Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. It belongs to its rightful owners.

CHAPTER THREE: SUPPORTIVENESS

NANA

"Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion."

— Steve Maraboli

'YES, I'M DOING okay, Mom.'

After sending the email to my mother, I had accidentally let out a louder sigh than I intended to. While it was the truth, I was actually doing okay, it was a complete lie as well. I wasn't doing fine. There was a difference. I was losing it, for a lack of a better term. Bad things were starting to catch up with me, and my stress migraines were getting too hard to ignore.

Across the table, Yumiko gave me a sympathetic look. She of all people knew how things were starting to upset me lately. She had even been the one to invite me out for lunch today, hoping the change in atmosphere would help stall my worries.

But, it only made me stand out that much more. She was wearing a pretty, white, flowery top with shorts; I was wearing a black hoodie with the hood thrown over my head. She sported a gold bag as an accessory. I was sporting actual bags under my eyes. It was a big contrast . . . especially with our added newcomer.

'Aw, don't worry about it, Nana. You didn't do that bad.'

Beside Yumiko, Hideyoshi held up a sign for me to read, thick brows tilting upward in the middle, and a kind smile on his lips. Even he was wearing a yellow t-shirt and shorts. And while he always dressed in colors bright enough to rival the stars, I had been kind of hoping he'd be on the darker side of the spectrum at least once to match with me. But, that wasn't the case. I was the only negative one there.

Things had been going fine up until about two days ago. After receiving Kaneki's notes, I'd been studying for an entire week and a half to get a good grade on my Japanese Literature quiz. I'd been hyped on caffeine for eleven days. Eleven days. I'd go to school, then go straight back home in hopes of sending my mother good news about the first test I'd ever took in university.

However, on the morning of the test, I'd bounded into class prepared for anything. At least, I thought I was. I'd been studying the suggested books the whole time, and not the mandatory one. I had totally bombed the test. I was talking about a thirty out of one hundred in the final score. It was humiliating. All of that studying and money spent on coffee for nothing.

I'd been upset about it ever since then. I wasn't mad or anything like that, just disappointed in myself. Kaneki had even tried to help me get a good score, and I blew it. How could you possibly fail a test that you had help on?

Yumiko had picked up on the fact that I had been wearing all black for two days in a row. I didn't feel like wearing yellows, or pinks, and even greens for that matter. All I wanted was to go to school and go back home. Of course, my redheaded friend wouldn't have that. She had pulled me aside while I was on my way to my abnormal psychology class claiming that she was taking me to go get lunch. We'd ran into Hideyoshi on the way, who asked where we were going, and eventually decided to tag along since he didn't have class again until later.

It was how I ended up ditching my fourth class of the day to eat with the two of them. I didn't mind it—I needed a break, anyways—but, I wasn't expecting an intervention in the middle of lunch. At least, not from these two.

Hideyoshi waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention. Blinking a few times, my gaze traveled from the table to his eyes. When my purple ones met his brown ones, he shivered, cringing at the intensity of them. I hadn't meant to give him such a look. I guessed it was just how I felt these days.

Yumiko shook her head, and wrote down in bold print, 'Okay, this has to stop.'

'What has to stop?' I had replied.

She made a face, holding up her new sign. 'Nana, you've been stuck in your apartment for who knows how long now. You barely want to hang out anymore. All you do is go to school wearing over-sized, black hoodies and go home. You're a psychology major; you should know what the hell is going on.'

Hideyoshi took the notebook and pen from her, his mouth forming the letter 'O' as he revealed his writing. 'Is this depression?'

I deadpanned. 'I'm not depressed, Hide.'

That was far from what I was feeling. I was just . . . stuck in a rut. If I was already failing so early on into the school year, what was going to happen later on? Sure, the reason I failed was because I didn't follow directions. Still, who was to say that wouldn't happen again. Everyone told me not to get too comfortable during my first year of university because it was easy to get lost. That was exactly what I did. Now, I'm stuck like this.

I placed my forehead on the table with another sigh. I'd been sighing a lot these past two days. It'd take twice the amount of studying to get my grade back up in that class. Twice the amount of reading, twice the amount of work, twice the amount of under eye bags and sleepless nights. If I knew it would be this hard, I would've stayed in Karuizawa.

But, things weren't expected to go smooth sailing all of the time. I knew that something would happen eventually. I was just feeling discouraged because it happened so soon. We were two days into the third week of school, and I already had a big, fat, 'F' on my grades. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to see for someone just starting to live on their own. It was irresponsibility at it's finest.

Yumiko tapped on the back of my head. I lifted it up, dull eyes reading the note she was holding up. It made me sigh again for about the fortieth time that afternoon.

'You're just lacking motivation is all! You're being too hard on yourself. Use it as fuel to come back better for the next test!'

The thought of the next test wasn't encouraging in the slightest. It just meant more hard work. It wasn't that I had a problem with working hard. It was just that my hard work still led to fails, it seemed.

Hideyoshi offered a kind smile as he held up the next message. 'Let's go, Nana! Go, go, Nana! ╰(✧∇✧╰)'

At that, I let out a bark of laughter. He included the little cute face and all of the above. It made it that much better, especially since we weren't text, but actually writing. The little doodles of stars and sparkles around it added to the cuteness. Sometimes it was hard to believe this guy was seven months older than me.

Hearing the sudden sound made the two smile. They'd gotten me to crack with silly drawings and faces. My hand shot up to hide away the smile tugging at my lips. But, it was too late. They had already seen it. They were going to run with it now.

'See?' Yumiko had wrote to me. 'Don't you feel a little better? Surrounding yourself with friends will do that.'

She had a point. The two of them always got me to smile doing the simplest things throughout the time we've known each other. Especially Hideyoshi, who was so sincere in everything he did that it showed through. Yumiko had even ordered me a sandwich against my protests. They were kind people who hardly conversed with people outside of their social group. And once you were in . . . you were in for a lot more than being pals.

Maybe I was wrong for hiding myself away. After getting my score, I should have went to someone to talk about my troubles with instead of letting them bottle up. Maybe I should have gone out for fresh air instead of cooping up in my apartment. Maybe I should have ate something nice, hung out with Yumiko, and caught up on the rest that I missed out on. Maybe I had came about this thing with the completely wrong approach.

Maybe I should have talked to my mother instead of lying about it. She would have rather heard the truth than shitty lies about how I'm not beating myself up for my wasted studying. She would have told me to do better on the next one—that this one wasn't a big deal. I could recover my grade from this still since it was so early on in the school year. But, I just had to seclude myself, and cutting off the good energy just made more room for the bad ones to manifest.

Perhaps I should go back to Karuizawa during summer break. Not to stay—to see my mother and grandparents, and to take a break. Visiting home would remind me why I moved to Tokyo in the first place. It'd make me more grateful for being here and remind me not to give up so soon. That, and I've missed the hot springs. Oh, how I missed the hot springs.

But, for now, I had reasons to not quit. I still wanted to be a psychologist. I still wanted to do everything that I haven't done. I want to make more friends, see more of the city, experience university, and make long lasting memories. It's only been two weeks. I can't let the world beat me down so soon.

I raised a hand to take the hood off of my head. My hair was sticking up in different places, for sure, so I finger combed the strands to make sure they stayed down. That was all that it took for Hideyoshi and Yumiko to clap for my change in attitude. The hood was off, and it felt like a new beginning to a winding down story.

People around the little food place began to stare at us because of their clapping. All of the sudden attention had stained my cheeks pink, and I put a finger to my lips to tell the two to quiet down. That in itself was ironic enough. I couldn't even hear their clapping, yet I knew they were making enough noise to cause a disturbance.

Yumiko wrote another note. 'The witch has rose from the dead.'

Hideyoshi covered his mouth to hide the fact that he was laughing. I shot the redheaded girl another deadpanned face. She was dramatic as always. Though, I had to smile, too. Maybe I was being the dramatic one this time.

