"Aw, thanks," Hoshi said modestly.
"Let me see," said a female voice from the right side of her.
"Oh, okay." Hoshi turned to that person and was shocked to see a mirror image of the girl she had just been speaking to. She looked back at the other girl, but she was gone. *How did she move so quickly to the other seat?* Hoshi wondered.
"Mi-chan, you're back!" Hoshi looked back to see not one, but two of Neko, one hugging the other one.
"Ne, how did you copy yourself?" she asked one of them.
The Neko being hugged blinked. "Copy?" But the other one whispered into the first's ear. The recipient of the hug giggled. "Oh, we're twins, silly! I'm Michiru, and she's Neko."
Suddenly, understanding dawned on Hoshi. "I met you in the sandbox?"
"Uh huh."
"And that's why you're shyer than before?" she asked Neko.
"Duh!" her twin answered for her.
"Do you always talk for her?"
They both nodded, and Hoshi smiled at the mirror image. "I never met twins before. That's cool. How do I tell you apart?" Both shrugged too.
Miss Touma came over. "I'm glad you're making friends, but now is art time, so you should all go back to your pictures," she advised them.
"'Kay," they all said and got back to work.
After a few minutes of drawing, Hoshi finished her picture, putting a few stars around the cat for good measure. She always added stars. They were just like her name! She looked back and forth between the twins and tried to remember which one was which. Neko had been the first one she'd talked to in art. Assuming she was in the same seat, she was on the left. Hoshi turned to her.
"Ne, Neko-chan?" Sure enough the correct girl looked in her direction. "Want this picture? I mean, 'cuz it's your name."
"Domo arigatou," Neko said demurely, taking the picture from Hoshi, and then immediately going back to her own picture.
Hoshi sat back, dejected by Neko's aloof response to her. Maybe Neko just didn't want to be friends.
"Don't worry," Mi-chan whispered to her. "She just has to get use to you. She's really shy."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Lunchtime rolled around and the twins were running behind. The rest of the class had left, but Neko had to get her Luna from the shelf she needed to place it on during class. The good thing was that they didn't have to fight with the rest of the kids to get into the closet where everyone kept their bento. The other kids had left as soon as the bell had rung and Miss Touma had let them loose.
"You should be nicer," Mi-chan complained as Neko opened the closet door, and started reaching for their bento that Ami had prepared for them that morning.
"I'm nice!" Neko objected, from the other side of the door. "I'm never mean!"
"You weren't nice to Hoshi-chan. She gave you a picture-"
"I said 'thank you,'" Neko pointed out guiltily, as she stood on her tiptoes to reach the second shelf, where their bento were.
"You could have talked to her a little. We can't be together all the time. Don't you want other friends?"
"Yeah�, but I don't like talking to new people. You know that, Mi-chan. Mi-chan?"
She looked around the door where Akima's two friends had grabbed Mi-chan and were holding her up against the adjacent closet's door.
Akima seized Neko's shirt and said, "You two got me in trouble. It's the first day and already you got me in trouble."
"Let go of her!" Mi-chan screamed. If Isahiko and Sorou weren't so effectively holding her back, Akima might have been dismembered by now.
"Fine," Akima answered before shoving Neko into the closet and shutting the door on her. He leaned against it so she couldn't get out. "I don't like you," he told Mi-chan. "And I think you need to learn that girls shouldn't beat up boys."
"Iie, iie, iie, iie, iie, iie, iie!" Neko screamed from the inside the closet.
"Let her out!" Mi-chan struggled against her captors, but at this point she wasn't strong enough to get out of the grasp of two boys, especially those who were bigger than she was. As Neko's audible cries went from screams to sobs, she tried to figure out how to get out of their grasp or to get Akima to move so Neko could get out. But Neko was still panicking, and it was making it hard for her to concentrate. "Stop it! She's going to hipe-her-vent-late." She had heard her parents use that term every time Neko had freaked out while stuck in a small space.
"What does that mean?" Sorou was relatively intelligent, but followed Akima because he was stronger and willing to be his friend. While he didn't always agree with Akima, he generally would help out the bully, since it was better to be on his side than against it. But while he wasn't against holding Mi-chan back from hurting his friend, he didn't want to see either of the twins get seriously hurt either.
But Mi-chan was not in a forgiving mood. "She can't breathe, baka! Let her out now!"
"No, you two need to learn your lesson! I'm not gonna let her out until you say you're sorry."
"You wouldn't let her out anyway!" Mi-chan kept struggling against Isahiko and Sorou, trying to just get loose enough to be able to fight her way out.
"Well, I'm not going to now, so it's your fault if she hypa-whatever, okay?"
"You know, you should really let them go," said a soft voice from the door. They all looked in that direction to see Hoshi come in. She ignored the duo as she walked right up to Akima and looked him directly in the eyes. "Or else."
"Or else what, girly? Are you going to fight me for them?"
Hoshi didn't back down, despite the threat. "No. I'm just gonna go tell Touma-sensei. You think ten minutes was long, wait 'til you're in time-out for the rest of the day," she warned him, even as she began to tremble from the fear that Akima might actually hurt her.
Akima looked like he was going to argue, but then apparently changed his mind. If he tried to do something to her, Neko'd get out and it'd be two on one, unless one of his friends helped, which would let Mi-chan loose. And he didn't actually look forward to missing all of lunch, so he backed down. Stepping aside, he left, indicating to his friends to follow only after he had reached the door. Mi-chan would most likely go to Neko after the incident, but he wasn't going to take chances.
Mi-chan glared after the trio, but went to Hoshi's side at the closet, whose door Hoshi had already opened. Neko was sitting there, hugging her knees and gasping for breath.
"S'ok. They're gone," Hoshi said gently.
"D- did you save me?" Neko sniffed.
Hoshi nodded, and Mi-chan poked her head around the closet door, asking, "Are you hurt?"
Neko shook her head and finally looked up. Hoshi reached out a hand to help her up, which Neko cautiously
