“Yah, Tokki-ah, you alright?” Zelo asks waving a hand in front of your face. You push him away and leave with no destination.

Just get far, far away from him and you’ll be satisfied.

“Yah, yah! Where are you going? Don’t walk off like that!” he calls catching up to you. Grabbing onto your arm firmly he jerks you to a stop. Adamantly you keep your head down and refuse to look at him.

“What’s wrong with you? I’ve annoyed you before but this isn’t right.” he mutters his usual arrogance smothered tone replaced with a softer more genuine one. Under normal circumstances you would've been surprised by the amount of concern he was expressing.

But right now you want nothing more than to hit him.

"Let me go." you snap, tugging on your arm to emphasize your point.

"No." he retorts, gripping your arm firmer.

"Stop being a brat and let me go!" you shout ripping your arm from his grasp. Spinning on your heel you walk in the opposite direction of him, determined to get away. He doesn't follow you this time.

You have to say, you're a little disappointed.

Although a bigger part of you is furious with that smug idiot.

Muscle memory leads you to your dorm as you silently fume to yourself. Storming up the stairs you find your door and, with more force than necessary, jam your key into the doorknob and yank it open.

You promptly collapse onto the ground and break down once inside. You never cry. You don't like crying. But here you are on the floor of your dorm sobbing like a child. All the aching pain and sorrow of losing your father hitting you all at once after years of suppression because of what he said.

You really hate that moron for making you this way, even if it is indirectly.

It's still his fault.

***
 

You feel like complete and utter crap the next day.

Your eyes are red, puffy, and glassier than the Louvre. Head pounding and groggy you reluctantly make your way to your classroom.

You really hope a certain pink haired jerk isn't there already.

Entering the classroom you're not surprised to see the seat behind you is empty again. In fact you're glad.

This time that's all you think. No indecisive feelings or unsure thoughts. You're glad he's not here.

End of story.

Sitting in your desk you immediately bury your head into your arms. Exhausted you want nothing more than to sleep for the next week. When the bell rings a sharp pain stabs your temples. Groaning you sit up and rub them, eyes shut tightly in irritation.

The bell rings startling your eyes open. You slept through class.

Great.

Gathering your things, just the textbook you used as a pillow, you hoist your backpack onto your shoulder to leave. Instead your eyes fall on a small palm sized square your textbook had covered without your notice. Knitting you brows expecting some stupid note from one of your classmates you’re surprised to see it’s a photo.

More specifically a photo of you.

You stare at the glossy photograph confused. It’s definitely you. You’re sitting on a bench in the middle of the landscaping (where you crushed the flowers) with a small smile on your lips. What you were smiling about you can’t exactly place. This was almost a week ago and you can barely remember being there.

Studying the print closer you notice sharp writing in the corner.

“You should smile more often.”

Smile more often? It’s not like you’re moping around campus.

Smile more often.

Scoffing you decide to throw the anonymous (is this kind of creepy? It may be) picture away as you pass the front of the classroom. Your hand hesitates over the trashcan.

“You should smile more often.”

Unable to stop yourself from rereading the narrow writing you quickly tuck the photo into your pocket and hurry out the door.

You’re not sure what made you decide to keep it but, you did.

Maybe it’s that you’re a little happy someone actually cared enough to make this effort.

Actually cared enough to notice.

Then again, there’s only one person you can think with a camera off the top of your head. He’s only been here for a few days though, so, it’s definitely not him. This photo was taken almost a week ago, someone who’s been here for three, or however many, days couldn’t have taken it. He doesn’t care enough to go out of his way to do something like this anyway.

Not for you at least.

***

            You’re in the library trying to do homework. Well, trying to stay awake is a better description of what you’re doing. As your head nods and your eyes droop you shake your head to keep yourself up. It doesn’t do much good, seeing as you’ve been reading the same sentence for the past hour.

With a loud groan you hit your head against the horrid textbook and shut your eyes in frustration. Why is this happening? You’re such a good student and now you can’t even read.

Screw that pink haired, no good, smug, little-

“Tokki-ah, you’re drooling.”

You snap your head up and wipe at your chin embarrassed. It takes you a moment but you realize there isn’t any spit and just who had spoken to you.

Him.

Ignoring him you begin to pack away your things, deciding it’s a lost cause to keep forcing yourself to work on your half-functioning brain. Swinging your backpack over your shoulder you rise out of your seat and turn on your heel toward the library’s exit.

“Aw, come on, you’re still mad? You’re no fun.” he whines with mock disappointment. As per usual he follows you with complete disregard for your blatant displeasure. By this point you may as well call it hate.

Yet, to his credit, he doesn’t pester or tease you as you cut across the landscaping to the dorms. Or at least you thought so. Turns out in your fit of exhausted rage you just started walking in any general direction away from him, not actually keeping your destination in mind.

In fact you think you may be lost.

I am going to throw a brick at him I swear.

Seething viciously to yourself you skid to a halt with your back to him.

“What do you want?!” you snap, voice laced with venom.

“Oh, look, someone’s not happy.” he observes playfully.

“What do you want?!” you reiterate done with his crap.

“To apologize.”

Your anger vanishes at that instant with a pathetic poof.

“What?”

“You heard me, I want to apologize.”

“Seriously?”

Mr. I-Screw-With-You-Because-It’s-Fun wants to apologize?

“Come with me.” he says ignoring your last comment and grabbing your wrist. You shake him off with an incredulous glare.

“No, I will not.” you enunciate harshly.

“Yes, you will.” he retorts with a grin, grabbing your hand this time.

It flusters you a lot more than it should, which makes you all the more unwilling to follow him.

“Let go!” you shout uselessly struggling against his grip.

With a mischievous grin thrown over his shoulder he interlaces your hands instead.

“Not until I make it up to you.”

“How about saying sorry and leaving me alone?!”

“That’s not how I roll.”

Of course it’s not.