'Thank you guys for the pep talk,' I had wrote for them. 'And thanks for the sandwich.'

Yumiko smirked. 'That sandwich wasn't free. You've gotta pay me back by not being so hard on yourself.'

Hideyoshi nodded in agreement. They were both such kind people . . . I felt my eyes stinging as they began to water. The only people to ever be this nice to me were my own family. Not even my friends throughout high school were this concerned. It was a first for me, to have people care about whether you stressed or not. It didn't matter that we've known each other for a little over two weeks, or that half of that had been spent with me locking myself away, a person was a person. They saw me as a person who needed a pick-me-up. It was . . . unexpected.

Their eyes went wide at the threatening tears. I wasn't going to cry, but I felt like it. There was a feeling of happiness that washed over me. Along with motivation, it was rare for me to feel that from people I didn't share blood with.

I wrote down a message, smiling with wet eyes as I showed them. 'I won't. Thank you.'

Yumiko winked while Hideyoshi choked on his drink. I guessed my genuine smile had caught him off guard. It was a smile that turned into laughter when Yumiko began to hit him on the back, helping him to keep breathing. I read her lips; she told him that he was "such a boy." Though I didn't know what she meant by that, I found it funny how he swatted her hands to get away from him.

We finished the food while engrossed in conversation. Yumiko told of how she had befriended enough professors to wind her name up on the dean's list. Hideyoshi simply argued that she was the kind of person to talk her way through a successful bank robbery. If she were to graduate it would definitely because she hangs around the teacher's lounge in her spare time. She waved her fist at him, and I laughed because every bit of what he said was the truth.

But, he wasn't without scrutiny, too. They apparently shared an English class in the Department of International Studies. He was notorious for sleeping through lessons whenever the teacher got to lecturing. It wasn't that he was uninterested, he told us, for he was very interested in school. He just always went to bed too late. Doing what, he wouldn't say, but he managed to keep his grades good despite all of that. At the mention of grades, I sent the boy a playful glare.

I also learned that his hair was naturally that color. His roots always grew in dark before lightening to a blond-orange when it got long enough to hit the sunlight. Yumiko and I had assumed that he bleached his hair not too often enough. He pretended to be offended, saying he couldn't help his genetics. Though, like I said, Hideyoshi can pull off anything, so it wasn't a bad thing. It was just unique.

And after an hour of getting to know each other, it was time to go back to school. Yumiko had already managed to get me to ditch my abnormal psychology class. I couldn't miss my organic chemistry one, too. That wasn't exactly the kind of class one wanted to miss. Besides, Hideyoshi had his own class to get to, and Yumiko had to assist the teachers before three o'clock. Just like that, our break was over.

We split off in different directions when we got back to school. I made sure to tell them goodbye and another thank you for their pep talks. They had opened my eyes again. They returned the excitement back to school. I'd show them that I could pass this year without giving up. That was all that Yumiko asked of me, after all.

My next class was my second to last class for the day. It was on the first floor in the Department of Medicine. I wasn't originally going to take it, opting for a normal general chemistry class, but most of them had been filled. It wasn't too bad, anyways. A lot of the students in there were older, thus it was quieter, and less crowded.

I walked in a few minutes early as usual. Surprisingly, the back rows were already starting to fill out. The same couldn't have been said for the front ones. Students were choosing to sit in the back rows rather than the other way around. It was harder to see from back there; there weren't rows of seats, but individual labs that seated up to two people.

A lot of them were trying to sit with their friends. I supposed how all of it started. One group decided to it in the back, and people who knew them decided to sit around them. Nearly all the back labs were blocked off. Not that I was complaining. I hiked my bag further up my shoulder and marched over to the second row of labs. It was a difference than always sitting in the front.

In my time here, I had come to realize that this class was very . . . sectioned off. The freshman sat in one area. The sophomores sat in another. The juniors and seniors tended to snatch the back end and seclude themselves from everyone else. They "didn't want to socialize with children." However, by having that mindset, they didn't prove that they were much older. Mentally, anyway.

I picked the seat closest to the window. If I strained my eyes enough, I could see the construction workers placing in the new cherry blossoms. They had started a few days ago. Only a few of them left needed to be planted, but it was already a sight for sore eyes. The scattering of the pink petals really made it feel like April. Even if we were trapped in our classes.

I hadn't noticed someone sit next to me. It wasn't until I saw something move out of the corner of my eye did I finally pay attention. My gaze moved from the window to the right side of me, wondering who my lab partner was going to be today. Usually it was someone different every time, and usually it was a boy who only wanted to sit by me to talk to their friends. Or if they did want to talk, they'd become frustrated when I couldn't.

But, today was different. Today . . . it was a girl.

I couldn't tell how old she was. Very young, perhaps, and very beautiful. Her brown eyes were focused on getting her papers together. Short, shoulder-length red-brown hair tucked behind one ear, and blunt cut bangs, she was someone I hadn't recognized. It was unknown to me how, though. While she looked like your average pretty girl, she still had this air about her that made you want to look. Perhaps she just transferred into this class from another one.

She glanced over at me while I was looking. I had been trying to figure out if I had ever seen her before. But, she caught me, and no doubt I looked like a creep in that instant. Surprisingly, instead of being suspicious of me, she smiled and waved. I did the same since she looked nice enough.

The professor for this class was a man in his elderly years. He was a bit on the plumper side with a round stomach tucked behind his gray button-up shirt. Wire-rimmed glasses sat in front of his squinted brown eyes. Gray hair stuck up all over the place, matching his thick mustache and making him look somewhat like a mad scientist. It was fitting for a chemistry class.

The interpreter was one that I had only encountered in this class. It was a man who appeared in his twenties. Slicked down black hair and bold black eyes, he looked like he was a student in his fourth year. I supposed he had taken up being an interpreter as intern experience. Nonetheless, his hand movements were a bit slow, and I appreciated it since Mrs. Mitsukuri tended to sign like her life depended on it. Especially when it got later into the class.

The professor always wrote on the chalkboard in large letters. My guess was that since he had trouble seeing—which he often vocalized to us about for twenty minutes at a time—he was doing it to be considerate of others who needed glasses. That or he couldn't see the board himself. Either way, it made things easier for us to see, so I didn't complain one bit.

He went on to explain cell division and compounds. More specifically carbon compounds. Carbon compounds other than simple salts like oxides and carbides. I would admit that it was interesting . . . for all of ten minutes. Everything after that had been spoken while I stared at the clock, wondering when the class would end. I was all for the world of science and things of the like, but lectures weren't exactly too exciting.

Still, I jogged down notes and doodles to help me remember things. I drew out pictures of the single bonds and multiple bonds that were on the board. Bullet points with information on organic hybridization were written next to them as helpful reminders.

He kept mentioning helium, elections, and orbitals so many times that everything was starting to blur together. I had wrote everything do without paying attention, hoping that the notes would help me get a better understanding when I was at home. It wasn't a smart thing to do. Honestly, it was probably the reason why I ended up failing my other test, but I had agreed not to give up, not to change my habits. At least, not today while I still looked so gloomy.

My eyes glanced up to the clock hanging above the professor's head. Already the chalkboard was filled with structures, bonds, and notes. My page had even been flipped to the backside to make room for more. But, only ten minutes had passed, and another fifty remained. It felt like thirty, yet it wasn't even half of that. Just my luck.

I suddenly felt bad for the young interpreter. He must have been growing tried of signing every little thing the teacher said. You could only sign about helium so many times before it started to get annoying. I knew that from experience. Still, I was grateful for his help, making sure to semi-pay attention so that his efforts wouldn't be wasted.

