed me up. "I respected Chie-senpai, but in this matter, I support Souji-senpai wholeheartedly,"

"Thank you, Rise," I smiled in relief; at least someone was putting their trust on me.

"So how did it go, senpai?" Kanji asked me.

"So far she's got the upper hand on the deck now, but it won't be for long. She may have the deck, but the cards are mine," I replied him in the best metaphor that I could think of. "And beside I have my full confidence in this bet anyway. How can I lose to something when I already know what my opponent is doing? I mean, if she's trying to woo me, all I should do is give her the straight face, simple as that,"

"I don't think it's that relevant. This subject is extremely problematic, it should not be taken lightly," Naoto voiced her opinion.

The group quickly argued again. As for me, I was very confident in myself.

How can I lose anyway?

Chie and Yukiko were strolling alongside the riverbank as they were talking the same subject that Souji, and their friends were talking about.

"Oh, I swear I'm going to get that guy and fall head over heel for me," Chie formed her hand into a fist, putting the same kind of confidence that Souji had in him.

"Well, what are you going to make him do, if you win the bet?" Yukiko asked.

"Huh, I haven't decided that just yet, but no matter what it's going to be, it's not something that he can feel pleasant about,"

Yukiko sighed. "Anyways, good luck,"

"Thanks, but do you have any tips that you can give me?"

"Huh? Why do you ask me that?"

"Well, you work at an inn so… you know. I guess you at least know some tricks…"

Realizing what she was trying to say, Yukiko voiced out: "Chie!"

"Sorry, sorry, but it was just my dumb logic, ya know. I really want to find out some way that I can beat this game," she turned quiet for a moment.

"Say, Chie," Yukiko said.

"What, Yukiko?"

"You really want to win this, right?"

"Yeah, I do! Especially just to see his expression after all of this is settled. Oh, it's going to be hilarious!"

"Alright then, do whatever you can. You've got my trust on you," Yukiko smiled, shaking her head a little.

"Is your mom free tomorrow?" Chie asked.

"At evening, she is, why?"

"I was wondering if I could come over to ask your mom a few things tomorrow,"

"You can, just drop by in the evening."

"Great," she murmured to herself, thinking of her own new scheme. Whatever it was, it seemed like it was going to be not so good… for Souji.

Sorry for the long wait, I was very very very busy with my life (get back home at 6pm and always too tired to write anything... Cross country can suck really bad sometimes). Anyways, enjoy your read, and to all that readers who are still following this, you always have my thanks :)