Day after day, Yuko loses more and more of her old self. The once energetic, happy Yuko we all knew is gone. In her place is an empty, soulless shell.

Just like how I was.

During lunch I go and look for Minami. Minami has known Yuko longer than I have and I thought that we can do something for her. I scan the cafeteria. I don’t expect it to be easy. She is short. The only thing that I know for sure that would make her stick out is her high ponytail and bow.

“Minami!” I see her. She turns around and runs towards me with her tray in her hand.

“Atsuko!” She says. “What’s up?”

We move over to a table and I start telling her about how I worry about Yuko. I didn’t tell her anything about Yuko’s parents. That’s not for me to tell. But I’m sure that Minami has noticed how Yuko’s been less, energetic.

“Maybe we should throw a surprise party?” Minami suggests. A party? Who can we invite? Well, who can I invite since I only know Yuko and Minami at this school.  I’m sure Minami can invite all of Yuko’s friends. But I don’t know, a surprise party might be too much.

“We can prepare a dinner?” I say. It sounds a lot more simple and in a way more special. That we aren’t just going out and buy drinks and pizza and have fun. That we are actually going the extra mile to make her happy.

“I can’t cook.” Minami says. “But I know a few who can.” She turns around and scans the cafeteria. She waves and I see two beautiful girls coming over.

“Tomomi!” Minami says. Why is she only saying one name? I see two girls. Is the other one just a tag along?

“Atsuko,” Minami says. “This is Tomomi Itano and Tomomi Kasai.” Oh so that’s it. They both have the same name.

“I’m Atsuko.” I smile at them and they both smile back.

“You can call me Chiyuu!” Tomomi Kasai says.

“Cute nickname.” I said and Chiyuu smiles. I turn to Tomomi Itano, “Do you have a nickname?”

“Tomochin.” She says though I kind of see some embarrassment in her. Why Tomochin? Does it have something to do with her chin?

“I’ll just call you, Tomo if that’s all right?” I said.

Tomo smiles. “Yes! I like it better than Tomochin!” Tomo and Chiyuu sits down and we start discussing the surprise dinner.

We decided to hold it at Chiyuu’s place because she has a bigger kitchen so it seems. Tomo says that she’ll get the ingredients and Minami will be decorating. It’s pretty obvious that Chiyuu and Tomo will be the ones handling the cooking.

That leaves me with distracting Yuko until the dinner starts.