The first electron that goes into the first orbital has a half spin upward while the second election has a half spin downward. He tried to make a joke about the orbitals being shape like donuts as he drew them around the nucleus. I had looked around to see if anyone laughed at it. Everyone was staring at him in boredom, all except for a boy in the back of the class who seemed to actually be giggling at the phone he was hiding under the table. The professor didn't notice, though, and gave him a thumbs up for thinking that he was funny. Poor guy.

Halfway through the class, he called everything to a halt. I raised an eyebrow as I glanced at the interpreter for an explanation. The lecture was over, he told me, and the last thirty minutes of class were going to be dedicated to working. It wasn't unusual for him to hand us worksheets that were due at the end of class. I had expected it to be one of those, but it wasn't, for he wrote on the board in large font: FIND A PARTNER.

Oh, boy . . .

We were going to have a project. A two page essay about the compound of our choice—we had to explain what it was, why it was that way, how it was made up, where we could find it, and when it could be used. Who it involved, though, was up to us. We had to pick one person in the class to split the essay up with . . . the essay that was due next week. Next week. Not only did we have to work together with someone on an essay, we had a week to do it. I was suddenly glad that I half-assed took all of those notes.

The class broke off to gather into their groups. People got up out of their seats to meet friends that were across the classroom. The people in front of us turned to each other with smiles. They were obviously going to work together. They were already friends, so why wouldn't they have? They weren't subjects of an awkward situation like I was.

While I was all for meeting new people, partnering up for projects weren't really my forte. I always had trouble doing it in high school. There were so many different types of scholars. There were some that sat back waiting for me to do all of the work. There were some that didn't want me to do anything, preferring control over a collaboration. There were some that goofed off, some that were serious, some that did everything in the last minute, some that wrote a load of crap pretending like they knew what they were talking about, and so much more. It was sometimes hard to tell who was which.

However, before I could go off looking for a decent person, the girl next to me turned to look in my direction. Her hair danced around her shoulders as she tilted her head with a gentle smile. The earring in her exposed ear sparkled from the sunlight shining in from the window. I had guessed what she was going to say, but I didn't want to assume. For all I knew, she could've been telling me goodbye so she could leave.

Her mouth moved to speak. Of course, no words came out, and I found myself furrowing my brows in attempt to read her lips. They had moved too fast for me to understand despite being so close. I had no clue what she was trying to say to me. So, I pointed my index finger to my ear, shaking my head to let her know that I couldn't hear her.

She nodded to let me know she understood. This time, her lips moved slower. That's fine, was what she had said. She pointed a polished finger to the project on the board, then motioned between us. She wanted to know if I wanted to be her partner. She must have been a first-year, too, since the sophomores usually stuck together in their own social cliques.

I nodded in agreement. She seemed nice, and the entire time throughout the lecture she was taking notes. Not once did her attention waver from trying to understand the material. She was the kind of person that worked hard in group projects, the kind of person everyone ran to in order to get a good grade. I got that much from how her notebook was well into the later pages . . . unlike mine. She had taken down a lot of information, and I was happy to apply that information to a good grade with her.

My grades are starting to look up, aren't they?

I wrote my name down on a piece of paper for her. I still didn't know who she was, and she didn't know who I was. If we were going to be working together, communication was a must, even if it was through paper.

She wrote her name down in response. Nishino Kimi, it was, written in forward slanted kanji. People who tended to write like that were often affectionate, sympathetic, honest, and kind. It made sense since it was the initial vibe that I got from her. They were also independent and intelligent. Just the kind of thing I needed in a partner.

We discussed what we wanted to do the project on. There were a ton of compounds to choose from, and the more intricate ones were sure to get us a higher score. But, we had to figure out if we were willing to risk getting things wrong for a higher grade. There was also the fact that there would be more research involved with more complicated compounds, meaning less time for our other classes.

In the end, we decided on one of the simpler ones. It was the safer route, but it was better to be safe than sorry. The girls in front of us had decided to pick one of the more difficult ones. The taller one of the pair didn't seem too confident about it from the way she wrote down ideas on their paper. I hoped that both of them got a good score in the end.

Then, there was the subject of presenting it. The professor wrote on the board that each essay will not only be split as far as in writing, but they will be split in reading, too. Every pair had to come to the front of the class to read their essays out loud. He said that since they were only two pages long, that was a page per student, and we could wrap everything up in less than a week. I'm sure the class groaned even if I couldn't hear them.

The thing was, I wouldn't be able to present it. At least, not without embarrassing myself in the process. I had wrote a note explaining that to Kimi, not minding if she decided to go to another partner because of it. It would either be embarrassing, or she'd be stuck with doing most of the speaking. It was bad either way, so I couldn't blame her.

The note that she wrote back was completely unrelated to what I said. 'Do you know sign language?'

I nodded. I knew it like the back of my hand, and most of my mother's side of the family did as well. However, I couldn't really tell where she was going with all of this. Then, it hit me, and my eyes went wide with realization.

'Do you think you could say in in sign language while I say it?' she wrote to me.

It was an amazing idea. It was a way for both of us to say it without any hints of inconvenience on either end. The interpreter would probably like it, too, since it would give him a break from having to do everything for a moment. The language barrier would be broken. I would be the interpreter, she would be the person giving the speech, and it would work out fine. All that was left was to see how the professor would react to it. Hopefully, he would understand.

We split the directions in half to divide evenly among the two of us. She was going to be covering the what, when, and where. I was going to be covering the how, and why along with combining the two sections into one at the end. She seemed pretty satisfied with the agreement. It'd require an equal amount of studying, an equal amount of time, and an equal amount of effort. Now, we just needed to do it.

Kimi made sure that I had received her email before anything else. That way, we would be able to contact each other in case there was something that we needed to discuss. Whether that be the due date, the subject, or checking up on how the other was doing with the project, communication was a key element in a partnership, so I was more than happy to give her mine as well. We had typed the addresses into each other's phones; hers was newer than my old model. Still, I was excited at the thought of someone actually wanting to work on a project.

After class started off as nothing too different than every other day. My next class was personality psychology, dealing with the varying personalities among individuals and why they acted the way they did. It was in the same building as my general psychology class next to the Department of Pharmacy. It wasn't too far. In fact, it was faster to walk over there than any other class, simply because it was filled with older students and they preferred not to crowd the hallways before lectures.

However, while it started off normal, it didn't stay that way for long. I was already getting used to the fact that I was going to have to contact Kimi a lot more frequently now—including the fact that I had even met her today—so anymore disruptions were completely unprecedented. Especially the disruptions that came in the form of people I already knew.

My eyes had glanced out of the window on the way out of the building, hoping to get a glimpse at the new cherry blossoms, when someone caught my eye instead. Standing beyond the glass was a boy, not too tall, and more on the thinner side underneath his olive green hoodie. Brown strands blew against his face from the spring wind blowing around outside. With thin fingers typing quickly into his phone, it would've been hard to tell who it was had it not been for the gleam in his green eyes. It was none other than Hiroto Anzai.

He was Yumiko's friend—the one who worked in the restaurant during his spare time. He was the so-called genius who could speak sign language like he grew up deaf himself. It took me a moment to recognize him outside of his work clothes—we'd only met once while he was working. Nonetheless, eyes were always a dead giveaway, and I rapped my knuckles against the glass to get his attention.

He glanced up with wide eyes. Fingers froze against the keypad of his phone, he turned his head to look at the window as if he had saw a ghost. I waved to him in attempt to let him know that I was friendly. Eventually, he did the same, walking over to meet me at the slightly opened window.

"So, you go to this school, too?" he signed to me.

I opened the window a little more and nodded. "Yes. How have you been?"

He ran a hand through his hair, then. The light brown strands were forced away from his face, allowing me to see the little hairs crowding around his hairline. Once he removed his hand, his bangs flopped back against his forehead, far more messier than they were in the first place.

"I've been all right," he signaled. "You look a lot more . . . down in the dumps since the last time I saw you."

