Mi-chan giggled. "Neko-chan, it's ok. Don't choke her."
Neko instantly released Hoshi. "Gomen." She blushed.
"S'ok." Hoshi smiled at her. "Do you guys want to sit with me at lunch? Oh yeah, I forgot my lunch money. That's why I came back."
The girls grabbed their respective bento and money. As they left the room, Mi-chan whispered to Hoshi, "Now that she'll talk to you, sometimes it'll be hard to get her to stop."
"I heard that!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The girls had moved themselves into Neko and Mi-chan's room, which was a disaster area since they were in the middle of packing.
"I can't believe you two are leaving me," Hoshi cried with a melodramatic sigh.
Neko forced herself to not cry as she slipped on the necklace Hoshi had given her. She had decided she really wouldn't ever take it off. That way, at least she'd have something to remind her of Hoshi and Mercury. "We'll have to write every day so we know what's going on with each other."
"Hai, that'll help a little," Hoshi conceded. Somehow the twins had talked her into helping them pack a little, but with each item, she had to stop and look at it. Just in case it was something worth reminiscing over.
"Admit it," Mi-chan said with a laugh, trying to cheer her up, "secretly you're glad we're leaving. Now you won't have to compete with me for guys' attention."
That did make Hoshi giggle. "Ara, in that case, you can go! But I still want to keep Neko-chan. She's no competition."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Ano, Neko-chan?"
Neko twirled around. Upon seeing that it was Akima, she steeled herself for the barrage of harsh words that he might possibly send her way. Akima was hard to understand - sometimes he could be quite mean to her, but sometimes he could be surprisingly nice. In fact, recently, he'd been what she could almost call sweet, although she didn't know why. Certainly, their history together didn't provide any clues.
After a few moments of awkward silence, she couldn't take it anymore. He was too nervous to be about to slam her, so she let down her guard a little. "Yes?" she asked with raised eyebrows.
"Ano, I was wondering� that is, if you're not already taken, if you might, uh, want to go to, uh, the holiday formal. Uh, with me, that is."
She stared at him. And then she began to laugh. "Oh, that's a good one. For, like five whole seconds you had me going there," she said quickly, hoping to cover her embarrassment for almost falling for the joke.
But when she saw his face fall, she quit laughing.
"Gomen," he said quietly, starting to turn to go.
Finally she found her voice. "Y- You were serious?"
He nodded. "But I understand if you don't want to. I haven't always been the nicest guy to you. I just kinda hoped you'd look past that."
"Oh, I� I-" She bit her lip. "Ano�."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"You didn't say 'hai,' did you?" Mi-chan demanded of her when Neko told her that Akima had asked her out later that evening. The two of them and Hoshi were hanging out in their room, doing each others' nails.
"Demo, Mi-chan, you weren't there! He just looked so wretched. I couldn't say no� especially after laughing at him!"
"But he hates us!"
"He hates you!" Neko corrected her. "You've been beating him up since he was two. He stopped terrorizing me� well, mostly, when we were about twelve."
"Well, it's like my okaa-san always says," Hoshi interjected. "Boys only tease you when they like you."
Neko glanced up from the pinky she was painting and sent Hoshi a skeptical look. "'Cuz boys are dumb! Besides, I doubt he had any romantic intentions towards me in preschool."
Mi-chan had to laugh at the thought of a three-year-old Akima asking Neko out to lunch. Considering he usually tried to steal her cookie at that age, it was an amusing image. She shared the vision with Neko, who also giggled.
"So you're going to the holiday formal with him?" Hoshi asked enthusiastically. Neko nodded. "And Mi-chan's going with Saonji-kun, and I'm going with Tetsuro-kun! This is the first dance we're all gonna have dates for!"
Neko had been on dates before, but not many. She had only really let one guy take her out before now. "Sorry, Hoshi-chan that Kidou-kun didn't make it to the spring fling last year," she said wryly. She had only agreed to go out with the guy because he was so cute and seemed really nice, and because Hoshi had told her she'd be the envy of every girl at school. And that was a normal thing to do - date a cute, nice guy. "He was kinda�" she thought for a moment for the right word describing the guy's personality, "�bipolar, you know? I couldn't stand more than three dates with him." She almost laughed at the memory. The guy had been nice, but he also seemed to change depending on who he was talking to - super-sweet to her, but trying to be just a little too cool when his friends were around. She didn't need to put up with that split personality. Besides, she didn't really feel any chemistry there.
Hoshi finished painting her toenails and put the brush back in the bottle. "You're too picky, Neko-chan. You need to try out more guys."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hoshi's opinion hadn't changed much in the past year. "You need to give the guys on Earth more of a chance than you gave the ones on Mercury."
"I'll keep it in mind," Neko mumbled as she sat down at her currently messy desk.
"I'm serious. You're cute, smart, and athletic. Guys would be lining up to date you if ever gave them a chance. But you don't! You just close up anytime a guy so much as looks at you!"
Neko leaned her elbows on the desk and laid her head in her hands. She didn't want to talk about this now. "You wouldn't understand."
Hoshi didn't think she could. As somebody who absolutely adored anything male, she couldn't understand Neko's reluctance to even give dating a try. And she knew the guys of their school didn't understand it either. She knew that more than one of them referred to Neko as "the Ice Queen" because she was so unwilling to open up to them. But the name was always used behind the twins' backs, and thank goodness for that. Because if Neko knew, it would break her heart. And if Mi-chan knew, she would break their jaws. Hoshi had done her share of sticking up for Neko, but it was still beyond her how Neko could not want to date.
And yet there was a part of her that thought she understood some of it. "Neko-chan, not every guy is like Kaido-san. But if you don't date, you won't get to find that out. Give the guys a break. Don't assume they're all like Kaido-san."
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