My weekend is completely sans of much entertainment. Out of the three days I have off of school, two of them are devoted to work - where Isis makes it all too easy for me not to think about anything except my job – and, for that, I was grateful.

All my other spare time is spent sewing up a new shirt for myself, patched together from various parts of my old job uniforms. It is a busy project, so, like at work, I don't have time to think about Jou at all. In fact, I take an odd pride in knowing that, if I ever found myself in a pinch financially, I could always sell my clothing for a fair price. Sunday night, when I try on my new shirt, examining it for wear, Harpy purrs at me. She adores it.

Monday morning comes, and I wake up with my usual burning lust for life - which is none, but a travel mug full of hot coffee always helps. The walk to school is normal, at best. I'm listening to Flyleaf, and it puts me in a good mood for some reason, as if her raspy screams were an embodiment of the noise going on in my head – giving my thoughts a form made them easier to deal with.

I hear a car horn behind me, and I jump, startled. Turning, I see a black limousine sliding up behind me, crawling to a stop. The back most window rolls down, and Kaiba's cool eyes stare at me, and his lips say the words "Do you want a ride?" Taken aback by this sudden, oddly kind gesture, I find myself nodding before I can turn him down. To my embarrassment, a large man pulls himself out of the driver's side and opens the door for me. I mutter a quick "thanks" to him before ducking into the car.

"Why the sudden bravado?" I question, sitting in one of the side seats near Kaiba.

He raises his eyebrows.
"I'm sorry - did you want to walk?"

"Not particularly."

"Then shut up."

I stare at him, waiting for a sign of weakness, but find none. My entire sense of reality needed to be revamped – from my base assumptions about physical matter, to my understanding of the evolutionary theory. Seto Kaiba is not supposed to be generous. I never thought he was a bad guy, per se – but this just didn't seem appropriate. Somehow, it was indecent, even.

"But…" I trail off, nonplussed. I am not completely put off by Kaiba's sudden strike of humanity – and that disturbs me slightly.

"Well, now that we've established that I'm such a swell guy..." He said, "Can we move on?" Whether it was his sudden actions, or if I was still not 100% myself, I felt a bit weepy. Normally, I wouldn't tell him something so personal about myself, but I'm suddenly desperate to say it out loud to someone other than my cat.

"My mom died."

He is silent for a long time, watching me in the steady way only Kaiba could.

"That is serious." Is what he finally says, and that's it. He doesn't say he's sorry. He doesn't ask me how I'm coping. And, for that, I'm thankful to him. Glad that he could take shocking news and process it without getting emotional or fretting. Concern from others is the last kind of vibes I can take. Concern makes me feel sorry for myself, and then I start getting shiny-eyed, which makes people try to comfort me, and I really hate that. A lot.

"Yeah." I stare out the window. "But it's fine. I mean, I was really shocked at first. But…" I sigh. "We didn't talk much after I left home, you know. Actually, I should've hated her – but I never did. I mean, after everything, though…she was still my mom." Suddenly, my throat feels tight. "I'm over it. Just...thought I'd tell you."

"…Sure." His tone is disbelieving enough for me to look back at him. "You shouldn't trivialize shit."

"I'm not." I lie. A moment later, we pull up into the school parking lot, and I get out before I could betray myself anymore. I replace my earphones and kick up the volume as I walk in through the doors.

I hover through the rest of the morning like a butterfly in a gravity-free environment. Nothing touches me. In Science and Nature class, we've reached the all-popular reproduction unit. Mr. Fredrick has brought in huge orange stargazer lilies for us to stare at while he lectures about stamens, pistils, pollen, and bees (and all that other crap that we all already learned back in middle school.) It's dull, mind-numbing work.

The Professor's little bimbo keeps raising her hand and asking him to repeat himself. At one point, "David" even rushes over to her side to show her how to spell pollination. She leans over the table more, letting her shirt creep down her chest, and he stands closer to her. I know he's rubbing his groin on her arm. Valon knows he's rubbing his groin on her arm. The whole class knows. One boy sniggers, and that's enough to make our teacher come back to his senses and step back from her, rubbing his black goatee. He covers his bases by assigning us a list of chapters to read, followed by a free verse about the role of wind in the reproduction of plants.

"Mr. Fredrick?" I call, struck with inspiration. He looks up, surprised, and eventually walks over to me.

"Do you have a question?"