The last time I saw Anzai, I wasn't in school very long, and still enthusiastic about learning. He had saw me before my Japanese Literature class went downhill. Of course he had caught me in the moment between giving up and being re-inspired. I was still wearing a baggy, black hoodie, and my hair was still wild. I couldn't blame him for noticing so quickly.

I shook my head, propping my elbows up on the windowsill. "I was bummed out about a test, but I've decided not to be so hard on myself anymore."

"That's good. That's the only way that you'll make it through college. Believe me, I've been here for years."

I smiled at the fact that even he was trying to encourage me. "Thanks for the advice," I had replied. "How about you? What are you majoring in?"

He shrugged. "Technology. I'm pretty good with computers."

I noticed. He seemed very into his cellphone a minute ago. Yumiko did say he was a smart kid, after all.

I should have guessed, but then again, it wasn't always safe to assume things.

"I'm actually done for the day," he signed to me next. "I have to go pick up food for my mother on the way home, too."

I nodded. "Sure. I'll see you around."

His hands danced around in their own form of goodbye. With his phone in one hand and his bag in the other, he started for the school gates. I had to give it to him, despite trying to do so many things at once, he had the right attitude about life. He was trying to stay positive. If he, someone who has been in university for double the amount of time that I have, could remain that way, why couldn't I?

So, I was going to have to give it my all. It was okay to lose track of things every now and then. As long as I found my way back to where I was supposed to be, there was no harm in it, right?

THERE WERE A lot of things in life that people had to worry about. Whether it be money, family, or anything in the crevices between, there was always something. There were hardly days were thoughts of difficult situations didn't cross people's mind. Every hour, every minute, every second, there was someone out there having a hard time, and that was just something that we—as a whole—had to acknowledge. Everyone had their own slices of stress throughout their lives.

I was one of those people on the higher end of the spectrum. I had spent so many years listening, watching other's reactions since I couldn't voice my own, that it had become a second nature to me. I survived by intuition. I lived because of other people. I knew when to sad because others were sad; I had to gauge situations from the way other people felt. I was like a conductor for emotions since I could only react off of what I saw. And lately, I had been reflecting Kimi.

She was worried about the project that we had been given in our organic chemistry class. Or, more like, she was taking it far more serious than everyone else was. While most students coasted through with easy compounds that had been chosen a thousand times over by students in the morning class, she put her head forward for the most rewarding grade possible. I admired her for it. However, I had also picked up on her secondhand stress for something that I had considered not too bad when it was given.

I had spent the next few days trying to catch up with my general psychology class as well as gathering notes for the project. There were a few things left that I needed, but the main ideas were down. Two days after it was given, all that was left for me to do was to write my ideas down onto paper. Easier said that done, of course; it was the process that took the longest to do. I didn't really have away with words, be it written or spoken, so I had put it off until further into the week.

Yet, Kimi didn't dare do the same. Every time I saw her in class, she was reading some book thick enough to rival a thesaurous for information. She was dedicated to getting her degree, unlike me, who was struggling to accept my bad grade after the first two weeks. Seeing her sitting in her seat before I even got a chance to, nose buried in a book as she took down notes, was enough motivation to kick my efforts into high gear. I started writing the paper four days before it was due.

She brought me her half of the project two days before it was supposed to be turned in. It gave me more than enough time to get things done; I was grateful that she hadn't crammed all of her little details into the last moment. Those days I had spent on my apartment floor, my hair in a ponytail, forcing my fingers to write even when they didn't want to anymore. Yumiko had initially thought that I was still upset about the test, and continuing to hole up by myself. But, rather, I was simply being a college student studying too hard for a social life.

And when the day finally came, our struggles were not fruitless. Kimi's idea of speaking and using sign language at the same time to present together had landed us high up in the professor's ranks. He had called it something along the lines of being innovative, at least that was what Kimi told me, and made a reminder for himself to give us extra credit. Kimi was happy about it, and so was I, seeing as how I didn't get another bright red F in the grading roster.

For many years, my usage of sign language had kind of . . . drove people off. It was too big of a language barrier for people to try to overcome. They'd simply smile apologetically, shake their heads, and shrug, letting me know that they weren't going to even attempt to understand. However, after our presentation, my sign language seemed like it was getting popular among the students in our classroom.

Multiple students had tried to take Kimi's seat next to me whenever she came later than I did. It wasn't really for the purpose of becoming my friend, but to partner up with me whenever the next organic chemistry project came. Even the third and fourth years had tried getting to know me. Everyone wanted their shot at extra credit, which I didn't blame them for. I suppose if I could hear I would've been the same way.

But, unfortunately for them, I had already made the decision to stick it out with Kimi. She was the first person in the class to reach out to me, after all. Her motivation for higher learning had inspired me to put my all into the project; she was how we got a good grade in the first place, not because of me. She was far more reliable and driven than I considered myself to me. It confused me why people were trying to pick me over her. She was the better partner, the better scholar, and cute to boot. If there was anyone that I was going to be partnering up with, I hoped that it would be her again.

Though the two of us had hardly spoke outside of school, she was always nice to me. She always welcomed me with bright eyes and a warm smile whenever I took my seat next to her. She explained to me that she was in her second year at this university, and that she was heavily studying medicine. She didn't tell me what she was majoring in. I assumed it had something to do with nursing, but sometimes assumptions weren't the right things to go off of.

To top it off, she had even given me the tip of studying in the library. Most students flocked to the library in search of something to help them boost their grades, especially since it was so early on in the semester. It was always too crowded for me to get anything done, so I avoided going whenever I could. But, Kimi had her own set of advice to give me. She said that it was better to study in the library in the morning—it was the quietest hours of the day. Everyone was either sleeping, dragging their feet looking for coffee, or just getting to school. The number of students of campus were lowered making it the perfect time to brush up on a few books.

I've been so caught up in schoolwork for the past week or so that I haven't been able to do much of anything lately. Being stuck in one room for that amount of time had the abilities to make anyone stir crazy. So, in late April, four days shy of May and the peak of spring, I took Kimi's advice by going into the library.

It had been early—a few hours before my general psychology class started with Yumiko. As Kimi had told me, there were hardly any students inside when I walked into the library. Rows upon rows of wooden bookshelves carrying old books decorated the wide room. There were two floors, both nothing but bookshelves, and a few computers open to the students willing to show their school identification cards. There were a few administrators lingering about as they picked up with their day. The librarian sat behind a counter typing away at her computer doing who knew what, a pile of books by her as she procrastinated putting them away. It was a lot smaller than the public library, but it was sure to have more material on the school things that I needed.

The library made me show her my card before I went further inside. It was a long struggle to figure out what she wanted, but after I pointed to my ear, she pointed to her own card, and I instantly knew what she was asking for. It was one of the more easier exchange. There were people out there who liked to pretend they didn't know what I was talking about. Fortunately, it was a library; she probably didn't want me talking anyway.

It smelled of books. Pages filled with ink printed words had their own distinct smell in their own right. It was a comforting scent, more or less. That paired with the calm atmosphere of the morning hours had made it something worth getting out of bed to see.

I had came to brush up on some studying, so naturally I grabbed a book on chemistry. The other two books I picked were works of Japanese literature. It was the class that gave me the hardest time. If there was any time to catch up on things that I had missed during the organic chemistry project, it'd be now. It was better to be safe than sorry, and in college, being sorry was never a good thing.

I had flocked to the second floor and sat down at an empty wooden table. It was shaped in a large rectangle, three chairs on each side, so I sat on the side facing the window. Outside, small birds bounded from tree to tree, dancing in the cherry blossoms that they had finished installing not too long ago. It definitely added to the scenery. That, I couldn't fight the administration on; it made having to take a construction detour to class every day worthwhile.

