Madoka pulled her arm back into the boat as she felt it growing sore from the paddling she had been doing. Kyoya was doing the same, but the two didn't appear to be moving all that far. "I'm telling you Madoka we'd be better off just swimming there" Kyoya grumbled.

"No!" Madoka looked over to him nervously "we can't swim that far."

"I could" Kyoya mumbled looking back down into the water.

"Well...I can't" She looked away also. The two went on in silence for the next couple of minutes. Turns out trying to paddle to the island was harder than Madoka had thought. They didn't have an ore, so they had to do it themselves. Kyoya was keen on the idea of just swimming there, but Madoka managed to stop him from jumping in. They were still pretty far, if something were to happen to him Madoka wouldn't be any help while still back at the boat. Kyoya reluctantly agreed and went to tell Madoka she would have to help.

The air was starting to get cooler which met it would be getting dark within the next few hours. Kyoya stopped his paddling for a moment to look out into the open water. Several large branches and sticks were floating a ways away likely due to the previous stormy nights. Madoka looked over as he stood up. After pulling his shirt off the teen stepped over the edge and into the water.

"Kyoya!" Madoka called, worried that the boy had decided to go on and swim there without her.

"Chill, I'm just…" The boy managed to say that much before he ducked his head under the water. His head bobbed up again as he took hold of one of the larger pieces of wood. Madoka moved to take hold of Kyoya's hand to help him pull himself back into the boat."Look we can use it as an ore, better than what we've been doing." Madoka sat quietly as Kyoya shuck his hair out and shivered as he redressed, pulling his sweatshirt on also.

After minutes of silence she spoke again. "Remember when you first moved into my neighborhood?" Madoka asked quietly.

"Yeah…" Kyoya answered as they made way towards the island.

"You and your brother threw snow at Hikaru and I because we didn't want to play your games." She said, suppressing a small smile.

"I'll admit, we were brats."

"You were nice though. After I started to cry. I was kinda of a brat too, Hikaru also…" Kyoya laughed.

"I hurt my wrist that day when you pushed me." Madoka ginned also as they remembered their old childhood days. "You never told on me though, that I hurt your wrist...I told on Kakeru though." Kyoya got quite.

"Hey mom, look at those kids." Kakeru pointed towards the sight of a blue haired child and her brunette friend running around in the front yard over. "I wanna go play with them!"

"Kyoya take you brother to play with them." A somewhat somber looking raven haired woman spoke as she stepped out of their new house to grab another box. "those are some of our neighbors daughters, so go on and make friends." The American woman smiled as she watched her sons venture off. Her smile faded though as she went on to grab another box. Her husband was nowhere in sight to help.

Kakeru raced towards the laughing girls as Kyoya followed. "Hey let's build a snow fort together!" He declared, not bothering with any kind of introduction.

The blue haired girl crossed her arms. "No, we're playing house, you can play that with us."

"Hikaru's the mommy." The brunette spoke. Hikaru nodded and pointed at Kakeru. "You can be the son since you younger." She turned to Kyoya next "and you'll be the daddy. Madoka's the daughter."

It didn't take long before Kakeru found himself bored and Kyoya decided he didn't want to play the same way as the girls. "This is so stupid!"

"No it's not! That's what dadys do, they go to work and support their family, so go work at the bank!" Hikaru argued back as she pointed angrily at the tree.

"That's just a tree!"

"Its called pretending, you're supposed to use your imagination." Madoka spoke up from her spot next to Kakeru.

"Thats boring though, let's have a snowball fight!" Kakeru declared as he dove down to grab a hand full of snow to chuck at Hikaru.

"You two to play by yourselves, me and Hikaru are gonna play what we want inside." Madoka declared as Kyoya crossed his arms.

"Fine, who wants to be friends with such boring girls anyways! Come on Kakeru." Kakeru decided to throw one last lump of snow, hitting Madoka's cheek.

"Oww! That had a rock in it!" She cried as tears swealed in her eyes.

"Look what you did!"

"Oh...I-I didn't mean too" Kakeru went red and shakily rubbed his arm. Madoka rubbed her stinging cheek as she dashed to climb up the porch steps. Worried that she would tell her parents and get Kakeru in trouble with their father, Kyoya ran up to her.

"Hey, it was an accident. He didn't mean t-"

"You two are jerks!" She cried as she gave Kyoya a good shove to the ground. He winced slightly feeling a small pain in his wrist.

"...I'm sorry…" She spoke quietly, she didn't know what had gotten over her.

"Let's just go inside now" Hikaru mumbled as she led her upset friend inside. Kakeru helped his brother up and the two went home.

Madoka hadn't planned on telling her father on Kakeru, but he pried it out of her. Hikaru was taken home and Madoka went to bed not long after teary eyed. Kakeru was grounded at dinner that night after a visit from Madoka's angry father. A light bruise had appeared on Kyoya's wrist, but he didn't say anything. After all he didn't want his new friend to get in trouble.

Madoka shivered as her feet dipped into the water. It was beginning to grow dark as Kyoya pulled the boat on shore. Madoka ran ahead to took for any sign of people. Kyoya fell back onto the sand once he finished. He was glad to be out of that boat. He heard Madoka's footsteps approaching him again as she dropped down next to him. "I didn't see anyone on shore and it's too late to go into the forest." She said sadly. "I want to go home…" She mumbled as she looked away from him with tears.

"I...want you to get home safe too." He confessed.

"You want to get home also though, right?" She asked as she leaned back to lay next to him and count the stars. Kyoya didn't answer. Did he what to go home? Of course he did but if he did then...he'd feel all alone again.

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Don't worry, the real adventure is about to begin.