"Actually," I begin flashing him just the slightest smile as I flipped my long hair over my shoulder. Best to play my strengths - and his weaknesses. "I needed to ask you if I could leave the class a bit early. I have a really important assignment due tomorrow." I put a little bit of whine in my tone. "And I am completely bombing it. I'm, like, maybe a little more than half way done with it." I tilted my head, just enough to look at him under my lashes. "Could I please go work on it? I promise I'll have your assignment done, too." I hold out my pinkie in what I hoped was a coy way. "I never break promises."

Mr. Fredrick swallows very visibly. I see Valon ogling me out the corner of my eye - but I don't look away from Mr. Fredrick, who is now turning pink.

"I...yes...Of course." He hooks a finger in his collar, loosening it. He's never had my charm turned on him before, and now he is flustered - and possibly now taken with me. Perfect. What a creep...even though it was my own fault. But it's the only sure-fire way I can think of that would get him to say yes. I just need to get out of the room - away from all the noise. "Yes, of course, Mai." He nods. "That's perfectly fine."

"Thank you." I simper, and he nods again before walking away, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, and slightly confused. I look at Valon, and he remains silent.

"What?" I finally ask.

"What the hell was that?" He questions, still staring.

"I just need to get out of here." I reply, packing my things. "And that was the only way I could make sure he said yes."

"Wow." Valon whistles lowly. "You are truly a weapon of mass destruction." He salutes me. "Make sure you use them powers for good."

I inwardly grimace. "Yeah, well..." I mutter, grabbing my bag and heading out of the room. And, minutes later, I'm in the library. Surrounded by silence and my class folders. I insert my earbuds, bend over my work, and being to write - already feeling stupid:

Oh, wind... I love the way you rub pollen on my pistil,
Your sweet caress really gets my nectar flowing.
You can pollinate me anytime you want;
From behind, or face-to-face.
Pollinate me in the midst of night,
Or in the morning before work.
Just make sure you pollinate me slow,
Or else I might wither away, Jou.

I write the entire last line before I realize that Jounouchi's name had snuck into my poem. His name doesn't belong in anything I write or think. I erase the last few lines so hard that I wear through the paper. Accident, chance...you can call it what you want - but it certainly was not intentional. I close my eyes and hold my breath, trying to clear my mind completely. I got away from the class full of waves to avoid this exact thing, and now look at me. I let my breath out slow, and kept going until I can feel my lungs deflate completely and I could force no more air out of them. Finally, I am calm enough to begin another - Jou free - verse for my paper.

I open my eyes, and who do I see sitting in front of me?

Jounouchi Katsuya. Naturally.

I smell the scent of peppermint gum, and my mouth waters. He's biting his lower lip as his eyes scan over me. Then, he smiles tentatively. I can not report what expression I have on my face, because I didn't even try to look any other way but surprised - that's how off-guard he had caught me. He slides a piece of paper toward me and raises his golden eyebrows. I blink and look down to see the words I'm sorry.

I blink again, and look back to Jou. My face must be asking some kind of question, because he takes the paper, writes more, and slides it over to me again: I got really embarrassed when we got together last time, and I don't ever know what to do with myself in those kinds of situations. I ended up acting like an idiot. And then I made that dumb announcement at the morning meeting and I felt like it was a good idea at the time, but after, when I had gone to talk to you, you were talking with Valon - and I guess I felt that maybe you were embarrassed that I went so public about it. I don't know.

I look at him again, and his expression is confusing to me. He doesn't seem able to life his eyes high enough to look at my face, but he's not staring at my breasts, either. I think he's looking at my hands, and it makes me glad that I had repainted my nails last night. I could turn down my music and try to tune into his thoughts, but, somehow, I don't want to. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what was on his mind, and, honestly, it felt nice to pretend that I was just a regular human being. That we were just two normal student sitting together in the library of a normal school. It's like a vacation from my own mind.

Hesitantly, he writes something more on the paper. And then it's back in front of me. Actually, I was thinking it might be fun to do the next part of our project at the cafe by campus. We could get some grindage.

I assumed that grindage was some kind of term for food. I look at him for a moment longer, then I nod. I'm terrified, yet happy all at once. For some reason, my eyes burn, and I have to look away from him to blink. He doesn't seem to notice anything weird, though. I look back in time to see him break into a wide, blinding smile, and he gets up from his chair, about to go. However, before he leaves, he pulls out on of my earbuds and whispers, "I'll meet you at the pink tree."

Then he's walking away, and I can still feel his breath on my cheek, still smell mint in the air - even long after he has left the room.