I noticed that there were a few other students around as I studied. Most of them had their own noses buried into their books. Some were loitering around, pretending to search the shelves for books while they waited for class to begin. Some were simply on their phones at the tables, not bothering to educate in the early mornings at all. There were even some students who were balancing a healthy mix of both. Deciding that it wasn't good to watch people, I busied myself with taking notes.

Kimi was right when she said it was a great time to come to the library. It was as if she had spoken from experience when she let me in on the secret. It most likely was; she was smart herself so I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that she frequented here often. Perhaps she was one of the students who came earlier than I did. She was in her second year of university like Yumiko; I had found out in class through means of handwriting that she was only nineteen-years-old. People in their second-year tended to know a lot more about the school regardless of only being here a year before the first-years.

The second year students were a breed all their own. They didn't exactly fit in with the older classes, yet they didn't really mesh with the freshmen, either. They were their own species with their own way of living. They were so different, so unique, that whenever I met one, I loved to hear about the little stories that they had to tell. They knew things that we didn't. They adapted to newer things that the third and fourth-years didn't. They were like older siblings in a sense, and I was sure if I had one, they'd be as helpful as Yumiko and Kimi.

I had been studying so intently through the chemistry book. The notebook beside me was filled with doodles and scribbles to help me remember key elements and compounds. Some of the things I recognized on the class syllabus, so I went over them to not be caught off guard when they came up in later weeks. It was a technique that I had learned from my neighbor, actually. I always caught glimpses of him studying things that he didn't need to, so I picked up the habit since his grades were better than mine, anyways.

My hair had been shielding my face since I was so deep into the book. Despite that, I still saw something move beyond the dark strands. I tilted my head up to see, my straight across bangs falling back against my forehead, and went wide eyed at the sight in front of me. It wasn't what I saw. It was who I saw.

Speak of the devil and he shall arrive.

The eyes that I saw in front of me were a steel gray, dark around the edges and bright around the center. Long lashes, black brows, and black bangs hanging directly above them. If it weren't for the dark hair, I wouldn't assumed it was a snowman by how pale he was. But, his hair was black, and I instantly recognized the person in front of me as Kaneki.

His eyes went as wide as mine did. He was shocked to see me, too, just like every other time we ran into each other. It seemed like we always turned up in the places we expected least. I didn't know why I hadn't expected him, though. He loved books, and this was a library. It only made sense.

Still, it had been a while since I'd even talked to him. We shared a class and an apartment building. Other than that, there was hardly any other contact made. We walked into the same literature classroom everyday around ten o'clock. However, since the day I returned his notebook to him, we haven't sat next to each other. There was always someone sitting in the two seats between us throughout the lecture—far too many people to engage in conversation.

Sometimes we'd wave to each other at best. Passing each other in the hallway with polite smiles was the most that I had gotten out of him in days; maybe a toothy grin if I caught him leaving his apartment. I was glad that he made an effort to acknowledge me regardless. It was less of a sting, we'd both been too busy to presue anything past classmates. Becoming friends was near impossible when we had a quiz every other week.

I lifted my hand to wave at him. The friendly gesture cleared away his shock, and he tilted his head to return the wave. At least we had said hello to each other.

My gaze fitted back down to the book in front of me. Diagrams of elements and compounds filled the pages. Some were colored, some were labeled, but they all required a steady eye to analyze what they were trying to say. If one were to try to study without at least going over the bullet points on the previous page, they would've easily gotten confused. It was how they suckered students into reading the whole book. You had to. So, I leaned forward to get more studying done.

But, of course, not without sneaking a glance up at Kaneki.

The first thing that I noticed was the amount of books he had with him. There were only two, but they were two titles that I recognized. The first one was one of the recommended books by our literature professor—one that he had tried to force us to read not too long ago. The second one was dark with worn pages as if it had been read more than a few times. The name 'Takatsuki Sen' was plastered on both the front and the sides. It was the author that he liked the best, he had told me once, and it showed in the book's condition.

He was reading the first book, well into the pages around the middle of it. He was taking notes with his right hand and turning pages with his left. Multitasking at its finest, of course, though coming from him, I shouldn't have been surprised. I glanced up to his eyes to see if he was actually reading the book or glimpsing over it for notes. But, I wished I hadn't.

I hadn't meant to do it with ill intentions. The urge to do it had struck at the worst possible time, and I gave into it. Hey say that curiosity kills the cat. This time, it embarrassed it, for the exact moment when I looked up at him, he looked up at me. Almost as instantly as our gazes met, they parted, looking back down at the table between us as if blaming it for what had happened.

And if that wasn't enough, my lips parted to let out a yawn I knew for a fact was verbal. He glanced back at me just as I covered my mouth with my hand. Me yawning must have been something he hadn't been expected. He stared at me in surprise for a moment before smiling in what I assumed to be a snicker. I hid my face in my hands to hide from the embarassment. How I had managed to make a fool of myself two times in a row was beyond me.

When I removed my hands from my face, there was a note in front of me on the table. A corner of Kaneki's notebook page had been torn out in the same size as the piece of paper on the table. It had came from him; the handwriting was a dead giveaway. Forcing down my reddening cheeks, I read over the note to see if he was going to tease me.

'How long have you been here,' was all that it said.

He must have taken my yawning as a sign of me being here for a long time. While it was true that I woke up earlier than usual to come here, I hadn't exactly been in the library for too long.

I dug through my bag to retrieve a pen of my own, replying, 'About forty minutes. I heard this is a good place to get some studying in. How about you, do you usually come here?'

My hands slid the piece of paper back over to his side of the table. He finished reading the page he was on before he grabbed the paper, gray eyes scanning the words over. Then, he used his note-taking hand to write a response. He had to flip it over since the front had ran out of space, and if the conversation continued, he'd definitely need a new piece of paper entirely.

He gave the paper back to me. 'Yes, in the morning,' it had said.

He tore off a new sheet of paper from his notebook. He knew that tiny piece wasn't going to do very much in terms of communication. It made me smile, though, since that meant he had more to talk to me about. I thought it'd be light since it had been a while since we've said anything to each other. But, that didn't seem the case, for he gave me the new sheet of paper next.

'I heard from Hide about your test results,' he wrote down.

I'm sure I groaned. It wasn't something pleasant to think about, especially when I was in the library trying to make up for that lost time. Leave it to Hide to go blabbing about something like that to Kaneki. He probably even told him I was depressed or something dramatic like that, which could be the reason why he hasn't been initiating any conversations with me lately. Perhaps Kaneki thought I needed time to myself to recollect things.

He waved me off as if to let me know that everything was fine. My reaction told him everything he needed to know. It was still a rough subject for me. At least until I make up that grade with the next test . . . whenever that was.

I scribbled down a new message, passing it to the taller boy. 'What did you get?'

'An A.'

Of course he got an A.

I sighed as I returned the paper to him. 'Wow, why am I not surprised . . .'

There was a part of me that thought that I was studying too hard for the wrong things. I had the drive to succeed, but my time management has always been terrible, even since I was a child. It was difficult for me to balance my classes in a way that allowed me to study for everything in my study sessions. I always wanted to do one subject over the other. In this case, he made me realize that I had been studying for chemistry this whole time and not Japanese Literature.

He smiled and shook his head, passing me the next note. 'You must be studying to get a good grade on the test next week, then.'

What? What test was he talking about?

'There's a test next week?!' I had wrote back, and I'm pretty sure I tore a hole through the paper from how bold I made the words.

He nodded in confirmation. He made it seem like it was the most obvious thing in the world. While it probably should have, I hadn't even considered that there would be another test coming up this soon. I had just been talked out of being bummed about the last one. If I bombed this one, too, who knew what would happen. It'd be a lot more than black hoodies and bags under my eyes, that's for sure.

I let out a groan and slammed my forehead on the table. Just my luck.

Something tapped against my head. Letting out another defeated sigh, I lifted my head to see what it was. Kaneki had poked me with his pen to get my attention, a sympathetic smile on his face and the sheet of paper in his other hand. I took it from him without bothering to lift my head all of the way. However, when I read the pen strokes, I had to sit up straight in shock.

'I can tutor you if you need the extra help.'

Kaneki was just about the most hardworking student in that class. Granted he was a Japanese Literature major to begin with, his knowledge was worth gold in terms of help. There were about four other students who seemed to have their stuff together in that class, and I knew none of them. The fifth one had conveniently became my neighbor the moment I moved to Tokyo. Now, he was offering to help me fend off my second impending fail.

He had already gave me his notebook. He sacrificed his own studying for the sake of being a good person. He knew that my hearing had forced me to miss class for a few days. Even after he did all of that for me, I still failed the test. The last thing I wanted was for him to physically dedicate time to helping me only for me to fail again. It wasn't fair to him, and though I wanted to agree to it, it wasn't worth risking his grade, too.

I shook my head. 'You don't have to do that. You have your own classes. I'd just get in the way.'

He then shook his head, too, his bangs dancing around his eyes as he passed the paper back. 'It's okay. I do it for Hide all the time.'

Jeez, Hideyoshi must have told him that I was really beating myself up over the last grade. There was no way he was offering to do all of this without knowing. He was simply trying to be a good person, which I knew he was, and I couldn't be anymore grateful for it. Especially for me, who had studied the wrong book on the last test in the first place.

Finally, I nodded in agreement. 'Okay, then. Please take care of me, Ken-san.'

He then told me that calling him by his first name was fine. Hearing people his age call him by his last name was strange, he said, so I was more than welcome to just call him Kaneki. It didn't bother me one bit. I actually happened to think his first name was far more unique than his last.

With it now established that he was going to help me prepare for the next test, he closed the book he was reading before sliding it across the table to me. The title was one word: sunflowers. There was an old drawing of the yellow flower on the cover along with the author's name. I was never one to judge a book by its cover, but this one had a minimalistic appeal that instantly hooked me in.

I picked up the book and turned it around. The synopsis on the back told about a young girl whose mother died while they were on a picnic one day—hence the usage of the sunflowers. It was about her learning to get over death during the industrial revolution in Japan, or the Meiji period in other words. Set around the time of World War One, the pages were yellowing around the edges like our professor said. How did he even find this book?

Next, he gave me a new note. 'Read it. It should help you out a lot. The test is on character mentality diagnostics, so you should like this one since you're studying to become a psychologist. Maybe it'll even help with that, too.'

I grinned. 'Easy peasy,' I wrote, watching as he read it.

When he got done, though, he made a face. It was a cross between exasperation and a deadpan. Though I couldn't really come up with a name for it, I knew what he was trying to tell me. Something about knocking on wood, or something along those lines

'On second thought . . .' I quickly added in. 'I shouldn't jinx myself.'

At that, he smiled. The rest of the page was filled up with pointers and good notes to take while I read the book. He told me that I should finish it by at least the end of the week if I want to have the best chances in getting an A. That way, I still had time left over to do an analysis and diagnose the characters. I made sure to tell him that I understood what he was trying to tell me. I also thanked him close to a thousand times, and he waved me off for each of them. If that wasn't patience, I didn't know what was.

It took a nice person to help other people. Not to say that people who didn't help were mean, but there was so much that he had to give up for the sake of tutoring me. He had to give up his extra time to review his own materials. It left him with less time to study for the other classes he had outside of Japanese Literature. If I thought that he was kind before, this was definitely taking the cake. I reminded myself to pay him back if I did pass the next test.

In the end, he gave me instructions, and I began reading the book. He flipped through his notes as if he was looking for anything that he had missed telling me about. I was sure there wasn't judging by how informed he was about books in general.

I glanced over at the second book he brought with him. He told me that it was one of his favorites, his other ones being the other books in that series. Yet, I hadn't read any of them once. It was a book that received a lot of praise from both him and critics within the industry. But, what could it be about that gave it that much worth. It was one of those books where either you knew it or you didn't. Those who did, though, only had good things to say about it.

He followed my gaze down to his book. I'd been caught staring again; my eyes went back tot he book in front of me to study from it. He wasn't upset about it, though. His hands the book into my side of the table with a light push. It landed in front of me close enough to see the title beaming in red font. Ditching the first book, I picked the next book up to flip through the pages. While it was obvious that it was used, it was still in good condition, letting me know that it was Kaneki's own personal copy.

'It's book one,' the note he passed next explained. 'You can read that, too, if you like. I remember you saying you've never read it.'

I gently placed his book back down on the table. 'Will it help with studying?'

'Probably not.'

I chuckled at his blunt answer, and responded. 'Thank you.'

Sunflowers was a good book. I was only a few pages in, but I could tell that it was going to become another one of my favorites. I tended to stay away from books like this one because it was easy to make me cry. Death was something that I had never personally dealt with. Still imagining it was the closest I ever got, and it hit me in the heart every time. I tried not to get too far into it for the sake of not getting my eyes wet in front of Kaneki.

After reviewing his own notes, he got up to disappear into the classic novel section. My guess was that he was going to go hunting for more of the professor's recommendations. I had taken all of his books from him, after all. I felt guilty about stealing all of his material, but he told me several times that it was okay. He'd rather me take them to pass the next test than to read them over again for the tenth time. He was an avid reader, apparently.

When he came back, he was carrying two more books, and I was well into the second chapter. My organic chemistry textbooks were long since forgotten. Everything it described, from how Japan got roped into the war from a child's perspective, to the life of people in the nineteenth century, hooked me in as if it were a movie. I imagined that it already must have been by now. But, everyone knew that the books were always better than the movies.

We read our books in silence. We had nothing to say to each other after that last message, which was a good thing to me. He could now return to studying in peace without having to worry about helping me. At least, everything was peaceful until I noticed the clock hanging on the wall behind him.

It was almost eight. I'd been studying for a whole hour; class was about to start across campus in a few minutes. My general psychology, the class that I shared with Yumiko, was about a ten minute walk from where I was now. There was no way I'd manage to snag a seat in the front. I would be walking in just as the class began rather than five minutes early. I let out a sigh. Leave it to me to lose track of time because of a book.

I glanced up at Kaneki. He was buried into some book with three pounds of dust on the sleeves. Right left, right left, his bright eyes scanned the pages almost religiously. He didn't look like he was going to get up for class anytime soon. Perhaps that was why I didn't bother checking the time. Since he wasn't getting up, I figured I didn't have to, either.

My fingers gripped around my pen to write a message to him. I slid it across the table a little too hard; it floated over to his side before landing on his book. Not that it caught him off guard. He immediately went to reading the note as if it were apart of the book in the first place.

'Do you have class right now?' was all that I had asked.

He shook his head, handing me the paper once he was done writing. 'I start class around nine.'

He was one of the smart students who picked the classes starting later in the day opposed to eight in the morning. When I began my second class, he was beginning his first. That meant that our shared class was only his second class of the day. There was a spark of jealousy, of course, my I shook that off, replacing it with hopefulness. Since I was going to be late enough as it was, why not skip my first class entirely to study here?

'Do you mind if I stay here to study with you?' I asked him next.

He shook his head again. He closed the book he was reading, standing up to leave the table. He pushed the chair in before walking to my side of the table, sitting in the vacant seat to my left. He'd brought his notes and books along with him to show he wasn't going to go back to the other side. I simply watched a he flipped his notebook open to a page filled with notes.

He used a separate sheet of paper to explain more things to me. Rather than spending the extra hour reading on our own, he was focused on making sure I knew the material. I took notes in my own notebook as he explained everything to me. It was the least that I could do to show him that I was listening. He should've been spending his hour before class relaxing, not tutoring the girl who was ditching class. But, he didn't seem to have a problem with it, so neither did I.

I left the library at eight forty-five. His next class was in the building by the library, so he was going to stay behind since he didn't have to leave early. Mine, on the other hand, was biochemistry, and was a good ways away to walk. We had exchanged goodbyes after he told me to come find him if I had more questions. The whole 'constantly running into your neighbor' thing came in handy during times like this. He also told me that ditching class to study defeated the purpose, which made me turn red all the way to my ears. I guessed I wasn't discrete enough about that.

I'd gotten an email from my mother after my biochemistry test. She made it a habit to email at least three times a week to check that I was doing okay. I couldn't blame her for it; I was her only child and several miles away in a city neither of us knew anything about. I clutched my bag over my shoulder, weaving through the mob of students to leave the Department of Pharmacy building. It'd only take a moment to let her know that I was fine. She deserved that much.

However, before I could press send, something slapped over my mouth. My brows furrowed in confusion as I was knocked off balance, my back forced against something hard. The feeling against my lips told me that it was a hand; someone was trying to catch me off guard. I barked out muffled threats in an attempt to be freed, arms thrashing as well. It didn't work. Whoever it was had a tight grip on me with no plans of letting go.

They dragged me down the building's short flight of steps. My feet fumbled over each other, trying to resist being dragged behind the building where they wanted me to go. Students were staring in confusion and frustration for all of the commotion at nearly ten in the morning. I didn't blame them. It wasn't like I asked to be harrassed.

But, of course, I should have known who it was. Once we were in the more secluded part behind the building, the person let me go. I immediately put as much distance as I could between them. My first initial thought was that it was Hideyoshi, but even he wasn't bold enough to do that. There was only one other person I knew, and the flaming red hair of my kidnapper proved me correct. It had been Yumiko the whole time.

I glared at her, attempting to smooth my hair out. Throat cracking, I asked her what the hell was wrong with her. It was the first time she had ever heard me speak without means of pen and paper. It had caught her off guard, taking her a minute to decipher my words, though once she did, she glared right back.

I took a cautious step backward. Why was she glaring when she was the one who kidnapped me?

She watched while I dug into my bag to get my communication notebook. My thumb clicked open my ballpoint pen with as much fury as I could thrust into it. It wasn't very much, but I wasn't a very big girl. There wasn't much I could do besides yell, and even then Yumiko wouldn't understand me.

'I was in the library!' I scrambled down, holding it up for her to see. 'I was studying with Kaneki! I have another Japanese Literature test next week!'

Yumiko's left brow shot up in confusion, her head tilting to the side, before she took the notebook to reply. 'Who's Kaneki?'

'Hide's friend, remember?' I deadpanned, all of my rage melting into exasperation.

'Oh! The harmless one, I remember him.'

I took the notebook to question her some more. None of that had to do with why she dragged me behind a building against my will in front of everyone. In fact, there was no correlation at all. It also didn't explain why she glared at me like that. Or . . . was it because I had skipped out on class with her? Had she been expecting me to come today? Since she was older than me, we only shared that class, so I could understand why. Maybe she just had something important to talk to me about.

I never got the chance to ask her. Like a puppy with a one track mind, the moment someone walked past us, her eyes were following their every move. Upon further inspection, I quickly understood why. Messy brown hair, drowsy green eyes, long legs, and earbuds in his ears, Hiroto Anzai managed to blend in with everyone, yet stand out at the same time. At least, he did while Yumiko was around.

She cupped her hands around her mouth to shout after him. He froze up before speed walking away from us as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself. I almost laughed; he was trying to get away from our mutual friend. Not that it meant anything to Yumiko. One moment she was next to me, the next she was chasing after him, waving her fist around.

Anzai didn't bother turning around. He broke off into a sprint the moment he heard the girl's footsteps behind him. The two of them ran around in circles trying to either get away from or get the other. Anzai was pretty fast, but Yumiko was never too far behind him. She did tell me that she was really interested in soccer back in her high school days. Perhaps that was where she got all her stamina from. Still, people were starting to stare, and I found myself sweat dropping as I pretended not to know the two of them.

Yumiko caught up with Anzai enough to grab him. While a sane person would've assumed she'd grab his arm or his shirt, she grabbed him by his bronze locks. He was yanked backward into a sudden stop. I winced, and his face contorted in pain, his lips parting to let out a yelp no doubt. He tried to pry the girl's hands off of his hair while she dragged him back over to where I was standing. Behind them, a blond boy was clutching his own hair in sympathy.

She let him go once they reached me. His hair was standing upright in bunched up spikes because of her. He stood up straight, combing through the strands in disappointment. Whether it be because she caught him or because she messed up his natural bedhead, I couldn't tell.

I waved to him in an apologetic greeting. He sighed, his expression utterly defeated, and returned my gesture.

Yumiko took the communication notebook from me to write down. 'Yay, what perfect timing! Since you're both here, we can all hang out together!'

At that, Anzai attempted to speed walk away again. Unfortunately, we all saw that coming. Yumiko grabbed the poor boy by his shirt collar to keep him from running off like a mad man. All he could do was close his eyes and sigh.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND why it's always me who ends up in these situations."

I nodded in agreement with Anzai's sign language. It seemed like wherever I went, something was sure to follow. It was starting to make me regret searching for a more exciting life. When I said I wanted to experience something different, I wasn't exactly talking about being dragged behind buildings against my will, being forced to hang out during school hours, or going to a karaoke lounge for goodness sake.

The both of us knew there was no way we were going to get out of Yumiko's clutches. She had her nails sunk far to deep into our backs to run away from her. Anzai knew that better than I did; he hadn't even attempted to run off a third time. He claimed that she would make him bald before the age of twenty-five due to how much she grabs his hair. Apparently, yanking at his roots was a daily occurrence for her.

When she said hang out, I figured that she meant somewhere in campus since school wasn't over. I still had four more classes to get through. But, she had other plans. I found myself sighing after she dragged me through the entrance of the university and onto the streets of Neruma, Tokyo. Still, this wasn't something that I had been expecting. Food, maybe, but karaoke was far down the list.

I slumped further into the uncomfortable, blue, leather seat. The room we rented was painted a dull white with old records hanging on the walls. The floor was wooden and scuffed from many years of hosting get-togethers. A projector hung from the ceiling on one side of the room to reflect onto the wall on the other side. A U-shaped white booth with blue seats was pushed against the wall underneath the projector. With a white, plastic table in front of it to hold drinks and snacks, it faced the karaoke machine in front of the projector screen. The one that was currently flashing the words to some new pop song.

"Yumiko is always making me ditch class," I signed to my brown-haired companion.

He rolled his eyes in response. "Why the hell are we even here? We're not high school students at a mixer."

He had a point. The only time I saw people going to karaoke places was on television, and almost all of the time, they were high school students. It was 'the big thing' for younger people to do. Yet, here we were, eighteen and nineteen-years-old, sitting in a shut off room in front of a karaoke machine.

We deadpanned in unison as we watched Yumiko flail her arms around. No matter how spotty and bad my hearing was, nothing I did could block out the second-long glimpses of her singing that I occasionally caught. Each time, they were off-key. I felt bad that Anzai had to endure the actual thing by himself.

She spun around, clutching the microphone in her hand. Her hips swung to a beat I couldn't hear. It forced the sundress she was wearing to twirl around her thighs like a reminder that it was spring. She pointed a finger at us to engage us in her performance. Instead, we froze up, exchanging looks before staring at her incredulously. She then blew us off to belt out a note that made Anzai wince beside me.

I reached for my drink on the table with a sigh. This wasn't the first time that I was forced to ditch class to run off somewhere in the city. It was just about the fourth time, honestly. Hopefully my grades wouldn't suffer from my friend's spontaneous whims. Either that, or I should learn how to hide around campus better. Perhaps I should dye my hair blonde so she wouldn't be able to spot me so easily. I was sure that Anzai himself has thought about that a few times.

Her excuse for all of this was that she hasn't hung out with either of us recently. I had been spending all of my free time studying to ensure that Kimi and I got a good grade on our organic chemistry project. She said that Anzai has been working overtime at his part-time job since two weeks ago . . . or so he tells her. She was right about not being able to hang out. That didn't mean kidnap us, though, making this the third time I'd been stolen by her.

Reaching into my book bag, I pulled out Kaneki's book. It was the one by Takatsuki Sen that I had yet to get even a page into. However, the moment I opened it, Yumiko held up a sign she had pre-wrote on the way here. She must have known that I was going to try to study or read during our time together.

'Don't you dare take that out! We're not here to learn!' it happily displayed in pink ink.

I put the book back into my bag with another sigh. So much for trying to get things done.

The screen in front of us finished up the last few lyrics, bringing the song to an end. Yumiko flopped onto the empty side of the booth with an accomplished smile. I didn't know what for. It was the fifth song she finished, and they started to lose their magic after the third one.

Anzai signed, his lips moving as he spoke his words at the same time, "I want to go home."

Yumiko got up from the booth to tap at the karaoke machine. She flicked through the display of music categories until she landed on whatever she was looking for. We watched as the words 'I Want To Go Home by Johnny Cash' flashed across the projector screen. It was timed so well that I had to let out a laugh at her antics.

The redhead held out her microphone toward him. The lyrics on the screen were both Japanese and English, meaning that the song was an American one. Regardless, Anzai hesitantly took the microphone, and performed lyrics that I couldn't hear. By the look on Yumiko's face, he was speaking instead of singing, but she didn't interrupt him, choosing to take what she could get.

His lips formed words that I didn't recognize. At first I thought he was just speaking too fast for me to keep up. But, I soon noticed that the vowels he was forming were too strong to be Japanese. He was speaking English . . . fluently, from the looks of it. That made it the third language that Anzai knew, and more than likely not the last. A genius if there ever was one, that was for sure.

I stuck to reading the Japanese lyrics for the remainder of the song. It went on to explain how the singer wanted to go home where they had a home on the ranch. I wasn't paying too much attention to it, rather the happy look on Yumiko's face as she watched her friend. Him somewhat participating must not have happened often.

Yumiko started singing another song once Anzai's ended. She appeared two times more excited than she was a few minutes ago. I guessed she hadn't been expecting either of us to join into her little karaoke parade. Much less the stoic Hiroto Anzai.

Anzai glanced over to me to get my attention. I raised an eyebrow in question. Yumiko was off in her own world singing some song from a popular show about pirates or something like that.

"She's always involving me in these kind of things," he explained to me, using his hands to signify his words.

I tilted my head in response. "What do you mean? Do you guys come here all the time?"

"No, no," he signed. "She—"

He never got the chance to sign the rest of what he was going to say. Yumiko put the microphone back into the holder, waving her hand around to get our attention. We looked at her, and she pointed to the door, mouthing that she wanted to get more food. I nodded in understanding. We were running low on snacks. So, she sent us one last wink, heading through the door to scope out the food bar in the main room.

The door closed behind her. It left the room in more silence than what I was used to. I was always thankful for the occasional muffled whispers of sound that I got on the good days. However, now there was nothing, and I found myself wishing that Yumiko would come back already.

With all of the distractions out of the way, Anzai continued what he was trying to tell me. "What I was trying to say was that Yumiko didn't have a lot of friends in high school," he told me. "I had my own friend group and would always see her by herself."

I furrowed my brows. Yumiko was so flamboyant in everything that she did. She was the last person I expected to be alone in school. She was the kind of person that knew everyone, was the class president, and spoke to the students during announcements. To hear that she wasn't had caught me completely by surprise. Was the Yumiko we knew now a disguise to hide who she really was?

"Why? Yumiko looks very friendly," I replied.

He nodded. "She is. Her mother was sick often, so she always had to take care of her younger sister. She should be in her first year of high school now, if I remember correctly. Her mother is fine now, too, but back when she wasn't, Yumiko gave up her social life for responsibility."

My eyes went wide. Who knew that Yumiko went through so much? I knew that everyone had a story, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate, but it was still something that I hadn't foreseen. I had always thought she was a bubbly person without any care in the world. For years she struggled to keep up with her sister and stay by her sick mother's side. I couldn't imagine how that must have felt for her.

"We became friends because we were both raised by single mothers. We kind of bonded over that in our second year of high school," he continued. "Ever since then, whenever I find time, I hang out with her to help ease her loneliness. I guess not socializing for so long has kind of made it difficult for her to make other friends. But, she has you now, so you're dragged into her schemes right along with me."

I smiled and chuckled. Yumiko only wanted to hang out with us because she was lonely. She didn't mean to drag us out of class, or do anything to upset us. We were all that she had at the moment outside of her small family. For that, I thought it was a privilege that she felt she could take a break from all of that when she was around me. Wasn't that was friends were for? To stay with each other when the other needs it the most?

The door opened to reveal the redhead holding a small tray of snacks. She waddled over to place them on the white table in front of us. She had even made sure to grab Anzai another soda. She was being thoughtful, and after hearing Anzai tell me why, I felt that much more glad to have her as a friend.

Her looked between us with a raised brow, no doubt asking what we were talking about. Instead of answering, I stood up, standing on the tips of my toes to throw my arms around her in a hug. She looked more confused than ever. Still, she hugged me back, glancing over at Anzai for answers. The boy simply shrugged his shoulders, grabbing his new drink to open it.

I let her go to tap on the karaoke screen. The first duet to come up was an old one; I remembered it from my childhood. Selecting the song, I picked up a microphone before holding the second one out for Yumiko. She appeared so shocked, so in awe that I wanted to sing with her. She finally grinned and took the extra microphone from my awaiting hand. If she wanted to have fun, I was going to make sure she had fun.

I was being selfish. I was so caught up in my own feelings that I didn't once consider hers. She was a person, too. Yumiko felt frustration, sadness, happiness, loneliness, all of that, and what kind of person would I be if I didn't try to relieve that load for her? She came to us in a moment of need.

The world didn't just run on coincidence. It ran on the people that were involved in them. The way we treated each other, who we depended on, also effected the flow of things. Whether one decided to answer when someone called was up to them. What happened after was the effect of that cause. And after finally realizing that I was being called upon this whole time by my new friend, I was prepared to answer.

Though I was sure my words were slurred and jumbled, I sang the song with Yumiko. I could only hope that I remembered the beat and timing as well as I thought I did. Either way, she hopped around the small room in a fit of smiles, so I couldn't help but do the same. We belted out obnoxious lyrics about partying to each other as she twirled me around in circles. It didn't matter if I was making a fool out of myself or not. I was with good company, and it was a lot more fun than studying. That was for sure.

I took a quick glance at Anzai during the performance. Though he hadn't made a move to get up from that spot, he was smirking slightly, arms folded over his chest as if he were proud. Of Yumiko, perhaps, for being able to escape her bubble for once.

The three of us were so similar. Yet, we were so very different, especially with our backgrounds. We were all raised by single mothers, and experienced some hardship along the way to get to Kamii University. We all came from diverse households with either too much or too little to offer. It was what made us . . . us, and I hoped that regardless of our past, I could see myself with them in the future. Including Anzai, whom was the most recent person that I'd met.

I hoped that I could be there whenever any of them needed to be picked up. I hoped that I could be someone that someone relied on. I hoped that I could help relieve any pain that was caused by something otherwise out of their control. I hoped that I could be there to make them smile, and help them just like they've helped me. Because since I've moved here, all of my skies have gotten a little brighter.

And hopefully, they would stay that way.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! Also, thank you to everyone who comments, favorites, and follows the story! I wasn't expecting it to be this big so soon!

Fun Fact of the Chapter: Nana's favorite color is blue.

~ Insane